He laughs at my worried expression. “Don’t worry, the stairs are bewitched. Just stand on the bottom step, and you’ll glide up.”
I turn to Luisa and Beatriz to see if they heard him, but they are already halfway up the staircase, looking like they belong on the cover of Mage Monthly.
“Luisa hates me,” I say, lifting my gown and balancing on the first step. I wobble as I start to float up the stairs.
“Perhaps,” he agrees. “You did act like a...” Rafi waves his hand as we pass the first fountain, and the water forms into a lewd male form. I laugh and mock punch him.
“OK, maybe I did. But…” I swallow hard. “I’ve been burned before. By magic.”
“Haven’t we all!”
An invisible battle seems to be taking place inside of him. The shadow thorns at his neckline grow wildly, spiking towards his sharp jaw. I move to ask about his own story, but he speaks first.
“Blame the fire, Saskia, not the smoke.”
We’re nearing the top of the stairs and the entrance to the gallery. I’m wondering whether his strange expression is a local saying and what he means by it when my mother appears at the top of the stairs as if summoned from my worst nightmare.
“Saskia,” she says. She even makes my name sound like a disappointment. “No shawl, I see.”
I twirl proudly just to annoy her. “Nope.”
I was worried about what the Shadow Self theme would mean in terms of my own gown, but the Silkmage got it spot on. My dress is black like most of the others, except it’s made of nothing but lace and transparent gauze. It’s hardly there yet reveals nothing. As I walk, it shifts and molds to my body, covering every part of me but also looking like I’m virtually naked. It’s what being truly vulnerable, yet shrouded in secrets, would look like if it were a dress.
“It’s meant to be revealing, Mother,” I add. “After all, the truth renders a person truly naked.”
And it never perishes, I add inside my head, thinking of The Chronicle’s motto.
My mother doesn’t even attempt a fake smile. Instead, she leans in close and drops her voice. “Make sure to mingle tonight. A lot of important people are inside.”
Do your job. That’s what she’s saying. Investigate Maribel’s disappearance, like we agreed.
Even though she saw me half an hour ago, she still feels the need to reaffirm her power. And to think I actually felt like a guest for a moment, but no — my mother managed to beat me to the venue just to remind me I have a job to do.
Predictably she completely ignores Rafi by my side. Her dismissal of him lights up something red and hot inside of me, and his words finally make sense.
Blame the fire.
“I am mingling, Mother.” I gesture to Rafi. “May I present you Rafeek Amir, Junior MA, friend of Beatriz and Luisa and one of the most talented Elementals I’ve ever met.”
Rafi bows deeply, but my mother simply nods at him, her face bored and passive.
“Brilliant Elemental, huh? The director of this museum requires a new gardener. If I see him, I will introduce you.” She surveys Rafi, from his new shiny shoes to the top of his carefully styled hair. “He likes pretty boys.”
“Mom!”
But with a swish of her black gown she’s gone, empirically making her way up to the entrance, throwing greetings to the wind like she owns the place.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Rafi says.
“I’m so sorry about her. She’s evil.”
“Hey, her offer was valid. Money is money, plus I could shape the museum’s hedges into penises. Like I did with the fountain.”
I laugh, but my mother’s nasty words still sting.
She can’t be civil. Can’t be kind. Can’t be a mother.
“Hey.” Rafi has his hand on my arm and is nodding at the entrance. “Forget her, it’s time to party.”
And just like that, my anger disappears because we are facing the grandest of all entrances.
As far as humans are concerned, this building is one of Catalunya’s leading art galleries with the best views of Barcelona, but the Witch community knows it as the most impressive of MA event venues.
“It’s the number one place in Europe to exhibit magical art,” Rafi tells me as he leads me by the elbow through the welcome gallery.
I consider the various works of art hanging in the hall.
“Wow. Is all of this Musemage work?”
Rafi gives me a knowing look, the look of a Mage who gets to show a naïve Witch what her people are really capable of.
“You’ve seriously never seen Musemage work before? Solina never brought you to magical art exhibitions?”
“Yeah, no. Let’s just say my mother and I have never been into mother-daughter bonding moments.”
The wall to my right is covered with giant paintings. At first glance, they look normal until I hear a scream followed by giggling and see a Witch in a long red dress dash out of one, trailed by her friend.
What in the Mary Poppins is this fuckery?
I gaze at the gargantuan canvas that the girls just leaped out of. It’s a dark oil painting of a room with a single rocking chair. I touch the painting, and my fingers come away slick with black.
“I wouldn’t go in that one if I were you,” says Rafi. “It’s nightmare oil.”
Nightmare oil?
“A Musemage and Dreamchaser collaborated to infuse the oil paint with nightmares. When you enter the painting, you see your worst nightmare.”
“Those Witches were giggling.” I point accusingly at the now empty hall.
Rafi shrugs. “Some people’s nightmares are not that scary. But I have a feeling that is not the case for you.”
Yeah, he’s not wrong there. I take a cautionary step back from the painting, then follow Rafi through the rest of the gallery.
At the end of the hall, we encounter an installation. Three ballerinas melt from pose to pose, nearly human children except
