sharply. A red welt ran from the edge of his jaw, following the line of his jugular down his neck to disappear in his black shirt. His eyes were dark, more black than green, and carried something: pain, hunger, or anger, I couldn’t tell. He looked like he was on his way to corpsedom. He also wore a void stone at his neck, a black stone wrapped in silver and lead on a leather cord, choker-tight so that the stone pressed against his throat and moved when he swallowed.
“We, my friend, were fucked.” He smiled, a flash of humor in a face of pain. My heart caught. That was like him, though. Given the choice to laugh or cry, Shame always laughed.
“Do you remember us hunting Chase?”
I nodded.
“Do you remember us fighting her?” He said that a little quieter, but steady, as if ready for me to react.
It took me a second-then I realized why. Shame had tried to kill me.
“I remember Chase carved you up with Blood magic. Is that why you look like Death?”
Tact. I have it.
Shame’s shoulders relaxed, and he sat back, crossing one leg over his knee. “Don’t like the new look? Sort of death-chic, don’t you think?”
“Undoubtedly the new fashion trend.”
He smiled again. “You want me to give you the rundown of what happened?”
“Sure.” With a memory as spotty as mine, I had learned to never say no if someone wanted to recap events.
Shame went through the time line, starting with us finding him knocked out and Closed by Chase in the car in the parking lot.
I, surprisingly, remembered all of it, and added in some details about Zay and Chase fighting, and Greyson being cloaked in Illusion the whole time.
“And Stone showed up.”
Shame grinned. “Thought so. They found footprints-well, more like craters-at the scene. You call him?”
“No. He likes to follow me around at night.”
“Did you see what he did to them?”
I thought about it. I remembered Stone attacking, remembered him pinning Greyson. And I remembered Chase fell to her knees. I hadn’t watched the rest of it, too angry, too afraid for Zayvion. But Chase had knocked Stone out once before. Maybe she had done it again.
“I didn’t pay attention.” I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been. “I should have done something. Should have stopped them.”
Shame gave me a steady look. “No. If you had done anything differently-anything-Zay would be dead.”
I don’t know if he was telling me the truth or just trying to make me feel better.
“You kept him alive, Allie,” he said quietly. “I think you sat there, breathing for him, living for him, for some time before I came to. Nice Sleep spell, by the way. Remind me not to piss you off.”
“Don’t piss me off,” I said distractedly. “What did you do, Shame? What did Terric and you do? I remember you added something to my magic. Helped Zay.”
He held his breath, just the slightest tensing of his body. “Death magic, mostly. Channeling magic, taking a little of our. . life and giving you and Zay something more to work with.”
“Oh, Shame.” I didn’t know what else to say. How could I pay him back for that sacrifice? “How badly are you hurt?”
“I’ll be okay. So will Terric. I know how much to give before things get dire. We’ll recover from this. Eventually.”
There was more to it.
“And?” I asked.
“And it worked. Enough.” He glanced over at Zayvion, and I did too.
“What else, Shame?” I felt like I’d woken up too soon, and into a world that wasn’t the way it should be. It wasn’t just that I was tired and sore. It wasn’t just that Zay was injured and Shame looked like he was on death’s door. There was a deep wrongness about everything that triggered panic in my gut. I wanted to get out of this bed, take Zay-hells, take Shame and Zay and Terric-and get somewhere safe before whatever I was feeling, before the fear that scraped around inside me, got out and became real.
“Magic’s gone,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Gone. Maybe just off. Certainly not accessible. The backup spells, which carry time-delay triggers-kind of like batteries to keep the city going-are in effect, keeping things like the hospitals and prisons limping along.” He tipped his head toward the window. “The backup spells won’t last long. Then it’s all going to go to hell out there. Soon. Real soon.”
Maybe it was the fact that he said it so calmly. Maybe it was just that he had finally put a name to my fear. Whatever it was, I suddenly felt calm. Reasonable even.
Have I mentioned I am good under pressure, and can handle stressful situations well? Consider it mentioned. Well, at least I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t access it now.
“Has this ever happened before?” I asked.
“Which part of it?”
“Magic being gone?”
“Brief flickers. Usually before storms.”
“So it’s not unheard of.”
“No, but it’s usually just a pause. Magic’s been out for hours now.”
“And are there standard procedures the Authority implements when this happens?”
“We’ve done them. All the things Sedra has allowed.”
“Do I want to know more about that?”
“She doesn’t want any of us screwing with anything more until the storm hits. It makes some sense. When magic is this unpredictable, adding fuel to the fire can be disastrous.”
“Explain disastrous.”
“Magic channels through all the spells set throughout the city, hits hard, blows the network, destroys Proxies’ brains, burns the city down. For starters.”
“So the plan is to do nothing?”
He shrugged one shoulder. It looked like it hurt. “That’s what Sedra wants. She’s been”-he looked over at the door as if expecting someone to walk in-“different.”
The latch clicked and Maeve pushed the door open, letting in the golden glow of light beyond the room, and the smell of lemon wood polish and something more savory that made my mouth water. Clam chowder, I thought. Maybe bread.
I blinked in the raised light. Shame got to his feet and headed over to the shadows again as if even that small amount of light coming near him burned.
“I thought I heard voices,” Maeve said. “I brought food. For both of you,” she said pointedly.
She expertly maneuvered a large tray with bowls, bread, and glasses of water on it over to the dresser, where she set the whole thing down. “How are you feeling, Allie?” She turned, a bowl of soup and hunk of bread on a plate in one hand, a glass of water in the other.
“Can you move the tray?” she asked.
I broke out of the hypnotic trance the food had me in-I was starving-and reached for the medical tray next to the bed that slid on wheels until it was over my lap.
Maeve placed the food and drink on it, adjusted the tray height without spilling a drop, and put her hands on her hips, giving me a motherly stare. “Headache?” she asked.
I already had the spoon in one hand and had gotten a mouthful of the creamy, rich, salty, buttery soup down. Still, I frowned. I didn’t have a headache. I didn’t really hurt at all, though I should. I’d used a lot of magic, and using magic always meant paying the price in pain.
“No headache,” I said. “I should, though.”
She nodded. “If there were magic flowing right now, under the ground, or inside you, you’d feel the pain. That’s why you still have the void stone on. As soon as magic kicks back on again, there’s a chance we’ll all
