Chapter 21

TWENTY-ONE

My heart was in my throat when I stepped out of the car in front of The Assemblage.

People were going to stare. The saboteur might be here even now, planning to disrupt the proceedings. And Callum had no idea that I was coming.

Plus, I’d almost forgotten the reality that the moment I entered the room dressed like this, I would be viewed either as Callum’s date or his undercover assassin. Maybe both.

It was a lot of pressure, and when I took my first steps toward the doors, I wobbled on the unfamiliar heels.

“Raine!” Kira called out from the car behind me, leaning out of the window with a bright, fierce expression. “Don’t forget that you’ve already beaten Talia and faced down a dragon in his lair. You look gorgeous and you can absolutely do this!”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. She was so tiny and fierce and caring. So honest and extravagant with her feelings. She’d forged her own path, walked through her own painful trials, and come out effervescent. After hearing her story, I could only hope to be half so resilient.

So I waved. Turned. Lifted my chin, and made my way through the open doors and into the Symposium banquet.

When compared to the last time I’d seen it, the room was almost unrecognizable. Dim lighting and tasteful decor concealed the room’s industrial bones, while a band played softly in the corner near a temporary stage as the early arrivals were being shown to their tables.

The atmosphere was noticeably more relaxed than it had been only forty-eight hours before, but my heart still hammered loudly as I hovered on the edge of the space, gazing out across the crowd. There was so much power in that room. So much wealth and influence. Lights reflected from the crystals in the chandeliers, from the crystalline wine glasses, from the eyes and the clothing of the other attendees as they sipped and mingled and performed their perplexing political dances.

Fae, wildkin, shapeshifters, elementals—all dressed in a bewildering array of both human and Idrian fashion. Elegant and graceful. Powerful and threatening.

And then there was me.

Elegant and powerful, check—at least for tonight. Graceful? That was hit or miss. Threatening? I suppose it would depend on who you asked.

I only lacked the one other thing tying everyone in this room together, and it was the one thing no amount of makeup or training could give me.

“Raine?” The quiet hiss came from behind me, so I turned and experienced possibly the most satisfying moment of my life when Angelica took a good look at me and stopped dead in her tracks, mouth hanging open.

“You…” She appeared to be struggling to form words.

It felt like I’d been handed a gift. The biggest, shiniest, most gratifying gift imaginable.

“Yes, I’m feeling much better, thank you.” I smiled. Our eyes met, and I saw the glimmer of amused respect in hers.

“The dress is gorgeous,” she murmured. “Stunning, actually.”

I shrugged lightly. “Kira and Marilee picked it out.”

“Well, they killed it.” Her voice abruptly returned to her usual brisk tone. “And I’m pleased to see you looking well.”

She didn’t look half bad herself. Still wearing black, but her satin sheath fit her to perfection, and her golden hair cascaded over her shoulders in glamorous waves.

“Still no sign of…”

Her expression turned studiously blank. “I’ll let Callum fill you in on the rest. He’s upstairs. As his date for the evening, you should head up to meet him so you can be seen entering together.”

I swallowed against the tight feeling in my throat and nodded. Of course, it made sense. But now that the moment was here…

No. I could do this. I had to do this. It was my one chance to ask my questions before it was too late.

“Is he in the office?”

She shook her head. “Last I saw, he was headed up to the roof for some air.”

Of course he was. Because I absolutely wanted to confront him while thinking about the last time I’d been up there and nearly fallen to my death.

Well, at least I would look completely amazing while doing it.

Somehow I flew up those stairs, driven by adrenaline and breathless anticipation.

When I opened the door to the roof, I didn’t see him at first, but I did see where someone had set up a tiny rooftop lounge. There was an old coffee table within a circle of chairs, all of it illuminated by string lights that gave off a warm, homey glow. The temperature was mild for October, and a light breeze ruffled my curls as I emerged from the stairwell and looked around at the glittering city skyline.

“Hello?” I was beginning to think Angelica had been mistaken when a piece of the night sky turned around and moved towards me.

And when he stepped into the warm glow of the lights, I nearly gasped aloud.

Callum-ro-Deverin was gorgeous no matter what he was wearing, but tonight, in what was probably a custom-tailored tux, he was devastating. His hair was brushed back and perfectly tamed, while the slight shadow of beard on his jaw only emphasized his lips and cheekbones.

I could have looked at him all night. Never gone back downstairs, never bothered with politics or symposiums again.

I stepped away from the door and into the circle of light, and was rewarded when his face went utterly blank. As if I’d hit him over the head with a two by four.

And yet, at the same time, his eyes blazed to life—hot pools of molten amber that smoldered like dragon fire beneath his brows.

“Raine.” It was my name, but I’d never heard it spoken that way before. As if it were a magic key that could unlock all the secrets of the universe. I didn’t even need to hear anything else—no flowery compliments could have given me as much as that single word conveyed.

I took another step forward, heart beating far too fast. “Angelica said you’d be up here.”

Great, Raine. Very eloquent. Way to ignore the elephant on the rooftop.

Callum blinked a few times and cleared his throat, as if he needed a moment before he could have a normal conversation.

“Just looking for a little peace and quiet before I have to put my public face back on.” His voice was rough. Strained.

“Sorry to interrupt?” And I was sorry. Sorry that this moment was going to have to end. Sorry that I’d finally seen that flare of attraction in the eyes of a man I so desperately wished could be mine, and I was going to have to ruin it.

“Are they ready for us?” He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking anything but ready to face the crowd downstairs.

“Actually, I was hoping I could have a minute before we go down.”

Callum regarded me curiously. “I won’t pretend to be sad about the delay. What’s on your mind?”

My fingers clenched around the glittering fabric of my dress, and my pulse sped up. Maybe the saboteur was wrong. Maybe Callum could explain, and everything would be okay.

“Before we do this, I need you to tell me what this Symposium is really about.” My voice was so much calmer than I felt. “Tell me what all of you agreed on, and what laws you’ll be signing tomorrow.”

He looked at me oddly. “Why so curious all of a sudden? We talked about the purpose of the Symposium days ago.”

“Yes, but not the specifics.” I wasn’t letting him get away with evasion tonight. “And every time I asked for them, someone would change the topic. Like it’s some huge secret.”

He regarded me silently, brows furrowed in thought. “I guess it won’t hurt to tell you. We mostly didn’t want any rumors getting out before things were set in stone, but now…” He shrugged. “The courts have finally agreed on a uniform set of laws governing all forms of magic theft, along with the use and possession of stolen magic.”

My brain stuttered. Surely I’d heard wrong.

Use and possession…

“We set down statutes to dictate how and where offenders should be dealt with, made retroactive to adequately deal with any remnants of Elayara’s cadre if they should come to light.”

I was going to be sick. I was suddenly grateful that I hadn’t eaten yet, as bile and acid rose in my throat and I choked it back.

The saboteur—whoever he was—had been telling the truth.

“What will you do to them?” My voice was hollow. Empty of feeling. No sign of the pain that ricocheted through my chest, leaving bleeding wounds in its wake.

“Do to whom?” He sounded puzzled. Almost distracted. Like it was such a small thing, and maybe didn’t matter at all.

“To those who use or possess stolen magic, Callum.” The words crackled with the pent up anger behind them. “What will you do with them?”

His face hardened. “Less than they deserve. But it depends on the severity of the offense. At the least, they will be stripped of status in their court and condemned either to prison for not less than twenty years, or to exile in the ruins of Idria.”

My head spun, and I put out a hand as if to catch myself before I stumbled.

It was Callum who caught it.

“That’s a death sentence,” I whispered.

He shook his head, a worried frown twisting his lips as he looked at me. “It’s not actually. My brother, Ryker, has been exploring past the portals, and there are pockets where survival is possible. Hellish and isolated, but possible. Raine, what’s wrong? I thought this is what you were hoping for. The whole reason you agreed to help.”

No. I’d foolishly believed they would only be punishing the guilty. The ones responsible for the hell that I’d lived for the past ten years. But this…

I had to believe that he didn’t know. The saboteur must have been lying about that part. Surely, none of them had a clue about the human involvement in Elayara’s research—about the existence of people like me and Logan and Ari. Victims in the truest sense of the word, and now condemned criminals, unless the laws Callum and his people had worked so hard for were never signed.

Unless… I chose to side with the saboteur.

I looked up, into those worried amber eyes and almost asked for the truth. Almost asked how much he knew. But if I did, and he’d known nothing? I would only be condemning myself.

And if he’d known all along that people like me existed? And done this anyway?

I didn’t think I was ready to hear that much truth. I’d convinced myself he was a good man. That he and Faris and Morghaine and Draven and Kira were all truly decent people just trying to make a difference. And right now, I wasn’t sure I could handle the news that I’d been wrong yet again.

I looked down at myself and suddenly felt ashamed. Dirty. Complicit. I wanted to rip off the dress I’d loved so much and bury myself in the dark, shapeless clothing I’d worn after my escape.

“I have to go,” I whispered, tearing myself away from the strong hand that still held me up and heading for the door.

“Raine…” He came after me. Stopped me with the lightest touch on my arm. “Raine, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything. I just… I have to go home.”

Home. It was more a feeling than a place. Something I longed for without ever having truly experienced it. Callum had given me the first glimpse I’d ever had, but now those memories felt hollow and empty.

He was silent, and I could feel the questions, feel the weight of his worried gaze.

“Let me drive you.”

“No.” I said it too quickly, too loudly, too harshly. “I will be fine on my own, and you have a very important event to manage.”

“Those people downstairs aren’t going to melt or implode without me,” he said fiercely. “They can wait a little longer. This… you are more important.”

I could have cried. They were words I’d dreamed of hearing him say, but now they brought me nothing but fresh pain.

“You can’t fix this,” I insisted. “Please, just let me go.”

His hand fell away. “Did I do something wrong?”

It would have been the perfect moment for my wayward hunch magic to awaken—to tell me whether I could trust him. Whether this was all just an act. But it remained silent, and so did I, because I couldn’t answer his question.

“Goodbye, Callum.”

I turned my back, set my jaw, and walked away.

Somehow, I made it down the stairs without falling. Angelica was standing in the foyer, and watched with an increasingly puzzled expression as I walked past her, pushed through the doors, and let myself out into the night.

My eyes burned as I left The Assemblage behind, but I would not cry. Not even when I stumbled on the uneven bricks beneath my feet, causing my ankle to twist painfully. I just reached down, yanked off the shoes, and went on my way barefoot. Threading through the weekend crowd of pedestrians, ignoring the sidelong looks.

I needed to go back to the hostel. Needed to make a plan. Where would we go? What would we do? But my thoughts would not form and my feet had a mind of their own that left behind the rough, dirty concrete for the grass of Myriad Gardens. I wandered almost mindlessly for probably an hour before I finally came to a stop beneath the Crystal Bridge, remembering Ari’s innocent laughter as she tried to chase the ducks.

How could I protect that laughter if I allowed this to happen? If laws were signed that made her a criminal at only six years old?

And yet, how could I stop them without becoming the very thing I had tried so hard to prevent?

“I can see that you found answers.” The voice that echoed off the concrete walls beneath the bridge was a familiar one.

Somehow, I’d expected that he would find me again.

“And it seems equally clear that you did not care for what you found.”

“What do you want from me?” The sound of my own voice shocked me—hollow and hoarse, bleeding from a thousand invisible cuts.

“I should have thought that would be obvious.”

A man stepped out of the shadows, into the dim glow of the lights near the water.

Average height, unremarkable build. White and middle-aged, with brown hair, kind eyes, and an immediately forgettable face.

Except I hadn’t forgotten. I would never forget.

“ Blake? ”

“So you do remember me.”

I did. I remembered all of them. Every human who’d shared that underground prison with us. Every human who’d suffered at Elayara’s hands.

I’d thought they must have either escaped or died when the facility was raided. I certainly never expected to find any of them here, in Oklahoma City.

Especially not Blake. He was one of the failed experiments. Too old, in the objective, scientific opinion of our captors. The magic wouldn’t stick, so he’d been reduced to testing the magic-imbued objects. He’d been the first of the human captives to figure out how to use them.

And he was here to stop the Symposium.

“You still haven’t said why you’ve contacted me.”

He took another step forward. “If you know the truth, then you know what we have to do. What has to happen in order for those like us to survive.”

That might be true for me, but not for him. He could just walk away, with nothing to show for those ugly years except memories, and those weren’t going to get him killed.

Except…

He clearly hadn’t walked away. So why not?

What could have brought him all the way to Oklahoma City for the purpose of interfering with Idrian legislation?

“Why does this matter so much to you?”

“Why does it matter?” he echoed, almost incredulously. “How can you ask that? When you know what was done to us? When you know what all of us suffered? I might not have paid as high a price as others, but I was there. I heard the same screams. I witnessed the same atrocities. Is it so surprising that I would choose to spend my life protecting those who shared those experiences with me?”

Not surprising at all. It was the reason I got up in the morning. The reason I’d fought through the aftermath of our escape and chose to keep fighting—every day, no matter the odds.

“I get it,” I told him. “And I’m grateful that you’re still out there, fighting for everyone we lost. But I don’t know what you think I can do here. The damage is done. The agreement has been made. And they believe they’re acting in good faith—to protect the innocent and prevent this from happening again.”

“It isn’t too late,” Blake pointed out. “The laws have not been signed, and until they are, no one is bound by them. There is still time.”

“Time for what?” I argued.

“Time to stop them.”

“How?” I didn’t even like to think about the obvious answers. The ones his people had already demonstrated they were capable of.

He shrugged. “That part is up to you. You are the only one on the inside. The only one who can protect the rest of us without this ending in bloodshed.”

My heart cried out that bloodshed wasn’t the only option. We could always just run. We knew how to survive on the road. We’d done it for six months, and we could do it again.

But up until now, I hadn’t considered how many others might have escaped.

The rest of us…

“How many, Blake? How many escaped with you?” And did he know about those who’d escaped with me?

He looked me dead in the eye. “Isn’t just one enough?”

That hit me where it hurt, because he was right. Just one innocent life was enough. Enough to risk everything.

“I don’t want to have to hurt anyone,” he continued soberly. “And I will do everything in my power not to. But make no mistake, I will act if you do not. And I feel far less sympathy for the wealthy and influential who are gathered tonight, eating and drinking and flaunting their power while they murmur self-righteous platitudes about helping the powerless.”

I flinched. Was that what was happening? Had I been blinded to the real purpose of the Symposium because I wanted to be? Because Callum was attractive and his money even more so?

“There’s not enough time.” I muttered the words through frozen lips. The signing was scheduled for ten the next morning. That left barely more than fourteen hours to come up with a plan to prevent it. And to do so without hurting anyone I cared about. Because no matter what I might think of their laws, I didn’t want any of them to die. Not even Talia.

“What if I can’t do this? What if there’s no way to stop it?”

“We will find a way,” Blake said flatly. “I would prefer to do it without violence or injury, but I will protect the people under my care.” His tone softened. “And that could be you as well, Raine. We would welcome you, no matter what happens. We are a family now—you, and I, and everyone else who escaped. The only ones who can understand each other. Who can sympathize with what we’ve been through, and what we were forced to do to survive.”

It should have come as an enormous relief—to know that there was an entire community out there of people like us. People who would understand our story. People who could support each other and help one another to heal from past trauma.

But oddly, I was even more relieved that Blake didn’t seem to know about Kes, Logan, and Ari, because… something still didn’t feel right. Something was nagging me, like a single discordant note in a song that was meant to be happy. It remained just out of reach, tantalizing me with the promise that I could figure out the puzzle if I only had this one piece…

But Blake was waiting, and I didn’t think he would take a flat no for an answer.

“I’ll think about it,” I told him, and managed not to wince at the disappointment that flashed across his face.

Even if I didn’t love his methods, I could understand his frustration. We wanted the same things, and a part of me longed for exactly what he was offering. And yet, I wasn’t sure I could bear the price he was asking me to pay.

Over the last two weeks, I’d found a family of sorts. People who I believed genuinely cared about us. Kira treated me like a friend. Faris was helping Logan with his magic. Angelica handled Ari with firm kindness instead of shock at her strange ability. And Callum… he’d promised to protect us. Had proven he was so much more than his reputation.

Did I side with them and hope that these tentative friendships would protect us when the truth came to light?

Or did I side with the ones who’d suffered alongside me? Victims of the most heinous injustices, who had no one else to stand up for them?

No matter what choice I made, I was going to have to hurt someone, and despite the tremendous weight I’d carried for so long, this one felt like it might just crush me.

“Don’t think too long, Raine.” Blake’s tone was a warning. “We don’t have the luxury of waffling or self-pity. This is too important. And if you do not take action… know that I will. And you’ve seen what kind of power my people are capable of.”

Indeed, I had, and for a moment, I felt that statement as a threat. “They tried to kill me,” I retorted, feeling a little startled as it occurred to me that all of those attacks must have come from people like me. Had Elayara truly been that successful in her efforts? In all the years I was in that facility, I’d met only four others. One was dead, and two of them were waiting for me back at the hostel.

“On the contrary,” Blake corrected. “They did everything in their power to keep everyone alive. They were only hoping to scare the dragon into abandoning his plan. We just never counted on you being there with him.”

They hadn’t counted on me saving Callum from the fae magic, or on me being in the car when he was trapped. So when Callum proved too stubborn and too difficult to scare, they’d tried to frighten the other delegates. And when they failed there too, they’d turned to me—the wild card. With a power no one truly understood and access to the highest levels of security.

And they’d cornered me—forcing me to make a decision that was going to tear me apart. No matter what I chose, this chapter of my life was going to end with a betrayal.

Did I betray the people who’d given me a home and a job—given me hope for the first time in years—but who I had no choice but to lie to for the rest of my life?

Or did I betray the people who had suffered alongside me, who understood everything I’d been through and who fought the same fight for freedom? People who would be rejected by humans and Idrians alike if they knew of our existence.

Whatever I chose would have consequences for so many, not least among them Logan, Ari, and Kes. I owed it to them to ask their opinion before I acted. Before I set our future on a path with no way out.

“I will make a decision,” I said firmly, “but I need time. If you truly want my help, give me tonight. I’ll have an answer in the morning.”

Blake’s expression softened a little, but remained resolute. “You understand the stakes now,” he said. “I’m confident you will come to the right decision for everyone.”

For everyone…

There was no right decision for everyone. If I refused to betray Callum, Blake and his people would take matters into their own hands, and with their own freedom on the line, they would not be holding back. People would be hurt.

And if I did as Blake asked? If I acted on behalf of Elayara’s victims? I would be plunging a knife into the backs of the only people who had ever tried to help me.

“And Raine…”

I looked up.

“Whenever you’re ready, there’s a family waiting for you.”

With that final blow, Blake melted away into the shadows of the garden and left me broken and bleeding—from the past I could not change, the choice that now confronted me, and the ruins of everything I’d dared to hope for.