Chapter 14

CHAPTER14

Myth should have figured that any “theater” in this particular district would have a very specific audience in mind.

They’d entered just as the main dancer stripped off her top, revealing her breasts to the entire dining hall.

Meh.

He hoped they had men, too, or this would be a total waste.

The host at the front waved them in. “The show is half over already, and there will be a half hour break until the next one. But if you’re still interested, there’s a table—”

“In the back corner,” Callan finished smoothly. “Yes, I see it. Please have somebody bring us wine and a meal. Now come along, pet.”

Myth’s cheeks flushed red. “Don’t call me that,” he hissed. Especially not in public.

He ignored the host’s look at them, knowing they looked like a noble and… well, his pet, or whore for the evening. Great.

Callan smirked at him but said nothing else as he led them to the small table in the back corner of the dinner hall. They didn’t have the best view of the stage, which was probably why the table was still empty to begin with.

The dancer on stage was joined by two men, both of them dressed in very tight clothes. The sides of their trousers were connected only by laces, exposing their legs enticingly. The dance began to emulate some very, very raunchy movements, and the crowd started hooting and shouting at the dancers to remove even more clothes.

Things were getting more interesting, but Myth had other things on his mind. He couldn’t focus on the show when he had the book Callan had given to him in his hands. He wouldn’t get much reading done here.

He sighed. “Maybe we should go somewhere else.”

Callan was already sitting down, though. “I thought you owed me? I love these kinds of shows. The room ends up filled with so much… hunger. It’s quite the feast.”

“Is that what you feed on, then? People’s hunger?” Myth asked him. Did his own supposed “hunger” sate Callan?

“Something like that, yes.” Callan patted the chair next to him, but Myth didn’t sit down. Callan chuckled with amusement. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of me now. After you chased off your competition so thoroughly.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Myth informed him with a huff, even though that wasn’t quite true. He was scared of Callan. What he’d seen back with the guards at his mother’s, and what Lore had told him…

Then there had been the previous night.

Myth shuddered at the memory, his fingers touching the table, but he didn’t move to sit down.

Callan shrugged and turned his attention to the rest of the dining hall. He didn’t seem at all interested in watching the stage.

Myth followed his gaze, his eyes narrowing when he spotted the same thing Callan had: a woman with her hand down the back of another woman’s skirt. They probably thought they were out of sight. They would have been, if Myth and Callan hadn’t taken up the one single table with this particular view.

“They aren’t the only ones doing that,” Callan said. His fingers drummed on the table. “My, my, how naughty the people are tonight.”

Reluctantly, Myth moved to sit down at the table. If he wasn’t scared of Callan, there was no sense in standing up. And they were in public. Callan couldn’t do anything in public, could he?

Of course he could.

“Does that get you off?” Myth asked bluntly.

Callan rested his chin against his hand and peered at Myth. Of course he’d chosen the darkest corner to sit in, so that half his face was shaded. “Get me off? Are you asking if I’m hard right now? You can always reach over to check.”

“I’m not groping you in public,” Myth grumbled, putting the book down on the table and flipping it open. “Is this an original edition?”

“Something like that.” Callan waited while the staff brought wine and a platter of breads, meats, and cheeses for them. Only once they were alone again did he continue, “You’ve been studying very hard, despite your feeble magic. It’s a shame you’ll never amount to anything—magically, I mean.”

Myth bristled a little at that, but he couldn’t deny that it was the truth. “I don’t need to amount to anything magically just to look up some information. Besides, you’re the one who said I still have a chance of removing the enchantment. Why did you give this to me if you didn’t think I could handle it?”

Callan was quiet for several moments. “That is indeed a good question.” He waved his hand, and the book flipped several pages until it landed on the chapter about shades. “We could spend all evening discussing magical theory. I suppose I’ve done that in the past. Endless debates, going round and round in circles, taking what we want and what we need and never once saying anything that matters at all.” He looked down at his hands, and suddenly pulled the pearl ring off. It emitted a light in a small flickering pattern, almost as if it was in distress.

Myth had no idea what to make of that, especially once Callan pushed the ring in Myth’s direction.

Myth blinked, staring at the ring.

“Take it,” Callan said curtly. “You need the light more than I do, anyway.”

“What? Why do I need the light?” Myth asked, confused. He set his hand over the ring, but he was reluctant to take it. There was something… wrong about this. Like it wasn’t his to take, except Callan had given it to him, and anyway, Myth was a thief.

“If you’re going to try to read here.” Callan motioned around them. “You wouldn’t want to hurt your eyes in the dim light.”

Myth didn’t think that had been what Callan meant, not really. Usually, he’d have let it go, but he was tired of Callan being so cryptic all the time. “That’s not what you meant,” he said aloud.

“No, it’s not.” Callan’s gaze went back to the stage, where the two men were now kissing, while the woman knelt in front of them suggestively. “Your amulet can only be dismantled at the altar where it was created. It’s all very cliche, you understand, but magic tends to enjoy going in circles.”

“Why didn’t they just destroy it to begin with, though? I don’t understand why they’d keep it around if it just means someone could try to harness that power for their own needs.” Like King Eoghan, who‘d sounded like he’d wanted to conquer the neighboring kingdoms.

“Well, there’s always a catch, of course. For example, if you do it wrong, and you end up weakening a spell you didn’t mean to weaken, or you burn yourself inside out, or you need to use another 40 sacrifices in order to melt down a simple jewel.” Callan suddenly stiffened, and his expression turned sour. “Or maybe all you need is a phoenix feather.”

“You fucked a phoenix once,” Myth said, remembering when Callan had told him that. “Can you get a feather from them?”

Callan started laughing. “I don’t think he ever wants to see me again. The last time I fucked him… oh, let’s just say it didn’t end well.”

Myth didn’t know what to make of that, either. He ended up looking at the book again, and the ring—which was now emitting a simple soft light—illuminated the words on the pages.

Except they weren’t the same words Myth had read last time. There were instances that were crossed out, and an entire section that had been completely covered in black. One page had ink spilled on the corner in a pattern that reminded Myth far too much of familiar, dark tendrils.

Transformation takes more magic than a human has, a shaky line said. But hehas endless magic.

“Those pages are rather dull in retrospect,” Callan said, still turned away from him. “It’s probably a good thing they get edited in the later editions.”

Something was going on that Myth couldn’t make sense of. Callan was acting strange, and it had something to do with this book—with this page, maybe. With that single underlined word. “Who’s ‘he’?” he asked, tapping the page. “The book says someone has endless power. Is it the demon they locked away?”

Callan contorted unnaturally to look Myth in the eyes. It felt like the entire room was suddenly plunged into darkness, with only the glow of the pearl ring to illuminate Callan’s features.

“Now why would you think that?” Callan asked, smiling grotesquely.

Myth shrank back, suddenly finding it hard to catch his breath. The lines and curves of Callan’s face were impossibly twisted and strange, and Myth didn’t like that smile at all. “Because it makes sense,” Myth mumbled, his heart racing.

How was it that no one noticed this terrible magic? Did the darkness not extend beyond this table? If it had, there would’ve been screams, surely, of people abruptly panicking about the darkness.

“Does it? Out of all the beings with endless magic, you assume one specific demon? Why not a dragon, or another magical creature?”

“But…” Myth sat up straighter to glare back. He wasn’t going to be intimidated, even if all of the hairs on the back of his neck were raised in terror. “This very same book said dragons can’t do much transformation. It’s limited. Just from one shape to another. So they clearly don’t have endless magic.”

Callan burst out laughing, and the darkness dropped away.

Myth clutched the table in front of him. Fuck. If he ever needed proof that Callan was bad news—

No, he already had plenty of proof of that.

“Who knows what a simple mage from two hundred and fifty years ago thought?” Callan scooted his chair closer to Myth and set a cold hand on the back of his neck. “That man is long gone.”

“Is he gone…” Myth started, the ideas suddenly connecting, “... or was he transformed? Twisted into something brand new? A… shade, maybe? Like he wanted to be.”

The hand on his neck tightened almost to the point of pain.

Was he pushing too far?

If Callan killed Myth here, it really would prove just how stupid Myth was.

But Callan loosened his hold and began stroking the nape of Myth’s neck with his thumb. “Oh, look. The men lost their pants. Do you think it’s magic that keeps their cocks from falling out of those tiny little scraps of fabric?”

Myth was trembling as it was, and Callan’s touch wasn’t helping at all. “I…” He had no fucking clue. He couldn’t care less about the men on the stage. He only cared about that book, and the way Callan’s features had warped, and the touch that was making him want to surrender all over again.

“There’s a man underneath the table right near the front,” Callan said nonchalantly. “His companion is very, very pleased with themself.” He leaned down to huff a breath against Myth’s ear. “Are you pleased with yourself?”

He didn’t know what to say to that, even though the answer was a resounding no. He had a feeling he’d gotten entirely too close to a truth Callan hadn’t expected him to figure out, and the fact that he was alive wasn’t pleasing.

It was just a relief.

“Should I be?” he retorted weakly, pretending Callan’s lips near his ear weren’t bothering him or affecting him in the slightest.

“Yes.” Callan sat up and let go of Myth. “I wrote the book. I admit, I’d forgotten how incoherent my ramblings got toward the end. But I saw the version in the library, and those weren’t my words.”

Myth’s mouth dried up. Callan had said that book was over three hundred years old. Which meant… “Are all shades immortal, then?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “Or is it just you?”

“I have never met a shade that died of old age,” Callan answered, sounding bored. “But I suppose that would be hard, since I usually absorb the shades I meet.”

Myth gaped at him, feeling like a fish out of water. “Why are you telling me this?”

“For the same reason I gave you my book.” Callan scooted in his seat—like a human—to face Myth. “Clearly, I wanted you to know.”

Myth backed away a little. “Well, yes. But why? You’re trying to frighten me.”

The audience suddenly burst into applause, startling Myth. His attention was drawn to the stage, where all three dancers were bowing, completely nude.

It must have been a very compelling show, but Myth couldn’t say he cared about the beautiful people on display.

He turned back to Callan, only to find that he was alone at the table.

The book was gone too. In its place was a small card with a note, scribbled in a now-familiar handwriting.

Don’t get lost in the dark.

The pearl ring lay shining underneath the text.