Carnival of Secrets (18 page)

“Did I ask rates?” Without looking, she reached out for Zevi’s hand and pulled him into the room. All the while she stared at the vendor. “Go home early, or enjoy the market.”

“The wall will stay intact until the Night Market ends.” The vendor raised a locked circle, bowed hastily, and then fled.

Once he was gone, Aya turned to face the two curs. “You can trust me.”

Kaleb looked at her warily, but Zevi shrugged and crawled into a silk-and-velvet basket that was suspended from the ceiling. He curled up and watched her. “Are you buying us?”

“No,” Kaleb snarled.

“It’s probably for the best.” Zevi swayed so the basket began to swing slightly back and forth. “Kaleb was stabbed pretty high up too, so I’m not sure if he would be of any use.” He paused and glanced at Kaleb. “If she did buy us,
could
you—”

“Z, stop,” Kaleb snapped.

Aya shook her head. “I’m not buying you,
either
of you. You will stay here and rest. It’s safe, warm, comfortable, and clean. There’s food and drink.”

“And what are you going to do?” Kaleb asked. “You reserved a pleasure stall so we could all sleep? I have a home. So do you. Explain.”

No one in The City knew what she was about to reveal to the two curs staring at her. It was the secret underlying her choice to enter the competition, to refuse to wed Belias, to struggle not to have children. If Zevi and Kaleb were untrustworthy, she would die. It was that simple. Every choice she’d made the past two years had been to protect the secret she had to now reveal.

She looked at Kaleb and asked softly, “Are we partners, Kaleb?”

“We blood-oathed,” Kaleb said.

She tucked the pouch of chalk into her pocket. “I would rather not show you this, but I can’t see any way around it.”

At that, Aya stepped through the circle as if it weren’t there. The circle didn’t waver or fall. The room was still securely sealed. The circle was—to their eyes—an impenetrable barrier. From outside the circle, she watched their mutual expressions of shock. It was with no small relief that she saw that they didn’t look horrified or frightened.

Zevi leaped out of the basket.

Aya stepped back across the still-intact circle.

“Daimons can’t . . . you shouldn’t . . .” He turned to Kaleb and announced in an awed voice, “She’s not all daimon.”

Kaleb said nothing. He hadn’t moved either; he stared at her with an expressionless face. She tore her gaze away from him as Zevi came to stand as close as he could get without touching her. “Can I smell you?”

“Not everywhere,” Aya cautioned him.

He, at least, was not disturbed by what she was. Zevi already had his nose on her throat before she finished her answer. He sniffed her everywhere but her crotch and buttocks. All the while, Aya stood motionless, watching Kaleb watch them.

“She smells fine,” Zevi announced.

“Which is how she’s avoided exposure.” Kaleb didn’t stand. “Your father wasn’t your blood father.”

Aya gave him a tight smile. “Neither of my parents is blood. The witch who placed me with my parents had spelled them to think I was their own, and to tell me the truth when I was old enough. They had no idea.”

“But you couldn’t hide it if you married,” Kaleb said, pointing out the truth she wished she could’ve told Belias.

It hurt, hearing it said so bluntly. She’d agonized over telling Belias, but he—like many ruling-caste daimons, including her parents—hated witches. They didn’t even sanction marriage out of their caste, much less out of species. She forced herself to sound as calm as she could, and said, “I’m not suited to marriage anyhow, but yes, I learned that it would be dangerous to breed. A child couldn’t hide this—and I have no way of suppressing another’s magic as my birth mother did mine.”

“So you murdered your betrothed? Was that because he knew?”

Her temper flared, and the temptation to show Kaleb how easily she
could
kill flared with it. Instead, she said, “I won my
match
. I did
not
murder my former betrothed. There is a difference.”

“Not to Belias,” Kaleb pointed out.

Aya did not tell him he was wrong, that Belias was alive. There were few lives she’d put before her safety, but Belias was one of them. She knew it was stupid, dangerous in ways she didn’t want to consider, but she couldn’t kill Belias.
He won’t escape. He won’t return and expose me.
She wasn’t sure anyone but her would understand how much she loved Belias.
He
certainly wouldn’t, and it wasn’t Kaleb’s business. Rather than address that topic, she merely shook her head. “I could have killed Bel or a lot of others without touching if I needed to, but I didn’t. I didn’t use the fight to kill him, and I didn’t use magic to win my fights. With one exception, I fought with the same resources as every other daimon in the competition.”

“So is that the plan? You’re going to use witchery to heal me or something?” Kaleb asked.

“Yes, but to do so I need to take the health from someone else. I need you in a circle while I do the next step. I was going to come to the cave, but this will work fine. Rest or whatever. I’ll be back before the circle drops.”

And then Aya left them in the pleasure stall and went to get the supplies she needed to even the match with Sol.

B
ELIAS LOOKED UP, EXPECTING
to see the witch who held him in her summoning circle. Instead, he saw his former betrothed. Aya had come for him.

“Hurry before she gets back,” Belias urged. “I don’t know how you got here . . . or how I got here but—” His words died as the witch came in the door behind her, carrying a tray of tea and sandwiches.

“I trust you can handle . . . everything. I’ve brought food,” the witch said.

“Thank you,” Aya said softly. She took the tray and stood silently for a moment until the witch departed. Once they were alone, Aya asked, “Will you promise not to hurt me in any way if I bring you food? She said you won’t eat.”

“How do I know it’s safe?”

“You have my vow, Bel.”

He watched her warily. He had no intention of hurting her, not without knowing if she was trapped somehow too, but he wasn’t going to stand here and let her re-erect the circle. Once she dropped it to give him the food, he’d be at the door. A flash of guilt came over him at the thought of leaving her there. He stepped to the edge of the circle. “Are you a prisoner here too?”

“No,” she admitted. “I came to see you.”

“You knew I was here?” He’d thought he’d had his fill of betrayal when she poisoned him, but he felt the flare of renewed despair when she admitted that she’d known where he was. “You knew this whole time and you’re just now . . . Why?”

Her hands tightened on the tray she held. “Do you, Belias, vow not to harm or attempt to trap me?”

“I do.” He waited for her to add something about trying to escape, but she didn’t. He had already studied the room, and aside from the ritual knife on the edge of the witch’s desk, he saw nothing worth grabbing as a weapon.

Instead of lowering the circle, Aya caught and held Belias’ gaze as she stepped into the circle as if it wasn’t there. The look in her eyes wasn’t one he’d often seen there.
Fear
. He backed away, and the fear in her eyes was replaced by her regular unreadable expression. She put the tray on the floor and left the circle with as little effort as she’d used to enter it.

Belias put his hand up, pressing on it, testing the barrier as he had done so often since he’d woken up in it. “You stepped through a containment circle. You’re . . .” His words faded as he couldn’t speak the terrible truth.

“A witch,” she finished for him. “I’m a witch, Bel.”

Fresh disgust settled on him as the pieces fell into place. She had not poisoned him; she’d sold him to a witch.
She
was a witch. Belias dropped to the floor, trapped inside the circle where Aya had
sent
him. He stared at her. “I wanted to spend my life with you. I offered you everything I have. I entered the competition and have killed because of you.”

“I know.” Aya’s expression was as unreadable as he’d ever seen it. She stayed still, spine straight and shoulders back. Her hands were held loosely at her sides, and he had the thought that she should be holding a weapon. It reminded him of the fights they’d had in the ring and in the sparring centers. The difference was that he was defenseless this time.

He stared up at her, the witch he’d thought he loved, and couldn’t understand how he could’ve been so wrong. “You took
everything
from me.”

“Not your life. I spared your life.” She gestured at the sandwiches beside him. “Eat, please. You’ll get ill if you don’t.”

“Why does that matter?” He turned his gaze to her. “You’re not intending to let me return to The City, are you? This is it. Either the witch kills me or keeps me here.”

“This world isn’t that bad, Bel. Evelyn says—”

“Get out.” He slammed his fists against the circle. “Get out of my sight.”

The usually stoic Aya flinched. “I couldn’t kill you,” she whispered.

When he said nothing, she continued in a steadier voice, “There are very few things I wouldn’t do to have a future. If I breed, they’ll know what I am.”

“So this was your solution? Take away
my
future, my home?”

“You didn’t leave me a lot of choices,” she said. “You bribed them so you could fight me. I
know
because I’ve been bribing them
not
to match us. You trapped me. I couldn’t forfeit, and I couldn’t kill you. So I had Evelyn summon you here.”

Her eyes flared witch-gold for the first time he’d ever seen, and on some level, he realized that she was letting down a wall. After years of trying to get her to share herself, to trust him, she chose now to do so.

“Don’t do this to me, Aya,” he pleaded. “We can figure out a plan that—”

“It’s not her decision,” Evelyn’s voice interrupted from behind him.

He glanced over his shoulder to see the witch leaning in the doorway watching him. Instinctively, he started to move so that Aya was behind him, putting his body between the two witches, and immediately felt the fool. Aya was far more suited to defend herself against Evelyn than he could ever be.

Evelyn walked past the circle to her desk. She paused beside Aya and handed her a sachet. “This will do what you need.”

“Thank you.” Aya closed her hand around the sachet. She walked to the circle and lifted her other hand as if she would touch him. She didn’t reach inside the circle though. “For the first time, I am afraid to touch you. I’ve listened, Bel: I know what you think of witches.”

“If you weren’t a witch, would you have broken our engagement?” It was a foolish question. She
was
a witch, and that was unchangeable, but he still wanted to know. “Was this the only reason?”

She shook her head. “I can’t know that, but I don’t think so. I don’t want children. I want . . .”

“Power,” Evelyn finished. She sat at her desk, hands folded together as if in prayer, appearance as stern as it had been every day he’d been trapped here, but that harsh demeanor softened ever so slightly as she watched them. “Aya wants to bend the world to her will. It is a consequence of what she is. Some witches are more driven than others, but it is always there. It is why the Witches’ Council exists—we simply can’t see our way clear to allowing things to be out of order when we have the skills, the knowledge, and the strength to correct aberrations of order.”

Belias watched Aya’s expressions as the witch spoke. She didn’t speak to disagree with anything Evelyn said. The daimon he’d loved wasn’t real. It was just an act to disguise her true self.

How could I have thought I loved a witch?

“I would rather you had killed me,” he said quietly.

Evelyn’s sigh was his only answer. “Enough of this. Aya, you’ve had your audience with the daimon. Now, I need privacy.”

The witch lifted her hand with as little effort as one used to brush away an insect, and the circle became silent. Belias could no longer hear anything but the sound of his own breathing. Then, everything outside the circle became darker as he watched, until his entire world had been reduced to the few feet around him.

A
YA HAD TRIED NOT
to flinch away from Belias’ anger. She understood all too well: she’d done all of this to avoid being killed or trapped. She was
still
trying to avoid that fate, and along the way, she’d consigned Belias to a similar one. If she could’ve married him and kept her secret, she would’ve. It wasn’t what she was made for, but loving him had almost made her turn her back on the desire to help The City. The hope that
maybe
he’d understand that she was more than a witch had tempted her—but hope wasn’t enough.

She’d considered having a child, hoping that she could suppress the child’s magic. She’d even implored Evelyn to teach her how. When Evelyn refused, Aya knew it was far better to avoid motherhood, far safer for her and any child to simply avoid the chance of death or enslavement, far better for Belias never to know that she was a witch. She couldn’t condemn her child, so at eighteen—the earliest she could become anyone’s breedmate or wife—she had ended her betrothal to Belias and entered Marchosias’ Competition.