Dark Light of Day (17 page)

“I told you,” she said in that rich, creamy, cold as ice voice of hers, “
you
were the one who had to decide to use your magic.
You
were the one who had to declare.”

“Well, if you wanted Night and me to use the magic we’d been born with, why did you hide it from everyone? And why did you raise us to be so ignorant about it?” I was practically shouting, something I almost never did when speaking with her.

“Noon, I—”

I stopped listening. Something was happening in my dorm room. All of a sudden it was
hot
. Suddenly I remembered accidentally burning my admission letter and the napkin at Marduk’s. Was I about to set the whole room on fire? I raised my hands in front of me, palms up. A meaningless physical gesture, the only purpose of which was to focus my energy inward. I searched for the source of the surge. It wasn’t coming from me.

I hung up on my mother and walked over to my bed where Serafina fumed. She flexed her small rapier-sharp claws and snorted actual fire, singeing tiny little spots on my quilt and pillows.
Must be a demon trick,
I thought crazily.
Even I can’t do that.
Serafina met my eye and her look was full of dark emotion. Blistering waves of malevolence pulsed from her, like sickening magical radiation. My stomach threatened to revolt and I sat down heavily on the bed, my palms falling out at my sides. Serafina took it as an invitation and jumped back into my palm. This time, the sting of her touch was less. And the numbness infinitely more welcoming. I sank back into the pillows.

My dorm room’s harmonic jangled again sometime later. I had no idea how long we’d been sitting there like that. I had the vague, unsettled feeling of being woken up from a dream too early. My mind was unfocused and my muscles were stiff. I got up, carrying Serafina like she was some live, grotesque version of a children’s stuffed bear, and yanked the receiver off its hook.

“Noon, where are you? Aren’t you coming?”

The voice was concerned. For a moment I couldn’t place it. The feeling was frustrating, like when you’re late and can’t find your house keys. Finally, I realized.

“Ivy,” I said, my voice slurring a little. I tried desperately to remember where it was I was supposed to be. Thankfully, her note to me was right in front of me. I read it, puzzled that I didn’t remember reading it in the first place.

Was she calling from the Black Onion or Corpus Justica? What time was it?

It didn’t matter.

“I can’t come,” I said. I sounded like I was underwater. “I’m meeting Ari to go over some Manipulation stuff for Monday.”

I hung up and walked back over to the bed, disturbed. Something was wrong.

There were things I was supposed to be doing, but I couldn’t remember what they were. And, if I did, I wasn’t sure it would have mattered, which worried me more.

Curled in the crook of my arm, Serafina dozed contentedly, her signature drowsy and warm. I wanted nothing more than to curl back up with her. In fact, the more I focused on her, instead of trying to remember what I’d forgotten, the better I felt. But before I could lie back down, the harmonic’s bell rang again. This time, the clanging jangle woke Serafina up and my sick, nauseous feeling returned. I wanted nothing more than to get rid of it. And whoever was on the other end of the line. Again, I dragged Serafina and myself across the room, and unhooked the receiver.

“Get some good studying in?” It was Ari. His voice cut through my haze like a metal shaft through water.

“No.”

“You didn’t?” His voice sounded sharp. “What have you been doing?”

I looked down at Serafina, who was rubbing her belly and glaring at me. I didn’t want to tell him about her. There was something about the situation that made me feel guilty and defensive.

“I had other things to do,” I said.

“Like what?” He sounded annoyed.
Now that our mutual interest was obvious, did that mean I had to account to him for every minute of my day?

For a moment I debated telling him about the meeting with Seknecus, how it had been predictably terrifying, yet oddly heartening. I thought about telling him how hurt I’d been to find out my mother had been the one to leave the evergreen for me to kill. And I considered sharing Serafina with him… but then an inexplicable possessiveness took hold. I wanted her all to myself.

“I can’t meet you tonight,” I said.

“Why? Noon, what’s going on? I thought you understood how precarious your situation is. Manipulation starts Monday. The Council is watching. You don’t have a lot of time to catch up.”

None of that seemed to frighten me anymore. Serafina was a demon and we were getting along fine.

“Seknecus gave me the books I’ll need for Manipulation,” I said, “and I told Ivy I’d study with her.”

“
Seknecus
gave you your Manipulation books?”

“Yep,” I said breezily. “So I’ll see you Monday.” I started to hang up.

“Noon, wait! What about tomorrow?”

Tomorrow? Today was all that mattered. And getting back to Serafina.

I hung up.

I was setting personal records. Today, I’d hung up on three people and hadn’t cracked a single book.

What in Luck’s Hell was the matter with me?

I went to bed early that night, with Serafina tucked in
safely by my side. I briefly considered trying to put her back in the ball for the night but the thought of not being able to feel her signature, vile though it was at times, made me uneasy. In fact, it would be fair to say that I had a minor panic attack at the thought. So I hid the ball deep in my desk drawer, absent the demon that went with it. I snuggled up to Serafina’s cozy warmth—nasty, repugnant little creature that she was—and promptly went to sleep.

I woke prematurely. Two things alerted me that something was wrong. The relatively loud sound, in the hushed silence of my darkened dorm room, of Ivy dropping her keys and books on her desk and Serafina’s suddenly rapid-boil signature. Still groggy from sleep, but acting on instinct, I threw the covers off me and swung my legs to the floor.

“You were sleeping?” Ivy asked, surprised. She looked down at the load of stuff she’d just dumped on her desk. “Sorry. I thought you’d still be with Ari. Speaking of which…”

Ivy’s tone grew more concerned and I started to feel feverish in a horrible way. I knew Serafina didn’t like Ivy. I could
feel
it. But that singular thought was the only coherent one I had. Everything about me was sluggish—my thoughts, my movements, even my magic. I tried to control Serafina by shielding her magic with my own but it was like trying to broadside someone with a sled underwater. My magic wobbled and swayed. It shimmied and swerved. It did everything but hit its target or work like it was supposed to.

“Noon,” Ivy continued, as yet unaware of Serafina’s tiny body beside mine and the danger she was in, “I know you’re really worried about Manipulation—who wouldn’t be?—and I don’t blame you for wanting to spend Saturday night with Ari, but… Fitz and I were counting on you tonight to go over the differences between sedition, subversion, and incitement. Our Sin and Sanction midterm is next week. You said you wanted to stay in the study group. You have to pass…” Ivy enumerated her concerns on her fingers in typical Ivy fashion, but I was too panicked to pay attention.

Before, when I had pushed magic back at Ari, it had felt
like I was throwing out an array of kitchen knives. Ari had melted the knives or engaged in a bit of playful parrying. But Serafina multiplied and sharpened my magic and threw it back at me. The strike hit me with the force of a copper-pot blow to the head and the toxin of a thousand scorpion stings. I grabbed her and pulled her out from under the covers. I was desperate. Words wouldn’t work; Serafina couldn’t understand me. Magic wouldn’t help; she just repelled it and sent it back with greater force.

A sick, awful feeling bloomed that had nothing to do with the toxic magic Serafina was throwing off.
What if she started directing her magic toward Ivy?
No Hyrke could survive a demon attack. It dawned on me how stupid I’d been and what I’d let happen. Serafina was a
demon
. I’d let her out of the ball, I’d kept her out of the ball, and now I couldn’t control her. Ivy could die.

Ivy realized it at the exact moment I did.

“Noon,” she said, her voice going soft, “is that”—she swallowed as her eyes met Serafina’s—“is that…did you…” Ivy backed up until she hit the desk. I didn’t need to speak Serafina’s language to know that she saw Ivy as a threat. Serafina was a demon familiar, one of the most jealous demon species there was. And it was just occurring to her that I had a roommate, a friend, someone else who talked to me and spoke
my
language. Somebody else who I gave my attention to. Someone else who, in Serafina’s eyes anyway, received a share of the adoration that was due to
her
. Cold, hard fear sliced through me, cutting the veiled haze I’d felt since opening Serafina’s silver ball.

I felt Serafina’s signature change just before she struck. Everything in the room seemed to stop—the sound of my breathing, Ivy’s heart beating, the low rumbling in Serafina’s chest. Even the light seemed suddenly static, as if the scene in front of me were a life-sized photograph instead of the real thing. The day’s fugue fell away like a cloak cut from my body. The room seemed to contract and expand and then, a moment later, Ivy’s hands were on fire.

She screamed and I reacted without thinking. Instead of
trying to ward off Serafina with the magical equivalent of a bunch of blunt butter knives, I thrust a razor-thin, needle-sharp shaft of magic at her. I could feel its strength. It was unlike anything I’d ever thrown before. All my life, I’d thrown defensively. This was instinctive and aggressive. What I’d thrown before was like aluminum or tin. This magic was as hard and clear as a diamond and directed to lethal effect. Serafina collapsed in a liquefied puddle of demon flesh. Anguish surged through me, but I had no time to dwell on it. Instantly, I leeched the oxygen from the air around the fire.

I was too late. Red, angry welts and blistery burns covered Ivy’s hands. She cradled them against her chest. Ivy clenched her teeth together and breathed through her mouth, clearly trying to deal with what must have been immeasurable pain. Never, in my whole life, had I felt so helpless. The desire to heal was palpable. And yet I could not act on it. I’d
caused
Ivy’s injury; I couldn’t cure it.

Ivy needed a Mederi.

How I wished for Night’s steady presence, but he was at least a hundred leagues to the south. Even my mother was across the Lethe. Ivy needed help
now
.

“Noon,” Ivy said, panting against the pain, “call the medics.”

“Hyrke medicine won’t help you,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat and pushing all kinds of emotions out of the way for now. “You need a Mederi.”

I rushed over to the room’s wall mounted harmonic and turned the crank, nearly ripping it out of the box in my efforts to get an immediate connection. When the operator answered, I yelled Ari’s name into the mouthpiece. After a few agonizing seconds, he answered, his voice thick with sleep.

“Ari,” I said, brutally repressing the urge to burst into tears, “I need your help.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, instantly alert.

“It’s Ivy. She’s hurt.”

“Take her to the infirmary. I’ll meet you there.”

“She needs… I can’t…” Even though we had no time,
I stopped speaking for a moment to regain control. Feeling all these emotions right now was selfish. Ivy needed help and the only way I knew how to get it for her was this call. It wouldn’t help Ivy if I couldn’t succinctly state what the problem was. “Ari, Ivy’s been attacked by a demon. She needs a Mederi. Can you ask one of your… uh, friends to help us?”

“Attacked by a demon? Noon, did I hear you right? Is she alive?”

“Yes,” I snapped, “but she’s badly burned and she needs help
now
.”

“I’m coming over,” he said shortly and hung up. He was there in seconds, which made me wonder if he’d used some kind of magic trick to appear so quickly. He burst through the unlocked door, his eyes locking on mine. His gaze swept the room, taking in Ivy’s burned hands, my uninjured state, and the slowly congealing mass of still-steaming demon flesh eating a hole through my bed.

In two strides he was by Ivy’s side, lifting her gently into his arms. He looked at me again then, his expression different, unreadable. I forced myself not to look away. It wasn’t defiance—not at all. I wanted him to know that I accepted whatever consequences came of this. I wanted Ari to know that I knew this whole situation was my fault and that, even though I couldn’t fix it, I wasn’t going to run away from it. I would do what I could, limited though my help would be.

“Come with me,” he said and walked out. I followed, not bothering to shut our door and practically ran to keep up with him.

We crossed Timothy’s Square in a blur of movement and Ari hailed one of the cabs running down Angel Street. We piled in the back, with Ari still assisting Ivy and my only contribution my useless presence.

“Eight Dauphine Street,” Ari told the cabdriver and we sped off.

Ivy sat in the middle and I put my hand on her leg. The pain seemed to be getting worse. It would probably feel that way whether it was or not simply because Ivy’s strength in
keeping it at bay was likely ebbing with time. I tried not to squeeze her leg. She didn’t need to deal with my stress on top of her injuries.

In the cab, Ari asked only one question.

“It was a demon familiar, wasn’t it?”

I nodded and then turned to watch the passing row houses with their brick fronts and marble steps. I didn’t want to look at Ari and see accusation or condescension in his eyes. It was all I could do to keep from breaking down. If I had to face Ari’s judgment too, I knew I’d become a blubbering idiot, which wouldn’t help Ivy and would only make me look worse. So I stared out the window, desperately trying not to think about the fact that I’d brought a demon into the room I shared with one of my closest friends here at St. Luck’s. I’d endangered Ivy’s life and caused her injury. And… I’d done something tonight that I’d never done. Something that made me even more of a monster than I’d thought I was before this. Something that was, if possible, even worse than killing trees or plants or gardens. I’d killed a living creature.