Dark Light of Day (18 page)

I’d killed Serafina.

Demon or no, she shouldn’t have died. Tears welled. There was no stopping them. I didn’t weep for me, but for Serafina. If I’d had more experience using my waning magic, this never would have happened. I would have been able to get her back into the ball before Ivy came home. Or, at the very least, I would have been able to control her enough during the encounter so that Ivy would not have been hurt and Serafina would not have died. That needle-sharp piece of magic I’d thrown in the end that had killed her was the work of an amateur. In my fear and panic I’d used the wrong weapon. I should have subdued her, not killed her. She was dead because of me. I wiped my tears away quickly and was glad when we pulled down Dauphine Street.

In the dark, number eight didn’t appear much different than any of the other row houses attached to it. There were a few potted plants on the stairs that Ari didn’t think twice about walking past as he stepped up the few stairs and rang
the doorbell. I stood at the foot of the stairs with Ivy leaning heavily against me. I put my arm around her waist to support her, wishing I could do more.

The door opened and Beauty—Bryony—stood there. Of course it had to be her. Of all the Mederies Ari knew, apparently Bryony was the one he thought of first to call when there was trouble. And apparently she, with no explanation or forewarning, was happy to open her door for him at two hours past twelve. I knew I should be thinking only of Ivy, but I couldn’t help wondering how deep their relationship had been.

Bryony was in her nightgown. She’d thrown a robe over the top of it but hadn’t had time to belt it. Her lustrously wavy red curls fell loosely around her face as her azure blue eyes gazed adoringly at Ari. Beauty was no poker player.

“I didn’t know you’d be back,” she said, smiling as she motioned toward her now dead plants. But her face showed concern as she caught sight of Ivy and I huddled together at the foot of her stairs.

“Bryony, we need your help. One of my friends was attacked by a demon. Can you heal her?” Ari said, coming back down the steps and ushering us toward the door before she even answered. Bryony’s face registered surprise, but she kept her questions to herself.

“Of course. Bring her inside,” she said, stepping back, giving us room to enter. “Lay her on the couch,” she said as Ari squeezed past her, already headed in that direction. He seemed all too clear about where to go.

Bryony’s hallway was lit by one dim bulb. Ari had once again scooped Ivy into his arms. I followed him down the shadowy hallway. Odd angles of light fell across patches of torn wallpaper, showing crumbling plaster beneath. Bryony’s living room was dark when we entered but she switched on a table lamp while Ari walked over to the couch. The room was small and the contents beyond worn, but it was neat as a pin.

Bryony had taken the natural Mederi’s love for all things
flowering and run amok. Floral prints covered every conceivable surface of her living room. The couch was awash with a large orange poppy print. In the corner, a whitewashed secondhand folding table was draped with a pink and white azalea tablecloth. Even the hooked rug in front of the couch bore a faded rose motif.

Ari laid Ivy on the couch, careful not to touch her hands. Once Ivy was in position, Bryony, to her credit, did not even bother with us. She just got right to work. She knelt down in front of Ivy and placed her hands over, but not on, Ivy’s own. Bryony closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

I’d seen a Mederi heal before. But it was still something to behold. Waxing magic was so different than the waning magic Maegesters used or the spells the Angels believed in. If waning magic was like the sucking sound of a black hole then waxing magic was the sound of wind blowing life back into the world. Waxing magic was the spark of life, whereas waning magic was the paroxysm of death.

Watching Mederies work always made me uncomfortable, as if my mere presence might taint the process. I glanced at Ari to see if he felt the same, but he was staring at Bryony as if transfixed. I was instantly envious, unaccountably angry. Ari’s face changed as soon as I’d formed the thought and he turned to meet my gaze. I felt an answering swell of magic in him, a response to my sudden irrational anger. His signature suddenly felt like a great big ball of warmth. I wanted to crawl into it. I wanted to wrap it around my arms. I wanted to take solace and comfort inside of it. I bit the inside of my cheek, not wanting Ari to know how desperately I longed to have him look at me the way he’d just looked at Bryony.

Ari crossed the distance between us and took my arm by the elbow.

“Take her in the kitchen, Ari,” Bryony said, without looking up from her work. Only the best Mederies could converse and heal at the same time. “There’s some tea in there if you’d like and even some dried fruit and biscuits. Just don’t open the icebox. I’ve got a lot of salad stuff in there.”

“See?” Ari said softly to me. “Ivy will be fine. If Bryony is worried about her salad, then Ivy should be healed up in less than an hour.”

I nodded miserably. Nothing about this situation was fine.

We entered the kitchen and Ari flipped a switch. The lights flickered for a moment and then steadied, illuminating a drab and hopelessly out-of-date kitchen. Well, really it was little more than a kitchenette. The entire space was only about twenty square feet. I thought the space might once have been a porch. It jutted out precariously past the end of the house. The floor sloped slightly and was laid with chipped tile. The appliances were old and the faucet dripped but, like the living room, it was clean and neat. Not a dish in the sink and not a trace of food on the counter.

Ari went to a cupboard and pulled down a blue tin—decorated with yellow daisies—from the top shelf. He grabbed a teakettle from beneath the sink and filled it with water. It galled me that he knew his way around this Mederi’s kitchen so well. Ari put the water on to boil and turned to me, opening his arms wide. I didn’t even think. I didn’t care, for once, that Ari might think I was weak. I rushed into his embrace and clung to him fiercely.

I told him everything.

By the time I was finished, the front of his shirt was wet with my tears.

“If I hadn’t been so eager to open the ball before I’d read the materials my father suggested—”

Ari pushed me away from him and gently shook my shoulders. “Your father shouldn’t have sent a familiar to you in the first place.” His touch was gentle but his look was hard. “If you’re looking for someone to blame, blame your father for sending it. Or blame Seknecus for delivering it.”

I was mildly shocked by the intensity of Ari’s accusations. One didn’t usually go around casting aspersions on the executive of the Demon Council and the dean of demon affairs as cavalierly as Ari just had.

“I still failed her, Ari. My inexperience killed Serafina as much as my eagerness or my magic.”

“Serafina killed herself. Any demon who attacks, or attempts to attack, a Hyrke is to be executed. That’s the law. The demons’ rules are not to be broken.”

“But did she know that? She was a familiar. They’re known for their jealousy, not their intellect.”

“Does it matter?”

I made an impatient, frustrated sound and tried to pull away, but Ari wouldn’t let me.
No, it didn’t matter. I knew that, as surely as I knew there were 899 other sins without sanction that would get you executed in Halja, whether you knew about them or not.
It was unfair. It was unjust. It was Halja.

“It matters to me,” I finally said, looking down at the floor. “Demon or no, Serafina was a living thing. I didn’t want to kill her, even if it was to protect a friend.”

A
bout an hour later, Bryony met us in the kitchen.

“She’s sleeping. And she’ll be fine,” she added, after looking at me and correctly guessing what I most wanted to know. “So what happened? Was it…” Bryony’s voice trailed off as her hands crept to her throat. Her earlier burns were nearly gone, only the faintest shadow of the two thumbprints remained.

“No,” Ari said. “It wasn’t the same demon that attacked you.” He glanced at me. “This was… an accident.”

Bryony’s eyes widened, but then she gave Ari an affectionate smile. “I didn’t think you had accidents. Is it safe to say the demon’s no longer a threat?”

“It was my fault,” I said quickly, before Ari could answer for me again. “I… Well, it was a demon familiar and I…”

What? I didn’t bother to read the warning materials my father suggested before opening my “gift”? I thought it would be a good idea to cozy up with a deadly demon I couldn’t control and then introduce her to my friend?

“The demon’s no longer a threat,” I said in a flat tone.

Bryony raised her eyebrows at me. “
You
took care of a demon threat? How’d you do that?”

I grimaced, recalling. “With waning magic. I’m a Maegester-in-Training with Ari at St. Luck’s.” I forced my tone and facial expression to stay neutral. Bryony was beautiful, and she was an old girlfriend of Ari’s,
and
she had the one thing in the whole world I wanted: waxing magic. But the last thing she deserved from me were snide remarks or sneers. She’d healed Ivy when I couldn’t.

She stared at me. I braced for the inevitable: revulsion, amusement, and pity were all things I was prepared to see in her returning gaze. Since
curiosity
wasn’t one of them, she ended up surprising me almost as much as I did her. I realized she didn’t even know my name.

“I’m Noon Onyx,” I said. I didn’t offer my hand. I wasn’t sure she’d accept it.

“Oh,” she said, “I know who you are. Your father was the one who saved me from the
rogare
demon who attacked me at the train station.”

“I know.” Thank Luck he had. Not just for Bryony’s sake, but for Ivy’s as well.

“I spoke with him earlier today.”

“My father? What about?”

“I think Peony’s missing.” She’d answered my question, but was looking at Ari when she said it.

“Who’s Peony?” I asked, confused by the sudden turn in the conversation.

“A friend of mine from the Gaia Tribe,” Bryony said.

“When did you last see her?” Ari asked.

“The last time I saw you. At Marduk’s.” She looked at me again, this time more piercingly. I guessed she was remembering that she’d seen me before. And perhaps was realizing why Ari had broken it off. I wondered when
curiosity
would change to
antagonism
. Things suddenly clicked for me too. Peony must be the other Mederi that had been with them that night, the pretty brunette with the ash-colored eyes and the dimple in her chin.

Now she was missing too?
That couldn’t be good.

“Do you know if she was planning on returning to Farro anytime soon?” I asked.

Farro was the Gaia Tribe’s southern outpost, just as Maize was Demeter’s and Emmer was Hawthorn’s.

“I don’t know,” Bryony said. “Why do you think it’s important?”

“I’m not sure. But three Mederies have been attacked so far. Amaryllis Apatite, Laurel Scoria, and you. You and Laurel were attacked at or near the New Babylon Train Station and Amaryllis was last seen boarding the North-South Express at the southern terminal. I just wonder if the train station’s the link.”

“Why would the train station be the link?” Bryony asked. “It’s a demon that’s responsible. At least, it was a demon that attacked me.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I’m just wondering who the patron demon of the train station is and if anyone’s checked in on
him
lately.”

“There is no patron demon of the train station,” Ari said. “No demon would watch over something built to house metal machines.”

Oh. Right. Well, it had been stupid of me to think I might find a link that everyone else missed. If Bryony had already notified my father, there wasn’t much more anyone could do. As estranged as my father and I were, even I had to admit that Karanos Onyx was the person best equipped to bring whichever
rogare
demon was responsible to justice.

O
n the way out, Ari embraced Bryony. I saw in her face that she’d hoped for more, but he released her quickly and headed straight for me. Ari’s hand crept to the back of my neck and gently kneaded the knotted muscles there while we made our farewells. I gave the Mederi my honest gratitude as she looked first at me, then Ari, and back again. She seemed to come to some kind of understanding and accepted my thanks far more graciously than I would have in her circumstances. Ari’s possessive gesture made no sense at all. Beautiful, talented Bryony could give him so much more than I could. I could offer him nothing more than he already had.

We brought Ivy home in a cab, heavily sedated with an herbal medicine. On the way, she slept curled up against the door and I sat in the middle, almost asleep myself. Just before we pulled up to Megiddo, Ari pulled me close and kissed the top of my head.

“I’ve never met anyone who is as strong as you—or as soft,” he whispered. “I don’t know what’s more unbelievable, the fact that you were able to execute your first demon without getting hurt or the fact that it broke your heart.”