The Marked Girl (25 page)

A
s soon as Liv hung up the phone, she turned to see Shannon staring at her with wide eyes.

“Are you insane?”

“Possibly.”

The metal door to the room creaked open, and Liv quickly tucked the phone into her back pocket. A pair of hulking wraths entered and stood on either side of the door. Neither of them bothered to speak to the trio of girls chained to the floor.

“And how are our guests faring?” a voice asked from the doorway. He was half-slouched, shielding one arm against his torso while the other hung down past his waist. When he stepped into the light, Liv could see his shoulder-length, stringy white hair. His deep brown eyes went right to Liv.

“A bit uncomfortable, to be honest,” Liv said, rattling her chain.

The man chuckled. “I apologize for your rude reception, but I think you'll understand that these are exceptional circumstances.” He gave her a small smile that only turned up
the corners of his lips. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Malquin.”

Cedric and the others had talked about Malquin plenty of times, but they'd never described what he looked like. Liv had always pictured someone large and imposing, like the villain in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Or maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger himself. But in reality, the hunched form of Malquin couldn't have been more than five-foot-seven, and his twisted body couldn't take so much as an arm-wrestling match against Cedric. This was who they had all been so afraid of?

And yet, Malquin was the reason she was in chains.

“What do you want from us?” Liv croaked.

Malquin moved closer to Liv, pulling over one of the wooden crates with his leg and taking a seat.

“That, my dear, is a long and complicated story,” he said. “But the short version is etched across your back.”

Liv put all of her effort into not glancing at Daisy, though Malquin likely knew about her markings, also. She tried to slow her breathing, not wanting to show Malquin how scared she was. “How did you find us?”

“I was told where you'd be,” Malquin said. “Loyalty is a funny thing. A fluid thing, I have found. Even those who are truly loyal, who love their friends, their family, their home . . . even they will break if the correct pressure is applied. Or the correct price is offered.”

Liv's head snapped up involuntarily. “So you knew where we'd be tonight . . . and the cops . . .”

“The prince has an annoying way of slowing down my
soldiers, and I grew tired of waiting. Having the police separate him from you seemed an expedient solution.” Malquin leaned forward, and Liv retreated in revulsion. “Delegation, dear, is the mark of a true leader.”

“Who gave us up?” Liv asked. She ran through the possibilities in her mind, but nothing made sense. Kat would sooner fall on her own sword than betray Cedric. Then again, she hadn't exactly been shy about her dislike of Liv . . . would Kat give her up to Malquin if he promised her a quicker ticket home? And what about Merek? Would he think twice about double-crossing his friends?

Malquin gave his small smile again, one that showed no teeth. He waved one finger in front of Liv. “My own loyalty is not that easily cast aside.”

Liv shook her head again, willing herself to focus. “Why? Why do all this?” She gestured to her chains. “You have to know I'll never do anything to help you.”

Malquin's eyes slid slowly over first to Daisy, who cowered away, and then to Shannon. “Oh, I think you will.”

Shannon returned his gaze and jutted out her chin, but Liv could hear her ragged, uneven breath. She saw the greenish-yellow bruises on Shannon's face and swallowed back a throat full of bile. How could she have gotten Shannon involved in this? How selfish. How stupid. And why? Because she didn't want to deal with it on her own?

“Leave her alone,” Liv said.

“I'd really like to,” Malquin replied. He clapped his hands together lightly, then held them under his chin, as though he
was praying. “You needn't worry. I'm not going to ask anything of you that you cannot easily give. I only need you to help me open a portal.”

Liv's gaze slid over to the two wraths who were standing on either side of the door.

“I know where they came from,” Liv said. “And where you came from. What's wrong with the portal that got you here?”

Malquin sighed. “It's too small.”

Liv shook her head in confusion.

“One person—one very special person—can open a door between worlds, it's true. But that's not the way the system was meant to work. I didn't understand that, at first. I had to learn it the hard way. I was foolish and arrogant and, well, young. Almost as young as you.” Malquin smiled again, but his eyes were somewhere else, remembering. “I believed that because I was born special, I could use what power I had to go wherever I pleased. But the universe taught me otherwise.”

Malquin brought his bent, withered arm in closer to his body. It seemed an unconscious movement, almost like a twitch.

“I paid for my arrogance.”

Something clicked in Liv's mind. Arrogance. Her mouth dropped open, and her head jerked up in shock. Everything began to fall into place—how Malquin knew to use the police in his plan, how the wraths managed so easily in this world, as if someone was teaching them how. And now, with his own words, Malquin was as good as admitting it.

“You're not from Caelum. You're from here,” she said. “You're Joe's brother.”

Malquin just cocked his head and smiled. “I was. Once.”

“Oh my God,” Shannon whispered.

“You already know the beginning of my story, it seems,” Malquin said.

Another idea came to Liv. Malquin seemed like the kind of man who liked to talk, like a scenery-chewing, veteran actor savoring every word of his monologue. If she could just keep him going long enough . . .

“I don't know everything,” Liv said. “Joe said you died when you went through that portal.”

Malquin laughed, then gestured to himself with one hand. “Clearly, that was not the case.” He glanced again at his useless arm. “I almost died, though. I had no idea the portal would take so much from me. I didn't understand enough about it.”

“And now you do?” Liv asked, keeping her voice steady, trying to sound controlled and curious.

“I know much, much more, now. There's a reason the children of the scrolls are always born in groups of three, for instance,” Malquin said. “Those ancient Knights who turned the first humans into keys knew what they were doing. They divided the power up into three, both as a fail-safe—so no one man could permanently open up the distance between worlds—and as a necessity. Because human beings are fragile by nature, and one body alone cannot sustain the amount of magic it takes to control portal energy.”

Malquin shook his head and let out a low chuckle. But it was one devoid of real humor. “I was foolish to open that first portal when I did.” Malquin's face hardened. “Though if my
brother had actually come through it with me when I needed him to, things might have gone differently. . . .”

Malquin shrugged and flicked his good wrist, as if batting away a fly. But Liv could see through him. The anger that had flared up in his eyes at the mention of Joe hadn't really faded.

“On the other end of the portal, I found myself in a new world. But I was broken. Even with all of the magic that Caelum possesses, it took me years to heal. And it wasn't the Guardians who took me in, those so-called paragons of virtue. No, they mocked me, called me insane. But not the wraths. And I discovered that for all its magic, Caelum was a lot like Earth. Those who were in power abused it, held their might over the oppressed. But I knew who could help the wraths find justice. Me.”

Malquin's eyes flared again, but he didn't seem angry—he seemed excited, proud. Liv seized on the brief pause in his story. “You rose up against Cedric's family.”

“The Guardians were due for an uprising,” Malquin said. “Of course, there were other reasons to lead a rebellion. The royals had blocked off my first portal, the one I originally came through. They extended their palace walls around it so no one could touch it, like the greedy hoarders they are.”

“So you went looking for it,” Liv said.

“I honestly didn't know what I would do when I found it. I didn't know if it would work, or if it would try to crush me once again. For years, I'd searched Caelum for answers, until I found a mage—an old crone living in the Southern Hills. She explained why I wasn't able to open a second portal back
to Earth on my own. As there is magic in Caelum, so there is on Earth. But here, it is older, and more dangerous. It is more powerful than any of the parlor tricks you'll find in Caelum. Humans don't know about magic because the Earth is so old, it has found ways to conceal those powers.”

“The Quelling Theory,” Liv breathed. She remembered Professor Billings's face across the desk in his office, his kindly and academic tone as he told her the theory of how Earth quelled its magic. It was odd to think of that version of him, now that she knew the truth of who he was.

Malquin's mouth split into a smile. “Been doing a little homework of your own? Yes, the Earth itself prevented me from opening a new portal on my own that would take me back here. As hard as I tried, I was blocked again and again. This damned place just doesn't want to let magic back in. The only option was to go back through the way I came, through the first portal. Which meant I needed a way into the palace.”

“Because that portal stayed open?”

“Yes,” Malquin tilted his head. “Opening a portal from Earth to Caelum is like splitting a window screen in half—it creates a permanent tear. Caelum wears its magic on the surface, and a portal's tear is visible and permanent. But Earth hides the tear. Those with magic can feel it, but no one can see it.”

The words rocked through Liv's brain. The only portal she knew of was the one Cedric and his friends had come through—the one under the bridge at the LA River. The place where, years before, Joe had watched his brother disappear. The place had always felt special to Liv, in a way that felt intensely personal.
Could she sense the magic there, even though it was hidden? It was a disconcerting thought, that even before she knew what her tattoo really was, she was being slowly guided by forces she didn't understand.

Malquin seemed to mistake Liv's silence for confusion.

“The Earth quells magic at every opportunity, or else hides it well.”

Something else clicked in Liv's mind. “The wraths . . .”

“Yes, it's also why the wraths are able to pass as humans in this world. As soon as they come through from the portal, their true appearance is hidden.”

“Not hidden enough,” Liv murmured, thinking of the coal-black eyes and sharpened claws of the wraths.

“They're well hidden from those who aren't tainted with magic as you are,” Malquin replied.

There it was, again. Liv could see the wraths because she had magic in her, and she always had. She'd always been different.

“Once I was in the castle,” Malquin continued, “I had intended to use the portal myself, after the Guardians were subdued. The royal children merely . . . beat me to it. As soon as the palace was secure and I sent a couple of wraths ahead of me safely to track them, I decided to follow. But I had discovered why the portal wouldn't cooperate for me as easily it had for the royals. It was mere coincidence that I discovered it—when one of my wraths was accidentally shot before the royals crossed over, and his blood spilled on the ground, it suddenly made sense. We humans can open the portals, but only those with wrath blood are allowed to cross through safely. Guardians, and the wraths
themselves. That is why the first crossing nearly destroyed me. To cross unharmed a second time . . . I needed their blood.”

“Wait,” Liv said. She wanted to keep him talking, keep him going for as long as possible. Malquin remained seated. “If you were able to use the . . . the blood . . . and cross through the portal, bringing wraths with you here, what do you need me for at all?”

Malquin clasped his hands together again, the strong one over the weak, gnarled one, as if protecting it. “The portal I opened all those years ago on my own is very small—and unstable—and Earth's quelling magic only lets a few pass from Caelum to here at any time before it closes up again. Many of the wraths who tried to cross together were lost to the space between worlds. And I need more than just a handful of wrath spies and guards. I need an army of my own.”

“An . . . an army?” Liv asked, suddenly feeling sick.

“Well, yes. I didn't help the wraths rise to power in Caelum out of the goodness of my heart, after all. We had a deal. I would use my knowledge of Caelum's main city to help them infiltrate its walls and defenses. And if the portal still worked, half of their forces would come through with me.”

“Why?” Liv breathed.

Malquin narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. “This is the part I think you'll like very much. For years, as I rebuilt my strength in Caelum and dreamed of returning, do you know what was foremost in my thoughts?”

Liv shook her head.

“Not my parents, who never believed me when I told them I was special; not my brother, who abandoned me. It was the
Knights.” Malquin again leaned forward, his face close to Liv's. He smiled, but it was an angry, dark smile.

“The Knights of Valere. I still remember the faces of the men who grabbed me off the street. I remember how they knocked my brother out with a single blow to the head. Eric was just eight years old, you know. When the Knight hit him, there was something in the man's expression . . . something almost like glee.”

Liv remembered seeing the same expression on the professor's face as he told her, calmly, that he was going to kill her. She felt her jaw tighten with anger, and Malquin saw it. He nodded, pleased.