Page 32 of A Door in the Dark

There was no way for Ren to hide her reaction at this distance. She should have known. The way Clyde had tried to catch her attention in the portal room. How flushed she’d been at the party. It was hard to comprehend that someone like Timmons would ever settle for someone like Clyde Winters.

“He was there. And I was there. We were both high. I don’t know. His family’s been secretly courting me. Harder than anyone else. They recently offered his hand in marriage. I knew I didn’t have to decide right away, but it was the best prospect I’d been given so far. The second-born son of one of the wealthiest houses. He was my age and decently handsome… or he was. Before…”

Ren decided not to point out what a prat he’d been in the waxway room. Or the fact that he’d hit Avy with a full-fledged combat spell. Timmons didn’t need criticism. Ren thought she understood, having no prospects herself. It must have been devastating for Timmons to lose her best chance at a future. Seeing Clyde dead on that forest floor changed everything.

“We will survive this. You’ll have other suitors. I promise.”

Timmons offered Ren a strange look.

“I’m not worried about my prospects. Clyde is dead. It’s not like I was in love with him or anything, but he’s dead, Ren. And it wasn’t an easy death. It wasn’t quick. He was burned from the inside out. I don’t know how long it went on. I have no idea how much pain he felt. But I know the screams we heard were his. I guess I’m just glad that he had one good thing. Before it ended.”

Ren nodded. “I’m sorry, Timmons. No darkness lasts for long.”

Her mother’s words. The two of them nestled together, silent for a time. There were night sounds. A few evening birds, singing their sad songs. Ren’s mind started to drift back to that first sighting of Clyde’s body, fouled by unspeakable magic. She needed to think of anything else.

“Remember the day we met?”

Timmons offered a pitiful snort. “How could I forget? You rescued me.”

It had been in an entry-level magical history class. The professor had called on Timmons, and she’d offered up a very incorrect answer about the Expansion. It was one of Ren’s favorite historical eras. Her Delvean ancestors had built up their citadels to the south. The Tusk were entrenched in the west. The rest of the continent felt too dangerous to explore. There were still a handful of dragons then. Other predators too. No one wanted to push the boundaries of the map.

Until the true nature of magic was discovered. One Delvean family had risen in power, their sons and daughters all particularly gifted with magic. The matriarch claimed it was hereditary. They were simply born with a talent for it. The lie was disproven only because a boy snuck onto their farm as a dare. He fell through a hidden door in one of the barns and landed in the very first magic-harvesting room that ever existed.

When others learned that magic came from the ground—and that anyone could dig down and find it—a quarter of the city’s population set out like explorers in a fairy tale, all in search of buried treasure. There were two particularly famous groups. The first sailed too far north, landing in fertile farm country but finding no magical veins. The second group of magic-barons were the ones who landed in what would one day become Kathor. It was pure guesswork, but fate rewarded them with a bounty that had lasted for generations.

“You said the barons were religious zealots,” Ren recalled.

That earned another snort. “I don’t know why I said that. Maybe I got them confused with that one Tusk group that eventually sailed around the northern tip of the continent? I don’t know! I was nervous! Why the hell did they have to call on me first?”

Ren smiled at the memory. “Eryn Shiverian was the one who corrected you.”

“Oh, I remember. That rhyming-named, uptight brat. She was so smug about it too. ‘Actually, the motivation was purely monetary.’ Blah, blah, ‘there was only one priest on board,’ blah, blah.”

It was true. The Expansion was very much about money. That era was also referred to as the Age of Man. It represented the greatest decline of religious interest in Delvean history. It hadn’t been easy to summon a reasonable defense of Timmons’s answer, but Ren had attempted it anyway.

“Eryn never saw you coming,” Timmons whispered. “Did she? I still remember you raising your hand. I thought—I don’t know. I thought you might pile it on. But you were the only one in that room who wasn’t laughing at me. You looked so… angry.”

“I was angry,” Ren whispered back.

“And you spun the most outlandish argument I’ve ever heard to defend me.”

Ren laughed. “It shut up Eryn Shiverian, though, didn’t it?”

Timmons had no idea that Eryn had bullied Ren for the rest of the semester. Eventually she’d grown bored—but Ren had learned then what it meant to wield her knowledge against someone with one of those five famous last names. She’d never told Timmons because she hadn’t wanted to taint the memory of the moment they’d become best friends.

“It was nice,” Ren whispered. “Knowing you weren’t one of them.”

Timmons nodded. “It was nice knowing the smartest person in the room had my back.”

“Always. You know, we’re going to get home, Timmons. Together.”

The two of them fell silent. Ren found it difficult to believe her own words. The surrounding darkness offered no comfort. The shadowed mountains promised no easy passage. Deep down she knew the only true relief would come when they walked through the front gates of Kathor again. They had to survive what had killed one of them already. It was the only way out.

19

It’s all the same after a certain point. Chain spells and outlawed magic. I’ll probably get a taste of all of it on the front lines.”

Avy had been going on for a while now. Ren couldn’t even remember who’d started the conversation. A classic undergrad question about what everyone was majoring in. Cora’s focus was on anatomical magic. A clear-cut surgeon who particularly liked the brain.

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