Page 87 of Mud

I wouldn’t, though. There were four of them, each twice my size, and armed. My hands were cuffed, but that’s not the reason why I knew I’d lose. It was the magic that ran in their veins. Magic, which, even if it were the weakest, it was stillmorethan what I had.

Yet at the sight of that man-made rainbow, not being able to run away didn’t seem like such a big deal just now. Because what if I could actually get close to those colors, to thatlife—so beautiful and vibrant and full? What if I could soak up all those colors, all that energy, and indeed return my magic to its original state the way Madeline hoped I could?

Fuck,now that I was looking at it, it didn’t seem so impossible. Now that I could actually see the Rainbow with my own eyes, it was almost like I could touch it. Like I could find it. Like I would spend a lifetime chasing it if I had to.

The guards dragged me closer to the playground.

They said elves and orcs dug over ten thousand acresfor three years without stop to create it. The base arena where the game took place was an ellipse, so big they had space to create just about anything they wanted for each coven. The seating tiers began about a hundred feet overhead, and they fit close to ninetythousandpeople comfortably. It was a city of its own, this playground.

Rats,I’d thought the first time I saw a picture of the Iris Roe in Madeline’s newspapers. People were poured like rats into this maze-like setting nobody could really see clearly, while others sat above them and watched and laughed at their misfortune, made wagers and bets on their lives.

Just like rats in a lab—and now I was about to be one of them.

Then the Rainbow began to slip down into the ground.

The people cheered. So many of them were already in their seats that the ground shook and groaned from their cheering. We were far away, and the tiers rose another thirty feet above ground level all around the edges of the playground, so I could only make out the Rainbow through the tall gates in between the seats that served to let in the players.

It was now almost completelyinsidethe mountain, and to let those colors out again, a player had to get there with five keys, according to Billy Dayne. Five keys, only five. It wasn’timpossible,was it?

I thought for sure the guards were going to drag me to those gates, to the people waiting in line to get in—but no. They took me toward the other side, deeper into the crowd of people all rushing toward the Iris Roe, while the fireworks exploding over the audience began to slow down and fade, too.

“Are we going to the Redfire gate?” I asked because now that I couldn’t see the playground at all because of the highwall that surrounded it, the nerves were getting the best of me. My entire body was shaking with fear. With sheer panic.

“No,” the guard dragging me by the arm said.

“So, where are we going?” And did I want to try my luck at escaping?

They could kill me if I did. I wouldn’t mind it—I was already a dead woman walking.

But…what if I wasn’t? I hadn’t believed Madeline when she said it, but now that I’d seen those colors on that Rainbow, everything seemed so possible. Sothrilling.It gave me twice as much hope as those weapons on my vanity table had in the morning.

The guard didn’t answer me. He just dragged me all around the outer walls of the Iris Roe, past the Greenfire gates where there had to have been at least a hundred players waiting in line, and deeper still to an area with no light and no people walking by. No stands selling food or drinks, no tents with performers in them, no games, no nothing—just darkness and trees on our left, and a large wall on our right.

My ears were already used to the screaming crowds sitting on the other side of that wall. The colors of that rainbow were still imprinted on the back of my lids so that I saw them every time I closed my eyes.

My father used to tell me that anything was possible with magic, but I’d stopped believing that a short time after he and Mom passed away. Because it wasn’t true. Not everything was possible with magic. Bringing them back wasn’t. Making my grandmother love me wasn’t. Being happy wasn’t.

But maybe undoing what was done to me in those woods was. Maybe those colors were a promise that I couldactually get my magic back, after all—and who was I to deny myselflife?

My decision was made for me soon enough, though. Because they were not going to get me in through one of the five gates of the playground.

They were going to get me in through the backdoor.

“What the…”

My voice trailed off when a door suddenly opened on the dark wall without warning, and only a dim source of red light lit up the darkness of the night. Two men were on either side of it, and they were waiting for us to approach.

The guards who’d been leading us stopped. They both took out theirs guns from under their suit jackets, then turned around and stepped to the sides to let us through.

“Make it quick,” the one in the right said to the one dragging me forward, but he got no response.

The men waiting for us by that door looked terrified as they held their red flashlights in their hands.

“Payment first,” said the one wearing a red and black bandana on his head.

The guard who’d been behind me stepped to my other side and handed him an envelope without words. A really thick envelope without a single drop of ink on it. The bandana guy held the flashlight between his teeth and eagerly grabbed the envelope, while the guard offered an identical one to his friend, too.

I couldn’t decide which was funnier—the fact that I was beingsmuggledinto the Iris Roe by my grandmother’s guards or the fact that I was hoping to actually see the end of it alive.

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