Page 2 of Magic of Sins

Why, you might ask? To be honest, I don’t really know myself. Maybe because my boss at the library reprimanded me at lunchtime today, supposedly for looking a customer in the eye for too long. Or because my foster mother gave me her usual lecture on virtuous behavior during our phone call. Whatever it was, when Ava came into my room and asked me if I wanted to accompany her to the party, I was so annoyed that I said yes.

While I’m still standing next to the checkroom with my arms folded in front of my chest, Ava has already handed in our coats. Her dress leaves her shoulders and arms bare. That’s more skin than I’ve ever seen on her before. Like her face, her arms are covered in freckles. Ava grins when she notices my gaze.

“Not everyone can have your perfect complexion. Come on, let’s get something to drink!”

She takes my hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world and pulls me along with her. I stumble after her to the bar. The floor under my boots is sticky from spilled alcohol. A guy pushes so close to me that my shoulder brushes his chest. He smells of cigarette smoke and breath mints. Instinctively I take a step back. Touching like this is normally forbidden.

But not here. Not in this place.

“You’ll get used to it,” Ava yells in my ear.

She is amused by my obvious reservation, and that annoys me a little. If she were in my shoes, she would probably behave the same way. She’d be more aware of the danger that can come from a party like this.

My mother was killed by sin mages. I was very young at the time, so I don’t really remember her. But a part of me sometimes gets lost in wondering what happened. Had she been seduced into practicing vanity? Anger? Or lust? Was she perhaps even in a place like this when it happened? Did she party too exuberantly? Did she lose control?

We humans don’t immediately notice when a sin mage feeds on us, and they only succeed if the underlying feeling is already present. If someone is angry and a sin mage feeds on them, that feeling is amplified. I’ve heard of people murdering their entire family in a fit of anger, or of some eating themselves to death. Sometimes it’s the opposite they die because they’ve stopped taking in nourishment due to laziness.

Not that Ava seems to be thinking about any of that at the moment. She waves to the man behind the bar and orders for us.

“First the tequila and then the lemon,” she says, and hands me one of the shot glasses and a slice of lemon.

I eye the clear liquid but follow Ava’s lead and empty the glass, though the voice in my head harshly condemns me for it.

Showing skin, grazing someone else’s body, drinking alcohol… What’s next, Kaya? Do you want to follow in your mother’s footsteps?

The tequila burns unpleasantly in my throat, and the tartness of the lemon tightens my tongue. I grimace. Ava laughs, and I wonder why we’re forbidden to do such things. It’s not a very pleasant experience, and I’m certainly not in danger of gorging myself on lemons.

Ava orders two more shots, and we down them. I relax a little, feeling the bass vibrate through the ground beneath my feet. It all feels so alive. Garish and loud and wild.

“Come on, let’s dance!” Ava calls out.

I find myself walking behind her onto the dance floor. I blame the alcohol. Suddenly it doesn’t bother me anymore to stand between all these people and be exposed to their looks. On the contrary, it fills me with fascination. I raise my hands above my head and watch the light from the many small spotlights dance across my skin.

We move to the beat of the music; rhythms I’ve never heard before. They originate from the colonies. Those places where sinners live. People who don’t obey our laws. Who eat what they like, don’t care about a proper dress code, and who take physical contact for granted. The music is just like them—unreserved and uninhibited.

And so is the crowd. Every now and then I discover something new that makes my cheeks glow with shame. Long, false eyelashes and black mascara highlighting a girl’s green eyes. A snake tattoo on a muscular upper arm. A gold tiara in another woman’s blonde hair.

Splendor. Seduction. Ostentation.

A machine blows fog onto the dance floor and suddenly I can barely see Ava. The light refracts on the billowing white. I feel limbs fleetingly brush against me, and panic rises inside me. We can’t lose each other. Ava is my lifeline, the only familiar thing in this strange place.

Then—a hand on my arm.

Ava,I think, relieved.

But the fingers are longer and stronger. They close around my wrist. Not tightly, but with vigor. I’m pulled so close to another body that I can feel its warmth without touching it. It feels exciting. Through the fog, I make out a white shirt with its topbuttons undone. I catch a glimpse of taut skin, bulging muscles…

And recoil.

What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?

I snatch my arm away from him without looking up. His fingers glide over my palm, warm and soft, before releasing my hand. The mist and the dancers swallow me and I’m carried away from him and spit back out at the edge of the dance floor. My chest rises and falls under my frantic breaths. I look around for Ava but can’t spot her anywhere.

What was I thinking, coming here? The guy could have been a sin mage. What if he had fed on me, made me do things?

Images flash in my mind. Me, nestling against his chest. Our bodies entwined, swaying to the beat of the music. The images terrify me even more than reality could. This place is doing something to me. It creeps under my skin and into my thoughts.

I gotta get out of here.

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