Page 42 of The Illuminated
We were back in front of the unassuming building in Le Marais marked 123.
“Let’s get this over with,” Daelon said, and his posture stiffened as we walked forward.
I watched him closely, waiting for any noticeable shift. He chanted something to the locks, bending them to his will. The door opened with a creak, and after a short hallway came a door to our left and a spiral staircase that reached another door above.
I followed Daelon up the steps, and my magick came alive as my pulse quickened. My senses were heightened, picking up on each facet of reality like a predator would in the midst of a hunt. Daelon was at the door now, and I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’t what happened next.
With a blast of fiery magick he threw the door off its hinges, and I recognized the mark of Lucius’s power, fortifying and expanding what the Universe had given Daelon naturally. Just like my power, Lucius’s could be lent to his followers in a way that defied the natural balance.
Bits of wood and dust billowed into the air as the door fell, crashing onto the tile inside the apartment.
“Was that really necessary?” I asked, but Daelon didn’t seem to hear me. He moved like a robotic soldier.
“Stop channeling,” he commanded, his eyes hooded and impersonal. “I’m wasting power covering up yours.”
I cocked my head, defiance heating my blood. Daelon had commanded me to do things plenty of times, always in my best interest, but certainly in infuriating ways on occasion. But he had never, ever, spoken to me likethat.
He stalked past a kitchen with pots and plates haphazardly strewn about on the counter, and I followed him through a hallway into a dark room. The only light came from the windows in the back and a lamp on a wooden desk covered in various open books, loose papers with scribbles and drawings, an open bottle of whiskey, and some kind of map. The walls to the right and left were lined with rows and rows of books, and the far wall had a window overlooking a small terrace.
In the desk chair was the man Daelon had shown me, his hands gripping the edge of the desk as he gaped at us. His face was puffy and wrinkled, his eyes an eerily light blue that was almost white. He wore a long-sleeved blue shirt stained in more than one place.
His energy was the strangest I’d ever felt, like an empty shell, sort of resembling an energy vampire’s but without the power stolen from others. It was just void, its colors dim and swirling around in a confused dance. I sensed a deep well of pain, but above all, I detected the thick black sheath of shame that swallowed up anything and everything else. His fear and regret soured my tongue. I quickly shut it out of my perception so I could focus.
“An angel?” he asked, slowly rising from the desk. “Or a goddess…”
“Sit down,” Daelon barked at him, putting an arm out to prevent me from moving closer.
But the man just sank to his knees. “Your light is so blinding. Is this man holding you captive?”
“Hardly,” I said, shooting Daelon a look of warning. “But he is starting to get on my nerves.”
Daelon shrugged off his backpack, pulling out rope that glowed with magick on the frequency of binding or stifling. He also held a dagger that shone with a much harsher black magick.
“Daelon,” I hissed, but he ignored me as he moved to the man who just crawled closer, muttering nonsense about angels and the heavens. I was pretty sure we could talk to him without resorting to torture right off the bat.Or at all.
But Daelon had been right, as I looked at his face and into his eyes—I couldn’t seehimanymore. He looked like someone who was prepared to get what he wanted quickly and efficiently, no matter the cost.
“You’ve come to absolve me, finally. You are the one I’ve been waiting for. You will forgive me of my sins, Goddess of Spring… please relieve me of this inescapable winter…”
Daelon grabbed him roughly, throwing him back in the chair. The man didn’t fight, refusing to move his eyes from mine.
“Look atme,” Daelon instructed. “You opened up to the wrong witches, Tomas, in your pitiful, human-like drunkenness.” He spat out the words in disgust, still clutching the rope and dagger.
The man hunched over then looked to Daelon ashamedly. “That was a misunderstanding. It was the madness of this realm. It holds me in its grip. I’m nothing. No one.”
“You said you still felt your coven, the people of Iciera. That you wanted to go back to them. That you knew the way,” Daelon said like he was mindlessly reading a script.
Daelon was right to worry that this mission was about Lucius’s evil conquests. Or maybe he knew all along, and that thought was more than troubling. But if Iciera remained an intact coven like the home I’d sensed Cyrus had returned to, then I couldn’t let Lucius know where to find it.
Daelon grabbed Tomas’s wrists, tightly binding them behind the chair.
“It was just a delusion. I just wanted to go home, finally. I’ve served my time,” he said as if he was pleading with me—as if I somehow had the power to grant his wish. “But my home is gone. The realm has been destroyed. There’s nothing left for me. I know that now.”
“He’ll talk to me, Daelon,” I said sharply as he shifted the blade in his hand like it was a toy. I promised we would get through this, but I couldn’t help the terror growing in my gut at the sight of him like this. This man I didn’t recognize. “Let me try.”
“No. You aren’t to be involved,” he said, and the disgust that laced his words drove shards of ice into my heart.
I grabbed his shoulders. “Iaminvolved. Lucius insisted I be involved.”
