The usually musty air of the basement now held a decidedly bitter stink from pages curling and smoking where my pencil made repeated patterns. Pencil lead held little permanence, preventing my patterns from doing too much damage. My hand cramped from the repetition, and my mind hummed with symbols I’d never imagined attempting, let alone managed to create. It had been years since I’d worked this hard.
Taylor leaned over the long desk, black hair tinted with streaks of blue ink hanging in front of her eyes. She had shown up in Conlin a while back, seemingly out of nowhere, asking for help finding her father. Using enormous painter magic, she had nearly released a nightmare into the city when she tried to open a gate to cross the Threshold. I still wondered if she felt remorse. Maybe working with me was her way of paying me back for saving her ass.
The desk she leaned on had patches of brighter wood where books had once been stacked, but had since been placed back on the shelves lining the rest of the unfinished basement. A pile of notebooks was now stacked neatly on the edge of the desk, and a bundle of freshly sharpened pencils rested atop them.
“You’re getting closer,” she said.
Her breath smelled of spearmint gum and black tea, an unusual combination. I mean, how could she stomach combining the two?
I rubbed my temples and shook my head. “Not close enough. I can’t get this angle to look quite right.” I pointed to a page in the notebook spread out in front of me, my attempts next to a series of shapes my father had drawn down the page—a lesson on how to create the complicated pattern I attempted. With each step, I got closer, but still had barely progressed beyond the middle of the page.
“Look, Oliver, you’re still almost a dozen pages in. Consider that a success,” Taylor said.
I glanced up at her. Those deep brown eyes looking at me, seemingly questing for forgiveness. After nearly releasing hunters on my city, creatures who fed on magical ability, it was hard to move past it. Her taking the time to work with me on the patterns was a start.
“How long did it take you to complete?”
She dropped her eyes back to the notebook. “It’s not a competition.”
I snorted. “Not a close one.”
I’m what’s known as a tagger, someone with magical ability but no real artistic sense. I can work with patterns—and some, like the arcane patterns I’d learned on the other side of the Threshold, I had mastered—but don’t have the same ability that Taylor has achieved. Still skilled and better than having no talent, but I’d seen how easily Taylor mastered patterns like these.
And what I had was nothing like the true magic of those on the other side of the Threshold. The Threshold separated our world from another where those with true magic lived, essentially a filter that required specific locations and enormous power to cross, holding magic where it belonged. My best friend Devan was one of the Te’alan, basically elves or fairies or whatever you’d want to call them, and possessed more magic than anything I could accomplish, but there were limits to what she could do, especially when it came to using magic to attack. For some reason, my magic didn’t share those limitations.
There were other dangerous and deadly creatures on the other side of the Threshold. Serving under the Trelking—Devan’s father and ruler of the Te’alan—I had fought them for nearly a decade before finally managing to escape with Devan. Now I wanted peace, a chance to learn enough to keep us safe, and maybe to find out what had really happened to my father the night he’d disappeared.
Taylor picked up one of the pencils and pulled a pad toward her. As she worked, making pattern after pattern, I felt the power she fused to the page. She was an artist—a painter of exquisite skill who could use her paintings to augment and infuse magical power into what she created. Were she still in Arcanus, the place where painters went to discover their abilities, she would have been considered practically master level.
It had been a week since we’d survived the hunter attack. During that time, I’d mostly slept, trying to recover from nearly dying, but when awake, I practiced the patterns in this notebook, working through them with a fervor that bordered on obsession. The notebook had been my father’s, a man they called the Elder. If I didn’t begin to understand some of his work, I’d never survive the powers chasing my best friend Devan and me.
I made another attempt at the pattern, working down the page and following the instructions. The pattern was for summoning. I knew because we’d used it in the park to summon the other patterns on the sculptures. Patterns like this had other uses, as well. Mastering it could lead me to better understanding what my father was studying before he disappeared.
This time, I nearly made it all the way down the page before I felt the pattern begin to fizzle, sending curls of smoke up from the page. I slapped at it absently.
I set the pencil down and rested my hands on the table, shifting slightly in the chair. It was hard and uncomfortable, but it had been my father’s. Maybe I’d learn something sitting where he had once sat, enough to understand the purpose of this book, understand why he’d left it for me before disappearing, if not how to make each pattern. There had to be another reason for it, more than simply the statues in the park.
I studied the page, wishing I could get through this more easily. I was better with arcane patterns—hell, I was better than most with arcane patterns, but these weren’t arcane. Working in pencil had advantages, especially with paper. For one, it wasn’t permanent. The pattern could be erased before it did any real damage. And pencil didn’t have the same focus as ink. Ink gave more energy to each pattern, augmented the intent even more.
“When do you want to return to Arcanus?” I asked Taylor. Best to confront the elephant rather than leave it lie. Or maybe that was dogs. Whatever it was, I needed to figure out the plan, and that plan didn’t include Taylor staying in Conlin. It could include me staying here and studying—learning patterns from the Elder could only help me keep Devan alive—but Taylor still searched for her father, Hard. He was a master in Arcanus, and had disappeared a year ago behind a door covered with arcane patterns. The problem was, I wasn’t convinced he still lived. If he crossed the Threshold, he was probably dead. Or worse: he might have ended up like me, captured and forced to serve someone like Devan’s father. At least serving the Trelking had brought Devan and me together, and had increased my skills. I didn’t know what would happen to an Arcanus master on the other side of the Threshold.
Taylor paused her pattern, her pencil held precisely so she could pick up where she left off, and met my eyes. “I’m not going to return. I told you—”
“Yeah. You want to find your father. Or bring the hunters into Conlin.” I waved my hand at her as she opened her mouth to object. “But I’ve been on the other side of the Threshold,” I said, watching her to see if she understood. I still didn’t know how much she’d learned since leaving Arcanus in search of her father. A year spent trying to find a way through the door Hard had disappeared behind. I figured he’d crossed the Threshold, and if I hadn’t heard of it when I was still there, that meant he’d ended up somewhere outside the Trelking’s realm. And out there, he wouldn’t have found many places safe for a painter. “If Hard had been there, I would have known.”
She swallowed and crossed her arms over her chest. “I refuse to believe that he’s dead.”
I felt the same way about my father. That was part of the reason Devan and I had returned to Conlin. Not all of it, and not most of it, if I was being completely honest. Now after ten years without him, I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I actually found him. But I could learn from him, and anything that I could learn had the potential to help keep Devan safe.
“So you won’t help?”
“I’ll make sure you get to Arcanus,” I started, knowing that I wasn’t really ready for that. At least, not to go to Arcanus myself. When Devan and I had returned from the other side of the Threshold, I suspected I’d need to go at some point. I just hadn’t expected it would be so soon. But I wanted to get Taylor away from Conlin and keep her from trying to find the other ways around the city to cross the Threshold.
Taylor watched me. “You could return, too. The hall of doors—”
I shook my head. Taylor knew how to appeal to me. I couldn’t deny my interest in what was in that hall of doors she’d shown me, but that meant spending real time in Arcanus. There was no staying safe if I did that. “I don’t want anything to do with Arcanus. And it doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“But you’re the son of the Elder—”
“You think that matters, considering what I am?”
She frowned. “And what is that?”
I laughed and stretched my back, running my hands along my sides. “A tagger.”
“You keep calling yourself that, but you’re nothing like any tagger I’ve ever seen.”
I glanced toward the stairs, where I heard Devan coming down from above. “Only because of what I learned on the other side of the Threshold, what I was forced to learn from her father.” I hesitated saying more. After what had happened, I wasn’t sure how much I could trust Taylor just yet. Letting her learn of the power from the other side of the Threshold, the power Devan’s father possessed, had the potential to be dangerous. “Let’s just say there’s a reason neither of us wants to return.”
“What happened?”
“Ollie being an idiot.”
I looked over. Devan stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching me with an amused expression. She wore a lime green T-shirt with a faded lightning bolt across the chest. I still hadn’t figured out where she got her clothes. With Devan, it was possible she made them herself.
“You’re still free,” I said. “And not—”
I cut off as Devan came around the table and jabbed me in the side while glancing at my work. She tipped her head to the side as if a different angle would make the patterns look better. Then she shrugged.
“There is that,” Devan agreed. “Why else do you think I’m with you?”
“Who’s her father?” Taylor asked.
I watched Devan for a moment, wondering if she’d explain so that I didn’t have to. “You don’t want to know.”
Devan smiled widely. “That’s the Ollie I know. It’s taken you a week to get back your usually pissy attitude. And here I thought dying had changed you.”
“I didn’t die.” Not because I hadn’t been willing. The gods know, to stop the hunters and save Devan, I had been willing to do anything, including using the Death Pattern.
Devan raised her brow briefly. “Nope. And a good thing, too.”
“Why?” I asked carefully. When Devan got excited, things became complicated for me.
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
We followed Devan up the wooden stairs and out of the basement. My hand trailed along the symbols carved into the rail as I did, wondering, as I did each time I touched it, how long it had taken my father to make. The entire rail was designed to hold the door closed, merging with the patterns on the wall at the top of the stairs to hide and secure the basement. I couldn’t see them, but I suspected similar patterns were worked into the stone around the basement, as well. The entire house was like a magical fortress.
At the top of the stairs, she led us through the kitchen and out through the living room. At some point over the last week, someone had found an old sofa that folded out to a bed. Taylor had been sleeping on it, but kept it neatly folded up during the day. The sofa covered part of the circle carved into the living room’s hardwood floor, a place where I had taken to practicing, but I hadn’t really been in the mood to do much work.
Outside, the sun was high in the sky, giving needed warmth to the cool day. A steady breeze gusted in from the west, rustling leaves on the trees in the nearby park. Another couple of weeks, and the leaves would begin changing colors. I hadn’t been in Conlin for fall in well over ten years. Part of me actually looked forward to something as mundane as the changing of the seasons.
Devan moved with a quick step, her feet, as usual, leaving no mark on the dry lawn. She threw open the garage door and led us inside, where propane burned with a deep blue flame, heating the garage to an almost uncomfortable level. Big Red, the old, faded red Ford F150 was parked to the side with the hood up, making me wonder what else Devan might have done to it. The series of patterns and shapes she’d worked into it before Taylor ever appeared made it far more capable than the run-of-the-mill farm truck it resembled.
“Damn, Devan, not worried about burning down the garage?” I asked, turning down the flow of gas to her burner.
She placed her hands on her hips and glared at me. Though half my size, Devan was stronger than I was, both physically and magically, and someone like me wasn’t about to intimidate her. “If you blasting a two-hundred-foot pattern couldn’t destroy your house and garage, a little flame isn’t going to do anything.”
I laughed and then grabbed my side. Ribs were still cracked. At least one on the left, though I wondered if it might be more, injured when Jakes thought he’d needed to kick me away from the hunter. A gentle nudge would have sufficed, but I suspected Jakes didn’t do anything gently, not with the power he possessed as a shifter.
“I started repainting it,” I objected.
Devan leaned past me to peer out of the garage, her eyes sweeping over the siding on the house. “You’re just making it worse.”
I glanced over. She was right. “Well, I’m not my father.”
She punched me gently on the shoulder. “No. You’re Ollie the idiot.”
I rolled my eyes. “What did you want to show me?”
Devan nudged past me, more carefully than usual. For that, I was thankful. Most of the time, I ended up with her elbow poking into my ribs. She turned to the long bench lining the far left wall of the garage and lifted a large item. She carried it toward me and nodded for me to follow her out of the garage.
“Devan?”
“Just be patient, Ollie,” she said as she walked passed me.
Outside, she moved to the middle of the yard and set down what she’d been working on. It was a replica of the obelisk from the park, done in a miniature scale and standing only three inches tall. Like the one in the park, it seemed to have eight sides, from two rectangles placed atop each other and shifted forty-five degrees. Unlike the one in the park, tiny patterns were carved into the sides. I understood why Devan had carried it carefully.
“That’s amazing,” I whispered.
“What’s it do?” Taylor asked.
Devan turned on her. “What’s it do? You’re the painter. Aren’t you supposed to know?”
“I know what the statue in the park did, but this is different. These symbols”—she pointed to a pair of irregular ovals on one side—“they’re dangerous. And this?” She motioned toward an odd-looking spiral that seemed to spin as you turned your head. “This will likely create an explosion if not done correctly.”
I touched the sides of the obelisk. “I think the explosion is the point,” I told Taylor. “And it’s probably best that you not question Devan’s ability to make patterns correctly.”
I looked back down at the obelisk as Taylor studied Devan. I turned it slowly, revealing other patterns on each side. “You intend this to be multi-use.”
“Well, of course I do,” Devan said, crouching down next to me.
“What if this—” I said, pointing to the spiral, but then cut myself off. “You’ve placed protections within it, too, haven’t you?”
Devan smiled proudly. “After seeing the effect your other trinket had, I thought I’d best be safe this time.”
“Why this shape?” Taylor asked.
I pulled a charm out of my pocket and flipped it to Taylor. It was the one that somewhat resembled Agony, the half-man, half-demon sculpture my father had made that stood in the center of the park. “The night you came? This is what I used on Jakes.”
Taylor’s eyes widened, and she held the charm more carefully.
“It’s not going to explode on you,” Devan said. “You’ve got to trigger it, and then you have to suffuse the ink with power.”
Taylor turned the charm over in her hand as she looked at it. Her brow knitted together as she held it up to the light. “Do you have to do the same with this one?” she asked, nodding to the obelisk.
“This one is a little different,” Devan admitted. She looked up at me sheepishly, then turned to Taylor. “After Ollie tried to die the other night, I wondered if there was anything I could make that might help him if we got into that situation again. The column just sort of fit.”
I lifted the obelisk and turned it in my hands. Light caught each of the sides differently, and it took me a moment to realize she’d infused ink into the metal itself, almost as if she dyed it, sort of how Taylor’s hair was permanently dyed. Doing so left the patterns already charged, and the obelisk itself could store any power I wanted to infuse into it. All I would need to do to use it would be release the energy.
Dangerous. But in the right situation, also quite useful.
“It took you this long to come up with something I could use?” I said to Devan, then turned to Taylor and grabbed the charm from her, slipping it back into my pocket. She was an artist. Things like the charms I used to augment my power were beneath her.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a disappointment to you in the years we’ve known each other,” Devan said. “Maybe you don’t want the others I’ve made.”
I started into the garage without waiting for Devan and called over my shoulder. “Of course I want the others you made. I just wish you would’ve been a little quicker about making them.”
Crossing the Threshold changed certain things about Devan’s magic. One was her ability with metals and patterns. Before coming here, Devan had real talent with patterns, learning alongside me as I was instructed by the F’lian, the master of patterns found on her side of the Threshold. But she’d never had such talent with charms as she developed since we crossed over.
“You’re an ass sometimes, you know that, Ollie?” Devan said.
She grabbed my arm when I reached the bench and pushed me back. This time, she didn’t worry about my ribs and shoved with a little more force than needed. I grabbed my side, exaggerating my pain for her benefit, but didn’t get any sympathy from her.
Then she caught me and pulled me close, leaning toward me. “I felt something earlier,” she said softly.
I glanced back at Taylor, and Devan shook her head. “Not a painter?” I asked.
Devan’s brow creased as it did when she worried. It was fairly common around me. “Painter, I think, but something else. Be careful, Ollie. We’ve already learned that Conlin isn’t the place you thought it was when we first returned.”
Devan released me and turned back to her bench.
I glanced at her, wondering what she might have felt earlier. One of her abilities that hadn’t changed was the way she could detect other magical power. She knew when I worked magic, and she knew when painters worked. Shifters were different, obscuring their magic from her. Some painters were powerful enough that they could hide themselves, too. But what had she sensed?
Whatever it was had her worried. She might have made the obelisk charm to keep me safe, but the timing of it was because of whatever she’d detected. Damn, and here I wanted to relax and simply drive Taylor back to Arcanus.
“What are all these for?” Taylor pointed to a row of charms, each made in a similar pyramid shape.
I scooped up a handful of the charms and shoved them in my pocket.
“They’re for Ollie,” Devan said, with a stern look at Taylor. “If he’s going to be around you for a little while longer, then he might need a little extra protection.”
Now that I knew what to listen for, I heard the undercurrent of her concern, as well. “Yeah, and like I said, I’m going to get you back to Arcanus. Can’t have you trying anything stupid.”
“Just you?” Devan asked.
“Do you really want to come with me?” I asked.
I didn’t need the amulet hanging beneath my shirt to tell me that Devan was using her magic. Her usually soft and subtle power now took on a certain horrible beauty.
“Ollie.” She spoke my name with authority, drawing through the word like I would infuse a pattern I’d painted. “You will not leave me behind with this.”
Now I knew that she was worried. “I had no intent to leave you behind. Why else did we come to Conlin?”
“Because you’d be dead if we hadn’t.”
“Not dead. Just bound to service.”
Devan punched me lightly on the shoulder, her power fading. “How is it different?”
“I have the chance to complete my service and eventually be free of him.”
“Really? You think you’ll live a hundred years?”
Taylor looked from Devan to me. “Her father would require a hundred years of service from you if you returned? Who is he?”
“Not who, but what,” I answered. Devan hadn’t seemed too concerned about keeping it from Taylor, not that Taylor could really do anything to harm Devan’s father. “He’s the Trelking. And he’s not too pleased with me for leaving. Or her for that matter.” I turned to glare at Devan. “And it’s not a hundred years.”
Devan only shook her head. “You’re an idiot, Ollie, you know that?”
She stalked away, moving to the far corner of the garage, and began to tap at something with a small hammer. I couldn’t see what she was doing from where I stood; her petite frame completely blocked my view. She let me stare at her back, ignoring us as if we weren’t there.
I touched Taylor’s arm and nodded for us to leave Devan alone in the garage.
Once outside, Taylor spun on me. “So how long would you have to serve?”
I waved my hand and tried to change the subject. “When we go, you’ll have to be ready. You’ll need inks and whatever else you want to take back.”
“You didn’t answer,” Taylor said. “She said you’d have to serve a hundred years. How long is it?”
“Well, he promised me it would only be nine and ninety.”
Taylor’s mouth fell open, and she shook her head. “I’m beginning to think Devan is right.”
“About what?”
“That you can be an idiot sometimes.”
She turned and headed back into the house, leaving me standing alone, holding a pocketful of pyramid charms and the heavy obelisk in my hand. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was going to need them all soon.
