The Lost Rainbow Mage: Complete Trilogy Edition, page 34
The whispering voices continued, but Lexi’s words and her touch cut through my sudden fear. I didn’t like the darkness or its oily grip on me. I’d killed someone with darkness, and I couldn’t risk that stain on my soul again.
“Release the shadows,” Lexi said, her voice still low. “Release them now.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to release the darkness. But I didn’t know how.
“Breathe them out,” she coached me, her voice low and soothing. “Just breathe them out.”
I concentrated and blew out a long, slow breath, almost able to see the darkness pouring from me. When it was fully gone, I nodded. I wouldn’t accidentally hurt anyone now. Fear or not, I no longer held the power from the dark. We could sneak inside.
Although part of me felt defenseless without the magic inside me anymore, there had been something seductive about the dark power. I pushed the thought away.
“We must be quiet.” Lexi’s voice was a murmur right by my ear as I stepped forward. “The guards aren’t the most professional of men, but they’re still nearby.”
I nodded to show I’d heard then let her pass me so she could lead the way into a corridor. Shadowy cells lined my right-hand side, their bars barely visible in the gloom. We’d entered a prison now, and the place reminded me of being trapped back in the Facility. I fought against remembering. It had been so ugly there.
Lexi stood still.
So I waited a moment, then I wrapped my fingers around one of the bars beside me and turned to face a cell as I waited for my eyes to adjust. It was shadows, inky black as far as I could see. Surely these were empty. Why would Lucian and Kiran be keeping people here when I’d been housed among their people? Kiran had already told me he was collecting light mages, right?
Except that wasn’t what Lexi had said, was it?
We still weren’t moving. Maybe because everything was so dark. But the longer we tarried, the more this space reminded me of the Facility. A memory flashed through my head, of being tucked into a corner, shivering, starving for light and emaciated. Of the endless darkness and the cells. My skin turned cold at the images.
But nothing I’d seen here at Kiran’s compound was truly like things had been at the Facility with Dr. Anderson. There was so much light here, and I could roam the grounds and talk to people and do my art… But as I thought about this gilded cage, I touched my neck.
The skin remained smooth but I knew what was there: my markings. Such beautiful, delicate marks. Such a sinister, evil purpose. I’d been branded, subjected to something not of my choosing.
The control enforced here was not okay, and it was much less honest here than it was at the Facility. At least the Facility didn’t hide their methods underneath any veneer of respectability.
The people here shouldn’t be afraid, and I could free them from their marks. They should be free. With or without Kiran’s approval. Now I’d seen this, what could I do? Actual cells. I shook my head. Actual cells.
“Look closer,” Lexi urged me, and I pressed my cheeks against the bars as I stared into the darkness. She wanted me to see something important in here.
“Is someone there?” I whispered, half to Lexi and half into the darkness itself. Squinting, I could just make out…
I thought so. There was a figure. Someone. More than one shape perhaps. People? “Are they unconscious or asleep?” This time, my question was for Lexi. I couldn’t make out any movement at all. The shadows made everything too fuzzy. “What’s going on here?”
But Lexi only gestured back toward the cell. “Take another look, Meira. Look really hard. Do you recognize anyone in there?”
I shook my head. “No,” I whispered back, my voice hoarse. “I didn’t want to recognize anyone. Who the hell would be in here that I would know?
Greta?
No, surely not. She was so young.
Marcus or Alice perhaps? Kathleen? I didn’t know many of the others from the Commune, anyway, so I might not have recognized them, but… Could I do much if Lucian and Kiran decided to punish their own? Maybe they were the targets Lucian had spoken of. Only… Nothing was making sense. If Lucian had targets within the Commune, why involve Paulson?
I pushed my face against the bars. Who was in there?
I swallowed against the bile clawing at the bottom of my throat and drew a shaky breath. I didn’t want to look in the cells, but I needed to see.
I moved along to the next cell, my hand brushing over smooth glass instead of the cool iron bar I expected to find. As I looked up, I inhaled a sharp breath and stepped away.
The figure in the cell continued to grin at me as he leaned against the glass. It was just like the first time I’d seen him at the Facility.
I turned to Lexi. “What’s he doing here? He’s a vampire…” I swallowed and spoke through a tightened throat, but I couldn’t tell if it was the mark or fear. “Kiran said he collects light mages. He…” I gestured uselessly toward the grinning vampire. “He’s not a light mage.”
Had Kiran lied? Maybe he hadn’t lied. Perhaps this was the work of Lucian.
“They’re collecting them.” Lexi barely took her gaze from the vampire as she spoke. “They’re collecting the supernaturals from every place they find them. They’re tracking them all down, one by one.” She lifted her hand and placed her palm against the glass.
To my surprise, the vampire copied the gesture, resting his own hand as if he could touch Lexi, and a small smile curved her lips, just visible in the gloom.
“I don’t know how much Kiran is aware of.” I grimaced as I spoke, unsure why I was defending him. “Maybe he doesn’t know.”
Yet a man who wasn’t aware of this prison on his own property didn’t deserve any sort of defense. How could he be so blind? Why was I so determined to defend him?
Still, I persisted. “Who’s in charge of the warehouse? Do we know? Is it Kiran or Lucian?” I clutched at straws, trying to preserve the image of Kiran as the benevolent man he’d been with me. But I couldn’t deny the questions, the red flags, the concerns I’d had since coming here. The locked doors, the madness haunting Kiran’s eyes. What did he know?
Lexi shook her head, and she was close enough that her hair brushed against my cheek with the movement. “I don’t know. I most often see Lucian here, and it’s his voice that the guards listen to on their walkies.”
That made sense, although I had no idea how much time Lexi spent here, doing her reconnaissance in bird form, and as I watched her with the vampire, a second reason for all of her work became clear. Did she zip through the halls as a hummingbird?
“What stops him from getting out,” I blurted. “I mean, he can project, right? He did at The Facility.” He’d visited me on my first night there, so there was no way this glass would hold him any better.
Lexi didn’t say anything. But she crouched down and I crouched, too, without question, letting her draw my attention to the curling lines around the edge of the vampire’s cell. They were similar to the markings on my neck, but bolder and in black. Not as decorative.
These were clearly only functional. Magical restraints.
“I have one more thing I need to show you,” Lexi whispered, but there was a skittering noise at the end of the corridor. So Lexi shoved me into one of the empty cells we’d already walked past and transformed into a hummingbird, before flying up into the darkness above me. I crept to the very back wall and dropped down in the corner, trying to make myself as small as I could to conceal myself in the darkest of the shadows.
The noise of talking and clomping boots came closer, and I pressed farther back. My stomach churned, and I swallowed to keep from losing everything I’d eaten. My heart beat wildly, but some of my fear had become a strange sort of confidence at the injustice of this place. They deserved to be found out, to be shut down.
I was goddamn wearing white, though, one of those nightdresses I’d left the house in. Even in the dankest corner of this cell, I had to glow like a beacon. I reached out to the shadows but instead of drawing them into me, I gathered them around me as best I could. I didn’t want to siphon any energy, but I still felt right outside me. It tapped against my skin, looking for a way in, creeping in through the tiny cracks no one ever saw.
Lexi had been right before, the energy from shadows was bad energy. Especially while I still hadn’t learned how to control it. I needed to resist its attempts to get in while I used it to hide myself. Energy leached from the shadows led to destruction—it had in the past, and maybe it always would, but the shadows were necessary for now.
One of the guards laughed as he patrolled closer, and I remained still, willing my camouflage to stay in place. The two guards shone flashlights into each cell, their carelessness deliberate as they lingered as long as possible, laughing as the bright beams disturbed the occupants. Some groaned weakly, and others cried out at the disturbance.
“What do you think Lucian wants?” The voice was loud and gruff.
“I don’t know, but Paulson’s due to visit again.”
I flinched at Paulson’s name, and the casual way they bandied it about. They talked a little more, back and forth, and I listened, growing colder with each word they spoke.
This confirmed it. Kiran’s compound couldn’t continue. Perhaps his aim had once been true. Perhaps he’d really thought he could assemble light mages here. But it wasn’t like that anymore.
He’d wanted to be surrounded by magic.
But Lucian wanted power; he wanted to rule with an iron fist.
And somehow, Lucian had been able to circumvent Kiran and had taken control for himself.
Kiran had taken his eye off the ball, and he’d lost his leadership without realizing it. I chewed my bottom lip. But the way he’d reacted to the mark Lucian had placed on me… Kiran had done nothing. He’d blamed me for the error.
No matter how much I wished my alleged father wasn’t this, I couldn’t let go of all the questions I’d had since arriving. My mother had taken me from him and hidden me from this man. If he wasn’t just lying to manipulate me. That was as likely a possibility as any other, too.
I waited while the guards finished their checks, and as their voices faded down the corridor, I released my hold on the darkness, allowing the shadows to disperse. Carefully, I stood and brushed the shadows off my skin. I didn’t know if it worked that way, but I went through the motions anyway. I needed to rid myself of the chill and the ick from the power within the darkness.
Lexi shifted in front of me and took my hand mid-wipe. “Come on.” Her whisper turned more urgent now, and she pulled on me. “Morning’s close, but I have one last thing to show you.”
twenty-one
Another cell. Another dark cell and another prisoner. I shuddered. They’d done this to me, and it had spun me into a kind of soul-darkness I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Lexi waited beside me, saying nothing as I took it all in.
The glass to this cell was thicker, but I pressed my hand against it anyway, something desperate clawing inside me. It couldn’t be. I looked again. Oh, shit.
It was.
Coop. My Coop. His shoulders drooped.
I pressed my nose against the glass. Coop. I wanted to scream his name and pound on the glass, but it wouldn’t have helped. If I gave myself away, I wouldn’t be able to help or free anyone. If I called to him, the guards would discover me, and Coop probably wouldn’t have heard me anyway. How thick was this damn glass? An inch? Why so much of it?
His hair was disheveled, his familiar suit dusty and torn, his tie askew.
His sunglasses were missing, and his eyes were closed. I couldn’t see the bright blue of his eyes, and my heart twisted in my chest.
Coop had been here the whole time. He’d been shot. How was his knee? Had he been healed?
This didn’t make any sense. Lexi had said they were capturing other supernaturals, so why Coop? He was a guard like the guards outside the door here. Not supernatural. Did his skill set make him particularly dangerous? Maybe it was information they sought to glean from him. After all, he must have everything about everyone else they’d brought in.
His eyes opened. This time, the irises were violet instead of bright and piercing blue. Those strange colorful irises I’d only seen a time or two, and I fluttered my fingers in the smallest of waves. But he shook his head, disappointment in the movement, and he backed away, turning his head so that I could no longer see his face.
I turned to Lexi. “Is there any way I can speak to him directly?” I had to make a connection with him. If he could just hear my words, he’d know I hadn’t meant for any of this to happen, that I hadn’t brought him here, and I didn’t know he’d been trapped here.
Because that was probably what he thought, right? That I was somehow responsible for this, for his imprisonment. Why would he think anything else?
Lexi glanced around and shook her head. “The only way is if I shift and fly through the air vent up there.” She pointed above us. “There’s not any other way in.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
I put my hand to the glass, wishing I could speak to him, comfort him. This wasn’t my fault. Shit. Coop. I’m so sorry. My chin quivered, and I willed him to hear my thoughts. I had to do something… anything.
If I’d failed Coop, it wasn’t because I’d gotten him captured. It was because I’d never learned how to use my magic. No one had ever taught me, but maybe that was no excuse. Just now, when my life depended on it, I’d used the shadows to shield myself. I’d controlled them. How much more could I use my magic to manipulate?
Maybe something physical… like a lock mechanism. I stepped closer to the door to Coop’s cell. Surely there was no time like the present to try? Shadows were all I had to work with, but maybe I could use them without succumbing to them.
“You think I can just open the door?” I asked Lexi quietly as I crouched to look at the lock. “I can move some of the shadows, maybe?”
She shrugged but scrunched her nose, her face the picture of doubt.
“No, I really think I can.” I focused on some of the darkness in the room, bunching it up into a ball and then pushing it into the lock. Apparently, Lucian hadn’t expected me to try this, because I was able to breathe just fine. But when I told Kiran about my time at the Facility, he had been surprised I could use shadows when I mentioned it. It had excited him in a way.
“What are you doing?” Lexi edged closer.
“What? I’m…” My concentration slipped and the lock in front of us shattered, the pieces landing on the stone floor with a series of pings. Dammit. Too noisy.
“You were saying?” Lexi folded her arms, her whisper dry. “I’ll check to make sure no one heard anything.”
“You distracted me,” I whispered after her.
As she shifted and flew away, I knocked on Coop’s door and let myself in. The knock was just for courtesy, and I couldn’t shake the irony. I hated the courtesy knock when I’d first arrived here. He had to have heard the lock break.
“Coop?” His name was a hesitation on my lips. “Are you here?”
“Go away,” he replied, and he didn’t look at me. Instead, he moved farther away. “You’re only a mirage, and I don’t want to talk to you.”
His abrupt rejection stung. I wanted him to be excited to see me, ecstatic at my arrival. Yet he wasn’t. I knew he didn’t believe I was here.
“Coop,” I whispered. “I’m here to save you.” I hadn’t brought him here, and I needed him to understand.
“Meira.” His voice was harsh and he cast a glance over his shoulder. “Look at you now.” He almost spat the last word. “Look at what you’re wearing, where you’re living, what you’re allowing. You had to know something wasn’t right here.”
I scowled as irritation claimed me as I remembered why the hell I hadn’t missed him, too. He hadn’t always seemed reasonable.
Yet I’d always felt safe.
I wanted to say something—anything—but he spoke first.
“Where have you been?” he rasped.
I took a breath. “I didn’t know you were here, and they lock me in.” Even though my protest was real and true, it rang hollow, even in my own ears. “What was I supposed to do?”
He grimaced. “I was worried sick about you, Meira.”
My heart skipped as he said my name.
“I had a plan,” he continued as he shook his head. “And now look. I’m here and everything’s a mess.”
“But why are you here?” I lifted my hands uselessly. I didn’t understand this part. “I don’t get why you’re in this place at all. Is it because you were a guard? Because you know everything about everyone?”
Lexi flew back into the room and shifted into her human form. “They’re falling asleep out there,” she said, jerking her head toward the entrance end of the corridor. Then she turned to Coop, her fists resting against her hip as she huffed. “Well, are you going to tell her?”
Even in the gloom, I watched him roll his eyes. “Nothing to tell,” he muttered. “What would I tell?”
She sighed. “You might as well tell her everything. What does it matter now?”
“Whose side is she on? She did nothing, and she’s still doing nothing. We don’t know whose side she’s on,” Coop hissed, not even looking at me. “She could stop all of this now. She had the ability.”
“Lucian has a skill in compulsion,” Lexi hissed. “He used it on her and put his tattoo on Meira’s neck. Now her power is muted.”
Coop seemed unconvinced. “So?”
It was as if I was no longer in the room. “It may have taken me some time, but I’m still here,” I whispered. “I found you, Coop. I’m here now, and I’m ready to do something.”
He shook his head. “I can’t be sure of you,” he countered. “Did you know he claims he’s your father? Does that matter to you at all?”
My eyes bulged. “How do you know about that?”
“I hear things down here.”
I glanced out into the corridor. I should probably get back to the main house. They’d notice me missing soon. “I don’t know how long we’ve got,” I added. “They don’t know I’m here. If I get caught, I won’t be able to do anything.”
