Page 25 of A Door in the Dark
There was a stuttering of footsteps. Ren looked back and saw that Theo had pulled up short, his wand raised and his eyes narrowed. “How about you try that again in a different tone?”
Avy turned, warming to the thought of violence. He slid his own crooked wand from a belt loop. Ren couldn’t help thinking it felt like less of a threat with just seventy ockleys stored inside, but she knew Avy didn’t care about that. She suspected he was the kind of boy who liked to end fights quickly. He backtracked toward Theo with a hungry look.
“How’s this for a different tone?” he asked.
The air above them crackled with magic.
15
Ren’s spell shoved forward—bold and bright—separating the two boys. Like a sharp wind, the magic knocked them back several steps. Looks of surprise appeared on both of their faces.
“Pull it together,” she snapped. “We’re lost out here. Clyde is dead. We don’t have time for chest-thumping. Put your wands away.”
Theo’s jaw tightened. “Fine. But I’ve got thirteen hundred ockleys. Keep that in mind the next time you aim a wand in my direction. If you lose me, you lose all of those spells, too.”
He stalked on without another word. Timmons caught Ren’s eye and mouthed the number. Ren could feel that anger building in her chest again. Thirteen hundred. She’d been expecting a large number, but the truth still stunned her. Everyone walked on in awkward silence. Ren ran a quick calculation. Theo was casually walking around with 200 spells on his person.
More than the rest of them combined.
It increased their odds of survival, but she hadn’t missed the other implication in Theo’s revelation. If you lose me, you lose all those spells, too. The balance of power swung in his direction now. They couldn’t simply tie him up in the woods and leave him there. Nor could they afford to piss him off too much. Those vessels were attuned to him. The stored magic was not something they could thieve or borrow or coerce. They needed him to help willingly. Ren focused on the silver lining.
“That’s a strong starting total. We’ll want to conserve as much as we can for the mountains.”
No one replied because what else was there to say? The sting of heels and muscles intensified as the sun finished its descent. Avy took it all in stride, but everyone else was clearly lagging. Timmons was wearing a particularly unreasonable pair of heeled boots.
“We could modify them,” Ren suggested. The others were walking ahead of them. “There’s no way you can make it through the mountain passes in those. I’m surprised you made it across campus in them.”
Timmons shrugged. “I know a few spells that will cushion the heels.”
“You do?”
“I’m always having to jam my feet into these for galas and all that. I learned a few cushioning spells just to make life more reasonable.” There was a long pause before Timmons lowered her voice. “Can you believe it? That much magic every month?”
Ren nodded. “I read that the Brood family was granted the second-largest allotment of all the major houses. And, of course, they’re given full oversight by the viceroy to dispense it amongst their family and hired hands. Never knew how much it really was…”
Timmons’s expression darkened. “You know, Avy isn’t going to forget about what happened just because we’re lost out here. He’ll keep poking at Theo until he finds a weak spot.”
“I’ll talk to him. We need Theo. We don’t have enough magic to get home safely on our own. It will run out in the mountain passes.”
Timmons shook her head. “Even out here we need to kiss the rings of that prat.”
“Even out here.”
They were all caught off guard by how quickly the temperature dropped. As the sun slipped below the shoulders of the distant mountains, Ren’s plaid coat was no longer a proper defense against the chill. Theo sported a fashionable but thin cardigan. Avy’s was no better-suited to the cold. Only Cora wore something with enough lining to be called warm. Her calf-length coat was the most functional piece of clothing in the entire group.
“It’s cold down in the mortuary,” she explained. “I wear all these layers so my hands won’t shake.”
The growing darkness forced their group to a halt. Avy found a spot where the trees grew tight and thick, forming a protective half-moon to set their backs against. He cleared the ground in a circle before asking the rest of them to look for firewood. As Ren paired up with Timmons, she noticed that silent tears were once again streaking her friend’s face.
“I can’t stop seeing him,” Timmons said. “The way he looked. Burned like that.”
Ren nodded. Clyde’s death had been weighing on her, too. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen a corpse. Several of her senior-level courses had required studies in decomposition and corporeal magic. But it had been easy to distance herself from those bodies—already guided on by the gentle hand of a mortician—with the idea that they were no more than test subjects. The mind sorted them into the same category as any other study material.
It was impossible to think of Clyde in that way. She’d been in class with him earlier that day. He’d been so very alive in the portal room. What a waste that he’d spent his final moments acting like a pompous brat. She’d only ever witnessed one other death, and even if Clyde didn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath, Ren knew Timmons needed some comfort, however imperfect.
“When my father died, it was an open-casket visitation. I remember standing there and looking down at him. The details were all wrong. His lips were too colorful. His body too thin. It took me the entire funeral to realize that it wasn’t him. It was a body. My father was the one who told bedtime stories and took me on walks through the Lower Quarter. He was always pointing out the little details about everything. He never stopped moving. I wanted to remember him that way.”
Ren set a firm hand on Timmons’s shoulder.
