Part One

The way they see me.

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Chapter 1

2017
Polaris, New York

The new ringtone I’d applied to Sam’s number echoed in the kitchen. I paused the television and glowered at the phone from the sofa. What now? Another blip notifying him of a portal from Cydrithenna? A warning that agents from the Shadowfall Alliance were on their way to kill me? Or had he merely hacked into my phone and heard what had happened with Brida on Halloween?

I’d already scolded myself enough for that. I didn’t deserve to have any semblance of my powers back, nor anyone’s kindness. Not after the terror I instilled in someone I cared about, someone who never did anything wrong and who did not betray me. I had betrayed her. I had become my worst nightmare. I hadn’t changed at all.

The phone ceased ringing. A minor pause. It blared again.

“Fine.” If this curse was going to fade on me, then I might as well make use of my powers. I continued lying on the sofa and willed the phone toward me with telekinesis. It floated unsteadily. With illusory magick, I transformed it into a tablet, then a chair, then a dog. Easy enough. I returned it to its original state and answered.

“What.”

“Did I wake you? You sound pissed.”

“What do you want, Sam?”

“I want you to get out of there and come hang out with me.”

“Goodbye, Sam.”

The phone rang again the moment I hung up.

“Sam. I mean it. I’m not interested. And since when do you call me again? I thought those friends of yours had gotten access to your phone.”

“Line’s safe again. Trust me,” he said over the sound of clanking glasses and laughter. “And hey, whatever’s bothering you, I promise, it’s not going to—yeah, two more of those, and a round for that table over there, yeah, thanks—sorry. It’s not going to bother you anymore, I promise.”

I rubbed my forehead. Although my powers had returned, the ability to erase tension headaches eluded me. “Are you at a bar?”

“Yes, and you should be here too. I’ll text you the address.”

The thought of drinking made my stomach churn. “I’ll pass.”

“Don’t hang up again. Look, what do I have to do to get you to come out tonight?”

“Perhaps tell me why it’s so urgent.” I’d abstained from drowning my guilt in liquor last night, despite my slightly improved constitution. I’d woken up on the floor of my bathroom too many times early in my exile, and I didn’t care for it. With Sam, I’d be putting myself in that compromising situation again, and risked deepening the hole I had dug myself into.

“There’s someone here you need to meet. Oh—what? Oh, okay. Gotta go, Solin. Bye.”

I sneered at the phone in my palm and let it rest on my chest. Sam’s message lit up the screen. I barely lifted the phone and stared at the address until the screen decided I’d been idle too long. Its light faded.

As did my judgment.

Sam might’ve actually heard my desire to help humanity more than one meal at a time and brought in someone new for me to work with. I had no intention on slogging my way back to the kitchen again. I’d already lied to Victoria about being ill for today’s shift, and she blamed a hangover that I wish I’d had as punishment for lying to her. But what of tomorrow, when Brida and I would be there together?

Would Brida even show?

Would I?

I could not let Brida leave a place she loved. This was her workplace first, not mine.

I changed out of what I’d fallen asleep in last night, choosing gray pants and a plain casual sweater with sleeves that had trouble staying rolled up. I threw on a light coat and headed to the address. I didn’t mask, but being so vulnerable—and apparently recognizable to at least one person in Polaris—made me paranoid. How long until Gaian technology, as primitive as it was, encapsulated my digital image and fed it through a mystical algorithm to determine my identity? In my prime, I’d been able to fool cameras, but I doubted that ability had returned yet. I glanced at the storefront windows as I walked. At least I could manipulate reflections again.

I arrived at the bar, passing through the outer gate of smokers and their toxic cloud into an upscale dive of wood, warm light, and rock music. Athletes graced the screens, and few patrons paid any attention to the newcomer. Sam knew what he was doing.

I found Sam at a high-top table flirting with a woman I didn’t recognize. He whispered something to her that had the effect of politely shooing her. I was relieved he hadn’t called his non-friend out to hook up with a stranger.

“Aren’t you in a monogamous relationship, Sam?” I said, taking a seat on the stool across from him. I hung my coat on a hook beneath the tall table.

“We’re kind of experimenting with this whole ‘she isn’t monogamous right now, and it’s all my fault’ thing.”

“I’m…sorry?”

“It’s been an ongoing experiment. Actually we broke up before you arrived. Not here. Tonight. But here. You know. Here. Earth.”

“I understa—”

“And then we got back together again. And broke up. Last week. I think.” He shook his head. “Anyway, feels good to get your ass out of bed, doesn’t it?”

“I wasn’t in bed.” Never mind that I’d been lying on the sofa.

“You sounded pretty perturbed.”

“I was watching something.”

“What?”

“Star Trek.”

He blinked at me. “You were watching…” He leaned over the table, eyed me like I were a specimen, then leaned back. “Okay, hold on. You were watching Star Trek. Which one? Go.”

“The episode with—”

“Sorry, not episode, I mean series.”

I blinked at him. “I don’t understand.”

We shared a befuddled look while around us, glasses clinked and orders were taken.

Finally, he broke the look and said, “Would you be interested to know that there is way more Star Trek out there for your consumption?”

I furrowed my brows at him. “I might…”

“Good. Because there is. And some movies. We’ll marathon…sorry, binge it sometime.”

I held up a hand. “Stop. There is definitely more?”

He grinned, nodding with the cadence of a see-saw. He laughed. “This is awesome. This is so awesome. I’m going to send you so many memes…”

“I don’t know what those are, but the prospect of more content does seem…” He waited for the end of the sentence, and I didn’t want to say it, but his stare summoned the truth out of me. “…nice.”

“See, now you’re smiling.” He beamed bright at me, and I couldn’t help but smile wider. He laughed.

“Oh, shut up.” I glanced aside, committing to a scowl.

“By the way, you’re blending nicely.”

“What?” Had wanting to hide my excitement caused me to accidentally use my illusory magick and mask my appearance somehow? Whom had I turned into now? Or maybe I’d become the U.S.S. Enterprise.

“Your clothes. You look good, Solin.”

“It’s Jon here, remember. And you look different.”

“It’s the lighting.”

I peered at him. “It’s your hair.” The brown strands had gotten deeper and more uniform in color, while the salt had disappeared entirely. “You dyed your hair.”

“Fine. I might’ve paid someone else to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because I look old standing next to you, that’s why.”

“Oh stop it.”

“Seriously. You don’t have a single gray…” He examined the sides of my face. “Actually, never mind.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You’ve got one gray near your left ear.”

I stilled. “You’re lying to me.” Judging by my parents’ genetics, I wouldn’t start going gray for another few centuries. Unless, of course, the curse that had stripped me of my magick and made me Gaian also had the effect of giving me a Gaian’s lifespan, which I’d feared since the beginning but never had a clear answer on. I whipped out my phone and turned on the front facing camera to use it like a mirror.

Sam laughed. “That was priceless.”

I grumbled and put the phone away. “Not funny, Sam. I thought you’d just told me I only had a few decades left to live.”

“Um, right, well…” He took a sip of his cocktail. “Anyway, your shoulder’s doing better too, huh?”

If only he knew why. “Why are you being so friendly to me? What do you want?”

“Was just making conversation about your good health and the hundred-dollar sweater on your back, but hey, if you want to read into that…”

I dropped my forehead into my palm. “Have you been spying on my transactions again?”

“No, I just happen to know you’re dressed in expensive clothing, as usual. Haven’t you gone to the mall yet?”

“There are small shops on Main Street, and these stores on the tablet—”

“If you want to treat yourself, treat yourself. But the same sweater would cost you fifteen, twenty bucks at a big box store. You’d feel way less bad about tearing something like that on, oh, say a fence at an abandoned hospital you’re breaking into.”

I adjusted a sleeve. “Oh.”

“Didn’t you check the price tags on anything you stole—you know what, never mind. You look good, there’s someone here I want you to meet, and—”

“I’m not interested in a fling.” My heart ached for Brida, who’d first brought me to Star Café. Where Armand worked.

He shook his head. “No, no. Okay, maybe I should’ve made that clearer. There’s someone you will want to meet here.”

I checked the immediate area. “And they are…where, exactly?”

“Well…” Sam hopped off his stool and joined me. “He got a little distracted by my friend’s friend over there, but let me tell you, he’s pretty great—”

I peered between the heads of servers and patrons. “I don’t see where you’re looking.”

“Over…” Sam leaned in so I could look down the scope of his fingertips with him. The alcohol and hamburger grease of the bar turned into clary sage and cinnamon. “…there.”

I followed his gaze through dimly lit high tops, tracing along the counter of the bar until I saw the man whose name had tumbled gracefully off my lips so many times before.

“Eleric…”

I froze, my mind dizzy. I grabbed the table a little too hard and nearly executed Sam’s cocktail with the resulting tectonic shift.

Eleric, dressed in Gaian garb not unlike my own. Brown hair pulled back. Bristles along his peach jaw. Body slender and relaxed. Still the suave romantic he was with strangers before he’d experimented in tunnel-vision monogamy with me.

I turned away before he could see me and attempted to exit. I miscalculated, taking a trail behind a server with a precariously balanced tray of drinks. Her path got blocked by a pack of whooping sports enthusiasts who had no self-awareness or sense of her presence. An opening appeared, and I slipped ahead of her before she noticed the path.

The cold air nipped at my skin, and I rolled down my sleeves, urgency in my step, heading in what I hoped was the same direction I had arrived from. I masked immediately. Sam called out behind me. No one but Brida knew this secret, and I made use of it. I stole away into the cold night, fighting the thudding in my chest and the haze in my mind.

Eleric. What could he be doing here? Why would Sam bring him to me like this?

I reached my building and flew up the stairs to my large studio apartment. I fiddled with the obstinate lock until it finally worked and kicked off my annoying shoes before heading straight for the sink. I intended on filling up my coffee machine with water, but instead, I stared at the shape of the drain, soothing my mind until I could properly think and stop shivering from the coatless walk home.

Eleric.

Eleric. Here. With Sam.

Sam pounded on my door. “Sol—Jon. You in there?”

He pounded again, repeating my given name, and I eventually opened the door, if only to keep my neighbors from investigating.

“Where is he?” I said as Sam blew past me and hung up my abandoned coat. I checked the hall—no Eleric. I shut the door. “Damn it, Sam, where is he? You didn’t just leave him alone there, did you?”

“Like you just did? No. Eleric’s fine, Solin. He’s not—”

“Did he go back?”

“No,” said Sam. “He didn’t go back either.”

I stormed into the kitchen to make the cup of decaf coffee I desperately needed to calm down. “Why would you do this to me?!”

“Do what to you? Is he not the same Eleric you mentioned once to me? The one you actually wanted to see? I thought this guy was your friend.”

I set the cup down gently to receive coffee, thinking of Jemier’s strength against my countertop. I didn’t need Sam to think I wanted to exact all of my anger out on him.

But part of me wanted to shatter every ounce of fragile glass in this apartment just for the satisfaction of hearing it break. I glared at the slow machine while it brewed.

“Why did you do this to me,” I murmured, losing the question’s upward inflection.

He came into the kitchen area. “I don’t get what I did, Solin! I got a blip and I followed it, and it turns out it was your friend, not Jemier. I was just trying to do something nice!”

I faltered and wiped a tear away from my eye. He would not see it roll down my cheek.

“What did he do to you?”

“He didn’t do anything,” I murmured. Now my body grew warmer, whether from anger or embarrassment, I didn’t know. I fussed with my sleeves in an attempt to alleviate some heat, but they wouldn’t stay put. I grumbled and furiously rolled them up past my elbows.

“Solin, tell me. I won’t let him stay at my place if he did something to hurt you. I thought I was doing you a favor by making sure I got to him before the Alliance got wind of the blip, but if that’s not what you want, I mean it, say the word.”

“He didn’t do anything,” I repeated. I grabbed the milk. “He quite literally didn’t do anything. Tell me why he’s here.”

“I don’t know why, but he wasn’t exactly discreet about getting here, and I had to cover his tracks. Again, good thing I got to him first. You’re welcome.”

I sipped my coffee. “If anyone harms so much as one molecule of his being, I will raze this city to the ground.”

“Um, what?” Sam’s brow wrinkled, and he fixed me with a glare. “What did you just say?”

I turned away completely, pretending to be more interested in the night that had turned my windowpanes obsidian black. “Encourage him to go home, Sam.”

“Were you… Are you in love with this guy?”

I drew closer to the window and leaned on it. The patterns and lights outside soothed my mind while the cool glass soothed my body.

Behind me, Sam’s reflection approached. His face had relaxed. “You think Jemier’s going to hurt him?”

“Jemier and I aren’t together.”

“You don’t always answer questions, you know that? I asked if you think Jemier would hurt him.”

“They’re friends, Sam. Best friends from childhood. Jemier wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, that’s usually not how that works. This won’t be good.”

“He and I aren’t together.”

“Yeah, right. Maybe you oughta talk about this love triangle you have going before it gets colossally out of hand, and last time I checked, you Drakons really do make things colossal.”

“We aren’t friends, Sam.”

“I called you to hang out.”

“A cover to keep your Alliance friends from knowing you had another Drakon stowed away on this planet.”

“They’re not my friends.”

“Neither am I.”

He sighed. “But we understand each other. So tell me what’s going on before I go making up some lie to this guy who clearly just misses you.”

I turned my head a little. “Did he say that?”

“No, but why else would he be here? If he’s Jemier’s best friend, and that guy’s nowhere to be found, why is Eleric here? For you. Has to be.”

I sipped my coffee. “It’s not a love triangle.”

“Well, there’s three of you…”

“Jemier doesn’t know, Sam. No one really knows, or knew.” I took another sip. “What you just won in this region hasn’t been won on Cydrithenna. Not amongst Drakons. We can’t ‘continue the dragon bloodline’ if we don’t force gametes together via marriage.” I sipped the coffee. “This should be Scotch.”

“No offense, but there’s not a single good thing I hear about that hometown of yours. Isn’t your dad the king? Can’t he just decree it be so and it’s so?”

“If the king actually cares for his subjects, then yes. Only this king won’t die, nor will he cede the throne to someone responsible. He thinks it’s wrong. Eons will pass before… Forget it. You and I aren’t friends, Sam.”

“Right.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll text you when he leaves. Don’t make that Scotch. Save it for the next time I see you.”

I nodded. “Sam?”

“Yeah, Solin?”

“Please take care of him.”

“Yeah.” He leaned close in a partial embrace, then patted my shoulder. “’Night.”

When he left, I set down my coffee and made for my bedside. I picked up the box Jemier had brought me, the box that had once contained a runic dagger and that he’d rightfully deduced was still in use. I opened the lid, nudged a letter aside, and stared, bleary-eyed, at what I was looking for.

A smaller box. Plain. Made of soft, sanded pine.

I tossed the larger box aside and palmed the smaller one before opening it.

Drathosi, said the button forged by House Foundry.

I clenched the button tight and wept silently.