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Doctor Cavan pushed back the curtain to the stairwell he must’ve manifested from when he and Noel first entered the shop, and they ascended a flight of steps to a small office, complete with a desk and patched-up office chair with a loveseat sitting on the other side of it for an audience. Sure enough, along the far wall were a small collection of journals and specially bound books.
“Is this your office?” Grey asked, looking around in admiration, somewhat reminded of his loft’s secluded recess away from the chaos.
“Indeed, it is.” His boots softly thumped against the creaking floorboards as he pulled a journal from the collection. The thin, leather cords strung into a bow unraveled at his deft touch, and he bent it open to a well-creased page. “I don’t suppose you could give me more details about what you found, hm?”
“Um…” Grey rubbed his arms, trying to force back the chills pricking at his skin. “It’s sort of difficult to explain.”
The bell rang out downstairs, and Grey jolted, his stomach dropping with the added sound of the journal snapping shut and Doctor Cavan’s sigh. “Interesting history of amethyst: It used to be more commonly utilized to protect people against faerie wine and apples back when the veil originally collapsed, but that’s needed less and less now since vendors employ lithomancers to test goods before they’re distributed. Grand Capital law and all…” Leather rubbed against other leather covers as he pushed the journal back into its nook. “Now, it’s more often used for absorbing a small fraction of energy—typically negative—in exchange for proper rest and rejuvenation, making it a rather good trade stone for someone like me.”
Grey’s fingers started to turn icy, and he found it hard to swallow, a dry click answering instead.
“The downside is that it’s not very good at emulating images. However, it does a very good job at emulating certain magical frequencies.”
“Like?” The word almost came out in a squeak—half cut off by a crash downstairs. Grey jumped, his heart leaping as he whirled around to the stairwell. A bulky man loomed in the doorway, his macharomancer mark on full display and jagged, bleached scars marring tanned flesh. Grey stumbled back with the man’s menacing step forward, Noel’s name now stuck in his throat.
The guy lunged, and Grey tried to dart around him, ducking under his outstretched arm. A gasp tore from his lungs as his hoodie collar choked him in a sudden, backward lurch. The world upended and pain rippled through him as he collided with the floor.
“Be careful with him,” Doctor Cavan ground out, his lighter steps growing louder.
Those four words renewed Grey’s punch of adrenaline as his attacker pinned his arms to his chest, snapping something at Doctor Cavan he didn’t catch. His sole thought became: he knows about the Wild Hunt. Grey struggled to push himself along the floor and twist from his grip, but when a third shadow emerged from the stairway, his body slackened. And the room faded to black.
8
GREY
“Grey.”
Grey grimaced as he blinked awake to blurred concrete, fighting against the pounding in his skull. His wrists screamed as they rubbed against sharp plastic digging into his skin, panic welling up in turn.
“Grey, look at me,” Noel hissed, his green eyes roaming over his face when he jerked his head up. His legs were bound by zip-ties to a chair pressed up against a wooden beam, his arms pulled back around it. With a quick attempt to move his legs, Grey realized he mirrored him, backed up against another beam in the rectangular basement. And he’d been brought here by a macharomancer. Grey jerked his wrists against the zip-tie.
“Grey—” Noel’s voice climbed with alarm. Like a panicked bird in a cage, Grey snapped the restraints against the pole again, gritting his teeth as it bit into flesh, threatening to spill blood—until Noel’s rustling ripped him back to reality. His body would forcibly trade with whatever living thing was around: Noel. He stopped, panting as his vision blurred over.
“Calm down for a second and look at me, okay?”
Grey shook his head, the first drops of tears dotting his pants.
“Hey, it’s going to be all right, but you got to work with me?—”
A shuddering swing of a door opening at the other end of the cellar made Grey tense, his chin lifted to watch Noel’s growing unease tugging at his features. The bob of his throat and downward tug of his lips fueled Grey’s anxiety, his skin jumping with every shuffle of shoes.
“No, no, no, no, no—” Grey’s voice pitched higher with each whispered plea.
One of the figures twisted into the form of a woman for a flickering second, the basement’s phantom chill ripping Grey to a moment in time he never wanted to revisit. But the mirage instantly broke with Doctor Cavan’s smooth cadence. “Good, you’re awake.”
His cordial, casual smile sent chills through Grey, even more so when he didn’t bother sparing Noel a glance. Grey shrank down in his chair, suppressing a whimper as Doctor Cavan seized his jaw and forced him back up. That terrified child buried deep inside him screamed again and pounded on that faerie door in his dreams like how he’d bruised his fists beating against the frosted windows in that basement long ago.
“Leave him alone,” Noel growled.
The doctor paused, his head turning to finally acknowledge Noel from over his shoulder while one of his entourages—the macharomancer—stepped forward and backhanded him. “Shut your mouth,” the man spat.
Doctor Cavan clicked his tongue, his grip on Grey’s jaw tightening like a vice when he tried to turn his head a little more to take in the third, shadowy accomplice just out of his view. “Gag him if you have to,” the doctor said, somewhat dryly as he returned to Grey.
All the little thoughts in his head scrambled to collect a list of things he should do: scream, yell, fight back, demand why he was there, beg to let them go, bargain—anything. The only one that silenced them all was the one that told him none of that would get him anywhere. So, he kept his mouth shut as Doctor Cavan gently brushed back Grey’s hair and his lips pinched like he’d tasted something sour.
Another dose of fear slid through Grey’s veins again, making him bite down on his tongue during those horrible seconds of pressure running along the edge of his unseeing eye. When the doctor’s other gloved hand was in sight again, the sour expression morphed into one of pity. “Already damaged… That’s rather unfortunate. But perhaps still salvageable.”
He let go of Grey’s jaw, leaving his head spinning with the short, shallow breaths he hadn’t realized he’d been sucking down, and the doctor opened the tall cabinet doors pushed against the wall. Inside, the glint of the nearby bulb illuminated a peg board of tools and magnetic strip of knives.
