Page 56 of Hexes From Exes

“No…she’s not a mage,” said the one on the left, though not very convincingly.

Dread hummed, shaking his head. “Ah, because we don’t have a black-market problem, do we? We don’t have some way for a demon to plant something in his cell? They must be a mage,” he said ‘mage’ like he was making fun of the enforcer demons.

Dread was a fucking asshole in real life.

“That’s what I thought. Open the door,” he commanded, and the two demons stepped aside to let Dread through. The door opened to an elevator, where the two of them stepped in. Dread pushed the button that brought them down to the bottom level, and they rode in silence as the floors passed by. At long last there was a ding, and the doors slid open, revealing the nearly empty cell block.

Once the doors closed behind them, Cass rounded on Dread. “Captain?” she hissed. He gave her a wide smile and a wink but didn’t answer. She followed him down the cell block, stopping at last in front of Rick’s cell.

To her horror Rick looked worse. His scales were closer to brown instead of red, and he didn’t stir when they approached the cell door.

“Hmm,” Dread said, eyeing up the cell wall before pulling a key out of his belt and unlocking the door. The two of them approached the body, Cass kneeling next to Rick’s head to elevate it into her lap. To her relief he took in a deep breath, his eyelids fluttering. He was still alive, but just barely.

Above her, Dread pulled another item from his belt, this time one she recognized. It was the glass tool he used to look over any magical item she brought him. He waved it over his body now, pausing here and there to mutter something. When he got to Rick’s heart, he stopped and let out a low whistle.

“What?” Cass asked, her eyes darting from Rick to Dread.

“Well, I think we may be on to something,” Dread told her. He handed her the item. “Look at me, then look at him - tell me what you see.”

She panned the glass over Dread, seeing all sorts of odd colors that vibrated and moved over him.

“That’s magic,” he told her.

She marveled at all the colors, the way they interacted, unable to help but smile in childish wonder. She waved the glass over to Rick, her smile dropping. He barely had any color to him, just some little bits of green and blue that looked like they were about to fade completely. She continued to pass the glass over him and then stopped over his chest, where she saw a swirling mass of magic like a star.

“What is that?” she asked, breathless.

“It’s why they want him dead,” Dread said, taking the glass from her and putting it back into his belt.

“To make and unmake…” she whispered.

“What is that?” Dread asked.

Her head jerked up to him, unsure if she wanted to tell him what she knew. What did she have to lose? The more Dread knew, the more he may be able to help her. She took a deep breath and said, “I used to do research on ancient texts. When I found certain texts, I was suddenly promoted to a position where I wouldn’t have access to them again. I’ve found some of them in the human realm, and when I decoded the most recent ones…well, they are old. And they talk about magic that can make and unmake, that can’t be transferred. A powerful magic. It comes from…” she took a deep breath here. “Mating with a human.”

Dread watched her for a full thirty seconds, his gaze unwavering. Cass wondered if he was the wrong person to tell, but she suddenly realized that he had much more to lose than she did if his identity was uncovered. He was the captain of the enforcers. What he did was illegal enough to warrant execution as well, though she doubted it’d be public like Rick’s. He’d probably be put in a hole in the ground somewhere and marked off as ‘missing’.

“The council doesn’t want this information getting out,” he said, his gaze roving over Rick. “It’s why he’s still alive, it’s why Ynnia’s Scaphism didn’t kill him yet when it’s killed so many others.”

“His what?” Cass asked, her voice raising in panic.

Dread waved her off. “Look, he’s not the first one that’s been subjected to Ynnia’s little box of horror. He’s the only one to make it this long, unless Ynnia’s finally worked out the bugs. He killed the first demon he used it on in a minute. It was awful to watch.” He trailed off, looking at Rick’s prone body on the ground.

“I need to talk to him after we get him out of here,” Dread said, his gaze suddenly hard.

“What?” Cass asked. She was planning on getting him far, far away from any other demon they may encounter.

“I need to know what this is, why the council is hiding it. It would…” he frowned, looking around the small space. “It would explain a lot.”

“A lot about what?” Cass asked.

“Do you ever wonder why the council is so old, yet every generation is weaker and weaker? Do you ever wonder why some demons give birth, only to watch their children die in their arms? A magic shortage, they say. But how? Magic is woven into every aspect of our life. It powers the eternal flames, it grows the trees in the forest, it keeps us alive. How is a resource like that finite? And why has it declined so drastically over the last century or two, and not over the millennia before that?”

Cass had wondered these things, but she’d believed what every other demon did. The council was old because they were powerful, their magic so strong that they could continue to live on while others perished. It was the same thing that had been drilled into their heads from a young age. Magic is finite, use it sparingly. Any magic that is gathered from the human realm is distributed evenly, that’s why the demons that journeyed to the human realm were so important.

“If they knew that mating with a human could give a magic source that is powerful and not easily stolen, why not exploit that?” he pressed.

Cass already knew the answer to this. “Because, according to the texts, it would make that demon powerful enough to conquer the human realm.”