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Sai stared at me, his brow furrowed. No… I couldn’t let him down. If I helped them with this job, I’d have enough money to escape the continent. Mother would never find me. I parted my lips again. The first man dove for us, and I gasped, my song cutting off.
Sai released me, and I stumbled. He thrust his arms out and every flame lighting the room extinguished. Ebony fog curled around the space, wrapping around the humans who froze mid-step, arms raised with garbage, teeth bared, fists stuck pounding the air.
Thousands of sparkling crystals in shades of plum, wine, and black hung in the air, reflecting over the pale skin of the humans. I turned to face Sai and then took a stumbling step back. His eyes had shifted entirely to ebony and the stone on his necklace glowed so that it gave his flesh an eerie green color and cast dark hollows over his features.
He lowered his arms and turned on the group who were, unlike the humans, not frozen. “Okay,” he said, his voice calm, his irises returning to their normal rich brown. “Orman, you owe me an explanation.”
Orman clicked his tongue and thrust his hands out at the chaos of the crowd that remained frozen, glistening in the light of the crystals Sai had made appear. “Now, Sai, I had no intentions of fighting.”
“Really? Because that’s not how it looks to me.”
Orman rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t but then theirchampion,”—he spat the word—“started talking shit about the fae, stirring up hatred.”
Sai wiped both of his hands down his face like an exasperated headmaster and not like he’d just unleashed some massive amount of dark magic that likely saved us from imminent physical attacks that still left me trembling. “So, humans say some shit and you unleashed the torments of Naraka on us?”
“Well, I didn’t mean to win.”
Sai gave him an unimpressed look. “Let me guess, he spoke again?”
“Damned right, he did. He deserved to be put in his place.”
“Orman,” Sai’s voice had grown hard. “I understand, and if you’d kicked his assafter the showand out of the public eye, I wouldn’t say anything. But this,”—he gestured widely—“is a mess.”
Luz leaned against a column of wood. “Your mother said you caused chaos as a child, Sai. Has she ever seen the beautiful disasters you can make now?” My brow furrowed. I didn’t know what Luz was talking about, but the entire group seemed to understand. They all knew Sai’s family, then. I still didn’t have the intricacies of this group worked out, but they were obviously closer than just a band of thieves. Orman laughed and slapped his leg.
Sai’s voice grew dry. “Perhaps you don’t wish to be on this job, if this is a laughing matter.”
“Come on, Sai.” Orman flicked his hand out, shifting some jewels that hung in the air so that they clattered together. “You don’t need to be like that. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it so far. Honestly, I only came over to pass a few hours when you lot hadn’t arrived. I didn’t even steal off the crowd.”
Neia looked at Sai who nodded at her before speaking to him again. The room remained preternaturally still, the angry expressions frozen, the jewels gleaming in the darkened hall. “What were the two rules?”
Orman groaned. “Wait at the meeting spot.”
“And?”
He groaned again. “And lie low.”
“This”—Sai waved his arms out and nearly smacked his hand into the frozen owner who had his palms raised in front of his face—“is not lying low.”
“Yeah, all right.” Orman tossed his hands in the air. “I’m sorry, mate, I didn’t mean to cause trouble. You know, I have a bit of a temper, but I’ll reign her in.”
Sai gave him another disapproving look before nodding. He walked over to crystals on the other side of the platform which glowed a silky purple color over his face. He touched several and then gave his hands a jerk and the entire suspended collection of them whirled around. They brightened when he grazed his fingers over them and then he pulled one into his hand, blew on it, and it dissolved into dust, sparkling before disappearing. Sai began repeating the action and the humans in the room turned into ghosts, like impressions of memories, that moved backwards until their expressions shifted out of anger, their arms lowered, food whipped back from the circle and returned to hands.
Then the shadow form of me appeared in rewind, leaving the stage.
I cowered into myself, my fingers tangled together, my shoulders bowed.
Mother was right.
“You have no backbone, Lira,” she’d said to me once. “No gall about you. I don’t understand how that’s the case. I chose your father carefully.”
“Maybe I can learn to be braver with time.” I was seventeen, then. Young enough to still believe things could change.
“No,” Mother had replied with a finality. “You won’t.”
The ghost impression of the fight reappeared, and I stepped back to not draw too close to it. The human competitor’s mouth shifted from an unnatural angle back to its usual form as the image of Orman pulled back from the punch.
Orman grinned. “Ah, that was a good hit.”
