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Forced to employ only silent communication, I pinned a scowl on Archer. But he ignored me, already reaching an arm around Danny’s shoulders and tilting his body so that he could rub his knuckles into his brother’s hair.
Mother yelped slightly as Danny jostled out of her lap and settled beside Archer.
Maybe things would turn out okay. Maybe Archer was ready to be the brother Danny needed. I couldn’t very well worry about it now, considering I quite possibly would never see Danny or Archer ever again.
But that thought brought a sudden wave of tears, so I shoved my sadness away and turned my thoughts back to Silver Creek. Flowing directly from the Labyrinth, its origins were hidden within the walls of the prison. The creek, according to legend, hadn’t been there when the Labyrinth was constructed. Now, its waters slithered through our woods, bearing, as rumor had it, the remains of the bodies that died in the Labyrinth. The architects could do nothing about this creek. Not divert it. Not dam it. No amount of magic could affect that water.
But the worst part was, all the children in Varich believed that if the water could get out, something else could theoretically get out too. And the only things in the Labyrinth were the kingdom’s worst criminals and untold monsters.
When the sun was directly overhead, our wagon pulled up to a pointed little temple less than a block away from the grand temple, the massive building where the king worshipped. I was not to be wed there, of course.
The horse hung his head, weary from carting all four of us up the incline into Westburg. These cobbled roads had left my teeth rattling and my pulse clanging in my temples.
“Here we are,” my mother announced, scrambling from the wagon like she couldn’t wait to proceed with the ceremony. She quite possibly could lose her daughter, but that apparently didn’t bother her.
Archer, who’d extended his hand to help Mother, glanced back at me. The boy was entirely too observant. Much more so than the ignorant boys at school, who, though two years older than Archer, hardly noticed when a girl was without a seat and had to stand in the back of the classroom. Danny leaped off the wagon, fell rather dramatically to his knees, and immediately tore a hole in his nicest pair of pants.
Mother gasped.
Danny’s brown eyes welled with unshed tears.
Archer rolled his eyes, but he patted Danny on the back, staring at me over our brother’s shoulders.
Our family was a mess. And I was leaving them.
Glancing up at the green-tinted steeple, I huffed in annoyance at whoever it might be pointing to. Years ago, the king had decreed every house of worship devoted to the magical affinities be converted to a temple of the fates, celestial beings that apparently ruled us like chess pieces. As if we were part of some divine game.
Archer hurried a distraught Danny inside, not bothering to wait for Mother or me. I hated to see them go, but this was good. Archer would be taking over. I could no longer protect Danny, and it did my soul good to see Archer acting like he knew it too.
This, however, left me standing beside my mother outside what had once been a temple of fire. Odd that the king, with his demand for steeples and statues, didn’t also decree the bronze doors ripped from their hinges. Depicted on the tall doors were figures standing in flames. Fire mages.
“Well, come along,” she said. “And remember, you must not say a word until the ceremony is over, you hear?” Her blue eyes flared.
Clutching the cloak more tightly around my middle, I did my best to stare blankly at the temple doors beyond her head. “If I don’t say the vows, we won’t technically be married.”
She barked in frustration and whirled toward the steps, storming forward in a tumult of fluttering fabric. Where she’d procured her dress or the money for it, I had no idea.
I paused beside the heavy bronze doors. The temples dotting this city marked a time long past, a time when the people worshipped those with magic. The figures etched in flame sent a chill down my spine. The test for fire mages used to require passing through flame. At least the test had changed, and I hadn’t been sent through fire as a child to test my affinity.
This building, with its rounded arches and flaming capitals atop its columns, was constructed long before the war, before schools were built to teach mages from the Guilds how to hone their magic. Mind magic, like Nan’s, was forbidden after the war, and for good reason. It had been the reason for the war and caused the deaths of thousands.
I passed through the smaller door that had been set into the larger one on the right. Those ancient doors stood like headstones marking the grave of an entire worldview.
The cool air of the church chilled my face, but my cloak kept the summer heat clinging to my body. I blinked in the dim light, searching for Archer and Danny…then for my mother. I couldn’t see a single person in this vaulted space.
My mother had only just entered.
“Hello?” My voice echoed off the stone walls, traipsed down the nave, and then bounced back to me, as if the temple was saying hello back. Alcoves on both sides featured defaced statues, naked except for the writhing flames curling up legs and torsos. The air smelled fragile and damp.
“There you are.”
A woman hurried forward.
I jumped at her sudden arrival, blinking and unsure how to respond.
“Come, come, they’re all back here.”
The woman, large and overly adorned with jewels, jangled down the long nave, her arms waving like a scarecrow’s. “I’m to show you to the chamber where you’ll await the ceremony.”
