Nocturna (A Forgery of Magic #1)(39)

Alfie pressed his forehead to the wall once more, his fingers curled against the bricks. Sweat poured down his brow. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

“I can do this,” he said. “I will do it. For Luka.”

Alfie leaned forward and tried to look into the keyhole again, but then he stepped back. That was the problem. He was still trying to look instead of surrendering his senses to his magic.

Alfie stepped away from the keyhole, leaving a wide space between him and the wall. He closed his eyes and let his magic pool in his hand once more. Alfie focused on the feeling of his magic blooming in his hand like a flower seeking sunlight. He breathed slowly until he felt his magic expanding and contracting in time with his breaths.

For a moment Alfie thought he’d opened his eyes and failed to surrender his senses again, but he hadn’t. He could see through the perspective of the magic flowing from his hand to the wall. He’d really done it! His magic zoomed into the keyhole, and within, Alfie could see the dips and arches of the lock. He was so excited that he’d finally connected with his magic at this level that he lost focus and his vision into the keyhole began to blur. Alfie concentrated once more and slowly shaped his magic to fit the keyhole’s every drop and rise. Sweat dripping down his temples, Alfie twisted his hand to the right and his magic followed suit. He felt the lock click into place.

He opened his eyes and the colored bricks were rumbling, parting where the lock once stood to leave a doorway of shimmering, free magic.

Without a second thought, Alfie ran forward. He passed through the doorway of magic like a veil of light, only to be plunged into a chamber of darkness.

The familiar patchwork of colored magic and the shimmer of free magic were gone. This place held something else, a darkness he’d never seen before.

Where he walked there was no ground, no color, no sound—only blackness. Though he always felt a spark of warmth when he conversed with magic, here he felt a chill deep in his bones, as if his marrow had been replaced with ice. Goose bumps sprouted on his arms as he stepped deeper and deeper into the darkness. And then a voice was purring, rich and deep.

What brings you here, mi hijo?

It sounded like many voices intertwined, each one branching from the next, a mouth within a mouth within a mouth. Tendrils of smoke curled before the prince appraisingly, winding around each other in a tight circle, as if their space was limited, though Alfie stood in endless darkness. He swallowed hard. He spoke the language of magic, but it never spoke back. It communicated in a different way. Hearing its will in the silence was something that took years of study. But this magic had a voice. It was strange, unlike anything he’d ever encountered.

Odder still was the magic’s color—an inky, all-encompassing black. All his life, Alfie had been taught that magic did not exist in extremes of purity or evil, white or black. There were only the myriad shades in between. But before him stood the undoing of everything he’d known. This magic was darker than a crow’s feathers, darker than ink spilled across a fresh roll of parchment. It was impossible, it was terrifying, but he didn’t care. Couldn’t. Not if Luka was dying.

“I need to save Luka; I need help. Please. You are the only magic that didn’t turn away from me. Please, help me.”

We could help you with that, that would be easy, it said. Alfie’s heart raced. The voice was like the hisses of many snakes, hypnotic and terrifying all at once. But first you must set us free.

“I don’t understand,” Alfie said.

Magic was free. It flowed through all living things and wasn’t something to be caged. Yet he could feel something holding back this black magic. Alfie took a breath to calm his racing heart and focused, letting his propio engage. He stumbled back at the sight. Before him, caging the darkness, was ring upon ring of different hues of magic. From pastel blue to gold to magenta to silver and back again. How many bruxos had contributed to this? How many had drawn rings of binding magic around it to keep it at bay? This shadowed magic sat sequestered at its center.

What was so terrible about this magic that it needed to be bound by so many bruxos? A cold tremble flitted down Alfie’s spine. Even the idea of caging magic was unlawful, dishonorable. It went against everything he’d been taught about respecting magic as the foundation of the world. To chain magic was to spit on the natural order of things. It made him feel ill to even think about it.

We have waited here for the one who could find us, free us. It is you, my child. Set us free. Then we will save your friend.

Alfie listened and felt himself nodding along. The words echoed around him in silken whispers. This voice almost had a scent to it, something heady and rich.

He shook himself free of his reverie. Something about this was off. It wasn’t right. Magic did not bargain or make deals. It did not have desires like men did. This made no sense at all. The words he’d seen in that silly book before Paloma took it from him echoed in his mind: There exists old magic. Magic with soul, magic that colors men with its wants and bends them to its will.

Had the book been speaking truth instead of fantasy? It had warned against this kind of magic vehemently. But if this magic could help Luka, did it matter how strange it was? What kind of person would he be if he would rather obey the natural order of things than save his best friend? He was willing to break every rule to try to find Dez. For Luka he should feel the same.

At that, the curls of smoke stopped their rhythmic circling, seemingly offended.