As he approached, the man running the stall started talking quickly. Rhy had always been the one with a gift for language. Kell had picked up pieces on his travels, but Fresan was new to him, a breathy melodic thing that broke down against his ears, especially when the speaker’s mouth was hidden behind a scarf.
“I’m sorry,” Kell cut in, backing away. “I don’t understand.”
He started to leave, but the man smiled, eyes crinkling in delight. “Ah. Arnesian!” he said, sliding into a broken version of the tongue. “Come. Is game.”
As he said it, he turned to the ornate house, and pointed to its many windows. In each, there was a sphere of colored ice, just large enough to touch the frame on either side.
“You break one,” he said, circling the target with a mittened hand. “But not house. Touch house. You lose.”
It was, of course, a game of magic.
Not a terribly challenging one, either—a very careful child would be able to do it. To summon an element and control it enough to melt or move one of the spheres without disrupting the fragile house. To a skilled magician, it should be simple. To an Antari, nothing at all.
“You won’t lose,” said the man, “you touch ball, just ball, you win.…”
He gestured at the prizes on the table, small figures sculpted not from ice, but a delicate translucent stone. There were animals—birds and bears, dogs and whales—but also tiny shops, fair stalls, even a replica of the archway they’d passed through. And there, at the edge, a single ship. It made Kell think of the Grey Barron. It made him think of Lila.
“You play,” said the man.
Kell swallowed. He flexed his fingers, half-frozen despite the gloves his coat had given him.
It had been three months.
Three months since the battle in Osaron’s makeshift palace. Three months since Holland and Lila and Kell combined their power to fight the dark god back. Three months since Holland had used an Inheritor to contain the demon’s power, and Kell had been caught between the two, and nearly torn apart.
Three months, and he told himself, the longer he waited, the better it would heal. But he could feel the magic pooling just beneath his skin. Waiting to be summoned. Waiting to be used.
That was the hardest part. He knew it was there, an untapped well, and every day, he found himself reaching for it, the way he had all his life, only to stop short as he remembered. Remembered the pain, the wrenching, rending agony that had torn through him when he first tried to use his power after they’d won.
But it had been three months.
Three months, he was sure, was long enough.
“How much does it cost to play?” he asked.
The man shrugged. Kell dug a hand in his pocket, hoping the coat would provide. He withdrew a handful of coins, none of them Fresan. The man surveyed the small pile, and selected an Arnesian lin, crimson with a small gold star at its center. The coin vanished into his coat.
“Good,” he said, clapping his hands. “Now, you play.”
Kell swallowed, and drew off his gloves as he decided which element he’d use. Flame was the easiest to summon, but the most likely to damage the rest of the house. Earth would be useless; there was none of it here. He could call on the water in the sphere itself, but the rest of the frame was made of the same stuff. No, it would be wind. A single breath, to knock it from its perch.
His pulse quickened in anticipation. It had been so hard to wait this long, and he felt like a starving man about to eat his first meal.
Kell took a deep breath, and raised his hand, and called his magic back.
And it came.
Rushing up to meet him like a long-lost friend.
It came, so eager, and so quick.
It came.
But so did the pain.
Not the stiffness of a muscle after too much rest, of a bone that’s been left to set, but the fresh agony of an open wound. As the wind rolled out from his fingers toward the ice-made house, the pain unspooled, tore through his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs and the strength from his limbs.
And the entire house shattered.
Kell didn’t see it happen. He was already doubled over on the icy ground, heaving, sweat slicking his skin beneath the coat, horror rising with the bile in his throat.
He struggled to stand as people turned to stare, and the man in the stall looked sadly at the broken house. “You lost,” he said, as if that wasn’t obvious.
Kell scrambled backward, desperate to get away, to escape the stalls, and the crowd, and the lightless fair. He made it through the archway before sagging to his knees and retching. It was wrong. Everything was wrong. Once upon a time, Kell Maresh had been the best magician in the world. Now, he could not even best a children’s game.