“Shamus?” I asked before he was out the door.
He turned and looked at me.
“You did this, right? The test? And came through it okay?”
“I did something like this. But you’re different, Allie.” He gave me a tight smile. “Lucky you.” He turned out the light and shut the door.
Chapter Seventeen
I didn’t think I would sleep. Too worried about Davy, about Tomi, Stone, about the dead, the living, and everyone in between. Too worried about the test.
But I did sleep, the soft darkness of the room eased by a little night-light that glowed amber in the wall outlet against the floor. It reminded me, for a moment, of the little room at Nola’s house, one of the safest places in the world to me. Home of my heart.
No dreams this time, no conversations with my father.
I woke and stared at the darkness, listening to the movements of the big inn. There were people here, footsteps, and sometimes laughter. The lonely call of the far-off train filtered through the walls, but I could not hear the drone of the big engine. When the clock on the nightstand said it was seven, I got up, checked to make sure the bathroom door had a lock, and took a long, hot shower.
The vanity had a care package complete with toothbrush, toothpaste, some generic deodorant, and a comb. I used all of them. Even though my clothes could use a washing, I felt better, my muscles looser, the ache at the back of my head from hitting the floor gone. The ribs that I had sworn I’d cracked felt sore, bruised, but not broken.
Give me a hot cup of coffee and a couple aspirins, and I could take on the world.
I figured they had Wards or maybe a guard on my door, so I used the last fifteen minutes or so to clear my mind and relax. Magic filled me, rippled through my body from the ground and well deep beneath the inn. I worried that it would fail me, or worse, that I would fail to control it. I worried that the Veiled would appear during the test. If they were eating me alive, pulling magic out of me, there was little chance I could handle anything else. The Veiled hadn’t bothered me when I tested with Maeve, but my father had been strong. He was the one who kept them from hurting me. Without him, I was vulnerable again.
Dad?
I thought.
There was no answer. Not even a faint flutter.
If he was still with me, his presence was very, very small.
No help there.
I jumped at the knock on the door. Stupid.
“Yes?” I stood.
Maeve stepped into the room. “Are you ready?”
“Let’s do it.”
She walked over to me, took both my hands in hers. Her fingers were warm, strong. “You can do this, Allie. Do not doubt yourself.”
“Thanks,” I said. And I meant it.
She released my hands and strolled out of the room. I followed her down a white hall with walnut woodwork and old oak floors. Down to a staircase with wood that arched downward again, to another short hall, then down once again.
I don’t know what I’d expected. Secret society stuff. Maybe a dungeon, torches, cast-iron braziers, pillars, weird statues. Something archaic. Mystical. Magical.
But the huge room-and I mean the room must spread out beneath the entire inn, and then some-looked more like a ballroom. The stone floors, maybe marble or granite, laid out in a glowing and subtle shift from white to gray to black all the way to the far end of the room.
The ceiling was two stories high and supported by columns carved from the walls that arced wings across the ceiling, graceful tips crossed at the center. Adding to the winged effect were thick ribbons of cast iron molded into the columns, and lead-lined glass panels that caught glittering wedges of light falling upward from the fixtures set cleverly along the walls and within the nooks and curves of the winged arches.
Grand. Beautiful. The walls were done in rich reds and browns and forest green, light scattered here and there to the room’s best advantage.
It was difficult to remember this was a basement of an old inn.
The room itself was enough to make me pause on the last stair step. But the people who lined the walls of the room, perhaps a dozen or so, made me want to call a cab and go home.
No ceremonial uniforms, they all looked as if they’d just stepped out of their everyday lives and come here. A few were familiar faces. Kevin, Violet’s bodyguard, stood next to Chase, and tall, stern Victor, whom I’d seen at my dad’s graveside. Shamus slouched next to Jingo Jingo, and mousy Liddy, whom I’d also seen at the funeral.
My dad’s accountant, Mr. Katz, stood next to a dark-eyed woman and man who looked like they could be twins, and another man who must have been a linebacker in collage.
But even in a room of magic users whom I could only assume were incredibly skilled, my attention was pulled toward one woman who stood at exact east, if the room were set on a compass rose.
There was no reason why she should stand out among the crowd. Maybe thirty years my senior, her light brown hair was pulled back into a severe bun, lending her delicate features a razor’s edge. She had a wide mouth that might be pretty if she were smiling, and the kind of flawless grooming that gave her a brittle, premeditated beauty.
She wore a black, or maybe very dark blue, suit with a red shirt beneath-neither colors doing her pale complexion any favors, and both managing to downplay her figure. At her neck, a medallion caught silver and copper light.
She reminded me of someone. I didn’t remember ever meeting her, but there was a frailty beneath that hard exterior that made me think of summer and blue skies. Maybe not her, but someone similar. Someone I had liked.
Weird, since she was currently scowling death at me.
If I had to make a wild guess from the body language of the people around her, she was Sedra, the queen bee of this little buzz fest.
I glanced at the man who stood next to her. Tall, with a square, unmistakable face, the sight of him was a punch to the gut. I remembered him.
Just after my coma, when I had returned to the city to find my life, my home, and Zayvion again, this man had been there. He had opened a taxi door for me and told me there was a war brewing. My heartbeat shot up, instant panic, though I didn’t know why, and my palms slicked with sweat. He stood next to Sedra in the same way Kevin stood next to Violet. Like a guard.
Okay, maybe I didn’t want to be tested. Maybe I didn’t care if they sent a Closer into my head and yanked out my memories of this place, of these people. Maybe I didn’t care if they made it so I could never use magic again.
Yeah. Right.
I was nothing if not a stubborn bitch.
I pulled my shoulders back and forced my feet to move again, to follow Maeve as she walked across the white stone to the very center of the room, where the white tarnished into the color of silver cast iron. It looked like she walked above a stormy sky.
Everyone, the men and women of the Authority, watched me. I worked on not tripping over my own feet.
Shamus, on the far side of the room, wearing black from hair to boot, standing on black stone, next to huge Jingo Jingo, winked, and I took that as a hint to maybe try to breathe.
“Allison Beckstrom,” Maeve said, her voice filling the room. “Are you prepared to be tested as one favored by magic, to be forged in the ancient ways of this Authority?”
Okay, so there actually was some pomp and circumstance in the ceremony.
“I am,” I lied through my teeth. Sounded good, though. And I was pretty sure the other magic users bought it.
“Let us begin,” she said. She didn’t smile, but gave me a grave, encouraging nod before she walked away and took her place on the slightly darker side of the room next to my dad’s accountant and the twins.