I could not help but smile, pained though it was to think of them, but it faded as quick as it came.
“How did you come to meet them?” I asked, worried.
“Can’t really get into the finer details right now,” he said. “Just wanted you to know that everything I’ve done to you had been business. Nothing personal. I’m sorry to have put you through all this.”
“Release me, then,” I said, daring to allow myself a moment of hope.
The man stepped back from me, hesitant.
“I can’t do that,” he said.
With my own self at the front of my thoughts, anger filled me, and I roared, spreading my wings wide, but the chains through them held fast, and the human moved just out of my reach.
“Sorry,” he continued. “But I’m in a bit of a tight spot here. If I do something like that, Kejetan would have me killed.”
“I will take care of the man I once called father,” I said.
Caleb shook his head at me. “No,” he said. “You won’t.” He pulled back his sleeve and checked what I knew the humans called a watch. “Already, the concoction I gave you should be fading.”
The other presence within picked away at me, rising once more. “Then hurry and let me loose to face him,” I shouted. “I will destroy Kejetan for the situation he has brought on us all.”
Caleb smiled at me. “You might be able to take him on; I have no doubt of that,” he said. “But I don’t think you would escape this ship facing off against the whole of his fellow stone men or his human servants. And—this is the most important part to me—I don’t want to die or incur Kejetan’s wrath in the process.”
“You live your life as a coward,” I said, feeling my true voice beginning to slip back behind the wall of the dominant one.
“That’s not the first time I’ve been called that,” he said, grim. “I prefer the term self-preservationist.”
The struggle on my face must have been evident as the human looked on with concern. My wings relaxed on the chains, my body betraying me in service to the other presence rising in me.
“Why draw me out?” my inner voice cried out. “Why talk to me only to leave me here in Kejetan’s servitude?”
“I pulled the real you forward, so I could tell you that I’m sorry.”
“I will find a way to overcome this presence,” I said, struggling against its domination. “While I must obey it, my true self has always remained, bowing to it only when it is forced to do so, but I’ve been fighting it, tricking it. And if I can trick it, I can beat it.”
“There it is!” Caleb said, a dark smile taking over his face. “Exactly what I thought might be going on.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see, I know that when your master has me assign tasks to you, I need to be very specific. I’ve been very lax about that to this point, running up the meter for the sake of my wallet, but things seem to be getting a bit crazy in my life as of late. And if I want to stay safe and living, I need to give Kejetan what he desires, what he really wants: results. I’m really in a bind here.”
“No,” I said, fearing whatever this human had to say next, fearing what specific task he meant to set upon me. “I beg of you . . . speak with care of what you will ask of me.”
“Oh, I’ll be careful,” he said with a smile. “In fact, I’ll name the exact time and place you can pry Alexander Belarus’s master tome from the cold, dead hands of your biggest fan, Alexandra.”
My inner voice was nearly shut down now, but at Caleb’s words my rising anger forced it back to the surface. “If you harm her, I will find you and take your life,” I said. “You have my word on that, human.”
“I’m not going to kill her,” he said, turning to pull several more vials from his coat. “I’ll leave that up to the professionals. I’ll leave that up to you. Kejetan’s order.”
My mouth opened to roar, but nothing came out. Once more, I was no longer the force in control of my actions. My true voice fell silent. The only hint of my anguish now lay in the screaming voice that dwelled deep in the center of me, crushed as it was, like a bug under the heel of a boot, by the dominant voice.
“As . . . you . . . wish,” I said against my will, and waited to learn the time and place where I would kill Alexandra.
Fifteen
Alexandra
“You want to tell me why you have me counting all the time?” I asked Caleb, sitting across the table from me.
Caleb leaned back in his chair, looking around the bar he had brought me to, Eccentric Circles. I hadn’t ever been there before, but it seemed popular enough that the place was crowded and loud. “Are you doing it now?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, stopping to think about it, looking around the room.
“Focus,” Caleb said. “Why aren’t you sure?”
I sighed. “You told me to do it at the back of my mind,” I said. “So it’s not like I’m consciously thinking about it. I kind of have to—I don’t know—mentally switch gears.”
Caleb’s eyes stayed locked with mine, unwilling to let up. “So . . . are you doing it or not?”
I reached out to that part of my mind, surprised to find I was counting, and nodded.
“Good,” he said.
“That still doesn’t tell me why I’m doing it,” I said, my annoyance coming through in my words.
“Look around,” he said, turning away from me to take in our surroundings. “Tell me what you see.”
The bar was crowded with people at every booth and table, and it was standing room only by the bar itself. “I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “People. Lots and lots of people . . . ?”
It was Caleb’s turn to sigh. He leaned forward, knocking over his glass in the process. His drink spilled out across the table, but rather than soaking into the wood, the contents transformed into a wash of blue flame that danced high across the surface for several seconds before dying out. The table below remained unharmed.
I glanced around the room, but other than a few people who gave us a cursory glance, no one seemed all that interested in what had just happened.
“What the hell?” I said, surprised by the lack of reaction.
Caleb leaned in closer, and I noticed the vial in his hand as he discreetly slipped it back into his coat. “Are you still counting now?”
I switched my thoughts back over, finding the back of my mind a blank this time. “Shit,” I said.
“I thought as much,” he said. “I brought you here because you have to get used to distractions, Alexandra. All these people, spilling my drink, the flames on the table . . . You need to keep focused no matter what is going on around you.”
“How is the counting supposed to help?” I said. “Why is it so damned important?”
“Let’s start simple,” he said. “I’m having you do it because that’s how you’re going to be able to fly with those wings you’re building. The better a rhythm you can keep—without distraction—the easier it’s going to be keeping yourself airborne. But the best reason you need to lock that rhythm off in the back of your mind is because the front of it is going to be occupied.”
“With what?”
“Capturing your gargoyle,” he said.
My heart caught in my throat. “Oh,” I said, stunned.
“You’re going to have your hands full,” he said. “The last thing I want you worrying about is staying in the air. You need to learn how to split your mind. I think that’s what’s been keeping you from moving further forward with your arcane endeavors.”