A Girl in Black and White (Alyria 2)

“Maybe this illusion has a purpose, and you just cannot understand it.”

My heart beat at that, my stomach turning when the realization dawned on me: why else would the seal haunt me unless it wanted open? I’d been told since I was a child that the opening of the seal would be the end of Alyria. I read books by scholars on it. There wasn’t one person I’d met who wanted any differently until I’d met Weston. This was a trick. Some magic-user was spelling me, trying to convolute my thoughts with this idea.

“I came here to look something up in your book. The library doesn’t have any journals on the Shadows of Dawn.”

“Third book down,” he muttered, tinkering with his clock.

Again, there was no stack of books like he’d suggested, but a mountain that I had to dig through until I found what I needed.

I’d barely even made a dent in the book last time, but now I knew what I was looking for. I flipped through the pages, stopping on a profile drawing of a pale girl. The tips of her hair were ashen, her eyes gray and strange against her pale complexion. My stomach fluttered with unease as I read over the passage:

‘The Shadows is a choice many say, as though intoxicants are a choice to an addict. Months after their rebirth as a Shadow, if they do not use their magic the way they were created, their bodies will disown them. The illustration above shows the change. It’s said they can remain looking human with continual use of their magic, and only as their true selves without it.’

My stomach twisted in dismay and I slammed the book closed. Bloody hell. I didn’t want to use my magic, but how else could I remain to appear normal?

“That’s a thousand years old,” Talon muttered.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Any luck with your clock?”

He only tinkered away without a response; so I got up to walk to the door, but before I opened it, I heard his voice behind me. “What time is it?”

I frowned. “I don’t know. Eleven, maybe.”

An inkling of déjà vu ran through me, but I shook it off. An awful lot of that was happening, and if I had asked Farah, she would have told me it meant something was coming. I didn’t believe in that stuff, though.

Talon’s voice stopped me before I shut the door. “Calamity?”

“What?”

A long pause.

“Tick tock.”

Tick, tock. It’s what he had told me dozens of times, but for some reason, it repeated itself on a reel in my head all the way to the stables.

I didn’t know what I would do now that I couldn’t even appear normal without using the magic. Turmoil turned in my stomach, and I let out a breath.

When I saw Gallant’s head over a stall door, the pressure in my chest lessened.

“Hey, buddy,” I whispered as I ran my hand down his nose. “I’ve missed you.” He butted my hand, and it brought a smile to my lips.

“So much love for a grade?”

I started at the voice but then turned to look at Will leaning against the doorway.

A frown pulled on my lips when I realized what he said—as if Gallant didn’t deserve love because he was a mere farm horse. I gave him my back, running my hand down Gallant’s neck. “He’s smart, and he heard that,” I told him, sounding offended.

“My condolences,” he said, amused. He stepped up beside me and offered Gallant some sugar from his hand.

“You insult him and then you feed him? Is that supposed to make it all better?”

“Usually does, yea,” he said with a small laugh.

It did look like it was working . . .

“You should know that grades have just as much courage as any destriers.”

A smile pulled on his lips, but he shook his head. “No, that’s not how it works. If it did, we’d be able to use them in combat. A grade would get any soldier killed by throwing him at the slightest thing.”