Shadow Magic (Darkling Mage 1)

I smiled again. “Fine. Our little secret.”

The hardness receded from Bastion’s face, and he even allowed himself to smile a little, giving me a small nod. But that all washed away when a knock came at the door.

It creaked open slowly – just like the door at my apartment, like the Lorica somehow knew to pluck even that detail from out of my mind – and Thea poked her head in. The room seemed brighter somehow, and I knew at that point to chalk it up to her presence. Something about the woman just oozed radiance. The sight of her, especially her sudden, eager smile, was certainly enough to cheer me up, even a little.

“Knock knock,” she said, stepping in, the bright white of her clothes bringing even more illumination into the bedroom.

I smiled back. “Thought it was Prudence.”

“Not quite,” Thea said. “She’s out for work.”

Bastion nodded at her in greeting. “Sup,” he said, in that half-bored drone he liked to use. “He just got up.”

Thea nodded. “I can take over from here. You should go grab some lunch. It’s late.”

Bastion shifted in his chair. “It’s cool, I can stay.”

“It’s fine, Brandt. I’d like some one-on-one time with Dustin here. And you’ve been here for hours. Prudence tells me you got in at nine and just disappeared.”

Bastion stared at the ground, his ears reddening again. I quirked an eyebrow but said nothing. We were getting along well enough that I didn’t want to rub salt in his wounds.

It was flattering, though, that he’d spent all that time watching over me. Either Bastion took Thea’s orders much more seriously than I’d thought, or, and this was the truly horrifying part – maybe he was a good guy on the inside after all.

The chair’s legs scraped against the floor as Bastion got up abruptly. His eyes flitted from the side table, to Thea’s face, then mine. “I’ll – see you around, I guess.”

“Thanks, Bastion,” I said. “For everything.”

He smiled, a small one that I was almost sure he didn’t want Thea seeing, then stalked straight out the door. Thea shook her head and shrugged.

“He’s a good boy, but really preoccupied with putting up a tough front. I’m glad to see that he’s finally getting used to you. Or the other way around.”

“Yeah, I get what you mean. Never thought I’d say this, but he’s actually okay.”

“And it looks like you’re getting used to more than just your colleagues here at the Lorica, Dustin.” Thea smoothed the back of her skirt under her thighs as she took Bastion’s chair. “I heard you cast your first circle.”

I lit up. “I did. Prudence told you?”

Thea nodded, her eyes bright, smile as proud as a soccer mom. “The smiley face was a nice touch. I heard the entity gave you something else as well.”

That was right. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t bother checking earlier. I reached for my forehead, certain that a hole had been bored straight to the center of my brain, but there was nothing there. The skin was smooth, unburned, unbroken. I craned my neck, trying to get a glimpse of my face in my drinking glass, when Thea spoke up.

“You’re fine. Nothing there. I know it feels like something’s wrong, but truthfully it looks like you did something right. That’s the second entity you’ve met who’s granted you a favor.”

My eyes went wide. “Really? That thing where Hecate fried my brain from the outside. That was a favor?”

Thea held up her hands and shrugged. “Gods work in mysterious ways.” She chuckled, clearly pleased with herself.

“Very funny.” I rubbed at my forehead again. “Whatever she did, it hurt like hell. But I’m not sure what I got out of it.”

“You never can be. All you know is that an entity has favored you. Maybe she’s granted you some hidden knowledge. Or you might be able to call on her in a time of need.” She rubbed at her chin. “The question is whether she’ll answer. She’s a fickle one, that Hecate.”

“So I’ve been told. Kind of crazy, too.”

“Right. Which is why she didn’t even give us any information on the murders.”

“Maybe she did? She said to – ” I mouthed the words before I spoke them, then realized how irrelevant they were to anything we were working on. “To embrace the shadows. To understand the darkness.”