“Why since before your brother died? Were you and he fighting?”
He moved his hand until it was sliding under mine where it rested on his chest. He lifted his fingers, and I threaded mine between them. “He was high up in the guild, and like I told you and your mother, he was trying to effect change. Straighten things out. That’s why he joined them in the first place. He wanted to help shape the Mages’ Guild into an organization our parents would have been proud of. I told him he’d get himself killed, and that it couldn’t be done. But he didn’t listen. And then it came true. It wasn’t even a premonition—just logical thinking. That made it so much worse, because he would’ve believed my premonition over logic.”
“Why didn’t you lie and say that it was your premonition?”
“I don’t have them about other people. I only have them about myself. He knew that.”
“Oh.” I thought back to earlier that evening. “So the guild wouldn’t really go after me if I left?”
He turned his head until his cheek was against my forehead. “I guess I should’ve said that I only have them about myself usually. Your fate is tied with mine, but I’m honestly not sure why. My fight has nothing to do with you. Nor am I a good teacher to help you with your magic. I’m not even a good guide to the magical world. But for some reason, we’re in this together, for good or bad. My danger sensors now encompass you. I don’t know much more than that. Maybe I can just tell if you’re in danger if I’m in danger too. I’m not sure yet.”
Silence descended between us, and the throb of the music downstairs drifted into the background. My eyelids drooped and my body hummed in an aching, unsettled sort of way, but the feeling didn’t require action. Despite lying on a near-stranger and admitted criminal who was about to take me into the heart of some serious danger, I was completely content.
“I’m the only mage I know of who has pure black survival magic,” Emery said. “I’ve always assumed it was showing the world what I truly am.”
“An egomaniac?”
His huffed laugh made my eyelashes flutter. He squeezed me. “Evil.”
I tilted up my head and he glanced down. Our gazes connected in the dim light. His lips twitched, his attempt at a smile he didn’t feel, before he rubbed my arm with the hand draped around me and looked back at the ceiling. “I know it’s not true.”
But I could hear in his voice that he wasn’t being honest. He did think it was true. He thought he was evil.
My heart ached for him. What a horrible thing to go through life believing. Especially after losing everyone close to you, and being forced to leave your home and way of life. He was an outcast, more so than anyone I had ever known. He had nothing to his name except his family’s legacy and his magic. That he would think he didn’t have honor, that he was doomed to darkness, was more than I could bear.
Warmth seeped out from my middle, filling me. I tried to wiggle closer, to paste my body against his, so he had my touch for comfort. It wasn’t much, but it was all I knew to do.
“You’re not evil, Emery. Far from it. And that’s not just an opinion—I can feel it. I can feel your goodness.”
“I’m not like my brother. His survival magic was pure white. He always saw the good in everything. He wanted to build things. To create things. I was always the kid that knocked over the stack of blocks.”
“That makes you a jerk, not evil.”
He moved his hand up until he could tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Survival magic is a living creature’s essence. You felt it in Joe—his survival magic turns him into a wolf. Changes and morphs as he needs it. Non-magical humans have it too, in tiny amounts. That’s where intuition and gut feelings come in. If the magic is visible—by someone like you or me—it’ll lean toward one color or another. But while a shifter’s magic looks like a green haze, if you’re close enough, you can see that it is actually an ultra-fine and delicate weave of a great many patterns and textures, like you see in a spell. Mages, witches, vampires—every creature’s magic is the same. Except mine. It’s jet-black. Like a tear in the universe.”
I shrugged, because that didn’t mean anything at all. His survival magic was a color just like anyone else’s was. But I was sure someone, likely his brother, had explained that before. It hadn’t stuck then, so it wouldn’t stick now. I decided to go a different direction with my argument.
“Mine is solid too,” I said. “Solid white. Devoid of any personality whatsoever. I hate white walls, white cars—I really don’t like the color white. My survival magic is taunting me. So you see, you aren’t the only one with a grievance.”
“White is pure. The color of angels. Of innocence. It is goodness and light.”
“It’s also the color of the tunnel leading to death.” I tilted my face up to his again. This time, though, he didn’t look down to meet my eyes. His demons were haunting him. “Look at it this way. White is the absence of color. All the colors bounce off it. Nothing stays. Black absorbs all the colors. It is the culmination of color consumption. So really, I’m a blank canvas, and you are full of it. I think that fits.”
He sucked in a breath and choked on it. His body bent, bucking me off, as he coughed, pounding on his chest with his fist. Laughter fought his struggle for air.
I laughed with him, settling again with my head propped up on my hand.
“I think you have it better, quite frankly,” I said when he sat up, coughing. “I’d rather be full of color than devoid of it. Besides, black is way cooler. How many goth kids run around in white jumpsuits? None, that’s how many. You’re the bad boy. Your brother was— Oh.” Realization dawned.
I hadn’t properly taken in what he’d said moments before. But now I saw the dilemma. And the connection.
“I have the same unusual color as your brother did,” I said softly. “Was that why you stood in the middle of the street that one night? Because it made you think of your brother?”
Emery turned to me and slowly lay back down, but this time, he was on his side facing me. Shadows draped across his face and his expression was lost to the night. “Yes. It was a shock. But you’re the real shock, Penny.” He took a deep breath and leaned toward me slightly. “I’d thought my brother was the yin to my yang. We had an incredibly tight bond. We usually worked together excellently, and we’d been through hell together. But now I realize that we struggled to maintain our focus together. We fought for leadership. He often won, because he was better at it, and older, but we did fight for it. It made us topsy-turvy at times. Our magic was fire and brimstone, wild and powerful. But it lacked true balance. I see that now. I see that the struggle weakened us. Our bond made being dual-mages possible, but…” His shoulders sagged. When his next words came, they were lined with grief and sorrow. “We weren’t a natural dual-mage pair. We were too similar.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Dual-mages are like yin and yang—they work in opposites. When you combine two elements that seemingly contrast, the forces become complementary. When I’m strong, my partner can lean on me. When I’m weak, my partner takes the lead. There is no fighting for control. It’s a graceful dance. Rage and turmoil in one partner should be buffered by temperance and steadfastness in the other. The two halves merge to form an interconnected, unshakable, balanced bond. My brother and I had an unshakable bond, but not a balanced one.”
“But no one is temperate all the time.”
“Exactly. When one partner rages, the other must keep their head. And vice versa. The roles shift…”
“In the dance.”
“Yes.” The word wasn’t much more than a breath. “Now I see…”
The words lingered in the air, twisting and turning in the sudden silence between us.
Pressure pushed down on my chest. “What do you see?” I asked, my voice barely making it past my lips.
“I see you, Penny Bristol. With a magic as white as a dove. A soul as pure as my brother’s. Full of innocence and wonder and light. I wish I were good enough for you.”
Tears filled my eyes, and it wasn’t just the beauty of what he’d said—it was the feeling behind it. The aching rawness and absolute conviction that he wasn’t good enough. I knew it wasn’t me he didn’t feel good enough for. That line of thought was absurd. It was himself. He didn’t feel he warranted his own good opinion. Which was why he thought he was evil.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, because it was the first thing that came to mind and something my mother would’ve said. I was freaking turning into my mother. “You have a grasp of magic that I can only wish for. You have friends that let you crash in their failed attempt at a man cave, even though it’s dangerous for them, which is loyalty at its finest, and chicks that want you to call them, which I can only assume is for a hookup, even though you’re a wanderer. You’ve had some bumps, some horrible losses, but the color of your magic doesn’t decide if you’re good or evil. You decide that. And an evil guy wouldn’t have put up a magical roadblock to keep innocent passersby safe before he killed his enemies. Evil people don’t think like that. You’re so much better than me. Experience rates ten times as high as innocence ever will. Trust me, I’ll be shedding this naivety as soon as possible. So stop with that line of—”