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  At least the walk was short.

  Roos came to a stop. “We’re here.” She nodded toward a door behind Claire. “This is traditionally the room of Madame Stravinsky’s host, so enjoy. Alena sleeps here.” She pointed to the door behind her over her shoulder. “Right close by.”

  Claire looked at both doors, then back at Roos. She had so many more questions, but she was too exhausted. She gave in. “Okay, thank you. For the kind welcome and the food. I’m still, you know, adjusting and seeing a friendly face…it’s good.”

  Roos patted her cheek with a mother’s touch. “I hope you stay for a while. You are sweet.” She held the empty glass out for Claire to take—which she hurried to do.

  The apple wobbled precariously on her plate, but her barista skills kept it from falling off.

  When Roos turned, Claire perked up. “Wait!”

  “Yes?” She turned back.

  “The meeting, what is it about?”

  Roos sighed, glanced down the hallway, then back at Claire. “There is a problem. A wild mage was um…born, I guess you could say. But she is an adult.” She waved her hand as if swatting away her annoyance with herself for struggling for words. “Wild mages are rare and powerful. You remember the people who tried to take you?”

  Claire nodded. Ice traversed her spine. Of course she remembered.

  “The Inquisitio fight us. We need the wild mage to help us fight them off, and the Inquisitio want the girl so they can win.” She shrugged. “Gregorios and Madame Stravinsky need to talk about what to do. About how to win, you understand?”

  Claire nodded, even though there were a lot of puzzle pieces missing, and the mention of a struggle left her even colder than she already felt.

  “You will hear, I’m sure. Don’t worry, because it’s not so important for you. You will be here and all you have to do is make sure Madame Stravinsky can talk to everyone.” She smiled and held up her hand in greeting. “I must go now.” With that, she turned, waved, and headed down the hallway, back in the direction she’d come from.

  Claire watched the spot where Roos disappeared around a corner for a long time, then she sighed and turned around. Maybe Roos was right and she should just forget all about the Inquisitio and a wild mage that was somehow capable of deciding a feud. Since Netflix was not an option, and she’d be left alone for hours on end, Claire doubted that was going to happen.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The boy’s spirit is elusive. It seems to have been shattered or torn when he manifested his abilities. I caught a flicker of him yesterday, after endless hours of pulling and baiting. He appeared above his body, but only for a moment. We locked gazes and I could sense his confusion. Then he was gone.

  Perhaps I should not try to draw him in, but I should follow him into the Veil instead.

  The dangers are numerous, and there is a chance I will become as scattered as he is if I attempt the feat. I must think, and I must plan accordingly. What if I make an anchor out of my shell? A beacon to come back to?

  How does one make a beacon out of their physical form, I wonder? Has anyone achieved the feat? If they have not, then I will be the first. If anyone can, it is the Chosen One.

  – Simon Magus, “In Search of Heaven; Treaties of the Veil”

  THE LIGHT SWITCH was on the right side of the door. She flicked it on. After two blinks, tunnel lights lit up and cast a soft glow through a domed room about the size of her old apartment’s living room and kitchen area.

  Claire forced herself to focus enough to take it all in. This was going to be her home for a while, after all.

  The walls were of the same brickwork found everywhere else in the complex. It was furnished with more antiques; a single bed in the far corner, a bookcase against the far wall, a wardrobe to her left, a comfortable chair in the right corner with the familiar burn patterns on the armrest, and a round little table with two chairs a little to the right of the center, which reminded her of the café, and subsequently of being fired. Rugs lined the floor and it smelled like brick, moisture and old incense.

  It was an impersonal room and it was cold. What had Alena said? That hosts only stayed for a few months? The room reflected it. Maybe it would feel homelier once she got situated.

  She put her food down on the table, stopped her apple from rolling off the plate and looked around again. It was so quiet here. Not a single bit of outside noise reached her ears; no cars, no people, no nothing. It was eerie, and suddenly, Claire felt really alone.

  With a sigh, she dropped her bag on the armchair and sat by the table. That made her feel even lonelier. She already missed her phone. She missed her Tumblr timeline, and the stupid cat pictures Bree always sent her—especially when she disappeared for a bit to recharge. She even missed the weird discussions in the WhatsApp group she was in with most of her classmates, but which she rarely joined in on.

  She took a bite out of her sandwich and sighed. How long was she going to be here, anyway? A few months? Half a year? A year? The thought of this arrangement lasting a year was daunting. She chewed and swallowed in the hope of swallowing her unease down as well.

  It didn’t work.

  A soft knock on her door shook her out of her thoughts.

  “Y-Yes?” She turned in her seat to check.

  The door opened, and Alena poked her head in. “You’re not asleep yet?”

  Claire shook her head, redundantly.

  “Good.” Alena opened the door wider and stepped in before closing it behind her. She had a plain plastic bag in her hand. “Mind if I sit?”

  “No.” She sat up and watched as Alena lowered herself down into one of the other chairs with a groan. She deposited the bag beside it.

  Alena looked tired; worn out. Her shoulders had slumped and her eyes were slightly glazed, as if deep in thought. Her luscious hair had tumbled down and framed her face in a way that accented her sharp nose and full lips.

  Not that Claire was paying attention to things like that. She cleared her throat. “How long have you been up?”

  Alena looked up at her but any understanding lagged by a few seconds. “Hm? Oh…I took the early flight to Baton Rouge on Monday, arrived around four p.m. local time, then flew back with you three hours later, so…too long?” She grinned. “About thirty hours, give or take.”

  Claire cringed. “Oh. You must be so tired.”

  “Accurate.” Alena eyed the second half of her sandwich. “Are you going to eat that?”

  Claire had planned to, but now shook her head. “No, thank you. Just the apple. Do you…want it?”

  “If you don’t mind…?” Alena already sat up and picked it up.

  “No, that’s fine.”

  Alena bit down and moaned.

  Claire felt a blush come on again, so she dipped her head. To appear busy, she rubbed the apple on her leggings. “Alena? Who’s On?”

  “Hm? Oh, Pò On and his mother Siu Mei live here. He’s is our thaumaturge, but since he’s six, he needs continual parental supervision and guidance.”

  “The Society has a six-year-old member?” Claire frowned. Surely there were labor laws against that.

  Alena shrugged. She hadn’t opened her eyes since taking her first bite. “Yeah, it was a bit of a debate but he’s too special not to recruit.”

  “A thaumaturge is a healer, right?”

  “No.” Alena opened an eye to look at her. “A thaumaturge is someone who performs miracles. Technically, most forms of magic are considered thaumaturgy, but we often use the subclass to name the specialization.”

  Claire must have emoted a lack of understanding, because Alena chuckled. “Sorry. I’m a geomancer. Geomancy is a subclass of elemental magic; elementalism. Elementalism is a subclass of thaumaturgy. I am a thaumaturge, but because my abilities are specialized, we use the term ‘geomancer’ instead. Like how a construction worker can be an electrician or a brick layer or a carpenter, but he’s always a construction worker. Does that make more sense?”

  Claire nodd
ed. “So, a mage is technically a thaumaturge, but you don’t use that term as most mages think of someone with specific powers when they hear the term?”

  “Accurate enough.” Alena stretched. “When I say we keep a slot open for a thaumaturge, I mean that we have a seat reserved on the board of the London Charter of the Society for a magic user not already specifically invited due to their specialization, like a scryer or a medium.”

  Claire pondered this. “So, Pò knows how to use magic?”

  “On. He’s Chinese; they put their family name first and their first name second. Pò is his family name, On his first name. And yes, he does. But I think you’re confusing true magic with Hollywood magic. He's not Gandalf. I already told you, most magic is innate; you’re born with the ability to perform that specific subtype of it; my geomancy, for example. On was born with his abilities as well. When word of his existence reached the Society, we realized there was no other choice than to bring him in. If the Inquisitio got a hold of him, they’d undoubtedly lock him away or worse, use him to get to us.”

  Claire felt her brows knit together. “Use him? For what? What can he do, exactly?”

  Alena pushed the last of the sandwich into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “On possesses a very rare form of telepathy. He can connect with another person’s—or even animal’s—internal speech perception and mimic it. Because of that ability, he can speak any language the person he is in contact with can speak. On also seems to have a brain especially attuned to understanding the structure of language, so he actually understands what he says, and he can learn the language as he speaks it through his xenoglossy—the term for his ability. He’s the purest and most capable xenoglost we have records of, and he’s already deciphering and translating texts that have only survived in writing. There are quite a number of books in our library that no one alive can read—except On.”

  “Wow…” Claire wasn’t sure what to think of that beyond the obvious. “That is amazing.”

  Alena nodded. “He’s incredibly bright and he lives for languages. Did you see the small desk in the library?”

  Claire shook her head.

  “It’s in the far corner. That’s his and he’s almost always there when he’s awake. It drives Mei nuts, even though she is, of course, very proud. She wants to take him to the park sometimes or draw or play, but On would rather decipher hieroglyphs and Sanskrit.” She chuckled. “You’ll meet them at dinner, for sure.”

  “Yes, please. His abilities sound fascinating.”

  “They are.”

  “Why would the…the Inquisitio use him, though? Or, I guess, how?” Alena still hadn’t told her who the Inquisitio were and Claire didn’t want to pry—if Alena didn’t think she needed to know, well, she’d have to accept that—but not understanding made her antsy.

  Alena glanced at her, as if deciding if she should say something or not. “Their primary goal, their reason for existing, is to cut us off from the energy that we can pull through the Veil to fuel our magic. We’ve gathered a lot of books here that we’d never want the Inquisitio to get access to. There is nothing in them that could act as a guide to achieve their goal, but what On has translated for us has already furthered our understanding of the Veil and our magic. Not only that, but he could in theory talk to pureblood Otherkin, who might have information that could skyrocket their efforts.”

  Claire took that in and mulled it over. It was too much to take in all at once, so she focused on the primary topic at hand: On’s stay and, by extension, herself. “So…you’re keeping him locked away here?” She tried not to make it sound like an accusation, and she tried even harder not to show the nervous energy that filled her belly. Wasn’t she being treated the same?

  Alena inspected her, then leaned forward. “That’s perspective. Is witness protection locking someone away? We’re keeping him here for his safety and he doesn’t even like going out. He just wants to read. If he requested more time away from the Den, it could be arranged. He doesn’t, and Mei doesn’t request it for him.”

  “Hm.” Claire looked down at her apple and decided to let the subject drop. It was confusing enough to be here as it was. “I think I’d like to sleep now?”

  “Almost.” Alena sat up with a cut-off groan. “I actually came here for a reason.” She reached down and pulled a little kit of some sort out of the bag by her feet, along with a small yellow container with a red lid that Claire recognized from her Grandmother’s house as well: a safe way to dispose of—

  “Are you scared of needles?”

  Claire shook her head. “I don’t like them but I’m not afraid of them.”

  “Good, because I will have to draw some blood to run tests on; your rejection test as well as a few others.”

  “Other tests?”

  “We’ll do two types of tests, both standard practice. One is the blood test we did at your place, but with a bit more blood so I can test better. I just want to make sure you’re completely healthy so that there are no rejection issues. I’d also like to make sure you’re not genetically blessed with any other paralogical abilities. That’s the other test.”

  “W-What does that mean?”

  “Hm?”

  “Paralogical. You said it before, but you didn’t explain.” Claire didn’t mean to be difficult, but she was tired, far away from home, and frankly, she was a little scared. A lot scared, maybe.

  Alena unzipped the pouch and revealed a bloodwork kit, with a syringe and tubes.

  Claire shuddered, but tried not to show it.

  “Paralogical, according to the dictionary, is defined as a form of reasoning which does not conform to the rules of logic. We use it to define the normal functions of your paranormal abilities.” Alena pulled out the syringe and a couple of vials.

  “There is something normal about paranormal activities?” Claire drew her legs up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around them. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the instruments of doom.

  Alena chuckled. “You’re equating ‘normal’ with ‘average.’ Normal, in this case, refers to the baseline of your abilities. If you’re also genetically prone to, say, elementalism, like me, we’d like to know. It could throw off our other tests.”

  Claire nodded. “Okay.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know; she wasn’t sure she would handle being a mage very well.

  “Hey…” Alena stopped her hands and waited for Claire to look up. “I know this must be scary. I’ve seen a lot of hosts come by in the twenty-five years I’ve been attached to these societies. They were all girls just like you, thrown into a world that they hadn’t known existed. Some of them I got to know really well.”

  “Do you still talk to them?” Her heart went up into her throat. If she still talked to them, they were okay, right?

  Alena’s pressed her lips together for only a second before the smile was back, but it told Claire enough. Even before Alena told her that she didn’t, she knew.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s law within the Society that, once a host completes her service, she is not to associate with the Society again. For her own protection, you see?” Alena didn’t seem to like that law.

  “Why?”

  Alena sighed and played with the pen in her hands. She looked at her, seemingly judging her ability to handle the truth.

  With much more bravado than she felt, Claire straightened her back and met her gaze.

  “Because a host of Madame Stravinsky is a valuable commodity, even a former one.” She hesitated again but when Claire didn’t speak, she continued. “Claire, once your service to the Society is completed, we’ll use a mixture of hypnosis and magic to block your memories of anything that happened here. We’ll implant ones that fill in the lost time and relocate you to somewhere we can keep an eye on you. So far, none of the other hosts have had any issues adapting and I don’t expect you will either.”

  Claire swallowed down a wave of nausea. She should have expected it, but she had
n’t. “Oh.” It stung that she was something disposable to the Society; disposable to Alena. She was something to use and discard—with as much care as possible, but discard none the less. Claire dropped her head and stared at her knees. “Okay.”

  “Claire?”.

  “Yes?” She forced herself to look back up.

  “The Society—the whole of the magical world—is going through a rough time, and everyone is tense. I think things will be different for you than they were for the other hosts, but I’ll give you the same advice as I gave them: forget this conversation ever happened and soak it all up. The magical world is an extraordinary one, and even though you’ll be made to forget, I think you will be better for the experience.” She tapped her own chest. “In here.”

  Claire pressed her lips together to keep sudden tears at bay, then nodded. “Okay. I will.” She sniffed.

  “Good.” Alena tested the syringe. “Shall we get the poking over with, then?”

  Claire nodded, but everything inside of her told her to run instead. She didn’t. She allowed Alena to scoot closer, to wrap some sort of tubing around her upper arm, and then to slip the needle into a vein in the crook of her elbow. It stung, but mostly it made her lightheaded. It was worse when she watched the tubes fill, so she looked away. She swallowed against her nausea.

  “Are you okay? Are you going to pass out on me?” Alena’s voice sounded a little too far away for the foot or so between them.

  “N-No… Maybe?” Claire tried to sit up straighter, but her vision swam. Why was her heart racing?

  “Okay, Claire? Breathe, okay? One more tube, then we’re done and I’ll get you some water.”

  Claire nodded and gripped the armrest. She tried to breathe and willed her blood into the tube quicker.

  “There, done.” Alena wiggled the third tube off, capped it, got out a cotton ball and pressed it onto the spot where the needle had pierced. She guided it out with as much well-practiced efficiency as she’d displayed guiding it in. “Hold this down, please.”