Anne Bishop - Sebastian

He stepped off the path and sat down next to a bush, curling up as much as he could to keep from being noticed. He cried silently while all the cruel words that had been said to him over the years took root deep in his heart.

Hearing footsteps on the path, he curled up tighter. But the footsteps stopped suddenly, the person stepped off the path and came around the bush—and he looked up at a woman with dark hair and dark, angry eyes. He flinched at the anger pouring off her, but when she crouched down, her voice was gentle.

“Who hit you?” she asked.

“The woman,” he muttered.

“Your mother?”

He shook his head. “The woman I lives with. She…keeps me.”

“Are you an orphan?”

Another head shake. “Don’t know my mother. My father…he doesn’t want me because I’m an incubastard.” He wasn’t sure what that was, but he knew now it was the reason he would never live in a clean place with kind people.

“What’s your name?”

“Sebastian.”

“I’m Nadia.” She hesitated, studying his face, staring deep into his green eyes. “Are you Koltak’s son?”

He nodded.

“Well, then. I guess that makes me your auntie.” She stood up and held out her hand. “Would you like to come live with me, Sebastian?”

The anger inside her had faded to sadness, but the warmth and kindness beneath the sadness, at the core of her, dazzled his young heart.

Getting to his feet, he took the offered hand—and the two of them walked away from the Wizards’ Hall.

Opportunities and choices. That was how Aunt Nadia explained how the currents of power worked. When a person made a heart wish, that wish resonated through the currents and things would happen to give the person an opportunity to make that wish come true. Like a gate not closing all the way. Like a woman, distressed and angry over the disappearance of her husband, hurrying down a path and stopping suddenly at the exact spot where a boy, who had the same green eyes as her own children, was hiding. Like a hand offered—and accepted.

Sebastian shook his head as he continued to climb.

Travel lightly. Think of something besides the past. Think of sitting in Philo’s courtyard on a summer night, drinking wine and watching the ebb and flow of people looking for a taste of the dark side. Think of sitting in Nadia’s kitchen, a room that felt bright and warm on even the dreariest day. Think of Nadia’s birds, those bright, playful little chatterheads. Travel lightly—or this place will swallow you whole.

His legs burned by the time he climbed the last stair. His heart burned, too, but not from exertion.

A cobblestone path cut between the stone walls that protected the houses of the wealthy who now shared the plateau with the wizards, leading to the street. Directly across the street was the Petitioners’ Hall—the only entrance common folk had to the part of the hill the wizards considered their exclusive domain.

As he crossed the street, he glanced at the structure that dominated the right-hand side of the wizards’ estate.

The Tower was the oldest structure in the city, and even now, centuries after it had been built, wizards still walked sentry duty, still kept watch.

For what? What had they once feared that they had built on the highest piece of land in this landscape? What did they still fear that they continued to keep watch?

He shook his head and banished those thoughts. Wizards claimed they feared nothing. He knew that wasn’t true—at least, not for the last fifteen years. Which was the only reason he risked entering this city.

The Petitioners’ Hall was connected to the wall surrounding the wizards’ private domain, separated from the buildings that made up the Wizards’ Hall by the expansive courtyard and garden he’d wandered through so many years ago. It still looked open and friendly with all its trees and greenery—if you didn’t consider the fact that only one gate next to the Petitioners’ Hall provided a way back into the rest of the city.

He opened the door of the Petitioners’ Hall and stepped into a long room. Stone floor, stone walls, and unadorned wooden benches that were, no doubt, uncomfortable if anyone had to sit on one for very long. The room was lit by oil lamps suspended from the ceiling, which had to burn all the time, since there were no windows to let in light. The place felt cold and hard as the stone it was built from.

He left the door open, more to give himself a way to escape than to indicate discourtesy, and strode to the desk at the back of the room.

Here there was some luxury. The big wooden desk gleamed in the lamplight. Beneath it was a pool of thick carpet that would keep the cold damp of stone from seeping into the feet of whoever was on duty.

Tonight it was a surly young man who closed the book he’d been reading and folded his hands over it. The badge he wore on his robe declared him a second-level wizard to anyone who knew what the symbols stood for.

“I need to see Wizard Koltak,” Sebastian said.

“It’s late,” the young wizard snapped. “Wizard Koltak isn’t on duty this evening to see petitioners. Take a seat and I’ll see who—”

“Nevertheless, Koltak will see me.”

The wizard looked outraged. “And who are you?”

“Sebastian. From the Den of Iniquity.”

The surly look gave way to fascinated revulsion. So. This one had heard the stories that had been whispered in the student quarters—and perhaps still were. A lesson for the lusty and foolish.

The wizard grabbed a small piece of parchment from the stack on the corner of his desk. Snatching up the quill and dipping it into the inkwell, he didn’t notice that he dribbled ink on the desk’s gleaming wood. Hurried scribbles. The ink barely had time to dry before the wizard folded the parchment and shouted, “Boy!”

A boy dozing on a bench close to the desk scrambled to answer the summons. The folded parchment was handed off, and the boy dashed out the door in the back of the room.

Your pen dribbles. A simple phrase that held a wealth of meanings when an incubus said it. It was tempting to see if this young wizard would find the call of an incubus more alluring than that of a succubus, but he already had enough enemies among the wizards.

So he just gave the wizard a lazy smile that suggested traveling to reach this place wasn’t the reason he looked disheveled.

A few minutes later, the boy dashed back into the room, breathless, and handed a folded piece of parchment to the wizard. The man looked startled as he read the command, but he said, “The boy will lead you.”

Giving the wizard an insolent salute, Sebastian followed the boy out the back door and across the courtyard. Instead of going through the door of the main building, the boy turned to the right and led him to another door.

The hair on the back of Sebastian’s neck rose as he noticed that the windows on either side of the door had a queer sparkle in places where the light from the courtyard lamps touched the glass. Wooden shutters were folded back on the outside of the windows.

The boy pushed the door open and entered the dark space.

Sebastian heard the clink of glass against metal, then the scrape of a match. Staying in the doorway, he watched the boy light the candle and replace the globe over the metal candleholder.

When the boy turned to leave, Sebastian stepped into the room to let him pass. But when the boy reached for the handle to pull the door closed, some instinct made Sebastian grab the wood and growl, “Leave it open.”

The boy bolted into the night.

Not sure why he’d responded that way, Sebastian looked at the door—and felt a shiver run down his spine.

No handle on this side. No way for a person inside this room to open the door.