V.E Schwab - A Darker Shade of Magic

Funny thing, though.

His fingertips, where they curled around the hilt, had started to prickle. That is a bit peculiar , he thought, in that calm and distant way that comes with thorough intoxication. He wasn’t worried, not at first. But then he tried to loosen his hold on the weapon and couldn’t. He told his fingers to let go, but they remained firmly around the sword’s gleaming black hilt.

Booth shook his hand, first slowly, then vigorously, but couldn’t seem to free his fingers from the weapon. And then, quite suddenly, the prickle became a jolt, hot and cold and foreign at once, a very unpleasant feeling. It spread up his arm, beneath his skin, and when he stumbled back a step, toward the light at the mouth of the alley, he saw that the veins on the back of his hand, over his wrist and up his forearm, were turning black .

He shook his hand harder and nearly lost his balance, but still, he couldn’t seem to release the sword. It wouldn’t let him.

“Let go,” he grumbled, unsure of whether he was speaking to his own hand or the weapon locked within it.

In response, the hand holding the sword—which did not seem to belong to him anymore at all—tightened on the hilt. Booth gasped as his fingers turned the blade slowly back toward his own stomach. “What the devil,” he swore, grappling with himself, his free hand fighting to hold the other at bay. But it wasn’t enough—the thing taking hold was stronger than the rest—and with a single clean thrust, Booth’s hand, the one with the sword, drove it into his gut and buried it to the hilt.

He doubled over in the alley with a groan, hand still fixed to the grip. The black sword glowed with a dark internal light, and then began to dissolve . The gleaming weapon melted, not down, but in. Through the wound, and into Booth’s body. Into his blood. His heartbeat faltered and then redoubled, steady and strong in his veins as the magic spread. His body shuddered, then stilled.

For a long moment, Booth—what remained of him—crouched there on the alley floor, motionless, hands to his stomach, where the blade had driven in, and where now, only an inky black stain, like melted wax, remained in its wake. And then, slowly, his arms slipped to his sides, the veins running over them now a true black. The color of true magic. His head drifted up, and he blinked two black eyes and looked around, then down at himself, considering his form. He flexed his fingers, carefully, testing.

And then, slowly, steadily, he got to his feet.

VII

THE FOLLOWER

I

Lila could have simply gone down into the belly of the Stone’s Throw, but she owed Barron enough already—he wouldn’t take her coin, either because he thought she needed it or because it wasn’t hers to begin with—and she needed the fresh air to clear her head.

Other Londons.

Men walking through magical doors.

Stones that made something out of nothing.

It was all the stuff of stories.

Of adventures .

All of it at her fingertips. And then gone. And Lila left feeling empty, hungry, and hollow in a new and terrifying way. Or maybe it was the same kind of hunger she’d always felt, and now the missing thing had a name: magic . She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that, holding the stone, she’d felt something. And looking into Kell’s ruined eye, she’d felt something. And when the magic spun the wood of the wall around her wrist, she’d felt something. Again the questions surged, and again she shoved them down, and took in the night air—thick with soot and heavy with impending rain—and trudged through the web of streets, and across Westminster to the Barren Tide.

The Barren Tide sat near just north of the bridge on the southern side, tucked between Belvedere and York in a crevice of a street called Mariner’s Walk, and she’d taken to stopping in on some of her more successful nights before heading back to Powell (the way she’d seen it, it left one less coin for him to skim). She liked the pub because it was full of dark wood and fogging glass, rough edges and rougher fare. Not a smart place to pick pockets, but a fine place to blend in, to disappear. She had little fear of being recognized, either as a girl (the light was always kept low, and her hood kept up) or as a wanted thief (most of the patrons were wanted for something ).

Her weapons were in easy reach, but she didn’t think she’d need them. At the Barren Tide, people tended to mind their own business. On the not-so-rare occasion that a fight broke out, the regulars were more concerned for the safety of their drinks (they’d sooner save a pitcher from a shaking table than step in to help the man whose falling body shook it), and Lila imagined someone could cry for help in the middle of the room and earn little more than a tip of the cup and a raised brow.

Not a place for all nights, to be sure. But a place for tonight.

It wasn’t until Lila was firmly stationed at the bar, fingers curled around a pint, that she let the questions take her mind and run free—the why s and how s and most of all what now s, because she knew she couldn’t simply go back to not knowing and not seeing and not wondering—and she was so wrapped up in them, she didn’t notice that a man had sat down beside her. Not until he spoke.

“Are you frightened?”

His voice was deep and smooth and foreign, and Lila looked up. “Excuse me?” she said, almost forgetting to keep her voice low.

“You’re clutching your drink,” explained the man, pointing at the fingers wrapped knuckles-white around her glass. Lila relaxed, but only a little.

“Long night,” she said, bringing the warm beer to her lips.

“And yet still young,” mused the man, taking a sip from his tumbler. Even in the Barren Tide, whose belly filled each night with a motley crew, the man seemed out of place. In the low light of the pub, he looked strangely … faded. His clothes were dark grey, and he wore a simple short cloak held by a silver clasp. His skin was pale, made paler by the dark wood bar beneath his hands, his hair a strange, colorless shade just shy of black. When he spoke, his voice was steady without being sweet, empty in a way that gave her chills, and his accent had gravel in it.

“Not from around here, are you?” she asked.

The corner of his mouth tugged up at that. “No.” He ran a finger absently around the rim of his glass. Except it didn’t feel absent. None of his motions did. He moved with a slow precision that made Lila nervous.

There was something about him, odd and jarringly familiar at the same time. She couldn’t see it, but she felt it. And then it struck her. That feeling. It was the same one she had looking into Kell’s black eye, holding the stone, bound to the wall. A shiver. A tingle. A whisper.

Magic.

Lila tensed, and hoped it didn’t show as she lifted the pint to her lips.

“I suppose we should be introduced,” said the stranger, turning in his seat so she could see his face. Lila nearly choked on her drink. There was nothing amiss in the angle of his jaw or the set of his nose or the line of his lips. But his eyes . One was greyish green. The other was pitch-black. “My name is Holland.”

A chill ran through her. He was the same as Kell, and yet entirely different. Looking into Kell’s eye had been like looking through a window into a new world. Strange and confusing, but not frightening. Looking into Holland’s eye made her skin crawl. Dark things swirled just beneath the smooth black depths. One word whispered through her mind. Run.