Page 2 of Turncloak

Levan’s life rolled away from him in all directions, the aching canvas of his past, the unfathomable expanse of his future as an orphan. The only thought tethering his mind to the present, to the next few steps in front of him, was the ascenite crypt holding his mother. He needed to get Lyrian to that crypt. Preserve him, in perpetuity, until Levan found another necromancer to raise them both from the dead.

That Levan felt so obliterated by his father’s death was a curious thing. The two had clashed for so long, steel against stone. And yet, after all the dead kingpin had wrought upon his son, tortured him and branded him and turned him from boy to monster—

—don’t think. Don’t grieve. Just act.

It took both a palmful of seconds and a sprawling eternity to reach the portari gate. The structure shimmered in the glade, sculpted axelmares hewn from marble-like ascenite into four arches, the lambent internal magic eddying like moonlight over whorls of fog. This particular gate was the site of Levan’s worst childhood memories; the gate through which his mother’s corpse had returned to the Havenwood, the gate where his life had become a before and after.

Levan ushered his surviving mages through one by one, until only the turncloak remained.

“Levan,” Saffron whispered, the name cracking like a bone.

Hands shaking, Levan gritted his teeth and averted his gaze.

“Later.”

Back at Bloodmoon Mansion, something was wrong.

The scarlets cloistered in the creamstone room where their unregistered portari gate was housed, wands and faces drawn. There was a charge to the air, a crackle, a thrum, like the aftermath of a thousand overlapping spells. A stink of smoke and ash and something honey-sweet. Rasso’s hackles were raised, white fur standing on end as he growled low and coarse.

Levan’s jaw was set like granite as he stepped from beneath the arches, one palm on his wand handle, the other on his dead father’s floating shoulder. “What is it?”

“We don’t know,” muttered Castian, whose veins ran black from loxlure. “We’re awaiting your command.”

Your command.

It hit Levan for the first time, then, that he was the new kingpin.

The heir to the empire. A title he never wanted to inherit. His life had been dedicated to installing his late mother on the throne of her birthright—not taking any sort of rule for himself. But now she was gone, and his father too, and the legacy had been passed on to him like a cursed family heirloom.

The transition would be far from seamless. In theory, the scarlets would obey Levan’s word without question, thanks to the loyalty brand—an ugly charred crust across every heart, sealed with magic that would kill them the moment they betrayed the scarlets.

Except Saffron. The one mage in the world immune to magic entirely.

All magic…but his.

Levan tightened his grip on his elm wand, then lowered his father’s corpse to the flagstones, dropping the levitation spell. “Segal, wait here with the body.” The kingpin’s right-hand mage had been robbed of his magic when he’d been Risen from the dead by a necromancer, thus he wouldn’t be altogether useful in a wand fight. “The rest of you, on your guard. We move as one.”

Crimson cloak rippling around his ankles, Levan climbed the creamstone stairs, swallowed his bilious fear, and pulled the door open.

In the hallway, the charge to the air was a thousand times stronger, the burnt-honey smell thick enough to coat his tongue. Rasso’s growling intensified. Levan strode down the dark red carpet runner, henchmages trailing behind him like a virile shadow.

They hurried toward the main atrium of the mansion, down curved black marble staircases and past creamstone walls hung with dragon battle murals, through corridors both deserted and silent. The microbial sensation from the Havenwood—of walking through the belly of an ancient beast—only grew more potent.

Soon they found the source of the charged thrum, the sense of wrongness.

In the atrium, gilt chandeliers lay shattered on the black marble floor, crystal teardrops turned to shaved ice. Lyrian’s favorite tapestry—a lavish depiction of the Saints at the First Feast—had been burned to ash, as had most other paintings and murals in the cavernous room. The coffered ceiling was choked with black soot. A row of elemental slot machines from the very first gamehouse was smashed and stooped, old enchantments leaking out like oil from a lantern.

But that was not the worst of it.

Nor were the scattered bodies, dreadful though they were. Dozens of them, all in scarlet cloaks. Mostly servants, many of them wandless—Ludders turned addicts, willingly branded by the old kingpin in exchange for access to loxlure.

No, the worst was the set of white wings carved into the center of the dark floor. The sigil of their rival gang, who had been making violent moves against the scarlets for months.

The surviving scarlets descended into chaos. Rasso stalked the atrium with a hungry prowl, on account of his dietary preference for fresh hearts. Castian sank to her knees in despair, while others moaned, muttered, sobbed. Clutched one another with fear, their sense of safety and sanctuary decimated in an instant. The violation of it.

Failure—and disbelief—bludgeoned Levan’s chest.

The Whitewings had historically been a nuisance, a neighborhood pest, but never a real threat. This attack should have been impossible on so many levels. The wards of the scarlet compound were famously impenetrable, since only mages with a Bloodmoon brand were able to pass through the protections. The sole loophole was a Crown-issued search warrant.