Chapter 35 Who Are You
Daisy and Blackwood moved through the noble quarter like viruses: unseen, unwelcome, and sure to cause a fever if detected. The streets here bled moonlight, every cobblestone scrubbed to the color of bone, every gutter clean enough to drink from. Lamps glowed a gentle gold, never the flickering blue of the wards in the lower districts. Even the air felt filtered, the stink of burning refuse swapped for the sharp bite of cut grass and distant incense.
Daisy hated it.
They kept to the margins, Blackwood’s jacket drawn up to his ears, Daisy’s face hidden beneath the hood she’d borrowed from a sleeping vagrant. On any other night, she might have stolen the whole coat, but tonight was different. She could feel eyes everywhere, even when there were none. Each window in the high stone houses seemed to blink, assessing her worth, weighing her against the price of a tip to the watch.
At the end of a long, empty lane, Blackwood stopped. Ahead, a graveyard, gates wrought from iron the color of midnight, stone lions on each post, their eyes set with chips of ward-glass, beyond, the monuments sprawled like old teeth across a field that had never known rot or weed. Daisy felt the magic in the ground: old, well-fed, humming in the roots of the manicured grass.
“This is the place?” she whispered.
Blackwood nodded, scanning the street before moving through the gate. “They meet at the center, under the white angel.” He led her down a gravel path, footsteps muffled by years of careful tending.
The graveyard was nothing like the ones in the slums. Here, the tombs were grand, marble boxes the size of single-room flats, their sides etched with the names of families Daisy recognized only from arrest warrants and bounty posters. The wind carried a faint sweet scent, something floral and expensive. Daisy didn’t trust it.
At the heart of the yard, a statue loomed: an angel, wings open, gaze cast to the city below. It stood atop a platform, surrounded by a ring of white candles, all perfectly spaced. Around it, a dozen or more figures huddled in cloaks and heavy scarves, their voices a steady, urgent murmur.
The two slipped into the shadow of a headstone and waited. Blackwood eyed Daisy, then jerked his chin toward the group. “They’ll want proof you’re not a plant,” he murmured. “Be careful with what you say.”
Daisy almost laughed. “I’m not the one with the reputation for backstabbing.”
He shrugged, and for a moment, the old hardness in his eyes softened. “Just, don’t get yourself killed.”
He moved first, stepping into the light, hands open. Daisy followed, feeling the eyes fix on her, cataloguing every detail.
Someone called, “You’re late, Cornelius.”
Blackwood bowed his head, then gestured to Daisy. “Had to make sure we weren’t followed.”
The group shifted, making space. Daisy counted the faces, tried to read the mood: some afraid, some angry, mostly tired. A few of the older ones wore their mage’s marks openly: spirals, chevrons, the triple-dots of the junior colleges. The rest were plain, no different from the people she’d grown up with, except for the way they carried themselves: like people used to being hunted.
A tall, rail-thin man approached, his face shrouded in the shadow of a battered felt hat. “Who’s the girl?”
Blackwood started to answer, but Daisy cut him off. “I’m Daisy. The one from the posters.”
A ripple ran through the crowd, some shrinking back, others leaning forward as if to catch her scent.
“Is it true what they say?” the man asked. “About the dragon?”
Daisy glanced up at the sky, felt Xeris circling, patient as a vulture. “What do you think?”
He frowned. "If it is, you’re either a weapon or a spy."
Daisy bared her teeth. “Don’t care which, as long as I get to break something.”
The crowd liked that. The tension eased, just a little.
Another voice, from the back: “Show us your arm.”
Daisy hesitated, then tugged up her sleeve. The scales caught the candlelight, each one edged in crimson. The spiral on her wrist pulsed, alive and unmistakable.
An older woman stepped forward, her hair twisted into a scholar’s knot, the veins on her hands roped and blue. Her gaze went straight to the scales, and she gasped. “Blood magic.”
Daisy braced, ready for a fight, but the woman just reached out, fingers trembling. She hovered, not quite touching the scales.
“I’ve seen this before,” she whispered. “In the old books, and once in the flesh. It changes you. From within.”
Daisy pulled her arm back. “What else is new?”
The crowd drew closer. Someone offered her a mug of something steaming; she shook her head.
Blackwood cleared his throat. “We need to talk about the plan. Tonight. There won’t be another chance.”
The rail-thin man nodded, then turned to address the group. “You all know why we’re here. Lord Ravensworth and the High Council are moving faster than we expected. If we don’t act, there won’t be anyone left outside the noble bloodlines who can use magic. We’ll be harvested, same as the menagerie beasts.”
A murmur of assent.
He gestured at Daisy. “She’s the key. The only one to walk out of a dragon-bond and live. If we can get her to the council chambers, if we can make them see…”
A voice, sharp and skeptical: “Or we all get hanged for treason.”
“We’re dead anyway if we do nothing,” said the man. “Ravensworth’s new ordinance: every mage not registered by tomorrow gets marked as an outlaw. You know what that means.”
Daisy did. She’d seen the collars, the chains, the way magic bled out of people after the city took them.
The group turned to her, expectant.
Daisy felt the weight of the moment. She wasn’t a leader. She didn’t want to be.
She thought of her mother’s breath, rattling in the dark, the way her siblings clung to hope like it might keep them warm.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
The woman with the scholar’s knot spoke up. “Teach us. Or at least, show us how you use it. The spiral.”
Daisy hesitated. She didn’t want to show them what she could do. She didn’t want to see it herself. But she didn’t have a choice.
She cut her palm with the edge of her fang, let the blood well up. The spiral bloomed, twisting in the air. The nearest candles guttered, then burned higher, their flames hungry for the power.
The group stared, some with awe, some with horror.
The woman leaned in, close enough to see the pattern. “It’s true,” she said, reverent. “She’s the first in a hundred years.”
Daisy let the blood spiral fade, wiped her hand on her pants. “Now what?”
Blackwood took over. “Tomorrow, we meet at the council square. The guards will expect a demonstration. We give them one, then run like hell.”
The man in the hat frowned. “That’s your plan?”
Blackwood nodded. “Simple plans are harder to break.”
Daisy snorted. “Or easier to shoot.”
A shadow slipped through the crowd, a young man with a cowl pulled over his face. He paused beside Daisy, close enough to whisper, “If you die, what happens to the dragon?”
She almost laughed. “He’ll eat the city. And not stop until he’s bored.”
The man looked at her, wide-eyed, then moved away.
The group broke up, each member drifting to their own part of the yard. Daisy found a quiet spot behind a stone angel, knees drawn up, the weight of everything pressing in. She felt Xeris circling, waiting for the blood to call him.
The woman with the scholar’s knot found her. She sat on the cold stone, close enough to share breath.
“Samuel Thompson,” she said, holding out her hand.
Daisy hesitated, then shook it.
“Your magic,” Samuel said. “It’s old. Wild. If you’re not careful, it will burn you up.”
Daisy shrugged. “That’s how I’ve always lived.”
Samuel smiled, sad. “You should have been in one of my classes. I could have taught you.”
“Not much for school,” Daisy said. “Didn’t like the rules.”
“Neither did I,” said Samuel. “That’s why I left.”
They sat in silence.
“Why help me?” Daisy asked, not looking at her.
Samuel picked at the laces of her boot. “Because I lost someone to the spiral. She was like you, angry, bright. The magic took her, but not before she made me promise to help anyone else who came after.”
Daisy’s throat was dry. “What happened to her?”
“Used herself up. Too many spells, too much fight. Died young, but unbroken.”
Daisy nodded. “Good way to go.”
Samuel sighed. “A hard way, too.”
The candles burned lower, the group thinning as the night wore on. Blackwood found her again, standing at a distance, just watching.
Daisy didn’t move. She waited for the sun, or for the city to find them, whichever came first.
She thought of the council square, the plan, the thousand ways it could fail.
Above her, Xeris drifted on invisible thermals, patient, always waiting for the word.