Chapter 10 The Girl Who Did Not Arrive
Magnus
Noon came and went.
The sun climbed to its cruelest height, spilling molten gold through the tall, arched windows of my sanctum—then began its slow descent. Still, nothing.
No knock.
No carriage report.
No trembling girl delivered neatly into my hands like a sealed parcel.
I stood at the balcony, fingers curled around the cold stone rail, listening to the city breathe beneath me. Aetheria always sang during the day—vendors shouting, bells tolling, the distant cadence of Imperial guards drilling in the square. But beneath the noise, something felt… wrong. A misalignment. A silence where obedience should have been.
Now dusk had settled over Aetheria, and the silence was no longer subtle. It was deafening.
The girl with the red hair and green eyes had not arrived.
“My Lord, dinner has been served,” Elian, my steward, announced quietly behind me.
“Any word on the delivery?” I asked.
“None, My Lord. I have eyes on the gates.”
“Thank you, Elian. That will be all,” I said, turning from the balcony and entering the dining chamber.
Lanterns and candles burned along the walls, their light unsteady, shadows stretching and recoiling with each flicker. Elian closed the balcony doors, bowed, and withdrew, leaving my sanctum sealed once more.
I ate in silence, each measured bite taken with the faint expectation that a scout would arrive—late, breathless, apologetic. But dusk bled into night, and still nothing came.
At last, I rose from the table. My fingers found the small, pearl-like orb pendant resting against my collarbone. I rubbed its smooth surface once—slowly.
And vanished.
The air reassembled around me between the Dust and Coal Districts, heat and filth crashing into my senses all at once. Smoke, sweat, rot. The districts' underbelly breathed thick and unashamed.
The Mistress’s brothels crouched along the back gates like painted harlots pressed against crumbling walls—velvet curtains parted just enough to promise sin, perfumed smoke curling into the streets, laughter pitched too high, too eager to be real. Lanterns burned red and gold, their light not revealing corruption, but sanctifying it.
Inside, she sat at her lacquered desk, jewels blazing at her throat, fingers heavy with rings as she counted coins from open pouches scattered like offerings before her. Gold whispered as it slid against gold.
She looked up, saw the displeasure on my face—
And stiffened.
“Imperial Advisor,” she said carefully, every word measured. “You honor me.”
“I was expecting a delivery,” I replied, stepping forward, my voice cool and even. “It did not arrive.”
Her brows drew together. “That’s impossible.”
“I sent scouts,” I said. “They were placed throughout the Ember District. The carriage was to pass at dawn. There was no horse. No driver. Not even a splinter of wood.”
Her lips thinned. “Jarek was given precise instructions. He knew the route. The girl knew better than to fight.”
I leaned closer. “Did she?”
The Mistress leaned back in her chair. “She understood the cost of betrayal. I did not heal the boy.” Her lips curved, thin and knowing. “I loaned him breath. I warned her I could take it back. His life depended on her obedience.”
“Show me the brother,” I said.
Her hesitation lasted only a heartbeat. Then she lifted her hand and murmured a spell.
"Manifestus."
Mist unfurled between us—silvery, dense—coiling and thickening until it shaped itself into an image.
A shack.
Rough-hewn walls.
A dirt floor.
And there—a boy with red hair.
He looked stronger than I expected. Color warmed his cheeks. He sat cross-legged, tearing into bread, chewing greedily, oblivious. Provisions lay scattered nearby—bread, jam, milk. Evidence of mercy.
I smiled.
Black smoke bloomed from my palms, cold and starved, curling like something alive. I lifted my hands and blew gently.
The smoke slipped into the mist.
Into the image.
The boy inhaled.
He coughed once. Then again—violent, wet.
Color drained from his skin, gray seeping into his cheeks. His lips trembled as his hands clawed at his throat. He tried to rise, failed, and collapsed hard against the dirt floor.
The provisions vanished first—food, coins, every small mercy erased as if they had never existed. The new mattress was stripped away, the clean blankets replaced with the thin, threadbare ones he had known before. Even his soft pajamas dissolved into rags, fabric fraying back into poverty.
The room reset itself with cruel precision.
Everything returned to how it had been.
As if hope had never been allowed to linger there at all.
The image wavered.
And then—
“What is this?”
The mist flared as another presence forced its way through, rippling violently as if reality itself recoiled.
Warden Elara Voss.
Her sharp eyes took everything in at once—the fading boy, the last tendrils of black smoke, my hands still raised. Her jaw tightened.
She turned slowly to the Mistress. “What have you done behind my back?”
The Mistress said nothing. Her gaze slid to me, expectant—seeking defense.
I gave none. I stood quietly, letting the truth stretch its limbs.
Voss’s gaze snapped toward the doorway.
“Darrick. Come.”
He entered pale and sweating. One look at the Warden and he collapsed to his knees.
“Speak,” Voss commanded.
“She—she sold the girl,” Darrick blurted. “After healing the boy. Sent Sera Bale to Aetheria. To an Imperial Mage. A thousand gold coins. For—for her virginity.”
Sera Bale.
The name struck close—too close—to Serafina Valen.
Hope flickered, dangerous and sharp.
She and her brother must be the Valen siblings I had spent years searching for. The coincidence was too great.
Warden Voss turned to me. “Are you the mage who sent for Sera Bale?”
“I do not answer to you,” I said calmly.
Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you want her?”
“You forget your place, Elara,” I said evenly.
I let the moment stretch.
“I do not answer to you.”
A thin smile curved her lips. “You answer to the Emperor. And I would be delighted to tell him what I have seen today. Including whatever secrets you believe remain yours.”
I met her gaze without blinking.
“Elara,” I said, my voice slow and deliberate, “will that little tale of yours mention how your predecessor fell conveniently ill—just before you took his position?”
Silence slammed into the room. Her lips pressed into a hard line.
“It has been nine years since your appointment,” I continued. “And until now, you have failed to find the two people I tasked you to locate. Why is that?”
“You ordered me to find siblings with red hair and green eyes—both capable of magic,” Voss said stiffly. “Sera Bale may have red hair,” she added, hesitation creeping in as her fingers worried the edge of her coat, “though it was always hidden beneath her bonnet. But her eyes... her eyes are dark. Her brother, Lio—” her gaze flicked briefly to the Mistress “—has dark hair. No one in Dust matches your description.”
“Both Sera and Lio have red hair and green eyes,” the Mistress snapped. “You suffer from color sickness.”
Elara’s face drained of color. “That’s impossible.” She turned sharply. “Darrick. What color hair and eyes does Sera Bale have?”
Darrick swallowed hard, rising to his feet. “Red hair. Green eyes, Warden. That night… she came here without her bonnet.”
I closed my eyes.
Nine years. And the woman I had elevated could not distinguish red from brown.
I had to admire how well she had hidden her disability. At the Academy, she had been my brightest student—precise, perceptive, formidable. Never once had she given herself away.
There was only one plausible explanation. She must have asked another student to heal her sight—an imperfect spell, cast with inexperience, one that had weakened over the years until its truth revealed itself.
Pride is a fickle thing. Elara could have asked Nyxara to mend her vision—but to stand in the Mistress’s debt was a price she could never afford.
I beckoned her forward.
She hesitated, then stepped closer—fear flickering through her posture, already imagining her end.
I placed my hand over her eyes and murmured, "Restorato coloris." Magic threaded through her eyes, clean and precise, weaving clarity and life into her vision.
I withdrew my hand and pointed to the ruby at the Mistress’s throat. “What color do you see?”
“Red,” Elara said instantly.
“Your sight is restored,” I replied dryly. “Now you have no excuse to fail me.”
From my robe, I produced two heavy pouches. Gold clinked richly as I tossed one to her. She caught it, weighing it by reflex. I tossed the second to the Mistress, who grinned.
“There will be more,” I said calmly, “if you find her. Sera Bale is a traitor. She was hidden in this district—likely already fallen in with the rebels.”
Darrick surged forward. “What about my brother? Jarek was driving the carriage.”
I did not soften it. “Then Jarek is most likely dead. By rebel hands. By the same traitor you helped sell.”
Darrick’s face twisted with rage. “I’ll kill her brother. I swear it.”
“No,” I said sharply. “You will not touch the boy. He has already fallen ill.”
He froze.
I turned to Voss. “Place guards on the boy. If anything happens to him without my sanction, there will be hell to pay.”
“You heard the Imperial Advisor, Darrick,” Voss snapped. “You will not harm the boy. Now leave.”
Darrick stared at me, hatred blazing, then spun and stormed out.
“I will see what I can uncover about the rebels—and whether Sera Bale is among them,” I said. “Spread word that little Lio Bale has taken ill again. That he will not survive long unless she appears.”
I met Elara’s eyes. “Once she does, send word to me. Do not fail me again.”
I touched my pendant.
And was gone.