The Forbidden Section #21

“Long live the Dark Lord.” Eiran’s voice was soft, musing almost, as he peered out of the window into the gardens.

Every member of the Quinfell family shrank a little further into their seats, as if that might make them sufficiently invisible to the Dark Lord’s considerable wrath.

Akira sat on one of the conservatory chairs, cradling a cup of tea, gaze fixed on the ramrod-straight line of Eiran’s back. He ignored the debris of the previous night’s party beyond the glass, the strings of lights that seemed less enchanting and more sad in the bleak early morning. 

“My Lord—” Augustus Quinfell began.

“—No.”

The man’s mouth clicked shut.

It was the kind of heady display of power that Akira would have normally swooned over, and alright it was still swoon-worthy, but…

Eiran turned his attention from the window, from the scene of the crime, and examined the Quinfell family coolly.

Akira was squirmingly aware that he’d never seen this side of the Dark Lord before. He’d seen the fun side. The kneeling and the charisma and the dazzling power and the danger, yes, but not that precise look on Eiran’s face. Flattering and terrible all at once.

“Someone attempted to enslave my apprentice in your home,” the Dark Lord said. “Do you believe there is anything you can say to make that acceptable?”

None of them said anything, so perhaps they all agreed not.

Akira looked down at his cup of tea and didn’t think he could swallow.

“You see, there are very few people in the world who would consider Akira close enough to me to be worth attacking,” Eiran said, his voice entirely too light still. “Nine, to be exact. Seven of those people are in this room. Unless you would like to tell me now that you have discussed my business with someone else?”

The silence was a particular kind of agony, all of them torn on whether they were actually allowed to answer that question or not and, perhaps, if having spilled the Dark Lord’s secrets without permission was a sufficiently lesser crime.

Eiran’s stare moved over each of the Quinfell’s in turn, with that same deceptive calm that did nothing to match how heavy the air around Eiran felt. The room felt darker than it should have done for a summer’s morning.

“I would like you all to cast a glamour,” Eiran said. “Right now.”

“My lord,” Morgana said. She smoothed her quivering hands compulsively down her expensive silk pajamas, and Akira still wasn’t over the fact that the Dark Lord had arrived upon them in such a surprising whirlwind that half the family were still in sleep wear. Xavier looked positively stricken; hungover, even. He’d thought he’d find some satisfaction in the sight, but it just felt a little wrong. “We have served you with loyalty for—”

“If you had not served me with loyalty, you would be dead for the incompetence of your apparently abysmal security.”

They all fell silent again.

Out of all available suspects, it had to be someone who was comfortable using the Sanguis Servus, which Eiran said did in fact rule out Adora Clemente and her ilk, and so two out of the nine people who knew that Akira might have any connection with the Dark Lord. Akira had ruled out Xavier as a third, because nothing in Xavier’s behaviour or what immediately preceded the stabbing suggested that he had anything to do with the matter.

That left Augustus, Morgana, Barnaby and Cecily Quinfell. And out of those four…

“He’s not good for you,” Augustus said, abruptly. “He’s not one of us. With all that nonsense of him spending time with Adora Clemente and Eiran Thomas—”

Eiran’s magic exploded.

Augustus dropped to the ground screaming.

Akira was hyperaware of the way Xavier’s face crumpled; he looked stupidly young, like he was still just a boy, and his handsome face turned porridgy white and scared and it felt like power still and it felt like a kind of sickness and-

“My lord.” Akira’s voice came out raspy. He immediately felt a sharp, warning flick of Eiran’s magic, and didn’t think he’d ever felt that before exactly like that either. It felt incongruous with the man who’d kissed him, and certainly the one who’d laid down on the bed beside him that morning.

“Glamours, now.” The Dark Lord’s voice had lost all pretence at softness. “Unless you would prefer the next spell be targeted at your children.”

The Dark Lord cut the curse and all four Quinfells pulled up hasty glamours of acceptable quality. Cecily’s eyes were wet with tears, Xavier looked like he was going to puke, Barnaby’s expression was utterly blank and Eiran’s gaze moved over to Akira who –

They’d talked about Akira’s magic sensitivity that morning. They’d talked about the fact that he’d probably be able to get a sense of the spell signature if he saw it again. They’d talked about how the stranger had felt so familiar…

Akira swallowed.

It tracked, really, if Akira had been planning to make a guess. He’d have guessed either Barnaby or Cecily. Honestly, he’d been betting on Barnaby. The middle Quinfell had made no secret of his contempt for Akira, for his lack of magical heritage.

Morgana and Augustus were both too political, too experienced, to make such a rash move in their own territory. They hadn’t worked for the Dark Lord, become so trusted and respected, to throw all of that on a whim. If they were going to cast a dark ritual then Akira could admit that they would not have been incompetent. However little they thought of him they wouldn’t have been petty or stupid enough to risk a spell that wasn’t intended for humans, or attacked in a way that might kill their chosen slave. Or, if they were, they absolutely would have made sure that he was properly subdued and there were plenty of other suspects first. Right?

But it wasn’t Barnaby.

Akira kept his gaze on Eiran for a moment, conscious of not letting his eyes wander to the culprit.

“Akira.” 

The warning in the Dark Lord’s voice made the hairs on the back of Akira’s neck stand on end.

He’d tried convincing Eiran that it was in their benefit not to go in so aggressive on any suspicions they had. They might alienate his innermost followers. Certainly, killing a Quinfell wasn’t going to help. They were the Quinfells. And, privately, if Akira had a family, he imagined he would have done anything to defend them. Surely the Quinfells would be the same? No matter their loyalty to the Dark Lord, loyalty to family came first.

That was why, after all, Augustus would lie to protect his daughter once he figured out the truth.

He’d tried convincing Eiran that it was in Akira’s benefit to at least pretend to not know. To keep their secret. Then the Quinfell’s would be indebted to him. He could always tell Eiran later, right? Win, win. Shouldn’t Akira get to win a bit, seeing as he was the one who actually got stabbed?

Eiran wasn’t willing to play ball on that plan either. He wasn’t having his apprentice lie to him in public, or had he forgotten that the deal between them was very different in their public and private personas?

There had been no debate in Eiran’s voice when Akira woke again that morning. No academic willingness to even discuss hypothetical options.

Finally, Akira had tried to convince him that, hey, maybe they should come up with some ploy to make the Quinfells' cast a glamour around him, and work back from the evidence of that. To pretend that no attack had happened, and see what they did. Better the enemy they knew, right?

No.

Akira could feel everyone’s eyes on him, he could feel the heavy weight of lives in his hands, and he’d always imagined it would feel a lot better than it did. Hadn’t he been daydreaming of such power only the night before?

“They would have enslaved you,” Eiran had hissed to him that morning, his eyes dark gold, his face warped with a cold and unrecognisable fury. “If you are going to be so weak as to protect them, stay home.”

Akira’s mouth felt unbearably dry.

The Dark Lord took a step towards him, and suddenly all of his magic was coiled around Akira again, and Akira’s breath hitched uselessly at the feeling. Despite everything, maybe because of everything, he felt himself sway forward, a little entranced.

He remembered the first time Eiran kissed him, suddenly.

Can you even think properly when I’m like this? Enough to make any reasonable decisions should I ask you for something?

And Akira couldn’t think, not of anything but that tingling gorgeous magic, like its own kind of drug, and the entirely addictive feeling of Eiran’s eyes on him. Of his trust. His regard. Of the fact that what use did Eiran have for a disobedient apprentice? Eiran could have anyone. He could have had an apprentice who didn’t, drunk and stupid, follow some stranger into the dark alone and get himself stabbed and waste expensive healing magic.

“Cecily,” he rasped.

The Dark Lord’s magic buzzed with approval and it still felt impossibly good, even despite the conflicted churn of Akira’s stomach. Maybe it wasn’t guilt. Maybe it was cramps from getting stabbed. Maybe.

Cecily had tried to enslave him. He was a Dark Lord’s apprentice. He loved all manner of obscene and awful spells. He did not have to feel guilty.

“I – my lord.” Cecily backed up a step, even as the other Quinfells clustered automatically, instinctively, around her in a protective bubble. “The boy hates me. He has no—”

“You have made no secret of your desire to grow close to me,” Eiran said. “Akira would have been a fine tool towards that agenda, had your efforts been less…clumsy.”

If it was Akira, the way that Eiran said clumsy may have been more damning than an accusation of treason. He could deal with betrayal, sure, but being thought of as an idiot? He would have rather died.

The Quinfells stood on one side of the fine conservatory, haloed in the morning light, some picture perfect thing if not for the stark fear hidden on their faces with varying levels of success.

“I think,” Eiran said. “That it’s time the children went into the garden. Don't you?”

Akira and Xavier had barely shut the door before the screaming started again.