Read Online Shadowplay by Laura Lam - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Laura Lam
Tags: Magic, young adult fantasy, Magicians, ya fiction, secret identities, hidden history, fugitives, Ellada
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where I’m staying. Perhaps in a few letters, when we know this method works.
Things are difficult. Aenea, the girl you saw me with in the park, is dead, and it’s all my fault – but I didn’t kill her. I know you’ll believe that. Another friend had to kill because of my actions. I feel like my touch is poison.
I miss you more than words can say.
Love,
Your sibling
Once the juice was dry, very carefully, I wrote an extremely boring letter in pencil to Cyril on the other side of the paper, pretending to be his friend Rojer, who never wrote letters. I sealed the envelope with drops of candlewax. I would ask Drystan to write the address tomorrow for me, to lessen the chance of my parents recognizing the hand.
I had not spoken with my brother since the night he came to see me perform at the circus and tried to convince me to come home. Perhaps I should have gone with him. If I had, Aenea would still be alive, Bil would still be alive, and Drystan would not be a murderer. My eyes burned with tears, and a sharp pain bloomed in my chest. I pressed the backs of my hands to my face.
I stifled my sobs in the pillow. Aenea’s face kept coming to me. The way she looked after we kissed. Her pink lips. The feel of her fitted against my side as we lay side by side, speaking softly as I rested my chin on her shoulder, her hair tickling my face. The sight of her flying off the trapeze, flipping and catching the bar at just the right moment. All the little facets that made her Aenea. Gone in an instant.
A long time later, my tears finally ran dry. I picked up the Phantom Damselfly again, turning it over, my fingertips following the snaking designs etched into the metal. I fell asleep with the secret held in my hand.
I walked through a blue fog so thick it suffocated me. I could not see, I could not hear, I could neither touch nor taste. I stumbled, my arms out in front of me, desperate to know I was not the only one in this strange and silent world.
Slowly, the vapor lifted. The Domes of Ven rose from the gloom. I flicked my wings in relief, running until I had enough momentum for them to carry me into the air.
The world was the purple and blue of dusk. The Venglass glowed as it did every night. I hummed the song of welcoming as I flew over the trees and the stream that led to Ven, a thanksgiving to the coming night.
But though I flew straight to the Ven, it grew no closer. The bright light faded, until the domes were as dark as death. I hovered in the air. Strange new buildings of dark stone grew around the Ven. I saw none of my kin among its bases – only humans, their faces serious and drawn.
Where had they gone?
I landed on a dark dome, looking out over this new world I did not recognize. The land was dead, no longer verdant. People passed below me and looked up, but they did not see me. I was nothing but a ghost among them.
“This is a dream,” I said on top of the dome, coming back to myself. “I am dreaming. This is not me. I am Micah. I am Micah Grey.”
I felt the person I dreamed I was smile sadly as she looked out at the ruin of the world she had once known.
“This is not your nightmare, little Kedi. It is mine.”
I awoke, the Phantom Damselfly’s disc thumping to the floor. Outside, it was the full Penmoon, the blue light filtering through the stained dragonfly window of the loft. I felt a longing to go outside and touch the glass, to see the soft glow. To find out its secrets. I didn’t know why I felt this sudden urge – the last time I touched Penglass, it had caused pain and suffering. But the feeling lingered still, as I sat there bathed in the soft cobalt glow.
I did not sleep the rest of that night.
7
THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE FOOL
“Your whole life, you are told what is right and what is wrong. What you should do and what you should not do. What makes a good citizen and what makes a traitorous one. What happens, then, when you do everything you are not meant to do?
Things are difficult. Aenea, the girl you saw me with in the park, is dead, and it’s all my fault – but I didn’t kill her. I know you’ll believe that. Another friend had to kill because of my actions. I feel like my touch is poison.
I miss you more than words can say.
Love,
Your sibling
Once the juice was dry, very carefully, I wrote an extremely boring letter in pencil to Cyril on the other side of the paper, pretending to be his friend Rojer, who never wrote letters. I sealed the envelope with drops of candlewax. I would ask Drystan to write the address tomorrow for me, to lessen the chance of my parents recognizing the hand.
I had not spoken with my brother since the night he came to see me perform at the circus and tried to convince me to come home. Perhaps I should have gone with him. If I had, Aenea would still be alive, Bil would still be alive, and Drystan would not be a murderer. My eyes burned with tears, and a sharp pain bloomed in my chest. I pressed the backs of my hands to my face.
I stifled my sobs in the pillow. Aenea’s face kept coming to me. The way she looked after we kissed. Her pink lips. The feel of her fitted against my side as we lay side by side, speaking softly as I rested my chin on her shoulder, her hair tickling my face. The sight of her flying off the trapeze, flipping and catching the bar at just the right moment. All the little facets that made her Aenea. Gone in an instant.
A long time later, my tears finally ran dry. I picked up the Phantom Damselfly again, turning it over, my fingertips following the snaking designs etched into the metal. I fell asleep with the secret held in my hand.
I walked through a blue fog so thick it suffocated me. I could not see, I could not hear, I could neither touch nor taste. I stumbled, my arms out in front of me, desperate to know I was not the only one in this strange and silent world.
Slowly, the vapor lifted. The Domes of Ven rose from the gloom. I flicked my wings in relief, running until I had enough momentum for them to carry me into the air.
The world was the purple and blue of dusk. The Venglass glowed as it did every night. I hummed the song of welcoming as I flew over the trees and the stream that led to Ven, a thanksgiving to the coming night.
But though I flew straight to the Ven, it grew no closer. The bright light faded, until the domes were as dark as death. I hovered in the air. Strange new buildings of dark stone grew around the Ven. I saw none of my kin among its bases – only humans, their faces serious and drawn.
Where had they gone?
I landed on a dark dome, looking out over this new world I did not recognize. The land was dead, no longer verdant. People passed below me and looked up, but they did not see me. I was nothing but a ghost among them.
“This is a dream,” I said on top of the dome, coming back to myself. “I am dreaming. This is not me. I am Micah. I am Micah Grey.”
I felt the person I dreamed I was smile sadly as she looked out at the ruin of the world she had once known.
“This is not your nightmare, little Kedi. It is mine.”
I awoke, the Phantom Damselfly’s disc thumping to the floor. Outside, it was the full Penmoon, the blue light filtering through the stained dragonfly window of the loft. I felt a longing to go outside and touch the glass, to see the soft glow. To find out its secrets. I didn’t know why I felt this sudden urge – the last time I touched Penglass, it had caused pain and suffering. But the feeling lingered still, as I sat there bathed in the soft cobalt glow.
I did not sleep the rest of that night.
7
THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE FOOL
“Your whole life, you are told what is right and what is wrong. What you should do and what you should not do. What makes a good citizen and what makes a traitorous one. What happens, then, when you do everything you are not meant to do?
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