A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic, #2)

by V.E. Schwab

I am not Vitari, he said smoothly. But Vitari was me.

A leaf to a tree,

My name, said the creature, is Osaron. It was an old word, an Antari word, meaning shadow.

“What do you want?” asked Holland. To live, said the shadow. I can save your life. I can save your world. It is a simple deal, Antari. My power for your body. “And whose mind?” challenged Holland. “Whose will?” Ours, purred the king.

but they’re powerful. Perhaps they have found a way to make themselves into vessels. Or perhaps they use those jewels to bind magic to them.”

Sounds a bit Stormlighty.

“The Essen Tasch is itself a kind of lesson,” continued Alucard, “that it doesn’t matter what you call magic, so long as you can believe.”

It wasn’t the abduction that gave him nightmares in the months that followed, but the sight of Kell crouched over him, eyes wide and skin pale, the knife in his hand and the rivers of blood streaming from his severed veins.

The truth was, there had been an instant, staring into the hissing fire, when it had stared back, hot and fierce, and listening,

She was starting to understand that magic wasn’t just something to be accessed, tapped into when needed. It was always there, ready and waiting. And that frightened her.

What are you?

And what right did she have to mourn?

She’d survived magic doors and evil queens; she’d be damned if she died of catching cold.

“Yes, magic chose Master Kell. But what he is—Antari—that’s only one kind of aven. Maybe the strongest, but it depends on your definition of strong.

Aven isn’t just one thing, because magic isn’t just one thing. It’s everything, old and new and always changing.

It’s because the magic is trying to tell us something.…”

“We’re all here for a reason, Bard. Some reasons are just bigger than others. So I guess I’m not scared of who you are, or even what you are. I’m scared of why you are.”

“Come on, then,” he said, slinging his arm around the prince’s shoulder. “I’ll defend you.” “My hero.”

Now came the truly unfortunate task of socializing.

“Reputations, they are loud things.”

“Lila, when we first met, I gave you your pick of all my wares, and you chose a devil’s mask and a man’s coat. This has nothing to do with what is proper, it’s only that it’s dangerous. Anesh, so are you.”

He comes every week.”

It was called the Blood Square, where they stood. An execution site, the stones beneath his boots stained black and streaked where desperate fingers had scrounged at the spilled life in case it held a taste of magic.

People either stole to stay alive or to feel alive. She had to imagine that they ran away for the same reasons.

After all, if Osaron could make a body of his own, he would have no need for Holland. And as much as Holland needed Osaron’s magic, the thought of the oshoc moving freely sent a shiver through him. No, Holland was not only Osaron’s partner, he was Osaron’s prison. And his prisoner was growing restless.

His muscles refused to unclench; his mind wouldn’t unwind; the walls he’d built hadn’t been built to come down.

She was standing on a platform, surrounded by men and women who practically shook with power, the explosion of fireworks above and the roar of the crowd to every side, wearing a stranger’s stolen clothes and about to compete in a tournament in the name of an empire she didn’t serve in a world she wasn’t even from. And she was grinning like a fool.

You of all people should be able to see that magic changes in the hands of men. It is an element to be shaped.

I’m glad of the Essen Tasch, if only for that reminder, and for the chance to see how magic is treated in other lands.”

I have crossed worlds and taken ships. Fought queens and saved cities. Her bones shuddered and her blood raced. I am one of a kind.

Because the best tricks were the ones pulled off not while the mark’s back was turned, but while they were watching. And Lila wanted to be seen.

“All elements are inherently connected,” he rambled on while she struggled to summon fire. “There’s no hard line between one and the next. Instead, they exist on a spectrum, bleeding into one another. It’s about finding which part of that spectrum pulls at you the strongest. Fire bleeds into air, which bleeds into water, which bleeds into earth, which bleeds into metal, which bleeds into bone.”

Something strange and impossible, and at the same time, utterly familiar.

They didn’t fight like it really mattered. Sure, they wanted to win, wanted to take the glory and the prize, but they didn’t fight like their lives were on the line. There was too much bravado, and too little fear. They moved with the confidence of knowing a bell would chime, a whistle would blow, the match would end, and they would still be safe. Real fights didn’t work that way. Delilah Bard had never been in a fight that didn’t matter.

Did she know it was him behind the silver mask? “Hello,” she said, and in that one word, he knew that she did.

“But, Kell…” she said, sobering, “… don’t do what I did.” “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

Kisimyr resisted the urge to sit, knowing she would lack the will to rise again.

What she wouldn’t give to face him in the tournament,