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I am the Catamite Prince; the Day Prince; the Prince of Ruin. I am the last scion of my dead father’s dead court, once called the Sun Throne, brightest of all Arcana, now just so much ash and rubble.
A normal job went like this: I went somewhere I shouldn’t, I tried not to get caught, and if I did, Brand shot someone in the head. It was a good day when the corpse had pizza money.
I’d overheard him earlier giving money to Queenie to buy Matthias “a razor, a toothbrush, and a fucking clue.”
I fucking love Brand.
“Matthias, this isn’t an eighties sitcom. I can’t casually accept an orphan into my house for comic relief.”
The thing you must never forget about Atlantean culture is that we don’t coddle our victims. Victims are quarantined and cast out, their defeat viewed as a genetic defect.
“You saved me,” Matthias said to me from behind Brand. I couldn’t quite identify the expression that lit up his face, but it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as plain gratitude. “You saved my life.” “If we get you killed your first week, people will make fun of us,” I said.
While I am sparing in my protection, I am very generous in my reckoning. Such is the nature of Justice.”
I pulled the wrapper off a straw and said, “This is why most of our assignments don’t involve anything more complicated than you shooting something and me setting fires.” The barista handed me my iced mocha with raised eyebrows.
share. I know the Westlands can be a dangerous place, but the paths there are secure, and the compound is very well protected.” “So are bear cages,” Brand said. “So are nuclear power plants. That doesn’t mean you step inside one to knock boots.”
“We’re renegotiating,” Brand said. He glared at Lord Tower. “This is now a new job.” “Have I ever slighted you before, Brandon?” Lord Tower asked. Before Brand could count the fucking ways, or whatever else was coming out of his mouth, the elevator pinged and the doors opened.
“You want us to find a specific summoning circle?” I asked. “Maybe it’s in a haystack. Next to a needle.”
“That is such bullshit! There is no fucking safe in the Westlands, just safer than. Safer than fucking slitting your wrists with a rusty razor blade. Safer than using a rattlesnake as a cock ring. I don’t want you going there!”
“That—” Lord Tower said. His mouth closed and opened. “I’m not sure that was the essence of what I meant.” “Maybe not, but oaths are tricky things. Just the other week I made one and got a teenager out of it.”
“I don’t think it will be easy at all, Hero. I think what would be easy for anyone else is a very great challenge for you; just like I think you routinely do things that would be impossible for others.
Brand thought about it. “And at what fucking point did it seem like a good idea to tear your shirt off? Were you actually standing on a mound of bodies when you did it?” “It burned off.” “I’m cancelling Cinemax.” “I was on fire. It burned.” “I can already hear you using this excuse for the next hundred years.
The railing under my hands was moving. I looked down and saw that branches were growing out of the wood. One of them was studded with buds, and the buds bloomed into powder-blue flowers. Brand came over. We stared at the railing. After a suitable period of reflection, he said, “You are such a freak.”
There are moments in your life that are so impossibly large that it’s difficult to even comprehend them. They make your very bones vibrate. Standing there, it was like my future spiraled outward. Waves of possibility crashed on each other, bound by the insane certainty that everything could start. That everything could finally start.
