Free Dark Light of Day by Jill Archer Page B

conflicted about who and what you are. No kidding.”
    Where did Ari get off confiding all these thoughts about
me
to Sasha?
I’d been surprised and, I couldn’t help it, alittle bit pleased, that Ari was obsessed with me, but I was beginning to understand he was obsessed about me the way you’d be obsessed about a cowlick you can’t quite smooth down. And the plant in my locker was a low blow. I started to feel itchy again and knew beyond the puff of a demon’s breath at midnight that Peter’s spell would not be able to contain my magic if I allowed it to heat up.
    “Just answer the question, Sasha,” I said blandly, flicking an imaginary piece of lint off
my
trousers.
    “At the train station.”
    Interesting.
And somewhat worrying. Amaryllis Apatite, the Demeter Mederi that had gone missing the week before classes started, had last been seen boarding the North-South Express. The place where Amaryllis had been headed, and the place where Ari’s burned Beauty had been attacked, were one and the same: the New Babylon train station, which was just one block from here. I was suddenly glad my brother, Night, had decided to go south, with no plans to return north. Still, if the
rogare
demon responsible for the attacks was still out there, then anyone using the New Babylon train station might be at risk. I told Sasha as much. He rolled his eyes, which told me exactly what he thought of my concerns and then got back to the matter at hand.
    “So what should I tell Ari about you? Are you going to declare?”
    “Whether or not I declare is my business, not yours. And not Ari’s.”
    “Wow. You just don’t get it, do you? If you don’t declare by Bryde’s Day, the demons will eventually find out. The fact that your magic is so weak you couldn’t control an imp won’t matter. You will have broken the rules. And the demons hate that. They won’t stand for that. They will find you and they will kill you.
    “I told Ari this conversation would be a waste of time.” Sasha sighed dramatically. “I told him if you didn’t have waning magic, we didn’t need to talk. And if you did—we
still
didn’t need to talk. Because anyone with waning magic who seriously considers not declaring,
especially
a weirdmutant gender bending
freak
who has waning magic, isn’t worth working with.”
    The itchy feeling I was experiencing turned fiery. Everything Sasha said may have been true, except for the part about me being weak. I had to leave
now
, before I set him on fire. But he beat me to it.
    “I feel like I’m talking to a corpse,” he said. And then he got up and walked away.
    I sat there on the bench for a while. The sun set and the night grew dark. Fewer and fewer students walked through the square. My cheeks got cold and my toes grew numb. The fact was, like it or not, declaring was starting to sound like a viable option. Oh sure, I hated thinking about making any choice that someone like Sasha might have suggested. But my life was different now than it had been even one month ago. My days of growing up in secluded Etincelle or hanging out in relative anonymity at Gaillard were over. Bryde’s Day was next week and Peter still hadn’t contacted me. The likelihood that he’d find the Reversal Spell in the next seven days was about as likely as Lucifer guest lecturing for Meginnis.
    My magic control had been tested more in the past four weeks than it had been in the past four years combined. If this was my new normal, I was in big trouble. Eventually, I would give myself away, or worse, hurt someone. Maybe it was time I started learning how to control my magic instead of hiding it. I hated possessing waning magic because it was destructive and deadly. But
I
didn’t have to be, right? Some people—the Mrs. Asters and Sashas in the world—would view me with disgust. But others might not. Ari hadn’t.
    The temperature dropped. My breath puffed in and out in small white clouds. The square’s lamp lights came on. Finally, I