Page 46 of Above (Darkness Reigns #1)

“It’s a friend from the academy.” I could tell that stunned him, terrified him. Artie didn’t trust shaytan that weren’t me.

“Well why do they need your help? Can’t they use magic?”

“They’re a little drunk. If I can just buy some clothes, I swear to the stars we will get out of your hair.”

Artie stared at me for longer than I wished, making me squirm. “What are you hiding from me?”

“I’m not hiding anything,” I quipped far too quickly.

“Really? Because you’re acting paranoid right now. Like you’re not telling me something important.”

“She is,” came the haughty voice at my back, followed by the sound of swishing fabric.

Artie’s eyes looked like they were going to bulge out of their sockets, his mouth falling open in a large O shape.

I turned, catching sight of Altair, bright hair on display and smile wide as he looked at us.

I pivoted back around with a heavy sigh, knowing what I’d find on the pawn shop owner’s face. Fury.

“Tershetta,” he hissed.

“Listen it’s not what you think.”

“You brought a fucking core into my shop!” Artie’s voice was sharp and loud, a panic seeming to settle in.

“Some shop,” Altair murmured from behind us.

“Shut the fuck up, Altair!”

“Altair. That’s what I figured from the hair. What in the absolute stars are you doing, Nova?”

“Artie, I can explain.”

“You know, it should be a crime to copy the sigils of the core houses,” Altair cut in again. “I mean, what are you doing with this cheap knock-off, anyway?”

I looked over my shoulder, seeing Altair point at the ring I had stolen from him where it sat in a velvet display.

“Actually, I think that’s yours. Tershetta brought it in here the other day.

” I gasped, facing Artie and glaring up at him.

“You bring a core in my shop, I tell him that you steal. Now we’re both utterly fucked.

” My head fell forward, landing in my palms. He had that right.

“I don’t help shaytan, Nova. You’re my only exception. ”

“She’s hardly a shaytan,” Altair commented, the sound of glass clanking together from whatever he was touching making me snap.

“I said close your mouth you stupid, spoiled prat!” I shouted, making even Altair stop in his tracks.

His grey eyes widened, full pink lips parting ever so slightly.

He looked like a child caught with their hand in a cookie jar.

Sneering at him, I rotated, facing the man who had helped me save my family on more than one occasion.

“Listen, I have no options. I don’t like him and I don’t want him here.

But if he tells on me, they’ll kill me. I made it sound simple before, but it’s not.

They hate me and want me dead. In fact, they’re so determined to make sure that I don’t live through academy, that they’ve even tried to throw me out a window.

I cannot give them any formal reasons to get rid of me when they have enough personal ones already.

If I can just get him to my house, get some tonic into his system, and then get him out, maybe I can shame him into silence.

It’s my only hope. Otherwise, I have none. ”

Artie reared back, all of the information startling him into an open-mouthed statue. I let him stew in it, allowing all my words a chance to settle deep in his chest—in the heart that I hoped cared enough for me to help. At one point he blinked rapidly, shaking his head.

“That’s a stupid plan.”

“It’s the only one I have. I don’t have options right now. Please, I just need clothes so that Celeste doesn’t recognize him. If she’s even awake, that is. They could all be sleeping. If they are, then I can get down to my lab, make the tonic, pour it down his lousy throat, and be on my way.”

“You’re putting your entire family at risk.”

“I’ve done nothing but take care of my family my whole fucking life, but I can’t do that anymore if I’m dead!

I wouldn’t even be an elite if I didn’t need to be for them.

I don’t want to risk my life every day. I don’t want to sit there and listen as they say disgusting things about me and my family.

But that’s the only path I have to walk.

So either help me or don’t, but I’m running low on time, so make a choice. ”

“Dramatic much?” Altair whispered as more items were shuffled at our backs, making me growl in displeasure. Maybe I was the beast.

Slumping his shoulders, Artie sighed, clear defeat on his sagging face. “Fine, don’t let him touch anything else. I’ll be right back.”

When he disappeared through the open doorway to the back of his shop, I let out a deep breath, feeling both relieved and guilty.

He was right. If Altair wanted, he could have Artie’s shop destroyed on some fake charge.

Whatever the cores wanted, they got. Or, if Altair left him alone, other eadi could see that Artie was helping shaytan and choose to not do business with him.

Artie’s life and livelihood were on the line, all because of me.

Because he took a chance on an of eadi years ago.

It seemed I brought death everywhere I went, but I couldn’t regret it now.

Not when I was so desperate. I turned around, stomping toward Altair and snatching the silver snow globe from his hand.

“You know this is eadi stuff you’re touching, right?

Aren’t you scared to get contaminated by touching it all? ”

“Please, I was raised by eadi servants. If I actually believed just touching something nonmagical would taint me, then I’d already be defiled beyond belief.

” Shock had me blinking to clear the confusion.

Eadi servants raised him? “I’m quite certain one of the servants held me ten times more than either of my parents.

So relax with all the high and mighty shit. Plus, I actually like this.”

Altair snatched the glass ball back, my eyes moving from his sneer to the small globe. It was of the large mountain range just east of our shops, snowflakes falling upon the dark grey rocks that towered up above a small tree line with two tiny figures at the base.

“No you don’t,” I argued, reaching for it again. Altair lifted it, making sure I couldn’t get my fingers on it.

“Yes I do, and you stole my fucking ring.” Lips pinched and brows furrowed, he stared me down, hand still high in the air. “I thought I lost that.”

“You’re the idiot who left it in plain sight.” Defensively, I crossed my arms and lifted my chin.

“I want it back.”

“Then buy it.”

“I’m not paying for my own fucking ring.” His fingers lifted, revealing the ring already in his grasp.

“Then don’t get it back.” I dared to snatch it, my fingertips grazing his skin and making my jaw clench.

Altair didn’t let me win, his drunken grasp still tight as his hand locked onto my wrist. “You know, no one else talks to me like this.”

“You need to be talked to like this more often.” Our faces were inches apart, both of us daring the other to back away. I watched as his eyes flitted up and down, side to side. Always thinking like a strategist.

“I should kill you for the disrespect,” he finally mumbled, voice low.

“You won’t.” Not now, when the timing only worked against him.

“I could.” The words were barely a whisper, as if he were talking to himself rather than me. Convincing himself.

“I think you and I both know that you’re not supposed to kill me yet, because if you really wanted me dead, I’d be dead.

” Snatching my wrist away, I tossed him the ring, uninterested in holding something he would put his hands on me to get back.

His fingers plucked it out of the air, the action so nonchalant that I could only purse my lips and hide the surprise.

“Then why are you so worried about me telling?”

“Because I think having that excuse might be exactly what you’re waiting for.”

He shrugged, rotating his hand around the snow globe, making the glass ball look like it was floating. “Well, the way I see it, your death benefits everyone.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I shoved his chest, desperately inhaling the newly vacant air.

“Anyways, Artie is going to come back out and give you some clothes. You’re going to put them on and not complain, then we’re going to go to my house and I’m going to pour some terrible tasting tonic down your throat.

It’s going to sober you up. When it does, we’re heading back to the academy.

That will be after a night of you spending time with me in the Sham District, surrounded by eadi.

So if you tell on me, then I’ll tell on you. ”

“Who cares?” The words were nonchalant, but I saw the way his eyes darted down, his pointed nose scrunching as he seemed to think through the haze of liquor. “No one would say anything about that, if they even believed you, that is.”

“Oh really? So you don’t think wearing eadi clothes, playing with eadi trinkets, being in an eadi district, and spending time with an of eadi won’t make you look bad?

Even if they don’t believe me, it’ll put doubts in their minds, and I have a good feeling that you and your filthy family of snakes are walking on thin ice right now.

After all, you’re the disappointments of the core families.

The only ones to ever hold the stars, but also the only ones to ever lose them.

The only ones to prove to us that the stars can be horribly disappointed.

Do you really think spending all this time with me is going to help you?

” I saw it on his face the moment he registered what I said, and how right I was.

I was taking a chance with this working, because honestly, Altair could risk it.

There was nothing stopping him from telling Captain Zade other than his own pride, but I’ve seen that pride at work, and I was counting on it working now.

“You’re a bitch.”

“Yeah you’ve called me worse.”

“I found some clothes,” Artie said, already back. I grabbed Altair by the collar, dragging him forward to the counter.

Pointing to the clothes, I demanded, “Pay him and put the clothes on.”

“Why do I have to pay for them?” Altair whined, not bothering to shrug out of my hold as he let his head fall back. The muscles in his neck flexed, adam’s apple bobbing beneath his shadow marks.

“Because you put us in this situation, so now you’re going to help get us out of it. Pay him.” Releasing Altair’s collar, I turned to Artie. “Mark up the prices.”

“At least this mess will end up putting more money in my pocket,” Artie mumbled, a small chuckle following the words.

Altair merely groaned, reaching out and tossing a ball of shadows, the darkness morphing into a silver velvet bag.

I watched in surprise as he set the snow globe down on the glass counter and reached for the lumpy sack.

Untying the black silk strings, he reached in, the sound of gold clinking together echoing off the walls. “Fine. I want this and my ring too.”