CoS14

## Chapter 14

**Chapter 14** of **City of Spells** follows **Wesley**.

## **Full Version**

THE FOREST WASN’T HARD to infiltrate.

Wesley was out of practice when it came to being stealthy, but even he had little trouble sneaking past the guard and wandering into the forest like he very much belonged there.

It might have been the Crafter in him, helping him stick to the shadows—or the shadows stick to him—or it might have been because the forest was woefully guarded for a rebellion.

Either way, Wesley was in.

He just wasn’t sure why he’d felt the need to sneak past the guards in the first place. He could have easily introduced himself and explained that he was on their side. Even if they hadn’t believed him and thought every bruise on his body was some kind of infiltration tactic, the worst they could do was bring him to their leader or try to put him in chains.

It wasn’t like he’d never been in chains before.

And it wasn’t like he didn’t have a good in with their leader.

Perhaps the sneaking was just an old habit, like the not trusting people and the need to prove that he could do whatever he put his mind to.

Maybe he needed it, this small and tiny victory, after being lost for so long.

After swimming for his damn life in water so cold it felt like being shot at a hundred times over.

Wesley strolled through the center of the camp.

It was surrounded by streams that reminded him of Creije. Wesley didn’t want to think about it, but it always came to him in the quiet moments.

The home he’d let fall to its knees.

He placed a hand on the trunk of a nearby tree and felt the rough bark beneath his fingers. In an instant, the tree seemed to spring to life, letting out a long exhale, its leaves fluttering in a windswept applause. The forest began to sing, a sweet melody that Wesley was so sure he’d heard before. The branches of each shrub and tree and sapling jerked back and forth in a wave, and Wesley couldn’t help but smile.

This forest, evergreen and aglow in ancient magic, felt happy to see him. It welcomed him like an old friend.

*This way*, it whispered excitedly. *Quickly, come this way*.

The leaves of the trees, veined silver like Wesley’s staves, rustled to his left, and Wesley followed them like they were a compass. He wasn’t sure where they were leading him or why, but he didn’t care. He knew somehow, somewhere deep down, that it was taking him where he needed to go.

The clearing was sparse and at first Wesley thought that he was alone, but after a few short moments, four figures emerged from the distance.

One was Saxony, talking animatedly to an older woman on her right. The woman sighed, the man next to her shrugged, and then the three of them stopped walking altogether and formed a makeshift circle. They looked like they were arguing about something, but Wesley didn’t care enough to try to listen. His focus was pulled toward the fourth person. The girl who had broken away from them and was twirling her knives absentmindedly on a nearby log.

Tavia.

Many Gods, she was right in front of him.

*Finally.*

Her hair was a little longer now and still a fierce black that swung by her chin. She was dressed in gray, of course, with her sleeves rolled up to perfectly showcase the daggers of her new tattoo. A stave, of sorts. The tattoo of an ally.

Tavia looked older, in the way wisdom and death often shaped a person to be, but at the same time she looked so brand new. The fierceness in her eyes had grown stronger since he’d last seen her, molding her into someone who felt unfamiliar.

She looked over to Saxony with a sigh and then turned to stare into the clearing.

Her eyes fixed onto Wesley’s.

Her face paled.

She stood, quick as a cat, lips parted ever so slightly.

She had never looked at him this way, like he had made the day grow brighter, instead of raising the shadows.

Tavia squinted at him, trying to make sense of him being there. Wesley was trying to make sense of her, too. Tavia’s eyes were the color of rain clouds and her lips were a thin line that held a perfect cupid’s bow when she said his name.

“Wesley.”

Her voice carried over to him like a memory.

Tavia was so pretty and Wesley was a little mad at himself for forgetting just how much.

What a mess every hallucination seemed now.

Zekia hadn’t even gotten her glare half-right.

“Wesley,” she said again, this time louder.

Saxony and the other two people whipped their heads around to face him.

Wesley swallowed. Scrunched his eyes closed in a quick blink.

Things were so bright here and the sun seemed foreign to him after so long in a series of dark rooms.

“Many Gods,” Saxony said.

And then Tavia was running toward him, faster than he knew she could be, and her arms were swinging around his neck and clutching on to him as if for life.

Then Wesley was somehow hugging her back, even though he wasn’t sure he had told his arms to move. He didn’t know they could, he was so tired even blinking hurt, but still his body folded into Tavia’s like it was instinct and when he breathed in, he inhaled the scent of her.

By the Many Gods, he had missed that scent.

“Tell me you’re not actually here,” Tavia said. “Because if this is real, then hugging you is actually quite embarrassing.”

“I’m here,” Wesley said.

They felt like the first words he had spoken since he’d jumped from that window. Tavia pulled away from him and ducked her head sheepishly.

“I was worried about you,” she said.

“Why? It’s not like I was kidnapped by a mass murderer.”

Tavia’s eyes met his. She glared and then she punched him in the shoulder. “You bastard,” she said.

Wesley wasn’t sure it was possible to miss someone as much as he had missed her.

“Did you win the war without me?” he asked. “Am I too late for the victory dance?”

Tavia looked like she was going to punch him again, but instead she laughed, which Wesley found equally as intimidating.

“Who are your new friends?” he asked, gesturing toward the man and woman who were standing on guard beside Saxony.

The wary way Saxony stared at him, scanning his hands for knives and his eyes for secrets, made Wesley want to smile.

*Just like old times.*

“Does that glare mean you missed me?” he asked her.

Saxony looked inclined to relax, but she kept her body rigid as if she had a reputation to uphold and being kind to Wesley might interfere with it.

“This is my father, Bastian,” Saxony said.

The man by her side stood like a fierce protector, with thick black hair pulled back into braids. He had a beard, which Wesley had never managed to grow himself, and a stern line in the center of his forehead that looked like it could be from frowning or laughing.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Wesley said.

He held out his hand and Bastian stepped forward to take it.

Wesley would have gone to him, but he was finding it hard enough to stand straight and keep himself from falling over. His body felt depleted and it required all the ego he had to keep anyone from noticing.

The trek from Tisvgen to the Uncharted Forest had not been an easy one, and Wesley had forgotten how average a swimmer he was until he had propelled himself into the Onnela Sea.

He’d also forgotten until now that he still wasn’t wearing any shoes, and the moment he remembered his feet began to throb.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Bastian said.

Wesley tried to make his voice sound breezy. “I bet none of it was good.”

“But all of it was true,” Saxony said.

Wesley only shrugged and turned to the old lady. “And you are?”

“This is my amja,” Saxony said.

“I’m not expected to call her that, am I?”

Wesley didn’t think referring to a lady he barely knew as his grandmother was the right way to go.

“Most people do,” the lady said.

“I’m not most people.”

“He says that a lot,” Tavia said. “You’ll get used to the pride. Wesley likes to think he’s special.”

Saxony’s amja looked at him strangely, her eyes soft and white enough that he could almost see his own reflection back in them. Wesley looked away, but then she took his hand in hers.

There was something to the way she looked at him that made Wesley feel unsettled, and when she clasped his hand, the trees hummed softly in the background.

“He is special,” Saxony’s amja said. “He escaped Dante Ashwood and made his way here in one piece.”

Wesley wasn’t sure he was in one piece.

“Speaking of the escape,” Saxony said.”How did Karam and the others manage to get you out so quickly? Are they getting healed somewhere else in camp?”

Wesley paused. “Karam didn’t get me out of anywhere.”

“She went to get you,” Saxony said slowly, as though perhaps Wesley had misunderstood.”A busker we questioned mentioned you were in Tisvgen and she took Arjun and Asees and a few other Crafters there to save you.”

“You mean my old bouncer tried a rescue mission?” Wesley said. “I’m flattered. That would have saved me a trip out of a window.”

And that was when any color faded from Saxony’s face.

“Are you serious?” she asked. “They left three days ago. If you’re here, then where in the fire-gates are they?”

Wesley only shrugged. “I jumped out of a building all by myself and then I just followed the sound of you sighing in my direction. I never saw anyone.”

“Maybe they just missed each other,” Tavia said to Saxony, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

For some reason, that gesture seemed to make them both stiffen.

“If anyone can take care of herself, then it’s Karam,” Tavia said. “Besides, she’s got a whole gang of Crafters at her back. She’ll probably realize Wesley is nowhere to be found, come back here looking all glum at having failed her mission, then see his smirking face and threaten to punch someone.”

“You don’t know that,” Saxony said.

“You don’t know anything either,” Tavia told her. “So let’s give it a few more days before we go panicking. Okay?”

Saxony nodded, but even Wesley could tell that all she wanted to do was run from the forest and to wherever Karam had ventured off to.

To save him.

She’d left this place to go look for him, which shouldn’t have surprised Wesley so much, but it did.Arjun, too, who Wesley had made a point of irritating at every moment he could. And Asees? A Liege who once didn’t want to give him a speck of power, now agreed that he was an ally worth saving?

Just what kind of topsy-turvy world had Wesley walked into?

“You saved my life on Ashwood’s isle,” Saxony said. “I never thanked you for that.”

A moment of silence passed before Wesley realized that she still wouldn’t.

“You’re welcome,” he said anyway.

“How was Zekia?” Saxony asked. “What happened?”

“You mean aside from the torture?”

Tavia winced and Wesley inwardly cursed himself for revealing that little tidbit in front of her. He didn’t want her to think of him as powerless, but he didn’t quite know how to hide it.

“She’s fine,” Wesley said. “I tried to get through to her, but Ashwood has his claws in deep. I don’t know if she can see reason. I wanted—”

He broke off.

*I wanted to take her with me*, he thought. *I wanted to save her.*

“She’s a little lost right now,” he said.

“I’m not giving up on my sister,” Saxony said.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

Tavia let out an audible sigh, stepping in front of Wesley like some kind of a shield. “Many Gods,” she said. “He’s been back five minutes.”

Saxony’s jaw tensed and Wesley looked between them curiously. Something had fractured their bond, and that only made this forest seem more peculiar.

“How about we stop the interview and try asking if he’s okay?” Tavia said. “Or if he wants a healer? Or a damn nap? I mean, look at him!”

Wesley wished that they wouldn’t.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Apparently, I’m a badass Crafter, so I can heal myself. And a nap sounds boring.”

The lie was so easy that he hadn’t even considered telling the truth.

“How about a new suit and some food though?” Wesley asked. “And what I wouldn’t give for a pint of Cloverye.”

Tavia laughed. “Sure. I happen to know a great cook.”

“If you’re talking about yourself, then I’d rather not get food poisoning.”

She smacked him on the shoulder and the lights in her eyes danced.

“It’s good to have you back,” she said.

Wesley smiled at her, best he could.

He’d wanted to get here so badly and resume business as usual, fall back into the routine and feel as at home with these people as he did in Creije. He thought that once he got here it would be like putting on an old suit.

It had seemed so simple when he stood at the edge of the window with the Onnela Sea and all the dead of Tisvgen calling out to him from below. Surely the torture was the hard part. Surely being back with people he trusted was easy.

Except that wasn’t true.

Wesley couldn’t let his guard down here any more than he could with Zekia, because these people needed him to be okay and if they knew how weak he felt, then they wouldn’t rely on him.

If he wasn’t strong, then he was no use to anyone.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tavia asked, searching Wesley’s eyes for all the things he hid.

Wesley swallowed and kept the smile strong on his face.

“I’m always okay,” he said.