Page 41 of The Illuminated
“What’s with all the rainbows?” Daelon asked.
I giggled. “You know, for the gays.”
Daelon just blinked at me.
“People who are attracted to the same gender as them? Well, also for trans folk—people who identify as a gender they weren’t assigned at birth, or a gender outside the male-female binary. But they sometimes get a different flag,” I rambled, searching his very confused eyes.
“Why do they get special flags and rainbows?” he asked, and a woman next to us at the crosswalk glared.
I stifled a laugh. I wasn’t sure how to posture myself to assure her we weren’t bigots but were actually from a different realm of existence where people didn’t really give a shit about narrow gender and sexuality roles.
Witches at the castle dressed across all human clothing gender roles, and I’d never heard anyone identifying themselves as gay or bi or any other sexual orientation. No one needed to explain themselves because there was nothing to explain. They just…were. It seemed that human history on the LGBTQ+ front hadn’t echoed into Aradia at all. Or at least not into the castle.
“Because a lot of human societies in recent history, or at least the most powerful of them, thought that their existence was an abomination that should be outlawed or even eradicated,” I explained as concisely as I could.
Daelon looked at me in horror. “I thought Lucius was exaggerating,” he said softly. “I still don’t understand. Why the fuck would anyone care so much about any of that?”
“That’s a question you could ask about pretty much any human act of violence or hatred, ever.”
“You know, Lucius has always said that the older generation of witches who were supposed to rule the realm, like his father, wanted a human-like society. Even though he keeps thehowof his coming into power magickally hidden from view, he’s always been crystal clear about thewhy.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve heard the spiel about him being like Lucifer in the Garden of Eden, freeing witches from the restriction of the old ways with truth and freedom. And how the older generation was supposedly cruel and hierarchical and wanted to be like tyrannical human oligarchs. Considering he genuinely believes in his own lies about being ordained by the heavens, it’s hard to know how much to trust his stories.”
“From what I remember about that time, I don’t think he’s exaggerating much about his father and his men. As a child, I didn’t really understand much of it, and Lucius worked hard to keep me engaged in only fun activities outside of my training. I think he was scared I wouldn’t want to be his friend anymore if I understood the circumstances of my new existence. Or maybe he wanted to shield me from it, I don’t know. He was different back then.”
It was hard to believe anyone’s insinuations that there was a different version of Lucius. Especially not after I’d seen the horrors of his dungeons up close—and especially thepleasurehe’d gleaned from them.
We passed by the Picasso museum, tucked away beside a beautiful hotel garden deadened partially by winter.
“I just wish we knew whothese men were. The ones who were actually in charge and started the wars. What do you remember about them?”
Daelon scrunched his forehead in concentration, and then glared at a French dude who stared at me a little too long. “Like I said before, just that they were always strategizing behind closed doors. They were also strange about their partners and women in general. I remember there was a lot of talk about repopulating the realm. I think maybe that was why they were human-like in their views about handfasting. Lucius always said they didn’t want women to be with other women or men to be with other men, and they were planning on making that law.”
“So basically Gilead,” I joked to myself, because Daelon never understood my human references. “That sounds… very disturbing. But it makes sense they’d want to repopulate if they were killing so many people. No wonder they stole everyone’s children.”
Daelon nodded, and I could see in his eyes that my words had opened up an old wound. I took his hand in mine, and we walked in a mournful silence for the next few blocks.
We stopped across the street from an unassuming building, wedged between a closed-down restaurant and an electronics store. The number 123 was etched above the door in white.
“What exactly are we looking for?” I whispered, feeling very spy-like just as a man with patchy gray hair, wearing a coat and scarf walked toward us on the sidewalk.
Suddenly, before the man even looked in our direction, Daelon grabbed my face and kissed me, almost knocking me back into the yellowish building behind. I kissed him back, and when he released me, I peered over his shoulder just in time to see the man disappear into the building across the street.
“We just needed to make sure this wasn’t some kind of trick or a trap. But I don’t feel anything out of the ordinary energetically. He holds very little power himself—I could hardly even detect it. Now we wait until dark like Amos saw in his vision.”
“And then you’re going to turn into your evil CIA alter ego? If you knew anything about the CIA, you’d know that means I’m expecting the very worst.”
Daelon sighed then pinned me with a serious gaze. “Listen, you’re going to want to stop me from doing whatever I need to do tonight, but you can’t. Lucius will get what he wants no matter what. And if I fail, it will look very bad for both of us.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’ll do whatever I think is best. Lucius can’t hold death over my head for every little thing because of his queen fantasy. I’m just not sure what’s supposed to be motivating me to stay on my best behavior anymore.”
“The dungeons, for one,” he growled, gesturing for me to start following him away from the apartment. “For you and for me.”
I fought back a wince at the memories of my brief visit to the dungeons. “If you’re right about this having to do with Lucius finding unconquered lands, then I won’t let that happen. You know I can’t. But I also just won’t believe that you in any form would allow that kind of information to get to him. Or that Amos would send us for it. That isn’t who either of you are.”
Daelon went silent and cold. “Maybe all your talk of getting through this together,no matter what, was just as much a fantasy as Lucius’s vision of you as his Queen.”
After an excruciatingly tense few hours at the apartment, it was finally dark. Thank god winter meant an early sundown, because I wasn’t sure how much more I could take of the mutual moodiness. I didn’t need my clairsentience to understand that underneath Daelon’s façade of strength and frigidness was the heavy weight of fear. He was downright terrified for me to see him do whatever it was that Lucius tasked him with, and I was starting to taste that fear myself. I didn’t want Lucius to win. I didn’t want to think of Daelon differently. I couldn’t—not after so much had already been taken from me and poisoned by Lucius’s evil. Daelon was the only home I had, and I was his.
