A Girl Named Calamity by Danielle Lori

CHAPTER THIRTY

EMPTY CITIES

Icouldn’t believe that Grandmother had spent all that time teaching me how to be a lady and not how to resist some mere compulsion. Maybe she’d thought if she didn’t teach me about magic, I wouldn’t be touched by it. I made a note to chastise her about it as soon as I saw her again.

I had been stuck in this room for over two hours now because Weston compelled me. Apparently, he didn’t trust me after what had happened in Latent City. That, and stabbing him possibly had something to do with it.

The room was small and needed a good cleaning. Just like the city. I snorted when I saw the sign that was blowing in the wind as it hung sideways. I had to tilt my head to read it.

Tanded City

Where all your dreams come true.

I could imagine that the rundown buildings, grass overgrown in the streets, and the black, sludgy-looking lake nearby was the last place all my dreams would come true.

Maybe one of my nightmares . . .

The frustration of my situation had hit me when Weston slammed the door in my face. I was trapped by four wooden walls, and it felt like they were closing in on me until all that would remain would be me locked inside a wooden casket. I tried to leave the room many times, but there was an invisible boundary across the door, keeping me in—a product of Weston’s stupid compulsion.

I paced around my room, trying to come up with a plan. Maybe I couldn’t use any magic because of the cuffs and if I took them off, I could. But then I remembered The Burning City and how a cuff had been off and I still couldn’t do any magic. Grandmother had said they both needed to be on to work. The thought of taking them off had my stomach rolling with the idea of that inhuman rider finding me anyway.

I felt claustrophobic, and my frustration was building until I let it out with a scream and a kick to the small wooden table near the bed.

I almost screamed again when a man appeared in the room. Out of thin air. I stared at Weston with wide eyes.

“Why did you scream like you were being tortured?” he asked, his eyes narrowed. How the hell did he do that? And why did he look angry at me when I was the one trapped inside this stupid room for hours?

“Oh, was heartless Weston worried about me?” I taunted. I wanted to make him angry, something to get rid of this frustration.

He frowned. “I need you whole to open the seal.”

I narrowed my eyes. Liar.

He stared at me with a hard expression and I knew that he heard that thought. The silence was thick, and the walls were already closing in on me. The tension in the air was just too much.

“How did you just pop in here like that? Are you a Mage?” I already knew he was something much more than that, and he only raised an eyebrow to say, Another question you already know the answer to.

“If you can do that, why aren’t we at the seal right now?” I asked. “How do you even know where it is?” He hadn’t ever asked me where it was. I wouldn’t be able to tell him if he did anyway.

“Come on,” he said while walking to the door. “The princess can leave her tower.”

I scoffed. “If this is a fairy tale, I can only hope the villain gets killed in the end.”

He laughed. “Come on. Before I change my mind.”

“Where are we going?” I asked while I hopped off the bed.

“To get you out of that dress.”

I froze and stared at him with wide eyes.

He laughed at my reaction. “You’re all talk, aren’t you?”

“No . . .” I mumbled.

Not all of the time.

“Relax. Your innocence is safe.” He shook his head in dry amusement. “We’re going to the bathhouse.”

I took a deep breath and threw my cloak on before I followed him out the door.

“I don’t have anything else to wear because someone ripped them to shreds.” I looked at him pointedly.

He ignored me and we walked side by side down the street. People parted for us, and I imagined it was because of the Titan next to me. I was his prisoner, and yet I felt safe walking close to his side. Somewhere along the way, his presence had turned into some kind of safety net when it was far from the truth.

It was hard to even comprehend how I had gotten entangled with an assassin. But somehow I couldn’t imagine going back. I couldn’t envision marrying the blacksmith’s son because I never even knew what color eyes he had. That told me everything and scared me more than anything.

After I had spent too much time debating between two different shirts, Weston snatched one out of my hands and paid for it and the pair of pants I had picked out. I frowned at him. “If this is how you woo the women you are courting, I feel sorry for them.”

“The only kind of wooing I do doesn’t involve clothes,” he said dryly.

I walked right into that one . . .

When we reached the bathhouse, I looked at it hesitantly. The sloping roof looked like it would fall in at any moment. The wooden door was warped and didn’t even close properly, and there were no windows. It looked like a death trap.

I scoffed. “This is where all my dreams are supposed to come true? This won’t even be a dream bath.”

Weston laughed. “I’ve never been here once and had my dreams come true so I think it’s safe to say yours won’t either.”

“What are your dreams?” The question flew out of my mouth. Weston’s face sobered, and he looked at me with cautious eyes before he answered. I didn’t know why, but it really felt like I would finally get some insight into his reasoning.

“Right now? For you to go take a bath and hurry up.”

I sighed and hesitantly walked into the worn-down building. I ended up cutting the red Untouchable dress off because I couldn’t figure out how to get it off. Another woman in the baths watched me with wide eyes while I massacred it with my knife.

After I had scrubbed myself down, I walked out of the bathhouse and looked around uncertainly. Weston was supposed to be waiting for me, but he wasn’t here. The dirt streets were empty.

The other woman in the bathhouse had walked out moments before me. And yet, nobody was in sight. A chill went down my spine as I drifted down the street. I jumped when a tavern door flew open with the wind.

The silence in the city was eerie as I took in the stands full of clothes and fruit, but with no one running them. The only sounds were of the wind blowing through the alleys of the rundown buildings and my heartbeat drumming as I continued to walk down the empty street.

Goose bumps covered my skin when I realized I was the only one in the city.

This was definitely a nightmare.

* * *

I didn’t walk around for long before I saw a familiar wooden building squished between two rundown ones. Like a vacuum, it beckoned to me. It looked out of place as it was sturdy and not falling apart like all the other buildings in this city of nightmares.

Bells dinged as I opened the door. The smell of home hit me in the face, and I sighed in relief when I saw the woman behind the counter.

I wasn’t alone.

“Hello, Calamity,” she said. It gave me the chills. I had never shared my name with her, nor had she ever addressed me so formally.

I swallowed. “Hi . . .”

“Are you here for something specific?” she asked as she walked out from behind the counter. Did she not notice the oddity of everyone being gone?

“Why are you and I the only ones in the city?”

“I don’t know . . . is everyone else gone?” she asked in a way that made me feel like she knew exactly where everyone was.

A shiver ran down my spine. “You didn’t notice?”

She sighed. “No. I’ve been . . . shut in for a while now.”

It felt like there was a lot of meaning behind those words. But I couldn’t think of anything to say with the thick tension in the air.

“Do you realize the trouble you are in with the man you travel with?”

My eyes widened. “What do you know of him?” I asked even though my legs were itching to leave. My body knew there was something not right about this, but I needed to hear what she had to say about Weston.

“I know that he wants to open the seal, and now he has your blood. He could make you do anything he wished if he chose to without compelling you. Compulsion can only be used so many times before its use is ineffective. Blood magic has no limit.”

I swallowed. Nausea was beginning to settle in my stomach. I chose not to think about this, having it said to my face was hard to handle.

“There is only one fix to this problem. You must ingest some of his blood. He could not control you anymore if you did.” She scrunched her nose up as if she hated the idea of someone controlling me.

That was all it took? I had drawn his blood before and didn’t see it being a problem again. But where was he?

“How do you know all this? Did you take it from my head?”

She shook her head. “I could never read your mind.”

I blinked. “Then how have you always known what I was thinking?”

“Because . . .” Her smile sent a shiver down my spine, “you’re not the only one thinking them.”

I jerked. “What are you talking about?” Goose bumps covered my skin, and I had the urge to start backing up to the door.

“Calamity, it’s time.”

My heart fluttered fast at those words.

“Time for what?”

“For . . .” Her smile was malicious, “all your dreams to come true, of course.”

Or all my nightmares . . .

I shivered and took a step back.

“And what are all my dreams?” I managed to get out.

“We can’t know that.” She shook her head. “No, we can’t. Not until you are . . . dead.”

I flinched and backed up, bumping into the door. “What?” I croaked.

“Oh, dear. Don’t worry; I’m not going to kill you.” She laughed. My heart beat out of my chest with fear and the urge to run, but my feet were frozen to the floor.

“Although I want to more than anything, I couldn’t do it.”

“Why?” I asked, breathless as my lungs tried to keep up with my heart.

“I couldn’t kill myself.”

My lungs closed up as I watched the woman’s mouth disappear and then her eyes follow. I stared with fear clawing through me as her face began to dissolve, flesh-colored particles flying away. My hands shook as I grabbed the door handle in a tight grip.

A voice resounded in my head.

My voice.

“It’s time . . .”