Circle of Ashes (Wish Quartet Book 2), Page 2

  I’ve seen this before, she wanted to say. But what escaped her mouth was different entirely. “Wh-what movie is this?” She laughed, a sort of forced, strangled sound.

  Eslar made no move to respond.

  Jo watched as the TV continued to scroll the announcement across the bottom of the screen in Japanese, her eyes translating instantly by magic: MT. FUJI ERUPTS. UNPRECEDENTED CATASTROPHE. DEATH TOLL UNKNOWN.

  The screen filled with apocalyptic imagery alternating between news casters standing at a distance, smoke and darkness shrouding them, and social media videos posted by cell phones, most of which ending all too abruptly. Ash spewed from the earth and blacked out the sky, a stark contrast to the bright, peaceful morning where Jo currently stood.

  It was worse than any horror movie she’d ever seen.

  “Eslar.” Nico walked over and placed a hand on the elf’s shoulder, summoning him back to attention. “What is this?”

  “The news.”

  Chapter 3

  Shattered

  THE PHRASE “LIKE a train wreck” was one that Jo had heard used multiple times throughout her nineteen years of life, sometimes in all honesty, sometimes in hyperbole. Never before had she truly understood what that felt like, but it was undeniable now.

  No matter how difficult the destruction was to watch, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from the screen.

  “Is this live?” Jo asked, hardly above a whisper. Her voice sounded small and scared, barely even her own. Part of her already knew the answer. Eslar nodded, a single jerk of his head, as his brows furrowed.

  “As of fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Shit. . .” Jo breathed, raising a shaking hand to cover her mouth, hiding her trembling lips. It didn’t seem possible. Surely it couldn’t be.

  But there it was, right in front of her. A live broadcast interspersed with videos from hours ago, minutes ago, all highlighting the devastation.

  Without really making the conscious decision to do so, Jo found herself dragging her feet around the edge of the couch, sitting down heavily to Eslar’s right. Her hand never left her mouth, as if holding in the silent scream ringing in her ears.

  “This isn’t good,” Nico said, mostly to himself it seemed, and when Jo managed to pry her eyes from the screen for a moment, she noticed his fingers digging hard into the back of the couch, knuckles stark white beneath his skin.

  Of course it isn’t, Jo wanted to say, wanted to shout, but she couldn’t seem to formulate the outburst. Instead, she just turned back towards the broadcast and absorbed everything she could, hoping that eventually it would somehow stop being real.

  “. . .no way of anticipating the disaster,” a reporter was in the process of saying. “Seismographs and supercomputers proved ineffective as the warning reached Prime Minister Tomo Nakamura barely two hours before the eruption. With no proper notice, and with transportation systems indefinitely grounded, evacuations are currently impossible and first responders are left waiting for the worst of the ash and lava flows to pass.

  “Of the two million people within the surrounding cities of the Hakone region, already thirteen thousand have been proclaimed dead. The number is expected to rise as relief efforts are projected to begin in the outer, safest areas in two days.”

  Thirteen thousand dead, at least, in fifteen minutes.

  With a jolt, Jo pulled the sleeve of her hoodie back and ran her finger along the fabric of her watch. Another ten minutes had passed since the three of them had started watching. How many more were already gone? How many more were waiting in hell for help that would never come and death that was taking far too long?

  Jo looked from Nico to Eslar and back. Both men had their attention all but glued to the screen, Nico with noticeable tears in his eyes and Eslar with an expression on his face frozen somewhere between blank and tired. She wasn’t looking for comfort. She wasn’t, Jo insisted to herself. But suddenly, she couldn't help but feel cold and shaky, possibly even frightened. To call what she was witnessing “horrible” wasn’t near potent enough. Jo was pretty sure that the more she watched, the more likely she was to throw up.

  “You cats watching an action flick?” Wayne suddenly appeared in the entryway to the common room, Jo’s back stiffening in surprise as she turned toward him. She caught the brief look of casual amusement on his face before he seemed to notice whatever emotion was betrayed by hers. “Everyone alright?” he asked, posture more on edge and voice more hesitant now. Before Jo could stop herself, she felt her expression crumple further, a hand reaching in his direction.

  “Wayne?” she sniffed, and he was at her side in a second, grabbing her hand in a reassuring grip. His weight sank into the couch cushions next to her, a steady rock that she fell into willingly. It was physically closer than they’d been in months, but she needed him right now. He was the most familiar warmth in all of the Society.

  “What’s happening?” he asked the rest of the room, with a seriousness Jo would have scoffed at were it not for the situation. Instead, she just focused on the feel of his thumb tracing the length of her knuckles in a rhythm meant to be comforting—even if it wasn’t quite. There was no comfort against something so inconceivably horrible.

  “Mt. Fuji has erupted,” Eslar replied without preamble, seemingly coming back to himself. “Thousands have already perished.”

  “Shit,” Wayne cursed under his breath. Perhaps it was hysterics, but Jo felt a choked and bitter laugh crawl its way up her throat.

  “That’s what I said.” She thought that was what she said, at least. Everything suddenly felt hazy and distant—like déjà vu, though she was certain she’d never witnessed something so terrible. In fact, Jo could’ve been blubbering this whole time and not realized it, and it wouldn’t have surprised her.

  Wayne squeezed her hand again and the room fell silent as they listened to the various reports, some of them recordings, some of them live. It wasn’t until they’d seen the same report from earlier re-air that Wayne huffed a harsh breath through his nose, breaking the tension.

  “So,” he sighed, finally letting go of Jo’s hand. He leaned back against the couch cushions, arms stretching along the back behind Jo’s shoulders as if the furniture was the only thing propping him up. “Who’s going to tell Takako?”

  And, because even this alternate universe seemed just as willing to kick its immortal patrons in the ass as the real world had ever been, Takako chose that exact moment to walk into the common room.

  “Tell me what?” Before anyone could say anything, the woman’s eyes were drawn from her team to the television. Jo watched as a sort of quiet horror overtook Takako’s face. It was only seconds later that Jo witnessed a person shatter.

  Chapter 4

  Stand Down, Soldier

  “TAKAKO, WAIT!”

  JO wasn’t sure exactly what she would say if the woman chose to listen to her plea and stop, but she still kept her pace behind her. In fact, the entire group from the common room had followed Takako into the hall the moment she’d turned on her heel.

  In the end, Wayne had been the one to tell Takako what they knew about the destruction currently ravaging her home country. And, while Jo had anticipated a more emotional response, the way Takako had nearly sprinted in the direction of the briefing room hadn’t exactly been unexpected.

  Jo had done the same thing once, when she’d first woken in the Society. When she’d been desperate for escape and would have given anything to return home. Takako’s desperation to affirm her perceived reality stemmed from a different source, but Jo recognized it all the same.

  “There’s nothing you can do, Takako,” Eslar called uselessly from the back of the group. Takako seemed oblivious to the comment, possibly ignoring it. But if the expression on her face was anything to go by, she was lost in her own head. Even with a persistent pace, Jo felt like she was left frantically trying to keep up.

  Luckily, Wayne seemed to have a longer stride than hers, quickly pulling himself around
the group and in front of Takako. About a foot away from the front of the closed briefing room door, Wayne planted a hand into the hard line of Takako’s shoulder, forcing her to come to a sudden stop.

  “What are you going to do?” he demanded, pushing hard enough that the woman had to take a step back for balance. Wayne looked almost unnaturally serious. “What can you do? Shoot the mountain?”

  “Get out of my way,” Takako bit back, slapping Wayne’s hand away and attempting to walk around him. Wayne easily blocked her path.

  “You’re being a dumbass,” Wayne huffed, standing his ground.

  It seemed weird to hear Wayne curse, opting for something biting and incredibly modern instead of his usual colloquialisms. It made the tension thicker somehow, and as the two faced off, the rest of the group gathered behind them, waiting to see who would end the stalemate first.

  For a moment, it looked like Wayne would win, but something in their silent exchange must have chipped away at his resolve. Jo couldn’t see Takako’s face from where she stood, but she could see Wayne’s, and as if a telepathic conversation had taken place, she watched the man’s expression fall and a sigh escape the downturned line of his lips.

  Then, to everyone’s surprise, Wayne stepped aside, allowing Takako to wrench open the door and hurry into the briefing room. It was a move brought to an almost instantaneous halt, however, Takako’s form pausing barely a foot inside as Jo and the three men filed in around her.

  Seated at the head of the table, as if he’d been waiting for them to arrive, was Snow.

  Jo was momentarily stunned, reminded instantly of how long it had been since she’d seen him: at the end of their last wish a few weeks ago. But her last real interaction was when he had taken her through the Door, a night she might never forget. Both compounded together pulled forward lingering questions, and now certainly wasn’t the time to ask. Why had he shown her his magic? And what had he meant when he’d said “the truth about hers”?

  He looked as ethereal as always, silver hair falling like moonlight over one of his eyes as he stared Takako down. It was neither the time nor place to be admiring Snow’s beauty, but Jo felt suddenly awkward in his presence. It was like being back in high school around Yuusuke for the first time—before they’d established themselves as purely just friends—but so much worse.

  Another string of wordless dialogue later, Takako tensed without warning, startling Jo out of the distraction that always seemed to overcome her around Snow. When she redirected her full attention to the situation at hand, it was to find Takako glaring at Snow, poised and strung tight as if in anticipation of an attack.

  “Let me out, Snow,” she said suddenly, voice low and harsh, practically a growl. Snow seemed unfazed.

  “No,” he replied simply, getting to his feet with a casual air that didn’t fit with the strained and restless atmosphere at all. “There is nothing that can be done now and none of you should risk being tempted to spend your extra time unnecessarily.”

  “I have to help them,” Takako grit out, hands tightening into fists at her side. Jo felt the pain in the woman’s voice tug on her own heart. “I have to save them. That’s what we do, isn’t it? Save people?”

  “Sometimes,” Snow admitted, and Jo could practically taste the bitterness on the back of her tongue from everything left unsaid. Sure, sometimes they saved people, but sometimes they didn’t. It depended on the wish. And even though Takako must have known that, Jo also had little doubt that, for Takako, making any desperate attempt to help her kin was the only conceivable action.

  “Then let me go to them,” Takako tried again, not pleading, not demanding, but hopelessly lost somewhere between.

  “No,” Snow repeated, holding his ground with an intimidating authority. If Jo didn’t know any better, she’d say the temperature in the room had dropped, a crackling energy shifting between the two like a magical standoff. Then, Snow added, “It will be torture for you to see them and be unable to help.”

  “I won’t ask you again, Snow,” Takako said, tone hard. “Let me out.”

  Snow stayed silent, but his answer was clear. He would not move.

  Unfortunately, Takako’s response was clear as well. Suddenly, almost too quickly for Jo to see the transition, Takako was pulling a gun from the holster at her hip and pointing it in Snow’s direction.

  Jo was too stunned to do much more than gasp, but at least one or two of the men behind her shouted Takako’s name, demanded she lower her weapon, even moved to act. To which Snow merely held up a hand in their direction, keeping them from interfering.

  To his credit, Snow seemed completely calm in the face of Takako’s assault, eerily so. In fact, he looked as though he were about to have a normal conversation with the Japanese woman, as if she wasn’t currently pointing a gun right between his eyes.

  “Get out of my way,” Takako demanded, thumb reaching over to unclick the safety. In the near-oppressive silence of the briefing room, with nothing but their breaths playing shaky accompaniment, that single click was deafening. “You know I won’t miss.”

  Jo wasn’t even sure if Snow could be killed by a bullet; she didn’t know if he could be killed at all, if any of them could be anymore. What did immortal spirits have to fear from death? But in that moment, all that mattered was that Takako believed in her threat and, as she took aim, it was obvious she intended to test that theory.

  Before she could pull the trigger, however, Snow took a step away from the table, gathered his height, and stared down the nozzle of the gun. He took another step forward and Takako’s steady hold on the gun began to waver. Snow reached out, grabbing the muzzle in a display of both confidence and fearlessness.

  “Stand down, soldier,” he said, almost gently. “This is a battle with no winner.”

  For a second, Takako didn’t respond, gun still poised to fire. Jo held her breath, the whole room seemingly waiting at the edge of a proverbial cliff, wondering if they were going to fall off completely or simply stumble away from the ledge.

  Then, as if a switch had flipped, Jo watched the tightness of Takako’s back loosen, the straight line of her arms sag a bit at the elbows. Without a word, she re-engaged the safety on her gun, pulled it from Snow’s grasp, and returned it to its holster.

  “My apologies,” she said, bending forward into a deep and rigid-looking bow. When she raised herself back up and turned towards the group, it was without an ounce of expression on her face.

  They didn’t even need to be asked; Eslar and Wayne stepped to one side and Jo and Nico to the other, letting Takako pass. She did so without a word, movements borderline mechanical.

  It wasn’t until Takako had disappeared from sight that Jo felt she could breathe again, and even when she did, her inhale was shaky, scraping at the back of her throat and burning deep into her chest. Takako’s words still rang in her ears.

  That’s what we do, isn’t it? Save people?

  How were they supposed to do that when their hands were shackled by wishes that weren’t even their own?

  Chapter 5

  Mugicha

  SNOW ROUNDED THE table and started for the door, pausing briefly to utter a command directly to Eslar: “Look after her.”

  Jo kept her eyes pinned to the Door on the opposite side of the room. The steel was as cold and inflexible as Snow’s words; neither had any heart. She clenched her fists, feeling like she was made of fire in a room that was now colder than ice.

  “Understood,” Jo heard Eslar say, though it sounded like he was now on some distant planet far, far away from where she stood.

  She listened to Snow’s footsteps as they left: boots clicking on the obsidian floor of the briefing room, muffled weight on the carpet of the hall, and eventually, nothing at all. Even if she could understand him, even if she wanted to understand him, she couldn’t. What Snow had done had been in Takako’s best interest, hadn’t it? Yet if that were true, why did it feel so heartless?

  Jo still couldn’t erase t
he anger she felt at the nearly militaristic way it had all been handled. People were dying—no, more than that; Takako hadn’t joined the Society that long ago, which meant her family was likely dying. If there was any time for compassion in their operation, it was now. Yet all their leader seemed to give them was the bitter reminder that they were nothing more than slaves to the circumstances of their existence. Would it have really done so much damage to let her go through the Door?

  A hand fell on Jo’s shoulder, jolting her back from her thoughts.

  “Coming?” She could tell Wayne was repeating himself, though how many times he’d addressed her was a total mystery.

  “Where?”

  “We’re going back to watch the news,” Nico said softly.

  “No.” Jo swallowed back the bile that rose up in her throat at the mere idea of sitting there again and watching the carnage. Turning her eyes away wasn’t going to help, but neither was watching it. She was useless to everyone if she let her sanity crack now.

  Out of the millions who needed it, there was only one person Jo could help right now. It was almost nothing, in the grand scope. But at least helping someone was something.

  “You guys go on ahead,” she encouraged.

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.” Wayne, well meaning and thick-headed as always.

  “I’m not going to be alone,” Jo corrected him.

  “Then who—”

  “We’ll leave you to it,” Eslar interrupted Wayne. “Thank you for looking after her.”

  Someone has to, Jo thought bitterly. It seemed no one else was clamoring to rise to the task. “No problem.”

  Jo followed the three men back through the hall and to the Four-Way.

  “Let me know if you need anything.” Nico pulled her in for a tight hug, one Jo was eager to return. He was calm, calm enough to remind Jo that this was far from the first massive tragedy he’d ever witnessed. She wondered if she could be like him someday, taking turmoil in her stride, smiling all the same. It seemed an impossibly hard thing to do. The only thing that could be harder was the idea of doing it again, and again, and again.