Logan Bennett's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Logan Bennett had learned to hide her hands. When feelings hit hard, her fingers turned to smoke, and smoke could pass through a locked door or betray her before she ever reached the veil. That veil was the whole reason she stayed. Somewhere past it, in the underworld, waited the one memory that would tell her why she carried this curse at all. But that morning she was not chasing memories. She was chasing sleep she wouldn't get. She had run errands for her aunt since before dawn, and her arms ached. Aunt Ronnie called from the back of the shop, where cursed vials bubbled on iron shelves. She was Logan's aunt, a small woman with black and gray hair pinned in a knot, and she never once looked up from her cauldron. "I need a wyvern tooth, girl. Fresh, not the powdered rot they sell at market. My potion won't set without it." Logan leaned against the counter to steady herself. "You want me to pull a tooth from a wyvern." "I want you to come back with one." Ronnie waved a wooden spoon like it settled the matter. Shallen sat behind the counter with a book open in her lap. She was the elf who ran the register, white hair spilling over golden earrings, red eyes fixed on her page. She did not look up either, but she smiled. "Wyverns nest in the cliffs past the old road. Try not to die. I hate breaking in new help." Logan almost laughed. Then the exhaustion cracked something loose in her chest. Fear rose fast, hot, unwanted. Her right hand went cold. She watched in horror as her fingers thinned and grayed, sinking straight through the wooden counter as if it were fog. Shallen's book snapped shut. The elf stared at Logan's hand, half-vanished into the counter. The red eyes did not widen with fear. They narrowed with recognition. "So," Shallen said quietly. "That's what you are." Logan yanked her hand back. It was solid again, but too late. Her secret sat in the open air between them. Ronnie appeared in the doorway, spoon dripping. She had seen. Her mouth pressed thin. "Sit down," she told Logan. "You're too tired to hold your own skin together." "I can get the tooth," Logan said. "Not like this. You'll phase through the cliff and fall." Ronnie set down the spoon. She looked at Shallen, then back at Logan, deciding something. "She knows now. There's no unknowing it." Shallen rose from her stool. She crossed to Logan and took her cold hand in both of hers, feeling the fingers go firm again. "I've read about the veil," the elf said. "About people who pass through it. I didn't think one would walk into my shop." Logan's throat tightened. "You know how to reach it?" "I know where to start." Shallen's grip stayed. "But first you learn to stop leaking through walls. Or the veil will be the last thing you touch."