Magic at the Gate Read Online Free Page A

. . from a father. You never once had time for me. Not even when Mom left and I thought my whole damn world was going to end.”
    He pulled back, surprised. I didn’t bother to hope he felt something else, like regret or guilt or shame. No, those emotions were beyond my father. He wasn’t built with that kind of heart.
    “Allison, I have always cared for you and I have tried—”
    “Where’s Zayvion?” I repeated.
    He held my gaze a moment, while we both decided if we were going to let my little emotional outburst slide.
    “There is a man we must meet,” he said, letting me win the unspoken argument. “He will take us to Zayvion’s soul.”
    He started walking. I swallowed my anger until I didn’t feel like yelling. After a few seconds, I followed him.
    The street was black and white cobbles; the buildings rose above us like stone red castle walls, turrets at each corner.
    No cars. The street wasn’t wide enough for cars. I didn’t see any functioning technology at all. Sure, there were streetlights, gothic iron-worked lanterns that blazed with multicolored flames behind thick glass shades. But no electricity, or motor-powered thing in sight.
    We crossed the street, maybe east. I was pretty turned around. A building that resembled a medieval version of the Schnitzer Concert Hall was on our left. The Portland sign hung there, burning with flames of magic instead of electric lights.
    I glanced at the sky. No sun. Just a hard white light that melted into brittle candy colors against the black shadows at the horizon. I hadn’t expected death to look like this, to so closely resemble the living world and yet be so foreign. I wondered if the other souls here were happy, if maybe there were nice suburbs with heated pools and country-sides with ghost cows and ghost chickens and ghost people raising ghost crops.
    “What man are we meeting? Is he one of the Veiled?”
    “There are other beings in death than the Veiled. Souls who exist here.”
    “Like you?”
    “Very much so.”
    Since he was being talkative again, I decided to try to get a little more information out of him.
    “Aren’t you a Veiled now?”
    “Technically. Most Veiled are only a fraction of a living person—the part of them that paid the price for using magic, played out like a film with just a flicker of the soul to light it. An echo.”
    “Echoes don’t attack people.”
    That got a tight smile out of him. “The Veiled have not always wandered the world attacking people. When light magic and dark magic were one, the Veiled were more like ghosts, and could be summoned and asked for specific knowledge. Our history is rich because of it.”
    “Why hasn’t anyone put light and dark magic back together? It’d get rid of the Veiled, right?”
    He shrugged. “Some of us have tried and failed. Some of us haven’t given up trying.”
    The walk felt like an uphill chug. Even with my hand on Stone’s head, I wasn’t getting enough air to fill my lungs. “What has to be done to fix it?”
    “Someone has to contain it.”
    “Come again?”
    “There must be a Focal to contain both light and dark magic.”
    “And no one wants the job?”
    “Anyone who’s tried it has died.”
    “Zayvion can wield dark and light magic.”
    “For brief amounts of time, without going insane or losing control, yes. The Focal must hold magic, light and dark, together long enough for it to mend.”
    “How long does it take to mend?”
    “No one’s survived long enough for us to know.”
    I could see why people weren’t rushing to volunteer.
    “We’re almost there.” He pointed. “Just a little farther, by the river.”
    If we stepped through the gate in St. Johns, I wondered if he meant the Willamette River.
    “Are we in St. Johns?”
    “We’re in death. The two worlds do not directly align. That makes navigation . . . difficult. And there is a perceived misalignment in time.”
    “Time? What? How long have we been here?”
    “That is not—” He