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Argus was shaking so hard he could barely stand.
He reached for his wand, some desperate instinct to fight back, and froze.
The pressure radiating off the figure before him was razor-edged, suffocating, and his body simply refused to move.
All he could do was back away, one step at a time, trying to put distance between himself and that cold gaze, until his back struck something solid.
He spun around.
Nothing there.
The realization hit like a lightning bolt.
He snapped his head up and stared at Jiang Fengyue.
“You set a ward?
That’s impossible!”
How could he have done this?
He hadn’t even heard him speak an incantation.
How was this possible?
Jiang Fengyue had not, in fact, set a ward.
4 days into this world, his practical command of magic was limited to a handful of spells he’d made a point of “liking.” As for what Argus had walked into, Jiang Fengyue smiled.
The Malfoy family ring on his finger was glowing softly.
A partial spatial defense charm, technically.
He’d simply found a different use for it.
Argus pressed himself flat against the invisible wall and stayed there, helpless, as Jiang Fengyue raised his wand and walked toward him.
“No, no, Lucius — you can’t, you can’t—” The moment the wand tip neared his forehead, Argus’s legs gave out entirely.
He slid to the ground like a man with no bones left, tears streaming, hands scrabbling at nothing as he begged.
Jiang Fengyue stopped advancing.
He simply lowered the wand until its tip nearly grazed the air between them, and the corrosive light at its point began to burn brighter and brighter.
Argus was close to fainting.
He knew exactly what that red glow meant.
Powerful dark magic.
The kind that cost something.
He did not understand how Lucius could possibly have mastered it.
He didn’t understand any of this.
Even at his worst, the old Lucius would have stopped at insults.
Dark magic?
Directly?
What about the Ministry?
What about the Dark Lord, was he not afraid of being called to account?
“You can’t, you can’t!
Lucius!
I’ll tell my father, and my father will go straight to the Dark Lord!
He’ll hold you responsible for this!
Lucius — please, don’t, I’m begging you, you can’t, ”
Argus screamed like a lamb that had already seen the knife.
All around them, ordinary witches and wizards went about their afternoon without a second glance.
Only he was trapped in this pocket of space with a threat on his life.
He was still sobbing, still begging, when he noticed the boy who hadn’t spoken a word suddenly tilt his head.
Those beautiful, icy gray eyes dropped to the mess on the ground with something like contempt.
The corner of Jiang Fengyue’s mouth curved up.
He smiled.
Standing at the moment of execution, he let a smile rise across his face, light and unhurried, and heartbreakingly beautiful.
His thick lashes lowered, half-veiling the gray of his eyes.
His features, as exquisite as moonlight, as luminous, erupted with something that defied easy naming: destruction and pity, held in the same breath.
Like a flower carved from ice, blooming open, perfectly translucent and utterly lethal.
In the grip of genuine mortal terror, Argus’s heart slammed against his ribs, and yet his eyes would not look away.
A strange expression overtook his face.
Fear and fascination, braided together.
The look of a man beneath the blade who had stopped caring which way it fell.
The platinum-haired youth finally deigned to speak.
His voice was soft.
The words landed on Argus at the same moment as the surge of magic from the wand tip.
“I can.”
!
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
The howl that tore out of Argus was something inhuman, the sound of a body being forced past the point of breaking.
He arched off the ground like a bow strung too tight, and even the act of screaming was its own agony.
Jiang Fengyue unhurriedly stripped off his silk gloves, spattered with blood, and dropped them onto the writhing body below.
On the ground, muscle layers split open in livid lines, crimson welling up and spilling over, then knitting shut, the skin regenerating, every inch of it reborn into fresh pain.
Over and over.
“Don’t worry,” Jiang Fengyue said, his tone genuinely solicitous, “you won’t die.
I have excellent control.
You won’t be injured, no lasting damage, no aftereffects, I only chose one that hurts.” He paused.
“Little chick.
You really can only blame yourself for being the first one to come running into this.”
“Oh.” He raised his wand again, lazy, not particularly concerned with whether the person convulsing at his feet could hear him.
“Father is waiting for me at Gringotts.
I really can’t be so rude as to keep him waiting.”
“Dear Argus.
I’ll see you at Hogwarts.”
The instant before he lifted the Notice-Me-Not Charm, he Apparated and was gone.
The howling hit Flourish and Blotts all at once.
Several wizards startled.
Eyes turned toward an apparently empty patch of floor where a figure was rolling and thrashing, and then the witches nearby began to shriek.
It was shaping up to be a busy day before the start of term.
Abraxas sat in one of Gringotts’ plush VIP lounge chairs in the main hall, fingers resting lightly on the marble armrest, his serpent-headed cane planted upright at his side.
The sharp crack of Apparition rang out, and a tall youth’s figure stumbled through it, disheveled.
The platinum hair had come loose and hung in an unseemly fall around his face.
Those damp gray eyes found Abraxas immediately, with the look of a man who has just spotted the only solid ground left.
“Father!” The corners of Jiang Fengyue’s eyes were red.
He gazed at Abraxas with something very close to pleading.
The Malfoy patriarch’s eyes snapped wide.
He was on his feet at once, cane in hand, moving forward.
“What happened, Lucius?”
Jiang Fengyue bit his lip.
His face was pale.
A tremor ran through his voice.
“I cast a small spell on Argus Parkinson.
He kept insulting me, insulting the Malfoy family, I couldn’t bear it any longer, I, ”
Abraxas exhaled, visibly relieved, and settled a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“No harm done, so long as you didn’t come out the worse for it, Lucius.”
“But, ” Jiang Fengyue twisted the hem of his robes between his fingers, the picture of anxiety.
“He said he would tell the Dark Lord.
That the Dark Lord would punish me for it.”
He looked up suddenly, eyes wide and bright and lashes gone damp.
“Father.
Would the Dark Lord really punish me?
I’m frightened.”
Abraxas gave a cold laugh, contempt rolling through every syllable.
“A mere second son of the Parkinsons, ”
He stopped.
He looked at the child in front of him, trembling, fighting tears, the carefully tended golden hair falling soft against his cheek.
His long, pale lashes were threaded with crystalline drops, trembling there like dew on a rose swaying in the wind.
Fragile.
Achingly beautiful.
Lucius had been growing into himself since the incident.
An irresistible magnetism, more pronounced every week.
Could a magical surge actually refine a person’s presence?
The question flickered through Abraxas’s mind, dim and half-formed, and was gone.
“It won’t come to that,” he said, in a tone that was difficult to describe.
“The Dark Lord will not punish you.”
He paused.
Jiang Fengyue watched him, his eyes soft, blinking, tears slipping free like falling stars.
Abraxas smiled.
“And even if he did, the moment he laid eyes on you, he would probably only punish you lightly.”
➤ Next: The Hand-Back Chain