The Man In The Midnight Blue Suit

Chapter Seventeen

A tiny ballerina twirls over the floor, her porcelain skin glinting painfully in the light. Blood thrums through my head as I force the doll to dance. Every detail must be perfect, right down to the ruffling of her skirt and the blinking of her painted eyes. Lucian watches nearby as I carry out his task. The tiny ballerina jumps through the air in a way that should not be possible, landing silently on the ground. She is no lighter than a feather, more graceful than a swan, and far more perfect than anything living on Earth. Her lips twist into a slight smile as she dances. A lock of blonde hair falls from her previously immaculate bun. Conscious only of the life I pour into her, the ballerina doesn't flinch. The doll has become more than a jewellery box dancer on a spring – to anyone but me, she is a living, breathing, dancing object. The doll drops her legs into a split and softly bends forwards, her hands remaining in a perfect cupped stance. Her dance finishes. She turns her head shyly and tucks the escaped lock of hair back into her bun. As she returns to her finishing position, I let go of my last breath connected to the doll, and with it any life she had. The doll is still, an object once again.

Stone-faced and exhausted, I sink to the ground. The dolls' hour-long show has closed and I have earnt the right to rest.

Before her, four seasons had been and gone in the gym; the room had seemingly changed into a damp, shadowed cave filled with shrieks; I had wielded enough bright white fire to burn down a city; I had grown a garden the size of my childhood home and watched as it wilted into the ground, and I had fought whatever creature Lucian had thrown at me, be it animal or human or something else entirely, only to have them disappear a second before the next.

Twenty-one hours. For twenty-one hours I had used little of my body but all of my brain. No sleep, no food, nothing but focus. It was all I could do to push aside my mind's groans of complaint as I cast my eyes up at Lucian, my vision taking a moment to focus.

His slow, melancholy clapping begins to ring in my ears. Everything seems to push my overworked senses closer and closer to the edge. At this point, I don't care what Lucian has to say. I only want to rest.

He stands in front of me, his midnight blue suit standing out against the light walls of the gym. Evil. Cruel. Powerful. Ruthless. Perfectionist. I hate him with every inch of my bones. He may have taught me how to use my greatest weapon, but his wrongs pound through my head as thickly as my blood flows through my veins. I can't ever forget that.

"And finally, you finish. That last one, well, that was quite a show." His clipped English accent makes his words seem sarcastic and hollow. "I'm happy to say you've finally exceeded my expectations. I've never heard of anyone who has completed the total twenty-one, other than myself." He chuckles as if this was some trivial matter. "Go. Get back to your room. You're in need of rest. Be grateful: there is not long to go now."

Without letting Lucian's words weigh too heavy on my shoulders, I all too happily drag myself away from the gym and fall into my bed.

I wake up to find Jonathan standing nearby, a steaming cup of tea at the ready. Eagerly, I sit up and take the hot cup into my hands. I grin as I taste the sugar mixed into it – it's only rarely that we find tea in the dining room, made and waiting for us, and never is there sugar in it. Lucian must be feeling unusually generous. As I drink, Jonathan begins to speak.
"Twenty-one hours." He shakes his head. "I'd expected something big was coming since you'd been progressing so well, but endurance wasn't on the top of my list. How are you feeling, Case?"
"OK, I guess. My brain is shattered. How long was I out for?"
"Nearly twelve hours. So, in total, you've been busy with training and resting for thirty-three hours."
I silently grin into my mug. Only Jonathan would take note of the time so precisely. I feel comforted in my brother's presence once again – as if the exhaustion and fear I felt performing Lucian's brutal tasks were but a distant memory. The pain still burns fresh in my mind. Twenty-one hours can do a lot to a person. I shudder, thinking about the way Lucian bound my body still, so only my eyes could move, and sent animals, fairy-tale creatures, and even ordinary humans at me, again and again. The attackers were a result of Lucian alerting my perception, no more than a figure of his imagination. Still, I cannot shake the fear, the disgust at how I hurt them.
Jonathan looks at me curiously. He wants to know what happened, but out of politeness, he keeps quiet. "I don't want to talk about it," I say.

I think about what Lucian said to me before I left. It had barely registered before. He may have been serious, but I'm not ready to throw myself into false hopes.
"Jonathan," I say quietly without looking up, "Lucian said there wasn't long to go. Do you think...?" My voice trails off. I'm not ready to say it.
"Your training's nearly over." Jonathan doesn't grin or frown, as if he's torn between two contrasting emotions.
"What are you thinking?" I ask.

Jonathan doesn't say anything. After a moment, lost in a depth of thought, he answers. "If your training is nearly over, that means Lucian is satisfied with the level you've reached. Which is a hard thing to achieve, I know."
The anticipation hangs over us in a daunting cloud. We're both thinking it. If an end may be in sight... what next?

"I don't know if I can go back there," I start. "To the rest of the world. Away from this mansion. Seeing what I've seen and knowing what I know, I don't think I'd be able to cope."
"I know. I've got no doubt we'd stick out. We're... different, now. We can't change that. But I'm sure that's not Lucian's intention." I look at him quizzically, urging him to go on. "He's not the kind of person to train people like us into powerful, intellectual beings out of the generosity of his heart. He has to get something out of it. As well as that, if he were just going to release us back into society, then why keep me here all this time? Lucian's got something planned. He's been planning since before we came here, way back before he even selected me to train." Jonathan lowers his voice so I can only just hear him. "And knowing what we know, about the floor above, that scares me."

I sigh, feeling guilty for not telling him everything I know. About my discovery. How it hurt him. It's better to keep it a secret though. I do wonder, now that my training might have an end if Lucian is going to teach me. The possibility that I have something special, something unique, I refuse to acknowledge. Something can be special and dangerous at the same time: like a diamond crystal, no bigger than a finger. Beautiful. And it can cut through skin like a scalpel through butter.

"We've come this far," I say. "I did not work this hard, endure this much, only to fail the next step."
"I need to tell you something." He says. Following his gaze outside, I notice that it's nearly dark. I must have woken up late in the afternoon. Jonathan comes closer to me, not bothering to ask me to light the wall scone in the impending darkness. He speaks in a whisper, so quiet that I wouldn't hear him if he were any further away. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. You may have already figured it out – I wouldn't be surprised. Your fire, it burns bright white. Remember how power is shown through fire?" I nod. "Bright white is one of the most powerful colours there is. It can become more powerful than midnight blue."

It takes me a moment to realise. Slowly, everything begins to make sense. The way Lucian yelled at me my first training, how the candle flickered out when Jonathan first explained this to me. Why he looked so delighted – and so fearful. I'm... powerful. Raw potential. Thanks to Lucian, I've harnessed it. I look at Jonathan, the reality only just sinking in.

This power of mine, it may just be Lucian's downfall.

My heart begins to beat a rapid pulse. It's a blessing and a curse. It's a way to save ourselves, and maybe others, but it also puts us in danger. Lucian knows about my potential. And that means he's wary of me. He's not going to take any chances.

We look at each other, understanding how important it is to keep secret how much we know.

Jonathan doesn't say anything else as he leaves. He stands, flashes me a quick grin. At the doorway, he turns and looks straight at me. Beside me, bright green fire ignites inside the wall sconce. I jump. My eyes widen. Jonathan only winks at me as he walks out the door.

I look outside. The sky is now pitch black. I wrap my arms around myself, not quite believing.

The stars twinkle, like little pricks of hopescattered over the desolate days ahead of us.