by Anise Rae
He’d saved it for her.
A lump of tears rose in her throat. By the lost girls, she was tired. She sniffed and tried to swallow past that lump.
She clung to his hand though she hadn’t planned to. Every step was a struggle. By the time they reached the top, she moved at a crawl. Gregor adjusted his pace to hers.
The guard studied Gregor with caution, but when he looked at her, he sneered. “You have hay all over you.”
She looked down at her suit to find a few pieces stuck here and there. It hardly qualified as all over, but what did he expect? Sunshine fresh and pretty?
“It’s straw,” she said. “When you threw down the bale, it went everywhere.”
“What’s the matter, can’t catch, Rancid?” He smirked and the expression grew more hateful as she stiffened under the insult. “Marred and Rancid.” His laugh echoed in the empty hallway.
She hadn’t heard that nickname since she’d left SWWM. Within those walls, Mara Rand had quickly become Marred and Rancid.
Gregor let go of her hand, eyed her as if inspecting her state, and then in a single move he punched the guard with a ferocious fist. That sound, too, echoed in the hallway and the guard collapsed, his spit flying.
Mara raised her eyebrows high, shock splashing over her. A laugh bubbled out, more nerves than delight. Maybe. She leaned around Gregor’s shoulder to look down at the man, a wave of energy bursting through her. “I see someone read my file to you.”
He growled at the insult, backing away and coming to his feet in the same movement. The foolish man stepped toward her again.
“Hands off, Dawson!” The hard command came from Lincoln Sinclair, rounding the corner. Her hiking backpack was over his right shoulder. Another pack was on his left.
“You will treat the honored lady’s tailor with respect.” Lincoln was a Blue Light Mills client, a secret one, as were most of her clients. He was wayward but kept his bronze eyes concealed behind his own spells with ease. He had ample power, but it sometimes tightened up and got stuck, like air in an asthmatic’s lungs, a common problem for mages with great power. His power seizures were rare, but the High Councilor’s guard would never have accepted him with such a deficiency. Years ago, she had designed a cloth that constantly pulled a thin stream of power through it for just such a problem, keeping the energy pathways open. They were BLM’s top-selling undershirts.
“Whitman.” Lincoln nodded and set both packs on the floor. Mara took the knapsack of cotton thread from Gregor and shoved it inside hers.
“Everything you both listed is in your packs. I did it myself.”
Sometime during their three days in lockup—she’d lost track of time—Lincoln had walked down the spiral stairs and asked what they needed. Her first need had been a landline to make a call to Thompson Mill in the Wild West. They would weave the yarn into denim for the jeans. Gregor was the one who suggested she list the items she’d need to pack from home for the trip.
She was grateful, though it meant Lincoln had been through her underwear drawer.
The man knocked on the side of the pack. It made a dull thunk. Something hard was tucked inside. He gave a slight nod.
She always took her longest, sharpest spindle when she traveled to the Wild West. This particular spindle was designed to go on a spinning wheel, but she didn’t have one that fit it. The spindle was so long that most mistook it for a sword when she had it strapped to her side. No one roamed the West without a weapon and the spindle suited her perfectly. Its tip was coated in sleeping potion. A single poke and any would-be attacker was fated for a snooze.
Lincoln pulled out her car keys from a side pocket of the pack. Most mages used a spell to start the engine, but Mara couldn’t afford to have her eyes glowing every time she drove.
“It’s fully vibed and waiting on the other side of the portal.” He handed them over to Gregor, but she intercepted them, pocketing them with her gold coin. Gregor tipped his head at her, but he didn’t protest.
Dawson sneered. “You into freaks, Sinclair? I always knew there was something wrong with you.”
Lincoln’s fast spell pinned the guard to the wall. He left him there, turning his back to escort them down the hall at a clip.
She looked back at Dawson. “Are you just going to leave him there?”
“The spell will wear off eventually. Quicker if he stops struggling. He should know that.”
She tripped over her feet, too tired to walk straight, and Gregor tucked her arm into his. Her head bumped against his shoulder and she was tempted to let it rest there. It was definitely broad enough to cradle her head.
Outside, night gripped the land.
“What time is it?” she asked. What day was it, for that matter?
“The wee hours of Saturday. A half-turn past the maging hour,” Lincoln replied.
Saturday for travel, the crone had said. Right on time. Sprung free at midnight. She’d have to drive all night to make the ferry and then the train.
Linc walked them to the portal and looked at Gregor. “That Power United man has left two messages for you. The job offer. He wants an answer.”
Mara tripped again. Gregor’s hand on her arm burned against her sudden cold. She jerked away.
“I don’t work for them.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not accepting their offer, Mara.”
She just shook her head.
“I vo—” He sighed. “I promise. My answer is no.”
It didn’t matter what his answer was. He was connected to them and that alone was too much. She’d needed the reminder.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Lincoln asked Gregor.
“I’ll wait for you on the other side.” Her voice wobbled as she jumped on the excuse to give them privacy. “I need away from here.”
“Give me the keys. You’re going to leave without me.” Gregor held out his hand.
“I won’t leave without you.” She spun a swirl of energy into the words. It wasn’t easy. The vibes were rough and too few, but her tale—her lie—was spun. She wasn’t sure he was completely fooled. He was still frowning, so she gave him the keys.
The moment he turned to Lincoln, she crossed the portal. Its energy hummed against her skin. She stepped out in her hometown, hundreds of miles away from the Council House. Her car waited at the curb where she’d left it three days ago. Retrieving the spare key spelled to the underside of the back bumper, she unlocked the trunk. She threw her pack in, jumped behind the wheel, and peeled away.
He’d be pissed. But her life always seemed to circle back to Power United. The only thing she feared more than that massive company was herself and what she’d done to escape their hell. She’d spun that experience so tightly around her that she might never be able to unwind it.
She needed to keep Gregor far beyond arm’s reach. Keeping people at a distance usually wasn’t a problem for her. One look at her specs and every mage knew she was flawed and to avoid her at all costs…unless they needed her expertise. Then the specs acted as her trademark. But she’d taken them off for him. What had she been thinking? It’s not like she’d forgotten about his Power United connection. She sped out of town, heading west, leaving him behind.
She’d felt sorry for him…horrified. Plus there were his broad shoulders. His smile. Those blue eyes.
She bit her lip, holding in the tears building in her throat. She did not cry. That was not her. She was just tired. That’s all this was. It wasn’t guilt. Or loneliness.
She drove as fast as she dared and she didn’t look back, stopping only three times. She powered her drive with one catnap and a trio of stay awake potions purchased from behind the counter at a vibe-fuel station. Along the way, she changed out of her dungeon clothes and into her travel outfit—packed by Lincoln. The journey stretched six hundred miles from the heart of the Republic to the western border. Though the roads were small, the car was mage-engine fast. She made it in six hours, crossing the borders of four territories and their
checkpoints, guarded by bounder mages who held those borders on behalf of their ruling families.
By the time she arrived at her destination, she was shaking with exhaustion. She’d passed the entrance to the small clearing in the woods three times before she’d finally spotted it. Such a waste of time. He’d catch up with her if she weren’t smarter than this.
She parked her car and then dropped her head to the steering wheel. Had she ever been so tired?
Grabbing her last stay awake potion from her purse, she fumbled with the packet, too tired to get a grip. Her purse dropped to the floorboard as she finally yanked it open. Powder flew. Her nose got a swift dose. It stung. Her eyes watered, but energy zoomed through her. Snorting the stuff was more effective than swallowing it. She needed to move while it lasted because the downside of this would be like swimming in trash vibes. She jumped out of the car, brushed off her pants, and extracted her pack from the trunk.
An envelope fell to the ground.
Not again.
She closed her eyes. What was the point of these things? There was nothing she could do about any of the prophecies. She’d tried to stop the notes from coming, casting security spells as best she could around every spot they’d been left. But either her spells were poor or the delivery person was powerful. She’d even tried writing back to the unknown culprit, scribbling a message that asked what the hell she was supposed to do about these things, leaving her reply where the message had arrived. Naturally, no one had picked it up.
She pondered leaving this one on the ground and walking away. But she’d tried that too…leaving them unopened. That hadn’t changed a darn thing.
She picked it up and pulled out the paper. The envelope was never sealed shut, merely open and waiting for her.
She spun her fluffy power into a usable thread and cast a light.
Glow Eyes spins webs as Luck commands…
Abandoned….
She crumpled the note and shoved it in her vest pocket. Flinging her backpack over her shoulders, she fastened her long spindle around her waist like a sheathed sword and hiked through the deep forest toward the bank of the Mississippi where she’d dutifully take on the role of bait.
Little did the fallen god know that the High Councilor had soundly trumped his command to spin webs by confiscating them and banning their import, proving that no one was more powerful than the crone. Not even a god.
Gregor leaned against the dilapidated ferry tied up along the Mississippi’s east bank. The fairy who owned the boat had nodded at him from the edge of the forest and then disappeared. Even getting that close to him had sent an icy slush through his veins.
Damn fairies.
He gripped the good luck charm stashed in his pocket. It had protected him once a long time ago from a fairy and, Goddess willing, its luck would continue for him today.
He couldn’t believe he had to get on this fucker’s boat. But Mara would be here soon and he’d do it for her. To keep her safe.
He’d tracked her across the Republic, staying close enough to keep an eye on her. She’d never suspected. The woman had no defensive instinct. She hadn’t even sensed the cushion spell he’d cast around her car when she was in the bathroom at her first stop, in case of a wreck. She was too damn tired to be driving, but if he’d tried to stop her, she would have fought like a wet cat.
Lincoln had shit bad timing with his little can I talk to you? But Gregor hadn’t wanted to refuse a fellow wayward man.
Footsteps crunched through the leaves and twigs of the forest still claimed by night. Mara was almost here.
She would accuse him of spying on her…again. And she’d be right. He crossed his arms over his chest. This would be the only time she managed to leave him behind. He would not let that happen again.
He kept his mage sense open and waited.
10
Mara gazed at the Mississippi. The muddy water licked at the bank with whispered kisses, languid and calm beneath the sliver of pale moon that hung in the sky. Smoke lingered in the air, likely from an old campfire of Daegan’s, the ferry pilot, who was also a fairy. Few made any joke about that twice. Indeed, no one with any intelligence used the word fairy or gray in front of him. He was a proud glister.
His rickety boat waited in the shadows, docked with the power of a glister spell. It was barely visible under her dual orbs of mage light, but she could see the craft was minus its pilot. He wasn’t expecting her. Advanced tickets were not an option. This boat was first come, first served, and sometimes not served at all if Daegan was in a bad mood.
The pilot and his supposedly unwholesome gray power and shabby boat were the stuff of wicked legends. Other legends, more wicked still, abounded about the Mississippi’s monsters, the river maidens. They devoured mages—head to toe, skin to bone—with their vicious teeth if a mage dared to cross without permission. They were much more dangerous than the mere glister, who could hypnotize a mage with a single glance, force them to their will, and uncover their darkest secrets.
Fortunately for proper Republican mages, the glister dwelled only in the West, along with native tribes, renegade mages, and tens of thousands of powerless Non-mages who’d either escaped the cruel hand of the Republic or had immigrated from other countries seeking a better life. Beneath much of society’s disdain and fear of glister was a curiosity, a forbidden fascination that fueled dozens of romance novels starring the unholy fairies. Gregor, however, had made his feelings clear to her. He harbored no love for the glister.
Guilt strummed through her again at leaving him. He’d been attentive and kind while she’d spun out every joule of her energy into making that yarn. She hadn’t had many people treat her like that. Certainly not a man. But thoughts of him at Power United chilled the warmth of those memories.
Reaching into the bottom left pocket of her travel vest, she palmed the single gold coin. She’d have to barter for more straw from the Third Street Stables when she arrived in the city of Kansas. The barn manager would drool when he saw her coming again, knowing she’d pay him with a small piece of gold. It was a vibing good deal for him but draining for her.
She tossed the coin through the pre-dawn’s shadows and into the black water. Without a sound, the river swallowed it up.
Hadn’t it? Surely, she didn’t miss. Granted, she was beyond exhausted, but her target was enormous.
Nothing moved.
Daegan didn’t appear.
The train was scheduled to depart at half past seven, Non-mage time. It was the equivalent of fifth past bottom morning in standard mage time. By either measure, she couldn’t wait much longer.
“Daegan! Where are you?” she called toward the forest. “It’s Mara. I need to cross.”
Silence.
She’d never known him to be far from his post. She studied the water. She had no plan B. There wasn’t another train until Monday. If she missed this one, she’d miss her scheduled slot on Thompson Mill’s guaranteed vibe-free loom—the only one east of Denver. If she missed that, she couldn’t deliver the jeans on time. It was a domino chain of doom.
She strode into the forest to find him, doing her best to dodge the sticks and weeds as she went, but her hand brushed against a prickly twig. A sticky tightness adhered to her skin. She looked down.
Through the shadows, she could see a long line of crisp, blackened branches and twigs marring the forest floor. This was the source of the smoky smell. On top of the burned foliage, white spider silk draped in thick webs.
She frowned. The gray repose spiders were not supposed to live in the Republic. They inhabited burned-out forests in the Wild West. They were healers to the trees and plants.
But here, unexpectedly, was her plan B.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the hiding spiders. “I’m hoping you all have lots of silk left in you because I’m going to need this batch.”
She slipped off her spectacles. There was no reason to hide the true depths of her power here, though she always kept a tiny d
rop spindle in the pocket of her travel vest for the very rare instances when she was in public and needed to cast spells, keeping up appearances for a proper, normal sorceress. But she was alone, a good thing, since she needed a great deal of energy for this endeavor.
She let the chaotic bundle of her mage power coalesce around her. In a blink, she spun it into focus.
The world crystallized.
Perfect vision. Abundant power.
She didn’t need a mirror to know her eyes were glowing.
She turned her gaze to the broken, tangled webs that draped over the burned forest brush. It was an odd place for a fire. If it had been deeper into the Republic, she might have worried about being set up, as if the High Councilor were spying on her to ensure she obeyed her commands. But Mara had never seen another mage wandering this forest so close to the Wild West.
Despite the fire, the land was already recovering. Tiny green buds dotted the twigs as the silk webs restored the plants to equilibrium and rightness. Holding out her hands, she let her power flow, using it to spin the webs and ply them into a thin yarn. As the yarn drifted out, she cast a knit spell. Lace stitched to life before her. She let it pile into her hands, a fine shawl with the potential to right an unhealthy energy system.
Somewhere in the forest, an owl sang out as if acknowledging her work.
She walked back toward the river, heaving her pack over her shoulder as she passed it. She took a breath, stopping in front of the water. Did she want to risk this? Did she have any choice?
“Last chance, Daegan!” she hollered to the forest.
“Mara.”
She jumped, twisting toward the voice. A rush of nerves leaped through her.
That wasn’t Daegan. It was Gregor.
She stepped back. Her foot brushed the water.
“Careful!” He grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her into him.
Surprise stole her breath. On its heels, a whisper of relief tumbled like a lone thread drifting on the wind. “How did you get here?”
He set her directly in front of him and leaned down to her eye level. “You lied to me. That was the one lie you get. You don’t get any more.”
