Sorcerer's Spin

by Anise Rae

  “Glister invade the Council House?” Mara asked, her tone easy with the other man. Gregor wanted to step between them.

  “Not so much invade. Visit. And it’s always unexpected to me.”

  Gregor didn’t want to talk about anything that Linc was an expert in. Jealousy was a new feeling. He nodded toward the party. “What’s the occasion?”

  “The Tea Time truck comes every Wednesday at two o’clock. It keeps up morale.” She folded her hands in front of her, entwining her fingers. Nervous, maybe. “Are you thirsty?”

  He’d had no hope of being invited. His chest lightened.

  She gave him a small smile. “Though perhaps the real question is are you brave enough to face them?”

  It was the second time today that his courage had been questioned.

  As if sensing their cue, a few of the women stepped forward. “You took our wheels,” the forewoman hollered. Esther, that was her name. At least her spindle was no longer pointed in his direction.

  “I did. And I’m sorry.”

  The bald one walked up beside Esther and studied him. “I like his eyes.”

  Gregor glanced at Mara. Was he supposed to say thank you to that?

  “They look kind. Troubled, but kind.” She looked up at Esther. “I think he’s going to help us get our wheels back.”

  “You a soothsayer now, Stella Woodson?” The forewoman put her hands to her hips in false outrage.

  “I might be. I foresee your cup of tea getting cold.” She gave the forewoman a cute grin and strolled back to the tables with a spirited step. Esther shook her head and stomped after her.

  The sorceresses relaxed and most sat back down to their teacups.

  “Let’s talk in my office.” Mara headed toward the building and he followed.

  “If you’ve got her, I’ll take a break.” Linc turned his gaze, much softened, to Lady Harry. The man had only been here for a day and a half. Maybe he didn’t know a woman like that was a shot in a million for a guy like him. But Gregor wasn’t going to bring the man down.

  Mara’s employees were agog as he passed. One of them fumbled with her porcelain teacup, dropping it at his approach. A quick hum of his power and it halted in mid-air. He palmed the delicate cup and handed it over. The woman gave a blushing thanks.

  Mara led him inside. Two flights of stairs weren’t long enough to ogle her ass. He didn’t even try to avert his gaze, remembering the way it looked on stage, the feel of it cupped in his hands.

  They walked down a hallway and into a large office. Mara closed the door behind them.

  The room was white and airy. Her long, simple desk, made of pale wood, was straight ahead. A wall of windows was on the left and looked down onto the factory floor. At the other end of the room was a couch with an old-fashioned curve to it. A bunch of yarn sat on a low table in front of it.

  He nodded in the direction of the spinning wheel he’d concealed. “Did you find it?”

  “I haven’t dared yet. Linc is about at his breaking point with all the unconventional activities that go on around here. I didn’t want to push it. But it’s a comfort to know it’s there.” She sat on the couch. “How’s Power United?” The bitter curl to her lips hurt his heart. “Have you found the spinning floors?”

  “There are three.” He sat beside her, slowly, as if he moved too fast she might scamper away. “The sorceresses work hard, but there’s no obvious abuse going on. They’re not anywhere close to reaching their posted quota though.”

  “Those women don’t sleep or eat until the quota is met. The floors you’ve found must be for show. We worked in one long, cavernous room. That’s what you need to look for. If they have the white wheel and they’re using it, it would have to be close to the sorceresses.”

  “That’s the type of room I’ve found. But the women look healthy.” He was about to reassure her that he believed her accounts of what happened there, but she kept going like she was unable to stop now that she’d started. “Row upon row of women tied up to spinning wheels. The guards are zapper mages and they have wands or whips. If you look up from your work or you don’t spin fast enough, you get punished.”

  She paused for a moment, and then her next words tumbled out. “What if they corrupt you? What if they turn you against me too?” She looked away. “That’s what plays through my mind when I think about you there.”

  He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Firefly, nothing could ever do that. I know you. There’s nothing that could make me turn from you.”

  She looked at him, her eyes bleak and dull. “Oh, there might be something. You don’t know everything about me….”

  “I can’t imagine what that something would be.”

  She stared at him. “When I escaped Power United, I left all the sorceresses that I was imprisoned with behind. I never went back for them. They all watched me break the bonds that tied me to my spinning wheel. That part of my escape was simple brute vibes…no finesse, just sheer power. They were spells none of them had the strength to do. And then I danced like I did on Fancy’s stage. I know you don’t believe in my power to spellbind, but it’s true. I can.” She held out her fingers and looked down at them. “I bound them all. Guards, sorceresses, bosses, secretaries.”

  She slumped back on the couch. “I abandoned those sorceresses. Just as that asshole bounty hunter abandoned me. And I never went back. P.U. has forty-eight spinning facilities in the Republic and each one is allotted one hundred new sorceresses a year. You’d think that would be plenty, but the company is always clamoring for more because over half of them die. It’s very hard for them to spin copper. They can’t produce much. But it’s still far cheaper than mining. The rest of the world uses aluminum for their overhead wires. It’s lighter, easier to hang, but here we just cast a simple spell to hang copper high and then cast a don’t look on it so it doesn’t mar the landscape. Out of sight, out of mind. Just like P.U.’s sorceresses.”

  He sat back.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. “They don’t care if they die, and I didn’t care if I left them behind, spellbound.”

  That was a lie. Her anguish was clear.

  “Mara, you couldn’t have taken hundreds of women with you.”

  She shook her head against him. “At the time, there were thirty-four of us still alive. Two were pregnant by guards. The rest were dead.”

  Goddess above.

  “It’s why Cecilia hates me so much. She was there, a Power United sorceress. Somehow, she managed to climb the ranks. She’s done well for herself, but she isn’t doing anything for the sorceresses. Though who am I to throw stones?

  “I did try to get help, after I escaped, to let people know. I contacted a few reporters, but the story never saw the light of day. Once, I went to the receiving hours where Senator Rallis listens to the commoners, but no sentry would let me in. My glowing eyes, my rags for clothes. That’s when I left for the West.”

  He put his arm around her and she leaned into him, holding him with a desperation that broke his heart. “You did the best you could.”

  “It wasn’t enough.”

  “Sometimes it isn’t.” He shifted her closer. “Sometimes you can’t fix it and you just have to live with it.” Like his wayward power. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and held her. He let himself hope that he still had her, that he hadn’t ruined everything with the damn tracker.

  A wave of vibes brushed against his sense. Not now, he thought, but he didn’t get his wish. A knock sounded against the door.

  26

  As she strode across her office, Mara cast out her vibes to open the office door. It wasn’t something she’d done in the past. With her vibes free now, it was a new practice.

  Lady Harry stood on the other side, her lips pursed, her eyes looking off into a corner of the hallway as if she was averting her gaze from any sordid scene that might be playing out in her office.

  Mara had hired Lady Harry five years ago. The woman was levelheaded. Mara was t
oo. It’s why they got along. Harry could have worked anywhere she wanted though she didn’t need to work at all. Her Mayflower family had buckets of money.

  “I have bad news and a letter,” Harry said.

  Clearly it was no common letter or it would have been in the mail pile on her secretary’s desk. Some new gremlin was sneaking around the corners of their lives with more trouble. She braced herself and held out her hand for it, but Harry passed it to Gregor.

  He glanced at the business-sized envelope with his name scrawled on the front. “It’s from my mother.” He ripped it open.

  Mara squinted at him. “How did she know you’d be here?”

  “My mother has always been able to find me. Don’t ask me how.”

  “Mrs. Whitman is a reporter with the New Ashton Times.” Harry offered.

  “How did you know that?” Gregor asked.

  She eyed Mara. “After you were shuffled off to the dungeon with him, I looked him up. I needed to make sure you weren’t locked up with some dangerous freak.”

  Mara frowned. “That was a waste of time. There would have been nothing you could do if he’d proven to be dangerous. You would have just worried.”

  “I knew you would say that, but if the tables were turned, you would have done the same thing, lady boss. And don’t tell me you don’t want to know what else I found out.” She didn’t wait for an answer. “His colleagues think highly of him. Bronte Casteel sings his praises so high she might as well compose a song about him, and his ex-girlfriends, of which there aren’t as many as I’d assumed, smile fondly at his name. Two asked for his calling card.”

  Ex-girlfriends. A sharp tingle plucked against her skin. She wanted to rub the sensation away. She didn’t want to be in that category, not that one night qualified her. But what if just us became just once? She bit her lip at that and tried to breathe around the ball of wool suddenly lodged in her chest.

  “Ex-girlfriends?” Mara asked. “Is that your bad news?”

  “No. This is the bad news.” Gregor scanned the letter. “Apparently there’s a bill in the Senate, one that’s been lounging around for a long time, that would require all waywards to be rounded up and put in an internment camp. The bill got a hard nudge two days ago.”

  For a moment, Mara couldn’t speak. “An internment camp? They can’t do that to us. We’re citizens of this Republic.”

  “My mother says the bill comes up for a vote the day after tomorrow. It’s expected to pass and go into effect immediately. The land for the camp has been donated by Senator Prower.”

  “But why would he do that? He’s not known for hating waywards,” Harry said.

  “Oh, he hates waywards. Or at least he hates me,” Mara said.

  Harry shook her head. Her knowledge of the founding families and their secrets had helped Blue Light Mills grow. The families were all about power and appearances. Many of them paid a lot of money for Mara’s special clothes that addressed their shortcomings. “Standish hates them. So does Noble. But not Prower. He’s known to be…tolerant. Rumor has it that some of his servants are glister.”

  “Glister?” Gregor’s word held disdain.

  “I’ve never been able to confirm that. I do know that he’s on Power United’s board.”

  “He’s not my biggest fan,” Mara said. “Maybe I should have kept my glow to myself when he invaded my house.”

  Harry frowned. “No offense, lady boss, but you’re overstating your importance if you think he donated land to house all the waywards because of you. How many waywards do you think there are? A few thousand? All because he doesn’t like one of them? But that wasn’t the bad news to which I referred.”

  Of course, it wasn’t.

  “The delivery date on the jeans has been moved. It’s tomorrow. Not Saturday. The message came from the High Councilor’s assistant’s assistant.”

  Mara pinched her lips. “Makes sense. If I’m going to be locked up in an internment camp on Saturday then the High Councilor needs her jeans before then.” Images of guards and razor-sharp fences played through her mind…cold cells, hard cots, and thin streams of sunshine timidly passing through high windows. She turned to Gregor and took his hand. “Now’s probably the time to go find your mountain.”

  His handsome face was hard and determined. “You’re coming with me, firefly. Do you trust me to keep you safe?” His eyes tightened at the question as if he were bracing himself for the answer.

  She nodded as her heart swelled in her chest. “I just have to get the jeans done first.”

  27

  Gregor had left Mara with a kiss on her cheek. She’d stood in her office looking lost and afraid. It was the first time he’d seen that expression on her face. He’d given her instructions to pack lightly, knowing that no matter how scared she was, she’d keep moving. It’s what she did.

  Meanwhile, he’d returned to Power United. He had less than twenty-four hours to find the white wheel before the internment bill kicked in.

  The negative vibes that lingered in sub-level four hit Gregor with his first step off the elevator. He flipped on his flashlight, forgoing casting mage lights. He wouldn’t broadcast his presence any more than necessary, although if Power United had a decent tracker mage on staff, they could figure out he’d been here whether or not he cast mage lights.

  He strode down the dark halls, made a left, and then another, forming a mental map of the interior hallways and rooms. He checked each one, finding nothing but storage areas behind locked doors which he opened by jimmying the cheap locks with vibe packs, small containers of vibes that would power a spell anonymously. Donating vibes for the packs was dangerous. For the desperate, it provided a meager but draining income.

  The fifth room he came to held scroll cabinets, floor to ceiling, rows of them, leaving just enough space for one person to walk between them. His flashlight played among the rows, sharpening the shadows to a sinister edge.

  The wheel clearly wasn’t in this room, but he took a minute to examine the files, alphabetized by name…all women. He’d bet they were sorceresses. He pulled out two at random and stuffed them in his invisible pocket. It was still functioning, an unseen valet.

  He scanned for Rand, Mara. Sure enough. He took it and looked on for his little champion—Stella Woodson. But hers wasn’t there.

  He paced on, skimming fast, to the lowest drawer in the last cabinet, which should have held the last of the alphabetized names. Instead, it held a small selection of names from A-Z. The drawer’s handle had a decided lack of dust, unlike the others, and inside, it contained around a hundred scrolls. He scanned them, stopping on the name he’d missed before—Woodson, Stella.

  He pulled it out as vibes burst against his senses. He went still, readying his power. Shoving the scroll into his invisible pocket, he crept out of the room, racing silently toward the vibes, and casting a don’t look as he went. So much for anonymity.

  He turned a corner and had to brace himself. A wave of vibes, distraught and fearful, lashed at him.

  By the Goddess, what had happened here?

  He took a breath and strode into it. A small door stood at the heart of the rotten energy. He opened it to find a closet.

  Nils Lusman stood inside. The man jumped at the open door, fierceness in his flaring nose and his pulled back lips.

  Gregor dropped his don’t look and revealed himself.

  Nils panted. “Goddess above, man. What the fuck are you doing down here?” Sweat dripped down his face.

  Gregor scowled. “My job. Inspecting for security leaks. What the fuck are you doing in a closet?”

  Nils closed his eyes. “Long story.”

  Gregor sank into the power of his vibes, a mage’s fighting stance of sorts, as a hint of distrust trickled through him. “Uh huh. Does it have anything to do with why this place feels like shit?”

  “Look, man.” His voice was rough. He took a swallow from the bottle in his left hand. “There’s a reason for that. I can’t afford for you to b
e here or to tell anyone about this. And you know who else can’t afford for you to be here?” His lengthy pause made it clear he wouldn’t continue without an answer.

  Gregor obliged. “Who?”

  “Mara.”

  Gregor sat in the hard chair across from Nils’s luxurious desk, biting back his demands to know what the hell this had to do with Mara. He waited while the man downed another bottle of some blue drink and reached for a third from the refrigerator behind him. Empty bottles of the same kind piled high in his trashcan.

  Gregor raised an eyebrow. “Thirsty?”

  Nils puffed out his lips and sighed. “This job dries out your soul. Some days I walk around here feeling like a fucking raisin. I hate raisins.” He cracked open the bottle and started coughing. “See. It’s literally drying me out. Goddess, I hope I’m not getting sick. Here. Have one.” He tossed a bottle through the air. “They’ve got lots of healthy supplements in them.”

  Gregor caught it. He took a cautious sip. Sweet but drinkable.

  The other man downed a quarter of his bottle. “We can talk freely in here. I’ve spelled the room with everything I’ve got.”

  Gregor had sensed the silence spell when he’d passed through the doorway. “Let me help you with that.” Sending out a stream of vibes, he prodded for hearing spells. No ears lurked. With another push of vibes, he recoated the office in his own silence spell, stronger than the previous spell.

  Nils nodded. “Impressive.”

  “A little extra protection. That’s all. You had it locked down pretty well, but it’s my specialty. Now tell me why Mara can’t afford for me to be on sub-level four.”

  “There’s no way I’d tell you if I weren’t certain of your loyalty to Mara…. Yeah, I know about that. You shielded her at the expense of yourself on the train. I saw that. I’m damn glad you were there. That’s love, man.”