Sorcerer's Spin

by Anise Rae

  She shrugged like she didn’t care. “But they were far above me. Nothing I could do about them. Sorceresses kept disappearing. I’d try tracking them down, but more often than not, I failed.” Her voice was flat. “I had no idea what he was doing with them, but I knew it wasn’t anything good.”

  “Did you tell anyone? Your boss? His boss?”

  “I tried a couple of times. But no one cares about those sorceresses. Just me. They’re too weak, too poor to matter. I work every day to get them more food, shorter hours. I try to change the rules around here.”

  Gregor squinted at her. “Mara cares about the sorceresses.”

  “Mara breaks the law,” she snapped. “Taking in runaways doesn’t result in permanent change for the better. It just makes things worse. And I would never ask that bitch for help.”

  He picked up a crop that lay across her desk. One of the interrogators had found it in her briefcase along with a few other items. “Nils into this kind of stuff, too?”

  She shuddered. “I never wanted anything to do with that man.”

  “He enjoys wearing a blindfold. Maybe you two…you know…have fun together?”

  She jutted her chin forward, her eyes tight. “Obviously he wears a blindfold, dumbass. I figured that out a long time ago. He wears it so he can speak the truth when he’s asked where the sorceresses are who go missing.” Her voice snapped louder. “He can honestly say he hasn’t seen them.”

  He set down the crop with a snap. Fuck. He’d let Nils slip through his fingers—the man who professed to be Mara’s ally but was her enemy. It was right in front of him and he’d missed it. “Does Nils have the white wheel?” His lips felt numb.

  “If he does, then he can keep it. I don’t want it. Why would I? To steal the joy of my sorceresses? Kill them by having them spin on it?” She shook her head. “I’m willing to do my patriotic duty and help the High Councilor find it. But that’s it.” Truth. All of it. “My top priority has always been the mages who work here, from the time I worked my way up from a conscripted sorceress until now. Unlike your wayward freak. Wherever Mara is, I hope that betrayer is getting every damn thing she has coming to her.”

  34

  Mara sat in the corner of her stone prison. Her mouth was dry, her skin tight and itchy. A hollowness pushed out from the inside of her body.

  She wanted to sink into a cool pool of water and gulp it all down. It hurt to open her eyes. It hurt to close them. She could hardly see. She didn’t have enough vibes to power her vision, leaving the world a blur.

  She was used up. Every joule, every bit of energy.

  Her clothes were in tatters. Her pants were missing one leg and most of the other. Her sleeves were gone and her back felt a breeze where her shirt should have protected her.

  But unlike her clothes and her soul and her body, the white glister oak wheel created for Luck’s lady stood in the center of the room, gleaming like new as if it had never felt the rub and pull of fiber.

  It had found her.

  The prophecies echoed through her aching head. Her destiny was manifest here and now. A shriek of denial churned in her gut. It rushed into her throat, but all that came out was a wounded moan. Her mind pulled away from her, panic flooding in.

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She had to stop this panic. Now. If she gave it rein, it would sprint away and take her with it. She forced herself to focus. She squinted at the wheel, lit by mage lights hovering at the ceiling as if it were perpetual noon in this place. It throbbed with potential energy.

  Diagonal from the white wheel was a mess of green. Hay. She knew its shape. With a quick breath, she caught its scent.

  Copper. That’s what they wanted, though there was hardly enough to make a few coils of wire.

  And where was she exactly? With the Black Skulls or with Power United?

  She looked around for answers, but the stone room held nothing else that she could see. Even the door was hidden to her blurry sight. Maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe she’d been portaled in.

  That thought was all it took. The walls closed around her, claustrophobia’s long fingers squeezing her chest. She panted, digging her hands into her palms, fighting. She’d find a way out. She would. She’d escaped once from hell. She could do it again.

  “Wake up!” The man’s voice sounded all around her. “Wake up!”

  The noise pummeled at her ears, thrusting her out of her thoughts. “I’m awake,” she croaked, but all that came out was the last syllable.

  “Drink both bottles. Or I’ll come in there and force you and you won’t like that.”

  She looked around. Two bottles of pink liquid sat to her left, opened and ready. By the lost girls, she hadn’t even noticed.

  The air in the room tightened. A crackle of energy zapped through her. Her body arched back. Her head bounced against the stone wall. Her fingers curled from the force of it. And then it was gone, leaving her panting from the utter ache.

  “I’ll give you another crack if you don’t drink them. Don’t spill. You won’t like that either.”

  Pressure built in the air. Her ears popped. Another crack was coming.

  Please, wait. She moved her lips, but no sound came out. She reached out, forcing the little strength she had to the fore, and clasped the bottle. It wobbled as she brought it to her lips, the pressure in the room still ripe for a crackle of electricity. She let it flow into her mouth.

  She was so thirsty. It tasted perfect.

  “Are you drinking?” The voice popped into existence from nowhere.

  Mara jumped. Pink sloshed over the bottle’s edge. “Yes.”

  Wherever he was…however his spell worked…he couldn’t see her. That was odd. Surely there was some type of spy spell or image spell with a distance extender that would have allowed her captors to see in…or the transparency spell the High Councilor seemed so fond of. Mara didn’t know how to cast such things, but her spells knowledge was limited.

  “You’ve got twenty minutes to drink all that,” the man said. “Then start spinning. You’ve got work to do.”

  She had no idea how long twenty minutes was. There was no clock, no windows, only the bright light from above. She counted. One sip every ten seconds. She had to change it to twenty when her stomach started to protest, but she wouldn’t stop. She needed her strength to get the hell out of here.

  When the bottles were empty, she stood, shaky but strong enough to work, coherent enough to keep escape in her mind. Another piece of her pants fell to the ground, leaving her bare at mid-thigh on her right side. The last layer of her shock fell with it, leaving steely resolve in its wake.

  If she would flee for her life with clothes dripping off her, then so be it. They’d fallen to tatters in such a way that she was wearing shorts on one leg and tap pants on the other.

  At least she wasn’t naked. At least she wasn’t wearing the horrid gowns that Power United gave their sorceresses. She still had her own clothes.

  She walked over to the wheel, circling it. Something about it called to her and before she could think about it, she stroked it. The white glister oak was cool and soft. Its power hummed like velvet beneath her fingertips.

  This was a wheel to covet.

  She sucked in a breath, catching the dangerous thought before it could lure her further. This was the wheel that would steal all joy, that would bring only lament.

  How could it feel so inviting?

  She touched a spoke on the wheel and gave it a spin.

  A whisper breathed through the air. She almost caught a voice, but it stopped. She held still and listened, but silence filled her prison. Had it been the man again, whispering instructions? If so, he needed to speak up.

  She leaned closer to bring the relic into focus. Symbols and figurines decorated the surface. The spokes were carved with flowers and vines. A carved pair of lovers were entwined on the tilted bench that supported the wheel.

  Luck’s Lady’s wheel was stunning.

  She
straightened. LLW. That’s what had been in the files. How long had Power United had it? How many sorceresses had they forced to use it?

  How fast would it kill her? Probably not as quickly as the man and his lightning zaps.

  She unraveled her power from her inner spindle. Whatever was in that drink worked. Her vibes were replenished. She let her energy puff around her. Her vision cleared.

  Holding out her hand, she guided a stream of green hay to flow, one stalk after the other, into her palm. She knew how to do this. It was almost comforting. She eyed the wheel, and somewhere in her mind, she wanted to whisper a challenge to it.

  Pulling on a spoke of the wheel, she set it spinning.

  Her power and the wheel spun together with the simplest of ease, and the partnership between spinner and walking wheel began. Vibes pushing with a whispered caress, the hay flowed toward the spindle, twisting as it went, circling with her power, and revolving into shiny wire. As the new metal stretched out from the spindle, Mara paced back with it resting in her hand, letting the wire lengthen.

  Spinning was about rhythm. It was a dance among the spinner, the fiber, and the string. As the wire lengthened, Mara stepped forward to wind her wire creation around the bobbin. She repeated the process, pacing away to give the hay space and power to evolve, then walking forward to wind the new wire.

  “Lost girl.” The scratchy words whispered through the air.

  Her rhythm vanished. Hay fluttered to the ground. She grabbed a spoke on the wheel and stopped its spin.

  Silence fell in her cell. She looked around at the emptiness, the solitude. “Who’s there?” she whispered back.

  No answer.

  Lifting a shaky hand, she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and started again, tiptoeing through the room as she spun.

  “Despair not…girl, for I shall…a story.” The whisper scratched through the air, its words cracking and fading.

  Mara sucked in a tight breath, but this time she didn’t stop her spinning walk.

  By the stars, it was the wheel.

  “Once upon a time,” it whispered.

  No. She stopped. She couldn’t do this. Her heart thudded in her ears. Fright flowed through her veins with a hundred prickly needles. The wheel’s power made its spinner crazy.

  On cue, the man’s voice boomed out. “Are you spinning?” The air tightened and crackled as if a bolt of lightning readied to flash out.

  She whispered a yes and made it the truth, starting the rhythm again.

  “Once upon a time….” The voice was soft and hoarse. “A king wandered the…western lands.” A long noise rasped out from the wheel, piercing her ears. She wasn’t meant to hear this. She almost stopped again, but a squeak sounded from the wall. A piece of it slid open. The door was right where she’d been lying when she’d awoken.

  Two men strode in, a lightning bolt on their breast pockets. That answered one question. This was Power United. Old fears she’d long since left behind burst from hiding places in her mind. She froze. The wheel spun on from the momentum she’d given it.

  “Shit! Look what she’s done. The hay’s nearly all gone,” the first man said.

  “Keep going, girl! Don’t stop.” The other man smacked a short, thin stick against his hand.

  She tried to swallow, her mouth dry, her throat burning. Lost girls, she remembered that whip.

  “Nah, we need to get her out of here. Much longer and it’ll kill ‘er. She’s been in here long enough for it to trance her. She’ll spin like crazy now. We’ll put her on a wheel out on the floor, and she’ll spin until her teeth fall out.”

  “We don’t have an open wheel on the floor right now, dumbass. Bring in more hay. We’ll keep her in here since she’s doing so fine.”

  The first man shook his head. “Number forty-seven’s about to keel over. There’ll be an opening soon enough.” But the other man glared. “Fine. You’re the boss.” He turned and obeyed, piling ten bales inside with a screw you glare. Dissension in the ranks, she thought.

  “Get it done!” The man with the whip poked her hard in the side. In her mind, she could hear the smack of it against a sorceress’s skin, the pained cry in response.

  She turned to the wheel. For the first time, she noticed the spindle didn’t fit right. It was rusted, cheaply made and newer than the rest of the wheel. It was also too small.

  Another hard poke. “Spin!” the man ordered.

  And like his underling, she, too, obeyed.

  “His power was…and strong,” the wheel stuttered. “The king united….”

  She nearly stumbled to a halt. She knew exactly which spindle was supposed to go with this enormous wheel. It was long and sharp and silver...and she used it as a weapon in the Wild West. Fancy had given it to her years ago.

  “I hate that wheel. Listen to it. A bitch of a lullaby. All whiny and out of tune,” one man said as they left, the stone door closing behind them.

  Mara listened to the wheel that wasn’t music at all but a story.

  “He held…his land with a gentle but ruthless touch…good. Many years later, he lay with.... By her, he…a daughter with eyes…glowed like gold and a dance in her heart that would captivate. Alas, the king lost her. And then he lost himself.”

  She spun and listened and learned who she was.

  Mara hadn’t known she loved him until her heart broke. Just us was gone. She spun the wheel and poured her sorrow into it, and not even its stories could cure her sad and lonely heart for Gregor would never want a girl who was born of a fairy.

  35

  Gregor would have been racing toward the Wild West after Nils’s portal stunt except for the fact that two of the three relics were here, under government control, and all three needed to be together for the prophecies to come true.

  He was leaning on that with his whole heart which was heavy with an unfathomable ache.

  Nils and company seemed to be ignoring that detail of the prophecy—foolish—but the bad guys were never as smart as they needed to be.

  With an hour to spare until the maging hour and the tick of the clock changing to a new day—the day of internment—he exited Power United through a utility hole in the parking garage, leaving the analysts and interrogators still at their work. Linc was by his side.

  A horde of enforcers waited out front to escort them in mage cuffs to the wayward camp, but Gregor and Linc crept through the below-ground tunnels that housed the wires that electrified the city. They emerged four blocks away.

  Vin waited in a dark alley between a deli and a shoe store. He pushed off the brick wall where he leaned as Gregor slid the round cover back in place. Two full backpacks sat at the general’s feet. “Come to the farm. You’ll be safe there. I vow it.” His lips were in a grim line, his eyes hard.

  “What are you doing here?” Gregor frowned. “I thought you’d send Dane. Not come yourself.”

  “I didn’t know what she was planning to do with the needle. I vow it, Gor.”

  Gregor shook his head. “No farm. But thanks.” If they went to the farm, they’d be stuck there. There’d be no coming and going because if they were caught, the Senate would have Vin’s job for defying them. “And…I’m sorry. I know you didn’t have anything to do with this.” He touched the scars at his throat. “I should have—”

  “Don’t. This isn’t on you. I can only imagine the hell I would have raised if someone had done that to me.” Vin nodded at the packs. “Food, ammo, sleeping bags. And every potion I thought you could use. Including two dozen disguiser potions.”

  “You must have emptied the larder.”

  “Be safe.” Vin gave him a man hug, shook Linc’s hand, and disappeared into the night.

  Linc and Gregor slipped on the packs and headed the other way. An hour later, after walking, jogging, and sprinting through the city and casting don’t looks to stay unseen, they entered the forbidden forest.

  “This is a shitty idea,” Linc said. “Every outlaw worth the label has hidden here.
”

  Gregor stepped beside the webs. Their thickness obscured the ground, though the green saplings poking through already stood taller than him. He reached down for the webs.

  “What are you doing?” Linc spat the words with disgust.

  The webs moved like a sheet of fabric. Gregor lifted them to the new branches above his head and pressed until they stuck. “Making a tent no one would dare to look in.” He stepped under the webs he’d raised and lifted another portion to a sapling’s branch. The silk was light and sticky. “Hell, they probably wouldn’t even come near.”

  “I’m not going near it. There are spiders in there.” Linc’s voice pitched higher as his vibes drifted out, pressing against Gregor’s sense, and ready to defend against the eight-legged beasts.

  Hidden beneath the webs, he hollered out, “I think they’re gone, man. They’ve done their job. They left.” He didn’t know if it was true or not, but he scanned the ground, testing it with his vibes.

  Hell, the thoughts going around in his head were testing everything he’d ever believed, and he needed a sounding board. Linc would work better than most anyone he knew…except for Mara.

  He clutched at his chest. Despair and heartache made a lethal venom. He wasn’t sure he’d recover. “Mara, wherever she is, is probably scared to death. She’s probably hurt.” Goddess, let her be alive. “You can handle this tent.”

  He reached for his invisible pocket, still traveling along with him, and pulled out Mara’s blanket. He’d stuck it in there after sleeping on her porch. Spreading it on the ground, he sat down.

  Linc slowly ducked under, flinging off the touch of the webs as soon as he was clear. He pointed at the blanket. “Where did that come from?” His tone was laden with suspicion.

  “I didn’t spin it out of webs, that’s for sure. You can sit on it. Tell me something. Why would the glister king’s sister tell the High Councilor that imprisoning the waywards is against the rules? What rules?”

  “The treaty rules that we’ve all forgotten? If you believe what that fairy said anyway.”