Torchlighters

by Megan R Miller

  Uric Dunspire, on the other hand, had always been sort of surly. She’d have been more willing to believe he was at fault in a situation like this. Still, though, the details didn’t matter as much as the results. Bijou was licensed and a capable summoner. Ophelia didn’t need dozens of them, just a handful of good ones.

  “And what of House Cassander?” Ophelia asked, looking at Helena sidelong.

  “You know that isn’t my decision,” Helena said.

  “You’re the lady of the house,” Ophelia said.

  “Henri is the mayor,” Helena said.

  “And your daughter his sole heir,” Ophelia said.

  “He’s been grooming her to marry well and find a good man to take the position,” Helena said, firmly. She looked aghast that Ophelia would even suggest a thing like Tess taking power for herself.

  She’d spent so much time among the Hellwatch and the shoeshiners where her bloodline weighed more than her sex that it was almost a surprise to hear Helena talk that way. Once she’d said it, though, Ophelia knew it shouldn’t have been. She needed to recalibrate.

  “Of course he has,” Ophelia said, forcing herself to sound like she meant it. “Even so, you are a licensed summoner yourself and allowed to use that gift as you see fit.”

  “We’ll see,” Helena said. “The way it looks to the city as a whole matters more than most people could guess and I know you aren’t a stranger to that even if you did leave us early.”

  “You have a lot to lose,” Ophelia said. “I know it isn’t personal. But on a personal level? If you could point me in the direction of who else has nothing to lose I would deeply appreciate it.”

  Helena stared at her for a moment.

  “That husband of yours has you thinking like a shoeshiner,” she said. “All opportunistic.”

  “Opportunistic from a different angle,” Ophelia said, and immediately realized it was the wrong thing to say. Helena pursed her lips and withdrew her hand.

  “Well, there are a few others I need to attend to before we begin. It was good speaking to you, Ophelia, I’ll see you in court,” she said, nodding stiffly and walking away.

  Ophelia sighed slightly and watched her go. It was amazing how they were so much the same people they had been as girls together and yet so different at the same time. Even so, she had two targets. That was better than nothing.

  She entered the east wing of the house, into the audience hall that was kept for meetings like this, and took a seat. There were seven pillars that broke up the room, intricately carved with images of humanoid angels and demons that were overly grotesquified. The floor was two large slabs of marble with a barely visible seem between them along the middle of the room.

  The iconography barely phased her even now. She took a seat near the front, in a seat evenly spaced between two of the pillars where people could easily see her. If she was going to make a spectacle of herself she would let them have their look on her own terms. There was power in that.

  Slowly, people began to fill in the seats around the room. Eyes strayed in her direction without fail, all but Helena’s. She saw the Revel family, sitting together but all of them leaning away from their eldest daughter.

  All but their younger girl, anyway. The sisters sat together not quite touching, Bijou with her long white hair and bloody red eyes and Amity with her rose-dawn ponytail and flapper dress, even at court. It brought a smile to Ophelia’s lips.

  Helena’s daughter, Tess, took a seat on the dais behind the podium. She was dressed more conservatively and sat like a lady, with her shoulders back and one ankle tucked behind the other. She looked powerful, and didn’t bother to keep her eyes downcast. The ideal was ‘be strong but not strong enough to threaten your father and brothers’; Helena embodied that well enough, with her chin up and her eyes demure.

  Tess on the other hand, looked prepared to take the world on. Ophelia felt a sense of pity for whatever man thought he could simply marry her and take the city from her hands. He would certainly be in for a fight.

  Although she’d never seen Dorian Asteri before, she could pick him out fairly easily. He had long dark hair and a well-groomed goatee, and the kind of dark blue eyes that women could easily be lost in.

  He started to chat with the young woman next to him. Dorian was handsome and had enough charm to back it up. His back and forth with the young woman was cut short when her father gave him a scathing look and switched seats with the girl.

  The meeting went more or less as Ophelia had remembered. Petty squabbles, mostly, with a few legitimate items of business. At one point Dorian stood before the court and tried to make a case for the legalization of his family’s mass produced summoning circles, printed off on reams of paper and made to expedite the process. He made a good case for how convenient they could be for the aristocracy but the sour looks on everyone’s faces told her they weren’t having it.

  Finally, Helena announced that there was one more presenter to speak. She was the last one, and by now the rest of the assembled nobles were looking bored and tired and put out that they had to listen to yet another presentation.

  When she said Ophelia’s name, however, several of them perked up. The Black Sheep of House Nostra. The last of her line. She’d come in wearing a breastplate with her hair in a warrior’s braid, and it was the first time in decades since she’d attended court. However Helena had intended to cripple her for her slight by putting her last, she hadn’t counted on the scandal Ophelia brought to the court simply by showing up.

  They were curious. They were listening. That worked in her favor.

  “I know you all have places to be,” Ophelia said as she took the podium, “so I’ll try to keep this brief. Let me be up front; this is about the Gate Street Players.”

  She was already losing a few of them at that, she saw. She pressed on.

  “This is not about whatever rumors you might have heard,” Ophelia said. “The fact of the matter is the Nostra Family has, for generations, been appointed to guard the Dock District and the Players have pushed in, harassed our businesses and even done physical harm to my people. The rest of you have your sections of the city for which you are meant to provide a degree of security. We are here to protect them and to keep the lights on, and you can imagine what a slight against my house and my mother’s name this is.”

  Bijou lifted her head a little bit at that. Several others whispered. The correct form would have been to say her father’s name, but for Ophelia it wasn’t such a breach of etiquette. Her father had been an angel. He had no name to call on. It still would have been considered better to say ‘my family’s name’; less of a scandal. The scandal was what she wanted.

  “Any one of you can safely say that, were someone to come into your district and start making this kind of trouble, as a noble you would want it dealt with,” Ophelia continued. “I will not have this. And for this reason I’m petitioning for the aid of summoners willing to pledge themselves to my cause. I would never expect you to work for free, and I have the means to pay for this kind of assistance, both in sigils and the willingness to provide future favors.”

  A couple of other faces seemed alert at that. It was an open secret, who her husband was. No one ever talked about it but everybody knew. As much of a blight as the shoeshiners were on the city as a whole it was amazing how keen everyone was to have one in their pocket.

  “I invite you to come and speak with me once Lady Cassander has closed this meeting down,” Ophelia said. “Thank you for your time.”

  She resumed her seat and folded her hands in her lap. Now, she made sure to make eye contact with Dorian Asteri. Nothing she’d particularly said had implied she had an interest in what he had to say, but she wanted to make sure he knew she was talking about him, too.

  Helena did a good job keeping the sour mostly off of her face as she took her place back up again. When she stood, Ophelia got a glimpse of Tess; she was looking, too. This might turn out more fruitful than she expected, after all. />
  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Our Little Secret

  “I’ve been informed that it’s not good practice to ‘lather the city into an uproar’, even if it is important information that could potentially save dozens of lives, so I guess now we’re going to talk about this caramel recipe my assistant left in my desk.

  There is no joy in the world. Management smothered it in its crib.”

  “What are you thinking so hard about?” Ely asked, sitting across from him at the kitchen table. She had a cup of coffee in each hand, and slid one across to him before wrapping both of her hands around her own mug to warm them. Sam lifted his head and watched her for a moment. She would have looked innocent just then if he hadn’t known her.

  There was a choice here. She was making him an offer.

  “Didn’t I just say I wasn’t going to put my problems on you, little sister?” Sam asked.

  “You did,” she said, “but let me offer a counter to that.”

  She had her most rational voice on. If Sam hadn’t known her, if he didn’t know they were on the same side, he might have thought that dangerous.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “You have to talk about this at some point,” Ely said. “Mom and Dad are a wreck, and I know they’re our parents and they’re supposed to care about how we handle things, but it would be even worse to put it on them right now. I am unphased, and not just because I know what they do not. You, on the other hand, tend to take things to heart and if you end up breaking down on us we’re going to have a much bigger problem than me listening to you complain.”

  She had a point. She also clearly didn’t know what she was getting herself into. He watched her face for a moment, shrugged, and finally told her.

  “I’m gay,” he said.

  “Finally realized that, did you?” Ely asked, dryly.

  “Are we going to have a conversation right now or not?” he asked, raising a brow at her. Ely favored him with a rare smile.

  “Go on,” she said. “I know that isn’t what’s bothering you, Uncle Danny’s brought men home before and no one judged him.”

  “Out loud, anyway,” Sam said, snorting. He leaned back in his seat and surveyed her over his coffee cup. This was Ely. Pussyfooting around it wasn’t going to help. “It’s Corvin.”

  “Verida?” she asked, raising a brow.

  “No,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Shmidt. Of course Verida.”

  This time, the pause between them stretched a little longer.

  “See?” Sam asked. “I told you it was a problem.”

  “How long?” Ely asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “When we were in High School I think it started. We were close, but we were both worried about being friends, at the time, and I just…”

  “It might not have been such a problem a week ago,” Ely said.

  “A week ago it didn’t feel so urgent,” Sam said. A week ago, Corvin hadn’t almost shot him. A week ago…so many things. “Ancients, I could punch Callum.”

  “He sparked it this time,” Ely said, “but he didn’t start the fire to begin with. This has been festering and a long time coming. It was inevitable, eventually.”

  Even as she said it he knew that it was objective truth. There had been too many sins between them, too much bloodshed. Some of which he and Corvin had been involved in. Much of which Samael had been involved in.

  “Hey,” Ely said, “emotions are running high right now. I might be a little bit detached from mine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get how they work. You have a lot happening at the moment, and a lot of feelings you’re working through. So you know, if this came up right now that’s only natural.”

  Sam ran both hands through his hair.

  “So what do you suggest?” he asked.

  “Have you told him?” Ely asked.

  “Of course not,” Sam said.

  “Do that, see how you feel.”

  That made sense too. Something inside of Sam railed against it.

  “Sam?” Ely asked.

  “I just can’t help but shake the feeling that this is going to turn out terribly,” Sam said.

  “Of course it is,” Ely said, shrugging slightly. “There is no way out of this that doesn’t involve a lot of dead and a lot of mourning. There was a point when we could have stopped and we have long since passed it. And here you are, with love for people on both sides. When the dam breaks, when this all comes to gunfire and burning, there will be casualties. And the person who will hurt the worst will be you.”

  Sam just stared at her for a second.

  “If you’re going to be a doctor maybe you should cultivate some bedside manner,” he said.

  “That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it, Sam,” she said. “It’s just that I can’t tell you if it is or not. Only you know.”

  “Thanks, Ely,” he said.

  “For what it’s worth,” she said. “If it is I think you should give it your best shot.”

  “You can’t tell me you would,” Sam said.

  “No,” Ely said, shrugging. “But you’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t.”

  With that, she got up and rinsed her cup out. Sam took a sip of his coffee. It had gone cold.

  The wisplight stained the brickwork a warm gold color around him as Martin headed back toward his apartment. He pulled his coat closer around himself and clutched at the opening.

  “Marty,” a woman’s voice said behind him. The word was like a rope stopping him in his tracks.

  “Lena,” he said. He didn’t look back. He knew the second he did, it was over. Maybe he could take another step. Maybe he could run. Those thoughts died in his head when her hand touched his shoulder.

  “It’s been a couple of days since I’ve seen you,” she said. Her voice was poisoned apple sweet. “I was starting to think you didn’t want to talk to me. That’s not true, is it?”

  She physically turned him to face her.

  Don’t look at her eyes.

  Don’t think about Ely.

  Lena’s hand caught him by the chin and tilted his face up to meet hers.

  “Marty,” she said. “If something’s going on you can tell me. Has the girl you were talking to done something? Is she holding something over your head?”

  Don’t think about Ely.

  “I’ve been busy with school,” he said, around the dryness in his throat. “We just entered a hard unit to study.”

  “Not too hard to go snooping around Gate Street,” she said. “I want to know what you told her.”

  “Nothing,” he said. He took a step back, tried to pull away. Her fingers went painfully tight around his chin.

  “It almost feels like you’re lying to me,” she said. Her ruby lips were still curved upward, pleasantly plump and glistening. He left his eyes locked on them. In the wisplight, her smile almost looked bloody. “Are you lying to me, Marty?”

  “Yes,” he said. The word came out of him before he could stop it. He felt her will wash over him. It had happened before. All he wanted in the world was to please her. Not to do so was unthinkable.

  But what this woman might do to the friend he’d made…he broke the rules. He thought of Ely. Ely with her steady hands and keen eyes as she took inventory of the body in front of her. Ely who had saved his life without a second thought.

  Ely who knew her brother was alive, and if Lena found out…

  “That wasn’t hard, was it?” Lena asked. “Come on now. What’s happened?”

  “No,” he whispered.

  “Excuse me?” Lena asked. She tilted his face upward again and her eyes caught his. Suddenly he was staring into the face of god and it hurt enough to make his eyes water at the corners.

  In that moment, he knew what it meant.

  “I said no,” he said. “I’m sorry. But I can’t tell you anything else.”

  “That’s really a pity,” Lena said. She sounded miles away. White hot pain pierced his sternum. His knowledge of anatomy
kicked in. Her hand pushed his liver aside. It was like too much gas behind his ribs, and then a pressure on his heart.

  And then nothing.

  “I really did like you,” Lena said. “I can’t have you telling her anything either, though.”

  He felt the arrhythmia set in. Air passed his lips and into lungs that weren’t quite working right. As Lena withdrew her hand, he fell to his knees.

  His eyes stung.

  There was no fighting her. Not for him. There was no walking away from this and living a full life with no regrets.

  But even as the brickwork rose to meet him and he saw his blood creep out between the cracks, he knew that he could die without them.

  She had no more power over him.

  The heart made a soft ‘plunk’ sound as she dropped it into the jar of chemicals at her side. It floated there for a moment, soft and starting to rot in places but still held together enough that she was confident the chemistry would keep it. She wanted some good anatomical drawings of the valves, and a better idea of how the muscle worked.

  She screwed the lid of the jar back on and had just begun to suture the chest cavity closed again when the door to her little lab banged open. She’d been so absorbed in her work she never heard her father coming.

  She stared at him from over the corpse. He stared back at her, and then at the dead man on the table. Ely felt the air go out of her lungs in that moment as Joey turned around and exited the room, shutting the door between them for a moment.

  Ely’s heart hammered. Adrenaline. She glanced back at the heart in the jar next to her and tried to imagine the muscle expanding and contracting, the innate response to stress anyone with a modicum of human blood had. It calmed her by inches.

  She busied her hands finishing her sutures. There was no reason to leave her work open to the dust. What was done was done, she reasoned to herself. Before she finished the last one, her father came back into the room.

  “El,” he said. It sounded like he’d rehearsed this to himself, in his mind, several times before he came back to say it. “I don’t know where you got this stiff, and I’m not sure I wanna know. Actually, I’m pretty sure I don’t. But I know I don’t want him in my house.”