“Oh?” I said, not sure what he was getting at. “I didn’t think that was something that would interest you. Illegal cantrip trade, I mean.”
“Anything that potentially threatens the safety of my Court is of interest to me,” he responded. “I intended to send Ryan to ask a few questions at the warehouses, so I see no harm in you going with them. Do let them know, won’t you?”
“Are you sure Ryan won’t mind?” I asked.
“Ryan knows that it’s best to have backup with them on dangerous missions,” he said. “They’ll understand.”
Ryan was not thrilled at being asked to escort me to Arcadia. They didn’t say a word to me on the walk out of the castle, and only laughed when Neddie the horse refused to let me mount him. In the end, I walked on foot to the outskirts of Arcadia while Ryan rode on horseback. By the time I reached the bare ground at the very edge of the swamp, I was in a bad mood, to say the least.
“Who’s the cantrip manufacturer we’re supposed to speak to?” I asked, kicking mud off my boots.
“You’ll see.” Ryan hopped off Neddie’s back and gave the horse a stroke, letting him canter away back into the swamp. “Stay close behind me and don’t wander off.”
“Do you even know what your master asked me to speak to the manufacturers about?” I said.
“Our master told me to speak to the manufacturers myself,” said Ryan. “If you get yourself into trouble, I’m not getting you out of it.”
That’s nice. “Noted.”
The warehouses covered the edge of the city which bordered the swampland. The Houses of the Elements barely had a foothold here in Arcadia, thanks to the vampires being the ruling force. I only knew of one hangout for mages and it wasn’t exactly reputable. I couldn’t picture the Family walking through this maze of warehouses to the central one marked as the city’s main market for all things magical. A steady flow of people walked in and out of the entryway: practitioners and mages, but also the occasional vampire, dressed in dark clothing and with their hoods pulled up to stave off the daylight.
Ryan and I joined the queue beside the doors, attracting a fair few stares thanks to our armoured clothing. The crush of people didn’t help, and it came as a relief when we finally got inside the warehouse itself. The open space before us contained rows of tables selling everything from produce to everyday items imported from the other side of the nodes as well as cantrips and other magical devices. At the very back of the warehouse lay a long line of tables covered with dozens of golden cantrips engraved with runes. I hadn’t seen such a big collection outside of the Death King’s castle before.
“The Collective of Spells.” I read the sign affixed to the back wall of the warehouse. “Is this the supplier we’re looking for?”
“Hello?” said the girl behind the table, giving the Air Element a wary look. “Can I help you?”
“We’re looking to speak to the manufacturer of the reusable cantrips being distributed throughout the Parallel,” I said. “I take it that’s you?”
The Collective of Spells. I’d never heard of them before, but I hadn’t exactly been plugged into the legal business of acquiring cantrips. I’d mostly got them from Striker’s network in Elysium before now.
The girl’s gaze darted between us. While her wariness was understandable for anyone faced with two of the Death King’s Elemental Soldiers, did she know some of her cantrips might have been used to commit murder?
“Not just me,” she said. “There are a lot of us. What is it you want to know?”
“Whereabouts are these cantrips manufactured?” I asked.
“Here in Arcadia,” she said. “Why?”
“The Death King,” said Ryan, “would like to know the names of the traders you work with, in Elysium in particular. You might have heard of the incident a couple of months ago where some of your cantrips were misplaced and used to create illegal spells, and we have reason to believe the same might be happening again.”
Her face paled at the mention of the Death King. “All our sources are legitimate, but we can’t control what people do with cantrips in their own homes. Despite that, we’re closely monitoring all our contacts.”
She might be telling the truth. Reusable cantrips might be used for any purpose and nobody would be able to trace them back to their source, but the cantrips on the table weren’t marked with the Family’s symbol. They wouldn’t do something like that so openly, though, in case the vampires swooped in and shut the place down.
“Where can we get a list of the people you supply cantrips to?” I asked.
She chewed on her lower lip. “You’ll have to ask the boss about that. He’s at the warehouse next door.”
“All right,” I said. “Thanks.”
As we turned to leave, a voice spoke from behind us. “Oh, hello, Ryan.”
I turned to see an elf, startlingly attractive with a tanned face and pointed ears, walking through the crowd as though oblivious to the attention he was drawing from the other patrons. He stopped in front of Ryan, a smile on his face.
“Friend of yours?” I said to the Air Element.
“We both know Liv,” Ryan replied.
Okay. Not an ally, then.
The elf turned to me with a curious stare. “Who are you?”
“Bria,” I said. “I’m the Death King’s new Fire Element.”
“I’m Trix,” he said. “Most humans can’t pronounce my full name, so I go by Trix.”
“Nice to meet you.” He couldn’t tell I was part elf—my cantrip hid my pointed ears—but it struck me that I didn’t necessarily need to hide them anymore. I’d originally tried to make myself look less distinctive for the sake of maintaining anonymity, but as the Death King’s Fire Element, I drew attention just by walking into a room anyway.
“We should go outside,” said Ryan. “We’re done in here.”
The three of us wove through the crowd and out of the market into the open air, at which point the elf turned back to face us.
“What’re you here for?” he asked.
“More trouble with illegal cantrips,” Ryan said. “Allegedly, someone else is using reusable cantrips from the COS to create illegal spells on the side, though since it’s Bria’s claim, I can’t verify its accuracy.”
Hey! “I can show you the cantrip if you don’t believe me, but flashing the Family’s symbol in the market might get me arrested. Might have escaped your attention, but everyone in that warehouse was staring at us already.”
“Illegal cantrips?” said the elf. “That sounds like Liv’s area.”
I groaned inwardly. Of course it did. Liv always seemed to show up where I least wanted or needed her.
“Not really,” said Ryan. “It’s more her friend Devon who deals with cantrips. She helped us track down the people responsible for creating illegal cantrips last time around.”
“Who were they, exactly?” I asked. “Might it be the same people again?”
“We broke up all their safe houses,” said Ryan, wearing a disgruntled expression. “The operation might’ve survived in some form, but I can’t say how the cantrips ended up in Elysium.”
“Did those cantrips…” I paused. “Did they have any kind of mark on them? Like a signature?”
“No,” they said. “They were all reusable, though, which is a relatively new model created here in Arcadia itself.”
Hmm. Maybe not the Family’s doing, but they’d certainly stepped in pretty quickly. Cantrips which wiped themselves clean after use could be used to conceal all kinds of evidence.
“Who ran the operation?” I asked. “Last time, I mean? There’s gotta be a figurehead.”
“A vampire,” said Ryan shortly. “None of the original perpetrators walks free, but those inferno cantrips didn’t drop out of the sky.”
“I know they didn’t,” I said. “The cantrip which killed the jailor in the House of Fire wasn’t an inferno, though. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“A cantrip kil
led someone at the House of Fire?” said Trix.
I hesitated for a moment, unsure whether I should be discussing it in front of him. While elves didn’t tend to get involved with human politics, I didn’t know the guy, even if Ryan trusted him. On the other hand, I’d already brought up the subject. “Yeah, but we don’t know what the spell was. Or how it got there.”
“Liv might know,” said Trix.
“She has enough crap to deal with,” Ryan said. “Last thing we need is to get her wrapped up in illegal cantrip business again. Right, I’ll go and speak to the COS’s people and get a list of who they sell their cantrips to outside of the city. It’s this way.”
While Ryan took the lead towards the warehouse on our right-hand side, Trix fell into step with me. “Are you an elf?”
I startled at the blatant question. “What? Why?”
“You move like one.”
He was definitely sharper than he looked, that was for sure.
“Half elf,” I said. “Half human. I never met my elf family.”
“Shame,” he said. “There aren’t many of us left.”
“No.” I didn’t know what he expected me to say, so I caught up with Ryan, who stood talking to a bulky security guard outside the warehouse doors.
“Are you with the COS?” Ryan asked.
“Who wants to know?” said the guard.
“The Death King,” I said, figuring mentioning his name would speed the whole thing up. “He has concerns about your contacts in Elysium. Can you name them?”
“Ask my supervisor. He’s in there.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Don’t touch anything.”
Ignoring Ryan’s look of annoyance, I entered the warehouse beside them, where we found ourselves in a small storeroom. Through a door on the left, I could see a larger room, full of people standing at long tables surrounded by heaps of carved cantrips. I found a man in a dirt-covered uniform with sideburns and a scarred face and waylaid him.
“Elysium?” He had to bellow to be heard over the noise of the warehouse. “Dawson’s the only person we sell to there. Our main customer is the Order of the Elements. They buy in bulk and return them after use wherever possible. Rest of the Parallel hasn’t caught on yet.”
“The Order?” Damn. I’d thought they avoided dealing with Parallel-based businesses. Not that I knew very much about the Order except that they policed magic on the other side of the nodes and really hated spirit mages. Not to mention people like me.
“Is this Dawson the only person you deal with in Elysium?” Ryan asked. “Got an address?”
“Ask my assistant.” He pointed to a young man standing nearby, who Ryan waylaid. I couldn’t hear a word he said, so I made a mental note to ask Miles for the name of the Spirit Agents’ supplier later. If there was only one major cantrip supplier in Elysium who bought supplies from Arcadia, I was pretty sure it must be the same one.
The question was, was said supplier involved in the illegal cantrip trade, or had the cantrip bearing the Family’s mark come from somewhere else entirely?
I followed Ryan out of the warehouse, they promptly launched into a conversation with Trix which I couldn’t follow.
“What in the world are you talking about?” I asked.
Ryan’s jaw clenched. “Nothing.”
“Dungeons & Dragons,” Trix supplied. “We’re designing Ryan’s character’s backstory.”
“Okay…” I had only a rudimentary knowledge of popular hobbies on the other side of the nodes, but Ryan looked like they’d be more comfortable riding to war than sitting at a table partaking in fictional battles. “Dex plays, too, he told me.”
“Want to join us?” Trix said.
“No,” Ryan answered for me. “So there’s one supplier in Elysium, who also sells cantrips to all the Houses. If they’re the one illegally selling to the Family on the side, I hope you’re ready to face a world of trouble, Bria.”
Not really. Though it’d slipped my mind that this Dawson person must supply the Houses as well as the Spirit Agents. Either the Family was getting their cantrips from elsewhere… or they were closer to my allies than I’d thought.
5
Ryan flat-out refused to go to Elysium without reporting to their master first and proceeded to talk to Trix all the way back without saying a word to me. I felt distinctly like a third wheel as we walked back to the node at the edge of the Death King’s territory, at which point Ryan called up a horse. Neddie, of course, growled at the sight of me and refused to let me mount him.
“I’d like to learn to ride one of those,” Trix announced.
“I can teach you,” said Ryan.
It’d have been nice if you’d offered the same to me. I bit back my protest and attempted to coax another horse over to me, to no avail. While the others rode ahead of me, I walked on foot, fuming, until I reached the castle.
“The Death King’s in the hall,” said Felicity, catching sight of us. “What’s your friend doing here?”
“Visiting,” said Ryan. “Trix, can you wait outside? I won’t be long.”
“What’s the deal with him?” I followed them up the steps to the castle. “I thought you didn’t want anyone from outside to come in here.”
“I’m careful not to let untrustworthy people in here,” Ryan corrected.
“Ouch.” I put a hand over my heart, eyeing the skull-covered pillars on either side of the doors. “Those things are creepy, you know. Has anyone ever tried improving them by sticking fake moustaches on them or something?”
Ryan didn’t answer, pushing open the oak doors in front of us. We entered the hall and found the Death King standing on the dais at the back as though he hadn’t moved since we’d left the castle.
“There’s been a change of plans,” said the Death King, before either of us could speak. “The House of Fire wants to hand over their prisoner now, and they’ve requested your help in restraining Adair while they complete the transfer.”
“Me?” I halted in front of the dais. “Seriously?”
They couldn’t possibly trust me to stop Adair from making a quick getaway, surely. Harris had all but accused me of working with him once already.
“I mentioned that you had a transporter spell,” said the Death King.
Right, of course. “I do, but I’m not sure it would work on two people at once.”
“Then use it to transport Adair through the node and into the castle grounds, and I’ll have people waiting on the other side to restrain him,” he said.
I could think of a dozen ways that might go wrong, but I had the sense that I might as well be talking to a brick wall. Besides, the hardest part would be getting Adair onto the other side of the gates in front of the castle. Once he was there, the collective strength of the Death King’s army ought to be able to subdue him and drag him into the jail, but that didn’t mean Adair wouldn’t try to initiate an escape attempt anyway.
Ryan cleared their throat. “We asked at the warehouse about the suppliers in Elysium, but it seems there’s only one person in the city who buys cantrips from Arcadia’s markets. I have the name and address.”
“Deal with that later,” the Death King said. “Bria, go back to Elysium as soon as possible and speak to the House of Fire about helping transfer their prisoner. Without taking any detours this time.”
Had he known I’d gone to visit the Spirit Agents on my way back? “Can’t I at least grab lunch before I leave? I’ve been on my feet all day.”
The Death King’s cold gaze turned on me, and I had the sudden mental image of him reaching out and ripping out Adair’s soul. I couldn’t deny that was an appealing thought. “You may stop at your quarters before you leave the castle.”
From the looks of things, Ryan had zero intention of coming with me, and I was more than happy to leave the pair of them to hang out with Neddie the zombie horse instead.
I dropped by the break room to grab a snack bar for lunch and then left the castle, walking past the jail and the nod
e which was designated for the Death King’s private use. The node in question was impossible for anyone to use who wasn’t a spirit mage—at least not without the aid of a transporter spell—but if I managed to shove Adair through the node without him making a quick getaway, he’d immediately find himself surrounded by liches as soon as he landed next to the jail.
As for me, travelling via transporter spell was not my favourite activity, so I walked out of the gates and towards the node on the other side of the fence, surrounded by swampland. From there, I transported myself to the centre of Elysium and retraced my steps to the House of Fire’s headquarters.
Like before, Harris answered the door. “Back already?”
“Yeah, on the boss’s orders,” I said. “Which you probably know about.”
“I expected you to give us a little time to get the prisoner ready,” he said. “He’s being uncooperative.”
“It’s his defining trait.” I didn’t want to deal with Adair’s bullshit, but despite their arrogance, the guards weren’t equipped to handle him in the slightest. “Most sedatives don’t work on him for long. Tying him up is best, but don’t use rope or anything he can break easily.”
“Did I ask for your advice?” he said.
“Just trying to be helpful,” I said, giving up on any attempts at civility. “At least you know I was telling the truth about being the Death King’s Fire Element, right?”
He scowled. “It won’t last. People like you always end up back in the same place.”
“Doesn’t look like you’ve moved very far to me,” I commented. “Can I come in?”
“No.” He planted himself in front of the door, arms folded, refusing to let me even get past the threshold. “I don’t trust you, and if I had my way, you wouldn’t be involved in this operation.”
“Look, I’m not going to let the prisoner walk free,” I said. “He tried to murder me the last time we set eyes on one another. Also, I’m the one who got him jailed. Twice, I might add.”
House of Fire (Parallel Magic Book 2) Page 5
