“I didn’t think it was possible either,” he said, “but the Death King told me otherwise. Hawker used some kind of spell to turn himself from a lich into a living spirit mage again.”
“The Family’s cantrips.” I dropped my voice. “You mean—there’s a cantrip which brought him back?”
Of course the Family had been responsible. But did that mean they planned to use the same cantrips against the Death King? Was that what Adair had been taunting me about, when he’d implied the Court of the Dead was doomed?
“Looks that way,” said Miles. “Spirit mages can’t bring people back from the dead. Liches can turn human again after a short time if their death wasn’t permanent, but that Hawker guy… he died years ago. Around the time of the war.”
“I think I need to tell Harper,” I said. “She isn’t dealing well with being a lich. If there’s a chance she might get to become human again, she’ll want to know about it.”
“Uh, not a good idea,” he said. “There’s usually a downside to powerful cantrips like those. There was one version a couple of months ago which brought liches back to life and then made them rot and fall to pieces.”
“Nice.” I pulled a face. “Okay, that’s one hell of a downside. Still, if this Hawker person is alive when he used to be a lich, he must have made it work, right?”
“Liv is looking into it,” said Miles. “That’s what the Death King told me.”
“Oh, he gave you an update and not me?”
“Don’t get too excited,” he said. “That’s only one piece of bad news. The other is that the Order of the Elements is now assumed to be under Hawker’s command.”
Once again, I halted mid-step. “The Order was taken over by a rogue? Seriously?”
“Yep,” he said. “They were infiltrated from the inside, as far as I can figure out. Personally, I think they were crooked anyway, with their policies against spirit mages, but the official line is that they’re under new management.”
“But… they’re the Houses’ liaison on Earth.”
Whenever the Order found illegal mages they didn’t want to deal with, they handed them straight to the Houses. Did the Houses know the Order was under the control of the enemy? Should I be the one to tell them?
“They know,” Miles said. “The Houses, I mean. The Death King told them.”
“He didn’t tell me.”
Maybe he didn’t trust me at all. But Miles did, which was no small thing. Spirit mages like him and the Death King faced potential betrayal at every corner, and while it came as no particular surprise that the King of the Dead had kept information from me, Miles had elected to tell me despite the risk. I hadn’t worked with another person since Tay’s betrayal, and it’d taken me long enough to trust her with my life. Now, I didn’t know if I’d be able to reach that level of trust with someone again, but Miles was a strong contender.
“The Houses haven’t put out an official statement on the Order yet,” he added. “I think they’re keeping it quiet.”
“Like the Family’s escape,” I said. “That’s their policy: don’t tell anyone anything and then deny all responsibility.”
Miles resumed walking again. “Let’s hope they haven’t lost their cantrip suppliers to the enemy, too.”
Dawson’s place turned out to be located on a corner of a side street, not far from the Houses’ headquarters. A red flag if I ever saw one, though maybe not, considering the middle of the city was also the centre for all things magical.
Miles led the way to the black-painted door and knocked, and a man with long grey hair answered.
“Hey, Dawson,” said Miles. “I’m here from the Spirit Agents.”
“Miles,” he said, in an accent I couldn’t place. “What’s up? You want more cantrips?”
“Wouldn’t mind a refresher,” he said.
Dawson passed on the order to a broad-shouldered young man behind him, who moved to the shelves and started taking cantrips down and putting them into a cardboard bag.
“Who else do you sell to?” asked Miles.
“Who wants to know?” said the man. “The Houses of the Elements, plus a bunch of people like you. Practitioners, independent mages, whatever.”
So they did sell to the House of Fire. Which… didn’t tell me much. That cantrip which had killed the jailor might have been carved by anyone. I needed to narrow it down.
I pulled the cantrip in question from my pocket. “Can you identify this? It’s a reusable cantrip, and I don’t know which spell was used on it before it wiped itself clean.”
“You’d need an expert to identify the previous spell used on it,” he said. “I can do it myself, but it’ll cost you.”
“Nah, it’s fine.” If he identified the spell and it turned out to be illegal, it might come back to hit us instead of the person who’d actually carved it. Besides, identifying the spell wouldn’t point to the person who’d actually created it. I flipped over the coin to show the mark instead. “What about this?”
“That?” He peered at the back of the cantrip. “That’s a signature, isn’t it? Some practitioners use them, but I reckon it’s a waste of time.”
His expression showed no recognition at the sight of the Family’s mark. Maybe he doesn’t know.
The assistant handed Miles the bag of cantrips. “Have a good day.”
We couldn’t have a snoop around inside the place without drawing too much attention, so we took the cantrips and left.
“Good call,” Miles said to me. “Dawson isn’t a bad sort, but I doubt your salary from the Death King so far will cover the cost of him identifying that spell.”
“Figures,” I said. “He didn’t seem to recognise the mark, but I wonder if he was telling the truth. If we came back here later under an invisibility cantrip to have a poke around…”
“Bria, he’s a cantrip supplier. Pretty sure someone’s tried that one on him before at least once.”
I shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
“I’m not sure he knows the Family,” said Miles. “He’s a decent guy. Gives us a discount on all new cantrips.”
“Is he the one who sold you the transporter spell?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Shawn said he got it from the market, but maybe the enemy gave it to him instead. Anyone’s guess.”
“His big mistake was handing it over to me,” I said. “I’m not giving it up anytime soon.”
“Wise decision there,” he said.
“Yeah.”
Never mind the transporter spell. If the Family had a hold over Elysium’s cantrip supplier, they had links to every practitioner here in Elysium, as well as all four of the Houses of the Elements.
The Order has fallen to the enemy already. How long before the Houses followed the same path?
7
A week passed with no further instructions from the Death King about our new prisoner. My boss had reacted without any surprise when I’d told him we’d hit a dead end when searching for evidence of where the cantrip which had killed the jailor had come from, but I’d at least thought he might want me to talk to Adair. Whenever I went near the jail, it was to find glaring liches blocking my way, so I got on with the job and went to check up on the House of Fire in every spare moment I had.
I was more concerned with Tay than with my incarcerated brother, but by the fourth day, the House of Fire’s guards had taken to slamming the door in my face whenever I tried to ask them for updates. I assumed she was still alive, but until Adair started talking, I’d have no evidence to draw on which might prove she wasn’t responsible for Zade’s death. By the seventh day, I’d put Adair to the back of my mind altogether, so it damn near made me jump out of my skin when I walked out of the castle that morning and heard Adair’s loud shouts from the direction of the jail. The racket filled my ears as I crossed the grounds and addressed the liches guarding the Death King’s prison. “Can’t you shut him up?”
“No,” said one of them. “We can tell him not to make a sound,
but we can’t enforce it. He can’t use his persuasive magic on any of us, so all he can do is yell until he tires himself out. Sounds like he’s found his voice again, anyway.”
“Can I speak to him?” I said. “Maybe I can shut him up.”
“Fine,” said the lich, “but we’ll be watching. No funny business.”
“Hey, I work for the Death King, too.” Even the liches didn’t trust me? Maybe I didn’t blame them, given how some of them had ended up being burned to a crisp during the trials, but it’d be nice to have a little cooperation against my delight of a brother.
I entered the jail and walked up to Adair’s cell, covering my ears against his yelling.
“What is wrong with you?” I shouted over the noise, taking care not to make eye contact with him.
He stopped yelling. “Did they kill your friend yet?”
“Fuck you,” I said. “You know you can’t get out of here, don’t you? You can yell all you like. Nobody’s going to listen.”
“I could make you let me out,” he said.
“You could try.” His ability didn’t work if I didn’t look him in the eyes. No matter what mind games he tried to play, he couldn’t deny that simple fact. “Alternatively, you can shut the hell up and stop giving everyone a headache. No amount of yelling will make the Death King acknowledge you.”
“I don’t give a crap about him.”
Damn. Was it me whose attention he’d wanted to draw? At a guess… yes, he had, and I’d given him what he wanted. “If you wanted to speak to me, are you going to tell me how you got out of jail the first time?”
That was the question which had been preying on my mind for the longest. If he’d got out of jail by himself, that was one thing, but I still hadn’t the faintest idea where the others were hiding.
“Your friend Tay made the mistake of coming to talk to me and now she regrets it,” he said. “I wouldn’t bother in future.”
I knew it was him. “You made her kill the jailor?”
He laughed. “You think if I confess to murder it’ll make them spare her life? They won’t, Bria. They’ve already made up their minds.”
Bile coated the back of my throat, and my hands itched to punch his lights out. “Look, if you know anything about the Family’s location, then I’d appreciate it if you tell me before the Death King gets to you first. Even if you’re all but immortal, I’m pretty sure you can still be turned into a lich.”
“I can’t,” he said, in confident tones. “And I think I’ll let you work their location out on your own. Get out.”
I averted my gaze, sharply, but his voice rose in volume until the words were unintelligible. He didn’t need to use magic on me to make me want to run in the opposite direction, so I retreated from the jail, hands clamped over my ears again. Thank the Elements that only the liches were in charge of guarding the jail and not the Elemental Soldiers, because liches didn’t have ears. Or heads.
I ran to the castle, up the steps and into the main hall, releasing a sigh of relief when the doors cut off the sound of his screaming. At first, I thought nobody was inside, and then I saw a fiery humanoid shape in front of the hall of souls.
“Bria,” said Dex. “What’re you running from?”
“I’m looking for the Death King,” I said. “Where is he?”
“Is it about our new prisoner?”
“Please tell me you haven’t been gossiping.”
He gave me a mock hurt look. “I didn’t even tell Liv.”
“I should hope not,” I said. “Given how she’s incapable of leaving the hell alone.”
Maybe I was being unfair on her, but she’d put a serious wrench in my plans to stop Shawn from breaking into the Death King’s castle and I was pretty sure she still suspected me of conspiring against His Deathly Highness. I didn’t need another enemy, so I’d prefer to keep my distance from her for the time being.
Before the fire sprite could reply, the Death King glided through a side door into the hall.
“Bria,” he said. “What is it?”
“Death King,” I said. “Adair just spoke to me—”
“I don’t remember giving you permission to visit him.”
“He was screaming the place down,” I said. “Still is, in fact. He also heavily implied that he used his influencing power on Tay to make her kill the jailor at the House of Fire.”
“Shouldn’t you be telling them that, not me?”
“They’re currently refusing to let me into the building or even acknowledge my existence,” I said. “Whatever happened to negotiating an agreement with them?”
“I hoped they’d be more accepting of you than they’ve been,” he said.
You aren’t the only one. I hadn’t exactly expected to be welcomed with open arms, but their attitude was grating to say the least. If they were truly plotting to execute Tay no matter what, though, how could I possibly convince them to spare her?
“I guess not,” I said. “I was their prisoner before, and I did tell you they didn’t like me.”
“Despite the fact that you turned your family in and ensured their imprisonment,” he said. “The House didn’t share the details of their location with you?”
“My brother is the one with the mind-control power, not me,” I said. “I can’t force the House of Fire to tell you how the Family escaped or where they’re hiding. Nor can I convince Adair to tell me, though he implied he knows, too.”
Even if they’d wanted to cover their own backs, you’d think the Houses would have at least tried to organise a search for the Family’s hiding place. Or asked the Death King to help. I’d assumed he commanded respect even with them… unless they’d already chosen a side.
Before I could question my decision, I said, “You might have mentioned the Order of the Elements had fallen under the control of the enemy.”
“Did Miles tell you that?”
“Of course,” I said. “Why not mention it to me? You told the Houses, he said, but not me?”
“They refused to listen to my warnings,” he said. “That was the reason for our disagreement.”
Oh. “They didn’t believe you?”
“They believe my source of information was misinformed,” he said.
“You have someone spying on the Order?” I said. “Since when?”
“I did.” There was an odd note in his tone which I couldn’t place, but he didn’t offer another word of explanation.
“Do you want me to go to the House of Fire, then?” I asked. “Maybe I can talk some sense into them and get them to believe the truth about the Order.”
“Forget the Order,” he said. “The Order’s status only matters for the inhabitants of Earth, not the Parallel.”
I wasn’t so certain about that, but I hardly gave a shit about the Order myself, not with the Family at large, Adair being uncooperative and my former best friend potentially facing a death sentence. Yet I still found room to be irked at the Death King for hiring me as his Fire Element and still refusing to tell me pertinent information.
“Are you sure the same enemy hasn’t taken over the Houses, too?” I said. “Why not send someone to check?”
“That,” he said, “is supposed to be your job.”
Oh. “I thought you wanted to join forces. Before the enemy gets there first. Isn’t that the goal?”
“Something like that,” he said.
“Then what am I supposed to do if it turns out they already made up their minds?”
“That’s a decision you’ll have to make on your own.”
Annoyance flared inside me. As he turned away, I said, “Did you know the enemy has a way to bring the dead back to life using a cantrip?”
He rotated, his empty gaze piercing me. “Who told you that?”
I swear the entire hall got colder. “Miles did. He said… he said the enemy was a former lich who brought himself back to life and that he has a way of doing the same for the other liches, too. Have you told them?”
�
�They’re well aware,” he said. “However, we have yet to find out what the method is and if there are any potential downsides. In any case, it’s of no concern of yours.”
“My friend is a lich,” I pointed out, but he was already drifting away across the hall. “What am I supposed to do now? Go back to the House of Fire and tell them they have one chance left to give you an answer?”
“If you believe that’ll be productive, then by all means, try,” he said. “Tell them my offer is still open.”
That was a challenge if I ever heard one. “I will.”
On the way out of the castle, I walked through a lich, which was about as fun as you might think. An ice-cold sensation slid through my body, and I yelped. “Ack.”
“Ow,” said Harper. “I can feel your fire, and liches are pretty damn flammable, you know. What did the Death King want with you?”
“He wants me to go back to the House of Fire,” I said. “Or to be more accurate, he pretty much said it’s impossible for me to get a straight answer out of them, so now I have an incentive to prove him wrong.”
“Haven’t you been going there every day this week?” Harper asked me.
“Only to make sure they haven’t punished Tay,” I said. “But given what I just heard from the Death King, they won’t even tell him how the Family got out of prison.”
“They won’t tell the Death King?” she echoed. “Aren’t they afraid of him?”
“You’d think,” I said. “So I need to poke them a bit more. I know for a fact someone gave the killer that cantrip. It didn’t get there by accident.”
“Cantrip?”
“That’s how the jailor died,” I said. “Reusable cantrip, carved with a spell that killed him instantly. Even if the killer came from inside the House of Fire, they got the cantrip from outside. Someone gave it to them.”
“I’m hearing weird shit about cantrips lately,” she said. “Like those infernos.”
“Yeah, and the cantrips the enemy is allegedly making to bring people back to life,” I added. “Did you—”
“There’s a way to come back to life?” Her tone sounded shocked. “What? You’re joking.”
House of Fire (Parallel Magic Book 2) Page 7
