I walked over to the cabinets at the back, which contained records of all the prisoners here in the House of Fire. For a moment, my hand hovered on the case file of my own name before I forced my gaze away. That wouldn’t do anything but bring up bad memories. I moved on to the next row, finding Adair’s file next to a joint folder belonging to Lex and Roth, our guardians.
I pulled out the folder and skimmed to the final page, which ended on the words, moved to another facility.
I stared at the words for a moment. Moved to another facility? The House hadn’t actually acknowledged that the Family had escaped? Weird… or not, considering their reluctance to let the word get out of their escape. I flicked through the file for more details, then did the same with Adair’s, but nothing leapt out at me that I didn’t already know. They hadn’t noted down Adair’s relocation to the Death King’s jail, either, but of course that’d taken place after Zade’s death.
Still…
I slid the folder back into place, heading for the jailor’s desk. I knew where he’d kept the keys to the cells, and for a moment, temptation seized me. If they were going to be cavalier with their security, it’d serve them right if I went down to Tay’s cell and liberated her before anyone realised I was here.
I unlocked the drawer and found it empty. Ah, shit. Should have known it wouldn’t be that simple. No keys, and nothing else either. The other drawers were empty, too. Someone had cleaned out the place, all right. So the new head jailor could move in… or because they’d wanted to hide something.
My suspicion rising with each passing second, I searched every inch of the office, even under the carpets. Finally, I found a slip of paper half-hidden underneath a cabinet and pulled it out. It appeared to be a letter, scrawled in Zade’s messy handwriting, which had been written before his death.
Yes, we got the cantrips. Are you sure about using the WO as a trading spot, considering their location?
Cantrips? My heart missed a beat, and I reread the note, unable to deny the implication. The House of Fire hadn’t been compromised… at least, not in the way I’d thought. The jailor was the one who’d worked with the enemy.
And it seemed someone had killed him for it.
Given the letter’s location, it had never reached its recipient, whoever that was. Did that mean he’d been murdered by someone trying to protect the rest of the House? It still didn’t explain how the cantrip had got all the way downstairs, but perhaps Tay had taken it off the jailor and used it against him herself. Maybe it didn’t matter, but if Zade himself had turned on his fellow members of the House of Fire, they couldn’t sentence Tay to death for murder even if he’d died at her hand.
First, though, I needed to get her to confirm what I suspected.
I left the office and went back downstairs, heading for the staircase leading to the lower floor. I passed Dex on the way, and at a whispered instruction from me, he flew ahead of me to distract the guards by throwing sparks around the opposite end of the corridor. The guards headed that way, snapping at the prisoners to quit fooling around, while I silently approached Tay’s cell. She sat on the floor, her gaze fixed at some point in the distance.
I didn’t quite dare take off the invisibility cantrip, but I moved right up to the bars and whispered, “Tay.”
She glanced up at the spot where I stood. “Bria? What are you doing down here?”
“I think I know why the jailor was murdered,” I told her in an undertone. “Zade was working with the Family.”
Her breath caught. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“Tay, do the rest of the House know?”
She didn’t answer.
“Tay, everyone else in here is vulnerable if you don’t tell them,” I whispered. “You have nothing to lose. If anything, they’ll thank you for it. They’d want you to warn them the Family is recruiting allies from within their own ranks.”
“When did I ever say I cared about the House?” she muttered. “They can all rot for all I care.”
Oh, damn. So that was the problem. She was more than happy to watch the Houses crumble, and at one time, I might have agreed with her. On the other hand, I’d rather tear off my own arm than let the Family gain power over the ruling force in Elysium.
“The Family already took over the House of Earth,” I said in a low voice. “Maybe the others, too. Look, I don’t much care about the Houses, either, but I care about you. If you’re in here when it all blows up, the backlash will catch you, too.”
She sighed. “The House doesn’t care about me any more than I care for them. Besides, they deserve what they get.”
“You don’t think they’ll leave a power vacuum if they all drop dead at once?” I said to her. “Besides, those cantrips are lethal. I’ve seen them. The House of Earth’s mages are buying them up in bulk, and when I tried to confront them over it, they threw an inferno cantrip at me and nearly took off the doors to this place.”
Tay hissed out a breath. “I wish you didn’t insist on putting yourself in harm’s way, Bria. There’s no need for you to be involved in this.”
“Tay, it’s my job to get involved,” I said. “Also, Adair is still taunting me about the rogue spirit mages coming to take over the Court of the Dead. Was it really him who told you to kill Zade, or did you decide to take the decision into your own hands?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” I said, “because I’d like to know if you’re still working with the Family or not. I want to know if I can trust you.” As far as it was possible to trust someone who’d betrayed me once already, at any rate.
“I’m not working with anyone,” she said.
“Were there any others?” I pressed. “Aside from Zade? Was the second guard who died a traitor, too?”
She didn’t reply. Then I heard footsteps from the direction of the stairs. Cursing inwardly, I backed away from her cell, trusting the invisibility cantrip to keep me hidden from the guards. Two of them walked past, and I waited for them to disappear around a corner before making my way back upstairs. I glimpsed Dex hovering beside the back door as I approached and walked outside into the street.
“Dex,” I whispered. “Hey—Dex. Over here.”
“There you are,” he said. “This is worse than talking to a lich.”
“We aren’t all eight inches tall with the ability to fly through walls,” I pointed out.
“Most walls,” he said. “Not in that place. I tried.”
The House of Fire must be shielded against sprites, and presumably spirit mages as well. Despite the odds being against me, though, I’d managed to get my hands on some genuine proof of Zade’s treachery, but I knew better than to take said evidence to a certain guard. Especially if he turned out to be one of the Family’s insiders.
“What were you even doing in there?” Dex wanted to know.
“I got some evidence from the jailor’s office pointing to his involvement with the Family,” I murmured. “Not sure the House will believe me, though. I’m going to talk to the Spirit Agents.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for rogue earth mages, then,” he said.
Thankfully, nobody ambushed me on the way to the Spirit Agents’ base, earth mage or otherwise. After turning off the invisibility cantrip, I knocked on the door, and Miles answered a minute later.
“Hey,” I said to Miles. “I just dropped by the House of Fire.”
“And you didn’t invite me?” He sounded insulted.
“The Death King sent me to ask them some questions to find out whether or not they’re compromised, but they locked the place up,” I explained. “So I did some snooping instead.”
“And?” he said. “Are they compromised?”
“Not all of them,” I said. “But the jailor was. He was the one in contact with the enemy, and I think that’s why he was killed.”
“Tay was trying to stop him?” he said, drawing the same conclusion I had. “That’s why she wouldn’t admit to committing murder?”
“I don’t know, but it fits,” I said. “Problem is, she doesn’t care about the House itself. I can’t really blame her for that, really, but as long as she refuses to admit the truth…”
“Do you think the rest of the House will believe her?”
“No.” And therein lay the problem. “The records in the jailor’s office also said the Family was moved to another facility, not that they escaped. Which might well be bullshit.”
“Yeah, that sounds dodgy to me,” he said. “Find any cantrips?”
“No, but someone cleaned up the jailor’s office after his death.” I pulled out the letter. “This is all I found, which is proof Zade was in on the illegal cantrip business. Is it too much to hope that the rest of the Family is in another facility, like Adair?”
“Probably.” Miles took the letter from me and read it. “Yeah… it definitely sounds like he was involved with those cantrips. What’s the WO?”
“Haven’t a clue.” I took the letter back from him and slipped it into my pocket. “Not the Withered Oak, surely?”
“It’s the only mage hideout I know with those initials,” said Miles. “Not exactly a reputable place, either.”
“And it’s in Arcadia,” I added. “Same place as those reusable cantrips…”
“Exactly,” said Miles. “Might be worth checking out. If I were trading illegal cantrips, I’d pick a place like that where nobody asks questions.”
“The Family was never based in Arcadia, though.” The question of their true location rose to the forefront of my thoughts, as much a mystery as ever. Adair hadn’t given anything away, and even the files had been filled with lies. “They’ve always been near Elysium.”
“I never even heard of the Family before now,” he commented. “Not when they last walked free, anyway.”
“They’re secretive,” I said. “It was mostly the Houses they were a threat to, and the Houses don’t like letting everyone know their weaknesses. Anyway, until they recruited Shawn and his friends, they never showed an interest in spirit mages.”
“Lucky us,” he said dryly. “Also, nobody has mentioned the Family at their meetings in the citadel.”
“Whose meetings?” I frowned. “You don’t mean Shawn?”
“Hawker’s,” said Miles. “I’ve been snooping around spying on the liches, like I told you. Hawker’s trying to recruit my people again, like he did with Shawn.”
“Shit, Miles. You never said.”
“It’s not a big deal,” he said. “I already had a pretty good idea who might be the next to defect, so I’ve taken precautions.”
“But—that means some of the other Spirit Agents are working against you right now.” I glanced up at the ceiling, wary that someone might be listening in.
“Relax, nobody in this house is working against us,” he said. “We also worked out a scheme to give the wrong information to the enemy so they can’t keep track of our plans.”
“That’d be hard if the Houses start nosing around here again.”
And to think I’d been more worried that the Houses would arrest Miles and his friends for hiding the Family in their house. This was far worse.
“We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”
“Hey, I’m the fire mage here,” I said, earning a grin. “Unless I can somehow get my brother to talk, I can’t make any definite assumptions about where the Family is hiding and how many cantrips they have floating around with their signature on them. All I know is that the House’s official stance on the Family is that they’re in another facility. They won’t openly admit to their escape.”
Which was nothing new, really, but it put a wrench in my plans to convince them of the danger within their own ranks. Let alone convince them to help the Death King.
“It doesn’t sound like Adair has any intention of being cooperative.”
“Nah, I’m the nicer of the pair of us,” I said. “I hope I am, anyway. Granted, I’ve met vampire chickens with more charm than he has.”
“You aren’t wrong.” He gave me a dimpled smile which made my heart forget how to behave normally. I sternly told it to calm down. I knew better than to get distracted. He might be charming—and keener on spending time with me than any of the other Spirit Agents were—but that didn’t mean now was the time to develop an inconvenient crush.
After all, we had bigger problems. If the Houses were in denial about the true nature of what lay on the horizon, it was only a matter of time before what was left of their authority came crashing down around them.
The next couple of days passed without any new instructions from the Death King, nor any opportunity for me to update him on my failed espionage mission. The House of Fire’s headquarters remained locked and quiet, leaving me at a loose end, and the only noteworthy improvement was that Ryan had finally stopped giving me the cold shoulder. I suspected the Death King had spoken to them, or Dex. Either way, I had an official invitation to play video games with the Elemental Soldiers. Neddie the zombie horse still didn’t like me, but you couldn’t have it all.
I left of the castle on Thursday morning and walked straight through a lich. The shock of cold drew a yelp from me. “Ow. Damn, Harper.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, sounding more human than lich.
I rubbed my arms, where goosebumps had sprung up. “Harper, are you okay?”
“No,” she said. “I was spying on Hawker’s allies when two of them recognised me. They must have seen me back when I was working for… for Shawn and those rogues from the House of Fire.”
My heart gave a sickening swoop. “What? Where are they now?”
“They’re dead, don’t worry,” she added. “Liv killed them before they tailed us back here, but it freaked me out. I thought everyone who knew my brother and me was dead or in jail.”
So Liv was spying on Hawker, too. Interesting. “Glad you got out of there without being caught.”
“No more espionage for me,” she said. “Never again.”
“Did you learn anything useful?” I asked.
“Only that Hawker is working on seducing all the Death King’s liches onto his side,” she said. “Nothing new there, really. What about you? Learned anything from the House of Fire?”
“You might say that.” I drew in a breath. “Turns out there’s a strong possibility the jailor was the one who betrayed them.”
“Is that why he was killed?” said Harper.
“Possibly,” I said. “No idea if he was the only rogue or if there’s a whole bunch of them, but they locked the place up after the rogues from the House of Earth tried to blow the doors off. They also have no information on where the Family might be hiding. Did you hear anything when you spied on Hawker?”
“No,” she murmured. “I never saw the Family in person, even when I first got recruited by those rogues. Except…”
“Except for Adair.” I glanced in the direction of the jail and spotted Miles hovering nearby, having presumably astral projected in from the Spirit Agents’ base. When he saw me, he gave me a wave. “Miles might have an update for me. He’s been spying on Hawker, too.”
“I know,” said Harper. “I’m surprised he hasn’t been caught yet.”
“Better hope it stays that way.” I approached the spot where Miles floated above the ground. “What’s the occasion?”
“I came to update the Death King,” he said. “On our findings from Hawker’s meetings. Nothing too exciting.”
“Harper told me two people recognised her at the meeting,” I said. “She said Liv killed them.”
“I miss all the fun, apparently,” he said. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing whatsoever,” I said. “The Death King hasn’t asked me for an update. I think he likes you more than he likes me.”
“Nah, he’s just got enemies in a thousand places.”
“Speak for yourself.” I gave an eye-roll. “Have you been near the House of Fire in the last couple of days?”
“Not exactly,” he said
, “but I may have dropped by the Withered Oak earlier.”
“Oh?” I raised a brow. “Did you see any illegal cantrips being passed around?”
“Not openly,” he said. “I tried asking a few questions, but I hit a dead end. They’re still not fans of spirit mages over there.”
“That place has always seemed dodgy to me.” They had zero restrictions on who could stay there, only that they had to be mages. And it was the only place in Arcadia with known links to the Houses. “Want to go back there and try again?”
“Exactly my thinking,” he said. “I did find out they’re expecting a group of new arrivals in town today, which might be a sign they’re stepping up their game. If we get there first, we might be able to intercept them.”
I doubted it’d be that simple, but part of me was crying out to do something before the enemy struck us first. We stood directly in the path of a storm, and it was only a matter of time before it broke.
11
I already wore my armoured clothing, but I grabbed a sword from the weapons room before leaving the castle with Miles, figuring that now was the time to put my newfound authority to good use. Not that the Death King had actually given permission for me to go to the Withered Oak. In fact, I still had yet to tell him that my plans to spy on the House of Fire had gone up in smoke, or that the jailor had been the traitor all along, but it was his own fault for leaving me to my own devices.
Miles, meanwhile, astral projected back to the Spirit Agents’ hideout to get a couple of his friends to come and back us up, before meeting me at the node near the Death King’s castle.
“I’d offer to let you ride a zombie horse to storm the place,” I said to Miles, “but Neddie almost bit my finger off yesterday.”
“Neddie?” he said. “Who names a zombie horse Neddie?”
“I never thought to ask,” I responded. “All right, let’s do this.”
We crossed via the node into the centre of Arcadia. As Miles had promised, two spirit mages waited on the other side, joining us as we walked down the winding street towards the Withered Oak. The mages’ hangout was an unassuming building whose brick walls bore faint scorch marks which suggested at least one fire mage had got into a fight outside at some point or other. I squinted through the dusty window, figuring I’d rather identify any potential threats before barging in.
House of Fire (Parallel Magic Book 2) Page 11
