by Rabia Gale
Arabella was getting further and further away from him. “Winter, let go!” he ground out through clenched teeth.
The man himself stood at the edge of the courtyard, his arms raised in arcane gestures. His usually impeccable clothes were rumpled. Sweat sheened his face as Trey strained his spell to a breaking point.
There. The Shadow Lands were right there, within reach. Binding runes tightened around Trey, and Sorrow flared in response. They melted into quicksilver droplets, dissolving into the night.
Trey slashed a rip in the air, creating an opening. The Shadow Lands glimmered beyond it.
He could sense Arabella’s presence as a fast-fading trail of blue. He was almost there.
Sorrow misted, her light dying. The edges of the portal turned to sludge. The rip inched shut, bit by bit. More chains weighed him down, bindings dragged him away.
A rough-edged baritone rose up in a half-song, half-chant. The others were here. Trey recognized their magic before he even made out their forms. Morgan, Lee, even Sutton. All of them holding him back.
They couldn’t keep him indefinitely, but they didn’t have to.
Arabella was gone. That gleaming trail through the Shadow Lands disappeared.
A ghost like her, with no hunger or rage, would leave little trace.
Trey pushed back against the spellwork holding him. Winter’s chains slipped off as August dropped his arms tiredly. Morgan staggered and Sutton fell onto his rump.
Free at last, Trey stalked up to Winter, Sorrow whole and solid in his hand. “What the hell did you do that for?” he snarled.
Winter looked at him, face pinched and grey, a tightness Trey could not decipher around his mouth. “What am I to say to your father,” he said with awful gentleness, “if he lost you to the Shadow Lands, too?”
Chapter Eleven
Trey propped up a wall in Winter’s office, staring at Atwater through narrowed eyes. The politician, looking shrunken and tired, sagged in a chair and ran his hands through his thick mane.
“So, yes, I was at that pawnshop. I admit that—and I also lied to St. Ash about it. Truth is, my election campaign is costing me money I don’t have. So I’ve been pawning some of my personal effects.”
Winter stood, leaning his hands on his desk. In front of him was a statement from Atwater’s clerk confirming that the politician had slipped out between meetings Wednesday evening. Sutton had divined the whereabouts of the hackney driver that had taken Atwater to the Fleet—not hard to do considering the man was in the hospice, reeking of phantasmia, magic of the Shadow Lands far more inimical to mortal life than the aether Trey used in Vaeland. The driver remembered taking up a gentleman, but nothing much after that. He had been found in the wreckage of his own carriage in a field outside Lumen, his horse screaming in pain, leg broken.
Lee reported that the wreckage was riddled with phantasmia and rotting quickly. The horse, crazed and sprouting horns and drooling poison, had to be put down.
Trey was sure this was the carriage that had run Arabella Trent down in the street on her way home Wednesday night. That Atwater was also connected to it was no coincidence.
Arabella. His hand clenched. It had been four hours since her disappearance. The Phantasm Bureau had been busy in that time, but it wasn’t enough.
It was almost Saturday.
Winter levelled a penetrating look at Atwater. “Why in the Fleet, though? There are more respectable money lenders elsewhere.”
“Because, August,” said Atwater, with a hint of acerbity in his voice, “I was embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to know I was purse-pinched. I went to the Fleet, so no one would recognize me.” He gave a short bark of laughter, entirely without humor. “It didn’t work.”
“And why that pawnshop?” August persisted.
Atwater shrugged impatiently, as if twitching off an annoying fly. “Because it was deep in the Fleet and looked as if it would be able to preserve my anonymity.”
“You mean it looked secretive and shady.” Trey spoke for the first time.
Atwater turned his head. The two exchanged looks, Atwater angry, nostrils flared; Trey cold and hard.
Atwater dropped his stare first. “Yes, I suspected some petty criminal activity was going on. After all, it’s the Fleet. But it’s been tolerated for as long as Lumen has existed. How was I supposed to know Gibbs dealt in contraband from his back room? He didn’t offer me a jar of kraken’s blood in exchange for my pocket watch!”
“Saints, Reginald!” Winter shook his head. “If you were having trouble, you should’ve come to your friends first.”
“Friends, August?” Atwater’s smile was bitter. Now that he’d dropped his affable mask, the lines of disappointment and cynicism etched into his face were clear. “A man like me doesn’t have friends. Only sycophants wanting to either pull me down or use me as a stepping stool for their own careers.”
“Then you’ve been in politics too long.” Winter’s narrow face was pale and stony. “Perhaps it’s better for you to get out before it destroys you.”
Atwater lifted his shoulders. “I say the same every election. Yet here I am.” He spread his hands.
“Let this be the last time, then. In four years, we’ll go on a hunting trip to Elkshire. What do you say?”
Atwater laughed again, more sad than bitter this time. “Aye,” he agreed and rose to his feet. “I’m telling you the truth, August,” he went on earnestly. “I had no idea what the pawnbroker did alongside his lawful business. I saw no ghouls, no demons, no elementals in amongst all the rest of his rubbish.”
Winter inclined his head.
“Am I free to go?” Atwater made a questioning gesture.
“I have no further questions,” said Winter. “I only ask that you make yourself available if there are other developments.”
“I will,” promised Atwater. “In exchange, can I trust you’ll keep my private affairs to yourself?” He half-turned, including the silent Trey.
“Of course.” Winter’s voice was weary. Trey gave a sharp, downward jerk of his chin.
Right now, Arabella was his chief concern.
They waited in silence as Atwater left the room. They heard his footsteps, the scuffle of boots as Sutton and Morgan got to their feet, the mutter of voices, the distant slam of the outer door.
Trey turned to Winter.
“Before you say anything,” said Winter, “the truth spell did not react during this conversation.” He lifted his hand and showed Trey a lattice of silver runes, more complex than anything Trey could create.
“I see.” Surprise rippled through Trey. He hadn’t expected Winter to do much beyond taking Atwater at his word.
“Of course,” Winter mused, staring at the door, “truth spells are known to be notoriously unreliable. But they are not entirely useless. For instance, a well-done truth spell will flicker and change as its subject talks, depending on the rise and fall of his emotions. Did you know that?”
“I confess I haven’t studied truth spells in depth, sir. What did yours tell you?”
“My spell did not change at all. Not when Atwater spoke of his embarrassment, not when he showed the weary bitterness behind his mask. He was more honest with me in the last hour than he has in months, and the truth spell did not change.”
Trey straightened. “What does that mean?
Winter transferred his gaze from the door to Trey’s face. “It means,” he said with black humor, “that either I don’t deserve the title of Runemaster or that someone put a spell on Atwater to foil any attempts to get intelligence from him.”
“You sensed this?” Trey frowned.
“No, but spells that affect the mind can be buried so deep, it would need an entire circle of magicians to ferret them out. Atwater knows more than he’s telling, but I cannot force it out of him with the tools currently at my disposal.”
“I had not guessed that you were so suspicious, sir.” A newfound respect for the man stirred inside Trey. So Winter was
more than the usual hidebound aristocrat convinced that there were boundaries no one of his class would dare violate.
“I wasn’t chosen to head this Bureau solely on my good looks, Shield.”
“Right now, Miss Trent is our only source,” pressed Trey. “I’m certain she remembered something important. The Duchess sensed there’s something bigger going on and Arabella spoke of miasma. We can’t overlook that.”
“Miasma is troubling.” Winter sat down and pulled a sheet of paper towards him.
Troubling was an understatement.
Miasma was noxious stuff from the Shadow Lands. It could corrode iron, smother elementals, burn flesh. It could reach inside of you, twist your memories, give you nightmares, poison your very soul.
During the Great Incursion, the vanguard of the Demon Lord Astrofael had been armed with weapons of miasma. They had used them to invade the dreams of thousands of people and turn hundreds to their own ends.
Now there were even fewer phantasmists to deal with another incursion from the Shadow Lands. And if they had smuggled miasma into Vaeland…
“I’m going after Arabella,” said Trey abruptly. “She’s the only one who knows.”
“Agreed,” said Winter, sketching with a pencil. “It’s unfortunate that you hid the girl’s presence, but we can discuss that later.”
“What?” Trey had expected more resistance.
“You’re going into the Shadow Lands to track her.” Winter put down his pencil, turned the paper around, and slid it across his desk. Trey leaned over the sketched spell. “But with proper precautions.”
Trey perused the page. “It’ll be easier if I don’t leave my body behind.”
“And more dangerous. We need to be able to bring you back if things go wrong. Trey,” said Winter as he opened his mouth to argue, using his given name for the first time, “you’re the only Border Walker we have. Even if miasma is involved—and we don’t know for certain that it is, despite what Miss Trent said—I’m not taking undue risks. Understood?”
Winter was not going to budge, Trey saw. He gave a curt nod. “Understood, sir.”
Arabella remembered.
She remembered hurrying across the street in the deepening twilight, stumbling in her haste. She remembered thinking how quickly the gloom had fallen over the Fleet, huddled in the shadow of All Saints’.
She remembered being uncertain, afraid, half-wishing she had never set out on this mad scheme to save Harry from the clutches of his creditors—or worse, a scolding from his father.
She knew, none better, how a guardian’s displeasure could hurt.
Arabella clung to the door handle of the pawnshop as if it were a life line. She barely noticed the stuffed crocodile head in the grimy window as she eased open the door. Its single bell shivered but didn’t ring out, so timid and quiet was her entrance.
Arabella edged into the shop, eyes wide. A deeper gloom shrouded the place, this one old and musty and comprised of shadows accumulated over the years. It was a treasure cave and a pirate’s hoard all at once—that is, if kings and pirates collected boxes of shoes, sticks of furniture, cross china cats, and tarnished trinkets.
There was no one behind the counter, but voices emanated from a back room. Arabella called out, “Hello?”, but her mouth was so dry, her attitude so hesitant, it didn’t come out above a breath.
The murmured conversation came to her in ebbs and flows, in sentence fragments and half-heard words. One voice was nasal and high-pitched, with a whine in it that ran like fingernails down Arabella’s nerves. The other…
The other she couldn’t recall at all.
But the nasal voice went on and on, seeming to rise in agitation. Arabella heard, “… miasma… dangerous… compressed into globes… at the Viewing…”
The other voice soothed. At least, that’s what Arabella thought even though she could neither remember its sound or the words it spoke. The nasal voice lowered as if placated.
Arabella shifted in discomfort, not liking being an inadvertent eavesdropper, not liking the tenor of the conversation. Lord Atwater or no, she wanted to be out of here. She backed towards the door.
Just as the curtain partitioning the back room from the shop rippled, as if being drawn back.
Arabella seized the handle, opened the door, and then shut it with a slam. The bell jangled as the curtain was whipped aside.
She stood there, looking around, as if she’d just come in.
The man who’d drawn the curtain back was thin and stooped, with stringy hair and narrow eyes. Alarm, surprise, and displeasure flickered across his face in quick succession, then vanished. An oily smile stretched his lips and a hard, speculative gleam came into his eyes.
Arabella disliked him at once, but she fixed a smile on her face and hoped it didn’t look too forced.
“Well, well, young lady,” said the man. He clasped his hands together in what he probably thought was a genial manner. “What can I help you with?”
This was the owner of the nasal whine. Arabella went forward, though it was a wrench to leave her station by the exit and walk further into the pawnbroker’s lair. “Are you Mr. Gibbs?” she asked, referencing the name on the sign and cocking her head in a manner she knew was charming. “I have a small financial problem I hope you can assist me with?”
Another person stepped out from behind Gibbs. Arabella said, in feigned surprise, “Oh, are you busy?” She retreated a step, closer to the door again.
“No, no,” said Gibbs. “My visitor was just leaving.”
The visitor was—and here Arabella experienced another mystifying blank in her memory. She couldn’t recollect anything about this person. Man or woman, young or old, thin or plump, dark-haired or blonde or bald or grey: nothing. The person moved across the room, heading for the door. Arabella edged out of the way, or tried to. Somehow, in the maze of narrow paths that wound through tottering piles, she bumped into the other instead.
“I’m so sorry!” Her own exclamation rang in her ears. “I beg your pardon!”
Another blank.
“Oh, but I have people waiting for me outside.” The lie was so patently false, Arabella was sure it was written all over her face.
Another moment of nothingness, of words forgotten from a face now removed from her memory.
“Thank you for your concern,” she said again, holding out her hand. She received something from the mysterious person; she remembered the feel of it brushing across her fingers. There was a confusing tangle of bright lights and a feeling of dizziness, of the room distorting out of focus, wavering, then snapping back into detail and color.
Arabella was in a pawnshop, the owner smirking at her from behind the counter, saying something obsequious that she couldn’t quite make out until her ears popped.
There were only the two of them in the shop. There always had been from the moment she entered, the door handle slipping out of her grasp with a bang, the bell clanging in a tinny cacophony.
Arabella came to herself in a place so dark, it seemed like light had never touched it. She felt nothing around her, not solid ground under her feet nor a breath of air nor a shake of sound. Nothing to tell her if she was in a cellar or a music room or underwater or anything.
She could’ve been suspended over the maw of a kraken and never known it.
Arabella’s breath hitched. Her limbs thrashed, involuntarily, her aethereal body trying to find a way out of this darkness.
Bands snapped around her, searing her substance. Arabella may have screamed, but she couldn’t hear it above the sizzle and buzz of the runes. She was clenched into a ball of pain and she… couldn’t… breathe.
She struggled and the bands tightened even more. It wasn’t just the pain, it was the feeling of being held down, straitjacketed, bound. The feeling of being helpless while waiting for others to do things to you. Of not being able to run or fight or resist.
Stay calm! she told herself. Panicking only makes things worse.
She forced herself to hold still. Forced herself to take deep breaths, even though she was a ghost and didn’t need to. Forced herself to clear her mind. Forced herself to be as uncaring as air, as malleable as water, as solid as the earth.
The old tricks still worked. The fluttering feeling inside her, that of a wild bird beating against the bars of its cage, subsided. One by one, the bands loosened and slipped off. The agony of their searing became an ache, then a memory.
Cautiously, Arabella extended senses she had never wanted to use again. There was magic around her, and if she wanted to get out, she needed to use what little power, what meager experience she had.
She hung in a cylinder narrower than her arm span. The pentagram was small, much smaller than the one Trey had used. At least he’d given her space to walk in, and light, and his wards hadn’t hurt as much. Almost she missed it.
This pentagram, however, did not bode well for the intentions of the person who’d yanked her out of Merrimack’s and trapped her here.
She had no idea how much time had passed since she’d felt those painful hooks dragging her away from Trey. She remembered him springing for her, remembered telling him what she had dredged from her memory.
Her fingertips tingled where their hands had touched.
He was a Border Walker, a phantasmist, the Shade Hunter. He’d be able to track her. Wouldn’t he?
She just needed to be patient and not give in to panic.
And then she heard it.
A sound brushed the edge of her hearing, half-rasp, half-moan.
Prickles ran all over Arabella.
There was something prowling outside the pentagram. And it wasn’t at all friendly. A smell came to her—the chill of ice, the tang of blood, and the sweetish reek of death. The combination made her sick; she’d have retched if she weren’t a ghost who’d had nothing to eat in days.
Whatever was out there touched the wards. They hissed in a fountain of painful sparks. Arabella hugged herself, trying to make herself smaller, afraid to set them off again.
A voice, like the scrape of manacles against each other, said, “What a pretty morsel we caught. An uncorrupted spirit, fluttering, fluttering. Come here, pretty butterfly.”
