by Zile Elliven
“Personally, I find it tiresome getting my head lopped off,” Jack said with an air of boredom.
Adelle brought her fingers back together sharply, and it looked as though the back half of the truck had been buried by several tons of rock. “It’s worked for me so far.”
“That’s exactly the sort of thing people say before they get their heads lopped off.” Jack groused.
Ignoring them was really the only way Marshall had found to deal with them when they were in this mood. “Addy, when we get there, I want you to verify their numbers.” It would look less threatening to have Adelle do it—when she wasn’t talking, she looked like a nice young woman. Maybe it had something to do with his size, but even if no one knew him by reputation, when Marshall did magic, people had a tendency to get nervous.
Adelle nodded in compliance and relaxed her shoulders minutely. Giving Adelle something to focus on usually helped her calm down.
“Jack, do your best to get lost as soon as you can. If they’re hiding something, your job is to find it.” There was no one sneakier than Jack. If he didn’t want to be found, even Marshall couldn’t track him down.
“You got it, boss.”
The tree-lined road opened to reveal a towering stone mansion perched on the edge of a cliff. Once upon a time, Marshall might have found it impressive, but by the age of seven he had been regularly living out his wildest fantasies in the Dreamscape. The majesties of the Real paled in comparison to being able to ride a dragon through an exploding star.
Instead, he barely noticed the improbable topiaries blooming out of season and out of temperate zone. He pulled the truck to a stop at the circular drive and put on his guardian face—friendly with a heavy dose of impartial.
Marshall got out first, indicating to the nervous crowd gathered on the steps that he was in charge. Adelle and Jack exited at the same time and stayed a pace behind Marshall as the group closed around them. They were escorted inside the massive estate with pomp and circumstance mixed with equal parts hand-wringing. Marshall did his best to soothe the ruffled feathers of Emily, the woman sent to greet them.
“Of course you meant no offense. It’s perfectly natural to want to protect your sick family members. If I were you, I would have given the gatekeeper the same orders.” He waved away the drink one of the trailing servants was trying to offer him. He wasn’t going to make any promises to her though. For all he knew, her mistress was possessed by a demon, and he would need to kill her in front of the entire family. Breaking promises was something Marshall was strictly against. Never again.
“I just wouldn’t want you to think the Guard wasn’t welcome here. As soon as I told Ms. Stella about the mishap at the gate, she insisted I bring you to her at once.” Emily’s hands waved emphatically as she spoke, nearly knocking the drink tray out of a servant’s hands.
Marshall did his best to calm her down, but she peppered him with apologies the entire way to the infirmary. It could have been nothing more than an overeager servant trying to diffuse a social gaffe, or she could have been trying to distract the trio from something. He gave a pointed look at Jack.
“Excuse me, Emily, was it?” Jack put on his most charming smile. “Could you point me to the closest bathroom? It was a long car ride down here.”
“Of course, of course.” Emily waved one of the ubiquitous servants following behind them toward Jack and told her to show him the way.
Jack sauntered away, flirting wildly with the servants who trailed him. It would only be a matter of time before Jack had them all so turned around that none of them realized he no longer had an escort.
Marshall allowed himself a tiny smile at his friend’s antics before he set up a link between their three minds. It was important when separating to stay connected, so they could share their findings with one another and weigh in with observations. It was especially helpful now, considering how agitated Adelle was. It was always good to give her room to vent privately before she said something they would all regret later.
Their procession continued through the lavishly decorated mansion, and Emily continued with a litany of excuses and apologies punctuated with increasingly erratic and alarming hand motions. By the time they made it to the infirmary, Marshall was ready to put the servant to sleep himself just to keep from losing an eye.
He had been expecting a small room, but the infirmary took up an entire hall of the vast estate. Entering the room, the first thing he took in was the dazzling array of colors bathing the room. The wall-to-wall windows were lined with shelf after shelf, each filled with crystalline cases of every color imaginable. The overall effect was breathtaking even to Marshall’s eyes, though he doubted aesthetics were the first or even third reason for their existence in the room.
In a witch’s infirmary, crystal cases were a necessity. Many counter-curses and magical remedies had a long casting-time, so having such things already on hand was imperative. Once a spell was attached to an item, unless dreamcrafted, it became a charm that began to deteriorate immediately. Witches compensated for this by placing prespelled items in crystal cases. The crystal refracted the magic and kept it fresh. Each spell-type resonated differently, so a different crystal was necessary for each kind of magic. If the wrong spell went into the wrong case, the effects could be catastrophic.
Emily led them to a bed occupied by the woman from the cemetery scene. Marshall had only met Stella Blaike once, but it had been memorable enough. As the son of a praetor, he had been introduced to all the powerful family members of the Other and was familiar with the drama and politics such meetings incurred. When he’d met Stella several years ago, she had made him feel like an embarrassed teenager even though he was nearly a century her senior.
From the moment they had been introduced, she couldn’t seem to keep her hands to herself. Their society frowned on casual touching among all but the closest of companions, but Stella had kept touching his hair, adjusting his clothing, or grabbing his hand and attempting to drag him somewhere to meet someone.
Marshall had been forced to shield as hard as he could just to keep from spilling into her mind. At the time he had thought it was because she was a massive flirt, since it wasn’t unusual for him to receive excessive attention from social climbers. He had been known to get multiple propositions during such an event, ranging anywhere from mostly innocent to wildly outlandish. When he was a teen it had turned his head, but his father and Adelle managed to keep him from becoming a preening idiot with well-aimed lessons in humility. By that point, Marshall had been well-known for being shy and reserved. If Stella had known of his reputation, it was possible she had been doing it to force him to shield so he wouldn’t notice something she wanted to keep hidden.
The woman in the bed before him looked more disheveled, but no less beautiful, than when he had last seen her. The fight had clearly taken a lot out of her—her blood-orange magic was little more than a spark inside her chest. Her head was covered by a spelled bandage, which he could sense was healing and regrowing hair—a tricky combination. The healer for the Blaike family had to be a high-level charm-crafter, or the bandage would have simply disintegrated from holding such potent magic.
He could also see other bandages peeking out from the plush, red-velvet robe she had draped around her body. Damaged as she was, Stella still managed to look royal.
No sign of demon taint on her. Marshall informed Jack as Adelle could see it clearly for herself. It took no effort for a decent dreamwalker to see demon taint. Their wrongness was so clear you’d have to be distracted to miss even a trace amount of it. It had been overkill to send Jack after the officers Marshall had seen on the stairwell, but he liked to be thorough in such cases.
“Marshall, darling. So good to see you. I must apologize for not coming to greet you at the door. I must look dreadful.” She scrunched her immaculately made-up face into a pout.
Adelle snorted loudly behind him.
Ignoring her, he said, “That isn’t possible, Stella.�
�� He threw a warning poke with his mind at Adelle. “I appreciate you meeting with us under the circumstances. With your cooperation, we can clear this up quickly, and you can get back to your rest.”
Her soft brown eyes looked up at him, the picture of innocence. “Clear what up, Marshall?” She patted a spot on the bed beside her, her posture a clear invitation. “Sit down, dear, you’re making my neck hurt looking all the way up there. We don’t really need Big Sis here, do we?”
Not wanting to become her personal teddy bear again, he lowered himself into the chair next to her bed instead. “We know what happened in the cemetery, Stella, and we came here to hear your side of the story.”
Behind him, Adelle huffed her irritation. You could have strung it out a bit more than that, brother. She might have revealed something if we let her pretend long enough.
If I wait too long, she’ll begin planning our wedding. Gently, but firmly, he pushed his sister to the back of his mind.
“That was a family matter.” Stella’s eyes tightened slightly at the edges, but she kept her voice light. “Hardly something worth troubling the guardians over, especially Fire. I’m sure you all have something more important to do than to get involved in a domestic dispute.”
“When we have to clean up after your domestic dispute, it becomes our problem,” Adelle spat, stalking back and forth in front of the bed like a tigress. “Did you even check to see how many people you killed this morning?”
Stella looked wounded. “Of course I did! My representative is with the victims and their families right now making sure their every need is attended to. We’ve spared no expense to see to their comfort, poor things. It was a terrible tragedy.”
“Yes, it was, so why did it happen? Why did your family attack that girl? Who is she?”
“I guess you’ve found us out, so there is no point in trying to hide it anymore.”
Wait for it, Adelle sarcasm was ill-concealed.
Stella sighed and smiled sadly. “Sterling isn’t our matriarch’s only child, as we’d led everyone to believe. She also had a daughter, but we don’t talk about her. It hurts too much.” Stella allowed herself a delicate sniff before continuing. “Poor little Aeyliana, my sunshine girl. She was the prize of the family when she was a little girl. I’m afraid we spoiled her terribly.
“She was such a charming child and so very beautiful. When she came in to her magic, it was a blow to the whole family. It was wild and completely uncontrollable and I’m sad to say it drove her mad, but we loved her. So, instead of sending her away or having her destroyed, we kept her safe here, on the compound.”
Marshall was stunned into silence. Uncontrollable magic was rare, almost unheard of among the Other. In his one hundred and thirty-seven years of life, he’d heard of only one instance of a child being born with an uncontrollable gift. The poor creature hadn’t lasted long enough to be put down or locked away, instead the magic burned him until he was consumed.
He understood now why he’d never heard of the girl. In magical society, the custom was to keep children close to the clan until their magic presented itself. If Aeyliana had been gifted with uncontrollable magic, her family had the option of taking responsibility of the matter. He didn’t like the custom, but it was legal, if archaic.
Adelle’s fury was burning at the edges of his mind, and he knew he’d have to talk fast before she let it free to find its target. The problem was going to be not letting his temper get the better of him either. The image of a different little girl, scared and helpless, flitted through his mind. For a brief moment, his vision edged with red. He leaned on his training and searched for a focal point to bring him into the present. He rubbed his hand against his pants to feel the rough material against his skin to remind him where and when he was, but sad blue eyes kept bringing him into the past.
His power, blue and brilliant, began to build inside him, looking for an outlet, somewhere to focus its attention. Right now, his power was so close to the surface, if he even thought about an action or desire, it would act on it. If he didn’t get control soon this was going to go badly. Possibly worse than it had with Callum, and the Blaike family wasn’t likely to let a lapse of control go unanswered.
I’m here, man. What do you need? Jack’s star-flecked essence wrapped around him, giving him the stability he needed to regain control.
His power sank back down grudgingly, willing to go back to sleep for the time being. That was enough, thanks. Now he was back in guardian-mode and could make rational decisions again.
Unaware of how close she’d come to destruction, Stella continued her story. “Everything was fine for many years. We kept her from hurting anyone and provided her with every comfort imaginable. I assure you we did our duty to the Guard. No rules were broken.” Her last words came out in a rush.
It sounds like she’s more worried about what we think about them keeping the girl alive, than what we think about them locking her up. Adelle’s disgust was unmistakable.
Careful, Addy, Jack admonished.
His warning was unnecessary. With Jack’s calming influence, Marshall was firmly in control again and determined to see what could be done to fix this mess. “So what happened?” His voice was casual. If Stella thought he was on her side, he’d get further.
“The ungrateful brat just vanished on us! There was no warning, no reason as far as we could tell. One day her servant told us she wasn’t in her room anymore. Everyone in the entire compound has been on high alert about this for over a month. We’ve done everything we can to get her back, but you can see”—she patted her bandaged head gingerly—“she’s completely out of control. The last thing we wanted was to inconvenience the Guard, and we tried to fix this without you, but now that you are here, I have to admit we really could use your help.”
If she was hiding something, it was a smart ploy to act like their help was welcome rather than a hindrance. Guard law stated that no guardian could be denied entry to a clan’s estate, and all possible aid must be rendered. If any guardian felt like they were being blocked in carrying out their duty, they had free license to remove the obstacle in any manner they saw fit.
Emily, who had been fluttering behind them awkwardly, put in, “Not that we feel like you should clean up our messes. I’m sure you have far more important things to do than this.”
“Go drink some tea, Emily.” Stella said firmly. “Of course we respect your time, no one here can question that. This should be a simple matter for your team. Can you cut her off from the Source right here? Anything you need for the task is at your disposal.” Her brilliant smile was cold as ice.
Adelle’s fury burned at his back with an intensity that distracted him from his own. Marshall held out a hand to forestall his sister and said coldly, “That isn’t how we do things.” Cutting an uncontained Other off from the Source was a death sentence. If the girl couldn’t control her power, it would turn on her as soon as it lost its connection to the Source and burn her to ash in seconds.
If we had any doubt about this family before, here’s clear proof that something around here is rotten. Jack’s voice was uncharacteristically grave.
“You would get no trouble from it on our end. You have my word on that. As Emily said, you have more important things to do. Dealing with complaints is the last thing you need.”
“What about her companion? What would you have us do with him?” Adelle demanded.
Stella’s face went a shade whiter than usual, but she recovered herself quickly. “He’s just a norm caught in the crossfire. We can charm his memory ourselves. You won’t have to trouble yourselves with him.”
She was hoping we didn’t know about him. Jack’s voice was thoughtful. What’s the plan, boss?
Have you found anything useful? Marshall wanted as much information as he could get before acting. With the power he wielded, both politically and magically, he had to make sure he was doing the right thing before acting.
I found the room they were keeping the
girl in. It was nice, but she was kept away from everyone. With the amount of magic the place had wrapped around it, you could contain a magical nuke in there. She must have been packing something big.
If she was completely out of control, we would have been brought in on this long before now. I don’t think Stella is being honest with us. Let’s see what she’s hiding. Marshall allowed his thoughts to drift away. He slowed his breath, and then he looked at Stella using the innate talent every dreamwalker had—the ability to sense the raw creative power of the universe. Without trying, he could pick up superficial bits and pieces of the world around him, but if he wanted to know more he had to dig deeper.
Marshall saw nothing. He should have seen something on her—ambient magic collected around everyone, and even norms had trace amounts of it clinging to them. A magic user would be covered with it. Stella would have had to scour herself down to the core minutes before their arrival to remove all of it. Ambient magic was completely benign. The only reason for anyone to clean themselves so completely would be if they had something to hide.
Also, a complete magical cleanse was a better explaination for why her magic was so low—from the spells he’d seen her throw, she was too powerful for it to be wiped out this long after the fight.
She’s been wiped clean. Jack, meet me out front. I’m ordering a full turnout, right now.
Copy that.
He stood up and took a step back. “Aeyliana is now under the jurisdiction of Fire. Stella, you are to order your family to stop looking for her immediately.”
Stella twisted her lips into a pretty pout. “I think that’s a bit much, Marshall. You’ll need us to help find her.”
He ignored her and turned to Emily. “I want a full turnout of your family outside immediately.”
