by Claire Luana
Olivia was starting to agree, though Marina’s evaluation did seem a tad harsh. “Thom had been kidnapped. They were trying to rescue him.”
“My father’s been missing for two weeks. No one’s lifted a flaming finger to find him,” Marina snapped. “I asked Callidus to find out if the Apricans were holding him, but all I got was a non-committal ‘I’ll try.’” Marina said the last words with vicious mockery. “It’s like if you’re not in their special circle, they can’t be bothered to care.”
Olivia pursed her lips, wishing Marina’s words didn’t strike so close to home. Wren and Thom were supposed to be her friends, but lately they’d felt like strangers to her. She didn’t even understand what had happened with Hale, not to mention poor Sable. It was like she’d woken one day and her home had been turned upside down, filled instead with murderers and mysteries and tragedy.
“They’ll find your father,” Lennon soothed Marina. “I’m sure Callidus is doing everything he can. It’s probably just a misunderstanding.”
“Absolutely,” Olivia murmured in agreement. Lennon met Olivia’s eyes, and she saw doubt there that mirrored her own. Before the city fell, Marina’s father Beckett had thrown his lot in with King Imbris. And supporters of the late King Imbris...weren’t faring well under the new regime.
Suddenly, Olivia needed to be gone from this place. She had troubles of her own without taking on Marina’s. “If you see Callidus, will you tell him I’m looking for him?”
“Will do.” Lennon nodded at her.
Olivia hurried into the hallway, turning on a whim into the conservatory. Its humid warmth washed over her, thawing the sudden chill that had just come upon her. Olivia took a steadying breath. This Guildhall had always been her home, but lately, it felt like foreign territory. The whole city felt strange and new. Dangerous. She’d thought she had friends, allies, but those seemed to have disappeared too. Wren was like a ghost, a phantom version of herself lost in her own private sorrows. Olivia sighed. Alone or not, Olivia needed to find her footing in this new world—and fast. Or she had a sinking feeling she’d end up like poor Guildmaster Beckett. Vanished without a trace.
Silence hung between Wren, Thom, and Callidus as the carriage shuddered to motion and pulled them back towards the thick of the city.
“What happened in your meetings?” Thom finally said, breaking the silence like an egg into custard. “Did you...drink anything?” Thom asked.
“Ice wine,” Callidus said. “Nasty stuff. I refused and was gently told that refusing was not an option.”
Wren pursed her lips. No need to share that she had fallen for it. “They wanted to know about the other Gifted,” Wren said. “And about Lucas and Trick.”
“Same,” Thom said. “And they want us to cooperate with the Aprican confectioners and share knowledge. Teach them our Gifts.”
“Gifting can’t be taught. They’ll learn soon enough,” Wren said. “Maybe they think they have more of us...with raw talent. It couldn’t be all bad to have more Gifted around, could it?”
“Yes, what could be better than an army of magicians loyal to Aprica?” Callidus said.
Wren glowered.
“Do you think it’s true, what Beatrix said? They’re following us?” Thom asked. “Keeping tabs? It means...we can’t leave, doesn’t it?”
Wren tipped her head back against the interior of the carriage. “It’s not like we have anywhere to go.”
“Somewhere out there is safe from the Apricans,” said Thom. “Lucas and Trick...”
“There’s nowhere safe from the Apricans,” Callidus murmured. “Not now.”
“You two are just rays of blooming sunshine, aren’t you?” Thom banged his fist on his knee. “If you don’t think we should run, what do you think we should do?”
Wren lifted her head in surprise. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Thom angry.
Callidus looked at them both, his dark eyes penetrating. “Isn’t it obvious? There’s only one thing to do.”
Wren tended to agree. Keep their heads down. Stay alive. Hope the Apricans grew sick of the rain and headed home to bluer skies.
“What?” Thom asked.
Callidus’s voice was as hard as steel. “We overthrow this king too.”
Wren tipped forward, burying her head in her hands with a strangled laugh. Not this—not again. She had toyed with politics once, had treated it like a game. And look what had happened. Sable had ended up dead. Hale was an enemy. She had betrayed Lucas in her desperation—the Apricans had used the very key Lucas had given her to take Maradis, and all of Alesia. In winning, they had lost. “No,” she said, the word muffled in her hands.
“No?” Callidus scoffed. “You were always the one leading the charge! I need you in this, Wren.”
She looked up. “No. No. Just...no. I can’t believe I’m the one having to be the voice of reason. I’m out.”
“You’re going to let them have everything? The city? The wells? The Gifted? Your infused chocolates? Your life? Because what, you’re...tired?” Callidus said.
“Not because I’m tired. Because I’m weary to the marrow of my bones,” Wren said. How to explain? “And I’m heartbroken. My boyfriend is in exile. My friends are dead. And...I don’t want to end up like them.”
Callidus shook his head. “We started something, Wren. We and the other Guilds. We can’t leave things worse than they were when we started. We have to finish it.”
“You can worry about your legacy as guildmaster. I’ll worry about—”
“Yourself,” Callidus retorted.
Wren wanted to grab him by the lapels of his black jacket and shake him. “We’re just people, Callidus. I thought wanting to make something better was enough. But...it’s too big. This is the might of the Aprican army. We’re just...people.”
Callidus shook his head, his gaze fixed out the window. “Anything that ever changed was done by just a person. I suppose—”
But Callidus’s words were ripped from the air as a deafening boom rocked the carriage.
Wren’s hand shot out against the carriage wall to steady herself, but it was futile. Another wracking boom sounded, the noise rumbling through her like an earthquake.
Then tipping...tumbling...and the world turned sideways.
Chapter 6
It was hard to make sense of this tumbled, smoky world. Wren blinked and tried to focus through the ringing in her ears and the pounding in her head. She’d landed in a tumble of gangly arms and legs between Thom and Callidus. She wasn’t sure where one of them left off and the other began.
“What was that?” Wren gasped.
“The carriage tipped.” Thom groaned, pushing off the side of the carriage, which currently served as the floor.
“Watch the glass from the window,” Callidus said, uncoiling himself to come to a halfway-seated position. He reached out and picked a large shard of glass from Wren’s auburn curls, tossing it into the corner.
Another boom sounded outside and a rush of heat swept past them, palpable enough to touch. Curls of gray smoke were beginning to creep through the seams of the carriage door in grasping greedy tendrils.
“Something’s burning,” Thom said, getting to his feet. Thom was tall enough to reach the handle of the carriage door above them. He wiggled it. “It’s stuck.”
With those words, the carriage seemed to shrink several sizes around them. “What?” Wren barely recognized her own high-pitched voice. The window above them was leaded glass, and though the glass had shaken free in the explosion, it was still crossed with diamonds of metal. They wouldn’t be able to climb out if the door wouldn’t open. She coughed. Smoke was filling the narrow space of the carriage with sickly pallor. Another pop outside made Wren jump, shying against Callidus.
Callidus stood and then reached down and helped Wren to her feet. His ridiculous coiffed hair was hanging low over his forehead, no longer defying gravity in its normal fashion. His pale face was grave.
“Can you jostle i
t free?” Callidus asked.
Thom banged on the door with his fist—once, twice, three times. It didn’t budge.
Wren felt herself tilt, her vision blur. Despite the heat of whatever was going on outside, baking the side of the carriage, a cold chill washed over her, beading pinpricks of sweat on her brow.
“Don’t leave us, Wren,” Callidus said, grasping her elbows as she started to teeter over. “We’re going to get out of here.” He coughed, putting his arm over his mouth. “Sit down, stay low.” He helped her to the ground, gently lowering her onto the shards of littered glass.
Thom continued to bang on the door above them, jumping, trying to hit it with his shoulder, anything. “It’s not opening.” He coughed into his elbow, looking around. “Can we get through the roof?”
“Carriages have a wooden frame.” Callidus shook his head. “Maybe with an axe.”
“Anyone have an axe?” Thom asked weakly.
“Any other ideas?” Callidus looked from Thom to Wren. Down below the smoke, her vision had cleared. She had an idea, sort of. She took a deep breath and screamed, “Help!”
Thom and Callidus joined her in a chorus of shouting and banging. Their flurry of activity fell silent as the first licks of flame undulated through a seam on the carriage’s floor. Thom and Callidus shied away, backing up against the far wall with her.
“Anyone have any chocolate?” Thom asked weakly.
“We’ll need more than lucky chocolate to get us out of here,” Wren croaked. Her eyes burned, tears leaking from the corners.
“I just thought it would be nice to be eating chocolate when I died.”
“That would be nice.” Wren closed her eyes, trying to bring to mind the flavors of cacao and milk, rather than the bitter taste of ash and smoke.
The carriage rocked around them, and they all cried out. “What’s happening?” Wren asked.
The door above them wrenched open, literally ripped off its hinges, exposing a hellscape of flame and smoke. And haloed by it all was a golden-haired man in an Aprican uniform. He reached down a hand. “Come on!”
“You first, Wren,” Callidus cried, pushing her to her feet. She locked wrists with their rescuer and he lifted her out through the carriage door as easily as if she were a sack of flour. He deposited her on the side of the overturned carriage before bending back down for Thom and Callidus.
Wren’s mouth fell open as she surveyed the scene. The entire city block behind them was awash in flames—buildings crumbling and debris littering the street. Oily black clouds chugged skyward—the drizzle of the gray Maradis day doing little to quench the inferno. Callidus was clambering out of the carriage now with the help of the Aprican, and Wren unsteadily made her way down from the carriage, cringing at the body of the horse that had been pulling them, a large chunk of wood protruding from its side, blood watering the cobblestone streets. She looked around for their driver and found him tossed across the street, groaning and stirring. She breathed out. At least the man was alive.
Thom was out of the carriage now and the three men were climbing down.
“Get back.” The Aprican man pointed across the street, ushering them farther from the growing flames. They turned and watched the billowing flames from the other side of the street as their Aprican savior went to check on the driver. Two other carriages had been caught in the explosion; one was completely enveloped in flame and the other appeared empty, its horse cut from its harness. Cedar Guards and Aprican soldiers were running from down the street to put out the blaze.
“What in the Beekeeper’s name was this?” Callidus breathed, his fingers laced through his hair.
“This is man’s doing,” the Aprican returned, surveying the scene. “Rebel scum don’t care if innocents are killed.” He spit on the ground.
Wren studied him. He was tall and broad like most Apricans, but with darker, dirty-blond hair cut strangely, longer on the top, with the sides cropped short, a tidy beard covering his round jaw. A faint scar shadowed one fine cheekbone. He met her gaze boldly, and she didn’t look away. His eyes were the deep brown of raw cacao, rather than the crystalline blue of most Apricans.
“Rebels did this?” Callidus asked. “Why?”
“Half the flour stores in Maradis were in that warehouse,” the man said.
“How do you know? This is the Guild Quarter. Why would there be grain stores here?”
“Because we just moved them here two days ago. To keep them safe from rebel attack.”
Guess that didn’t work, Wren thought.
“Who are these rebels? Why would they want the city to go hungry?” Thom asked. His face was streaked with soot, and ash was raining down softly, landing in the curls of his hair.
“They call themselves the Falconers. We’ve just started hearing whispers of the name, seeing pairs of wings scrawled on walls. Hungry leads to angry. And angry makes it easier to recruit to their cause.”
“Swarms,” Callidus said, seeming to deflate.
The Falconers. The Falcon was the royal crest of Clan Imbris, the clan of the late king. It seemed these rebels weren’t taking the death of their monarch sitting down.
“You three inhaled a lot of smoke. Do you need a doctor? I can call another carriage to take you to the hospital.”
“No more carriages,” Wren burst out.
The man inclined his head, his hand resting on the sunburst on the pommel of his sword.
“The Guildhall is only a five-minute walk from here,” Thom said. “We can make it.”
“I’m happy to walk with you,” the soldier said as they slowly turned from the mesmerizing scene of flame and smoke.
“A kind offer, but we can make it from here. I’m sure you must have more pressing business.” Callidus’s smile was tightlipped.
“Actually, I don’t,” the man said, sauntering between Thom and Callidus. It seemed this man wasn’t taking no for an answer. Strange.
“Very well. I’m Guildmaster Callidus.”
“I know who you are, Guildmaster. I’m Lieutenant Dashiell Cardas. You can call me ‘Dash.’” The two men shook hands.
“Thom Percival.” Thom waved.
Wren said nothing, her smoke-addled mind slowly working on something. How did a random Aprican lieutenant know who Callidus was? And where the grain was? And how was he in the right place to save them...? And why was he so eager to walk them home...?
“That’s Wren,” Callidus said. “Not sure what’s gotten her tongue.”
“You three went through quite a scare,” Dash said. “It’s not surprising the lady needs a moment to gather herself.”
“I don’t need to gather myself,” Wren snapped, though in truth, she likely did. She had figured it out. “You’re our tail, aren’t you? You were right there, ready to save us—because you were assigned to us.”
Dash grinned, flashing a row of small, white teeth. “I don’t see any reason to hide it. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together over the next few months. Might as well get to know each other. I know I’d rather be having a drink with you lot than skulking in the shadows all winter long.”
“We’re free Alesian citizens. We don’t need a watchdog. Or a babysitter,” Callidus said.
“Seems like it came in handy today, didn’t it?” Dash pointed out, pulling a toothpick from his pocket and sticking it in his mouth.
Callidus didn’t have a response to that.
“Change is always hard, but it won’t be so bad, you wait. Everyone thought the sky was falling when the Apricans marched on Tarrasia, but it ended up being the best thing that could have happened to us.”
“You’re Tamrosi?” Thom asked.
“Born and bred,” Dash said proudly. That explained the brown eyes and darker coloring.
“But you work for the Apricans,” Wren said. “You’re a traitor to your people.”
“Ain’t traitorous to secure a good job to provide for your family. I’m not the one blowing up buildings,” he pointed out.
Dash whistled as they turned from the cobblestones of Guilder’s Row to summit the marble steps of the Confectioner’s Guildhouse. “You Alesians sure like your sweets.”
“You have no idea,” Thom muttered.
Callidus paused, pulling himself up to his full height. He looked ridiculous, soot staining his narrow features, smeared by the mist like running mascara. “We owe you a debt of gratitude for saving us today. And if you’ve been assigned to us, the least we can do is make you comfortable. I will see that our Guildmistress finds you adequate chambers.”
“Callidus!” Wren hissed.
He held up a hand and she glowered at it. Giving this soldier rooms in the Guildhall? Why not invite the emperor to a dinner party?
“That will be more than adequate,” Dash said gallantly. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
They walked up the stairs and into the antechamber of the Guildhall. Wren relaxed as the warmth from the building washed over her. A bath. She wanted a bath very badly.
“Who is this Guildmistress I should be seeking?” Dash asked.
“Ah, here she is now,” Callidus said.
Olivia had just emerged from the far hallway and was striding their way with purpose. She pulled up short when she saw them, taking in their soot-stained clothes and faces. “What happened to you?” And then she took in Lieutenant Cardas, and her blue eyes widened, her pink lips forming a little O. Wren supposed Dash was quite handsome, if you set aside the fact that he was a professional stalker hired by the emperor.
“We had a bit of an afternoon,” Callidus said with dripping sarcasm.
“Who...?” Olivia trailed off, still riveted by the Aprican soldier.
“Lieutenant Dashiell Cardas,” he said, taking her hand and bowing low over it, gracing her knuckles with a kiss.
Wren rolled her eyes.
“He’ll be staying here. Find him a chamber please, etcetera,” Callidus said, heading up the stairs.
