"Superfund site?" asked Pi. "What are we doing here?"
Something clanged nearby, metal on metal. A couple of black birds took flight.
"Looks like we have guests. I'll explain when we get there. Can you?" she asked, gesturing towards the chain and padlock.
Pi's spell made quick work of the barrier. The boarded fence swung open. Aurie slipped in, and upon finding that Pi had not followed, had to go back out. Her sister was wandering away with a dazed look on her face.
"Pythia," said Aurie sharply. "Come here."
"What? Why aren't we leaving?" asked Pi, perplexed.
Aurie grabbed her sister's arm and dragged her towards the open gate. Through the skeletal buildings on the far side of the block, she saw people headed their way. "Come on."
Pi resisted her effort, but not enough that Aurie couldn't maneuver her through the gate. Inside the fence, the buildings were worse than outside. Old rusted barrels leaked bright green fluid onto the street. Radioactive signs with yellow hazard symbols were placed everywhere. Aurie's skin felt warm despite the cloudy, cool day.
Her sister clutched at her jacket, frantic, looking back the way they'd come as if it were her lifeline. "We shouldn't be here. It's not safe."
Aurie felt it too. There was a pressure on her, forcing her out, but she was determined to go forward. She squeezed her sister's arm, dragging her ahead, keeping a firm grip on the smooth stone. Aurie imagined that if she had a Geiger counter, it would be pegged into the red. Walking past the florescent green liquid gave Aurie the creeps even though she didn't think it was real. If she was wrong, then she'd probably doomed them to death from radiation poisoning.
About a hundred yards from the entrance, the pressure relented, almost as if it'd popped, and Aurie stumbled forward.
"Wait," Pi said, suddenly looking behind them. "What just happened? How did I get here?"
Aurie experimented with the stone, putting it back in her pocket to see if the enchantment on the area erased her memories, but she didn't lose her thoughts.
"We're past its defenses," said Aurie. "I can explain now."
"Explain what?" asked Pi. "I'm so confused."
"We're here for the Engine of Temporal Manipulation. I think we can fix Semyon with it."
"Here? In this radioactive junkyard?"
"I'm pretty sure it's an illusion, a really powerful one. Plus there's another enchantment that makes you forget this area, and also another that compels you to leave. It's taken me months to find it and figure out how to get here, especially without magic." When she saw her sister's look, Aurie pulled out the stone. "It's a memory stone, allows you to remember something you don't want to forget. It's really simple, but it worked."
"What about the illusions and the enchantment to make us want to leave? If it'd been me alone, I would have never come here."
"The thing that's going on with Semyon, making us a little allergic to magic? Well, that helped me resist. Since you can use your magic, it affected you strongly. Basically it keeps anyone with magic out, who would be the only people who could see through the illusion in the first place. A neat trick if you ask me."
"And I clearly did not," said Pi, grinning.
About twenty yards after the place the compulsion left them, the illusion faded away, leaving Aurie breathless.
"Merlin's tits," said Pi.
Aurie shivered with excitement. An autumnal forest, brilliant with vibrant oranges, fiery reds, and glowing yellows greeted them. The spaces between the trees let shafts of sunlight trickle through, illuminating motes floating through the fresh air. It was a cathedral to nature, making Aurie wonder if they'd stepped into Fae.
"How is this not visible on satellite maps?" asked Pi as they strolled through the wide spaces.
"That should give you an indication of how powerful the enchantments are."
Pi nodded, pulling her leather jacket around herself protectively. "Gotcha."
After a twenty-minute walk, they spotted a cottage nestled in a hollow, basking in a beam of sunlight as if it were trying to get warm. The rustic building had an uneven roof like a hat knocked partially off and gray walls made of misshapen stones. A wisp of smoke curled from the chimney.
"I smell bread," said Pi. "Like that good bread that releases steam when you break it in half."
Aurie's face felt tingly and light. "I'm suddenly regretting coming here."
"Another enchantment?"
"No," said Aurie. "It was cloudy before, but I can see blue sky through the trees. I'm feeling like a couple of kids in a fairy tale, you know, the ones where they're eaten by the wicked witch."
In an exaggerated motion, Pi cracked her knuckles. "That's why you brought me, sis. The girl who took on four Protectors in runed armor."
"Don't get cocky," said Aurie, glancing around. "I don't think whoever or whatever is creating this is in the same league."
"Dooset daram," said Pi, nodding.
"Dooset daram."
As they approached, Aurie noticed a second building, similar to the first, back a ways. No smoke leaked from its chimney, no light burned in its windows. The stone was gray. Shadows collected around the edges in drifts.
The second cottage gave Aurie the shivers, but she had no further time to consider it when the door of the first cottage opened.
"Be silly to come all this way and leave, right?" asked Aurie.
Pi glanced back the way they'd come. "Wouldn't hurt my feelings."
They went inside. A man sat cross-legged on a wooden rocking chair, skin as black as night, knitting an afghan blanket with deep blue yarn. He was focused on the tips of the needles, hooking the yarn with efficiency. His colorful shirt matched a rainbow chopped out of the sky and woven into fabric.
Two stools sat opposite him. A second rocking chair was shoved into the corner. He uncrossed his legs and pointed his toe at the stools. Aurie took hers with Pi close behind.
A low table between the chairs held a ceramic pot, steam leaking out the spout, with three cups waiting. A bitter tang caught the back of Aurie's sinuses.
"It's been a long time since I've had visitors. Drink. The palith root might make you sneeze, but trust me, that's the most enjoyable part," said the man in a voice that could have come from a cabbie in Philadelphia.
"Thank you..." said Aurie, pausing, wondering what to call him when a name appeared in her mind, "Oba."
Aurie placed the cup against her lips and took a tentative sip in case the liquid was too hot. As advertised, the drink was bitter but pleasant, tickling her sinuses until she had to set the cup down before releasing a quick sneeze in her cupped hands. After the sneeze resided, a pleasurable wave passed through her.
Beside her, Pi sneezed as well.
"Merlin's tits, that's amazing," said her sister.
"It's a stressful experience coming here," said Oba. "A cup of palith takes the edge off."
Rather than take a second sip, Aurie set the cup down and really studied her host. His features were unremarkable, average even, but she felt her gaze roll towards him as if he were a valley and she were a river flowing to the center.
"Get out of my head!" said Pi, standing up, backing away.
Oba frowned, setting his needlework against his crossed knee. His lips were flat, disapproving. "What's one more? I was only curious. Is this a thing now, to adorn oneself with slivers of souls like jewelry? What a terrible price for vanity."
Pi bent at the waist like a trap sprung, hands to her ears. "Stop!"
Aurie stood up. "You're hurting my sister. She didn't ask for those souls. She was saving them."
Oba tilted his head. A presence brushed through her mind, suggesting vastness so large it made the Grand Canyon feel small.
Pi collapsed on her rear, but removed her hands from her ears. She was breathing heavily and looked like she'd been through ten rounds with a box of snakes.
"You shouldn't peek in other people's minds, not without asking," said Aurie.
"Like you
did with Violet Cardwell's dreams?" responded Oba without delay.
Suddenly, Aurie regretted coming. Whoever or whatever Oba was, he was a power unto his own. She'd assumed that anything within the city was there with Invictus' permission, but she doubted that assumption now. She shared a glance with Pi, who was white with concern.
"My apologies, Oba," said Aurie. "We're guests in your house. I shouldn't have lectured you."
Oba cackled, setting his needlework against his knee as mirth left his lips.
"I suppose that's what passes as groveling these days. You're lucky I don't care about such things anymore. Speak now, Aurelia Maximus Silverthorne, student of Semyon Gray. Why do you risk much coming here? Do you seek wisdom? Or perhaps the sad story of my life?"
Aurie paused. Either his ability to read her mind was not absolute, or he was testing her. She decided to go with the idea that he already knew, and was only following the protocols of conversation for her sake.
"We came for the Engine of Temporal Manipulation."
"And you shall leave without it," he replied.
"We need it to save the Hundred Halls. I assume you were a friend of Invictus'; otherwise, you wouldn't be hiding in his city."
"Were?"
Aurie paused. How long had Oba been hiding in the cottage? "He's dead. It's been almost sixteen years, and now Semyon is...well, he's not well, and the Engine would help us fix him, I hope."
Oba slowly set his needlework on the table, moved to the window, and stared into the forest. Pi motioned at Aurie, asking what they should do. Aurie shrugged, putting her hand on her heart.
"Were you and Invictus friends?" asked Pi.
Without turning around, Oba said, "I was ancient before he was even born. He was a minor nuisance for a long while, and then by chance, I had reason to let him live. It was a fortuitous decision, as he showed me there were other ways."
"So he was a good man," said Pi, almost a question, but filled with self-doubt and deep reflection.
"Good? No. Better than most at the time, but that's like calling a lion gentle because he sleeps most of the day. It's hard for me to imagine that he's dead, but it happens. It used to happen more until he had this crazy idea to start a school and bind mages together"—he turned his head a little as if he anticipated their questions—"not me of course, but the Halls was his gift to humanity, a path to real civilization."
"Then you understand how important it is that we preserve his legacy, keep the Halls alive," said Aurie.
Oba turned back, putting his hands on the back of the wooden rocking chair. "The Halls were his project, not mine. I helped him because I owed him, but now that he's gone, my debts are paid."
"Then you don't need the Engine of Temporal Manipulation," said Aurie, clasping her hands together. "Give it to us. Let us deal with the Halls."
"You don't understand the danger they represent, or even how it works. I'd be giving a nuclear weapon to a baby," he said, a frown on his lips.
"I know how it works, and it's not a nuclear weapon, at least how I want to use it," said Aurie, shaking her hands at him. "The only thing that can heal Semyon is time, and we need more of it, fast. I want to speed up his time, and nothing else. There's no danger."
"Ha!" he said, swishing his hand through the air as if he were slapping her. "This proves you are ignorant of that which you seek to possess. If you speed him up, something else must balance out. It's a scale, and time is immutable. There must be equilibrium. Unless you've had a few millennia to understand your craft, you should not think about using it. Even Invictus did not dare. That is why he gave it to me, in exchange for services rendered."
"Bullshit," said Aurie, waving her sister off when she reached out to calm her. "You wouldn't have hunkered down here in the middle of a heavily enchanted forest disguised as a junkyard if you were the owner of it. You're holding onto it for a reason, and Invictus is letting you use it, but it's still his, and with his death, his belongings pass to the Halls. So you've got our property, and I want to use it."
"You've overstepped your bounds," said Oba coolly.
Power simmered beneath the surface of his skin, warping the air around him like shimmers on a hot road. He could squash them like a bug, could have done it before they even stepped onto the grounds, but he hadn't, and Aurie clung to that idea, hoping that it gave her a chance.
"No, you have. You're hiding here," she spat back, then jabbed her finger at the forest outside the window. "That's why it looks like late fall outside, even though it's only the end of summer in Invictus. You've frozen time here, which means that something else is going faster. Like you said, it's an equilibrium, a balance."
"I shouldn't have let you come," said Oba gravely. "I was bored, needed a distraction, but this is insolence. I should turn your skin inside out and run you through the brambles."
She believed him, but did not relent. If she failed at this, the school was doomed. She had to try, even if it was fruitless.
Aurie thought about the second cottage. Looked around the room at the second rocking chair, the blanket that he was knitting. Realization came to her like a lightning strike. Before Oba could stop her, she ran out of the cottage, heading straight for the second building. Before she'd gotten halfway across the space, Oba appeared by her side and knocked her to the ground.
"I forbid!"
His power pinned her to the ground—she felt like a gnat in a hurricane. She felt him waver between letting her go and crumpling her like a tin can.
"Get off my fucking sister!"
Eldritch bonds whipped through the air, attaching to Oba's limbs like an angry glowing octopus. Pi's magic crackled around Oba. The pressure released Aurie, giving her a chance to run. She hoped she hadn't made a foolish decision.
Oba quickly sliced through the bonds and knocked Pi away like a paper doll. But by the time he turned to stop Aurie, she'd made it to the cottage door, throwing herself inside.
The second cottage was identical to the first, except a featherbed filled the space occupied by the rocking chair in the other one. Deep within the covers lay a woman with skin like cream, fiery red hair, and freckles across the bridge of her nose.
At the top of the bed, resting on a little shelf, sat a runed brass tube. A deep-seated hum that made the back of Aurie's teeth hurt emanated from the device. It wasn't much to look at, but she knew what it was the moment she gazed up on it: the Engine of Temporal Manipulation.
Oba burst in with his arms poised for action, but when he saw Aurie standing over the woman in the bed, they fell, while his expression tightened.
Aurie spoke before he could rebuke her. "It's not the land that's being held in time, but this woman."
The way Oba looked at the woman in the bed outlined their relationship. He would do anything for her, and clearly had.
Pi stumbled into the room behind Oba. Her hair was covered in leaves, and her nose was bloody, but otherwise, she looked unharmed by his magical strike.
"Her name is Boann. She is my beloved, and she exists in the last hours of her death."
"What about the equilibrium?" asked Aurie.
Oba strolled to the side of the bed and traced his fingers across Boann's cheek. The weight of his love for her was borne in his tight shoulders.
"What's a few centuries to an old man that's seen so many? I bear this burden with pride," said Oba.
"Is there a way to heal her?" asked Aurie.
He shook his head tightly.
"The blanket you're making is for her, isn't it?" He nodded. "Why? She's going to die."
Behind her, Pi hissed for caution. Oba looked at her, eyes murderous.
"You're being selfish," said Aurie. "A whole city, a whole world, is at risk while you sit here in your private garden making a blanket for someone who can't even enjoy it. Give us the Engine. We can do something good with it."
"What do I care about good and right?" he asked, sneering. "I destroyed cities for spite, murdered whole peoples for bowing wrong. Sh
e was my beloved. Mine. Why should I care about you and yours? I'll sit here until the end of time if I want, and there's nothing you can do about it."
"Then you'll die a lonely man," said Aurie venomously.
Oba swiped his hand at them, and the cottage disappeared, replaced by the junkyard outside the autumnal forest. He'd teleported them over a mile with only a gesture.
But Aurie was not deterred. She readied herself to march back in until he was ready to give up the Engine of Temporal Manipulation. She opened her fist to check for the memory stone, but it was only dust. Oba had destroyed it.
Immediately the memory of why she'd come disintegrated, until she was staring at the radioactive sign with deepening confusion.
Beside her, Pi was scratching her head. "Why did you want to come here again?"
Aurie glanced around, trying to catch something that might trigger her memory. Her palm was dusty, so she wiped it on her pant leg. Then she noticed Pi's bloody nose.
"Did you get hit by something?" asked Aurie.
Pi touched her nose, and came away with crusty blood. "I...I'm not sure."
Aurie shook her head. The day was getting warmer, and the sun was breaking through the clouds. She had the impression she'd forgotten something, but it flitted at the edge of her memory like a butterfly tickling a flower before darting away.
"I guess whatever it was that I wanted isn't here. We should get back to Arcanium before the Cabal finds us."
They headed out on foot to the nearest train station, two miles away. Aurie looked back at least a dozen times before she convinced herself that it hadn't been that important to come to the twelfth ward.
Chapter Five
The phone buzzed awake, the electronics showering her room with light. Pi struggled over the mass of blankets collected on her bed, scooped the device from the table, and quickly typed in the code. The little icon displaying the number of texts received had a red number thirty-five inside.
"Shit," said Pi, stumbling out of bed, quickly scanning the messages that she'd missed. She'd been monitoring the text chains between various members of the Cabal. The students were mostly talk, going on with great exaggeration about how they'd "show the Arcanium dorks what real magic was" or how Semyon Gray was the weakest patron of the original five because he'd gotten taken down by Camille Cardwell before she died. This was wrong, of course, because he'd been attacked by the man she'd thought was her uncle—Liam, the soul thief—but it told Pi how much the patrons involved their students in their plans, which was, not at all.
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