by J. J. Green
“There you are,” said a voice.
Parthenia turned to see a middle-aged woman standing in the mansion at a set of open double doors. She was richly dressed. Smiling warmly, the woman stepped out of the doorway and walked toward them over the neatly clipped grass.
“I wondered where you’d gone,” the woman said as she drew nearer. “Castiel, please introduce me to our guest.”
“Naturally.” Smiling sardonically, Castiel said, “I’d like you to meet my sister, Parthenia. Parthenia, this is our host, Langley Dirksen.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Parthenia.”
Parthenia didn’t reply. While she knew she would never get away with being so rude to Castiel, she was willing to test the boundaries with this new person who was clearly colluding with him.
As she saw Parthenia’s reaction, Langley Dirksen grimaced. “My, that look is familiar,” she remarked to Castiel. “I can see the resemblance to her sister.”
“Yes, she does look a bit like Carina, doesn’t she?” said Castiel. “Though Carina isn’t a Sherrerr like the rest of us. Parthenia and I only share a mother with her. We had different fathers.”
Parthenia wondered what else Castiel had told the Dirksen woman. She had a feeling it was probably everything, including all he knew about Casting. He might even have exaggerated his explanation of mage powers. Castiel had always been prone to boasting. She was also curious about what her brother was doing on a Dirksen estate and, more importantly, what he intended to do with her. It was unlikely to be anything pleasant.
“So is this the one your father used to take to business meetings?” Langley asked.
“Parthenia did do some of that, yes,” Castiel replied, “though I also performed several key roles.”
Parthenia could hardly believe Castiel’s last remark, which was utterly false. Before she could say anything, however, he flashed her a warning look.
“And it was Carina who extracted your youngest brother from our custody,” said Langley.
“That’s right,” replied Castiel. “Though we didn’t know anything about her at the time.”
“Hmmm… ” Langley glanced at Parthenia. “Would you mind taking a stroll with me?” she asked Castiel. “Your sisters can wait here with Harmon.”
“By all means,” Castiel said. The pair walked off across the lawn, away from the huge house.
Turning to her large guard, Parthenia said, “Can we go inside? I want to sit down.”
Harmon considered for a moment before giving a short nod. Parthenia went through the double doors into a lounge. Nahla traipsed along behind her. While both the girls sat on sumptuous sofas, Harmon stood with his back to the doorway, blocking most of the light.
As they waited for Castiel and Langley to return, Parthenia wondered what the Dirksen woman’s words had meant. She seemed to know Carina somehow and she didn’t particularly like her. Parthenia was certain the feeling had been mutual. On the one hand, she was relieved to hear that her sister was alive and well, but on the other she was dismayed to discover that Carina had been captured by the Dirksens. Parthenia wondered how it had happened. Her sister was so smart and resourceful she would never have fallen into Dirksen hands easily.
Where was Carina now? Was she somewhere in the mansion? Or had she managed to escape? Langley Dirksen’s words hadn’t made it clear. Parthenia resolved to find out and help her sister if she could. If Carina was being held captive that explained why she hadn’t come to find her mage siblings. She hadn’t been able to Cast Locate using one of Parthenia’s bracelets.
My bracelets! She gasped. The farmer called Marcia had taken them when she’d found Parthenia and the others in the barn, and they’d forgotten to take them back before they’d fled into the forest. Now Oriana had no way of finding where she was, and she had none of her siblings’ belongings to use to Locate them either. They might never find each other again.
Parthenia’s throat tightened and her eyes filled with tears as she was reminded of poor wounded Ferne, and Oriana and Darius, who might still be waiting for her in the forest, though they’d probably realized by now that she wasn’t coming back. What would they do without her?
Harmon stepped aside to allow Castiel to enter the lounge from the garden. Parthenia rubbed her eyes to rid them of tears but Castiel noticed the gesture.
“Are you upset, dear sister?” he asked. “Don’t worry. You don’t have anything to fear. Our lives are going to be so much better than the exploitation we suffered at the hands of the Sherrerrs. Langley has made it clear how highly she values our skills, and she appreciates that we will truly commit to the Dirksen cause.”
“I think you mean your life with the Dirksens,” Parthenia retorted. “You don’t have any right to tell me what I can and can’t do.”
“I may not have the right, but I have the means,” Castiel said. He took out his bottle of elixir. “As long as I have this and you don’t, I can do what I like.”
“As long as you have that and I don’t, I’m useless to you. So that’s an empty threat.” Parthenia didn’t go on, guessing she was skirting the limits of what Castiel would tolerate from her.
“You’ll soon find out whether my threats are empty,” Castiel spat. “What do you have that belongs to Carina? Hand it over. I’m going to find that bitch and bring her here.”
“I don’t have anything,” said Parthenia.
“Don’t lie. She must have given you something before she Transported you off the shuttle. She knew you would need something to Locate her. Of course, she didn’t give anything to Nahla and me because she never wanted to see us again.”
Castiel was close to the truth of what had actually happened, but Parthenia kept her lips sealed. It was clear from what he said that Carina was free, which was some consolation. Even if Parthenia had one of her sister’s belongings, she would never willingly hand it over to Castiel. She would never betray Carina.
“Hmpf.” Castiel dropped into a seat and folded his arms over his chest. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll find out where you are eventually and she’ll try to rescue you. We can grab her then, and we’ll get the rest of them.”
With a sinking heart, Parthenia realized Castiel was correct. No matter how hard she tried to avoid helping him capture their older sister, Parthenia couldn’t prevent herself from being bait.
Chapter Thirty-One
Carina was uncomfortable with the idea of leaving Oriana, Ferne, and Darius alone while she went to rescue Parthenia but she didn’t have any choice. It was far too risky to take them with her. Reyes, however, would be coming along. Although Carina knew her sister was probably somewhere in Langley Dirksen’s mansion, she didn’t know exactly where. The place had to have a hundred rooms. She needed Reyes to find out her sister’s exact location and guide her there.
Langley’s comms to her son hadn’t explicitly stated that she was holding Parthenia captive. The implication of the woman’s words was clear, however. She’d said things like: Come home soon, darling. I have exciting news. It doesn’t matter that the Sherrerr girl left us. Someone else is here who possesses the same abilities. Carina could only conclude that, somehow, the Dirksen matriarch had discovered Parthenia’s abilities—perhaps the young girl had been observed Casting—and Langley had wasted no time in removing Carina’s sister from the Illegal Migrant Holding Center and taking her to the Dirksen estate.
Reyes had never mentioned Carina’s “abilities,” though he had to know his mother’s reasons for holding her captive. And when he’d picked them up from the burning forest he’d been curious about Ferne’s unconscious state, knowing that one of the children had supposedly been shot. Yet Reyes hadn’t followed up with any questions about their powers. Carina guessed that he didn’t want to broach a sensitive subject with her. It followed that he hadn’t mentioned anything when showing her his mother’s comms. He let Carina draw the same conclusion from them as he had.
“Are you sure you can get Parthenia?” Darius asked Carina
as she prepared to leave.
“I’m going to try my hardest,” she replied, “but I can’t promise anything. If I can’t bring her back tonight I won’t stop trying until I can.”
“But you won’t let them catch you, will you?” Darius persisted.
“Of course not.”
“Because I’ll be really sad if I don’t see you again.”
“I’d be sad about that too.” Carina squatted down to look her youngest brother in the eye. “You must do whatever Oriana and Ferne tell you, no questions asked, okay?”
“Okay.” Darius looked down. “I just wish we could all be together again.”
“We will be,” Carina said, “hopefully after tonight.” She kissed and hugged Darius and Oriana and Ferne, then turned to Reyes. “I’m all set. Are you ready?”
“I don’t have anything to prepare,” Reyes replied. “I’m waiting on you.”
Carina had prepared. While she’d kept Reyes distracted in the living room, Ferne and Oriana had made more elixir in the kitchen. Carina was bringing a full bottle with her. She was very reluctant to use it within Reyes’ sight, but if she needed to Cast while he was around in order to get Parthenia out, so be it.
They left the apartment and went to his star racer. The plan was that he would land in his mother’s estate grounds, far from the house. Carina would exit the vehicle, then Reyes would continue on to the mansion, returning home as if he hadn’t been missing for two days. After he’d endured his mother’s predicted ire, he would discover where Parthenia was being held. Next, he would meet Carina at one of the rear entrances to the home after everyone had retired for the night.
According to Reyes, the final part of the plan entailed Carina, Parthenia, and himself then leaving his home together. But for Carina, this was the part where her own plan deviated. As soon as she was in sight of her sister, she would Transport them both out of the house and far away. Though she appreciated what Reyes had done to help them, she didn’t think she would ever feel safe with him around. Nai Nai’s lesson remained ingrained in Carina’s mind, despite her friend Bryce demonstrating that not everyone was out to use mages for their own ends.
The minute that Carina reunited Parthenia with her other mage siblings, Reyes Dirksen would be on his own.
***
The metropolis was bright with artificial light, outshining the starlight above. Reyes had input his mother’s estate as the destination and his star racer made its own way while he leaned back in his seat, resting the ankle of one leg on the knee of the other. He seemed unusually pensive.
“I guess it’s got to be hard for you to go home tonight,” said Carina.
“Yeah.” Reyes picked at his nails. “I’m not looking forward to pretending I’m back for good, or that I don’t have a problem with what my family does.” He bit off a hangnail. “Or lying to Mother, if I’m honest. You know, she isn’t really a—”
“Bad person. Yeah. I know.”
“You sound like you don’t.”
“Reyes, I know she’s your mom and it’s hard for you to see her behavior objectively, but just think about what her and the rest of your clan have done. You know a lot more about that than me, but I know Langley Dirksen kept me captive and she tricked me into eating tracers that nearly killed me to remove. Are those the actions of a good person?”
“But if you’d only agreed to what she was proposing she wouldn’t have done either of those things,” Reyes said. “She really wanted to work with you, not against you. And she couldn’t afford to let you go. What if you’d gone back to work for the Sherrerrs? It would have been stupid of her to allow that to happen. The Sherrerrs are evil. If they take control of the entire sector, everyone will suffer for it.”
Carina sat up in her seat. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. Did the kid really have no idea of the suffering of people on Ostillon, like Asha? “First of all,” she said, “I thought you didn’t want to be a Dirksen any longer. Why are you defending them? And secondly, I’ve seen what Sherrerrs and Dirksens do to the people they control and they’re equally bad. People on both sides try to justify their evil acts by saying they’re necessary to achieve peace and prosperity. But that’s all their arguments are: attempts at justification. I don’t know who’s worse—the people who don’t care that they’re cruel or the people who behave cruelly and pretend to themselves that they have some kind of higher purpose.”
Reyes didn’t answer.
Carina went on, “Your mother might think she would treat me well if I agreed to do what she said, but it wouldn’t last. As soon as I said no to something she wanted she would try to force me to obey her. She would stop seeing me as a human being. I would become an impediment to her plans and all her fine words would fly out the window, as I soon found out after a day at your place.”
“I really don’t think—”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Carina snapped. She was tempted to tell him about all that had happened to Ma. That might convince him of the truth of what she was saying. But the last thing she wanted to do was give Reyes Dirksen any more information about herself or mages, especially considering that she hopefully wouldn’t see him again after that night. Instead, she said, “If you start out a relationship in a bad way, like by coercing someone or lying to them, things won’t ever change, they’ll only get worse. You can’t do something bad and tell yourself that in the future you’ll behave better. It isn’t going to happen. What you did at the start sets the pattern. So please, don’t try to assure me that the woman who kidnapped me and whose guard beat me up has my best interests at heart. It’s insulting.”
A corner of Reyes’ lips lifted. “Well, that told me, I guess.”
They’d left the city and were flying over dark countryside. Carina could make out faint lights in the distance, which she assumed were shining from the windows of the Dirksen mansion.
“Just another couple of minutes,” said Reyes. “I’m going to set down just inside the estate walls. You’ll have an hour’s walk to the house. Is that okay?”
“If that’s the safest way to do it, that’s absolutely fine.”
“It’ll be a while before Mother goes to bed, so we have plenty of time. Only make sure to watch out for guards. They patrol the grounds sometimes, but not much. Dirksens don’t expect to be attacked on a home planet, so the guards are only checking for vagrants and burglars.”
“I am a kind of burglar,” Carina said, “only I’ll be stealing my own family’s treasure.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Dirksen mansion was silent as Carina approached it after her long walk. The dark windows were blank eyes. Carina wondered which window it was that she’d looked out of during her captivity. A shudder ran through her as she recalled her time there. Her experience had been nothing like what Ma had endured for years, but Carina was in no doubt that, had she stayed, her life would have been similar eventually.
She was armed with nothing except elixir. She hoped it would be all she needed to slip inside the place and Transport herself and Parthenia out. Once her sister was free and her mage siblings were reunited, Carina could begin to think about how she would get everyone offplanet. She hadn’t forgotten about the Sherrerr spy at Langley’s party and what her presence probably meant.
Several pairs of double doors ran along the first floor at the rear of the mansion. Carina was pleased to see that, as arranged, Reyes had left one of them slightly ajar. Her heart was thumping as she opened the door wider. She peeked through it into a quiet, dark room. It seemed empty. Carina slipped inside.
Reyes was waiting. He stepped out of the dark shadow of a corner and beckoned her. Carina tiptoed across the room, avoiding the large chaise longue that stood in her way.
“She’s in the suite you slept in,” Reyes whispered as soon as Carina was close enough to hear him.
So Langley was trying out her soft coercion on Parthenia too. It was better than throwing her in the cellar immediately, Carina gu
essed. She hoped that the Dirksen matriarch hadn’t already fed her sister their tiny tracers.
She followed Reyes out of the lounge into the downstairs corridor. “You should wait here,” she said to him quietly. “I can remember where the suite is.” As soon as she laid eyes on Parthenia, she would Transport them both out of the place. Carina wanted Reyes out of the way so that he wouldn’t witness her Casting. Also, Reyes would probably be more of a hindrance than a help if she had to deal with Harmon.
Reyes shook his head. “I want to help.”
It wasn’t the time or place to argue about it. Carina went in front of him and walked softly down the corridor to the stairs. Her hand on her bottle of elixir, she began to climb the steps, placing each foot gently on the treads. Reyes was directly behind her. Carina listened intently, hoping to hear the sleep-breathing of Harmon or another guard. Surprising an unconscious guard was the best break she could hope for. She heard nothing.
As she approached the top of the stairs, Carina unscrewed the lid on the elixir bottle. She didn’t want to Cast in front of Reyes but she also knew that if Harmon was on guard duty she would never defeat him without some extra help. She sipped and swallowed a mouthful of elixir as her head rose above the level of the second floor.
Harmon was standing, silent and bulky, in front of the suite door. Unlike the man who had been guarding Carina the night she escaped, Harmon hadn’t brought along a chair to nap the night away.
Carina turned to Reyes and gestured to him with a flat hand. Wait. She closed her eyes and Cast her first—but hopefully not her last—Transport of the evening. She sent out the Cast and opened her eyes. To her great satisfaction, Harmon flew upward. His head struck the ceiling with a crack, but before he fell down the Cast also caught him and dropped him gently to the floor. He landed with barely a bump and lay sprawled out and motionless.
Harmon was out cold, but Carina didn’t know for how long. The man’s skull was probably extremely thick. She ran lightly along the hall to the suite door, leaving Reyes to do whatever he wanted. She tried the door but it was locked, of course. With plenty of elixir on her, that wasn’t a problem. In a few moments, the Unlock Cast had done its work. A quick glance at Harmon told Carina he remained dead to the world. She went inside the room. Her plan had nearly succeeded. Her heart lifted.
