Such a Daring Endeavor

by Cortney Pearson

  I fight the urge to hug my brother. “Do you know where he’d be keeping a prisoner? Are there, I don’t know, dungeons?”

  Ren traipses to a leather-bound notebook on top of the fridge. He tears a clear sheet of paper free and removes a pen from a drawer. Clearly he’s been here before.

  “Here’s where we’ll want to enter,” he says, sketching out a rough layout.

  “Wait, we?”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No—you’re not.”

  “I can guide you.”

  “No way. Ren. You just got away from Tyrus.”

  “Thanks to you and Haraway.” Exasperated, Ren presses a palm to the table. “You’re my sister; I can’t let you go back there without me, especially not when you’ve never even been to the Triad and I’ve lived there.”

  A guide would definitely come in handy and save me from wandering around like a futz. “Fine. Walk me through the layout, at least. I need to know my way in case we get separated.”

  “Agreed,” says Ren. “So, here…” He draws a crude outline of a courtyard—a small square, really, bordered by columns. “This is where Tyrus has all the new recruits brought in for extraction and training.”

  “Extraction?”

  “Yeah.” Ren tugs at his ear. “Once the last group of deserters got away, Tyrus quit taking chances with Prones.”

  “How kind of him,” I say, biting back all the nasty things I’d like to say.

  “My thoughts exactly. They go through a room here.” He draws. “And once their magic is taken, they go here to await training. Everyone else who wasn’t soldier material got carted off to the Station.”

  “How do they manage with so much stolen magic? How can the Arcs control that many people, especially now?” When I saw it with Talon that first time it made me sick. The masses were shot with poison darts all at once, losing their magic in a huddle in that Station. I doubt the axrats even know the people they took magic from, and yet they have control over them.

  “That much magic only makes them stronger. But Arcs have to keep their victim close by if they want to use their magic.”

  “I remember that girl, Shasa, freaking out and hurrying back to Craven that night,” I say.

  “It’s similar to the way we inject magic to control a device,” Ren says. “Have you operated things or filled a canteen or anything since you got your magic?”

  “Not really,” I tell him. “Talon and I mostly roughed it in the woods while he taught me how to fight.”

  “Well, you taught kids some of this stuff in any case,” says Ren, picking up his aud. The screen alights, and several colored squares tally along the side like bullet points. To my surprise, one of them reads Gwynn’s name.

  Gwynn mentioned she and Ren were in contact before—they can’t possibly be now. Why does he still have these messages?

  “It’s the same thing for Arcs,” Ren goes on, apparently not noticing that I’ve noticed he still has her messages on here. “In a sense, we become their devices. They use our own magic to control our actions. It won’t work as well from a distance, but that doesn’t really matter, as they can order us to follow them around.”

  “That’s so twisted,” I say. “How can they tell whose is whose?”

  “They can tell,” he says. “Tyrus had several of us lackeys trailing him, but for some reason he always ordered me to stay directly with him. Others can be nearby, within several hundred feet, even. It’s not like Tyrus can take all his captives with him when he travels, so he just orders them around and they have to obey whether he’s there or not.”

  “Why did they let those people leave Valadir, then?” I ask.

  Ren stares at the table. “It’s difficult for Arcaians to cart around so many subjugates. They may not have known how to handle the excess they’d gotten.”

  I scoff, leaning back to fold my arms. “Excess. Magic can be the only emotion a person has access to, and Arcaians take it only to cast it off like it’s nothing.”

  We sit in silence for a few moments.

  “It was Gwynn,” I say. “She was the one who made Tyrus keep you around. Don’t you see? She was trying to protect you!”

  “I doubt that.”

  Ren claimed earlier that she changed, that she wasn’t the friend I knew. But wanting him near, that sounded like something she might do.

  “So where would Talon be in relation to that entrance?” I ask, not wanting to argue with him about her. “The dungeons?”

  Ren draws me a map from memory, showing me a secret passage into the dungeons and the main places we need to avoid in order to get there. I clear my throat with the smallest sound, though there’s really no need. Just something to do, some type of noise to break up the tension building through me like I’m slowly hardening into glass, waiting to be shattered.

  Seeing a drawing is one thing. Finding it in person is another. Still, I take another shallow breath and point to the courtyard on his paper. “Okay. We go in here.” I pause. “How in the vreck are we going to get back out?”

  Ren’s eyes gleam. “Got any moyen on hand?”

  "Moyen for what, exactly?”

  “Do you really have to ask?” He gestures around, his head dipped and brows elevated as if I’m missing the most obvious thing in the world.

  Dircey has left the room, though I don’t remember it happening. And of course I understand his meaning. Dircey said several vendors were still here, that they were itching to move on. But he can’t be serious.

  “Those tears were crazy expensive, Ren. Two thousand moyen, expensive. Even if I did have money, I wouldn’t have that much.”

  Ren shakes his head. “Not all their stuff is that spendy. Besides, we’re not after tears.”

  A soft pang pricks at my heart for that annoying, meddling jar, and again my hand slides its way to my flat pocket. I wonder what the maiden wizard or the Firsts would think of my having traded them to the sirens.

  I wait for the nudge, the humming prickle at my spine, for some acknowledgment from the pesky things, but the tears offer nothing of the kind. Estelle said she wouldn’t drink them, but has she? I inhale, doing a mental scan of every inch of my body, trying to find—hoping to find—even the tiniest nudge, some sign that the connection isn’t completely gone. The pang stretches me out inside, widening itself. Curse it, I miss the blasted things.

  I wonder if I’ll be able to tell if they’re being drunk. A small part of me wants to go back, to offer another trade. But the sirens gave me their song; that’s not something to throw back at them, especially not to a race of creatures so resplendent and free.

  Ren’s lips press into a line, and he watches me, waiting for my decision. The Black Vault vendors intimidate me. But if this is what it will take to get to Talon, I’ll pay any price.

  “Okay,” is all I manage.

  Ren folds his crude map and slides it toward me. “You’ll need this more than I do,” he says, leading the way out of the kitchen. “Come on. Let’s find Ayso.”

  I don’t bother asking what she has to do with any of this. From the way Dircey praised Ayso, she must be a valuable member of their rebellion.

  Ren heads down a hallway where a series of long bulbs give off shaky light above our heads.

  “I thought you were a part of this rebellion,” I say, hurrying to keep up with him. His stride is much wider than mine. “Why do you still have to pay for stuff?”

  Ren takes a turn down another hallway. The walls are damaged, dirty as though covered in newsprint and paper sacks. I wonder what kind of offices used to be here before it was abandoned. “We all work together, but the vendors don’t owe me anything because of it. If I want stuff, I still have to pay for it. It’s their business.”

  Their business. I hope this doesn’t take as long as going to Black Vault itself would. We don’t have that kind of time. I can see why Shasa took so long rescuing Jomeini, especially if there’s no way to get Jomeini her magic back, short of killing the man wh
o stole it from her. Actually, there is one other way… Absentmindedly, I grip the teardrop through my shirt.

  I wonder if Shasa and Solomus were able to get the maiden wizard out. They were planning on heading out the morning after I destroyed the Station. Were they successful? Maybe my antics provided a distraction for them. I guess I’ll never know.

  I wouldn’t mind talking to Jomeini and seeing what she Saw me do. Nattie’s words weigh on me again.

  It is up to you to break the spell. The tears were cried for you.

  Maybe the maiden wizard can give me some kind of direction.

  “They all travel together like a circus,” says Ren, stopping before a brown door at the end of the hall. Its handle is round brass, rusted over in several spots. “Only darker, and much more discreet.”

  I hear movement through the door. A deep voice says something, earning a gale of laughter, and the sound rattles my already teeming nerves.

  Ren lifts a fist to knock.

  “Are you sure?” I ask, suddenly anything but. This detour only increases my agitation. We’re wasting time—we need to get going. I don’t have any moyen anyway. What exactly are they going to expect in return for whatever it is we’re about to get from them?

  Ren quirks his mouth before letting his fist land on the door.

  Seconds later it flies open. A familiar flowery scent escapes from the room. A gruff man wearing an eyepatch and chewing on a toothpick glowers at Ren first, then me. His nose bulbs out at its tip like a pear. I swallow. If these guys are angry at Ren, they can hash it out later. It took Dircey three days to decide we were trustworthy, and we don’t have that kind of time.

  “You open for business?” Ren asks.

  The man wearing the eyepatch snarls before yanking Ren into the room. To my surprise, he pulls my brother into a hug.

  “Good to see you, Csille. Glad you’re not a traitor.”

  Ren laughs, patting the man on the back. “You too, Zeke.”

  Zeke’s mouth drops playfully, displaying the bits of black between his teeth and pointing a finger at Ren from a tattered sleeve as though he’s just made a joke.

  Seven people sit in various places around the smoky room. The incense fills my lungs, coating them and shortening each of my breaths. Couches line the back wall, and to the right is a row of plants with long, skinny leaves beneath a series of lamps. They must be the basole plants Dircey mentioned earlier. Ayso stands near them, clipboard in hand, prying at one of the leaves with a pair of tweezers. Light from the lamps bounces off her glasses.

  Various jars with different liquids and other items track a long counter lining the wall to my left, and several trunks and cases are scattered here and there. This must be their inventory. But while the wares are easily packaged and stored in those cases, transporting glass cases and plants beneath their lamps must be far more difficult to manage.

  Cadie crouches before one of the trunks, winding a cord around a strange-looking tool. Her wings dither, not fluttering so much as twitching as if in annoyance at my entrance.

  Another woman with dark curly hair and too many scarves tucks several jars into a case. An older man gives me a look of kind interest from behind the countertop.

  “Scarlet,” Dircey says, addressing the scarved woman. “This is Ambry, Ren’s sister. She’s on a bit of a schedule, troop, so let’s see what we’ve got that can help her out.”

  “And then we leave?” asks Scarlet in annoyance.

  Before waiting for an answer, she opens a case like Isabel’s, the vendor Gwynn bought her tears from, who seemed so relieved when I showed up all those nights ago. With the case’s hidden doors, drawers, and crevices, a feeling tells me it very well could be the same one my tears were hidden in. Scarlet withdraws a small, velvet bag that writhes as though a small animal is dying inside of it.

  “What is that?” I can’t help asking. If we weren’t in such a hurry I’d love a tour of sorts. To learn about their trinkets and potions, the mixes in their apothecary, the powders used to deny a person their magic. Maybe they could each go in turn, showing me what they sell…

  “Snork,” says Scarlet, not sounding quite as irritated. “From the briar bean bush in the Arbor Mountains. The leaves still move, even when they’re cut. That’s how you know they work.”

  “And what do they do?” I ask. “The leaves?”

  Ayso chews her gum, pausing in amusement. Several of the others move in around us, as if wanting a demonstration.

  Scarlet’s voice is deep and sultry, sliding over me like a tonic to settle nerves. Her lids half close, and she says mysteriously, “You place them on your tongue, and if you can swallow one whole, Snork gives eternal youth.”

  “Really?” I wonder how many people have tried it and are now walking around forever young.

  “Really. The leaf’s venation releases enough stimulants to make a body feel like they’re flying. Only problem is, the leaves are living. And they like warm, dark places.” Scarlet’s eyes burn with morbid delight. “People get so stakked off while they’re high it makes ‘em hallucinate. They do stupid, eccentric things, and every single one of ‘em ends up dying before the drug can grant its promise.”

  Behind her, Zeke grins, displaying gummy gaps between his rotting teeth. I glance around, making sure they’re not playing me. Cadie blinks in boredom.

  “So no one really knows if Snork works or not,” Ayso finishes for Scarlet, tipping her glasses onto her nose.

  “And you sell that to people? Isn’t that like, murder?” I can’t believe I’m sympathizing with the Arcs for forbidding these objects. I thought they were just being stingy.

  Ayso shrugs. “They know the risk involved.”

  Zeke belts out a laugh, nearly losing the toothpick spoking from his mouth. I slide a glance to my brother, and he gives me a grin in response to my silent question: And we’re going to be buying something from these people?

  “Ren, maybe we should just go.”

  They all laugh again. My cheeks heat.

  “They aren’t all so risky,” says Scarlet, waving a hand. “Reveweed provides a nice respite from life’s troubles.” She removes a small silver box, decorated with delicate swirls. She lifts its lid to display a collection of confetti-like leaves.

  I shudder and hold up a hand, thinking of Gwynn, of our first venture into this world of magical wares, of the fizz in my veins like peroxide had been shot up them. “No thanks. I swore I’d never come near that stuff again.”

  “You tried it before?” Ren’s face isn’t the only one holding surprise. Scarlet’s shaped brows lift.

  “Not intentionally,” I say. “That night while Gwynn and I were looking for Isabel to buy our tears, I passed a girl right as she exhaled some. I breathed in the smoke, and I was instantly sucked into space, it seemed. It was cool, but the aftereffects were terrible.”

  They laugh again, and it only strengthens my resolve. I give Scarlet a weak smile. “No offense, but I don’t think any of these will help with what we need. What do you have that can get us into the Triad undetected, Ayso? Zeke?”

  Scarlet reads my disinterest in her case with a sneer and a shrug as if to say, It’s your funeral. Ren takes the empty seat beside her and rests a hand on her shoulder. I smile at her again, for good measure.

  I make several requests, asking for anything I can think of—potions for magical disguise, dressing like servants and using the back entrance and hallways. Dircey offers to contact a scullery maid she knows, but conversing back and forth could take days. Talon will be dead by then.

  Ren also doesn’t know the underground workings of the palace at all. It could take more time than we have to navigate our way to the hall he pointed out to me earlier.

  Dircey flicks her eyes to me before glancing to Ren. “Maybe you guys should pose as new recruits.”

  “We’re going there to rescue Talon, not get caught ourselves,” says Ren.

  She snares Ren’s gaze and blinks a few times. Her complacent expre
ssion doesn’t change.

  “Wait, you’re serious?” I say.

  Dircey shrugs. “It’s the last place they’d expect to find you.”

  “We’d never get past their magic scanners,” I argue. “Ren told me that’s where they bring people for extraction. The soldiers check every single person. If we pose as new recruits, we might as well be turning ourselves in. How can we get past them?”

  Ayso lets out a little squeak. The five of us all turn to her as her mouth opens in sudden inspiration. She rambles off a few giddy, incoherent phrases.

  "Hasn't been tested, but it would do the trick. It would fool them, anyway, and if that's what you're going for--"

  "Ayso," says Ren. "What is it?"

  A grin blooms in her face. “I think I have something you could use.”

  The mid-morning sunlight has lost its heat and leaves a cool chill in the outside air. I pump my arms, just to get my blood flowing. It’s strange to not have anything with me. But if we were actually new recruits, the raiders wouldn’t have given us time to gather anything together.

  We run across town, following the path I took the night before and sticking to the shadows as much as possible. Soldiers march as their commanders shout orders. Others gather on the wide porch of an abandoned courthouse with its nude brick and boxy, colonial structure. We stop under the eaves of a house a block away, but near enough to hear the shink, shink of weapons being sharpened.

  Ren grips the brick just enough to peer around the corner. “Angels, they’re everywhere,” he says. “This is worse than when I was here, and it hasn’t been that long since Tyrus had me at the Station every day.”

  I shudder. Thanks to that Station, Tyrus basically has Valadir in hand. It won’t be long until he has all of Itharia. But the Arcaians dominated our government before, even without owning all of our magic. Why is he going to such lengths for the sake of a war he’s already winning? What’s Tyrus playing at?

  Ren ducks his head and grips my elbow, leading me into the inky shadows of an alleyway. I release a shiver in the cooler air.