No Earthly Treason

by Genevra Black

  Sissel kept her hand on the woman’s shoulder as she said, her voice firm and commanding, “Tell me where Khenbu’s apartment is.”

  The woman replied calmly, “30th floor. First door down the hall to the left.”

  Sissel nodded. “Go to sleep.”

  The woman’s eyes slid closed.

  “Edie, get her ID.”

  Edie jumped into action as though Sissel was controlling her, too, and unclipped the woman’s ID from her waistband.

  “Good. Also, if you could find a master key around there somewhere, that would be utterly clutch.”

  Despite her casual wording, Sissel’s tone was urgent. Edie dug through the desk for a moment before coming along a manila envelope in the bottom filing cabinet labeled Master. She pulled out a white card and shoved it into her back pocket. “Got it.”

  When Sissel released the concierge, the woman slumped in her chair, head lolling to the side.

  Their eyes met. Edie released an anxious breath and said, “I guess your mom’s not the only one who has mind powers.”

  The teen smiled. “Yeah, well.” The smile didn’t last long, however. She took the ID from Edie and hurried to the elevator, swiping the card. “We gotta hurry. She’s not going to sleep forever.”

  “You think she was lying about him not being here?”

  “Why would he move without warning like that?” Sissel shrugged and shoved the ID into one still-untied shoe.

  They rode the elevator up to the 30th floor, both of their gazes glued to the floor indicator. Every second that passed was agony, turning Edie’s stomach. How long would the spell work? She didn’t know much about Sissel’s powers, and considering she was a teenager, Edie assumed that Sissel didn’t know much about them, either. For now, they were stuck hoping that everything would work out okay.

  When they finally reached the 30th floor, Edie paused before poking her head out into the hallway. She checked both ways, and when she was sure the coast was clear, motioned for Sissel to follow as she started down the hall.

  As they made their way to apartment 30B, Edie glanced at her companion. She was suddenly acutely aware of the girl’s age—only barely a teenager, really. “You should probably head home. I have a feeling this isn’t going to be the safest situation ever.”

  Sissel looked at her like she had told a bad joke. “Bruh, you wouldn’t even be up here without my help. What are they going to do, shoot us?”

  “They might.” When they reached the apartment door, Edie quickly swiped the master keycard through the lock, eager to get out of the hall. “Also, breaking and entering is wrong, and I don’t want to be responsible for corrupting the youth.”

  “I’m staying.”

  Edie twisted the doorknob so it wouldn’t relock and fixed Sissel with what she hoped was an authoritative glare. “The moment something dangerous happens, you run, okay? Don’t stay. I can handle it on my own.”

  Sissel gave her a skeptical look.

  “Promise me.”

  “All right, all right.” She rolled her eyes. “You remember from three minutes ago that I have, like, mind-control powers, right?”

  “Yeah, but can you stop bullets?” Edie raised a brow in return and finally opened the door.

  The room beyond wasn’t what she had expected. She’d seen clean rooms before, but this looked downright unlived in. She felt like she was walking into a fresh hotel suite, not someone’s house. As she stepped in and looked around, she could see indents in the carpet where furniture had once been, though there were only a few nondescript pieces left now.

  Sissel separated from her, going to search the other rooms. When she returned a handful of seconds later, confusion was written across her face. “There’s nothing here.”

  Edie threw up a hand and let it fall against her thigh. “I guess she wasn’t lying about him leaving.”

  In a last-ditch effort to find any sort of clue, Edie made her way onto the balcony off the living area. As she skimmed her hand across the stone surface of the parapet, she noticed a thousand little scratches there, as if made by claws or talons. She supposed that would make sense if a bird person had been living here.

  Behind her, she could hear Sissel moving things around, looking under and around the few pieces of furniture that had been left behind. After a moment, Edie joined in.

  Then, without warning, the door slammed open. There was a beep and a gruff voice: “Found ’em.”

  Edie and Sissel looked over their shoulders in unison to see a man in a black security uniform standing in the doorway, staring them down.

  Shit. Of course—they must have seen Sissel put the concierge to sleep through one of the security cameras, or had at least noticed Edie stealing her keycard. Edie tried to reach into her jacket discreetly.

  Sissel, however, simply sighed and rolled up her plum sleeves. “Nothing can ever be easy,” she tutted, planting her feet as the security officer stalked toward her.

  “Sissel—” Edie made a move as if to step in front of her, but the teen slid to the side, blocking her again.

  The security officer clipped his walkie-talkie back to his vest and pointed a beefy pink finger at them as he came closer. “You can’t be in here. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Sissel laughed and raised her hands. “No, you.”

  Her palms flashed with silver magic, eyes locking with the security guard’s. He was stunned for a moment; then, he mirrored her movements, lifting the Christmas hams attached to his arms in surrender.

  Boot steps rang out from the hall. A second later, two other security guards were flanking the first. Edie watched from behind as Sissel drew her shoulders closer, shaking with effort as she barked, “Stop!”

  A halo of silver traced her body. The new security guards stopped, but they were agitated. Edie could tell without being told that they were fighting against Sissel’s control—she was spreading her power a little too thin, and was beginning to pant and sweat.

  Edie stepped forward and touched Sissel’s elbow. “We have to go.”

  The teen’s voice cracked as she loosed a final command: “Tell me where Khenbu is now!”

  The frontmost officer trembled as he fought against her, but he still obeyed her order. “On Cardinal Street. In Springwich. That’s all I know.”

  Sissel didn’t look at Edie, but managed through her teeth, “He’s telling the truth.”

  Edie nodded. “Let’s go.”

  The teen struggled for a moment longer before lowering her hands. Another spark of silver announced the end of her spell, and without missing a beat, she barreled forward and shouldered past the officers. Edie followed suit. The two were sprinting down the hall before the men had time to recover.

  “Stairs,” Edie breathed, pointing down the hall. A plain white door stood at the end, next to a sign that said In Case of FIRE Use STAIRS with a stick figure running from flames. She practically pulled Sissel through the door and down the stairs after her, praying to god the whole way that the teen wouldn’t trip on her untied boot laces.

  Security was only a flight behind them as they pushed through the fire exit door, setting off the alarm. But by the time the guards followed them outside, they had already turned a corner and disappeared into the rush hour crowd.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It had taken almost a week for Marius to decide whether or not he should tell his father what he’d seen in the mirror. The Radiant hadn’t been interested in his complaints against Ynga’s killing of the troll, so why would he care about anything else Marius had to say? Then again, wouldn’t he want to be warned of a possible attack?

  Though Marius had lost many a night’s sleep deliberating, the choice to tell his father seemed obvious after he had decided. The only problem was, the Radiant seemed far more interested in the paperwork he was leafing through.

  “Your Grace—Father. I saw you fall. The mirror showed it to me.” Marius clenched a fist on the desk in front of him. “The mirror is prophetic. You
said it yourself.”

  Radiant Eirik sighed. “It is.”

  “I saw what I saw.”

  His father didn’t look up, carefully signing his name at the bottom of a document in front of him “I don’t doubt what you saw, Marius, but like with all foresight, outcomes are unpredictable. They may change at any time.”

  “Where is the mirror now? You can see for yourself.” The vivid glanced at the magical safe adjacent to his father’s desk. In there, perhaps?

  The Radiant’s voice took on a more amused tone. “I don’t need to use a mirror to see into the future, Marius.”

  “But you don’t have the same insight into your own fate,” Marius protested. “You said so yourself once. How can you be sure? We should take every precaution available.”

  “That’s what I have Tiralda for now, among other things.” Eirik looked up at his son, mouth drawn tight. “Marius, you know that we have more important things to deal with. You know better than anyone what this New Gloaming is capable of, don’t you?”

  Marius clenched his jaw. In some ways, even though his body had healed, he was still suffering from the after-effects of battling Sárr. Nightmares were frequent and intense. “Are those things more important than ensuring the safety of the Radiant of the Rising Divine?”

  “Yes.” Eirik set his pen down and sighed, looking up at Marius. “Vivid, innocent people are dying at the hands of these animals. Every day, there’s some new riot or attack or murder. The unattuned police are powerless, and their fear and anger are only encouraging the Gloaming. In some precincts, they aren’t doing anything at all.”

  “Probably bought out … or infiltrated by Gloaming.”

  “This Wounded Lord was more prepared than any of us gave him credit for.” The Radiant scrubbed his face with his hand. “I think—it must be—that he’s been planning this for years.”

  “He can’t be any older than I am,” Marius mused. “How?”

  “I don’t know, but you see? We have not only our own people to protect, but the rest of the city, and the towns surrounding it. Our temple’s jurisdiction stretches 200 miles in all directions. On top of that, the hellerune is still running loose. Spread this thin, I can’t even manage to press the Gloaming. I have to focus on the matter at hand: saving lives. I cannot stop for one moment.”

  Marius’s heart leapt in his chest. “But if you die, we’ll be without a leader.”

  “In the unlikely event that I do die,” Eirik returned, “the Aurora will have you.”

  The vivid couldn’t deny the fear that lanced through his heart. He had dreamed of being a leader, making his father proud; he had studied hard to try and make sure he was ready for it when the time came. Now that the situation seemed so plausible, however, all of his hard work didn’t feel like nearly enough. He said nothing.

  After a moment, the Radiant motioned for him to stand, and he did. “Now, please. I have a lot of work to do.”

  Marius left the conversation feeling no more at ease than he had before—less, in fact. The mirror had not lied to him. Runepriests didn’t carry around bogus artifacts.

  For now, there was nothing to be done. If his father wouldn’t take this seriously, then Marius would investigate it on his own.

  He exited the main building of the temple and made his way to the dormitories. A three-by-three group of adherents, led by a vivid, jogged past him on the veranda, probably on their way to answer a summons. The temple hadn’t slept in two months. There were always several combat-ready groups awake and prepared to answer the call if the New Gloaming caused trouble.

  Marius, predictably, hadn’t been allowed to join any of the raiding parties. His father had refused to let him face the New Gloaming until he was in fighting condition, then had given him a number of excuses after that. Typical. He couldn’t tell if his father was punishing him or simply didn’t have faith in his abilities anymore.

  Marius eyed the joggers as they passed. Could one of them be the traitor?

  In his mind, there were two obvious leads: Ynga and Tiralda. He had seen Ynga around before they became friendly, but she had always laid low, blending in with the other adherents. For her to rise in prominence, grab his father’s attention, and secure a rank in such a short time felt odd to him. And then, of course, there was Tiralda, the sjóvættr. No one here really knew her that well. His father had confessed to him once that he’d only allied with her on the recommendation of another Radiant. She might have been a seidr-woman, a practitioner of Freyja’s Craft, but who knew what sort of motive she could have to bring his father down?

  Almost without consulting his brain, his feet were taking him in the direction of the sorceress’s dwelling. Since she was an esteemed guest, she didn’t have a standard dormitory; rather, she had been gifted the solar at the top of the mage’s tower, just on the edge of the small canal that separated the temple grounds and the annexed campus.

  No one stopped him as he entered and began to climb the great spiral staircase. The fire and light mages that inhabited the tower were a solitary bunch, and a vivid coming into their tower on an errand wasn’t uncommon. The higher up he went, the fewer people he glimpsed in the rooms he passed, until finally he was completely alone. A small landing was all that separated him from the arched wooden door of Tiralda’s solar.

  Marius was surprised to find it unlocked, but thought nothing of it as he stepped through and closed the door behind him, as softly as he could.

  For the most part, the room was unchanged from the last time he’d seen it several months ago; the ancient wooden bed, table, chairs, wardrobe, and chest of drawers were still in the same places they’d always been. However, it looked like the sea spirit had tried to make herself feel more at home. The bed’s canopy had been replaced with diaphanous curtains of turquoise, teal, and pale seafoam; the sheets were crisp white, devoid of any of the furs and quilts that had been there before. Strewn around the room, especially in the corners and the cracks of the stone, was silty, light brown sand. In the window nook sat an intricately carved spinning wheel; the color and luster of it reminded Marius of shell and bone.

  Marius found himself overwhelmed by the room for a moment, unsure of where to start looking. He went to the bed first, smoothing out the sheets and checking under the mattress, the pillows, anywhere something could be hidden. He checked behind the silver mirror above the washbasin. Finally, he moved to the chest of drawers and pulled out the top drawer.

  What few underclothes the sorceress used seemed to be stored here, along with a large collection of wooden and gold jewelry arranged into several boxes. The bottom drawer stored a number of small personal items, including books, hand mirrors and fans, a collection of sea shells, a few talismans and charms, and several extra spindles for her wheel. He checked both drawers for hidden compartments, but found nothing.

  He moved on to the wardrobe, a medieval oak piece with wrought-iron ring handles. It opened with a creak, and he was faced with a mess of sheer fabric in a range of pastel colors. Below the dresses was a trunk filled with little slippers and pearly sandals that looked so delicate Marius didn’t even dare touch them.

  Again, he checked for any hidden compartments. Again, he found none.

  “That’s not right,” he whispered to himself, standing from where he’d been crouching in front of the wardrobe. Even if she wasn’t the traitor he was looking for, everyone had at least one hidden—or at least deeply personal—thing in their bedroom.

  He knew he did. Two years before he had become a vivid, he’d raided an apartment while helping in the hunt for a local slaver. The apartment had been filled to the brim with every sort of document you could imagine: newspapers, flyers, books, magazines. A pile of old Rolling Stone magazines had caught his eye, the covers plastered with pictures of bands like R.E.M., The Cure, Alice in Chains, Metallica, and Nirvana.

  For some reason, he’d been drawn to them, and had squirreled one away in a trunk under his bed. Over the past few years, he’d read it cover
to cover a hundred times, fascinated by the unfamiliar things within its pages. He still took it out every so often, but the feeling was different now. Instead of enchantment, he felt only bitterness; a deep, abiding resentment for the world outside the temple. He was not normal like them. All he had ever known was the order, and this temple, and that was all that could ever be.

  He tried not to dwell on it—but thinking of it had given him an idea. He made his way to Tiralda’s bed quickly and sank down, peering under it. Sitting there, shoved toward the wall, was a dark oak box with a latch.

  Perfect. Marius reached in, sliding it out and unlatching it in one motion

  The box was so full that its contents nearly overflowed the moment he opened it. Stacked and bound together with twine were years’ worth of letters, some loose, some tucked away in yellowing envelopes. Little bits of multicolored wax had crumbled off of the letters and collected in the creases and at the bottom of the box. Marius held his breath and carefully untied the first bundle of letters.

  Some of it was interesting. He noted, as he shuffled through, some correspondence between Tiralda and Astrid Fengrave. A lot of it was unreadable, water-damaged or in languages he couldn’t read. The ones he could read seemed to be normal, if a little boring—letters about drama in Freyja’s hall or in other Worlds. By the time he got to the third bundle, he stopped reading closely; and when he was finally done, the last of the letters in his hand, he hadn’t seen a singular mention of the Wounded or Sárr or the Gloaming or even the Aurora.

  The vivid laid the last letter down and searched the box for a secret compartment. Nothing. He felt his shoulders sink. The thrill of finding the hidden trove was completely sucked out of him.

  If he wasn’t missing something here, it would have to be Ynga. He tied the letters together and shoved them back in the box.

  Behind him, the solar door squealed, slamming against the stone wall as it was thrown open. “Ah!”