by Jasmine Walt
“Yes, I’ve heard of it, but haven’t had time to go there yet,” I lied. “Have you been there? I thought you were an inventor by trade.”
“I was invited to a party there once—it’s a posh place with a well-stocked bar. The staff help out-of-town press members with accommodation, schedules for planned events, credentials, and so on.”
“Sounds like the perfect place for me, then.”
I thanked Elnos and bid him a good day, promising to come back tomorrow to pick up my purchases. As I stepped out into the waning sunlight, I resolved to pay a visit to the press club at the earliest opportunity, if Fenris agreed to help me fake some realistic-looking credentials. It sounded like a useful source of information, and if they provided a full schedule of planned events, that might help us figure out which venue was most likely to be attacked.
7
Fenris
With over two hours left until I was to meet Mina, and no cabs in sight, I decided to stroll through downtown. It was Solantha’s seediest district and home to the Black Market, where various illegal goods, including those of a magical nature, were sold after dark. I had never been down here before, but as I walked through the streets, it was even less attractive than I thought it would be. Most of the local businesses seemed to be dives, grimy bars, betting parlors, and cheap brothels. If ex-Resistance members were congregating anywhere, it would be down here.
Of course, it was a long shot that I would spot anyone or anything useful—even though it was merely a fraction of the city, it was still a large district, and many walked the cracked streets that wound between buildings in various states of disrepair. There was reconstruction happening down here, too, but not as much as in the rest of the city. I got the distinct feeling that downtown was low on the list of priorities for the city planning department.
But as I walked along the sidewalk, keeping my head down and trying not to look conspicuous, I did notice something odd. Two scruffy men gave each other a discreet hand signal while passing in the street—it was a quick touch of two fingers against their left hip, like a man reaching for his sword. At first I thought nothing of it, but five minutes later, I saw another pair of men do it. And then a hefty woman, while passing yet a different man.
Is this how the Resistance army recognizes one another? I wondered. Curious, I tried the gesture with the next man who approached, but he only glared at me, then shouldered past.
Perhaps I should find a dark alley and change into a different disguise, I told myself as the back of my neck prickled, not for the first time. I’d drawn strange looks more than once since I’d crossed into downtown—the clothing I wore was a little too new, too clean, making me stand out. I quickened my pace, heading for the nearest alleyway and hoping no one was skulking in it, waiting to try and mug me.
Not that he’d succeed. Most of the residents down here were human, and no match for me. But there was strength in numbers, and the last thing I needed was to draw the attention of some gang.
Before I could make my getaway, a huge man dressed in a dirty white shirt and leather pants stepped in front of me. “You lost?” he growled, sneering down at me and exposing yellowed teeth. Two of them were missing, and I wondered who in Recca would have dared to knock them out.
“I’m trying to find my way back to maintown,” I said, taking a step back and holding up my hands. “Can you point me in the right direction?”
“I don’t think he’s lost at all,” another man sneered, coming up beside the giant. This one had shoulder-length, greasy brown hair and a scar that slashed over his left eye. “Look at him in his fancy clothes. Only a mage would think he could blend in by wearing something like that. He’s a spy!”
Other men were surrounding me now, and within seconds, they’d formed a circle. Around ten of them, I thought, doing a quick count, and my heart began to beat faster. These were not good odds. Taking my glasses off to show them my shifter eyes would not defuse the situation, I judged—humans in these parts had no love of shifters.
“I assure you, I’m just a tourist—” I began, but one of them lunged at me. I twisted out of the way and caught a punch to the chin from another man that knocked me back a step. Snarling, I grabbed the third man that came for me and flung him into the building behind me. His head made a sickening crack as it hit the brick, but I didn’t have time to look at him—the other men were charging at me now, shouting battle cries, their eyes blazing with hatred and bloodlust.
I had no choice but to fight.
Yelling a battle cry of my own, I flung out my hands and blasted them with a blinding flash of light. The men screamed and threw up their arms, and I followed up by flinging balls of fire at them. Shrieks and the smell of dirty, roasting flesh filled the air as five of them were hit by the flames. With the others still stumbling about, blind, I turned on my heel and dashed through the alleyway, then vaulted the fence at the other end. I landed in the back of a small building and sprinted around it to the street beyond—
“And just where do you think you’re going?” A man grabbed me by the arm, pulling me to an abrupt stop. Twisting around, I looked up into the face of a tiger shifter with close-cropped blond hair, dressed from head to toe in black leather. A bracelet with a familiar emblem sat on the wrist of the hand he was gripping me with, and my stomach dropped.
“Enforcers,” I gasped—there were two of them; another man stood next to him on the pavement. “Thank Magorah you’re here. I was nearly mugged by a group of men.” There was no point in pretending I was human—the shifter would be able to smell that I was not.
“That tends to happen when you go walking about unawares in downtown,” the second enforcer—a human—said flatly. “Like a pretty pigeon about to be plucked.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, lowering my head. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Clearly not,” the tiger shifter scoffed, releasing me. He narrowed his eyes, his nostrils flaring. “You stink of magic. Just what kind of trouble were you getting into down there?”
“I told you, I was mugged—”
“You’re lying,” the tiger shifter snarled, and he tried to grab me by the arm again. But I was faster, and I darted around him, then shot over another fence. The enforcers gave chase, but I sprinted through another alley, changed my scent and appearance to that of an old man, and quickly slipped into a dive, where I hid in the corner and grabbed a half mug of some truly foul-smelling ale somebody had left behind on the table.
The enforcers came through and asked if they’d seen a man matching my description, but my disguise held, and the tiger didn’t suspect that I was the same man. I mentally thanked Sunaya for teaching me the importance of changing my scent in such situations. I waited a good ten minutes until after they were gone, then shuffled out, still as an old man, and headed back toward the port. I changed disguises into an old woman when I crossed into maintown and caught a cable car up to the port, then once more when I arrived.
To my relief, Mina was waiting by the car. She looked beautiful, with the sun setting behind her and the sea breeze ruffling her blonde hair, and if I hadn’t been disguised as an old woman, I would have kissed her. I nearly laughed at the nonplussed look on her face when I pulled out the car keys and unlocked the door.
“I ran into some opposition,” I explained to her in mindspeak as I got in—there were plenty of people strolling about, and I couldn’t risk changing back so soon after running away from enforcers. “Let’s get back to the hotel.”
“This isn’t exactly how I expected to meet,” Mina commented, sounding both amused and annoyed as she got into the car with me.
I started the car, and said nothing until we were crossing over the Firegate Bridge, leaving downtown and those too-keen enforcers far behind. “I decided to go for a stroll in Solantha’s seedier neighborhoods and nearly got arrested,” I said as I finally dropped my most recent illusion. I explained to her about the group of thugs who’d jumped me and the hand signals I’d seen them using right b
efore they’d called me out as a spy.
Mina shook her head. “I never expected you, of all people, to be so foolish as to go into a bad neighborhood alone and unarmed,” she said, frowning at me. “But I’m glad you’re safe. Do you really think these people exchanging their hand signals are co-conspirators? They could just as easily be a gang of thieves.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps, but it’s worth investigating further. If it’s a gang, it must be very big indeed, and would need to be eradicated also.”
Mina reached for my hand. “Promise me that your next investigation will not involve rushing headlong into danger without telling anyone where you are,” she said, her silver eyes bright. “The last thing I need is to find you in a jail cell, or worse, dead.”
I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it. “I promise,” I told her, and prayed to the Creator that I would be able to keep it.
8
Mina
Upon our return to the hotel, Fenris took a long, hot shower to wash off the grime of the streets, and I lounged on the bed in a silk teddy, thinking about the day’s events. Fenris had no bruises or lacerations for me to heal—whatever injuries he’d suffered had vanished during the ride back, thanks to his shifter abilities. Still, Fenris had been somewhat shaken as we’d driven back home—he had been very tense until we’d finally made it to the bridge, more so than I’d ever seen before.
I suppose I would be too, if I’d nearly been arrested. If Fenris landed in the Enforcers Guild jail, he would be in a world of trouble. There was a good chance that the Federal Director of Security, his greatest enemy, had asked the enforcers to report any sighting of Fenris. Polar, his original persona, was a wanted man already condemned to death in absentia.
Worried, I bit my lower lip as I pictured what easily could have happened. I would insist that he use a heavier disguise the next time he went out. Though Fenris had told me he’d spent most of his time in Solantha within the castle walls and in wolf form, someone in the Guild was bound to recognize him and perhaps report him to the Federal authorities in Dara. Solantha was a dangerous place for him to be.
“Don’t look so troubled,” Fenris said, gently taking my chin in his hand as he sat down next to me. He was wearing only a towel, draped low around his waist, and his bare, muscled chest gleamed in the lamplight. “I’m sorry I gave you such a scare, Mina, but everything turned out fine.”
“I know,” I said, skimming a hand along his broad shoulder. I loved the feel of his warm skin, and I let my hand trail further down, along his muscled back. “But I’m realizing just how great a risk it was for you to come here. I wish the gulayas I’d ordered today were ready—I would feel much better if you had one.”
“Oh, so you did go back to that shop?” Fenris raised his eyebrows. “What did you think of it?”
“It was very interesting—the shop owner is an inventor mage called Elnos Ragga. Oh!” I jumped off the bed and rushed for my bag, which I’d left on the shoe bench. “I nearly forgot.”
I retrieved the box and gave it to Fenris. “An engagement present,” I said as he lifted the box.
“Mina…” Fenris’s eyes shone as he gently lifted out one of the necklaces. The two were slightly different—the stones were identical, but Fenris’s chain was made of thicker, heavier links, while mine was more elegant. “I didn’t know you knew what serapha charms were.”
“I saw Sunaya and Iannis wearing them in a picture and asked Mr. Ragga about them,” I said. “I want to be able to reach for you and know that you’re safe, even if you’re not right next to me.”
“And I wish the same.” Fenris slipped his arms around my waist and kissed me softly. “This was a very thoughtful gift. I will have to thank Elnos in person for suggesting them, if I ever get to see him again.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You know Mr. Ragga?”
Fenris’s eyes dimmed. “Indeed I do. He was Noria Melcott’s boyfriend. They worked together on various inventions, until she left to join the rebels. He, on the other hand, was a great help to us while we were fighting the Resistance.”
I frowned. “How exactly does that work, if she was in the Resistance and he was fighting against it?” It sounded like a recipe for disaster and heartbreak to me. No wonder Ragga had talked about being forced to grow up so fast—he must have gone through quite a lot, though he seemed to be coping well enough, judging by his cheerful manner and successful business venture.
Fenris sighed. “The two of them met at the university where Noria studied, and she also worked in Comenius’s shop part time. Sunaya was friends with Noria’s older sister Annia, a fellow enforcer, and became close to Noria as well. But all that was before Noria decided to run off and join the Resistance.”
“A stupid thing to do,” I commented. “And very unfair to her boyfriend. But then again, he’s a mage, and you said she was human, right? Perhaps it never would have lasted anyway.”
Fenris shrugged. “I think it might have—they had so much in common, but unfortunately, not their politics. Anyway, Noria was sent up north to work on a deadly weapon that was meant to exclusively target shifters or mages. Elnos had to make a choice, and he chose to protect the thousands of innocent people who would have died had Noria and the Resistance succeeded.”
“How horrible!” I gasped, truly shocked at the idea of a young girl committing genocide. “And you say that she was a close friend of both Comenius and Sunaya? How did nobody suspect?”
“Oh, everyone knew of her hatred for mages,” Fenris said. “She never bothered to hide her feelings. But so many humans hate the regime; she was not unusual in that regard. And Noria did not realize the true extent of the weapon she was helping to create until it was too late. By the time she figured it out, she was already well within the Resistance’s stronghold, and they refused to let her go or let her give up. In the end, we rescued her and eliminated the weapon and the compound.”
“She sounds like an idealistic girl who chose the wrong side,” I murmured.
“As so often happens in wartime.” Fenris picked up the other necklace with a smile. “Enough talk about Noria, though. Let’s put this gift to good use.”
I scooped my hair back from my neck and allowed Fenris to clasp the chain of his necklace around my neck. He positioned the stone so that it sat directly over my heart, then placed my right hand over it and held it there.
“I’m not sure if Elnos explained, but serapha charms require that you imbue them with a small piece of your soul in order for them to work. You place the stone over your heart, then speak a short incantation that will transfer that piece into the charm. I’ll do it first, and you can repeat after me.”
“All right.” I placed my chain around Fenris’s neck. He pressed the stone to his heart, then closed his eyes and said the Words. His brow furrowed, as if in pain or discomfort, and the air around us sizzled faintly, as it always did when magic was being performed. White light flared between the cracks of his fingers, but it was gone nearly as quickly as it came, leaving me to blink away the spots floating in my vision.
“Wow,” I said as Fenris lowered his hand. The stone was glowing bright blue now, the light from within blazing like a small star. “Is it always going to be like that?”
“No.” Fenris smiled. “It will settle down after a few moments and return to look like a normal stone until I activate it again. Now let’s do yours.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, then repeated the incantation Fenris had used. I felt a pinch deep inside me, in a place I wasn’t aware existed, followed by a burning sensation, as if someone had jabbed a needle inside me. I gritted my teeth against the pain, but it disappeared before I knew it.
“Phew,” I said as I opened my eyes and glanced down at the charm, which was glowing just like Fenris’s. “I thought it was going to be worse than that.” The stone felt hot against my bare skin, and I toyed with it briefly before lifting the necklace over my head.
We traded necklaces, and the stones’ b
rilliance faded away, just as Fenris had predicted. Fenris taught me how to use them to check on each other’s location, distance, and health, and then we ordered room service, too tired from the day’s events to venture downstairs to the dining room.
“I could use a nap right now—" I said sleepily, and then the phone rang. This hotel catered to the ultra-wealthy and thus had phones in every suite, something that I had never seen before. It didn’t seem like such a great luxury right this second, though—how could you enjoy peace and quiet like this?
Frowning, I snatched it off the cradle and answered. Was there a problem with our order?
“Apologies for disturbing you, Mrs. Shelton, but there is another visitor here for you,” the receptionist said, sounding aggrieved. “A young lady with red hair.”
I nearly dropped the phone. “Barrla?”
“Yes, that is her name,” the receptionist said reluctantly. “I assume you want me to send her up?”
“Yes, please,” I said, then hung up the phone. I quickly threw a robe over my flimsy attire, and Fenris dressed in the white cotton pajamas that the hotel provided. A few minutes later, a knock came at the door, and I opened it to see Barrla standing outside, dressed in traveling clothes and looking like she was out for blood.
“Where is that good-for-nothing Dalton?” she demanded, storming inside. She scanned the room with narrowed blue eyes, as if Marris might be lurking in a corner somewhere. “Are you hiding him?”
“Of course not,” I soothed, taking Barrla by the arm. “Why don’t you sit and let me get you a cup of tea?”
“Don’t try to calm me down,” Barrla hissed, her eyes crackling with anger. “Marris up and left in the middle of the night so that I wouldn’t be able to come out here with him. Who is he to tell me where I can and cannot go?”
“He was right to tell you that it was dangerous,” Fenris said. “I myself was nearly killed in the streets today.”
