Devon peered through the letterbox. “It’s your friend.”
She opened the door and to my utter surprise, Ryan walked in. “Hey, Liv.”
“You didn’t mention you’d be dropping in.” I stepped aside to let them in. “I’m glad you’re not from the Order.”
“Are they still giving you trouble?”
“Not right this minute.” I closed the door firmly behind them. “Also, does your boss know you’re here?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Now I’ve got you disobeying the King of the Dead?” I grinned. “I’m a bad influence.”
They smiled. “Nah, I just think you’re right about this situation being fishy. So I did some poking around.”
Trix eyed them with interest. “What did you find?”
Ryan held up a wad of paper. “The other Elemental Soldiers and I did some sleuthing, gathering what we knew on the contenders and their backgrounds.”
“I knew you wouldn’t let me down.” I led the way into the living room. “So… what’s the verdict on Sledge?”
“A lowlife with no connections,” said Ryan. “Bad temper, though. And Bria… weirdly enough, we have no records of her. She’s not the only late contender who didn’t put in an application, but she must have taken care to hide all traces of herself.”
Hmm. “What about Harper?”
“Her name came up in connection with the House of Fire,” said Ryan. “Seems she left, though. Maybe because of her brother. He’s definitely a water mage, but that doesn’t mean he caused the disruption yesterday.”
“Maybe we should find out if any of the others have water mage relatives,” I said. “How is she connected to the House of Fire, exactly?”
“She shows up on a list of members,” said Ryan. “A long list. Davies is there, which is to be expected.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “I have some bad news on our odds of finding the traitor.”
I filled them in on what I’d just learned from Devon and Trix, about the Houses’ myriad of safe houses and their arrangement with Elysium’s authorities. The Death King, I was reasonably confident, already knew. That would explain why he didn’t have his liches patrolling the Parallel, searching every house for his runaway mage.
“Nobody can hide forever in the Parallel,” said Ryan. “If Davies really is hiding in the House of Fire, I’ll find him and make him pay for what he did.”
I didn’t argue. Ryan had earned that right, considering Davies had damn near killed them. “Spirit mages wouldn’t work with the others, would they?”
Granted, Bria had insisted the Spirit Agents couldn’t be involved in disrupting the contest, but the fact remained that a spirit mage had attacked me the other day.
“I dunno,” said Devon. “But look at Brant. Was he involved with the House of Fire?”
My mouth parted. “You know… there’s a strong possibility there. He and Davies knew each other from somewhere, and Brant didn’t make a habit of hanging around the Death King’s castle.”
“Can you speak to Brant?” asked Ryan.
“Not before the Order sends him into the Parallel,” I said. “And even then, I’d be depending on the goodwill of the vampires.”
Speaking of whom, they had yet to give me an answer on whether they agreed to my request for a meeting or not. Had I made a mistake in asking them? If I hastened Brant’s fate and he ended up dead, everything would be for nothing. Yet how many chances would I have to talk to him again, whether he survived or not? If the vampires spared him, he’d still be stuck behind bars for the rest of his life.
“The vampires owe you a favour,” said Trix. “You saved their lives.”
“So does the Death King, and you wouldn’t know it,” I pointed out. “Besides, the vampires have the upper hand in this scenario. Brant was heavily involved in the conspiracy against them, and I know for a fact some of them were royally pissed off with us for not leaving them anyone alive to torture.”
Brant’s fate weighed on me more than I wanted it to. I didn’t blame myself for where he ended up, and yet I couldn’t help feeling as though I held his life in my hands again, whether I acknowledged it or not. Yet the fact remained that he might be the only person who could tell me where Davies was, and which of the contestants might be scheming against the Death King.
“Have you spoken to the vampires?” asked Ryan.
“I tried to get a meeting with them,” I admitted. “Still haven’t heard back.”
“You did?” They frowned. “You didn’t tell the Death King.”
“And I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell him either.”
“Can we trust you?” asked Trix.
“Me?” said Ryan. “Of course. I’m not thrilled at going behind my master’s back, but I understand why you feel you have no choice in the matter. The vampires, though… don’t count on them to have your back. Especially where the fire mage is concerned.”
“They might say differently if I explain that Brant can help them track down Davies,” I said. “He did more damage than Brant did, in the end. If Brant can point us towards him…”
“Even if you find the House of Fire’s hideout, it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to get inside it,” Ryan said.
“I’ll build all the stealth cantrips you might need, then,” Devon said. “I’ve been making extra on the side.”
A stealth mission sounded much more appealing than going back to judge the Death King’s contest. “If you ask me, Sledge is more likely to come back and make trouble than Davies. Are you sure you didn’t see where he went, Trix?”
“No, but maybe he’ll show up later on.”
“Not a good thing, Trix.” I pushed to my feet. “All right. Time to head back in. If I have time this afternoon, can I look at that list, Ryan? I bet I’ll find Brant’s name on it.”
“Go ahead,” they said.
When we returned to the castle, however, it was to find Dex hovering anxiously above the node. “Someone’s here to see you.”
“To see me?” I looked past him at the gate, and my heart plunged. The liches at the gates crowded around someone who stood in the middle of the path as though they had every intention of walking inside. A vampire. The smartly dressed man couldn’t be anything else, though I didn’t recognise his face.
“He said you asked to see him,” said Dex. “Told you it was a bad idea to request to speak to Lord Pointy Teeth.”
“No need to rub it in.”
An emissary from the vampires had come to the castle, because of course they couldn’t just wait until I was alone. How long had the dude been standing outside? Long enough to rile up the liches, evidently. Everyone could see him. Including—if he was here—the Death King. Fuck me sideways.
I approached the vampire, shivering as I passed through the crowd of liches. The smartly dressed man wore dusty clothes which looked as though he’d been wearing them for a few decades, and his glossy pointed teeth gleamed in his wide smile.
“I’m Liv,” I said. “Who are you?”
“My master wishes to respond to your request in person.” He bowed to the liches. “Send my regards to your King.”
Dammit. The Death King would be pissed if I ran off now, but one did not disobey the vampires without facing the consequences. I caught Ryan’s eye, and they nodded, giving me permission.
Hoping I hadn’t just doomed both myself and Brant at once, I walked alongside the vampire. “I thought you slept during the day.”
“We do,” he said. “However, as acting liaison between humans and vampires, I am sent on ambassadorial missions such as this one whenever appropriate.”
To my surprise, he headed towards the node I’d come in through. Didn’t want to get his polished shoes dirty by traipsing through the swamp, I’d guess.
“I didn’t know vampires used the nodes so much,” I commented. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d need to, with how fast you move.”
“It proves useful when we meet with humans s
uch as yourselves.”
He stepped through the node. I followed… and came out in the middle of the crowded city centre.
This wasn’t Arcadia, or even the Parallel. He’s bringing me to the Order.
I halted mid-step, the node gleaming behind me. “Is your master in there? With the Order?”
He didn’t answer. He took off at a fast pace, and I had to run to catch up with him. How could the vampire lord be here? Since when did he meet with the Order, in broad daylight, no less? Something was seriously screwy.
My heart beat loudly in my ears. Either I was in deep shit for using spirit magic—again—or for my job working for the Death King. Or even for stepping out of line and having the audacity to request a meeting with the vampire council.
The vampire led me into the Order’s headquarters, startling the guards outside so much that they forgot to scrutinise my Order ID. I walked after him, conscious of the stares I attracted throughout the lobby, and entered the corridor at the back. The vampire stopped outside Mr Cobb’s old office and gestured to me to go ahead.
When I entered the office, I forgot all about the vampires. Brant sat in one of the chairs, his hands and feet cuffed, and his head bowed.
11
My shocked gaze went to Mr Holland, who sat at the desk wearing a blandly calm expression. “What is this?”
The Order couldn’t know about my scheme to seek out the vampire council and ask them to spare Brant, right? But then, why had the vampire been the one to bring me here?
“Liv.” Brant’s voice cracked and his eyes brimmed with horror when he lifted his head to look at me. Despite his evident fear, he didn’t look hurt. The Order weren’t given to inhumane treatment—they obeyed the laws here on this side, after all—but that didn’t mean they hadn’t done their level best to torment him psychologically until he’d lost all sense of self, the way they’d done to me.
Pain splintered my chest from the inside. I knew how brutal the Order was, and yet I’d let them dictate the terms of his punishment. If they’d taken his memories or magic, punishment at the hands of the vampires might have been be a better fate after all.
“Olivia Cartwright,” said the head interrogator. “This man is set to face trial at the hands of the vampire council. As the two of you were acquainted, you are to be sent alongside him as the second emissary at the request of Lord Blackbourne.”
Disbelief speared me. Emissary? I knew some people in the Order worked hand in hand with the vampires to bring in supplies from this realm into the Parallel, but there was a world of difference between that and transporting a prisoner on foot. I would have thought I’d be seen as too biased to be trusted. Either the vampire had more influence over the Order than I’d thought, or something else was going on.
“Lord Blackbourne asked me to bring Brant to him?” I said.
“Yes, he did,” he said. “I trust you’re willing to do your part?”
There must be a catch somewhere. “Yes, but I’m not an ambassador, and this isn’t typical of my role as a retriever, either.”
“I thought it in poor taste to deny the request of the leader of Arcadia’s vampires.”
Were they trying to set me up in some way? I tensed when a shadow fell over the window, but when I tilted my head in that direction, it wasn’t a vampire I saw. The Death King walked past the room, halted for a brief instant, then disappeared from sight.
A fresh wave of shock washed over me. The Death King was here. In the Order’s base. He must have seen me, yet he hadn’t intervened. Why would he? Brant was more his enemy than mine, and he’d gladly see him suffer at the vampires’ hands.
At least I wouldn’t have to explain my absence from the castle the next time I saw him. Not that that was much of a silver lining right now.
“What is he doing here?” I asked.
“The Death King is one of our allies,” he said, “and it’s our policy to maintain good relations with him and with the vampires for the sake of maintaining peace among the magically inclined.”
“And the Houses of the Elements?” The words slipped out before I could reel them in.
Brant’s gaze snagged on me, and his eyes widened in a way that suggested he wanted to communicate something with his eyes which he couldn’t voice aloud. Not that I had the faintest clue what it was.
“The Houses, too,” said Mr Holland. “Come in.”
The door opened and the vampire from earlier entered the room. “Is the prisoner ready?”
“Yes, he is.” Mr Holland rose to his feet. “Olivia will be accompanying you, as planned.”
Not by me, it wasn’t. I held my tongue. The vamps might be plotting against me, but they’d just handed me a chance to talk to Brant and Lord Blackbourne. If I played my cards right, that is.
“If that is all,” said the vampire, “we will take him with us.”
He glided to the chair and undid the cuffs on Brant’s ankles, then dragged him to his feet with the ease given by vampire strength. A second vampire took Brant’s other arm, and between them, they carried the bound fire mage out of the room.
I hesitated, turning back to Mr Holland. “Whose idea was this? The vampires’?”
“Who else?” he said. “You’d better catch up to them before they leave you behind.”
Not like I had much of a choice. I went to the door and walked out into the corridor, following the vampires’ path through the lobby and towards the doors. Brant made no sound and moved unresistingly, as though all the fight had been kicked out of him all at once. I couldn’t say a word to him yet, not with the vampires there. He must know about the Houses of the Elements. Had he really belonged to the House of Fire? The head interrogator hadn’t reacted in such a way that suggested I was in trouble for knowing, so the Houses must be common knowledge, but what about their link to the contestants in the Death King’s trials? To Davies and his betrayal?
“Hey.” I caught up to the vampires as they stalked towards the node. “Slow down, won’t you?”
The vampires halted beside the node until I caught up. Then light engulfed us, and we emerged out of the node and onto one of the roads leading to the vampires’ council house.
The Citadel of the Elements towered above the rooftops, tall, forbidding, and empty. Yet it was the vampires’ council house which contained the holding cells where they put anyone who was foolish enough to make an enemy of them. The two vampires halted for a moment to scan the street, and Brant shuffled back, his eyes bulging. I caught up behind him, sensing he wanted to speak to me.
“The Houses—they can’t be trusted,” he whispered to me. “If they’ve targeted you, don’t seek them out. Don’t—"
He broke off with a shout, and I spun around, as did the two vampires. Someone had thrown a knife at us, which clattered to a halt at my feet.
Another sharp instrument whipped past my back, narrowly avoiding Brant’s shoulder. We were under attack. Whoever it was, they were aiming from above, from somewhere among the rooftops. One of the vampires fell into a heap, a knife buried in his chest.
The second vampire let out a howl of fury and scaled the nearest house with elegant grace. I made to follow him, and Brant bumped against me from behind. “Take my cuffs off. Please.”
“Brant, I can’t—” I broke off as the second vampire flew down from the roof, several knives sticking out of his chest, and landed with a thud in the alley. “What the hell?”
A shadow fell overhead. With a curse, I began to climb the drainpipe to the roof. If I’d brought Dex with me, I might have been able to track down the attacker, but they’d moved too damned fast for me to catch up with. As I halted on the windowsill, movement prompted me to look down as Brant’s cuffed form sprinted out of the alleyway.
Crap, Brant was running away. Had he planned this?
“Stop!” I let go of the drainpipe and landed in the alleyway. “Brant, for the Elements’ sakes—”
The cold hands of a lich wrapped around my throat, choking off my b
reath.
“Hello, Olivia,” a voice hissed. A voice belonging to someone who shouldn’t be alive any longer. Someone I thought the vampires had killed.
This time, I knew his name. Hawker. He was alive all along. The lich traitor had survived—and set up an ambush. He couldn’t have thrown the knives, though, so he must have living allies on his side.
“You’re dead,” I choked out. “You died…”
Coldness shredded my throat, and dread seized me. If the lich started draining my life force, I was dead for good.
Too bad for him that he’d made the mistake of attacking me right next to a node. I drew on the node’s strength and blasted energy at him from behind. The lich’s grip broke, but cold still froze me to the bone, deeper than an arctic frost. Could a human outdo a death lord, even a spirit mage like me?
I fought the chill, grabbing for the node’s energy. Power blasted from my hands, but he didn’t so much as stagger. He was stronger than the others. As a former spirit mage, he had the same power as the Death King did.
Gritting my teeth, I pivoted out of reach of his grasping hands, drawing the node’s energy into my palms once more. “How the hell did you survive? I saw you die.”
“Are you sure that’s who you saw?”
Well… no. All the liches looked the same, and while I’d seen a dead body in the vampires’ district which I’d taken for a lich, it’d been in such an advanced stage of decomposition that I wouldn’t have known who it’d originally been.
But then, who was it? “There was more than one betrayer.”
“Far more than one, Olivia.” The lich’s chill grip brushed over me again.
I lunged forward and grabbed the thread of energy inside him. White-hot power seared my hand and I staggered back, the connection breaking as suddenly as it had begun.
“He’s been teaching you a few tricks, has he?” said Hawker. “He’s wasting his time.”
I caught my balance. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
The node’s power filled my hands. My teeth rattled with it, and a rush of satisfaction pierced me from within when the lich backed out of range.
Trial of Shadows (Order of the Elements Book 3) Page 11
