It was, perhaps, a stroke of genius.
“The poorer Towers,” she said, directing her words to the councilors. “They’re as much scavengers as we are. What do you bet that there are blighted corpse-crawlers like this guy visiting every skyscraper? All those trading contracts suddenly come due—or maybe some are actually honest about it. Taking everything because we have no future use anymore.”
“Xhea…” Shai started.
Councilor Lorris looked like he wanted to throw Xhea from the room. “How is that funny?” he demanded.
“Don’t you see?” Xhea shook her head in a clatter of charms. “We leave, the poorer Towers take everything, and we die. We stay to defend what’s ours? The Spire kills us all.”
Again she laughed, because it was suddenly that or burst into tears.
“No way up,” she said. “No way out.”
Deryan looked Xhea up and down slowly. There had never been much of her, and what he saw was worth only his disdain.
“And who are you?” he asked.
Xhea grinned and leaned back in her chair. “I’m Edren’s spiritual advisor. Expert on ghostly matters.”
“Xhea.” This in a warning tone from Emara. Xhea shrugged; she owed this man nothing.
Lorn moved, reclaiming his opponent’s attention—and acted as if Xhea had not spoken. “The storage coils are integrated into Edren’s walls and all of our systems. What you’re asking is no small task. I could no more hand over the storage coils without work and preparation than I could hand over my own leg.”
Deryan turned away from Xhea, forgetting her. “No such care is needed, my dear man.”
“But we need time,” Councilor Lorris said, his horse face screwed up with dismay. “I mean, you can’t possibly think—”
“Hmm, yes. Three days, and all that.” Deryan smiled. “Sounds like you’d better get cutting.”
The shock was beginning to wear off. Xhea studied him—this so-called Mr. Deryan—the way she used to study a potential client, looking for the tells that said whether he was a safe bet or more risk than the hassle was worth. If he’d come to her, asking for help, she’d have run the other way, as far and as fast as she could.
Too many pieces didn’t add up. There he was, wearing his expensive suit with their bright-spelled cufflinks, his hair newly cut, his City accent plain in every word. Yet she’d met business owners and gang leaders, seen the rulers of no few skyscrapers—and none would have stooped to this kind of inefficient hand-waving. He was enjoying himself too much.
He’s not the one in charge, she realized. He’s just Lorn’s contact—maybe some low level intermediary. She snorted softly. She’d been taken in as easily as the council; score one for the showy entrance.
When she looked, she could just see the glimmer of fine-woven spells hidden in the whorl of his ear and the dark strands of his hair. She couldn’t read their lines of intent, but was willing to bet that he was taking orders—and that someone higher up the chain of command was listening.
Councilor Tranten spoke next, her unblinking eyes fixed on Deryan. “To begin,” she said flatly.
He turned, eyebrows rising in question.
“You said, ‘To begin, we’ll take your magical storage coils.’ What comes next?”
“Ah, yes, very good.” He sounded as if he were an instructor and Tranten some particularly clever student. “The storage coils are a good start. Easy money, shall we say. But that’s hardly much magic, is it? Not nearly enough to cover your debts.”
“If they just want raw magic,” Shai said, “maybe I could…”
Xhea shook her head, wishing she could speak unheard. “No,” she whispered, the sound of her voice little louder than breath. “Think what they’d do.”
If Tower Lozan was desperate enough to steal the storage coils of a ground-bound trading partner, their reaction to an unbound Radiant would be obvious—and drastic. Except for her brief flare to get Xhea’s attention, Shai had kept her magic damped; and of the five Lozan citizens in the room, only one guard seemed to suspect her presence. For that, Xhea was grateful.
She couldn’t help but think that in all the Lower City, Edren was hardly the greatest prize—or the only one to have alerted their trading partners of their plight. Even with once-rich Farrow out of the picture, one would have thought that Senn would have been a more appealing target, or Orren, trade agreements be blighted.
As if she had the same thought, Shai drifted back to the window, frowning as she looked outside.
“What, then?” Lorn asked. “You want the life savings of the entire skyscraper, some thirty-odd of our citizens, and what else?”
Deryan just smiled. “Why, everything, of course.”
“Define everything.” Lorn’s voice made each word a threat. The guards heard the change in his tone for what it was; in unison, the two closest to him lifted not their weapons but their hands, magic glimmering around their fingertips. Lorn only had eyes for Deryan.
“Even Towers need new materials. Some of these old buildings have useful metal in the walls—wiring, plumbing pipes, elevators, and the like. There are artifacts that may be of value. Organic materials can enrich our soil or be sold to the growing platforms. None of it is top quality, to be sure, but it can add up.”
From the window, Shai said, “They’re everywhere.”
Xhea glanced to the ghost. Deryan’s words echoed around her, through her, as if from a dream.
“It’s not just Lozan. There are aircars on Senn’s roof—new models. I can see armed guards in some of the streets. Orren has been surrounded by people wearing Tower Elemere’s sigil, holding off troops who are from—” Shai frowned, shaking her head. “Zie? Tolair? I’m not sure.”
“What if we sold them to you?” Emara asked. She touched Lorn’s arm, not holding him back but reminding him to stand steady. “We could come to an agreement.”
“We already have an agreement. Lozan is acting within its rights as stipulated by its terms.”
“To take what you’re attempting to claim is yours by right, you’d have to destroy everything—our homes, our livelihoods, these very walls.”
“Indeed.”
“Our people need safety, Mr. Deryan,” Emara said, fighting to sound reasonable. “Assistance to help face what is to come. If Lozan could—”
Deryan shook his head. “Oh, my dear woman, you’re under the misapprehension that this is a negotiation. It is not. I am telling Edren’s council what is going to happen so that you can make efforts to direct an appropriate response and reduce loss of life. If you do not choose to do so, well…” He raised his hands and shrugged broadly. “You shall be responsible for the consequences.”
“This skyscraper is ours,” Lorn said. “This territory is ours.”
“Not anymore.”
Xhea listened in angry silence as Deryan outlined the evacuation plans for Edren and its former territory—plans, he explained, that were already underway.
They did not have three days to find safety and shelter; they had hours. Xhea wished for her magic if only so she could fell Deryan with the ease with which his men had knocked out Edren’s guards. She wanted to lay him out cold and flat, wanted to kick him while he was down—and knew that it would make no difference.
She glanced across the table and saw the calculating look on Councilor Tranten’s face. Watched as the small, pale woman ran through the same scenarios as Xhea, and came to the same bleak conclusions.
Say they hurt Deryan and his guards; say they killed him. Then what? Lozan’s forces held most of the skyscraper; they’d acted swiftly while Deryan spoke, and had found Edren’s defenses little challenge. Edren’s citizens were now hostages to ensure the council’s cooperation.
All the while, Shai stood at the window and gave whispered reports of the other skyscrapers’ fates. Edren was lucky; Lozan was their primary trading partner, and the only Tower with which they had a detailed agreement. Orren’s so-called wealth was being split between two Towe
rs, while a tense standoff was occurring outside—and, it could only be assumed, inside—Senn, as no fewer than four Towers fought for salvage rights.
Xhea was planning a quiet escape from the meeting room when Deryan’s words made her go still.
“Oh, one more thing,” he said. “We’ve noticed, in the last while, an increase in Edren’s raw magical wealth. Would you care to explain the source?”
Lorn’s expression did not change. “Gambling,” he said. “We introduced new options at the arena.”
“Gambling, is it? Because I heard an interesting rumor—a rumor that Edren has a new ally, of sorts. A newfound resource.”
Lorn watched him, volunteering nothing—and the rest of the council, miracle of miracles, followed suit.
“I heard a rumor,” Deryan said, “that you had a Radiant.”
Silence.
Deryan looked from one quiet, unmoving council member to the next. His face changed, losing some of its cheerful aggression.
“It’s true?” he breathed. “How could you—I mean, when…”
“It’s easier to show you,” Lorn said slowly. He turned to Xhea.
He wouldn’t, she thought. He can’t. Sweetness and blight, Addis, you can’t possibly…
Except to save the people of his skyscraper? To save what he could of their lives and their future, crumbling around them? What wouldn’t he do?
“Xhea,” he said. “Go and get Addis. Tell him that we need to tell our friend, here, about the Radiant.”
Xhea stared. Blinked—and comprehension dawned.
“Okay.” She grabbed her cane and rose.
“Slowly,” Lorn added. “We don’t want any misunderstandings.”
Xhea nodded and started for the door, Shai at her side. She should run, Xhea thought, wishing she could truly speak to the ghost without words. Wishing she could raise her hand to the tether and push understanding down that line: Get out, get away, before they realize that you’re here.
As if words could force Shai to leave her. Xhea knew that protective look on Shai’s face. Xhea had no real way to defend herself right now, and Shai wouldn’t leave her undefended.
Cursing in silence, Xhea walked toward the door, feeling every eye in the room on her. Nothing to see here, she thought at them, and suppressed a smile as a Lozan guard opened the door to let her go.
“Wait,” another guard said. Xhea hesitated and glanced back.
It was the smallest of the guards, a shorter man who lacked the muscle-bound look of his colleagues. The one, she realized, who had seen Shai.
The smallest, weakest guard; she suddenly bet that meant he had the strongest magic. Sure enough, when she shifted her vision, the light of his magic was the brightest in the room. Well, brightest of the living.
The guard did something similar, squinting—and then shifting to look at the air at Xhea’s side. The empty space where Shai stood.
His eyes widened. “Stop her!”
Xhea ran.
Her gait was not pretty—she stumbled more than she ran, heavily favoring her damaged knee and wincing at the pain—but it got her out the door. Behind her, Shai flared brightly. It was the worst thing she could do against four City citizens watching for her presence—but there wasn’t time to stop her.
“Run!” Shai cried. Xhea felt more than saw the spell that Shai cast; there was a flash, then a wave of heat washed across Xhea’s back as if someone had opened an oven behind her.
Two more Lozan personnel waited in the hall. She caught a glimpse of their expressions: bored and amused, seeing her as neither threat nor challenge.
It didn’t matter that she had no real defense, or that her magic was bound; she could see their power. She ducked beneath the spell flung at her, then spun toward the nearer man, aiming her cane at his knees. He shifted as his colleague cast another spell.
Then Shai was there, knocking the spell from the air like a troublesome fly, and driving both men back against the wall, her shield spell used like a battering ram. Again Xhea felt that wash of heat as she staggered toward the stairwell.
A Lozan man shouted, but Xhea focused on Shai’s words: “Not the stairs—the elevator!”
The elevator gaped wide, a knife sheath jammed into its door mechanism. Without her magic, Xhea realized, it would be safe for her to use. She hurtled toward it and stumbled inside, yanking the sheath from the mechanism as she passed. She leaned hard against the elevator’s far door, gasping and shaking and gritting her teeth against the pain in her knee—and, even so, she couldn’t help but laugh at the Lozan guards’ expressions as the doors rolled closed.
She hit the button for the lobby, and laughed in relief as it lit. Not a magical sensor, thank absent gods.
Shai joined her a moment later.
“Score one for the dead girl,” Xhea said.
“Alert’s gone out,” the ghost told her, ignoring the comment. “They’ll be ready for you.”
So much for the element of surprise. Xhea looked to the numbers atop the door, slowly ticking down.
There was only one place that she could run to evade pursuit—her and Shai both. Because if they grabbed the ghost and took her away, there’d be no point in cowering and hiding; there’d be no point in anything, really.
“When we stop, I’m going to distract them,” Shai said. “You run.”
“Shai, you can’t—” Xhea started—then stared.
Because Shai held her hands before her, light pouring from her palms like water—and in midair it transformed into shadow. Dark magic, was Xhea’s shocked thought—but no, that was impossible. Illusion spell, she realized a second later, as the shadow took the form of a girl.
Third floor.
Second floor.
Lobby.
Xhea pressed herself into the elevator’s front corner, hidden from sight as the doors rolled open.
As far as illusions went, Shai’s wasn’t particularly good. It was little more than a moving shadow in the form of a person, shapes flying about its head that seemed like a flurry of braid tangled hair. It rushed from the elevator in a strange, desperate silence, running for Edren’s main doors. Shai’s fingers danced like a puppeteer’s.
Bad illusion or not, it grabbed the attention of the Lozan personnel stationed in the front lobby—and held it. Shouts, commands to stop, the sizzle of a shock stick flaring to life—such sounds were music to Xhea’s ears.
“One,” Xhea whispered. She gripped her cane harder. “Two… Three.”
She did not run—couldn’t—but moved as quickly and as quietly as she could from the elevator toward the stairs. All around the lobby, Lozan men were stationed. All around, too, she could see the black-clad lumps of Edren’s guard—some twitching and cursing, held by shining restraint spells, others still as the dead. Mercks, she thought. But she kept her head down and moved.
She was halfway across the lobby before the ruse was detected, and nearly to the stairs before anyone thought to turn. Shouting, they moved to intercept. A shimmering barrier appeared between Xhea and the front door; another sprang to life before her, blocking her from the stairs to the ballrooms above.
But she wasn’t running up. By the time her pursuers realized she was going down, it was too late.
Despite her heart hammering in her ears, she couldn’t help but hear the shouts and swearing in her wake. Again the Lozan men tried to raise a barrier before her, or throw a binding around her, or snatch her up with an invisible hand. Shai was there and she was faster, stronger than any of their spells; she unraveled each as they flew toward Xhea and tossed them aside like so much waste.
At last Xhea reached the lower level’s dusty floor, and stumbled into the darkness. Behind her, she heard some of Lozan’s men attempting the stairs. But they were City citizens; they would not get far.
Oh, how her knee hurt—Xhea wanted to fall to the floor and clutch it, press her hands against that too-hot flesh as if touch might reduce the pain—but made herself keep walking. Slower now, steadier
, leaning heavily on her cane.
Xhea glanced to Shai. “You were amazing,” she said.
Shai’s expression was almost comical, and she stammered and fumbled for words. “I didn’t… I mean, I… thank you.” The ghost blushed.
Gratitude, Xhea knew, was something she rarely voiced. Old habits die hard and all that. Shai deserved better.
“No,” Xhea said, feeling suddenly awkward and forcing herself to speak anyway. “Thank you. I couldn’t have done anything to stop them.” Even now, it hurt to admit that—but if she had to rely on anyone, at least it was Shai. It didn’t feel like being rescued; time and again, they saved each other.
To distract herself from her own feelings, Xhea asked, “I kept feeling heat from your attacks. What were you doing?”
If anything, Shai only blushed harder. “I just thought they’d be afraid of the shield if it radiated heat—that they wouldn’t get close enough to counter it. That it would be, I don’t know, surprising. So I twisted the reheat charm they use in the Edren kitchens into the spelllines.”
Xhea stopped, staring.
“I don’t know any offensive spells!” Shai cried. “What was I supposed to do?”
But Xhea was laughing—not at Shai, but the idea that they’d just evaded members of a Tower assault team with an overpowered version of a spell used to keep tea warm.
Better to laugh than cry, she thought. Better to run than give up in despair.
It was too much to think about, and so she only walked, holding fast to her cane. Side by side, Xhea and Shai made their slow way from Edren’s basement into the cool, dark tunnels of the underground.
Xhea pushed aside the last of the temporary repairs to Edren’s bored-through barricade and slipped into the corridor beyond. Guilt felt like a tether, drawing her back. Again and again she thought of what must be happening in Edren above them. Lozan’s forces moving from floor to floor, taking over. That tense, crowded meeting room. The fallen guards.
There’s nothing you can do. She could only run and hide, and she tried not to feel ashamed at the necessity. Shai was a treasure no Tower might ignore, and her only weakness was Xhea, the mortal girl to which she was bound.
Towers Fall Page 8
