by K. Gorman
She rolled her eyes. “After we get out.”
“You sound confident. Do you have a plan?”
His accent sounded worse, now. Patronizing.
She gritted her teeth, gave herself a moment to tamp her anger back down, then bared them in a grin.
“We’re the two smartest Mages in the city,” she said. “I’m sure we can think of something.”
Chapter 22
Mieshka sat on the couch, one hand cradling the back of her phone, the other gently curled around the white blob of bandages that was her finger. Buck had patched her up, cleaning the cut with some kind of solution before rubbing a paste onto it and wrapping it in a clean set of gauze and a thin, stretchy material that looked like hockey tape when it was finished, complete with an end that he tucked in despite its adhesive backing.
That had been a few minutes ago. Jo had been next. Under the hum of the office lights and computer—a normal, Terran model with a thin-screen monitor, split ergonomic keyboard, and a tower hidden beneath the desk—she could hear the murmur of quiet conversation from the bathroom down the hall whose sink provided the designated first aid station.
Aiden had stepped out, for the moment, his phone also in his hand. She stared at hers with a hazy kind of attention, trying to process everything that had happened in the past two hours and everything that might happen in the next two.
He wanted her to absorb the Phoenix. Today.
If she didn’t, she and her father were invited to evacuate with him to Mersetzdeitz, where he would flee with Buck, Jo, and the rest of his things, leaving Ryarne to surrender without a shield.
There were already boxes packed. They hadn’t been there last night, so obviously, he’d had Buck and Jo prepping them while he maintained focus on the shield.
A part of her understood it. A part of her—the logical, high-functioning part of her—had put the pieces together. He wasn’t from Westray. Hell, he wasn’t even from this world. He may have agreed to provide the shield for Ryarne, but his contract ended when he was no longer able to sustainably fill that role.
Without the other two crystals, that time had come.
So, unless she could help him, the only two options were to stay and exhaust the energy of his remaining crystals—both the one in his engine and the one in his ship—until the shield ultimately failed, or to cut the losses of both crystals and leave the city early, before it surrendered.
In both scenarios, the shield would fail. But the latter would, at least, preserve the crystals and evacuate him to safety.
It was a logical choice to make. And the logical part of her brain agreed with it.
But a cold knife still twisted through her chest.
How could he just leave?
She gave herself a little shake, then activated the screen of her phone again. Still no reply from Robin. Where was she? Was she safe?
Did Murphy still have her phone?
In the rush and panic, she’d kind of forgotten that little tidbit.
Movement caught her attention at the door. She jerked her head up just in time to see Aiden re-enter. He met her gaze, then made a quick follow-me gesture with his hand.
“Come. Let’s talk.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, instead disappearing back around the door and up the hall—toward the engine room staircase.
She scrambled to follow, limping the first few steps before her gait settled out.
“How are you holding up?” he asked when she’d caught up to him. “Any thoughts?”
“Plenty. What happened to the Water Mage?”
“One of her assistants found her gone this morning, and her room trashed—walls broken, water completely flooding the place. There was evidence of fire damage to the room, too, which I assume is why people think I had something to do with it.” He gave a short, exasperated huff. “Do you know how many god damn Fire Mages there are in Terra?”
“More than one?” she guessed.
“Yeah. And quite a few with the ability to take down Sophia. She and I are engineers by training, not soldiers. I mean, we’ve learned to defend ourselves, sure, but…” He shook his head. “Anyway. She’s gone, along with her crystal. Taken right from her engine by someone who knew how to do it. From what Roger tells me, they also trashed the engine—which points to this being a definite anti-Westran attack as opposed to any infighting we may have attracted from other Mages.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Is there a lot of infighting among Mages?”
“Yes. A stupidly huge amount. Goes hand in hand with our succession politics.” His lip wrinkled back. “That’s partly why I’m here in Ryarne rather than in Mersetzdeitz. I’d rather not deal with it.” He slid his gaze down to meet hers. “I’ve told Jo to go after your friend, by the way. She’ll leave as soon as she’s patched and ready. We’ve been communicating with Roger. It seems that your other friend, Christopher Lin, has been located and is safe.”
She let go of a breath, releasing some of the tension she’d been holding. “One down, one to go.”
“Yep.” He paused. “Any thoughts on the transfer?”
She grunted. “Yeah. My dad’s a problem.”
“Have you called him, yet?”
“No.”
“Ah. Well, we’ll pick him up on the way. Shouldn’t take long.”
They reached the engine room—a door with the same smooth, black surface as the ship—and Aiden pressed a palm to its front. Orange lines bled out a second later, and the panel pushed open. He held it for her to walk through, then shut it after them.
The outside light cut off, leaving only the glowing dashboard of his shield engine to illuminate the room. He walked toward it.
“If I transferred the Phoenix in, how would I know how to find the crystals? You said yourself that I don’t have any training.”
Aiden gave a low, savage laugh. “Oh, don’t worry. He will know. I’ll make sure to communicate our intentions with him through the ship interface before we begin. The other crystals are his siblings. He’ll want to find them.”
Right. She was just playing host—a way to, as she understood it, bypass the potential technology that was blocking the engine and ship from tracking it themselves.
“How likely is this to work?” she asked.
She couldn’t imagine that putting a powerful, valuable crystal permanently into a person he’d met yesterday had been his first choice. Or even his twentieth.
“Honestly?” A shrug followed through his shoulders. “There is zero data on this, which means there is nothing to base any assumptions off of—but I’d say it’s got perhaps a ten percent chance of working. The transfer, I think, will work, so it all depends on how able to communicate the Phoenix is once he transfers over and whether or not whatever is blocking him from finding the other crystals now will also affect him once he’s outside of his crystal and Lost Tech housing block.”
She tried to wrap her head around that, and failed. “Man, where the hell is he even going to stay? I mean, it’s not like I’ve got some crystal-sized gap around for him to flame into.”
“Probably in the same place your magic exists now.” Aiden gave her a sidelong glance as he reached the engine, then leaned over to tap a few keys on its dashboard, bringing another window onto the screen. “You do have magic, even if you don’t feel like you do.”
She snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“You’ll see it rather soon, then, I expect. So long as we can get your dad on board with it. How likely is he to say ‘no’?”
“Very likely. He’s a reactionary sort of person, and this will blindside him.”
“Ah. But you want to do this, correct?”
She hesitated. “I wish it weren’t happening so fast.”
He paused, his gaze turning to give her face a study, his eyebrows drawing down. “Is that a yes? A maybe?”
She swallowed. “I don’t really have a choice, do I? If I don’t, Ryarne’s definitely screwed.”
> “Ryarne’s likely screwed either way,” Aiden said. “It’s just a matter of time before Terremain falls and Swarzgard comes marching up the valley. That, I can’t prevent—but that can be a matter of months or years. I can prevent Ryarne from being taken from the air until then.”
“But only if you have more than one crystal feeding into the shield.”
“Yes. I need three, or the crystals start dying. And that is something I will not risk.”
He stared at her after he’d spoken, his eyes searching hers. After a few seconds, she realized he was waiting for a response.
She gave a nod.
He turned back to the engine. “Keep thinking about it. I’ve got a couple more programs to run—safeguards for you after the transfer. You’ll probably be spending a few days in here after.”
Glancing around, she felt her eyebrows rise as she squinted through the dimness to take in the room’s bare concrete walls, dead lightbulb, and complete lack of amenities. Tools and scraps of litter were scattered at random around the floor, along with an old computer and a pieced-apart air conditioning unit that she guessed he’d been using for parts. A series of oil blots and dark scuffs marred the concrete to the left of her foot, spreading under the engine’s body.
Well, at least it’s fireproof.
Based on her brief use of his Fire magic—and confirmed by Aiden twenty minutes ago—she’d discerned that any fire she made wouldn’t hurt her. It’d hurt other people, sure, and another Mage’s fire would hurt her, but her own fire was harmless. Unless she wanted to self-immolate.
Perhaps having similar thoughts to hers, Aiden cleared his throat.
“We’ll fix it up,” he said. “After this, the city will at least owe you a bedroom set.”
“And a lightbulb,” she commented, glancing to the one whose glass glinted orange in the ceiling from the light of the engine dashboard.
“And a lightbulb.” He gave a low chuckle. “It’s funny—we actually have a spare bulb, but no one’s wanted to get the ladder and fix it, yet.”
“Huh.”
After completing a task on the dashboard, he rolled his shoulders again, folding his arms across his chest—reminding her a bit of her father with his hunched shoulders—and turned back to her.
“So, let’s run through this. You’ve already experienced a partial transfer. The full transfer, I think, will be similar. The ship will lock you into the chair again, the lines will come back—they’re a way for the crystal to map you out, similar to how my tracking spell works. They connect you with your psychic form, which is the body you visualize when you dream, and they’ll hijack that link to establish a connection between you and the Phoenix. That’s how, I think, the Phoenix will transfer into you.”
He thinks. Right. “Did the data from the partial transfer lead you to thinking that?”
“Yes.”
She glanced around again, easing a step back to give herself space and step out of the immediate light of the dashboard. A twinge of pain came up from her injured finger, and she rubbed the base of its bandage in an idle motion as she considered her options.
She could still say no. She could still, if not walk away, then at least push the decision to another day.
But if she did, Aiden would have zero chance of finding the other crystals—and the two abducted Mages—and Ryarne would face surrender without a working shield.
On the other hand, she had already been leaning toward learning her magic, and she had already been wanting to take on the Phoenix.
“It’s a lot to think about,” he said. “I understand.”
“It’s only been two days. Not even.”
“Yep. Don’t worry, I know. If I were you, I’d also be doing a lot of hard, thorough thinking.” He let out a loud breath and turned away again, stooping back over to reach the engine’s dashboard. “Just know that, whatever you choose, you and your father will be safe. Your inclusion in our evacuation to Mersetzdeitz does not hinge on your choice.”
It was a good thing he’d moved his attention elsewhere, because an involuntary chill shivered through her core—God, she was sixteen. She should be worrying about school and boys, not potential evacuations for her family in the face of an impending attack.
The shield will fail without us.
Repressing another shiver, she swallowed hard and drew a slow, deep breath, her jaws tightening until her teeth ground together.
God, it really is up to me, isn’t it?
Not that Aiden’s plan would actually work—even he admitted it had a narrow chance of success.
But a narrow chance was better than nothing.
Before she could say anything, her phone began to ring in her pocket.
Shit. Dad.
She fumbled to pull it out—then paused when she caught sight of the caller ID.
“Uh, Aiden,” she said. “Why are you calling me?”
He aimed a confused frown at her over his shoulder. “My office line?”
“Dunno.”
As he took it from her hand, it stopped ringing.
“Huh,” he said, skimming through her call history. “That’s weird. Maybe—”
A text rolled in, making the phone chirp, and he froze.
She craned her neck to look at the screen.
“Soldiers.”
Aiden spat something that sounded like a swear—it had a lyrical, foreign quality to it—then jumbled the phone back to her and lunged for the engine’s dashboard, fingers flying over the console keys. In an instant, an image of the stairwell popped into view.
They were just in time to see Jo sprint past, skipping nearly half the flight as she whipped down, firing off a few blind shots behind her as she went.
Then, a few seconds later, the video feed was filled with armed men wearing uniforms she didn’t recognize.
Beside her, Aiden leaned back on his heels, arms coming up to cross over his chest as he studied the feed.
“Shit.”
Chapter 23
Mieshka stared at the soldiers on the screen, aware of the subtle ringing sound that had risen in the back of her head, splitting her mind into a detachment that was both familiar and useless.
She dug her fingernails into her forearm with a silent snarl and used the pain to fight against it, forcing her attention off the screen and to the room around her.
She couldn’t check out. Not now.
“Is there another way out?” She searched the walls. “A secret passage?”
“No,” Aiden said. “But the walls are reinforced with steel. Floor and ceiling, too.”
“Steel and an angry Fire Mage?” A nervous laugh fluttered out of her, belying the panic under her confident tone. She gave herself a little shake.
Aiden didn’t reply, but the expression on his face had taken a calculating edge.
She swallowed the next laugh as it threatened to bubble out. Magic hadn’t helped the other two Mages.
“Are those Westran uniforms?” she asked.
“Yes. Homeguard, which is most common in Ryarne. I doubt they actually are Westran, however.” Aiden jabbed a finger toward the screen. “Look at the guy on the far left. See his tattoo? It’s nearly covered up, but it’s got a sword handle showing.”
The screen zoomed in on the section he’d indicated, and she got a good look at what he was pointing at.
Ah. Technically, both Westray and Ryarne featured swords on their coats of arms, but Swarzgard’s had the most prominent. Plus, if it were Westran or Ryarnese, a set of wings would have shown up.
The hilt, too, looked more Swarzgardian.
“Shit,” she echoed, then froze as realization sank in.
These were the same people who had killed her mother.
As a panicky chill began to creep down her spine, the image moved again, zooming out to capture two non-uniformed men coming down the stairs. One was taller, with a narrow, hawkish face and a receding hairline that only added to the grim, cutthroat look of his expression. Like the others,
he carried a gun—a heavyset semi-automatic similar to some she’d seen before, but with a ridge along its muzzle that made it seem blocky and foreign—and he moved with the kind of drilled-efficiency that screamed dangerous to her, though his frame was slimmer than Buck’s.
The other man, shorter and skinnier, had a more office-worker look in his white button-up shirt and slate-gray slacks. He looked down at where he stepped and held a black box in front of him, fingers curled tightly around its bottom edge.
“Shit,” Aiden said. “That’s a problem.”
She stiffened. “What is it?”
“That is a prison box. Used to transport dangerous Mages. Takes magic and makes it null—basically by eating it into a pocket dimension. Who in the hell brought one of those over?”
The engine console beeped. A second later, it had highlighted the box-holder in a purple light. A window appeared to the right, scrolling through a series of Lürian data she couldn’t read.
Aiden upgraded his swearing. “Fuck.”
“What?” She squinted at the text—as if that would help her read it. “What does that mean?”
“He’s a Telepathic Elemental. Terran, according to this.” Aiden’s lip curled. “Which means I have only the barest idea of what he can do.”
“Telepathic? He can get into our heads?”
“Something like that—and yes, they are huge pains in the asses to deal with. At minimum, they can pull things from our minds and use them to create illusions. Not the illusions that Light Elementals can make, which everyone can see since it’s an actual manipulation of light, but ones only for a select few. Inside your head, instead of outside of it.”
Her jaw slacked. That went far beyond anything she’d ever expect from an ‘Elemental’—but then, Lür was not Terra, and she had seen that they used more ‘Elements’ than any traditional Terran culture.
“Do you have a plan?” she asked.
“No.” Aiden made a gesture toward the screen. “This just shot mine to Hell—I mean, there are a few things I can do. If I can defeat the telepath and get around the prison box, we’ll be all right. But the box is probably going to get me.”
