by K. Gorman
And Michael, with all the in time in the world, walked away.
In a minute, he was gone.
Chapter 33
It took them more than thirty minutes to get back to the Water Mage’s place. Gobardon carried Kitty, who lolled like a ragdoll in his arms. She’d been unconscious since Michael had thrown her against the wall, but she still took shallow breaths. She even hissed with pain when Gobardon shifted her, making Mieshka think that she wasn’t so far gone, after all.
Mieshka piggybacked with Ketan. It had seemed logical, considering her crutch was little more than kindling in the alleyway and buried under a half ton of debris. She thought it would’ve been more awkward, but Ketan handled the situation with a clinical bent that made her seem like little more than a backpack. She didn’t seem to hamper him at all, though he took the stairs a bit slower than the rest.
Roger led. His shoulder still sank at an odd angle, but he was all business. Broken shoulder or not, she didn’t doubt that he would fuck up the next person that crossed him.
No one talked. No one stopped them. When they got to the Water Mage’s headquarters, Ketan hesitated.
He paused, considering the building. Muscles tensed in his back.
But it was only for a split second. He readjusted his grip on her legs—carefully avoiding her stitches—ducked his head, and followed Roger into the complex.
Perhaps it said something that she had never been here before. Sure, she’d met Sophia, and had been running with the Mages for the better part of four months now, but this was her first time seeing the Society’s base of operations.
The old armory stood straight, thick, and tall against the Underground’s ceiling, its head buried in the rafters. Its walls had three feet of solid concrete defending it, and the UnderNet was rife with rumors of secret tunnels beneath the surrounding streets.
After her experience with Sophia, she had little doubt about their existence.
They ducked under an archway, passed the gate guards, and wandered into a maze of hallways. They reminded her of an old school, or a hospital. White walls stretched up over her head. Wooden archways segmented each hallway and intersection.
Eventually, they turned into a room on the upper level.
Robin spotted them first, but Jo beat her to the punch. The mercenary was by her side in an instant, scanning the group with her usual efficient stoicism. Her eyes lingered on the bulges in Mieshka’s clothes, where she knew the bandages were.
“Meese! Are you okay?” Robin bounced to her side, all fret and worry. Her eyes went wide as they took in the dusty jacket, the scorch marks on her sleeve, and the browned, singed edges of her bandages. “You look… burned?”
Doubt threaded Robin’s voice.
“They all look burned,” Jo observed. “And you smell like a campfire.” This last was addressed directly to her. Jo met her eyes, lifting an eyebrow in a question.
“I’m fine.” But even as she said it, her voice sounded weak. She slumped on Ketan’s back. Exhaustion took care of her inhibitions. Even the tension in Ketan’s shoulders didn’t stop her from using him as a pillow.
Hey, she’d piggybacked with Roger a few days ago. It couldn’t get any more awkward than that.
But, all journeys must come to an end.
She leaned forward, tapped Ketan on his arm, and pointed. “Couch.”
Jo, perhaps doubting her definition of ‘fine,’ followed them. She helped Mieshka down, saying nothing as the Fire Elemental hissed through her teeth at the motion. Numbness flooded her legs, but tiny pins of feeling pricked through them.
Jo squatted in front of her. “You want the good news or the bad news?”
Her voice was quiet, hushed. Serious.
That was never a good tone. She forced herself awake, new worry clenching in her gut. Her mind felt half fried—one part melted by her Element, the rest dragged down through lack of sleep.
“Is any of it about my dad?”
By the way Jo’s face turned, she had a feeling that wasn’t the good news.
“Your apartment’s swarming with military. He’s not there.”
She tightened her jaw. That definitely wasn’t the good news. If the Army had taken him, it was only because of her. Dad hadn’t done anything wrong.
Neither had she, come to think of it. But they were after her, anyway.
She shook her head. Now wasn’t the time to think of the why. They had other worries. “He’s not there?”
Jo shook her head. “Buck didn’t see him.”
She didn’t ask how he’d managed to look into the apartment. The only windows faced another building, with ten feet between them. Buck would have either had to go through the hallway and then her apartment’s front door to get a look, or somehow have rappelled from the rooftop.
She could see him doing both. Jo might have been the more aggressive mercenary, but as Aiden had alluded to in the past, Buck had many hidden talents.
“So, if he’s not there, where did they take him? And why are they still there?”
“They could’ve taken him to any number of places in the city. Right now, Ryarne has a zillion temporary military stations. I have no idea where he is, but we can figure it out. And as for the other question…” Jo gave her a flat look. “They’re waiting for you.”
Right. Of course.
Slowly, she became aware of people watching her.
Fifteen people stood in the room, mostly Society members. She spotted McKay in the corner, dressed in faded jeans with a grunge band T-shirt that hung off her shoulders. She stood next to a small kitchenette, which was piled high with food. Five case-lots of instant noodles stood by the end of the counter, and the fruit bowl on the counter had been decimated.
In the quiet, she heard the ticking of the clock. No one moved.
“So,” she said. “What’s the good news?”
“Aiden and Sophia are still free.” Jo’s teeth edged into her smile, giving her words a sardonic tone. “And they’re working on Aiden’s ship. It seems we will be leaving soon.” She dropped her voice. “That’s why they didn’t get the messages. No reception there.”
And why they hadn’t come when Mieshka had needed their help.
She gritted her teeth. Well, it’s not like they’d expected her to go Underground. It was—what, seven a.m.? She was supposed to be asleep right now. In her apartment.
Of course, if she’d been where she was supposed to be, she’d have now been locked up in a military bunker somewhere, captured.
By her own government.
“But… why?” she asked. “Did something happen?”
“To make us leave earlier, you mean?” Jo bared her teeth again and pulled out her phone. “Yeah, something happened. I’ve had some time to look it up since he told me about it. Remember what that guy told you, about the military APB? Well, it’s a lot more complicated than that. All of my military feeds have been lighting up in the past few hours. It goes way deeper than catching you, way deeper than the Mages.”
Jo handed the phone over to Mieshka, sliding her finger along the screen so she could read the nearest messages. It was an older, basic messaging setup, without the aesthetic appeal and emoticon add-on that Mieshka’s normal messaging app came with. A news feed updated every few seconds.
Her eyes narrowed. They all seemed to be about the same thing.
Surrender.
She met Jo’s eyes. “We’ve lost the war?”
Jo gave her a grim look. “We’re about to.”
Then, as if on cue, her skin warmed. Orange light slipped into it, drawing lines from every major joint as Aiden’s tracking spell reactivated.
Looks like the Mages had finally got their messages.
Chapter 34
“Tell me again.”
Aiden stood a few feet from her, arms folded over his chest. As he spoke, his one hand came up to press the bridge of his nose. He looked even more tired than he had before, and his eyes, when they opened, were tinged pink wher
e there should have been white. His skin was raw and blotchy.
They’d been over the story twice already, and Mieshka was sick of it. He kept pressing her for details—where had Michael come from, what had he said—but Aiden seemed less concerned with Michael’s attack than he did with her so-called spell.
The Fire Mage stifled a yawn and rubbed the bridge of his nose harder, leaving white blotches among the pink. His fingertips also left little smudges of black on the skin.
“The whole thing?” She slumped in the chair, one arm leaning against Jo’s. The pain of her other arm had grown into a kind of numbing ache, and the pressure felt strangely welcome. How long had she been up now? It had to be going on a day without sleep, maybe more.
Definitely more. It was past eight o’clock now.
“What did the rune look like?”
Sophia stood in the back, not looking much better than Aiden did. Her tracking spell had kicked in on the tail end of Aiden’s, and she’d teleported in barely a minute after. The Electric Mage, Derrick, had followed.
The room had emptied out. Only the core group remained. Roger sat on the arm of a chair by the wall, next to a Society woman who looked familiar. McKay had moved closer to the fridge, head bowed. She had her phone in her hand, and her face was underlit by the glow of its screen. Mieshka could tell she was paying attention, though, because she’d occasionally look up during the conversation.
Gobardon had vanished through the door, still carrying an unconscious Kitty. Maybe there was a doctor on site, or a clinic nearby.
“Meese?”
Jo waved an arm in front of her face.
She realized she’d been quiet for more than a minute, and Sophia’s eyes studied her closely.
“The rune?”
She barely remembered it. It had unfolded on the back of her hand like a spider’s leg: thin, orange, and glowing. If it had formed a more coherent shape before it had blasted off the spell, she didn’t know.
But the memory seemed to stir something within her. The Phoenix rose from her subconscious, brushed her mind with heat. Her skin warmed enough that Jo, standing beside her, tensed.
“I saw it.” Roger’s eyes opened to slits as he spoke. His face was a mask, carefully free of emotion, but pain was evident in his posture. He hadn’t moved in twenty minutes, and his left arm held the right away from his body. His shoulder looked sharper than normal. Dust coated his jacket. “I could draw it, if you’d like.”
“I would like,” Sophia said.
“Later, then.” He closed his eyes.
That was the only concession to his injury that he made.
Mieshka didn’t envy him the doctor’s visit.
At that moment, Gobardon reappeared through the door. Stress had worn away at his face, chipped at the stoic mask he wore. She could see it in the way his eyes moved, shifting over the room, the way his throat trembled.
Kitty was not with him.
All eyes turned to him. They watched as he picked his way to an unoccupied chair and sat.
“She’ll be fine,” he said to the room. “Michael gave her a good dose of glasna, but Derrick and I broke it. She’ll sleep the rest of it off, with only a large bruise when she awakes.”
His speech seemed more accented now, colored by a peculiar lilt to his vowels. She had heard something similar before from Aiden, but only when he was exceptionally tired. Gobardon smoothed his dust-smeared pants, crossed his legs, and met the two Mages’ stares.
Disgust twisted Sophia’s face. Apparently, her attitude toward him hadn’t changed since their last meeting.
“Glaz-what?” Mieshka asked.
The three Mages all looked to her.
“Glasna,” Sophia said. “An attack spell. Renders the victim unconscious. Only our police are supposed to know it.”
She shot a scathing glare at Gobardon, who shrugged. “My family has never been strictly ‘law-abiding,’ have we?”
“Did you guys really shoot up with Maanai?” Sophia asked.
Aiden snorted. “What?”
“That’s what I heard. It’s supposed to be why their eyes are so dark.” Sophia cocked her weight onto her hip and raised an eyebrow at Gobardon.
Gobardon gave her a long, level stare.
“What’s Maanai?” Robin asked.
If possible, the quiet in the room thickened. She stood beside the couch, her knee inches from the arm. Her phone was in her hand, and Mieshka caught the sky blue of the city’s messaging app on its screen. Had her mom called?
Sophia fished a long, slender Lost Tech device out of her pocket and held it up. It was about the size of a TV remote, and its black edges caught the light like oil. “This is Maanai. An incredibly handy material that is basically a programmable rock. The basis of Mage civilization.” Her tone changed, gaze sliding to Gobardon as she took a breath. “And, in its raw form, an incredibly dangerous, unstable crystal known mostly for a mutation that ate every magical thing in our old world.”
Gobardon returned her look, nonplussed. “It’s an old word, Maanai. Maa, meaning devil, anai crystal. It’s not like we weren’t warned. We just ignored the warning.”
“You ignored the warning, snarril.”
“Hey!” Aiden’s voice cut sharply between them. “Stop it. There’s no factual basis for that rumor, Soph, and you know it. How old were you when the world fell? Twelve?” He directed this last to Gobardon.
“Seven,” Gobardon said.
“So, unless you were some evil boy genius, I expect it’s impossible that you were directly responsible for the apocalypse. Sophia, you know better than to look for scapegoats. Whatever grief you have with his father, don’t carry it to him.”
The Water Mage lifted a single slanted eyebrow. “You think that’s what I’m doing? Looking for a scapegoat?” Her lip curled as she stared him down.
Aiden met her stare. “The past is the past. From what Roger and Mieshka have told us, he probably saved their lives—”
“You were planning to kill him, weren’t you?” Gobardon asked.
His voice cut through the argument like a smooth, hot knife. His eyes glittered darkly from where he sat, hands folded into a steeple in front of him.
Silence stepped into the room. Aiden and Sophia stared at him.
Then, Sophia jutted out her chin. “Yes. We were.”
Aiden choked. “No—Safya—the Council!”
“The Council doesn’t exist here. We do.” Sophia lifted her chin, a dark anger in her eyes. “And he might as well know. Yes, we were planning to kill him. And we were planning to do it soon.”
The next silence was brief. The clock ticked twice. All eyes watched Gobardon.
He smiled. A grim, cruel smile. “You don’t have to. Kitty and I will take care of that, when she awakes.”
Sophia raised an eyebrow. “You? You and an Elemental against your father?”
“We almost had him before. If the others hadn’t been there…” Gobardon shrugged. The movement seemed to fall off his shoulders like water off a duck. “We will try again, when she wakes up.”
Sophia cast a withering glance toward Gobardon—her third of the evening, if Mieshka counted right—and then rolled her eyes.
“Well, I can’t say I don’t approve. But let’s talk about this later.” Her eyes slanted to Mieshka. “Let’s move on. Meese, Roger, what about this new Elemental? Who is he?”
“Fire. My height. South Asian, by his appearance. Looks like he has had some training.”
Roger spoke with his eyes closed, leaning forward on his armchair perch. A smear of dust drew an oblong line across his good shoulder, and a second led to a series of rips along his arm. For the first time, Mieshka saw the dried blood on there.
And, for the first time, she noticed that Ketan was missing. She started awake, scanning the room. Hadn’t he just been next to her?
“Where’d he go?”
Roger’s eyes opened into slits. She thought she saw the corners of his mouth tighten into a
half-smile.
“He slipped out about five minutes ago.”
Chapter 35
It took ten minutes to convince himself that he wasn’t being followed, and another ten to stop looking over his shoulder. Roger had seen him leave. Ketan now knew that. He’d felt his eyes on him as he’d gone to the door, and it still felt like he was being watched. Even though he was alone, nearly a mile away, hidden in the twisting, dark passageways of the underground city.
It felt like the walls had eyes.
Which, considering his earlier run-in with the Earth Mage, might not be inaccurate.
Seriously, what the fuck was that about? Devin had said the Earth Mage had been after Meese, but why? It seemed like his vendetta went far past the normal bounds for anger. Like she’d been the object of a blood feud rather than a difference of opinion.
He would find out later. He planned to go back to the Society, just as soon as he’d checked in on Leloni. She hadn’t been herself when he’d left her, and he didn’t trust her to stay put. Not alone. Not in the dark.
He also didn’t trust the Society to leave her alone. She had been involved in a crime, after all.
His feet moved by instinct now. He barely thought about where he was going. His internal map functioned again, aligned enough with the Core to let him go where he needed to go. He didn’t have to stop and think.
When he got to his apartment, the door stood open.
His breath caught as he glanced into the shadows of the stairwell.
“Leloni?”
His voice had an odd, hushed echo, as if the air had absorbed it and twisted it back with a slightly different sound.
The stairs creaked under his feet. Fire hissed in his fist.
Even before he checked the rooms, he knew she wasn’t there. The place had an abandoned feel, like those old ghost-hunter shows that used to air on TV, before the war. Silence bled from the walls.
He hadn’t expected her to stay. Not for that long. He shouldn’t have left her in the first place. As soon as his trip with Meese had been waylaid, he’d known that Leloni would not wait.
