by Eva Chase
Where the hell was Deborah, anyway? I didn’t see any sign of her in the room. Had she tried to approach them? Had they caught her and shut her away like they had me?
Or had she fled back to her own people the first chance she got? Maybe she’d never expected the Conclave to welcome me after all. She’d just wanted to come home, to get away from the constant threat of living among the fearmancers.
The thought brought a lump into my throat. I didn’t want to believe that. I hadn’t always agreed with Deborah’s opinions, but I’d felt as if she’d cared about me, as if she’d wanted to help me.
The woman didn’t look at all moved by my plea. “It isn’t up to me to decide what happens to you,” she said. “When everyone who needs to be part of that discussion is here, we’ll make a decision.”
I came here to help you! I wanted to shout at her. But I couldn’t see how it would do me any good after what she’d already said.
She stepped to one side, and a man came into view—short but with a frame so ropey with muscle it gave him plenty of presence anyway. His glower made me tense on the chair before he even spoke.
“I want to know more about the trip that brought you here,” he said in a voice that managed to sound like a threat without actually threatening me with anything. “How did you get here? How many other fearmancers are with you? Where are they staying? What is their purpose here? If you start answering questions and we can confirm they’re correct, then maybe we’ll believe you’ve defected.”
My chest tightened. The problem was, I hadn’t defected. I was trying to keep the interests of both sides in mind. As much as I was repulsed by Lillian’s desire for violent revenge, I didn’t want to see the joymancers slaughter the blacksuits like they had my father and Declan’s mother either.
“I came to you because I don’t want to see anyone hurt,” I said. “I’m not going to point you in some direction so you can go attack those people. My parents, the joymancers who raised me, wouldn’t have believed that was the right thing to do. That’s how they raised me. So if you want to blame them for anything, blame them for teaching me too well, not for slacking off somehow.”
The guy bristled. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Sometimes we have to act to defend ourselves. If ‘your’ people have come into our territory, then we have every right to carry out that defense.”
I stared back at him, my irritation growing. “And what’s it called when you go up into fearmancer territory and start attacking them there?”
“I’m not going to debate our strategies with you of all people,” he snapped. “Is that your position? You’re refusing to talk? It might get a lot more unpleasant for you later if you don’t cooperate now.”
Ah, there was the actual threat. I gritted my teeth. “I came here because I wanted to help you. If you’re going to torture me as a thank you, then you’re not exactly convincing me I chose the right side. That’s up to you. But it sure doesn’t make you look like the good guys in this scenario.”
The guy muttered something inarticulate under his breath and marched away. I waited to see if he or the woman who’d questioned me first would return, but what I could see of the room in front of me remained still and silent.
They might not come back until they’d had their discussions. Until they were ready to torture me for answers… or until they’d decided to do something else with me. Lock me up like they presumably had my mother? Kill me? A chill crept over my skin.
I wanted to hope that someone they were waiting for would be more reasonable, but after the conversation I’d just had, that was seeming less and less likely. Fucking hell.
I had to figure out a way out of this. If I was still stuck here the next time the blacksuits came to talk to me at the hotel, if they realized I’d vanished… I might have created two bloodbaths instead of one. And after they’d blazed their way through the Conclave headquarters, I wasn’t sure any fearmancer would trust me any more than the joymancers did. Not when I’d basically proven myself a traitor.
Without knowing how long I’d been knocked out for, I had no idea how much longer I even had to make my case—or my escape.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rory
My butt was starting to go numb and my wrists were tingling from the pressure of the cuffs when a small white body slipped through the closet doorway. Whatever magical barrier the joymancers had put in place there, it apparently didn’t apply to animals. Maybe it could sense that Deborah was a joymancer on whatever level she still was.
She scrambled up my pantleg and perched on my knee. Mice didn’t have the most expressive faces, but her beady black eyes held an undeniable sadness. She nuzzled my hand just above the edge of the cuff.
I’m so sorry, she said in my head.
“It’s not your fault they’re being asshats,” I muttered under my breath. At least, I couldn’t see how it was. She wouldn’t have come back to me like this if she’d been conspiring against me, would she?
Unless she’d come to try to convince me to give away the blacksuits’ whole plan to the joymancers.
I encouraged you to come here. I told you they’d listen, that they’d believe you… She buried her face in her front paws. I thought with your history, and with me here—but they won’t even believe me. I tried to present myself, and that man who threatened you came after me like I was a pest to be exterminated. After hearing the way they talked to you, this was obviously a mistake. I don’t understand… I know how much they distrust the fearmancers, but your situation is hardly the same…
So much anguish came through in her voice that my heart squeezed. I had the urge to stroke her back in the way that would have comforted both of us a little, but it was too awkward with the cuffs in place. Instead I could only grimace.
“So, I guess you don’t have any idea how we could convince them that I don’t have some evil plan? Have you seen any of the mages who arranged for you to be my familiar? They must have trusted you when they picked you for the job.”
I haven’t yet. Maybe someone who was involved will be coming for their ‘discussion.’ But from the sounds of things, they see me as contaminated somehow by having been with you among the fearmancers. As if I’d be swayed that easily.
Her indignation brought a faint smile to my lips in spite of everything, but the twist of tension in my chest remained. I drew in a shaky breath. I had to be careful how much I said out loud. We couldn’t know whether the joymancers might be monitoring us either directly or magically.
“I don’t know if I can do anything good by staying here,” I said. “It seems like anything else I say is only going to make things worse for everyone.”
I might be able to help you get out of this place. We’ll need to give them a little time to relax their guard and feel we’re totally subdued before I’m likely to get away with what I’m thinking… But I’m not letting them treat you like some kind of criminal. My goodness, the fearmancers were more accepting of your background than this bunch.
“Yeah.” And I’d promised myself I’d find some way to make the conflict tomorrow easier on both sides by coming here, even if it wasn’t through negotiation. I couldn’t say I’d learned much about the joymancers’ operations so far.
“I’m going to stand up,” I said. Deborah took the cue to scamper up my sleeve to my shoulder. I got to my feet, shaking the prickles from my legs, and eased closer to the doorway, careful of the barrier I now knew was there.
I couldn’t see anything that looked useful to report on. The room appeared to be a sleeping area, with a couple of twin beds against the far wall and a matching dresser and vanity on either side of the doorway opposite them. All I could see of the hallway the entrance led to was a rectangle of brighter light and a pale section of wall. Super helpful.
How much would the joymancers have figured out already? They couldn’t assume we’d come here because of my mother, right? After all, they’d had her for seventeen years without the fearmancers reali
zing, and I hadn’t given away anything to suggest this “visit” had anything to do with her. I didn’t think I’d screwed anything up yet, other than my own freedom.
But I didn’t want to be yet another problem for Lillian and her blacksuits to solve. I’d look like a traitorous idiot. And even if Deborah and I could manage to escape, I’d still feel like an idiot if I couldn’t find some way to do more than simply not create an additional disaster. These people might be treating me horribly, but that didn’t mean I was eager to see dozens of mages like them dead tomorrow night.
Come on, Rory. Think.
The joymancers refused to believe I had anything but malicious intentions. If I tried to bargain with them, they’d only focus on the planned assault and assume my attempts to work out a deal that would leave both sides uninjured were a ploy rather than genuine. If they knew the fearmancers were here to break out my mother, they’d double the security, and more people would die on one side or the other. They might already have increased their efforts just in case, because of my presence.
If there was something I could say that would convince them to reduce the security so at least fewer joymancers would end up in the blacksuits’ line of fire… Or to give us an opening that Lillian would have to use at a time when they’d need to be more cautious about how much magic they threw around in front of the Nary population…
A plan started to come together in my mind. I couldn’t tell if it was a very good one, but I knew one thing for sure—any mention of my mother or the building she was in would only put the joymancers more on guard and make the assault harder. Unless I could unsettle them so much that they brought her right out of the building for us.
Before I took this gamble, though, I needed to be sure that the joymancers were listening to what I said in here… without them realizing that I knew.
Deborah had tucked herself behind my hair again. I couldn’t send words into her head the way she could with me, but the familiar connection did still go both ways. I should be able to convey feelings, impressions…
I focused on the small warmth of her body and the need welling inside me: for her to slip off of me and out into the hall as stealthily as possible, to keep watch, to spy, to see what she could see. My fingers curled toward my palms as I put all my concentration into projecting those images.
I couldn’t tell how much might have passed on to her, but after several seconds, without a word, Deborah darted down my side and the back of my leg. She left the room hugging the wall closely. I waited until I was sure she’d be in a decent position in the hall. Then I wriggled my wrists.
“You know,” I said quietly, as if she were still with me, “I think one of the cuffs might be a little loose. If I can work one hand out, maybe I can cast enough magic to get us out of here.”
I twisted my hands against the cuffs in case the joymancers had some kind of visual on me too, counting down the seconds in my head. I wanted to give them enough time to react but not so much that one of them reached me and gave away their monitoring. The metal dug into my skin.
“Damn it,” I said a little louder. “Nope, they’re not going to budge.”
I might have heard the faintest scuff of a footstep from the hall. Sinking back in my chair as if defeated, I kept my ears perked. But it wasn’t my own senses I was counting on.
Deborah scurried back into the room a minute later and clambered up beside me. If you were hoping to provoke some kind of response, it looked like you did, she said. I’m not sure what set them off, but shortly after I went into the hall, one of the joymancers came bursting out of a room farther down. She made it about halfway here before one of the others called her back. He said something about a “false alarm.”
Because I hadn’t been on the verge of escape after all. I’d have smiled if I hadn’t been afraid of giving away part of my plan.
This next part… this was the real gamble. I could be making an even bigger mess of things. I had to at least try, though. That was why I’d come to California in the first place.
The joymancers hadn’t believed me about my good intentions… but they might very well believe me about malicious schemes, especially if I made a show of holding certain details back until I thought they couldn’t hear me.
“I have to warn them,” I said to Deborah. “Even with the way they’re treating me… I can’t just say nothing. Saving those lives is more important than anything else.”
I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Lorelei, but I’ll follow your lead however you need me to.
I raised my voice to carry out into the hall. “Hey! Can anyone hear me? There’s something I need to tell you about the fearmancers and why they’re here. People’s lives are on the line!”
They didn’t come running this time. It was at least a full minute before the sharp-eyed woman returned to the room, the muscular guy flanking her. She frowned at me. “What are you talking about? What’s this you want to tell us now?”
I wet my lips with nervousness I didn’t need to fake. “I—I know what the other fearmancers have come here to do. And if you don’t reach out to them and come to some kind of agreement, a whole bunch of joymancers will die tomorrow.”
The guy stiffened. “That sounds like a threat.”
As if he was anyone to talk. I managed not to roll my eyes. “I’m not saying it that way. The whole reason I came here in the first place was to try to negotiate a way for both sides to be happy without a lot of violence. I was just hoping we could have that discussion on more equal footing. But if this is how it’s got to be… I still have to speak up.”
The woman lifted her chin. “All right. Speak up then. What’s going on?”
My stomach knotted as I forced myself to cross the line I’d avoided so far. “We found out that my birth mother is still alive. A team of fearmancers has come here to take her back. They know where you’re holding her, and as soon as additional forces arrive tomorrow evening, they’re going to make their assault.”
Both of the joymancers had gone rigid during my announcement. Deborah tucked herself closer to my leg with an anxious shiver. I couldn’t tell whether she approved of me taking this step or not… I wasn’t even sure if I approved of the outcome yet.
“Where are they?” the woman demanded. “If we can get the jump on them—”
I shook my head vehemently. I had to trust that Lillian and the other blacksuits knew how to cover their tracks well enough that it wouldn’t be easy for the joymancers to find our hotel. “No. That’s the exact opposite of what I’m here for. I don’t want them dying either. I don’t want anyone dying, even if apparently that’s a difficult concept for everyone else to swallow.”
The man’s mouth twisted. “You can’t expect us to just stand back and wait for them to come at us.”
“I don’t,” I said emphatically. “I want you to negotiate, like I said. You’ve held the Bloodstone baron for seventeen years without giving her any chance to see her family or her people… I have no idea what you’ve done to her during that time, but it can’t have been anything but agonizing for her. Whatever you would accuse her of, you’ve punished her plenty. If you give her up to the fearmancers without a fight, then there won’t be a fight.”
The woman sputtered. “We can’t just give up. Lord knows what they’ll think they can get away with next.”
“That’s why it’s a negotiation. You can make demands in return. Form a magical contract to ensure the fearmancers will keep to their side. Isn’t there anything that’d be more useful to you than keeping my mother captive even longer?”
“Or we could just bolster our defenses and fend them off,” the guy said.
I fixed him with my hardest stare. “It won’t work. I’ve seen their plans—I know the inside information they’ve been able to gather about the building. They’ve got every possibility covered. Do you really think they’d go in to rescue one of their barons without being completely ready to shatter any protections you try to put in place? As long
as she’s in that place, they’re going to get her out. It’s only a matter of how many people die along the way.”
From the woman’s sickly expression, I’d convinced her. The guy I found harder to read, but he certainly didn’t look happy.
“We don’t negotiate with fearmancers,” he bit out, and stalked through the doorway with a gesture for the woman to follow him. I watched them go, trying to ignore my own queasiness.
I’d planted the first seed with that warning and tying it to the specific building. Now I had to give them as much of a nudge as I could in the right direction without being obvious about it.
I gave them a couple of minutes to get back to their previous spot. After what I’d just said, surely they’d still have someone monitoring me. When the timing felt right, I sucked in a breath as if in dismay.
It worked well enough that Deborah believed it. What’s wrong? she asked.
“I forgot,” I said, keeping my voice low but not so quiet it’d be inaudible to someone listening closely. “I might have ruined everything. The blacksuits did say there’d be a window when they can’t have anyone directly watching the place… They were talking about having to leave just magical sensors in place to let them know if anything changed in the area—around noon, maybe it was? Shit. If the joymancers realize no one’s around to stop them, they could move my mother someplace we don’t know about, put even heavier deflective spells around her, and we might never find her again.”
Please, let the joymancers be listening. Please let them think what an amazing idea that was. My whole plan hinged on them taking the bait.
There was no way I could know if they had, though. Deborah scrambled up onto my lap and curled up next to my elbow. Whatever you’re doing, I hope it works. Do you still want to break out of here?
