by Rainy Kaye
The circle set off again.
“It’s like a slot machine,” I murmured, but Edolie shook her head once.
“It’s cracking a code,” she said. “The four arcane symbols it chooses will be the ones the portal creator used to seal it. Some portals are sealed, and some are not. This one clearly is. Even the type of seal can vary from portal to portal, depending on the person who created it, but the medallion should be able to open most of them.”
The circle stopped spinning, and a symbol appeared in the second box.
It continued onward. I had to close my eyes for a long moment to clear the light from my brain. When I opened them again, a third symbol had been chosen.
Around it went again.
My chest tightened. As soon as the fourth symbol was determined, the door should unlock and we could free Fiona.
Finally.
The spinning halted, and the final piece of the code appeared. Glowing red lines shot up and then across the perimeter of the door, and they pulsed, welcoming us.
The portal was open. It had been the same when Joseph had opened the portrait to imprison Eliza Brown, and one of the frames in the tunnel that had led us here in the first place. That portal had been opened already. The other one had been sealed, and with something quite a bit stronger than we had found on this door.
I stepped forward, pushing open the door but only revealed darkness.
Randall grabbed my arm.
“Careful,” he said in a barely audible voice. “We can’t even see what it is in there.”
“Easy fix,” Edolie said. She leaned around me, pressing her palm to the inside wall next to do the door, where a light switch would be.
The walls illuminated with an ambient yellow light. My breath caught in my throat.
“That’s incredible,” I began, but my words died there.
Instead of a bed, or Fiona, there were orderly stacks of mint green colored bars, floor to chest-height, row after row leaving only a walkway through them.
“Well, that explains the pocket,” Edolie said, more to herself than speaking to any of us.
“What is it?” Randall shuffled closer and, taking my hand, stepped past Edolie and into the room. “Is it valuable?”
“It’s the preferred currency at the Dark Bazaar,” she said. “You can get anything there.”
“I see…” I stopped next to a stack and released Randall’s hand. I tapped my fingernail against the side of one of the bars. “Metal?”
“Yes.” Edolie glanced down at Olivier-the-alligator before turning her attention back to us. “Look, there’s no way this wasn’t ill-gained. Whoever owns this house, they’re into bad things.”
Randall looked up from the stack of metal bars he was poring over, probably searching for clues though I couldn’t imagine what he thought he might find.
“Do you know who lives here?” he asked, gazing over my head to Edolie.
“No, not exactly. Our focus lately was on Thibaut. We’d been keeping an eye on him until we knew for sure what he was doing. We tried to get the medallion back without harming him, but you see how that panned out.” She took a deep breath, and then nodded once, as if deciding something, and stepped into the room. As she followed another path between the bars, next to ours, she ran her hand over the tops of them. “This property was abandoned up until about five years ago, when some men took it over. We picked up pretty quickly that they were powerful mages—as you might know, witches are women, and men are mages—so we tried to investigate what they might be up to, but we didn’t find any compelling evidence, so we let them be. Still, I’m not surprised you tracked your friend here.”
I pinched my bottom lip between my thumb and forefinger, thinking. “Yeah, but if she wasn’t in this room, where could she be? We didn’t find any other portals.”
“Maybe she’s not here,” Randall said, gentle yet firm.
It wasn’t a light claim. If she wasn’t at this property, then we were aimless again.
“The dot could have been the portal magic,” he said.
I stared at Edolie, pleading for her to disagree, to assure me that Fiona could still be here. She only looked disappointed for me.
“Check the map.” I spun around to face Randall. “The portal is open. See if the dot is still there.”
“Isn’t this entire room magic?” he asked, but he held up the map and shook it out.
Edolie said, “The portal won’t show up now that it’s unlocked, but we’re in literally another world, by all accounts. You’ll need to step back through.”
I shrank down into myself at the thought we had somehow crossed dimensions. The portal in the tunnel had only taken us into the house, in the same world. Now there were pockets tucked away that we had to be leery about.
I wasn’t quite sure I understood these portals and pockets, but after everything the last few days, it wasn’t that difficult to accept.
We filed back out of the room, then I crowded up in front of Randall and peered around the map.
My heart jumped.
The dot was still there, over this property.
“There’s another—” I started.
A door on the other side of the hallway slammed open. A man and woman stepped through, the man with a mane of curls and the woman with a thick braid draped over her shoulder to her waist.
Already, their hands glowed with magic.
“Fuck.” I snagged the medallion off the door and bolted down the hallway.
My companions scrambled after me.
A tendril of magic shot towards us, and I headed for the stairs. My legs wobbled as I hurried down the steps. I missed one and caught my fall against the banister as I pushed forward.
At the bottom of the stairs, I took off through the white and gold living room. A tentacle shot from the landing above and slammed into the coffee table, shattering the glass. I choked down a scream as I stumbled into the dining room and, catching my hand on the doorway, swung myself outside.
Footsteps pounded inside from right behind me, and I couldn’t look back to see if it was my companions or my pursuers. I kept running, the medallion gripped between my fingers until they ached. No way I was letting it go.
As I came around to the front of the house, I realized my mistake. Several cars had pulled in, and more men and women were unloading from them. They all wore black jeans and shirts, and they barely spoke to each other as they trickled toward the house.
I doubted they were here for a birthday party.
Terror seized my chest. I spun around as Randall rammed into me.
He pulled back, grabbing my shoulders. “Edolie and Olivier are laying a trap inside to knock out a few of these guys. Let’s go the other way.”
I nodded, and together we hurried in the direction we had come, to the back of the house and then took off through the thin trees. My breath hitched in sharp bursts as I kept going, uncertain where we were headed, just anywhere but at the house. I had no idea what Edolie and Olivier were going to do, but I imagined it might involve an explosion and a hungry alligator.
Up ahead, sunlight glimmered off water. I veered to the left as we approached an expansive lake tucked away at the back of the property. With the moss-decorated trees leaning over the glistening blue and the rich grass and brush surrounding it, it was an almost unreal source of beauty.
We continued around the lake, and I wanted to let the serenity of the moment lure me in. I could use something comforting after everything that had transpired, but now was not the time for sightseeing. Still, the water continued to draw my eye.
I caught something familiar, and I slowed my pace to a trot as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Finally, I came to a halt and turned to face the lake.
Randall came up next to me, and he touched my arm as if ready to urge me on. “What are you looking at?”
“That.” I pointed toward where a group of trees grew branches at a sharp angle over the water. “I’ve seen this before, somewhere.”
“Déjà vu?”
“Almost.” I started to turn away, and then I remembered. “The boat pictures. These are in the distance in the framed pictures in that one hallway. Paintings of that boat were everywhere in the house.”
Randall looked down at me, as if I were a puzzle and he had lost a piece. “What are you getting at?”
“I think I know the source of the magical dot,” I said, stuffing the talisman into my pocket. “And I think I know where Fiona is.”
27
As I lowered to the ground, I braced my palms against the grass and extended one leg toward the water. Sucking in a breath, I eased down into the lake, one foot at a time, and kept going until I let go and plunged in up to my waist. The cool water seized my muscles and lungs, and I focused on relaxing.
On the shore, Randall watched me. “Are you sure she’s out there?”
“What are we out by trying?” I looked up at him, squinting against the sun in my face. “We can’t leave any stone unturned, as it goes.”
“Fair point.” He clamored in next to me, and then huffed in a few breaths as he adjusted to the cold. “Which direction, captain?”
I lifted one hand out of the water and pointed toward the trees, droplets running down my arm and trickling back into the lake. “Somewhere past there.”
He set forward, and I swam next to him, keeping my eyes ahead, searching for any sign of a boat.
It could be gone now, of course. They were old paintings, but they had spanned a lot of years. Even if it was out here somewhere, maybe it was empty. Or maybe more of those wielders would be there.
We had to check, anyway.
As I swam, I tried to let the water ease the pain in my muscles and joints. It felt good to be off my feet for a few minutes, and the more I considered the circumstances, the more hope filled my chest. The only people who could have possibly taken Fiona were the magic wielders we had faced in Green River, and this place was crawling with them.
“Look,” Randall said, bringing me back to the present. He spit water from his mouth and nodded ahead. “Good work.”
The steamboat came into view. Much like the wires that held up the shipwreck near Louvel, green glowing lines of magic suspended the steamboat just on the surface of the water.
“There’s our magic dot,” Randall said, pushing onward.
I picked up speed and as we reached the side, I pulled one arm from the water and grabbed the railing to hoist myself up. Sopping wet, I crawled onto the deck and then squeezed out my hair as Randall climbed on board next to me.
On the deck, to the right, a door next to a small window led inside and past it, the still paddle wheel. To the left, a staircase reached up to the second floor whose deck served as our cover below.
“Let’s try the door,” I said.
We hurried down the narrow deck, leaving a trail of water in our wake. My soles slipped but I braced myself with one hand on the railing.
As we passed by the bare window, I caught sight of something in the room beyond. Putting my hand up to my eyes, I leaned forward to peer inside.
The lights were dim, but I could make out the red painted walls and the muted damask patterned chair with a heavy wooden end table. Across the room stood a four-poster bed with pineapple finials. On top of the covers lay a still figure.
The light from the window shifted, highlighting Fiona’s face.
“It’s her,” I said, pushing away from the window. “Oh, my god, it’s her.”
Equal parts exhilaration and terror filled me. These men—the ones who had killed Arlo and made several attempts on our lives—really had taken Fiona. What had they wanted from her? What had they done to her?
Randall leaned over to look into the window, as if needing verification we had finally found her after such a long, death-defying search.
“Try the door,” I hissed.
He grabbed the knob and shook it, but nothing happened.
“Let me try,” I said. “Maybe it’s a portal. I still have the medallion in my pocket.”
Reaching past him, I tapped the door with my finger, trying to entice any portal or barrier to reveal itself.
No go.
“It must just be a mundane lock,” I said, wringing my hands. “I still don’t know how to jimmy one open, but maybe I can try…”
I let the sentence fade as I ushered him back a step and then stood in front of the door. While I wasn’t the greatest at concentrating energy, I had used it to take down Winston. I could be wrong, but somehow that magic seemed like the path to being able to explode walls.
Maybe I could knock out this door.
I grimaced. “You might want to take cover. I might make a mess.”
His eyebrows came together, but without a word, he paced down the deck partway and waited, facing me. A wry smile slid on his face, and I bristled. Was he mocking me?
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself for what I was about to do. Magic flowed from the floor up my legs and shot up my spine, and I felt as if I were siphoning the power from the water below the boat, an essence of the earth itself. I could almost hear the sound of rushing water roar in my head as I guided the magic down my arm and into my hand, but did not release it. I let it gather more and more, until my fingers burned.
I pressed my palm to the door, releasing the magic.
The door flashed blue, and I slit my eyes against the flare but continued to feed it until I was gritting my teeth.
The magic died down to a slow trickle. I cut it off, retracting my hand, and the door returned to its usual color.
My shoulders slumped. “Well, that was a lot of anticipation for nothing.”
“Don’t stress,” Randall said, which was probably not meant as twisted as it sounded in this situation. The worst mages and witches in the world were roaming loose, my friend had been taken hostage by the same people who had killed my client and tried to end us, and I had defeated or evaded more creatures in the last two days than I had even known existed.
No stress at all.
I let out a heavy breath. “We’ll need to paw around the ship and try to find a way to bust her out.”
I started to turn away, but Randall said, “Or.”
I spun on my heel to face him. His eyes lit up.
“A door is pretty solid, but what about a window?” He gestured toward the one we had peered through. “Glass might shatter more easily.”
I wasn’t sure he had a point, but then again, what was I out?
I shrugged. “Sure. Maybe.”
Taking a stance in front of the window, I halfheartedly drew up my magic and placed my palm against the cool surface. Without fanfare, I shot out the magic in my hand.
The glass shattered as if it had been impacted. With another little burst of magic from my hand, the window exploded inwards. Shards tinkled to the floor inside.
I froze, my arm still raised, my hand where the window had been.
Had I just busted out the window? With magic?
As much as I wanted to celebrate, it was unnerving how similar that motion had been to Joseph Stone blowing apart the chair I had been holding when we ambushed him at his hotel. Or when I had demolished directories in preparation for defeating Winston.
Maybe the will-o-wisp children had been right. Maybe there really was only one kind of magic.
So, where had mine been all these years?
Pushing aside the thought, I sized up the opening. “Boost me up through it and then I will unlock the door from the inside for you.”
“Good plan,” he said, coming up behind me. He wrapped his hands around my waist. “On three.”
I took a deep breath. “Three.”
With that, he shoved me upwards through the window, and I put my elbows out to brace against the wall on either side. Baring down, I shoved myself forward as he fed me through with his hands crawling down my legs until I sort of flopped down onto the carpet with a thud on my hip.
That was going to bruise.
&
nbsp; Fiona did not react to our intrusion. I shot to my feet and bolted over to her. Her eyes were closed, but her chest moved up and down in slow, deep breaths.
“Fiona,” I whispered, hunching over to gently shake her shoulder. “It’s Safiya. Randall is here too. Can you hear me?”
She didn’t respond, and my body weakened with despair.
“Hey, Saf?” Randall hissed through the window.
I looked back at him.
“Right. Sorry.” I jogged over to the door, flipped the lock, and yanked it open. “She’s not waking up.”
Scowling, Randall followed me over to the bed and we stood side by side, staring down at her.
“How are we going to get her back to shore?” he asked.
“Let’s see if there’s a rowboat, or some kind of escape raft for emergencies,” I said, glancing around as if the room would give me a better idea. “I imagine this thing hasn’t paddled along in decades.”
Randall nodded, his attention dropping back to Fiona’s sleeping form. He reached down to touch her.
Her eyes popped open.
I jumped back, stifling a surprised yelp.
“Fiona,” I said, rushing forward as she blinked a few times, gazing at the ceiling. “Fiona?”
Slowly, she turned her head toward me, but her eyes swam like she was not focusing on anything.
Randall snapped his fingers in front of her face. Her hand shot up, grabbing his wrist, and she shoved him back as she sat upright.
I took a step backwards, closer to Randall.
“Hey,” I said, trying to convince myself to be relieved, but her face wasn’t registering emotions—and neither were her eyes. “How are you feeling?”
Her gaze roamed between us, taking us in, but she said nothing.
“We have to get out of here,” I said, daring to reach for her to help her up.
Her attention slid to the open door, and she shoved her hands against the mattress, pushing herself to her feet.
I took another step back. My heart ached, because as much as I wanted to wrap Fiona in a hug and cry in happiness that she was alive, her every movement made me jump.
“Stay here,” Randall said. “I will go check for the escape boat first. Let her find her bearings.”
