The sorceress swept her arm toward the front of the shop. “Honestly, honey, do you think cupcakes pay this rent?”
“I have no idea,” Krista said. “Are the prices extortionate?”
Drew gave a gusty sigh and pulled the strings on her apron. She whipped it over her head and chucked it onto the desk. “This is top dollar information,” she said. “The Guild would pay a lot for this info, but I’d rather give it to you. But what you tell me has to be worth it.”
I folded my arms. “Why would you rather give it to us?”
She smiled, glancing skyward with a girlish shrug. “I love an underdog.”
I tensed at the terminology. She couldn’t know what I was. She’d said as much. But the word ‘underdog’ was too close a guess for comfort.
“Bullshit,” Krista said. “You think we know something. Something better than whatever you think the Guild could give you. Or something worth more to them than the information about the vigilantes.”
“The Guild gives me immunity. And money. Not much beats that.”
“Except more money. Like you said, cupcakes don’t pay the rent.”
She chuckled. “You guys are fun. Okay. Just tell me this much: do you know where D’Argent’s cousin is?”
I frowned. The Guild had been trying to get that information out of Helena for as long as they’d been working together. I didn’t think she knew where he was, but if she did, she hadn’t told me about it.
Which was probably wise, because I’d have sold him out to help her, and she’d probably never forgive me for that. Still, Morgan was the one who kicked in my knee. I mean, he did it so he didn’t have to shoot me in the head, but still. He was not at the top of my list of people to protect.
Neither was I, apparently.
I shook my head. “I promise you, I’m worth what you’re going to tell me.”
Drew’s scowl turned into a smirk, and then a grin. “Going to, huh? I like the confidence, Mr. Park.” She pushed open the door to the kitchen and waved us through. “But I gotta work and talk. I’ve got two-hundred red velvets to pipe.”
We followed her into the kitchen, which was all sugar-dusted stainless steel worktops and white tile walls, with a bank of ovens on one wall and two massive refrigerators. Wash sinks overflowed with dirty mixing bowls, and in one corner, our dreadlocked friend from earlier bent over a sheet of parchment paper with a piping bag full of dusky blue icing.
“You met Gus,” she said, waving at him. “He’s the king of buttercream.”
“And a sorcerer?” Krista said, narrowing her eyes at me.
Drew laughed. “Nah. I sometimes joke that he’s a Frosting Friend, though. The things he can do with a pack of fondant. It’s unholy.”
I took the briefest opportunity to thank the universe for proving Krista wrong before flipping my attention back to Drew, who was pulling a fresh apron on over her blouse.
“Speaking of unholy,” I said. “What are the vigilantes planning?”
She stepped over to one of the work surfaces, where an army of cupcakes sat waiting for icing. Several of them already had purple rosettes of icing on top. It seemed we’d interrupted her work earlier.
“My God, you are relentless!” she said, picking up a half-full piping bag. “Maybe you are a sorcerer. Fine.” She piped a rosette atop one of the cupcakes. “There’s a loose network of rogue sorcerers, twelve or thirteen by my latest intel, who are planning to watch the trial proceedings. If the Guild doesn’t mete out what the rogues think is appropriate punishment—which they won’t, let me tell you—they’re planning an attack to ensure she dies.”
I grabbed the side of the table. “Assassination.”
“If you want to call it that.”
My head was spinning, and Krista had returned to my side, digging her fingers into my wrist.
“Do you…how do you even know what they’re planning?” I asked. “Do you just have spies all over the city?”
She snorted. “No. They came to me to find out when and where the trial was taking place.”
“You know that?”
She piped a cupcake. “That’s a separate piece of information.” She looked up, eyes fixing me with a look that could have melted iron. “Your turn, kiddo.”
I swallowed. Then I stepped back, and pulled off my glasses, handing them over to Krista.
I didn’t bother to pull off my clothes. I squatted, took a deep breath, and…fell into form.
Maybe it was because I was so tired. Or maybe it was the residual adrenaline from being trapped earlier, but the shift was quicker this time. It seemed to take mere seconds before I was on all fours, my eyes and nose and ears opened up to new spectrums of sense. I smelled sugar and flour. I smelled corn and oil and sweat and magic and the lingering acidity of my own nerves on the air.
Drew had moved from behind the table. She stared at me, those eyes popped wide open in her girlish face.
“Okay,” she said. “You’re right. That is interesting.”
It took me a few more minutes to stagger back into human form, and when I did, I was lucky my clothes ended up vaguely in the right place. It took some adjusting, but I remained modest enough not to provoke a fit of screaming from Krista.
When I finally turned back to Drew, she was watching me with her arms crossed, head tilted to the side.
“What the hell happened to you?” she asked.
“Gwydian,” was my only answer.
I was surprised to see her give a slight frown. “Hmm. Didn’t think he’d made any more after Helena. So. That means there are three of you left, then.”
I nodded. “And I’ll tell you something else in trade for the trial’s time and place.”
She gestured for me to go on. “Except for Deepti Iyengar and Eric Herrera, no one in the Guild knows what I am.”
Chapter 25
helena
I wasn’t sure what time it was when the mandalas glowing around the door finally dimmed. All the mandalas were pink now, which I guessed meant that De Vries was gone, and I was alone with Enforcer Randolph.
I’d found clothes folded at the end of my bed—a pair of black sweatpants and a plain gray tee shirt, both of which I suspected belonged to my petite host. They fit me all right, at least. I was taller than Enforcer Randolph, but sweatpants are forgiving.
I looked up when the mandalas around the door blinked out, and wasn’t surprised to see Enforcer Randolph come through with a plate of food. I was still sitting on the side of the bed. There hadn’t been much point in moving after Eric left. It wasn’t like there was anything to do.
“Time for dinner and a chat,” Enforcer Randolph said. He extended the plate to me, one cocked eyebrow daring me to try something funny.
I glanced at the plate, which was loaded up with a big helping of beef and broccoli that smelled like it had come fresh out of the chinese food container. The scent alone made my stomach thrash with hunger, but I wasn’t sure I really wanted to eat it. Still, I’d fucked up with Enforcer Randolph already. It seemed like a good idea to make peace, especially if Eric was going to be sticking his neck out for me. Again.
I took the plate, and the ceramic was warm against my palm. Enforcer Randolph snagged a stool from the corner and set it in front of me.
“I’m going to talk,” he said. “You eat.”
I picked up the fork, relieved he hadn’t given me chopsticks. No matter how many times Jaesung tried to teach me, I always dropped things.
“There’s no point in drawing this out,” Randolph said. “Your trial’s in the morning, and I’ll be straight with you: you’re going to lose.”
I nodded and chewed, tasting the salty-sweetness of the beef in a detached kind of way. Eric and Deepti had prepared me for the inevitability of that loss.
“But there are different kinds of losing. You can act crazy and uncooperative and have everybody think you can’t be trusted at all, or you can show that you’re willing to work with us, and the Twelve might tell the Int
ernational Tribunal you’re responsible enough with your power to be allowed to live.”
I set the plate in my lap. “Might?”
Randolph shrugged. “All twelve of them won’t do it, but the more supporters you have, the more of them are going to feel pressured to speak on your behalf.”
“Why bother convicting me at all, if they’re just going to ask the Tribunal not to execute me?”
“Because you’re guilty,” he said. “Unless you plan to deny Enforcer De Vries’s report.”
I turned a piece of broccoli over with my fork. “That seems kind of pointless.”
“It is pointless.”
I pressed my lips and pushed my fork through the piece of broccoli. The task of lifting it to my mouth felt monumental.
Enforcer Randolph watched me, slowly blinking those long, curled eyelashes. “The incident upstairs is going to be hard to overlook, but I’m willing not to mention it if you tell me something.”
I looked up, instantly wary.
He gave me a grim, steady look. “It’s better to confess anything you want to say right now. You don’t want any secrets to be revealed tomorrow, during the trial. You want to come forward with the facts willingly.”
An image of Jaesung’s spirit wolf flashed in my mind, glowing red and fierce in the kennels of Ruff Patch.
“I...I’m not sure what secrets you think I have,” I said.
Enforcer Randolph stood up, arms crossed, and paced to one of the mandalas on the wall. I didn’t recognize it, but it glimmered under his touch like a cat, rising under its owner’s caress.
“Your cousin is still at large. He’s wanted for crimes against the Guild.”
A familiar fizz of anger popped in my brain. “How many times are you guys going to ask me about Morgan before you believe I have no idea where he is?”
“Until we get the right answer, or find him without it,” Randolph said. He turned back to me, dark eyes piercing in his beautiful face. “You really don’t know where he is?”
I clenched my jaw, taking in a deep breath through my nose. I could not snap at Enforcer Randolph right now. That would not help my case. Instead, I met his gaze, putting all the fierce sincerity I felt behind that look.
“I haven’t seen or heard from him since the day we captured Gwydian. He could be anywhere. In hound form, he could survive out in the wilds of Northern Canada or Alaska for years. I know that was his plan at one point, but I’ve got no clue if he actually went through with it. As far as I know, he could have moved to Siberia and vanished into the snow. Or he could be dead.”
My eyes stung as I said those last words. I wasn’t going to cry, but I felt the wetness slide over my eyeballs. That little show of grief seemed to hit the right chord with Enforcer Randolph. The tension in his shoulders relaxed, and he chewed at the inside of his cheek, the gears in his head almost visible as he thought.
“That’s a shame,” he said. “That information could have bought you some leniency. I can maybe work with some of it, especially if you think he’s probably hiding out in hound form.”
I swallowed, feeling like the worst kind of traitor. “He probably would.”
Randolph nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. Is there anything else you can tell me? Names of Gwydian’s old contacts. Any sanguimancers you remember him mentioning or working with.”
I shook my head, “Nothing more than I told Eric when he debriefed me. I wrote down everything I remembered, all the routes we’ve used and countries I know he operated out of. A couple of ports where my dad used to dock.”
“Yeah, I have copies of those reports,” he said. He was pacing now. “Honestly, d’Argent, I was surprised when you flipped. I thought for sure that Liz had fucked up our chances when she shot your mother.”
I flinched. Liz. That must have been the sorceress’s name. I could have gone a long time without knowing that.
“But then Sorceress Iyengar told me why, and I thought—maybe there’s hope for that kid. I gotta say, when your reports came across my desk, I hoped like hell you were gonna turn out to be one of the ones we could redeem.”
I forced myself to breathe. I wasn’t sure why it shocked me that the head of the Enforcers had heard about me, but it did. It felt weird to think that people I’d never met had opinions about me, or hopes pinned to my success or failure as a sorceress, and as a human being.
“Guess I fucked that one up,” I said.
Randolph perched on the stool again. “Little bit,” he said. At my scathing laugh, he gave a little sideways nod of acknowledgement. “Alright, a lot. But I don’t think you’ve hit the irredeemable stage quite yet. You’re a good person with a bad past. I know how that is. Shit, that’s every kid that grew up in my neighborhood. The problem is, you can be as good a person as you want, but being a bad sorceress is going to get you killed.”
“I can’t undo what I did,” I said. “Even if I could, doing that would mean Eric dies.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“I wouldn’t want to take the chance.”
Randolph’s sigh was long. He massaged his eyebrow and glared down at his knee. “You might be too good a person to ever be a good sorceress.”
I leaned back. “Because I’m willing to use sanguimancy to help people?”
“Yes,” Enforcer Randolph said. “Sanguimancy is one of the Guild’s hardest lines. The fact that you’re willing to cross it for any reason makes you a threat to the institution. The second our law starts to make exceptions...” he shook his head. “Chaos. There are some slippery-ass sanguimancers out there who could talk themselves out of punishment faster than you can say unrepentant-murder.”
“The Lochlys?” I guessed. Gwydian’s clan was famous for its continued obsession with their ancient blood magic rites.
“Them, others,” Randolph said. “Look. I’m going to do you a favor, but you have to promise me something.”
I didn’t want to hope, but hope was creeping out of hiding, afraid and tentative as a mouse. Randolph leaned forward, as if impressing me with the seriousness of his words.
“I need you to promise me you’re not gonna try and run. You’re gonna cooperate with everything the Guild tells you to do. You won’t make waves and you won’t freak out. Do that, and I’ll tell the Twelve, the international Justicars, and anyone else who will listen that you willingly submitted to having your shifting ability removed as a show of good faith.”
My heart slammed against my sternum, pounding so hard I thought it might knock me forward. A thousand feelings washed over me at once, fear and hope and suspicion, but God... if the Enforcer Sergeant of the North American Guild supported me, then maybe I had a chance. It might still be slim, but even a slim hope was better than the bitter nothing I’d been operating under.
The plate started to slide on my lap, and I steadied it with a trembling hand. “I...are you—why? Why would you do that for me?”
Randolph frowned. “I’ve known Eric Herrerra a long time. He’s a good man, and if he believes in you, there’s got to be something redeemable there. And I’ve never known Bast to stick his neck out for a sanguimancer.”
“Bast?” I said, confused.
“Sebastian. Enforcer De Vries.”
I saw the card in my head. V.S. De Vries. The S must stand for Sebastian.
The taste in my mouth turned bitter. “When did he stick his neck out?”
“When I almost killed you in my damn living room!” Randolph said, his expression twisting like he couldn’t believe I’d missed it. “Keep up, girl. He disobeyed a direct damn order to sit down and shut up. And he put a bullet-hole in my coat rack.”
“I’m sure the coat rack had it coming.”
I said it before I could think, before I could remember where I was. It was the kind of thing I’d gotten used to saying around Jaesung and Krista. The kind of thing that Eric would have cracked a smile at.
Enforcer Randolph just looked at me. “Oh that’s how it is?” he said. �
�No respect for my furniture. I get it.”
I shrugged. I didn’t really want to make jokes, even if it seemed to make Enforcer Randolph a little friendlier.
“I don’t want to do anything that will hurt Eric or Deepti or any of the people I’ve been staying with in Minnesota,” I said. “All they’ve ever done is try to help me. I’ll do whatever you tell me to, if you think it will help keep them safe. If there’s a chance I could even go home...”
My throat closed, cutting off the flow of any more words.
“Alright,” Randolph said. “For now, I want you to eat. I’ll send one of my Enforcers down to take you to the bathroom. Stay chill, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
I nodded, and when he left, I noted that the mandalas around the door didn’t flash back into place.
I could probably open that door.
But even that was likely a test—there had to be a mandala somewhere in this room that would hold me in place. Even if there wasn’t, the little seed of hope now sprouting inside me made it impossible for me to leave. Much though I wanted to hate and blame everyone but myself, Enforcer Randolph had shown me a kind of trust I hadn’t expected, and my only chance to keep it, and maybe get out of all of this, was by maintaining my promise.
I shifted back on the cot, crossed my legs under me, and picked up my plate. If that’s what it took to protect my friends, and maybe someday have a chance at coming back to them, I would stay right here.
Chapter 26
jaesung
Eric ranted.
Of course Eric ranted. Krista and I had followed an anonymous set of directions to an unfamiliar location to talk to an unknown person about a possible threat from vigilantes. Anyone with enough sense to read the warning signs would have sensed a trap. To be fair, I think Krista and I both knew the possibility was there. We just hadn’t cared.
But that meant we weren’t in the hotel room when Eric got back, which led to a frantic phone call when we were halfway back to the hotel.
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