by S. W. Clarke
Why not ghosts?
“Did your father see them?” I asked.
“Once or twice,” she said. “He thought he saw children in glimpses. Enough to believe ghosts existed for the rest of his life.”
I winced. Children had died down below the city, too; of course they had.
Liara came to a stop, and I nearly ran into her. “What’s up?” I said.
She looked back at me. “We’re here.” Her finger went out, pointing. Before us rose an identical staircase to the first one.
We had arrived at the Mages’ Council building.
Umbra had explicitly warned us about two things before this mission:
One, we had to evade every councilor and assistant’s notice.
Two, if we didn’t, the whole building could be locked down tight. It was also outfitted with anti-magic security measures. With the press of a button, my fire and Liara’s lightning would be nullified no matter where we were in the building.
“Easy enough,” I’d said.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
When we arrived at the top of the staircase, a strange assortment of old, dusty furniture greeted us. We picked our way through it to stand on the landing, and Liara and I met eyes, flanked by overstuffed armchairs and rolled-up rugs. “Storage room?” I said.
“Storage room.”
“That’s one way of asserting your dominance over fear. Plug up the escape route with old furniture.” I extended my flame toward the walls, searching for the exit the professor had told us about. I found at half-height: another door, this one not locked but blocked from the other side.
When I pushed against it, it wanted to give, but I sensed I was pushing against something bigger behind it.
“Open the door an inch,” Loki said, “and I can slip through.”
I smiled at him. “An inch?”
He stared back, unblinking. “I’m a cat. I could do a half-inch in a pinch.”
Liara stood over us, arms folded, waiting for our apparently one-sided conversation to be over. When it was, I said up to her, “We’re shoving it open. This is going to take some back. Come on, Youngblood.”
She got down beside me, sinking into the enshroudment I spread over the three of us. As we began pushing, I said, “So, would you still pick this over Mages’ Council royalty?”
“Every day of the week,” she grunted, turning to push back-first, her boots digging into the ground.
Eventually, a shaft of light eased into the space. Not much, but enough that Loki said, “Good. I’ll check it out.”
He stuck his head through, wriggling to get the rest of him through the crack. He had to contort his body, his hips turning sideways, but he eventually popped through, the black tip of his tail disappearing with a flick.
We waited in silence, and I had a slim view of the room beyond this one. I couldn’t make out anything but oatmeal-colored walls.
Finally, Loki’s head popped back in. “It’s a bookcase against the door. This is someone’s office.”
“Office?” I whispered.
“It’s fine—we’re alone. Come on, girls, get on with it. We’ve only got eight minutes.”
My attention flicked to a waiting Liara. “My cat’s giving us instructions. Says it’s an office, we’re alone, and we’re deeply failing him by struggling so much to push this bookcase out of the way.”
She snorted. “Guess we have no choice but to show him.”
“Guess we don’t.”
Two minutes later, we’d pressed the bookcase out far enough to be able to slide our way out into the office with similar contortions. When I’d made it out, I slumped on a floral rug.
Immediately, Loki’s face hovered above me, close enough that I could smell his cat breath. “Four minutes.”
Liara was already up, staring around the room. “This is one of the councilors’ offices.” She approached the desk, glancing over it. “Councilor Delarosa. My dad always said he was a real bastard.”
I got to my feet. “Let’s go. We’ve got four minutes before they convene.”
We crossed to the door, setting our ears against it.
Loki looked up at me and sighed. “Just send me through as a scout already.”
I turned the knob, opened the door just an inch. When Loki poked his head out, he only swiveled it once before he ducked back in. “Hallway’s clear. Except for the scent of arrogance and bureaucracy.”
I grinned, and Liara said, “What?”
“I just… The hallway’s clear.” When I pushed the door open, we came into a wide, elegant hallway with portraits hung at intervals and tall, beautiful windows facing back at us at the far end.
“These are portraits of former councilors,” Liara said as we passed down the hall. “They’re everywhere in this building. The Mages’ Council has been around since the Battle of the Ages.”
Five hundred years.
My gaze swept over all those faces. There must have been twenty just in this hall, and a few of the councilors wore antiquated bouffant-style hairdos. I could practically see the centuries in portraiture.
When we reached the corner, we peeked around as though we weren’t enshrouded. A young woman passed out of an office carrying an official-looking clipboard, her style very much overdressed summer intern in a suit and pumps.
“She’s an assistant, headed toward the council room,” Liara said. “Come on.”
We followed at a distance, taking a right at the next turnoff. The next hallway was considerably busier, with four or five young people who all looked similarly intern-ish, waiting around with clipboards and folders outside a pair of grand wooden doors. One nodded as a much older man in green-and-red patterned robes spoke in a low voice, his long, slender beard touching his chest every time his lips parted.
This hallway was a strange mixture of old and new, of centuries-old traditional robes and modern officewear. Just like the formalist officers I’d encountered, with their old-style beliefs about witches and their nightsticks and radios.
And amongst them I spotted a familiar blue bob: Ora Frostwish. She was completely consumed by her phone, only the pert tip of her nose showing, but I recognized that long neck and those elegant wings.
I wished I had torn one of those wings, at least a little.
The three of us pressed ourselves to the wall, and my chin jutted toward the man with the man in the patterned robes. “That’s a councilor, isn’t it?” I whispered, though I didn’t need to.
“Councilor Delarosa,” Liara whispered back. “The bastard.”
“I knew that skinny beard was suspicious.” I jerked my chin at him. “He’s our best chance of getting in through the doors.”
She nodded. “The assistants wait out here. It’s councilors only inside the room, and he’s the last one in.”
So we waited. The meeting would convene in just a minute or two, but apparently Councilor Delarosa wasn’t keen on timeliness so much as the sound of his own dictation to his assistant, whose pen scribbled away.
Finally, Loki’s tail flicked against me, as though he knew my eyes had unfocused. “This is it.”
I nudged Liara, and as the councilor pulled open one of the doors, we weaved our way past the assistants toward him. I managed to slide through along with Loki in the councilor’s wake, but Liara had to dodge one of the assistants, who paced. She reached out by instinct and grabbed the door, holding it open a moment to slip inside.
I stared at her, wide-eyed, as it banged closed behind us like a gavel. Then at the massive, domed room surrounded by bookcases, the enormous horseshoe table in the center with twelve councilors seated around it.
None of them had so much as looked in Councilor Delarosa’s direction, much less the doors. They were much more consumed by leaning over to chat to each other than anything else.
In the highest-backed chair at the highest point of the horse shoe sat William Rathmore. He was flanked by a slender young woman with a deep purple veil over her face, her hands clasped b
efore her. She wore black on black, her boots tall, her stance wide. Powerful.
“Is that Rathmore’s assistant?” I pointed at her.
As I did, I caught the vaguest hint of her eyes shifting toward us beneath the veil. But she didn’t otherwise move. Her eyes just remained fixed on the spot where we stood for a second, two, then moved off.
Liara leaned toward me. “When I said only councilors were allowed in this room, I forgot about the head councilor’s bodyguard.”
A young woman for a bodyguard. She was either wildly powerful or a pretty showpiece. Maybe both. Either way, I didn’t want to find out.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Councilor Delarosa took his seat, the chattering dropped away, and Liara, Loki, and I moved along the edge of the room, backing up against one of the bookcases.
Here we were, surrounded by the formalists’ most powerful, and none of them even knew. It was a strange, heady thing, that Umbra believed I could keep us safe with my power.
Maybe that was why I could do it. Because she believed.
“Fine of you to join, Councilor Delarosa,” Rathmore said from the head of the table. Beneath his robes, he had the powerful build of a man who had chased Maeve Umbra and I down a train platform in platemail. His jaw was still defined, his gray hair well-combed to his head.
“Of course, Head Councilor,” Delarosa said with a little too much backhandedness.
Rathmore’s eyes sharpened on him for a cut-glass moment of severity. If he’d looked at me that way, I doubted I could have kept up the enshroudment. The man was that mean with his eyes.
He was, after all, a half-demon.
“We’ll begin, councilors.” His hands came to steeple under his chin, elbows on the polished table. “Who brings urgent news?”
“I do,” said a woman, her body stout under her robes, her chestnut hair woven tight at the back of her head.
“Councilor Sangrey,” Rathmore said. “Please, tell us.”
Liara leaned toward me to whisper, “She’s head of magical security.”
The purple-veiled bodyguard’s head shifted again, her veil shifting as I glimpsed her staring in our direction.
I set my hand to Liara’s arm. Nodded at the bodyguard. Before Liara could speak, I set my thumb to her forehead.
Without word, Liara did the same to me.
She can’t possibly see us, Liara said, half in question.
Umbra told me the enshroudment was complete, I said. There shouldn’t be a way.
And yet the young bodyguard’s eyes remained on us. She wavered in place, as though tempted to move. But decided against it, her focus returning to the councilors.
“In light of the escaped fae,” Sangrey said, “we’ve transferred the remaining prisoners to Falaichte.”
My attention sharpened on the discussion. Falaichte—that wasn’t the name of the prison below this building.
What’s Falaichte? I hissed at Liara.
Her eyes narrowed. I wish I knew.
Rathmore gave a nod. “Excellent. How many have been transferred?”
“All but three.”
“See that any future prisoners are transferred there until the culmination.”
As Sangrey nodded, a male councilor—the youngest of them, with a long neck and prominent Adam’s apple—raised a thin finger. “And what word of the culmination?”
Rathmore lifted a hand. “Patience, Councilor. You know our protocol.” He paused, eyes traveling like a hunting hawk’s. “Councilor Whitarrow, surely you have something to report on the state of the leylines.”
That’s the head of intelligence, Liara said into my head.
So chief spy.
Basically.
“Surely.” Whitarrow, a tall man in his fifties with an easy, charmed way of sitting, swept a hand out. “The report isn’t good, Head Councilor. Every leyline we’ve surveyed has been corrupted.”
If that wasn’t good news to the council, then the council was either in the dark about who William Rathmore actually was, or they knew something we didn’t about the leylines.
“All of them?” Rathmore said.
“All we’re aware of, yes. As you know, some remain outside our purview.”
Rathmore nodded. “And what of the escaped prisoners?”
“No word, I’m afraid. Our belief still remains that they’re being held by Maeve Umbra, or have been brainwashed into joining her.”
Held. Brainwashed. Of course they would think that, though it still hurt—in an oddly protective, nobody-talks-bad-about-my-mom-but-me way—to hear it about Maeve Umbra.
Rathmore’s jaw moved. “And what were her intentions, Councilor? Surely not just a prison break.”
“I believe now, as I always did,” Whitarrow began, “that Maeve Umbra serves the Shade. That she will do everything she can to thwart our efforts here, including the recruitment of the imprisoned fae, as she works toward the culmination.”
None of the other councilors disagreed; a few nodded.
So they believed Maeve Umbra intended to revive the Shade. Which meant the council thought they were working against the Shade. And it was then I realized: the Shade was universally hated like some evil icon of history. It was unacceptable to support her no matter who you were, or what you believed.
Which meant that for William Rathmore, this was all theater.
The culmination, I said. They keep repeating that. Have you heard of it?
Liara shook her head.
“And so,” Rathmore said, “you believe Umbra will continue to work against us here in Edinburgh?”
“Such are her ways,” Whitarrow said.
“Which is why I’ve briefed the city’s security,” Sangrey said. “They’re aware of the faces working for her, the fae and the witch, and on alert for magic.”
Rathmore raised a hand toward his bodyguard, who leaned down toward him. He whispered something to her, and she nodded. Her lips moved, and Rathmore set a hand to her arm before returning his attention to the meeting.
“Fine, Councilor,” he said. “Continue your vigilance until Whitarrow’s forces have found her and brought her to justice. We cannot allow her to succeed, here or anywhere, for she will deliver any victories to the Shade’s feet, and upon the culmination, our battle will be terrible. I bring urgent news, Councilors, about this very thing.”
All eyes were on Rathmore, who sat under so many gazes with perfect composure. I didn’t sense he relished this, but he was used to this sort of thing. He was the kind of man who had been raised to rule, in whom someone had instilled a deep, unbreakable belief that he was a man others would look to.
Rathmore set a finger to the table, leaning forward, eyes traveling around the council. “At this pace, the Shade will rise within one year.”
Liara and I met eyes, and hers were as wide as I’d ever seen them.
One year. One year.
Silence ensued, during which a few of the councilors leaned toward one another in whispers. Finally, Whitarrow—obviously the least afraid of the bunch—swept his hand out once more in that peacemaking gesture. “You’ve predicted it several times in the past, Head Councilor. Why is this time different?”
“I’ve witnessed the growth of the Shade’s power, Whitarrow,” Rathmore said easily, with silky confidence. “My father studied her, as did his father, and his. Never in five hundred years have the Shade’s tendrils found their way to the leylines. The pale simulacrum of her power never lasted. Remember: this is why the formalists came to be, Councilors.”
I had a gross, creeping feeling I knew what “the culmination” was. But I didn’t want to know. My mind wanted to reject it but couldn’t, so I was having a hard time focusing on anything but the feeling.
“It shouldn’t be possible,” one of the councilors said—her first time speaking. “The exile was—”
“It is possible, and has always been, Councilor,” Rathmore cut in with the smoothness of a knife. “One year. We must prepare for the second Battle of
the Ages.”
The feeling cemented.
In the same moment, Liara leaned toward me and said, “The culmination is when the Shade destroys everything, makes herself—”
Footsteps sounded at the far end of the room. Rathmore’s bodyguard was in motion, her hands still clasped behind her back, all her attention directly on the spot where we stood.
The meeting went on, but Rathmore’s eyes were on his bodyguard. Which meant this was atypical.
And she was headed directly for us.
I set my hand to Liara’s arm. Move.
Together, we edged our way toward the doors as the bodyguard approached, Loki’s tail feathering along my leg as he kept in step with me.
Rathmore’s bodyguard stopped in the exact spot where we’d been standing, and which we now stood only two feet from. She stared at the bookcase, her eyes rising and dropping as though trying to perceive.
My breath came fast, my adrenaline up, as I recognized that she had heard us. When we’d spoken, she’d heard us. I didn’t know how, but she had. And the closer she got, the weaker my magic became, like the simple fact of her nearness repelled it.
And with that realization, my enshroudment began to wane.
Liara, I said, we need to leave.
Except the doors were closed. We were supposed to wait until the meeting was over, when the councilors would leave and we could slide out behind them.
We couldn’t just open the doors. Not without giving ourselves away.
Rathmore’s bodyguard was still staring at the spot where we’d stood, but she seemed confused, uncertain. She began feeling along the wall, stepping in our direction, eyes traveling. Pressing my magic away as she did.
“Clem,” Loki whispered, and as soon as I lowered my eyes to him, I knew he felt it, too. The urgency.
I also knew what he meant to do. He sensed the trouble we were in, and he was creeping under one of the councilor’s chairs.
I shook my head at him. Not like this, I mouthed. But Loki had already turned away from me, and bursting from my enshroudment in a flash of black, he darted between the legs of a councilor and out into the center of the meeting room with a feral yowl, all his fur up, tail low.
