by Paige Orwin
“Happy now, Doc?” yelled Grace. She leapt for him, fists crackling.
Lucy caught her arm and slammed her down onto the pavement. Shots skipped off her body armor. Someone threw a grenade.
Istvan lunged through the smoke. “You will not,” he shouted. “You will not! If you’re going to listen to me, you bloody well listen to me! Put down all of your weapons! All of them!” He drew his knife, wheeling about. Smoke turned to poison where he touched it, flashing with the memory of artillery. “If anyone wants to fight, you’re fighting me! I won’t have it!”
A Triskelion soldier stumbled past him, spotted him – and then fell to his knees, arms shielding his head, trembling in terror.
Istvan threw his knife on the ground. “Stop it! I’m not what you’re after! I’m not… I’m not whatever you thought I was. Get out of here!”
The soldier fled.
Grace appeared before him, obscured in the drifting clouds, shafts of light and dark casting her face into shadow. She wiped blood from her mouth.
“I don’t want this,” Istvan told her. He clutched at his ribs, where she had blown them apart in the Demon’s Chamber. “I never wanted this.”
“Doc,” said Grace.
“I don’t–”
The Conduit gritted her teeth. “Stop yelling and go see to the kid.”
He stared at her.
“And come back to the fortress later to get your flower embroidery,” she added. She unlocked her gauntlets and stalked away, back into the smoke.
See to the kid.
See to her.
Yes. Yes, he was a doctor. He could do that.
He should have done that already.
Istvan whirled about and arrowed towards Kyra and Edmund, the child’s pain like a beacon in the smoke. Two more soldiers fled from his shadow. A more disciplined group rushed their more lightly-armored fellows – those who had been drivers and gunners for tanks now vanished – to some semblance of cover. Shapes belonging to no living man flashed and faded in the mists, blind and drowning. The train mockery bellowed, sounding its eerie whistle.
A wall of flame greeted him. Sparkling lights danced around it, igniting everything they touched. Marat.
Istvan stepped through.
Kyra lay on the road gasping. In shock. Blood soaked her left sleeve. Edmund hugged her to him, pressing a bunched corner of his cape to the wound. His hat lay abandoned on the cracked asphalt. The flying mockery crouched over them, headlights blazing down.
Edmund glanced up at Istvan’s approach, eyes haunted. “Just grazed,” he said. “It just grazed her.”
Istvan knelt beside them. “Let me see. And hold her arm up.”
“Just grazed,” Edmund repeated. He raised her arm higher, keeping his bloodied cape pressed tightly against it. “I was fast enough. This time I was fast enough.”
This time. Not before. Not when it had been Istvan doing the harming.
Istvan edged closer, unbuttoning his surgeon’s cuffs. “Kyra,” he murmured, “I’m going to have a look. This will feel very cold.”
Kyra nodded, her eyes squeezed shut.
“I’m sorry,” he added. “Be brave.”
He reached for the wound. The fabric of Edmund’s cape and jacket scraped through his fingers. Blood welled below, thankfully not enough to indicate that her brachial artery had been severed. The muscle was torn, yes; the flesh traumatized, yes; but she wouldn’t bleed to death. A graze it was. How many antibiotics did the Twelfth Hour yet possess? Their supply had been stretching perilously thin, last he knew.
However–
“Find me a medic,” he shouted in the general direction of Lucy’s troops. “Or at the very least a field kit!”
“Istvan,” said Edmund, “they’d have to run through the fire.”
“Then they can run through fire!”
Kyra swallowed, shuddering. “I’m gonna die, huh?”
Istvan traced along the bone, siphoning away what pain he could. Oh, it brought back memories. Gunshots were their own horror, distinct from the trauma inflicted by his own blade; it had been some time since he’d treated one. “No,” he said. “No, you aren’t.”
No breakage. No fractures. No…
He paused. He checked again. Oh. Oh, that wasn’t good.
“What?” asked Edmund.
Istvan withdrew his hand and picked himself up. “Where’s that kit?” he shouted. He stalked towards Marat’s wall of flames. “If you can control that at all, let them through. Now.”
Edmund kept hold of Kyra’s arm. “Istvan, what is it?”
Istvan sighed. Oh, Edmund had been lucky, all these years. Never struck anywhere important. Escaping death by a miracle. It wasn’t his time. It was never his time. All part of his magic. Istvan, himself, had never been so lucky in life. He’d been a mere mortal. As was Kyra.
“Nerve damage,” he replied. “Nothing severed, but there is damage.”
He didn’t mention the rest. The possibility that her arm might be paralyzed from the elbow down, or left weak and fumbling. The pain, bone-deep, that could last for months, or years. He’d never recovered feeling in most of his left side. Even now, he couldn’t move part of his face. He’d died a morphine addict.
One wrong move, and life could change in an instant.
“But I have to fight her,” said Kyra. Her eyelids fluttered. “I gotta be able to fight her.”
“You will,” Istvan told her.
Edmund gave him a sharp look.
“I’ll make certain you fight her,” Istvan said, and he meant it. Kyra had come all this way. She’d endured so much. She’d put every fiber of her being into reaching a single goal – and if the thought of facing Shokat Anoushak herself was all that she had left, all that she dreamed of, the only reason she could grasp to keep living, very well. She would have her fight. He couldn’t deprive her of that. They would take her back to Toronto in a cast, if they had to.
The flames parted. A pair of Triskelion soldiers rushed through, one carrying a large satchel marked with a scarlet circular symbol that seemed strangely familiar. Istvan had seen it before. In the mountain fortress. Splashed across the shoulder-plating of a man who could barely stand, caked in gore.
Istvan tried to remember anything past that, and couldn’t. He’d let the medic live, he thought. He hoped.
He snapped orders at the two soldiers: stop the bleeding, treat for infection, move her somewhere warmer. Edmund could take them to Niagara proper, if necessary. They slammed fist to breastplate and hurried over to Kyra, setting the satchel down and unrolling a length of gauze. It wasn’t ideal, but the Twelfth Hour infirmary was likely still overworked after the storm and if they took her to Barrio Libertad, they would never be able to get her out again.
Istvan had done more with less before. He hoped he wasn’t making a foolish mistake.
Lucy strode through the flames. “Your people stand ready for retribution,” she boomed. “The Scion of He-Who-Watches-in-Walls cannot escape with this insult.”
“Miss Wu didn’t shoot Kyra,” Istvan said.
“Her appearance incited–”
“Find who did it.” He took two steps back towards Edmund and Kyra, and then a thought occurred to him. The train. The column of soldiers alone couldn’t be radiating so much misery, and Triskelion was home to more than its masters. He looked to Lucy. “Have you brought slaves?”
“Only those we could provision, my lord.”
Istvan raised a hand, found himself at a loss for words, and then lowered it. “We’ll be speaking about this.”
It got worse. It always got worse.
Lucy inclined her head. “Of course.”
He turned away.
The fires abated. The lights that were Marat rushed in a glowing mass towards the waiting mockery, which swallowed them and then took flight in a clap of thunder.
* * *
The generators churned in the darkness. They were loud but steady, a reminder that there was more beyond their one room a
lone, and they still ran at far below capacity, fed by a river choked with debris. It was the only place to find respite now that Lucy’s troops had reached the dams, even without a good number of their tanks and armor. At least Grace Wu was nowhere to be found.
Edmund had left, as well. His clothes were bloodied, he’d have to talk to Mercedes about Marat and Kyra’s cult in the morning, and he could bring back more supplies; plenty of reason to return to New Haven for the night. Istvan agreed. Sleep well, he’d said.
Kyra had refused to budge.
Now Istvan sat beneath the catwalk to the elevators, knees drawn up. The Conduit lay on blankets beside him, flat on her back, left arm bound stiffly from shoulder to elbow. She couldn’t bend it, he’d made sure. He wanted to avoid any further damage.
Hypocrisy, perhaps.
He leaned back against the wall. Slaves. Over two hundred slaves, packed into that train. His. All his, Lucy assured him. Just as the army was his. They weren’t about to negotiate the matter and they weren’t leaving. Every man, woman, and child in that train had been captured in raids throughout the mountains. Could he repatriate them? Ought he, given the hellish conditions there? Would Barrio Libertad take more refugees?
If he led Lucy and her people to Toronto – took advantage of their zeal, their firepower, to put an end to this Shokat Anoushak matter for good – wouldn’t that be abusing power he never asked to be given? Wouldn’t that be playing into what they expected of him?
Even armies had as much right to peace as anyone. Especially armies. Lucy and her forces had threatened Kasimir’s stragglers with death if they didn’t leave immediately or join the coup.
Kyra let out a long breath. “What if it’s all fake?”
“Pardon?” asked Istvan.
“Fake,” Kyra repeated. “A trick. Nothing real. What if it’s… this is all stupid, right? None of this should be happening. None of this.”
Istvan squinted at her in the darkness as she turned over onto her good side.
“Maybe I was supposed to die,” she added. “Then I could wake up.”
Oh. Oh, no.
He shifted closer to her. “Don’t think like that.”
“What do you care? You don’t even think I should exist.”
“Kyra, I don’t–”
The words caught in his throat. He didn’t think that; he truly didn’t! Would he have seen to her if he thought that? Would he have tried to free her from the Demon’s Chamber if he thought that? It was only all the rest, that was a problem.
All the rest.
“If this is about earlier,” he said, “I was telling you the truth. I know you don’t want to hear it, and that you don’t believe me, but that’s how it is. It isn’t that I don’t think you ought to be here. I was only telling you what you have to know so that you… so that you won’t be…”
Concussed. Chained. Shouted at. Driven to tears. Forced to confront terror, over and over. Shouted at again. Told that her very existence was an affront to others.
Shot.
“…hurt,” Istvan finished.
“This place sucks,” said Kyra. “I want to go home.” She curled up more tightly, voice drifting. “I just want to go home, OK? I’m really tired.”
The painkillers. It had to be the painkillers. She knew “home” was a lie. She knew there was no returning. She had been so adamant; she couldn’t give up on them now.
“Kyra,” he said, “you’ve been an inspiration, and I mean that.”
“’kay.”
“Don’t lose hope. Don’t let it crush you. Giving in is… it might seem like the answer, but it isn’t. I’ve lost someone. I know. It doesn’t solve anything, it doesn’t bring them back, and it leaves nothing but grief for those around you.”
No response.
Istvan propped his elbows on his knees, wishing the Conduit were easier to read. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to depend on the taste of emotions rather than the turn of expressions. “Kyra, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I said. I still don’t understand you, or why you think the way you do, but… I’ll try. I promise I never wanted you to be hurt.”
A yawn. “Why were you dancing with Mr Koller?”
He hesitated. The headband. It was still watching. Listening.
Kyra waited a moment, then turned back over, pulled off the headband, and shoved it under her pillow. “You loved him, didn’t you?”
Istvan sighed. “Yes.”
“Is that how it is with Mr Templeton, too? Is that why you hang around him, even though you guys fight all the time?”
He couldn’t answer that. He looked away.
“You’re scared,” Kyra said, as though it were a revelation. “You’re this… thing, and you’re scared!”
The nerve. She had no idea what it was like. She hardly knew him. A stray memory here and there, stolen against his will, did not an understanding make. He wasn’t afraid; he only knew the consequences. It was better for Edmund not to know. Even Edmund himself would agree with that. The man never wanted to know anything that was the slightest bit unpleasant.
Istvan was protecting him. It wasn’t fear, it was duty.
He pushed himself up. “Do get some rest,” he told Kyra. “I’m going to find a way for you to accompany us to Toronto, when we return.”
“Scared,” she whispered. She made an odd sound, like a chuckle, then fluffed her pillow and lay back down upon it. “Me, too.”
Istvan departed.
* * *
Edmund’s table was still broken when he went to eat breakfast. It had only been a day since Kyra had stayed at his house. Only a day since they planned a trip that had gone well off course, and visited a couple of questionable stops, to boot. A long, long day.
The storm beat at his windows. If there was sun, it wasn’t trying hard enough.
Edmund scrubbed the blood out of his jacket. Kyra’s blood. He shouldn’t have pressed her. This was his fault. It was always his fault. It didn’t matter what it was.
He shook his head, wishing for a moment that Istvan were there and then remembering what fresh hell the ghost had brought down on Niagara. It was his soldiers – wanted or not – that had shot Kyra. It was his idea that had taken them to Triskelion in the first place. His cruel, bloodthirsty nature that he hadn’t resisted.
But it would be Edmund’s fault for not restraining him. Istvan was his responsibility. Mercedes would be sure to remind him of that. Edmund had freed him, and the consequences were on his head.
It couldn’t be the mark of a good man to miss having his best friend in chains.
He’d dreamed of statues.
He left for the Twelfth Hour as soon as he could bring himself to put the jacket back on. It would need a more thorough washing, later, just like everything else.
The crowds outside had dispersed. No one wanted to stay in the storm for long. There were more important things to do than worry about politics. Inside was a madhouse: heaps of clothes and blankets piled against the shelves, produce rushed to storage, laborers huddled around overtaxed radiators, stranded representatives from the Magnolia Group trying and failing to reach their brethren, disgruntled chickens pecking at boxes.
“Hey, it’s the Hour Thief,” someone called.
They rushed him. How many monsters are there? Who’s this kid? Why were you up north when you could be helping us? You’re still living in your own house? We could use that army here! Who did you kill? Shokat Anoushak’s coming back? Why weren’t we told? What’s going on? We’re freezing here. Help us!
Help us.
Edmund backed up and met another crush of bodies. Faces bobbed before him, frowning, shouting. He didn’t recognize them. He’d never learned names. During the Wizard War, they’d died too quickly for him to remember, and in the years after that he’d always worked alone. Alone, or with the one other person who couldn’t be killed.
He couldn’t breathe. He almost tripped over a stray chicken.
The faces pressed closer,
demanding. Why wouldn’t he share his teleport? Who would be chosen to become a wizard? He was supposed to be the good one – the one who’d seen them through the Wizard War – the one who could be trusted. Why was he keeping them in the dark? Why wasn’t he standing up to Magister Hahn?
Why–
A liar! Just like the other wizards–
How could you chain up a kid? You got her shot!
He fled.
The Demon’s Chamber shouldn’t have been his destination, but it was. He didn’t go inside. Someone had put yellow tape over the door. Air whistled through the gaps between wood and stone.
Edmund sat on the cold steps and tried to catch his breath. Barrio Libertad. Barrio Libertad hadn’t kept their mouths shut. More pamphlets. More defamation. More truth where it hurt the most, handed out without any thought to people who didn’t need to know. What was next, magic itself? Were they going to take matters into their own hands? Were they going to break into the vault?
He had. Long ago.
He never should have stolen that book. He never would have lived to see the Wizard War, much less what came after it. He never would have become a target for so much hatred. Why weren’t they mad at Istvan?
Footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Edmund stood, wobbled, caught himself on the wall, wiped at his eyes, and straightened his suit jacket. He took a breath and then started up the stairs towards the newcomer, business-like. “I’m sorry, I can’t answer questions.”
“Wasn’t asking,” said Janet Justice.
Edmund managed a brittle smile. “Janet.”
The computer expert stopped three steps above him, effectively blocking the way in the narrow stairwell, and crossed her arms. She held a folded piece of paper in one hand. The silvery curves of her earrings glinted in the orange glow of the Demon’s Chamber. She was black, like Kyra, and it shouldn’t have mattered. “Looking for the Magister?” she asked.
“I was, yes.”
“She left for Barrio Libertad. You’re the highest authority here, for now.”
Edmund nodded, slowly. Had Barrio Libertad called Mercedes to a summit, or had she decided to go on her own? He wouldn’t have wanted to stay here, either, if he were in her position. “I see.”
