An Import of Intrigue

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

“Sewer tunnels,” Joshea said. “Or something like that. I thought it would be worse.”

  “How?”

  Joshea’s cool hands on his head. “Really, tell me what you remember last.”

  Minox forced his thoughts to find order, even though they wanted to spill in every direction. Think through the fire. “Jabiudal trying to kill Corrie.”

  “You did something . . . astounding.”

  “Magical?”

  “Exactly. It was like you released a thunderstorm in the middle of the room. Lightning and fire blasted out of you.”

  Minox tried to understand that. It made no sense. “Did I hurt anyone?”

  “A lot of people, I think,” Joshea said. “I had a sense something was about to come out of you, and I managed to protect myself and Beliah. I don’t know about anyone else.”

  “But how?” Minox asked. That was all he could get out; further thoughts clouded around his brain, unable to find a path.

  “How did we get down here?” Joshea asked him. Minox managed to nod—Joshea understood. “You—once everyone was dropped you were in a state. You were on the floor, clawing at it. Then you pounded on it, and suddenly magic burst out of you again. Next thing I knew there was a hole, and before I could stop you, you dropped down.”

  “And you?”

  “I jumped in after you, did my best to catch us—you know, magically—before we both cracked our necks.”

  “I—thank you. But where?” Minox hoped Joshea would understand.

  “You don’t—I’m sorry. You’ve been delirious for the past half hour.”

  “I still am.” Minox tried to pull himself to his feet. Nothing obeyed.

  “You said the Tsouljans were the only ones who could help you.”

  “And that’s where you’re taking me?”

  “I was at a loss for a better idea. I mean . . . no offense to the sew-ups in Ironheart, but they wouldn’t be able to do anything for you.”

  “Can anyone?” Minox said. In the pale glow of Joshea’s magic light, Minox lifted up his left arm. Now he felt almost nothing but heat and magic in it. The rest of his body was burning up, but it ached and protested. Not this ruined hand—pitch-black, almost shining like glass. “Did I do this to myself?”

  “I don’t know,” Joshea said, looking around. “This is just dead reckoning, but I think we’re just about to the Little East. Another couple blocks this way, I figure.”

  “But—” Minox was finding it hard to keep his thoughts clear. They wanted to run away from him. “Why are we in the sewers? Why not take the street?” That’s what he wanted to say, but he only heard his mouth say “Why . . . sewer . . . street . . .”

  “Not until we’re closer,” Joshea said. “You do understand you filled a hospital ward room with lightning, yes? And you’re not right in your skull.”

  “No,” Minox said. He wasn’t sure if he was agreeing or arguing with Joshea.

  “I don’t trust your fellow sticks not to fill you with crossbow shots right now.” Joshea pulled Minox up onto his feet. “Let’s get you to the Tsouljans. It’s probably the best plan we have.”

  Minox wasn’t able to do anything except allow Joshea to carry him along.

  The Tsouljans could help. If they wanted to. There was something about them he had realized, he thought, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

  Corrie went in the front door of the Welling house at full stride. She didn’t have a whole lot of time. The whole neighborhood was hip-deep in bilge and sewage, and Minox was on the verge of drowning.

  “Oy,” she shouted out to the household in general. “Who’s about?”

  “Corrie?” Mama and Aunt Zura came out through the dining room. “Are you all—oh my saints!”

  Her eyes filled with tears as soon as she saw Corrie. Zura immediately kissed her knuckle and began mutter Acserian prayers.

  “It looks worse than it is,” Corrie said. “Who else is home?”

  “Just us and Mother Jillian,” Mama said. “And Evoy in the barn, of course.”

  “Right,” Corrie said, peeling off her clothes and dropping them on the sitting room floor. “I need to clean up, get a bite and a fresh uniform, and get back out there.”

  “Corrianna, are you mad?” Mama said. “I’m astounded you—you were in Ironheart, and you look like you should have stayed. Where is Beliah? Does she know—”

  “No, she—” So much to say, and Mama wouldn’t want to take it. “Look, both of you, better sit.”

  Zura took one of the chairs, still praying quietly. Mama took another. “Don’t you dare tell me Beliah is. . . . She . . .”

  “No, she’s not dead, Mother,” Corrie said. Though she might have gotten a lot rutting closer than Corrie would want to admit. “A real mess went down at Ironheart. Beliah was in the middle of it, but they’re taking good care of her. She’s going to be fine.”

  “And you?” Mama asked.

  “What happened to your hair?” Zura finally asked.

  “A crazy mach lady chopped it off,” Corrie said.

  Zura muttered something about Imachs that made even Corrie’s ears burn.

  Mama took Corrie’s hand. “Your hair, your eye—Corrie, I know your dedication to the Constabulary, same as anyone else in this family, but . . . for today you’ve done enough. Saints, dear, this is the first you’ve been home in two days.”

  “Minox—” Corrie started to say. Mama needed to hear this.

  “If Minox were here, I’d say the same thing.”

  “Minox is in trouble out there, Mama.” She lowered her voice a bit. “You know how he—you know. Something went mighty wrong with him and he nearly destroyed Ironheart.”

  “Wrong?” Mama flushed. “You mean like Fenner and Evoy?”

  “No, I mean with—” Corrie shook her head. Mama was going to make her say it. “I mean the rutting magic.”

  “Corrianna!”

  “It’s the truth, Mama. He was a mess, shaking. One hand has turned black as pitch. He let loose a rutting thunderstorm in the middle of the ward.”

  “He can do that?” Zura whispered. She got up from her chair and went into the kitchen.

  Mama sat quietly for a moment. “So where is he now?”

  “We don’t know,” Corrie said. “Somehow in the madness of it all he just . . . ran off. That’s why I’ve got to go back out there.”

  “Why you, Corrie?”

  “Because he’s a mess, and the other inspector put out an All-Eyes for him.”

  “The woman Nyla hates?”

  “Nah, not Tricky. She’s . . . I don’t even know. She wasn’t there. One of the other ones. An All-Eyes with every steve and bastard on the force with a finger on their crossbow. Most of them never liked Minox. Something goes wrong, they could—”

  “Enough!” Mama shouted. “You think you can find him first?”

  “I have to try, Mama. And we need more family on the street. Every bloody one of them if we have to.”

  “How are we supposed to do that?”

  Corrie stepped away. “Put out a call. Get Jace home and have him run to everyone else. I need to get back out there.”

  She went up the stairs to the water closet, cleaning herself off as best she could once she was in there. For the first time she got a good look in the mirror at her face. Her eye really was a mess. Now she could sort of see out of it, all blurry and red. Her hair was a choppy mess of stubble. She grabbed some bandages from Beliah’s supply and wrapped it over the eye. Better to keep it covered, let it heal. Maybe it would be right again in a few days.

  She went to her room—the one she shared with Nyla and Ferah, though she almost never saw them in it—and changed into a fresh uniform. She rebelted her weapons and went back out into the hallway.

  “I heard,” Granny Jillian said, standing in the
hallway. She looked like such a frail thing, though she still held herself like the street tough scrapper she had been back in the day. “You’re sure Minox isn’t . . . he’s so like Fenner was at his age. He might be going on us.”

  “Nah, Granny,” Corrie said. She didn’t think about that. She didn’t want to. “It’s the . . . it’s the magic, pure and simple.”

  “Ain’t nothing simple about rutting magic, child,” Granny said. “I could tell you a few things.”

  “When I have the rutting time,” Corrie said, embracing her grandmother. “I need to go look for him.”

  “You do. Keep a good eye out for him.”

  “It’s all I got left,” Corrie said.

  “Corrie,” Granny called as Corrie got to the top of the stairs. “It could be both things at once. And there may be nothing we can do for him.”

  That was so rutting horrible Corrie didn’t even want to think about it.

  “I’ll get him home,” Corrie said.

  When she reached the front door, Mama had her own coat on. “Zura is completely useless right now. She’s gone to her shrine in the cellar and won’t speak to me.” She handed Corrie a cold pork and flatbread wrap, with Zura’s pickled onions—Corrie’s favorite whenever she stopped in the middle of the night.

  “What are you going to do?” Corrie asked before she took a bite.

  “First I’ll find Timmothen. He should be at the Keller Cove Stationhouse, and he can get the kind of rally we need.” Uncle Timm was a captain; he had the muscle. Corrie kicked herself that she hadn’t thought of that. “What are you waiting for, girl? Go find your brother.”

  Chapter 19

  SATRINE SAT UP WITH A START, gasping, eyes wide. Involuntarily her hand lashed out and grabbed hold of whatever was in front of her and yanked it toward her.

  “Oy, let go!”

  Satrine realized she had Leppin by his smock. She looked around and confirmed what she feared. She was in the examinarium. And something smelled horrific.

  “Leppin,” she said, barely able to manage more than a whisper. “What’s happening?”

  “A right blazing mess, that’s what,” he said, prying her clamped fingers free from his apron. “Ain’t nothing right in this house.”

  “Did you think I was dead?” she asked. That smell was pounding in through her nose up to the top of her skull.

  “No, no,” he said. He held up the Lyranan dart. “Pretty vile stuff this thing is tipped with, but it doesn’t kill. At least not with the amount you got in your system.”

  Satrine looked down at her open blouse and the two bandaged wounds. Thick purple veins surrounded them. Despite that she felt energized, even jittery. She actually wanted a rematch with Pra Yikenj right away. If it wasn’t for that horrid scent giving her a headache, she’d be perfect. “What is that scent, Leppin?”

  “Ah,” he said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. “A bit of ‘wake-up paste.’” He wiped away some gunk from her upper lip, and that took away most of the trouble. “Countered the toxin, but you don’t want to get too much of that in you, either. You’d end up—I won’t dwell on it, just . . .” He opened up a jar, scraped the stuff off the handkerchief into it, and closed it back up.

  “Fine,” Satrine said, rubbing any remaining residue off with the back of her hand. She hopped off his table. “Why are you tending to me instead of the house doctors?”

  “First off, they got their hands full up there. But also because the captain wanted you on your feet, and they didn’t know how to go about it.”

  She laced her shirt back up, and looked around for her weapons. Her belt was on the floor, in a pile with her vest. “And you did?”

  “I do deal with toxins,” he said with a shrug.

  “Half the station floor had darts in them. You going to give that paste to them now?”

  “No, I ain’t,” he said. “Let’s go upstairs, all right?” He made his way to the doors of the examinarium.

  “What aren’t you saying, Leppin?”

  “A lot of things, Inspector,” he mumbled. He hedged for a moment, his hand on the door. “Like I said, the paste countered the toxin. Not cured or neutralized, hear? So you’ve got two different things swirling and fighting in your system. You’re on your feet, but it probably ain’t that good for you. Be better if you could just sleep it off.”

  “But the captain needed me on my feet.” She nodded. “Anything I should know? I’m not going to drop dead by six bells, am I?”

  “Not if everything goes fine,” Leppin said, though he didn’t sound completely certain. “Don’t push yourself. And I’d lay off any wine or hard cider over the next night or two, though.”

  “Sure,” Satrine said, all her gear back on. “Are we going?”

  They went up the stairs to the main station floor, where several pages and cadets were cleaning up the place, and Captain Cinellan was talking to a group of regulars, passing sealed notes to each of them.

  “East Maradaine, Dentonhill, Aventil, Colton—anywhere we can get boots and sticks from. Every captain out there has leaned on Inemar House; let them know I’m calling those markers.”

  “Captain?” Satrine said, crossing over to him. “What’s our status?”

  “How do you feel?” he asked, looking her up and down. “You took a real hammer.”

  “Ready to fight another bear, frankly,” she said. And she really felt like that was the case, but it was probably Leppin’s wake-up paste.

  “How about Lyranans?” he said. “Since the assailants only busted them out, I presume they’re at the center.”

  “The assailants?” Satrine said. “It was just one Lyranan woman.”

  “One Lyranan woman did all this?”

  “Her name is Pra Yikenj, and she’s a member of Lyranan Intelligence. A very dangerous woman indeed.”

  The captain raised an eyebrow. “Prior engagement?”

  “Another life,” Satrine said. “But, yes. I’m two bouts in with her, losses both.”

  “You, Kellman, and half the station floor.”

  “How is Kellman?” She looked to both the captain and Leppin, but the answer came from elsewhere.

  “He’ll live, the big ox.” Mirrell came over to them. “I imagine he won’t be on cases for a few days.”

  “Tricky shouldn’t be, either,” Leppin said. “I really think she needs to rest.”

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “You feel fine. That’ll pass.”

  Leppin was actually frightening her right now.

  “I don’t have time to rest, though,” Satrine said. “Am I right, Captain? Kellman injured, Welling gone home, it’s on Mirrell and me . . .”

  “Jinx didn’t go home,” Mirrell said, his voice acid.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Captain Cinellan cleared his throat awkwardly. “It seems that Minox took it upon himself to engage the situation at Ironheart.”

  “He was in no shape to do that,” Satrine said.

  “No state for what?” Leppin asked, but Mirrell talked over him.

  “Like blazes he wasn’t,” Mirrell said. “Do you know what he did?”

  “He resolved the situation, Hennie, let’s keep that in mind,” Cinellan said.

  “I don’t blazing care, Cap! He dropped criminal and victim alike.”

  “Wait, what happened?” Satrine asked.

  Captain Cinellan looked down at the floor. “In his . . . state, he unleashed magic. And incapacitated everyone else in the room. Including his sister and aunt.”

  “He’s out of control!” Mirrell shouted. “It’s time we said it, Cap. He’s a blasted mage—Uncircled—and he needs to be brought in and charged!”

  “Hold on, did he kill anyone in there?” Rainey asked.

  “No,” Cinellan said. “Everyone is recovered,
and—”

  “And nothing!” Mirrell was on a tear. “Not killing people ain’t a standard—”

  “Watch yourself, Inspector,” Cinellan snapped. “None of us really understand what Minox did or his state of mind. Unless you have some insight, Rainey.”

  “I really don’t,” Satrine said. “I have some people I could contact, but I don’t know if they’d be—” She stopped herself. “Available to be useful.” She couldn’t say what she was thinking. If Welling really was a menace, if he had lost control of himself and his magic, then her old contacts in Druth Intelligence were likely to either kill him or lock him away in a deep hole. And there was no Circle that would protect him from that.

  “Let me lead the All-Eyes, Cap,” Mirrell said. “In his state, if nothing else, he’s a danger to public safety. We can’t have him out of control out there. Wearing an inspector’s vest, I might add.”

  “He’s right,” Satrine said.

  “I know I am.”

  “Fine,” Cinellan said. “Hennie, you find Minox, and get him safe. You hear? That’s all. This is not a manhunt, clear?”

  “With Tricky?” he asked.

  “No, with whoever you can pull together. I’m bringing in more regulars from neighboring houses, saints help me. Grab a few cadets and pages; use them to coordinate your efforts.”

  Mirrell nodded and stalked off.

  “So what do you need from me, Captain? Besides finding who killed Hieljam?”

  “We’ve got Jabiudal and his cronies ironed up. That’s done.”

  Satrine’s gut churned. It might just be her reaction to Leppin’s paste and Yikenj’s toxin, but she didn’t think so. This was the sort of thing Welling always fought against. But he wasn’t here.

  “I don’t think Jabiudal is our man on this. Or his people.”

  “So who did it? This Lyranan woman?”

  “I’d love to say it was her, Captain. Not that we don’t have a solid case to lock her in a room and bury the room.”

  “So go get her.”

  “There’s something far more complex at play, and the Lyranans are just a piece of it. What Kellman and I found in the warehouse . . . it raises a lot of questions. I need to be able to put the screws on the people I need to ask those questions to.”