by Juliet Kemp
The banked power swirled around them, and Beckett hit out with it; but it didn’t touch the demon.
The demon howled gleefully, and surged upwards, deep and purple and terrifying. Reb felt its malice and its hatred at its binding focussed in on them. The circle dented in again, more and harder this time, and Reb felt the protection grow thin at the same time as she felt Beckett trying to pull more from all of them. Her knees shook.
“Tait!” Cato said, his voice higher than normal in worry.
Beckett couldn’t do this. It had to be Tait. Tait might not have summoned it this time, but they had summoned it before, and it was them it was hunting. Tait had to use that link.
Beckett hit out again, with no effect other than to send Reb light-headed for a moment.
“Beckett, you can’t, remember? Let Tait do it,” Cato growled.
Reb looked over her shoulder. Tait stood behind Beckett with their eyes shut, an expression of deep concentration on their face.
“I can’t reach it,” Tait said, panting, without opening their eyes. “I’m trying, but…”
“Whatever you’re trying to do, it won’t work,” Selene said. Her voice was scornful, dismissive. “This is more powerful than you.” She paused, and when she spoke again, she sounded calm, convincing, generous, even. “Give me the sorcerer, and all this will go away. No need for any dramatic gestures. No need to damage Marek. They’re Teren anyway, after all. They’re ours to bother with. No concern of yours.”
“No,” Reb said, echoed by Cato and Marcia, and Beckett underneath, a bass note that shook them all. Even the demon juddered.
But it wasn’t going anywhere.
“I can’t link to it,” Tait whispered. “It’s there, but it’s the wrong direction, I can’t push it back… Give me up. You’ll have to.” They sounded agonised.
“Absolutely not,” Cato said, through his teeth, and Reb felt him pushing harder, with every ounce of his strength, could feel his power shaking through Beckett and out again – into Tait.
Reb gritted her teeth and copied him, pouring her magic-sense through Beckett and into Tait. She thought, just maybe, that she too could feel the link now. A tiny, tenuous one, a faint feel of the demon who was still outside Marek, outside Beckett’s power, but if they could just reach it… but it wasn’t there, it wasn’t happening, and Reb knew she was running out of energy altogether. Marcia’s hand clenched on her shoulder, fingertips digging into the muscle, and Reb tried to push Tait onwards, but she didn’t have anything left, she couldn’t, and beside her Cato took a sobbing breath…
Jonas, beyond Cato, impossibly distant across the few feet of the circle, turned his face to the sky, and screamed. That sea-tinge intensified, and for a fraction of a second it felt like Marek was convulsing under them without moving, and then from every corner of the sky birds appeared, pigeons and seagulls and crows, as if materialising from nowhere, a terrifying storm of feathers and beaks and claws. Tait fell forwards, flinging their arms around Jonas, and screamed in their turn, and every single bird descended, as a mass, upon the purple demon.
All the power they’d accumulated, all of them, shot through Beckett, to Tait, and outwards down to the demon, in a rush that blurred Reb’s vision.
The link built, and surged, and broke; and the demon disappeared.
TWENTY-FIVE
Jonas lay on the floor, blinking up at the sky, with no idea where he was or how he’d got there. Somewhere in the open? The sky was full of racing grey clouds, but he had the vague impression that it had looked different, not very long ago. Black and purple and swirls above him.
The shadow, though. The shadow, over Marek, across him… it had gone. He drew in a long breath, and even with the smells of water and mud and rotting vegetables around him, the air felt clear.
“Shit,” he heard from somewhere above him.
Cato. That was Cato. Where was he, then? Slowly, Jonas levered himself up, and looked around. Tait was sitting on the ground next to him, slumped forwards, their head in their hands. Cato had just knelt down beside Tait and had a hand on their shoulder, leaning forwards intently to say something. Reb and Marcia were both standing nearby, leaning in on one another, and just past their feet, he could see the remains of a circle in white and green powder.
Salt and rosemary. He remembered now. Some of it, anyway. He wasn’t sure how hard he wanted to try to remember in detail.
Further away… there were empty carts, their traces propped on the ground, over to one side, and sturdy plank docks away to his left. But not the docks… He didn’t think he knew this place. The river was here, though.
Marcia straightened her shoulders and walked away, towards two figures Jonas didn’t want to look at. Reb turned towards him, and bent down.
“Jonas? Are you all right?”
“What’s happened? Where am I?” He was aware as he said it what a terrible cliché it was, and winced. Reb didn’t seem to notice.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked, briskly.
“In your house?” Jonas said, slowly. He only had a few snippets of recollection of that, even. “Was Beckett there? I was at Cato’s, and I told him… and then we went to your house.” He looked around. “Did we come here? Where is this?”
“Beckett brought us to the edge of the city,” Reb said. “This is the river docks, where the caravans and the barges unload, though it’s normally rather busier than this. Beckett,” she wrinkled her nose up, “appears to have… made it clear. Which I suppose is for the best, given what’s happened, but I won’t pretend it’s not a bit worrying to think of.”
“The demon,” Jonas said, but the sudden spike of automatic worry didn’t have any real power to it. He knew with bone-deep certainty that the demon, the shadow, was gone.
“Gone,” Reb said. “Disappeared or back to its own plane or… I don’t know where, and I don’t much care. Beckett went immediately after.”
“Didn’t even say goodbye,” Cato drawled.
Jonas twisted to look up at him.
“Is he all right, then?” Cato asked Reb.
“He’s fine,” Reb said. “Lost a bit of memory.”
Cato crouched down to meet Jonas’ eyes. “You did well,” he said, sounding genuinely sincere. “We couldn’t have done it without you. I thought we weren’t going to.”
“Me?” Jonas asked. “I didn’t… ?”
Cato looked a little bothered, and like he was trying to hide it. “You really are quite strong when you’re playing to your strengths. Seagulls. Birds…” He trailed off, looking thoughtful. “Well now. I might give that some thought, when you’re well enough to be working again.”
Jonas rubbed at his head, and then at his arms.
“He’s shivering,” Reb said. “We should get him back indoors.”
“Tait, too,” Cato said. “I think the link snapping was pretty hard on them.” He looked over at where Marcia was. “Not as hard as it was on the sorcerer controlling that thing, mind.” His tone was viciously pleased.
Tait still had their head in their hands, their shoulders hunched up around their ears. They said something unintelligible.
“Tait, no,” Cato began, but Reb interrupted.
“What did they say?” she demanded.
Tait raised their head. “I should leave Marek,” they said. “I’ll stay here. Wait for people to come back, or the next barges to come in, or something. That’s the way I came in.”
“Why leave now?” Reb asked. “The problem you brought to our door is resolved.” She looked over to where Marcia was talking to the other woman Jonas had seen. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Marcia’s back didn’t look happy. “Also, if you leave now, I strongly suspect that Selene there, or her colleague, will pick you straight back up again. I rather thought that was what you were trying to avoid.”
“I’m hardly welcome here though, am I?” Tait’s face was drawn.
“Do you want to learn Marek magic?” Cato asked, mo
re gently than Jonas was used to hearing from him. “That’s what you said. Did you mean it?”
Tait hesitated, then, slowly, nodded. “I don’t want to go back to Teren.” He glanced over at Marcia and Selene and the Teren sorcerer, and shuddered.
Cato shrugged. “Then stay, and learn. Fuck knows we need more sorcerers.” He gestured around. “Marek used to be full of us. Now, this is it. You want to come, you can stay.” He looked up at Reb, his chin raised. “Right, Reb?”
Reb sighed, and shut her eyes for a moment, looking pained. “I’m hardly in a position to criticise someone coming from Teren magic to Marek, am I now?”
Jonas looked at her in surprise. “You… ?”
“It’s a long time ago,” Reb said. “But yes.”
“You said I should leave,” Tait said.
“And if you had done, we wouldn’t have had to solve the problem this way,” Reb said. “Which would have been an improvement from my point of view, although not so much from yours. However. It’s done now. And in all honesty, having told that woman she couldn’t have you, I’d rather you didn’t go ahead and undo all of our work. Stay.” Jonas wouldn’t have said that she sounded hugely enthusiastic, but she did sound sincere.
“I can take them on as an apprentice,” Cato said.
“You’re barely finding the time to work with me,” Jonas objected.
“Jonas is right,” Reb said, crisply. “Something you should resolve, Cato, while I’m on the subject. Also, if I’m not mistaken,” she looked at Cato, his arm around Tait, who was leaning against him, “it would be highly unethical for the two of you to work together.” She sighed again. “I’ll do it.”
Cato looked as though he was considering being offended, then shrugged. “Fine. I can see the advantage of doing it your way, in any case.” He looked across at Tait. Tait flushed.
Marcia stomped back towards them, looking frustrated. The other two people were walking away, towards the road they’d come in on. One of them was limping slightly, their arms round themself. The other was straight-backed, their walk almost… jaunty? Couldn’t be. Those two had lost, right?
“Let’s go,” Marcia said, tersely.
Reb bent down to help Jonas up. His legs were still a bit wobbly, but he managed to start walking. Back towards the centre of Marek, surrounded – he looked around – by the sorcerers of Marek.
He was a sorcerer of Marek, apprentice or no. The realisation hit him hard in the middle of the chest, and he stumbled. Reb caught him.
“Jonas?” Cato, arm still around Tait, sounded worried.
“I’m fine,” he said, finding his feet again. He felt, all of a sudden, more stable. “I’m fine, honestly.”
He belonged here. Maybe not for ever; but for now, he truly did belong here.
k k
Marcia’s conversation with Selene had been short, and extremely frustrating.
“So,” Selene said. “Do you intend, then, to instigate civil war?”
Her arms were folded, and her expression cool and secure. She didn’t look like someone who had just lost her demon, and the sorcerer she’d been chasing. She looked like she was in control.
Her sorcerer, on the other hand, the one who’d been managing the demon, had just thrown up on the ground, and was shuddering in a heap on his knees. Selene ignored him.
Marcia looked at Selene’s bland expression and clenched her teeth.
“You realise,” Selene said, “that this is only a taste of what we can do. We have a great many more sorcerers, now. A great many more demons, if we wish. Declare war on us and you will have a demon army marching on your city. Your cityangel cannot stand against us.” She sounded faintly contemptuous. “Not to mention the question of how seriously you will be taken were I to tell them my side of the story. You, and your sorcerer brother, and your sorcerer lover, threatening the Teren Lord Lieutenant with magic? Your word against mine. Who do you think they would believe?”
“I am Fereno-Heir,” Marcia said, coldly, but she felt the worm of doubt inside her. She might have more witnesses than Selene, but they were all sorcerers; relying on them might cause more harm than good.
“Then by all means, let us try it. If you’re right, you will be secure, but Teren and Marek will be outwardly and publicly at odds. Think carefully about the cost of that. If you’re wrong, I will have demonstrated that the Council should have listened to me this afternoon, rather than to you.” She smiled, without any warmth at all. “Of course, in due course I am sure that decision will be revisited. But for now – we can simply continue as we are. No need for Marek to challenge Teren, and face the costs of that. No need for you to face the costs of it. So. Are you certain you wish to force a confrontation? Or are you going to be sensible?”
She stared at Marcia, coolly mocking.
Marcia desperately wanted to say that yes, she would denounce Selene, would tell the Houses what she had done, would make the truth public and take the consequences.
The problem was, Selene was right. She couldn’t put Marek openly into opposition with Teren. They didn’t have the strength. She’d just managed to pull the city out of one catastrophic disruption. She couldn’t plunge it immediately into the middle of a second one, one with potentially much bigger consequences.
And, more ignobly, she wasn’t sure she could withstand the scrutiny that Selene would, in return, throw onto her. Everyone knew about Cato, and accepted that Marcia met with her brother, even if no one mentioned it to her in public. But Reb, that might be a different thing. The events of the summer – only Daril truly knew about them, granted, but there had been mutterings afterwards. The gossips had assumed something political was going on and never thought of the magical, but if anyone thought to really look into it… And now, here she was, again, at the centre of a magical attack on Marek. Resisting the magical attack, of course; but that wouldn’t necessarily matter, to the Houses. And this time, she hadn’t just stood on the sidelines. She’d taken part. Only as a link back to the city, perhaps, but still; she’d broken the law, no question about it, and Selene knew. Even if she managed to explain it to the Council and wasn’t expelled from her House on the spot; even then, the pressure on Madeleine to disinherit her would be intense.
Madeleine had disinherited Cato without so much as a glance behind her afterwards.
Maybe this wasn’t quite the same. Maybe.
And if Selene did win the argument, if Marcia was disinherited for sorcery, Marek would be even worse prepared to withstand whatever it was Teren was planning, and even more primed to believe Selene in the future.
Selene watched Marcia fail to say anything, and a tiny smirk of a smile appeared at the corners of her mouth.
“I have another two days in Marek, before I return,” she said. “I’m sure I will see you at another of these balls or meals or however else the Houses choose to entertain me.”
She bowed, very slightly, and turned to walk away; then turned back. “Oh. And if I were you, I would look to your squats and your own poor. What we’ve seen in Teren will come here, too. Read a news-sheet, if you can lower yourself that far.” She sounded vicious. “And in due course you’ll realise why you should have taken this opportunity to align yourself with Teren again, and you’ll come crawling back to us begging to come under our wing.”
She turned again and walked away; shakily, the sorcerer rose to his feet and followed her. For a moment, he too turned back, and his hood slipped a little so Marcia could see his eyes. But he wasn’t looking at Marcia; he was looking, with longing, at Tait.
No, not at Tait, Marcia realised. At what Tait represented. At Tait, in Marek.
Then he turned back and hurried after Selene; and, sick at heart, Marcia turned to her own people.
TWENTY-SIX
It seemed a lot further, walking back from the edge of the city, than it had seemed getting there; although in fact Cato and Tait were only going to the squats, so it was objectively less far. Cato’s feet, and his all-over bodily ache
, didn’t agree with objective fact. There were still a few grey clouds around, but the wind was blowing them away, and the setting sun had appeared again underneath them, casting red fingers across the streets. People were back in the streets, too. Back doing all their usual things, running messages, fetching water, standing idly around chatting… Nothing had changed, for anyone else.
He should be used to that. Magic happened off at an angle from everyone else. But he felt, as he walked through Marek, like he was lagging an inch or two behind his body. Like his skin itched slightly. He wanted to tell people to pay more attention, except that was both stupid and pointless. He wanted…
He wanted a bath, was what he wanted. And quite a lot of wine.
They reached the outskirts of the squats. Cato nodded at Reb and Marcia. They looked roughly like he felt.
“I’m going this way,” he said, unnecessarily. “Jonas? Tait?”
Tait hadn’t said anything since they left the river-docks, and didn’t seem to want to now. But they followed after Cato. Jonas turned up the street towards the squats, too. He was looking better than he had when he’d been having those flickers – Cato really did need to follow up on those – but still not what you’d call full of the joys of life. And he was Cato’s apprentice. Cato should probably… look out for him, or something.
He had no idea how to do that.
“Uh. Jonas. How’re you doing?” he tried. “You should maybe… go and have a lie down. Or something.”
He sounded like an idiot, didn’t he? Jonas glanced over at him and rolled his eyes. Cato chose to read that as affectionate.
“I’m going to go find Asa,” Jonas said. “I’m fine.” He jerked his head to one side. “In fact, I’m going that way.” He turned left. Presumably he lived that way. Or he was just really desperate to get away from Cato’s attempts at master-apprentice bonding.
“Come by tomorrow afternoon! Lesson!” Cato called after him, and Jonas raised a hand in acknowledgement without turning round.
Which left him and Tait.
“I think,” Cato said, thoughtfully, “that what I really need right now is a lovely long soak in the hottest water the baths have to offer.” He paused. “And some wine. Definitely some wine. Like, right now.”
