by Amy Hopkins
“Where will you find a soft bed? Under the stars? We don’t have enough housing to accommodate the people in town now, how do you think you’ll find a clean place to work from?” Julianne asked Polly.
“I— uhh, I…” Polly stammered, looking around the room for inspiration. “I’ll buy a house! I have coins with me. I don’t imagine a place would cost much here.” She said the last word with derision, and Julianne read her poor opinion of the town in her mind.
“This is a town that works on a barter system. Most of the residents don’t have money—they don’t need it. How will you and your girls make a living?” Julianne asked.
Polly lost her righteous indignation, her confident smile slipping away. “No money?” she asked.
Julianne pressed on. “Do your friends even want to return to their old profession? We’re in desperate need of cooks, clothiers, and gardeners, to name a few. Even someone who didn’t want to work a profession could be happy here, simply by providing for themselves and trading what they can for the rest.”
Polly looked away, scrambling for an answer.
“And if you do intend to employ these girls, you will have a responsibility to provide for them. We can’t be feeding people who are lying around waiting for work, when there’s so much to do.” Julianne rested her hands on her hips, waiting for Polly’s reply.
“So, the answer is no, then?” Polly snapped.
“The answer is that it’s not up to me. You’ll have to come up with a proposal of your own, address the foreseeable issues—only half of which I’ve covered, mind you—and present that to the town council for approval.”
Slumping in defeat, Polly blew her cheeks out. “It’s impossible.”
Julianne touched her shoulder. “Anything is possible if you set your mind to it. You just have to make sure it’s what you really want and what your girls want. Madam Nacht might have been your dream when you thought that’s all there was, but you’ve stepped into a place where possibility doesn’t end.”
Polly’s eyes popped open wide. “How did you know?" she whispered. Madam Nacht was the name she had told Julianne she would take if she had the chance to start her own brothel, in a new city to the north.
Of course, Polly had thought Julianne was a man—a rich, arrogant noble just out for a good time, and was forgotten the moment he left the building.
“Just don’t rush into it,” Julianne told her. “Good things come to those who work hard, plan smart, and make friends.” She looked from Polly to Danil, hoping the girl got the hint—alienating the people here wouldn’t do her any favors.
Polly nodded. “Fine. I guess you have a point.” She stood, brushed down her skirts and walked out.
“I can’t believe you’re encouraging her,” Danil snapped as soon as she had left.
“I thought out of everyone here, you’d be in favor of the idea,” Julianne said. “You’ve never been a prude before.”
“I have no problem with her setting up business once things settle down,” he said. “What pisses me off is someone who walks into a situation and immediately decides they can profit from it.”
“And was that her genuine intention?” Julianne asked softly.
Danil blushed. “I don’t know.”
Julianne didn’t say anything, just watched him roll the question around his head.
“Fine, I was too angry to look any deeper. I saw what she wanted to ask me, and I reacted. Are you happy?”
“Oh, Danil,” Julianne said with a laugh. “I’m not trying to berate you.”
“No,” he said. “But the fact that I’m right ninety-nine percent of the time must mean you get a little joy the one time I’m not.” He grinned and bowed when she shook her head in exasperation. “Hey, it’s not easy being perfect.”
“Bitch, help me, What am I going to do with you?” Julianne asked.
“I’d say you could take me over your knee and spank me, but you’d best save that for lover boy.”
“Oh, you… you…” Unable to find words to express her feelings, she satisfied herself by slapping him upside the head, going for a second one when he ducked the first. “You’re incorrigible!” she finally gasped.
“Like I said, it’s not easy being perfect! Anyway, back to the topic at hand: We have a hall full of refugees—very flexible refugees, but refugees nonetheless—and we’re harboring a kidnapped lord. Do we have a plan to deal with this yet?”
Collapsing into a chair, Julianne groaned. “No. I can’t get Madam Seher to agree to help. She hasn't said no, but she keeps asking us to wait until Adeline makes it out.” Worry cast a shadow on Julianne’s face. “Danil, it’s been two weeks. What if she’s already dead?”
“Why don’t we just go get her?” he asked, as though he were suggesting a trip to the market for a loaf of bread.
“Right. We’ll just sneak into a fortress full of mystics who can shield the shit out of each other, steal the princess from the tower, and escape with our hides intact.”
“That’s a great plan!” Danil said without a hint of irony. He plucked an apple from a nearby bowl and sank his teeth into it with a loud crunch. “Who are we taking?”
“It’s too dangerous.” Julianne ran a hand through her hair, doing her best to keep her frustration behind a thick mental shield.
“Never stopped you before.” Danil threw a second apple at Julianne, who caught it one-handed.
“He’ll be expecting us. He knows what I can do, and he’ll be prepared.” She rolled the apple in her hands, thinking.
“He’s lost his general and half an army. What did happen to young George, by the way?”
“I let him go,” Julianne said with a deep sigh. “His mind was so full of holes that when I took his body over, I broke a few things in the process. He’ll be wandering the countryside somewhere, hopefully with enough wits left to shelter from the animals and the cold.”
“You don’t think he’s a danger?” Danil asked, concern etched on his features.
Julianne’s doubt about letting him go resurfaced, and she chewed at her lip before answering. “Perhaps. But I don’t know that he’s entirely at fault for what happened, and the damage he’s suffered is enough punishment for what he did do.” She shrugged, knowing she would make the same choice again if she had to. “I don’t think he’ll come back, though. He was pretty scared when I left him.”
Scared was an understatement. George Junior had been cowering in a ball, rocking back and forth while he whimpered to himself, shaking and trembling. He had wet himself, too, though he didn’t give any indication that he had realized it.
“Fair enough.” Ever loyal, Danil took her word that George’s errant son wouldn’t be back to cause trouble.
“You’re right about the rest, though,” Julianne said, still mulling over his comment from earlier. Rogan had sustained a heavy blow by losing the lord’s son and his army. If they waited too long, that small advantage would be lost.
“I am?” Danil asked, confused.
“We need to move, and soon.” She looked around the small, cluttered room. “Can we set up a meeting here? For tonight?”
Danil nodded. “I can make some space.”
“You don’t have a class scheduled? I don’t want to interrupt if you do.”
“No,” Danil said. “Most of the villagers can either shield well enough to practice on their own, or they’ll never pick it up, so I’ve stopped the classes until things settle down.”
“That’s fine, but I intend to start them up again,” Julianne said. “I don’t want people getting lazy. It’s the only defense they have against the muckers.”
Danil looked surprised at her use of the word ‘mucker’, a shortened version of the phrase ‘mind fucker’. The villagers had only used the word in reference to those who had abused their power.
They made plans for the evening meeting and Julianne left to go about her day. She needed to organize the food stores, giving the village a chance to stock up before winter. T
he hogs the soldiers caught would replenish their food for a little while, but they needed more than just meat to last them through the colder months.
After that, she would need to track down the people she wanted at the meeting, check the guard rotations were going well, make sure the small army they were amassing had enough armor and weapons…
“I’m tired just thinking about it,” she said aloud. Still, the thought of finally making a plan to end this war sent frissons of electricity down her spine in a combination of nerves and excitement.
CHAPTER FOUR
Adeline sat at the end of her bed, back straight and muscles tense, listening to the ravings of a madman.
“So, my dear daughter, I have decided to act. No longer can my enemies be allowed to undermine my rule. The townspeople are angry, angry at these insurgents and what they have done.”
“What will you do, Father?” she asked, swallowing bile at the false words.
This man was not her father. Her real father was stowed away safely in a small village somewhere. This man? He was an imposter, a trickster using mental magic to disguise himself as the gentle Lord George.
“I will smite them,” the man hissed. “I will crush them like weevils and feed their bones to the dogs. No one—no one—can be allowed to stand against me, to thwart my power like they have.”
Adeline was certain the man was Rogan. The leader of the New Dawn had wiped her memory each time she had seen him, and for a long time, she had wondered if she was simply going crazy and he didn’t exist at all.
After confirming his presence with others, though, and recording the smallest remembered snippets of her encounters with him, she was quite sure this was him.
Like many in a position of power, Rogan hadn’t thought that lowly commoners and prostitutes were worth mind-wiping. Adeline had gone to great lengths to speak to the forgotten people of the city, catching scraps of information and vague rumors about the man who stood as her father’s advisor.
Rogan was known to be petulant and impulsive. He was easy to enrage and offend, and violent when the mood took him. He didn’t inflict physical punishment himself, but twice now, a person in the street had been subjected to an invisible flogging, writhing around the cobbled road and screaming in pain.
The local brothel told of a man who walked in and demanded service, which the lady of the house had been magically compelled to provide. The two girls that had gone in never came out. It was rumored that he had killed them, but no one was sure.
Adeline knew.
They were in the dungeons below her father’s castle, the building that served as his home, as the town offices, and below, as its prison.
She’d snuck down once, aching to see who was kept down there. She’d seen the cell her father had been kept in, his rumpled jacket still on the floor in one corner. Next to it, two girls sat on dirty straw, staring at the wall.
Adeline had crept away before being seen, returning the stolen keys so that no one would know of her little trip.
She had enlisted Jill, one of her maids, to sneak food down for the girls on a regular basis. As one of the few of George’s staff who had been taught to shield her mind like Adeline, she was about the only person left in Muir who could be trusted.
Jill had barely been seen in the past week, and not at all for two days.
Adeline hoped Jill was ok and that the girls were still alive. For the last week, she had been locked in her room, guarded closely by the two new soldiers lurking in the hall.
“There is something else I must tell you about.” Rogan’s demeanor suddenly changed, becoming nervous, shy.
“Perhaps it could wait?” Adeline tried to dodge the conversation she had assumed was coming her way. “I didn’t sleep well, Father. I’m terribly tired.”
He ignored her protest, not that she was surprised. “Rogan is a fine man. Terribly smart and so benevolent to my—to our—people.”
Adeline stared at the floor, muscle in her jaw flexing. How dare he use my father for this, she thought to herself. Her thoughts might be safe behind a mental shield, but she needed to work harder to control her physical reaction.
“I do think you’d like him,” Rogan continued. “And you’re getting old, too old to be without a husband.”
Adeline didn’t respond. Her heart thundered in her chest, and her white hands gripped her skirts so tight she knew it would be wrinkled when she stood.
Since confining her to her room, Rogan had spent more and more time with her, masquerading as Lord George. Somehow, he had grown to have some kind of twisted affection for his prisoner.
Adeline knew she would have to find a way to use it against him, but the thought of being forced into marriage with the man who was trying to take her city left little room for a clear head.
“I tire of this,” Rogan said. He often ended his visits abruptly, and Adeline suspected it was his magic, exhausting him after long days spent maintaining the magical illusion. “Goodbye, my dear daughter. Think on what I said about Rogan.”
“Of course, father.”
Adeline braced herself, and forced a smile as he leaned down to kiss her forehead. He doesn’t even smell like father, she thought, glad her innate shield had so far prevented him from reading her mind.
He left and shut the door behind him. She fled across her room on tiptoes and pressed her ear to the door. As she listened, one hand fished a long chain from between her breasts, and took out a thin, silver key.
“...back tomorrow,” he was saying to the guards.
“Yes, Master,” they answered in unison.
Their words suggested they were loyal to Rogan, who had insisted his title was Master. He had never said what he was a master of.
She listened as the hard click of boots on the stone floor faded away, locked the door with a quiet click, then ran to her bed. She stuffed her pillows beneath the blankets in the rough shape of a sleeping body, then ran to a small writing desk against the wall. She penned a quick letter on a tiny scrap of paper.
Rogan more unstable. Threatening to come for you.
She didn’t mention his burgeoning crush. Madam Seher wouldn’t stand for that and would rush in to rescue her without thinking. It was too early for that, and would risk any plans they might come up with.
With one last look at the door to make sure it was shut tightly, Adeline dove under her desk. It took a moment of groping the hard stone to find the tiny crack and slip her fingers in. With a low grating sound, the hidden door opened.
She crawled in, then stood in the hidden cavity behind the wall. A lever on this side closed the hidden door, and a peephole disguised by a tapestry in the room would give her a chance to make sure the room was empty before she returned.
Now, though, she had a job to do.
A narrow staircase led up to one of the old towers. The only other entrance was boarded up, a precaution Lord George had taken after some klutz of a cleaner had fallen from the tower. In such a peaceful region, he had lamented the mere presence of them before blocking them off.
Adeline’s little door was the only way in, as far as she knew. She had discovered it as a child, and never told a soul. Now, it was literally a lifesaver.
“Percival?” she called softly as she neared the top of the stairs. “Are you still here?” She had meant to come up at dawn, but Rogan’s unscheduled visit had almost caught her out.
Flapping wings rustled behind her, and she greeted the pigeon with a small curtsy. “Thank you for waiting, Percival.” He chirped, then hopped onto her hand, cooing happily as she stroked his grey feathers.
“You know the drill. I’ll try to be gentle, but if you flap around like last time, you’ll just make it more difficult.”
The bird couldn’t understand a word she said, but seemed soothed by her words. Adeline rolled up her message into a tight little scroll, and used a bit of string to tie it to the bird’s foot.
“There. Mathias will be looking for you,” Adeline whispered.
At her gesture, the bird launched himself out of her hands and into the air, gliding away from the tower and into the sky.
Adeline watched until he was no more than a speck, then took a careful peek at the city below. It was quieter than usual, residents herded off the streets by a newly formed city Guard.
This group of soldiers, employed by Rogan, were rougher and meaner than her father’s men. They had strong armed one of the inns into closing, and almost killed business at the other two with strictly enforced curfews and harsh punishments for anyone seen drunk in the streets.
“Just you wait, you bastard,” she whispered. “You’ll pay for ruining our city. Just you wait.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Bette rubbed her shirt on the washboard, humming loudly.
“I haven’t heard that tune,” Tansy said next to her.
“No? Well, that’s because it’s a rearick song; somethin’ we sing up at Craigston,” Bette explained.
“Where’s that?” Tansy asked.
Bette lowered her voice dramatically. “It’s across the Madlands! Ye have to brave the crazed beast-men, then travel through the low-lying valley. Just when yer feet are ready ta fall off, ye come ta the biggest, nastiest mountain ye ever laid eyes upon!”
Tansy’s own eyes were wide, lapping up the story.
“Once ye start climbin’, the air gets real thin. Yer lungs get tight, and the air gets colder and colder, until yer walkin’ through a blizzard. Only then will ye find a wee shinin’ light in the snow and sleet, a little twinkle to guide ye ta Craigston, where the mountain people hail from.”
“And a few miles up from that, us weak-kneed, soft-bellied mystics live,” Bastian threw in. He squeezed out a wet pair of pants, then dunked them into the stream again. “It’s really not that bad.”
“Bastian, ye bloody spoilsport. I was tellin’ a story!” Bette slapped him with her shirt, splattering him with water.
“Hey, this is my only clean outfit!” he protested. “Then you should wash your clothes more often,” Tansy chided him. “Though, I suppose I should be glad you wash them at all. Bette, how’d you teach these dumb lugs to look after themselves?”
