Better 'Ink Twice
Page 16
Even if we make them to her.
I drifted off— or passed out. Semantics, really.
***
At some point during my blackout, room service stopped by to deliver a tray of food. My mouth watered at the prospect of something to eat. How long had it been since I had the protein bars at the bowling alley? A couple of days? A week? The lack of sun threw my internal clock out of whack, making it all but impossible to keep track of time. Stomach rumbling, I slid off the cot and crawled across my cell to the stainless-steel tray sitting just inside the bars. A fresh bout of nausea hit when I realized the menu consisted of moldy bread and wilted fruit with cloudy water for a chaser.
My compliments to the chef.
“I’ll be sure to pass that along to the kitchen staff,” a gruff voice replied.
“Did I say that out loud?” Still hunched over, fighting back a fit of dry heaving, I didn’t bother to look up.
Keys rattled against the bars, followed by the distinct click of a lock. The cell door opened with a clang as it retracted into the wall.
“The Council wants to see you.” A guard stepped into the cell, grabbed my arm, and hauled me to my feet. He reeked of clove cigarettes and my stomach revolted. “Puke on my shoes and I’ll leave you here and tell them you died in your sleep.”
“Somehow, I doubt they’d believe you.” My legs wobbled and threatened to give out on more than one occasion as he pushed me down the hall.
“Yeah, why’s that?” He put his hand in the middle of my back and shoved.
“No one dies in here unless they want them to.” I stumbled forward, slamming into the door at the end of the hall.
Unaware of the occupant inside, I strayed too close to the bars of the last cell on the left. Hands reached out and grabbed ahold of me, yanking me against the cell door. Scratching and clawing, the prisoner aimed to inflict as much damage as possible before the guard stopped them. If the guard stopped them.
“You filthy bitch with your putrid magic. Why couldn’t you just unravel the ward and die like you were supposed to?” Winslow ripped out a lock of my hair and spat in my direction before slinking back into the dark corner of his cell.
A smirk parted the guard’s dingy white beard, revealing a row of yellowed teeth. “Don’t stray too close to the cells, convict. You’re liable to get hurt.”
“I’m inside the Magistrate’s prison. I’m liable to get hurt no matter where I am.” I wiped the droplets of blood from the small bald spot on my temple.
“Naughty, naughty.” The guard clucked his tongue and pulled an athame from his holster. Eyes locked with mine, he sliced his palm and pressed it against the lead bars. The blood hissed and popped against the metal but the guard didn’t so much as flinch. “Too many people on his payroll to risk just any old lock and key.”
The cell door slid open and the guard stepped inside. He muttered something in the arcane language that sounded more like a curse than a spell. Winslow rose from his crouched position on the floor. Suspended three feet in the air, his arms and legs outstretched, he begged for mercy as the guard slowly approached. Each clack of boot heel against the floor wrenched another cry of pain from the former representative but he held the lock of my hair firmly in his grasp.
“That’s contraband, Winslow.” The guard raised his hand, unfurling each finger from his clenched fist. “And we can’t allow inmates to have contraband now, can we?”
Winslow’s face distorted with pain. Weakened from lead poisoning, he succumbed to the guard’s spell. Five pops and Winslow’s fingers were dislocated. Most of the hair Winslow ripped from my head fell to the floor but several pieces stuck to his sweaty palm. The guard made sure that not even a single strand was left behind before tucking them into his shirt pocket and exiting the cell. The bars slammed shut behind him.
“After you, Warder.” The guard nudged me toward the door. “Don’t want to keep the Council waiting. They’ll be interested to know what our little friend’s been up to.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I was in the stairwell before he released Winslow from the suspension spell.
“I don’t think he likes you very much. Good thing you’re both locked up in here. Safe and sound.” The guard laughed.
Funny. I don’t feel safe or sound. Even if I made it out of my meeting with the Council alive, I wouldn’t survive in that lead cell much longer. I prayed the Goddess had a plan for getting me out of this mess because I was fresh out of ideas.
Chapter Twenty-Four
According to my guard, the meeting was business casual and would not be held in the chamber room. While my prison wardrobe lacked business attire, I was confident my dingy jeans and matted hair fell squarely in the casual category. With one of two dress code requirements checked off the list, I followed the guard to an office off the chamber room I hadn’t noticed during my first encounter with the Council.
The guard knocked three times on the solid wood door and announced our arrival. When there was no response, he knocked again. “Prisoner nine-seven-two, Adeline Severance, as requested.” He rolled his eyes.
I doubted he’d risk such a blatant show of disrespect without the thick oak door between us and the Council.
“Yes, yes. Come in,” a voice aged with experience beckoned inside the room. The Crone.
The Council occupied three identical chairs positioned around an old stone fireplace. The logs crackled as the flames licked away their bark. The Mother, seated closest to the fire, stoked it with a wrought iron poker. The warmth did little to chase the chill from my bones.
“Patience is a virtue, Walters.” The Maiden shared Walters’s enthusiasm for the meeting with an eye roll of her own. “Or so Mother keeps telling me. Adeline, you’re looking well.”
I bit my tongue and forced a smile. Nothing good would come of the sharp-witted reply her comment deserved.
The Mother instructed Walters to wait outside the door. “Close it behind you. Wait, what’s that? There, in your pocket?” She snapped her fingers and held out her hand.
“Oh, this?” Walters pulled out the lock of my hair from his shirt pocket. “Contraband. Took it off Winslow on the way up here.” There was a slight tremble in his fingers when he handed it over. Walters chose to stare at his scuffed black combat boots to avoid eye contact.
Busted. I recognized the look on his face. I’d worn a similar expression when Grim caught me messing with his inks before I started my training. Walters had no intentions of turning in my hair. So, what was his plan? Sell it? Use it? A witch could conjure all sorts of nasty spells with just one strand of hair. Compulsion first among them. Was Walters abusing his power and taking advantage of female prisoners? Or had an opportunity simply presented itself? I shuddered at the thought of being under his control; grateful the Mother took the lock of hair before he had a chance to use it.
Of course, that meant the Council could wield that power over me if they wished. Lesser of two evils? I would find out soon enough.
“One night in prison and already making friends, Adeline?” The Maiden eyed the lock of hair with interest.
One night? My knees buckled with the news but I managed to stay on my feet. Oh, Goddess, it had only been one night and I was broken. I hoped Lars and Amber held up better than I did. I looked around the room, their faces absent among its occupants. It was just the five of us in the Council’s private quarters. Three cots lined one wall, a crafting bench complete with spelling pots and candles lined another. Dried herbs and flowers hung from the ceiling. Despite the quaint simplicity of their room, I couldn’t help but wonder if the women were prisoners of their own right within the campus walls.
“That will be all, Walters.” The Mother dismissed her guard with a wave of her hand before tucking my hair into a pocket hidden in the folds of her dress. “I’ll just hold on to this for safekeeping. We wouldn’t want it falling into the wrong hands, now, would we?”
If she meant that to be comforting, she missed the mark. The
idea of the Council having something of mine in their possession wasn’t the least bit reassuring. Based on the way the three women and the Magistrate governed the witching community, nothing good could come of it.
“Not to sound ungrateful or anything—”
The Maiden crossed her arms over her chest and looked down her nose at me. “Here comes the ‘but.’ I told you we should have left her there.”
“And I told you the runes said otherwise.” The Crone gripped the arms of her chair, the wood creaking as pushed herself to her feet. “We agreed to read them again in her presence.” She unfastened the brown leather cording that held a matching pouch to a belt around her narrow waist.
The old woman reached inside the bag and retrieved her runes, tossing them high into the air. Her method was unlike any I’d seen before. Rather than a ceremonial bowl or platter to collect the runes once they fell, they hung suspended in midair.
“Come closer, child,” the Crone beckoned me closer. “How do you expect to read them from halfway across the room?”
“I wasn’t expecting to read them at all.” I shrugged. “Runes aren’t my thing.”
“Grim did you a great disservice,” The Mother huffed, joining her elder by the runes. “Perhaps if you learned to harness your abilities for something other than banned magics, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
“Grim taught me everything I needed to know.” A fierce need to protect his memory steeled my spine. I’d uncovered more secrets than I’d have thought possible but despite everything, my love for the man who raised me hadn’t wavered. “Witches instituted the ban on warders, not the Goddess. You have a problem with my magic? Take it up with her.”
The Crone gripped her daughter’s shoulder, the knuckles of her bony fingers white from the force needed to hold her back. “Look at the runes, Adeline. Tell me what you see.”
“Nobody said anything about a pop quiz.” I recited the ancient symbols carved in the runes with as much enthusiasm as I could muster— which wasn’t much. I knew the names but there was more to this particular form of divination and I didn’t possess that arcane knowledge. “I might as well be reading a fortune cookie.”
“It would seem the Goddess is up to her old tricks again.” The Crone smiled with a mischievous twinkle in her eye that took twenty years off her face. “She likes to meddle.”
“I noticed.” My mood soured further— which was saying something considering I’d spent the night in a jail cell.
“She has plans for us, Adeline. You, more specifically.” The Crone collected her runes in one swoop and returned them to their pouch before returning to her seat. Her counterparts joined her on their respective wooden chairs.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” My eye roll was a thing of teenaged beauty.
The Council’s annoyance was palpable as they glared at me with identical expressions, pursed lips included. I wasn’t winning them over with my sparkling personality, so I switched tactics.
“Sorry, it’s been a long night. I’m not at my best.” My apology needed some work.
“I doubt you ever are.” Ouch. The Maiden’s barb stung— probably because I resembled that remark. I’d been off my game since Nicholas walked through my door.
“May I?” I gestured to a wooden stool and took a seat before they could refuse. With my elbows propped on my knees, I rested my chin in my hands and asked the Crone to please continue. Emphasis on the please.
She started from the beginning— and I do mean the beginning. The thirty-minute history lesson started with the first coven’s arrival in Providence and ended with the fractured class system the Magistrate forced us to live under. There was an imbalance of power; magically and metaphorically speaking.
In summary, we screwed everything up and the Goddess was pissed.
Not that I blamed her. Every witch I knew trapped under the Magistrate’s thumb felt the same way. I just didn’t understand what she expected me to do about it. Lucky for me, the Goddess anticipated my reluctance and sent a message through the Crone— change was coming.
And I was supposed to deliver it.
“She’s been nudging me in this direction for months. Things haven’t exactly gone according to plan.” I shrugged. “You may have noticed, I’m not exactly the hero type.”
The Mother leaned forward, mimicking my pose. “Oh, I think you are. For years, you and your mentor have paraded around the city streets like caped crusaders saving the dual-natured from their misfortune. When Grim died, you took up the mantle.” One corner of her mouth upturned in a wry smile. “Unless, of course, it was just about the money.”
One look at my bank account and her suspicions about my true motives would be confirmed. Warding was outlawed and I made a decent living tattooing mundanes. Finances were tight but the bills and tithe were paid every month with a little cash leftover. I didn’t have to take my chances in the underground. The risk came with a heavy price tag but the real reward wasn’t the cash; it was to keep witches off the streets and out of the Magistrate cells for no reason other than the way they were born.
But that didn’t make me a hero— just a sucker for a sob story.
“Look, I don’t know what you expect me to—”
“Mother, please.” The Maiden stood and pointed toward the door. She snapped a finger and a knock sounded on the wooden door. “If she won’t cooperate, and it doesn’t appear that she will, just call for the guard and send her back. We’ll pray to the Goddess and find another.”
A footman, fresh-faced and no doubt fresh out of the campus training program poked his head through the door. “Everything alright, ladies?”
“Whoa, hang on a second.” My hands were up, palms out in a placating gesture. “I’m listening.” The Council had me by the short hairs. I’d do just about anything to avoid even one more night in that cell and they knew it.
The wry old Crone smiled, causing the creases at the corners of her eyes to deepen. She dismissed the guard with a wave of her hand. I’d spent the better part of my life avoiding the Magistrate and their prison system. Yet there I was, standing before the Council and every option seemed destined to lead me right back to that cell— save one.
They wanted a reluctant hero, they got it. On one condition.
“If I do this— whatever it is you’re planning— I’ll need help.” I gnawed my lip and made a mental note to get more details the next time I agreed to do anything for the Council— assuming there would be a next time.
There were no guarantees I’d survive. Damn it all to hell. I sucked at negotiations. At least I’d have Lars and Amber. Who would no doubt be thrilled to learn I’d dragged them down with me— again.
“Done.” The Maiden snapped her fingers once more.
After another knocking sound, the guard returned. His gaze shifted from one woman to the next before landing on me. He zeroed in; suspicion written all over his face. “If you’re finished with her, I’ll return her to her cell.”
“Darling boy, we’ve only just begun.” The Mother ordered the footman to retrieve Lars and Amber from their cells while I hummed the tune to a seventies love song that would be stuck in my head for days thanks to her.
“We’ll have to wipe him clean when this is done, Mother.” The Maiden closed her eyes and sighed. “I liked him.”
Something in the Maiden’s voice gave me the impression she more than just liked the guard. She had a soft spot— interesting. But it was what she didn’t say that I found more interesting. Why would they have to wipe the guard’s memory?
The council was working against the Magistrate.
I looked around their room, really looked, and saw something entirely different the second time around. The women on high, selected by divine providence to oversee the Goddess’s people, weren’t in charge of anything. They were prisoners as much as I was. A guard stood outside their door, not because a prisoner had been summoned to their private quarters, but because the Magistrate kept tabs on them.
“Lars.” I barely managed to say his name before his arms wrapped around me in a bear hug so tight it forced all the air from my lungs. After two taps and one forceful whack on his shoulder, he let me go. Lungs burning, I sucked in air before I passed out. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Without waiting for an invitation, Amber helped herself to a glass of water from the pitcher on what passed for a kitchen table in the modest living quarters. She eyed me over the rim of the cup as she gulped down the water. After draining the cup, she wiped the back of her hand across her chin, catching the water that spilled out.
“No.” She refilled her glass. “Whatever it is, my answer is no.”
That stung but I couldn’t blame her. Not when I was the reason she spent the night in a lead box.
“Not even if it guarantees your freedom?” The Crone asked, hands steepled in front of her face.
Amber looked from the white-haired Crone to me and back again. “Let’s be real here, okay? There’s no guarantees in life. I know better.” She paused to take another drink of water. “I don’t want to go back in that cell any more than they do, but I don’t want to die, either.”
Lars grabbed her free hand, lacing his fingers with hers. “We’ll die here anyway.”
Amber broke down in tears, her body wracked with uncontrollable sobs. Water spilled onto the floor as her arm went slack at her side and the glass upended. Lars wrapped his arms around her and held her as she cried. He rubbed her back in a soft circular motion like he was afraid she’d shatter. If she did, he’d stay to pick up the pieces.