by Iris Walker
“Well, between Fausta’s world domination and your aquarium, I know which side I’m on,” Lucidia muttered.
“That is good, because we need all the help we can get. If Calliope’s attack is any indication, the rest of our world sees us as weak at the moment, and we’re giving them good reason to think so. It will not be long before the vultures begin circling overhead.”
Lucidia inhaled sharply. “There’s something else. Something strange has been going on with the caster guild. Did you know about it?”
“As far as I’m concerned, we still have a tentative treaty, though I’m anxious to hear what they decide to do about Calliope’s rebellion.”
“No, that’s the thing: there is no agreement anymore. Someone has been sabotaging relations between vampires and casters behind closed doors.”
His scowl deepened. “Explain.”
“Reykon Thraxos was out looking for Robin, and it brought him across the path of Calliope’s right hand, who worked closely with the elites. The entire academy of casters and everybody at the guild was given the information that Magnus Demonte brutally murdered a cordon of casters sent on a diplomatic mission during All Hollow’s Eve. Supposedly, they all witnessed it. That was over a year ago. Then, the elites passed a law suspending the ethical implications of vitalurgical experimentation. Calliope had been doing those experiments behind closed doors, but this fake massacre was what allowed them to bring Project Robin into the light. It was shortly after that that Calliope made first contact on Robin’s twenty-fourth birthday, and a year after that, Magnus commissioned Reykon to bring her to him. But for over a year, everybody in caster-land has been gearing up for a war with the vampires, that they think we started.”
Lucidia rarely, rarely saw Darian troubled.
This, however, truly troubled him.
“The other houses,” he muttered. “They were not permitted to have casters. I assumed the guild was becoming more elite, as they do every few centuries. It was no cause for concern.”
“That’s another thing. Noomi said that all of the casters sent from the guild were pulled back. Max, however, said that you had a caster with you on staff when you went into hiding.”
“Yes,” Darian nodded. “That’s correct.”
“Right, but that caster… they’re not from the guild. Or at least, they’re not official.”
Darian drew in a sharp breath. “I have to make a call.”
Icy fear prickled at the back of her mind. That’s not good.
Darian pulled his phone out quickly and had it up to his ear even faster. After a tense silence, Darian’s lips pressed into a thin line.
“What is it?” Lucidia asked.
“I left Robin at a secure location under the protection of a strongblood, a vampire, and my caster from the guild. He is a very powerful individual, and now, they are not answering my calls.”
Lucidia’s eyes widened, icy fear setting in.
Robin
The dark cave swallowed them up, sharp against her hands as they tore through the corridors.
Back to the whirlpool.
“Won’t Darian know if we use that again? Won’t he find us?”
“I’ve linked it to another nexus. We’ll be safe there.”
They raced through the corridor, air frigid in her tight lungs, until they broke into the chamber. The moon was high and cut through the sliver in the tall cavern roof. Charlemagne immediately went to the pool, leaning over it and thrusting his arms inside. “Stay close. It won’t be long now.” The water began to glow, rising like it had in the catacombs of the winter castle, swirling higher and higher. As Robin watched it, the tension growing in her chest, she felt a pulse of heat on her back, and whipped around.
Ezra stood with a face made of stone. “Lady Robin,” he said gravely. “You must return with me.”
Robin stiffened, eyes flicking to Charlemagne, who was deep in concentration.
“I can’t do that,” she whispered.
“He attacked us,” Ezra growled. “He is not to be trusted.”
The pure anger in Ezra’s voice made Robin want to cower in fear, but she managed to stay standing, tense as a bowstring.
“You don’t understand,” she pleaded. “I’ll die if we don’t find Calliope.”
“He has told you this? The caster is filling your head with lies. Now, it is more dangerous than ever. You are not leaving.”
Ezra moved quickly, a shadow across the dark cavern wall, swatting Charlemagne like a fly.
Rocks cracked and crumbled as Charlemagne’s body collided with the cavern wall and thudded on the ground. Ezra was already pulling the caster up to his feet, slamming him against the other wall with so much force that it rattled Robin’s teeth.
“No!” she cried, closing the distance between them.
Just as Ezra’s fist rose in the air, tense with enough vampiric force to break through the Great Wall of China, Robin felt instinct overtake her. She thrust her hand out, her fingers closing around his fist, stopping it mid-air.
She expected him to take her arm off. She expected the impact to crack her spine or throw her across the room. Instead, Ezra’s eyes widened in shock as she stopped him, then and there, like he was an unruly child. She gasped in a breath, chest heaving with the effort and the concentration, and she took a small draw of energy, the marks on her body glowing, causing the shadows to elongate into sinister figures along the wall.
Ezra’s brow crunched together, and he staggered back from the energy she’d taken. “Robin!” he warned.
She froze under the command, but only for a moment.
Charlemagne groaned behind her. “I must return to the pool.”
Robin nodded, moving in front of him and shielding him from Ezra as she watched the vampire with piercing eyes. The tension between them threatened to suffocate her as they circled each other in a delicate, deadly dance. Robin felt the heat just as he advanced, and she forced herself forward, shoving Ezra, timing the pull of energy just as her hands collided with his body.
He slowed under her touch, gasping for breath and stumbling back, pressing his hand on the wall for support.
“Stop it, Ezra!” she screamed, digging her feet into the ground, blocking Charlemagne with both hands outstretched.
Charlemagne fell on his knees at the pool, digging his hands into the water and starting the spell, faster than before. Water shot up to the roof, swirling with enough anger to rival Poseidon.
Let us go, she prayed, watching the vampire, just let us go.
Ezra’s face contorted in rage and he barreled forward with all the force he could muster. He was slower, clumsier, and came towards them like a bear, using brute force. Robin shifted her back leg further behind her, deepening her stance, and outstretched both her hands. She caught Ezra by his arms, stopping him mid-stride and gripping him there. Their eyes locked for a brief moment before her marks began glowing.
Ezra, who’d towered over her, now faltered, sinking to his knees under her grip.
Sweat snaked down her forehead as she fought to concentrate on slowing the draw of energy, to not take too much. Every breath, every thudding heartbeat was a risk of distraction, of letting that fire burn too hot.
Of letting the fire consume Ezra.
Even after everything they’d done to her, after Darian and Magnus and all the others, she couldn’t bring herself to hurt him. Just as she saw a flicker in his burning red eyes, she stopped, releasing him and gasping for breath.
Ezra collapsed on the ground, groaning, trying to pull himself up. Robin fell, too, bracing her trembling hands against the rocky cavern floor, specks of gravel digging into her palms. She caught a glimpse of his eyes, still burning red, but a little dimmer, and let out a shuddering breath of relief.
Charlemagne staggered to his feet and called her name with a ragged grunt. “Robin, now!”
Just as she hauled herself up, Ezra outstretched his fingers. Tears brimmed in her eyes and she turned, running face first i
nto the whirlpool; frigid, icy water stinging her skin.
Reykon
If he could have spoken, he would have screamed.
But teleporting took all the matter in your body and rearranged it into different formations in order to withstand the environment and speed of the space-time highway. In short, it’s like putting yourself on a USB and plugging it into a different computer, and it hurts like a bitch. Every cell in his body stung like it had been electrocuted and then doused in frigid water. He was laying on the ground, on his stomach, groaning in pain as his eyes tried to focus.
The light in here was dim, and it smelled like magic, crackling and sizzling along his newly fused skin. He pushed himself up on his hands and knees, gasping for breath after breath, and swiveling his vision to the side, looking for Noomi. She’d already recovered her composure, standing in an offensive position, arguing with someone.
Reykon scowled and tried to make sense of the angry conversation.
“We need to speak to him,” Noomi snarled.
“Straight from the guild, eh?” an angry voice jabbed. “Don’t think you’ll be speaking to anybody.”
Noomi looked about ready to take the guy’s head off, if they could have exited the little magical prison cell that the portal had dumped them into. Her eyes flared with anger. “I am the only direct descendent of Thalia Trevonair, one of the great rebels that built this place. You will let me and my companion in, or I will burn it to the ground.”
The jailer scowled at her. “Be needing some blood to confirm that.”
Noomi held her hand out, palm up, and ticked her head to the side. “Be my guest.”
The man took a dagger, reaching it past the glimmering magical barrier and slicing her palm with a small grin. A stream of red trickled against the metal, and he whistled, walking out of the small door without another word.
“What now?” Reykon muttered, mustering up enough strength to haul himself to his feet.
“We wait until that idiot lets us through.”
“Are you sure he will?”
“Yeah,” she said, wiping her arms off and resituating her slightly askew jacket. “My mother’s pretty big around here. Even though she’s gone, I’ve got her magic, and that alone should be enough.”
“Things have gotten tense,” Reykon warned. “When was the last time you visited here?”
“Not for a few decades, but two years ago, I got worried about the spying gig, and I reached out to an old friend of mine to see if hiding out was an option.”
Reykon’s eyebrows pulled together. “What made you change your mind?”
“I got a glimpse of what lay ahead for Calliope,” she murmured. “She couldn’t see it, then, too obsessed with success and innovation, but I couldn’t leave her knowing that she would be vulnerable.”
Reykon had never thought about the formidable caster Calliope Dragomir as vulnerable, but then again, he’d gotten a very skewed image of her.
What was she like, around the other casters?
Magnus Demonte, after all, had an entire persona to uphold around his fellow vampires, though Reykon had glimpsed different shades of him in more personal situations over the years. Was it the same for all the big players on the board?
And were any of them even deserving of such sympathy?
Reykon let out a long breath and stretched his arms.
A few moments later, the guard came in with a sour expression and muttered a phrase under his breath.
The purple, glimmering cage that had surrounded them faded, disappearing before their eyes. Noomi’s chin jutted out and she nodded triumphantly, walking forward with determined strides.
Reykon had no other option but to follow.
There was a small passage in front of them, low ceilinged and made with wooden slats. Golden light filtered in from somewhere; it was hard to tell the true origin. When you put casters in charge of interior decoration, things popped up all over the place.
As they walked, Reykon heard noise, louder and louder, of conversation and music and scuffles of feet.
Where is she taking us? Reykon thought with a scowl.
Two squat doors at the end of the tunnel opened as they arrived, giving way to a bar, jam packed with casters. Thumping music filled the room, pulsing in Reykon’s brain, and the crackle of magic bit at his skin, sharp and close like static. Reykon’s eyes swept over the sea of people, laughing and drinking and arm wrestling. Tables and booths on the side fostered all manner of sketchy meetups and deals that looked not only illegal, but dangerous.
“How do they fit so many people in here?” Reykon yelled.
“They don’t!” Noomi called back, pressing through the crowd. “Look closely.”
Reykon examined the crowd with a confused scowl. At first, everything looked normal.
A blonde woman talked with her two friends, smiling to a waitress who came towards their table. Reykon nodded at the waitress, who stared ahead with an i-want-tips sparkle and a platform stacked with tall drinks. It would have been a normal interaction if they weren’t dialed in for a head-on collision. “Um, hey,” Reykon said, a second before she walked through his arm. Reykon froze, watching as the woman continued forward without a care in the world.
“What the hell was that?” he asked in a sharp voice.
Noomi had noticed his detour and stopped abruptly with a coy smile. “Welcome to the bar at the end of the world, Reykon. It’s called the Prism. We’re in a mirror plane.”
Oh, a mirror plane, thanks for clearing that one up, he thought in irritation. “A what?”
Noomi pulled his arm, leading them through the crowd and closer to the bar.
The more Reykon watched, the more he realized she’d been right about the crowd; there was something strange. Half of the people here looked shimmery, or blurry, maybe. Out of color. As Reykon passed groups of them, he realized that the conversations didn’t match their lips. In fact, he couldn’t hear them at all.
Noomi dragged him over to the bar and muscled them two seats near the end of the stretch. She plopped down, anchoring her elbows on the smooth, waxy surface before them, looking completely at home.
Reykon, on the other hand, was still fixated on the two bartenders.
One was clearly on their side of the mirror plane and the other was clearly not; his movements were blurry, as though they were viewing him underwater, and it was eerie how he was smiling, moving his lips in hidden conversation with those sitting at the bar.
“Explain this to me right now, Noomi, before I have a stroke watching it,” he muttered, forcing his attention back to the caster.
She was hunkered at the bar with a sour, guarded expression on her face. Reykon could tell it wasn’t her first time visiting.
A small smile played on her lips. “Planes, dimensions, the multiverse… you know all that?”
“The basics,” he emphasized.
“The world’s littered with them, and they all belong to the caster guild. It’s where they get all their new resources, and they’re extremely well-guarded. Used to be, if you were running from the caster guild, you could just dimension hop until you lost them, but that’s gone to hell in a handbasket, so some smart ass decided to beat them at their own games, by amassing a bunch of top-shelf rogue casters and creating mirror planes.”
She waved her hand around the large space and swiveled in her stool, resting both elbows on the bar behind her. “You know copy and paste on a keyboard?”
“Uh-uh,” Reykon said, following her eyeline across the crowd.
“Well, if you get enough magical juice, you can do that to a plane. This place is connected to the Plana Terra, our plane, but it’s not entirely on top of it. It’s also not entirely in the next plane, so it shares the physical makeup of the human world, and you can see into it like a mirror, but the living beings on either side won’t be able to touch or hear each other. Pretty sick, isn’t it?”
“Someone copied the human plane? The entire thing?”
&nb
sp; “Hells yeah,” she chuckled. “My mother was part of the group that did it. It’s a hub of activity for anybody running from the guild dogs, or anybody that hates their crooked oligarchy of exploitation. Also, we’ve got a pretty stocked black market.”
“Jesus,” Reykon whistled, looking around. “So how is this going to help us find Calliope?”
“I know a guy. A couple, actually. One of them can find her, and the other one can drop us reasonably close to her location.”
“And they’re here? What are we waiting for?”
“Hold your horses,” she said with a smirk. “You have to handle this place with a little delicacy, strongblood. You’re on my turf, now.”
“Fine. What are they going to show us?”
Noomi raised two fingers and ordered them a round of something bright red and sparkling. Reykon eyed it with suspicion.
“Believe it or not, there’s a lot of magic dedicated to finding people who don’t want to be found. Casters will do it for you, if you know how to pay the right price.”
Reykon scowled. “We can find Calliope? How?”
“Blood magic,” she answered with a bitter smile. “Temperamental and risky, but hey, you know what they say about risk and reward.”
Reykon’s mind ran over the implications, the idea of finding anybody in the world. “Can we find Robin?”
“We can see her, if we’re lucky. Finding is a different story,” she said, swiveling towards him with an earnest look in her eyes. “I’ve got enough connection to Calliope to locate her, but we don’t have that with Robin. Reykon, I know how much she means to you, and trust me, she’s important to me for different reasons, but right now, the priority is finding Calliope.”
