Original Work The Unnatural Order (Schooled in Magic 27)

Chapter Fifteen

“I need a shower,” Emily said, as soon as they stepped into the apartment. “We’ll talk afterwards.”

She felt unclean as she walked into the bedroom, undressed and stepped into the shower. The apartment had hot and cold running water, something rare outside the magical community, and she washed herself thoroughly, even though the water flow left something to be desired. She still felt dirty, no matter how hard she scrubbed herself. It was all too easy to turn a blind eye to evil, if challenging it would be personally dangerous, and … if, she supposed, one had the insight to realise it was evil. Alassa was as decent as monarchs could be, Emily knew, and yet even she had trouble accepting she didn’t have an inherent right to rule. Her stomach churned as she reminded herself, once again, that Katherine had genuinely believed everything she’d said. She was a sweet child, too ignorant to realise what her father was really doing …

Poor girl, Emily thought. She’d met too many people who had been raised in intolerant communities, lacking the perspective to see what was wrong with them until it was far too late. It was easy to tell people they should cut their racist uncle out of their lives, harder to actually do it when their uncle had been part of their lives for decades. She won’t realise how cruelly she’s been misled until the whole edifice falls apart, leaving her isolated and alone.

She half-expected Caleb to join her in the shower, but there was no sign of him as she turned off the water, towelled herself down and changed into a fresh dress. Her skin still felt unclean, a grim reminder they were trapped in a nightmare … she wondered, suddenly, if they could get out of the city if they wanted to leave. Perhaps it wouldn’t be easy … she wasn’t sure, in all honesty, what would be worse. Magicians being kept inside, if they were too low-power to cause any real problems, or magicians willingly remaining in the city because they liked the new order. The latter, she supposed. But it was hard to be sure.

“The city is a mess,” she said, as they shared an early dinner. “And they’re poisoning the minds of their children.”

She braced herself, then ran through everything they’d seen. Sienna and Lilith listened quietly, while Adam looked horrified … Emily suspected he was wondering, just like her, how much he was to blame for the new order. There was no reason to feel guilty – the inventor was not to blame for how his invention was misused – but it was very human to feel otherwise. Emily made a quiet promise to herself to speak to him later, to reassure him it wasn’t his fault. She didn’t know what he’d do otherwise.

Jane leaned forward. “The headmaster was very pleased to tell me all about it,” she said. “They’re making sure the children are prepared for their magical lives, with all the training they need to make full use of their powers when they come into their magic, as well as convincing them they’re the elite. He kept saying the children were blessed by the gods, and that they were superior to the mud men. He kept using those words …”

“Charming,” Emily muttered. She understood, better than she cared to admit. The more the other was dehumanised, the more they were insulted casually, the more such attitudes would become mainstream. And the more it seemed brutally unfair, that one side could insult freely while the other was penalised for daring to even hint at an insult, the more they would be dehumanised. “They’ve been planning this for a long time.”

“That’s what he said,” Jane agreed. “They had the plans drawn up and finalised over a year ago.”

Emily sucked in her breath. The necromancers had been broken for just over a year. If they’d been planning their takeover that long … she wondered, numbly, why they hadn’t come into the light earlier. Perhaps they’d feared Void would win the war and take control of the Allied Lands, giving him more than enough power to crush Celeste if the city stepped out of line. Or maybe they’d just waited to see who would come out on top.

Or maybe they wanted to lay the groundwork as completely as possible, she thought. The more they prepared, the easier it would be to take control and the harder to destroy it.

“They’re getting to the children young,” Sienna said, when Jane and Emily had finished outlining the day’s events. “And they’re insisting they all go to school?”

Emily nodded, slowly. It was odd, at least outside Cockatrice. There was no such thing as universal education, with magical and aristocratic children being tutored privately and wealthy merchants banding together to share the costs of educating their heirs. The New Learning had changed that, to some extent, but it was rare for a state to insist all children went to school instead of learning from their parents. Her mood darkened. The regime had to be intent on making sure all the children grew up believing the party line, even if it had to beat it into them – literally. How long would it be, she asked herself, before the regime ran out of patience with Lucy and brainwashed her? Or simply killed her. It was unlikely she had enough magic to make them treat her with kid gloves.

“She can bear magical children,” Sienna said, when Emily said that out loud. “She does have value.”

“Sickening,” Emily said.

“It’s worse than that,” Sienna added. “I was asked if I were looking for a husband …”

“Mother,” Caleb said,

“… And if my son, or my apprentices, were looking for partners,” Sienna continued, ignoring the interruption. “It was really quite disconcerting.”

“They’re trying to breed more magicians,” Emily muttered. Put that way, it made a certain kind of sense. “And then what …?”

“They might also be sending commoner girls to the brothels,” Sienna said. Her voice was cold and hard, her mind running down a path of cold logic until it reached an obvious – if distasteful – conclusion. “If they have magical children, they can be taken away to be raised properly; if not, the kids can be shoved into the ghetto. It’s just …”

Emily swallowed, hard. Sienna was probably right. She’d heard quite a few young magical students insisting they couldn’t marry mundane girls, but that had never stopped them going to the brothels in Dragon’s Den. The brothels there were supposed to be regulated, and the girls were supposed to be volunteers … Emily had her doubts. Polite society pretended the brothels didn’t exist, and that the girls didn’t exist either. Here … it would be even worse.

She met Sienna’s eyes. “Can we keep burrowing into their society, or should we pick up the pace?”

“I have developed some contacts, for our potions,” Sienna said. “But I suspect there are limits to how far we can rise, at least without revealing too much.”

“I think so,” Lilith agreed. “Getting the ingredients to brew potions here is one thing. Getting a shop of our own is quite another.”

Adam nodded, beside her. “If they have magitech,” he said, “how long will it be until they come up with a magiwriter?”

Emily had no answer. There weren’t many magicians who knew the magiwriter even existed – and the few that did preferred, by and large, to pretend it didn’t. She doubted the Supremacists would be interested in inventing the device for themselves, at least not in its purest form, but the Hierarchy might have other ideas. If they knew it was possible …

The ability to cast spells without a magician would change the world, she thought, grimly. And that’s what they want to do.

“I don’t know,” she said, finally. “We have to move fast.”

“I have a contact,” Sienna said. “We’ll go see her tonight. And then we can decide what to do next.”

Emily nodded, and glanced at the window. It wouldn’t be long until sundown.

Jane caught her eye. “What do we tell the world?”

“The truth,” Emily said, and then caught herself. “Or if we do …”

She scowled, looking down at her hands. If Jane wrote a story that encompassed the true horror of the new regime, and the terror it was inflicting on its own people, there was a very good chance they’d be kicked out of the city – or worse. Katherine had held out the prospect of an interview with her father, a carrot to tempt Jane to write a puff piece … Emily wondered, grimly, if there would ever be a better chance to get into the citadel itself. The heart of the city’s government was heavily warded – she’d had no trouble sensing the outer wards, as they’d walked past – and getting in would be tricky, without a very good excuse. And what better excuse than an interview?

Adam leaned forward. “Tell them the truth, but make it sound as if you’re praising the regime,” he said. “Slant it so it sounds good, if that’s what they want to read, while conveying as much of the real horror as possible. The critical readers will pick up on what you’re really saying and spread the word.”

“And for an encore, should I open my legs for the next asshole who comes along?” Jane sounded pissed. “I’m not a slattern!”

Emily winced. The journalistic profession was still in its infancy. The idea of a reporter who slanted the truth like a town crier, or a king’s herald, had yet to take root. The broadsheets knew they had to be truthful, and own up to their mistakes, or no one would ever trust them again. It wasn’t easy, but … she understood Jane’s point. Slattern didn’t just mean a loose woman. It meant someone who threw away their principles for cash.

“You don’t have to lie,” Adam said, earnestly. “You just have to write the story so they see what they want to see, without realising you’re actually getting the truth out.”

“It might work,” Sienna said. “If you write about the factory churning out potions, or even the school, as if they were the most wonderful things in the world …”

Jane made a face. “And at what point,” she asked, “do I become a collaborator?”

“It’ll make them think you can be trusted to support their point of view,” Emily said, quietly. “And it will get you an interview with Katherine’s father.”

“It had better get me an interview with you,” Jane snarled. “Afterwards.”

“Afterwards,” Emily agreed, tiredly.

“That poor girl,” Jane said. “If I’d grown up here, they would have taken me away from my father.”

“Probably,” Emily said. It would be easy to rationalise … in her experience, anything could be rationalised away, with a little thought. A cunning man could justify mass murder, even genocide; taking magical children from those ill-equipped to raise them would be simplicity itself, by comparison. She liked to think she would never compromise her values, but what if someone hit her with an argument that was fundamentally wrong, in a manner that was impossible to articulate. “Maybe you should leave that out of the story.”

She rubbed her forehead, feeling tired. “We don’t want people agreeing with the regime.

“I’ll do my best,” Jane said, reluctantly. “If she was being abused …”

“It is abuse,” Emily said, sharply. The lack of any kicks or blows didn’t mean Lucy wasn’t being abused. Being separated from her parents was quite bad enough. Being told she was their superior was worse. “Just because she isn’t being beaten doesn’t mean she isn’t being abused.”

She stood, brushing down her dress. “Write the story and send it out,” she said. A thought crossed her mind. “Is there a way you can signal your father not to run the story?”

“Yeah, but they probably won’t give us the interview until they see the story,” Jane said, grimly. “That’s not unknown. Roses in Bloom is so slight on actual reporting because no one will sit for an interview unless they’re buttered up thoroughly beforehand.”

Emily nodded, then headed into her bedroom. It was all too much. The day hadn’t been that long, strictly speaking, but … it had been crammed with horror. Mundane horror. She wished she knew more about the reporters who had gone into the Third Reich, before the nightmare had become all too visible, and how they’d coped. The soul-shattering evil she’d faced before was nothing, compared to the banal nightmare sweeping over the city. She had won before by cutting off the head of the snake, but here … she had the nasty feeling that, if she killed Katherine’s father, he’d just be replaced by someone else and the whole nightmare would go on. And on.

She sank onto the bed, feeling cold. She needed an army, not a small team. But no one was coming to help.

The door opened. Caleb stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. “Are you alright?”

Emily shook her head, numbly. “That girl …”

She wasn’t sure who she was talking about. Lucy, who had been stolen from her parents? Or Katherine, who had been raised by a monster? Or both? She recalled the children in the school and shuddered, helplessly. There had been boys in her old school who had thought that snapping bras or lifting skirts was the height of humour, or sharing private photos of their girlfriends was perfectly reasonable … boys, she recalled sourly, who had rarely been punished for their crimes. How much worse would it be in a fascist regime, where magical students would be encouraged to torment their mundane counterparts? It was an expression of contempt and hatred, but also …

“They want to make them compliant,” she muttered. “Bastards.”

Caleb frowned. “What do you mean?”

Emily looked at her hands. “They give young children power, which they will abuse because children can be very cruel,” she said. She knew how cruel some young magicians had been at Whitehall, and they’d been in their late teens. “They tell the kids its fine, even encourage it … they certainly don’t punish them. They punish their victims instead. And then the kids will grow up feeling that it is alright to be mean to everyone who can’t stand up to them – or, worse, trying to convince themselves that is true, because the alternative is admitting that they’ve been doing awful things for the sheer hell of it. It makes them guilty, and compliant, and unable – perhaps unwilling – to question the way things worked out.”

“They’re kids,” Caleb pointed out. “They can mature.”

“If society lets them,” Emily said. Alassa had been a terrible mistress to her staff, at least until she’d been to Whitehall, and even after she’d grown up a little it hadn’t been easy for her servants to grow to like and trust her. King Randor had never bothered to discipline his daughter and it showed. She’d met too many others who had never matured, never grown to realise servants were people. “They might not ever realise just what little monsters they were encouraged to become.”

She swallowed, hard. She’d met men who saw their wives as brood cows and their daughters as bargaining chips, because that was what their society believed. The idea that they were wrong, that their womenfolk had minds of their own, was completely alien to them. They rarely bothered to come up with justifications because they never saw the need. And she’d met others who were even worse, because they were exposed to their society before they were old and mature enough to question what they were being told.

“I don’t know how we’re even going to begin fixing this,” she admitted. “There’s no necromancer to kill, no prime mover to take out … I just don’t know.”

Caleb put an arm around her shoulders. “Perhaps we could break out all the non-magical folk,” he said. “Or give them enough magitech to even the odds.”

“It won’t be enough,” Emily said. She’d used a magiwriter. It was a brilliant invention, under the right circumstances, but it was no match for a real magician. Not yet. “If we could get them out …”

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she repeated. “If we could take down the wards, we could open a portal and get everyone out.”

“Or we could figure out a way to hack them,” Caleb said. “Wouldn’t that be worthwhile?”

“Perhaps,” Emily said. She looked up at him. “I still don’t know how the iron giants work.”

“Adam will figure it out,” Caleb said. “He does have a few ideas about countering them …”

He leaned down and kissed her. Emily kissed him back, wishing she could just let herself fall into passion, let herself go. It wasn’t easy, not with the shadow hanging over the city – or, for that matter, Caleb’s mother in the very next room. She held the kiss for a long moment, then pulled back. Caleb managed to look both disappointed and understanding at the same time.

“There are always options,” Caleb said. He grinned. “We could always find an inn here.”

Emily elbowed him. “You …”

She found herself giggling like a loon as he grinned at her. It was silly, a waste of time when they needed to figure out how to take down a fascist regime, and yet it made her feel better. She felt a sudden rush of love and affection and reached out for him, kissing him again before clambering to her feet and checking her appearance in the mirror. Her lips looked a little puffy and she muttered a quick spell to hide the swelling, before Sienna saw it. She might not say anything, but she’d think it very loudly.

“You look fine,” Caleb said. “And you will figure out a way to deal with this.”

“We all will,” Emily corrected. “Somehow.”

 

Hi, Everyone

I had hoped to do two more chapters today, but my health problems caught up with me and I could not get out of bed until much later. This is deeply problematic, because I intended to put together the stuff for WorldCon Glasgow tomorrow and then, of course, I would be going to WorldCon from Thursday to the following Tuesday. What this means is that there will be no more updates until Wednesday 14th or Thursday 15th. Sorry.

I hope you are enjoying the story so far, and I will be very grateful for any comments (suggestions, critical remarks, et cetera) you might want to send my way.

Thank you

Chris

 

Chapter Sixteen

“Remember to walk a pace behind me,” Sienna said. “You are my apprentice.”

Emily nodded as they left the apartment and made their way down to the street. Void had never asked her to walk behind him, let alone bow and scrape and all the other gestures of respect lesser masters seemed to demand, but then Void had always been secure in himself. It was disturbing to realise that other masters felt otherwise, even though they had godlike power and prestige. She had been lucky in some ways, she reflected. She could have been apprenticed to someone who got his kicks by bossing her around, or beating her, or delaying her graduation until it was too late to start a proper career of her own.

She kept her eyes downcast as she walked, feeling oddly exposed as they passed hundreds of magicians celebrating their independence. They clearly hadn’t grown tired of partying, even though their independence was very far from certain. Here and there, she spotted men in uniforms encouraging the revelry, suggesting they were trying to keep the party going as long as possible. The regime might not be aware of her presence, but they certainly knew the magical families and what remained of the Allied Lands would be sending spies into Celeste, gathering independence and trying to put together a plan for undermining and effectively destroying the new world order. It made her wonder if the council felt weaker than it claimed, if it were trying to present an appearance of strength. Void would argue that it was, she reflected, although King Randor would have disagreed. The king had to present an appearance of strength at all times.

Her thoughts soured as they walked onwards. There were no mundanes on the street now, not even in the back alleys. She couldn’t see any distinctive brown outfits, nothing to suggest any of the people on the streets lacked magical power. It was illegal to dress as a magician if you lacked magical power, she reminded herself, a law that had been in existence long before the regime had declared independence from the rest of the world. She wondered, grimly, if any of the people she passed were actually mundanes, trying to gain a little freedom by pretending to be magicians. It wasn’t impossible – there was enough magic haze in the air to conceal a person lacking power of their own – but it was incredibly risky. Tests of raw power and strength were not unknown, in the community, and challenging one’s betters in hopes of rising in the world was a long-standing tradition. A mundane would be dead, the moment they were challenged. Or worse.

Bullies never change, she reflected, grimly. They don’t pick on anyone who might be able to fight back.

She stayed close to Sienna, trying to pretend to be a harmless apprentice following her master through the streets. Sienna drew the eye, and not in a good way. Emily spotted a handful of magicians eying her lustfully, or with completive calculating expressions that suggested they had far darker intentions. The old framework for limiting conflict between magicians was breaking down, she reminded herself, and she doubted the regime would be able to devise and enforce a replacement in a hurry. Or perhaps not … she felt her heart sink as an iron giant waddled past, an iron fist in an iron glove. She’d been lucky to defeat the one she’d faced weeks ago and she had a nasty feeling that trick wouldn’t work twice, if the Hierarchy was involved. They knew what had happened to the first iron giant. It would be child’s play to stop it from happening again.

“In here,” Sienna said. “And stay on the road.”

Emily nodded as they turned a corner and walked down a long street. The houses looked like simple detached buildings, each one protected with enough wards to give a team of combat magicians a very hard time. She reached out with her mind, assessing the defences, and gritted her teeth as she realised the locals had worked together to ensure their wards didn’t clash with each other, ensuring there were few gaps in the spells that could be exploited. She wondered if that was actually a good sign, if only because the regime would have problems breaking into the buildings if they wanted to get the occupants out. It beggared belief that every magician in the city wanted to go along with the regime, although dissidents had been offered the chance to leave when the council announced the new world order. She wanted to believe that some magicians were helping their mundane brethren, hiding them from the regime. But there was no way to be sure.

Sienna stopped outside a simple house, the design identical to the others on the street. Emily’s eyes narrowed as Sienna tapped the wards, requesting entry. Most magical houses had some degree of individuality, from plants in the garden to fancy designs carved into the wall, that marked them as belonging to a magician. This house was dull and bland, lacking even a simple nameplate. Emily felt the wards twist and flex, opening a passage to allow them to enter, and wondered – suddenly – if they were walking into a trap. Sienna had insisted her contact would have nothing to do with the regime, and Emily didn’t doubt her, but it begged the question of just why the older woman had remained in the city. It wasn’t a good sign.

But it is her city, Emily reflected. She might not want to leave.

The door opened as they approached, revealing a conventional magician’s hallway and lounge beyond. Emily half-expected to see a servant, or a slave, beckoning them into the house, but instead the air was empty. No, there was something there … a summoned presence, one that weighed heavy on the air. A chill ran down her spine as Sienna removed her cloak, hanging it from a hook and motioning for her to do likewise. It felt as if the world was standing still, waiting for something to happen. If Sienna felt the same way, she showed no sign of it. She walked into the lounge as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

“Sienna, as I live and breathe,” a male voice said. “Please, excuse me for not standing.”

Sienna stepped aside, revealing a man in a wooden wheelchair. Emily sucked in her breath. It was rare to see a cripple in the magical community, certainly not one who lived in a city teeming with magical healers who could fix almost anything, as long as it wasn’t immediately lethal. And yet, the man in front of her was tainted with dark magic. His legs were covered by a blanket, but she could feel the curse pulsing through his body. She felt sick as she looked him up and down. His upper half was curiously exaggerated, his arms strikingly muscular, while his lower half was cursed and broken. His face was scarred and pitted, his beard a patchwork of black and grey hairs that looked as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to colour his hairs or pull them out. He was not, Emily decided, a man who cared about his appearance. But the curse was impossible to hide.

“I quite understand, Master,” Sienna said. “Emily, please meet Master Sardou. My Master.”

“She was the best apprentice I ever had,” Sardou said. His eyes looked Emily up and down, silently assessing her. “Are you the Emily, or are you one of the silly bitches who think changing their name to match hers is somehow a good idea?”

“The Emily,” Emily said, reluctantly. It was too much to expect Sienna to lie to her former master, even if she had graduated decades ago, but she would have preferred not to mention her name to anyone living within the city. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Sardou grinned, his face lighting up. “You didn’t tell her much about me, did you?”

Sienna smiled back. “I thought it best not to prejudice her, Master.”

“You don’t have to call me Master any longer,” Sardou said. “Did I not tell you that years ago?”

“Yes, Master,” Sienna said. “It’s a hard habit to break.”

“And while it is good for my ego, it does nothing for yours,” Sardou told her. He shot Emily a mischievous look. “Do you know how long it took me to convince her to look before she leapt? Did your master have the same problem?”

“I suppose,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure what to make of Master Sardou. Just looking at him felt wrong, a grim reminder that there were some things even magic couldn’t fix. The aroma of dark magic was almost overpowering, making it hard to think clearly. “What happened to you?”

Sienna sucked in her breath. “Emily!”

“It is quite all right,” Sardou assured her. He winked. “The gods spare me from apprentices who seek to spare me even a moment of discomfort. I wasn’t always the dazzlingly handsome man you see in front of you, back then I was even more dazzlingly handsome. I had the ladies at my beck and call, wanting me …”

“Master,” Sienna said. Her tone was very much that of a child, embarrassed by their father’s attitude. “Please …”

Sardou winked, again. “She doesn’t want to think of me having a life,” he said, in mock outrage. “Can you imagine?”

Emily shrugged. “No.”

“There was a particularly nasty witch going around, cursing people,” Sardou said. “We went after her, just before she” – he nodded to Sienna – “was due to graduate. The witch was thoroughly unpleasant, and powerful enough to put a spell through my defences. I managed to cancel it, but not” – he indicated his useless legs – “quickly enough to save myself from being crippled. The curse is so deeply embedded that it simply cannot be removed. Sienna killed the witch before she could cast another spell.”

Emily grimaced. “And the curse lingered after her death?”

“It feeds on my power, making it impossible to remove without killing me,” Sardou said. His face darkened suddenly, his eyes lingering on Sienna. “Anyway, why are you here? I would have expected you to stay a long way away.”

“The regime wouldn’t like me, that’s for sure.” Sienna sounded caught between being an apprentice and a powerful sorceress in her own right. “They talk a big game about freedom, but they declared all mixed marriages dissolved and the children illegitimate. It never seemed to occur to them that a sorceress might have entered such a marriage willingly, or that the husband might being something to the match …”

“Beyond a massive manhood.” Sardou’s tone was light, but his eyes were hard. “You’re here to fight against the regime, aren’t you?”

Sienna looked back at him. “Do you believe the regime is actually a good thing?”

“Me? Not particularly.” Sardou’s voice shifted, very slightly. “Are you …”

Emily tensed, feeling the invisible presence growing closer. Her earlier thoughts returned to haunt her. Had they walked into a trap? Or … Sardou sounded confused, as if he could no longer think clearly. She could feel the tainted magic pervading his body … she wondered, suddenly, if there was a part of him that wanted the regime to carry out the promised research into curses, and dark magic in general. He had enough magic to live for decades, but what sort of life could be expect if he were trapped in a wheelchair? There were no laws protecting the disabled, no steps taken to make the world accessible to them … even with magic, his life would be very restricted. But if the regime thought it could break the curse without killing him … in his place, Emily admitted grimly, she would be very tempted.

“Master,” Sienna said. She’d clearly been having the same thought. “You taught me better than …”

Sardou’s face twisted, his expression shifting in impossible directions. His body came apart a moment later, exploding into a haze of multicoloured light. Emily jumped backwards, panic yammering at the back of her mind. A mimic … a necromancer-killer. She had thought she was the only one who knew how to make them, but she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised someone else had come up with their own design. The big secret – mimics were spells, not entities – had been out for nearly six years. Every researcher worthy of the name would have tried their hand at producing them. And this mimic was way too close.

She summoned her magic, shaping the strongest cancellation spell she could. The haze never wavered. It should have worked – she’d been the one to realise that such a simple spell was an effective countermeasure, where so many others would be worse than useless – but the mystery designer had clearly shaped the spellware to resist the spell. Emily cursed under her breath, glancing back as she felt invisible – and near-intangible – hands pressing against her back, trying to shove her into the multicoloured haze. She could feel it pressing against her mind, trying to absorb her into the spellware. It would kill her, and wear her face long enough to take out her allies, and then …

We walked into a trap, she thought, as she cast a handful of spells behind her. The invisible presence shivered, then fell apart. She had no idea if it were a proto-mimic in its own right, or a spirit that had been pressed into service, but it hardly mattered. We have to get out of here.

“Get back,” Sienna said. “And …”

The wards tightened, creating an impression of a door slamming closed. Emily sensed the power pervading the walls and cursed, forwards, tendrils of power reaching out towards them. It was almost hypnotic, trying to weaken her mind to the point she would just give up and let herself be absorbed. It reminded her of the Gorgon’s inherent charms, the magic she’d used to mesmerise her enemies … she wondered, suddenly, if the Hierarchy had kidnapped a handful of Gorgons to study and duplicate their powers. It wasn’t impossible … she caught herself as her body sagged, biting her lip hard to focus her mind. The mimic was tearing away at her defences, trying to render her helpless and vulnerable. It had come alarmingly close to success.

“Emily, get out of here,” Sienna ordered. She raised her hand, chanting a powerful spell. Emily had known she was strong in magic, but this … she felt a twinge of pity for any young man who courted Sienna’s daughters, although the mimic was utterly unfazed by the spell. She might have been better off shooting spitballs. “Hurry!”

Emily forced herself to think. “If I run, it will go after you,” she said. A thought crossed her mind. How many minds could the mimic absorb? A regular mimic was limited to just one … did this mimic share the same limitations? It was impossible to tell. The spell clearly had limits of its own. A smarter design might have played along, pretending to be Sardou long enough to locate the apartment and alert the regime, and then bringing down the hammer. “I think …”

She stepped forward, casting a careful spell. The mimic stopped, tendrils of magic drifting in the air. She gritted her teeth, telling herself it would work. As long as they stayed equidistant, the mimic wouldn’t be able to decide who to chase. The moment one of then stepped back … she wondered, grimly, just how long it would take for the mimic to pick a target anyway. It wasn’t intelligent in any real sense, but the designers should have been able to devise a contingency for the mimic being trapped between two targets. She had no idea how long they had … not long. It wouldn’t be that hard to program the mimic to mentally flip a coin.

“You need to get out of here,” Sienna said. “Hurry …”

Emily shook her head as she slipped a piece of chat parchment out of her pocket, linked it to her mind and pushed it forward. The tendrils of magic flowed over the parchment, trying to absorb it. Emily’s mind went with it, flowing through the magic link and into the mimic itself. The spellware was both more advanced than hers and yet, she noted, it had some inherent limitations of its own. It hadn’t been able to maintain the guise of being Sardou for long, even though a regular mimic would have been able to pose as him for years. She suspected that was why Sardou had been targeted. If he had few friends, the trap wouldn’t be sprung until an outsider arrived. She wondered, numbly, if it had been a mistake to let Sienna accompany them. In hindsight, she’d be on the regime’s short list of possible meddlers.

The mimic realised the danger, too late. Emily didn’t try to be clever. She simply tore the spellware apart from within, burning through the links before it could regenerate itself and counterattack. It crossed her mind to try to reprogram the mimic, but she doubted it would work. The spellware was already too badly damaged to survive. The mimic exploded in on itself and vanished.

Sienna muttered a word under her breath, then looked up. “What happened to him?”

“Dead,” Emily said, shortly. Sardou was dead, his memories absorbed by the mimic. “They used him as bait in a trap.”

“Then we need to make it look as though he died a natural death,” Sienna said. “Or that … that thing did something that accidentally caused an explosion, blowing the house to hell.”

Emily nodded, although she had her doubts. The mere fact the mimic had been destroyed wasn’t proof there were infiltrators within the city, but its creators would certainly assume the worst. If they didn’t believe there’d been an accident … she helped Sienna set it up, crafting a scene that might be proof the mimic had accidentally destroyed itself. It might work …

And even if it doesn’t, she told herself, they still won’t know who we are.

 

Chapter Seventeen: Adam

It was hard, so hard, to keep his eyes lowered.

Adam followed Lilith through the streets, his eyes downcast and his back prickling as if he were being watched by hostile eyes. It had been dangerous enough for any powerless mundane who walked into the magic quarter of Beneficence, where it wasn’t uncommon for a magician to snipe a spell at the mundane who had dared enter their territory, but Celeste was a thousand times worse. He’d met quite a few magicians who looked down on mundanes in both his hometown and Heart’s Eye, but even the worst of them knew better than to do anything permanent to a passing mundane. Here … he swallowed hard, feeling horribly exposed as he walked onwards. Lilith, at her worst, had been sweetness and light incarnate compared to the magicians of Celeste. The entire city was dangerously unsafe.

He felt the brown garb itch against his skin, a grim reminder of his position at the bottom of the ladder. Olivia had brought it to the apartment, poking her nose into their business with all the subtlety of a punch in the face. Adam knew he would have been able to take it better if he hadn’t gone to Heart’s Eye, if he hadn’t grown used to thinking of himself as an equal … here, no matter how intelligent and capable he happened to be, he would never rise in the world. His skin crawled every time he saw another mundane on the streets, cowering in fear of a blow that could come at any moment. If he were trapped within the city … he knew himself to be a brave man, with the nerve to stand up to any number of magicians, but what did bravery count in the face of superior magic? He’d wondered, after meeting a number of servants who had escaped King Ephialtes’s castle, why they’d never been able to stand up for himself. He knew now. They were beaten down by a gnawing fear of what would happen if they showed the slightest hint of defiance …

His ankles snapped together. He tripped and fell, hitting the pavement hard enough to hurt. Someone had jinxed him, someone nasty … Lilith swung around, her face darkening with anger, her hair so red it looked as if her magic had set it on fire. She waved her hand, illuminating the magic to trace it back to its caster, then threw a spell at him. Adam barely had a second to register a young man, no older than himself, before he melted into a rat. He felt his hair stand on end as Lilith stepped closer, her power billowing around her. The young man’s friends looked torn between awe, fear, and a hungry look that chilled Adam to the bone. Power was arousing to magicians and Lilith was one of the strongest magicians of her age. Her children would be powerful too.

Lilith cancelled the spell on his ankles, then motioned for him to stand and follow her. Adam felt utterly helpless as he staggered to his feet, trying not to rub his arms too openly. It was galling to be saved by a girl – a young woman – even though he knew he was no match for even a single magician. The young man who had hexed him looked younger than Jane, and she could turn him into a frog with a snap of her fingers. Shame warred with practicality as he forced himself to stagger after Lilith. He had to pretend to be harmless, to be nothing more than a manservant … he promised himself, grimly, that he’d make the entire city rue the day they allowed themselves to fall under the sway of a tyrannical regime. They should have known better. Greater power didn’t mean they were greater people.

The air sparked with magic as they turned into the alchemical district, a long line of apothecaries jammed together in a manner that would have given his old master fits. There were too many of them, competing for the same customers; he wondered, suddenly, if they were already running short of supplies. The old trading networks were in ruins and no one, as far as he knew, had managed to rebuild more than a tiny fraction of a trading system that had once spanned the continent. His skin crawled as Lilith walked down the street, feeling spells pressing against his mind and encouraging him to bend the knee. It was terrifying to realise, again, just how easily he could be overwhelmed, compelled to serve or simply turned into a mindless beast. A donkey was trotting down the other side of the street, pulling a wagon … was the donkey a transformed human? He hoped not, but the beast’s eyes were disturbingly intelligent.

Lilith stopped outside a shop, shot him a sharp look he knew concealed her worries, then pushed the door open and stepped inside. Adam followed, memories assailing his mind as he breathed in the familiar scent of an apothecary, the mixture of exotic spices and strange magical components blending together into a strange, and yet almost welcoming whole. He hadn’t smelt anything like it since he’d left his first master and it felt like coming home, even though he knew the shop was enemy territory. The gimlet-eyed woman behind the counter, wearing a dress that made her look unrealistically thin, was eying him in a manner that suggested she wanted to turn him into a frog. Or worse. Adam kept his face blank with an effort, as he realised what was lacking. Her hands were pale, unmarred by any hint she was a practicing alchemist. Or that she actually did any work in the apothecary. He smiled, and hastily hid it. Matt, for all his flaws, had done his work well. This woman did not.

“I do trust your servant is housebroken,” the woman said. Her accent was unfamiliar, nothing like any he’d heard at Heart’s Eye. Or Celeste. “This place was only just cleansed of its former occupiers.”

“He knows his place,” Lilith said. Only someone who knew her well could hear the anger in her tone. “We are looking for a short list of supplies.”

She held out a sheet of paper. The woman took it, her eyes running down the list. Adam felt another flicker of dark humour. He recognised the signs. The woman was unfamiliar with the shop, suggesting she’d claimed it after the regime had taken power … ice ran down his spine as he considered the implications. Matt had been a decent apprentice, and his master – their master – had had no qualms about beating them if they messed up, and even he had come close to disaster more than once. This woman might accidentally blow up the whole shop if she tried to make a potion. It was all too clear she wasn’t used to actually working for a living.

“Hannah,” the woman snapped. “Where are you, you little brat.”

A face appeared at the door behind the counter, a young woman no older than Adam himself. Her face was pleasant enough, but marred by the nasty red mark on her pale skin and a handful of spots that had almost certainly been created by magic. The brown dress she wore, tight in some places and short in others, made it clear she was a mundane. There was no collar around her neck, he noted, but she was a slave in all but name. Adam knew better than to think she could escape the shop. If his old master had wanted to keep him prisoner, he could have done so with ease.

“Go find this list,” the woman ordered, shoving the list into Hannah’s hands. “Quickly, now.”

“Adam, go with her,” Lilith added. “We don’t want any mistakes along the way.”

“Yes, My Lady,” Adam said. It felt wrong to call Lilith by any sort of title, certainly not a decidedly aristocratic form of address, but he had to pretend to be a servant. “I’ll see to it personally.”

The woman made no move to object as he stepped around the counter and into the storage chamber, instead choosing to bend Lilith’s ear with tales of her handsome and incredibly powerful young son who just happened to be looking for a wife. Lilith replied with a politeness so sharp that Adam was astonished the older woman wasn’t bleeding to death. Lilith could cut someone dead with a handful of words, he knew, but the woman didn’t seem to notice. Adam wasn’t sure if she was truly that blind, or if she was desperate to find her son a wife. If he were as incompetent as his mother … Adam’s lips twitched. Nearly any reasonably capable female magician would take one look and run away. Or worse.

Hannah worked with quiet competence, finding the ingredients on shelves that towered so high she needed a stepladder to reach them or opening sealed drawers to remove pre-packaged bags of rare materials. Adam’s eyes narrowed as he spotted the lack of a seal on the bags, a sign that all was not well in the store. The apothecary should have sealed the bags themselves, or hired an alchemist to do the job. The fact they hadn’t …

Something clicked in his mind. He leaned closer to Hannah, trying not to feel a little guilty at being so close to another pretty girl. “You used to own this place, didn’t you?”

Hannah looked up at him, her eyes flickering between his and the curtain between the storage chamber and the shop front. The woman was talking loudly, saying the same thing time and time again. Adam admired Lilith’s patience, although he had to admit she had more practice dealing with people who were too full of themselves than himself.

“My father did,” Hannah breathed. She pitched her voice so low he could barely hear. “And then she took over.”

Adam swallowed, hard. A mundane running an apothecary was hardly unknown, although a smart apothecary would make sure to have at least one magician on staff to avoid problems with the guilds. He’d wanted to do it himself …

“You’re not from around here,” Hannah whispered. “Are you?”

“No,” Adam said. “I used to live in Beneficence.”

“And she brought you here,” Hannah said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Adam said. “What happened here?”

“It’s a nightmare,” Hannah said. Adam had never heard anyone so despondent. “It wasn’t a pleasant existence, but … we had a life. And then it got harder and some of us wanted to leave, but my father thought we could stay long enough to make money and then …”

Adam saw tears in her eyes. “And then the council took over and she arrived, my new boss. I was lucky to be allowed to remain here” – she pointed at a handful of blankets in the corner – “to do the work she can’t do herself. She just takes the money and slaps me” – she rubbed her cheek – “and tells everyone how great she is, while leaving me to do all the work. And keeps telling me how lucky I am. I could be in the ghetto.”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said. He meant it. Hannah was practically a slave, in all senses of the word. “What happened to your father?”

Hannah looked down. “I don’t know. He could be in the ghetto. Or … I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for weeks. It feels like years.”

Adam shuddered. Her father could be dead. Or a slave. Or a toad. Or … simply trapped in the ghetto, unable to leave the mundane quarters and escape the city without being caught and punished for his folly. Hannah would be lucky if she was allowed to leave the shop for an hour or two … Adam’s lips quirked as he realised the new owner probably needed to take her to buy supplies, for fear of being conned. It was a dangerous business, trying to cheat a magician, but if the woman was too ignorant to realise what was happening until it was too late someone might take the risk.

“I’m sorry,” he said, again. It was so inadequate. “I …”

Hannah leaned forward. “When your mistress takes you out of the city, run away and stay away,” she whispered. “Don’t come back.”

“I can’t,” Adam said. In truth, he wasn’t sure he’d be allowed to leave the city, even if Lilith was with him. “She has me under a spell.”

Hannah looked down, then motioned for him to follow her into the rear shelves. The apothecary was larger than he’d realised, with plenty of hiding places amongst the shelves and stacked boxes that looked as if they hadn’t been touched for years. The rear door was firmly bolted closed, a sign the woman really didn’t know what she was doing. If something went wrong with an alchemical experiment, the rear door might be the only way out before the shop exploded into a massive fireball. Adam wondered if Hannah had been tempted to cause an explosion, ridding herself of her tormentor at the cost of her own life. She might not be a trained alchemist, and she certainly wasn’t a magician, but she knew enough to be dangerous.

She might be under a geas, Adam told himself. He’d never been put under such a charm himself, but he knew how they worked. She might be unable to do anything openly dangerous to her mistress.

His eyes swept the rear chambers. There were enough tools and cauldrons for five or six shops, the kind of largess that would have made his old master shake his head in disbelief. Hannah clearly wasn’t using them. It didn’t look as if anyone was. He thought he sensed flickers of magic amongst the pile, rough glints of raw power that could have been dangerous – or nothing more than figments of his imagination. It wasn’t easy to tell, these days. There were times when he thought his blood had been infused with magic, once again.

“She can’t hear us here,” Hannah said. She kept her voice low as she picked her way through a sack of junk. Adam tried not to roll his eyes as she moved a cauldron that was charred and broken, a hole clearly visible in the base. “Here.”

She held out a tile … a spell tile. Adam blinked at it. The design was inelegant, cruder than anything he’d designed after he’d crafted the first tiles, but it was very definitely a piece of magitech. His eyes parsed out the runes, carefully carved into the metal … a crude, yet effective, cancellation spell. It might not be as capable as the magiwriter he’d designed, or even the windmills they’d devised to absorb and channel magic into the storage medium, but it should work. He looked up at Hannah and saw the fear in her eyes. If her mistress knew she had the tile – if the regime found out about it – Hannah would be killed. Or worse.

“I don’t need it,” he whispered. “But we will meet again.”

The woman’s voice rang through the air. “What are you doing in there?”

Hannah paled and hurried back into the storage chamber. “We’re just finishing, Mistress,” she said. Her voice shook. Adam hoped she didn’t sound too nervous. “I was just bottling up one of the ingredients.”

She picked up a basket, piled the ingredients into it, then passed it to Adam. Adam winked at her, trying to convey a reassuring message even though he knew it was a risk, then allowed her to lead him back into the shop. Lilith had her polite mask on, which meant she was deeply – deeply – bored. Adam felt a twinge of pity. Lilith had had to put up with the woman braying like a mule, babbling endlessly about her son … he gritted his teeth as he realised the woman’s son had probably been harassing Hannah, trying to get her into bed. There were no legal protection for mundane women now … hell, given how many shopgirls had been molested by their masters in Beneficence, he doubted legal protections would matter. Hannah was completely at their mercy.

“You took your time,” the woman said. Her tone dripped disdain. “What were you doing in there?”

“I had to sort out some of the rarer ingredients,” Hannah said. Her voice shook. Adam was sure it wasn’t an act. “It took time to do it properly …”

“We shall see,” the woman said. She glanced at Lilith. “That’ll be …”

“Fifty-seven wands,” Hannah said. “Or thirty-three golds, or …”

The woman made a motion with one hand. Hannah’s mouth sealed closed. Adam shuddered and turned away, giving the poor girl what little privacy he could. Lilith’s lips thinned in disapproval as she counted out the money, making a big show of glaring Adam into silence when he tried to point out she could haggle. Adam thought she was overdoing it, but the woman didn’t seem to notice – or care. She took Lilith’s money, cheerfully offered to buy some of the finished products, and said her goodbyes. Lilith took the hint and led the way outside. Adam had never been so relieved to step into the fresh air.

Behind him, he heard a scream. He didn’t look back.

“That woman is a joke,” Lilith hissed. “She thinks I’d like her oaf of a son?”

Adam couldn’t help a flicker of relief. He didn’t doubt that Lilith loved him, and that he loved her, but … he knew not everyone approved of their relationship. Her father certainly hadn’t, although he’d come around shortly before his death. He made a mental note to talk to Sienna about it, if he could work up the nerve. Who else could tell him about how such a relationship could work, in the long term? Emily? He doubted it.

“Worse than that,” Adam said, reminding himself to worry about the here and now. “But I’ll tell you what happened when we get back to the apartment.”

 

Comments?

Chapter Eighteen

“She had a piece of magitech?”

Emily listened to Adam carefully, torn between being impressed and deeply worried. He had taken one hell of a risk in talking to the shopgirl, one that could have easily bitten him hard – and still might, if the shop’s owner cast a compulsion spell on the poor girl and forced her to talk. It was possible she had something to protect her, but it would be hard to pretend to be under someone’s control … Emily wasn’t sure, in all honesty, if there was a piece of magitech that would do the job, particularly if its owner was forced to put it aside. Magitech could do wonders, she knew, yet it was far from a panacea. Adam couldn’t hope to match a real magician in a fight and she knew it.

“She had enough junk in her store to build everything from directional runes to spell tiles,” Adam said. The hope in his eyes was almost overpowering. “We could help her, give her and her friends the support they need to rebel …”

“Maybe,” Emily said. She had hoped there was an underground movement in Celeste, but the regime had made it difficult, if not impossible, for mundane resisters to coordinate their efforts. Given time, the regime might loosen up a little, allowing the mundanes to meet and talk without being observed, but she had no idea how long it would take. She didn’t have the time. “Can we be sure it isn’t another trap?”

Adam flushed. “It was a genuine piece of magitech.”

“And that woman who stole the shop was a complete idiot,” Lilith added. “She didn’t have the slightest idea how to run an apothecary, let alone how to do anything more complex than charms or hexes. She was trying to convince us to supply potions, as well as trying to marry me off to her son.”

Emily made a face. “She’s that desperate?”

“It isn’t uncommon,” Adam said, curtly. “Back home, most magical parents tried to arrange matches for their children, matches with the most powerful magicians they could find. I guess her son isn’t that powerful, or he would have had a match already.”

“Or he’s a total asshole,” Caleb put in. “It does happen.”

“Judging by the mother, I’d say he is,” Adam agreed. “We could work with her, then take over the shop and turn it into a centre of resistance …”

“We could,” Emily agreed. She made a mental note to check out the shop herself. If the new owner really was as incompetent as Lilith suggested, it wouldn’t be that hard to overwhelm her and take control. The woman could be turned into a frog – or something inanimate – until the affair was over, hopefully teaching her a lesson about picking on people she considered inferior. “Or we could come up with something else.”

“Like what?” Jane looked up from her notebook. “I think we’re running out of time.”

Emily grimaced. They had done everything in their power to make Sardou’s death look like an accident, the sort of disaster that might happen if a mimic was so lost in character it didn’t know it was a mimic, but there was no way to be sure the regime had found the evidence convincing. There had been no way they could stay and watch, even from a distance. The regime might have written Sardou’s death off, or it might have drawn the correct conclusion and assumed it had rats within the city walls. Emily had no idea if they had tightened up checks on people coming into the city or not, but it was just a matter of time before the regime tried to sweep them into collaboration. They couldn’t stall indefinitely. Sooner or later, someone would ask why.

They’ll expect us to either take over an alchemist’s store or start working for one, she thought, grimly. It might be worth reaching out to the store Adam and Lilith had discovered, but it would be risky. The storekeeper might wonder why an alchemist as competent as Sienna wanted to work for her. The more we stay apart, the more they’ll wonder what we’re really doing.

Her mood darkened. There had been no such thing as a citizen’s registry before, certainly not outside the smaller city states or the aristocracy. There were hundreds of thousands of people who weren’t included on any census, living from birth to death without even a single note in any official record, but Celeste was different. Everyone who entered the city was registered, Emily knew, and she’d bet good money the regime had also registered the residents who’d been in the city when they’d taken over. It was rare for magicians to submit so tamely, but … she shook her head. No doubt it had been carefully justified, sold to the public as a way to keep outsiders from leeching on their fair city. She wondered just how long it would last. There was nothing so permanent, she recalled from her history books, as a temporary state of emergency.

Put a frog in boiling water and the frog hops right out, she reminded herself. Put the frog in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, and the poor creature is cooked before he knows it.

“I’ll make contact,” Sienna said, drawing Emily’s attention back to her. “It’ll give us a chance to make inroads into the community.”

“And make contact with the resistance,” Adam added. “There has to be one.”

“Hopefully,” Emily agreed. She had her doubts, but kept them to herself. “I think …”

There was a sharp knock at the door. Emily tensed, reaching for her magic before she caught herself. Olivia, coming to poke her nose into their business? A bureaucrat, coming to ask why they hadn’t found a job and a permanent home yet? A guardsman, coming to ask some pointed questions about what had happened the previous night? Or a small army with bad intentions, backed up by iron giants? A shiver ran down her spine as Sienna motioned for Adam and Lilith to get out of sight. They were too close together for Emily’s peace of mind. She hastily ran through their possible exits as Sienna opened the door, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw Katherine. The young girl was beaming from ear to ear.

“My father loved your broadsheet,” she said to Jane, slipping into the apartment without waiting for an invitation. “He said you’d done a very good job.”

“Thank you,” Jane said. Her voice was dry. “I had to work hard to make sure I got everything into the text, then ensure the editor didn’t take anything out again.”

Emily kept her face under tight control. The broadsheets were sensationalist to the point of absurdity, publishing hyperbole that made the tabloids back home look calm and reasonable, but even so … Jane’s story had been a masterwork. She had praised the regime to the skies, with all the tact and discretion of a social climber intent on rising in society through shamelessly flattering the monarch and the aristocracy, in a manner that conveyed a double meaning that would – Emily hoped – caution her readers against taking the article too seriously. Jane might have written in praise of the regime’s habit of keeping mundanes under control, but any mundane who read it would realise what she really meant. Her lips twisted in dark amusement. There was a very good chance Jane’s father had taken the article at face value.

And an equally good chance not everyone will draw the right conclusions, she reminded herself grimly. She had read arguments in favour of some truly horrific things, the writer’s picking their words carefully to hide the true horror of what they were advocating. It’s very easy to rationalise away your fears, when you don’t want to face them.

Katherine’s smile grew brighter. “He wants to meet you,” she said. “And give you an interview!”

Jane tensed, slightly. Emily didn’t blame her. The offer might be genuine, but it might easily be an invitation to a prison cell instead. The regime might be reluctant to start snatching magicians off the streets, yet if Jane walked into the Citadel she might never come out again. She had told them some stories about her father’s career as a muckraker, and how many times he had come very close to being murdered. There were no laws protecting journalists here. The only thing shielding Jane from the regime’s wrath was the simple fact it would turn the rest of the muckraker community against them, and it might not be enough. The regime thought itself invulnerable. It might not care what was said, after it murdered Jane …

“I’d be delighted,” Jane said. “When?”

“Now,” Katherine said. “He can’t wait to see you.”

Emily glanced at Sienna, then slipped around Katherine, shaped a spell and cast it at the girl’s back. Katherine froze, so completely even her thoughts were stilled. She’d have no idea she’d been frozen, when the spell was lifted, as long as they were careful not to keep her frozen too long. Emily had no idea just how much her father had taught her, but first-year students in were told to watch for periods of missing time. If the clock appeared to jump forward, it was a sign you might have been frozen. Or worse. There were compulsion spells that were so powerful the victim effectively blanked out completely, unaware of what their body had been made to do.

“I’m going,” Jane said. She held herself very still. If she appeared to change position in the blink of an eye, it would be a bright red flag to anyone who knew what to watch for. Katherine might not know the danger signs herself, but her father would. “I don’t think we’ll get a better chance to sneak inside the Citadel.”

Emily nodded. They’d walked around the Citadel and discovered it was heavily protected, so many wards woven into a single network that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to slip through the defences without raising the alarm. Sienna had come up with a handful of ideas for tricking the defences, but most relied on being inside the network already. If they were actually invited inside …

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll come with you.”

“Just remember to keep your mouth closed and look pretty,” Jane said. “I’ll tell him you’re my new apprentice.”

Sienna snorted, without seeming to move a muscle. “And do you think he’ll believe it?”

Jane shrugged. “Do you know how many youngsters want to become journalists?”

“Muckrakers,” Sienna corrected.

Emily nodded. The cover story should work, although it would be a rare master who would let her apprentice try to apprentice herself to someone else. Sienna would be quite within her rights to forbid Emily from so much as exchanging glances with Jane, let alone go haring after her into a life of glamour and extreme danger. Perhaps it would help convince the regime that Sienna was harmless. If she couldn’t control her own apprentices, how much of a danger could she be?

She felt a twinge of guilt as she stepped up behind the frozen girl, carefully – very carefully – pulling back her shirt to reveal bare skin. There were none of the signs of hard living she’d seen on peasant children, who were often put to work as soon as they could walk, nor hints of childhood diseases or anything else that blighted the lives of the mundane community. It was strange to realise that Resolute might actually be a kind and decent father, rather than an abusive monster. She would have preferred to believe otherwise. The idea there might be some good in him.

Hitler was kind to his secretaries, she reminded herself, sharply. That didn’t make him any less of a monster.

She muttered the bloodletting spell, drawing a tiny droplet of Katherine’s blood out of her skin without leaving a mark. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to do it to a grown magician without being noticed, but Katherine was young and inexperienced. She took a second drop, then carefully absorbed the magic to ensure there was no sign of what she’d done. It was hard not to feel guilty, and dirty. She was crossing a line, no matter the cause. And it might come back to bite her.

“I’ll put one droplet in storage,” Emily said. “The other will go into a piece of chat parchment.”

“We can go see about the shop, while you’re on your way,” Sienna said. “Be careful. These people aren’t playing around.”

Emily nodded, then held up her hand warningly as she released the spell. Katherine’s body seemed to jerk – Emily knew it was an illusion, but it was hard to repress the flash of panic – before the younger girl kept talking. Jane leaned forward, bouncing questions off her in a bid to cover any slight discrepancies. Katherine hadn’t been enchanted very long – it wouldn’t be dark outside, when they left the building – but it was impossible to be sure she hadn’t noticed something. A chill ran down her spine as she slipped the blood out of sight. They really had crossed a line.

“I’ll just get ready,” Jane told her. “And then we’ll be on our way.”

Emily slipped into the backroom and exchanged a brief kiss with Caleb, then outlined what had happened. Adam and Lilith – and Sienna – could go to the shop, while Caleb watched the apartment from a safe distance. If it all went to hell, the rest of the team would have at least some warning. Emily carefully didn’t ask what kind of contingency plans they might have. She liked to think she wouldn’t talk, and Void had spent months drilling her in techniques to shield her mind, but she knew better. Anyone could be made to talk, given enough time. Void had told her that too.

“Take care of yourself,” Caleb said. Emily wished he could come with them too, if only because they made a good team. “Be careful.”

“I will.” Emily met his eyes, feeling the words on her tongue. “I …”

She turned away, feeling a pang of guilt as she saw Adam and Lilith sitting together, their bodies touching as they drew out diagrams on their notepad. It was strange to watch two people working together so closely, filling in the gaps in each other’s concepts and creating designs that were greater than the sum of their parts … she knew she’d done the same with Caleb, when the world had seemed a simpler place, but they had both changed a great deal since then. Her heart twisted painfully. Why was it so hard to tell Caleb she loved him?

The thought mocked her as she returned to the living room. Jane was already there, a cloak wrapped around her dress … Emily’s lips twitched as she realised the outfit was carefully designed to allow Jane to hitch up her skirts and run for her life, if she thought she was in danger. It also conveyed a very misleading impression, with a wand dangling from her belt and a notebook right beside it. Anyone who gave her a quick look would be left thinking Jane an inferior magician, dependent on a wand to cast spells. Emily wondered, idly, if it would fool the regime. Students at Whitehall were forbidden to use wands, at least until they reached fifth year, and even then it was only allowed under careful supervision. But how many of the regime’s supporters had gone to Whitehall?

Probably more than we care to admit, Emily reflected. Most magicians had at least some kind of superiority complex, and there was no shortage of magic-users who felt their skills were not being rewarded or that they’d been denied the contacts and training they needed to advance for spurious reasons. Some might even know me personally.

“Father is waiting,” Katherine said. “We need to hurry.”

Jane nodded. “Of course,” she said, with a wink at Sienna. “I’ll have your apprentice back in short order.”

Sienna shot Emily a sharp look that would have made a regular apprentice quail. Emily forced herself to look down, to follow Jane in a manner that suggested she wanted to go but was also afraid of what her mistress would say when she returned. Katherine didn’t seem to pay any attention to the byplay – and she didn’t seem to be as observant as a child who had grown up in an abusive home – yet there was no way to be sure she wouldn’t report what she’d seen to her father. Emily’s stomach clenched, painfully, as she watched Katherine skipping behind Jane, the very picture of childish innocence. Her father might not be openly abusive – he might not beat her on a whim, or shout at her when he was in a bad mood – but he was still a terrible father. If Katherine was raised to consider herself superior to mundanes, what would she be like when she came into her powers?

A monster, Emily thought. She had met too many aristos who regarded commoners as being less than human. Katherine might be sweep and innocent now, but when she came into her power …she would become a nightmare. One could rationalise anything, given time. If one was even inclined to bother. It won’t end well.

Her heart twisted again. She wanted to snatch the girl up, to teleport her away and give her to a family that would bring her up properly. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t teleport out of the city without risking death, or worse. And even if she did, how many other children were being raised in the same way, to think of themselves as superior just because they had powers? She recalled the school and shuddered. Even if the regime was defeated easily, the damage it left behind would take years to heal.

And they won’t go easily, she thought, numbly. They were committed from the moment they renounced the Conpact.

 

Chapter Nineteen

The Citadel was a very impressive building.

Emily had seen countless castles over the last few years, from tiny fortresses that housed a handful of guardsmen to massive buildings that served as centres of government as well as royal residences, but the Citadel outshone them all. It was a remarkable design, clearly built largely with magic; she couldn’t help thinking of a strange combination of Roman and Medieval influences, pillars – and magic – holding up a building that looked as if it would collapse under its own weight. She had seen apartment blocks that had car parks underneath, but they – at least – had been fairly solid constructions. The Citadel looked as if it would crumble if a single pillar was knocked out of place. She doubted it was true. There was enough magic pervading the building to keep it intact, even if it did look as if it had been constructed in orbit. The builders had had enough magic to ignore pesky things like the laws of physics.

She kept her eyes open as Katherine led them through a gate – heavily warded, they wouldn’t have been able to enter without their young escort – and into a lobby that was surprisingly large, the walls lined with white marble and statues that seemed to move when she wasn’t looking. The great witches and wizards of the last millennium looked down upon her, their features frozen into a benevolence that managed to be both warm and friendly and yet incredibly condescending. Her eyes narrowed, just for a second, as she spotted a pair of statues that were disturbingly familiar; Grandmaster Hasdrubal, in his robes of office, and Void, wearing an outfit she knew for a fact he would have detested. She had to admit the face was a good likeness, but the outfit? Her lips twitched. Void had never felt the need to show off his power and wealth. Everyone had already known he had more than enough of both.

Katherine paused, waiting for someone. Emily took advantage of the pause to let her eyes wander across the lobby. It was surprisingly empty, for a centre of government. There were only a handful of magicians in view, some standing patiently near the statues and others moving with an urgency that looked a little feigned. A couple of slaves were standing by the door, a strikingly handsome man and beautiful woman, their collars clearly visible as they waited for orders. Emily shivered as a magician snapped her fingers at the slaves, commanding them to fetch her a drink. They hurried off without question …

A man appeared, oiling his way towards them in a manner that reminded her of the late unlamented Lord Nightingale. His outfit reminded her of a business suit, rather than the aristocratic garments Nightingale had favoured; a simple dark tunic, with a single gold star just over his right breast. A wand hung at his belt … up close, Emily couldn’t sense more than a little magic surrounding him. A weak magician, someone trusted because he had nowhere else to go? Or was she being blinded by her own preconceptions? She had never liked or trusted Nightingale – she had no idea what had even happened to him; no one had come forward to claim the bounty on his head – and it was hard to escape the impression this man was just like him. But was she wrong?

Katherine performed the introductions. “Jane, Daughter of Gerald, this is Secretary Boswell. My father’s secretary.”

“Charmed,” Boswell said.

He took Jane’s hand and bowed his head over it, his lips nearly brushing against her skin. He sounded polite enough, but there was an edge to his tone Emily knew from Zangaria, the bitterness of a grown man having to grovel in front of a small child who just happened to have powerful parents or relatives. Alassa had had real problems with some of her lords, men who saw her as a child or – worse – men who did as they thought best, secure in the delusion that they were doing what she would have ordered them to do, if she’d been a man. It hadn’t been an easy time for her when she’d assumed the throne, even if she had had a strong right arm and a reputation that should have cautioned anyone to think better of messing with her.

Jane smiled at Boswell, and kept chatting to him as he led her and Emily up a long stairwell and through a maze of corridors and chambers, the latter both surprisingly large and empty. Katherine remained behind, waiting. Emily did her best to look like an apprentice, all the while reaching out with her mind to study the defences and the magic trickling through the building. There was something underneath, a source of power so bright it sent daggers of pain stabbing into her mind. A nexus point? There wasn’t one under the city … or was there? A number of nexus points had been snuffed out, until she’d reignited them. Had there been one under the city, dead so long they’d forgotten its mere existence? Or …

Impossible, she thought. Someone would have talked.

Her thoughts darkened. What is down there?

Boswell stopped in front of a marble door, then pushed it open. The chamber inside was so large it took Emily a moment to realise it was an office, an incredibly fancy office. A large window dominated the chamber, allowing its occupant to look over the city; the brilliant sunlight illuminated a desk, a handful of fountains – Emily couldn’t help noticing the water was also defying the laws of physics, the flow running upwards in places – and a strange combination of trees and crystalline structures that reminded her of the chambers under Whitehall. If the crystals were used to drain magic from the mystery power source and channel it through the building … Emily gritted her teeth. The wards were heavier here, making it harder for her to study their construction and impossible for anyone to spy on the chamber. She had a nasty feeling the wardcrafters had overdone it.

“I greet you,” a jovial voice said. “I loved your article.”

Emily dropped a curtsey as Great Sorcerer Resolute rose from his desk and bowed to Jane, his eyes flickering over Emily before wordlessly dismissing her as unimportant. Emily took one look at him and knew they weren’t going to get along. Resolute was a large man with a booming voice, his florid face tainted by a ghastly moustache; his body managed to convey the impression of being overweight even though it was rare for magicians to be genuinely fat. His brown hair, a shade or two lighter than her own, was just a little too coloured for her to think it anything other than a glamour, or a dye. It made her wonder if he was trying to convey an impression that would make her underestimate him, or suggest he didn’t care what anyone else thought of him. A man powerful enough to glamour his hair could easily hide the rest of his body, making him appear as handsome as Jade or Cat. Instead …

He looks like an untrustworthy shopkeeper, Emily thought. The kind of man who would flatter his customers, while keeping his thumb firmly on the scale.

“You wrote a great article about us,” Resolute said. He took Jane’s hand and kissed it, his lips actually touching her skin. He paid no attention to Emily, much to her relief. “We have had more applications for citizenship in the last two days than ever before.”

“I merely wrote the truth,” Jane said. She allowed him to lead her to a sofa, resting in front of the window, and gently push her to sit. Emily followed, keeping her eyes downcast. Boswell stood by the door, waiting for his master to call. “I’m glad it found such a wide readership.”

“We’d be delighted if you set up a branch in our city,” Resolute said. “It is vitally important the public be kept informed, when the aristos are determined to ensure they remain in ignorance.”

He sat next to Jane, close enough to be imposing without being too close. “It is my pleasure to meet you at last,” he added. “What do you want to ask me?”

Jane’s face was carefully neutral. “Why did you choose to declare independence and renounce the Compact?”

Emily half-expected Resolute to take offense at the question, but if he did it wasn’t apparent in his voice. “You are young,” he said. “A second-year student from a mundane family, are you not?”

“Third-year,” Jane corrected.

Resolute showed no offense at being corrected, either. “You have not yet discovered that the system is rigged,” he said. “If you are born to a good family, or powerful enough to convince the aristocracy to overlook your unfortunate birth, you will go far. You will get the training you need to develop and enhance your magic, and the connections you need to ensure a long and glittering career. You will discover this when you complete your exams, at the end of fourth-year. If you are not good enough to proceed into fifth year, and you lack the connections to ensure a proper apprenticeship, you will find your career options are actually very limited. I did. And I was far from the only one.”

He paused. “The system is designed to hold down the weaker magicians, to ensure they never have a chance to develop their powers and become great, while absorbing the stronger magicians in a manner that ensures they become part of the system, and dedicate themselves to maintaining it even though it is exploiting them. It should be no surprise there was discontent, which was ignored by the aristocracy. But now the aristocracy has been gravely weakened, and we took advantage of the chaos to declare independence.”

Jane leaned forward. “And the Compact?”

“The Compact was designed to limit research into advanced magics, spells and rituals that could help weaker magicians become stronger, and – just incidentally – preserve the aristocracy’s power over the magical community,” Resolute told her. “It was never about preventing the rise of countless dark wizards – the Compact never stopped a single necromancer from performing the rite and becoming a monster – but keeping the aristocracy firmly in control. Whole fields of magical research were declared off-limits, for fear of someone discovering a technique that would change the balance of power. It even limited how magicians could interact with mundanes, convincing them they were our equals. And now it was the mundanes who developed a whole new field of magic!”

Emily kept her face under tight control. Resolute sounded jovial, but few would believe he’d spare Adam if the younger man fell into his clutches. She could understand his frustration, yet …

“It was time to act, before the mundanes challenged us openly,” Resolute said.

Jane met his eyes. “And you are treating them as slaves …”

Resolute’s eyes hardened. “The mundanes lack the gift of magic,” he said. “Do you know what they would do to you, if they caught you without your power? Do you know what they do to each other? They are barbarians, grubbing in the mud and happily slaughtering each other for a few shiny coins. There can be no reasoning with such creatures, for they will eventually turn on their masters. And now they think they can challenge us.”

He paused. “Whatever happens elsewhere, they won’t be allowed to destroy our city. And you can write that down.”

Emily shivered. It was hard to tell if Resolute really believed what he was saying, but he sounded convincing. She suspected a great many magicians would be seduced by his words, both out of a desire to feel superior and out of a grim awareness that mundane society lacked the demand for merit that pervaded its magical counterpart. There was a certain degree of hypocrisy – magicians were perfectly capable of committing atrocities against their own kind, and often did – but that had never stopped anyone, not in the whole history of the human race.

Jane leaned back. “My father is a mundane,” she said. “And he has been nothing, but supportive.”

“You are young,” Resolute said, again. “That will change, as you grow into your power. Your father will grow to resent your power, to fear what you could do to him … if you wished. Do you think he will always be supportive, or if he will wonder if he has made a rod for his own back? It is in the nature of mundanes to fear and hate what they cannot understand, to try to control what they can and destroy what they can’t.”

Emily gritted her teeth. Her stepfather – she wondered, suddenly, if the bastard was still alive – would have been terrified, if he’d realised she had magic. He’d have cracked her skull before she had a chance to learn how to turn him into a toad, or kill him, or … she shuddered, recalling how Frieda had briefly met her parents, after becoming a magician in her own right. That hadn’t gone well. She swallowed hard, all too aware that envy and fear could drive someone into a very dark place. Void had never tried to limit her growth, but he’d been a powerful magician in his own right and she was still nowhere near his match. Not yet. A lesser soul might have tried to hamper her instead.

She forced herself to listen as Jane asked question after question, without bothering to write anything in her notebook. Emily knew that was a trick to put Resolute at his ease, although he knew enough about magic – she was sure – to know Jane would have no trouble using a memory charm to recall the entire interview in tedious detail. She found it hard to get a read on him … at times, he sounded like a friendly merchant and at other times, there was something cold and hard lurking under his smile. Resolute smiled too much, something Lady Barb had cautioned her was a danger sign. His smiles never quite seemed to touch his eyes.

“I do hope you will be writing more about us,” Resolute said. “My daughter will be happy to show you anything you want, anything at all.”

“The ghetto?” Jane kept her expression blank, but there was an edge in her tone that was all too clear. “Why did you drive all the mundanes into such a … a dreadful place?”

“That is what they do to us, in their cities,” Resolute pointed out. “There are districts for magic users, and they are not allowed to live outside those districts.”

He shrugged. “They chose to remain, when we took over,” he said. “And if they wanted to clean up the ghetto, they could. We wouldn’t stop them. But it is the nature of mundane souls to foul their own nest.”

There was a long pause. “There’s a ball coming up, to celebrate our independence,” he added. “Would you care to attend? Or to accompany me?”

Emily kept her face blank, somehow. Resolute had a twelve-year-old daughter … and he certainly looked old enough to be Jane’s father. He probably was. Magicians tended to marry around twenty-five, which meant Resolute was at least thirty-seven and probably older. And he was hitting on Jane? Emily’s lips thinned in distaste. It was hardly unknown, but …

“I am required to be neutral,” Jane said. “But I would love to attend the ball on my own.”

Resolute nodded, showing no hint of being put out. Emily wondered, not for the first time, how much of his self-presentation was an act.

“Boswell will guide you back to the gate,” Resolute said, standing to indicate the interview was over. “I look forward to reading your next article, and to seeing you again.”

Jane nodded, dropping him a curtsey rather than extending her hand again. Emily followed suit, although Resolute had already turned away. Boswell would notice, she was sure, and report any breach in decorum to his master. Emily felt cold as she turned away, allowing Boswell to lead them back down the stairs. Resolute’s smile masked a chilling reality, one that pervaded the state he’d created. And no matter how much he justified himself, she knew he was crafting a nightmare.

“I need to visit the little girl’s room,” Emily said, once they reached the ground floor. She kept her voice low and light, pretending to be a young apprentice. “If I can …”

“Of course,” Boswell said. He didn’t seem remotely irked by the sudden delay. “You can use the washroom here.”

Jane followed Emily into the chamber, which was thankfully empty. A large portrait of a man she didn’t recognise dominated one wall, surrounded by a mural that provided far too much space for hidden peepholes. It was insane to try to spy on a sorceress in her most private moments, but Emily had a nasty feeling someone might take the risk. A peephole might remain undetected, even as a sorceress blocked out all spying spells. If there was one …

She tapped her lips and drew her blade, cutting her palm and dripping a splash of blood onto a chat parchment. A shape shimmered into existence, a perfect duplicate of herself. Emily had considered a bilocation charm, but that spell had nearly killed her the last time she’d used it and there was a better-than-even chance the regime would detect it. The illusionary copy would follow Jane out of the Citadel and back to the apartment, where it would dissolve into nothingness. Emily nodded to Jane, not daring to speak out loud, and took the droplet of Katherine’s blood. If the charm worked, the wards should mistake her for the young girl.

Jane’s lips moved, mouthing the words good luck, then she turned and walked out, the cpy following her. Emily hoped no one would try to touch it, at least until it was too late. The illusion wasn’t quite intangible, and some of the charms were designed to convince anyone who tried that they really had touched a living girl, but there was no way to be certain. If it failed while Jane was still inside the building, all hell would break loose.

Emily braced herself, counting down the seconds. She was inside the wards now. There was no reason for them to think she didn’t have a right to be in the Citadel, at least as long as she didn’t risk stepping into a sealed chamber. If nothing else, she should be able to weaken the wards from the inside, hacking a pathway into the spell network and crafting weaknesses she could use to get back into the Citadel, after she left. If …

She took a breath. It was time to get to work.

 

Chapter Twenty

Emily wove a complicated glamour around herself, then stepped out of the washroom.

The glamour was both simple and complex, a spell Void had devised himself and allowed her to modify as she saw fit. It was not a perfect invisibility spell – those were easy to spot, if you knew what to look for – but a charm intended to convince anyone who saw her that she had a perfect right to be there, that they should forget about her the moment they took their eyes off her. Combined with Katherine’s blood, very close to her father’s, it should allow her to pass unnoticed … as long as the wards weren’t smart enough to realise Katherine appeared to be in two places at once. Emily had told Jane to ask for a tour of the works – again – but there was no guarantee the younger girl would agree. If she didn’t …

Emily pushed the doubts out of her mind and started to walk down the corridor, following the traces of magic running through the walls. A handful of people passed her, wearing simple robes rather than the elaborate outfits she’d seen outside; none seemed to pay any attention to her, although she was careful to step out of their way rather than risk a collusion. The great downside of the glamour was that it was dangerously insubstantial, if anyone realised something was wrong, and it would fade rapidly once they started looking. She stepped to one side as a trio of guards hurried past, looking surprisingly relaxed for men who had just committed the greatest mistake of their lives. Emily’s lips twitched. The poor guards would get it in the neck when their superiors realised what had happened.

She kept moving, noting that the Citadel was very definitely bigger on the inside. There was a logic to the design she hadn’t seen at Whitehall, a suggestion the charmsmiths and wardcrafters who had devised the pocket dimensions had very limited power, but it still puzzled her. It needed a source of near-infinite power to create such a vast structure and there was none within the city, or was there? Could she be wrong? Was there a nexus point under the Citadel? She couldn’t sense one, but that was meaningless. If they already had the point under control …

The thought nagged at her mind as she found a stairwell heading down, under the city. Emily stepped down, carefully checking the glamour as she reached the bottom. An unmanned guardpost loomed up in front of her … no, not unmanned. She could sense something curling in the shadows, ready to lash out at any intruders. A mimic? Or another construct? It wasn’t impossible … she braced herself as she stepped forward, readying herself for a fight. If the blood wasn’t enough to get through the wards, she’d set off every alarm in the building.

Her skin prickled as she stepped through, the wards apparently convinced she was Katherine – or her father. Emily allowed herself a moment of relief as she kept walking, mentally studying the wards. They were strange, clearly put together by a number of different magicians than a lone caster. Emily wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. They lacked the flexibility of wards attached to an actual mind, but each set of wards would need to be subverted or taken down separately if she wanted to expose the Citadel to attack. She made a mental note to be very careful. She couldn’t sense the wards monitoring each other, as well as their environment, but if she’d been planning the network she would have worked all sorts of redundancies into the system. It wouldn’t be enough to hack one set of wards. She’d have to subvert them first – and probably in the right order too.

The air grew colder as she kept walking, the corridor walls now barren stone that reminded her of the tunnels under Whitehall. Here and there, she spotted a rune carved into the stone – some illumination charms, others with no discernible purpose – but otherwise the walls were bare. She felt the magic growing closer as the corridor levelled out and opened into a giant chamber; she sucked in her breath as she saw the crystalline network dead ahead of her, power pulsing through the web and into the wards. It looked as if someone had put it together, bit by bit, rather than growing it naturally. Her eyes narrowed as she picked out a handful of wardstones within the structure. It looked as if someone had tried to copy the crystals under Whitehall, without the resources – or the patience – to let them grow on their own.

Her eyes flickered from side to side. She was standing on a balcony, overlooking the crystalline structure … she couldn’t see anyone else at all. The lower levels were crammed with runic tiles and other pieces of magitech … she sucked in her breath, sharply, as she saw a holographic rune shimmer into existence, just for a second, before being absorbed within the greater spell-structure. Lady Barb’s warning echoed through her mind – “you have found a way to make necromancy practical” – as a second rune followed the first. They lacked physical form and therefore could not be destroyed by a tidal wave of power … they were designed, she suspected, to absorb and channel power rather than let it overwhelm them. A human who tried would go mad – or die. The device in front of her would not.

She ducked back as she spotted two women making their way across the floor below, wearing simple black robes. They didn’t seem to spot her as they reached the stairwell and headed up to the balcony, then walked past Emily and back up the corridor. Emily glanced after them, then hurried to the stair they’d used and made her way down to the floor. Up close, she could feel the throbbing power pulsing through the air, wave after wave of magic that pounded her defences and blinded her senses. It felt as if she had stepped right up to a speaker, blasting out rock and roll music … she gritted her teeth as she felt her head start to ache, checking and rechecking the glamour to make sure it was firmly in place. There was so much raw magic in the air that it was starting to damage her protections, as well as the glamour. She had a nasty feeling it was designed to absorb magic from anyone – or anything – who stepped too close.

A windmill, she thought. Adam’s brilliant invention had only produced a trickle of magic, but no one could deny it had worked. The regime had taken his ideas and run with them. It felt odd – she knew aristocrats who had refused to use firearms, because they were designed and produced by commoners – and disconcerting. If the regime was prepared to make use of techniques developed by its enemies, what else was it smart enough to do. It absorbs magic and channels it into the network.

She forced herself to step back, suddenly aware her entire body was drenched in sweat. The device had been trying to drain her, without ever quite realising she was there. It wasn’t smart enough to realise anything. She took a long breath to gather herself, cursing mentally as she studied the runes flickering in and out of existence. She’d hoped to hack the network and subvert it, but that was clearly impossible. There was no way to get right up to the structure without being drained so badly she’d be effectively helpless.

The air seemed darker, somehow, as she made her way to the other door. It opened into a stairwell that led down into the shadows, protected by a handful of faded wards that seemed suspiciously harmless. Emily eyed them warily – they might have been strong once, but they were too close to the magic-absorbing structure to remain intact for long – and carefully picked her way through them. The wards hadn’t been hacked or subverted, they were simply weak … odd, given how capable the regime had shown itself to be. Her heart pounded in her chest as she inched further down, wondering if she was walking right into a trap. Pretending to be weak, pretending to be beaten, had saved her life in the past. The regime might be doing the same.

Assuming they knew anyone would get this far into their fortress, Emily thought. Void had drilled her mercilessly, and she had tricks unique to her, but she was hardly the only person who could make her way through the wards. Why be so smart above ground and so stupid here?

She puzzled over it for a moment, wondering if the regime had far too much faith in its outermost wards, then put the thought aside as the corridor levelled out suddenly. A waft of cold air brushed against her skin, bringing with it the stench of too many humans in too close proximity. Emily knew, with a sickening certainty, what she was going to see even before she rounded the corner and stared into the underground chamber. She’d seen it before, under Valetta. And now she was seeing it again.

Her blood ran cold. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of naked men, women and children were trapped within the chamber, kneeling on the cold stone ground or hanging suspended from a network of silver threads that were embedded in their skin. They were all chained up well past the point of absurdity, locked in chains and spreader bars and devices that would have made King Randor’s torturer blanch. The air was heavy with the smell of human waste … she shuddered as she saw the gutters under the kneeling prisoners, designed to carry away as much as possible. She wasn’t sure how they were being fed, if they were. It was a nightmare …

You wanted proof the Hierarchy was involved, her thoughts pointed out. You found it.

She shuddered as she inched into the chamber. The prisoners paid her no heed, trapped in their own private hells. She could feel a handful of charms pervading the air, subtle magic rendering resistance impossible … not, she suspected, that they could have freed themselves even if they knew they were prisoners. They were laden down so heavily that she doubted they could move more than a few inches in any direction, if indeed they could move at all. She felt sick as she saw a metal wire driven into a young girl’s skull, running right through her brain and coming out the other side. How the hell was she still alive? Emily recalled reading an article about a man who had survived a bullet through the brain, through sheer luck, but this …? Was the girl trapped in a nightmare of constantly wounded and healed, or … or what? It made no sense at all.

Her eyes narrowed as she spotted movement on the far side of the chamber. Two men entered, both slaves. The collars around their necks weren’t just visible, they were spelled so heavily she could feel the poisonous charm lingering on the air. She shuddered and kept herself out of sight as much as possible, inching around the room as the slaves fed the captives. The magic shifted, leading upwards … into the crystalline structure she’d seen in the upper chamber. She shuddered, helplessly. The prisoners were being drained to feed the magitech.

Clever, she thought, numbly. The regime had come up with a neat little self-sustaining power source, combining magic and mundane techniques into one. Clever, and horrific.

She slipped through the next door, passing through two more chambers crammed with chained prisoners. A hundred? A thousand? It was impossible to tell. They were pressed so tightly together it was hard to tell how many there were, trapped within the nightmare. She wondered, numbly, if Lucy’s parents were somewhere in the mess. There was no way to know, or to free them. She wasn’t even sure where to begin.

The next chamber was different, a handful of young men and women strapped to couches under a giant piece of magitech. Emily expected to see magic flowing out of their bodies, but it felt almost as if the opposite was happening, the magic being channelled into them. She inched closer, trying to pick out the spells … were they trying to infuse magic into their blood? It had happened once before, with Adam, but that had been an accident. He hadn’t found it very easy to make use of the magic that had been unexpectedly bequeathed on him, yet … did the Hierarchy think they could overcome that problem? Were they turning people into living batteries?

It makes no sense, Emily thought. A magician’s body constantly replenished his stockpile of magic. A mundane had no magic, and if it were infused into their blood it wouldn’t automatically replenish itself. Once it was gone, it was gone. If they want batteries, why not use an actual battery. They must know how to make them.

She frowned as she studied the towering device. It was crude and yet surprisingly sophisticated, a horrific perversion of everything Adam had built. Emily felt a hint of warm sunlight pressing against her skin as she stepped closer, as if the device was radiating something warm and welcoming … she felt her own magic twist painfully as she stepped backwards and closed her eyes for a long moment, checking the glamour again. It seemed intact, but … she wasn’t sure. The world felt a darker place.

The air shifted again as she turned and walked back into the corridor, torn between the urge to quit while she was ahead and the grim awareness she might not get a second chance to explore the tunnels under the Citadel. She had to know what they were doing, she had to tell the world … although she feared the world wouldn’t care. The magical community had never been particularly concerned with crimes against mundanes, and even though they disapproved of many crimes they rarely bothered to do anything about it. They’d be more alarmed if the regime posed a threat, but so far there was no proof the regime intended to expand … Emily was certain it would, if only to ensure its safety, yet …

She stepped aside as another set of slaves walked past her, then peered into yet another chamber crammed with chairs, a young man sitting on each of them. They were all wearing helmets linked to the ceiling – she could feel strange magics crackling through the air – that looked bolted to their heads. Emily felt sick – again – as she stepped closer, her instincts screaming she was missing something. Something important … it crossed her mind to wonder, too late, why they weren’t naked. The rest of the prisoners had all been stripped, to dehumanise them in the eyes of their captors, but these men weren’t naked. Or chained up … she peered closer and realised her impression had been wrong. The helmets weren’t bound to their heads …

The nearest man opened his eyes and looked at her. Emily felt her blood run cold as their eyes met. He could see her. He seemed a little dazed, a little out of it … but not enough to convince himself she was meant to be there. She could practically see the alarm crawling through his mind, the sudden panic … he might be slow, yet he wasn’t stupid. And he was about to sound the alarm.

Emily shaped a spell and lashed out, striking his temple with enough force – she hoped – to stun him. The magic should have enhanced her strength enough to knock him out, but instead he merely staggered, his body twisting in eerie slow motion. She hit him again, then turned away … just as she felt magic sharpening in the air, trying to come into existence around her. The remnants of the glamour fell away, revealing her presence. She was exposed.

Move, she thought. There was enough raw magic in the underground chambers to make it hard for the enemy to pinpoint her exact location, but they knew she was there. How many ways in and out were there? If there was only one, it was just a matter of time – minutes, if not seconds – before it was sealed off and search parties were dispatched into the network to find her. Get out before it is too late.

Emily forced herself to run, just as a line of slaves appeared from nowhere and charged her. She gritted her teeth, drawing on her magic to try to knock them back without doing any real harm; she focussed a spell on their collars, trying to free them – if only temporarily – from their enslavement. The collars started to tighten, threatening to choke their wearers; she hastily cancelled the spell, all too aware there was no time to try to pick the enslavement charms apart before it was too late. The slaves went flying as she shaped another spell, slammed into walls and ceilings … she hoped, prayed, she hadn’t done them any real harm. Somehow, she was sure the regime wouldn’t bother to heal a wounded slave. They’d be more likely to feed him into their magic-draining device.

The air prickled, a wave of weird magic rushing down the corridor and shimmering around her. Emily felt naked, almost helpless; it felt more like a mist, or a gas, rather than anything she could simply dispel. She tried anyway, only to discover the tiny spells worked together to counter her charm. Horror ran through her as she realised what she was facing, mentally kicking herself for not considering the possibility. It was magitech … the spells might be tiny, and very low-power, but that wasn’t a weakness. It was different from Adam’s work … she had the feeling, as the network tightened around her, that there was a mind controlling it. Something flickered through her mind, a realisation …

And the world went away in a flash of blue-white light.

 

Chapter Twenty-One

“Well,” a voice said. “Look who we have here.”

Emily barely heard him. She felt sick, her memories scrambled … it was hard, so hard, to focus her mind enough to think clearly, let alone recall what had happened to her. Her body ached painfully, a foul taste in her mouth suggesting she’d been drugged. It wasn’t Durian – it wasn’t the remnants of something that had drained her magic – but she couldn’t so much as feel the power within her. She bit her lip hard, using the pain to focus her mind. The headache steadfastly refused to fade, her eyes hurting as she tried to force them to open. Her entire body felt as if she’d been in a fight, and lost.

“Well,” the voice said, again. This time, it sounded almost familiar. “We know you’re awake. You may as well open your eyes.”

Emily frowned, inwardly, as her eyes opened. The room was brightly-lit, the light so bright that it stabbed daggers into her eyes. It took her a moment to focus, to realise that Great Sorcerer Resolute was standing right in front of her and Boswell was standing by the door, his eyes fixed on his master. Emily gritted her teeth as her memories snapped back into place, reminding her that she’d triggered an alarm and been captured. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been unconscious, but … horror washed through her. If Resolute had figured out who she was, he presumably knew who’d accompanied her into the city.

She cursed as she realised she was naked, save for a single silver band wrapped around her wrist and connected to something out of eyeshot. She hadn’t been tied up, or chained to a wall, but she had the uneasy feeling she was restrained in some way. The air was heavy with something, pressing down on her and making it difficult to think. Her blood turned to ice. They’d not only taken her prisoner, they’d stripped her naked and … she hoped, prayed, they hadn’t done anything worse. She was painfully aware that molesting – even raping – prisoners, male or female, was all too common. It was impossible to be sure they hadn’t. Her body was sore everywhere.

“Lady Emily, I presume,” Resolute said. It wasn’t a question. “How did you get my daughter’s blood?”

Emily didn’t bother to deny it. “I spotted her with Jane and took the blood,” she said. There was no point in trying to hide it, not when it was easy to deduce. She hoped they’d think she’d stunned Jane’s companion and taken her place, but she suspected the deception wouldn’t last long, if at all. They’d had contingency plans. Sienna wouldn’t let Caleb and Adam stay in the apartment, waiting for her. “They never knew what I’d done.”

“Clever,” Resolute said. His voice shifted, becoming integrating. “You could have asked. We would have welcomed you.”

Emily raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

“Of course!” Resolute sounded more amused than shocked, although there was an edge to his tone that made her wonder just what he was playing at. “You would be more than welcome to join us, Lady Emily. It is you who we must thank for all we have built.”

The hell of it, Emily realised dully, was that he wasn’t mocking her. He genuinely believed what he was saying, which meant …

“Your innovations have changed the world,” Resolute continued. “Your discover of magitech has finally allowed us to step out from under the shadow of the great families, and claim our independence for ourselves. Your father would have approved, I believe, and so do we. You would be more than welcome to join us. The magitech you invented secured our victory. How could we not be grateful to you?”

“Adam invented magitech,” Emily said. She had tried something similar herself, years ago, but neither Aloha nor her had been able to make the concept work. In hindsight, she suspected they’d been too powerful – even then – to have the delicate touch magitech needed to work properly. She wondered, numbly, just how the regime had solved that problem. “It wasn’t anything to do with me.”

“He built on concepts you devised,” Resolute said. “He made nothing for himself.”

“I wasn’t even there,” Emily said. There was no point in arguing with him, but she suspected she needed to stall, to buy time for the rest of the team to vanish. “I was halfway across the world at the time.”

“So we are told,” Resolute said. “But we know it to be a lie.”

He went on, in a manner that suggested he believed every word he was saying. “Magicians have the spark of the gods inside them, the gift of power and potential that makes them special,” he told her. “It is magicians who came up with every innovation in the world, magicians such as yourself. There has never been a mundane who came up with an idea of his own, not once. Name me one thing a mundane has invented, completely on their own?”

Emily couldn’t resist. “You.”

Resolute looked, just for a second, if he wanted to strike her. Emily braced herself for the blow. It wasn’t easy to be a newborn magician, if you didn’t have the power to impress your social superiors, and she could understand the sort of resentment, and inferiority complex, it could generate. She wondered, suddenly, if she should keep rubbing salt into that wound. The regime wouldn’t be gentle with her, now she was a prisoner. It might break down her mind, piece by piece, until it knew everything she knew, then discarded what was left of her into an unmarked grave. If he killed her first …

“No great idea has ever come from a mundane,” Resolute said. “And magitech is clearly a magical invention.”

“If you say so,” Emily said.

She sighed, inwardly. She could understand where he was coming from. The mundane community had lacked the magical community’s willingness to throw resources into researching magic and developing new spells, ensuring the brightest minds in the world went into magical research … if they ever had the chance. The smartest person in the world might be a peasant girl from Alluvia, but her brains would be useless if she wasn’t given the education she needed to develop them and the time and resources to make use of them. Emily shuddered to think of how many great minds might have come and gone, utterly unnoticed and unremarked, because they’d been born in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“We do say so,” Resolute said. “The spark of the gods is missing from the mundanes.”

“And yet, some give birth to magicians,” Emily pointed out. “Like you.”

Resolute didn’t seem to take offense at that. “The spark of the gods can go to anyone,” he said, “no matter their birth.”

“And yet you take them from their parents,” Emily said, remembering Lucy. “Why?”

“Because otherwise they wouldn’t learn what they need before it is too late,” Resolute said. “How much did your father teach you, before you went to Whitehall?”

“Nothing,” Emily said. He meant Void, not her biological father. “I wasn’t schooled in magic until I was sent to Whitehall.”

Resolute’s hand moved so quickly she could barely see it, slapping her hard enough to draw blood. “You lie.”

“No,” Emily managed. She could feel the blood trickling down her cheek. The pain helped her mind to focus. “He taught me nothing until he took me as an apprentice, after I left Whitehall.”

“You lie,” Resolute said, again. “What sort of magical father would leave his daughter uneducated?”

Emily sighed, inwardly. There was no point in explaining the truth. He wouldn’t believe her, which would be actively dangerous, or he would … and that would be worse. She dreaded to think what the regime would do if it knew crosstime travel was possible, although they might just invade a world without magic and discover, too late, that they no longer had the power to become anything other than a bunch of thugs. But … she understood, better than she cared to admit, why he thought she was lying. A magical child raised by a magician would have a considerable advantage over their mundane counterpart, educated in the basics even before they came into their power. Her career certainly suggested Void had taught her everything she needed to know before she went to school. It was certainly a reasonable assumption to make.

“I never had that sort of training,” Resolute continued. “I never had the connections, or access to libraries, or anything a high-born girl like you would take for granted. I had to work my ass off to earn even a pittance, while you waltzed your way to the top. I could have been great, if only I had been born to a better family.”

“I defeated the necromancers,” Emily pointed out, curtly. “It was far from an easy life.”

“You had everything you needed,” Resolute countered. “Food and drink, tutors, a private library … you had all the time you needed to come up with your brilliant inventions. You had access to all the knowledge of what had worked before, and what hadn’t; you had the money to buy what you liked, and the influence to convince people to try your ideas. And you had more and more given to you with every passing year.”

He met her eyes. “Katherine will have all those advantages and more. She’ll be schooled in magic until she knows everything, before she comes into her power. She will have everything she needs to be as great as you, perhaps greater. What self-respecting father could do more?”

“He could teach his daughter not to look down on people born without magic,” Emily said, sardonically. The hell of it was that she could see where he was coming from, she just knew he was wrong. “Katherine is a sweet girl, but …”

She’s like Scarlet O’Hara, her thoughts finished. Or someone else raised under a twisted system, maybe not an inherently bad person but still unable to understand how bad their society truly is.

“She will go far,” Resolute said. “You don’t have children, do you? You would understand if you did. We’re doing this for the children.”

“Oh,” Emily said. “Won’t someone please think of the children?”

Resolute missed the mockery, or chose to ignore it. “Exactly,” he said. “We are thinking of them.”

“And you think your children will grow into good people, when they are raised in such a poisonous environment?” Emily knew, all too well, just how many horrors people could accept as normal if they had no way to know better. Marah had been raised in a brutal family and worked for an even more brutal woman and she’d expected Emily to beat her, for crying out loud. And she had been a very minor case indeed. “They’ll become monsters because they won’t know any better.”

“We shall see,” Resolute said. He looked her up and down, his eyes leaving trails of slime over her body. “You can join us, or face the consequences.”

Emily gritted her teeth. It might be wise to pretend to go along with them, but she had a nasty feeling they’d demand some kind of oath. Or at least a gesture of goodwill. The former would be highly-advised, not least because it would be a huge breach of magical etiquette, and the latter would be extremely dangerous. God alone knew what she could offer that couldn’t be turned against her, or used to commit an atrocity that would make everything the regime had already done look like nothing. The nuke-spell alone would be a nightmare. If Resolute thought he could wipe out most of his enemies with a single blow …

She forced herself to meet his eyes, despite the invisible bonds flickering around her. “No.”

Resolute blinked. “No?”

“No,” Emily repeated. “You’re just a cut-price Voldemort, aren’t you?”

She went on before he could say a word. “You could have been great,” she said. “You could have studied in the library and practiced your magic and developed it to the point the magical families would be begging you to marry into their ranks. You could have built yourself up to a point no one could possibly ignore you, made a life for yourself that would be significant … you could even have moved to a town where you would be the only magician, where you could have enjoyed the prestige of being powerful and respected.”

Her voice hardened. “Instead, you took control of a city and concentrated on putting everyone else down. You beat down the mundanes and drive out every magician who doesn’t agree with you, keeping them down instead of developing yourself. You’re raising your daughter in a poisonous environment that will eventually kill her, stealing children from their parents because they have power, grinding people who could be great into the dirt because you are trapped in your own inferiority complex. You’re going to cripple everyone, just because you are held down by your own weaknesses. You could have been great and instead you trapped yourself in a …”

Resolute lunged forward, his hand grasping her neck and squeezing. Emily struggled against the invisible restraints, trying to move her hand or cast a spell or something, anything, as his grip tightened and her vision started to blur. His body was pressing against hers, his breath wafting against her bare skin. It would have repulsed her, if she could think clearly. She thought she heard something laughing at her, something on the edge of her mind, as her awareness started to fade. It was the end.

“Master,” Boswell said. “You cannot kill her.”

“You …” Resolute loosened his grip, just enough to let Emily breath. “She needs to die.”

Boswell stood calmly, his hands clasped behind his back even as his eyes were fixed on his master. “She is a great heroine to many magicians,” he pointed out. “Killing her now, without a trial, will arouse such anger amongst the magician community that they will put their differences aside and unite against us. They will destroy us.”

Resolute didn’t take his eyes off Emily. “They lack the power to end us.”

“United, they can challenge the world,” Boswell pointed out. “They didn’t ask us to bow down to the Compact, they forced us. Their disunity is our strength. It seems dangerously ill-advised to simply murder her. Let us put her on trial instead.”

Emily choked and coughed. Her throat hurt so badly her mouth was dry. “What, again?”

Resolute ignored her. “And you think that will prevent them from uniting against us?”

“There are many who would prefer to turn a blind eye,” Boswell said, calmly. “If you give them a figleaf of legality that might let them turn away, they will do so.”

“We shall see,” Resolute said. He let go of Emily and stepped back, his eyes boring into hers. “You will stand trial for your crimes against magical society, in which you will be found guilty and executed.”

“Ah,” Emily said. It hurt to speak, but she needed to say the words out loud. “You’re going to give me a fair trial.”

She could have sworn she saw, just for a second, a smile flicker across Boswell’s face. It was gone before she could be sure. Was he an ally? Or was his argument to his master entirely genuine? She had no idea. Resolute seemed oddly amused by her remark, as if he genuinely thought the trial would be fair. Perhaps he did. He could easily rewrite the laws to make everything she’d done illegal.

“You will be held here until you are summoned to face the court,” Resolute said. He sounded as if he were trying to be stern, a father who had realised – too late – that his child had gone far off the rails and needed to be yanked back hard. “If you try to escape, you will be punished.”

Emily gritted her teeth. Her magic was drained, neutralised somehow. The wristband was so tight she wondered if it was actually driven into the skin, although she couldn’t see any blood. The invisible bonds were loose, but she knew they could get stronger in a heartbeat if she tried to move. And even if she could get free … Resolute bowed to her, with ironic politeness, and strode out of the room. Boswell followed, not looking back. If he was an ally, he hid it well.

She sagged as the door closed, trying to gather herself. It was hardly the first time she’d been held prisoner, or even put on trial, but there was something about it that felt oddly final. Resolute had come very close to killing her … a magician of very limited power, barely enough to lord it over his mundane neighbours, had nearly ended her life. She would have laughed, if it hadn’t been so painful. The people who called her the Necromancer’s Bane, and credited her with powers that made Void look like a mundane, would have fainted if they’d realised how close she’d come to death. And if they put her on trial …

Her heart sank. Boswell might be right. If she was put on trial and found guilty, and that seemed inevitable, it might just be enough to convince the magical community not to intervene. And then …? She didn’t know.

They’ll have gotten away, she told herself. Sienna is no fool, and she has Caleb and Lilith with her. And Adam …

She shuddered, helplessly. She was trapped, powerless, naked and alone. Her allies might have been captured too. And that meant … her heart sank. It might well be the end. It might.

It won’t, she promised herself. I will get out of this.

But she knew, as she gathered herself, that she had no idea how she was even going to begin.

 

Chapter Twenty-Two: Adam

“It is always a pleasure to deal with a skilled alchemist,” the woman said. She hadn’t bothered to give Sienna, let alone anyone else, her name. “Your potions are very well brewed.”

Adam hid his amusement with an effort. The more the woman spoke, the more certain he was she knew absolutely nothing about potions. His old master would have sooner died than give up his shop to her, while Lilith’s father would probably have done something unspeakably horrid to her. Say what you would about the old man, he’d been a powerful and capable sorcerer and no one had doubted his competence. The woman, by contrast, couldn’t be trusted with anything more delicate than boiling water and brewing tea. It made him wonder if the reason she was so desperate to hire a proper brewer was because she'd finally realised her own limitations, and was trying to compensate for them before the regime ran out of patience. Adam doubted it was very tolerant of failure, certainly not when the woman had assured everyone she could handle it. They’d take the shop and give it to someone more worthy if she failed to produce.

The air prickled around him, his skin tingling and his amulet growing warm … warning him of a dangerous spell. “Your servant is laughing at me,” the woman said. “You should …”

“I’ll deal with him back home,” Sienna said, shooting Adam a warning look. If he hadn’t already known she was a mother, he would have known it then. The look was one he knew from his own mother, an unspoken wait till I get you home that promised he wouldn’t be sitting comfortably for days. “Right now, we need to discuss prices.”

Adam forced himself to keep his face under tight control as he saw Hannah peeking out of the backroom, a dark red bruise clearly visible on her pale face. He had no idea what she had done to deserve it, if indeed she’d done anything. Some shopkeepers were just plain nasty, with few qualms about beating their servants – or worse. Hannah flinched when she saw Lilith and ducked back into the rear, hiding as best as possible. Adam felt his heart sink. Hannah had every reason to be scared of Lilith, and there was nothing he could do about it. Not yet.

The door burst open. Caleb crashed into the store. “Mum, I …”

Sienna jabbed her finger at the shopkeeper, who’s mouth went wide with shock before her flesh turned to stone. Adam’s skin crawled. It was a reminder that, no matter how far he took the concept of magitech, he would never be a match for a born magician. He’d tested the magiwriter time and time again, in mock duels with Lilith, and she’d always won, at least if they were both casting spells on the fly. His only hope was using spells to turn the battlefield itself against her, and it had only worked once. It was deeply – deeply – frustrating.

“Caleb,” Sienna said. “Tell me what happened, calmly if possible.”

Caleb took a breath. Adam felt his heart sink, somehow knowing what Caleb was going to say before he opened his mouth. He had known Caleb for over a year, worked with him, and he had never known the older man – not that much older than Adam himself – to be in such a state. He hadn’t panicked when Heart’s Eye was under siege, the university on the verge of being stormed or simply running out of supplies. And yet he was sweating now.

“They have her,” he said. His voice was grim. “They just raided the apartment block.”

Sienna flinched. “And Jane?”

“No sign,” Caleb said. “But something must have set them off.”

“Jane knew who she was,” Lilith said, quietly. “The regime might have worked it out too.”

Adam nodded, curtly. It beggared belief the regime had arrested Jane, and swept Emily up quite by accident, not when Jane had written an article so brimming with praise for the regime that it was unlikely they wanted her dead. They certainly hadn’t had to invite her into the heart of their power if they did, not when they could have sent a small army to storm the apartment and take her into custody. No, the plan had gone spectacularly wrong and Emily had been captured, perhaps killed. Adam feared the latter. She was too dangerous for the regime to risk keeping alive.

He heard a rustle behind him and knew, without turning, that it was Hannah. Lilith started to move; Adam held up a hand, motioning for her to stay behind. The gods alone knew what was going through Hannah’s mind: she might think the shop was being robbed, or taken over, or that she’d be left to face the wrath of her mistress when the newcomers left. Adam could understand the latter, all too well. Low-power magicians tended to treat mundanes worse, making up for their lack of importance within the magician community. It was a universal rule. The person who was put down by someone above them relieved their feelings by taking it out on the person below them.

“I’ll speak to her,” he said, quietly. “You watch my back?”

Lilith nodded, curtly. Adam turned away and pushed the beaded curtain aside, stepping into the backroom. The workshop was empty, but he could hear a rustle in the stacks that suggested Hannah was hiding there. It wasn’t a bad move on her part, Adam reflected, although it was also a sign the rear door was charmed to deny her escape. Or that she was bound to the store. It wasn’t impossible.

“Hey,” he said, quietly. He held his hands up, palms open, as he inched into the stacks. He had no idea how capable Hannah was, but she had at least one piece of magitech and access to enough supplies to set the entire store on fire, if not blow it to smithereens. She was probably under a geas not to do any serious harm, yet she was clearly intelligent enough – and her mistress too stupid – to find a loophole and take full advantage of it. “It’s me.”

His skin tingled as he stepped further into the rear. The chamber wasn’t that large, relatively speaking, but there were so many shelves crammed with boxes and jars that it was impossible to see anyone in the semi-darkness. A magician would have used a tracking spell, he was sure, or simply muttered a compulsion charm to force Hannah to put down whatever makeshift weapon she’d found and come out into the light. He didn’t have that option, and he wouldn’t use it if he could. He was almost painfully aware that, without the magiwriter, he was as powerless as any other mundane.

Not powerless, he corrected himself, sharply. He’d lost the inferiority complex a long time ago. It was hard to believe magicians were superior in anything but power when he’d seen them sharing the same flaws as their mundane counterparts. Just disadvantaged.

Something rustled, with the stacks. Adam braced himself. “We’re friends,” he said. “And we can get you out of here.”

Hannah stepped into view, her hands behind her back. Adam guessed she was concealing a jar of mundane ingredients, ready to throw it with astonishing force. A magician wouldn’t expect a purely physical attack, although that was changing as firearms spread through the known world, forcing magicians to adapt their shield charms to compensate. Adam kept his hands in view, careful not to step too close. His mother had always told his sisters to go for the groin, if a man intruded into their personal space without permission, and Hannah had probably been taught the same. Few women could fight a man and win, not without magic. They had to end the fight as quickly as possible, before it was too late.

“We’re here to defeat the regime,” Adam said. “Will you help us?”

Hannah eyed him warily, a suspicious – almost feral – look in her eye. Adam tried not to shudder. He’d seen the same a dozen times, back in Beneficence; wives and daughters and shopgirls, grown down so badly they could no longer tell the difference between a punch and a helping hand. It was hard to force himself to take a step back, to give her as much space as possible, but he did it. Hannah stared as he moved, her breath coming in fits and starts.

“Who are you?”

“Adam,” Adam said. It wasn’t an uncommon name. There was no reason she should connect him with Adam of Heart’s Eye, number one on the regime’s hit list … his heart clenched painfully. Emily was on that hit list, and she was now a prisoner. Or worse. “We’re here to defeat the regime.”

“You said,” Hannah managed. She sounded calmer now. “I … what are you going to do to me?”

“Nothing,” Adam said. He hoped to hell that was true. “Is there anyone else here? Upstairs?”

Hannah grimaced. “Just her husband and son,” she said, bitterly. “The bastards hinted they fancied me, so she banned them from the shop and banned me from going upstairs.”

“I have to warn the others,” Adam said. He had no doubt Sienna could deal with the two men, if she caught them by surprise, but if they’d realised something was wrong they might already be running. “One moment.”

He put his head through the curtain and told Sienna what had happened. Sienna nodded and headed upstairs, Caleb following. Lilith joined Adam in the backroom, her face twisting grimly as Hannah cowered back. Adam took Lilith’s hand and squeezed it lightly, then leaned in for a kiss. He wasn’t as demonstrative in public as some lovers he’d seen, but it was a simple way of convincing Hannah they were friends. Somehow, he doubted a sorceress who believed in the regime would allow a mundane to kiss her, certainly not in front of witnesses …

“You’re together?” Hannah sounded stunned. “Why …?”

“He’s a very clever young man,” Lilith said, an argument that would make more sense to another sorceress than a mundane. “We came from Heart’s Eye.”

Hannah relaxed slightly, then sagged. “We should have gone there,” she mumbled. “But Dad wouldn’t listen.”

Adam leaned forward, inviting her to continue. They knew much of the story already, but some of the details were new. A mass compulsion charm, to allow the regime to teach the mundanes their place, followed by a series of relocations that left most mundanes in the ghettos and the remainder enslaved, either by magic or simply through lack of any better options. Hannah’s own mistress had cast a spell on her, barring her from leaving the shop without prior permission. Lilith removed it without being asked, trying to show she was a friend. Adam felt his heart swell with pride.

“We got them both,” Sienna said, briskly. She levitated the statue into the backroom, Hannah’s eyes going wide when she saw her former mistress trapped in stone. “And we closed the shop.”

“Yeah,” Lilith said. “Are we safe here?”

Sienna shot her a sharp look. “It depends,” she said. “Both Emily and Jane knew where we were going, but only in vague detail. They don’t know which shop we were going to, so even if they are forced to talk they won’t be able to tell the regime precisely where to go.”

“Jane didn’t return to the apartment, before it was raided,” Caleb said, quietly. The fear in his voice – for Emily, not for himself – was all too clear. “What happened to her?”

“Assuming they went with the original plan, Jane had orders to take the long way back to the apartment,” Sienna reminded him. “Long enough to let the shadow dissolve, without being noticed. She may return at any time.”

“Or she may not,” Lilith said. “She’s a third-year student. The regime can break her. It will.”

“Perhaps,” Sienna said. “We did work out contingency plans, and Jane had instructions to put the blame on Emily …”

Adam wasn’t convinced the plan would work. On paper, a magician could pose as someone else indefinitely. In practice, it was rarely that easy. If Emily had been posing as Sienna’s mythical apprentice, it would have been only a matter of time before she made a mistake that warned her mistress that she was an imposter. Jane didn’t know the fake apprentice that well … it was just possible the cover story would hold, if she put on a show of being outraged. But still … the smartest thing the regime could do would be to kick her out of the city. Adam dared not assume they wouldn’t.

“We have to get her out,” Caleb insisted. “And quickly!”

“We don’t even know she’s still alive,” Sienna said. “They could have killed her by now.”

Caleb spoke with quiet desperation. “She’s alive,” he said. “I’d know if she were dead.”

Sienna eyed her son. “You have a marriage bond?”

“No, but we are close,” Caleb said. His face was red, but his eyes were desperate. “If she were dead, I would know it.”

He turned away. “I’ll go find her,” he said. “The rest of you can stay here …”

“Don’t be a fool,” Sienna said, sharply. “That’s exactly what they’ll expect you to do.”

“I’m not a child any longer,” Caleb snapped. “I have to do this for her …”

“You won’t do her any favours if you get yourself captured or killed too,” Sienna said. “They already know we’re in the city. They must. And that means they’ll be expecting some kind of rescue mission.”

Caleb looked at Adam. “What do you think?”

Adam hesitated. It was dangerous to get into the middle of an argument between mother and son, even when they didn’t have magic. He understood exactly how Caleb felt. Hell, he’d risked everything to rescue Lilith when she’d been trapped and held prisoner; she’d done the same for him. Caleb was within his rights to want to rescue Emily, and yet Sienna had a point. The regime knew Emily hadn’t entered the city alone, which meant …

“We have to plan it carefully,” he said, uncomfortably. Emily was his heroine. The idea of leaving her in enemy hands felt fundamentally wrong. And she knew far too much – Adam was certain she knew things she’d never shared – for anyone’s peace of mind. He wanted to believe she’d resist interrogation, that she could keep her secrets to herself, but he feared otherwise. Everyone broke, eventually. Arnold, damn the man, had said as much. “If we get ourselves captured too, it will be disastrous.”

“So I go alone,” Caleb said. “The rest of you go hide, or get help from outside the city …”

“We can’t get out of the city,” Lilith snapped.

“We’re magicians,” Caleb countered. “They won’t stop us leaving …”

“They will, if they are looking for us,” Sienna said. “They know how she entered, and who was with her.”

Hannah cleared her throat. “My Lady …”

Sienna winced, visibly. “You don’t need the honorifics,” she said. “My name is Sienna.”

“I …” Hannah swallowed and started again. “There is a tunnel out of the city.”

“If they haven’t closed it,” Caleb pointed out. “Do they know about it?”

Hannah flinched. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it wasn’t very well known.”

Adam could believe it. He knew some of Beneficence’s secrets, but not all of them. Celeste was an old city, the modern city built on the ruins of the old, which had been built on even older ruins. It was not impossible that a tunnel leading out of the city had remained undiscovered, if the few who knew of it had been killed, enslaved, or simply trapped in the ghetto. They could get out and then … he didn’t know. Could they bring an army into the city? Or …

There was a sharp knock on the outer door. “I’ll get it,” Hannah said. “Can you just … hide?”

Adam saw Sienna’s lips thin as she nodded, curtly. Hannah stood and stepped through the beaded curtain, Sienna and the other magicians preparing their spells in case the regime had somehow tracked them down. It should have been impossible, but … Adam reached into his pocket and found a handful of spell circuits, promising himself he’d sell his life dearly if they really had been discovered. If nothing else, he should be able to catch them by surprise.

Hannah returned, carrying a broadsheet. “You need to see this.”

Sienna took the paper and swore. “They’re going to put her on trial.”

“No,” Caleb said. “We can’t …”

Adam reached for the broadsheet and scanned the story twice, once to get the general gist and once to make sure he’d noted everything of importance. The regime had stated it had captured Lady Emily – the drawing of Emily was far from flattering, managing to convey the impression she was a very unpleasant person without ever quite slipping into caricature – and that it intended to put her on trial in two days, for crimes against the magical community. Adam would have been amused to note the list of offences included the development of magitech, if it hadn’t been so worrying. There was no reason to believe the trial would be even remotely fair. His eyes narrowed. The article had been written under Jane’s byline.

“They want to make a point by besting her,” Sienna said. “If they defeat and execute her …”

“Then we stop it,” Caleb said.

“It’s a trap,” Lilith said. “She’s the bait to lure us out of hiding.”

“Her and Jane,” Sienna agreed. “We have to be careful.”

“We have to save her,” Caleb argued. “We can’t let them kill her!”

“It’s a trap,” Adam mused.

“You went after Lilith,” Caleb snapped. “Didn’t you?”

Adam took a breath. “It is a trap, and they are expecting us to spring it,” he said. It couldn’t have been more obvious if they’d openly admitted it. “But if we can get out of the city, perhaps we can catch them by surprise.”

He leaned forward, and started to outline his plan.

 

Chapter Twenty-Three

Emily hated to admit it, but she was starting to lose track of time.

The cell was heavily warded, the power woven into the stone making it difficult – almost impossible – for her to do anything, at least not without a supreme effort of will. The metal wiring around her wrist seemed to drain her power, leaving her helpless to push back against the constant pressure on her mind, let alone infiltrate the spellware and turn it against its masters. It would have been more impressive, she noted sourly, if the cell wasn’t holding her. The constant urge to just sit down and remain still, without moving at all, was grinding down her ability to resist. She was afraid to risk going to sleep, despite the grim awareness that – sooner or later – her body was just collapse. She wasn’t sure if she’d be herself when she opened her eyes. Hell, she wasn’t even sure she hadn’t slept.

She forced herself to keep pacing, her mind endlessly reviewing the situation. Caleb should be safe, along with the rest of the team … she hoped, prayed, that Jane had made it clear before the fake Emily had dissolved into nothingness. She should be fine … hopefully. The others would think of something, she was sure, and then come for her … she told herself Sienna would take control, ensuring Caleb and Adam didn’t do something stupid. The simple fact she hadn’t been killed on the spot suggested the regime intended to use her as bait in a trap, a trap that Caleb might find impossible to resist. And if he came running …

Her heart clenched. She wished, for the first time, that she had allowed herself to share a marriage bond with him. It was difficult, almost impossible, to break such a bond without mutual agreement – or the death of one party – and she could use it to warn him to stay away. At the very least, he’d know she was still alive, perhaps even be able to track her down. And yet, she almost hoped he stayed away. He was a very capable magician, and he’d have Lilith and Sienna beside him, and Adam was a wild card … but the regime would be waiting. She shuddered to think what they’d do to him, to all of them, if they were captured. Adam would be murdered on the spot, Lilith turned into breeding stock, Sienna and Caleb … they’d probably be murdered too.

Guilt flooded through her mind. She’d messed up and gotten herself captured, and if they didn’t stay well clear they were going to be captured too.

The door clicked, then opened. Emily had to fight to move her hands to cover herself, even through the lethargy pressing down on her made it hard to care she was naked. A pair of young woman entered, slave collars clearly visible around their necks; one carried a washbasin brimming with steaming water, the other a towel and a simple white dress that reminded her of a wedding gown. It was rare for magicians to wear white … she guessed, grimly, that it was intended to make her stand out, and not in a good way. The slaves advanced robotically, their eyes so dead Emily feared they’d been collared for years. She didn’t offer any resistance as the leader started to scrub her down, as if she were unable to move a muscle herself; she merely gritted her teeth and forced herself to wait. The second slave dried her immediately afterwards, then dropped the dress over her head. It was so baggy she couldn’t help thinking of a nightgown. It really was going to make her stand out.

The pressure on her mind slackened, just slightly, as the slaves took her arms and gently towed her through the door. Emily felt weak, as if she was almost painfully hungry; it was hard, very hard, to clear her mind to the point she could think straight. The antechamber was as bare and barren as the cell, the bland stone walls pulsing with raw power. Resolute stood there, his arms crossed and his face grim. Boswell lurked behind him, practically blending into the wall.

“I do trust you are going to behave yourself,” he said. “We don’t want to put you in chains, but we will.”

Emily glowered. She hadn’t felt so weak since a bout of fever, many years ago. Her body was too drained to offer any resistance, let alone anything that might be effective. It was hard to think clearly and harder still to meet his eyes, all too aware she’d lost track of time so completely she had no idea how long she’d been in the cell. Days? Weeks? She hadn’t had her period, but that was meaningless. She’d taken potions to pause her body’s natural cycle. It would take at least two to three months for her body to return to normal … proof, she supposed, that she couldn’t have been a prisoner for more than a week at most. Her hair hadn’t grown out either.

“Noted,” she managed. Her mouth felt dry. “Do you have something for me to eat and drink, or are you bent on starving me to death?”

Resolute allowed himself a grim smile. “Ask. Politely.”

Emily scowled. It was a power play, a painfully obvious trick to force her into dependence … the sort of trick, she noted, that suggested a certain basic insecurity. It galled her to ask for anything, and yet she had no idea how long it had been since she’d last eaten. The spells surrounding the cell could have kept her alive, at a cost. She wasn’t disposed to pay it.

“Please can I have some food,” she said. “And something to drink.”

Resolute clapped his hands. A third slave entered, carrying a tray. Emily’s stomach twisted painfully as she saw the food, a rice and meat concoction that looked painfully inedible. She wasn’t sure if it was another power play, or a tacit admission the city was running out of food, but it didn’t matter. She took the tray, sat on the floor and forced herself to eat, washing it down with clear – almost tasteless – water. Resolute watched her silently, his eyes never leaving her. It was hard to know what he was thinking.

He said nothing until she was finished, then spoke with cold certainty. “It has been decided that you will stand trial for crimes against the magical community,” he said. “Given the nature of these charges, it has been decided that you will be expected to speak for yourself. Your own words will condemn you, in front of our people and the world beyond. Should you refuse to speak, we will move immediately to judgement.”

“I do so love a fair trial,” Emily said, sarcastically. “Do you think this is the first time I have been put on trial?”

Resolute ignored her. “The trial will start in two hours. You will be informed of the charges then, and asked to present your defence. Judgment will follow afterwards, with the sentencing taking place immediately. The witnesses will carry word of your trial – and the outcome – to the rest of the city.”

Emily felt her blood run cold. It was a trap. Her trial would have been announced to the entire world, giving Caleb and the team notice that they would only have once chance to free her before the kangaroo court passed sentence, a sentence everyone knew from the start would be nothing less than death. She wondered, grimly, if that was the point, or if they’d do worse than merely kill her. A mimic could die in her place, while the Hierarchy took her and slowly – and carefully – ground her brain to mush, removing all of her secrets before they finally disposed of what was left of her body. And who knew what they’d do with her most dangerous ideas?

“I’m sure the outer world will be very impressed,” she managed, finally. “A trial in which the verdict is known from the start, held without any sort of legal counsel.”

“Yes,” Resolute agreed. “It will convince them of just how far we are prepared to go.”

Emily shivered, again, as Resolute turned and left the chamber. She had never been comfortable with the idea of being a symbol, all too aware that every other symbol in human history – from Julius Caesar to Mother Teresa, Gandhi to Barrack Obama – had been massively disappointing, when they’d lived long enough to turn from hero to villain, and yet she was all too aware she had become a symbol. The people who idolised her had never met her – Adam had had trouble reconciling his mental impression of her with the reality – but it might not matter, if the regime killed her. They’d take action … or, perhaps, they would be cowed. If Emily had beaten the necromancers, and the regime had killed her …

“The trial will be held in the upper courtroom,” Boswell said. Emily jumped. She’d forgotten he was there. “You will be escorted into the chamber and placed in the dock. The witnesses will be permitted to enter afterwards, at which point the charges will be read and the trial will begin …”

Emily tried to tune him out, her thoughts elsewhere. Boswell didn’t seem to notice – or care. He ran through the rest of his statement, then turned and left the chamber himself. Emily reached for the empty mug of water, intent on throwing it at his back, but it was hard to convince her hand to move and by the time she’d picked it up it was too late. The door was firmly closed. She forced herself to stand and lean against the wall, reaching out with her mind in a final desperate attempt to hack the spellware, but nothing happened. The wards were utterly unresponsive. She reached out to open the door, in hopes it might have been left unlocked, but it refused to open. She cursed under her breath as she realised she was clutching at straws, straws no competent opponent would leave for her to pick up. The necromancers had been insane. Their madness had left gaps in their defences, chinks she could exploit to take them down. Resolute might be a fascist, but he wasn't insane.

Which makes him all the more culpable, Emily thought, coldly. He is sane enough to know what he is doing is wrong.

She waited, helplessly, agonisingly aware of every ticking second. She had written the legal procedures of Cockatrice and Heart’s Eye – the accused had the presumption of innocence, as well as the right to be informed of the charges against him well before he actually faced a court – but she knew better than to expect any such consideration here. The thought ran through her mind time and time again. She was going to be found guilty of a crime she hadn’t committed, a crime that was nothing of the sort, and she was going to be executed … or, at the very least her, death was going to be faked, convincing the world she was dead. And her trial would serve as a trap …

Please don’t come, Emily thought, desperately. She knew better than to think Caleb would let the trial pass without trying to rescue her, but it was a trap. Perhaps Sienna would have the sense to stun him, to save his life. He’d hate his mother afterwards, but at least he’d be alive to hate her. Please. Stay away.

It felt like days before the door opened again, revealing a pair of grim-faced guards. Emily offered no resistance as they escorted her out of the cell, their bodies so close she could feel them towering over her. Her lips quirked in grim amusement – it was a sign the regime was nowhere near as powerful as it claimed; a powerful magician didn’t need to look like a brute to intimidate people – but it was also a grim warning of what would happen if she tried to escape. The pressure on her mind slackened still further as she was led down the corridor, allowing her to think clearly, yet it wasn’t enough to let her remove the wristband. Her fingers refused to even touch it.

There were only a handful of people in the corridors, stepping aside to allow them to pass. Emily could feel eyes watching her, some glorying in her downfall and others grimly aware it could happen to them too. Her heart clenched as she spotted Katherine and Lucy, escorted by a stern-faced woman, their eyes going wide when they saw her. Emily shuddered in disgust. What sort of father would allow their daughter to see such an atrocity? Emily hoped her trial would be the first crack in Katherine’s armour, the first hint that all was not right … something that would lead her to question what she was being told and perhaps take action against her father. It was rare in the Nameless World, and regarded as sinful – there were people who scorned Alassa for opposing her father, even though her father had started the conflict – but who knew? Perhaps Katherine would challenge her father openly, when she realised she had been lied to …

She pushed the thought out of her head as she was marched up a flight of stairs and into a colossal courtroom, so large it dominated the upper levels. The roof was transparent, revealing the courtroom was at the very top of the Citadel. Emily wondered if that was a mistake on their part, making it difficult – if not impossible – for anyone to reach the courtroom without fighting their way up the stairs. The trap wouldn’t be sprung if someone took a careful look at the situation, decided victory was impossible and left her to her fate. Caleb wouldn’t, but Sienna might. Emily hoped to hell she would do just that.

The guards shoved her into the dock and stepped aside, their faces expressionless. Emily allowed her eyes to wander the courtroom as she waited, spotting the judge’s seat, the jury box and the row upon row of seats for reporters and witnesses. The doors opened, allowing a tidal wave of people to flood into the chamber. Emily looked for familiar faces, but saw none. She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or not. The only real chance of getting her out was to sneak in with the crowd, but it would be one hell of a risk. Her eyes darted across the reporters and frowned. Jane was there, her face blank. Emily gritted her teeth. If Jane was part of a bid to free her …

Resolute strode into the room to loud cheers and made his way to the judge’s chair. It was remarkably like a throne. Boswell appeared behind him, barely visible in the shadows. Resolute motioned for quiet – the crowd quietened so quickly that Emily knew it had been rehearsed – and then nodded to the speaker. He stepped forward, produced a large roll of parchment and started to read.

“Lady Emily, you have been summoned here to answer charges of crimes against the magical community,” he said. Emily hid her annoyance with an effort. He was addressing the crowd, not speaking to her. “You gave mundanes the secret of magic. You installed a MageMaster at Mountaintop. You developed a university” – he made the word a curse – “that convinced mundanes they could work with magicians. You infiltrated this Citadel and broke into some of our most secret locations. You …”

Emily tried not to roll her eyes too openly as the list of charges grew longer, ranging from the semi-true to the absurd or even impossible. The crowd remained silent until the recitation was finished, then burst into a chorus of boos and angry shouts that suggested they’d tear her into bloody chunks if they had a chance. Resolute let them howl their rage for a minute or two, then raised his hands for silence. Quiet fell, at once. Emily wasn’t surprised. If there was anyone in the chamber who hadn’t been told exactly what they were to do, and when, she would be astonished.

The Speaker turned to her. “Lady Emily. Do you wish to enter a plea?”

Emily had given the matter some thought. If it had been a fair trial, she could have put forward some very good arguments. She could have defended what she’d done, and put it in context; she could have pointed out the things she hadn’t done, if indeed they’d been done at all. But it wasn’t a fair trial and there was no point in pretending otherwise.

“No.”

There was a long pause. The Speaker seemed surprised. “No?”

“No,” Emily said. “There is not a fair trial. I will not pretend it is, for your sake, and I will take no further part in this farce.”

Resolute purpled. “You have been summoned here to face the judgement of …”

“Spare me,” Emily said. A rustle ran through the air. Whatever script they’d been given, she clearly wasn’t following it. “You no more speak for the magical community than I do.”

“If you refuse to answer the charges, we will move straight to judgement,” Resolute said, warningly. “You face the judgement of your entire community.”

Emily crossed her arms over her breasts and waited, wondering what they’d do. Kill her on the spot? Sentence her to death and then fake it, allowing the Hierarchy to keep her alive? Would they kill all the witnesses, to hide what had happened? Jane seemed unmoved, her face so blank Emily feared she was under a spell. The rest of the audience might be murdered, or charmed into believing she’d thrown herself onto the regime’s mercy. Or …

They have to prolong the trial if they want to use me as bait, she told herself. But I don’t have to make it easy for them.

And then a shadow fell over the chamber.

 

Chapter Twenty-Four: Adam/Emily

Adam allowed himself a sigh of relief as the airship descended on the Citadel.

It had been easy enough to borrow the airship, but harder – far harder – to fly over the city without being detected. The airship was smaller than the one he’d helped to design and fly, but it was still large and incredibly loud. He’d had to modify the spell circuits running around the gasbag to create a combination of invisibility, obscurification and silencing spells, a combination that worked – in theory – but was dangerously imperfect when someone stood right next to the object he was trying to hide. The shimmer in the air was unmistakable. It had taken him hours to be sure the airship would be largely unnoticeable from the ground, and even then he had his doubts. A lone pitchfork or broomstick rider crashing into the invisible airship would doom them all.

Sienna leaned forward, her eyes sweeping over the Citadel. “Now!”

Adam nodded, triggering the crude magiwriter. A surge of raw magic crashed down, hiding a number of spells that were decidedly unsubtle, but should be powerful enough to take down the defending wards through brute force. No one ever looked up, he’d been told, and the concept of someone actually dropping down from high above had been practically unknown, only a few short months ago. Sure, people talked about witches landing on rooftops and cursing the people underneath, but it rarely happened. No one in their right minds would ride a pitchfork into a battle, not when a simple cancellation spell could and would send them plummeting to the ground. That too had changed, in the last few months.

The Citadel shuddered violently, the upper wards trying to stand off the wave of magic. Adam could feel the air tingle – Lilith, far more sensitive to magic in himself, grunted in pain – as rivets of magic flowed downwards, the remnants of the wards working desperately to starve off total disaster. Adam saw flashes of light as the raw magic interacted with other spells, saw the air shimmer as the magic turned chaotic … he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw people running for their lives, rather than staying where they were and letting the magic wash over them. There were horror stories about what happened to people caught in a raw magic flux and none ended well, to the point the victims who died immediately were the lucky ones. He pulled back as he saw the second set of spells breaking the wards completely, then steered the airship down. The glass cupola shattered under the impact, sending the people below fleeing for cover. Adam’s eyes flashed from person to person, trying to pick out Emily and Jane. Emily herself was in the dock – Adam’s temper flared; how dare they put her on trial? – but there was no sign of Jane.

“Move,” Sienna said.

She cast a series of spells, aiming them through the magic haze surrounding the airship and pointing them down at the crowd. The sorcerers were casting spells back, hurling wave after wave of charms, hexes and curses at the airship, all of which evaporated uselessly when they struck the haze. Adam was surprised they hadn’t considered more effective responses, but airships were a relatively new concept. It wouldn’t be long before they came up with something drastic, once they got over their panic. There were signs the guards were already organising themselves, half shielding their comrades while the remainder threw spells at the airship.

He heard a screeching sound and turned, just in time to see an iron giant scrambling up the Citadel walls and heading straight for them, moving with an inhuman grace that belied its inhuman nature. Adam felt a surge of professional jealousy as the mechanical creature came into view, wondering why he and the others at Heart’s Eye hadn’t come up with their own iron giants. There’d be very real problems controlling the device – he’d honestly thought there was a man inside the armour, at least until Emily corrected him – and yet the regime had clearly come up with a solution. He considered it absently, as he adjusted the bomb rack; Lilith cast the guidance spells, then nodded. Adam launched a bomb into space, bracing himself for disaster as the device passed through the haze. If her spells came apart … they didn’t. The bomb struck the iron giant and exploded, sending the mechanical monster tumbling backwards and crashing to the ground. Adam felt the airship quiver – the explosion had been far too close – and gritted his teeth. The enemy would get more creative, as they got over their shock.

Lilith tapped his shoulder. “Here they come!”

Adam followed her gaze. Five pitchforks were flying towards them, moving at terrifying speed. The riders were casting spells frantically, their charms sparkling into nothingness as they sank into the haze. Adam eyed them warily. Most magicians had very real problems coping when their powers didn’t work, or were unable to solve their problem, but stupid magicians rarely survived long enough to pose a problem. The enemy could see their spells weren’t working, which meant … what? Were they trying to distract them? Or ….

A wave of heat brushed against his skin. The enemy were heating the air, assuming the warmth would pass right through the haze … he would have been more impressed with their ingenuity if he hadn’t known it could easily end badly. The heat was already making him sweat, which meant it wouldn’t be long until the glue holding the gasbag together started to melt or the gas inside expanded or exploded. He wouldn’t mind crashing the airship onto the Citadel – if it took out the regimes leaders, it would be worth it – but he didn’t want Lilith to die. He reached for a rifle, pointed it through the murder holes in the hull and opened fire. He wasn’t a great shot – modern tactics relied more on putting out vast numbers of bullets than accuracy – but it forced the flyers to defend themselves. Lilith muttered a charm beside him, trying to cancel the spells holding the broomsticks in flight. It didn’t seem to work. Adam gritted his teeth. If the regime had found a countermeasure to that, what else could they do?

“Keep shooting,” Sienna barked. “They’re bringing in more flyers!”

Adam nodded, and glanced down. They were running out of time.

***

Emily barely had a second to realise what was about to happen before the wave of raw magic slammed down, followed rapidly by the airship gondola crashing into the cupola. The wristband, ironically, gave her a certain degree of protection; the surge of raw magic was disorientating, but not enough to put her out of the fight. The others weren’t so lucky: she saw men and women throwing up violently, or clawing at their own eyes, or simply running for their life. They’d assumed that any rescue party would have to fight its way up from the ground, not come crashing in from overhead. Emily smiled as she ducked down, avoiding pieces of debris flying in all directions. A line of sorcerers were trying to take the airship down, something that made her roll her eyes. If they managed to break the charms, and destroy the gasbag holding the airship aloft, the craft would come crashing down on their heads. They wouldn’t have a hope of getting out before it was too late.

She caught sight of Resolute, his eyes wide with horror as he cast spell after spell at the airship. The building shook violently, more debris crashing down in the distance; Emily hoped, suddenly, that Katherine had been escorted out the moment the chaos started. Resolute glanced at her – their eyes met, sharply – and then gestured. Two guards appeared behind her, so inhumanly tough that Emily was certain they’d used magic to enhance their muscles. Their proportions were all wrong, caricatures of humans that reminded her of orcs. She braced herself, then turned and drove her foot into the nearest one’s groin. He grunted and bent over, falling to the ground as if the world was moving in slow motion. Emily guessed he’d tried to enhance his genitals too. That never ended well. His partner darted forward, grabbing at her arm. Emily forced herself to move backwards, her legs feeling weak as more magic cascaded around the room …

And Caleb came down on a rope, crashing his feet right into the guard.

Emily stared, feeling a rush of awe and naked affection. It was something she would have expected from Jade or Cat, not Caleb. He was holding a wand in one hand, connected to a battery; she barely had a second to realise what was happening before he cast a large-scale magic cancelling spell, making the entire building shudder. The Citadel was held together by magic and that meant it could collapse at any second, taking the regime’s leadership with it. If they didn’t get out in time, they’d die too.

Caleb caught her arm and examined the wristband. Emily gasped in pain as it started to tighten, the metal digging into her skin and threatening to slice off her hand. Magic sparked as Caleb rammed power into the cursed wristband, tearing the charms apart and then removing it from her arm. Emily saw droplets of blood on her bare skin and cursed under her breath. She’d come very close to losing the hand.

“Hang on,” Caleb said, sharply. “We need to go.”

Emily nodded, trying to reach for her magic. It felt utterly drained, as if she’d cast a spell so powerful she’d come alarmingly close to burning herself out. A flash of fear ran through her at the thought … the regime had intended to kill her, it wouldn’t have particularly cared if her magic had been burnt out beforehand … she gritted her teeth and wrapped her arms around him, allowing him to yank her into the air. The world below fell away as they were winched into the airship – she caught sight of guards aiming curses at them, she saw nothing of Resolute and Boswell – and dumped on the deck. Sienna gave her a quick inspection, then nodded curtly. Emily saw the flicker of relief in her eyes and nodded back. It had been a very close run thing – and they weren’t out of the woods yet.

“Get us moving,” Sienna snapped. The airship shuddered as something exploded, a little too close for comfort. “Lilith, get into position for our escape!”

She glanced at Emily. “Can you walk? Cast?”

“Walk, yes,” Emily managed. Her body felt weak, but she knew the alternative was being recaptured or killed. She forced herself to stand straighter, something that took an effort of will. She hated to admit weakness, but there was no choice. “My magic is drained.”

Sienna glanced at Caleb. “Get her to the hatch,” she ordered. “We’re running out of time.”

Caleb nodded. “Got it.”

Emily had to smile, even though she knew she was little more than dead weight. Caleb had to help her walk down the metal corridor, the airship creaking as the engines tried to propel it away from the Citadel. The interior was larger than she’d expected, half the gear she assumed had been loaded into the craft offloaded again before she embarked on the rescue mission, but it still felt disturbingly cramped. Her legs buckled as they reached the rear hatch, a handful of makeshift rockets and fireworks resting by the metal door. Caleb held her gently, but firmly. Emily leaned back into his embrace.

“You came for me,” she said. She’d feared the worst. She’d prayed he’d realise it was a trap and stay away, even if it meant her death. And yet, he’d not only come for her, he’d found a way to do it that had actually worked. No matter the outcome, the regime’s complacency would not survive this day. There was no way they could cover it up, or pretend it was anything other than a total disaster. “You did!”

Caleb leaned forward and kissed her, then pulled back. “Would now be a good idea to tell you it was Adam’s idea?”

Emily laughed, and kissed him again.

***

“They’re sending in more flyers,” Lilith called. “I think they’re getting desperate.”

Adam nodded. He’d hit one flyer through sheer luck, but the rest were ducking and dodging in a manner that made hitting them impossible, unless they accidentally steered into the path of a bullet. They’d cast a handful of shield charms too, making it even harder to hit anything. He wasn’t sure how they were doing it without killing themselves in the process, but they very clearly were. And they were adjusting their spells to threaten the airship itself.

He took the wheel and gunned the engine, cursing under his breath. The airship was smaller than Voidsdaughter, but she was no faster nor manoeuvrable. There was no way they could outrace the pitchforks, and the moment they moved away from the Citadel they’d be vulnerable to attacks the enemy hadn’t dared use yet, for fear the airship would crash on their heads. If the escape plan failed …

The Citadel started to recede behind them, the fairy-tale castle wavering oddly … a handful of towers collapsed into dust, as if they were nothing more than sandcastles caught by the incoming tide. Adam suspected the defenders were trying desperately to keep the rest of the building from collapsing, at least until they got everyone out. He spotted a stream of people running for their lives, heading away from the airship as if they feared it brought death and destruction with it. His lips twisted. It would do them good to feel the fear mundanes felt every time they encountered a magician, the awareness they could be turned into toads – or worse – by an enemy they couldn’t even begin to fight. Hell, the airship would be worse. Magic had existed since the dawn of time itself.. The airships were barely a few months old.

Lilith looked up, her face grim. “They’re still coming.”

Adam nodded, the roar of the engines growing louder as the airship headed north, passing over some of the larger homes and mansions. The regime might claim to have abolished class distinctions amongst magicians, but the reality was a little different … Adam was mildly surprised the upper-class magicians, even those resident in Celeste, had chosen to go along with the regime. Perhaps the large houses were empty, or perhaps they’d just decided to pretend the regime wasn’t there. It wouldn’t be the first time an aristo had allowed himself to pretend nothing had changed. There were still tutors at Heart’s Eye who appeared to believe the school hadn’t changed at all, despite everything that had happened between a necromancer taking control and Emily turning it into a university.

Idiots, he thought. Lilith’s father, at least, had finally accepted things had changed. Others had not. The world will move on, with or without them.

Something moved, coming right at them. Adam barely had a moment to realise what had happened before the rock – thrown by magic, rather than propelled – slammed into the rear gasbag, tearing it open and starting a fire. Adam cursed as a wave of vertigo ran through him, their airship pitching violently as the engines fought to overcome gravity itself. The struggle was futile, he realised numbly. They were lucky the gasbag hadn’t exploded. As it was, they had bare minutes – at best – before they hit the ground.

He locked the controls in place, then left his seat and hurried to the rear hatch. The magiwriter hummed as he cast a pair of spells, the same combination of invisibility and obscurification he’d used earlier, to cover their fall as they jumped to safely. Caleb was holding Emily tightly – Adam knew, now, that Caleb was genuinely worthy of her – while his mother prepped the rockets and fireworks. Lilith held her hand up, ready to cast the spell she’d prepared. Adam braced himself as he removed the amulet around his neck and tossed it aside, knowing it was too dangerous to carry now. They’d done the trick before, as a matter of desperate improvising, and they were all too aware it could go horrendously wrong.

The airship lurched again. Gravity seemed to twist … Adam realised, to his horror, that the gondola had started to come loose. They were about to literally fall out of the sky. There was no longer any time to waste. He keyed the switch, launching the rockets and fireworks into the air, then nodded to Lilith. His entire body froze as the lower hull vaporised, sending them falling down into an estate. The force of the impact shocked him, despite the charm. It hadn’t felt so rough the last time he’d done it. But then, Lilith had had to cast the spell on all of them, including herself. He hoped she hadn’t accidentally frozen herself and the others permanently, or they’d be in deep shit. The regime would laugh itself silly when it caught them.

His body jerked, then collapsed into a heap as the spell broke. Adam forced himself to stand, just in time to see the airship plough into a distant mansion and explode into a colossal fireball. The flames reached high, the handful of potions they’d left behind consuming magic and converting it into a blaze that would be difficult, if not impossible, to quench. If they were lucky, the regime wouldn’t realise they’d bailed out. The fireworks should have made it harder for the flyers to focus on the telltale signs of an obscurification charm. There was a very good chance the regime would assume they were all dead.

Lilith giggled. “It worked!”

Adam grinned and kissed her. “Did you think it wouldn’t?”

Sienna cleared her throat. “We have to move,” she said, sharply. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Five

“I thought I’d lost you,” Caleb said.

Emily held him gently, as they lay together in bed. The flight to the apothecary had been surprisingly easy, given all the chaos on the streets. The regime’s agents had been running around like chickens with their heads cut off, some heading north to fight the fires and others either trying to help save the Citadel or perhaps even make matters worse. She’d eaten something as soon as they reached the shop, then had a shower and gone to bed. With him. Sienna was going to be very sarcastic, of course, but Emily found it hard to care. Caleb and the team had risked everything to save her, and they had.

“You saved my life,” Emily said. She nuzzled closer to him, feeling a rush of affection. “If not for you …”

She glanced at her wrist, feeling cold. Caleb had given the wristband to Adam and Lilith for study, assuming they weren’t in bed themselves. Emily had barely had time to inspect the shop they’d stolen, but there was a surprising amount of room … the former owners, apparently, had been a large family. She made a mental note to look into just what they’d been doing, before the regime had taken power. Caleb’s explanation had made little sense.

“You’re alive,” Caleb said. “And Jane?”

“I don’t know,” Emily admitted. “She was at my trial, but …”

She grimaced. Jane could be keeping her head down, pretending she’d been tricked while gathering material for their next story. Or she could be enchanted … Emily hadn’t seen a collar around Jane’s neck, but that was meaningless. She was a mere student, one who could easily be compelled by an older magician … she might be so deeply enchanted she didn’t know what was happening to her. Emily suspected the regime wasn’t keen to suggest it might enslave magicians – that would be asking for trouble – but she was sure they’d do it if they thought they had no choice. Or that they could get away with it.

“They put her name on the article announcing your trial,” Caleb said. “Did she write it?”

Emily shrugged. She didn’t know. She’d read the article later, and compare it to the others Jane had written, but in truth there was just no way to be sure. They hadn’t had time to come up with ways to slip messages into broadsheet articles … they were lucky, she knew, that Jane didn’t know anything about the apothecary. If she had, the place would have already been raided. And that would have been the end.

“We’ll have to get her out,” she said. “But after your daring attack …”

She closed her eyes, forcing herself to recall everything she’d seen beneath the Citadel. It had been a nightmarish set of atrocities, with no disenable purpose beyond gathering and storing magic. It struck her as fundamentally wasteful as well as horrific, as if the regime was prepared to accept losing a little power in exchange for storing it within a living body. She made a mental note to sit down with Adam and work out precisely what had happened when he’d become an infused man. Perhaps they could turn the infused men into a weapon against the regime.

Caleb reached for her. “You want to …”

Emily hesitated, then glanced at the window. It was mid-morning and that meant … she shook her head reluctantly, forcing herself to stand and walk into the shower. The water felt heavenly, after she’d been held captive. Caleb joined her, helping to scrub down her back in return for her doing the same for him. Emily felt relaxed, in a way she couldn’t quite put into words. She felt comfortable with Caleb, in a manner she’d never felt before. And that meant …

“Your mother is going to have a fit,” she said, as she dried herself. Her magic still felt weak, but she could feel her power slowly regenerating. “What are you going to say to her?”

Caleb snorted, turning to allow the water to rinse the soap. “I’m not under her roof any longer,” he said, dryly. “She doesn’t get to complain about what I do outside her house now.”

He turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. “If she disapproved of you, she would have said so,” he added. “We’re not that closely tied to any of the major families, and there are no political implications to our relationship, but … she would say something if she thought it was a bad idea. She told Casper” – there was a hint of pain in his voice as he remembered his older brother – “that one of his girlfriends was a very poor choice indeed.”

“Ouch,” Emily said. “And what happened?”

“They broke up,” Caleb said. “The last I heard, she was married to some merchant in Beneficence.”

Emily said nothing as she walked into the bedroom and dressed in clean clothes. Sienna had told her to think about the future, reminding her that she had an obligation to make up her mind about just where their relationship was going. She was unsure … no, that wasn’t quite true. There was a part of her that liked the idea of settling down with him, and living together in cosy domestic bliss. Her lips quirked at the thought as she inspected herself in the mirror. There was nothing in her life that suggested she’d have a peaceful career, no matter what she did. Caleb might find himself caught up in her life …

He already is, she corrected herself. And he accepts it.

“We had to steal outfits from the shop-thief,” Caleb said, as he dressed himself. “Do they fit?”

“They’ll do,” Emily said. She’d never really cared to make sure her clothes fitted perfectly, even though she’d learnt from Alassa that a decent tailor or dressmaker could work wonders. “And you?”

“Itch a little, but I’ll survive,” Caleb said.

He grinned at her as they headed downstairs. The shop really was surprisingly large, with a kitchen and living room on the second floor and a basement under the shop, where the transfigured shop-thieves were being held. Emily would have had more sympathy for them if she hadn’t heard from Adam about how they’d treated Hannah, regarding her as a cross between a slave and a pet than a person in her own right. As it was … they deserved a great deal worse. She was morbidly sure of it.

“Emily,” Sienna said. She sat at the kitchen table, studying a broadsheet. Her voice was carefully neutral. “Caleb.”

Emily kept her face under tight control. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

“Thank Caleb, and Adam.” Sienna scowled. “The idea of using an airship never occurred to me.”

“It didn’t occur to the regime either,” Emily said. There were a hundred airship projects, and perhaps more, across the continent; she wondered, suddenly, if there was a project in Celeste. They might not be purely magical devices, but she was certain the regime would overlook such details if it thought it needed airships. “It won’t work a second time.”

“No, particularly as we were effectively holding their own people hostage,” Sienna agreed, dryly. “They couldn’t risk bringing the airship down on the heads.”

Emily couldn’t disagree. “How did you manage to get the airship over the city?”

“We used magitech charms,” Caleb said. “That won’t work twice either.”

Adam and Lilith entered, their faces slightly flushed and their lips puffy. Emily felt her own cheeks heat, wondering if her lips were puffy too. Hannah joined them, her eyes flickering from face to face until they landed on Emily. Emily felt a stab of sympathy for the fear in the girl’s eyes. She could have been great, at Heart’s Eye, but instead she was trapped in Celeste.

“There’s a charm on the door that will alert us if we have any customers,” Hannah said, although no one had asked. Emily winced inwardly. That wasn’t a good sign. “We don’t normally have many until lunchtime.”

“Good,” Sienna said. She tapped the table, clearing her throat in a manner intended to call the meeting to order. “Emily, you start. What did you find under the Citadel?”

Emily took a moment to compose herself, then carefully outlined everything from the magitech devices – Adam passed her a notebook; she sketched out as much as possible – to the infused men and the wired magicians. It wasn’t easy to detail what had happened after she’d been captured, through she went through it as best she could. She’d have to use a memory charm later to complete her recollections, in hopes of working out how the magitech devices actually worked. It was clear the regime – and the Hierarchy – had taken the original concepts and run with them in a very different manner to Heart’s Eye. If their devices could be hacked …

Adam leaned forward. “There were men wired into magitech devices? They weren’t prisoners?”

“I don’t think so,” Emily said. The slaves had been chained up well past the point of absurdity – or paranoia. “Did they agree to be wired into the machines?”

“It might have been more than that,” Adam said. He stared down at his notebook. “We wondered how the iron giants were controlled, right? What if the wired magicians are the controllers?”

Emily blinked, then mentally kicked herself for not thinking of it first. She had the concept of remote control, while Adam lacked it; there were few, if any, spells that could be said to genuinely serve as a form of remote control. And yet … she cursed under her breath as she realised the regime had combined a handful of her innovations, from chat parchments to power conduits, to create magical drones that could be operated from a distance, by someone who was well clear of any possible danger. Adam was right, she realised numbly. The iron giants weren’t autonomous. They were controlled from a safe distance.

“You might be right,” she said. She had a nasty feeling he was. “And those links are very difficult to disrupt.”

Lilith smiled at Adam. Hannah glanced at her, an unreadable expression darting across her face, and then looked away again. Emily made a mental note to talk to the girl later, although she suspected it would be difficult to forge any kind of bond with her. Hannah was just too scared of magicians, even now. She was sitting in a manner that suggested she very much wanted to run.

“I’d say impossible,” Caleb said. “How do you break a chat parchment bloodlink?”

“That’s easy,” Lilith said. “You destroy the parchment.”

“And this parchment is inside an iron monster,” Caleb pointed out. “How do we get close enough to take it out?”

Emily considered the problem, thoughtfully. The anti-teleport wards pervading the city would probably prevent her from using a teleport spell to crack one in half. That trick had worked the last time, but if Adam was correct and the iron giant had been controlled by someone hundreds of miles away the regime would know what had happened and ensure it couldn’t happen again. It wouldn’t be that hard to add a disruptor matrix to the design, ensuring the teleport spell couldn’t take shape and form. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the other implications. She had assumed no one, save for Marah, knew what had happened when they’d confronted Virgil. It was quite possible the mystery operator knew too.

“Gunpowder might work,” Adam pointed out. “Or a shaped charge.”

“It might,” Emily said, although she wasn’t so sure. Most magicians tended to dismiss mundane threats, but the regime had just discovered the hard way how dangerous mundanes could be. “We’d have to lure it into a trap.”

“I hit one with a bomb,” Adam said. “It certainly did some damage.”

“We don’t know that,” Sienna cautioned. “We know it was blown off the building and sent crashing to the ground, but we don’t know how badly it was damaged.”

“It must have been,” Adam said. “We hit it.”

Emily had no idea. It was hard to imagine anything surviving a direct hit, but she knew local bombs were nowhere near as destructive as the ones she’d seen on the news back home. The blast might have been largely ineffectual, or the iron giant might have been designed to survive a hit that would have killed an ordinary man. There were shield charms that might have deflected much of the blast, freeze spells that could have preserved the delicate innards from being damaged or destroyed. For all she knew, the charms were designed to absorb the force and channel it into its power supply. Sienna had a point. They needed to know just how badly the iron giant had been damaged, and there was no way to find out.

Jane could have asked around, Emily thought. The younger girl had a positive gift for getting people to talk to her, from Katherine and her father to suspicious elder magicians who regarded her as little better than a rumourmonger or tattletale. What the hell happened to her?

“There might be a way to take one down,” Adam said, studying the diagram he’d drawn out in his notebook. “If we could get a look inside …”

“Or even attack the operator through the bloodlink,” Lilith added. “They have to be blurring their minds into the devices, right?”

“Probably,” Emily said. The operators would be working at one remove, limiting their reaction time … perhaps. Adam had a point, she thought. They needed to know what they were really dealing with. “But the trick is getting through their defences.”

“Or turning the defences against them,” Caleb put in. He reached for the notebook and sketched out an idea of his own. “Their antimagic defences rely on magic. We could use magitech to drain their power, weakening their defences. It should work, with a little bit of luck.”

Emily smiled as the brainstorming session started in earnest, everyone contributing ideas and suggestions to the group. She’d forgotten how much she enjoyed discussing magical theory and applications, when she had a good team and everyone pulled their weight. Adam and Lilith made a strong pair, she noted absently; they each had strengths that made up for their weaknesses. Sienna was quietly, only offering a comment when it became clear the idea wouldn’t work or was completely impractical; Hannah said nothing, save for offering suggestions about prepping ingredients for experimental potions. Emily’s heart went out to the poor girl. She deserved so much better.

She caught Caleb’s eye and smiled. It was so much like how things had been, when they’d been getting to know each other for the first time. She had loved how they’d shared ideas, their minds meeting in a way their bodies hadn’t … yet. She wondered how different things would have been, if they hadn’t had their breakup. Would they be married by now? Or would Void have told her to wait, so she could concentrate on her apprenticeship? Or …

Sienna tapped the table, sharply. “These are good ideas,” she said, indicating the notebooks. They’d filled a dozen pages with ideas, from the practical to the absurd or simply unworkable. “But there is a question you need to answer, and that’s this. What is our ultimate goal?”

“To beat the regime,” Adam said, immediately. “To destroy it, before it can spread.”

“That won’t be easy,” Sienna said. “This isn’t some lunatic king hell-bent on expanding his domain, nor is it a necromancer in desperate need of souls to consume. The regime is an idea, the belief that magicians have the right to rule mundanes, and defeating it will not be as simple as lopping off a handful of heads. What do we intend to do?”

Emily made a face. “The regime mustn’t just be beaten, it must be discredited,” she said. “And it must happen in a manner that doesn’t make matters worse.”

“Yes,” Sienna said. “So how are we going to do it?”

“We could work to destroy their wardcrafter device,” Emily mused. “And then open up a portal from the ghetto to Heart’s Eye, get everyone out as quickly as possible. See how the regime copes when there’s no one left to do the dirty work.”

Caleb cocked his head. “They’d just use housecleaning charms, wouldn’t they?”

“They have mundanes doing more than just cleaning,” Emily said. Hannah could not be the only mundane who was chopping up potions ingredients and cleaning cauldrons for a magical supervisor. She shuddered to think how many slaves might be doing more than just cooking and cleaning … her stomach twisted, painfully, as she considered the possibilities. “If they are denied their labour …”

Adam leaned forward. “We can use some magitech to give the mundanes a chance,” he added, softly. “Even a handful of charged wands and protective amulets would make a difference, in the right place.”

“Start planning it,” Emily said. They’d lost most of their supplies when the apartment had been raided. She had no idea, yet, how they were going to find more, but … an idea ran through her head. It might just work. “If we can find a way to take out an iron giant, we can shake the regime to the core.”

“We also need to plan an escape,” Sienna added. She nodded at the broadsheet. The front page was covered with a charcoal drawing of a crashed and burning airship that looked surprisingly realistic. “That says we’re dead. Do you think they believe it?”

Emily shook her head. She very much doubted it. The regime would poke through the wreckage of the airship, finding nothing, and probably draw the correct conclusions. They were still alive.

“We’ll plan as best as we can,” she said. She pushed as much enthusiasm into her tone as she could. “If nothing else, we have their measure now.”

“Yes,” Sienna agreed. She didn’t sound convinced. “And they have ours.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Six: Adam

“How do you do it?”

Adam didn’t look up from where he was carving a simple rune into a metal tile. It wasn’t easy. He was no craftsman, no blacksmith, and back home he’d been able to arrange for the tiles to be produced by people who actually knew what they were doing, people who could churn out a dozen tiles in the time it took him to produce one. He wasn’t even convinced the tile in front of him would actually work, certainly not for longer than a handful of seconds. The magic would be shaped by the rune, true, but it would rapidly break free of its bonds and fade back into the ether. It was nowhere near long enough for his peace of mind.

He scowled as the last lines of the rune snapped into place. There was no tingle, no sense he was holding something magical … he reminded himself, sharply, that he’d felt the same when he’d first discovered the building blocks of magitech. It took time to gather magic and channel it into the rune, time to turn the carving from something harmless into a trick the enemy wouldn’t expect. Perhaps he take advantage of the rune’s inevitable destruction instead, channelling the magic into a simple heat spell that – for a handful of seconds – would be hot enough to melt iron and utterly ruin any runes inside the target. Perhaps …

“How?” Hannah sat on the far side of the table, keeping her distance. Her eyes flickered back and forth, as if she were meeting her lover in a place where her parents might discover her at any moment. “How do you do it?”

Adam looked up. “Do what?”

“You and Lilith are together, right?” Hannah kept her voice low, as if she were afraid of who might overhear. “How do you do it? How do you even cope with such an … an unbalanced relationship?”

“We’re mature adults,” Adam said, although he knew people who would dispute such a claim. A man was rarely considered wholly mature until he turned twenty-five, which meant he would have to wait six years before such a statement would be greeted by anything other than gales of laughter. Hannah wasn’t laughing … it dawned on him, suddenly, that she was worried. But about what? “We’re …”

He found himself unsure how to put his feelings into words. It had taken weeks for Lilith to warm up to him, to come to respect him as a person, and he had to admit he hadn’t respected her much either. Not at first. They’d both been dumped in it, in a manner that made it hard for the other to comprehend they were both angry. And desperate. It hadn’t been until they’d become friends, of a sort, that they’d been able to communicate, to look beneath the surface and discover they had a great deal in common.

“We discovered we could rely on each other,” he said, finally. “I saved her life, she saved mine, I saved hers … we both went to great lengths to save each other. Does that answer your question?”

Hannah’s lips quirked. “What sort of future do you guys have?”

Adam said nothing for a long moment. Magic-mundane relationships were surprisingly rare, particularly when the magician had both good looks and breeding. There was no denying Lilith was gorgeous, nor that her ties to House Ashworth would be enough to convince almost any magician – Jasper, for example – to turn a blind eye to anything she might have done before they married. The relationships were even rarer when it was the woman who had magic, for reasons Adam had never quite understood. He had a great many complaints about the magical community, but it had to be admitted they regarded men and women as equals. How could they not, when magic made up for a lack of muscle? Anyone who tried putting Lilith down because she was a girl would spend the rest of his life on a lily pad.

“She didn’t fall for me because of my good looks,” he said, finally. There was nothing wrong with Lilith’s eyesight. Adam liked to think he was handsome, but honesty compelled him to admit Jasper was closer to the magical ideal. Hell, Arnold had been posing as a mundane and he’d still had a charisma that left Adam feeling dull and dowdy. “We make a good team.”

His heart twisted, painfully. No one would say a word if Lilith decided she wanted to marry a commoner with powerful magic, someone very much like Matt had been. His lack of good breeding and common sense would be more than compensated for by his power, and the promise of powerful children. Adam? He wondered, grimly, if there were people in Lilith’s family who were already trying to convince her to drop him, or pointing out that their children might not be as strong in magic as their mother. Her father had reminded her of that, before his death.

He looked up. “Why do you ask?”

Hannah’s eyes were pained. “I saw young men – and women – get hurt, because they got into relationships with magicians and then …”

She grimaced, shaking her head. Adam had heard the stories. They had grown in the telling – he certainly hoped so – but there was always a kernel of truth behind them, from magicians using love potions or compulsion charms to get their quarry into bed to the mundane being killed, mind-wiped or permanently transformed when the relationship had run its course. Sienna was the only magical woman he knew who had actually married her lover, and he’d brought a great deal more to the relationship than just sex. The thought was oddly reassuring. He loved sharing ideas with Lilith, working together to develop new ways to use magitech and close the gap between the mundane and magical communities. He knew she felt the same way too. She could easily have left, if she didn’t want him.

“The rules are different, at Heart’s Eye,” Adam said, finally. He knew couples who had broken up, and gone their separate ways instead of trying to kill each other. “And just because you met a bunch of magical assholes doesn’t mean every magician is an asshole.”

He scowled at the thought. Matt had been an asshole, before his death. Jasper still was. He’d met quite a few other low-power magicians at the university … but he’d also met Caleb, and Irene, and quite a few others who didn’t feel the need to put mundanes down so they could feel powerful. And Lilith’s father had eventually warmed up to him …

“I should have gone there,” Hannah said, quietly. “But Dad thought we could make a profit.”

“If you worked hard, for years,” Adam pointed out. The mundane community owned nothing in the city, from their apartments to their shops and meeting halls. Hannah’s family had rented the shop from a magician, who took a share of the profits in exchange for graciously allowing them to run the business. Adam hadn’t seen the ledgers, but he’d heard his mother snarling about landlords and rent boys and he suspected the contract was carefully written to ensure the mundanes found it hard, if not impossible, to make any sort of profit. “Why did you stay?”

Hannah looked down. “Dad didn’t think it could get any worse, and I … I stayed with Dad.”

Adam made a face. There were times when walking through Beneficence’s magical quarter was asking for trouble, even for a mundane who worked for a magician. You could walk into the quarter and hop out again as a frog, or worse. Most mundanes gave the quarter a wide berth unless they needed something, taking the long way around rather than putting themselves in danger. Celeste had the same problem, except it was an entire city and there was no way out that didn’t involve walking past magicians who might hex or curse you because you met their eyes. Or just because they were bored.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He supposed if he had grown up in the magical city, he would have a pretty nasty opinion of magicians too. “Given time, magitech will change the world.”

He scowled, thinking cold thoughts about the magiwriter on his wrist, concealed under his sleeve. Lilith – and Emily – could wield it as an extension of themselves, sending their thoughts into the device and using it to boost their spells, or cast several different spells at once. He could not, no matter how hard he tried. His spellcasting was slow and cumbersome, although no less powerful if he had time to prepare. A thought crossed his mind and he reached for his notebook, hastily scrawling it down. He and Lilith would discuss it later, when they got back to Heart’s Eye.

If we ever do, he thought, suddenly. The tunnel might have been found and blocked by now. The broadsheets insisted the city had been attacked by the nearest kingdom – he’d been amused to note that whoever had written the article hadn’t bothered to proofread, because the name of the aggressor changed several times – and the fortress nearby had been attacked and destroyed in retaliation. We might never get out of the city.

He swallowed, hard. He’d felt trapped in Beneficence, but there had been options. He could walk across the bridge to Zangaria and find work in Cockatrice, he could join the City Guard, or Zangaria’s army, or even sign up with a mercenary band. His mother would disown him if he did that, but it would be better than slaving in the family shop or working as a fisherman. Here … Hannah really was trapped, unless she left everything behind and fled through the tunnels. And even then she might not escape. Adam would bet good money the regime was patrolling the fields outside the walls.

“I have a question,” Hannah said. “Can your friends be trusted?”

Adam bit down the first, angry, response. Caleb was a good man, Lilith was his lover, Emily was … well, Emily. The only one he didn’t know well was Sienna. And Jane, whatever had happened to her. The idea they couldn’t be trusted … he tried to think, organising his thoughts. None of his friends had had to sneak into the city, intent on bringing down the regime. They’d come of their own free will.

“Yes,” he said. “They can.”

Hannah frowned. “Are you sure?”

“That’s Emily,” Adam said. “The Emily. And Caleb is a good man too.”

Hannah let out a breath. “There are some people who might help,” she said, very quietly. “In the ghetto, or enslaved outside. I could take you to them.”

Adam sucked in his breath. Hannah had been completely at her mistress’s mercy. She could have been forced to talk at any moment … hell, she could have been interrogated and then made to forget her mistress had ever asked her any questions. Adam was no expert in mental magics, but he was fairly sure a careful caster could avoid any discrepancies that would lead the victim to question their memories. It was hard not to be paranoid … he wondered, suddenly, if Arnold had ever interrogated him, then ensured he didn’t remember a thing. It was far from impossible. He hadn’t seen any reason to guard himself until it had been far too late.

He met her eyes. “Are you sure?”

“I think they’re still around,” Hannah said. “There were a bunch of us, sharing ideas on how to survive … they’re the ones who brought magitech into the city, even though it was banned.”

“Hah.” Adam knew the regime used magitech itself. They’d taken the research in a very different direction, and he had to admit they’d made some discoveries he’d missed, but it was still magitech. He wondered why he was pretending to be surprised. It was a universal truth that laws only applied to the weak and powerless, and that one person might be spared the wrath of the authorities while another was heavily punished even though they had committed the same crime … and besides, the regime needed magitech. “The rules don’t apply to them, do they?”

His lips quirked. Emily had told him that Resolute had credited her with inventing magitech, not Adam. Bastard. He could at least have given Lilith a mention. She was a magician and no one doubted it, but … she was also dating a mundane. The regime would have trouble wrapping its head around her decision … perhaps, he reflected, it was better that she hadn’t been given any of the credit, as irritating as it was. They didn’t need more reasons to hate her. If they took her alive, it was going to be quite bad enough.

“No.” Hannah stared down at her hands. “Although, no one said it was magitech, when they brought the iron giants onto the streets.”

She looked up. “We can make contact,” she said. “If we can get into the ghetto …”

Adam frowned. “Are there tunnels in and out?”

“Yeah,” Hannah said. “But I don’t know if they’re still there. They might have been blocked.”

Lilith stepped into the room. “What might have been blocked?”

“The tunnels,” Hannah said. Her voice shook, as if she’d just been caught in a passionate clinch with Lilith’s boyfriend. That would have ended very badly for everyone, at least at Heart’s Eye. “If we can get into the ghetto, we might find allies.”

“And if we can get them some weapons and support, they might be able to help us,” Lilith said, wryly. “If.”

“We can help them make Durian Gas,” Adam said. “Or give them charged wands.”

Lilith nodded, thoughtfully. “The gas might not work,” she pointed out. “There are plenty of counterspells, if the target realises the danger before they breathe in the gas.”

Adam nodded back. They’d experimented, carefully, with Durian Gas, only to discover it was dangerously unpredictable. It wasn’t easy to determine just how much gas was needed to take effect, or how long the effect would actually last. He had no trouble calculating precisely how much Durian Potion would be required to suppress a magician’s powers for a set period of time, but …

“Perhaps we should cut open a few durians and leave them lying around,” he said. “Get them used to scenting the stench, so they don’t react in time when we use the real gas.”

Lilith grinned. “That might work, at least once.”

“There’s a potion that made your farts smell funny, or charms that make you stink,” Hannah said. Her voice was light, but there was a hint of pain in her tone. Adam guessed she knew the spells existed because someone had used them on her. “Can we devise one that will make people smell of durian, taking the stench into their homes?”

“We might,” Lilith said. “It will take some careful brewing.”

“What will?” Sienna stepped into the room. “You have an idea?”

“Several,” Adam told her. “And we might be able to find allies.”

He ran through the whole story. Sienna listened carefully, then started to bark questions at Hannah. Adam gritted his teeth as Hannah cringed back, recalling a child he’d known whose drunkard of a father slapped him about whenever he was in a bad mood. The poor kid had been quiet, flinching at every sound … the father had suffered a terrible accident, one night, and no one had asked too many questions, but it had been too late. The child hadn’t had a hope of growing into a decent young man.

“This group … can they do anything?” Sienna didn’t sound convinced. “They have some magitech, you say, but is it enough?”

“It will have to be,” Adam said. He indicated the tile he’d carved. “If we are reduced to creating the tiles ourselves, we’ll be here for years.”

“And we don’t know if we can get out of the city a second time,” Lilith added. “They might have found the tunnel by now.”

“There will be others,” Hannah said. “I just don’t know where.”

Adam frowned. There were no tunnels leading out of Beneficence, at least as far as he knew. The city rested on solid rock, separated from Zangaria by deep chasms and rivers so wild that very few dared to sail down the gorge and very few of those survived. Even with magic – and magitech – it struck him as dangerously insane, if not impossible, to try. Celeste, on the other hand, was effectively landlocked. There was no reason there couldn’t be a dozen tunnels, a hundred. The regime might have found and destroyed a tunnel that had nothing to do with their escape from the city …

Might, he reminded himself. They’ll certainly be aware there may well be more tunnels.

“We’ll see what we can do,” Sienna said. “When Emily gets back, we’ll work out how to proceed.”

“We do need help,” Adam said. “The only other option is trying to get control of a foundry. Or put in orders for tiles we can turn into magitech.”

“They’ll know what to watch for,” Lilith said. “What use would this shop have for magitech?”

Adam nodded, curtly. Magitech had caught magicians by surprise, at first. They had believed mundanes couldn’t use magic, not in any real sense, and to a very large extent they had been right. But they knew better now. The trick he’d used to catch her, and later defeat Arnold, wouldn’t work again. They were watching for it.

He met Sienna’s eyes, wishing they were alone. It wouldn’t be easy to tell her she was being overbearing, to Hannah if not to everyone else, but someone had to. And telling her in private would make it easier for her to listen, instead of pushing back. Emily wasn’t around … Adam felt a twinge of pity, for both Emily and Caleb. It couldn’t be easy for either of them.

But at least they’re both magicians, he reminded himself. They can get through it together.

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I feel very exposed out here,” Lilith muttered.

“Just remember you’re a young witch out for a night on the town,” Emily muttered back. It was a relief to be wearing magical outfits again, even if they did attract an entirely different kind of attention. There were no curses or hexes being hurled at them, not even a simple spell to lift her dress, but young men – and a number of young women – were eying them with frank interest, in a manner that left her feeling a little disturbed. “And don’t do anything to suggest otherwise.”

She frowned inwardly as they walked past the dance hall, feeling a twinge of unreality. Most cities quietened down at nightfall, the citizens heading home as quickly as possible to bar the door, for fear of what might come out of hiding in the dark. Even the bigger cities tended to have curfews, with anyone caught outside without a pass – or a very good reason, or the ability to pay a bribe – finding themselves marched to gaol, or the stocks. Celeste, by contrast, seemed to come alive in the night, with hundreds of young magicians singing, dancing, drinking, and showing off their powers in impromptu magical contests. It reminded her of a modern city’s nightlife, the kind of social life that existed more on the silvers screen than the real world. The stories she’d heard in High School hadn’t been her idea of fun. She rather suspected they’d been exaggerated too.

The street was glowing with life, men and women chatting happily as they shared dinner and drinks, or just bought snacks from local vendors and ate as they walked. Emily stared from face to face, wondering just how many understood their paradise was based on slave labour and brutal repression. She knew from history that many people caught up in a tyrannical regime would g around pretending it wasn’t so, or mouth the regime’s platitudes for fear of being swept up and thrown into the gulag, yet … the regime had allowed any magician who wanted to leave to get out before it was too late. She felt cold, despite the warm night. The people on the streets might look happy and content, the epitome of fashion and good breeding, but … there was little real difference between them and rich southerners, slipping mint juleps in their mansions while the slaves worked on the plantations. The South had told itself that the slaves were happy, content with their lot. She had a nasty feeling the magicians in front of her told themselves much the same.

They have to, she reflected, as a group of passing young men waved to them. The alternative is realising the full horror of what they’re doing, and then rising up against the regime.

She scowled, ignoring the invitation. There hadn’t been many who had openly opposed the fascists, or the communists, not when they could justify any sort of horror to themselves. Man was not so much a rational animal as a rationalising animal, as Heinlein had said, and anyone could justify anything with enough work. If they benefited from the horrors, they’d find some way to convince themselves they were necessary.

“There,” she muttered. The nightclub – she couldn’t think of it as anything else – was humming with people, men and women dancing the night away. The dancers weren’t following the formal steps she’d learnt in Whitehall, but something more chaotic … it called to her even as it repelled her. She frowned as she spotted a young couple pressed together, their hands on each other’s rear, her mood darkening although she wasn’t sure why. Magicians were allowed far more freedom than mundanes, although such open displays were rare. “Are you ready?”

Lilith nodded, curtly. “Yeah.”

Emily reached into her pocket and produced the tiny vial, her fingers carefully opening the lid. It had been incredibly difficult to produce Essence of Durian without stinking out the entire shop, something that would have alerted the regime when they sent out their guards to find the source of the stench. She was mildly surprised they’d been able to find durians in the city, given their only known use, although she was fairly certain the regime was producing both gas and potion to use against its enemies. The lid came off and she muttered a quick charm, summoning a wind to blow the stench towards the nightclub as quickly before disintegrating the evidence. If they’d done it right, the movement should have gone unnoticed.

She kept walking as she heard the first sounds of panic behind her, the stench wafting through the nightclub with all the subtlety of a punch in the head. There would be chaos as magicians sought to cast protection spells, telling themselves they’d reacted well and saved themselves before the gas could take effect … she wondered, idly, how long it would take for the magicians to realise the gas was nothing more than a really bad smell. There was no way to tell. Everyone would certainly want to believe they’d saved themselves from a very real threat, even if the threat literally didn’t exist.

The panic grew worse, magicians fleeing in all directions. Emily felt a twinge of dark amusement as she led the way down the street, towards the iron giant the regime had deployed to the crossroads. The darkness made the humanoid monster look all the more dangerous, bright red eyes – reminiscent of a necromancer – the only thing anyone could see clearly. Ice prickled down her spine as she reached out with her senses, the no-magic ward protecting the machine a black hole in her mind. She had to admire the genius who had taken the concept and run with it, even though he was on the wrong side. He’d crafted a steampunk device that was effectively immune to magic.

She braced herself as the iron giant came to life, hands swinging around like a drunkard with superhuman strength. The waving fists looked almost comical, a parody of the human form, but she knew they would crack her skull like an eggshell if she allowed them to connect. Lilith stepped aside as the iron giant stomped past her, then threw the magitech tile with practiced ease. Emily braced herself. The tile should go through the no-magic ward as if it wasn’t there, and pick up magic again on the far side, but if it didn’t work … a dull clang echoed through the air as the magnet they’d worked into the tile was drawn to the giant’s back. Emily let herself smile – very few magicians would think of something as simple as magnets, but Adam had – and then leaned forward. If the tile didn’t work …

The iron giant staggered, as if it’s right leg had suddenly stopped working. Emily saw the tile glowing and feared, just for a second, that they might have underestimated how much power was flowing through the device. The tile was designed to draw on the magic to activate the spellform, but if there was too much magic the tile might explode or grow hot enough to melt the metal armour and the delicate innards. Adam had calculating everything carefully, based on what they’d learnt from the rebels, but there was too much guesswork involved for Emily’s peace of mind. If nothing else, she told herself, they’d learn enough from the first attack to try again …

She gritted her teeth as the iron giant fell forward and hit the ground, loud enough to make her wince. The surrounding buildings were dark and cold, the owners sleeping or out on the town, but the noise had been more than loud enough to attract attention. In most places, the public would do their best to ignore whatever was going on below, but she feared that wouldn’t hold true in Celeste. She would have preferred to lure the iron giant into a trap, yet that would have been far too revealing. They needed to make it look like a systems failure, not an attack.

The wind seemed to shift as she darted forward, peering down at the fallen giant. The rear armour was cracked and broken, suggesting the builder had used magic to hold it together rather than more mundane methods. The antimagic spell was gone. She muttered a charm to pull the rear plate open, then stared down at the magitech inside. It looked like a piece of clockwork, albeit one that seemed to exist in multiple dimensions at once. Magic sparked as she tugged the device out, but – as far as she could tell – the charms linking the device to the controller were gone. Lilith cast a light spell and peered into what was left of the wreckage, her eyes flickering over the device in a manner that made it hard to believe she’d be able to commit what she saw to memory. Emily knew better. Lilith would use a memory spell to ensure she could draw it out, in perfect detail, for the rest of the team.

She heard a thumping sound behind her and swore under her breath. “We need to move.”

Lilith nodded and jumped away from the iron giant, allowing Emily to pour another potion over the ruins and mutter an ignition spell. The potion caught fire at once, burning so brightly she had to look away; she hoped, prayed, it would convince the inspectors that the iron giant had been destroyed by a random magical fluctuation, rather than deliberate attack. There was no way to be sure, but the fire was hot enough to melt the evidence …

She turned and ran, following Lilith into the shadows. The regime might be unwilling to show the iron fist too openly – magicians tended to dislike being pushed around, and they had the power to do something about it – but it would need to make a show of strength, just in case someone realised the iron giants were far from indestructible. They would want to write the whole affair off as an accident, yet … there would be people trying to work out ways to do it on purpose. And who knew what would happen then?

The sounds of confusion and chaos died away as they fled onwards, passing through alleyways that were strikingly clean and empty. Emily thought she sensed a handful of searching spells, probing the shadows, but they didn’t appear to be looking for them. The apartments and shops were all heavily warded, making it unlikely the spells could track them – or anyone – down. She made a mental note to point that out to Harris, to suggest they could use the enemy wards to hide themselves. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be better than anything they could do for themselves.

“It worked,” Lilith said. She sounded a little surprised. “I feared …”

Emily nodded as they pushed open the door and carried the device into the backroom. Adam looked up from where he’d been working on his designs, clearly relieved to see Lilith. He’d offered to accompany them, as had Caleb, but the risk had been too great. Two young girls were less likely to be noticed, Emily had argued. She hoped she’d been right.

“We made it,” Lilith said, as Emily put the device down. “Can you see how it works?”

Adam frowned. Emily nodded in understanding. Adam was a genius, and he had practically invented a whole new magical discipline by himself, but there was no way he could wave a magic wand, work out how the device functioned and craft one himself in a hurry. It might take days or weeks to figure out how it worked, if they hadn’t accidentally damaged it to the point the innards were effectively destroyed. Much of the spellware was gone … she hoped, prayed, it included everything the regime could use to track them down. It should …

“Go draw out what you saw,” Emily ordered, quietly. “Let us work in peace.”

Caleb joined them as they examined the device, Adam scribbling down notes as he worked out what the device actually did. It wasn’t a magiwriter, much to Emily’s relief, but it was disturbingly powerful and capable, projecting the antimagic field and, at the same time, moving mechanical muscles that were disturbingly organic. Emily recalled reading books about how to make a homunculus and she suspected the regime’s designer had read the same books, although he’d made no attempt to make the iron giant look human. She supposed that explained the odd movements, the strangely jerky patterns she’d seen them use in combat. It was designed for brute force, to intimidate and control … and destroy what refused to surrender and submit. And it was devastatingly effective.

“The bloodlink uses magical blood,” Adam commented. “It’s very much like a chat parchment.”

“And it has enough bandwidth to allow someone to operate it via remote control,” Emily mused, sourly. It really was a neat solution to the problem. She made a mental note to try and take the designer alive, then put him to work at Heart’s Eye. “Can you see how to disrupt the control network, perhaps hack it?”

“Only through direct contact,” Adam said. His eyes narrowed as he poked through the device pulling apart pieces of clockwork that didn’t seem to fit together perfectly. “It might be doable, if …”

His voice trailed off. Emily understood. They couldn’t get into the iron giant without disabling it and they couldn’t use the device to hack the network if they effectively drained the magic, breaking the link between the iron giant and its controller. There was just no way to get through the antimagic field, not without doing immense damage … or was there? She stepped back and reached for a notepad of her own, sketching out a possible idea. It would have been utterly impractical a few months ago, but with magitech it should be possible. On paper. She would have to run a few tests first, to see if she could get it to work, yet … it might just work.

“Caleb and I will experiment with this,” she said, putting the notebook under her arm. “Adam, you and Lilith keep examining the device.”

She stood and led the way upstairs. “Where’s your mother?”

“Sleeping,” Caleb said. He shot her a mischievous look, then sobered. “Hannah’s asleep too, in her own bed. Poor girl.”

Emily nodded, recalling the apartment they’d been given. Hannah had been lucky to be allowed to remain in the shop, although that had been very much a mixed blessing. The ghetto had been worse … Emily had seen people who lived in the Blighted Lands, who had known they might be sacrificed one day, and yet even they hadn’t been knocked down so badly as the mundanes in the ghetto. The hopelessness had gnawed at her, a horrific miasma that threatened to bring her down … she suspected, sourly, that it was a kind of subtle magic. The longer the mundanes remained in the ghetto, the harder it would be to rebel. She wanted – needed – to find a way to shield the rebels from the miasma, before it was too late.

“We’ll make sure she gets to Heart’s Eye,” Emily said. Hannah hadn’t deserved to be enslaved or abused, no one did. She felt a surge of pride in her boyfriend. Caleb had grown up a magician, powerful and capable, and yet he didn’t think himself superior to magicless mundanes. He had been more than willing to help Adam develop magitech, something most magicians would regard as laughable at best and monumentally offensive at worst. “She can find a place there.”

She sat on the sofa and leaned into his embrace, just for a second. She was tired and worn and part of her was very tempted to go to bed, even though she knew she was to keyed up to sleep. She passed him the notebook instead, letting him see her outline. It would be chancy as hell, she noted; there was a very real chance her plan would collapse under its own weight, so quickly the enemy might not even realise it had been attacked. Caleb muttered to himself as he scanned her work, then added a handful of modifications of his own.

“The problem is keeping the link open without either letting it be drained or overloading the connection ourselves,” Caleb said. Emily resisted the urge to point out she’d already worked that out. It helped, sometimes, to verbalise the problem, before figuring out how to solve it. “But if we integrate the first charm with an active bloodlink it might just work.”

“I got a teleport spell through the wards,” Emily reminded him. “Although that trick might not work twice.”

“Not if they’re scrambling the spellware as well as draining the raw magic,” Caleb agreed. “They would almost have to, if they wanted to keep you from doing it again.”

Emily nodded, sourly. What they needed was a bazooka. Or any other modern antitank weapon, something designed to punch through armour without using magic. But there were none. Not yet.

“We might be able to get through the antimagic ward and then into the network,” Emily said. “But can we hack it if its connected to a living mind?”

“We can use raw power to fry those minds,” Caleb said. It was surprisingly vindictive, for him, but he believed in the dream of Heart’s Eye. The regime would destroy the university, if it were given a chance. It had to be stopped first. “Either they die, or the network burns itself out. We win either way.”

Emily smiled, then leaned into him. It was hard not to close her eyes and sleep, not to let herself go … Caleb wrapped his arm around her and held her gently, letting her drift into sleep. She’d have a quick power nap, she told herself, and awake feeling refreshed. Caleb could sleep too …

And then a wave of raw magic crashed into the wards.

 

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Emily started awake, feeling her head spinning. It had been dark outside … now, it was early morning, brilliant flashes of light blasting against the windows. The wards howled in protest, threads of magic crashing through the air and slamming into her mind … she gritted her teeth, her head pounding as another shockwave shook the building. They were under attack. The floor heaved below her feet, sending her stumbling to her knees. It took her a moment to centre herself to the point she could stand, let alone head to the window. The street below was crowded.

“They’re here,” Hannah said, from behind her. The fear in her voice made Emily quail. She might be taken alive, and the others would make good hostages if nothing else, but Hannah would be brutally murdered, the moment the regime got its hands on her. Or worse, she would be interrogated and then murdered. “They’ve come for us.”

“It isn’t over yet,” Emily said. It was hard to see clearly, but there were at least eight or nine wizards in the street below, each carrying a staff tipped with a glowing crystal ball. The light flared – she had the weirdest impression of entities moving in the light – an instant before the wards shook again, the shockwaves crashing into her mind. They weren’t trying to hack the wards so much as break them down by brute force, a attack that was almost certain to succeed. It was inelegant, but it worked. “They’ll need some time to break into the store.”

She turned away, her mind racing. How the hell had the regime found them? They’d been certain to disable the captured device, making sure it wasn’t radiating anything that could lead the regime back to them. Had someone noticed the shop was no longer being run by Hannah’s former mistress? Or had they been seen on their way back to the store. Or … had the regime taken some of her blood, when she’d been a prisoner, and used it to find her? It wasn't impossible, although she had cleansed herself. Perhaps the regime had thought she’d died in the airship crash, only to change their mind after the durian attack and disabled iron giant …

Worry about it later, she told herself, shortly. We need to move.

The air hummed again, then shook. Emily forced herself to walk downstairs, trying to reach out with her mind to determine just how many enemies were outside. It was impossible. There was just too much raw magic in the air, a haze that made her head hurt when she tried to peer through it. She had to admit it was a clever tactic. The attackers were trying to force them to channel power into the wards, leaving them drained when they finally collapsed, or save their power for the coming fight, which would leave them without any of the advantages they might expect if they were fighting on home ground. Her mind raced, considering options. There was no way they could teleport out, or keep the wards up long enough to think of another option … they were trapped.

Sienna looked up as they entered the workroom. “I told Caleb to let you sleep,” she said. Her face was pinched, her eyes grim as she adjusted the wards to make them harder to weak and destroy. “The others needed their rest too.”

Emily scowled. She hadn’t even realised Caleb had left her, once she’d fallen asleep. She’d been more out of it than she’d thought. She wondered why he hadn’t stayed, then remembered they’d been in full view. It was one think for them to be sleeping together – in every sense of the word – in private and quite another to show off their relationship to everyone, something that would irk his mother even though it was none of her business. She wondered where Adam and Lilith had gone … probably to their own room. If they weren’t awake now, they’d sleep through anything.

“They’re channelling power through their staffs,” Caleb said. He shot Emily a worried glance as he entered the room, his face grim. “We have twenty minutes at the most …”

“Don’t be optimistic,” Sienna said. The strain was starting to show in her voice. “Ten minutes at most, and that’s only if we’re lucky.”

Emily nodded as the wards shook ahead. Her headache was making it hard to think clearly, the pain gnawing at her thoughts. What could they do …? Nothing came to mind. The shop was surrounded, they couldn’t teleport or get into the tunnels … or could they? The city was built on catacombs … could they dig a hole in eight minutes and get underground? It might work … she briefly considered fighting, but there were at least eight magicians out there, probably backed up by iron giants. They had two spare tiles, yet … there was no time to put the plan she’d drawn up with Caleb into action, not yet. They had to get out before it was too late.

“Adam, take the magiwriter and dig a tunnel into the ground,” she snapped. There was a very real risk of getting lost in the catacombs, or accidentally digging too deep and awakening something dangerous, but it was minor compared to the certainty of death if the regime caught them. “Lilith, you and Hannah grab all the notebooks and go with him. Watch for dangerous magics.”

“Got it.” Adam glanced at her. “What about you?”

“Go,” Emily said. It wasn’t a very good plan, but she couldn’t think of anything better. “We’ll join you shortly.”

“The wards will not hold for much longer,” Sienna said. “And then they’ll come crashing in.”

“We can destroy the store,” Caleb said. “There’s enough ingredients on the shelves to make an explosion, and then …”

“I have a better idea,” Sienna said. “You and Emily go to the tunnel. Take the”- her eyes met his, just for a second, suggesting there was something she didn’t want to say out loud – “and get out of here. I’ll join you later, if I can.”

Emily felt cold. “I … you can’t stay here.”

“Someone has to,” Sienna said. “The wards are cracking. They’ll crumble within seconds if I take my mind off them. I’ll be fine.”

“No,” Emily said. Caleb’s older brother had died in Heart’s Eye, years ago. He didn’t need to lose his mother too. “I won’t …”

“Take her,” Sienna snapped. The air shook again, dust drifting from the ceiling. Emily could feel strands of power sliding into the wards, threatening to tear them apart. “Now!”

Caleb hesitated, then caught Emily’s arm and pulled her back. Emily reached for the device they’d captured, then stopped herself and snapped a disintegration spell instead. The device came apart into a pile of dust, sparking oddly as raw magic blasted through the air. If they had missed something, if there had been a subtle tracking spell on the device, it was gone now. Emily gritted her teeth and let him pull her down the steps, into the basement. It was crammed with junk, the remnants of countless tenants who had rented the shop, made what little profit they could, then gone on to live the rest of their lives somewhere else. Adam had been hard at work, shaping spells that tore through the floor and down into the catacombs. Emily shuddered as she felt the sickening waves of tainted magic, poisoning the air. How many magicians had dumped their failed experiments into the sewers? She didn’t want to know.

We’re going to have to make sure it doesn’t happen at Heart’s Eye, she thought. They’d found all kinds of nasty surprises in the university, when they’d first taken possession, and quite a few more under the nearest town. God alone knows what might be lurking under the city.

The ground shook again, the wards crumpling in on themselves. Emily glanced up, then lost her balance and tumbled into the tunnel. Caleb followed her, his face grim. His mother was up there, fighting to buy time for them to escape, and yet … Emily knew how he felt. He was doing as he’d been told, making sure her sacrifice hadn’t been in vain, but it still felt as if he were running away. Sienna would be furious if he went back for her, assuming they both survived long enough, yet …

“Use the magiwriter to drain the poisoned magic,” she ordered, as the ground shuddered once again. She could sense powerful spells detonating overhead, Sienna fighting desperately to buy them a few more seconds. “Hurry!”

The darkness settled in around them as they started to move, a moment before a final surge of magic shot through the air and brought the store crashing down on top of the entrance. Emily muttered a quick spell, weakening the tunnel to the point it should collapse in a few seconds, then forced herself to pick up speed as she heard crashing noises behind her. The tunnel wouldn’t be hard to find, if they went digging, but she was fairly certain they’d need some time to sort through the remains of the store and conclude they’d escaped. Hell, it was quite possible they’d gone out the back, relying on invisibility spells to hide themselves, or flown out instead. How long, she asked herself, would it take the regime to work out what had happened.

She took Caleb’s hand and squeezed it lightly, wishing they were alone so she could tell him how sorry she was. Casper’s death hadn’t been her fault, but she still felt partly responsible. It had been her idea to go after the necromancer, rather than retreating and waiting for reinforcements. And now Sienna … she wished she hadn’t agreed to allow Sienna to accompany them, or Caleb, or … her heart twisted. How much pain had their family suffered, because of her?

The tunnels grew darker, things shifting in the shadows despite their night-vision spells. Hannah didn’t seem to know where they were, even though she had had at least some time to explore the catacombs before the regime took power. Emily’s earlier thoughts came back to mock her, when she remembered how Enid Blyton’s characters had often gotten lost in labyrinths, coming very close to dying of thirst or starvation before managing to find their way out once again. She felt her heart sink as they bypassed glowing puddles on the floor, then twist painfully as she spotted a body lying on the ground. It was several months old, she deduced, and so rotted it was impossible to tell if it had been male or female, young or old. She wondered, numbly, just how many people slipped into the catacombs, never to be seen again. Too many, she feared.

Lilith spoke quietly, but it sounded as if she were shouting. “What happens if we just go up?”

Emily grimaced. The ceiling managed to look as if it were both solid and on the brink of caving in and burying them. They could use the magiwriter to dig up, but there was a very real chance it would cause a disaster … and there was no way to tell what would be waiting for them, when they emerged into the light. The regime shouldn’t be able to track them, but … it shouldn’t have been able to find the shop either. She felt sick with guilt as they kept walking, passing through a set of buried rooms that had been abandoned decades ago …perhaps longer. Sienna was dead. And she felt as if it were her fault …

I should have come alone, Emily thought. Jane is missing, Sienna is dead … who next?

Hannah glanced at Adam, her voice weak. “The … the statues were crammed into the basement,” she said. “Are they all right?”

“Does it matter?” Lilith’s tone was sharp enough to make Hannah flinch. “They deserve to be buried.”

Emily winced. The spells on Hannah’s former mistress and her family were designed to be unbreakable, unless they’d grossly underestimated the woman. Her mind should be as unmoving as the body, her thoughts frozen until the spell was lifted … perhaps. The regime might dig her out, realise what had happened and then undo the spell, and then punish the woman for losing control of her store. Or simply leave her as a statue, for the rest of eternity. Fascist regimes needed scapegoats, people who could be made to bear the burden of blame for problems that were inherent in such systems, and the wretched woman would be a very good scapegoat indeed. It wasn’t as if anyone was going to come out of the shadows to defend her.

It felt like hours before the tunnel slanted upwards, eventually opening into another basement. Someone had been digging … Emily shuddered as they crawled through the hatch and looked around, noting just how much dust was lying on the floor. Caleb followed, his face grim; Emily wanted to offer comfort, but had no idea where to even begin. Hannah looked at the ladder leading upwards, then frowned. Lilith and Adam clambered up … Emily sensed bursts of magic above, as they encountered the residents. It didn’t feel as if they’d put up a fight.

“Configure the spells to wipe their memories, then come free in an hour or so,” Emily ordered, shortly. “Hannah, find out where we are.”

Hannah hurried to the window as the rest of the team searched the house. “We’re in the seventh quadrille,” she said. “They didn’t used to let scum like us into the district.”

Emily followed her and peered outside. The houses were nice, if a little cookie-cutter; she guessed they were owned by magicians, given how … individualistic … some of the houses were. She kicked herself a second later. Of course they were, given how few houses in the city were owned by anyone else. The regime might have missed a couple of houses, but not any more than that.

“We can slip around and get back into the tunnels,” Hannah offered. “Where do we want to go?”

Emily had no answer. The store was gone. The apartment was probably inhabited by someone else now … their supplies, she suspected, had been inspected and then destroyed. They could try and return to the tunnel leading out of the city, in hopes it hadn’t been discovered, but the regime was patrolling the fields outside. There was no guarantee of getting away even if the tunnel itself was safe. And yet, where else could they go? She felt a twinge of guilt as she looked at the prisoners; a husband, a wife, two children who couldn’t be more than nine or ten. They didn’t deserve to be turned into statues.

Her mood darkened. Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps they were bastards. But if someone missed them …

Caleb didn’t look up. “Emily, you have to tell us where to go?”

Emily eyed him, a whirlwind of emotions spinning through her head. Jade or Cat would have taken command at once, but she … she snorted inwardly, irked at her own folly. She wouldn’t want someone who would expect to take and hold command, and have everyone doing as he said without an argument. But who else was there? Lilith was young, and neither Adam nor Hannah had magic. And Sienna was dead.

“The ghetto,” she said. It was the last place they’d be expected to go … right? The regime would find it difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend a magician posing as a mundane, but the Hierarchy had used that trick itself. It might not be as blind as she hoped. She wondered, not for the first time, what the relationship between the two really was. “It will have to do, until we manage to find our footing again.”

She checked the spells on the prisoners – they’d be free in an hour, with no memory of what had happened and enough subliminal triggers to ensure they didn’t question any discrepancies in their recollections – and then led the way outside, back to the first tunnel. There were more guards on the streets, carrying their staves and backed up by iron giants; Emily noted, grimly, that the mood on the streets had darkened. The broadsheet criers were marching up and down, screaming claims about terrorists sent in by the magical families; Emily stopped one and brought a newspaper, then forced herself to read it. The story bore little resemblance to the truth – the regime appeared to think there’d been a hundred aristocratic sorcerers in the store – but it hardly mattered. The regime could hardly be expected to tell the truth. She wondered if anyone believed the claim they’d killed at least thirty sorcerers … hell, there was no way they could have fitted a hundred sorcerers into the store. Surely, someone would ask the obvious question.

Caleb said nothing as they reached the tunnel, then made their way through the labyrinth to the ghetto. Harris and his men were there, their faces grim. Emily let Adam and Hannah do the talking, as she stood beside Caleb and wished for something – anything – to say. His hands were flexing, tiny sparks of magic darting around his fingertips. She wanted to console him and yet, would he blame her? Or would he lash out blindly?

He laughed, suddenly. Emily stared at him. “What?”

Caleb grabbed her and lifted her up, spinning her around. Emily had to keep herself from blasting him. She’d never liked being touched by surprise, without the slightest hint of warning, and it rarely meant good news. But Caleb was grinning from ear to ear. “She’s alive!”

Emily blinked. “What?”

“She’s alive,” Caleb repeated, lowering her back to the ground. She saw the blood on his palm and realised what Sienna had given him, what she’d been reluctant to say out loud. A sample of blood. Her blood. “She’s alive!”

 

Chapter Thirty: Adam

“Are you sure this is going to work?”

Adam said nothing for a long moment. Harris was … strange, at times determined to do whatever it took to escape the nightmare hanging over the ghetto and at other times seemingly convinced that resistance was futile. He had been very vague on a great many things, from how many people were part of his band to just what kind of resources they could find in the ghetto, and Adam wasn’t sure if it was operational security or an unwillingness to admit the rebels had very little at their disposal. It didn’t help that Harris was no fan of his relationship with Lilith. If half the horror stories Adam had heard were true, he didn’t blame him.

“There are no guarantees, but the spell circuits should work,” Adam said. The basic concept wasn’t hard to put together, once you knew how to do the basics. He supposed that explained how the regime had managed to duplicate his work, then put their own version into mass production, in a very short space of time. “You’ll be able to cast at least some spells without being a magician yourself.”

Harris frowned. “And it really works?”

“Yes.” Adam sighed, inwardly. “You’ll see for yourself in a moment.”

He hoped Harris would listen. Adam had know about subtle magic right from the start, after he’d started looking for ways to manipulate magic without being a magician, but Emily had cautioned him that it was very difficult to prove that someone was being influenced by subtle magic, let alone do something about it. Harris and his followers – a surprisingly small group, from what Adam had seen – were labouring under a wet blanket of despair, a crushing pressure that made it hard to think clearly, let alone develop the mental fortitude to resist. He understood, better than he cared to admit. There had been times when he had nearly despaired himself, when he had come close to giving up his dreams and accepting he would never be anything more than a shop assistant or fisherman. And he hadn’t been influenced by magic he could neither sense nor resist.

The spell circuit glittered in front of him as he put the last piece into place, a faint shimmer of magic taking shape and form. Magitech drew on background magic, just like subtle magic, and the simple fact he was running the spell circuit would likely drain the charms the regime had cast over the ghetto. It was unlikely the regime would notice anything wrong, at least at first, but it might give the rebels a fighting chance. Harris sucked in his breath, his eyes going wide as he studied the spell circuit. Adam wondered, rather sourly, why he was so astonished. Hannah had been using magitech for months.

Although it was banned in the city, Adam reminded himself. He might not have seen anything more impressive than a handful of tiles.

“I’ve outlined the basic designs for your workers,” Adam said, as he tapped the spell circuit. “I suggest you hold the tiles back, once you get them into production, until you have enough to make a real difference. You’ll never be a match for a real magician and you cannot afford to delude yourself otherwise.”

Harris looked torn between enthusiasm and fear. “How do you suggest we proceed?”

“Use the magitech to set traps for the iron giants,” Adam said. He wasn’t sure what would happen if an iron giant blundered into a magitech trap – the monstrous machines drew their power from the bloodlink, not the background magic field – but it would be interesting to let two no-magic fields blur together and see what happened. Perhaps they’d cancel each other out … or perhaps, if the attackers were lucky, the fields would drain both the magitech and the iron giant. “You might not be able to stop them in their tracks, at least not without getting a tile attached to their armour, but you could certainly undermine the road under their feet.”

“True,” Harris said. “And the runes?”

Adam felt an odd little twist as he stood and reached for the undergarments he’d borrowed. It was decidedly unmanly to have anything to do with clothing, unless you were a tailor, and he couldn’t help feeling torn between the grim awareness there was no one else who could do the job and a sense he was somehow less of a man for doing it. He told himself not to be silly as he held out the undergarment – being a tailor was considered perfectly reasonable, even though there was little real difference – for Harris to inspect. It was brown – he bit his lip to keep from making the obvious joke – and completely lacking in any sense of individuality, like the rest of the clothes the regime provided for its mundane slaves. The poo person joke made far too much sense for his peace of mind.

“I sewed the rune into the garment,” he said, keeping his face under tight control. Neither Emily nor Lilith knew how to sew, and Hannah didn’t know how to shape a rune. It had been sheer luck Adam knew how to do it, a combination of his mother teaching him the basics and a little more practice at Heart’s Eye, when he had been trying to find new ways to channel magic. “It should provide a certain degree of protection from subtle magic, as long as the rune remains intact.”

He grimaced. There was a reason most anti-subtle magic runes were literally carved into the wearer’s skin. The build-up of magic within the threads would start to unpick the design, or simply tear it apart from within; Adam wasn’t sure, in all honesty, just how long the protection would actually last. He’d considered urging the rebels to have the runes tattooed onto their bodies, but it would be far too revealing if the regime caught them. And they would, if they carried out a strip search. A handful of threads would likely come apart, destroying the evidence, if the regime tried. Or so he hoped.

“You can have the seamstresses sew the runes into clothing,” he said. “It should be safe enough, as long as they’re touching bare skin. Make sure they get checked every day, and don’t try to repair them if they’re coming apart – pull them apart completely to dispel the magic, then sew a new rune. Don’t take risks with subtle magic. The results can be dangerously unpredictable.”

“Understood,” Harris said. “And then … what?”

Adam smiled, and led him into the next room. It had been harder than he’d expected to put together a duplicate of his original magic-collecting runic networks, and then extend the design to the point it could charge a wand, but he was quietly very pleased with himself. The design had already been copied, with craftsmen putting together their own versions and workers trying to collect the ingredients they needed to make potions of their own. By now, the regime had probably worked out that the durian stench Emily and Lilith had used had been nothing more than a foul smell. It would give them a shock, Adam hoped, when it turned out that the next stench really was durian gas.

“Wood holds magic relatively well,” he said, his mood darkening. The enemy magicians had wielded staffs, with orbs on the tips, and that meant … what? It was common for magicians to look down on anyone who used a wand or staff, but the regime had used them openly. Adam didn’t like the implications. The regime would not have done something that would make it look weak, in the eyes of the city’s magicians, and that suggested using staffs so openly wasn’t a sign of weakness. Adam had a nasty feeling it was a far more dangerous trick than common knowledge suggested. “It won’t hold a charge indefinitely, but it will last a week or two before the spellware finally collapses into itself.”

He pointed to the table. The wands sat on a metal tray, surrounded by runes channelling magic into the wood and crafting a piece of spellware at the tip. He wondered, suddenly, if the regime was doing the same thing, on a much greater scale … no, that couldn’t be the answer. Even if they had more raw power than anything he’d ever designed, it would still make them look weak and incompetent. The jackals would start to gather, preparing to take down the regime and seize power for themselves. He put the thought aside, feeling a twinge of the old envy. A magician would sense the power shimmering on the table, would be able to channel it for himself. He could not. Hell, a magician wouldn’t need the wands.

His voice felt bleak, even to himself. “There’s one spell within the tip, a simple fireball,” he said, curtly. It was hard not to laugh at himself. Magicians regarded the fireball as boring yet practical, but to him it was wondrous. “You point the wand at the target and jab it forward, providing the impetus to cast the spell. You’ll get at least five fireballs out of the wand, and perhaps more, but the power will run out and the spellware will collapse if you keep casting spells. At that point, the wand will need to be cleansed and the spellware put back into place, instead of just recharging the wand.”

Harris reached for the nearest wand, then stopped himself. “Is it safe to touch?”

“Yes, as long as you don’t try to blast yourself,” Adam said. “Take one.”

He watched, feeling a flicker of pride, as Harris hesitatingly held out his hand. Mundanes were warned, time and time again, to leave magic to the magicians, even in places like Beneficence or Cockatrice. A charmed object that might pose no threat to a magician could easily turn a mundane into a rat, or leave them blind, even if they weren’t specifically cursed. Wild and tainted magic was even worse, leaving a mark on anyone who encountered it even if they weren’t mutated or warped into something horrible. It had been hard for him to overcome the taboo on touching anything that might be magic, and he’d had a master who had actively encouraged him to take the risk. Magic was dangerous, often in ways that weren’t immediately obvious, but it wasn’t inherently malicious. It could be handled, if you refused to allow fear to overwhelm you.

Harris picked up the wand gingerly, as if he expected it to bite. Adam watched his face, noting the change from grim adult to wondrous – and wondering - child, as Harris touched true power for the first time. Adam had felt the same way too, back when he’d first devised a method for creating durian gas. It hadn’t been perfect, but … it had been something new. And it had led to the dawn of a whole new era of magic.

“It feels good,” Harris breathed. His eyes were bright. “Right in my hand …”

“As the courtesan said to the king,” Adam said. It was astonishing how wealth and power could make up for a complete lack of attractiveness, he’d often thought. The City Fathers of Beneficence were far from handsome, yet they never lacked for female company. “Just remember, it doesn’t make you invincible.”

Harris eyed him. “Are you sure?”

Adam nodded, shortly. The first time he’d made durian gas, he’d rendered Lilith powerless. The surge of power he’d felt himself was something he looked back on with shame, the sudden sense he could do anything to her overriding his common sense. He’d been very tempted to treat her as she’d treated him, or worse … it had been hard, almost impossible, to keep himself under control. It would have ended very badly if he had let that part of him free, he knew. The gas was a powerful weapon, but shorn of the advantage of surprise it wouldn’t have been anything like as effective. And the regime knew it existed.

It’s a little like getting drunk, he reflected. He’d drunk himself senseless a few years ago, with his friends, and he was painfully aware he had made a colossal fool of himself. His mother had pointed it out sharply, after the hangover had faded to the point he was fairly sure his head wasn’t going to explode, noting just how easily he could have gotten himself killed, or arrested, or simply kicked out of the city. You think you are strong and powerful, you think you can say or do anything because the alcohol robs you of your common sense, and you discover – too late – that you’re dead wrong. Or just dead.

“It’s a tool, nothing more,” he said. He’d met quite a few magicians whose power was matched only by their lack of common sense. “You can use it, true, but it won’t make you invincible. If you go into battle convinced you’re sure to win, you will lose.”

Harris put the wand back, and smiled. “What else can we do?”

“I charged a handful of wands with cancellation and shield spells,” Adam said. “And a few tiles which will dispel levitation charms, although they won’t do anything against anything physically thrown at you. I actually duplicated a levitation spell myself, but it was strictly of limited value because it was something they knew how to counter.”

He shrugged. “Your craftsmen have everything I can give them,” he added, untruthfully. The magiwriter was a secret, one he hadn’t dared mention out loud. “Once you start churning out charged wands, spell circuits and a few other surprises, you’ll be able to give the regime one hell of a shock.”

Harris clapped his shoulder. “And it is all thanks to you.”

Adam flinched. Arnold had been given to clapping his shoulder too, as part of his attempt to present a façade of comradely bonhomie. In hindsight, Adam wondered just how he’d managed to miss the signs … he kept his face blank as he studied Harris, wondering if he was part of the Hierarchy. It seemed unlikely, and yet they’d already met one magician who had posed as a mundane long enough to come very close to undermining or destroying the university. And yet … he sighed, inwardly. Harris could have turned them in by now, if he had been intent on betrayal. The regime would have rewarded him … probably. It was quite possible the traitor would be murdered instead, if only because he had proved he couldn’t be trusted.

“Thanks,” he said, instead. “You make sure you get the word out before it’s too late.”

Harris nodded, his eyes flickering to the wands before he walked to the door. Adam turned and made his way to the window, staring out over the ghetto. He’d seen some slums in his time – there were places in Beneficence where no one went after dark, save at risk of his life – and yet, the ghetto was the worst place he’d ever seen. The sheer hopelessness pervaded the air like a physical force, a wet blanket that made it hard to think clearly even though he knew it was subtle magic. There were men on the streets who had clearly been men of quality, and women who’d been great beauties, and yet now they were dressed in brown, penned up in a district that might as well have been a prison. He’d seen one young girl on the streets, selling her body for pennies … she’d looked far too much like his sister for his peace of mind. It made him wonder what would happen if – when – the regime started conquering the neighbouring kingdoms. Would every last mundane be reduced to a slave?

The door opened. Lilith stepped in. “Are you done?”

“The rebels know what to do now,” Adam said. She looked utterly out of place in the ghetto, even though she’d traded her magician’s dress for a shapeless brown smock. There was no sense of despair around her, no awareness she might be beaten, raped or killed at any moment. “All we have to do is wait.”

“Sienna is supposed to be alive,” Lilith said. She joined him at the window, her body brushing against his. “And we still don’t know what happened to Jane.”

Adam frowned. “Was it even her who was writing under her by-line?”

Lilith shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I should have read more of her work, then I might be able to tell …”

“Yeah,” Adam agreed. Jane might be a prisoner, or she might have been taken into the heart of the regime, or she might have been brainwashed … she might even be dead. Adam shuddered. There was no way to know. Just because Jane’s name was on articles didn’t mean she’d written them. They had no contact with anyone outside the city, anyone who might be able to shed light on the matter. “Can she be trusted not to turn on us?”

“I don’t know her that well,” Lilith said. “But what she wants might not matter.”

Adam grimaced. The regime could do anything it liked to Jane, and it was unlikely anyone would be able to do anything about it. She’d hardly be the first reporter who had accidentally cut her own throat while shaving – if her stories were true, a number of reporters had met equally improbable fates or simply vanished without a trace – and very few people would mourn her passing. Broadsheet reporters were both heroes and villains, and not everyone cared much what happened to them. Sienna was a different matter. They should have killed her on the spot. The fact they hadn’t was worrying.

“True,” he agreed, finally. “We have to move, and move fast.”

Lilith glanced at him. “The city getting to you?”

“Yeah,” Adam said. It was a chilling thought. “If we had grown up here, what would we have become?”

 

Chapter Thirty-One

“We have to save her,” Caleb said.

Emily hesitated, unsure what to say. She wasn’t good at dealing with other people’s emotions at the best of times, and there was a great deal of history between them that made it hard to approach the topic dispassionately. Caleb had never quite forgiven her, at least at first, for putting the mission ahead of his sister’s life, even though cold logic insisted she’d made the right decision. It had led to their first break-up, one that had hurt more than it should. But then, she had no siblings. She had underestimated how he’d felt about his sister because she didn’t have one herself.

She stared at her hands, trying to think. Sienna had always been a ruthlessly practical woman, and she would understand the risks. Emily was surprised she’d agreed to borrow the airship and use it for a rescue mission, even though Caleb would have done something stupid if his mother hadn’t agreed to make Adam’s plan a reality. Perhaps she’d calculated the odds and determined they could get away with it, once. The trick wouldn’t work twice, even if they’d had a second airship. The regime would have devised some kind of antiaircraft weapon by now, and a network of wards that would alert them if an airship crossed the walls. They’d be complete idiots if they failed to learn from experience, and nothing they’d done suggested they were anything of the sort.

“We need to be careful,” Emily said, finally. “She wouldn’t want us charging straight into a trap.”

Caleb made a face. “And they’ll kill her for miscegenation. You know it.”

Emily shuddered. The regime had banned marriages between magicians and mundanes, and promised dire punishments for any magicians caught having sex with mundanes. The world being what it was, she suspected those punishments would fall harder on female magicians than their male counterparts, not least because a male magician who got a mundane pregnant would be siring a child with magical potential, without having to openly acknowledge the kid as his. They insisted it weakened the bloodline, and the magic, even though raw data suggested otherwise. Sienna’s children weren’t just powerful. They were intelligent and innovative as well.

“They won’t do anything in a hurry,” Emily said. It was unlikely the regime knew Sienna had given Caleb some of her blood. Most magicians would think twice about doing anything of the sort, given the risks. “They’ll figure out who she is, and then decide what to do.”

She scowled. It wouldn’t be that hard for the regime to deduce Caleb was in the city, along with her. Their relationship was an open secret, and that meant … she grimaced. The regime could threaten his mother’s life, forcing him to surrender the rest of the team or do something stupid … she wondered, sourly, if that was exactly what they had in mind. Or if they’d just kill her, as a slap in the face to her family. Sienna didn’t talk to her relatives very often, but they’d still be unamused if she were murdered. Probably.

“We don’t even know where she is,” she added. “Can you locate her?”

Caleb scowled. “She’s somewhere within the Citadel,” he said. “I think … she’s certainly in the same general area. Beyond that, nothing.”

“We’ll need to narrow it down,” Emily said. The Citadel was huge, as well as bigger on the inside. They wouldn’t have time to search the building from top to bottom … hell, even getting in a second time would be difficult. She wasn’t sure how she’d been caught, the first time around, and without that knowledge there was no way to make sure it didn’t happen again. “If we could get closer …”

She scowled. In theory, it would be easy to triangle Sienna’s exact location. In practice, it would be almost impossible. The regime knew she had children, knew they were magicians … their blood wouldn’t be an exact match for Sienna’s, of course, but they could still use their own blood to get a vague idea of where she was. They’d compensate by designing wards to scatter the signal, making it impossible to narrow her location down. Given time, Emily was sure, they could do it anyway … but did they have time? She feared not.

“We can slip out of the ghetto,” she said. The tunnels hadn’t been exposed, although the simple fact there had been a gate was clear proof the regime knew where they were. “But it won’t be easy to get close to the Citadel.”

She gritted her teeth. What would she do, if she held such a prisoner? The regime had tried to use her as bait in a trap, and their plan had partly worked; this time, she was sure, they’d make certain the trap actually snapped closed, catching the would-be rescuers before they could make their escape. Or would they simply kill her, the moment they figured out who she was? Or put her on trial? Her mind spun in circles. It wasn’t easy thinking like a group of fascist bastards who genuinely believed in their ideology, no matter how insane it looked to her. Resolute might be so disgusted by Sienna that he’d kill her on the spot. It wasn’t as if Boswell would save her life too.

“We have to try,” Caleb said. He stood. “Shall we go?”

“Change your clothes first,” Emily advised. “Or they’ll grab you the moment you step onto the streets.”

She thought they should wait, and keep their heads down, but there was no point in trying to stop him. She would have to tie him up or turn him into an object to keep him from leaving, and that would destroy their relationship beyond repair. He genuinely loved his mother … Emily wondered, numbly, if she’d feel the same way if her mother had tried to be a real mother to her. The thought brought a hot flash of anger. If she had children, she would make damn sure they had loving and supportive parents who wouldn’t drink themselves senseless, or let them grow up into entitled brats, or simply pay as little attention to the children as possible. And if she lost her husband, she wouldn’t marry someone who’d be actively hostile to the children either.

Caleb pulled a cloak over his brown outfit, muttering a charm to create a shifting impression of a dangerously handsome man. Emily tried not to roll her eyes as she checked her own appearance, then followed him down the stairs and into the open air. Celeste had once been the cleanest city in the world – most cities couldn’t escape the lingering stench of medieval civilisation – but now the air smelt of piss and shit and human despair. The ghetto might have been the poorest district in the city, yet it hadn’t been a bad place to live. Not until now, with countless mundanes crammed into a district too small to keep them indefinitely. The sense of hopelessness was overpowering, gnawing at her mind. She’d been told crime was low, something that bothered her more than it should. The despair was wearing everyone down.

The tunnels felt darker now, waves of tainted magic shimmering around them as they made their way to a concealed entrance. Emily feared the regime was throwing away all restraints when it came to experimenting, allowing sorcerers to push the limits as much as possible; she wondered, numbly, just how many alchemists and charmsmiths had blown themselves up – or worse – in the last few weeks. Everyone loved research into magic, and honoured the magicians who made genuine breakthroughs, but they preferred to keep the more inquisitive magicians at arm’s length. Most were told to carry out their experiments elsewhere, a long way from anyone who might be hurt. Anyone important, at least. There were horror stories of disasters caused by magicians in mundane cities.

She felt cold, despite the warm air, as they emerged into the sunlight and hailed a broadsheet crier. The newspaper’s lead story was focused on the attack on the store, crediting the regime for catching a dozen spies from the magical aristocracy and taking them into custody; Emily was amused to note the lack of actual truth in the story, right down to the claim that all twelve spies had been taken alive. The reports of seven decent magicians held prisoner within the shop were just as absurd, although Emily suspected they were a tacit admission the regime had found and liberated Hannah’s abusers. She hoped the woman had learnt a few lessons from the experience, although she doubted it. Too many bullies learnt the wrong lessons when someone called them out and slapped them down.

“Nothing of great import,” Caleb muttered. “You think there’s any truth in this story?”

Emily glanced at it. The regime was apparently discussing links with Alluvia … she shook her head. The article mentioned a king, and the King of Alluvia had been beheaded nearly a year ago. She doubted a largely-mundane nation of revolutionaries would have much in common, certainly not enough to work together, although politics did make strange bedfellows. It was quite possible no one would know enough to realise the truth, as insane as that seemed. The magical community paid as little attention as possible to mundane politics.

“No,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She walked beside him, keeping her eyes open as they made their way towards the Citadel. The streets were as crowded as ever, but there was a nasty edge in the air that suggested it was just a matter of time until someone snapped out a curse, starting a fight. There were guards everywhere, carrying their staffs in plain view, and iron giants carefully positioned for maximum intimidation. A handful were completely unmoving, to the point Emily wondered if they were dummies; the remainder were moving randomly, some marching up and down and others just making motions to remind passing citizens they were real. She tried to calculate just how many iron giants there were, but drew a blank. She just didn’t know enough to come up with a figure that was more than random guesswork.

We’ve seen at least twenty on the streets, she thought. She suspected they’d seen more, but it was impossible to be sure. Most were completely identical, at least at a distance. She was surprised there were any individualistic iron giants, and paint designs, at all – maintaining a certain degree of confusion about just how many there were, and who was controlling them, worked in the regime’s favour. How many more do they have?

She put the question aside as they neared the Citadel. There were stronger wards pervading the air, as well as guards, iron giants, and a handful of devices that looked like crosses between cannons and catapults. She could sense magic flickering around them and sucked in her breath as she realised what they actually did. The regime had invested mass drivers, devices capable of launching a cannonball at terrifying speed … if it hit an airship, and even the smallest was still an easy target, the gasbag would be ripped apart and the remains would fall out of the sky, even if the gas itself didn’t explode. She had to admit it was a neat solution. An airship was protected from magic, but a cannonball would be more than enough to bring it down.

Caleb touched her arm, lightly. “She’s definitely inside the building.”

“Yes,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure where she’d been held, and there was no guarantee Sienna had been taken there too. “Can you get any closer to her?”

“No.” Caleb sounded frustrated. “We could get inside the building …”

Emily raised her head and peered towards the open doors. They were immense, large enough for a giant to walk in and out without bowing his head, but the line of people going into the Citadel looked as if it were passing through airport security. She reached out gingerly with her mind and touched a handful of wards, some crafted to peer through glamours and uncover liars and others with no disenable purpose. They should have been interfering with each other, she noted, but instead they appeared to work together very well. She had a nasty feeling that getting into the Citadel would be easy; getting out again would be difficult, if not impossible. The regime might well have made their Citadel impregnable.

There’s no such thing, she told herself, sharply. Void had honed her skills on dozens of buildings, from apartments owned by low-power magicians to castles that had been passed down from magician to magician, and there was always a way in. Given time, we can figure out how to get in again.

She tensed as her mind brushed against … something. A mind, governing the wards? She wasn’t sure, but there was no time to find out. She grabbed Caleb’s hand and led him away, hoping against hope the mystery presence hadn’t gotten a good look at her. The contact had been a few seconds at most, yet that was more than enough time for a competent magician to get a sense of her magical signature. She felt eyes watching her as they slipped away, although she wasn’t sure if she was imagining it or not. There was just no way to tell.

“We’ll have to give the problem some thought,” she said lightly, as she kept her eyes open for threats. She felt dangerously exposed, even though no one appeared to be paying any attention to them. They looked like a happy young couple, out for a stroll … and yet she felt as if all eyes were watching her. She recalled an old nightmare – going to school as naked as the day she were born – and shuddered. “Did you pick up anything?”

“I don’t think we can crack the defences again, even if we had more of Katherine’s blood,” Caleb said. “They’ll be watching for that now.”

Emily nodded, feeling a twinge of guilt. Katherine had been an innocent and yet … she hoped Resolute hadn’t punished his daughter, not when she had been unaware she’d even lost a few droplets of blood. There were stories of child-magicians who could go toe-to-toe with adults, but the real world was rarely that kind. Jane would be no match for her, and Jane was at least six years older than Katherine, with two years of magical training under her belt. Surely, no decent father would lash out at his daughter for something she couldn’t have helped … she felt cold. Resolute was a Supremacist, a fascist by any other name. The idea of him actually being a decent father was absurd.

She pushed the thought aside as the sense they were being watched grew stronger, no matter how they wove a random path through the city. They passed the marketplace, the courtroom and a handful of specialist magical shops, two boarded up even though she was sure the regime would want to get them back into operation as quickly as possible. She hoped it was a good sign, proof the regime was having trouble attracting top talent, but in truth she didn’t know. There were fewer mundanes on the streets, the handful she saw hurrying after their masters. She was sure that was not a good sign.

“You can head west,” Caleb muttered. “I’ll go east.”

Emily shook her head. The idea of splitting up struck her as dangerous. It was just possible Caleb would make it clear, if she was the one being followed, but she had a nasty feeling she was going to need his help. Or was he the target? The regime had access to Sienna’s blood … they could use it to track him down. Caleb had tried to cut the links, of course, but his heart hadn’t been in it. She was mildly surprised they hadn’t been tracked down already.

“Stay with me,” she muttered. She led the way into an alleyway – she had never thought she’d be disturbed to realise there were no homeless sleeping in the shadows – and muttered a hasty glamour spell, changing their appearances as they reversed course and headed back the way they'd come. If there was anyone following them, they’d go off on a wild goose chase or stay in contact. “We need to keep moving.”

They walked up the street and passed the public bathhouse, teeming with visitors – all magicians, of course. Emily gritted her teeth as she realised the sense of being watched was still there, even though she really couldn’t pick out any shadows. Sergeant Miles had taught her how to spot a tail, someone close enough to keep an eye on them and yet far away enough to escape if she turned round on them, but there were no repetitive faces. That meant little, where magicians were involved; she reached out, trying to sense a glamour, only to discover there were dozens of glamours surrounding them. Nearly everyone had one, something that would have made her smile if the situation hadn’t been so serious. Human vanity was a powerful thing …

“Get ready to run,” she muttered, and shaped the most powerful cancellation spell she could muster. “Now!”

She cast the spell, cancelling every other spell within range. Glamours were very fragile spells, rarely capable of standing up to even a minor dispeller, and they all came apart. The crowd staggered, some cursing and others screaming, as their real faces were exposed. Emily risked a glance behind her and rolled her eyes. There was no one particularly ugly within eyesight, no one who would be shunned and abhorred back home. Magicians tended to be healthier than their mundane counterparts, and often more attractive too. The only real shock was a young man who had clad himself in spells and discovered, too late, that those spells could be cancelled too.

They ran, darting into the nearest alleyway as the crowd searched for the culprit. It was a severe breach of magical etiquette to dispel someone’s glamour, and the victims wanted blood. Whoever was following them might be blamed for the spell; even if they weren’t, the confusion would make it easier for Emily and Caleb to escape. They should be able to make it clear …

And then a spell struck her in the back.

 

Chapter Thirty-Two

Emily froze, her muscles locking painfully.

She would have gritted her teeth against the sudden surge of pain, if she had been able to make the slightest movement. Most freeze spells placed the victim’s body in stasis – if not their minds – but this one locked her body, ensuring she’d be sore for hours even if she were freed or managed to free herself very quickly. The pain mounted sharply, from her eyes and mouth to her arms and legs. She hoped Caleb hadn’t been caught, that he’d had the sense to run for his life and find the others, yet she feared otherwise. It was the second time she’d been caught and if the regime got her into the Citadel, they’d make damn sure they never let her go again.

Ice ran down her spine as she felt a presence behind her. She’d been zapped in the back … she forced herself to reach out with her mind, analysing the spell binding her. It was surprisingly simple, the kind of charm a first-year student might cast, but it was also terrifyingly strong. Her protections should have deflected the spell; instead, they’d given up the ghost so quickly she hadn’t realised they were failing until it was already too late. It felt like a necromancer spell – grossly overpowering simple spells was one of their most dangerous tricks – except she had never seen one cast a freeze spell. The spell wasn’t hard, but it did require a certain degree of control most necromancers lacked.

The sound of footsteps grew louder. Emily shaped her mind, concentrating on breaking the spell from inside. It felt weird, a spiderweb of raw power that felt as if it were made of iron. It was hard to think clearly as the pain tore at her concentration, suggesting a reason the enemy had used that spell rather than a more conventional charm. She knew a dozen counter-charms, from a simple dispeller to a custom-designed spell designed to take the charm apart from within, but she was in too much pain to cast it. She wished she’d had more time to practice, yet even Void had drawn the line at inflicting pain to force her to think through it. In hindsight, perhaps that had been a mistake.

She braced herself as her enemy came into view. A young man – she doubted he was any older than eighteen - wearing long flowing robes and carrying a staff. His face was half-hidden by a hood, but she had the impression he was surprised at his own success. She felt a twinge of something as she realised her captor reminded her of Caleb, a strange combination of nerd and muscular jock that was largely unknown back home. It was disconcerting to see someone so similar on the other side.

“And who,” her captor asked, “are you?”

Emily wanted to snort in irritation. She was frozen. She could no more answer questions than she could scratch her suddenly-itchy nose. Instead, she split her attention between the young man – and the staff he held – and the spell binding her. The staff was odd, up close; it didn’t feel like a wand, yet there were clearly spells woven into the wood. She had the strangest sense of a magical distortion, surrounding the tip. It was impossible to figure it out without a closer look.

She saw movement behind the young man and focused herself to cast a spell. Her entire body collapsed like a sack of potatoes, the pain suddenly overwhelming. She hit the ground hard enough to rattle her teeth, but the pain of the impact was lost in the muscle spasms tearing her body apart. Something hit the ground beside her, yet she barely noticed. It was hard to think clearly. Perhaps that was why the regime used the spell, beyond simple sadism. It was powerful enough to take her down, if she were caught by surprise, and even if she escaped she’d still be in agony. Clever, in a very nasty way.

“I got him,” Caleb said. “He’ll have one hell of a headache when he wakes up.”

Emily forced herself to open her eyes, unsure of when she’d actually closed them. Her captor was lying on the ground, unconscious. Caleb had smacked him over the head, rather than use magic … something she suspected the guardsman wouldn’t expect. She forced herself to sit upright, muttering a pair of charms that dulled the pain. She would have to pay for that later – the best cure was a hot bath, which she was unlikely to find in the ghetto – but for the moment she’d be find. She leaned forward, examining the guardsman. He was younger than she’d thought, the patch of hair on his chin – an attempt to raise a beard, she guessed – only adding to the impression of youth.

“Ouch,” she muttered. The sense of being watched had dispelled, thankfully. “What do you make of him?”

Caleb’s lips twisted. “A bully,” he said. “And someone very unsure of himself.”

Emily nodded, thoughtfully. Kings and Queens tended to dress in gold, silver and purple, making it clear they were in charge. Their aristocracy had had to somehow balance the need to show off their status without offending those of higher status, a complicated dance she’d never had the time or patience to learn. Magicians, by contrast, rarely bothered. Their magic made them de facto nobleman, and that meant that any magician who dressed himself up in finery was compensating for something. She told herself, sharply, not to underestimate the man. He’d come very close to taking her prisoner. Again.

“I suppose.” Emily picked up the staff and examined it carefully. “Check his pockets, see what he’s carrying.”

“And get the cruel weight of his money pouch off his chest,” Caleb put in. “We do want it to look like a robbery.”

Emily nodded, turning the staff over and over in her hand. It wasn’t anything like a normal staff, from what she could tell; power, considerable power, seemed to flow through the tip, a reserve of magic that someone – anyone – could call on. The tip itself was wrapped in a magic haze that reminded her of the magiwriter, a faint sense that the spells were holographic, insubstantial to ensure they could not be destroyed by a surge of raw magic. It was another example of the regime taking development in a very different direction, yet the basic principle was very similar. She shuddered. If the regime developed their own magiwriter …

“They could make necromancy practical,” she mused. She could sense traces of blood around the tip of the staff, holding a connection open to … to what? The wards? Or an infused man? “If they can make it work …”

She swore under her breath, recalling how quickly the store’s wards had been battered down. The regime had unleashed brute force, as if they’d turned a fire hose on a sandcastle, on a scale unimaginable to any save necromancers. She recalled Lady Barb’s fears and gritted her teeth, realising how her innovations – and Adam’s – had been perverted to create this travesty of magic. She stared down at the stunned guardsman, feeling a wave of contempt. He’d thought he needed the staff to make him powerful, but instead …

Get the staffs away from them and they’ll be much less dangerous, she mused. It crossed her mind to wonder if the young man was a magician at all. The regime could have turned mundanes into servants, secure in the knowledge they couldn’t be dangerous. A quick check revealed she was wrong. The man was a magician, just too low-powered to be offered a scholarship. He could have worked to build up his magic, yet instead he became dependent on a staff.

“Curious,” Caleb said. “I think he was drawing on power without letting it warp his magic.”

“I think so,” Emily said. Alassa had used a wand at first, something that had limited her until she’d learnt to cast spells without it. “Like a battery, but with far more control.”

Her heart sank. The trick was simple, and yet dealing with it would be difficult. Or …

She looked up. “Did he have anything interesting in his pockets?”

“Very little,” Caleb said. “A couple of protective talismans, a handful of coins, a half-eaten ration bar and nothing else.”

“Keep the coins,” Emily said. She stood up, holding the staff. Did they dare take it with them? Adam might be more capable than her at figuring out what it did, and how to counter it, but could it be tracked? She didn’t think so – it was difficult to track a chat parchment, and the staff appeared to be based on the same idea – yet it was risky. “We’ll take the staff into the catacombs and hide it there, at least until we know if it can be tracked.”

“I’d be surprised,” Caleb said. “How many magicians do you know who’d be happy being tracked?”

And back home, everyone carried smartphones that could be used to track them, Emily thought, grimly. Smartphones hadn’t been the only threat, not for young women. The more tech advanced, the more it could be perverted and turned into a nightmare that would make Orwell blanch. This guy might not be powerful enough to write his own ticket.

She knelt beside the stunned man and muttered a memory-twisting spell, ensuring his recollections would be worse than useless. Caleb produced a flask of water and spilled it over the man’s mouth, muttering a charm to turn the water into wine. Emily hid her disgust – she’d been warned that such spells were dangerously unsafe, often producing poisonous levels of alcohol – and then decided against taking a blood sample. Katherine had been Resolute’s daughter, her blood close enough to his to allow her to hack the wards. The guardsman was of no great importance and she doubted he’d have permission to enter the Citadel on his own. And even if he did, it would be revoked once the regime figured out what happened to him.

“It’ll look like a robbery,” Caleb said, again. “You think?”

Emily shrugged as she cast a concealment charm over the staff. The regime knew they’d poked the wards and sent someone after them … just one? She looked around carefully, reaching out with her mind, but as far as she could tell their enemy had been alone. She wondered if he’d thought he’d be a hero if he caught her alone, or if he’d just gotten separated from the rest. It hardly mattered. The regime would know he’d lost his staff, and that meant …

They turned and walked away, leaving the stunned man alone. Emily held the staff lightly in one hand, disturbed by how good it felt against her bare skin. She kept that thought to herself. Caleb had a more refined sense of humour than Cat, but even he would find it hard to resist making the obvious joke. She felt her eyes narrow as she sensed the huge reservoir of power at the far end of the bloodlink, just waiting to be called upon. Necromancy without necromancers. Lady Barb had been right all along.

It isn’t your fault they used your ideas to build a nightmare, she told herself. It was hard not to feel guilty. And Adam isn’t to blame either.

The staff’s power seemed to fade, slightly, as the minutes ticked by. Emily studied the traces thoughtfully and realised the blood holding the connection was slowly dying, weakening the link between the staff and the reservoir. A security precaution, to keep the staff from being turned against its makers? Or something the regime, for all its power, couldn’t circumvent? She suspected the spells preserving the blood had to be renewed often, for fear of losing the link. A low-power magician could easily handle that, allowing him to keep using the staff. She wished, suddenly, that they’d taken the guardsman prisoner, although she doubted he’d be able to talk even if he were willing. The regime had ways to keep people from talking.

She kept her eyes open as they reached the tunnels and slipped under the city. The catacombs felt worse than before, the air fouling as they moved through the buried remnants of former glory. She concealed the staff some distance from the gate and cast a handful of concealment spell, then followed Caleb as he opened the gate into the ghetto. Harris appeared from nowhere, a wand clutched in his hand. Emily hoped Adam had warned Harris the wand didn’t make him unbeatable. There were stories of wands that made their wielder invincible, but they were nothing more than legends.

“I did,” Adam assured her, when she reached the apartment. “But it will take a while before he believes it.”

Emily nodded, rather sourly. She understood. She hadn’t had much power – any power – for her early years, and discovering she had magic had been one hell of a confidence booster. She’d been lucky to be at Whitehall, she supposed, where she’d been surrounded by students who were just as powerful as herself, so the power didn’t go to her head. She shuddered to think what she would have become if she’d been alone, with godlike power she didn’t truly understand …

She put the thought aside and carefully recounted everything that had happened, drawing out what she could recall of the staff for Adam to inspect. It wasn’t enough. Caleb volunteered to take Adam to see the staff itself, while Emily got some rest. She wanted a shower, but there was no hot or cold running water in the ghetto. The only source of water was the pumps in the street and those could be turned off at will, if the regime wished to punish the mundanes. It was just a matter of time, she reflected as she muttered a pair of cleaning spells, before there was an outbreak of something nasty. The mundanes knew to boil water to protect themselves, but they were running dangerously low on fuel.

Idiots, Emily thought. It made no sense, even from a cold-blooded practical point of view. How can you hope to get work out of your slaves if the poor bastards die of something you could cure in a heartbeat?

Her blood ran cold. Perhaps that was the point. The regime might balk at mass slaughter, or outright genocide, but passively letting them die of disease was another thing entirely … if you happened to be a monster. Disease outbreaks weren’t uncommon … perhaps the regime intended to claim the mundanes had all caught the common cold and died, or that they’d been trying to infect the magicians with disease and fallen victim to their own weapon. Or …

“Lady Emily,” Lilith said, from where she was seated. “Can we talk?”

“Yes, if you call me Emily,” Emily said. Caleb and Adam were out, and Hannah was working with the rebels. She checked the wards, just to make sure they were safe and unobserved. “What would you like to talk about?”

Lilith hesitated, visibly. “The staff is blood-linked to an infused man, right?”

“I think so,” Emily said. It made a certain kind of sense. Batteries were one-shot weapons and the staff was clearly designed to be used more than once. The sheer power she’d felt at the far end of the link had been impressive, and terrifying; she had a feeling the bloodlink was capable of serving as a makeshift ritual, channelling the power in a manner no battery could match. “It appears to work that way.”

“I could have done that,” Lilith said. She looked torn between guilt and something else, something Emily didn’t want to look at too closely. “I thought … there was a part of me that wondered if Adam could be used as a power source, something I could draw on if needed. I … we never really looked into it.”

“Probably for the best,” Emily said. She had never considered using someone else as a power source … she’d never really thought it possible, outside rituals, and those were easy to mess up if someone didn’t want to go through with it. “Have you talked to Adam about it?”

“No.” Lilith stared down at her hands, which were twisting. “I … I could have been like them, if things had been different.”

Emily remembered her doppelganger and winced. The idea of taking over the entire known world and enslaving everyone was alien to her, but her counterpart had thought otherwise. Emily wanted to think she’d been driven mad by necromancy, that she had gone to such extremes because she could no longer tell the difference between right and wrong, yet … perhaps she would have done the same, if she had come to believe the world around her wasn’t quite real. Or that she needed to survive, and to hell with everyone who got caught in the gears. It was easy to be kind when you had everything you wanted, everything you needed, but a great deal less so when you were one bad day away from disaster. Her attempts to abolish the death penalty in Cockatrice had not been a great success.

Of course not, she thought. You were safe at school, protected by the teachers and your own powers. Your people were nowhere near so safe, and so they wanted to remove the threat permanently.

“Go talk to him, if you want,” Emily said. She had the start of a plan now, something that would get the ball rolling. It would be risky, but she dared not give the regime any more time. “We’ll have a proper chat tonight, get our plans worked out, and then …”

“I could have been like them,” Lilith said. “I thought …”

“You are not,” Emily told her. “You made mistakes, but you recovered and you learnt from your mistakes. You made better choices. And that is all that matters.”

 

Chapter Thirty-Three: Adam

Lilith met his eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“There’s no choice,” Adam pointed out. “Who else can do this?”

The fear in her eyes bothered him, even though he knew she was afraid of losing him. They both knew the dangers – he could be caught easily, or simply hexed randomly by some magician who didn’t have the slightest idea who he actually was, or lose himself in the subtle magic pervading the workshop – but there was no one else who could do it. Emily and Caleb had the skills, yet they’d be recognised as unauthorised magicians the moment they stepped into the workshop and be attacked; Hannah didn’t have the skills she needed to actually make the plan work. It had to be him. And the nightmare sweeping over the city was one he’d do anything to end before it was too late.

He leaned forward and kissed her lightly, then turned away and headed downstairs. The stench was growing stronger, a mocking reminder that every last mundane in the city was penned up in the ghetto or effectively enslaved. Adam had a suspicion conditions were deliberately designed to be as bad as possible, in hopes of convincing vast numbers of mundanes to put slave collars on willingly. It was perfectly possible to enslave an unwilling victim – Arnold had threatened to do it to him – but easier, and more permanent, to do it to someone who agreed to be enslaved willingly. Adam told himself that he would sooner die than put on a collar, yet he was cynical enough to wonder if he’d still refuse if the alternative was a slow and unpleasant death. There was a reason slavers were regarded as the least of magicians, considered irredeemably evil even by those who shared their power. It was just a shame most magicians refused to do anything about them,

Harris was waiting in the lobby, wearing a workman’s overalls that were stripped of all individuality, lacking the custom modifications workmen used back home to stand out from the crowd. Adam felt his heart twist as Harris inspected Adam’s outfit, identical to his own, then nodded curtly and turned away. The door leading out onto the street was missing, allowing the stench of human dedration to seep into the lobby; he gritted his teeth, trying to pretend to be unaffected as thye made their way outside. An unmoving body lay by the door, cloak pulled up to conceal the face as much as possible. Adam didn’t dare check to see if the person was alive or not, although he feared the worst. The mission came first.

A steam of humanity, mostly men with a handful of women, was flowing towards the guardpost blocking the route into the city itself. Adam and Harris joined the throng, keeping their mouths firmly shut as the crowd swept them onwards. The sense of despair grew stronger; Adam shuddered as he realised just how effectively the regime had crushed their spirits. There would be pushing and shoving back home, big men elbowing aside smaller men and women in hopes of getting to their workplace before their time ran out, but here the crowd seemed to lack the energy to do anything of the sort. He wondered if it was a kind of passive resistance, the unwillingness to do anything more than strictly necessary for masters who didn’t give a damn about him. It was astonishing how productive farmland had become, when the commoners who actually did the work were allowed to share in the profits. Here, if there was any profit-sharing, it was entirely by accident. The regime had no intention of giving the de facto slaves any wages at all.

He kept his face blank as they passed through the gates, the guards waving wands and staffs in patterns that were designed to look intimidating, and would have been if he hadn’t known so much about magic. They plucked a handful of mundanes out of the crowd for careful examination, but otherwise made no attempt to check everyone’s identification. Adam had expected more trouble, not least because there had been no way to cast obscurification charms on him without destroying the rune he’d sewn into his clothes. The guards hooted and hollered at a young woman, who turned away in shame; Adam felt a surge of pure anger – the women looked a great deal like his sister – and forced himself to tamper it down. There was no way he could fight the guards with just his fists, and if he tried he’d wind up turned into a toad … if he were lucky. If not, they’d ask some pointed questions and figure out who he was. And then they would kill him.

The mood grew darker as the crowd flowed towards the workshops and foundries. There were few magicians on the street – it was very early in the morning – but the ones who were wandering the city had no qualms about jeering at the mundanes, or tossing a handful of hexes and jinxes at them. Adam felt as if he were undergoing a walk of shame, with everyone yelling or throwing rotten vegetables at him. He’d never realised how bad it was to be in the open until now, not when it had never happened to him. He understood, now, why his mother had never let him watch a walk of shame. She had known how easily she could be branded a whore too.

Harris glanced at him once as the crowd split up, small groups making their way into separate workshops. Adam nodded back and followed Harris through a set of gates, trying not to react as he felt a sudden wave of despair slam into him. It nearly brought him to his knees, a command that was all the stronger for being so undefined. He heard someone moan behind him and gritted his teeth, forcing himself to press onwards. He’d always had a strong sense of self – it was a must, if you worked closely with magicians – and yet the sheer power surrounding him was terrifying. A foreman stood just inside the gates, barking orders in a tone that was surprisingly dull. There was a slave collar around his neck, and something screaming inside his eyes. Adam had been raised to think that foremen were one step above slaveowners, and he’d certainly met a few who thought shouting was a good substitute for reasoned argument, but he couldn’t help feeling sorry for this one. The man was trapped in hell, forced to obey orders that were worse than useless. And he would never be free.

He kept walking, passing dozens of workbenches and store cupboards that reminded him of the factories near Heart’s Eye. The mundanes were churning out hundreds of components, from runic tiles and spell circuits to pieces of clockwork, some so tiny he found it hard to believe they could be produced without magic. They’d mastered the assembly line technique, he noted grimly. Each of the craftsmen was constantly churning out a single component, which was then carried away by apprentices and handed over – he guessed – to senior craftsmen, who would assemble the complete devices. His heart sank as he followed Harris past a line of benches, the craftsmen never looking up as they passed. The magical community believed a craftsman needed to put his heart and soul into his work, that he needed to do all the crafting himself. It was disconcerting to realise the regime thought differently.

You have the choice between one practically-perfect device, and a hundred that will suffice, he told himself. Which one would you choose?

He pushed the thought aside as they kept walking. He’d wondered how they were going to pass unnoticed, but there was so much hustle and bustle on the factory floor that their movements were completely unobserved. The workmen were under the influence of subtle magic, their bodies moving in ways that suggested their minds were disengaged; the supervisors were slaves, unable to let their intellect get in the way of their orders. Adam wasn’t too surprised – magicians doing the supervising would have risked damaging the produce – but he found it hard to believe the regime couldn’t find a few willing mundane servants to act as supervisors. Or merely threaten their families to ensure their compliance.

Harris led him into a storage section, a cluster of shelves groaning under the weight of everything from raw materials and magitech components to crystals, potions ingredients and other expensive – and sometimes embargoed – goods. It made him wonder just how long the regime had been preparing for its takeover, just how long they had been stockpiling everything they’d need to maintain themselves if Celeste was cut off from what remained of the trading network. Not, he suspected, that any embargo would be wholly effective. In his experience, there was always someone willing to sell, even to the necromancers. And that was effectively suicide.

“You can get everything you need here?” Harris kept his voice very low. The workshop was hardly quiet, but human chatter was almost completely absent. It was incredibly eerie. “And you can act?”

“I think so,” Adam said. He looked up and down the stacks, mentally cataloguing where everything was. It was an embarrassment of riches, one that he’d envy if it had been somewhere – anywhere – else. Heart’s Eye had a sizable budget, and he’d been given permission to spend a great deal of money to acquire the supplies he thought he needed, but the workshop had clearly spent far more to ensure it had everything it needed and a great deal more besides. “Give me a few moments, then I’ll get to work.”

Harris nodded and slipped away, intent on locating each and every supervisor. The men would fight to defend the workshop, as soon as they realised what was happening, and they had to be taken out of play as quickly as possible. They were victims too, yet as long as they wore those collars they’d be a potential danger. Adam scowled inwardly, then forced himself to keep cataloguing. There were more than enough supplies to craft a portal, with the right sort of help; Adam knew, through experienced, that Caleb knew exactly what to do. He walked up and down, listing everything that would need to be stolen when the time came, and then started to gather the supplies he needed. The regime had done a good job of gathering everything, from simple runic tiles and spell circuits to knives, jars, and other supplies.

He winced, despite himself, as he assembled everything. The die would be cast the moment he pushed the last tile into place, and added the storage component. There would be a surge in the subtle magic field … would it be noticed, he asked himself, or would it be missed until it was far too late? Most magicians found it hard to sense subtle magic – and those who knew it was there tended to close their minds, rather than risk being influenced – but no one had used subtle magic on such a scale before. Having someone keeping their mind attuned to the magic field would be simple common sense, just in case something went wrong. The field might start working a little too well.

Perhaps it does, and it affected the guy who was meant to be monitoring it, Adam thought, wryly. He might be as dull and listless as the workers we couldn’t get to in time.

Harris returned, looking grim. “I have everyone in place,” he said. “Are you ready?”

Adam met his eyes. “Once we start, we’re committed.”

“We were committed from the moment the regime took over,” Harris said, harshly. Adam kicked himself, mentally. He hadn’t had to go anywhere near Celeste, and he had somewhere he could run to if he got out of the city. Harris was trapped. He was a trained craftsman, true, but it would be hard for him to find employment even if he did manage to get out of the city. Heart’s Eye accepted all comers; most other places did not. “Do it.”

Adam nodded, and pressed the knife against his palm, hissing in pain as he cut his skin. The blade wasn’t charmed to make the cut painless, or heal quickly; his old master, he knew, would scold him for using a blade he hadn’t cleaned himself, for fear of infection or magical contamination. The risk was high, but it had to be tolerated. They hadn’t dared try to slip a knife into the workshop, or anything save for the hidden rune. The blood dripped into the tiny basin … he wished, suddenly, that his blood was still infused with magic. There’d be more than enough power to make the spell work. Instead, he pushed the last of the tiles into place. The blood started to bubble immediately.

Shit, Adam thought. The background magic field was normally so low it took time, often a very long time, to gather the power to cast a single spell. Here, the field was off the scale. He made a mental note to research further, as the air over the blood started to shimmer. It was a sign that something was happening, but what? He’d worked out all the details, calculated precisely what he needed to do to generate a whirlpool that would absorb all the subtle magic - and quite a few pieces of active magic – and yet it was impossible to be sure what was really happening. He hadn’t realised how used he’d grown to Lilith’s quiet observations until it was too late. This could easily go wrong …

A surge of something ran through the air, the despair reaching truly crushing levels before vanishing so completely he wondered if he’d imagined it. It felt as if he had been pretending to feel despair, the memory taunting him even as it faded from his mind. The blood started to evaporate a moment later, the magic finally reaching its crescendo. Adam laughed, despite himself. It wasn’t much magic, in the greater scheme of things, but it would change everything.

Someone screamed. Harris turned and darted away as the scream cut off abruptly. Other sounds followed, shocking waves of anger and horror … Adam grabbed a handful of supplies and hurried after Harris, cursing under his breath as he saw the body on the floor. The supervisor’s collar had tightened, as Adam’s spell had tried to drain the surrounding magic, crushing his throat before the last of the magic died away. Two more lay further up the hall, a fourth was fighting with hysterical strength, trying to escape – and warn his master – before it was too late. Adam swallowed, hard, as the slave knocked out two workers, before a third slammed a hammer into his gut. The collar drove the slave onwards, despite crippling pain. It wasn’t until the hammer came down on his head, cracking his skull and killing him instantly, that he dropped dead. Adam shuddered. He’d seen some horrors, but this …

“First team, get to the gates and bar them,” Harris snapped. “Second team, help the rest of the workers!”

Adam nodded as the workers slowly came out of their trance. They’d ensured the assault team had protective runes, and worn them over the last week to slowly undo the effects of subtle magic, but the rest of the workers were unprotected. Subtle magic was far less powerful than a simple compulsion charm, yet it could be far more dangerous because the victim often rationalised his own behaviour rather than admit he’d been under someone’s control. The workers were dazed, confused; Harris snapped orders, sending a number to collect the portal components and putting others to work constructing newer and deadlier pieces of magitech. Adam’s lips quirked as he went to work himself, drawing out designs for the workers to follow. The regime had been perfectly safe, as long as the subtle magic ground out any thought of resistance, but without it … they might as well have locked Emily in a cupboard of dangerous magical supplies and expected her to stay there. Whatever happened, the regime was going to have real problems adapting to the new world order.

Harris caught his eye. “I sent a runner back to the ghetto,” he said. “You think your friends can break out?”

“Yeah.” Adam had no doubt of it, although the supply of effective weapons was very limited. “They can do it.”

He forced himself to look towards the gates. How long would it take for the regime to realise something had gone wrong? Not long, he suspected. The magic field in the workshop had been drained and … he wasn’t sure just how far the effect had spread. He’d calculated it as best as possible, but the sheer power of the field had surprised him. There was a very real possibility the effects had been felt on the other side of the city, even though they wouldn’t have done any real damage.

“Get the gas production underway,” Harris told him. His face was flushed, his eyes flickering between the dazed workers and the crew securing the gates. “Do you have everything you need?”

“I think so,” Adam said. The regime had given them enough spell tiles to cast a dozen spells. Not enough to win, not alone, but enough to make life difficult for the bastards when they came to recover the factory. Would they realise the scale of the threat, he asked himself, or would they assume they could simply cordon off the factory and wait for the rebels to stave? Jane could have told them he was in the city, or Sienna … if they knew what he could do, they’d give him as little time as possible before bringing down the hammer. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

Harris clapped his shoulder. “Yeah,” he agreed. “But one way or the other, they will never forget this day.”

 

Chapter Thirty-Four

Emily felt cold, despite the heat, as she and Lilith left the apartment block and walked towards the gates.

They’d worked out the plan in detail, going through everything that could happen and trying to come up with contingency plans, but there were too many variables for her peace of mind. The regime could react with terrifying speed, or it could do nothing, or … anything in between. Sergeant Miles had taught her to be wary when a plan was working perfectly, noting it was a sign you were likely to lose, and she’d seen it demonstrated enough times to know he’d had a point. The enemy, Miles had pointed out, tended to have plans of his own, and victory would go to the side better able to adapt to the changing situation or even take advantage of it. Emily suspected that boded ill for the future. The regime had been disturbingly innovative in a manner that chilled her to the bone.

The guards leered at them as they approached, their eyes crawling over the shapeless brown outfits in a manner that suggested they could see right through them. Emily wondered if that were true, if the guards were using spells to admire their naked bodies … cold logic suggested otherwise, given how many surprises she’d concealed under her garment, but it was hard to convince herself of it. Lilith showed no visible reaction as the guards beckoned them over, her face under tight control. A guard smiled at her and reached for her breast, in broad daylight, and she turned him into a frog. His companion gaped, his jaw falling open. Emily hit him with a freeze spell before he could scream for help, then stepped past him and hurled the first gas grenade into the guardroom. The regime could have built a bigger chamber for their guards, but instead the guardroom was barely large enough to swing a cat. There was certainly not enough room for the three men inside to get out before breathing in the gas, or even cast a spell to protect themselves. She smirked as they staggered out, the stench of durian accompanying them and poisoning the air, then froze them before the mob could get its hands on them. Lilith kicked the frog down the street, just as the rebels came out of their apartments and onto the streets.

Emily gritted her teeth and stepped aside, as the first wave of rioters headed out into the city. The rebels had organised fighting teams, men and women who would challenge the regime openly, but there were a great many more mundanes who just wanted to lash out blindly. It would get worse, as Caleb worked the spell that would drain the subtle magic pervading the air. The mundanes wanted revenge, and they were going to take it. Or be killed. She grimaced as the mob kicked and beat the frozen guardsmen, their eyes clearly terrified as they realised they’d be killed the moment the spell broke. Emily hoped that, by then, the mob would have found a better target.

Hannah joined them, a wand in one hand and a magitech tile in the other. Emily winced at the look in her eyes, wondering if she’d done the right thing by arming the rebels. A great many magicians were about to be killed, and so were a great many rebels … she shook her head, reminding herself there was little choice. The regime had allowed any magician who wanted to go to go, no questions asked. The ones who had remained were fine with being de facto slave owners, grinding their slaves into the dirt. She had a feeling a sizable number were going to leave after the riot, when they realised they were no longer safe.

“The other guardhouses are being attacked,” Hannah said. “What now?”

“Now we take the factories,” Emily said. She nodded to a passing man, one of Harris’s subordinates, and ordered him into position. “And then we plan the retreat.”

Hannah looked mutinous, her eyes darkening with anger. Emily understood, better than she cared to admit. They had the advantage of surprise, an advantage that wouldn’t last much longer, and she wanted to push the uprising as far as it would go too. But the regime had too many iron giants, and magicians, for her to be sure of liberating the entire city. It would be a bloodbath even if they won, and there was no guarantee of victory. How could there be?

“Go,” Emily said, quietly. She didn’t blame Hannah for wanting to hurt the magicians as much as possible, but she’d be the one getting hurt. “Hurry.”

She glanced at Lilith, then led the way onto the streets. The rioters were already ahead of her, heading for the centre of town while the strike teams were making their way to the factories. A handful of collared slaves came out of buildings and ran, fleeing as if the devil himself was after them; a couple of magicians slammed doors closed, casting wards to ensure the rioters stayed out of their homes. They’d be lucky to survive once the rioters started setting fire to buildings, Emily noted. The regime had demolished a number of apartments to isolate the ghetto, which might have worked a little better than they’d planned. The fires might sweep through the city, at least until fire-fighters could be organised, but the ghetto itself would be largely safe. Probably.

The factories came into view, the sounds of fighting clearly audible. Lilith swore as she saw a line of guardsmen coming from the opposite direction, their staffs blazing with power. Emily wasn’t sure if it was a pointless waste of magic, something that Void had cautioned her to avoid, or a sign they had power to burn. Probably the latter, she decided, as the guards started to cast overpowered jinxes and curses. Their spells were incredibly wasteful, as if they didn’t quite know what they were doing. Or if they were unwilling to risk touching or shaping the magic themselves. She suspected the latter. The risk of madness was too dangerous to take, unless the alternative was death. And even then most magicians might think twice.

She flared her own power as she stepped forward, trying to ignore the howls of pain as the mob staggered under a wave of torture curses. Magicians regarded them as no worse than a slap to the rear, but they were agonising beyond words to mundanes. The guardsmen stared at her, then pointed their staffs and chanted spells. They’d clearly practiced working as part of a team, she noted, something most magicians found difficult. If she hadn’t been prepared for them, she would have found himself in trouble. Instead, her wards deflected the sheets of magic upwards into the bright mid-morning sky. She saw a broomstick plummeting to the ground, the rider screaming in terror, and winced. The flyer had flown too close to the raw magic and lost control of their spells, then found themselves unable to recast the flight charms before it was too late.

Lilith stepped forward and cast a powerful compulsion spell of her own, one designed to worm its way through basic mental defences. The command – open your hands – wasn’t anything like as powerful as a proper compulsion spell, but that would make it a little more dangerous to the enemy. A number did as they were told, dropping their staffs; the remainder staggered backwards as the team effort fragmented, leaving them vulnerable. The mob surged forward, jabbing wands at the guardsmen. Some had the presence of mind to run, but the remainder were still stunned, unable to react before it was too late. The mob tore them apart with a brutality that shocked Emily to the core.

“Keep going,” Lilith said. The assault teams were ploughing into the factories now, dealing with the remaining supervisors and linking up with the infiltrators. “Where’s Adam?”

Emily kept her eyes open as they hurried into the workshops. Harris was standing by the gate, directing operations with a savage intensity; teams of workers, their faces dulled, were carrying pallets of supplies out of the gates and back to the ghetto. The stench of durian hung in the air, a handful of pieces of magitech directing the gas towards the heart of the city. Emily doubted it would be very effective, but anything that sowed confusion – and delayed the enemy’s response – would be worth its weight in gold. She wished they had been able to arrange some kind of attack on the city itself, a liberating army storming the walls as the rebels retook their freedom, but it had been impossible. Even if Heart’s Eye – or somewhere – had managed to duplicate the iron giants, they simply didn’t have enough time to mass produce an army. They’d have to liberate the city alone, or escape. She suspected it was going to be the second option.

“I got most of the spell circuits into place,” Adam said. Lilith was standing right beside him, her eyes proud. “The rest of the traps are ready to be installed.”

Emily nodded. “Hurry,” she said. She was surprised the regime hadn’t acted already. The longer the rebels remained outside the ghetto, the more damage they could do … and the more they could undermine the regime. It relied on force, and the threat of force, to maintain its power – and if it looked weak, a great many magicians would wonder if it could be challenged and destroyed. “I don’t know how long we have before they counterattack.”

“Got it.” Adam met her eyes. “We have the supplies to build a portal …”

“We just need to take down the anti-teleport wards,” Emily said. It was possible they could be undermined, but they’d have to try it to find out. “Right now, we have other problems.”

She collected the staffs and linked them together, examining the way the magic was woven into the blood. It was surprisingly limited, compared to chat parchments, although she wasn’t sure if that was an inherent limitations or a security measure. The latter made sense, she decided; it wouldn’t be that hard to keep someone who captured a staff from hacking the power-distribution network, if the bloodlink was too weak to support it. She tried touching the link anyway, just to be sure, and recoiled at the sudden sense of power boiling into the staff. It was like looking into the sun. Her earlier thoughts mocked her. The regime had found a way to make necromancy practical. And that meant real trouble.

We could use it to drum up anger, she thought. Most magicians were very wary of anything that smacked of necromancy, to the point they shunned rituals if they could be avoided. If only Jane was with us …

A messenger caught her attention. “The iron giants are massing to the north, and there are broomsticks hovering over them.”

“Tell the lead teams to get the traps in place,” Emily said. She cast a hasty rejuvenation spell on the staffs, keeping the link active for a few moments longer. The regime hadn’t tried to cut off the staffs … could they? She didn’t know. It hardly mattered, as long as she had a few seconds to make the charm work. “And get the rest of the supplies out of the workshop, and the workers.”

She straightened and headed up to the rooftop, carefully carrying the staffs ahead of her. There were a handful of fires in the distance, but the remainder of the city appeared disturbingly peaceful. The regime had already rounded up the rioters who had gone too far, or … they’d simply been taken out by other magicians. Emily felt sick at the implications of what that could mean, even as she tied the staffs together and wove a simple charm of her own into the surrounding air. There were a handful of dots in the distance, taking on shape and form as they grew closer. The flyers had to be feeling cocky. They were asking for trouble flying so close to the ground.

They might have found a way to protect the broomsticks, like we protect airships, she thought, tartly. The regime knew about her and her team, they’d know she could send broomsticks plummeting out of the sky with a wave of her hand and a simple cancellation spell. She wouldn’t even have to aim the charm. They must, or no one would agree to fly against us.

She watched the broomsticks come closer, and cast a spell just to be sure. The broomsticks should have fallen, but instead they didn’t even wobble. All she’d done was alert them to her presence. She shrugged – she had been sure the spell wouldn’t work – and keyed the second charm, the one worked into the staffs. The broomsticks flew closer, their riders pointing staffs at her … Emily frowned, wondering if that was how they did it. As long as they kept the tip of the staff some distance from the broom itself, they could both fly and protect themselves. She dismissed the thought and stepped backwards, ducking down as she cast the spell. The surge of raw power made her skin tingle – she hadn’t felt anything like it since she’d faced a necromancer – and the gust of wind nearly picked her up and blew her off the roof. The broomstick riders were thrown back, some losing their grip on their staffs and others being tossed off their broomsticks and sent falling to the ground. Emily looked away, forcing herself to head back downstairs. The regime would be a little more careful about dispatching riders now.

Harris caught her eye. “The fighting has started in earnest,” he said. “We’re winning!”

Emily kept her thoughts to herself as they hurried outside. The street had turned into a war zone, with wand-wielding mundanes exchanging curses and hexes with magicians. A number of iron giants had tried to rush the rebel barricades, only to find themselves taken out with magitech or simply trapped as the ground crumbled under their feet. Others were advancing slowly, their antimagic field catching and dispelling a handful of curses while the guardsmen advanced behind them. Emily recalled her earlier thoughts and scowled. The guardsmen had practiced for this moment, trained to work as a team. And they were quite likely to win.

Adam slipped a handful of spell circuits into place, then triggered the spell. The air grew warm as flames licked towards the advancing enemy, only to vanish as they intersected with the antimagic fields. Adam, nothing loath, pointed the flames downwards, trying to melt the cobblestones under their feet. Emily suspected it wouldn’t work, but it did slow the advance. The heat was nothing to the iron giants, yet it was more than enough to scald the guardsmen if they kept moving.

She scowled as she saw a cluster of guardsmen linking their staffs together. “Get everyone back, now!”

The air fell quiet before Harris could respond, then shuddered as an overpowered force punch cracked through the air. Emily saw a handful of men disintegrate, their bodies atomising as they were hit hard enough to smash them to bits; she cursed as she saw Adam’s spell tiles come apart, fragments of magic splintering in all directions. The guardsmen whooped and pressed forward, the iron giants picking up speed. Emily could practically feel the rebels losing heart, as they were pushed back. She told herself it didn’t matter. They’d never intended to keep the factories, not when the regime would do whatever it took to regain them. She’d wanted – needed – the supplies.

Harris caught her arm. “What now?”

“Get everyone back to the ghetto,” Emily ordered. Panic was starting to spread, a panic that owed nothing to subtle magic. The rebels weren’t soldiers, they certainly hadn’t ever had to engage in organised violence. They had thought themselves invincible and the regime had taught them otherwise. “And hurry!”

She cast a handful of spells herself, more intended to slow the enemy than stop then, then turned to Lilith and nodded. Lilith shot a pair of spells, then shielded Adam as he picked up the remains of his supplies and started to run. It was a shame they hadn’t dared bring the magiwriter out of the ghetto, Emily thought, but the risk of losing it – or letting the enemy see what it could do – was too great. She took the final gas grenade out of her pocket and threw it, muttering a charm to create a gust of wind. The enemy would be shielded, or would they? She took a battery out of her pocket before she could think better of it, shaped a very careful spell into the valve, and cast it towards the enemy. Their advance stopped abruptly.

We study magic itself, Void had taught her, years ago. The thought made her heart ache. There is no magical effect, no act of enchantment or brewing, that cannot be duplicated by a magician with power, resolve, and knowledge. You do not need a potion when you can craft the magical effect yourself.

She glanced back, allowing herself a moment of relief. The effect wouldn’t last long – very little conjured from raw magic did, although some lasted longer than others – but it would buy time for the rebels to escape. It would certainly make the enemy a little more careful about following them. Emily saw someone hurl a burning bottle – a Molotov Cocktail in a world that had never heard of Molotov – at the nearest iron giant, eerie flames splashing over the metal monster. They didn’t look hot enough to do any real damage, let alone melt the magitech inside, but it would hopefully keep the operator from pressing forward. They had to keep moving …

They’ve still got us penned up, she thought, coldly. But if we can open a portal, we can get everyone out and isolate the city for the rest of time.

It wasn’t much of a plan, but it would have to do.