Original Work The Unnatural Order (Schooled in Magic 27)

Chapter Thirty-Five

“What are they thinking?”

Emily glanced at Caleb. They sat together on the roof, taking a break and watching the chaos spread over the city. The rebels had been driven back to the ghetto, but they hadn’t let that stop them from taking the offensive. Small teams of rebels had slipped through the tunnels, some hurling pieces of magitech at passing iron giants and others spreading word of the regime’s misfortunes. And their connection to necromancy. It was hard to tell if the stories were having any effect, but they did know that a number of magicians were leaving the city. Emily was mildly surprised the regime wasn’t trying to stop them, but she could see their dilemma. If too many left, their claim to power would collapse; if they sealed the gates, they’d have a magical uprising as well as the mundane one.

“I don’t know,” she said. It was hard to think like a fascist bastard. Resolute had been calm and controlled, as jovial as one could wish, until things had turned against him. Emily knew the type all too well. “They have to be trying to come up with a plan.”

She looked down, towards the complex network of magitech wards they were using to shield the ghetto. They weren’t unbreakable, as long as the regime was prepared to pay the price, but so far the regime had resisted the urge to challenge them directly. The border between the two states was loose, nowhere near as tight as the regime might have wished. There were just too many ways to get into the city – and the ghetto – for anyone’s peace of mind.

Her mood darkened. Nearly every mundane left outside the ghetto had been enslaved, from what their spies had reported, and the handful who’d been left free were under restrictions that made Hannah’s mistress look sweet and kindly. The regime was trying to organise every magician in the city, pushing them to sweep their neighbourhoods and keep rebels out, and Emily was all too aware it was working. A handful of mundanes who had nothing to do with the rebels had been attacked on sight, brutally murdered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Revolutions were always ugly, she knew from history, but this endless conflict promised to be horrific beyond belief. The stalemate wouldn’t last forever. If the regime was prepared to be ruthless, Emily could see quite a few ways it could win.

It has already shown it cares nothing for outside opinion, she thought, coldly. The Allied Lands had always been lax about enforcing standards, particularly when they had to be enforced on someone strong enough to make the experience painful, but at least it had tried. Now, with the Allied Lands barely even existing on paper, there was no one trying to enforce the rules. What will it do, if it feels itself to be really threatened?

She leaned against Caleb, all too aware he was worried about his mother. He’d been able to confirm Sienna was still alive, but little else. There was no way to know if she was a prisoner, or if she’d been brainwashed, or … Emily’s imagination offered too many possibilities, each one worse than the last. The regime had no reason to love Sienna, and quite a few to dispose of her as quickly as possible. She wondered, numbly, just how long it would take for them to feed Sienna to a mimic.

“Lilith has been spreading rumours,” Emily said. “We might find allies on the other side.”

Caleb looked unconvinced. There were too many magicians who thought the regime was an excellent idea, or were simply too unconcerned – or afraid – to challenge it. They would only act if they were given no choice, and Emily had no idea how to push them to that point. Lilith could spread whispers as much as she liked, but … it might not be enough. And she might be caught in the act. Emily dreaded to think what the regime would do to her. It wouldn’t be remotely kind.

“We’ll see,” he said, finally.

Emily wrapped her arm around his shoulder, feeling his tension. There was nothing she could do about it, save perhaps for rescuing Sienna … and she wasn’t sure how to do that either. The Citadel was even more heavily defended now, with enough wards and guards to make a direct assault nothing more than suicide. Emily wanted to believe they could find a way in, but it seemed unlikely. They’d checked the school and there was no sign of Katherine, or anyone else connected to the regime’s movers and shakers. The regime wasn’t going to let them pull the same trick twice.

Something moved, behind her. She let go of Caleb and tensed, readying a spell. The regime had sent a dozen magically-altered creatures into the ghetto, terror weapons in all but name, and they’d proved very hard to track down and kill. A giant spider was quite bad enough; a creature that was a cross between a spider, a crab, and a scorpion was even worse. She had the feeling the regime hadn’t blocked the tunnels because they wanted to make use of them too. God alone knew what else they’d be sending in, as they tested the defences. The sooner they got the portal set up, the better.

Hannah stepped into view. “Ah … we have a prisoner,” she said. “She wants to talk to you.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed. She hadn’t seen much point in talking to the regime, not when there was no way the regime would release the slaves, then open the gates and let the mundanes escape the nightmare that had fallen over their city. Resolute seemed determined – resolute, even – to crush the rebellion, but … he wasn’t the sole councillor. Could it be that he’d been outvoted? It was possible, if she believed the regime’s statements about how it worked, but she had a feeling they weren’t entirely true. It was a little too neat and tidy.

She glanced at Caleb, then let Hannah lead them downstairs. Jane stood in the lobby, her hands bound behind her back. She was wearing a brown smock … Emily blinked, a frisson of alarm shooting through her. Jane was a friend, of sorts, but she’d been in enemy captivity for weeks and that meant she couldn’t be entirely trusted. Her mental defences were stronger than the average third-year student’s, yet the regime had had more than enough time to break them down and turn her into an unwilling – perhaps unaware – assassin. The rebels had tied her up, but she had magic. She had allowed herself to be restrained, in the certain knowledge she could escape whenever she wished.

Jane looked relieved to see her. “Emily,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“Stay where you are,” Emily ordered. She motioned for the others to stay back, then cast a careful analysis spell. It was a severe breach of etiquette, but she saw no choice. Jane appeared to be untainted by any magic, save for her own. It didn’t prove anything, she knew all too well. There were ways for her to be turned into a living bomb that wouldn’t set off any alarms until it was too late. “I need to test you …”

She reached forward warily, her fingers brushing against Jane’s forehead as her magic brushed against her mind. Jane tensed visibly, a flash of fear running through her as she sensed the intrusion. Perversely, it was almost a relief, proof her thoughts were very own. A torrent of memories flashed through Jane’s head, most coming and going too quickly for Emily to get more than a glimpse, but they made one thing clear. Jane was not under any sort of outside control. If she was going to betray them, she was going to do it of her own free will.

“Sorry,” Emily muttered, as she stepped back. “I had to be careful.”

Jane gave her a look that promised trouble in the future, then scowled. “Resolute ordered me to take you a message, in return for my freedom.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed. “Your freedom?”

“They kept me under strict supervision, even though I swore blind I knew nothing about you,” Jane said. She didn’t sound angry about that, although if half the stories she’d told about her father’s adventures were true she’d gotten off lightly. “I got a few interviews, and even got to write a few letters and articles … which they read ahead of time, of course. I don’t think they knew what to do with me. And then they said I could go, if I took a message first.”

“How charming,” Emily said. She freed Jane’s hands and motioned for her to follow them back up the stairs. The apartment wasn’t much, but it was fairly private. She had the feeling that they should have the coming discussion without anyone else, even Adam and Lilith. “Did they try to convert you?”

“I kept telling them that, as a reporter, I wasn’t allowed to have political opinions of my own,” Jane said. “But they didn’t try very hard.”

Emily nodded. Jane’s father had been a good dad, from what Jane had said. The idea she had been a swan raised by ducklings would be difficult to sell under any circumstances, but impossible when her parents had never stood in her way when she became a journalist in her own right. Jane was too old to be convinced she belonged to a different set of parents, and too stubborn to let them grind her down.

“They said they’re going to put Sienna on trial, for miscegenation,” Jane said. Her voice shook with angry, reminding Emily that her grandfather had been accused of something similar. “If they find her guilty, and they will, they will execute her for contaminating a magical bloodline with … ah, mundane blood.”

Caleb made a snarling noise. “My siblings and I are not … not weak!”

Emily nodded in agreement. If the regime held a fair trial, the charges wouldn’t stick … she scowled. It wasn’t going to be a fair trial in any sense of the word, and the sentence had been determined a long time before Sienna had entered the city, let alone been caught. The hell of it was that she could make a pretty good case that mixed marriages produced stronger magicians and yet … no, the regime wasn’t interested in such things. Sienna was bait in a trap, nothing more. If they tried to save her, they’d be trapped themselves; if they let her die …

“We have to save her,” Caleb said. “if they kill her …”

“I know,” Emily said. It was a trap. The regime had gone to some trouble, including letting Jane out of their sphere of influence, to make sure they knew Sienna was about to be legally murdered. They really wanted to ensure they took the bait. “But we have to be careful.”

She met his eyes. “It’s a trap.”

Caleb scowled back at her, his face twisting with the ebb and flow of a dozen emotions. He had risked life and limb to save her, and he could do no less for his own mother … and yet, he knew it was a trap as well as she did. He wanted to find another airship and go charging in and yet cold logic told him it was suicide. Emily reached out and hugged him tightly, cursing under her breath. Sienna would tell them to stay clear, to let her go to her death; she knew better than to say that out loud. Caleb would hate her, and who could blame him? The regime had put them in a very tight spot indeed.

“I know,” Caleb said. “But we can’t let her die.”

He looked at Jane. “Did they tell you anything useful?”

“She’s going to be put on trial in the Grand Courthouse,” Jane said. “Two days from now, and if she is found guilty she’ll be executed on the spot.”

Caleb pulled himself free. “I’ll go alone,” he said. “I’ll take the durian gas with me, and some of the other tools, and break her free …”

“Wait,” Emily said. “Let me think.”

She closed her eyes for a long moment. The portal generator was nearly ready, but as long as the anti-teleport wards were in operation it would be tricky, if not impossible, to open and stabilise a portal. They really needed a generator on the far side and that would be hard to organise, certainly not in two days. Opening a portal into the courthouse would fail – probably – and repeating the trick she’d used to rescue Alassa a few years ago would be worse than useless. It could easily get them all killed. The guards would be on full alert too, ready to shoot down an airship – she didn’t even have one – or intercept the team if they came in on the ground. Was there a tunnel under the courthouse? Even if there was, could they make use of it? Or …

“They’ll be expecting us to try to free her,” Emily mused. It really was a neat little trap. No matter what they did, they lost. “And letting them kill her is not an option.”

Her mind churned. “What else can we do?”

She tried to think of something, but drew a blank. They couldn’t risk attacking the courtroom. They couldn’t let Sienna die. They couldn’t … she gritted her teeth, telling herself that even thinking about snatching Katherine and using her as a bargaining chip was wrong. Besides, she hadn’t been seen in public for weeks. There was no way they could snatch anyone else … she shook her head, firmly. What could they do?

Jane leaned forward. “Do you have anything you can offer them?”

My head on a platter, Emily thought. And Adam’s right beside mine.

She briefly considered offering to swap herself for Sienna, but that would just make matters worse. She didn’t believe the regime would keep its word, and even if it did there was knowledge in her head she dared not let fall into their hands. A mad scheme ran through her mind – a way to maintain a bloodlink, one that would let Caleb help her from a distance the way she’d helped Marah – but she knew it would never work. She’d be lucky if the regime simply cut her throat, just to make damn sure she didn’t escape a second time. And that meant …

“I don’t think so,” she said, finally. The regime would demand they left the city – at the very least – and that would mean leaving Hannah and Harris to their tender mercies. They might be allowed to take one or two people out, but not the entire ghetto. “We need to save her and we don’t dare go anywhere near her, so what …”

So don’t go anywhere near her, her thoughts said. If they expect you to be in a certain place, be somewhere else.

“I have an idea,” she said. “Caleb, can you call Adam. And Lilith, when she gets back here.”

Caleb nodded, slowly. “What do you think we can do?”

“Let me work out the rest of the details first,” Emily said. She didn’t want to say the idea out loud, not yet. She wanted to do more tests, to make sure someone wasn’t spying on Jane from afar. If the enemy caught wind of what they had in mind, the entire plan would be worse than useless. “And then we’ll see if we can put it into practice.”

Jane leaned forward. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t know yet,” Emily said. “Do they expect you to stay with us?”

“They didn’t say,” Jane mused. “I don’t think they cared very much, as long as I passed on the message.”

“You can go find a place to stay outside the ghetto,” Emily said. Jane could serve as a decoy, if the plan came together properly. If nothing else, she could stay out of the firing line. “And you can help us get into place, when the time comes.”

“Please,” Caleb added. “I’ll give you an exclusive, afterwards.”

“You will,” Jane agreed. There was no doubt in her voice. “And Emily?”

Emily sighed. “Only if I get to check what you wrote before it gets published,” she said. She had seen too many of her words twisted into something completely different, in the rare cases it bore any resemblance to what she’d actually said. Jane wasn’t as bad as some, and few broadsheet writers were as bad as the bards or heralds, but it was still a worry. “And there are certain questions I won’t answer.”

She looked at Caleb. She’d have to keep him busy, to keep him from brooding or setting off on his own. There were quite a few things he could do, if the plan seemed likely to work. If not … she would have to come up with something else. And quickly.

“Go fetch Adam,” she reminded him. The idea was taking shape in her mind, a concept that might just work … if the regime had no idea what they were doing. “And then we have some planning to do.”

Caleb nodded. “Got it.”

Emily winced, inwardly. He sounded more composed, now they had the bare bones of a plan, but that could change in a hurry. The regime didn’t need subtle magic to make him despair, or push him into doing something stupid. Emily felt her heart ache as Caleb hurried away, promising herself she’d make the regime pay for everything it had done. If the plan worked … she had something for him to do, a spell he’d need to learn. Hopefully, it would keep him very busy indeed.

And if it doesn’t and the plan fails, she thought grimly, none of us will get out alive.

 

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Coming here is risky,” Caleb pointed out. “Are you sure …?”

Emily wasn’t. Mistress Irene had given them the magical password to enter her house, and a clear warning to stay out of her inner chambers, but there was a better than even chance the house was under some kind of observation. Mistress Irene had to be on the regime’s enemies list, simply for working at Whitehall and then Heart’s Eye, and if there had been any other choice Emily would have suggested giving her home a wide berth. She was mildly surprised it hadn’t already been seized, although that would have set a dreadful precedent while the regime’s position was still insecure. The vast majority of magicians might not give a damn about what the regime did to mundanes, but anything that impinged on their lives – even indirectly – would be taken a great deal more seriously. If the regime seized Irene’s home today, it would be confiscating every other magical domicile in the city tomorrow.

She looked around carefully, all too aware the house might not be safe. They’d circled around to make sure it wasn’t being watched too closely, carefully checking for wards and observation spells, and disguised themselves using mundane tricks before risking stepping up to the door and muttering the password. There had been no sign of the enemy, something that worried her. The regime was hardly likely to leave them alone, unless they were convinced the team was going to charge in to save Sienna. Emily had no way to know for sure, but she would bet good money the regime was working desperately to set their trap. It would be decisive, if she believed what she read in the papers. The regime had staked its reputation on trying, convicting and executing Sienna. A second rescue would see the council destroyed by a gale of laughter.

Her mood darkened as they swept the rest of the house, watching for traps. There could be anything in the sealed chambers … her paranoia warred with her respect for Irene, and healthy respect for the older woman’s skills. The last thing they needed was to trip a ward linked to a change spell, or a lethal spell … the latter was rare, if only because most magicians had a curiosity bump the size of a small house, but it couldn’t be ruled out. There was no guarantee they’d be able to escape whatever Irene had done, or that it wouldn’t alert the regime to intruders in her house. It would be a rare magician who allowed the city guard to enter, even to arrest intruders, but it would have the great advantage of being unexpected. Emily dared not assume they’d be safe, no matter what they did. They had to take the risk of leaving the inner chambers alone and hope for the best.

Caleb shook his head. “You know, when I imagined a teacher’s home, I always thought it would be dark and gloomy, not …”

He waved a hand at the walls. Emily understood. There was something warm and homely about it, from the pictures of children and grandchildren on the walls to the books, knick-knacks and a handful of awards on the shelves. She felt like an intruder as she stared at the images – she hadn’t known Irene had children, although she was certainly old enough to be a grandmother – and then felt dirty as she looked at the books. They shouldn’t be anywhere near the house, let alone blundering through the living room like a grandchild who hadn’t taken his shoes off at the door. It was Irene’s place of power and rest, a comfortable sanctuary from the rest of the world; the place she could relax and be herself, unburned by rank and title and her daily duties. She knew she would find it hard to let anyone into her home, or Void’s tower, and she felt a surge of respect for the older woman, all too aware of just how much she was trusting them. She would not let it go unrewarded.

“This is a magician’s home?” Adam sounded as if he thought they’d found the wrong building. “Where’s the magic?”

“Woven into the walls,” Emily said. She guessed there was a spellchamber in the inner chambers, as well as everything else a magician might need to experiment with ideas and concepts that couldn’t be played with at school. “Be careful what you touch. It might explode.”

Adam looked puzzled. Emily hid her amusement. The odds were good Adam had never been invited into a magical home, even Lilith’s … if she had one. She was a member of House Ashworth, and presumably had chambers in the family mansion, but that wasn’t quite the same. Her room at Heart’s Eye didn’t truly belong to her. Emily made a mental note to show Adam the tower, when they had a chance, although he’d have to be carefully watched. There were tricks and traps woven into the structure that predated Void, and some were very dangerous indeed.

Caleb looked up, sharply. “We have a visitor.”

Emily braced herself. If the regime had tracked them down, it would be very difficult to escape. The house was heavily warded, which meant that digging another tunnel into the catacombs was unlikely to work in a hurry, if it worked at all. She was fairly sure the regime knew what they’d done, and would take steps to counter it if they were pinned down for a second time. The door opened a moment later, revealing Jane. She’d disguised herself very effectively, but Emily had no trouble seeing through it. She hoped the regime wasn’t keeping a close eye on Jane. They knew she had powerful friends.

“I brought copies of the broadsheets,” Jane said, holding them out. “It isn’t good news.”

Emily took one and scanned it, feeling her heart sink. The lead article was an opinion piece, written by someone she’d never heard of, insisting Sienna had to die because she’d lowered herself to breed with a mundane. Emily had read articles insisting that slavery was just and right, and it was all for the slave’s own good, and that the slaveowners were putting themselves out to help the slaves … and somehow, none had been so disgusting and unpleasant as the article in front of her. The author was an evil genius, she admitted sourly. He toyed with the reader’s emotions, playing on the prejudices and resentments, and if they swallowed one piece of the arguments they practically had to swallow it all. She dreaded to think how many readers would be swayed, would cheer loudly when Sienna was put to death. Too many …

Caleb swore. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Later,” Emily said. There was no by-line under the article, unsurprisingly. Sienna had children and relatives, people who might seek revenge for her death. “Right now, we have a spell to practice.”

Lilith smiled. “Is that what they’re calling it now?”

“No,” Emily said, firmly. “You and Adam put the rest of the devices together. Jane, you help them.”

She felt oddly exposed as she led Caleb down to the kitchen. It would have been preferable to practice the spell in a spellchamber, and she would have been happier if Irene herself had been with them, but they had little choice. She told herself Caleb was a powerful and skilled magician, that he’d have no trouble mastering the spell … she tried not to think about how hard it had been for her to learn it, and that had been with Void’s help. Caleb was a little older than she’d been, and he’d always had an excellent grasp of theory and practice, yet …

Caleb grinned, weakly. “If this doesn’t work, you get her out.”

Emily nodded. “I will,” she promised. “But you need to make it work.”

She tried not to feel guilty as Caleb pushed the chairs and tables aside, then stood in the centre of the room. They were doing something risky, and they both knew it. Caleb looked like a young man nerving himself up to ask out a girl, or bracing himself to jump out of a plane, or something else that could end very badly indeed. If there had been time to come up with something else, or if they could bring in help from outside, they wouldn’t need to take the risk. If …

If he doesn’t do it, she promised herself, I won’t hold it against him.

Caleb pressed his hands against his chest, as if he were at prayer, and then cast the spell. Emily gritted her teeth as she sensed the magic, a spell so complex it made most transfiguration spells seem simple, and forced herself to watch as the spellware took shape and form. Void had told her sorceresses generally found the spell easier than their male counterparts, something she wished she’d forgotten. Half of casting complex spells was believing that you could do it, and if Caleb had the slightest doubt …

His form wavered, bright light spinning through and around his body as he appeared to be torn in two. Emily’s head hurt, just for a second, as her mind struggled to cope with what she was seeing; she swallowed, hard, to keep from throwing up. There were some spells that should not be looked at too closely, some riddles that should never be solved. She blinked away tears as the light faded, then forced herself to look. There were two Calebs standing in front of her.

“Get apart,” Emily said, sharply. The two bodies were wavering, as if she had double vision rather than Caleb being in two places at once. If they remained too close for too long, they’d merge back together in a manner that would be disconcerting at best and incredibly disorientating at best. She’d been lucky she’d been somewhere safe, the first and last time she’d used the bilocation spell. If she’d been in the middle of a fight, the shock of being reintegrated would have gotten her killed. “You can’t be too close together!”

Caleb nodded, in unison. “This is weird,” he said. They said. “Why are you …?”

He stopped, unable to put the sensation into words. He was seeing her from the left, but also from the right … the two people in front of her were actually the same person, their thoughts blurring together because they were identical. They’d be practically identical for the rest of time, although the longer they remained separated the harder it would be to put them back together without consequences. Emily promised herself it would be a great deal less painful for him. It could hardly be worse.

“You know, this could be used for all manner of things,” Caleb said. He winked at her, an expression so out of character that she knew he was unsteady. “You, and me, and me …”

“You can’t stay close together, not for long,” Emily reminded him. She pointed a finger at one of the bodies. “You, stay in front of me; the other stays behind me. Don’t get too close together.”

Caleb – a Caleb – giggled. “Which of us gets to share your bed?”

“You’re acting drunk,” Emily cautioned. “Right now, you cannot allow yourself to blur back into one body.”

“Oh.” Caleb’s two bodies moved in eerie unison. “How did you manage to cope?”

“My first body went a long way from my second,” Emily said. “But that’s not an option here.”

She motioned for the first Caleb to move ahead of her, the second bringing up the rear. Caleb had done well – he’d certainly mastered the spell quicker than herself – but she was painfully aware they weren’t out of the woods yet. It would take time for the two bodies to truly separate, and there was a better than even chance they’d merge back together instead. Keeping them apart, even tying them up, wouldn’t help. The only true cure was distance and that wasn’t going to be easy.

Adam sucked in his breath. “It worked?”

“It certainly looks that way,” Jane said. “What can you do, with one mind in two bodies?”

“You can take your mind out of the gutter,” Emily said, sharply. She’d read stories where magicians experimented with bilocation in bed, but the writer had never bilocated and she would bet good money they’d never had sex either. The consequences would be embarrassing at best, dire at worst. “One Caleb will go back to the ghetto, with Hannah. The other will stay with me.”

Hannah looked from Caleb to Caleb, her face pale. “Where … where did the two bodies come from?”

“Magic,” Emily said. She’d asked the same question herself, when she’d learnt the spell. Void had told her it had never been properly established, not when experimenting could easily get someone killed or permanently split into two people. There was a great deal about the spell that didn’t quite make sense, from which body was the real body to quite why one’s death turned the other back into flesh and blood, although they were minor mysteries compared to some others. “It’s one of the issues my master told me were best not thought about too much.”

She sighed, inwardly. “Take him now, before it is too late,” she said. “Adam, I need to speak to you. Alone.”

Adam exchanged glances with Lilith, then shrugged. Emily watched the first Caleb leave the house, the second staring after him as if they’d just had a nasty breakup … she supposed, in a sense, that was exactly what had happened. The two bodies would stabilise as separate people, once the distance between them was great enough, and then … she pushed the thought aside and led the way back to the kitchen. The air was heavy with magic. She closed the door behind him and motioned for him to take a chair, her eyes darting over the stove. Irene had emptied most of her cupboards, but she’d left enough to make a meal or two. It would be bland and boring, yet better than going out at night. The mood on the streets was ugly …

Her lips twisted. They’ll just have to put up with my cooking.

She turned to meet Adam’s eyes. “You understand your part of the plan?”

“Yeah.” Adam swallowed, hard. “If it works …”

“It should.” Emily kept her doubts to herself. The idea might work, and a couple of years ago she would have expected it to work perfectly, but now … the trouble with outside context problems, she reflected, was that once you got used to the way the world had changed they were no longer outside your context. The regime might work out what they had in mind and act accordingly. “Do you have your magiwriter?”

Adam pulled back his sleeve. Emily sucked in her breath. The magitech device looked like a crude bracelet, something put together by an apprentice welder from bits and bobs around the store, but it represented a shift in the balance of power as significant as steam engines, flight, or the atomic bomb. She could see faint glimmerings of magic, little flickers of light that made her head hurt if she looked at them too closely; she could sense holographic spells lurking within the device, potential power just waiting for the chance to flourish into life. Adam might not have the same senses as herself, or the same ability to manipulate magic without tools, but the magiwriter practically made him a magician. It was …

She took the device and allowed her hands to rest on the embedded gems, transferring two spells into the nexus. “The first spell is designed to hack wards,” she said. It was a little more complex than that, but they didn’t have time for a proper explanation. “You can use it to get into buildings, or – hopefully – take someone’s protections apart from within. Don’t use it too often or it will burn out.”

“Got it.” Adam looked torn between gratitude and irritation. It was better to put the spells together himself, even if his spellware was less complex than anything put together by a genuine magician. “And the other?”

“I can’t tell you what it is, not out loud,” Emily said. She trusted Adam, but there were certain secrets that should never be shared. Adam wouldn’t hide anything from Lilith, and if she knew what the spell did … she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what Lilith would do. “You are not to use it unless you are fighting a magician, and you are desperate. Do I make myself clear?”

Adam nodded, without any of the mulishness she would have expected from a nineteen-year-old young man. She supposed it made a certain degree of sense. Adam considered her a hero, his hero. He practically worshipped the ground she walked on. Emily couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable at such hero worship – she knew she was very far from perfect – but she supposed it had some advantages. A young man who didn’t think of her as a hero would push back, openly or covertly. And that would be very bad.

“Don’t even think about trying to test it,” she added. The consequences of that would be horrific. “Don’t let Lilith get a look at it either.”

“I …” Adam hesitated. “What is it?”

“I can’t tell you, not here,” Emily reminded him, sharply. She didn’t blame him for wanting to tell Lilith. She hadn’t been happy about keeping things from Caleb either. “If she asks, tell her I swore you to secrecy.”

“Oh,” Adam said. “But …”

Emily nodded. “Blame everything on me,” she told him. “And we’ll discuss it with her afterwards.”

She nodded to the door, then took a moment to centre herself as Adam walked out. They were taking one hell of a risk, with little promise of reward. The entire plan could go horrifically wrong …

We’ll find out tomorrow, she told herself. The one thing all the broadsheets agreed on, as far as she could tell, was the exact date and time of the trial. And if things go wrong, we will have to improvise.

 

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“I’m ready,” Caleb assured her. “You don’t need to keep asking me questions.”

Emily wasn’t so sure. The two Calebs were too close together for her peace of mind, even if one had spent the night in the house and the other in the ghetto. They really needed to be at least a hundred miles apart, but … all she’d been able to do was keep bombarding him with questions, forcing him to think about her, and hope Hannah was following instructions and doing the same in the ghetto. Emily would have been happier sending someone else, someone who had the nerve to keep Caleb focused, but they were running out of people. She couldn’t take the risk.

She glanced from Caleb to Jane, and then back again. They looked like upper-class young magicians, an older brother taking his sister out for a stroll. They would attract attention, of course, but it wouldn’t be the wrong kind of attention … she hoped. The regime had to be lying in wait, bracing itself for the moment they sprung the trap, and … she told herself, firmly, the disguises would hold. The regime wouldn’t see anything odd in a pair of siblings going to watch the trial. They’d invited practically the entire city. It was an open question how many people would actually attend.

This plan has too many moving parts, a voice whispered in her head. It sounded a great deal like Sergeant Miles. If one goes wrong, they all go wrong.

Shut up, Emily thought back. This is our only hope of winning before it is too late.

“Good luck,” she said. “Jane, keep him focused.”

“I’ll be asking him lots of cheeky questions,” Jane assured her. “Good luck to you too.”

Emily felt a twinge of something she didn’t care to look at too closely as they left the house. They would be fine … she hoped. The regime was expecting Jane to join the rest of the tame broadsheet writers, but they might be relieved if she didn’t show up … probably. If her covers were pulled and she were exposed, all hell would break loose. And she was with Caleb, who was in no state for a fight. She’d seen him tossing and turning at night, mumbling to himself as his mind tried to keep from merging with its twin. It wasn’t easy, even if the two bodies really were some distance apart. The steps they needed to take were about as counterintuitive as healing someone while simultaneously trying to strangle them. Caleb was tough, and he was a master of magic, yet …

He’ll be fine, she told herself. And once this is over we can reintegrate the two bodies before it is too late.

She forced herself to look at Adam and Lilith. “Are you two ready?”

“I think so,” Adam said. He was dressed as a magician, with enough magic running through his outfit to ensure no one looked closely enough to see through the guise. Emily hoped – prayed – no one challenged him, even as a joke. “Lilith?”

“Yes,” Lilith said. She sounded nervous. She knew, better than Adam, just how much danger they were about to face. “Shall we go?”

Emily nodded, and checked her own disguise. She looked very much like a governess, the kind of low-power magician who would be hired to take care of magical children and treated as part of the family, as long as she behaved herself. Emily had met a couple and she had wondered why they’d been kept around, after the children were all grown up. She had a nasty feeling she knew the answer. She put the thought aside, painted a proud and yet hangdog expression on her face, and led the way outside, sealing the doors behind them. One way or the other, they wouldn’t be returning.

“Stay close to me, children,” she said. “Don’t get too far from me.”

Her lips twisted in amusement. They were only two years younger than her, if that, and the idea of them being children was absurd. Magical children didn’t come of age until they turned twenty-one, but still … she shook her head. Better to let any watchers think she was a weak magician escorting two weaker magicians, than someone who could pose a threat. If they were caught before they reached their destination, all hell would break loose. They might not even be able to run.

The streets felt grim as they walked, as if the magician population was waiting for something to happen. Some magicians were swaggering up and down, pretending to be bravos and making a convincing show of it, at least until she looked at their eyes; others walked rapidly from place to place, their hands at the ready to cast spells as if they expected to be attacked at any moment. There were no mundanes in view, not even collared slaves. Emily guessed their masters had been ordered to keep them inside, out of sight. Magitech couldn’t always remove the collars in time to save the slave’s life, but the rebels had made it work often enough to decide it was a viable tactic. Emily didn’t like the idea, yet she understood. If she had to choose between being a spellbound slave for the rest of her life, without any freedom at all, or death, she would choose death.

She took the long way around the courthouse, silently noting the iron giants on the streets and the small army of guardsmen standing beside them. The guards had learnt a few tricks of their own in the last few days, she knew, if only because the alternative was death. She braced herself as they passed through a web of scanning spells, designed to catch any mundanes wearing magical outfits. Adam passed unnoticed, much to her relief. It was proof, she supposed, that the regime hadn’t invented the magiwriter for itself. If it knew the device was possible, it would have taken precautions.

The streets closer to the Citadel were surprisingly empty, the school closed and heavily warded. Emily felt a pang of guilt at the thought of Lucy being trapped with her stepparents, the fact they treated her well only making it worse. The girl deserved so much better … so did Katherine, whose father was a monster, and the other children at the school. Emily promised herself she’d take care of them afterwards, even if they hated her. She owed it to herself to try. She put the thought aside as they walked around the Citadel itself, keeping their heads down. The wards were as strong as ever, and firmly rooted in the walls, but there were fewer guards. Emily hoped – prayed – they were all at the courthouse.

She checked her watch. It was time.

“We’re petitioners,” she muttered, as they turned and made their way towards the doors. The architect had wanted to make it very clear to any visitors that they were tiny, nothing more than insects crawling over something so big they couldn’t even begin to comprehend it. She braced herself as they stepped through into the lobby, a flash of déjà vu distracting her – just for a second – as the wards brushed over them. “Don’t do anything to suggest otherwise.”

The lobby was as big as she remembered, the line of desks tiny in comparison – and almost completely unmanned. The sole receptionist looked put out as he saw them, and pointed a finger at the waiting room without even bothering to check their paperwork. Emily wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or worried they were walking right into a trap, although they were still in the public part of the building. They hadn’t even started hacking their way into the lower levels. Not yet.

She led the way into the waiting room, then checked the door at the far end. It was locked and warded, just enough to make it clear that visitors were not permitted past the line. Emily hacked the ward carefully, half-expecting to discover a second ward behind, but instead the door opened without hesitation. She cast an obscurification charm and led the way through, watching for traps. Last time, she’d used Katherine’s blood, but she was fairly certain that trick wouldn’t work twice. The offices beyond were largely empty, with only a couple of bureaucrats working at their desks. A chill ran down her spine. Where was everyone? They couldn’t all be at the trial, could they? Or had they been ordered to take the day off, so the trap could close without anyone getting in the way?

The power running through the walls shifted, leading her on. They didn’t have time to look for the entrance she’d used before, so she allowed the power to guide her to another locked and sealed door. The wards were much stronger, too powerful to be cracked in a hurry. She glanced at Adam and he stepped forward, raising the magiwriter. Emily had the sudden impression of a computer hacker going to work, pitting his skills against the enemy firewalls. If it worked … they should be able to get inside, without dismantling the wards or being noticed.

And if it doesn’t, we will be trapped, Emily thought. She’d made some plans for those contingencies, but there was no way to test them, short of actually carrying them out. This could end very badly indeed.

Adam looked up, his face slick with sweat. “I think we can get inside now.”

Lilith stepped forward before Emily could say a word and pushed the door open. The wards shimmered around her, but took no action. Emily glanced at Adam and then followed, letting him bring up the rear as the magiwriter fed the wards a series of comforting lies. No magician, not even Void, could have effectively brute-forced their way through the wards, certainly not without setting off alarms all over the city. The magiwriter was a whole new threat. She reminded herself to stay close to Adam, within the field the magiwriter was generating. It wasn’t uncommon for magicians to only ward the entrances, rather than waste power protecting the interior, but she dared not assume the regime hadn’t put in the effort. They knew she’d already gotten through their outer defences once.

The stairwell led down, into the darkness. Lilith took the lead, her hand at the ready, as they made their way down. Emily allowed herself a twinge of respect – Lilith would take the first blow, to give her and Adam time to react – and then reached out with her mind, sending the threads of power running through the complex. They were weaker than she’d expected, as if the regime was no longer interested in protecting itself. She studied the magic for a long moment, running through the calculations in her head. The Citadel, the heart of the regime, would be completely drained of power in less than a day. And then it would be defenceless …

No, she thought. It was going to be a great deal worse than merely losing all the wards. The whole structure will come tumbling down.

She shivered, puzzled. If it was a trap, it was absurd. But what else could it be? The regime wanted – needed – to look strong, all too aware that any hint of weakness would bring a hundred challengers out of the woodwork. And yet the power was draining … draining where? She had the awful feeling she was missing something, something important …

The stairwell came to an end, revealing the chamber of infused men. The air stank so badly she almost choked, her heart twisting as they padded forward. The prisoners hung from chains like carcasses in a butcher’s shop, their bodies warped and twisted and dead. She heard Lilith gag as she saw the wounds, from flesh that had melted and run like molten steel to bleeding eyes and shattered bones; she felt sick herself as she surveyed the mess. It was an atrocity that would make a necromancer blanch, a nightmare beyond anything she’d ever seen. And it appeared completely pointless. It was a horror for the sake of horror.

Adam muttered a word under his breath. “That could have happened to me?”

Emily shrugged. She had no idea. A couple of the corpses might have died because their blood had literally boiled in their veins, but it was impossible to say for sure. There had been no suggestion Adam was in any real danger when his blood had been infused with magic, although it had never happened before and it was vaguely possible the magic could have turned poisonous if it remained in his bloodstream too long. She forced herself to keep moving, knowing all too well there was nothing she could do for them. The infused men been killed before the team had even left the house.

The air shifted as they walked into the next chamber, where the magicians were wired into the iron giants. Emily glanced at Adam, then removed her own magiwriter and forced herself to walk up to the nightmarish mess of human bodies and ghastly, inhuman machines. Up close, she had the uneasy sense the magicians were never intended to be disconnected, the wires digging into their skulls in a manner that should have been instantly fatal. She swallowed hard, trying not to look too closely. Perhaps the regime believed magic would be enough to repair the damage, or perhaps it simply didn’t care. Emily feared it was the latter. Healers were good, but repairing outright brain damage was beyond them. The few times it had been tried, the results had been disturbingly mixed.

The magiwriter hummed, brute-forcing its way into the network in a manner no magician could match. Emily’s mind went with it, her apprehension growing stronger as she realised the vast reserves of power she’d sensed earlier were almost drained. The dead men might have been killed for their life force, as well as what remained of the magic in their blood. Perhaps that was how the trick was done, she mused; the regime might use the stolen life to repair the damage, rather than let trained operators die. Or … she pushed the thought aside as she swept through the network, sensing streams of awareness running from the operators to the iron giants. Her mind recoiled as she picked up a deluge of data, the live feed – she couldn’t think of it as anything else – from the iron giants. They had more sensory inputs than she’d expected, although they were very far from human. She would have been more impressed if they hadn’t been used to keep the population under control.

There was no time to hesitate, not any longer. She swept through the network, gritting her teeth as she slammed a command into the operator’s heads. Their thoughts were so integrated with the network that they couldn’t tell the difference between their own thoughts and her commands, certainly not in time to save themselves. The network flickered and started to fail as the operators went to sleep, leaving the path open for her. The spellware surrounding the iron giants was incredibly complex, but Adam had spent hours studying the captured device and working out how to hack it. Her awareness twisted again – for a second, she was in all the iron giants – as she uploaded the new commands. The iron giants would attack the nearest guards, causing absolute chaos. It was time …

She dropped a hand into her pocket and touched the chat parchment, sending a silent message. Caleb One and Jane would grab Sienna; she sent her mind running through the network, commanding the iron giants to clear the way for them, tearing through the defences before they could react. The guards would have to blast down the iron giants themselves, if they could. She had no idea if they’d been issued magitech of their own … it struck her as unlikely. The regime wouldn’t want that falling into enemy hands.

Bit late for that now, she thought, as she pulled herself out of the network. The rebels have more than enough magitech to even the odds.

Her legs buckled, the real world crashing in around her. It was too bright and yet too dim … she blinked rapidly, forcing her eyes to clear. Adam was looking at her, worriedly. They hadn’t been able to test the plan, certainly not with a real magician. Lilith’s eyes were flickering back and forth, her face grim. If the enemy didn’t know they were here now, they were asleep at the switch.

Adam pointed to the nearest operator. “What about them?”

“Leave them,” Emily said. The operator was snoring loudly, obeying the command she’d shoved into his brain. She ran her eye up and down the line of operators, wincing inwardly as she spotted a pair of men hanging in their harnesses, blood dripping from their heads. Dead? She didn’t want to know. If the wires in their skulls had shifted … “We have to shut down the wards.”

She led the way upstairs, back into the chamber she’d seen easier. The hunk of magitech was larger than she recalled, a strange tree-like structure that was made of metal and gems and spells held in place by more spells, making it difficult to look at it directly. There was something almost organic about it, as if the structure was made of living metal. And yet, she had the strangest sense it was dying. She gathered herself, then reached out with her voice. The power was flowing into the device, but it was heading down …

“You …” A voice cut through the air. “What have you done?”

Emily looked up. Resolute stood there, holding Lucy in one hand and pressing a knife to her throat. His eyes were wide, his magic flaring oddly; Emily shuddered in disgust as she spotted Katherine, standing behind her father. She looked shocked to the core.

“Emily,” Resolute repeated. “What have you done?”

 

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Adam

Adam stared at Resolute, feeling as if all his resentments and fears had coalesced into one person, the person standing on the balcony above them. Resolute had wealth and power and status, everything Adam had ever wanted for himself, and yet instead of building a better world – or even a career – he had made life worse for everyone. It was insane to think that a magician could still feel low and degraded, put down by his superiors, and yet … Adam swallowed hard. Jasper having an inferiority-superiority complex made a certain kind of sense, but Resolute? The man had gone to school, owned a shop, gotten elected to the city council …

And yet, he’d unleashed a nightmare.

“Step away from the Heart,” Resolute ordered. He pressed his knife against the girl’s skin. “I mean it!”

“Let Lucy go,” Emily said. She sounded distracted, as if Caleb wasn’t the only one who was in two places at once. Adam couldn’t tell what was distracting her, but it was no time to let herself be elsewhere. “This has nothing to do with her.”

“This has everything to do with her,” Resolute snarled. “I did all this for her!”

Emily blinked. “For Lucy?”

“For all the children who were condemned to grow up in mundane homes, with parents who didn’t know how to help them, or beat them for being too good for them,” Resolute said. “Do you know how hard it is, to grow up like that? Not to know what you are, not to know even the basics … never to catch up with your peers, because they are already too far ahead of you? Do you know …”

“Yes,” Emily said. “But that doesn’t justify everything you’ve done.”

She looked at the Heart, the tangled piece of magitech so complex Adam didn’t have the slightest idea how to take it apart. He suspected he’d need weeks to even parse out the basic design, let alone work out how the rest of it went together … if it could be done. The Heart was designed to work with magicians, their magical power and intent filling the gaps in their spellcasting. A mundane, no matter how skilled in theoretical magic, would be unable to use it to manipulate magic. Not even him.

Emily tilted her head. “And what are you doing? I thought you were maintaining the wards, but … the power is going elsewhere.”

Resolute glared. “You did something to the Heart!”

“I did nothing,” Emily said. “What are you …”

She stopped, dead. “Oh. No.”

Adam opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but she was already turning. “Stay here,” she snapped. “Shut that thing down.”

She ran, heading back the way they’d come. Resolute howled a curse, a bolt of dark magic darting from his fingers to slam into Emily’s back, only to be dispelled by her protections. Adam felt his skin crawl, the memory of being helpless – time and time again – flicking through his mind and nearly sending him to his knees. He’d come very close to losing his life and his freedom, time and time again, and he knew he was no match for a real magician. But he had Lilith beside him and …

“I’ll kill her,” Resolute swore. Adam couldn’t tell if he meant Emily or Lucy. Or both. “I’ll …”

“Dad,” Katherine said. She sounded as if she were on the verge of crying. “What are you doing …?”

“Be quiet,” Resolute snapped. “I am …”

Lucy struggled, trying to pull herself free. Lilith snapped a spell, yanking Lucy out of his arms and pulling her to the ground. Resolute waved a hand at her, casting something dark and unpleasant; Adam ran forward, shoving a charm through the magiwriter. A shield appeared, just in time to block the curse before it could strike them both. Adam felt his hair try to stand on end as magic crackled through the air, something so dark and dangerous it made a simple toad transformation spell look harmless. Resolute stared at him in shock, then waved a hand to cast another spell. Adam’s instincts told him to dodge, instead of trying to block it. The spell slammed past him and struck the far wall, hard enough to shake the entire building. Adam glanced back and wished he hadn’t. The wall was charred and broken. He’d seen potion explosions that had been less destructive.

Lilith pushed Lucy to one side and stepped forward, snapping off spell after spell. Resolute yanked a wand out of his belt and cast a shield of his own, one strong enough to stop Lilith’s spells in their tracks. They didn’t seem to be deflecting the spells, or dissolving them; they were just … stopping, exploding harmlessly against the semi-visible wall. Adam shuddered as he raised the magiwriter, launching a spread of fireballs with no great hope of actually breaking the shield. The explosions were blinding, bright enough to force him to look away. He hoped they were distracting Resolute too, to give Lilith time to think of something more effective, but it was hard to be sure. The sorcerer didn’t seem slowed down. He launched a handful of charms at Lucy, perhaps out of spite. Adam gritted his teeth and blocked them. The magiwriter felt warm against his skin, struggling to channel enough of the power into the spellware to save their lives. If Resolute realised the problem …

Lucy stumbled to her feet and attacked Lilith. Adam barely had a second to realise what had happened – Resolute had hidden a compulsion spell in the hexes he’d aimed at Lucy – before it was too late. Lucy was smaller than Lilith, but she’d grown up in a mundane family and she was more than strong enough to distract the older girl. Adam tried to cast a spell of his own, but it took too long to get the spellware into place. Lilith’s mouth went wide, an instant before her entire body – and Lucy – turned to stone. Adam’s mouth felt dry. Being turned to stone wasn’t pleasant, and if someone took a hammer to the statue …

“Silly little bitch,” Resolute said. He made a sound that was very much like a giggle, although one deprived of all humour. “Thought her bloodline would protect her, and look!”

He pointed a finger at Adam. “And you will pay for your crimes.”

Adam ducked behind the Heart. He had no idea what would happen if Resolute hurled a curse right into the device, but he suspected Resolute didn’t want to find out the hard way. He certainly hoped not … the magiwriter was powerful, yet he needed the advantage of surprise if he wanted to win and, right now, he had no idea how to get it. Arnold had wanted to take him alive. Resolute just wanted him dead.

He heard Katherine cry out and gritted his teeth. The sound was pure agony, the sound of someone who had discovered their parent was prepared to cross the line so completely the relationship could never return to normal. Katherine had practically been raised as a princess, innocently believing everything her father told her and never thinking to question, not least because she’d never met anyone who might force her to think about what she believed. Adam felt cold horror gnawing at his heart, a disbelief that anyone could act that way … his mother had been strict, and she’d had no qualms about walloping her children when they misbehaved, but Adam had never doubted she loved them, that she put her children first. Resolute, by contrast …

“You think your magic makes you superior?” It was unwise to taunt a magician, but Resolute had already determined to kill him. What was he doing to do? Kill him twice? No magic could return the dead to life, and torturing an undead zombie was an exercise in pointlessness. “You can’t even control a child!”

“And you are the one who put fire into the hands of mundanes,” Resolute said. Adam could hear hints he was moving around the balcony, trying to get into position to hurl a curse at Adam before he could duck again. “What were you thinking?”

Adam laughed, mockingly. “Your regime is built on my magitech,” he pointed out. “You wouldn’t have been able to make the iron giants without me!”

Resolute made a rude noise. “And how many of your peers will thank you for it, when the iron giants march across the land?”

“They’ll thank me for the magitech that stops them in their tracks,” Adam countered. He didn’t feel guilty because others had misused his inventions. It wasn’t his fault. Besides, the iron giants were only intimidating if you didn’t know how to stop them. That secret was already out and spreading. “You built weapons that are very effective against magicians, but completely useless against mundanes.”

The air sparkled around him. He felt … something … grabbing onto his leg, pulling him into the air and leaving him dangling upside down from an invisible force. Adam gritted his teeth as Resolute stepped into view, the wand dangling limply from one hand. His eyes narrowed as he saw the wand movements, a suggestion Resolute was nowhere near as practiced and powerful as he claimed. Or … was the wand another staff, drawing power from the infused men? But the infused men were dead …

“There are people who say that the original inventor is the only one who can improve upon his inventions,” Resolute said. He spoke in a smug, self-satisfied tone that made Adam want to hit him. It was hard to think clearly when he was being held upside down, and on the verge of being blasted to bits, but he forced himself to focus. “I think otherwise. We have taken your ideas and innovations and improved upon them, without the danger of putting power in mundane hands, and I see no reason to keep you and your miscegenationist girlfriend alive. She might have made a powerful ally, but … she has fallen too far. Who knows if she is already carrying your child?”

Adam glowered at him. “And you say all that in front of your daughter?”

Resolute ignored him. “Your death will serve as a warning to all mundanes who think they can wield magic,” he said. Behind him, Lucy stared helplessly. A red mark was clearly visible on her pale face. “They will learn, or they will die …”

Adam keyed the magiwriter, blasting out a cancellation spell. The charm holding him in the air wavered, rather than coming apart immediately … Resolute swore out loud, raising his wand as Adam slipped free and fell to the ground. It was hard, almost impossible, to use the magiwriter to catch himself; he barely landed safely, ducking and rolling under the balcony to avoid a handful of curses. The air crackled with magic, the ground boiled where the curses struck down. He wanted to free Lilith, but he didn’t dare get too close to her. She was defenceless. A single force punch would smash her to pieces, leaving her body scattered over the chamber. He altered the magiwriter, trying to make it impossible for Resolute to grab him a second time. He was out of sight for now, but that was meaningless. Resolute only had to move around the balcony to target him, if he didn’t have the skill to put together a spell that would do it without direct line of sight.

Think, he told himself. Emily had gone … he refused to believe she’d fled, not when they’d been left with a disturbing mystery. There has to be something …

“Do you think you can hide from me?” Resolute’s voice was low, but his magic carried it across the chamber. “Do you think you can hide?”

“Do you think you can hide?” Adam tossed the question back at him. It was a risk, if only because Resolute might be able to pin him down, but if the magician was talking he wasn’t cursing. “Your regime is in shambles. Your iron giants are broken and ruined. Your slaves are revolting and your magicians are rising against you. They’ll want someone to blame, and that’s you. Do you think you can hide?”

Resolute laughed, humourlessly. “Do you think it’s just me?”

Adam shivered, despite the warm air. Emily had said the same, when they’d first faced the horror of Celeste. It wasn’t a single mad king, or a necromancer, or even a handful of magicians or revolutionaries … it was a whole city, hundreds of magicians willing to support the regime or at least tolerate it, turning a blind eye to its excesses. It was a nightmare, and even if he somehow beat Resolute the city would remain a nightmare, a living reminder of how bad things could become. Perhaps he could stall long enough for Emily to return, but then …

No, he thought. I have to beat him. For the mundanes.

“You know, back in Beneficence, we had this little gang of nuts who called themselves the Fists of Justice,” he said, as he keyed the magiwriter and sent a covert hack into the Heart. It wouldn’t be anything like as flexible as Emily’s, but it might be enough to drain the power and shut the magitech down completely. “They promised to clean up the city, to rid our home of malice and perversity and everything else we found objectionable, as long as we bent the knee. It won’t surprise you that they cared more for their own power than anything else, even the city itself.”

Resolute snorted. “Typical mundanes.”

“There were magicians amongst them,” Adam said. The hack was gaining power. He just needed to buy time. “They got a lot of supporters, to be fair. There was this whole scandal that left half the city moneyless, you see, and the victims wanted someone to blame. The few who had made money out of the whole affair were even louder, for fear the mob would turn on them. And you know what?”

There was no answer. Adam pressed on anyway.

“When they were defeated, a great many people who’d supported them swore blind they hadn’t done anything of the sort,” he said. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened, except that Emily had been involved somehow, but the Fists had been defeated so completely they’d never recovered. “They told the world they’d been in their homes, distracting themselves with all kinds of pleasures, or insisted that they’d been misled. They didn’t pick up the cause and carry on, they didn’t continue enforcing the new laws … they just pretended they’d never really supported the Fists. It was …”

He heard something creak above him and jumped aside, an instant before the balcony could collapse on top of him. Resolute lunged forward, hurling a spell Adam didn’t recognise; he dodged to one side, sucking in his breath as the spell struck the Heart. The world itself seemed to twist around him, before snapping back to normal. Adam let out a sign of relief and checked the hack, then started to drain the power. He wasn’t sure how much power the Heart needed to maintain the wards, particularly the ones preventing teleporting, but it was the only way to shut them off. The magiwriter grew warm against his skin as it sucked in the power, channelling it into blunt spells that slammed into Resolute’s shields. Adam felt another twinge of pure envy. If he’d had Resolute’s talent, with his own knowledge of magic, he would have won the fight by now. Instead, he was using blunt instruments. The sheer crudity of his spells would tell against him, no matter the power behind them.

Resolute stopped, dead. “What have you done?”

“It’s over,” Adam said. He drew on the power and threw an antimagic curse at Resolute, a trick he’d learnt from Lilith. Resolute was slower on his feet, Adam noted, but sharp enough to discard his protections before the curse could destroy them. “Your regime is doomed!”

Resolute cast a summoning charm. Adam frowned, briefly confused. He wasn’t being summoned … horror washed through him, a second later, as he realised Resolute was dragging the stone statues towards him. Magic crackled around his fingertips, a force punch taking shape. Adam felt panic yammering at his mind, terror for his lover threatening to overwhelm him. If Lilith could have freed herself, she would have done it by now. She was going to die in front of him and …

He yanked up the magiwriter, Emily’s words echoing in the back of his head. Only if you’re desperate …

The spell triggered, something so powerful and unnatural that Adam cringed back. Resolute raised his hand, too late. The spell crashed into him … and did nothing. Adam stared in horror and disbelief. Resolute was still alive, still human … what was the spell meant to do? He’d drained the magiwriter, for nothing …

Resolute jabbed a finger at him. Adam flinched, expecting to die or be turned into a toad or a snail or … there was no point in trying to dodge, not now. It was over and he was about to die and … nothing happened.

He blinked, running his hands down his body to confirm he was still human. “What?”

Resolute cast the spell again, his eyes going wide with horror. Adam saw it a second later … no wonder Emily hadn’t wanted to discuss it, even with him. A giggle burst out of his throat, a magical sound that would have horrified him, if it had been anyone else. Resolute had lost his magic! He was powerless! And by the laws of his regime, that made him a slave!

“It’s over,” Adam said. The magiwriter might be dead, but he had his fists. “Your regime is done.”

“Wait,” Resolute managed. The shock in his eyes was palatable. “I …”

Adam punched him. Hard.

 

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Emily hated herself for running, but there was no other choice.

The threads of power led her down and down, past rows of dead or dying operators and infused men. She forced herself to run faster, deeper under the city, even though she had the sense she was running right into a trap. The walls shifted as she ran, the smooth chambers under the Citadel giving way to crude stone, as if someone had hacked their way into the catacombs with nothing more than pickaxes and shovels. It reminded her of the tunnels under Whitehall, below the nexus point. She couldn’t help wondering if they’d been wrong, if there really had been a similar nexus point under Celeste, even though it hadn’t reignited with the others. But if there had, the regime would never have needed to experiment with magitech. They’d have more than enough power to secure their city, and keep the mundanes under control, from the moment they took control.

She forced herself to slow down as the stairs levelled out, the threads of power pooling around her and then heading into a dark entrance. There was no visible source of light, but she didn’t need a night-vision spell to see where she was going. She looked up, sucking in her breath at the sheer size of the sinkhole under the city, and then inched forward. The tunnel darkened as she walked, faint sounds echoing through the chamber that disturbed her on a very primal level. It was terrifying, all the more so because she didn’t know why. The skittering sound she could sense, rather than hear, suggested something was deeply wrong. The last time she’d heard anything like it, reality itself had been on the verge of breaking down.

The tunnel widened suddenly, revealing a giant chamber crammed with chained slaves and, right at the end, a portal. Emily sucked in her breath, unsure if the spellcasters had somehow managed to key their portal to work despite the city’s wards, or if the wards had been taken down. She wasn’t sure if Adam had managed to do it, or even if Adam was still alive. The spell she’d given him would give him an edge, making up for the magiwriter limitations, but it would also make him public enemy number one as far as the regime was concerned. Her lips twisted in bitter amusement. They’d given her the credit for magitech, on the grounds a mundane could not possibly have invented such a thing. She wondered if they’d give her the credit for the depowering curse too. It would suit their ideology to blame that on Adam …

She pushed the thought aside, remaining in the shadows as her eyes swept the giant chamber. The slaves were marching forward, into the portal; she sucked in her breath as she saw the magic infused into their bodies, pulsing on the air. It wasn’t just them, she realised grimly; the magic itself was being channelled from the wards above and threaded through the portal, a tiny fraction keeping the portal open while the remainder was sent elsewhere. She reached out with her mind, trying to determine where the portal led, but it was useless. There was so much magic in the air that she couldn’t sense anything, past a certain point. She couldn’t even see anyone directing the slaves, or controlling the portal itself. Her blood ran cold as a nasty thought occurred to her. The regime didn’t have the slightest idea the portal existed, or that their power was being drained. And that meant Resolute and his fellows were being hung out to dry.

“Lady Emily,” a calm voice said. It was cool, measured, and infused with the conviction the speaker was unquestionably in charge, the tone of a man who felt no need to put others down to boost himself. “It is good to meet you again.”

Emily looked up. The light was blinding, made worse by the magic shimmering in the air, but she could see a lone figure standing against the haze. There was a balcony running around the chamber … no, part of another giant magitech device. It looked crude and unfinished – she couldn’t help thinking of Rube Goldberg machines – but it was clearly working as designed. She had no idea how they’d gotten it under the city … she shook her head, kicking herself. The magitech was designed to be put together, piece by piece. They’d merely carried the separate parts down and then put the machine together.

She took a breath. “And who are you?”

The light dimmed suddenly, revealing Boswell. Emily cursed under her breath, telling herself she should have expected it. Boswell had been standing beside Resolute the whole time, a secretary who appeared to be nothing more than an extension of his master’s will … Emily knew, from grim experience, that a man in such a position, a man who didn’t mind sucking up to his master, could get away with one hell of a lot. The man who controlled the bureaucracy could easily take advantage of it … Stalin had been a secretary, and he’d manipulated everyone until he’d reached a position of supreme power. Resolute had been the public face, and Boswell … he’d been pulling strings behind the scenes.

“Lady Emily.” Boswell offered a polite bow. “You’re looking well.”

Emily eyed him, sharply. Virgil had claimed to know her too, although she was sure she’d never seen him in her entire life. He had never been the kind of person to go unremarked, the kind of person she wouldn’t forget … for better or worse. Boswell was practically the exact opposite, a man who could fade into the background and never be noticed, and yet he was acting as if they’d met well before the regime had taken power? Who was he?

“And you’re looking very authoritative, for a mere secretary,” she said. She’d hoped to rankle him, just a little, but Boswell seemed unconcerned. She suspected that wasn’t a good sign. Most local men would be offended at any hint they were subordinate, even though that was exactly what they were. “What are you doing?”

Boswell cocked his head. “Do you expect me to tell you everything?”

Emily had to smile, even as she reached out with her mind to probe the spellware in the chamber. It was fading, the last of the power slowly draining into the portal … oddly, the spellware was becoming more precise, somehow adapting to continue functioning despite the lack of power. It was almost chillingly precise, without a hint of waste … it reminded her of some of the spells Void had shown her, although on a far greater scale. It would have been impressive if it hadn’t been so terrifying.

“You’re draining power from the city and sending it … where?” Emily found it difficult to believe power could be stored for so long, but perhaps it was nothing more than a scaled-up battery. “Why?”

Her mind raced. The power surge would be impossible to control, or … would it? The designer might think they could combine the battery with magitech, perhaps even a magiwriter, to cast spells on a terrifying scale, or they might just intend to point the battery at the target and let the magic flow. An immense surge of raw magic would be as destructive as an atomic bomb, perhaps more so. If half of Void’s warnings were accurate, it could turn an entire country into a nightmare that would rival the Blighted Lands.

“I don’t think it would be wise to give you any of the answers,” Boswell said. “Would it?”

Emily leaned forward, mentally sending her spells into the spellware. If she could trace it, or tear it apart from within, it might be possible to avert disaster. She kept talking, trying to distract him even as she feared it wouldn’t work. Boswell was clearly far more powerful and capable than his former master, and confident enough to be immune from any verbal barbs she might hurl at him. If …

“You act like you know me,” she said. If she could get her spells a little further into the network … “Who are you?”

“That would be telling,” Boswell said. “But let me say we’ve known each other for a very long time.”

Emily eyed him. An older student at Whitehall? Someone who had been in Martial Magic? It wasn’t impossible, particularly when Sergeant Miles had openly disdained flamboyance and insisted that projecting an air of calm competence was better than openly flexing your muscles and bragging of your fighting prowess. Or … who else could he be? She hadn’t had that much contact with the other older students, and she hadn’t counted any amongst her friends. A tutor? It struck her as unlikely. There weren’t many tutors who’d left the school ...

She glanced at the slaves. “Where are you taking them …?”

Boswell shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” Emily said. She raised her voice, driving her magic further into the spellware. A few seconds more. “Every life is important, every one.”

“An interesting philosophy,” Boswell observed, his tone suggesting it was purely a matter of academic interest. “Why do you feel that way, when few know you – the real you? Why, when so few are actually important?”

“There is solemn satisfaction in doing the best you can for eight billion people,” Emily quoted. She thought Heinlein would have approved … hell, she thought he would have done well in the Nameless World. “Perhaps their lives have no cosmic significance, but they have feelings. They can hurt.”

Boswell smiled. “And that is why we never reached out to you,” he said. “You care too much.”

Emily’s eyes narrowed. “The Hierarchy?”

Something moved, catching her eye. She glanced back and realised he’d been stalling too. The last of the slaves was stepping through the portal, vanishing into the unknown. She lashed out with her magic, trying to gain control of the spellware, and found herself tussling with an opponent who’s will pervaded every last charm woven into the magitech device. It was incredibly complex, impossibly so; she had to admit, sourly, that few human minds could handle such feats. Void was perhaps the only magician she knew who could, but even he hadn’t cast spells on such a scale. She realised, a moment later, that Boswell was using the magitech to lock his spells in place, freezing them around her. It was like trying to win a race when her opponent was on horseback, while she had to run on her own two feet.

Her mind raced as she cast a wide-angle dispelling charm, trying to break down the spells. It didn’t work, the spellware barely flickering before Boswell – or the charms he’d programmed into the device – filled in the gaps. A lumbering iron giant appeared out of the shadows and came right at her, moving with astonishing speed for something so ungainly. Emily guessed it wasn’t connected to the regime’s iron giants, that the controller was somewhere a very long way away. It certainly didn’t appear to have been affected by her sabotage …

“This didn’t work out very well the last time,” she pointed out. It wasn’t entirely true. The iron giant would have been modified, after the last defeat, and for all she knew the operator was the same person she’d beaten earlier. The Hierarchy might have executed the man for failure, but … no. She doubted it. The Hierarchy was clearly smarter than the average necromancer. “I took out the last one you threw at me.”

“Yes,” Boswell agreed. “We leant the lesson you taught us.”

The iron giant shifted, deploying a fishing net … Emily stared at it, then threw herself aside as the net came at her. The Hierarchy wasn’t trying to kill her. It was trying to take her prisoner. She cursed under her breath, looking around for something she could throw at the iron giant. The Hierarchy really had learn from experience. She had far less manoeuvring room, nowhere to hide, and none of her spells would so much as touch the monstrous device. Boswell was watching calmly from above, without interfering … Emily glanced at the portal, wondering if she should jump through, even though she had no idea what was on the far side. There could be anything waiting for her, but if she went in freely, instead of being a prisoner …

No, she told herself. There’s no way to know what’s waiting for me.

She gritted her teeth. The iron giant was penning her in, bringing back the net for another throw. It could stop her if she tried to run, or grab her if she went for Boswell … she was surprised Boswell hadn’t already blasted her in the back. He could easily have zapped her with something nasty, yet instead … her mind raced. Could he? Or was he as dependent on magitech as Adam? A crazy throught ran through her head. What if the Hierarchy had no magic? What if it was all magitech? No, that couldn’t be right … could it?

The iron giant lunged again. Emily threw herself forward, feeling her protections start to shatter as she plunged trough the antimagic field and crashed into the hulking mass. The iron giant kept moving, with all the ponderous inevitability of a runaway train racing down the tracks; Emily grabbed hold to keep from being smashed to a pulp, then reached out with the little magic available to her and shaped it into a spell. The technique was crude – magitech without magitech – but it worked. The rune drifted through the magitech, draining power and wrecking the device beyond repair. The iron giant collapsed to the ground.

Boswell clapped. “Well played, Lady Emily. Well played.”

Emily looked up, and cursed. Boswell was standing by the portal, his form silhouetted by the brilliant light. It looked almost as if he was within the portal, the raw magic almost part of him … she forced herself to step forward, only to run into a wall of power that shoved her back again. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew he was smiling.

“Unto all things, there is a Hierarchy,” Boswell said. Emily gritted her teeth. That was the third time she’d heard the Hierarchy’s taunt. “Seek and find us at the Heart of All Things, if you wish.”

He paused. “Oh, and you might want to run.”

Emily threw herself forward, trying to get an idea of just where the portal led. It was too late. The magic died, the portal snapping out of existence so violently she felt the ground shake under her feet. Horror ran through her as she realised the entire sinkhole was on the verge of collapse, dragging the Citadel down with it and burying all the evidence in the rubble. Another shockwave ran through the air … she drew on her magic and flew, all too aware she’d be dead if there was even one magician left in the tunnels. There were none, just dead bodies she barely noted as she flew back the way she’d come. The lighting was fading; she cursed as she heard something crashing behind her, sensed a flicker of tainted magic that would help to obscure whatever the Hierarchy had been doing. The portal could have led anywhere, anywhere at all …

The tunnels shifted suddenly as she flew back into the Citadel itself. The entire building was shuddering, the spells holding it upright – in defiance of the laws of phsyics – collapsing one by one. Emily breathed a sigh of relief that so few people had been left in the building, even though she knew it meant the regime might not go down with its stronghold. She put the thought out of her head as she darted into the upper chamber and looked around. Resolute was on the ground, unconscious; Adam was holding Katherine, while both Lilith and Lucy had been turned to stone. The roof started to cave in a moment later, threatening to bury them all. Emily prayed the wards had gone down as she yanked everyone together, then shaped a teleport spell. The world heaved around then, the effort draining the last of her magic as the spell snapped into place, then went white. She had the horrible impression they’d been hit by falling rocks, before the spell flickered back into nothingness. They were right next to the Tower.

Adam staggered, retching helplessly. Beside him, Katherine looked as if she’d been punched hard enough to make her throw up. Emily winced in sympathy. There had been so little time to cast the spell they were lucky they hadn’t arrived upside down, or slammed into the ground hard enough to break bones. She didn’t feel much better, even though it had been her spell. The last nightmarish impressions refused to fade, although they were alive. It had been a very close thing.

“I …” Adam coughed, and waved at Lilith. “Can you …?”

Emily nodded and reached out, touching Lilith’s stone forehead. It was a nasty spell, designed to be near-impossible to remove from within; she muttered the counter-curse, breathing a sigh of relief as Lilith returned to normal. She hugged Adam tightly as Emily released the spell on Lucy, the girl breaking down in tears. Emily looked at Resolute and shook her head in disgust. The all-powerful magician was staring at her, terror in his eyes. He had hundreds of enemies and now he was defenceless. His former allies would shun him, the moment they realised what had happened, if they didn’t kill him to make sure he took the blame for everything. She wanted to kill him herself.

She pointed at the valley instead. “Go,” she ordered. “Hide.”

Adam stared at her. “You’re letting him go free? You are showing him mercy?”

Emily shook her head. “No,” she said. There was no mercy left in her, not for a man who had destroyed so many lives. He would be lucky if he lived long enough to be killed by his former allies. Without his magic, Resolute was a joke. “I’m not showing him any mercy at all.”

 

Chapter Forty: Adam/Emily

“We got the portal open, as planned,” Caleb said. He looked rather out of it, after his two halves had reintegrated into one, but his eyes were bright. “And we got everyone back to Heart’s Eye.”

Adam leaned forward, feeling a smile spreading over his face. “And your mother?”

“Grabbed her in the chaos.” Caleb rubbed his forehead, trying to reconcile memories that insisted he’d been in two places at once. Adam didn’t envy him. It was hard to imagine, but he had a feeling Caleb would spend a lot of time worrying he was lying to himself about where he’d been at any given moment. The two sets of memories were too different to merge into one. “We got her out, and Jane got a story.”

Jane looked up from where she sat. “And you all owe me interviews,” she said. “I need something to convince my father I didn’t compromise myself.”

“I suppose I can give you an exclusive,” Emily said. “Once all this is over …”

Adam leaned back in his chair, looking around the room. The chamber was nothing like what he’d been expecting, when he’d realised where Emily had taken them. He’d expected a room crammed with stiff-backed furniture and tables, not a comfortable sitting room with shabby armchairs and sofas that had clearly seen better days. There was no sense of elegance, no sense Void had been trying to impress his visitors … not even a sense he was trying to put them in their place. But then, he’d never needed to do anything of the sort. If half the stories were true, Void made Arnold look like Jasper. Even Emily wasn’t his match, when it came to power and skill. Not yet.

He winced, suddenly. “And all the mundanes have just been kicked out of the city?”

“Do you think any of them want to stay?” Sienna’s lips twisted, as if she’d bitten into something sour. “Getting them out was the best we could do, for the moment. It wasn't as if they owned any of the property, or anything else.”

She shook her head. “We did manage to get the slaves freed, and reunite children with their parents – some of them – but there are limits. The regime was badly weakened, yet it’s poison remains.”

Adam scowled. “So everything we did was all for nothing?”

“They’ll have to run the city without slaves,” Emily said. She sounded as ambient as Adam himself. “And their iron giants are no longer a danger, so they can be kept confined and held to account if they violate the Compact. Now they know they were used …”

“The Citadel is gone,” Lilith said. “That has to serve as a warning.”

“Yeah,” Adam said, without conviction. Lucy’s parents had vanished, their fate unrecorded even by a regime that had seemed intent on using paperwork to keep magicians under control. She would go to Heart’s Eye, at least for the moment, and Adam had promised to look after her … but it wouldn’t be the same. Katherine was in an even worse state, her father having vanished and her family getting a great deal of the blame for the whole crisis. Thankfully, Katherine was a fairly common name. No one would make the connection between Katherine and Resolute, as long as she kept it to herself. “It just feels a little bittersweet.”

“Heart’s Eye and Heart’s Ease will take most of the refugees,” Caleb said. “We have the resources to take care of them, and money to help them get back on their feet. The innovators who experimented with magitech, or even tech, will more than repay us, as they invent newer and better ways to do things. The regime will have to find a way to cope without them, forcing it to reform or simply start losing magicians.”

Sienna nodded. “It isn’t a perfect solution,” she said. “But it will suffice.”

Adam doubted Hannah would feel that way, not even if she was reunited with her family. Celeste had been her home, even though the city’s rulers had considered her a guest at best and a slave at worst. She might never have owned anything within the city, but … he felt his heart sink. Harris and the rebels might be relieved to go, yet they were still leaving their old lives behind for good. It was hard to imagine how much had been lost, from mundanes vanishing without trace to children’s toys being left behind to rot. He had no idea who had owned the apartment they’d used, before Emily had been captured, but … he hoped they were still alive, that they’d have the chance to recover what they could before they left the city. He feared otherwise. It was quite possible no one had even bothered to record who’d owned the apartment, or what had happened to them.

“I hope you’re right,” he said, finally. “What now?”

“Now you go back to Heart’s Eye and continue to develop magitech,” Emily said. “I’ll continue tracking down the Hierarchy.”

Adam grimaced. “If they are draining and storing so much power, what do they want it for?”

“I wish I knew,” Emily said. “It’s hard to calculate just how much magic they managed to transfer through the portal, but my most optimistic calculations suggested they stored an order of magnitude more raw magic than the average necromancer. If they try to channel such power through a valve, they’d melt the device and blow themselves sky high.”

“If they’re lucky,” Caleb put in. “They might wind up wishing they were dead.”

“Yes,” Emily agreed. “Such power could devastate a country, even if it wasn’t properly controlled. And if they do have a way to control it …”

Adam looked at the ruined device on his wrist. “A magiwriter?”

“It’s possible,” Emily said. “The power levels would still be far higher than anything you have ever stored, let alone controlled, but they might try to scale the design up a bit …”

“Or they might lose control,” Lilith said, quietly.

“Yes,” Emily said.

She leaned back in her chair, her face tired. “We have one clue,” she said. “We’ll work with it.”

“We can help,” Adam said. “If you need us …”

“I’ll call,” Emily promised. “Right now, you need to take care of the girls.”

Adam felt a flicker of sympathy for Katherine. Her father had been a monster. She was a sweet little girl who just happened to have been raised to believe everything her father had told her was true, from the inherent inferiority of mundanes to magicians to something that effectively boiled down to might makes right. Adam had grown up in a city where the sins of the parents often reflected poorly on their children, and yet being born out of wedlock was nothing compared to being the child of a monster. He wondered how Emily coped, given how Void’s story had ended. He supposed she could take care of herself, if her reputation wasn’t enough to convince people to give her the benefit of the doubt. Katherine hadn’t even come into her magic yet.

“We will,” he promised. He hadn’t enjoyed growing up without a father, although there had been nothing remotely questionable about his parent’s marriage, or his father’s death. “Do you think the regime will ever recover?”

“I wish I knew,” Emily said. “But right now, it has been discredited and it might collapse under its own weight.”

Adam scowled, not bothering to hide it. The storybooks had brave heroes defeating evil monsters, and everything going to rights after the monsters had been told. The real world was different. The regime had thousands of followers and supporters, most still alive and unconvinced they’d been wrong to believe in the regime’s ideology. They weren’t going to go away in a hurry, no matter what he – or Emily – did. He thought he understood, now, why King Randor had gone mad. His grandfather had been a weak man, held down by overmighty nobles; his father had smacked them down, only to see them claw back their power and challenge Randor himself. History wasn’t neat and tidy, and it never stopped.

“I hope you’re right,” he said. “What about Resolute?”

“I’m sure his sins will catch up with him,” Emily said. She’d told him not to be specific about what had actually happened to Resolute, pointing out the dangers of convincing magicians a magiwriter could be used to depower a magician. Resolute might get the last laugh after all, if his fate unleashed a crusade to destroy magitech. The hell of it was that Adam had no idea how to cast the spell a second time. Emily had given it to him. “Right now, he’s not our problem.”

Adam nodded, slowly. He’d checked the reference library, when Emily had left them in the tower to link up with the rest of the team and bring them home. It was rare for a magician to lose his powers completely, and when he did madness often followed. What would Resolute do, if he reached the nearest town? Did he have any money? Any way of identifying himself? Or would he find himself forced to work for a living, or begging on the streets? Or had he already been killed, by someone who hadn’t had the slightest idea of who he’d been? His body might already have been cremated, his ashes dumped in an unmarked grave.

“Thank you,” he said. He stood, Lilith standing with him. “We’ll see you at Heart’s Eye?”

“Mum will take you and Jane back there,” Caleb said. He sounded vague, as if he were distracted by a greater thought. “I’ll see you all later.”

“You owe me an interview,” Jane said. Her tone was light, teasing, but there was an edge to it that surprised Adam. “I’ll sleep outside your door if you’re not careful.”

“I’ll be back at Heart’s Eye shortly,” Caleb said. “We can do the interview then.”

Adam allowed Sienna to lead them downstairs, his mind elsewhere. What had the Hierarchy been doing under the Citadel, and why? What did they want to do with enough stored magic to recreate the world? His imagination provided a dozen possible answers, but none needed as much magic as they’d drained and stored. Adam hadn’t seen Emily’s calculations, yet he had every faith in her skills. What did the Hierarchy have in mind?

He didn’t know, but they needed to find out. Quickly.

***

It had not. Emily reflected sourly, been her cleanest victory.

The Citadel had been destroyed. Resolute had been depowered – a fate many magicians would consider worth than death – and most of his council, guardsmen, and advisors were dead or on the run. And yet, the regime itself might survive, even though it had been deprived of its slaves and workers. The concept of believing oneself to be superior was a seductive one, a conceit that had poisoned the minds of countless people smart enough to know better. She wanted to believe the regime had been discredited permanently, but she knew better. Imperial Germany had been defeated on the battlefield in 1918, yet surprisingly few Germans had believed it. Hitler had told them they’d been stabbed in the back and the lie had taken root, even though it hadn’t been remotely true.

They believed it because they wanted to believe it, she told herself. No one wanted to be told their nation had been defeated fair and square, that if the fighting had continued a few more months allied tanks would have ground their way to Berlin and crushed the Germans so completely they wouldn’t have fallen for Hitler’s lies. And because they wanted someone to blame.

She shuddered. The regime had been weakened. The workers would have new careers at Heart’s Eye, changing the world, and their families would be free. And yet, she knew it wouldn’t die completely. Her lips twisted, bitterly. Perhaps it would reform, perhaps, but she doubted it. The regime had already credited her with inventing magitech, and they might credit her with defeating them too. Adam would find himself erased from the history books, just so magicians could tell themselves they hadn’t been beaten by a mundane.

The scars will take years to heal, if they ever do, she thought. Lucy’s parents were missing, presumed dead; Katherine’s father was on the run, if he wasn’t already dead. God alone knew how many others had been killed, or enslaved, or traumatised, or simply crammed into the ghetto and left to die. How do we even begin to fix this?

Caleb put his arm around her. Emily leaned into his touch, trying to relax. It wasn’t easy.

He cleared his throat. “What now?”

“Boswell said we could find them at the Heart of All Things,” Emily said. The name raised an old memory. Cat’s castle in Kuching had been called the Castle at the End of the Land, and the nexus point under the castle – the one she’d reignited – had been called the Heart of All Things. What was the Hierarchy doing there? “In Kuching?”

Caleb shifted. “There’s a nexus point there,” he said. “We used it to fall back in time.”

“Yeah.” Emily nodded slowly. “But they already have a great deal of power.”

“Controlling it will be a pain,” Caleb mused. “Unless … they intend to use the control spells you devised for the nexus point to control the magic they stored.”

“Maybe,” Emily said. It didn’t seem likely, if only because they’d eventually run out of stored power, but she couldn’t dismiss the possibility. “What could they do with all that power?”

Caleb smiled. “If they can control it, they don’t have to use it all at once.”

“True.” Emily stared at the floor, her mind elsewhere. “But it still seems excessive.”

“My tutor used to claim there was no such thing as having too much power,” Caleb said. He straightened up, shifting to look at her. Emily had the sudden feeling he was nervous. “Emily, can I ask you a question?”

Emily felt her heart skip a beat. “Of course,” she said. A shiver ran down her spine, an inkling she already knew what he was going to ask. “You can ask me anything.”

Caleb looked her in the eye. “Emily, will you marry me?”

End of Book 27

Emily Will Return In:

Wolf in the Fold

Coming Soon