by K. M. Shea
Now it was Nefari’s turn to blink. “Other weapons?”
Angelique squinted as she pulled out two hidden daggers from her bracers, then stuck her leg out and started to pull another dagger from her boot.
“Ah—I see.” Nefari held his hand up to stop her. “My servant girl shall guide you back to the outdoors so you may completely disarm.”
Angelique turned around to peer at Gabrielle. “Is that acceptable, Mademoiselle Mystrim?”
Gabrielle simpered.
“Mademoiselle Mystrim thinks it is best to acquiesce to our host’s rules of conduct,” Elle said.
Angelique purposely made an awkward bow to Gabrielle, then turned with Quinn to follow the servant girl—still carrying the wooden tray—back up the hallway.
When they reached the door, Angelique shook her head. “No, I’m not going back out there—it’s so cold, I’ll lose a toe if I have to stand out there very long. We’ll disarm here.”
The little girl dully stared at her. “The master always has guests disarm outside.”
Angelique ignored her and started flinging her daggers at the ground, ignoring the curious prickle of her magic as it inspected the dull blades—which they’d bought cheaply for this very reason.
Nefari probably can’t tell the difference between a dull blade and a sharpened one anyway.
Quinn copied Angelique, and together they started to make a pile of weapons.
The girl clutched the tray and watched, but she didn’t say anything more about going outside.
Angelique purposefully slowed down in the process—taking time to pat herself down as if she couldn’t even remember where she had all her blades stored—to stall for time.
She heard Elle shout once or twice, but she couldn’t make out what she was actually saying.
Come on, Nefari. Let your greed get the best of you. Summon her even though we’re not done!
A few moments passed before a bell rang.
The servant girl looked down the hallway in the direction of the showroom, then back at Angelique and Quinn. “Are you finished?”
Quinn held her arms out in a T pose, revealing the rows upon rows of pockets inside her cloak. Each one of them held a dagger or weapon of some fashion.
The little girl frowned.
The bell rang again—this time for a longer toll.
“Once you finish disarming, you may return to the showroom.” The girl scurried down the hallway, almost smacking into Nefari as he poked his head into the hallway.
“Ahh, there you are.” He glanced at Angelique and Quinn—who removed two daggers from her cloak with painstaking slowness—then shifted his attention to the servant girl.
“Take this pendant down to the workshop,” Nefari shoved the velvet cushion at the girl. “Tell Verice it needs a shimmer charm on it. Mademoiselle Mystrim is…dissatisfied with its appearance and would like it to be more radiant.”
The servant girl took the pillow and darted to the door that led downstairs, slipping through it and disappearing as silently as she had appeared.
Nefari glanced at Angelique and Quinn.
Quinn pointedly dropped a dagger on the heap and grabbed another from her cloak.
Nefari raised his eyebrows but ducked back into the showroom—too paranoid to leave Elle and Gabrielle alone.
Angelique exchanged nods with Quinn and then began creeping down the hallway, stopping at the first door.
Quinn—able to hear the nearly silent girl—would serve as the lookout while Angelique tried to find where Nefari hid his papers.
The first door was an obvious dead end—it was a bedroom, with a washroom attached. The door across the hallway from it was the kitchen.
Another door held another bedroom—this one filled with beds, probably where the other mages slept based on the cramped array of straw-stuffed mattresses and rumpled blankets.
If I don’t find anything in this last door, I’ll circle around to the bedroom. He might have something hidden there.
As stealthily as she could, Angelique cracked the door open and peered inside while Quinn loudly dropped another dagger on the pile with a clang.
Through the crack, Angelique could see a meticulously organized desk with a capped inkwell and both a feather quill and a fountain pen placed above what appeared to be a logbook or journal.
There were two bookshelves (both contained books that appeared to be organized by color and size), a crate with straw poking out of it, and a few chairs.
This is it—it has to be his study.
Angelique opened the door a little wider and paused as she let her magical senses expand, testing the room for any alarms.
She felt nothing—no traps of any kind. Until something brushed around the ankle of her boots. Her anxiety already reaching new heights from this new experience of breaking-and-entering, Angelique jumped in place.
“For goodness sakes, it’s me,” Puss hissed, invisible thanks to his magic. “I’m here to cast the silence spell on you—as we decided upon when planning this!”
“Sorry,” Angelique whispered.
“There. All done—good luck,” Puss whispered.
He was gone as quickly as he’d come—probably to sit at his post on the threshold of the showroom so Gabrielle could appear to use magic if required.
Her throat closing with hope, Angelique slipped inside the study as Quinn dropped two pointed hairsticks tipped with metal on the weapons heap.
Angelique left the door cracked—so she could hear Quinn—and skulked inside, her heart pounding wildly in her chest as she tried to figure out what would be most appropriate to check first.
Elle said general records from the Chosen would be most helpful, or a list of Nefari’s suppliers in Mullberg.
Angelique checked the logbook first, slipping her gloves back on before she flipped the cover open.
It appeared to be a record of recent orders—supplies going out and coming in.
Some of it was straightforward—any food orders like sacks of flour and the like—but a separate column was filled with a gibberish code that—based on the numbers used and the organization system—Angelique was willing to bet were customer orders.
This would be why Nefari wasn’t terribly concerned about leaving us on our own—he’s got everything coded. Elle could probably crack this, but it would take more time than we have in this snatched instance, and we can’t take the logbook, or he’ll know, and they’ll flee the den.
Angelique mashed her lips together, then closed the logbook and approached the bookshelves, her boots soundless on the wooden floor thanks to Puss’ spell.
One shelf was filled with books that were all the exact same size and thickness as the logbook—though they had different colors. A quick perusal revealed they were past records, color-coded for year.
My goodness. I guess I assumed the Chosen wouldn’t be quite so…meticulous, but I imagine they must be more like Nefari than one would think, given their ability to launch such long-reaching plans across the continent.
Angelique was thankful for her gloves—her fingers felt clammy and might have left smudges otherwise as she perused the bookshelves.
She was surprised to see several copies of books on magic that were so rare, they were kept under lock and key in the Veneno Conclave library, but none of the books appeared to be records on the Chosen.
Angelique plucked a few tomes off the shelves and checked in the insides, just in case.
I guess hoping for a record of actual Chosen activity was too much. It’s not like Nefari would keep a diary of such things. He is, essentially, a craftsman. While he provided Acri with the defense spell necklace, I haven’t actually seen the necklaces used anywhere else. Carabosso and Suzu didn’t have them, and based on what Emerys said, Evariste’s magic is being used to curse the royal families. But that’s high above the likes of Nefari.
The lower half of each of the bookshelves had a thin drawer and a small cupboard. Angelique opened both cupboard doors
and found stacks of unused logbooks, extra ink, quills, and fountain pens, sealing wax, and a few containers of what appeared to be some kind of polish—probably for the merchandise.
Angelique quietly pulled one of the drawers open. “Finally!” she whispered.
The drawer contained only a few papers, but they were carefully drawn maps. She withdrew them, curiously glancing over the continent map—which had no visible marks on it—and a map of Loire and Arcainia.
The Loire/Arcainia map seemed to be a shipping route of some sort. There were marked paths that led from larger dots to smaller dots and flowed out. Nothing was labeled, but Angelique recognized the location of several of the large dots as major trading cities.
This explains why the small shops run by the black mages seem to pop up like boils—they have specific cities they’re targeting. It also proves just how badly we need to ferret out their spy in the Conclave if we want to have any impact on their operations, or they’ll forever be ahead of us. Once I find Evariste, my next goal should be finding that mole and stopping the information leak.
Unfortunately, neither of these revelations helped her with Mullberg—except to see that it appeared while they received supplies from Mullberg, it didn’t seem that they shipped anything back north to them. Unless…
She held her breath as she peeled the Loire/Arcainia map back, revealing the final paper, a map of Mullberg.
A dozen or so bright red dots colored the map. Some were nestled in the foothills by the two mountain ranges that somewhat isolated Mullberg from other countries, but were rich with ores and gems. A few were near the rivers—all of which flowed east or south east, to the ocean—and there were a couple that Angelique knew were near large cities.
There were a lot fewer dots than what were in Loire, but that made sense: as helpless as the Veneno Conclave had been acting, the magic fortress was located in Mullberg. It was unlikely the Chosen would set up shop so close to their natural enemy.
Like the Loire/Arcainia map, nothing was labeled. But if she could memorize the locations, she could mark them on a new map as soon as they returned to the room.
A clang came from the hallway. “Find anything?”
Angelique’s belly leaped in her gut, but it was only Quinn.
The soldier had inched the door open and stuck her head in as she rummaged around her cloak and threw another dagger on the pile.
“I think I have their suppliers,” Angelique said. “And possibly a few strongholds near big cities.” She glanced at the door. “Do we need to be concerned about being found out?”
“Nah,” Quinn said.
“Elle is occupying Nefari with the promise of additional business by having my mistress peruse his wares,” Puss said, invisible.
Quinn tilted her head. “Puss? Aren’t you supposed to be watching Gabrielle in case you need to use magic for her disguise?”
Angelique didn’t look up from memorizing spots on the map. “Puss always does whatever he wants.”
“As I should!” Puss said.
From where his voice came from on the floor, it sounded like he was directly by the door, probably listening to Elle’s conversation with Nefari despite his casual attitude.
Quinn crept up to the desk and flipped the logbook open. “You already checked the logbook?”
“Yes. It’s coded—except for food supply orders.”
Quinn made a noise at the back of her throat as she scanned the logbook, her eyes flicking across the orders.
“Can you properly hear that ghost-like servant girl climbing the stairs from in here?” Puss asked—his voice still coming from a spot near the door.
“Yes,” Quinn said. “As long as I don’t get too distracted.”
Reasonably certain she had the biggest dots on the Mullberg map memorized, Angelique turned her attention to the smaller dots. “Do we need to throw something on the weapon pile, just in case?”
“I’ll handle this!” Although invisible, Angelique could practically hear Puss puff out his chest.
A few seconds passed, then there was a tremendous clang in the hallway as one of the weapons inexplicably slipped down the side of the pile, causing a small avalanche of weapons.
Angelique paused. “Are you all right, Puss?”
“I’m fine,” Puss hissed. “But I don’t know how much longer Elle can hold Nefari’s attention.”
Angelique folded up the map and placed it—and the others—back in the small drawer. “I’m satisfied with this. We can go.”
“Wait a moment.” Quinn tapped a page in the logbook. “I might have found something.”
“What? How?” Angelique joined Quinn at the desk and peered over her shoulder.
The logbook had an enormous food order—at least four times the amount of food of any other supply order on the page—dated from mid-summer—around the time Angelique had been running around Kozlovka, chasing a wyvern.
“There’s a footnote down here,” Quinn said.
“A footnote?” Puss asked. “What kind of Chosen mage uses a footnote?”
“Permission given to seek financial compensation for feeding and housing a band of companions on their way north to Mullberg, traveling in a caravan and shipping a mirror?” Angelique read.
Chapter 13
Her heart stuttered in her chest.
Evariste.
“It’s him,” she said. “It has to be him.”
Quinn flipped through the logbook a few pages ahead and behind the entry. “It seems like that’s all of the entry—Nefari was just concerned about being financially compensated for hosting such a big party.”
“It’s possible he didn’t know what was special about the mirror, or he wouldn’t have written it down,” Puss said.
Quinn stilled. “I hear the girl coming up the stairs—we need to go.”
Quinn shut the book while Angelique darted into the hallway. Angelique felt Puss brush past her—his invisible tail curling around her legs. Once Quinn cleared the room, Angelique yanked the door shut.
Just as the staircase door started to open, Angelique settled her hands on her hips and slumped against the wall as she faced Quinn, who jumped up and down.
The servant girl glanced at Quinn and Angelique as she climbed the top stair into the hallway, carrying the velvet cushion and the jewel pendant.
“I’m not jingling anymore,” Quinn said. “I believe I got everything.”
“Finally.” Angelique yawned, then pushed off the door and trudged down the hallway—relieved when she realized her boots made heavy thuds. Puss must have removed the silence spell when he ran past.
Angelique ambled into the showroom and settled along the wall with Quinn.
Gabrielle carelessly glanced at them, but judging by the way she shifted and unfurled her fan to cover her lower face, Puss must have gotten onto her shoulder and was telling her they could leave.
Elle was still gabbing with Nefari, but Angelique’s heart started to settle in her chest.
The dangerous part of the mission is over. We just need to get out of here without blowing our cover, and we’re free.
“Ahh, here it is,” Nefari said. “Is this shine suitable for you, Mademoiselle Mystrim?” Nefari snatched up the velvet pendant from his servant girl and held it out to Gabrielle.
Gabrielle sniffed.
“It will do,” Elle said in a haughty voice.
Nefari smiled so large, it was a wonder his teeth didn’t crack. “Fabulous. Then let us continue with tuning the pendant to you.”
The process only took a few minutes, and it mostly involved Nefari circling around Gabrielle and making minor tweaks to the spells stored in the pendant.
Angelique thought nothing of the process…until he made the last tweak.
“You have a very strange magical print, Mademoiselle Mystrim.” Nefari smoothed his goatee. “I can tell you’ve used magic since coming in, but I can’t sense any spells.”
That’s because her “magic” is Puss, and as a magi
cal cat, his kind of magic isn’t traceable like a mage’s.
“Are you wearing an artifact of some sort—something capable of hiding your magic?”
Angelique tensed. Nothing like that exists—even black magic can’t hide who is casting a spell. Why is he asking?
“Whatever mixture of magical spells and enchantments Mademoiselle Mystrim has chosen to guard herself with is no concern of yours,” Elle said.
A good answer—and solid given that “Mystrim” already appears to be somewhat paranoid.
Nefari held his hands out. “I see. Would you mind displaying your powers for me?”
Angelique cocked her head, unease bubbling in her gut.
Why would he ask that now?
Gabrielle raised an eyebrow at him.
“It’s for tuning your pendant, I assure you,” Nefari said with too much smoothness.
Angelique stood up straighter. She started to reach for her magic before she remembered better, then reached for her sword belt before recalling she’d dropped it outside.
This isn’t good. We always planned Puss could flash some magic for her, but Nefari is too curious after studying her. This isn’t some halfhearted request to prove Gabrielle is a mage. He’s onto us.
Thankfully, Elle somehow had come to the same conclusion. “Yes, Mademoiselle Mystrim would very much mind showing her magic.” She scowled and peered up at Nefari through the thick frames of her glasses. “And you have some nerve making such an impertinent question of such a powerful mage!”
Gabrielle made a breathy sigh, and Elle nodded. “I agree, Mademoiselle Mystrim. No one—Acri or otherwise—told us such a craftsman would be so rude!”
The subtle namedrop had enough of an effect on Nefari to make him bow. “My apologies, Mademoiselle Mystrim. I’m afraid sometimes my curiosity makes me uncouth. Please allow me to assure you I am grateful for your patronage.”
Gabrielle made a sniffing noise, pointedly looked away from him, then minced toward the door.
“You are forgiven,” Elle informed Nefari. “Though you’ve ruined Mademoiselle Mystrim’s overflowing good mood, and she has decided to leave.” Elle plunked a bag of coins down on one of the tables. “You have received the payment, including extra compensation for your speed. Mademoiselle Mystrim’s business with you has concluded.”