Aria chuckled lightly at Silas’s grumpy complaint and reassured Tessa and Atticus they were more than welcome. When I made it to the table, Silas set a plate of food in front of me, and my mouth watered at the sight of eggs and bacon. The smell was heavenly. I hadn’t seen any drool-worthy food for weeks.
“Grease and salt for the Earthen,” Silas said. He sat and draped his arm around the back of Aria’s chair.
“Where did you get bacon?” I was determined to act normal, but I couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
Atticus reached over to snag a piece off my plate, but I slapped his hand away. Everyone laughed, and I caught a rare smile from Silas.
“I have ways,” Silas hinted.
Stephan snorted. “He sent someone to an Earthen grocery store.”
My heart thumped in surprise. I bit my lip and reminded myself that Silas didn’t want me in his life. I needed to move on. Cold like ice.
As I ate, Aria and I relayed snippets of what we’d learned from Titus during the abduction. Tessa shared that her time spent in Lower Aeterna had been useless. She hadn’t been able to get anyone to talk to her about the possible defectors.
Eventually, Silas got down to business, and we discussed the reason everyone had gathered at House Valeron this morning. “Maeve and I are going to dig into the arrival records at the portal facility. Tessa, I need you to keep searching in Lower Aeterna for more missing people. Take Atticus. Whoever put the compulsion on him was with the Brotherhood, and they’re using him as a lightning rod for their cause. Having him there might get more people to open up. We need to know what the Brotherhood is planning next.”
Tessa rose from the table. “On assignment together, like old times.”
“What about the Brotherhood’s recruiting meeting?” I asked.
“Visiting those families was reckless,” Silas growled. “And irresponsible.”
He was hyper-focused on the wrong point, as usual.
I narrowed my eyes. “It’s our best lead.”
His eyebrows rose in an all-too-familiar irritated expression. “You will not attend this meeting.”
“I can attend alone,” Atticus quickly offered.
I glared at them both. “They’ll get suspicious,” I argued.
“You’re too recognizable,” Silas continued. “You’ll ruin your best lead and get yourself killed. Listen to me for once. It’s too dangerous.”
I bit my lip. His eyes flicked to my mouth. The damn butterflies woke up in my stomach.
Ice, goddammit!
Silas swiped his hand across his face, and his expression softened. “Please, Maeve.”
They were the magic words; he actually said please. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I was too recognizable to the Brotherhood. Getting myself captured at one of their meetings would be idiotic. I nodded, and his shoulders relaxed.
“Atticus can infiltrate this group and report back on their movements,” Silas said. “We’ll come up with a plan.”
THE FAE CENTURION MANNING the portal facility was terrified of Silas. I couldn’t blame him, especially since Silas was in a really foul mood. I’d already tried to convince him that I should question the man alone, but he didn’t buy it. The tension between us made us both irritable, and Silas released his temper on everyone in our path. So much for being inconspicuous.
The poor Guardian guided us to the central control room, where he accessed the portal logs through a handheld interface and, with shaking fingers, projected them onto a vertical console. “Is this what you needed, Lord Commander?”
Silas and I squinted at a very long list of names, dates, and other information I had no idea how to decipher. With Silas laying on the menace, I decided to be extra nice to the Centurion.
“All these people traveled to Earth?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“You can call me Maeve. You’ve been so helpful, Centurion...”
“Lysander.” His eyes flitted between Silas and me, and I knew without looking that Silas was scowling at him.
I shifted to the side, blocking him from Lysander’s view. “Could you show me the arrival and departure records side by side?”
As we leaned in to scan the names of each of the records, the smell of Silas’s soap invaded my nose. I could practically feel the heat of his body against my skin, so I shifted away from him.
“Why doesn’t that entry have an arrival name logged?” Silas asked, pointing.
Lysander tapped the screen and swallowed. “I don’t know, my lord. It must be an error.”
“Are there any other records that don’t have a name logged?” I asked gently before Silas could berate him.
Lysander pulled up three entry records and an equal number of departures over the past month. The last no-name record was an arrival on the day before I was kidnapped. When I asked him to check farther back, he found at least twenty entries and same-day departures that hadn’t logged names.
We were onto a pattern. I started to get excited.
“That’s a big oversight, Centurion Lysander,” Silas said with menace.
Lysander started stammering possible explanations.
Silas’s default mode was intimidation, which was only going to terrify the man and bury the information we really needed. Giving Silas an icy look, I tried to tell him silently that he needed to back off. It was the first time we’d maintained any significant eye contact since the night before, and I didn’t like the way it made me burn inside.
Antarctica, glaciers, polar ice caps.
Silas folded his arms across his chest and glared back.
Silently, I told him to stop being an idiot. He was going to ruin our chances of finding anything out if he didn’t back down.
He scowled.
I returned the scowl and raised him some lifted eyebrows. Finally, he huffed and stepped back, accepting defeat.
“Lysander, is there a way to see the person on duty when each of these incidents happened?” I asked gently.
He tapped around on the console then glanced at Silas. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed nervously. “I’m sorry, but that information seems to be missing as well.”
Silas harrumphed behind me.
Damn.
“That’s okay. It’s not your fault,” I assured Lysander. He exhaled in relief as we all considered the information.
“Someone could have accessed the system and erased the information,” Lysander volunteered, his eyes rising to me hopefully.
“Can anyone do that?” I asked.
Silas started pacing.
“Only members of the Council could erase the records, Lady Maeve.”
Alaric could have done it, but it wasn’t quite the proof we needed. I chewed on the inside of my cheek as Lysander looked over my shoulder to watch Silas pacing. The man looked terrified—as if Silas might conjure up a sword and run him through at any second. Actually, he might not have been that far off.
“Can you see when they were altered?” I asked.
As he worked on it, Silas continued to stalk, and I resisted the urge to tell him to stop. Since we didn’t know who had made the alterations, we couldn’t tie it back to Alaric. If we could figure out the day the records were altered, maybe we could retrace Alaric’s steps and establish an anti-alibi. Or we could interview the people who had been on duty those days. It was a long shot, but it might work.
“Got it. The records were altered on three separate occasions.” Lysander beamed at me—a broad, pleased grin that would never have happened with intimidation. “The Guardian on duty each time was Legatis Landas of House Crispin.”
“Landas?” I asked Silas. “As in the jerk-wad who escorted us to the Council Centre?”
Silas spoke to Lysander in a measured, level tone that scared the shit out of me. “Fetch Legatis Landas and bring him to me.”
Lysander jumped out of his seat and ran for the door.
“What are you going to say to Landas?” I asked as soon as we were alone.
He
scowled. “I’m going to tear apart that sodding mongrel until he squeals like the shite-licking coward he is.”
“I don’t know half the words you just said, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that you’re angry.”
He gave me a glare that could have melted flesh.
In my super-patient voice, I pointed out the obvious. “We need Landas to lead us to whoever’s been helping the Brotherhood. It’s gotta be someone on the Council.”
“We already know who it is—everything points back to Alaric!”
“You really think he had Aria kidnapped?” I snapped. Silas was in full rage mode, which put the responsibility on me to think rationally. God help us.
“Who else has a better motivation?” Silas demanded.
“Putting your personal issues with Alaric aside,” I said carefully, “he wouldn’t sacrifice his link to your House. Aria is his ticket to returning his House’s standing in Upper Aeterna. And she almost died, Silas. Titus was going to kill her.”
Silas’s lip curled into a snarl.
“If you confront Landas, we’ll lose the only lead we have. We need to follow him and see who he’s working for.”
“We know who he’s working for,” he said, but his voice drifted as he started to think about it. He’d begun to doubt too.
My mind was spinning through all the possibilities, when a realization came to me. “Titus had at least four people with him in Aeterna, and a dozen helped attack us in Earth. Plus, all the Rakken we killed in Alaska, and five more at the Exposition...”
Silas’s brows scrunched. “What are you implying?”
“There aren’t enough errors logged to get all of the rebels from Aeterna to Earth.” I chewed on the inside of my lip as I put the pieces together. “Let’s say they’re sneaking people out of Lower Aeterna to join their cause. This facility is monitored, and every alteration of the log requires Alaric—or whoever is supporting Titus—to personally alter the records. That’s a big risk. By my count, they’ve moved several dozen people to Earth, but there’s only a few altered entries here. A second portal is the only thing that makes sense.”
Silas stared at me as he digested my theory.
“It could be wherever he took Aria and me. I think we were in someone’s house. Probably in Lower Aeterna.”
Silas started to respond, but the door opened, cutting off his reply. Legatis Landas stepped inside. Dressed in a Guardian uniform with his dark hair still bound in a topknot, he no longer wore the smug expression I’d last seen on his face. His round brown eyes flicked between us before they steadied on Silas and he dropped into a salute.
Silas’s voice was quiet. “Unfortunately for you, I still remember your name, Landas.”
I swore under my breath. Silas was pissed, and he was not going to back off. We really needed to know who this guy worked for, not nail him to the wall.
Landas’s nostrils flared as he asked, “Is something wrong, Lord Commander?”
“We have a number of missing data logs, and each time this occurred, you were the officer on duty. Why is that?”
Landas rocked back on his feet. I could practically see his mind spinning. “I was running a diagnostic test, my lord. I—I may have caused some errors in the data.”
“You didn’t alter the records?”
His eyes went very wide. “No, my lord.”
Silas’s eyes narrowed. “Did you report the errors?”
“No, my lord. I didn’t think it was important enough. I can fill in the missing data by hand.”
Silas stepped closer to him. The Legatis’s wide eyes flicked to me. I gave him my hard stare. He wouldn’t get any help from me.
“Do you know how I earned my first command?” Silas asked.
Landas’s face drained of color.
Silas leaned in, inches from his face. “I do not abide traitors.”
Landas went stiff, and the terror in his face made me very curious what Silas was talking about. He’d told me about Krittesh—maybe there was more to that story.
Silas narrowed his eyes, considering the man. “Finish your test. If you find out someone is altering the records, I want you to come to me. No one else. Do you understand?”
Landas’s head jerked. He blinked rapidly then stammered, “Yes, my lord.”
“Leave us.”
Landas saluted and fled the room.
“Great work,” I snarked at Silas. “Pushing him got you nowhere. You should have listened to me. We could have followed him back to whoever he’s working with.”
“Right now, he isn’t sure if we know what he’s done or if we believed his story. He’s scared, and he’ll want reassurance from whomever he’s working with. Now we’ll see who he runs to.”
It was a bold move. Silas used intimidation like a precision weapon. Grudgingly, I had to admit it might work. I just hoped he hadn’t tipped our hand.
“If they have access to a second portal,” Silas said, returning to my theory, “it would take an enormous amount of energy to power. But it’s not in Lower Aeterna. Alaric must be diverting power to it, which would be very difficult to do with the current energy rationing in the Lower City. I suspect it’s in Upper Aeterna, and somewhere private, or they’d be noticed. A home would work.”
“Do you think the second portal is the reason for the energy rationing? It takes a lot of magic, right? They could be diverting power to the portal instead of into the Citizen Source.”
“That’s... clever.” The corners of his mouth twisted down. “We’ll search for a hidden portal at the Magister Training Compound, where Alaric trains his people. Then we’ll sweep lower Aeterna and start asking questions. It’s time to get these fratchers scared and running.”
Fear and anger were building in the Lower City. The city was drenched in gasoline, and Silas was about to throw a match on it. I just hoped the whole thing didn’t blow up in our faces.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
That evening, I sat on the open-air balcony at House Valeron with Tessa and Atticus. We’d just ended the latest installment of my crash course in magic. Between the two of them, I had learned a lot about how to use the power locked inside me. Today we’d practiced pulling magic from objects. I still couldn’t directly access my magic, but I’d learned how to kick-start it through absorbing energy from someone else’s conjuring or an object that had power. Just a little bit was enough to allow me to start a spell, then I could pull the energy into a conjuring. Once I had mastered that, they taught me the basic spell for marking and calling objects. I was thrilled to finally have a way to magic up Ripper whenever I needed.
Sunlight filtered through the manicured vines draped on the arbor above us. A warm breeze blew the scent of flowers through the air. But a heavy weight settled in my chest. Atticus had eagerly agreed to the undercover mission to infiltrate the Brotherhood and was excited about the recruiting meeting the following day.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked him. “They tried to make you a martyr to fuel their rebellion. They know who you are.”
“Silas has arranged for my sentence to be publicly retracted thanks to my efforts to save you during the Exposition. They have no reason to suspect I know of the compulsion, and as of tomorrow morning, I’ll be more famous than ever in Lower Aeterna. How could they turn me away?”
“It’s dangerous.”
He grinned. “No shit.”
I gave him a fist bump. “Another five points for excellent use of Earthen swearing.”
Tessa picked a leaf from the groomed bush nearest us and twirled it between her fingers. It fluttered from front to back, one side green, the other gold. “I’ve been wondering—do you think Marcel transferred all of his memories to you? Could you really find the Lost Sect?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve been trying to avoid reliving them. I almost lose control every time one sneaks up on me.”
“Maybe if you access the memories in a controlled environment,” Tessa said, “it won�
�t be so traumatic. The Lost Sect may be the only ones who can truly help you control Marcel’s abilities. Maybe they even have a way to remove them without killing you.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I blacked out and killed seven Rakken last time the visions took over too deeply.”
Tessa whistled between her teeth, and the leaf fluttered to the ground. “You’re more dangerous than you appear, my Earthen friend.”
“You just need a way to stay calm and not get caught up in reliving those memories,” Atticus said.
His words sparked an idea. “That’s brilliant!” I was so happy, I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
He started in surprise.
“I know exactly what I need to do.”
MY THOUGHTS DRIFTED as a feeling of intense calm emanated from Stephan and washed over me. I wanted to curl up in the overstuffed armchair, but unfortunately, he’d insisted on involving Silas, and I had more of an audience than I’d anticipated.
“I think you’re putting her to sleep,” Silas said.
I let my head flop toward his voice, struggling to keep my eyes open. With Stephan’s emotional intervention, it hurt a lot less to be around Silas. All the jagged edges were dulled.
“Is... kinda like bein’ drunk,” I slurred.
Stephan released my hands, and the warm fuzzies let up a bit. “You’re quite entertaining when you’re drunk.”
Silas scowled, which I found inexplicably hilarious. “So serious all the time,” I said with a big, exaggerated frown.
Stephan chuckled, spurring me on. I attempted my best “exasperated Silas” expression, complete with one raised eyebrow. “Look at me! I’m Lord Commander Silas the Scowly. Fear me, mortals!”
Stephan howled with laughter, and I giggled. I never giggled.
I couldn’t remember what had been so funny a second ago. “What’s wrong with me?”
Silas folded his arms over his chest. “Gods’ curses, Stephan, that’s enough.”
My emotions leveled out, and I realized what I had said. “Stephan! What the hell?”
“Best we’re getting all the problems sorted now, yes?” His eyes were wide and innocent. I didn’t buy it.
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