She wanted to release the spell the moment the loft was empty, but she didn’t dare. The entire building was being searched. The rebels might not think to sweep for magic... did they know they’d missed a couple of people? She wondered if the others had managed to get away. They’d probably try to get out through the sewers, if there were sewers. She hadn’t seen anything during the escape that looked like water pipes. The people who lived in the building might not have running water. Somehow, she doubted the king and the city fathers had wasted much time renovating the district. It was practically a slum.
Her thoughts ran in circles. Someone betrayed us. But who?
There was no answer. She was loath to think Aiden had betrayed them. She had too much to hide. And yet... Emily wanted to shake her head. She’d never really understood why some people chose to turn traitor. Perhaps Aiden wasn’t the moderate she’d claimed. Perhaps...
It was hard, very hard, to keep track of time. Every second felt like an hour. Emily tried not to panic, tried not to think she might have kept the spell in place so long they’d effectively hopped days or weeks forward in time, but it wasn’t easy. She ran through everything she’d tried to convince the rebels to come to the bargaining table; she ran through everything she’d seen and done at Laughter before she’d found herself under arrest. Master Lucknow had come out ahead, she reflected sourly. He might not have managed to convict her of anything, but he’d certainly managed to damage her reputation. She would probably be blamed for the coming bloodbath.
Her awareness started to blur, as if she was on the verge of falling asleep. Panic shot through her as she realized she might be losing everything, that she might remain a stone until the spell finally failed or someone tracked her down. She released the spell despite the risk, her body slowly returning to normal. The world spun around her as she uncurled, a disturbing sensation she could never put into words pervading her mind. Was she a woman who’d made herself a stone? Or was she a stone that had made itself a woman?
She pressed one hand against her forehead and listened, carefully. The building was as silent as the grave. She glanced at the slats, noting the absence of daylight. The intruders hadn’t bothered to replace the hatches they’d smashed open. They’d probably gotten in each other’s way as they crashed through the building... she shook her head. It didn’t matter. The moderates were going to go deep underground after this, if any of them had survived. Emily didn’t blame them.
Aiden lay where she’d fallen. Emily picked up the stone, carried her to a safer part of the loft and released the spell. Aiden appeared in front of her, curled into a ball. Emily felt another pang of guilt. The spell had been imposed on her, ensuring she wouldn’t lose herself completely, but the experience would have been thoroughly unpleasant. Aiden looked, just for a moment, if she didn’t want to uncurl. Emily understood, but she had a feeling they didn’t have time. She glanced at the ruined hatches and frowned. The sky was starting to lighten.
“We have to move,” she said, quietly. “Come on.”
She helped Aiden to her feet, then levitated both of them through the hatch and onto the roof. The streets below were empty, save for a handful of patrolling soldiers marching up and down. Emily doubted it was a good sign. The rebels had arrested everyone in the building, marched them off and... and what? She wondered, as she wrapped a pair of invisibility spells around them, why they hadn’t burnt the entire apartment to the ground. The fire might have spread completely out of control...
“I can get us back to the house,” she said, softly. “Or do you want to go somewhere else?”
“The house is being watched,” Aiden reminded her. She looked dazed, confused. “They’ll wonder how you got home without being noticed.”
Emily grimaced. “Where do we go?”
“Can you get us down to the alley?” Aiden sounded a little more composed. “I think I know where to go.”
“Yes,” Emily said. “Just be very quiet. The spells won’t keep us hidden if we catch their attention.”
She modified the charms, then floated them down to the ground. The streets felt eerily quiet, despite the marching guards. Aiden led her through a maze of alleyways, making sure to stay off the main streets. They passed a handful of homeless encampments, all apparently deserted, before stopping in front of another apartment block. Aiden glanced both ways, checking to make sure they were unobserved, then pushed the door open and led the way inside. It was considerably more luxurious than the previous apartment, Emily noted. The corridors were clean and tidy, lit by glowing lanterns. Aiden led her up the stairs and through a warded door. Emily tensed, unsure what to expect, but there was nothing beyond a simple sitting room.
“Welcome to my home,” Aiden said, as she lit a lantern. “What do you think?”
Emily glanced around. The room was surprisingly bare. There was a desk, a pair of wooden chairs, a tiny bookshelf and little else. The desk was covered in papers, parchments and various writing tools. She glanced through a door and saw an oversized mattress lying on the floor. The windows beyond were protected by solid iron bars.
“Nice,” Emily said. She’d been in worse places. “Do your... friends... know about this place?”
“No.” Aiden hesitated. “I don’t think so. I started to rent it after I established myself as a reporter... Jair knows about it, but no one else.”
“Unless someone shadowed you here,” Emily said. “How often do you come here?”
Aiden made a face as she sat on one of the chairs. “Not as often as I’d like,” she admitted, sourly. “It was never easy to maintain two identities.”
“I can imagine,” Emily said. She looked around the room again. There was nothing to indicate it belonged to a woman. “How did they find us?”
“I don’t know,” Aiden admitted. “We agreed the meeting would be a complete secret. Only the four of us knew it was going to be held, let alone where. Not everyone was in total agreement, but I would have bet my life they’d keep it a secret even if they didn’t like the outcome.”
“You did bet your life,” Emily said. “Fran was manipulated and turned into an assassin. It wouldn’t be hard for a sorcerer to turn someone into an unwitting spy.”
Aiden blanched. “Are you saying...are you saying someone could have betrayed us without ever knowing what they were doing?”
“It’s possible,” Emily said. “Or a sorcerer could have put a charm on their eyes, allowing him to see whatever they saw. Or a sorcerer could have turned a bunch of insects into spies instead. Or...”
Her mind raced. A person who’d been enchanted into becoming an unwitting spy would pass all kinds of tests, because he didn’t know he was a spy. He wouldn’t be knowingly lying if someone cast a truth spell on him. Or... she shook her head. Aiden could be wrong. One of her friends could have betrayed her. Or the hardliners could have had them under covert observation ever since the revolution. Or... or what?
Aiden cleared her throat. “Is there any way you could check?”
“Perhaps,” Emily said. “I’d have to touch their minds...”
“And no one would be happy with that,” Aiden cut her off. “I...”
Emily winced, inwardly. Aiden could be the unwitting spy. Anyone could be the unwitting spy. If, indeed, there was a spy. She was reminded, suddenly, why she’d never liked spy novels. It was always the person you weren’t meant to suspect. She snorted at the thought. Perhaps she was the spy. Her mental defenses were strong, but not perfect. There was no such thing. Void had made that clear, over the last year.
He taught me to ensure I knew my mind had been violated, even if I couldn’t keep the violator out, she thought. But it was never easy.
Aiden leaned back in her chair. “Thank you for saving me,” she said. “I’m sorry about the damage to your reputation.”
Emily blinked, then sighed. Hedrick would think they’d spent the night together. The rebel leadership would think they’d spent the night together. And... she made a face. It wou
ld just have to be endured.
“Better they think we spent the night together than anything else,” she said, finally. It would be embarrassing, but it could have been a great deal worse. “If your friends got captured... what could they tell their captors?”
“Too much.” Aiden stared at her hands. “We were careful not to use our real names even in private, for fear of what would be leaked if someone fell into royalist hands, but... they know too much about me. And they know you attended the meeting. They could be made to talk.”
“Particularly if there’s a sorcerer involved somewhere,” Emily said. “Truth spells aren’t that hard to cast.”
She cursed her mistake under her breath. Attending the meeting had seemed a good idea at the time, but the rebel leadership wasn’t going to be remotely pleased. They’d order her out of the city and then... she wasn’t sure what she could do. Dater wasn’t likely to accept terms offered by people who lacked the power to enforce them... maybe she could convince him to offer the terms himself. The rebel council had to know it was in trouble. Perhaps they’d accept the terms if it looked, on paper, like the royals had made meaningful concessions.
“And someone is stirring the pot,” Emily said, more to herself than Aiden. She’d assumed the mystery sorcerer was a rebel or a royalist, but... what if there was a third party involved? Red Rose? Or... or what? “Councilor Triune?”
Aiden looked up. “Councilor Triune is not a sorcerer.”
Emily blinked. Aiden sounded very sure. And yet...
She put the question into words. “How can you be certain? He could have simply concealed his powers...”
“He’s not a sorcerer,” Aiden said, again. “He was loyal to the king. He wouldn’t have knowingly betrayed his monarch.”
“How can you be sure?” Emily leaned forward. She was missing something. She was sure she was missing something. “He practically sent the king into a trap.”
“Not on purpose,” Aiden said. “He wouldn’t have done that.”
Emily’s eyes narrowed as something clicked in her mind. “You know him, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Aiden looked as if she didn’t want to elaborate, but didn’t dare leave it at that. “He’s my father.”
“Your father?” Emily stared at her. “Did you... that’s how you knew what was happening in the court!”
“Yeah.” Aiden flushed. “Everything I told you was true, more or less. My father was a social climber as well as a merchant. He genuinely did want to put our family on a secure footing. And he was loyal to the king. He wouldn’t have risked sending him into a trap.”
“Not deliberately,” Emily said, slowly. “Does the council know?”
“No,” Aiden said. “Are you going to tell them?”
“I can’t blame you for being related to someone,” Emily said. She remembered Nadine and scowled. “But you do realize he might have been enchanted...?”
She leaned forward. “Did he know?”
“Of course not.” Aiden laughed, humorlessly. “He could never have admitted that his schemes to climb the ladder were doomed to fail. Everything he did for the king... he did everything and yet the aristos looked down on him. He was going to be discarded, sooner or later. Everyone knew it. Everyone but him.”
“And he blamed me for the uprising,” Emily said. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Aiden said. “But he’s not a traitor.”
“That’s the problem,” Emily reminded her. She was going to have to sit down and think about what she’d been told. “It’s very easy to turn someone into an unwitting traitor.”
And if there’s a third party involved, she added silently, what the hell does it want?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“YOU HAVE A MESSAGE,” LADY BARB said, when Emily finally returned to the house. “I think it’s important.”
Emily nodded, tersely. She needed to have a proper chat with the older woman. Lady Barb was a good sounding board for ideas, even if she didn’t always agree with Emily’s wilder flights of fancy. Her mind had been churning for hours, ever since the madcap escape and Aiden’s confession she was related to an arch-royalist. Civil wars tended to be nasty - it had been sheer luck Alassa’s half-brother hadn't been murdered by one side or the other - and rebel undergrounds were suspicious of people with ties to the establishment. She wondered, tiredly, if anyone had asked any questions. There were times when looking a gift horse in the mouth was a thoroughly sensible idea.
She took the note and glanced at it. The rebels and royalists were going to meet, face-to-face, in a village roughly midway between the city and the army camp. Both sides had apparently issued safe conducts to the other and sworn before the gods to honor them, but they also wanted Emily to ensure that both sides actually kept their words. Althorn had added a note in his own handwriting inviting Emily to accompany him personally...
“They’ve arranged a meeting,” Emily said. She guessed that explained why the moderates had moved so quickly to meet with her. “Why didn’t they tell me?”
“The rebels, I suspect, don’t care about the proper way to do things.” Lady Barb picked up the letter and scanned it, then passed the paper back to Emily. “Do you know why we have diplomats and ambassadors?”
She went on before Emily could answer. “If a diplomat says something undiplomatic, his master can recall and replace him. If an ambassador makes a proposal the other side doesn’t like, his master can insist it was all the ambassador’s dunderheaded idea and turn him into a scapegoat. And everyone will pretend to believe it, even though everyone will know it isn’t true. Kings rarely meet face-to-face with their equals because it’s a great deal harder to disown the words of a king.”
“I see,” Emily said. She gratefully accepted a mug of tea from Silent. “And the rebels are ignoring tradition?”
“So is King Dater,” Lady Barb said. “I wonder who put him up to it. And why.”
Emily stared down at her hands. “I feel... I feel as though I keep getting glimpses of something moving below the waters, but no clear look at it. I feel...”
She looked up. “Someone tried to kill me and make sure that poor girl would be blamed for it,” she said. “I assumed the person behind it was either a royalist or a rebel. Both sides have reasons to want to avoid peace talks, particularly ones that might actually succeed. Turning me into a martyr would work. Right?”
“Yes,” Lady Barb said, patiently.
“But what if there’s a third party?” Emily sipped her drink thoughtfully. “What if someone wanted to turn the revolution into an outright civil war?”
“Both sides think they’ll win if they fight it out,” Lady Barb pointed out. “Why assume the existence of a third force?”
Emily nodded, slowly. “True,” she said. “But the rebellion happened a little too quickly. If someone was pulling the strings...”
She sighed. “I keep thinking about Laughter.”
Lady Barb’s eyes narrowed. “In what way?”
“Someone planted a charmed book in the school,” Emily said. “The book remained undetected even though the intruder was exposed. The charm worked its way into the minds of the staff and students, leading to a series of... incidents... that attracted outside attention, but it would have remained undiscovered if the charm hadn’t been used to derail the conference. Whoever put the book in the school had an excellent chance to subvert the school completely, but... they threw it away.”
“The book might have been discovered when they started setting up security for the conference,” Lady Barb pointed out. “The intruder might have felt they had to use it or risk losing it.”
“They could just have pulled in their horns and waited,” Emily said. “The really big incidents didn’t start until after the conference was announced. What if... what if the original objective was discarded? What if the whole affair was intended to ensure the conference never took place?”
“If so, it didn’t quite succeed,” Lady Barb said. “The co
nference has been moved to Whitehall.”
Emily nodded. “Yeah, but...”
She stared at her hands. “What if Master Lucknow was behind the scheme?”
“That’s a very serious allegation,” Lady Barb cautioned her. “Do you have any proof?”
“No,” Emily admitted. It was easy to believe Master Lucknow was the villain, but... she had no proof. “He was the one who practically panicked when the book was uncovered. He tried to arrest and convict me, doing it in a manner calculated to cause trouble. And then he sent me here, where we know there’s at least one powerful sorcerer stirring the pot. He’s not a royalist or a rebel. He just wants chaos.”
Lady Barb considered it. “Master Lucknow has a reputation for being a stiff-necked old bastard,” she said, after a moment. “But there’s never been any suggestion he didn’t have the good of the Allied Lands at heart.”
“His view of the long-term good might be different from ours,” Emily countered. “Is he a Supremacist?”
“He might be,” Lady Barb said. “But why would a Supremacist cause trouble at Laughter?”
“Perhaps he wanted to recruit new Supremacists from amongst the students,” Emily said. “I just don’t know.”
“No,” Lady Barb said. “And without proof, no one will listen to you.”
They listened to Master Lucknow, Emily thought, sourly.
She stared down at her hands, feeling tired. She hadn’t felt comfortable sleeping in Aiden’s apartment, no matter how strong her protections. Aiden would be in deep shit if anyone discovered her unfortunate relative. Althorn might overlook her lineage, given how much she’d done for the cause, but he’d probably be alone. The mob had bayed for Triune’s head on a pike. It wouldn’t hesitate to demand his daughter’s head too.
They know he has a daughter, Emily thought. But they might not connect her with a man.
“Find the sorcerer,” Emily mused. “And make him talk.”
Her mind churned. It wasn’t Jair. It wasn’t Aiden. Storm was a sorcerer... she frowned at the thought. Was he the sorcerer, hiding in the guise of openly being a sorcerer? Or... she didn't like the idea of it being Oskar or Althorn himself. She’d read a book, once, where the criminal and rebellious underground was directly controlled by the state. If someone was influencing the rebels, why not start at the very top? And yet... she didn’t want to believe it. She liked Althorn.
The Right Side of History (Schooled In Magic Book 22) Page 26