“You have one more question,” the woman said.
“Mark it down, I’ll come for it another time,” he said. “Right now I have to go.”
She dropped the fibers into his hand and gave a nod. That was all the dismissal Barghest needed.
If the crowd in the club stared on his way out, he neither noticed nor cared.
Sam was three drinks deep in a bar in the dock district when the fuss started. The bell above the door dinged, heralding someone’s entrance. He lifted his head just in time to catch a glimpse of a man stepping out in front of Corvin. Sam’s heart dropped.
“Samael,” Corvin said. He was leaning around, speaking under the arm of the man that was trying to force him out. “You need to leave. Lissel’s coming.”
There was a little tug when Corvin said his name. More of his father’s men were starting to stand and he could hear the telltale click of guns being removed from holsters. They weren’t going to stop and listen. Word hadn’t gotten around to everyone, yet, that Callum wasn’t dead, and they intended to make Corvin bleed for him.
Sam pulled for fire and got a handful of curtain, igniting his corner of the room. Someone yelled. The bar erupted into chaos and while the boys were trying to figure out what was going on, Samael darted for Corvin. Sam caught him in the chest.
They went spilling out into the street, sprawling on the bricks for a moment before Corvin righted himself and pulled Sam to his feet.
“What happened?” Sam asked. The look on Corvin’s face said it all. Someone was dead, and along with them any hope of a peaceful resolution. Sam felt his stomach drop.
There wasn’t time to ask who it had been, yet. He took Corvin’s hand and took off at a sprint towards the mouth of the alley.
Lissel Verida stepped out into his path. Corvin’s hand squeezed Sam’s.
Lissel was two years older than Corvin and half a foot taller. Her tongue danced an articulate pattern over her teeth as she grinned.
“Caught him for me, have you?” she asked.
“Lissel,” Corvin said, “we don’t have to do this. Sam didn’t kill Dad.”
“No,” she said, “but his mother did and we don’t have a prayer against Ophelia. This is how we punish her for that.”
Sam was starting to understand. It hadn’t been one of his people that died and Corvin’s grief wasn’t for the peace they could have had. Corvin took a step back and pulled Sam with him.
“We,” Corvin said, a bitter chuckle in his voice. “The imp traits didn’t pass to me, if I take this fight I’ll die and we both know it.”
Lissel had a triumphant smirk on her face, but Samael had realized something she hadn’t. Corvin had been talking to him. There was a bar full of Sam’s father’s men behind them, all of which were armed and that he knew would be coming after them as soon as they got the fire put out. He didn’t expect that would take long.
They wouldn’t be particular about who they were shooting at. Corvin would die, too.
“Fine,” Sam said, “If this is how it has to be, so be it.”
He charged her.
Lissel opened her mouth wide and her tongue came snaking out to lash at him. Sam never got close enough. As he narrowed the gap between them, he manifested his wings and kicked off into the air.
“Twetha!”
The word was garbled with her tongue sticking out of her mouth.
Lissel turned to follow him with her gaze and Sam looped in the air, diving for Corvin. He snatched him up like a falcon with a fish, and Corvin’s arms went tight around Sam’s shoulders. They had crested over the alley when the sound of gunfire opened below. Sam didn’t look back.
They touched down on the roof of one of the factories in the middle of town, the no man’s land where causing trouble between shiners wasn’t worth drawing down the wrath of the summoners that ran this place. His breath was ragged, his heart hammering, as he gulped down air and tried to bring himself back to a measure of calm.
For a long time, the pair of them were quiet. Corvin stared down over the lip of the roof and Sam let his back rest against a smoke stack that would have burned him if he hadn’t been a quarter seraph. Then, Corvin dragged himself over to Samael, and pried his way in against his chest. Sam wound his arms around Corvin’s back and held him. After a moment, they were both crying. He couldn’t have said which of them had broken down first.
“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered.
Corvin shook his head hard against Sam’s chest.
“You tried. We tried. I…”
Corvin sucked down a breath, tried to speak again and it just came out in a harsh ugly sob. His entire body was shaking. Sam held him tighter.
“Hush,” Sam said. “Give yourself a moment. Let yourself breathe. There’s nothing we can do for any of them right now.”
His brother had come back to him. The odds were good that Lissel would die in that fire fight. She’d take dozens of Torchlighters with her while she did. Sam had left them there. He could have turned the tide in that fight. If he had, he would have lost Corvin. It wasn’t an even trade. It wasn’t a fair one.
Sam couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
He rested his forehead against Corvin’s dark hair and inhaled the gunsmoke and leather scent of him. Everything he had been worried about before seemed so stupid, now. They had wasted so much time coming to this point, and now it was all going to burn and there was nothing they could do.
Lissel was a bitch and a thug and had meant to kill Sam to get to Ophelia. But she was also Corvin’s sister. Sam remembered how it felt when it had been Callum, and Callum had come back to him.
When the dam breaks, when this all comes to gunfire and burning, there will be casualties. And the person who will hurt the worst will be you.
He wanted to laugh. The best he could manage was a soft sound between his tears.
Ely, you were so wrong.
This had left Corvin in agony.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Reckoning
“Heads up and a solid warning to anybody in the dock district, as the Gate Street Players lather up to make a more solid move and a grab for power. If you’re going to check your locks and stay indoors, folks, now would be a good time.
Remember what I said about wearing red, and stay vigilant for the time being. More information as it becomes apparent. Just be careful out there, I know you’re already used to an overbearing Torchligher regime, but Gaters aren’t gentle either.”
It was nearly midnight in the observatory. Callum felt like he was pacing a hole in the floor. Tess was late. She’d never been late to one of these meetings before. They had plans tonight that as far as he knew were kind of time sensitive.
He took a deep breath and glanced at the clock one more time. Alright, that did it. It was time to check on her.
“Cal?” Tixi asked as he swept around to move for the door. She was perched on the edge of the telescope and leaned forward with one little clawed hand on the bottom of the lens to balance herself as her tail swished behind her. “Where are you going?”
“Tess should be here,” he said, throwing the door open.
Tixi vanished in a rush of air and reappeared on his shoulder, wrapping her long tail around the back of his neck to keep her balance.
“I could go and get her for you,” Tixi said.
“I need to handle this,” he said, heading down the stairs. His boots dinged off of the metal steps every step of the way and he brought Tixi with him into the cold night air. His left calf was all white hot pain. She curled up around his neck, her claws gripping her tail and her head tucked down like a tight living scarf.
His first thought was that Lena might have found her, might have realized that she knew who he was and that Callum cared about her and gone to remove her from the situation. As hard as he tried to push it aside, it kept echoing through his mind.
The observatory wasn’t far from the academy. He found an unsecured bicycle halfway there and took off on it, maki
ng a mental note of the location to come back and return it later with some sigils tucked into the wheel for the owner’s trouble. This was an emergency.
The Cassander Estate was a large sprawling complex including the manor and at least three smaller houses. One belonged to the grounds keeper, he knew, but he wasn’t sure about the others. His own family had a smaller house on the grounds of their estate as well, but generally his father offered it up as a place to stay when people in the docks district found themselves misplaced.
At least one of the sub-houses on the Cassander grounds appeared to be empty, if the windows were any indicator. It was a massive waste of space; most of the apartments in the city were one or two rooms at best and a home that size could easily have kept six people comfortable, and yet here it was, collecting dust.
It was also the quickest and quietest way to the wall of the house. The architecture in Daelan City was easy enough to climb throughout most places. Alleys were narrow enough that he could get a hand on the wall on either side and shimmy up. That wasn’t the case in the wealthier districts.
The Cassander House was made similarly to his own home. There were little ledges along the exterior wall that allowed him to get a grip and hoist himself up to the windows on the upper stories. The trick was avoiding the wards along the stonework and staying out of sight of the demons patrolling the grounds.
There were no less than ten afrite, and at one point he thought he saw a rhakshasa coming around a corner and pressed himself tight to the wall. Even demons seldom looked up.
Another problem was finding Tess’s window. He’d been here twice when he was younger and the pair of them had been in school together, but all he remembered was vaguely which side of the house her room was on and what floor. He peered through windows, two guest rooms and a study, before he finally found it.
Everything was immaculately neat. All surfaces had been dusted. The bed had been made. None of those things meant anything. The Cassander family had an extensive house staff.
Callum shoved against the window frame and it caught on something, jamming. He pushed again, clenching his teeth.
“I can do it,” Tixi whispered. “Say, two caramel bags?”
His arms were starting to shake. Callum couldn’t help but smile.
“Two caramel bags it is. Unlock the window for me,” he said. Tixi disappeared from his shoulder. She reappeared on the other side of the window and scampered up the wall to perch on top of the window frame.
“Those wards are sensitive enough that squirrels set them off,” a rumbling voice complained. Callum could see firelight coming around the corner and leaned back to get a look.
He heard the click. It was a stone djinn that rounded the side this time, all chiseled muscle and strong jaw. His skin was like gravel. Callum tore his eyes away to slip through the open window and forced himself to close it quietly on shaking tired arms.
He ducked below the frame and waited, ears straining to listen. For a moment, he was sure he caught something about being sure there was a squirrel, but he didn’t allow himself to rest until he heard the heavy steps of the stone djinn fade.
Tixi was perched on the foot of the bed now, watching him with her lamplight eyes and letting her tail swish behind her.
“In the clear, boss?” she asked.
“For now,” he said, and slipped over to Tess’s desk.
“Check the bottom drawer,” Tixi asked, and he did without stopping to think why she might be making a request like that. It was full of caramels.
Callum looked over and raised a brow at her. Tixi rubbed her hands together and grinned, shark like.
Callum tossed her one of the bags and shut the door back. She tore into it like she’d been starving for weeks.
“Summoner’s school gives a lot of homework,” Callum noted, rifling through some of the pages. There was a propaganda flyer under one of Tess’s books about the dangers of unlicensed summoning and some of the consequences.
90% of failed unlicensed summoning attempts are fatal to the conjurer.
Unlicensed summoners are twice as likely to use impure materials in their attempts.
The names of summoned beings that circulate among the uneducated masses belong to demons that have been called up repeatedly, and would prefer not to have it happen again. Many of these entities are willing to kill a summoner if possible to ensure one less person knows their name.
The list went on, bullet points all the way down in a dark authoritative typeface. There were hand written notes intermingled with Tess’s personal code; that was another thing about summoning schools. Encryptions were encouraged, which set the bar even higher for entry. Not all aristocrats could keep up.
There was a calendar tacked up on the wall behind the desk but none of the dates had been circled. He rifled through the desk drawers as Tixi shed caramel wrappers on either side of herself.
Writing supplies. Boxes of gold and crystals and other metal dusts. One drawer was dedicated to nothing but tallow candles and an ornate knife for carving them.
It seemed like there was nothing personal on this desk at all. Which was how he would have handled the situation if he were sure his parents would go through his things. His never had, but Ely was nosy and keeping her out had gotten progressively more difficult as she’d gotten older.
Now, he stopped and shut his eyes, considering. When he was trying to hide something personal, he’d put it in a loose floorboard in his bedroom, or tape it to the bottom of the desk. He reached underneath and felt along the bottom. Nothing.
There was a creaking sound and Callum looked back over his shoulder to see Tixi bouncing up and down on the bed.
“There’s something off over here,” she said. Callum walked over.
“How can you tell?” he asked.
“It feels a little different under the springs,” she said, dropping and bouncing one more time from the force of her momentum. She let out a little giggle and he was stricken for a moment by how cute it was.
“Alright, move so you don’t end up getting flung,” he said, and shouldered the mattress up to get underneath it. He reached out, fingers grasping, and caught something that felt like leather.
Tixi disappeared in a rush of air and appeared on the backs of Callum’s shoulders, leaning over to look into the dark space. Her eyes actually cast a little light and he realized what he was holding was a book before he got it all the way out.
Tucked between the page were dozens of notes. He held the book out by both covers and dumped them into the floor. Some of them were letters, and he set those to the side without reading them. Others were notes, reminders of meetings, and one of them was dated from today.
It was a receipt. He’d seen ones like it before, listing some kind of innocuous object, a time and place, and an amount of money. He recognized the icon drawn in the corner.
“Black Cats,” he said, looking up at Tixi. “She was going to buy some drugs today. Looks like Whisperweed, that stuff that lets you talk to ghosts? But that was hours ago. If she disappeared somewhere between here and there I have to assume they had something to do with it or at the very least know something about it.”
He started slipping her papers back into the book.
“I’d be more worried if she were cambion,” Callum said. “She’s not. But she might still be having some trouble.”
He kept the receipt and returned her book to its place under the mattress before straightening and looking to Tixi.
“Alright,” he said. “We’ve got places to be.”
“Do you?” a drawling voice said from the doorway. Callum lifted his head and locked eyes with Henri Cassander. He was a lean man with a carefully groomed moustache and hard eyes.
“Callum Trezza,” he said. “Didn’t we bury you?”
“We is a strong term,” Callum said. “You weren’t at the funeral.”
“We sent our representation,” he said. “There was no need to make a personal appearance, you understand. And i
t seems the event was a sham, anyway. What are you doing in my daughter’s bedroom?”
The smile on his face told Callum he knew exactly what he was doing in Tess’s bedroom.
“What did you have to do with this?” Callum asked, straightening.
“Oh, you come into my house and level accusations?” Henri asked. “I should have known better than to expect more out of you than I can from your father. What is that saying about being bred in the bone…”
“I was just leaving,” Callum said, flatly. “There’s no need for this.”
“You think I’m going to let you leave after you broke into my home?” he asked. His lips tugged into a cruel smile.
Callum’s fist tightened. He’d done this on purpose. He knew, deep down, that getting in had been too easy. This place was crawling with demons, how had he been this stupid?
“You think you’re going to stop me?” he asked.
“I think you against the cadre of demons outside that window are long odds,” Henri said, glancing the the window frame. Callum looked back over his shoulder at the assembled afrite below. The back line were all stone djinn and there was a rhakshasa in the mix.
Damn.
“What happens now?” Callum asked, turning back to face Henri.
“Now, you come with me and we have a little chat about what my daughter has been doing at night,” he said. “You mentioned something about a drug deal? That isn’t going to look good on her. Alban has his work cut out for him.”
“It isn’t going to look good on you either,” Callum muttered. He did his best to ignore the last part.
“Neither does an ambitious daughter,” Henri said. “One scandal replaces another. It matters very little in the grand scheme of things. Come now, you are going to tell me everything.”
“Where is she?” Callum asked.
“Come and see,” Henri said. He smiled again and Callum’s chest burned. The next thing he knew the carpet was rising up to meet him as he blacked out.
“Couldn’t have picked a better time to betray us,” the voice said as Elysia came closer and it came into focus. No one was around at the Ninth Circle. it was after hours. No one but Dorian and whoever’s voice that was.
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