"This is the first time you've come here, isn't it?" asked Zayn.
Keelan squirmed as if someone were squeezing him tight.
"I couldn't forgive him before," said Keelan.
"And you can now?" asked Zayn.
"I don't know. I don't know if I'm ever going to be capable of that, after what he did," said Keelan.
His cousin had spent many sleepovers angry about how his dad had abandoned him by getting killed.
"Did the Lady tell you something about him?" asked Zayn.
Keelan flinched when he looked him in the eyes. "I didn't meet her. Just the Speaker. We had lunch. With tea and cake afterwards."
"Talk about anything?" asked Zayn.
Keelan shrugged. "Nothing in particular, though it felt like it was an interview, a strange one at that."
Zayn's insides twisted with regret. It was supposed to be him that curried the Lady's favor, not his cousin. Zayn hoped it worked out.
"Why are you here?"
Keelan swallowed hard. "You know why."
Zayn looked at his own sneakers. "I didn't expect to feel so guilty about killing someone that probably deserved it."
"I didn't know the Goon, but I knew he didn't like me," said Keelan. "Still, I didn't like killing him. It didn't feel like it was my right."
Zayn felt better that his cousin had remorse for the killing. When they arrived at the Halls, he'd worried that Keelan's past was his future. But it was clear he could change, they both could.
"I don't think we should ever get used to it," said Zayn. "Even if it's our job. Even if it's the right thing to do."
Keelan gave him a look that made him feel naive. His eyebrow arched questioningly.
"I don't regret joining the Halls, if that's what you're implying," said Zayn.
Keelan put a reassuring hand on Zayn's shoulder. "It's cool, cuz. 'Cause we made it. We survived our first year. I heard it's the hardest one."
"Yeah," said Zayn. "The hardest one. That sounds good."
His cousin chuckled under his breath. "Yeah, I don't believe it either. But that's okay as long as we're in the Academy together."
As Zayn stood with his cousin at his uncle's grave, contemplating the events of the last year, he found a strange optimism buoying him. He knew it was more than likely that one or the both of them wouldn't survive their five years at the Academy, and he knew that even if they did, they'd be faced with servitude to the Lady for the rest of their days. Despite the overwhelming odds that everything would end in tragedy, Zayn knew that to resist at all was worth whatever price he would have to pay, and if there was even a chance, however remote, that he could end the Lady's hold on Varna, he would take it.
"I know the answer now," said Zayn, all of a sudden.
Keelan tilted his head. "To what?"
"Priyanka's question."
Keelan paused for a moment before he repeated what she'd said. "What will you do when you have to kill?"
Zayn left Keelan by his father's grave.
###
The Sorcerous Spy
Chapter One
Eleventh Ward, August 2014
The first rule of magic is don't lose your head
The Red Line had brought them to a section of the city with three-story brownstones. Every fifth house had been abandoned, with foreclosure notices tacked onto the front doors. There was more trash on the street than in the other wards he'd been in, and the faint smell of fires burning filled the air. The empty streets didn't seem to offer much protection.
"I feel like we don't belong here," said Zayn, glancing around.
"The meeting place is a couple of blocks away. We should hurry so we're not late. I don't want to start off the year behind," said Keelan.
A bunch of shouting, followed by a clap of thunder and a scream, erupted from a block over. Then it sounded like someone crashed into a pile of metal trash cans.
"Zayn...I see that look in your eye. Whatever that is, it's not our problem," said Keelan.
"We'll just take a look," said Zayn, moving towards the noise. "To make sure everything is okay. We've got time."
"No we don't," said Keelan, tapping on an imaginary watch on his wrist. "We're going to be late as it is."
"Then be quick," said Zayn, flooding his imbuement for speed and strength. They'd been cautioned not to use their imbuements during the summer, but now that he was back in the city of sorcery and at the Hundred Halls, that caution no longer applied.
The brick buildings blurred past as he sprinted down the alleyway, leaping onto a rusted blue dumpster to clear a chain link fence that blocked the end. He narrowly avoided a sleeping brown mutt when he landed next to a puddle. Keelan skidded next to him and the mutt scurried away, butt tucked low to the ground.
The street on the other side was worse than the one he'd come from. Zayn paused to get his bearings.
"We should—"
Zayn cut his cousin off. "Did you hear that?"
He didn't have to wait long before a second clap of thunder, followed by a small mushroom cloud of smoke, erupted from a compound up the street. To his surprise, a sign with a big purple eye with flames surrounding it was out front.
"It came from a Hall," said Keelan. "Which means we should get back to the meeting location. It might not even be a real emergency. Maybe their patron is showing them some advanced magic. We shouldn't interfere."
When a scream followed that was so high and long it sounded like someone had been ripped in half, Zayn took off with Keelan on his heels.
The sign in front read "The Smallest Eye." The front door looked like it had been hit with a battering ram. Zayn stepped over a bloody arm. A trail of blood went deeper into the house.
"What the..." said Keelan from behind him.
He passed a room filled with alchemy equipment. Three separate tables contained rows of glassware connected by sagging plastic tubes. A bubbling blue mixture was winding its way through the tubes. At the end, it turned into puffs of white gas that smelled like candy canes.
"What do they do here?" asked Keelan, marveling at the glass structure.
Zayn hushed his cousin and tugged him forward. When he turned the next corner he almost fired a force bolt. A pair of motionless legs stuck out from a doorway.
"We found the rest of the body," said Keelan.
"Not all of it," said Zayn, pointing to the empty space above the neck.
Muffled grunts from the courtyard behind the house drew them to the back. Zayn reached it in time to see a seven-foot-tall man with tattoos that writhed across his slate gray skin, wielding a sword that filled the courtyard with whispers, take the head off a girl who was in the middle of a spell. The head tumbled against a potted plant, the girl's surprised expression facing them.
Zayn fought with his stomach to keep its contents intact. Keelan did not win his battle, and his breakfast spilled onto the stones, announcing their arrival to the tattooed warrior.
Their immobility ended the moment he took a step forward with his sword. Zayn fired a force bolt at the same time as Keelan threw a rock grenade, but the warrior swatted the spells away as if they were crumpled paper.
The warrior pointed his sword at them and fired it like a cannon, and a sonic burst knocked them back into the hallway. The thunderclap left ringing in Zayn's ears as he struggled to his knees, fearful the warrior would be approaching with his sword.
But the warrior had moved to pick up the girl's head. He carefully placed it into a brass cage covered in runes. The moment he closed the lid, a soft glow filled the box, suspending the severed head in ghostly light.
Zayn tried to stand up, but crashed into the wall instead. The concussive blow had damaged his inner ear, giving him an awful case of vertigo.
The warrior stacked the head-in-a-box on top of three others, lashed them together, and picked them up as if he were shopping for cantaloupe. He took a step towards Zayn, but stopped when it looked like he'd heard something—sirens, Zayn guessed—then he kicked open
the gate leading into the alleyway and disappeared around the corner.
Zayn made an attempt to follow, but stumbled over like a newborn foal. Keelan was no better, stuck on his hands and knees, crawling forward only to collapse again.
Zayn finally made it to his feet, and was busy trying to convince the world to stay in one place, when two men in rune-covered Kevlar and holding semiautomatics came through the door. He couldn't hear what they were saying. Zayn touched the side of his head, his fingertips encountering wetness. He held them up to the Protectors to show he'd been injured, but only got his hand halfway up before they tackled him.
Chapter Two
Third Ward, August 2014
An assassin, a witch, and a jail cell
Four hours after SWAT collected them from The Smallest Eye Hall, they were pushed out the front door of Police HQ, bleary-eyed, into the stark sunlight. The discharging officer stayed at the door while they moved to the top of the steps.
Zayn shook his head, enjoying the sensation of hearing again. The officers had been nice enough to have a paramedic fix his ears before they'd sent him out the door. He'd spent the time sitting at a desk waiting for someone from the Academy to pick them up. Keelan had to spend his time in a cell, since they had yet to verify that he was really from the hall he claimed.
"You drag me into an episode of Highlander, and then you get to sit on a comfortable desk chair while I spend my time in a room filled with drunks and rapists. Some guy must have bathed in urine before he got thrown in there," said Keelan.
"I guess that's the benefit of being twice arrested..."
Zayn's apology died on his lips as he saw who had come to pick them up.
"You've got to be kidding me," said Keelan, under his breath. "It's the patron."
"I see her," said Zayn.
Priyanka Sai marched up the sidewalk as if she were about to dress down a battalion of soldiers. Her silky black ponytail swayed back and forth like a scythe.
"I think she's going to murder us," said Keelan while keeping his jaw tight to hide his speech.
"We'll be fine," said Zayn. "Just stay calm."
They met her at the bottom of the steps. Priyanka's eyes flashed to the officer at the top of the stairs.
In a raised voice she said, "Are you this accident prone, or do you really want to join the Protectors?" She made a growling sigh. "Follow me. You're late for...everything."
While they followed in her wake, Zayn watched her muscles relax one by one, until she was moving forward with long, graceful strides. Keelan seemed to notice as well. He made a noise, but thought better of speaking.
They cut into a tea shop called the Mad Hatter. The attendant made no motion towards them as Priyanka went right through the colorful shop, heading for an orange-and-white curtain at the back of the main room. She shoved it out of the way and they entered a kitchen. Once inside the empty kitchen, she spun on her heels, facing them. She wasn't angry as Zayn first expected, rather she had a hard curious glint to her gaze.
"You have the makings of a terrible spy," she said. "Did you not understand my instructions on your first day in the Academy?"
"What does it matter if we go back to Varna after our five years?" he asked.
The response set her back. "Because I want to get the most out of you before you go, which is increasingly difficult as you spread your name across official records like some mutt pissing all over the city."
"I'm sorry," said Zayn. "We heard screams and went to investigate."
She crossed her arms, searching them with her eyes. "Bannon Creed doesn't like it when another hall interferes with his turf."
It took Zayn a moment to remember that Bannon Creed was the patron of the Protectors, the hall that supplied the world's magical police forces.
"I didn't realize he was in charge of dealing with seven-foot-tall headhunters," said Zayn.
"In the city, he is," said Priyanka. "The mages of his hall have the task of dealing with threats that come from inside the city."
"And you protect the city from the outside threats," finished Keelan.
"Good, but not quite," said Priyanka.
"Not from outside the city, but outside this realm," said Zayn.
"You're getting it," said Priyanka. "Which is why I'm not entirely mad at you for getting involved."
"You know where seven-foot-tall murderous thugs come from?" asked Zayn.
"Possibly," she said. "He's not from here."
"Wait," said Zayn. "You're not surprised about this guy. That means you know about what happened."
"Not entirely," said Priyanka. "Which is why I need you to tell me everything you saw, down to the last hair on their asses."
They recounted the fight with the guy with the sword. Priyanka asked a lot of questions, mostly about the boxes that held the heads. When they were finished, she cupped her chin in her hand while her eyes whirled with thought. A heavy concern lay in that gaze.
"Very well," she said eventually. "We should be getting to the Honeycomb. The rest of the second years would probably like to know what happened, but you will not say a word about it."
"What should we tell them?" asked Keelan.
"I don't really care," said Priyanka. "You need to learn to lie or you're not going to last long in this hall."
When she turned to head deeper into the tea shop, Zayn asked, "What about the hall? The Smallest Eye. I'd never heard of it. Were there any survivors?"
Priyanka's upper lip twitched, as if she had only just remembered that people had died.
"Unfortunately, no. It was a small hall with only a few members. They involved themselves with arcane microbiology, and now they're all dead, the patron included." She looked away. "When Invictus was alive, he let so many of these small halls form, not really caring if their purpose was useful or not. If they grew larger, then he nurtured them. If not, they disappeared."
"He sounds like an asshole," said Zayn.
"He was," said Priyanka. "But he was also kind and generous."
"So there aren't really a hundred halls?" asked Keelan.
Priyanka gave a throwaway shrug. "No one really knows how many halls there are, especially with Invictus dead."
Her lips curled with a frown as if she'd remembered something she had to do. She hurried into the back. She was a bottle of energy.
To Zayn's surprise, an obsidian archway had been built into the back wall.
"A portal," said Keelan.
"Not any portal. This is part of the Garden Network, the private pathways of the patrons. You will, of course, say nothing of this either," she said.
She mumbled cryptic words and they went into the swirling darkness, coming out into the back of a study full of leather chairs and mahogany tables. A couple of older students that Zayn recognized barely glanced up from their studies at their arrival. Behind them, a window provided a view of the Glitterdome and the rest of the second ward. It appeared they were on the upper floor of a building.
"After you've found your teammates, report to Instructor Pennywhistle to receive your tomes and schedules. The second year is often the hardest year, so don't disappoint me," she said.
Zayn hung back after Keelan left. The patron, who had been studying her phone, raised an eyebrow.
"Yes?"
"I know I don't deserve a favor after the trouble I've caused, but I have a request," he said.
Her lips flattened. "It might hurt to ask."
"Is there any way to move Keelan onto my team? We only have four members and he and I work well together," said Zayn.
"Yes, I heard what you and Keelan did to the Goon." Priyanka's dark eyes shifted across him. He felt like a mouse standing his ground against a hawk. "But your request is denied. It's better if we keep the teams together as they were last year. The chemistry is better that way."
"Yes, Patron," he replied. "Thank you for allowing me to make my request."
She shook her head slightly with an amused tilt to her lips. "I have a feeling
that this won't be the last time that you're involved with something larger than you. But remember, you've been lucky so far. Real Academy work takes preparation, planning, and careful execution. We don't charge into events with a hope and a prayer. That kind of work gets a lot of people killed, and I don't like to see my friends or students dead. It's an unpleasant feeling. Trust me when I say that you don't want that burden."
She turned her attention back to her phone, and Zayn took that as his sign to leave. He found this section of the Academy to be only five rooms: the study, a gun range, a library, and two meeting rooms. Zayn didn't see Keelan either, which was odd, since he'd only just left him. He did find two other portals.
Zayn went back to the study and asked one of the other students.
"Excuse me, but where's the rest of the Academy?" asked Zayn.
The student chuckled under her breath, glancing knowingly at the window to the second ward.
"Take one of the portals to the other areas," she said.
"What's the password?"
The girl taught him eight separate spells to access the portals.
"Which one is the one I want?" he said.
"Try them and see," she said, holding a grin in her teeth.
He felt like this was going to be a trick. He remembered his freshman year at Varna High, when an upperclassman sent him to the principal's office to purchase an elevator pass, even though it was only a one-floor school.
The first portal led him to a series of classrooms. He was wandering the halls, looking for someone to tell him where to go, when he found another window, which he looked out of, expecting to see the Glitterdome or another part of the second ward. Instead, he was staring at the castle-like structure of Arcanium, which was in the fifth ward.
The name, Honeycomb, became clearer in his head. He imagined the various parts of the school, spread out amid the town, providing mobility and defense.
Through the next portal, he ran into Vin wearing floral swim trunks and a towel over his shoulder.
"Zayn! Where've you been? I brought my collection of heist movies and was hoping to watch some with you before classes started."
The Reluctant Assassin Boxset Page 25