“Yeah, and soon enough it won’t matter,” said his friend. “The COS was always a front and even with the guy who started the operation rotting in the ground, someone will get a foothold in soon enough.”
“We have to do this by the book until then,” said the first guy. “Man, I can’t wait until the Houses come out on the right side.”
What is that supposed to mean? These guys were definitely up to something shady, but I couldn’t see anyone from the supplier nearby. At least until a broad-shouldered figure walked into the alley beside the shop, carrying a box. There must be another entrance around the back, and I thanked my invisibility cantrip for keeping me hidden from sight. Regardless, I pressed myself against the wall as he walked past, recognising him as the assistant who worked at Dawson’s place. Does his boss know he’s hanging out here at night?
“There he is,” said one of the men. “About time.”
The assistant approached them, and they conversed in low voices over the box. Did Dawson know his assistant was selling cantrips to dodgy-looking strangers? Whether he did or not, I didn’t need to be able to see their faces to know the two men for mages. They’re from one of the Houses. Not the House of Fire, I didn’t think, but in order to find out which House they belonged to, I’d have to follow them.
One of the two men took the box in his hands, and the pair of them walked back down the alley. I waited for Dawson’s assistant to return to the shop before following them silently. I didn’t see Miles or Shelley, but I wasn’t about to let the pair of them out of my sight until they reached their destination.
The two mages kept walking, speaking in low voices. I sensed Dex’s warm presence nearby and spotted the flicker of the fire sprite’s light, but I didn’t dare speak to him in case I alerted their attention.
“This stealth shit is getting old,” said the first guy, who carried the box. “Wish the other Houses would hurry up and capitulate.”
The two mages rounded a corner and came to the central headquarters of the House of Earth. The building resembled the House of Fire from the outside, except with a brown door and fittings instead of red. I’d never met the person in charge of the House of Earth, but did they know these two men were breaking the law? Nobody bought cantrips in the dead of night unless they had something to hide—from the other Houses as well as from their own. I glanced across the street to where the House of Fire stood at the far corner, but I saw no signs of movement outside.
If the House of Earth had already been infiltrated, who would be next? Was that what the cantrips were truly intended for? If they were designed to silently kill, like the ones which had taken out the jailor and guard at the House of Fire, then snagging those cantrips would solve the murders and remove the heat from Tay in one fell swoop.
My gaze picked out the outline of the fire sprite nearby, hovering above my head.
“Dex,” I whispered. “Do something to distract them.”
“What kind of diversion?” he muttered back. “Loud enough to alert the other Houses?”
“Not sure they’re paying attention,” I whispered. “Go on, throw a couple of fireballs behind their heads so the mages think it’s the House of Fire.”
Chance would be a fine thing, but if I couldn’t stop all the traitors in the House of Earth at once, I could at least make their life difficult by taking their illegal cantrips off their hands.
At a snap of Dex’s fingers, sparks flew out and coalesced into a flame which shot over the mages’ heads.
The two mages exclaimed in surprise, and the box of cantrips fell to the ground. Another fireball shot from Dex’s hands, causing the mages to dive to either side to avoid being hit. I darted forwards and grabbed the box in my hands, dragging it into the shadow of a nearby alleyway.
“Hey!” one of the men shouted. “Who’s out there?”
“Quiet,” hissed his friend. “We can’t have the other Houses hearing. Go on, you get the box back.”
I lifted the box’s flap, and a single glance inside confirmed my worst guesses. The cantrips within all bore the mark of the Family.
Another fireball soared overhead, and one of the men flung himself around the corner, cursing. The second guy, however, took a step back and disappeared below the earth. An instant later, he surfaced directly in front of me, hands grabbing the box and drawing both of us downwards into the ground. Shit, I forgot earth magic could do that.
I clung to the box, suddenly submerged to my waist in the earth. He might not be able to see me, but I was stuck, unable to stop him from wrestling the box out of my grip.
“Who are you?” hissed the mage. “Show your face.”
I lunged forwards and tugged at the box, but he held on fast. The sound of pounding footsteps reached my ears. More mages had come out of the House of Earth, hearing the ruckus.
Abandon ship!
I let the box go and scrabbled to get back to the surface before I ended up being dragged even deeper underground. Seven, eight mages ran out of the building. Too many to take on alone, not when I couldn’t see Miles or Shelley anywhere.
“Where’s that fire mage?” one of them shouted. “Hey!”
Sparks flew, and the smell of flames singed my ears. Silently thanking Dex for keeping them occupied, I got my feet back on solid ground and sprinted down the street, heading for the House of Fire. I didn’t believe they’d help me out even in a dire situation like this, but if I got their attention before the earth mages got that box of theirs out of sight, they wouldn’t be able to deny they were carrying illegal cantrips.
The door to the House of Fire was locked, but I hammered on it with my fist, turning off the invisibility cantrip as Harris’s irate face appeared in the gap between door and wall. “You again?”
“There’s mages breaking the law back here.” I jabbed a finger wildly over my shoulder. “Members of the House of Earth are carrying illegal cantrips marked with the Family’s signature.”
“What are you doing here?” he said. “No bullshit.”
“I told you,” I said, “the House of Earth’s mages are buying up illegal cantrips, but when I tried to get the box off them, they brought out half the House’s security. I think the whole House is in on it.”
“Fuck off,” he said. “You think I’ll believe a word you say?”
“It’s true,” I said, irked. “Look, they’re right over there.”
He looked where I pointed, but of course, it was too dark to see anyone. As I attempted to wedge my foot in the door, he gave me a shove off the doorstep. “Go away.”
Seriously? I backed away from the House of Fire and fumbled for my cantrip to turn invisible again, determined to physically drag one of the earth mages here if that’s what it took.
Then I heard a familiar squawking noise in the shadows. Oh, hell.
“Miles?” I hissed. “Please tell me you didn’t leave that chicken unattended.”
“Bria?” said Miles’s voice. “Damn. Thought you were fighting those earth mages.”
“They brought out their House’s security,” I said. “The House of Fire didn’t believe me, but if they end up getting taken over from the inside, they can’t say I didn’t try to warn them.”
“Want me to release the chicken on them?” said Miles.
“Tempting.” I tensed as the ground trembled underfoot. “Shit. I think some of those mages are still underground.”
Were they coming after the House of Fire? If so… we were standing right here.
“Miles,” hissed Shelley. “Get over here. Both of you.”
The ground exploded as two mages surfaced at once, narrowly missing both of us. Glowing cantrips flared in their hands. Infernos.
“Run!” I shouted over my shoulder. We pelted down the road, and Dex zipped overhead, his own fire a warning signal before the inferno rippled through the air. The entire area in front of the House of Fire went up in flames, heat searing my back and feet. I kept running, not daring to look over my shoulder.
; Holy shit. They’d been aiming right for the House of Fire, and even fire mages couldn’t stand up to those flames.
“This way!” Miles’s voice sounded. I sprinted onward, my hands flickering in and out of sight. Great. As if our situation wasn’t dire enough, it looked like my invisibility cantrip was on the brink of burning out. Which meant—
In a blink, all three of us appeared before we reached the next corner, vampire chicken and all. Beneath our feet, the ground trembled again. The earth mages were still tailing us. Could we even outrun them on foot? If we returned to the Spirit Agents’ base, we might well be dooming everyone inside the house.
“There’s no way the other Houses didn’t see that,” Miles breathed.
“They’ll think a fire mage set off that cantrip,” Shelley pointed out. “If Bria stays here, she’s the perfect scapegoat, especially as she knocked on the House of Fire’s door not a minute before the blast went off.”
“Dammit,” I said. “They did that on purpose.”
Dex cleared his throat. “You might want to run.”
The ground gave another heave, prompting us to break into a sprint again.
“At this rate we’ll lead them right back to our base,” Shelley gasped out.
“We can’t run in circles all night either,” Miles responded. “Dex, can’t you do something?”
“I can’t deflect fire, can I?” he said. “Escape through a node.”
“Where?” I spotted the gleam of a node ahead of us. “To the swamp? That could work.”
“I’ve a better idea,” Dex said. “Come on. I’ll take us to a safe house.”
We picked up speed, hurrying down the street and trying to ignore the ongoing tremors beneath our feet. Dex reached the node first, and when we caught up with him, light enfolded around us.
“This better work!” I grabbed Miles’s arm for balance, and we vanished into the node’s light.
A second later, I slammed down onto a wooden surface, landing in a crouch. I raised my head, looking up at several bewildered faces.
Uh-oh. We weren’t in the Parallel, but in a room containing a long table covered in what looked like a giant cardboard castle and a number of handmade figurines. Devon and Liv sat at the table, along with Trix the elf, who looked as baffled as the rest of them. And Ryan, who glared daggers at me. That answered the question as to what Ryan’s plans for the night were, then.
“What the hell are you doing?” Liv demanded.
I straightened upright. “Long story.”
Miles and Shelley picked themselves off the floor, while Dex flew over to the table to address Liv. “We were being chased. Had to make a quick getaway.”
“Into my house?” said Devon. “Dex, that is not cool.”
I shot the sprite a glare. “Dex, you never said the node landed in her house!”
Before she could reply, a loud squawk sounded as the vampire chicken landed on the table in the ruins of the model castle.
“Are we fighting a vampire chicken now?” Trix said uncertainly.
“I’ll get rid of the chicken,” Ryan said, reaching to pick up the vampire chicken. Its teeth sank into the Air Element’s hand, and I stifled a laugh despite the seriousness of the situation.
Liv glared at the fire sprite. “Please don’t tell me whoever was chasing you followed you into the house.”
“No, I think we’re good.” He cleared his throat. “So… want to do battle with a vampire chicken now?”
“I think we should go,” said one of the other players.
“No!” Devon marched over to our bedraggled group. “Get out of my house. And I swear if whatever’s chasing you lands up in here, I’ll shut you in a cantrip delivery box and send you to the Order.”
The Order? I left the room, along with Miles and Shelley. Miles started laughing when we reached the door.
“Damn, Dex,” he said. “We just landed on Liv’s shit list. Again.”
“Why do they live on top of a node?” I said.
“A lot of practitioners do,” said Shelley. “It’s the best way for them to access magic outside of the Parallel.”
I’d assumed Devon was staying in the castle. It was also safe to assume she wasn’t working on any cantrips at the moment either, given the state of her hands.
“Did she say she’d send us to the Order?” I said. “I thought Devon was safe.”
“She used to work for the Order,” said Dex. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“If the Order arrests us for using a node illegally, we’ll know who to blame.”
On the plus side, we’d escaped death by inferno cantrip. On the minus side, we’d just pissed off the castle’s resident cantrip expert, Liv and Ryan all at once.
More to the point… the Order was under the control of the enemy. And now we had definitive proof that at least one of the Houses was, too.
9
“That could have gone better,” Miles said. “At least we managed to shake off those earth mages. We’ll head back to base and make sure the others know there are rogues from the House of Earth roaming the city.”
“We’d better hope they don’t remember our faces,” Shelley added. “Also, I think we just lost our suppliers, too.”
“It might’ve just been the assistant who was dealing with those guys,” said Miles. “I didn’t see Dawson himself there, did you?”
“No, but it’s safe to say they’re not on the straight and narrow,” I said. “Those cantrips they were trading all had the Family’s mark on them. It didn’t get there by accident.”
“Why would the Family put their signature on a cantrip?” said Shelley. “Seems a dead giveaway for someone who wants to lie low.”
“Nah, they’re suckers for attention,” I said. “They like thinking of themselves as notorious. They’ll have someone carving their mark onto cantrips, so everyone knows who they’re dealing with.”
“They also started a fire back there,” said Miles. “That inferno didn’t hit anyone in the House of Fire, did it?”
“If Harris didn’t open the door when he heard the noise, he might’ve been lucky enough to escape,” I said, with a grimace. “Problem is, he wouldn’t listen to me when I said the House of Earth had been compromised, but I bet he’ll be all too eager to pin the blame on me for the attack. Better hope he didn’t see you two as well.”
“Yeah.” Miles’s expression was unusually grim. “Question is, whereabouts are the Family manufacturing those cantrips?”
“Haven’t a clue,” I said. “I eavesdropped on those mages, but they didn’t give it away. They did say it wasn’t the COS who’re carving them because they’re being watched closely, so it might not be taking place in Arcadia. Hell, the operation might well be in Elysium for all we know. Somewhere underground.” Literally, considering the earth mages’ penchant for moving around under the city.
I heard shouting from the direction of Liv’s house and tensed, then relaxed as then Dex flew past us. “There’s a node this way. Come on. I don’t think Devon is going to let you back in her house.”
“Figures,” I said. “What’re they shouting at?”
“Dice.”
“Right,” I said, as if that made any sense to me whatsoever.
“What about us?” said Shelley. “I know the earth mages didn’t recognise us, but our base is way too close to the Houses for my liking.”
“The Houses already know where we live,” Miles reminded her. “We’ll be okay. We can use the node from the Death King’s territory to hop back to Elysium. That way we won’t have to spend too long outside of our base.”
Unless the earth mages decide to tunnel up through the floor. I didn’t think they had seen Miles or Shelley, so they shouldn’t target the Spirit Agents, but the Family was up to its old tricks, all right. That they were recruiting mages from within the Houses didn’t come as a big surprise, but the fact that the House of Fire still refused to believe a word I said annoyed the shit out of me. I hoped t
he blast might have shocked some sense into them, but there was a depressingly high chance of the blame landing on yours truly. Again.
The Death King, to my consternation, remained absent all weekend. Whatever he did with his free time was beyond me, but I had no opportunity to give him the unwelcome update on my failed attempt to expose the traitors within the House of Earth. At least Miles and Shelley had made it back to their base in one piece and told me later on that the House of Fire had escaped the inferno cantrip by mere inches, only losing their door to the blast.
But the fact remained that the House of Earth were now holding an entire box of illegal cantrips marked with the Family’s signature, some of which might well have been able to inflict a silent death on anyone who threatened to expose their secret. To top it all off, Devon still hadn’t brought me an update on the cantrip I’d given her to identify, most likely due to her annoyance at me for crashing her game night, so I had yet to figure out what kind of spell had caused the deaths of Zade and the second victim.
With nothing better to do, I found a bag of costume props in the break room which presumably belonged to Devon or Liv, and spent a productive hour sticking googly eyes and moustaches onto the skulls in the pillars on either side of the entrance hall.
“Perfect.” Dex snickered. “Much better.”
“I agree.” I tweaked the eyes in the sockets of a lopsided skull. “Has Devon forgiven me yet?”
“Ask her yourself.”
“Wait, she’s here?” I stepped back from the pillar. “Oops. I think I may have swiped her costume supplies.”
While part of me expected her to start lobbing dice at me if I disturbed her, I wanted to find out what kind of cantrip had killed the jailor, even if the House of Fire was about as likely to ask for my help as the Death King was likely to be amused by my new decorations.
I walked down the corridor and found Devon in the dormitory, sitting on the bed. Her hands were no longer bandaged, her face screwed up in concentration as she used a delicate tool to carve runes into a cantrip.
“Bria.” She put down the cantrip. “Come to apologise for crashing our game?”
House of Fire (Parallel Magic Book 2) Page 9