“It’s magnificent,” Wil commented in the background, but Maray didn’t let him break her focus this time. She waved her hand to the side, making the cage-like shape swirl in the center of the clearing until she found her arm got tired—not from doing magic but from holding it at the same angle for too long.
“Corey would be so proud of you,” Wil continued, this time getting through and disturbing Maray’s control over her emotions. The fire-cage collapsed like running lava and created a burn mark in the center of the clearing before it died in steam and smoke.
“Corey will be proud is what you mean,” she corrected. “They will find her, and they will bring her back.”
She screened the carbonized air from a distance and was surprised to find Pen had trotted to the smoke, watching the remains of her magic with amused, black eyes. He stomped his front hooves once then galloped right past Maray and aimed for the cabin.
“Pen!” Pia’s voice greeted the Gurnyak from behind them.
“I assume you found Scott and Neelis.” Wil’s greeting wasn’t as enthusiastic.
Maray waited for a moment before she gathered herself and turned to face the sifter-girl.
“They are assembling in the great meeting room right now,” Pia spoke to Maray. “Apparently, they were already preparing an emergency assembly before you called one.”
Maray started. “Behind my back?”
“Neelis was on his way to find you on Scott’s orders.” Pia’s face darkened. “I think Gan Krai has already made good on his promise.”
“What promise?” Wil asked, his brows furrowing.
“To start punching holes into Allinan,” Maray answered, her stomach lurching. “He must have reopened the rift.”
“I wasn’t able to get more information from Neelis or the Ambassador,” Pia apologized, “but if you are right, people will soon no longer care about who is Queen. There won’t be much left of Allinan for anyone to reign over.”
Her words drove a chill through Maray’s bones that matched the cold morning air.
“You are coming with me to the meeting, aren’t you?” she hoped and met both Pia’s and Wil’s gazes.
If things were getting ugly, she would need every support she could get. She would no longer ask for the council’s support of her coronation without a marriage alliance. She would be digging herself out of the secrets of the Cornay family and the dread that came from her ancestors’ mistakes.
Wil bowed, returning to his role as a dutiful soldier, and waited for Maray to turn and lead the way back to the cabin, which Maray did without haste. If she had been worried about how the council would perceive her defiance of Allinan traditions, now she was terrified of what they would have to say to Rhia’s betrayal.
Jemin
The path ended in an underground tunnel, which reminded Jemin of the sewers.
“Can’t be much farther,” Heck pointed at his ears and then above them. “Do you hear the tram? We must be underneath the Ring by now.”
Jemin knew the Ring from this world as well as from Allinan. It was a circular street enclosing the most precious buildings of the city center, but whereas in this world, it meant museums, parliament, city hall, and many more; in the Allinan capital, it was mainly the Coronation Hall that was truly in the focus of the public eye.
“Let’s try here.” Seri squeezed past Heck, appearing half his height as she bent her knees and swung around a corner while holding onto an iron bar that was shaped into a step in the wall. Above them, light glistened through slits in a circular, vertical tunnel.
“You don’t think there are any cars running above that,” Heck asked, sounding oddly concerned.
Jemin blew out the stuffy, smelly air through his nostrils as he glanced up longingly. “Who cares?” He shot Heck a look that was supposed to tell him not to act like a scared child. “And even if—cars should be very low on our list of things to fear considering what lies ahead of us.”
Seri shrugged in response as Heck failed to say anything, and she started climbing, not waiting for a group consensus. To Jemin, she whispered almost inaudibly, “Make sure the human gets up safely before you climb.”
Jemin nodded, knowing she couldn’t see him, already a couple of steps up, but he did it anyway.
Heck filed in after Seri, suddenly eager to get out of the tunnel. Jemin had the weird hunch that the dark, humid tube wasn’t the reason for his urgency. He had always been an excellent climber, and even though Seri used shifter agility, he had soon caught up with her, his nose just inches below her heels.
As Jemin watched them make their way up, the Ambassador’s words kept circling his mind. Had Maray’s father really given him permission to pursue Maray? Not that it made any difference in the way Maray had decided, but it sure made a difference in the way he felt about his own feelings for her.
“If you think that’s awesome, you should see what’s going on up here.” Jemin looked up at Seri’s amused voice and found Heck looking to the side, blushing, while Seri was tapping her temple.
Heck was never embarrassed about anything. What was going on?
When Heck’s gaze met Jemin’s, he quickly returned his focus on climbing. Seri grinned back over her shoulder, and Jemin followed as they were halfway up the tunnel.
They emerged soon after in the heavy morning business of Vienna city center. Groups of Chinese tourists were making their way from the waking-up Naschmarkt to the Musikverein, passing the Secession and rubbernecking at its golden, leaf-braided cupola. Hence, they were not taking any notice of the three black-dressed, cloaked figures, which were emerging from under the rusty manhole cover and silently mingling with the otherwise neatly-dressed—mostly suits and coats—crowd, which seemed to work in the offices around this area.
A flood of different perfumes hit Jemin’s sensitive nose, taking his breath away for a moment before he recovered enough to exchange a concerned glance with Seri. There was no way of telling if Corey had ever set foot on the street in this realm. Every hint of a scent was immediately swallowed by the sheer amount of impressions that were battering down on them, and they had lost the trail.
Jemin cursed violently, earning a sharp look from an elderly lady who was armed with a baguette.
Seri grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him closer toward the nearest building, the others following closely. “No need to draw attention,” she cautioned him.
Jemin tore his arm free from her grasp and lifted it energetically. “What do you suggest we do?”
He merely noticed Heck’s confused looks beside them.
“We check the perimeter.” Seri’s suggestion was as clear as it was simple. There was nothing Jemin could say against it.
He nodded, and they were about to start walking when Heck pulled on Jemin’s cloak the way he used to when they had been on patrol together. Instinctively, Jemin jerked around, facing the same direction as Heck, blood freezing as he noticed a grey-cloaked shape against the rusty red of the Musikverein’s building, or as they would call it in Allinan: the Coronation Hall.
Jemin’s senses went on high alert, his muscles coiled as adrenaline flooded his system, and he gestured at Seri, who understood and followed suit.
It was more an instinct telling Jemin the figure was a demon than proven fact, but with the experience of the shadow in the forest and the man they had taken down near the stables, he was almost one-hundred percent certain. The Shalleyn hadn’t noticed them yet but was sliding along the building like a dark cloud, stealthy enough for no one else to pay any attention to him.
They followed the demon with utmost caution as he approached the artist entrance of the building and, with a glance over his shoulder, slipped in the door.
Jemin pressed himself against the wall, mimicked by Seri and Heck, and waited until the door had closed behind the demon before he ducked and sped past the ticket office to follow the demon in through the glass-windowed, wooden door.
The entrance area was narrow, just enough space to c
arry a contrabass through. To the right sat a small room occupied by rows of keys on the walls, and a man with pale complexion and a frown made Jemin stop in his tracks. The Coronation Hall didn’t have such a room. This finding must be specific to this dimension.
“Good morning,” the concierge greeted them with tired eyes from under an array of grey locks.
For lack of anything better to do, Jemin put on the sweetest smile he could find and asked for the way to the changing rooms for the orchestra.
To his surprise, the concierge fashioned an understanding grin in return. “I used to get lost in here all the time when I started this job.” He reached behind him and pulled something from a box, then turned back to Jemin, sending a curious sideways glance at Seri. “The maestro is already in the great hall.” He handed Jemin a small booklet which appeared to be the program for the concert of a Russian orchestra performing the next day. “Turn right. Up then left, up the narrow stairs on the left, and then you’re there. I look forward to your performance tomorrow.”
Jemin thanked him awkwardly and waved the booklet at the man as he set in motion, Seri and Heck at his heels. When they turned the corner, the Shalleyn was nowhere to be seen.
“So, what are we looking for exactly?” Heck commented, eyes screening the busts of this world’s greatest composers lining the car-width corridor they were heading down.
Jemin was about to hiss an impatient answer at Heck, but he didn’t need to. The instant he inhaled to lash out at Heck, he smelled Corey in the history-heavy air.
He glanced at Seri to confirm she was smelling it too and found the girl with a victorious grin. “This way.” She spun on her heels and turned back the way they had come, leading them past the entrance corridor, in the direction opposite from the one the concierge had pointed them. Somewhere far in the distance, strings were playing a melancholic melody, accompanied by trombones.
“You found her,” Heck whispered, and both Jemin and Seri nodded. Flickers of hope had returned to Jemin’s chest.
“Down here.” He waved the others through an open door leading into the dusty basement of the building.
Heck slid through the gap between them, following Seri down the brightly lit stairwell, and Jemin began his descent into the catacombs of the building right behind them. He had never been inside the Coronation Hall building in Allinan. Neither had he been inside the Musikverein in the Vienna of this dimension. He didn’t know what he had expected, but definitely not beige-painted safety-doors which were open, held in place by magnetic mechanisms, ready to snap shut in case of a fire.
Seri had taken the lead and was silently making her way along the white walls. Stripes of brown and black told stories of instruments and furniture being moved around frequently, and the travel-boxes that were sitting in the corridors, marked ‘Vienna Philharmonics’ in black spray paint, gave Jemin an idea they had entered the storage area of the building.
The sound of a closing door somewhere ahead, around a corner, alerted Jemin, renewing the adrenalin rush in his system. It couldn’t be far away.
Seri gestured the direction she perceived the source of the noise coming from and let Jemin catch up. With her hand reaching for her sword, together, they inched forward until they found their path blocked by one of the safety-doors which had been closed.
Jemin and Heck followed Seri’s lead and soundlessly pulled their weapons, readying themselves for whatever awaited them behind the harmless-looking, solid steel, and with a gentle pull, Jemin opened the gate.
The door flew open under his Yutu-strength, exposing an empty corridor, exactly the same as the one they were standing in. Jemin stepped over the threshold, holding his breath. He could feel something was wrong. It was almost tangible in the air, a sinister sensation, a pull drawing him forward toward the plain wooden door at the end of the corridor.
Seri must have been feeling it too since she took step after step toward the door without looking at Jemin. Behind them, Heck followed silently.
It was only when they reached the door, and Jemin laid his hand on the handle, that Heck stopped him with a hand on the shoulder.
“What if it’s Gan Krai himself waiting behind that door?” he whispered.
“Then we will see how strong the warlock really is,” Seri replied for Jemin. “We are not in Allinan. His magical abilities are limited to his Yutu-magic. And we are four. Might be a draw—”
Something cracked behind the door, the sound sending Jemin’s muscles into anticipatory tension.
“Time to find out.” He kicked the door, and with one strong push, it sprang open revealing the view of a medium-sized, windowless chamber. The air was full of sawdust and contained Corey’s scent along with that of Oliver Gerenhoff. But besides the splinters of wood strewn all over the floor and an empty breakfast-tray, the room was empty.
“Where did he go?” Heck asked, referring to the shadow they had been following down there. Of course, he could smell Corey and Oliver—and that other smell that was oddly familiar.
Jemin and Seri exchanged a look. “Feris,” they said at the same time, earning a confused look from Heck.
“Feris was here,” Seri explained. “So were Corey and Oliver and—” She waved at the room as if it was obvious, “—Gan Krai.”
Jemin stepped inside and screened the walls and every corner. There was no other door than the one they had come through. “Where did they go?”
“Allinan,” Seri suggested the obvious, and Jemin stifled a curse.
“Let’s get going, then.” He glanced at Seri, weapon clutched in his right hand, and when she nodded, portaled to the other world with the familiar sensation of stepping onto the same spot on the floor twice.
But no white haze surrounded him. The room didn’t change, splinters remaining where they were and the tray, so provocatively telling the tale of a Viennese breakfast, remained in its spot on the floor where it had been a second ago.
“What—?” It was Seri who was now biting back a curse.
“We didn’t portal,” Heck noted and walked around the room, now checking the remaining pieces of furniture and music stands himself. We are still in the same location.
“And we are not,” Seri hissed from the door, her urgent tone calling everyone to join her and stare over the threshold into a dimly lit, wooden-floored corridor, which reminded in no way of the corridor they had walked down only minutes before.
“If we are not where we were before, where are we?” Heck so eloquently asked, and Seri stifled a laugh as he stepped past her.
“Allinan?” Seri suggested again, this time with a less certain tone. “If we aren’t in the Vienna Musikverein, we must be in the Coronation Hall of Allinan. It sure looks like it.”
“Which doesn’t explain why nobody is here,” Jemin remarked. “Where did the Shalleyn go? Where is Corey? Where is Feris? And Oliver?”
He sniffed the air, inhaling the dusty smell of hallways that hadn’t been aired out in years. There, between dust mites and wood, was the silver thread of Corey’s scent. She had been here, and she had left the room and moved down that corridor.
“Got her,” Jemin informed the others and tapped his nose, earning a frown from Heck. He started walking, following Corey’s scent, with the others at his heels in an instant, each of them fostering their own spark of hope, now that they knew that Corey might have an ally at her side in her fight against Gan Krai. But one thing didn’t leave Jemin’s mind as they groped their way down the corridor: Something was very wrong. They had portaled back to Allinan, and yet, nothing had changed in that one room. No white had enveloped them. It was as if they hadn’t portaled at all.
What had Gan Krai done?
Maray
Tense faces eyed Maray as she stepped into the meeting room, Wil to her right, Pia to her left.
Her father joined them at the door, the only reassuring element in the nervous murmurs that bounced off the tapestries.
“What can be so urgent?” someone whispered at the ba
ck of the room.
Maray didn’t lower her gaze to check for who had spoken, for it was just one voice raising above a cluster of questions about the meaning of the meeting. They all had pushed for an early coronation, and she had been about to give them their wish—just not with the terms they had in mind. But now, Pia’s announcement had changed everything. There was something going on she wasn’t aware of, and she needed to at least appear in control. She swallowed and marched forward, head held high as if everything was clear to her.
When Maray made it to the table, Scott and Neelis got to their feet, inclining their heads in a display of loyalty, and with some murmuring—some of protest, some of curiosity—the rest of the room did the same.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Maray addressed all of them equally whether they wanted to see her on the throne or not. “We have urgent matters to consider, and I want to discuss them with all of you.”
The murmuring rose to a slightly higher volume, now interwoven with speculations about the meaning of the meeting.
Maray gave Scott a glance, and he raised his eyebrow as if he wanted to say something, but the room fell silent, not leaving an option for them to have even a brief exchange.
Wil stepped forward and pulled Maray’s chair at the head of the long table where her mother had once sat when she had called her council for an emergency meeting. With a nod of acknowledgement, Maray sat down. Her father took the chair beside her, and Wil stood behind her as did Pia, all three of them ready for whatever would be coming Maray’s way.
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