When nothing happened for about ten minutes, Aurie began to relax. The presence of danger seemed to have moved on. She expected Hemistad to come back soon.
"I really wish we were in the same hall together," Aurie blurted out. "I feel like we're already growing apart, especially with your Coterie friends and all their connections."
Pi snorted derisively. "It's not like that. And I have to find my own way eventually. You can't be my mom forever."
A wave of guilt almost knocked Aurie over. She felt like she'd been plunged back into the truth room. "That's totally unfair. I never wanted that to happen."
"That's not what I mean, Aurie," said Pi, raising her voice. "We're different people. We can't be together always."
"But you're all I have left," said Aurie, ashamed of the way her voice cracked.
"It's not that," said Pi, her face wracked with anguish. She fumbled at her words. "Coterie is way more complicated than I expected. You just don't understand. It's not easy for me like it is for you at Arcanium."
"Easy? You have no idea. I'm not sure I'm even going—"
The words "to pass" were poised on her lips, but they stayed there when she heard a girl's scream. Pi's wide eyes showed that she'd heard it too. Aurie was about to ask, when she heard it a second time, more clearly.
"That sounded like someone's in trouble," said Pi, looking ready to jump into action.
"We should go help," said Aurie, imagining the girl who had screamed as Emily from the hospital.
"Hemistad said to stay," said Pi, though it was clear she didn't agree. She was practically running in the direction of the scream without actually moving.
"But he's not here, and I don't think he expected that to happen," said Aurie.
A concerned look passed across Pi's face. "What if that thing we heard is making that sound to lure us away?"
Aurie couldn't help but agree with her sister. There were many supernatural creatures that mimicked human voices to catch their prey. "Then we'd better be ready."
They moved in the direction they'd heard the sound. Her breath was loud in her ears. She wished she'd known they were going to the Undercity. She would have researched a spell that could have let them see in the dark. The bobbing lights gave away their position.
A young girl came stumbling out of the darkness, jeans ripped at the knees from falling. She looked a few years younger than Pi. Her Buffy T-shirt had blood on the sleeve, presumably not hers. She was shaking.
"Holy fuck," she said, face white with terror. "Please tell me there's a way out nearby."
"What's going on?" asked Pi. "What made you scream?"
"I don't know. And I don't want to know. But we'd better get the fuck out of here." The girl's face screwed up as she looked at Pi. "Are you doing some sort of fashion shoot down here? No wait. I don't care. Can we get out of here?"
She was trembling and hanging on to Pi's sleeve, looking all around as if she were expecting monsters to come jumping out of the darkness.
"There's no way out nearby," said Aurie, trying to sound calm even though inside her heart was trying to climb out of her chest. "So we need to understand what it is so we can help. We're mages."
The girl's lower lip trembled. "You know that feeling that you get when you're walking in the dark and you feel like you have to run, like right now. That's what it is, except with teeth. And it's hungry, really fucking hungry."
At that moment, something growled. It went right through Aurie's stomach. It was the same thing Hemistad had gone after.
Pi leapt into action. She had a packet of salt in her pocket. She made a circle on the stone. She didn't have a lot of salt, so the line was thin and ragged.
Aurie placed her fingers on her throat. Her veins were throbbing. She drew the magic up, whispering over and over until her neck was glowing. Then she spat her words out, sending them into the darkness like a sparrow to find Hemistad.
She joined Pi and the girl in the circle. Pi chanted a protection spell, her voice coming out with a tremor. The thing in the darkness growled again. It wasn't far beyond their bobbing wisps of light.
The salt line bothered Aurie. It looked too thin to hold up. She leaned down and started whispering to it, telling the line that it was thick and strong and would hold up to even a demon lord. She didn't know if truth magic worked on the materials of magic itself, Professor Mali hadn't taught them that, but she was out of other ideas.
She kept the faez flowing, not into the protection circle—Pi was doing that—but into the line of salt. It looked thicker by the time she was done whispering.
When the thing in the darkness came into the light, the impact shook the ground. The circle nearly collapsed around them. Aurie lent her sister strength as Pi fell to her knees.
The girl they'd rescued was screaming. The kind of mindless terror that burst eardrums.
The creature hit the circle again. Aurie had no immediate impression of it, except that it was made of darkness, and teeth, and hunger. It hit the circle harder than Pazuzu, the demon prince, had hit.
Aurie knew better than to look at it, but she wanted to stare into its horrible maw. It surrounded the circle, swallowing all light except the cylinder around them. Their protection was crumbling.
A hale voice called out in a strange language. The hunger in the darkness responded as if struck by a flaming whip. Hemistad had returned. His voice rose and fell like a symphony, each word acting like a hammer strike to the creature. He drove it back from the circle, marching after it.
Aurie had a vague impression of someone larger, superimposed on Hemistad, as if she were seeing his true self. He was a giant of a man with fists like granite. Then he disappeared into the darkness.
The girl had passed out. She lay stretched across the rock, mouth agape. Pi was heaving with breath. The salt had blackened, the force feedback from the creature's impact searing the circle.
A great roar filled the air, forcing them to put their hands over their ears.
Then a few minutes later, Hemistad returned, looking more like the old hoary shopkeeper than a giant.
His lips were white with a quiet fury. "I told you to stay where you were."
"She was in danger," said Aurie, looking down to find the spot where the girl was lying empty. "Wait? What the hell?"
"The Hunger creates visions in your mind to get you to come to it. I'd placed a ward on you back there, but once you'd left it, you were unprotected," said Hemistad.
"So the girl wasn't real?" asked Pi. "You were using us for bait? Without telling us first?"
An uncomfortable emotion passed across his face, making him momentarily old again.
"Is this true?" asked Aurie.
He cleared his throat and glanced into the darkness. "I had planned on telling you, but it seems it had gotten loose and I had to act quickly."
Instinctively, she believed him, but she didn't like it.
"You could have told us on the way there," said Pi.
"Humor an old man who was readying himself for a difficult task," said Hemistad. "And there would have been no danger if you'd listened. Next time I tell you to stay put, you stay put." Then he seemed to realize his tone and sighed. "You did good when you called for me, and the circle. It shouldn't have withstood the Hunger, but it did. You girls are more resourceful than I expected."
"What is the Hunger?" asked Pi.
Hemistad retreated into himself, wrestling with what he had to say. When he looked up at them, his eyes reflected the pain and misery of a thousand wars.
"You understand karma?" he asked, his voice hushed and low. "Magic can be like a rubber band. Little magics have only a small effect, a tug here, or a tug there. Nothing that can't be dealt with. But once you start dealing in the greater magics, the rubber band gets stretched, pulled so taut until it either snaps back into place, or breaks. That's what the Hunger is."
He marched into the darkness, the weight of the events tugging his shoulders down. Aurie and Pi fell in behind him as
they returned to the platform and back to Freeport Games.
Aurie mulled Hemistad's words about karma and rubber bands, and the vision she'd seen of him. She wondered what the Hunger really was, and why it had chosen that girl to draw them into danger. But mostly she couldn't help but have the impression that Hemistad had just gone through his own room of truth, and that one day soon, she would have to go back into hers.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The second delivery for Radoslav was in the third ward. Pi stood in the antechamber of an English-style mansion. A painting of an older woman in a silver gown and holding a bubbling blue potion stared down at her from the wall. It creeped Pi out, and she tried not to put her back to it, but the security had let her in a side door and told her to wait, explaining that the mistress of the house was having a party and that it might be an hour or so. She'd have pulled it off the hook and turned it around if it wouldn't have caused trouble when the owner arrived.
The long road to the house had been lined with limousines and magically propelled carriages. A giant shimmering bubble had floated down and deposited a middle-aged woman in a chartreuse gown with puffy sleeves on the front steps.
Pi spent a few minutes fiddling with the box before she realized that she didn't have the right tools to get past Radoslav's protections. Annoyed by the wait, and wanting to get away from the painting, she decided to venture into the house.
Pi crept past the hard backed study chairs before the great hearth. The sounds of the party—glasses clinking and people chattering—could be heard faintly from the next room. She kept herself tight as a spring, ready to leap back towards the antechamber should she hear anyone approaching.
Pressing her nose against the double doors, she could see through the crack. Men and women in formal dress milled about the large area. She thought about enhancing her hearing with a spell but decided they might have sniffers to make sure everyone was behaving. It wasn't like she couldn't use the old tried and true method of jamming her ear against the wood, which she did.
It took a moment to pick out the individual voices. There were so many people, and every one of them seemed enamored by their own talking. She wasn't sure how they actually had conversations. Most of it was a series of thinly veiled bragging.
Then she heard a voice that rose above the others and nearly made her flee back to the antechamber. His deep baritone and liberal use of the word "fuck" gave away the presence of Bannon Creed.
Hearing him made her really want to see who else was in the party. Since she couldn't actually get into the filigreed box, knowing more about the people it was going to seemed like the next best thing.
Pi turned the handle and leaned her shoulder into the door, opening it as slow as a glacier, until she could see into the room. She didn't recognize most of the faces at first, but eventually she saw a few she knew: Jillian Garbanzo, the master illusionist who headlined the Glitterdome on a regular basis, and Camille Cardwell, who owned the Herald of the Halls. The rest were well dressed, magically enhanced, and generally what anyone would think of when they said the word elite.
Then she saw the shimmering shield moving through the party, attended by the woman from the painting. It was her patron, Malden Anterist.
Pi opened the door wider, trying to hear what they were saying. When Pi heard the woman's name, everything clicked into place. Celesse D'Agastine. She was the patron of the Order of Honorable Alchemists.
The two patrons wandered near enough to the door that she could hear their conversation.
"It's been thirteen years since his death," said Celesse. "The bastard hid his secrets too well, and his lackey Semyon has stayed loyal, despite my generous offers."
"We have other plans in play," said Malden. "Some short term, others with a longer timeline. I will not be denied what is mine."
Celesse gave him a condescending laugh. "The rest of the Cabal is getting impatient and you're getting foolish. Many things have withered on the vine in these twelve years, putting other stratagems in danger. We must double our efforts."
When Malden spoke, it was with great restraint. Pi didn't know if Celesse was that oblivious or didn't care. "Be patient, my dear."
Pi heard nothing more when a hand grabbed her by the shoulder, yanking her backwards.
"We've caught ourselves a spy, gentlemen," said a familiar voice.
Pi spun around to be confronted by Alton Lockwood in his signature white suit, along with a few of his fourth-year buddies.
"You?" he exclaimed, then his expression turned hard with the thoughts of what he was going to do. "Miss D'Agastine is going to have a field day. How the hell did you get in here?"
"I'm supposed to be here," said Pi, shouldering off the hand on her arm.
"A likely story." He grabbed the filigreed box out of her hand. "What's this? Some sort of magical bomb?"
She reached for it, but one of his goon buddies grabbed her wrist.
"I told you, I'm supposed to be here. And I wouldn't mess with that or you're going to be the one Miss D'Agastine has a field day with. That box is for her," she said.
He wasn't dissuaded by her warning, instead using the opportunity to puff up like a peacock, thrusting his chest out and stepping right in front of her.
"I know your shtick, Hick Pi. You're a fast talker, and that's gotten you out of trouble before, but not this time. Hold her. I want to see what else she's got on her," he said.
That he didn't use a spell proved to her that they had sniffers, which meant she couldn't use one to defend herself without getting in trouble with the lady of the house. But that wasn't going to help her as they grabbed her arms. She also knew he wasn't just checking to see what else she had. He wanted his cuff links back, but he wasn't going to find them, because she'd turned them into earrings. He'd been looking at them the whole time and hadn't noticed.
He pulled back with Radoslav's rune in his hand. "What's this?" And then his eyes widened with understanding, but also, not understanding. "Who are you really?"
It was luck that she hadn't reacted. She'd been busy eyeing up a second shot at kneeing him in the groin when he spoke, so she'd been a little distracted.
"You didn't think I really got into Coterie because of Eugene Hickford, did you?" she asked, getting up in his face. "I've never even met the man."
She hid her surprise when he actually backed up. She could see the wheels turning behind his eyes. He was a bully, but a smart one. He'd thought he'd found a lamb, but really it was a tiger, or at least that's what Pi wanted him to think.
Someone handed her the rune, which she shoved into her pocket. Alton actually handed her the filigreed box, concern above his head like a cloud.
"Alton, dear," said Miss D'Agastine from the doorway. "That's no way to acquire a girlfriend. Really, has your father taught you no manners?"
Pi froze, expecting Malden to come through the door after Celesse.
"Miss D'Agastine," said Alton, flashing a winning smile. "I was just admonishing one of our Coterie initiates for spying on your party. She works for Radoslav."
As he held the box up, Pi snatched it out of his hand. She marched to the alchemist patron and handed over the filigreed box. Celesse had a quirk on her lips, ready to fly into a witty remark.
"My apologies, Miss D'Agastine," said Pi. "I wanted to make my delivery so I could return to my studies."
Patron D'Agastine held her long blue fingernails beneath Pi's chin. "Well, you are an interesting specimen. How did you come to work for Radoslav? Have a bit of fae in you?"
"I get results," said Pi.
D'Agastine was delighted by the answer, cawing and giving a clap as she sneered at Alton and his friends.
"And what is your name, dear?"
"Pythia, but I go by Pi," she said.
"Pythia. What a lovely name," said D'Agastine, considering Pi as if she were deciding on buying the ruby encrusted bracelet or the diamond coated one. Then she seemed to remember that Alton and his friends were standing the
re. "You may leave, gentlemen. And Alton."
He turned back for a moment. "Yes, Miss D'Agastine?"
"If you try one of your fucking tricks on my guests, I will make sure you accidentally get a dose of a slow and painful poison that will rot off your dick and give you a life-long case of hemorrhoids," she said as sweet as cotton candy.
When she was done, Alton was as white as his suit. He walked stiffly back into the party.
Patron D'Agastine turned her attention back to Pi as if nothing had just transpired. "How is Radoslav? Does he still think he's better than everyone else?"
"Isn't that all of the maetrie?" said Pi.
She cooed. "Yes, but he's a particularly condescending prick. I'd still fuck the attitude out of him, but he's as old as the city. He hasn't tried to sleep with you, has he?"
"No," said Pi, almost adding ma'am, but deciding against it.
"You may call me Celesse," she said. "Why did you join Coterie? I have a feeling you would have done wonderfully in my Hall."
Pi lied and said, "Alchemists was a close second, Celesse."
She reached out and pinched Pi's cheek. "Oh, you're so adorable. Well, I suppose I must be getting back to my party. I'm the host and all. But if you decide that Coterie isn't treating you right, you're welcome in my Hall anytime. Just see me personally."
Pi didn't know what to say, so she smiled like she was in on the joke. Celesse strutted back into the party.
Not wanting to risk Alton's return, Pi escaped outside and back to the train station.
Her thoughts were a whirlwind in her head. The Cabal was actually real, not some urban myth to scare kids. There were at least three patrons at the party, indicating the Cabal was made of members of the Hundred Halls. The conversation between Celesse and Malden had sparked many thoughts for Pi. Thirteen years ago, the head patron and founder of the Hundred Halls, Invictus, had disappeared, presumably dead. Malden had indicated that he knew he was dead, if it were Invictus they were speaking of. These plots might have seemed ludicrous to her if she hadn't heard them herself.
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