by Emma Holly
“They are beautiful,” he agreed. “Your generosity humbles me.”
She gurgled with amusement and kissed him—openmouthed, from the sound of it. Georgie gritted her teeth as Iksander’s fingers tightened on her forearm. That almost made her laugh. Neither of them liked Eleanor trespassing on their lover.
Maybe Connor didn’t like it either. He pushed free of his amorous assailant. “Your Majesty, perhaps we should arrange to meet somewhere less prone to interruption. Tomorrow, I could—”
“Now,” she countered in a sultry purr. “Here.”
“But I—”
More kissing noises ensued. Eleanor seemed to break off this time. “Darling, I have to kiss you, if only to make up for you enduring Henri’s . . . extremer preferences. I’m afraid my brother has no sense of when his advances aren’t welcome.”
“I thought Henri was your cousin.”
“Yes, certainly. You were so good to humor him. So kind and adaptable.” Clothing rustled as Eleanor dug deeper. “Oh my. You are ready to be recompensed, aren’t you?”
“Your Majesty, that’s enough. I don’t wish to do this now.”
“Of course you do. Nothing could be more glorious than making love to—”
Her voice cut off on a broken sigh. Georgie’s eyebrows shot up. Had Eleanor had an orgasm? She listened, but no other sounds followed.
“It’s okay,” Connor said. “You can come out.”
When they edged around the corner, he was holding Eleanor underneath her arms. She, apparently, had sagged to her knees unconscious. She was dressed for an assignation—or a haunting—in a sheer flowing white nightgown.
“I disrupted her aura,” Connor explained. “It knocked her out.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Neither did I. I was worried I’d have to punch her, but a better way popped into my mind. She is unharmed. I confess I’m not sure how long the effect will last.”
Iksander recovered from his shock sooner than Georgie. “We should truss her up. And gag her. That will slow her down doing any spells.”
They tied her in strips torn from her own clothing. Surprisingly, Connor seemed unconcerned about her modesty. Once she was secured, they placed her curled up and unconscious in the corner of the next landing up.
“Wait,” Connor said as the others began to leave.
He bent to remove the golden chain that hung around her neck. A twin of the protective medal Henri had given Connor dangled from its center.
“She’s unlikely to need this here,” he said. “The palace has shields against the cloud. You wear it, Georgie. I’ll give mine to Iksander.”
“I don’t know,” Georgie said simultaneous to Iksander replying, “Absolutely not.”
“Be sensible,” Connor chided. “Supposing the cloud could harm me—which we don’t know it could—I’m hardly afraid of what happens when I die. You are. Plus, the demon knows Georgie’s name.”
“Fine,” Iksander huffed. “You and she wear them.”
“Georgie won’t accept protection unless you take it too.”
Iksander gaped at him, then slowly extended his hand, palm up. Connor laid his chain in it. “I think you understand me and Georgie a bit too well.”
“Come on,” Connor urged when Georgie continued to hesitate. “We’re wasting time arguing.”
She gave in and donned Eleanor’s chain. She didn’t like doing it but, really, what did it matter compared to the other destruction they hoped to wreak tonight?
“Great!” Connor said, breaking into a sunny grin. “Let’s see if I can stun the guard at the tunnel like I did Eleanor!”
“Some angel,” Iksander muttered, though he didn’t sound upset.
Connor did take care of the guard. He strode straight up to him, stared into his astonished eyes, then caught him as they rolled back and he passed out.
Iksander helped lay the djinni down, shaking his head in marvel at Connor. “Magic doesn’t look like magic when you do it.”
“No turning back now,” Connor said cheerily. “This guard will totally know he’s been messed with when he wakes up.”
His enthusiasm was freaking her out a bit. Ignoring that, she reached for Iksander’s hand. Per their plan, he said the charm to share his night vision among the three of them. Able to see, their trip down the tunnel went quicker than before. Georgie tried to act businesslike as she worked the hatch to access the power conduit. She hadn’t forgotten what they encountered in here last time.
“Stick between us,” she said to Connor before swinging it open. “Hopefully our protection will cover you as well.”
She guessed the seal medals really worked. Though her skin crawled at every shadow, nothing assaulted them as they flew down the conduit. They didn’t even have to puzzle which way to go. The pipe had no turnoffs. It led them in a straight shot to Luna’s crowning achievement.
Another hatch blocked the entrance to Hodensk. She knew because HODENSK ROYAL UTILITY was stamped on it.
“This one’s barely charmed,” she observed. “I guess if it were, the magic might not flow to the regents.”
Iksander closed his eyes, focused on drawing up the poorly concealed password. He said it softly and the door seal released.
“Wait,” he warned when she reached to open it. “Let Connor try to sense if anyone’s behind this.”
“No one is,” Connor said without hesitation. “It feels like an empty space.”
“Okay,” Iksander said. “I guess we’re going in.”
This hatch was smaller than the one at the palace. They had to bend to get through the circular opening. Each of them entered and straightened.
“Huh,” Georgie said, turning slowly and craning to look up. “Where the heck did we come out?”
The space was large and round—like an observatory but with no telescope. Matte black covered every surface, including the domed ceiling. As Connor predicted, the room was empty. She estimated fifty hatches ringed its circumference. All were identical except for their labels, which were location names. Two rectangular doors broke the pattern on opposite sides, presumably to allow security or tech staff to enter.
The only equipment, if you could call it that, was a massive rock formation hulked in the floor’s middle. Taller than a man, the stone was a conglomeration of faceted, translucent black crystals.
“I think,” Iksander said, “this must be Hodensk’s central power chamber.”
“Really? It looks different from the one at Neva, on top of which I’m not feeling any power.”
“It’s here,” Connor said in a strange voice. “You can’t tell because the energy’s nearly motionless—like when you’re submerged in water that doesn’t have currents. If you stand still, the sensation of being in liquid disappears.”
Georgie looked at him. He’d retrieved the pipe from Iksander earlier. He used it now to brace, as if a strong wind were buffeting him.
“It’s here,” Iksander agreed. “I can sense it distantly.”
Georgie scratched her chin, perplexed. “How am I going to break the magic that powers this place if I can’t tell where it is?”
“There is spellwork,” Iksander said. “A hell of a lot of it.”
“Luna’s spellwork,” Connor added with confidence. “You’ve deciphered her charms before. I’m sure you can again. Try to relax. Maybe walk around the room and breathe.”
That she knew how to do. She trailed her finger along the wall as she paced slowly. Despite its matte black color, the surface was slick and cool. Interestingly, touching it didn’t cause her skin to tingle.
What did you do here? she wondered, fiddling idly with the medal around her neck. She could guess why her former guardian hid her work. Control freak that Luna was, she wouldn’t want anyone replicating—and benefiting—from her genius. This would be advantageous if Georgie succeeded in her goal. If she didn’t . . .
“Georgie,” Connor broke into her thoughts. “Look behind you.”
<
br /> Everywhere she’d dragged her fingertip, formulas drawn in faint blue light stretched up the dome’s sections. They reminded Georgie of scientific scribbles, the sort that calculated mysterious forces driving the universe.
She waited but the writing remained cryptic. “Guys, I think my magical translator might be broken. This is gobbledygook to me.”
“I can’t read it either,” Connor said. “Could Luna have invented her own language?”
Iksander rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. She was brilliant. I suggest we proceed on a best-guess basis. That black stone is the plant’s main converter. At the least, shattering it will put this place offline for a while.”
Georgie had been hoping to shut it down for good.
Knowing the longer they hung around the greater the probability they’d be caught, she held out her hand for Connor’s magic-stuffed metal pipe.
“How long a delay do you think we need before I tell this thing to go boom?”
“Seven minutes?” Iksander said. “Five is long enough to fly back down the tunnel to the palace.”
Georgie nodded. Given how unpredictable her ability was in the djinn dimension, a cushion seemed optimal. On the bright side, if she overdid the electro-magical-netic pulse she planned to create, maybe it would fry Luna’s spellwork too. That would be—
She hissed as the writing on the wall winked out without warning. Now only Iksander’s shared night vision illuminated the domed chamber. “Damn it. I think the charm sensed me planning to destroy it. It’s shielding itself from me.”
She strode back to touch the wall, but the spellwork wouldn’t come on again. “Shit. I must be on the right track if I triggered a failsafe. Why are these spells resisting me? I cracked the others well enough.”
“What were you doing when they first became visible?” Connor asked.
“Thinking about Luna. Wondering what she’d been up to here.”
“You were connecting to her in your mind.”
“Or she was connecting to you.” Iksander didn’t offer this suggestion happily. He was rubbing his brow again. He dropped his hand when they looked at him. “Do you remember the protective prayer I put on your back our first night at Neva?”
“Sure. Connor called it a light tattoo. You said it would stop anyone from trying to interfere with me in my dreams.”
“Luna was the person I thought was sending you nightmares. I didn’t want her to reach you, to influence you for her own purposes.” He shook his head as Georgie opened her mouth to speak. “We can talk about the reasons later. For now, I believe if I remove the safeguard, you’ll be able to demand the information you need from her.”
“Demand it— But—”
“She owed you three wishes,” he said softly. “You’ve only used up one.”
Her mind raced back through her memories, searching for the demon Pink’s precise instructions. Wish something less severe, she’d said when Georgie expressed reluctance to order her guardian dead, though Luna herself was a murderer. Say you wish she’d, oh, take a long walk off a short pier, weighted by those iron chains she wrapped the sultan in. That will keep her away long enough for everyone to get to safety.
A lot had been happening at the time but, clearly, Georgie should have paid closer attention. In her imagination, Luna was just away in some vague Other Place where she couldn’t hurt anyone. A chill ran through her as she realized this might not be the case. The sultan certainly seemed to know different.
“Where has she been all this time?” she asked.
“We can discuss that later,” Iksander repeated. “For now, know you can compel her as you did then. She can put an end to the injustice she imposed on her own people.”
Connor’s jaw had gone slack with shock. Did he understand what Iksander’s words implied? He shook himself when Georgie looked at him.
“I . . . cannot choose for you,” he said. “No more than I can destroy this facility myself. My other half inspires me as it thinks best. It doesn’t feel it has the right to interfere so extensively in created beings’ fates.”
Georgie turned back to Iksander. “If I connect to Luna and let her connect to me, won’t she be angry? Won’t she try to stop what I’m doing?”
The djinni’s expression was somber. “I can’t be certain, but I suspect her mind no longer has the coherence to do anything except what you order.”
No longer had the coherence—? What the hell did that mean?
“If we’re doing this, we should do it now,” Iksander said.
She wanted answers right away but couldn’t argue time was of the essence.
“Okay,” she surrendered. “Erase your protection from my back.”
“You should sit, maybe. I’m not certain what will happen.”
She sat and he knelt behind her. He laid his hands on her shoulder blades. For a second, his thumbs stroked her—in apology, she might have said.
“Release,” he ordered quietly.
The removal of his spell felt like a circle of sticky tape peeling off her skin—not painful just unexpectedly tangible.
“It’s gone,” she said. He backed off, and she closed her eyes. The pipe lay across her knees, her hands lightly steadying either end. She wanted to charge and direct its contents appropriately, to guarantee no one could reverse engineer or restore what Luna had constructed. She also wanted herself and the men to get away safely—preferably without killing others in the process. She wasn’t certain she could get everything she wanted. Knowing what that was, however, helped set her intentions.
“Luna Praetorius,” she said once she felt focused. “Empress of the City of Endless Night. Hear my wish and fulfill it. I wish to shut down this plant forever, safely and irreversibly.”
The air rippled slightly, the force it held almost palpable.
“Hold the medal on your necklace,” Connor advised. “Luna designed its protective seal. It will help you connect to her.”
Georgie took one hand from the pipe to do as he suggested. “Luna Praetorius,” she repeated. “Hear my wish and fulfill it. I wish to shut down this plant forever, safely and irreversibly.”
A silent sonic boom seemed to go off inside her head. The formulas on the dome all lit up and blazed at once—no longer pale blue but sun brilliant. More crazed veins of light crackled from the scribbled enchantments to run across the floor. The zigs and zags hit the black crystal cluster and climbed it. The pipe flew off her knees, clanking against and sticking to the stone as if it were magnetized.
Then the light veins shot into her.
Her spine snapped poker straight. Her arms thrust out, her palms radiating magic force. She spoke a code that didn’t come from her own consciousness.
“In the name of God the High and Exalted, what I have wrought I now declare destroyed: in Heaven, on earth, and unto Iblis’s realm. Undo this work, my Father, and be forever praised.”
Three times she repeated the formal chant. By the last repetition, so much power ran through her it caused her vertebrae to rattle.
“Help me, help me,” she croaked hoarsely.
Okay, those words weren’t part of Luna’s spell. They also weren’t Georgie’s words. Luna was begging for assistance.
What’s wrong? Georgie thought. Where are you?
Iksander had been right about the empress’s higher brain function. Without a wish to compel her, she couldn’t answer lucidly.
She showed Georgie what was wrong instead.
Georgie had no chance to prepare. Between one instant and the next, her skin blistered all over with searing pain, every cell burned by the salty water she’d been forced to take her long walk in. The fluid poisonous to her species surrounded her. She was choking, her lungs sucking in and coughing up fiery torture as she drowned repeatedly in the depths. So many times a day. So many days she lost count. She couldn’t die. The power she’d stolen from so many others kept healing her. She couldn’t shut off the instinct. Her body wouldn’t stop fighting to survive. Again
and again she breathed only water. Again and again her body burned to the point of dissolving. She couldn’t cry out. Couldn’t swim even halfway to the surface. She tried to lure some creature that would kill her, but none would come. Maybe her mind had broken. Desperate for surcease, she put herself into a coma. It lasted a little while. The human’s wish woke her. Georgie. She thought the human’s name was Georgie. She’d done this to Luna.
Georgie was her enemy.
Luna’s hatred was a living creature. She clung to it with bone-white fingers, embraced it, fed it, though the effort increased her suffering. Let Georgie feel what she felt. If Luna had to fulfill her wish, let her share her torment too.
IF HE’D HAD A CHOICE, Iksander would have kept his lie of omission to himself. Georgie—and Connor—had come to mean more to him than he’d thought possible. Their good opinion of him was precious, their affection and companionship. To lose those things would hurt terribly. To preserve them falsely, however, while there was a chance to lighten this city’s burdens, would have meant losing himself.
You had to confess, he thought. He pushed away the memory of Connor’s shock. The angel had understood what he’d done. Georgie seemed not to fully yet.
She was a little busy at the moment.
Watching her channel Luna’s knowledge was disconcerting, though it meant their plan was working. The spelling formulas had lit up, and power shot from Georgie’s palms. The chant she said was having a clear effect. He forced his mind to their next step: escaping down the tunnel before the final explosion.
He’d just glanced toward the hatch, to refresh his mind on its location, when Georgie convulsed and fell sideways.
He was close enough to catch her before her skull knocked the floor. Connor rushed over to help control her thrashing. Her seizure was violent but brief. When it ended, she went limp. Iksander felt for a pulse and found an uneven one. He slapped her lightly, but she didn’t come around.
“She’s breathing,” Connor said.
She was, though Iksander couldn’t be embarrassed for his panic. He cared for her very much, on top of which—he realized with a lurch—they’d been counting rather heavily on her human advantage squeaking them over obstacles. He lifted his eyes to Connor’s, uncomfortably at a loss.