by Ashley Meira
He rolled his eyes. “Walk, prisoner.”
This time, my angry looks didn’t keep him from doing his job. The hand clamped around my bicep felt like solid steel, and I knew I’d have bruises by the end of the day. He dragged me through the door and up the stairs. I held my tongue for another floor before questioning him about that cell again.
“None of your damn business.”
“I bet the prisoners would love to hear about all the nice things in that cell,” I said.
“You’re not allowed contact with the other prisoners.”
Damn it. True enough. “I doubt the guards would be happy to learn you took me through that place, either.”
He stumbled at those words. “We were stuck in an elevator.”
I shrugged as best I could with a hand around my arm. “Could’ve waited for the techs.”
Growling, he released my arm and shoved me forward. I stumbled but stayed on my feet. At least I hadn’t lost all my skills. When it became clear his glare wasn’t going to put me back in place, he sighed and nodded up the stairs. “That floor is reserved for important prisoners.”
I rolled my eyes at the term but continued up the stairs regardless. The stairway was claustrophobic, and my lack of Fireborn powers meant I could feel every oppressive strand of heat against my skin. We’d barely made it three floors and sweat had already drenched my hair and the back of my thin prison top. It was awful. Much worse than the creeping chill from the lower levels of my cell block. Was this what normal people had to go through on a daily basis? No wonder Fiona blasted the A/C during summer. Suddenly, the insane electricity bills during that time felt worth it.
“You mean snitches?” Petty jealousy was the reason behind my bitter tone. If it meant a swanky room like that and a chance at freedom, who knew what I’d give up?
“Material witnesses and other VIPs. At least the witnesses I get, but that guy?” The guard continued mumbling under his breath, but I was too busy being suffocated by the humidity to focus on his words.
“Must be a hell of a case to get a room like that.” Maybe if I kept talking, I wouldn’t feel as hot. “None of the other cells look as nice.”
“Yeah,” he said bitterly. “He’s not even a witness. Lifer with big connections. Bullshit if you ask me. The shit he did…. I’d have executed him.” The guard froze behind me. “You didn’t hear that.”
“Don’t make me take these stairs back down after my visit, and we’ve got a deal.”
I couldn’t tell if he picked up my joke — and I sure as hell didn’t have the will to turn my head — but his tone wasn’t unfriendly when he said, “Deal.”
Sheer pleasure washed over me as we exited the stairwell and entered the blissfully air conditioned hallway. I stopped for a moment, taking in the breeze. Based on the sigh of relief behind me and the lack of prodding against my shoulder, I guessed the guard was enjoying the moment as well.
I slicked my hair back, grimacing at both the stringy texture and the press of the handcuffs against my skin, before continuing down the hall. I had no idea who Hannah Smith was, but I hoped she wanted to talk for a while — long enough for the elevator to be fixed at least.
“So, who is it?” I asked, too exhilarated over the cool air to care about decorum. “The bigwig?”
“None of your business. Visitor’s room is down the hall.” It seemed the miracle of air conditioning hadn’t impressed my jailer as much as it had me.
“Worried I’ll squeal to all the other prisoners in Z Block?” I asked, my throat starting to ache. It had been a while since I’d spoken this much. “Not sure there’s even anyone else there.”
“There are,” he said. “All Fireborn — or suspected Fireborn — are kept there.”
“It’s quiet.”
“You’re the only one I’ve ever heard speak.”
His words sent a chill through me that no A/C could match. I tried to think of something to distract me from the implications of his statement, but my mind was blank. So, I defaulted to what I usually did when I was panicked: miserable attempts at humor. “Another reason why I shouldn’t be here.”
Much to my surprise, the guard nodded. “That’s the general consensus. The Inquisitors wanted to keep you here for extended observation to be safe, but they’ve hit every wall they can think of. Can’t even sense any magic off you. Corbin swears it’s you, though—”
“What?” I whipped around, nearly losing my footing as the world spun. Once I could vaguely make out the guard’s pale green eyes and close-cropped hair, I spoke. “Corbin? Which one— Oh no. Hell no. Is that whose cell that was?”
Thomas Corbin was a former member of the Council of Magic and a grade-A douche who tried to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people — not to mention one of my best friends or the two innocent women he did kill to achieve his goals. It turned out that he was working for Nicholas Ryder, the man who’d stolen me and my sister — along with countless others — when we were children.
They’d been trying to summon Seraphine, an ancient sea witch with untold power, as part of Nicholas’ plan to destroy the world and rebuild it with him as its leader. Thomas has a brother, Jeffery, but I doubted he was the one behind this. He’d never seen me use magic, but Thomas had.
“That’s—” the guard flushed “—irrelevant.”
“The hell it is.” I snarled. “What, did he think ratting me— ratting out a Fireborn would take time off his sentence?”
“No, he did it—”
I raised a brow. My physical strength may have dwindled down to nothing, but it seemed I still had the ability to make people shrivel under my gaze. Silver linings, I suppose.
“For better quarters,” the guard finally relented. “That’s all I know. Now, will you please keep walking?”
Well, since he said please. I glowered at the floor beneath my prison-issued shoes as we walked toward the visitor’s room. Being put in isolation had seemed like a blessing at first, but now I found myself wishing I’d been placed in the general population long enough to break Thomas’ nose. How had he connected the dots, anyway? Yes, he’d seen me use magic when I was trying to stop Seraphine’s summoning, but he hadn’t seen me absorb magic. Had he? Could Nicholas have told him? I didn’t think so. If he had, Thomas would have acted differently around me during the investigation.
I wanted to ask the guard, but he wouldn’t know. He didn’t even know who my visitor was. Then again, neither did I. Who was Hannah Smith? For some reason, my mind wanted to play dress up today, because the next image in my mind was Ollie dressed like an old lady complete with a snow white wig and tiny spectacles. It was even funnier than the picture I had of Adam — and way more likely to happen. He’d probably have a basket of baked goods with him, too.
My heart clenched at the thought of my best friend, and the muscles in my face began to ache. Geez. Even smiling hurt. Maybe all the talking had strained my muscles more than I thought. I considered speaking more to get back into the practice of things, but I got the feeling rambling to the water-damaged walls of my cell would do more harm than good.
We’d gone past the gated area where prisoners were allowed to sit with their visitors and toward the phones. I stared past the orange jumpsuits to the people on the other side, trying to find a familiar face through the bullet — and magic — proof glass. I passed by a thin man with red hair and a thick beard. His dark eyes were weighed down with a lack of sleep, but they shone with love as he stared at the jumpsuit clad woman across from him. I couldn’t see her face, but she had a husky voice.
“You know my mother,” she said with a soft chuckle. “If you two can’t play nice….”
My eyes widened as a memory slammed into me.
Our mother dusted off her simple red dress as we fought over which flowers we would use. She took our tiny hands in hers, and my heart swelled over how loved I felt in her presence.
I pouted when she began choosing the flowers for us because we “couldn’t play nic
e.” I was the older one by ten whole minutes! Why shouldn’t I get first pick?
“Hannah!” a deep voice called from far away.
Soon, my father’s smiling face appeared. He approached us, his arms filled with a bundle of fresh herbs. “Are these the ones you wanted?”
My mother.
Hannah was my mother’s name.
My heart thundered in my chest, pressing against the bones with such strength I thought they might crack. It couldn’t be. Could it? My eyes burned with unshed tears. Hopeful tears.
Hope. I hadn’t felt that in a long time. Was it really her? I could barely hear the guard’s words past my heartbeat. He led me to a chair, and I found myself terrified to look up from it at the person on the other side of the glass.
It took more courage than I ever thought possible, but I finally met my visitor’s eyes.
My eyes.
She stared at me through the thick sheet of glass as the guard pushed me into my seat and left without a word. Hope gave way to shock, then confusion and panic. I stared, utterly confused, at the woman before me. My stare must have unnerved her, because she tucked a strand of fake blonde hair behind her ear and looked away.
How could I have forgotten my mother’s name? After having it, I’d played the dream of my parents in my mind so many times their faces were seared into my memory.
And the woman on the other side of the glass wasn’t my mother.
But she was family.
She was my sister.
Chapter Two
I blinked rapidly, trying to process the situation. The last time we’d been face to face, Diana had been trying to kill me. She’d also looked exactly like me, right down to the grumpy cat — as Fiona so elegantly put it — look on her face.
That look was still there, but the rest of my twin seemed to be missing. Her normally dark brown hair was dyed blonde and hung free from its usual ponytail. A pair of green contacts covered her brown eyes, and she’d gained a cut across the left side of her jaw. I had no idea whether it was makeup or an actual injury, but before I could ask, she snapped her fingers in front of my face.
“You’d think glass would diminish the effect,” I said, trying to blink my way back into the moment.
“Why would I think that?” she asked flatly. “Now, are you going to pay attention? I didn’t sneak in here just to watch you space out.”
“Why did you sneak in here?” I asked as I straightened up. “And how? Aren’t there background checks? Did no one notice you look exactly like me?”
She arched a brow and gave me a look that could curdle milk. “That doesn’t matter.”
“It kind of does—”
“Look,” she snapped, “I don’t have a lot of time, so shut up and listen. You’re going to be released soon. When you do—”
“How do you know I’m going to be—” I cut off, pursing my lips at the glare she sent my way. Did I look that scary when I glared?
“The master is out of favors,” she said. “He’s been using Thomas’ connections to keep you in here, but with the golden boy in prison, those favors are running thin. The Inquisitors can’t keep you here without cause. Plus, if it gets out to the public that the Council has allowed a ‘magicless’ mage to remain imprisoned without any evidence of wrongdoing, it’s going to be a political nightmare.”
My mind swam with all this new information. For the past month, the most work my brain did was keep track of the time of day. Now, I had a whole slew of things to process.
Nicholas — I cringed at the fact that my sister called him master — was the reason I’d been kept here for so long. Sure, his hold was slipping, but that this had been allowed to pass spoke volumes. So much for justice.
At least it explained some things, though I still wasn’t sure what the hold up was. Yes, Thomas had been a member of the Council of Magic, and it was true he had some powerful connections, but was his tarnished name really enough to stand against the Pierce family? They were essentially magical royalty. How had Adam and his father let things drag on for so long?
“What have the Pierces been doing?” Doubt and insecurity tumbled out with my words, making them sound meek and fearful. It made me want to bash my head against the glass. “Don’t they have influence in the same circles?”
“I don’t know.” She ground out the words as if they caused her physical pain. “I only hear what the master tells me.”
“Is that how the Inquisitors found out about me in the first place? Nicholas told them?”
Diana pursed her lips and nodded. “When Gadot cut off contact, the master thought he’d gone off the grid for a few days. He’d done it before — vanished without a trace to cause havoc. It didn’t matter so long as he did his part.”
“Summoning Trixie,” I said, thinking back to Nicholas’ plan.
Trixie was a powerful fairy — so powerful the other fairies had compared her to a god and fought in a bloody war to seal her away. Nicholas wanted to summon her and other powerful beings like her to help him conquer the world. They would subjugate the planet and make us all bow at their feet. Though according to Gadot, that was just the first stage. Gods — or god-like beings — were never fond of sharing the limelight. He told us that they planned on turning on each other after conquering us, fighting until there was only one true ruler left. It sounded like your typical evil villain taking over the world crap, but even thinking about the death toll such a plan would bring — not to mention the consequences should it succeed — was enough to freeze me down to my core.
“They’re connected,” Diana continued. “A spell. I don’t know which, but it allows the master to keep track of those he’s brought into this world. When he felt his connection to Gadot snap, he knew the Emperor of Earth had been defeated — and he knew it had to be you.”
“He knew?” I said flatly. “Like what? With his bad guy psychic powers?”
If there hadn’t been impenetrable glass between us, I got the feeling she’d have reached over and smacked me across the head. “First, the Pyrenees, then the ritual for Seraphine. He doesn’t need to be psychic to possess basic pattern recognition.”
“At least you didn’t say it was because bad things come in threes.”
“He had it confirmed, of course,” she said tersely, ignoring my smart mouth. “You may be able to stay off the radar with ease, but Adam Pierce does not. The master recognized him during Seraphine’s awakening and has made it a point to keep track of his movements. The tabloids did most of the work after that. Rumors of the Pierce heir taking his girlfriend on a European honeymoon—”
“It wasn’t a honeymoon.”
She raised a brow at my interruption. “I don’t care.”
“Well,” I stammered, unable to think of a snappy comeback. “How did he know to send Inquisitors to Mr. Pierce’s home? I was… wasn’t anywhere near there when Gadot was killed.”
I bit my lip and mentally kicked myself. I’d almost revealed Bane’s existence. Considering he lived deep inside a dragon sanctuary, it was safe to say Bane didn’t want anyone to know about him. That, and the fact that he constantly mentioned not wanting anyone to know about him — that was probably the bigger clue. Diana might be my twin, but she did work for the enemy, which added another layer to my already shaky cake of questions.
“And how did Nicholas know Gadot died? I thought you said he’d gone off the radar. Doesn’t that mean Nicholas’ spell shouldn’t have been able to sense him at all? And why are you telling me all of this? Why should I trust you?” The last question came out harsher than I intended, and we both winced at my words. “I…. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Yes, you did,” she said cooly, her gaze fixed firmly over my right shoulder. “Wherever Gadot went to summon Trixie—”
“He wasn’t given a specific location?”
“He was given a target: the woman who discovered the Wreath of Narcissus. Where he performed the ritual after retrieving the Wreath was up to him.”
&nb
sp; My body tensed as I thought of Charlotte. It didn’t seem like Nicholas knew of her true identity, but I couldn’t be sure. “Was he supposed to kill her?”
“He was supposed to retrieve the Wreath in whatever manner he wished. The master cares about results, not method. What happened to the doctor afterwards was not his concern.” Diana tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and cast the guards a furtive look. “As I was saying, death negates the spell. When the master felt the spell vanish, he knew what had transpired. He traced Adam Pierce’s movements. Since one of his last known locations was in Quincy Fields, where Liam Pierce lives, I assume the Inquisitors went there to consult with him.”
My mind swam with ideas, but the thought of finally getting out of here took over — along with a bone-chilling thought.
“Does he know I’m going to be released? Is that how you know? Is he planning to do something when I’m free?” My eyes widened as dark futures played themselves out before me. “My friends—”
“Are in Santa Fae,” she said cooly. “The master won’t risk such overt action in one of our world’s biggest cities. Too many VIPs.”
“Less than two months ago, I was being chased down the street by a gang of assassins,” I said dryly.
“Hired by Thomas Corbin.”
“Thomas didn’t hire you to attack Symeon, though, did he?”
Her lips twitched into a frown before fading back into her usual poker face. “No. After he learned of the assassins, the master thought it would be best if the situation was handled with a more delicate touch.”
“You destroyed his windows.”
“No, Adam Pierce did that — and you kicked down his front door.”
Right. And Diana had been invited in by pretending to be me. I’d forgotten. Awkward. “Well, you destroyed his furniture.”
“He wouldn’t give me what I wanted.”
I considered cracking wise about her comment, but decided not to poke the dragon. After all, I wasn’t fireproof anymore. The reminder had me slumping in my seat, all fight gone from my body. I’d get over it, right? This bout of depression brought on by such a profound loss. Those things got better, didn’t they?