by Claire Luana
“Shut up!” Ella and Olivia shouted at the same time.
“I agree, mate,” Bran said. “Less talking, more cutting.”
“I can do both.” Ansel sulked under his breath but sawed harder. The bonds snapped free, and Ansel turned, working his way quickly through Bran’s.
The flames were licking the piles of papers now, which lapped up the fuel greedily. “Come on,” Lucas said under his breath. Not that he knew how they were going to get out of this. The Apricans had barred the doors—he had heard the leader give the order himself.
Bran’s hands came free, and Ansel handed him the dagger, unsheathing his own sword. They quickly freed their legs and raced to free the others.
When Lucas’s hands were free he threw an arm over his mouth, breathing through his shirt. Thick, black smoke filled the room, stinging his eyes and turning everything blurry.
“Where to?” Ella asked, breathless, clinging to Lucas. He put a protective arm around her.
“Up there!” Trick pointed to a stairway leading to the balcony. It wasn’t yet covered in flames. “Maybe we can get out on the roof.”
“Wait,” Olivia cried as Lucas took her hand, pulling her up. “Wren dropped something!”
“Leave it,” Lucas hollered, but Olivia broke free and scrambled across the floor, shying away from the flames licking towards her. She grabbed a little white pouch and ran back. “Go!”
The group pounded up the stairs, running through the burning building.
Sweat beaded on his brow. The heat was intense. Lucas’s instincts cried for him to run, to flee, to get out of this place.
Ella stumbled on the stairs and he was there beside her, pulling her to her feet. Tears were streaming down her face, from the smoke or fear, he didn’t know.
They summited the stairs and came onto a wide balcony. Offices lined the back wall of the warehouse, flames reflecting in their glass walls.
“Look.” Trick pointed. “A ladder to the roof.”
They ran for it, and Ansel scaled up the iron rungs, twisting the handle that opened the trapdoor up to the roof. It wouldn’t budge.
“Sower’s balls,” Bran swore.
“It’s stuck,” Ansel said. He leaned into the handle, his corded muscles straining, his face red from the effort. It didn’t budge.
Ella let out a little sob.
“No go,” Ansel said. “We need another way.”
They turned, fleeing back towards the stairwell, but it collapsed before them in a shower of sparks and crackling wood.
Lucas shied back, clinging to the balcony. He hissed, pulling his hand back. The metal was as hot as a stove.
Olivia was fumbling with the little pouch she had picked up.
“What are you doing?” Lucas cried as he spun around, his mind whirling, his eyes searching for an exit. Anything. Could they go out a window?
“Eat it.” Olivia shoved the pouch under his nose.
“Ain’t really time for a snack,” Ansel shouted over the roar of the flames, but Lucas ignored him, his eyes latching on to the contents. Chocolate. Completely melted—but still chocolate.
Lucas’s and Olivia’s eyes met, and they both dove in, scooping the molten chocolate out with their fingers, shoving the pieces into their mouth. Lucas shoved past her with sticky fingers—back to the ladder on the wall. To the trapdoor to freedom. They just needed a little luck.
He wrenched the handle, pulling with all its strength. And it moved. Slowly at first, just an inch. But then more. It moved, twisting in his grip, freeing itself. Lucas threw open the trapdoor, gasping in the fresh cool air that poured in from above. He scrambled out of the opening onto the roof, reaching down to help the others come through.
Ansel was the last one, and as he moved to climb up the stairs, the ladder gave way, the entire balcony they had been standing on collapsing with a groan.
Lucas shot his hand out and made contact with Ansel’s wrist, grasping the other man. The mercenary’s weight pulled at him, Lucas’s shoulder straining in its socket. Below Ansel—below both of them—was nothing but a sea of flames. “Hold...on...” Lucas grunted. “Bran!” he cried. Ansel’s wrist was slipping in his sweaty, chocolate-covered grip. For a moment—a flicker of time—Lucas thought Ansel was going to fall. That he couldn’t hold on. But the moment passed, and Bran was there on the other side of the opening, grabbing Ansel’s other wrist. Together, with gritted teeth and straining muscles, they pulled the man up onto the roof, all collapsing in a pile together.
“Come on.” Trick pulled Lucas to his feet. “This roof won’t hold much longer. Ella found a fire escape.”
Together, they fled down the rickety iron stairs, the sound and heat of the inferno radiating through the brick walls of the building.
Lucas could have kissed the ground when his feet touched it.
“We need to get out of here,” Trick said. “The fire department will be here soon. We don’t know whom they’re loyal to.”
“We can’t go back to Violena’s,” Ansel said.
“So where?” Lucas asked.
“The Guildhall?” Olivia offered.
“It hasn’t been long enough for the infusions to have worn off yet,” Trick said. “It’d be risky.”
Ansel exchanged a look with Bran. “I know a place. It’s been a few years, but if it’s still there...we’ll be safe.”
Lucas sighed. He hated trusting this man, but it seemed they had no choice. They were covered in ash, and all wanted fugitives. They needed to get off the streets. “Lead the way.”
The Wraithhouse turned out to be an abandoned warehouse full of dust and ghosts. It was easy enough for Ansel to break the padlock on the rusty doors and let them inside with an ominous creak. The interior wore a thick coating of dust that swirled up with their steps.
Olivia sneezed.
Ansel and Bran had strange looks in their eyes as they surveyed the place, the remnants left behind of a life lived: a bundle of worm-eaten clothing, a moldy blanket, some cans of food petrified on a little shelf below the window.
It struck Lucas, then, that Wren had lived here too. For two years of her life she had scraped and scrounged in this dark underbelly of the sparkling city he had grown up in. True, his childhood hadn’t been a dream. His constant terror of his father had seen to that. But this...it made him wonder if he would ever truly know Wren. All the way through. He watched the redhaired mercenary as he looked over the old building as if surveying his kingdom. Lucas wondered if he could ever know the part of her that Ansel did.
With little grace, Olivia collapsed onto the bottom stair of the staircase leading to the second level, a tear winding its way through the soot on her face. She buried her face in shaking hands. Trick went and sat by her, his hand on her back offering silent comfort.
Their escape had been a close thing. The adrenaline of the moment was leaving him now too. Now that they had achieved some semblance of safety, he felt empty and heavy all at the same time. He wanted nothing more than to curl up on the floor and go to sleep.
“Bran and I will see about getting’ us some food and water,” Ansel said, taking charge. At this moment, Lucas didn’t really care, and so he let him.
“The plan has changed, but our objective’s the same. Break into the palace, rescue Wren, Thom, and Callidus, and kill the emperor,” Ansel said.
Ella let out a harsh laugh. “Oh, is that all?”
“Ella—” Lucas started.
“Don’t Ella me, Lucas,” she said. “The plan was shit before, and it’s double shit now. We’ve lost the printing presses; we’ve lost Killian, so we’ve lost our diversion; and we’ve lost the chocolate. Except that little melted puddle we still have. I think the plan is pretty much in tatters.” Her voice rang in the stillness of the warehouse.
“So what would you have us do?” Trick stood. “Turn ourselves over to be executed? We have to do something.”
“I’m tired of doing something.” Ella closed her eyes, sighing. “Can’
t we just go back into exile? Live out our lives...on the beach or something?”
“We saw what would become of us,” Lucas said. “They found us. It’s not an option.”
“We just need to reform the plan,” Ansel said. “What’re our resources?”
Silence.
“Killian showed me the signal to start the attack by his people. The Falconer’s Gambit, he called it. So we could still use it as a diversion,” Lucas offered.
“The cart we took to the newspaper office had two crates of infused chocolates in it,” Bran said. “I doubt they noticed it on their way to kill us. We can go back and get them.”
“The infused foods should wear off in the next twelve hours,” Olivia said. “Maybe we can call on some of our old allies.”
“Olivia’s right,” Trick said. “There were people at my Guild who were with me once. With us. Maybe they can be again.”
“We still have my men, and Griff’s boats,” Ansel offered.
“You’re still with us?” Lucas asked, his eyes narrowing.
“We don’t get paid if we don’t get Callidus or Pike back,” Bran said.
“And I ain’t leaving Wren,” Ansel said. His voice lowered. “Not again.”
“So that’s the plan?” Ella asked, incredulous. “Blow some stuff up, run into the palace with a bunch of mercenaries, and hope that the Guilds will have woken up enough to back us?”
“It’s about as likely to succeed as the first plan,” Trick said.
“So not at all,” Ella retorted.
Olivia stood, staring down Ella. “At least we’d be doing something. I don’t know about you, princess, but I’d rather die fighting for my home than cowering any longer.”
Ella narrowed her eyes but didn’t take the bait. “You may get your chance,” was all she muttered.
Lucas let out a breath. Gods, his sister could be trying at times.
“When can you have your men to the palace?” Lucas asked.
“If Bran and I head back to the ship, we’ll haveta rendezvous at Dent Island. But most of the men could attack by sea, which is easier than getting’ all of ’em through the entire city unseen. So…by midnight tomorrow.”
So soon. Gods. “How do we know that you won’t just head back to the ships and leave us?” Lucas asked.
“Don’t ya trust me?” Ansel grinned wolfishly.
“Not particularly,” Lucas said.
His smile died on his lips. “Fine. If it settles your nerves, I’ll stay with ya. I’ll send Bran back. That work?” He turned to Bran, who nodded.
Lucas crossed his arms over his chest. “Have Bran send some of your men into the city. A dozen. To help us get into the palace if we have to fight our way in.”
“Very well, Your Highness,” Ansel said.
“Midnight tomorrow,” Olivia said. “I’ll see which of the Guilds I can talk to by then.”
Lucas rubbed his stubble-covered jaw, frowning at the smear of black that came off on his fingers. “So we have a plan. Tonight, let’s try to get some food in us and sleep. Maybe a change of clothes, if we can manage it. Tomorrow at midnight, we rescue the confectioners, and retake the palace.” Or die trying.
Chapter 41
Hale couldn’t refuse a summons from Daemastra, as much as he might have wished to. When the man called, he came.
He braced himself for what he knew he would see as he rounded the corner into Daemastra’s workshop, but even then, it was like a punch to the gut to see Guildmaster Pike strapped to the strange chair. He blew out a breath as he tried to school his features into some semblance of neutrality. He didn’t want Daemastra to know that he knew the man. That they’d once been considered allies, after a fashion.
Pike was unable to hide his surprise when Hale stepped into the room. “Hale?” he asked, looking shrewdly at Daemastra. No doubt performing the mental calculus, wondering if he could leverage Hale somehow to get himself out of this predicament. Hale wanted to tell him not to waste his time.
“How’d you get mixed up in all this?” Pike asked. Dark circles ringed his eyes; his voice was hoarse.
“It’s a long story,” Hale managed. Part of Hale didn’t want to know what secrets the man had spilled under the influence of the ice wine. The other part was desperate to grab the man by his shirt and shake him until he told. Had he given up Wren? The Imbris heirs? Had he given Daemastra the magic he needed to complete his formula? He stilled his hands at his side.
Daemastra smiled his tight-lipped smile. “You two know each other?”
“We’re acquainted,” Hale said.
Captain Ambrose appeared in the doorway, his uniform starched and perfect. “Sim Daemastra. A moment.”
Daemastra inclined his head and strode into the corridor to speak with Ambrose.
Hale wasted no time, hurrying across the room to Pike’s side. “Does he have Wren? Thom and Callidus?” he hissed at Pike.
Pike nodded wearily. “Probably. They sent men to round them up.”
Hale cursed under his breath.
“Your magic. Did you tell him of your magic?” Hale whispered.
“Not yet. He wanted to know the location of the others first, and then some soldier interrupted him. What does he want with me? With my magic?”
“Tell me what your Gifting is, and I’ll tell you,” Hale said.
Pike narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
Hale looked towards the door, his heart hammering. He still heard Daemastra’s and Ambrose’s voices in the hallway. “This is the room where you will die. And your bones will be ground into dust to power Daemastra’s twisted magic. He thinks your power will make infusions last forever. He thinks he can turn himself into a god. Tell me that’s not the case.”
Pike had gone pale. “Help me! Get me out of here!”
“I can’t even help myself,” Hale said. “We’re both doomed. But maybe...if you tell me, maybe I can stop him. Somehow.”
Pike hesitated, but then his head drooped. “I’m a cursed man anyway, without her. I suspect you know a thing or two about that.” Sable. Pike had loved her too.
Hale nodded. “This world...it’s a shadow without her.”
“Sometimes I want to stand at the edge of a cliff, just to feel something again. Something other than sorrow. Even if it’s fear. Or pain.”
“If you’re on the cliff, make it mean something. Tell me. Your Gift. Could it freeze time? Stop things?”
Pike shook his head. “No. My Gift speeds up time. It would make an infusion pass more quickly if there was truly some way to combine them.”
Hale blew out a breath. “Is there someone in your Guild who has the power to stop time?”
Pike glanced towards the hallway. “Yes,” he said, his voice low. “In the breast pocket of my jacket, there’s a vial. Get it.”
Hale reached inside the man’s velvet jacket, his fingers brushing several small vials.
“Which one?”
“The one with the black cork,” Pike said.
Hale peered into the darkness and pulled it out. A tiny vial with a black cork.
“That.” Pike nodded towards it. “That would do what the man wants. It is a member of my guild’s make. I’ve kept some with me, since I was stabbed. To...slow things down if I was ever wounded again.”
Hale pocketed the vial. “Lie,” Hale said. “Tell him what he wants to hear. That your Gift would extend the power of an infusion and make it permanent.”
“I can’t,” Pike said. “Even if I’m willing to sacrifice myself, I drank the ice wine. I can’t lie. But...” His eyes lit up. “Grab the other vial. With the white cork.”
Hale reached in his pocket again and pulled it out.
“It’s my infusion. It should speed things up. Make it wear off. Then I can lie and he won’t know.”
Hale pulled the stopper off and tilted it into Pike’s mouth.
Daemastra rounded the corner back into the room.
Hale straightened hastily, his hands flying behind
his back, corking the empty vial. He slid it into his pocket where Pike’s other tiny vial lay.
“Apologies we got interrupted,” Daemastra said. “Now, I’m sorry I had to change our deal on you, but we are living in unique times. Tales of the unique Gifting of the Spicer’s Guild have traveled as far as Aprica. I must ask, and it’s very important you tell the truth. What is the power of your Gift?”
Pike looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Why should I tell you a thing, you snake?”
Daemastra sighed. “Guildmaster Pike, we’ve been through this time and again. Resisting only wastes your time and mine. The ice wine is infallible. I ask you again. We’re in a bit of a time crunch, as Captain Ambrose just informed me. The city is beginning to wake up from its delicious infused dream, and I’d like this business to be resolved before they do.”
So that was what Ambrose was reporting. After the death of the baker, people were starting to get their minds back again. No wonder Daemastra was anxious to get his potion perfected—his Golden Guard formed. His own powers secured.
“What is your Gift, Guildmaster Pike?”
Pike’s dark eyes flicked to Hale’s, and Hale prayed that the contents of the vial had worked. He was as good as dead in Daemastra’s hands, even if Daemastra learned the truth that Pike wasn’t who he was looking for. But if he lied...Daemastra would think he had his final ingredient. And just maybe two doomed men could save them all.
Only in Maradis would a series of secret messages be arranged via coffee shop. When Killian had told him the secret signal to start the Falconer’s Gambit, Lucas had let out a startled bark of laughter. But Killian had been dead serious.
The bell tingled as Lucas opened the door to the Bitterbird Cafe, one of his favorite coffee shops. The shop where he’d first met with Wren what felt like an eternity ago. The proprietor was in the back, stacking chairs. “We’re closed,” he called without looking up. He was a thick man named Ruach, the second generation of his family to own this shop. He roasted the best coffee in Maradis, importing his coffee beans from lands to the east of even the Ferwich territories.