Baker Thief

by Claudie Arseneault

  A glint caught Claude’s eyes, scintillating among the lilac trees below. He squinted, trying to figure out what reflected the moonlight in such a way, then dropped the vélocycle and stalked forward. His heart beat faster, a chill creeping up his spine.

  Ice, his instincts said, but his heart stubbornly refused. Why would there be ice in a park in the heat of summer? Livia could conjure ice, but she wouldn’t. Not with the dangerous climate surrounding witches and magic, not in the middle of Val-de-mer where the reactor exploded and killings started, not around a Soul Tree. Not unless she believed it absolutely necessary.

  Not unless she thought her life depended on it.

  Claude stopped at the end of the slope, his heart sinking. Ice patterns expanded from the park’s centre, climbing along the lilacs’ trunks to create crystalline structures around their leaves and flowers. The sight might have been enchanting if Claude hadn’t known who had provoked it and feared the reasons behind. He advanced under the trees, his throat so tight he thought he’d choke. Livia’s flash-freeze had covered the larch and created a deep fissure in its bark. If the tree died… They said quartiers lost their souls with their tree, and their prosperity declined through the years. The Quartier des Épinettes certainly had never recovered from their Soul Pine dying, though the reactor’s destructive explosion had much to do with that. How would people respond to another witch killing a Soul Tree? Claude forced the thoughts away; nothing he could do about it, and he needed to figure out what had happened to Livia.

  Her ice radius didn’t form a complete circle. It had stretched out from a central point—Livia—and around, but the shape slanted forward, as if reaching for a target. Claude’s gaze trailed the frozen cobblestone path until the ice came to an abrupt end. A perfect arc stopped it, into a clean edge unlike the usual fingers of frost normally extending out of Livia’s magic. Something or someone had stood there, blocking Livia’s attack.

  Claude stared at the demarcation, his body shaking and his legs turning to wool. Livia’s inner strength rivalled that of Val-de-mer’s best witches. Incredible raw power underlay her ice blasts, and it’d take someone with similar abilities to stop her. Who could have done that? Where was Livia now?

  He stumbled back until he bumped into a frozen bench and crumpled into it. This couldn’t be happening! What if he’d been on time? Could he have protected Livia or would he be gone with her? What was better: suffer through what came next together and escape it, or have a chance to rescue her from the outside? Guilt climbed up Claude’s throat. He’d called Livia to Val-de-mer, brought her into this mess, and now he’d failed her. Would Livia become Montrant’s next exocore? How long did he have? He couldn’t let it happen.

  Claude rubbed his face and gave himself several small slaps on the cheeks, hauling his spiralling thoughts back into more rational patterns. Livia wasn’t there to calm him, and he would have to stifle his feelings. No one but them, Zita, and Clémence knew they’d be here tonight. To think they had come to learn more about witches disappearing, and now Livia was gone! Had Clémence done this, or had ol also been captured? Claude shivered, the bench’s cold seeping through his pants and keeping even the summer heat at bay.

  Zita would know where to find Livia. She was a Seeker and could track down any witch in Val-de-mer. This wasn’t over. He had options still, and, the nine saints willing, he would get to the bottom of this. Dozens of souls imprisoned in exocores already relied on him for a solution. He needed to create one before his sister joined them.

  2 4 3

  By the time Claude reached the Vin-Coeur, a low panic had settled firmly in his mind. He almost tore the door right off its hinges to go faster, only to force himself to cool down and pick the lock. It felt wrong to do so without his mask—although, really, if he’d had time he would not have spent a single hour presenting as Claude tonight. The sooner he reached Zita, however, the sooner he could pursue Livia’s assailants. He needed to get a grip on what was happening before he even considered changing. He hurried down the stairs, withholding his magic through a difficult effort of willpower, and his heart squeezed as he passed the low doorway and remembered his twin’s gentle teasing. He would find her. He had to.

  Zita occupied the same table as last time, as promised. She spotted him immediately and rose with a grin. “Wow, Claude. I didn’t think I’d get news so fast. Is the meeting already over?”

  “They took her.”

  “What?” Zita then swore, and Claude cringed. Hopefully the nine saints wouldn’t hold it against her.

  “Livia. I got there late, and she had vanished. The park’s iced over and she was gone, Zita. Exactly like the witches we’re looking for!”

  “That’s…” Dismay replaced Zita’s initial confusion and she clasped the side of the table. “I-I don’t understand. Was Clémence there? Is ol all right?”

  “How should I know?” Why should he care, too? He didn’t have time, not now. “Please try to find her, Zita. Seek her out.”

  “Of course! We’ll be on their trail in no time, you’ll see.” Zita snapped her fingers with a grin, and her confidence soothed Claude’s panic. She closed her eyes—half to focus better, half for show, he knew—and for long minutes not a word passed between them. Zita’s smile slowly diminished, and a line barred her forehead. “I… I can’t find her. That’s not possible. Livia’s so powerful, I would never miss her particular aura!”

  “No…” Claude’s throat tightened, killing his voice. He had spun hundreds of questions in his mind as he rushed here, imagining every way this conversation could go. Yet now that he stood before Zita, nothing would come out. Fear and frustration clogged his mind, blocking all calm thoughts and swirling panicked lies. He would never find Livia, his brain whispered. It was all his fault—his fault for calling her, his fault for being late, his fault for stealing exocores or getting involved. Claude wrestled his strong urge to kick the nearby chair and instead pulled it back to sit down.

  “Here’s what I saw,” he said, surprised by his own sudden calm. He described the scene as he found it, his voice hollow as he related the ice covering trees and pavement alike. “Only one section was spared, cut off by a perfect arc. As if something had dissolved Livia’s ice midair.”

  Zita gasped. She’d just decided to sit down and jumped right back to her feet. “It wasn’t dissolved,” she said. “It was negated. That’s Clémence’s power. Ols magic is like… a void of magic, if that makes sense? It takes incredible strength to pierce through it. That means ol was there with Livia and still is: that’s why I can’t detect her! Maybe someone attacked them as they met, or—”

  “I don’t think so.” Claude’s throat had gone dry. Livia hadn’t been aiming her ice away from the negating circle, but towards it. Like an assault. “She was defending herself against whoever blocked her magic.”

  “N-no. Clémence wouldn’t…” Zita’s voice faltered, and she shook her head emphatically. “It doesn’t make any sense. Ol would never betray us. Clémence is a protector for this community, and without ol hundreds more would have died after the reactor meltdown. The negating power made our gathering spots impossible to find, allowing the community to go underground and become near invisible.”

  “So when we hid together in these bunkers…” Claude remembered large rooms with soft blue lights and a constant flow of witch families. Children cried, adults whispered, and fear permeated the air. Claude hadn’t understood their panic: so many of them wielded incredible powers, couldn’t they defend themselves? But not everyone would survive a fight, and every time a witch struck back, things became worse. So they had hid whenever they’d caught wind of a raid. “We had Clémence’s magic masking us?”

  “We still do.” Zita looked away, rubbing her forearm, strangely subdued. Claude’s friend could usually barely contain her energy, but the years following the meltdown had been particularly difficult for her. Militias had hired or coerced Seekers into hunting other witches. Most of her family had been approac
hed this way. Some, like her parents, had refused and died; those left behind found it harder to say no. Zita had never shared the details. She had sought refuge in Claude’s home and buried most of her grief away. Even now, years later, she preferred to skirt around the subject. “Clémence managed to infuse part of ols magic in crystalline stones. We keep one in every major underground witch gathering spot, just in case. The hunt might be over, but it’s better safe than sorry.”

  On that, at least, Claude agreed. Just because people no longer mobilized in public spaces to discuss how best to find and kill witches didn’t mean they weren’t actively looking for ways to do so—the exocores proved that well enough. Claude ran his fingers through his hair, further pulling strands out of his loose ponytail. Zita’s words only confirmed his impression Clémence was involved in this mess—after all, it seemed ol had devised a technique to hold ols magic in stones already, and what were exocores if not a more advanced version of this? But it didn’t make sense for someone so integrated in their community to suddenly betray it. Why would Clémence contribute to this massive and secret extermination of witches if ol had put so much energy protecting them in the past?

  “I need to talk to ol.” Claude pushed himself back to his feet and met Zita’s gaze. “Can you find Clémence again?”

  Zita crossed her arm. “Will you explain what’s going on if I do?”

  “Zita…” He didn’t have time to argue, or for lengthy tales. “Just tell me where to go. I need to hurry. Livia’s life could depend on it, and I have no idea how much time I have. Please.”

  She huffed. “You’re always keeping secrets from me. Don’t think I’ll let you off the hook if you don’t come back, but fine. I can find Clémence. Negating magic does leave a trace—a sort of void you can detect, if you’re careful enough. Ol lives in the Quartiers des Mélèzes and was still there when I searched for Livia earlier. I checked.”

  Back to their starting point, then. It made sense: Clémence wouldn’t want to carry Livia halfway across the city. “Good. And ol is stationary?”

  “Yes.” Zita leaned forward. “Let me come. I’ll tell you if ol moves.”

  “I can’t. I’ll sprint across Val-de-mer, and I can’t waste energy on strength to carry you.”

  Zita pouted, then reluctantly gave Claude a more precise location. At least the bakery was on his way back to the Quartiers des Mélèzes: if he was going to run recklessly across the city burning through his powers, he would rather have his mask on. Besides, he’d rarely felt like a man over the last two weeks, and that had intensified since Livia’s arrival. It would be a relief to have presentation match gender again.

  Zita had him promise twice that he wouldn’t attack Clémence unless absolutely necessary, and her anguish at the thought surprised him. He had expected Zita to encourage him to give Clémence what ol deserved, if it turned out ol had captured Livia, but instead she insisted not to. Claude suspected his friend’s care for ol went beyond the public figure, though he had no idea why, and no time to find out. He thanked Zita again, then hurried out of the underground pub.

  -8-

  COLLISION

  Claire slipped her black tights on, and the shaking in her hands diminished as the fabric encased her foot then leg. Her panic subsided as she pulled on the other half, then the short skirt going over it. Her heart still pounded, but the frenzied beat shifted into a more controlled cadence—an urgent demand to act rather than a confused run forward. She snatched the cloak out of the wardrobe, flung it around her shoulders, and grabbed her mask. This was her battle gear, and this short stop at the bakery helped refocus her energy and harden her resolve. No one got to hurt her sister. She turned her hair purple—a simple trick that had taken hours of practice to master, but which she loved—then tied her mask on and slipped into the night.

  On most outings, Claire climbed onto a nearby roof to survey the city first. Val-de-mer had an odd shape. The thick of it sprawled in a crescent around the ancient fortifications enclosing its heart and the richer quartiers, as if the dirty houses of the rabble were laying siege to its pristine manors. Yet on the left rose a second heart, beating far differently from the old families and newcomers residing inside the walls: the Quartier des Sorbiers, full of artists and revolutionaries, where alcohol was the least of illicit substances one could acquire. Claire had hung around it long before she had stolen exocores, freer to experiment with her genderfluidity there than anywhere else in Val-de-mer. Between the Quartier des Sorbiers’ hill and the fortifications’ cliff, the terrain dipped, reaching down to sea level. Several quartiers sprawled in that area, including her own, the Quartier des Bouleaux. From her little bakery’s roof, she’d watched the Pont’s slow construction at the end of the Tronc, Val-de-mer’s main avenue—first with fascination, then with increasing dread as her fears about exocores deepened.

  Claire skipped her usual climb tonight, sprinting out without even a vélocycle. She restrained her use of magic, trying not to burn through her small reserves. She had already expended too much getting to the initial rendezvous. She could clamber up rooftops without the extra boost, anyway. Still, each lost minute frayed her nerves. What was happening to Livia now? Was she scared? Defiant? Angry at Claire for being late? Her sister had room in her for all these emotions, and much more. She had to be frustrated to be without powers. The ice had always been a part of her, just within reach. Did she feel incomplete without it? And if having it blocked felt awful, Claire could only imagine what having it sucked out of you to make exocores would be like.

  The streets passed in a blur, small houses becoming two-storied properties and more tightly packed as she approached the wall. They flanked her, tall and menacing, as if threatening to fall upon her and block her path. Claire tried to push back against the impression, to convince herself it was only her brain playing tricks on her, that the city wasn’t out to stop her. Every corner she turned sent a rush of fear as she imagined someone—something, anything—hurtling into her, ruining her chance. She thanked the Saints when she reached the fortifications and avoided the gates: at this time of year, many enjoyed late night strolls, and this close to the Quartier des Mélèzes, she’d rather be seen by as few as possible. She slipped into an alleyway instead, close enough to the gates that the terrain hadn’t become a cliff yet.

  Claire climbed over the wall, muscles straining under the effort, her grip sometimes slippery on the friable stone. Exercise often created empty space in her mind, a refuge from the day’s anxiety. Perhaps that was why she always thought of her nights as less stressful than the bakery, despite the breaking into houses and thieving. She tried to reach this haven once more, to focus on the cold stone under her gloves, the gusts of wind hitting her full force as she left the buildings’ protection, the strain in her muscles… Maybe if her mind was otherwise occupied, it would discard her gnawing fears about Livia for a time. Slow down. Give her space to breathe and steady herself. But she couldn’t escape the haunting iced park, glittering in the moonlight, or the mound of exocores glowing red on her table at home—the awful fate of those witches now threatening her twin. It was too much, the dread reaching too deep to be so easily dismissed. With a sigh, Claire leaped back on the other side of the wall and dropped to the ground.

  She had never liked the manors around here, even before most of them became exocore-powered. It felt wrong for rich people to have claimed Val-de-mer’s heart, and she wished more of the intra muros city resembled the Quartiers des Érables, with its tiny boutiques, active street life, and mix of wealth levels. At least this quartier hadn’t been built by throwing down several houses to make room for conquerors the way the Quartier des Chênes had. The lawns didn’t sprawl as extensively, and the ornate manors stayed compact, mindful of the space they occupied. Here, the well-off had always lived and dominated others—a thin consolation, really. These houses were among the best protected of Val-de-mer. It had stressed her when stealing exocores, but tonight it made her downright queasy. Livia could
n’t afford her to be caught.

  She reached the general area indicated by Zita with a grim smile and leaned forward, spying into the street ahead. A few stragglers were enjoying a late-night stroll, the lamps overhead casting plenty of light on the cobblestone path. Elegant fences flanked the street, protecting lush gardens and fancy manors. Clémence’s place had brick walls, white columns, and large balconies on two floors. Good for breaking in, those. Zita had warned Claire she might have the precise location wrong, but considering the size of the building, she doubted it. All Claire needed now was to slip into the house unseen.

  She withdrew into the alley and reached for the nearest window ledge when quick footsteps echoed close behind. Way too close, she thought, and running.

  Firm hands grabbed Claire, yanked her back, and spun her to the ground. She hit the street hard, and the shock reverberated through her teeth and skull. Tears stung her eyes as her breath was knocked out, and she struggled to keep her wits about her. A knee jabbed into her back, holding her down, and the stench of alcohol washed over Claire as her assailant leaned forward.

  “I have you now.”

  Instant recognition flashed through Claire, and the wave of panic turned her voice into a squeal.

  “Adèle?”

  Several swear words danced around Claire’s mind, and she buried them with a pang of guilt even though none crossed her lips. She couldn’t deal with Adèle here and now, right in front of Clémence’s location. What if the commotion of an escape alerted ol? Claire gritted her teeth. What was Adèle even doing in this neighbourhood?

  “You’re mine now,” the policewoman grunted.

  Heat rose through Claire at the possessive tone. Three words and suddenly she was very aware of Adèle’s body over her, of powerful muscles holding her down and pressing her into the stone, and she hated herself for the immediate wave of desire. Smoking hot or not, this police officer would arrest Claire if she let her. Now was not the time for pinned-down fantasies about her cute morning customer! Adèle stood between Livia and her.