There was a knock on her door as she downed a couple of aspirin. It was Aurie.
"Hey, we need to talk," she said.
"I'm getting ready," yelled Pi. "Give me a few."
"I'll be out here."
Pi checked herself in the mirror over her dresser. She was a wreck. She thought she looked worse than she felt, which seemed impossible, considering that warmed-over garbage would have felt better.
She tongued a back molar that had come loose in the fight last night. The back of her hair had been singed off by a fireball. She threw a Yankees hat on and tucked her hair beneath. Channeling so much faez through her body had taken its toll.
After stopping the bleeding with a bandage—she was too tired for magic—and throwing on a pair of jeans and a Meatloaf T-shirt that she didn't care about if it got dirty, Pi joined her sister in their common area.
Aurie was waiting with a plate of falafel flatbread wraps with a spicy tahini sauce drizzled over the top.
"I thought you might want something to eat. Sounded like you were out pretty late."
"Oh, god, thank you," said Pi, hastily shoving one into her mouth, even before she'd taken the plate. "I didn't realize I was so hungry," she said between chews.
Pi recognized the wrapper. "Isn't this from the street vendor down on Merlin and Fifth?"
"I paid a kid to run for them."
While Pi devoured the falafel wraps, Aurie sat on the couch and watched with heavy eyes. Pi knew her sister had something important to say—it was why she'd brought the food first—but Pi was too hungry to care.
After wiping her mouth and chugging a mug of cool water, Pi collapsed back on the couch, rubbing her belly.
"I'd like to sleep for another week."
"Why don't you? You can't keep this up forever," said Aurie.
Too tired to argue voraciously, Pi instead doled her words out between stretching her stomach. "I'll keep it up as long as I must. You're kinda my only sister."
"That's why I'm worried about you," said Aurie. "Between the late-night battles and the faez exhaustion, one or the other, or maybe both, are going to kill you. You can't keep doing this."
Pi wasn't going to tell her sister how lucky she'd been to survive the previous night after that comment.
"Yet, I do."
"Pythia."
Pi scowled. "Don't try that mom shit with me. I know what I'm doing."
"I'm not saying that you don't, but there comes a point when you have to pull back, get some rest."
Pi knew there was something more going on. Like the time she'd taken her to a run-down industrial park for no reason, risking her life for a meaningless field trip. If there was anyone who needed rest, it was Aurie, who spent her days and nights buried in books, trying to delude herself that there was a way to fix Semyon.
"What gives?" said Pi. "I see you've got something to say. I'm too tired to guess what you want, so please just say it."
Aurie looked into her hands as if the answers were there. "I think you should take a break from the defense of Arcanium. It'd be best if you found another home for a while. Somewhere you can be safe."
"I'm safe here! Hell, I'm keeping you safe. That's what I want to do."
"Arcanium's not safe for you any longer, not after what you did to those mages."
There was no question in Pi's mind what Aurie was referring to. "I didn't mean to kill them. It was in self-defense. Remember, I had to see their bodies afterwards. I'll never forget that. Never."
Pi got up and faced the door, crossing her arms, flinching when the movement wakened the wound in her side. Every night when she went to sleep, no matter how tired, she saw their faces. It didn't matter what they were planning on doing to her, she'd still killed them.
Her sister spoke softly. "I know. I know. I'm sorry. I...I don't know what you're going through. I can't. But the way you're going isn't healthy. I love you, sis. I'm worried that you're pushing yourself not because of us, but because of them, that you're punishing yourself."
This line of thinking wasn't something Pi had thought of, but it was hard to deny it once Aurie had said it. Yet, to truly admit it would be to acknowledge what had happened.
"You're still asking me to leave."
"For your protection."
Pi spun around. "My protection? What about yours?"
"We'll figure it out."
"Figure it out? Professor Mali spends her time moping in the basement, the other teachers are just going through the motions. Do you wonder why we haven't had any alumni come to our rescue?"
Aurie blinked, looking a little stunned. "I'm sure they're too busy. They can't come running to our rescue every time there's a crisis."
"It's not that," said Pi. "The Cabal isn't pressing Arcanium in the Hundred Halls only. They're making sure no one dares to come here—legally, financially, whatever they can do. Coterie mages own a third of the damn Fortune 500 companies, it's not like they don't have the resources. Plus, everyone assumes that Semyon's time is done. That there's no way to save him."
"There is," said Aurie. "But it's going to take time."
"Time that Arcanium doesn't have. Which is why you need me."
"What I need is a live sister. One that hasn't gone so far over the line that she can't ever come back."
When Pi spun around to rebuke her sister, the wound in her side set off a fit of coughing, which was like getting stabbed again. After she was finished, her sister was by her side.
"You're hurt," said Aurie, trying to lift up the side of Pi's shirt.
"What does it matter? If I'm hurt I can't kill anyone else."
"That's not what I mean and you know it...Merlin's tits—you're a mess. Let me fix this," said Aurie.
Pi pulled away, catching a wounded glance from her sister. "It needs magical healing. I'll fix it when I'm rested."
Aurie clasped her hands in front of her. She was pensive with thoughts. "You don't need anyone, do you?"
"I need you alive, sis. Believe me." Pi searched around for a rag to wipe up the leaking blood, found a pile of napkins from Wizard Burgers, and dabbed the fluid away, repressing her grimaces. "I wish Semyon would have been a little more ruthless, then maybe we wouldn't be in this situation. At this point, the Halls are practically irrelevant. Once Semyon dies they'll reform it into something different. I wish I knew how it'd gotten so bad. I thought at one time the patrons of the first five were friends."
Aurie had sunk back onto the couch, hands in her lap. "If it was possible, do you think I could take over for him? I know I'm strong enough to survive without the Halls. He told me that I was strong enough to be a patron."
"Would you want to?" asked Pi, genuinely curious.
"No…maybe. Probably. I don't know. It would mean that Semyon would never come back. Since he's not awake, taking the link would kill him. I've argued that Mali take it, but she wants nothing of that path. I'm not sure I do either."
"It might be the time has ended for the Hundred Halls. Not everything lasts forever, and without Invictus, I'm not sure anyone can hold it together," said Pi with a shrug. "Once you're out of danger, I'm probably not staying around here. It's too much of a mess."
Rather than answer, Aurie noisily slurped from her soda.
"I wonder what happened," said Aurie. "Like you said, they'd been friends once, but no one has ever explained why they had a falling out."
"I can't imagine Bannon and Semyon hanging out, or Celesse and Priyanka. Maybe that's just a fiction that Invictus told people because it sounded nice. Anyway, power corrupts, and the rest of them are as wicked as they come."
"I'm not sure," said Aurie softly.
"I am. I loved the Halls when I was growing up, or I should say, I loved the idea of the Halls. Now that I'm here, my eyes are opened. It's a feudal system designed to keep people in line."
"A little organization is not a bad thing. Like you said, power corrupts, or have you forgotten about Liam already?"
Pi tapped on her head wit
h her forefinger. "How can I ever forget that?"
When her sister went back to staring at her with those big sad eyes, Pi said, "You really want me to leave, don't you?"
"Not forever," said Aurie. "Just until this blows over. It's not like I'm going to be in the Halls for the rest of my life. This is our fourth year, remember?"
"If you haven't forgotten, I'm kinda not a part of this school anymore."
"Is it getting any easier? You know, the fragments?" asked Aurie.
"It's still strange. The other day I was going to shave my legs, but I almost put the blade to my cheek. Or when I tried to go into the men's bathroom. Little things like that."
A moment of quiet passed between them. It was uneasy. They'd always been able to exist in each other's space without having to work at it, but it felt different, like they'd grown apart in the last year. Pi didn't know if it was the soul fragments or the march of time, but either way, it was real.
"You really want me to leave Arcanium?" asked Pi.
"No. I'll be worried sick while you're gone, but I think it's for the best," said Aurie.
Pi nodded, trying not to let her sister see how much it hurt. "Okay, I'll go, but only because you asked."
"Where will you go?" asked Aurie, biting her lower lip.
A hundred possibilities passed through Pi's mind. "Not sure yet. I won't leave the city, if that's what you're worried about. Not yet, anyway. I'll message you when I get there, wherever that is."
"Don't leave until you're healed."
"Yes, Mom."
Aurie cringed. "Sorry, I'm the worst."
"No, you're the best big sister anyone could have, even when you're a pain in the ass. In fact, it's probably because you're a pain in the ass that makes you so good."
"I'm not as great as you think," said Aurie. "I'm probably an idiot for telling you to leave Arcanium."
"I'm surprised actually. You won't be able to watch over me when I'm out there, keep me in line."
"That's what I'm afraid of," said Aurie without a trace of sarcasm.
Truthfully, that worried Pi, too. Her nightly battles had been getting pretty harrowing, and the fact that she'd killed five mages hadn't changed either. It was another reason she had to leave the city of sorcery—it was changing her and, she was worried, not for the better.
"I'll be fine," said Pi. "Maybe I'll lay low and stay out of trouble, you know, sort some things out in my head, figure out what I'm going to do with myself once this end of the Hundred Halls thing blows over."
Aurie gave her a reassuring smile, but neither of them believed it.
Chapter Eight
The request for a meeting had been a surprise. The message had come through Violet, who'd brokered the meeting, setting up the terms and ensuring Aurie's safety while she was out of Arcanium. The possibility of betrayal was more than zero, which left Aurie fidgeting in the back of the limousine on the way to the meeting location.
It wasn't just the meeting she had on her mind. Pi had left Arcanium a few days ago, which put a stone in Aurie's gut, leaving her to wonder if she'd made the right choice. She checked her cell phone to see if her sister had sent a message indicating where she'd ended up, but there was only an emoji heart from late last night indicating she was safe and alive, no location given.
Aurie hated the idea of not being able to watch over Pi. Even when Pi had been in Coterie, Aurie had at least understood that the structure of the Hall would keep her relatively safe. Though it wasn't her sister's physical safety that worried Aurie, but her emotional one. Pi'd always pushed the boundaries of what was right and possible, leading to unintended consequences.
Aurie adjusted her shirt, thinking about the wisdom of her own choice of attending a meeting at a Cabal Patron's request. The only reason she'd agreed, besides the condition of safe harbor, was that she thought there was still a chance to turn one of them to their side. The original patrons had been friends once, long ago when the school was still new. If there was any way to leverage that into an agreement that preserved Arcanium, she had to try.
The limousine dropped her off in the heart of the third ward, the high-end shopping district that made the Avenue des Champes Elysées in Paris jealous because you couldn't purchase the kind of enchanted garments that you could on the Avenue le Fay.
A few passersby wrinkled their foreheads in confusion when she appeared from the long black vehicle, as if they were expecting someone famous, not a twenty-something girl in jeans and a dark V-neck blouse. The only stylish adornment she'd allowed herself was a jade necklace that doubled as a fail-safe should the meeting not go as planned.
The Elysium had tinted white privacy windows that made it difficult to gaze upon them. The front of the business was unassuming, except for a model-looking woman in a tight flowery dress who opened the door for Aurie, avoiding eye contact as if she had not been given permission.
Inside, the scented air was a delight, not at all the cloud of perfume in the makeup areas that haunted the malls of the Midwest, the only experiences Aurie had with pampered boutiques, which was like comparing a shelter mutt with a prize-winning show dog. Aurie wasn't even quite sure what the Elysium was selling as there were no products displayed.
The blonde girl who had let Aurie into the Elysium indicated to follow her down the hallway. Through the first window, Aurie spied an older woman in a garish maroon dress, seated on a giant cushioned chair, drinking a bubbly orange liquid with blue streaks and having her feet rubbed by a chiseled shirtless man-hunk. She was giggling like a ten-year-old even though she had to be on the far side of sixty.
In the next room, a 1920s' flapper theme, a team of stylists fitted a rail-thin woman in a dress made of aluminum soda cans, cut and fashioned into links. The stylists buzzed around her like a cloud of gnats with tape measures and metal snips.
The next window had been tinted nearly black, so Aurie couldn't see through it, but a deep pulsing music that went into her gut throbbed against the glass. Between the beats, Aurie thought she heard screams or moaning, it was hard to tell which.
After the hallway of twenty rooms or so, Aurie got into an elevator with her blonde escort. There were more floors listed on the control panel than Aurie remembered from the outside of the building, and when the elevator went up, there was little shaking, and almost no press-on-the-shoulders feel of gravity while the numbers ticked across the brass plate. The door opened when the number seventeen lit up. Aurie's escort did not exit the elevator.
Aurie went out alone, steadying herself with a cleansing breath. Her heart was hammering, something she was going to have to get used to while she was in enemy territory.
The little octagonal room she'd stepped into had no door. For a brief moment, she had visions of being dropped into a pit, or gassed into unconsciousness without ever seeing the patron.
One of the eight panels surrounding her disappeared, and a man wearing a bulletproof vest stepped into the room with her. Mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes, but the Protector pin on his vest told her everything she had to know about him. He had a gun clip at his hip, and he kept his hand hovering over it as he circled her, examining every inch of her body through the sunglasses, presumably checking for enchantments.
He stopped at the bracelet on her wrist. "You'll have to take that off."
"It's only for protection."
"Take it off."
The command was given without a trace of wiggle room. Aurie sighed and unclasped it, handing it over. "I better get this back when I leave."
He made no indication this would be the case. He looked ready to let her through when he did a double take, focusing on the jade necklace. He ran his fingers across the chunks of jade, and her heart rate doubled in time.
"There's faez residue on this," he said. "What is it?"
"I don't know," she stammered. "It was a gift from a friend, maybe it's from when she made it."
The mirrored sunglasses hid his expression, except for a slight tightening of the forehead.
He was listening to instructions in an earpiece, Aurie realized. She feared he'd take the necklace, leaving her defenseless.
He took his thumbnail and scraped it across the chunks of jade, looking for hidden compartments, his frown deepening as he worked. Aurie tried to look impatient and put-upon, hoping the visual language of the elite might convince him to hurry his investigation.
When he slid his arms around her neck towards the clasp in back, Aurie said, "At the very least you could have eaten a mint before you stuck your face in mine."
He pulled his arms back after a few seconds and said to the air, "She's clean."
When she followed him into the next room, she didn't know if the jade necklace was still around her neck until she caught her reflection in a mirror in the short hallway, showing it was still there. He opened a door and beckoned her through.
Aurie had met Celesse D'Agastine on two separate occasions during her trial by magic. Pi had met her once, when she was making a delivery for Radoslav. Neither her experience nor the one relayed to her prepared her for meeting the patron of the Order of Honorable Alchemists on her home turf.
The facade Celesse had presented in the Court of Threes, like Malden, was not her true self—or at least the true self she'd become with magic. It was not uncommon for the wealthy to modify themselves, mold their features until they appeared youthful and beautiful. Celesse had taken this ideal to the extreme, with wide doe-eyes, golden hair, and features smoothed to silk, yet almost alien in their perfection, making it difficult to gaze upon her, as if she were a goddess.
Aurie was aware that the sweet perfume in the air had traces of alchemical agents, making her more susceptible to Celesse's looks. Pangs of lust echoed through her midsection, a strange, artificial feeling that Aurie was able to resist because of her allergic reaction to faez, a reaction she doubted Celesse would be aware of.
"Aurelia Silverthorne," said Celesse, leaning seductively against a high-backed divan in her sculpted white dress.
Aurie sensed the patron wasn't trying to seduce her directly, but lay the groundwork for a favorable negotiation.
Gathering of Shadows Page 7