Her feelings for Jade were as complicated and exciting as a rocket ship. Whenever Jade touched her, her skin tingled with anticipation. Kissing was like soaring through the clouds on a magic carpet. Every time she pulled away, she almost felt like she was going to plummet to the ground, the difference was so severe.
But Jade was a little broken, and full of secrets. Pi wasn't naive enough to think that she should know all of Jade's inner desires, since she'd kept a lot from her in return, but the event that was driving Jade to hate the Hundred Halls so much seemed like something she should have told her by now.
Which made this visit even harder, because Pi had all but decided to break up with Jade and return to the city of Invictus. She'd been planning on telling Jade, even before the note.
After Pi had received a message from Aurie about the vote, and the lack of progress with the Engine, she knew it was over for Arcanium, which meant Pi didn't have a reason to hide in the Undercity any longer. Once she saw her sister, Pi planned to leave the city and find a new life somewhere else that wouldn't contain so much drama.
Pi rubbed her temples. She really didn't want to have this conversation with Jade. What she really wanted to do was tackle her into the bed, strip off her clothes, and spend the night drowning in kisses. But that was the easy way out.
Before she could lose her nerve, Pi banged on the door with her fist.
"Come in."
Pi pushed her way into the tiny apartment, which was little more than a bedroom with a cubby and a hotplate. Jade had the look of a doctor about to deliver bad news. There was a bottle of whiskey and two glasses on the table next to the bed.
"Planning on letting me down easy or hard?" asked Pi.
"Was it that obvious?"
"There were no little x's or o's at the end of the note, and it was about as personal as bulk mail."
Jade closed her eyes softly for a moment. "I'm sorry. I threw away the first three versions. I figured it was better to tell you in person."
"Do I get to know why?" asked Pi.
"Does it matter?"
Pi nodded. "It does."
Jade grabbed the bottle of whiskey, motioned for Pi to sit on the lime green folding chair across from the table, and poured both glasses brimming full.
They clinked their glasses, and Pi took a sip. The whiskey burned like lava on the way down.
"Oh, god, what is that? Turpentine?" asked Pi.
Jade had a sour look. "Is it bad? I'm not a whiskey drinker. But I asked Delilah for something to soothe a breakup."
"Break up," repeated Pi, taking another painful sip.
"You knew that's what I meant, right?"
Pi nodded. "Yeah, but saying it out loud made it more real."
"You're not mad, are you?"
Despite the roughness of the whiskey, Pi took another long draw, grimacing the whole way down. The drink warmed her middle and brought heat to her face. She felt a little dizzy and had to steady herself before answering.
"Yes," said Pi. "I think I am mad."
She was a little surprised that she'd just come out and said it, but maybe it was the whiskey talking.
"Why?" asked Jade, leaning forward, studying Pi intently.
"You were closed off to me," said Pi. "Whatever happened before that caused you to hate the Halls so much, that you won't tell bothers me. Maybe that's what really makes me mad, that I still don't know."
Jade nodded knowingly.
"What about you? Why?"
"Because you act like you know better for me," said Jade. "You tell me those things in bed, making me feel special, then treat me like I don't know what I'm doing when it comes to the Halls. I want to tell you about what happened, but I really wanted you to trust me without knowing. If we can't have that, then it's hard to have a real relationship."
Pi leaned back in the folding chair, which rocked on a bad leg. "This is the calmest breakup I've ever had. Either you've drugged me, or this is what being an adult means, reasoned discussions, not shoe throwing, screaming fights."
Jade held her glass out. "To being an adult."
"To being an adult."
Pi gulped the last of the whiskey and slammed the glass down on the table, rattling the ice. She'd have a headache later, but she didn't care.
Without asking, Jade poured another draught.
"So what will you do now?"
"Even before you invited me here, I was planning on leaving the city," said Pi, surprising herself with her honesty.
Jade raised an eyebrow. "What changed?"
"I got a message from my sister. The students in Arcanium are going to pledge themselves to Celesse. Arcanium is done, and the Halls will be controlled by the Cabal. I don't want to stay around to see what's going to happen."
Jade seemed genuinely shocked by the news. She poured more whiskey into her glass and took a drink, staring at it for a long moment.
"What about your sister?"
"She'll be alright. At least Celesse isn't so bad. Aurie's a great student. She can learn anywhere, and Celesse isn't about to throw away a resource like that. Aurie will come out on top, it'll just be under a different system than I'd hoped."
"I don't understand. Why would they do that? What's happened to Semyon Gray?" asked Jade.
The answer came easily to Pi's lips, because why hold back on the truth now? Pi explained what had happened, starting with the soul thief, leading to the Engine and Aurie's quest to fix him, and ending with the current situation. Jade listened with rapture.
"I had no idea your sister was so resourceful," said Jade.
"We both can be," replied Pi, a little miffed that Jade hadn't included her in the compliment.
"That's a lot to think about," said Jade, who seemed to vibrate with new thoughts.
The world swam around Pi. "Hmmm...maybe I shouldn't have drank so much. That stuff is strong."
"Would you like to stay the night?" asked Jade, tongue teasing the bottom of her teeth. "One last time?"
Heat bloomed into Pi's face. "Very much so."
Jade beckoned her over. Pi ran her fingers across the purple flowers on Jade's tattooed arm. "So pretty."
Jade cupped her face. "So are you."
The kiss was wet, and put water in Pi's knees. She wobbled, and Jade spun her around, pushing her onto the bed and climbing on top. Jade pinned Pi's hands above her head.
"Meeting you has been the best thing that ever happened to me," said Jade, right before she jammed her lips against Pi's, silencing the question that rose up in response.
Before long, Pi wasn't seeing anything but the inside of her eyelids. It was like falling into a delirious pool of warm milk, when time and space didn't have meaning anymore. She was, for all intents and purposes, not even a body, just a quivering thought at the end of Jade's fingernails, not caring what the empty alchemy flask that rolled out from under the bed had contained before she had arrived.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The result seemed a foregone conclusion to Aurie, even before the final vote had been cast. The bin sat next to the Biblioscribe, a repurposed letter box. Aurie had written on the blank sheet of paper: "ARCANIUM" in clear block letters so no one could misunderstand, not that Alchemists was a close homonym or anything. After she'd folded it in half and placed it into the slot, she'd caught the guilty glances of Isabella and Tristen, who were in line behind her. They looked away, shame staining their cheeks bright red.
But she didn't hate them for their decision. In fact, she found herself nervous, and twitchy, because there was one out left, if she was willing to take it, but it would either end in her death or come up short of the goal.
She hadn't slept all night. While the other students clustered in various areas of Arcanium, arguing about the decision placed in their path, Aurie had been chewing her fingernails, trying to decide if she was crazy, desperate, or both.
There was a bit of dislocation to her thoughts as well, because this kind of decision was something Pi would make. Normall
y, Aurie relied on the mechanism of structure to win the day, but with Semyon's incapacitation, the normal rules had been thrown out. There were no more adults left to make the hard decisions, or at least that's what she told herself.
After casting her vote, Aurie marched out of the library, right past Professor Chopra, who stared at her flatly. Only Deshawn had the courage to meet her gaze, which she assumed was only because he had voted to remain.
Aurie headed straight to Semyon's quarters. Professor Longakers was on sentry duty, wearing oversized headphones that he'd dug out of the 1970s. They were connected to his laptop through a squiggly wire.
"I'll stay and watch," said Aurie. "You can go vote now."
He set the headphones down gingerly. "We both know what the result is going to be."
"I know. But I think it's important that we vote, even if it's for the losing side. That way we can say we made the decision together," said Aurie.
Professor Longakers considered her words for a moment, before nodding in agreement. "Well said, Aurelia. I will go and vote then. You have the captain's chair."
As he left, the professor put his hand on the blanket over Semyon's foot and gave it a squeeze. Aurie could tell the professor was fighting back tears.
With the professor gone, Aurie approached the Temporal Engine. It hummed softly, almost respectfully, as if even the artifact knew that its duty was about to end, one way or another.
She hesitated with her hand over the runes. Once she performed the ritual, there was no going back. It was likely it wasn't even going to work. Based on their earlier experiments, they'd figured it would take eight years and four months on the current setting to fix Semyon. Since they hadn't tested the Engine on higher settings, they had no idea if increasing it would affect the transfer rate linearly or exponentially, or if it would just blow up.
"Only one way to find out," she said.
Aurie cleared her head. Once she increased the settings, things were going to get dicey fast. She performed the ritual smoothly, the runes lighting up as she touched them in the proper order.
When she swiped her finger across the length of the brass tube, bringing a warm glow to the room, and immediately setting the Engine to vibrate, Aurie felt strangely at peace.
"What did you do?" asked Deshawn, who'd just stumbled into the room. He was cupping his hands over his ears.
"Giving us a way out, I hope," said Aurie, squinting as the frequency increased. The whine was sharp, right at the edge of hearing. She wouldn't have long before she had to enter Semyon's memories.
"Go tell Professor Mali what I've done. Tell her I'm sorry, and I hope it works out," she said. "Also, when Celesse shows up, delay her for as long as you can, give me a chance to make this right."
"I don't understand," he said, grimacing. "What are you doing?"
"I can't explain, and even if I wanted to, there's not enough time," said Aurie, which made her laugh, because that was exactly what she was trying to do, create enough time.
"I don't know what you're talking about, but good luck with whatever it is you're about to do."
"Go on, Deshawn. I got this. I'll see you on the other side."
Her cryptic words seemed to worry him as he ran out of the room.
Aurie took a big breath as if she were about to dive into deep waters. She had no regrets, only a wish that she could see her sister one last time before she entered the Engine. And as if her thoughts had summoned her, Aurie realized someone else was standing in the room, someone in a magical leather jacket that Aurie knew so well. And then she heard a gun click.
Chapter Twenty-Three
From a foot away from Pi's left ear, a drum was beating in 2:4 time. It felt like a hippo had wandered into the room and plopped its buttocks on her head, because when she tried to sit up and figure out what was making the noise, she struggled to lift her head from the pillow.
"Oh, god, please make it stop."
Pi swiped her hand out, attempting to silence the drumming, and she impaled her hand on the corner of the bedside desk. She cradled it to her chest, contemplating an appropriate spell to annihilate the noise-maker that had invaded the room.
Eventually she opened one eye enough to ascertain that it was an alarm clock sitting on the table, the second hand ticking with a soldier's precision and a demolition expert's volume. Pi army-crawled over to the edge, reached out, and knocked the alarm clock onto the floor. This did not make the ticking go away, forcing Pi to continue her mission.
As she reached over the edge, gravity took hold and yanked her onto the floor, face-first. She landed in a back-bending pose that briefly looked like an advanced yoga technique until she collapsed, naked and injured, on the floor.
The offending alarm clock was next to her face, hammering at Pi's eardrums like a rock concert.
"You're an annoying little shit, aren't you?" she asked the alarm clock as she slapped around the edges, searching for the OFF button.
Around the time her palm turned the clock to snooze, Pi realized there were a pair of empty vials beneath the bed. Their existence brought into clarity that Pi felt way worse than a couple of glasses of whiskey, and that Jade was no longer in the apartment.
But she couldn't do anything with a Class A hangover stomp-kicking through her head. Using a spell that came from Ashley, Pi scrawled a faez-imbued rune into midair, then when the faint web of the spell collapsed around her skull, she pinched her fingers against her forehead, squeezing and tugging—the agony of the hangover condensed to that moment, bringing a low moan from the back of her throat—until a brown slug slipped from her knotted forehead. Once it was out, she flicked it onto the wall, where it made a sickening slap. The mucusy creation started crawling towards the door.
"That was unpleasant."
With her wits returned, Pi examined the two vials beneath the bed. Each had a smattering of liquid clinging to the glass. She uncorked them in turn, sniffing like a wine sommelier, and identified them as the same potions they'd given to Bree and Alton outside the Smoke & Amber to loosen their tongues.
"Merlin's tits. No wonder I couldn't keep my mouth shut last night."
But it didn't explain how Jade had slipped the potions into the whiskey drink, until Pi opened the small refrigerator in the corner, finding faint blue ice cubes in half the tray.
Upon further review, Pi found her magical leather jacket missing, which had, among other items, her old Arcanium pin.
Jade's interest in the happenings of Arcanium, and especially Semyon Gray, became dreadfully clear. Pi recovered her clothing, which had been scattered around the room like a bomb explosion.
During Pi's search, she came across a piece of paper with a phone number and red lipstick on the edge. The name on the paper read "Bree Bishop."
The pieces came together quickly for Pi. Bree had mentioned the Cabal had a way into Arcanium. After hearing about the creature Isabella had summoned during the Spring Formal, Pi had thought the danger past. But it appeared there was still another way, and Jade had slept with Bree to find out.
Pi couldn't decide which betrayal hurt more. Being used to get into Arcanium, or that Jade had been with Bree Bishop of all people. A red-tinged rage echoed through Pi's mind, a remnant of Bree's misdeeds against Ashley.
But Pi pushed those emotions away to concentrate on the next step: how would Jade get in? The Arcanium pin was like knowing a code, but not which door to enter. Pi searched the room for more clues to the method of entry, but only found a handful of dried kelp in the bottom of a candy tin.
"I'm a fool," said Pi as she hastily threw her clothes on, then she ran out the door. She had to get to Arcanium, but Jade had a head start and access to the Garden Network.
How could I have trusted her?
The knowledge that she'd been used made Pi feel like a lovesick preteen with a mad crush on a pop star. She'd ignored her gut feelings not to trust Jade, because she'd liked her. Jade had buried her past for a reason. Despite not knowing the truth, her goal
was clear enough: the end of the Hundred Halls. And Pi had given her the tools necessary to do the job.
Pi broke into a jog, heading towards the spiral staircase that led to the Goblin's Romp.
"Pi! Wait up!"
It was Bethany. She was wearing a dark hoodie and long jeans to hide her translucent skin.
"What are you doing in town?" asked Pi.
"I was looking for Jade."
Pi put her hand on Bethany's arm. "What's wrong?"
"I think she stole my bracelet. It was the only trinket I own. She was asking about it the other day, and now it's gone," said Bethany.
"What does it do?" asked Pi, squeezing Bethany's arm.
"It's nothing fancy. I was a terrible swimmer as a child, and my parents got it for me. If you get into trouble, it lets you breathe water for a few minutes. Long enough to survive until someone can rescue you."
The purpose of the dried kelp in the candy tin became clear to Pi. She knew how Jade was going to get into Arcanium, and it would take her right into Semyon's apartment. She was going to use the moat, which connected to the pool beneath the school. The creature in the water should be sufficient to protect that entrance, but clearly Jade had figured out a way past.
"What's wrong?" asked Bethany. "Did I say something?"
"No. But I know what Jade is doing now. She'd going to end the Hundred Halls, once and for all." Pi speared Bethany in her gaze. "Can you tell me why Jade hates the Halls so much? I need to know. This is important."
"I suppose it doesn't matter now," said Bethany, who was clearly working through Jade's betrayal. "There was someone she was close to that was a member of Coterie, a girlfriend maybe, but before my time. I don't know much, this is just from the little things that Jade said from time to time, but I think this someone was an assistant to the Coterie patron. I think. That's all I know."
"Is Jade Umbra even her real name?"
Bethany lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug while squinting as if her answer were pure speculation. "Probably? Considering her secretive nature. I mean, Umbra is pretty on the nose."
Pi felt like an idiot as soon as Bethany reminded her about Jade's last name. Umbra. Which meant shadow.
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