“Bria,” said Harper. “You’re in next.”
Liv stood in the doorway and beckoned me to follow her into the room. I drew in a breath, put on a smile, and did so.
The room she’d picked out resembled a small library or perhaps a rich person’s living room. Bookshelves lined one wall, while several plush armchairs filled the space within. I sank into one of them, trying my best to keep my expression neutral. Bored, even, and confident in not being caught. After all, she had nothing on me. I hadn’t started the flood, though if she’d seen me talking to Harper, that might cause her to assume we’d been working together. But I didn’t think she had. She was just naturally suspicious of me.
She asked me the questions I’d expected, like if I’d seen anything out of place during the trial or if I knew someone else who might be involved. Lying was easy enough, as long as I mixed in enough truths to round out my answers. She also seemed to think it’d been a deliberate act of sabotage aimed at the Death King.
“I assume whoever did it doesn’t know liches can’t drown, in that case,” I commented.
“Perhaps,” she said. “Or maybe they were trying to cover up another crime.”
“A conspiracy theory.” I gave a smile. “I like it. Is your job always this exciting?”
“I’m just here as head of security for the week, so I can’t speak to how it usually is. You might find it dull.”
I sincerely doubted so. Also, it surprised me that someone who clearly had little experience with the castle had been given a position of authority the way she had. I hadn’t seen any other spirit mages on the Death King’s staff. She wasn’t one of the Spirit Agents, I was sure, which implied she was either a rogue or new to magic entirely. Even more interesting.
“Steady work is hard to find,” I said. “Guess you probably know that, being a spirit mage. Work is hard to come by when people think you’ll set their place of business on fire. I imagine the threat of ripping someone’s soul out is a similar deterrent.”
A brief flash of panic tightened her face. Her tone, however, was calm. “You might say that. Do you know many other spirit mages, then?”
“Not personally,” I replied. “Ever heard of the Spirit Agents?”
“No…” She paused. “Who are they?”
So she doesn’t know. “They’re, like, vigilantes.”
“They are?” she said. “Whereabouts are they based?”
It was my turn to blink in surprise. “Well, if I knew, I wouldn’t broadcast it.”
If she wasn’t with the Spirit Agents, then who had sent her here? Unless she’d come in search of other spirit mages, but this didn’t strike me as the place to look. For living ones, not dead ones, anyway.
She wasn’t from Earth, was she? In most places on the other side of the nodes, spirit magic was punishable by death or at the very least a long jail sentence. In the UK, it was, anyway. Kind of odd, given that it’d been the Parallel which had suffered the most damage from the war, but the Order of the Elements hadn’t wanted to take any chances. A blanket ban had been unanimously agreed on, and that was that. Though it did explain why Liv had wanted to come here of all places, if she’d had to pick between here or death at the hands of the Order. Not much of a choice, really.
Whatever the case, if Liv didn’t know anything, I was wasting my time when I could be figuring out my next move. “Should I send the next person in?”
She barred my way when I tried to leave the room. “If I wanted to learn more about the Spirit Agents, who would I ask? I’m here working as the Death King’s security, and I need to know if there is any possibility these people might be a threat to the contest.”
Damn, she must be desperate. As much trouble as the Spirit Agents had caused me, however, I didn’t think they’d intended to harm anyone in the castle.
“Nah, they’re not here in Arcadia,” I told her. “I haven’t heard any mention of them since I arrived here. I reckon the vampires keep them away.”
“So you don’t know anyone I can talk to about rogue spirit mages who might target the contest?” she pressed on. “I don’t know how much you know about recent events…”
“Nothing, probably. I’ve been off the grid.” I should never have brought up the Spirit Agents to begin with, though it surprised me how little the Death King seemed to have told her. Maybe it shouldn’t have, considering what I’d heard from his Elemental Soldiers about him leaving them to hold the fort alone.
“A spirit mage attacked the contest yesterday but escaped through the node,” she explained “It’s why I reacted as I did when I found you.”
She means Miles. I stifled a laugh. Miles had been trying to divert her attention from me, not attack her, and she’d apparently invented a whole conspiracy theory from that. “That explains a lot. I don’t know about any spirit mages who might have reason to target the contest. It wasn’t one of them who flooded the place, I wouldn’t think.”
She gave a nod. “All right. That does help. I’m asking these questions because this is going to be a major issue for the person who wins the trials and becomes the next Fire Element, and they’re going to have to work with all of us to keep the Court of the Dead safe from outside attackers. Anything you can tell me, I’d be grateful.”
Hmm. She seemed sincere enough, but she’d willingly signed up to work with the King of the Dead. She must have some idea about what threats were likeliest to stand in our way.
“The Spirit Agents aren’t local, but if you want to know more about the local mage groups, I’d start out with the Houses of the Elements. There’ll be a branch in Arcadia, no doubt.”
She must know the Houses… though if she didn’t live here in the Parallel, maybe she didn’t. at least it’d take her attention off me.
Liv didn’t ask any more questions, so I left the room, hoping I hadn’t made a huge mistake in telling her anything at all. If the Death King had gone walkabout, that meant the only living people in the castle were right here in the hall, and unless the liches roamed the place without their master, most of the castle must be deserted. Including the storeroom. As I walked back to join the other contenders, I let my gaze drift in the direction of the room the Earth Element had vacated. Not only had he left the door unlocked, nobody else seemed to have noticed the place existed at all.
I returned to Harper’s side. “Hey. Can you make sure nobody looks in my direction for two minutes?”
“Sure. What’s the plan?”
“Someone left a door open,” I muttered. “I want to make sure nobody sees me go in.”
Harper rose to her feet and walked across the hall to the door leading into the main corridor. Then she opened it. Water surged into the hall, soaking everyone nearby.
“Idiot!” someone yelled.
“Sorry!” Harper said. “I thought we could leave.”
As the others looked in her direction, I darted into the storeroom and closed the door behind me.
Row after row of gleaming golden cantrips greeted me, so many that I could have sold the lot and bought myself a manor house. Half of them I didn’t even know the use for, while others would have cost me six months of hauling vampire chickens around for Striker to pay for.
I stared for a moment, taking it all in, then selected a few cantrips I might need. Invisibility would make getting into the other storeroom easier. There were unlocking spells, but nothing to disable an already active spell like the one wedged in the doorway of the other room, so I’d need to improvise. I didn’t know every cantrip—each one was marked with different symbols depending on its use—but some tools for carving spells lay on a separate shelf, and I picked up a couple of them, too. They’d come in handy if I found someone with the skills to use it on one of the blank cantrips I’d sneaked into my pocket.
I picked up my stolen contraband, stashing the cantrips carefully into my pockets so that they didn’t fall out and give the game away. Then I took out the invisibility spell first. When I flicked the switch on the side of
the coin, my body vanished from sight. I returned to the hall, still invisible. The clamour of the other contenders ensured nobody heard my footsteps, so I risked a wander closer to the hall of souls. The room appeared to be locked and bolted thoroughly, while despite the ruckus from among the contenders, the sprite hadn’t moved from his spot guarding the door. He floated in mid-air, a bored expression on his pointy little face.
He must have some secret skills if he’d been hired as a security guard, but I wouldn’t be getting through that door in a hurry. Instead, I went to hide my contraband and to prepare for my next move.
I trod quietly down the corridor, where the Water Element was using her magic to drive the floodwater away from the dorms. She was too close to the storeroom for me to risk sneaking over for a look, so I headed outside to find a quiet corner in which to check my stolen cantrips. After finding a spot out of sight of the windows, I withdrew each cantrip individually to examine them. I’d grabbed a handful at random near the end, and now I looked closer, some of them bore other markings aside from the runes which gave them their power. On the back, a familiar insignia marked the corner which made a chill race down my back.
It can’t be theirs. My family was nowhere near here. But why would the Death King have a cantrip with their mark carved into it? Maybe he’d taken them into his possession without knowing who’d created them. Or maybe… maybe he wasn’t who I thought he was.
My gaze travelled towards the node, where I spotted a transparent figure hovering there. Shawn.
I made sure to turn off the invisibility cantrip before going to speak to him. He gave me a nod, and we circled the castle to the back, out of sight of the windows—not that anyone was looking out of them. Even the liches had sensibly left the castle to avoid being caught in the flood.
“Did something happen in there?” he said.
“Another contender accidentally flooded the place,” I said. “Not me, but I did get the chance to have a look around and steal some cantrips from the Death King’s personal collection while they were distracted. Now I just need to wait for the Elemental Soldiers to clear out of the corridor and I’ll be able to get to the transporter from the storeroom.”
“Oh, good,” he said. “Have you learned anything useful so far?”
“The last Fire Element betrayed the Death King,” I said. “His people tried to cover it up, and they think he might come back and attack them.”
“Interesting.”
“You knew,” I surmised. “Right?”
“I figured as much,” he said. “From the note we found in his room, it sounds like he was communicating with someone outside of the castle. Most of the time, the Elemental Soldiers keep to themselves.”
“Well, now they’re having to dry out the place instead of watching the trials,” I said.
He laughed. “If someone wanted to get you the day off, then they succeeded.”
“Yeah, they did.” I doubted that was Harper’s intention, but I’d bet I wasn’t the only person out to take advantage. “Where’s Miles, anyway?”
“Why, did you want to talk to him?” His voice held a faint edge of annoyance.
“He promised to help me find Tay, that’s all,” I said. “Then again, so did you. Any news?”
“No,” he said. “It sounds like your ex-boss has run out of town, but when we eavesdropped on the authorities to figure out who they might have hauled in recently, we found no mention of a lone mage.”
“She’s a practitioner, not a mage.” Not officially, anyway.
Unless they’d found out about her gift.
He frowned. “Then why would you think the House of Fire had her?”
“They have… a history.” But it wasn’t my secret to share. “Striker’s a cowardly shit. When I have the transporter, I’ll go back and wring his neck. I’m sure he knows where she went.”
“Tell you what, once you have that thing back, you can come into Arcadia and meet us there,” he said. “We’ll figure out how to find your friend. The other Spirit Agents and I have made a temporary base inside the Citadel of the Elements.”
“Seriously?” I couldn’t think of a less likely place to meet up than one of the Parallel’s haunted towers, abandoned after the war three decades prior. “Weird choice of hideout.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said.
Hiding in plain sight. My kind of strategy. With the transporter in hand, I’d be able to leave the castle anytime I wanted to. Technically, I could use the cantrips I’d stolen to turn invisible and slip through the gates right now, but I wasn’t a hundred percent certain the liches wouldn’t be able to sense me anyway. Besides, I’d offered to help Harper, and even with my new cantrips at the ready, I needed backup if it turned out the House of Fire or worse had taken Tay captive.
“I’ve never been to Arcadia,” I told him. “Would I have to walk on foot? Because this swamp goes on for miles.”
“I’ll take you on a shortcut through the nodes,” he said. “I’ll meet you outside the gate at eleven tonight.”
Later than I’d like, but I’d have time to prepare and to help Harper so I could leave the castle with a clear conscience. “Sure.”
He nodded. “Just… be careful you don’t get caught.”
“Wasn’t planning to.” Not now I was so close to getting out.
This time, I’d leave on my own terms.
8
With the Elemental Soldiers prowling the corridors of the castle, it took me longer than intended to return to the hall. I made sure nobody was looking in my general direction before I turned off the invisibility cantrip and sat behind Harper.
She jumped. “Where’d you disappear to?”
“I’ll tell you later.” I casually slid the invisibility cantrip deeper into my pocket. “Did they mention what’s happening with the trials?”
“We have the rest of the day off.” She fidgeted. “But we have to stay here until the questioning is over.”
“That figures.” I dropped my voice. “The Elemental Soldiers are cleaning up near the storeroom anyway.”
The castle would be shut down for the rest of the day as they tried to get rid of the floodwater, so once they cleared out of the way, I wouldn’t have a better chance to get to the storeroom.
When the questioning finally ended, Harper and I went out into the grounds. We’d been given free run of the castle, with a promise of dire punishment if we went anywhere we weren’t supposed to. I led Harper to the distant corner behind the castle where I’d spoken to Shawn earlier.
“Go on.” Harper put on an expectant look. “Tell me where you went when you sneaked off.”
“I’ll tell you,” I said, “if you let me know how on earth you managed to smuggle a sprite in here without him being caught.”
“Through the node,” she responded. “Easy enough. Mav doesn’t have a body, so she can get through without setting off the security alarms or drawing attention the way she would if she flew through the gates. None of us can do the same.”
Unless you use a transporter. Too bad mine was still in the storeroom… for now. “Thought so. As for where I disappeared to, I may have taken a look in the Death King’s cantrip stores.”
Her eyes rounded. “Oh, so you don’t need to get into the storeroom, then?”
“I do, but I have this.” I revealed the carving tool I’d slipped into my pocket. “You don’t happen to know someone with any skill at carving cantrips, do you? Among the other contenders, you mean?”
“You have blank cantrips?”
“From the trial this morning.” I grinned. “If I can get someone to carve me a quick spell neutraliser, we can get into that storeroom.”
And then? I’d be on my way to freedom. Relatively speaking, anyway.
“Sledge might know someone who can do it.”
I pulled a face. “The guy can’t keep his mouth shut. He’d tell the other Elemental Soldiers if he thought it meant getting rid of the competition, besides.”
; “Fair point.” Her brow wrinkled. “I can try asking Muller. He’s not Sledge’s favourite person. He’ll be in the dorm. He might freak out if we both corner him at once, though.”
“Then I’ll wait here.” I stood within sight of the node behind the jail, which would enable me to see if Miles showed his face here. I wouldn’t have minded asking him to back up Shawn’s claims, but I’d doubtless be able to speak to both of them tonight.
Five minutes later, Muller accompanied Harper back to our meeting point, looking bemused.
“What d’you need a neutralising charm for?” he asked.
“Breaking into the storeroom where they put everything they confiscated from us when we came to the castle,” I said, deciding for an honest approach. “If you help us out, I can bring you anything you like that they put in there.”
His sceptical expression vanished. “If you get in, can you bring me my cantrips? They’re in a bag with my name on them.”
“Done.” I handed him the tool and one of the spare blank cantrips, and he got to work. Harper and I took it in turns keeping a lookout for any curious onlookers, but we’d chosen our spot well, around the back of the castle with nothing but an unbroken stretch of fence on the other side. Beyond, the swampland stretched out as far as the eye could see. The Death King’s domain. Not much of a Court, really, but the liches seemed to like it.
Within a couple of hours, the cantrip was done. A fair few of the other contenders had come into the grounds by now, but even if they figured out we were sneakily carving cantrips, they couldn’t possibly know my plan.
Cantrip in hand, Harper and I made our way to the castle and through the door at the back. I handed her an invisibility cantrip and switched on my own before peering into the corridor to check the coast was clear. The Elemental Soldiers had finally cleared out of the way, and while the corridor was still slightly damp, the path to the storeroom was wide open. Here we go.
Cage of Fire (Parallel Magic Book 1) Page 8