by Sadie Moss
Panic flared, overtaking my pang of grief at the news of Rat’s death. Gerald was another loose end. At least he was safely ensconced in the lower levels of the palace, his presence unknown to anyone but me… I hoped.
I suddenly wished I’d made time to stop by and see him this morning, although it wouldn’t have done any good without the potion Marielle was brewing for us.
“Can you go any faster?” I asked the witch, nervous energy thrumming through my veins.
She whipped her head toward me and hissed like a snake, cracking the veneer of delicate refinement she’d worn since we arrived. The hand stirring the contents of the cauldron didn’t falter, but she held up her other hand toward us, palm out, as if trying to fend off any further interruptions.
I should’ve known better than to interfere with a witch while she was brewing, but my patience was so tapped out at this point it was practically non-existent. If Rat was dead, that meant he couldn’t tell us anything.
Which meant we needed Gerald more than ever.
So I glued my eyes to Marielle, trying to speed up her work by force of will alone, and groped blindly behind me. Large hands grabbed each of mine—Jae’s and Fenris’s—and squeezed tight as we all waited tensely.
Minutes passed, and the cauldron began to give off a faint coppery smell, almost like blood.
After several more minutes, a plume of white steam burst from it, hovering like a cloud for several seconds before quickly dissipating.
She had to be almost done. Right? I had no idea what the steps were for brewing a potion, and not knowing how close to the end of the process she was made me so twitchy I wanted to scream.
Finally, the rhythm of her hand slowed, and she withdrew the wooden spoon from the cauldron. Her voice grew louder, the words of her chant coming more clearly—not that I understood any of them. She held both hands over the cauldron, and light emanated from her palms. A sound like a thunderclap filled the room. Then there was silence.
Marielle snuffed the flame and stuck a long glass tube into the cauldron, stopping up the end of it with her thumb. When she withdrew it, a dark liquid filled the last several inches of the tube. She hovered it over a vial and released the liquid inside, then sealed it with a wooden stopper.
When she turned to face us, I was suddenly very glad she was a witch and not a mage. Her eyes flashed with ire. If she could’ve thrown a lightning bolt at us, I was sure she would have.
“Never,” she hissed, her red lips curling back from her teeth, “interrupt a witch while she is brewing!”
“Is it done?” I asked, too anxious to even pretend to apologize.
“It is.” She rolled her eyes in disgust, holding out her hand. “Two thousand dollars.”
My eyes bugged. My thoughts had been running in a dozen directions, but that number was high enough to get my attention. She’d said it wouldn’t be cheap, and we’d agreed to it, but I would bet anything she had tacked on an “annoyance” surcharge before tallying up the final bill.
Gerald’s life was only worth five hundred, a little voice whispered in my mind, making me cringe.
Gods, that was fucked up.
I had little hope this potion would restore the man’s mental capacities and wasn’t even sure what I’d do if it did. If his mind sharpened to the point where he recognized me, we’d have a whole new crisis on our hands. But I hoped getting memories out of him would at least help us find whoever stripped his magic.
“Corin?” I prompted.
He pulled a wad of bills from his back pocket and counted out the payment then handed it to Marielle. She grimaced as she took it. I was sure she wasn’t used to getting paid in wrinkled, grungy cash, but that was all my nest egg was made of.
She set the money on the workbench and held out the vial of potion. When I reached for it, her thin fingers closed around the bottle.
“Administer five drops into each ear of the affected party then question them. The more precise your questions, the better. In extreme cases of memory loss, they may not even be able to articulate a memory, but this potion will allow you to see them.”
The bony witch finally uncurled her fingers, and I snatched the potion out of her palm before she could close her fist again. I was so anxious to leave I didn’t even ask what she meant by “see them.”
When we burst out of the back and through the reception area, the woman behind the desk jumped and then scowled, but we were out the door before she could scold us. I took my usual seat in the middle, with Corin and Akio beside me this time, and Jae threw the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.
I clutched the vial in one hand and drummed nervously on my leg with the other, sort of wishing Fen had driven. As much as Jae seemed to like cars, he drove like a grandpa. My fingers beat out a staccato rhythm on my thigh until Akio’s hand reached over and covered mine, pinning it to my leg. I figured I must’ve been annoying him, but his strong fingers interlaced with my own, grasping my hand tightly.
That silent show of comfort made me feel oddly touched. When I glanced at the incubus, his gaze was focused out the window. I was sure if I mentioned the connection or thanked him for the support, he’d snatch his hand back in an instant. So I didn’t say anything, just squeezed his fingers and brushed my thumb across his.
When we pulled up to the palace, the sun hung low over the mountains, lighting up the sky with an orange glow. A fairy with long purple hair greeted us and took the keys from Jae.
Akio pushed his door open, keeping his grip on my hand as he tugged me from the car. We raced up the steps under the watchful eye of the guards stationed there.
I saw them eyeing Corin and hung back a second to let him catch up to me, wanting him right by my side so they knew he was under my protection. I doubted there was a person left in the palace who hadn’t heard about the Gifted woman and her bizarre consort of men.
I had to ask yet another guard for directions once we reached the large main entry hall. He looked a little hesitant but told me how to reach the holding cells on the lower level. As I turned to follow the route he laid out, I almost collided with Olene.
The Representative looked a bit flustered and was being trailed closely by two of my least favorite people in the world—Victor Kruger and Nicholas Constantine. Their words died when they saw me, but it looked like they’d been talking urgently about something. Maybe they’d resumed the argument from this morning.
“Lana.” Olene’s voice was smooth and calm, although the energy she gave off didn’t match it. “What are you doing here?”
I shifted my weight uneasily, palming the memory potion Marielle had given me. “I just wanted to see if any of Beatrice’s notes and things survived the explosion. I want to pick up her work where she left off.”
Olene’s eyes softened. She glanced at Nicholas, who was staring at Corin with open malice. “Nicholas. Victor. Come with me. We’ll talk.”
That seemed to wrench their attention away from our little group, and when Olene nodded at me and pivoted to continue on her way, they trailed after her.
As soon as they were out of sight, I made a beeline for the corridor the guard had pointed us to. We found a staircase lined with red carpet and walked down several flights; with each floor we descended, the stairs grew narrower, the ceilings lower, and the decor less ornate.
The holding cells were three stories below ground, down a bare hallway. A guard outside the door watched our approach with serious eyes, but I gestured imperiously as we drew up, and he opened the door for us.
The opulence of the palace above was entirely gone here. Instead of marble, the walls and floor were cement. The cellblock was long, lined on either side by small rooms fronted with metal bars and pulsing blue wards.
Many of the cells were empty, which I tried to see as a positive thing, though the skeptical voice in my head reminded me it was probably because most of the Blighted caught breaking laws were sentenced to death.
I scanned each cell as we passed, search
ing for Gerald’s large form.
Then I stopped.
Inside a cell toward the end of the block, a man in a beat-up tuxedo lay on a cot.
He was on his back, eyes open and unblinking. Still.
My stomach clenched. No. Fuck. No.
“You!” I yelled to the guard down the hall, and he turned around. “Open this! Now.”
After a brief hesitation, he loped quickly toward us and placed his hand on a pad by the door, disabling the ward. Then he unlocked the cell.
“Leave us,” I commanded, wondering for a moment when I’d gone from pretending to throw my weight around to actually throwing it around.
The guard complied, and I rushed into the cell, my four following close behind. Corin crouched next to the cot, and his fingers went to the man’s neck. His blue eyes were bright with worry when he looked up, delivering the news I knew was coming.
“He’s dead.”
Jae leaned over the body to brush Gerald’s eyes closed. His hand lingered over the once-Gifted man’s forehead. “Not for long. His body hasn’t even gone cold.”
Pity and revulsion filled me as I took in the man lying limply before me.
This was my fault.
If I hadn’t captured him and delivered him to my unknown employer, Gerald would still be alive. I had justified my actions with the thought that one fewer Gifted person in the world would make it a better place, but the reality wasn’t as clear-cut as that. Death didn’t seem to care whether someone had magic or not—when it came for them, it brought them low regardless.
Frustration, anger, and guilt roiled in my mind, and I wanted to hurl the memory potion Marielle had given me at the wall. But instead, I said thickly, “Turn his head.”
Jae glanced at me, his elegant brows furrowed. “What?”
“Just do it.”
I pulled the stopper on the bottle as I stepped up beside Jae. He tilted Gerald’s head to one side, and I poured in several drops of the potion.
“Lana, I don’t think—”
“I know. Fuck, I know! But we have to try.”
Jae looked like he wanted to say something else but held his tongue, turning Gerald’s head the other way. I poured in the remainder of the potion, and all five of us stepped back, as if afraid the witch’s brew would somehow reanimate Gerald’s corpse.
It didn’t.
For several long moments, it didn’t do anything.
Then a wisp of something like smoke drifted out of the man’s large, wide nose. My throat caught. Oh shit, was that breath?
The wisp of smoke rose above his head, twisting and writhing like a snake. It began to thicken into a small cloud, and hazy images flickered within it.
No, not breath. A memory.
“Gerald… how did you lose your magic? Who did this to you?” My voice shook so much it was almost unrecognizable.
A stream of images flashed in quick succession, too fast for me to register half of them. A large orb, glowing white. Long-fingered hands, reaching forward. Streaks of light flowing into the orb, making it pulse.
A face appeared for a split second, but it was gone before I could even determine whether it was male or female.
“Did you… plant the bomb at the palace?” I asked, forcing myself to speak above a whisper.
More hazy images flew by. A bomb, the nonmagical kind made with explosives and wires. Hallways in the palace, all empty. Why were they empty?
Then another face, this one definitely female, though blurry and out of focus. The face turned away, light brown hair pulled back, her head silhouetted by the palace rising before her.
“Gerald. Who killed you?”
An image of the inside of the cell we stood in now flickered within the smoke. Was that a figure outside the door? I stepped closer, but even as I leaned toward him, the wisps of smoke emanating from Gerald’s nostrils began to dissipate. The image within the swirling plumes flickered and died.
Nobody breathed as the smoke slowly wafted away, leaving only the too-still body lying on the low cot before us.
“Holy fuck,” Fen finally murmured. “I didn’t even know that kind of magic was possible.”
“Did it even help?” I swallowed, forcing down the bile rising in my throat. I wanted to get out of this room. “Everything was so indistinct. We didn’t get any real answers.”
“There was a man… and then a woman. Wasn’t there?” Corin’s words sounded hollow, as if he’d seen a ghost—one much less friendly than Ivy.
“That’s what I saw,” Akio confirmed, even his usually smooth voice rough.
“So it’s two people. Working together? Or unrelated? I mean, is it possible Gerald somehow had the shitty luck to be involved in some magic stealing scheme and a separate plan to attack the palace?”
“I don’t like coincidences.” Jae took a step closer to the body on the cot, green eyes serious as he gazed down at it. “Because in my experience, they usually aren’t.”
Running my tongue over dry lips, I tried to organize my jumbled thoughts. Maybe I shouldn’t have wasted the memory potion on a dead man. Marielle had warned us the memories might be fragmented and difficult to interpret. And that was when she’d thought our subject was alive. I could’ve saved it, given it to someone else who might know something.
The only problem was, Gerald had been our last lead to whoever had wanted Beatrice dead. Without him, I wasn’t quite sure where to pick up the trail.
“Come on,” I said dully, unable to keep my eyes from drifting to Gerald’s lifeless form one last time. “Let’s go.”
We stepped out of the small, bare room, and the door slammed shut behind us, the blue glow of the wards flaring back to life.
When we reached the end of the cellblock, I fixed the guard with a grim stare. “The man in the cell back there is dead. Killed recently. Who else has been down here?”
His eyes widened, and he scrubbed at his short-cropped brown hair, his large ears flushing.
“What? I... No one. No one but me for the past five hours.” The whites of his eyes showed even more as he realized how guilty that statement made him sound. “I didn’t kill him! I swear! His record said he was picked up on a pick-pocketing charge; he’s no one special. Maybe he just died! A lot of these Blighted, they’re—they’re weak. They’re not meant to live!”
Anger flared in me like a burst of fire.
Before I had a chance to reconsider the wisdom of my actions, my fist smashed into his face. A satisfying pain radiated through my knuckles, and a crack filled the air as his nose broke. The guard stumbled back, hitting the wall and sliding partway down it, blood spurting from his nose.
“Oh, fuck,” I heard Fenris murmur, but I couldn’t tell if he was horrified or impressed.
Shaking out my hand, I pushed the door open, heading back into the hall and up the stairs. The men unconsciously flanked me like always, and Jae shot a glance over his shoulder at me. “How’s your hand?”
“Fine. Did you believe him?”
“About not killing Gerald? Yes.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
No more words were spoken until we reached the main floor of the palace. As we crossed the wide expanse of the entry hall, Rain looked up in surprise. He’d been lingering by the door, speaking to a guard in low tones.
“Miss Lockwood.” His keen brown eyes darted to the blood smeared across the back of my hand, and he hesitated. “Was Ms. Arcand able to help you with your… problem?”
I gritted my teeth, my fist aching to lash out again—at someone, anyone. But Rain had tried to help me. It wasn’t his fault we got to Gerald too late.
“Yes. And… no. It didn’t really work, but her potion wasn’t the problem.”
“Ah.” His thin lips pulled down in a frown. “So you didn’t get the information you were after?”
I huffed out a breath. “No.”
The tall man dipped his head, the gray streaks in his brown hair looking almost silver in the light of the chandeliers above. �
�I’m sorry to hear that.” He glanced around us. The palace was clearing out as the evening wore on. “Well, I’ll do what I can to help you find another way. Go home and get some rest, Miss Lockwood. There’s always tomorrow.”
“Right,” I choked out, worry and bitter regret burning through me. “Tomorrow.”
Chapter 22
There’s always tomorrow.
Rain’s words echoed in my head as we drove back to Beatrice’s estate.
He’d meant to placate me with his reassurance, but it hadn’t worked. Because he was wrong. There wasn’t always tomorrow.
Not for Beatrice.
Not for Rat.
Not for Gerald.
“Tomorrow” was a politician’s way of saying “never,” I realized. People could waste entire lifetimes waiting on the promise of tomorrow. Beatrice had harbored a grave suspicion about someone in the very government she was a part of, but she’d kept that secret for years. Had she told herself every day that “tomorrow” she would do something?
The more I thought back on my conversations with her, the more certain I became that she knew full-well the government was corrupt, the Blighted were being oppressed, and the Touched were treated like second-class citizens. But even though it had bothered her, she’d never done anything about it. Only my arrival in her life, and the upheaval that followed, forced her out of her inertia.
I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. I wanted to act now.
The only problem was, I had no idea what to do.
When Jae pulled the car around and we all piled out in front of the large house, I closed my eyes for a moment, sucking in the cool, lilac-scented air. The aroma reminded me of Beatrice, and my heart ached. How could I miss her so deeply when I’d only known her less than a month? Then again, maybe our short time together was why I missed her so much. All I really had left of my grandmother were little fragments—bits and pieces of who she was. I could try to fit the pieces together, but I’d never be able to complete the picture now.