Dead Magic

by A. J. Maguire

  Winslow was surprised when Valeda didn't utter some sort of protest as he admitted them into his room. He had certainly grumbled about the small, creaky bed and lack of appropriate facilities. Down at the other end of the hall was a large, moldy bathing area meant to be shared by everyone on this floor. The one time he'd tried to use it, he'd been mortified by the mostly brown water that trickled out of the copper pipes. Even more startling was a slick, filmy substance ringing the tub. Winslow had forgone the necessary, opting for the more archaic basin and towel technique for washing.

  Closing the door behind them, Winslow hurried to the window at the east wall. He peered down both sides of the street and finally relaxed. If they had been followed, there was no sign of their pursuers.

  "Is this where you've been staying?" Valeda asked.

  She shouldn't have been able to see in the dark. He hadn't turned on the lights out of paranoia, wanting to check the street before alerting anyone to their presence, and his Talent-enhanced eyesight was good enough to negotiate the gloom. Valeda surveyed the room quietly, frowning at the shabby bed and splintered nightstand. She could see, and clearly. His Talent murmured to him, urging him closer to her, and he wondered if she realized she was using magic.

  Winslow forced himself to stay where he was. Leaning against the window frame, he crossed his arms over his chest and watched her. The past weeks had been a torture for him. Haunting her footsteps every day, he stayed true to his word and kept her safe, but he remained hidden in an attempt to understand their sudden attraction. It wasn't normal and he knew it.

  Regardless, he didn't want to be attracted to her. He wanted to keep Bryva's memory untainted. With Valeda nearby, Winslow couldn't summon Bryva's image to mind, couldn't catch the sound of her laugh or remember the lemony scent of her.

  "I was not here for pleasure," Winslow said, addressing Valeda's unspoken question. "I needed a room close enough to your apartment that I could hear you if you needed me. If there were a nicer hotel within range, trust me, I would have used it."

  Valeda blushed and looked away. She seemed hurt by the cold tone of his voice and he cursed himself as a cruel bastard. But he couldn't afford to be apologetic. She was an unwelcome complication in his life, an intolerable temptation, and if he wasn't careful, he might succumb to her.

  "I'm sorry it couldn't have been pleasanter for you," she said after a moment.

  Whether she'd meant it as a double meaning or not, Winslow's immediate thought was of her mouth. He looked at the thin, straight line of her lips and felt his magic tug him forward. Before he knew what he was doing, Winslow found himself a step away from her. She didn't withdraw, but he thought she might have if she'd known the images teasing at his mind. 'Pleasant', he thought, isn't the word for her. 'Alluring'-that's closer.

  "What news from Lady Delgora?" He summoned his voice at last and nodded down to the envelope in her hands.

  Valeda looked down and started to open the envelope. Inside were two greenish tickets. Winslow almost groaned. He really didn't want to get on another train. His mind still got caught on the memory of the accident from time to time. Mostly at night, when everything was dark and there was no distinguishing between his bed and the iron cocoon he'd been trapped in. But he knew a train ticket when he saw one.

  "There's no note," Valeda said.

  "I imagine Lady Delgora knows we are intelligent enough to get the message," Winslow said, returning to the window.

  "But how did she know you were with me?"

  Winslow moved to check the window again. It was fully dark outside but the glow of lamplight reflected off the snowy streets. The storm had abated some. It will still be a miserable walk to the train station, he thought. Glancing at Valeda's ragged coat, he sighed.

  "The Lady is very clever," he said, as he began unbuttoning his jacket. "Though I'm certain Dorian informed her of our whereabouts."

  "Oh." Valeda peered into the envelope again. "Does she always do things this way?"

  "That depends on the level of danger she's in. You'll notice that someone managed to track you down. They know you're involved with Delgora and desperately want information."

  Her frown deepened and she gave the tickets an accusatory glare. "My apartment was searched for this?"

  Shrugging his jacket off, he crossed back to her. "Obviously, they weren't aware of how innocuous the contents were. They would have been disappointed if they'd actually managed to get it."

  "What are they hoping to find?"

  Winslow smiled and wrapped the jacket around her shoulders. "And I thought you were the reporter here, Vee. A better question to ask is who 'they' are."

  She stiffened under his hands but he continued to fuss with the jacket. He pulled the collar up, feeling the heat of her skin near her collarbone. The jacket was too big for her. It swallowed her whole, its hem brushing the dirty floor and the shoulders bunching up near her ears. She looked small and shaken, as though his very nearness might undo her.

  "The only person who might link me to Lady Delgora is Montgomery Taven," she said.

  "Ambassador Taven?" Winslow frowned at the news. "Lady Orzebet's pet?"

  "He was at Delgora court when I arrived. To be truthful, he is the one who brought me to Lady Delgora's attention."

  Pivoting on his heel, Winslow moved to collect his travel bag from behind the dresser. There was nothing valuable in it, just a spare set of clothes, but his instincts warned him that they wouldn't be back here. Elsie had to know the danger she was in. Minne Orzebet truly hated the fact that Elsie and Dorian had wed.

  No, he thought, it's more than that.

  Lady Orzebet hated Dorian. He was a living, breathing reminder that her husband had loved Lady Jessamine Feverrette. Never mind that Rorant hadn't been married at the time, Minne would never forgive that infraction. Winslow had witnessed the way Dorian was treated in the Orzebet home. As a young man, he'd even helped Dorian fight off his half-brothers when things got particularly nasty.

  The fact that Dorian was now a Consort, when her own son had never managed to marry, must be driving Minne insane.

  Winslow thought of the abduction attempt and fear knotted in his chest. Minne Orzebet was just crazy enough, just angry enough, to be lethal. Curling his fingers into the rough fabric of his travel bag, he looked back to Valeda.

  "What time does the train leave?"

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Dorian waited in his father's private sleeping box on the train with a growing sense of apprehension and annoyance. He hadn't needed to sneak into a meeting with his father in eight years and he truly disliked having to do so now. But the way Victor had held the gun on him, the fear he'd seen in the old Warder's face, alerted him to the need for discretion.

  Something had Lord Rorant Orzebet frightened enough to allow a weapon to be pointed at Dorian's head, and that concerned him considerably. Dorian could easily have avoided the bullet, but it was generally counted as bad form to level a weapon at someone.

  What bothered Dorian the most were the Remora fragments that had been shot at him. The whole abduction sequence kept replaying in his mind, nagging at him that he'd forgotten something important.

  Miss Quinlan was right. The Warders of Magnellum were the sole legal owners of Remora stones, which meant that either there was a leak inside the office, or the Warders themselves had tried to abduct him.

  Frowning, Dorian leaned into the corner of the train car and stared at the door. He wished his father would hurry up with dinner. The longer this took, the further away from Lorant he'd be when he'd have to jump off. He'd considered riding through to the next station and then taking a new train back, but there was a gnawing sense of unease in his gut about leaving Bartholomew alone.

  No, he thought. He wasn't really concerned about Bart's safety. Bart was among the more likeable men in Magnellum. No one would want to hurt him, not even if it meant getting to me.

  What he wanted was a few extra days preparing the manor house before Elsie's
arrival. Dorian was a target, but Elsie was the prize. And he'd be damned if she was hurt by anything he might have prevented.

  The door slid open and Rorant stepped inside. Upon spotting Dorian lounging in the corner, his father stopped and blinked, then quickly slid the door shut. The privacy shutter was already closed on the door and the outside window, but Rorant checked them both anyway.

  "If I'd known you were waiting I would have skipped the second marzipan," Rorant said and settled into the seat across from him.

  "It's less suspicious that you didn't."

  "True," Rorant said. After a moment of unbuttoning jacket, cuffs, and vest, he began stripping off his boots. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this clandestine meeting?"

  Dorian throttled down his annoyance. The sharp glint in his father's blue-grey eyes told him more than he wanted to know. Rorant was probing him, testing to see how much Dorian had managed to piece together. In that moment, Dorian knew what had bothered him about the abduction: the voices. Combined with the Remora stones, Dorian had little doubt who had ordered the attack on him.

  Still, Dorian couldn't figure out why Rorant had gone to so much trouble.

  "Either you're getting clumsy in your old age, Father, or you've been trying to catch my attention."

  Rorant's wide mouth twitched at the corners. "Have I?"

  "Give it up, Father. I know it was you. Victor has that distinctive half-drowned cat voice and you wouldn't allow Remora stones to be stolen from the office. Now what is this all about?"

  "Ironically, this is about a pair of Remora stones that have been stolen from me personally." Rorant pushed his boots under the seat and stripped off his outer coat. "But your confidence in me is quite heartening."

  Dorian leaned forward. "But you were the one who tried to kidnap me."

  "I am," Rorant said and tossed his coat into the luggage compartment. The train jostled but he was steady on his feet, preparing the sleeping car for the night and working around Dorian. "We knew Bart would try to step in, but we thought Winslow was Untalented now. Imagine our surprise when Winslow took chase."

  "Our surprise? Where were you?"

  Rorant grinned at him. "I was driving."

  "Fates alive! You nearly got us all killed!"

  "Well," his father paused as though remembering something, then shook his head, "that was not my most brilliant move. But the horses became unaccountably terrified when Winslow hopped on board."

  Rorant reached down and tugged on the seat, pulling it out until the headrest flattened down beside it. When Dorian left, Rorant would do the same with the second seat, creating a flat, semi-comfortable bed to sleep on. But Dorian wasn't leaving, not yet. Not until he found out what the blazes was going on.

  Sighing, Rorant sat down again, directly across from him, and leaned forward.

  "I suppose I did catch your attention," Rorant said ruefully. "I had only meant to make you put up your guard. There are . . . tensions . . . rising in the Houses."

  "There are always tensions rising in the Houses."

  "But there has not always been an ark on Delgora soil." Rorant frowned as he said it. "Dorian, I've seen pictures of this . . . this . . . monolith. What is it for?"

  Dorian paused. "Pictures?"

  He'd thought their security was rather good, but if the Warders had managed to get close enough to photograph the ark, then it was possible others had as well.

  "Don't look so troubled. I had Gremor take them," Rorant said. He winked and gave an unapologetic grin. "You didn't think your old manservant had just retired and gone away, did you?"

  Surprised, Dorian snorted a laugh. Gremor had visited Delgora a year ago, feigning interest in Elsie's health. At the time, Dorian had thought the old servant was checking up on them for Rorant and it appeared that he'd been right. He just hadn't realized how thorough Gremor had been.

  "But really, Dorian, what is it for?"

  Dorian debated for a moment. There was no real harm in telling his father the truth. The man held half the secrets of Magnellum in his briefcase and hadn't betrayed a confidence before. Still, Dorian didn't like discussing Elsie's secrets. She tended to get very cross with him when he did.

  At the same time, she had kept secrets from him; bringing in Valeda Quinlan, recruiting engineers of every sort just to build the ark. She functioned outside of their marriage and it seemed only fair that Dorian be allowed the same liberty. And there's the other issue, he thought, Winslow's tale of the Wild and where Fate came from. He knew his father had chased down heretics before, so there was a chance Rorant could disprove the whole story.

  "It's a sanctuary for the Untalented," he said at last. "For when the Wards fail."

  Rorant was very still for a moment. "And does Lady Elsie know the date when this will happen?"

  They stared hard at each other. Dorian knew what he was really asking. The tattoos on Elsie's arm were infamous among the Witch-Born. The last vestiges of life of Magic, the man-god, peppered her skin like gold. If the Council had their way, Elsie would have been locked up years ago. But they were equally afraid of her, so they had left her alone.

  "No," Dorian said. "But it is coming, Father."

  Frowning, Rorant leaned back in his seat. Dorian was struck for a moment by how old his father looked. Dark brown hair suddenly white at the temples, and there were deep lines around the corners of his eyes and mouth. Rorant Orzebet was not only aging, but getting tired, too. Dorian could hear the exhaustion in his own voice as he spoke next.

  "There's something else," Dorian said carefully. "About Winslow."

  Rorant raised an eyebrow and gestured for him to continue.

  "He says he met with a Wild creature near the tracks," Dorian said, choosing his words carefully. He didn't want Winslow targeted as a heretic, after all. And he didn't want that mother and child hunted down, either. "They told him Magnellum was created by Magic and Fate to protect the Untalented."

  Rorant nodded slowly. "That seems confirmed by several nursery rhymes."

  "That was my first thought as well," Dorian said. "But the creature also said that we all come from the Wild. They said Fate was a woman suffering from a curse and that Time has ended outside the Pillars."

  "And you're relating this to me because you want to know if any of the heretics followed such a teaching?"

  Dorian nodded.

  "No," Rorant said. "The heretics we chase are . . . violent. Most claim that, through killing, they can become Fate. There is no real doctrine they follow."

  Dorian frowned. He wasn't certain if he was relieved or dismayed by the news. It was difficult to think of those outside the Pillars as having been wronged by Fate. It was even more difficult to think of how close they were to failing their primary task. If Winslow was right, then the Witch-Born were literally made as guardians.

  "Dorian," Rorant asked with a frown. "What has happened to Winslow?"

  Dorian sighed. This trip was going to take longer than he'd planned. But he told his father everything he knew, every detail of Winslow's story, including the exact wording of Fayree's explanation of the Wild. He figured his father would have told him immediately if anyone was going to get burned as a heretic for it. And he felt better when he was done. Rorant always knew what to do, so he sat back and waited for advice.

  "Well that's new," Rorant said after a long moment. "It makes my warning seem silly, actually."

  "Warning?"

  "Saldorian, son, I know I cannot stop you from whatever you choose to do, but I must warn you." Rorant looked him full in the face before continuing. "You and Elsie must stay away from Winter Tournament."

  It was Dorian's turn to frown. "Fate might not be a Deity and you're worried about Winter Tournament?"

  "Listen, please. Your stepmother has been watching me very carefully. She and Lady Lorant have spent countless hours in private conference. They are planning something. Something that you don't want to happen."

  "Why don't you stop them?"

  "Dor
ian, I have no proof. I think Minne stole the Remora stones from me, but I can't be certain. And even if I were, there are no societal laws for me, the husband, to stand against a Witch."

  His father truly was in a pickle. No wonder he'd let Victor stave him off with a gun. The abduction had been a ruse to get him in private without his stepmother knowing. Lifting his fist to his mouth, Dorian closed his eyes and tried to think. He couldn't send a telegram to warn Elsie, they were too easily intercepted. He couldn't get back to her in time to stop her from coming, either. The only thing he could do was tighten the security around Delgora Manor in Lorant.

  Maybe we could relocate after she arrived, he thought.

  Sighing, Dorian opened his eyes to look at his father again. "How many stones are missing?"

  "Two."

  Of course, he thought. One for me, and one for Elsie.

  ***

  Elsie sat cross-legged on an old picnic blanket, frowning at Witch-Eater Lake. Just beside her, Mirabella munched contentedly on a honeyed biscuit, cooing her appreciation of the treat. Elsie was pleased the girl was enjoying herself, but was too wrapped up in what Fayree was explaining that she couldn't eat herself. In fact, Elsie was glad she was sitting down. With what Fayree told her about the Wild, she had a sinking suspicion she might have fallen over if she'd been standing. This was why Winslow had sent them here, to get her this information.

  She felt suddenly sick under the weight of it all.

  Why? she wondered. Why hadn't Magic told me? What else is he hiding from me? Is he running from this Host tree that Fayree described?

  It was possible that Magic wouldn't want to return, not after tasting the freedom of a corporeal form. She glanced at her gloved arm, hoping he would speak, but he didn't.

  "Where did the Pillars come from? Why was Magnellum created at all?" she asked.

  "People do not always react well in times of strife," Fayree said. She lowered her eyes and began picking at the hem of her gown. She looked altogether remorseful, as though the tale itself was too great a burden to bear. "You must understand that as long as Median was there, time kept moving. Several of our young lost their Talent completely. There was a . . . rebellion of sorts. It was led by a man named Voruke who believed the Untalented were a blight on society. He claimed that Median's sickness would continue to spread and suggested the only way to free us all was to kill her.