by G. K. Lund
“With our luck?” Loki remarked, and I sighed. He wasn’t wrong considering we’d been arrested and sentenced all in one night. We hadn’t even gotten a trial. We had gotten a chance, though. No matter what Loki said about it, I saw it as an opportunity to right my wrongs, and that was what I was going to do. And step one on that agenda? Get inside the building in front of me. I used the brass knocker, shaped like a roaring lion coiling around itself, to get the door open.
It was an odd clue, I had to admit. Loki and I had spent some time going over the papers Agaton had given us. It was mostly intelligence reports, with about half of the information blackened out, which was obviously super helpful. Most of it had to do with the storming of the Pyramid the day the Kin fell. The reports had made it abundantly clear to me that some Kin had escaped that day in the chaos, and the government had spent some time attempting to track them down afterward. One such agent had followed a lead to the Order of the Learned and the Reflective. Unless Agaton was holding back information from us, and the redacted information in the documents told me he was, that agent had not followed up on the case after his first visit. Why that was, was anyone’s guess. It could have been a dead-end. To us, it was somewhere to start.
We didn’t have to wait long either for the gate to be opened.
“Yes?” a dry voice sounded before the owner of it popped his head out. He looked to be in his forties, with dark hair and beard, and tan olive skin. We introduced ourselves and he opened the gate some more, revealing a uniform of sorts, a purple robe with silver ornaments sewn into the fabric. The last of the day’s sunlight reflected in the metallic material. It was clear that the order enjoyed being noticed. I would know having belonged to a group that dressed in stark red clothes all the time. I glanced down at the normal clothes I wore these days, blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and a dark well-fitted Barbour jacket. It was all toned down, comfortable and something I found suitable. And yet… some days it felt odd.
I shook those thoughts away, focused on the man at the gate, and introduced us to him. “We’re here on behalf of the government,” I began.
“What she means,” Loki interrupted, giving me an ill-concealed glare, “is that we’re private investigators and our, ahem, clients have sent us here on a rather delicate matter.”
“Uh?” the man uttered.
“What’s your name?” Loki asked instead of repeating himself.
“Helios Dekel, and you—”
I repeated our names for him.
“May we come in for a moment?” Loki asked. “I am sure an order named for the learned and the reflective sorts should be most willing to share information?”
“Uh…” repeated the reflective man. “Well, I suppose.”
Helios opened the gate for us and stepped back so we could pass. We entered a large open courtyard surrounded by a one-story building on three sides. The gate made up the fourth. It was a lovely spot, with benches surrounding a fountain with a prancing horse spitting water back into a pool. There were also benches under the portico that followed the shape of the house where people could sit in the shade when the sun was at its warmest. As we followed Helios though, I noticed there weren’t that many people about. In fact, the sandy ground that bore marks of old rake tracks had scattered leaves and twigs all over, like someone had forgotten the regular upkeep.
“Maybe you should think about putting all that Kin nonsense on the shelf for now?” Loki admonished, his voice hushed as we followed Helios across the courtyard.
“What nonsense?”
Loki didn’t hide his smirk. “The honesty bit. Truly, I didn’t even think any you kept to that.”
“Honesty? Oh, my—” I stopped myself. I had been rather honest at the gate. We didn’t exactly work for the government. Agaton had made that clear enough when he’d let us out of the Pyramid. They had no intention of helping us. We were on our own in this. Still, that kind of information would make it easier to get in through doors.
“Well,” I said when we walked around the fountain. Some water sprayed onto my arm even though I felt no wind in the enclosed space. “Of course you wouldn’t. You’re not exactly known for honesty, are you?”
“How would you know?”
“I researched you when you were having your grape-bath last night.” Researched might have been an exaggeration considering I’d only found a footnote in one of my father’s books, but Loki didn’t need to know that.
“Researched? Really?”
“Mm-hmm. Something about an eight-legged horse.”
“I did not give birth to a horse!”
I snorted. “Must have hurt.”
Loki put a hand on my shoulder to stop me and turn me toward him. “Tell me where, exactly, it would have come out?” He pointed emphatically at his crotch.
“Wow!” I held my hands up defensively, palms out. “Didn’t know I hit such a sore spot.”
“Don’t believe everything you read.” Loki drew breath in apparent indignation.
“And,” I went on, glad to have the upper hand for once, “I suppose the crown jewels would have been sore if—”
“Hey!” he held his index finger in front of my face. “I like you better when you act like a meek infant—”
“Ahem…”
We both turned to find Helios waiting for us under the shading roof, a door open behind him.
“Everything all right?” he asked us.
“Peachy,” I said and escaped Loki’s death glare, though not without a smirk aimed at him.
Helios brought us into an antechamber which was decorated with inlaid reliefs in the plastered white walls. The floor was tiled with orange and blue-colored stone and the furniture gilded and with burgundy fabric. It was all slightly overdone and tacky. There were paintings on the walls of demure-looking old fellas dressed in even more overdone robes than the one Helios wore, obviously the top brass in this shin-dig.
“So what, exactly, can I help you with?”
“Are you the leader of this establishment?” Loki asked at once. Judging by the clothes in the paintings, Helios was at a lower level.
“We were hoping to speak to a Dekel Chiron,” I said and then cocked my head, eying the man. “Huh. Is he any relation to you?” Though most of the citizens of Atlantis used a first name and a surname, the custom was not like it was Earthside. Surnames had become necessary a few centuries ago when the state needed to keep better tax records to separate people from one another. The custom, though, was for a person to take the first name of one of their parents as their surname. There were many with other kinds of surnames too, like my reluctant partner who’s parent was surely not named Loft, but it was a good guess when it came to Helios Dekel, who nodded at this question.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “He’s my father. But he’s not here.”
“Uh-huh.” Loki did not look like he believed the man. “And he’s the leader of this… what is this?”
“We are a collective of thinking minds, dedicating our lives to the great conundrums of existence. We live in peace here, offering our services and wisdom to—”
Loki waved him off. “Sounds awfully like a cult, doesn’t it?” he turned to me. “What do you think, Chastity?”
I rolled my eyes at the use of that name. I should probably not expect much more considering my taunt. He was, however, on to something. I couldn’t know for sure, of course, but the way Helios spoke sounded awfully familiar. So was the gleam in his eyes, like he was high on something other than drugs.
“Who are these we, you talk about?” I asked Helios. He was looking at Loki with narrowed eyes and a deep furrow between his dark brows. It looked like a mix of confusion and annoyance. That was pretty much my take on the guy too.
“We? We are the order of the Learned and the Reflective.”
“Yeah, I got that from your elaborate sign out front. What I mean is where are all the we’s?”
Loki must have agreed with this line of questioning because he crossed his arms and
stared at the other man.
“We have many duties as you can imagine—”
“Not really.”
“As you can imagine,” Helios repeated with a barely concealed look of anger directed at Loki, “we have many duties to fulfill every day. Our primary assignment is more of a, ah, spiritual kind to use such a crude word, but we must also eat and care for our accommodations. I’m sure you can understand.”
“Right,” Loki said. “And they’re all out working at this moment?”
I didn’t hear Helios’ response to that because a door opened up behind him. For a moment I glimpsed a high-ceilinged room through the opening. Maybe a hall? before I paid attention to the person coming into the antechamber. It was a woman, around thirty, with soft chestnut curls that framed a heart-shaped, familiar face. She was dressed in a hooded robe, much like Helios was, though hers was a drab light-yellow.
“Oh, my apologies,” she said to Helios when she realized there were visitors in there with him. “I came to clean.”
Helios gave her a long stare, but then nodded. “Go ahead, Stephene. There are no secrets in the order.”
The woman nodded and then retreated to the far wall and began dusting the gilded knickknacks placed around on shelves and tables. She looked like she paid no attention to us, but I knew better. For a brief second, I’d seen recognition in her eyes when she’d glanced at Loki and me. Her name, from what I knew, was Melleta, not Stephene. I’d known her for years as a member of the Red Kin, and now she was here of all places. Probably hiding. To my knowledge, no one had been ordered to join a new group as punishment. No, the only reason she was here under an assumed name, pretending not to know me, was that she had been avoiding the authorities under this very roof, probably since the Kin’s fall.
“We are following up on the research by a government agent.” Loki’s words drew me back to the conversation. “He was here about a year and a half ago. Asking interesting questions, I’m sure, about both the Red Kin and a gemstone. A Sapphire.”
Helios looked uncertain for a moment, not quite knowing where to put his hands. He settled for clasping them in front of him. He hadn’t expected this.
“I don’t think I recall that.”
“Really? You’d think that would have been the talk of the town here for days.”
Helios shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. The talk yes, if that had happened, but… it didn’t.”
“Hmmm. Too bad.”
“Yes, well. If that is all?”
“No,” I told him. “We are here to talk to your father. If it was kept quiet, I’m sure he, who is the leader, would have spoken to the agent.”
“My father isn’t here. He had some errands.”
“Errands? Your leader had errands?”
“Yes.”
“Uh-huh…” I eyed the door behind him. “And when will he be back?”
“Not in a few hours—uh, days.”
I smiled at him. “Right.” His little slip-up left little doubt. We could force our way into the inner parts of the building, of course. I’d seen enough to believe Loki was capable with the sword that was now strapped to his back. But, using force like that might get back to Agaton. No, I couldn’t risk that. We needed to do this quietly and correctly.
“Thank you for your time then,” Loki said. He must have come to the same conclusion. This was futile.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” Helios insisted.
Right.
“Why don’t you show them out, Stephene?” He asked the acolyte. The yellow robe screamed she was of a lower rank and would make it easy to spot her anywhere.
“Yes, Helios. Of course,” she said in a light, subdued voice, eyes downcast.
Loki and I bade Helios goodbye and followed her outside.
Loki leaned closer and whispered: “Know her?”
“Yes. From the Kin. She was high up. She was even Illustrious Guide’s favorite for a while. Wonder why she’s here?”
Loki shook his head at me. He seemed fairly exasperated before nodding sharply in the woman’s direction. She must have come outside through another door.
I swallowed hard. “Melleta?” I ventured, keeping my voice down. There was no one to be seen around there, but I didn’t want to out her should anyone try to listen.
The name had the desired effect, though. She stopped dead in her tracks and shot us a quick peek over her shoulder.
“It’s me, Emery. You remember me?”
I saw her shoulders visibly sag, before she turned fully and stared back behind us. I did the same, but Helios was nowhere to be seen.
“Quick! In here,” she whispered and waved in the direction she wanted us to follow. Her robes billowed behind her as she led us inside the building to the right of the gate. We entered a sizeable room with benches and tables, some with plates on them, others with books. It was a common room, I figured, and it appeared to have been left in a hurry.
Melleta whirled around to face us. “Emery! Why couldn’t you leave it alone?”
“I’m sorry. No one heard me, though. There’s no one here is there?”
She shook her head, a movement that made the hood of her robe fall back to reveal her hair properly. It was longer than I remembered, her curls flowing beneath her shoulders.
“They’re all gone. I heard what you asked Helios, but a gem is the least of our problems.”
“Is it here?” Loki asked. Melleta looked like she’d just now realized he was there. She didn’t know him.
“Not from what I’ve been told. Everyone here is so gossipy. If there’d been a valuable gem here, everyone would have known.”
“All the people who aren’t here anymore?” Loki asked.
“They’ve been disappearing.” Melleta bit her lower lip and shook her head. “If I could, I’d leave before it happens to me too.”
“Before what happens?”
She opened her mouth and shut it again, then thought differently. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to be here for that.”
“Then why are you?”
Melleta met my gaze. “You know why.”
“You’ve been hiding out here all this time?” I asked her. Two years in the order, avoiding the authorities? It was better than the alternative, I supposed. Melleta had been quite an active member of the Red Kin. Her punishment would have been severe.
“Yes. I heard you got banished,” she added.
“I’m back now.”
“Looking for a gem?”
“It’s a brand new type of punishment.”
“Hmm…” she looked dubious, like Del had last night.
“Does this gem sound familiar to you?” Loki pressed. “It’s a large Sapphire. Called the Glory of Avalon.”
“No, but…”
“Out with it!”
“It’s just that… there’s something wrong with the master. And with his son.”
It hurt to hear her call someone else master. I wondered if she truly meant it or if it was part of her new disguise.
“His Son? Helios?”
Melleta strained her neck, staring past us out the windows, but there was no one to be seen out there. I couldn’t hear a soul inside either. She seemed to settle on us being alone, or at least not overheard. “There something not quite right about the master.”
“You already said that,” Loki pointed out.
“Yes, but I don’t know what to make of it. He’s so greedy. There’s something he wants. And his son.”
“Melleta,” I interrupted. “You’re not making any sense.”
She looked at me then, eyes wide as she admitted it. “That’s because there’s magic about, Emery. And not the good kind.”
“Huh.” I nodded. “That was likely hard for her to admit. We’d been trained to detest magic and to overlook it. Now she claimed to be trapped by it.
“Ladies?” Loki said, his attention on something else. “It might not be magic as such.”
“What?” I follo
wed his line of sight and saw a man had entered through a door on the far side of the room. He was dressed in the same type of purple robe that Helios was, but it was even more extravagant with golden embroideries so plentiful and thick that they seemed to make the fabric stiff. Yet it was moving oddly around the bearded man. Almost like there was a faint breeze following him indoors. I shook my head. I had to be imagining things.
“By the Guide’s feet,” Melleta exclaimed, a hand to her throat. “That’s him.”
I recognized him then. The gray hair and beard, the dark eyes that resembled Helios’. Technically, it was Helios who resembled him come to think of it. But I’d seen this man’s image in one painting in the antechamber. This was Dekel Chiron, and he looked strangely void of any emotion while he stared at us. His eyes were wide open, but unlike Melleta’s they seemed, well, dead.
“Look at his feet,” Loki urged me when it was clear I wasn’t catching on. I did and saw, to my horror, an inch of nothingness under them. The man was not standing on the floor, but floating above it.
“Whaaat?” I looked to Loki for an answer.
In a slow and measured movement, he reached back for the hilt of his sword while he kept his eyes on me. “That, Chastity, is a ghost.”
Chapter Six
Loki drew his sword while his gaze moved from me to the apparition in the room.
“A ghost?”
“People don’t float like that.”
“All right, but—”
“It’s a ghost! Don’t regress into Kin teachings now.”
“Okay, fine.” I kept my eyes on the order’s leader too. Something was off about him, and not just the floating. His skin looked pale, his face gaunt. I noticed his lips were moving too, like he was talking in slow motion, but no sound came.
“Are ghosts… evil?” I asked, bracing for a sarcastic comment from Loki, but it was Melleta who answered.
“He made everyone disappear.” Her voice quivered, her lips too.