by S. L. Prater
They escorted her across the tracks, headed for the next landing and the platform which opened closer to the markets. If she wanted Hood Road, it’d be quicker to walk.
The demon blade vibrated in Marnie’s boot heel. The trains were coming. Their warning whistle bounced off the walls and rumbled the planks beneath her.
Marnie’s boot stopped, planted against the track metal.
“Oh God!” She jerked on her leg. “Jack, I’m stuck!”
He boosted the old woman onto the platform. “Is it your boot? Take it off,” he called over his shoulder.
The smell of damp and mildew strengthened around her. “It’s not my boot! It’s them—it!” The sound of the oncoming train thundered in her ears.
The demon blade warmed in her heel; she felt it through her sock.
The old woman cackled. She raised a middle finger at them and farted before vanishing into a brown cloud that smelled like rot. The cloud dropped a gritty dust and a rose gold armband onto the platform.
“Jack!” Marnie’s scream was half sob.
He sprinted to her. Bent at the waist, he pulled at her leg, straining. “You have to ride magic out of here! It can’t hold you if you transport.”
“I can’t, I can’t.” Her breaths hitched on short gasps. She couldn’t fill her lungs.
“You have to!”
“Stop yelling at me to do something I can’t!” She clawed at her ankle. Her foot would not budge. She felt her heel fusing tighter to the warmth there.
“Ride magic out right now, damnit!”
“Tell me one more time, Jack, and I will kick you in the teeth!” Her eyes widened on the lights, glowing and growing as the train rounded the bend, hurtling toward them. “Stop the train. Please, I need you to stop the train.”
“It’s all you, Marnie. Only you can get us out of here.”
“Get on the platform,” she whimpered.
Jack pulled her in close, her face squeezed between his palms, making her meet his eyes. His blue gaze was fierce. “I’m not going anywhere. Ride us out of here or you kill me too.” He shook her gently. “Marnie, magic is everywhere. Find it. Ride it.”
She held him close, her fingers digging into his forearms. “Magic is everywhere,” she chanted. Her eyes slid closed.
“Magic is always everywhere.”
There was something in the pain and panic, the gut-tightening fear of knowing there was no other way.
She could smell it. She felt it, like sand, tickling her skin. She closed her eyes tight, blocked out the sound of the trains barreling closer. Blocked out the sound of the blood pounding in her ears. When she opened her eyes, she could see the magic. Glittering ropes of it trailed every which way. She could hear it, a low ringing hum deep in her ears.
She grabbed fistfuls of Jack, pulling him flush against her, and briefly—in the space of a blink—in her mind’s eye they were children again. The tunnel was gone, and the trains were gone. They were in a barn, and the walls were burning.
Marnie could see the magic, like tendrils of flames. She wrapped them up in it and rode.
***
They materialized in Bran’s bedroom. Marnie collapsed. Jack caught her, pulling her upright.
“I’m f-freezing.” Jack’s teeth chattered.
In contrast, Marnie’s blood was boiling. His cool hands were an instant comfort. “Ugh. My skin is on fire.” Sweat stuck her clothing to her chest. She wrestled the tied knit sweater off her hips, throwing it onto the floor.
Jack blew breath into his clenched fists. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to transport quite so far.”
Marnie clung to him. “Agreed. This was the first place I thought of . . . My insides are churning.”
Jack made a mewling sound. His eyes squeezed shut. “Your voice is like a dagger in my skull. Don’t talk anymore. Just keep me warm.”
Marnie wrapped him up in a tight hug. She pressed her cheek to his icy chest. They stood that way forever, or what felt like forever.
Transporting had exhausted Marnie. She had ridden magic all the way back to the manor in the length of a heartbeat, back to her favorite room with its comforting autumn smells. It was the farthest she’d ever traveled. The only time she’d done so with any degree of control. Now, when she concentrated, looking for the magic, instead of bright gold bands, she saw a sleepy gray mist. Her knees were weak, as weak and as tired as the magic around her.
After her body returned to its normal temperature, she climbed under her favorite covers, her eyes heavy. Her muscles quivered and ached like she’d sprinted the entire way home on her own legs.
Jack smoothed the blankets over her, looking worn. He tucked them under her chin. Marnie wanted to sleep. She was exhausted, but her mind felt frazzled. To help them both relax, Jack read from a boring book about economics, something he picked up randomly from the floor. Marnie fell asleep to the sound of his voice droning on about supply and demand.
***
“Is that . . . ?” Marnie asked weakly, tying on her leather alchemy apron.
Jack nodded. “I think so.” He was in his shirtsleeves and wore torn trousers. His honey hair was disheveled and wet from a recent bath. It needed cutting, but he still wouldn’t let Marnie mess with it, saving the tresses for some experimental new spell.
They leaned together over the desk in Bran’s bedroom, staring at the strange tar-like substance which had appeared beside Marnie’s telescope while she worked.
“It can’t be.” Repeatedly pulling at her hair had knotted the coffee-colored curls. She pulled at it some more. Her dark blouse was smattered in chalk dust, fingertips stained in ink.
“It is,” Jack said. “That’s demon shit.”
Marnie pinched her nose shut. It smelled like sulfur and vomit. “How?”
“I have no idea.” His face was troubled. “But I’m keeping it.” He pulled a long vial out of his pocket—he always had several on him—and he scraped the muck into the glass with a pencil.
Marnie had turned Bran’s bedroom into her makeshift alchemical lab, packing the shelves with beakers, jars of ingredients, and various mortars and pestles in cast iron, glass, and wood—whichever her potions called for.
Stacks of notes and journals were in tall piles amongst a scattering of useful books. Several lay open on the carpets, dog-eared to specific pages for reference. The blackboards were stuffed with equations or small illustrations of new ideas Marnie had for future concoctions.
She abandoned the desk chair to rub clean the nearest blackboard with a towel—she’d lost the eraser ages ago. Marnie needed to start again to figure out the best way to replicate a potion designed to strengthen the bones of an elderly man whose hip had broken in a fall. Once it was replicated, he’d have enough to keep his bones from fracturing so easily, without the unfortunate side effect of losing several inches of height.
Jack leaned over the desk, blinking into her microscope. “Wow. What am I looking at?”
Marnie snorted. “Probably your own eyelashes.”
“Have you learned anything new?” Jack stared meaningfully at her boot and the demon knife tucked beside her ankle.
She pulled the blade out, hefting it. “Besides don’t ever cross a railway again . . . ? Nothing significant, only a few very minor things with my own witch senses. I can’t run useful tests with the knife stuck to me the way it is, but this”—she tapped on the gem—“this is made out of blood. Demon blood. I’m certain it’s too crowded in there and the presence of another essence would cause it to rupture. Of course, I’m also certain the rupture would hurt me greatly, seeing as it’s stubbornly attached to my limbs and full of demons who are eager to murder me.”
“My witch faculties are based around the sensation of touch. I wish you’d let me try—”
“Absolutely not! If it stuck to you or trapped us together . . . And what if its fusion to me plays a part in keeping them imprisoned? No. Keep your distance from it.” Marnie hooked her hands on her hips, feeling shaky and unsure of
herself. “I sent Brother Doyle a letter, asking for suggestions. His reply has not been helpful.”
“What did he suggest?”
“Prayer and fasting.”
Jack played with the lenses on her telescope, spinning them. “What’d you expect from a priest?”
“There’s so much I don’t understand about it. How did I create the crystal that holds them in the first place? How did I force the faceless demon from my mother? I sense it had something to do with your revealing spell, but then Sidra showed me what to do in Glint, and . . . I’m missing something. It makes me feel so lost.” Marnie bent low to tuck the knife back into her boot. Her arms trembled, and Jack’s eyes narrowed.
“Marnie, how long have you been fasting?”
“Um . . .” Her memories were hazy. She pushed her hair back out of her face. Her fingers caught in a knot, and her limbs felt weak. “When did we go running?”
“That was days ago!” he said. “Eat something. You look faint.”
“Ugh.” Marnie pulled at her hair. “This is all so pointless.”
Jack patted her arm. When she tried to push him away, he squeezed her shoulder. “It’s not pointless. You’ll feel better after you eat. Come on, let’s go raid Cook’s kitchen.”
Marnie’s tears surprised her. They popped from her eyes, forming little rivers down her cheeks. Her nose stung.
Jack released her, looking rattled. “Aw, don’t do that. Everything is fine.”
“Everything is not fine!” She kicked a book away from her foot. It clattered across the carpets. “I’m scared, Jack.”
“Marnie Becker,” he cooed. “You are cunning and brave. The best bricky witch I know. You wouldn’t be such a mess if you had slept better or eaten something recently, so knock this off right now.”
She wiped her face, choking down the urge to cry. “I can’t get rid of these demons. I’m making enemies everywhere I turn. The constabulary, the Cloth . . . and nothing has really changed.” Her vision blurred with more tears. “And I don’t feel like I’m getting any closer to what I truly want! I thought I’d be content securing an alchemy license alone but . . .”
“But what you truly want is . . .?”
“Bran!” she sobbed.
“Loads has changed.”
Marnie met his eyes, incredulous.
“Two maids asked me to help them the other day,” he said.
“The maids are terrified of you. They always have been.” She sniffled.
“The one, Madison, let me fix her shoe. Another, the blonde from Stejin, asked for my help with an unwanted gentleman caller who just wouldn’t take a hint.”
“Truly? And the blonde is Ann, Jack. You should know her name by now!”
He tweaked her nose and made her smile. “They let me use magic to do it. They didn’t even flinch.”
She stared off into space, briefly imagining an ideal world. “That’s . . . not a coincidence, is it?”
“Not a coincidence. The ‘hero witch’ is working. You’re changing the way they see us. Don’t tell Bran I said this, but his idea was . . . clever. And, because he chose you for the task, it might just work.”
Chapter 11
Jack entered the kitchens during breakfast cleanup, a newspaper in hand. He ignored the pile of dirty dishes and the bustling staffers who zoomed busily by.
“Heir of LaFontaine Estate named by emperor,” he read in a booming voice.
Leaning over the pump sink, Marnie snatched the paper from him. Her fingers were damp, dotting the newsprint with sudsy water. Her eyes skimmed quickly.
“Lady Annette Becker,” she gasped. “Philosophers continue to debate . . .”
Jack selected a banana from the bowl on the counter. He sniffed it. His honey hair was neater than usual, like he’d combed it that morning.
“Bran just made you an heiress. The wealthiest heiress in Loreley.” He cleaned the fruit on his shirt and peeled it, chuckling. “You have to stop hating the aristocracy now. You and your mother have just rejoined them.”
Marnie dried a hand on her apron. She paced in a tight circle, wringing the newspaper between her fingers. “Bran probably thinks this will solve everything.”
“It solves some things,” Jack argued, his mouth full of banana. “I’m still reading that, by the way. Stop crinkling it.”
“Don’t take Bran’s side in this. He downplays the danger.”
Jack jumped up and sat on the counter. His heavily muscled frame caused the wood to groan as he swung his bare feet. “He doesn’t downplay it. He simply doesn’t see it at all. You have to help him see it. Men in high castles don’t experience what you and I do regularly on the streets. Who could blame them for not understanding?”
Marnie flipped the paper open and read.
When questioned by sources, the emperor responded he wished to reward the person to whom he owed his life.
Law philosophers continue to debate the legality of this matter; however, precedent appears to favor the emperor. Madam Annette Becker of LaFontaine Manor was made eligible to inherit lands and title by her legal marriage to Master Romulus Becker. She is, therefore, eligible to inherit the LaFontaine Estate in full and will, in the near future, be referred to as Lady Becker of House LaFontaine upon the coronation of Lord Bran LaFontaine from acting emperor to crowned Lord of Loreley, Emperor of Kings.
“Does my mother know?”
“We make a point of avoiding each other unless absolutely necessary, so I wouldn’t be able to answer that.” He wiggled his bared toes at her.
***
Annette Becker knew.
“Lord Bran told me his plans himself,” she said. The madam tidied up the west wing drawing room in her best apron. Marnie tried to imagine her not wearing one after all this time, tried to imagine everyone calling her Lady Becker. Even when her father was alive, they lived in a rich town house in Silk District, not a manor. The servants did not call her ‘lady.’
It felt surreal.
“When did you speak with him?” Marnie asked.
“It wasn’t long ago.” Annette tapped her chin. “Let me think . . . he had stayed over unexpectedly. He’s having trouble sleeping at the palace, so he spent the night in his old room. Cook made him his favorite breakfast the next morning: roasted potatoes and runny eggs over toast. I told him I thought he’d lost weight and he’d better eat more or he’d have me to deal with. That made him chatty. Then he talked me through his plans.”
She balanced a silver tea set in need of polish on a tray, then stuffed the tray in Marnie’s arms.
“Did you try to talk him out of it?” She followed her mother out of the room, into the hall.
“Of course I did. Kitchen’s that way, dear.”
“Mother, please.” She stomped her foot, rattling the tea set. “I’m worried for him. You and I are not . . .” She struggled after the right words. “We aren’t the most loved in Loreley. What if the Beckers start up again? What if the Cloth thinks I bewitched him into this?”
Annette’s eyes softened. She patted Marnie’s cheek. “Mark my words, dear. The Beckers would not dare mess with me now, and the church will have to think twice too. We aren’t penniless and homeless anymore, and I don’t have a young daughter to worry about like I did then. My child has grown into the ‘hero witch’ before me, and I have the resources and the mind to fight back. Let them start up again. I’ll knock them on their asses like I did the crook Chambers. I think I’d even enjoy it. Wouldn’t you?”
Marnie had never heard Annette swear before. She hardly recognized the fierce woman before her. “Mother—”
“If you have more questions, talk to him yourself. Lord Bran sent a note. He will be here in a few hours to visit with you. It was supposed to be a surprise—apparently, he doesn’t think you’ll cooperate unless it’s a surprise—but I can’t let you receive the emperor looking like that, now can I? Run your tray to the kitchen and go do something with your hair. Lose the apron. Wear something colorful. Go on, q
uick as a bunny.”
***
Just after lunch, the front gates of LaFontaine Manor opened wide to receive a white carriage pulled by two shire horses. It drew a small crowd. A tabloid snapped pictures, and guardsmen in black flanked it on horseback. Marnie recognized the royal stagecoach with its silver trimmings and massive wheels, used primarily in parades and diplomatic situations to carry visiting kings and rich politicians from one place to another. It was decorated in flags. Loreley’s blue emblem with a gilded crown was at the highest point, centered on its roof. The Acheus horse banner and Stejin’s horned ram sat just beneath it.
Marnie was dressed like a Sophia in a lavender skirt and thin matching jacket, half her hair pinned back. Loose curls framed her face and fell over her shoulders. She stared at the gates and the gathering swarm of onlookers in trepidation. The demon blade squirmed against her ankle. Her breath came through her lips in a rasp.
A footman opened the door to the carriage, motioning Marnie inside. “Sophia.”
She climbed in with the footman’s assistance. As the crowd drew in around them, she shut and locked the doors in a hurry.
Bran gazed out his window, his fingers nervously rapping against the wood of his bench seat. He wore dress slacks and a thin embroidered jacket which matched his emerald-green emperor’s stole. His black boots were freshly shined. He smiled as she made herself comfortable, but his eyes were distant, troubled. In his hand was the newspaper from that morning, rolled up and clutched in a tight fist.
She smoothed her skirt over her thighs. The air was thick with shared tension. He knocked his knuckles against the roof, and the carriage lurched forward.
Bran handed her the newspaper. “I hoped you’d come with me on a friendly ride around the capital.”
“Friendly?” Marnie took the paper and tossed it beside her without a glance. She closed the window curtains, blocking out the mass of staring eyes.
“I knew it. You’re ashamed of me,” Bran teased. “You read the paper this morning, I take it?”
“I did,” she said cautiously.
He lifted his chin. “And? How furious with me are you . . . ? I’m ready for your lecture. I’ve been prepping for it all morning. Let me have it.”