by Rachel Caine
"Lovely," she said. "Just lovely, the work you do. Food is home, as I'm sure you know, and I thank you for it." She put a gentle touch on the young man's wrist, staring straight into his eyes. "You're so tired, dear lad. Why don't you sit for a moment?"
If this was going to work without violence, it had to work in that moment . . . and it did. The server, without a question, slipped quietly into the chair next to the table. Morgan watched in fascination as Annis weaved a silken, unbreakable web of words, lulling the man into a relaxed, trancelike state. She'd known Annis's Obscurist powers were slight, but in this one area, she truly excelled.
Morgan sat up slowly when Annis gestured, but didn't come closer.
"Now, my friend, is there any special seasoning in these dishes?" Annis asked.
"Yes." The young man's voice was flat but calm. Annis sent Morgan a nod. All was well. "Salt, pepper, curry powder, cardamom--"
"That's in my dish, yes. And in my friend's soup? Was there anything added to hers that is not added to someone else's?"
The answer came slowly but firmly. "Yes."
"And what is it?"
"I don't know. It's from a bottle we were given. It isn't harmful."
Annis's glance at Morgan had taken on a hard look, but her voice remained quiet and gentle. "Of course not; you'd never do such a thing. None of you would. And who assured you it was harmless?"
"The Obscurist." The young man frowned a little this time, as if the mere mention of the title disturbed him.
"I see. Tell me, do you like him?"
"It doesn't matter. I'm loyal to the Tower and the Library."
"Yes, I know that. And it is to your credit--what is your name, young man?"
"Friedrich," he said.
"Well, Friedrich, you have done nothing at all wrong in following the Obscurist's orders; of course you haven't. That liquid you add is as harmless as water. So it really doesn't matter which bowl you add it to, does it?"
"No. But I was told--"
"If it's harmless, it doesn't matter, isn't that right?"
"Yes, that's right." His frown cleared.
"And could you do me a favor, my friend Friedrich?"
"Of course, Obscurist Annis."
"From now on, when you reach for that bottle, you will pour it instead into the food next to the one designated for Obscurist Morgan."
"But I have orders--"
"The liquid is harmless, remember? So it doesn't matter which food it goes into. You'd never do anything to harm any one of us, isn't that right?"
"Yes," Friedrich said, and then more strongly: "Yes, that's right."
"Then from now on, you will just add that liquid to my bowl, or if I am not eating at the same time as Obscurist Morgan, then to anyone else's food. That sounds perfectly fine, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
"So what are you going to do at the next meal?"
"Add the liquid to someone else's bowl. Yours first. But anyone other than Obscurist Morgan's if you aren't there."
"Wonderful. Now, Friedrich, I know you work very hard, don't you?"
"I like my work."
"Of course you do. But you must take time off sometime!"
"I work five of the seven days," he said. "Two of the days I leave the Tower and go to my parents' home."
"And when you are gone, who takes your place?"
"Millicent Thorpe."
"When will she next be taking over your position?"
"In two days."
"Well, that's lovely," Annis said, and her voice had taken on a lazy, slow reassurance again. "You should look forward to your time off, Friedrich."
He nodded but didn't answer.
Morgan snapped her fingers and scribbled out a message on a scrap of paper. Annis took it, read it, and said, "Friedrich, one last thing: when I say the magic word, you are going to forget we ever had this conversation, but you are going to do as we agreed and never again put that liquid into Obscurist Morgan's food, all right?"
"All right."
"And when I say the magic word, you will stand up and go about your duties. You will only remember that you delivered the food as you are supposed to. You understand that?"
"Yes."
"Good. Are you listening, Friedrich? The magic word is . . . forget."
And with that, the young man straightened, stood up, and walked straight to the door. Morgan watched him leave with a little feeling of awe. When the door shut, she turned that stare on Annis. "That was . . . unbelievable. When you told me you could do it, I honestly didn't believe you. I didn't know an Obscurist could affect a mind so directly without some kind of script, and drugs!"
"No, no, it isn't about being an Obscurist at all. This is merely mesmerism, something anyone can learn if they've a mind and a bit of a talent, though it's sure that the Library tries to keep Mesmers pushed away from the legitimate trades. You'll find them more in criminal circles than anywhere else. As someone who has a little bit of talent and a lot of time on my hands knows well. I know a great many obscure and only partly legal things."
"Thank you, Annis. I don't know how to--"
Annis waved it away. "Please. You think I'm doing it just for you? The more I can do to spite Gregory, the better I like my life here. It's what Keria would have wanted. She'd have torn his head off for what he's doing, and I'd have held him down. Here." She picked up the plate of fragrant, steaming rice scented delicately of saffron and topped with a rich red sauce. "Hope you enjoy curry as much as I do. It's lamb and potato vindaloo."
"Sorry about the soup," Morgan said. She took a cautious mouthful of the curry and nearly choked as it set her tongue burning like Greek fire. "God!"
"Delicious, isn't it?" Annis gave her a cheery grin. "Food of champions, my girl, and no mistake. Eat up. You'll need your strength for what comes next."
Morgan wiped her tearing eyes and kept at it, and after the first fiery shock, the taste of the vindaloo made her wolf it down in happy mouthfuls. Still searingly hot, but she could get used to it, she thought. "How soon will the drug be out of my system, do you think?"
"I'm not sure. It was damn clever, how he drugged you obviously the first time and then secretly from then on. I'd say at least a day; they've been dosing you for a while, and I'd rather not try it before time, since you said it hurt badly enough to put you down when you last tried to work any aggressive uses. I can explain away headaches and nausea, but fainting spells mean they might send you to the Medica, and for all we know, the Medica's going to dope you with the same again."
Frightening--but realistic--thought. "All right. I'll give it a day." She chewed her lip. "Did you speak to Natasha about the additions to the Codex monitoring scripts?"
"Aye. And she handed me my ass for it. Not my business, above my skills, all that." Annis shrugged. "But I did manage to gather that the monitoring has been redone, again, which means they're looking for you to try a contact. I wouldn't."
Damn. Jess was alone out there, and she had no idea what kind of trouble he was in . . . or what was happening to Scholar Wolfe. Just as they couldn't know her situation, she supposed. What kind of a conspiracy couldn't coordinate efforts? One doomed to fail. And she had to be the one to solve that problem, not Jess. If he grew desperate enough, he'd do something brave and foolish, and she needed to keep him from it by holding up her end of the job . . . but neither of them had counted on the Iron Tower using drugs to control her.
Annis was right, though. Using her powers in any way that Gregory hadn't specifically authorized would result in paralyzing agony right now, and that alone would give away her intentions.
"What about doing something without powers?" Morgan asked.
"Such as?"
"Trying to see him."
Annis knew very well who him meant, and her faded red brows shot up in skeptical arches. "Not wise," she said. "Besides, he won't see you. He doesn't see anyone. Not even Gregory can break the wards on his door, you know. Not even Keria could do that."
"
Did she try?"
"I don't know, but I think it's more that he built them with a personal key that only she possessed. She was the one person Eskander trusted fully, and she was the one person who could have done it with or without his permission, given time. But she always asked before she went to him. And he usually allowed it."
"Were they in love?"
Annis thought about that. She spooned up her soup quietly for a while, then put the utensil down and reached for a glass of water. Annis was careful about the water, and they knew it, at least, was safe to drink. "Oh yes, desperately," she finally said. "But love is never as simple as you'd think, is it? Or as easy. At least it isn't in here; no idea how it is out there. They understood that love was a trap, a weapon to be used against them. Eskander never wanted to be here, not a single day. And he fought it, over and over. Then, when their son was born, he stopped fighting . . . but when Wolfe was taken away from the Tower, put into the orphanage, that was the breaking point, I think. Love can't heal all. It can't repair broken hearts. And I think in the end they were both shattered by it."
It seemed a breathtakingly sad story, and it made Morgan shiver a little; she loved Jess, or at least, she thought she did. Or was it only that he seemed so taken with her that she'd accepted it as fate? She did care for him, and deeply. But the more time away, the more she saw herself clearly . . . the less sure she was that she was what Jess needed, or wanted. Or that he was right for her, either.
Maybe they would end up like Eskander and Keria. Or maybe this would turn out differently. She closed her eyes and imagined Jess, and his image came vividly; ink stains on his fingers, that quiet, odd smile of his, the sharp intelligence of how he analyzed things. The sudden bursts of precisely calculated speed and violence when he needed them. She'd never met someone with so little fear, and she wondered if he knew how afraid she was, every day. There was something both reassuring and intimidating about being with him.
And she did want him. Thinking of him made her remember the way his hands felt against her skin, his lips on hers.
Love is never as simple as you think. Annis was right about that. And in this moment, she couldn't properly sort her feelings, except that she wanted Jess more than she'd ever wanted anyone else. Was that love? The kind of love that lasted? She didn't know. And for now, it didn't matter.
Nothing mattered except contacting Eskander, and in a way that didn't alert Gregory to her intentions.
"Did you get the plans?" Morgan asked, and Annis nodded and reached beneath her robe into a hidden pocket--one she'd sewn herself--to retrieve a thin, folded sheet of paper.
"Had to do it small," she said. "But it's accurate enough. He's warded every way in, though, as you can see; I've marked them down. The only one that--as far as I know--isn't warded is the window, and it doesn't open. Won't break, either."
"What about this?" Morgan put the empty plate back on the tray and pointed to a tiny square high in the wall of Eskander's rooms. He had three rooms, as large as the chambers that Gregory now occupied and likely just as opulent: a bedroom, a bath, and a sitting room. The square was on the wall of the room Annis's tiny script had designated as the bedroom.
"Too small for any human to pass," Annis said. "And screens on both ends welded in place. It's the air venting. There's another here . . ." She pointed to one located in the sitting room on an opposite wall. "But I don't see what possible good they could do."
"What's the nearest access point to this vent? One we can reach?"
"There isn't one. They connect directly back to the central air-processing hub; for him, that would be on the twelfth level."
"So theoretically, if we get into the air-processing hub, we could talk to him," Morgan said. "Directly. With no one overhearing."
Annis blinked and looked at the paper, then frowned in thought. "That's two floors away," she said. "And I can't be certain no one else would hear, if you're shouting loud enough to be heard that far away."
"Who said anything about shouting?" Morgan smiled. "I'm talking about sending down a resonant crystal, with the matched component on our end."
Annis looked blank. "I took a fancy to mesmerism, not engineering," she said. "Explain."
"Sympathetic vibration," Morgan said. "There is an entire department of Obscurists on Level Four who are working on crystals that are sympathetically linked, and you may speak into one and listen from the other."
"Long-distance talking?"
"You didn't know?"
"I don't pay much attention," Annis admitted. "The engineers from Artifex are always sending over blueprints for some nonsensical invention or other, and few of them prove to work. It's not my area. It all sounds crackbrained to me."
"Oh, it should work," Morgan said. "All we have to do is obtain a raw pair; the script to link them together should be simple enough, once I know what the frequency is to vibrate them."
"And how do you propose we steal such a thing?"
"We don't. We find an Obscurist working there who wants out of this iron trap we're in, and we work together."
"No, no, no, we can't do that. The chances of betrayal double with every person you tell!"
Morgan gave her a long, serious look, then took the older woman's hands. "Annis," she said. "It's why I came here. It's why I've risked my life and my freedom to enter this Tower. To make sure that no one is ever locked in it again against their will. There will be risks. And we have to start taking them now."
Annis's hands tightened on hers, and the woman's cool, translucent skin seemed to pale even further . . . but then she nodded. "Well then. You'll be wanting to know who in that section might be helpful."
"I would."
"I'll make a list of those to avoid at all costs. Most everyone else in the Tower would listen to a plan, but mind you: there isn't one of them that would risk imprisonment or injury. We've all heard talk of rebellion, and most support it in their hearts. It's their cowardly bodies you have to convince." Annis took a deep breath. "Perhaps I could mesmer one of them to bring us the crystals."
"No."
"It would minimize--"
"No," Morgan said again. "I'm doing this to free us, not enslave us further. I don't like what we had to do to Friedrich, but he was already being used; we just ensured it wouldn't be effective. I won't do the same to a fellow prisoner in this place."
Annis looked sad, and she also looked wary. "Lass, I don't think you understand. You were born out there, wild in the world. We are like birds who've never known but a cage. We see the world through our windows, but I fear if you threw our doors wide-open, we might be afraid to leave."
"But you'd have the choice." Morgan touched the collar around her neck. "Freedom doesn't mean you have to leave. It means you choose. It isn't done for you."
Annis slowly nodded. "All right. I'll visit the workshop. I'm sure I have a friend or two there."
"Be careful," Morgan said. "We're going against Gregory now. And he's already killed one Obscurist. He won't hesitate to kill more to hang on to his power."
Annis winked at her. "I've run circles around that little shite since we were both your age," she said. "I'll be back soon. Oh . . . almost forgot. Presta atencion."
She left, taking the food tray with her; Morgan felt the tiny snap of power as the listening scripts were activated again. She was tempted to follow, but she knew Annis was right; the Obscurist had eyes on her at all times, and the only safe place was here, in the rooms they searched daily for new intrusions. The crystals would be a fine way to spy on someone at a distance, she thought. Until that moment, she hadn't thought of it, but now that she had, she wondered if there might not be a second use for the crystals, after making contact with Eskander.
Knowing what Gregory might be up to . . . that could be valuable.
Annis didn't return for a few hours, which made Morgan pace the floor in worry, but when she finally did, she had a man of about her own age in tow. In fact, he had his hand around Annis's waist and a smile on his fac
e that quickly faltered when he saw Morgan in the room.
Annis shut the door. "Silencio. Morgan, this is Pyotr. An old, old friend of mine."
Pyotr was a man who'd aged well; his hair had silvered, and his strong face--never pretty, Morgan guessed--still looked striking. He nodded to her cautiously. "Hello."
"Hello, Pyotr," she replied, and sat down on her bed.
He stared at her in confusion, then at Annis. "Forgive me, love, but . . . I must have misunderstood."
Morgan realized that Annis had coaxed him here with a promise of something a great deal more intimate than a conversation, and had to stifle an uncomfortable laugh. Of all the things she didn't want to think about, Annis's love life was top of the list. Annis was the first to admit that it was quite colorful.
"You didn't at all," Annis told him cheerfully. "I lied dreadfully, but if you're a patient man, I might just keep all my promises. Make yourself comfortable, Pyotr. We've got something to discuss with you."
Annis's instincts proved to be as good as ever; Pyotr, it turned out, had been dragged to the Iron Tower against his will when he was almost fifteen and had never stopped wanting to find his way out again. "You're the one who escaped the Tower," he said. "Twice."
"I did," Morgan said. "More than twice, actually, but once I came back without anyone the wiser. And I came back this time under my own will again."
"Gregory says you were dragged back."
"He would," Annis said sourly. She sat on her bed and patted the spot next to her. "We've got a long story."
"Short, really," Morgan said, as the other man sank down beside Annis. "How badly do you want to get out of the Iron Tower? Not just as a fugitive. As a free man, no collar around your neck. Free to come and go as you please."
He blinked. He'd been here a long time, and for a moment she was afraid that it had been too long for him to remember the rebellious, angry boy who'd been brought here fighting. But then he said, "If you can promise such a thing, I'd fight for it. And I'm far from the only one. But don't say it if you can't do it. Lives will be lost."
"I know," Morgan said. "And I promise you that this will happen. I am here to make it happen."