by Eden Reign
He’d gone back to Briary Beach and found Manda’s clothing, lifting the cheap dimity to his nose to inhale her spring-meadow scent. He’d kicked at her discarded boots and wondered how she could tolerate such thin, worn soles. Though he’d searched everywhere around the clothing, sifting through the sand and stalking along the dunes, he couldn’t find the timepiece anywhere.
He wished the missing pocket watch could have been a matter of bad luck, that it could have fallen into the brambles or been lost in the sand. But after five restless nights and another consultation with Miss Rivers, who’d said she’d wrapped the timepiece carefully up in her basque, the truth would not be set aside: someone had taken it. And that someone had to be one of the spies Manda—Miss Rivers—had avoided that day.
He could not even label the incident a simple malicious theft. Instinct told him there was a sign in the act—a sign he could not read—that spelled danger. What was it about that timepiece with its four elemental marks on the face? The dread in his gut etched deeper as he drummed his fingers on the desktop. He’d removed his waistcoat and undone the top buttons of his shirt, something he dared do only after he’d heard Manda’s—Miss Rivers’s—soft footsteps above, heading to the nursery to put Grey to bed and then traversing back to her own room at the other end of the second floor hall.
He rubbed his good hand across his collarbones beneath his shirt. The magemark was particularly active this evening. He felt it slithering all over his torso, leaving its signature burning wake.
Jackson poured another glass of bourbon and took a deep gulp, waiting for the alcohol to make him drowsy. So far, all it had done was turn his thoughts sluggish. He’d bought the new bourbon down in Savana, where he’d gone a few days before to pick up yardage for Miss Rivers—nice lightweight cottons, which the milliner claimed the ladies preferred for the sun-filled days of spring and summer. He hoped Manda would like them. They were nicer than the worn dimity dress she’d said was her only one. He’d also bought her some much-needed new boots to replace the ratty ones on the beach. She’d been keeping herself scarce lately, and he spent large portions of his days hoping for glimpses of her and angling to create encounters that appeared to spring from chance alone.
Why he persisted in his fancy for her, he couldn’t say. Nothing could happen between them. He was in no state to give or receive affection, not with the looming death-curse of his terrible mark, not with these nighttime fits he could not control. Not with the darkness of the war hanging over him, a perpetual shadow.
Manda Rivers was not for him. He knew this.
But he wanted her anyway.
He downed the rest of the bourbon in one long swallow, slammed the tumbler on the desk, picked up the oil-lantern, and headed for his unwelcoming bed.
Jackson’s dream fits of war memories were as real as the events when he had lived them. They always sent him back to a horrific experience he’d rather forget, but could not. In his nightmares, he slogged through the mud at Shay Loche beneath pouring, mage-cast rain punctuated by musketfire that sent him and his men diving facedown into the muck. Or he dug desperate graves at Swift Water Creek, loading the bodies of his men into wheelbarrows and dumping them into lye-crusted pits, setting the remains ablaze lest cholera spread.
Half the time he could not distinguish the dreaming from the waking, and on the mornings after his fits, he would find himself sleepwalking, acting out his war: digging, diving, crawling like a madman.
The bed linens twisted around his legs. His head throbbed; the bourbon had been a terrible idea. Percussion and gunfire echoed in his mind, his feet twitched with the dull thud of the march, and his soul flinched with the wet rip of bayonets piercing flesh.
The Armistice had been a relief, granting him permission to lay down those weapons, to stop the killing and the pain. But that one final mission had been pushed upon him, a battle he’d not been able to turn down because it would decide the fate of his best friend’s life.
That final mission at the Brotherhood Headquarters in Chalton. The day Lige had died.
Dream sunlight streamed through shiny leaves, searing Jackson’s memory.
“Ready, Jack?” Lige whispered from behind a large everbloom magnolia near the red brick Brotherhood Headquarters. The Brotherhood had chosen this building for its convenient location on the western side of Chalton’s peninsula, only a stone’s throw from the spit of land that had been fortified to carry the railway from Savana along the Ash River.
The brackish river’s briny scent melded with the citrusy magnolias. Lige and Jack each crouched behind their own tree, sweating though the late winter afternoon was brisk.
As Lige scanned the road leading to the Headquarters, Jackson ran through their plan to break in once more. Timing was everything. Too early, and the closing clerks might still be in the Headquarters’ Records Room. Too late, and the Brotherhood Council would arrive for their meeting before the mission was complete.
“Jack?” Lige hissed.
Jackson waved repressively as he rehearsed his coming actions in his mind. First, he and Lige would dart across the road and vault the wrought-iron fence, then—
“Jack!”
“Lige, give me a—” Jackson’s voice dwindled away as he opened his eyes and saw what had riled his friend.
Two men stepped onto the front steps of the Headquarters. The first, they had anticipated: Lige’s father, Daniel Lake, whose tall frame and angular form normally presented the highest silhouette in any gathering. Not on this afternoon. Henry Coal, Jackson’s father, stood beside Daniel, a full hand taller, his bulky shoulders straining his Arcanan Army uniform.
The men spoke in voices too low to hear. Daniel gestured sharply. Henry pulled out his pocket watch. Then both men nodded, and Daniel headed down the front stairs, departing through the wrought-iron gate as Lige had said he would, “to have his customary bourbon at his club down in CHalton proper before the Council meeting.” But Henry turned and headed back inside the Headquarters—a full hour early for the meeting. Lige, whose official position was Lieutenant of the Brotherhood, but who was in truth a deep cover agent for the Levelers, had been informed that Headquarters would be entirely empty at this hour. Empty so that Jackson and Lige could break and enter and steal the list of Leveler spies, completing their mission with no one the wiser.
“Blazing Fires.” Bile burned Jackson’s throat. Of all people, it had to be his father who ruined their plans.
“We can call it off, Jack,” Lige said, carefully peering around his tree to track Henry’s progress. “You don’t have to attack your own father for our cause. I’d never ask such a thing of you.”
Jackson had only moments to decide. The Brotherhood Council meeting began at four of the clock. Then, the folio Lige and he had come to retrieve would be opened for the first time, the names listed in it revealed to the Brotherhood. Every Leveler double-agent—including Lige—would be exposed. Over twenty-five brave men had fed inside information to the Levelers during the war, and, once their names were known, they’d all be sentenced to execution as traitors by the Brotherhood. Jack and Lige’s only hope was to retrieve that folio before anyone could open it and see the damning evidence it contained.
Jackson hadn’t seen his father since the evening twelve years ago when he’d fled Coalhaven after Henry had fire-lashed him for his views on halfmage and mundane rights. On the Headquarters’ porch, Henry had looked older and weaker, like a sad, bitter man.
Jackson cast a glance at Lige, who was as bright and alive as the sunbeams streaming through the boughs. Lige, who had a child, a halfmage son, the mother dead, the boy awaiting his papa’s return from the war. There was no question. Lige had to live.
“No,” Jackson said. “We’ll proceed as planned. We must destroy that folio before it is opened, at any cost.” Jackson had learned only the day before of the folio that currently rested in the Records Room of the red brick Headquarters. A Brotherhood spy had infiltrated one of the Levelers’ Chalton saf
ehouses and plucked the names from a foolish letter commending the double-agents’ efforts.
Jackson had found the enemy spy and eliminated him, but not before the man had sent his cursed folio on to the Headquarters. Lige and Jackson had spent the past fifteen hours tracking the folio. It had yet to be opened, and the Brotherhood was unaware of its contents. But the post was typically reviewed during the Council meeting. Jackson and Lige had determined to abscond with the folio before the meeting.
But they’d hit a snag. Henry Coal. At least he’d gone into the other side of the building, not toward the Records Room.
It didn’t matter. Destroying the list was too important. If Henry Coal had to be destroyed, too, so be it. These were the terrible decisions of war.
Jackson swallowed his horror and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was ready. “Let’s go,” he said to Lige. “Now.”
They ran from their hiding places and smoothly vaulted the wrought-iron fence. They moved together like the gears of an indigo mill, turning in synchronicity past the hedgerows and around the back of the building.
The first protective ward-spells snapped like whipcracks around their ankles as they trampled the plantings beneath the Records Room window.
“They’re ice-wards, Jack,” Lige muttered as he sucked in a breath at the biting onslaught. “Can you manage them?”
“Got ‘em.” Jackson reached for the Wells and pulled power from the Eternal Flame, sending a visible wall of heat over the plantings already silvered with the ice-wards. As the wards melted, the plants wilted and the ground grew boggy and soft.
Lige spread his palm on the window, his eyes blurred as he tapped the Wells. The spellwork came a moment later, first the rush of flame billowing outward from the window and shattering the glass with a loud crack, and then Lige’s sudden, dumping deluge to quench the fireball.
Lige stood, soaked, beneath the blown-out window. He winced. “That wasn’t good. Too loud. I didn’t expect such strong protection.”
“Too late to do anything about it now.” Jackson already bent in front of his friend, interlacing his fingers to offer a step up and over the shard-strewn sill. Lige crawled in, turning to give Jackson a hand up, and then they were both inside the Records Room, an octagonal space slightly separated from the rest of the building, each of the eight walls lined with file shelves and pigeonholes. A heavy iron chandelier hung from the ceiling’s central point, illuminating an eight-sided walnut table girded by eight red leather wingback chairs.
Lige scanned the file shelves as Jackson cast a wary glance at the closed door leading to the rest of the Headquarters—and presumably, Henry Coal. “Incoming post,” Lige said triumphantly, reaching for a pile of letters and parcels in a large cubby. Lige kept half the stack for himself and handed the other half to Jackson. “Hurry.”
They’d have to open every single one until they found the list of names. There was no other way to identify the folio.
For several heart-thumping moments, tearing and rustling paper was the only sound in the room.
“I’ve got it.” Lige waved a curling scroll he peeled from a leathern folder. “Quick, Jack, burn it. Thank the Merciful Rivers, it looks like we won’t have to use my backup plan.” His quicksilver grin flashed. Lige had come up with a perfectly insane plan to use mixed water and fire magic to bomb the entire building to smithereens if they couldn’t find the folio.
Jackson’s lips quirked. Using fire-power and water-power in tandem was an interest they had picked up in their youth from none other than Daniel Lake. Daniel had encouraged them to work together, inviting the boys into his study to test their childish efforts. Had Henry Coal ever learned of this, he would not have approved. It went against every rule of the Indigo Wells. Each Eternal Element—the Flame, the Ocean, the Sky, and the Tree— represented a discrete source. No single spell was to be wrought with more than one element. But Daniel had been intrigued by the notion—and so, with his encouragement, the boys had become dextrous at creating mixed—and illegal—magic.
Jackson was glad they wouldn’t need Lige’s backup plan. Mixed magic was risky. He reached once more for the Eternal Flame to fling an igniting spark at the scroll in Lige’s hand. But even as he threw the spark, it exploded in the air before it could reach the paper, blocked by … another firemage’s spellwork?
“What in the—” An unpleasant prickle raised the hairs on Jackson’s neck. Lige, eyes wide as saucers, stared over Jackson’s shoulder.
“Elijah Lake,” Henry Coal’s voice rasped behind Jackson, where he stood frozen with his back to his father. “I had not understood that mere Lieutenants were entitled to rummage in the Council’s top-secret post.”
If Jackson turned, his father would know him. If he turned, Lige’s cover would be blown—if it wasn’t already. Dread unfurled along Jackson’s spine.
Lige’s eyes blurred. A vortex of water swirled around the incriminating scroll. Jackson tried to shake his head. Henry Coal was not foolish enough to fight Lige’s element directly. Fire was weak to water; for that reason Henry had always loathed watermages.
Henry wouldn’t challenge Lige’s water spellwork. He’d do what any smart mage did when facing the element that held natural power over his own: he’d attack the mage directly.
Heat flowed past Jackson. Like Lige, Jackson wore a standard-issue Arcanan Army jacket, Lige’s own, several sizes too small across the chest. Lige was slender; Jackson’s bulky muscles strained the wool. The jacket felt like a very thin barrier between him and his father, but Jackson stepped into the path of Henry’s fire flow, absorbing it before it could touch his friend. It took a great deal to burn a firemage’s thick skin. Jackson could take the heat better than Lige could.
He sweltered as the coat burned. Lige hurriedly sent his swirling water protection over Jackson, dousing the flames. He exchanged a significant look with Jackson and mouthed, Backup plan. Now.
Jackson took a deep breath. Only his desperation kept his eyes open and fixed on Lige’s as they tapped the Indigo Wells at the same time.
They’d agreed it would be safer if Lige was the lead in the mixed spellwork. Water-power was more predictable than fire and presented fewer hazards. Even so, any mixed magic was highly unstable, so Lige’s plan had been designated for emergencies only.
Henry Coal qualified as an emergency.
Lige called water into a tight, compressed bubble above their heads. Jackson summoned heat to surround it, carefully lacing his fire’s edge into Lige’s water. The mixed water-fire magic only worked if the elements precisely touched at the edges; otherwise they would cancel each other out.
Henry grunted and cursed behind Jackson.
“Now!” yelled Lige, lifting the paper scroll like a protective talisman.
Jackson released the power he’d drawn from the Wells. Lige released his, too, but nothing happened. Jackson nearly groaned. The mixed spellwork rarely behaved as expected, but having the spell fizzle entirely was the worst possible outcome.
Jackson risked a look up. The spellwork hadn’t actually fizzled. Above them, the compressed water still burbled and roiled, spinning rapidly within its ring of fire. Waiting.
“Sacred Wells,” Lige whispered, staring upward as the water-fire-bomb swelled with furious—but contained—energy.
“Fools, as well as traitors, the both of you.” Henry Coal’s voice lashed over both men. Jackson flinched. He’d forgotten his father was there.
Jackson turned slowly, keeping half his attention on the spellwork above. Momentary surprise flitted across Henry’s face, sinking almost at once into revulsion. “Jackson. I once hoped to see you standing within the hallowed walls of the Brotherhood in an Arcanan Army uniform, but I can’t say I’m pleased to see you now. You disgrace the attire.” With only those words of greeting after twelve years, Henry gestured at the roiling bomb overhead. “If you lose control over it, that mixed monstrosity you’ve just created could take out the building—or the entire city. You imbeciles
.”
Jackson shuddered.
“I should have killed you the night you left.” Henry stepped around Jackson, raking him with his fiery gaze. “I was soft. I thought of how your mother would have wept. But it would have been better to bear the guilt than to know such shame in my own blood.”
“So filicide is more palatable than a difference of opinion,” Jackson said, still watching the dangerous maelstrom of water and fire burgeoning below the chandelier. Sweat dripped down his brow with the strain of controlling his fire and coping with his father. “Reasonable, as always, Henry.” At least the bomb prevented Henry from taking much action against them. None of them knew how it would react to further spellwork in its vicinity.
“It is a matter of honor!” Henry cuffed Jackson across the face. “Now, Elijah, give me that list.” As Henry moved, Jackson took a desperate risk, reached for the Wells, and flung another ignition spark at the paper Lige held.
“You will never see those names, Father.”
Henry was too late to block the spark, and the list burst into flame, sending a plume of indigo smoke swirling toward the bomb.
“Lige!” Jackson warned. Lige deftly swept the swirling water bomb upwards to avoid the smoke.
“You are no son of mine!” Henry pulled a fire-lash from the Wells, yanking it up like a serpent and slashing Jackson across the chest.
Jackson struggled to keep his hold on the fire around Lige’s bomb.
“Elijah Lake, rescind that atrocity above us this instant!” roared Henry. “Or if you cannot manage it, you spineless turncoat, I will!” Henry lifted his right arm.
“No, Father!” Jackson lurched to grab Henry, to restrain his wrists and thus his power, before he could make good on his threat. Elijah and Jackson had learned in their experiments with mixed magic that too much fire was a very bad thing.