by Jasmine Walt
I shifted, uncomfortable beneath her teary gaze. “I appreciate your kind words, Mrs. Mills, but it wasn’t your fault.”
Thorgana lifted her chin. “Nevertheless, I am the owner of the paper, so I do feel responsible.” She turned her gaze back to Iannis. “I will ensure an unexceptionable replacement is found for Petros.”
“That is very well,” the Chief Mage acknowledged. “Just so long as you understand that I shall be vetting this replacement, and that until he is found and approved, your paper is placed under the temporary control of Director Chen.”
Thorgana’s eyes flickered, but whatever emotion I’d glimpsed was gone too quickly for me to get a read. “That sounds like an excellent idea, Lord Iannis. I’m afraid perhaps my lack of experience has caused me to make poor choices in my staff, so I could use the insight.” She bowed again, and I scowled as her scent changed subtly. It didn’t smell like she was lying… and yet, I felt she was holding something back.
She’s probably just irritated that the Mage’s Guild is getting involved with her business, I thought. Just because she didn’t actually run her company, didn’t mean she wanted an outsider doing it. I would feel the same in her place.
“Well, I’m afraid I must be going now.” Thorgana rose smoothly, her practiced smile back in place. “Do have a good evening, and again, I extend my heartfelt apologies to both of you.”
The door to my left opened as Thorgana left the hall, and Fenris walked through the door, looking sweaty and slightly disheveled. “Iannis –” he began, and then stopped when he saw me.
“Fenris.” Guilt bit into my chest as I remembered how we’d parted, and I stepped forward, wanting to apologize. “I –”
He engulfed me in a tight embrace. “I’m so glad you’re alright.” His muscular arms squished my face against his broad chest, but I was so happy he didn’t hate me that I didn’t care. “When Iannis and I found you crushed beneath that disgusting lout, I thought we’d arrived too late.”
“No, you guys were right on time.” I extricated myself from his embrace, and as I looked up into his dark, handsome face, I lamented that I wasn’t attracted to him. We’d developed respect and liking for each other, and I could see us working well together. But instead, my body wanted the most unsuitable man in the universe. “I’m sorry I was such an ass earlier.”
“It’s fine.” Fenris smiled sadly. “I should probably tell you the truth of it sometime –”
“I hate to interrupt,” the Chief Mage said, his voice mild. “But I would really like to know whether or not you’ve apprehended our serial killer.”
Fenris sighed. “We tracked him to the docks and his scent disappeared from there. He probably managed to stow away last minute on some ship.”
The Chief Mage’s face darkened. “You’ve sent word to all appropriate ports telling them to keep a lookout for a man matching Yantz’s description?”
“Of course.” Fenris folded his arms. “We’ll find him yet. With all the eyes and ears we have, he’s bound to turn up in our sights somewhere soon. We should have him apprehended within a week.”
21
“So they still haven’t found Yantz?” Comenius asked, forking up a mouthful of noodles. “I would have thought he’d be apprehended by now.”
I sighed, pushing bits of lasagna around my plate. “Yeah, he’s been pretty elusive so far.” It had been ten days since the night he’d escaped, and though the Chief Mage’s contacts were on full alert, there was no sign of the former editor.
“Maybe, but that’s no reason to look so bummed.” Noria twirled a bunch of spaghetti around her fork and gestured towards Comenius and Annia, who were seated around the large glass patio table with us. I’d invited them all out to dinner at Pomodoro, an Elanian restaurant in Rowanville, so that we could catch up after this whole ordeal. “We’re all here together, alive and well, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, and considering that you’re here with us too, that’s a damned miracle.” Annia lifted her glass of wine to me, her dark eyes sparkling. She was a more sophisticated version of Noria, with wavy, dark red hair, flawless ivory skin and a slender figure. “When Noria sent me that telegram telling me that you’d been arrested for killing with magic, I thought you were a goner for sure. Instead, here you are sitting at this table, and not only do you have your Enforcer’s bracelet back, but you’re a freaking apprentice to the most powerful mage in this city.”
“Hear, hear,” Comenius agreed, and we all lifted our glasses and drank.
“Thanks guys.” I gave them a grin that I didn’t really feel. “I really appreciate you all being here.”
Noria shrugged. “Hey, you’re paying, right? Why wouldn’t we come?”
I plucked a piece of bread from the basket in the center of the table and threw it at her, and she caught it, grinning. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” I said as everyone else snickered. “Just because the Enforcer’s Guild rewarded me with a small fortune for solving the case doesn’t mean I’m filthy rich.”
Noria snorted. “It practically does. Now that you’re the Chief Mage’s apprentice, I’m sure you’ll get the choicest cases. If you play your cards right, you might end up being like all the other hoity-toity mages and never have to work again.”
Annia elbowed Noria in the side, who yelped. “Don’t say nasty things like that,” she scolded her sister. “Naya’s not the kind of person who’d sit back and rest on her laurels.” She grinned at me. “I’m sure we can expect her to continue getting into all kinds of trouble.”
“What are you going to do now though?” Comenius asked. He tapped the Enforcer’s bracelet on my wrist. “Are you going to chase bounties again, or pursue your magical studies full time?”
I sighed, leaning back in my chair. “I’d like to do both in combination,” I said. “But it depends on whether or not the Chief Mage is going to stop giving me the silent treatment.”
Iannis and I hadn’t spoken for four days now, ever since I’d announced to him that I was moving out of the palace. He’d been utterly furious, claiming that I wasn’t ready to be without his protection because I’d barely been able to defend myself against Yantz and Talcon, and that he had a responsibility to look out for me as his apprentice, and he couldn’t do that if I was living outside the palace. I’d told him that I wasn’t a child, that I could take care of myself, and that if I wanted to continue doing work as an Enforcer I needed to put some distance between us so that people would stop treating me so differently.
He’d threatened to take my Enforcer bracelet away, and I’d threatened to publicly refuse his apprenticeship and humiliate him. We’d nearly come to blows, but in the end he’d just given me one of his frigid looks and swept from the room.
I hadn’t heard from him since.
“Do you really need to continue your apprenticeship after all this?” Noria wrinkled her nose. “I mean, it seems like you’ve learned enough to be able to control your magic. If I were you, I’d ditch town and join up with the Resistance.”
I shook my head. “I’m not so sure that my morals align with the Resistance after all.” I told them about the bombs and weapons Fenris found in Yantz’s mansion, as well as his possible ties to the Resistance, and brought up the terrorist attack I’d heard about at the banquet again. “Their methods are starting to sound pretty questionable to me.”
“I don’t know that any of that stuff is true.” Noria scowled. “So far all the data you’ve gotten has been passed down by mages or people allied with mages. You’re just falling for enemy propaganda.”
“I don’t know about that.” I felt guilty raising my doubts, but I couldn’t back down. Something didn’t feel right about this. “I’m going to have to look into it more before I make a decision.”
Noria tossed her fiery mane of curls. “Do what you want, but I’m definitely joining up once I finish my studies.”
“Noria!” Annia punched her in the arm. “Don’t say things like that in public.”
Nori
a shrugged, pulling a device that looked like a cross between an amulet and a gadget out of her pocket. It reminded me of the jammer she’d given me earlier. “This thing’s been muffling our conversations,” she said. “So I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Comenius’s eyes widened as he leaned forward to get a better look. “Did your friend Elnos help you with that?”
Noria grinned. “Pretty impressive, right?”
“Yes, actually.” He slumped back in his chair. “It makes me wish that I could work with technology.”
Noria patted Comenius’s hand. “Hey, maybe sometime I can bring something by the shop for you to help me with.”
Comenius pursed his lips thoughtfully. “That would be interesting.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Com, you’re a hedge-witch! You and technology don’t go together.”
Comenius frowned. “Maybe, but if any of Noria’s inventions do end up helping the Resistance, I would like to contribute. You know I support the idea of equality amongst the races just as much as you do.”
“Exactly,” Noria chimed in. “Which is why you should ditch the mages, and join the Resistance.”
“Maybe Naya’s got a different plan in mind,” Annia suggested, arching a brow at her little sister. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes.”
I wrinkled my nose at the uncouth metaphor, and Anna grinned at me.
“Hmph.” Noria jutted out her bottom lip, but she didn’t argue. “I guess so.”
“Besides,” I said, spearing a broccoli floret with my fork, “I want to find out what exactly Yantz was really up to, before anything else, and I’m more useful on my own than in the Resistance. Yantz mentioned that someone called the Benefactor was giving him orders, and I mean to find out who that is.”
“That’s true,” Comenius said. “From what you’ve told us, we still don’t understand why all the shifters who were targeted had to die, or exactly how the poison was delivered to them. I hope the new Shiftertown Inspector finds the answers. There could be other players involved who are still in town.”
That thought nagged at me as I walked the six blocks back to my new apartment in the Heights – a middle-class complex in Rowanville that was a few steps shy of luxury, but still pretty nice. It was on the other side of the artsy district, so the buildings I passed by were covered in New Age murals, and the sidewalks were humming with artists and street performers. I paused briefly as I watched a human caricature artist draw a portrait of a lion shifter child, and felt a pang as I wondered if someone close to this child would be the next victim. It was too soon to tell whether or not Yantz had someone in place to continue the poisonings without him. Then again, according to Yantz the poisonings were part of a grander plan, so maybe they’d already moved on to its next phase. The idea that there was a next phase made my stomach turn – I needed to find out what was going on before things got worse.
I turned the key in the lock on my apartment door, then flopped down on the purple corduroy couch just inside the living room and stretched out. I’d only moved in four days ago, so the walls were still bare of decorations and boxes still needed to be unpacked, but the place was mine and I was happy with it.
I’d briefly considered moving into Roanas’s house, as I’d found out that he’d left it to me in his will. In fact, I’d spent my first two days of real freedom roaming the place, packing up things in boxes, smiling and crying as I looked through photo albums. But in the end I hadn’t been able to do it – the ghost of his presence would have haunted me forever if I’d stayed there, and I’d never be able to move on. I needed my own space, my own life.
“Delivery service!” an unfamiliar voice called, jolting me out of my morose thoughts. I sat up, apprehension and curiosity warring within me. I wasn’t expecting a package from anyone, but the freckled face of a young boy wearing a green and white uniform peered up at me as I peeked through the peephole, confirming that he was from Solantha’s main courier service.
“Hello,” I said as I opened the door. As I moved to take the package, the courier’s scent hit me, and I stiffened.
It was Rylan.
“Hey, cousin.” He tapped a gold pin on the collar of his polo shirt, murmuring a Word, and the illusion faded away, revealing a man with long, black hair, yellow eyes and a square jaw. He was still dressed in the courier uniform, which looked pretty silly with his swarthy complexion, but it was definitely Rylan. “How’s it going?”
“By Magorah,” I hissed, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside the apartment before someone saw him. “What the fuck are you doing here, Rylan?” I didn’t ask him where he’d gotten the illusion charm – they were rare, and unless you found a mage to custom make one for you, only sold on the black market.
He arched a black brow as I slid the deadbolt home, and set the package he was holding on the counter. “I’m just checking up on my baby cousin. Is that a crime now?”
“No,” I muttered, leaning against the door. “But you’ve committed plenty of others you could be arrested for.” Having a wanted fugitive in my home after I’d just been cleared myself was just what I needed – not.
“Yeah, including breaking into Solantha Palace to try and rescue you.” Rylan’s tone was mild, but his yellow eyes blazed, and I resisted the urge to squirm guiltily. “I don’t remember receiving a thank you card.”
“Yeah, well I don’t remember ever getting an address from you to send one to,” I snapped. He was not going to make me feel guilty, especially since his half-baked plan had nearly fucked us all. “Or giving mine out, for that matter.”
Rylan gave me a lopsided grin. “I guess I’ve only got myself to blame for that,” he admitted. “And you know I have my ways of getting information.”
I sighed. I loved my cousin, really, I did, but his recklessness made me feel old and matronly in comparison, even though I was the younger one. I’d always assumed my half-mage heritage was the reason I was more sensible than him.
“Since you’ve decided to risk getting your ass arrested, you must be here for a reason. Mind telling me what it is?”
“Other than delivering this package?” His lopsided smile didn’t change, but his yellow eyes narrowed. “My superiors sent me to offer you a position in the Resistance. They’ve seen what you’re capable of, and having a shifter who can use magic against the enemy would be very valuable.”
My heart sank. It was one thing to tell my friends that I wasn’t interested in joining the Resistance, but another thing entirely to tell my cousin, who’d devoted his life to it.
“Tell your superiors that I appreciate the offer, but I’m not ready to make that leap yet.” I pushed off the door I was leaning on, and walked around the counter to grab some glasses from the kitchen cupboards. “You want anything to drink?”
“Cranberry juice would be great.” Rylan frowned, confusion and hurt on his face. “Why wouldn’t you want to join the Resistance and take down the mages once and for all, after everything the system has put you through, Naya? Don’t you see that things have to change?”
I grabbed the bottle of cranberry juice from the cherry red icebox and poured glasses for both of us. “I see that more than ever,” I told him. “But I’ve realized that I might be of more help effecting change by sticking close to the Chief Mage’s side.” That is, if he ever decides to talk to me again. “I’ve already managed to open his eyes a bit to what’s really going on in this town.”
Rylan took his cranberry juice from me with a scoff. “Please, Naya. Do you really think that the Chief Mage has been blind to everything that’s been happening around here, and he just now woke up because you shoved his nose into it?” He downed his cranberry juice in one go. “He’s just as complicit as the rest of these power-hungry mages, and he’s using his centuries of experience to get you on his side. He knows that with hybrids like you on our side, the Resistance would be too powerful for the mages to control.”
Rylan’s words slapped me
in the face. All the mistrust and doubt I’d ever had about mages, which had been pushed to the back of my mind during my time at the palace, came rising up all over again. Dread curdled in my gut, and I felt suddenly ill. Had the Chief Mage been playing me the whole time? Was I really such a fool?
But then other memories flooded into my brain – the way he looked at me sometimes, with concern and admiration in his eyes lurking just behind the annoyance, the way his hands felt against mine as he unlocked the magic inside me, and the way his lips sometimes curled up at the corners when he thought I wasn’t looking. There was more to him than the icy exterior he presented to the world.
“By Magorah.” Rylan’s expression twisted in disgust as he noticed the rising heat in my cheeks. “You’ve slept with him, haven’t you?”
“No!” My cheeks burned. “Why would you say that?”
Rylan’s eyes narrowed. “You’re telling the truth… but I recognize that faraway look in your eye, Naya. Don’t tell me you haven’t at least thought about spending the night in his bed.”
“It’s just hormones.” I gritted my teeth, ready to rip into Rylan if he pushed the matter… and then an idea came to me. “And besides, I can’t deny there is a certain… camaraderie between us. As his apprentice, I can get close to him and learn things that could be of use to the Resistance.”
Rylan arched a brow. “There is merit to what you say,” he said slowly. “But you should know that it’s not going to look good to the Resistance if you stay so close to the Chief Mage. They may mark you as an enemy.”
Anger sparked within me, and I leaned across the counter to pin Rylan with a glare. “Oh yeah? And then what? Should I expect to walk out of a store and have a bomb thrown in my face? Maybe I should stay in my apartment then, so that when you guys come after me, at least no innocent bystanders get killed.”