“I’m beginning to think I have no choice.” I fiddled with a piece of loose skin on my finger. “The Order wanted to paint me as a villain all along, and for all I know, that’s exactly what I was. My last memory is of Dirk Alban lying dead at my feet with his blood all over the walls. If I was the one who put it there, I’m hardly an angel.”
“That guy was a piece of shit, too,” she said. “I didn’t know him, but just from what he did to you, he deserved everything he got.”
I looked away. “I can only go by what I’ve heard. Anyway, have you ever heard of the Spirit Agents?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar, no,” she said. “Why?”
“One of the contestants mentioned them as a possible connection with whoever’s trying to sabotage the trials,” I said. “She also told me the saboteur might be involved with the Houses of the Elements, but it turns out the Death King knows who they are and doesn’t think of them as a threat. Also, Davies used to belong to the House of Fire.”
“The same Davies who betrayed the Death King and tried to kill him.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought of that.”
“Definitely worth looking into,” she said. “Tell you what, I can poke around and see what I find out.”
“Talk to Trix,” I said. “He’s asking around the Parallel to find out if anyone from one of the Houses is in the contest. Just… be careful.”
“Speak for yourself.”
This would have to do. I couldn’t be in more than one place at once, so I’d have to hope my friends wouldn’t face any backlash for asking the wrong questions.
Once again, I headed into the Parallel via the node, landing in the swampland. Neddie greeted me with an enthusiastic neigh. At least someone was happy to see me. Aside from Dex and Aria, who followed me into the break room where the Elemental Soldiers had gathered.
“Hey,” I said to Ryan. “Nothing happened during the night, did it?”
“No, why?”
Your boss wasn’t around. Then again, he’d been gone for most of yesterday, too, and nobody had noticed.
“No reason,” I said. “I expected your boss to have words to say about the flood. Or at least come and talk to the contenders in person. But I guess he’s busy.”
Wandering around Arcadia, apparently. Unless he really had been meeting with the Order when he was supposed to be judging the trials.
“Well, half of them will get eliminated today,” said Felicity. “No more water trials, either, so there’ll be no more opportunities for anyone to flood the place.”
“Instead they’ll probably set things on fire,” I said. “And you can’t confiscate that from them.”
“Unfortunately,” said Ryan, “I think you might be right.”
Sure enough, by the end of the morning, my hands were singed all over and I’d used up most of my anti-burn cantrips. Bria won her first fight easily, but with the matches running back to back, I had no chance to ambush her and find out what in hell she’d been doing at the citadel yesterday. She’d be within her rights to tell me it was none of my damn business, but who’d voluntarily go to one of the spirit mages’ old strongholds? I still didn’t know what His Deathly Highness had been doing there yesterday, come to that.
A yelp drew my attention to where Sledge stood over the body of another contender, pummelling the shit out of him.
“Hey!” I shouted from the side. “Stop. You already won.”
Sledge punched the already-unconscious guy in the head. “He didn’t surrender.”
“He’s passed out.” I marched over and caught his wrist in my hand. “That’s enough. You’re disqualified.”
“No.” He squirmed free and aimed a punch at me. I ducked and swept his legs out from underneath him, and then drew on the power of the node. Energy shot from my hands and blasted him onto his back.
He looked up at me, cross-eyed. “You can’t kick me out.”
“We can,” Ryan said, walking over. “You just blew your last chance. Get out.”
“What about my stuff?” he said indignantly.
“It will be taken care of,” Ryan said.
I translated that as ‘we’ll send your suitcase via zombie horse’. Neddie would be thrilled.
Sledge struggled to his feet as two liches glided over to escort him out. Once again, His Deathly Highness had neglected to make an appearance, but that was the least of our problems. I followed after the liches to make sure Sledge didn’t try to sneak back in, and spotted movement on the other side of the gate.
Having hidden in those bushes myself, I knew a human-shaped shadow hiding under the guise of a cantrip when I saw one. I marched on the intruder and yanked out a squirming teenage boy by the scruff of his neck.
His cantrip toppled to the ground, and he yelped. “Let me go!”
“What are you doing hiding out here?”
“Waiting for my sister.” He flinched when I put him down. “Don’t hurt me. I only wanted to know how she did in the trials.”
I arched a brow. “You felt the need to use a cantrip to turn invisible and hide in the bushes rather than waiting outside?”
“I didn’t want the phantoms to find me.” He shivered. “This place is horrible. Is Harper still in the contest?”
“Last I heard.” I glanced over my shoulder at the gates, where the liches were still wrestling a stubborn Sledge from the arena. “You’re her brother. Are you a fire mage, too?”
He shook his head.
“What kind of mage are you?”
“I—” He faltered. “Water.”
He was a water mage? Was he the one who flooded the place? He couldn’t have reached the castle from the other side of the gates, but if he’d somehow sneaked in… it was definitely possible.
“I’ll see what your sister has to say.” I walked back through the gates, steering him in front of me, and beckoned to Ryan. “He was hiding in the bushes. His sister’s in the contest.”
Harper, who was in the middle of a duel, faltered, and a punch caught her in the face and knocked her onto her back.
“Percy!” She bounded to her feet. “What have you done to my brother?”
“Caught him spying on the castle,” I said. “We have to bring him in for questioning. You, too. Death King’s orders.”
Not that the man himself had given any orders, but he’d want me to talk to both of them. Harper followed after me, looking pale and scared, and accompanied her brother into the same room I’d used for questioning the day before.
I turned to both of them. “Harper, I’m sure you understand why I need to question you, given yesterday’s incident. Your brother’s a water mage, after all.”
“You think he flooded the castle?” she said. “No. He couldn’t have. He wasn’t here.”
“That so?” I turned to her brother. “How long have you been spying outside the castle? Were you here yesterday?”
“I—yes, but I didn’t come inside the gates,” he stammered. “And I didn’t use my magic.”
Hmm. “Harper, what about you? You were still in the trial when the room flooded, weren’t you?”
“Yes, but I didn’t do it,” she said. “I already told you yesterday.”
“Percy, leave the castle at once,” I said. “Harper, you can stay, but if you remember anything else, tell me or any of the Elemental Soldiers. And if you let your brother into the castle grounds, for whatever reason, I’ll have to disqualify you.”
I sent the two of them back outside and followed, skirting the arena as I spotted Sledge standing in front of the liches at the gate. Flames shot from his hands, narrowly avoiding setting the liches ablaze.
“This is bullshit!” he bellowed. “You can’t kick me out.”
“Get a hint.” I marched up to him, stopping at a safe distance from the flames. “You’re getting kicked out, matey.”
“Fuck off,” he spat. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. You’re not a mage.”
; Screw it. I reached out with my spirit magic as though I was drawing on a node, snagged the energy inside him and gave a firm tug like a rope. He gasped, staggering backwards, all the fight draining out of him. “You’re a spirit mage.”
“Really, I had no idea.” I actually pulled it off. I’d exposed my magic in the process, but there was no way this dude worked for the Order. Besides, look how many people already knew. “Get out of the Court of the Dead.”
He lunged at me, and I raised my hand, focusing on the white-hot energy I’d pulled out of him. A current of flames shot from my hands and blasted him off his feet.
“What the—?” He tried to rise to his feet, but a second blast of white-red flames knocked him flat. Hey, I could get used to this.
Ryan ran up behind me. “Liv? Did he try to sneak back in?”
“He tried.” Triumph flooded me, tempered by the sense that I’d crossed some invisible line. I hadn’t cared who’d seen my display when I’d taken him down. “Can you levitate him away from the castle? I don’t want him to wake up and start taking shots at the liches again.”
“With pleasure.” Ryan lifted Sledge off the ground and levitated him through the gap in the gates. “How’d you knock him out, anyway?”
The truth constricted my lungs. Perhaps hiding my power had been a fool’s errand from the start. Besides, I couldn’t deny it felt damn good to have brought the thuggish bully crashing down using his own power against him.
“Spirit magic.” I followed them out of the gates past the liches on duty. “Your boss taught me a couple of tricks.”
“Huh.” They frowned. “I didn’t know he gave you any lessons.”
“It’s easier for me to fight an opponent who doesn’t use the same magic against me.” No need to mention how the Death King had decided to leave me frozen in the middle of town last night.
Sledge came to alertness with a bellow of anger, flailing in mid-air. “Put me down!”
“You tried to kill me, arsehole,” I said. “You’re going home.”
“Or if you’d rather sit in the Death King’s jail for a while instead, be my guest,” said Ryan. “What will it be, then?”
Sledge flailed and kicked, then jumped out of Ryan’s reach and straight into the node’s path. At once, the current of energy swallowed him up.
Ryan swore. “We can’t follow him.”
“Like hell we can’t.” I took a step towards the node, and the sound of someone clearing their throat made me spin around on the spot. Trix stood there, for all the world as though he’d been watching the whole time.
“Need help?” he said. “Who was that?”
“Sledge here cheated in the contest, so we kicked him out.”
“Fair enough.”
“Can you follow him?” asked Ryan, eyeing Trix. “I mean—it’s fine if you can’t, but if he’s planning anything dodgy, it’s better to catch him at it now.”
“I will do.” Trix stepped through the node and vanished without another word.
“I’d be more inclined to keep an eye on Harper,” I said. “Her brother is a water mage, though she claims he wasn’t in the castle yesterday. Perhaps some of the others have mage relations who have different powers, though. Not unheard of, is it?”
“No… you’re right,” said Ryan. “My master did perform a background check on everyone, but he didn’t share the results.”
“He didn’t?” I said incredulously. “Are you serious?”
“He has his reasons.”
“Well, they’re shit.” I’d about had it with the Death King’s blasted obtuseness. “And so is the rule that we have to keep the contenders in the running unless they literally set the castle ablaze.”
“Most of the troublemakers have gone by now,” they said. “As for the mage kid, I’ll find out who he is. And his sister. But we have to finish the trials first.”
“Fine,” I said. “I hope Trix has better luck with Sledge and doesn’t get caught.”
“Will he be okay?” asked Ryan.
“Sure,” I said. “He’s resilient and good at spying on people. Sledge won’t be able to land a hit on him.”
“I’m more concerned about him bringing reinforcements.” Ryan turned back to the castle.
“Good point.”
Time to head back to the trials… and hope that Sledge had been acting alone.
10
I hardly had any focus left to watch the contest for the rest of the morning. I was starting to think I should have risked the Death King’s wrath and chased after Sledge after all. At least Harper’s brother didn’t make another reappearance, while Bria maintained her winning streak without breaking the rules in any obvious way. With the numbers thinned down, it was easier to watch out for any foul play, but aside from a few fires, nothing leapt out at me.
I didn’t have time to talk to the others until our assigned break in the afternoon, at which point I dropped in on Devon to grab some lunch and found Trix waiting on the other side.
“Hey, Liv,” he said in cheerful tones. “I was just talking to Devon about Sledge.”
“What about him?” I went to the kitchen to put a sandwich together. “Did you manage to follow him? Where’d he end up?”
“He wandered around a bit, then he went to the market.”
Hmm. “Did he meet any more fire mages?”
“I don’t know. I lost him in the market.”
That figured. “Maybe I should have asked you to follow Harper’s brother instead.”
“Who?”
“One of the contenders has a brother who’s a water mage,” I explained. “She claimed he wasn’t in the castle when it flooded, but it seems suspicious to say the least.”
“Is she still in the contest?” asked Devon.
“For now.” I carried my sandwich back to the living room and took a bite. “This afternoon, half the remaining participants will be eliminated. Plus Sledge, but he deserved it. Are you sure he wasn’t going to sneak back into the castle, Trix?”
“I didn’t see him going that way,” he responded. “Also, I found out more about the Houses of the Elements.”
“You might have led with that.” I put the sandwich down. “So, what did you find out?”
“The four Houses have a rivalry going on, but you expect that of the mages,” said Devon. “Trix, tell her what else you know.”
“The House of Fire is the biggest house and the most dangerous,” he said. “Apparently, the vampires don’t like them for some reason. Not sure why. The vampire I asked started yelling at me to mind my own business after that.”
“Trix, I didn’t tell you to question the vampires.” I shook my head. “Please tell me you aren’t on their hit list, too. Don’t you remember when you ended up tied up in the basement?”
“Which time?” he asked, all wide-eyed innocence.
I rolled my eyes. “Never mind. So the House of Fire… do you know whereabouts they’re based? I heard Elysium…”
“That’s the bad news,” said Devon. “Turns out they have an arrangement with the local authorities in Elysium which allows them to make the laws for all mages in the city. They’re open about the fact that they’d prefer to be in charge of the mages across the rest of the Parallel, too. Reportedly, they aren’t a fan of the Death King either.”
I swore. “Seriously? You mean they could have taken in Davies without telling anyone?”
“You’ve got it,” she said. “Also, they have safe houses and designated meeting points in every city. He might not even be in Elysium. He might’ve stayed in Arcadia, if he didn’t mind risking being spotted by someone who knew his face.”
“Dammit,” I said. “I guess we could ask around to see if any of the contenders know where the Houses’ local meetup spot is.”
I still didn’t know what to make of Bria’s visit to the Citadel, but I was reasonably certain even Davies wouldn’t pick that place as a hideout. Besides, the Houses’ main bases were in Elysium. Not Arcadia. Arcadia belong
ed to the vampires… who really ought to have noticed if someone was making trouble in the citadel, considering how close it was to their base.
“What about Bria?” asked Devon. “She’s the one you suspected, right?”
“Yeah.” I chewed the rest of my sandwich before asking, “Can you think of a good reason your average person might want to go into the Citadel of the Elements?”
Devon’s brow wrinkled. “To fight phantoms?”
“That’s what I thought, too.” I turned to Trix. “Did anyone you questioned mention the Citadels?”
“No, but everyone knows the Citadels used to host the Houses of the Elements before the spirit mages fell,” said Trix.
“I didn’t know,” Devon supplied.
“Nor me, but you know, defective memory.” I tapped my head. “So the Houses of the Elements used to be connected to the Order?”
The Order of the Elements had severed all connection with the original council after they’d died—not hard, because there’d been so few survivors—but they must know of the Houses, surely. Question was, did the Houses still have any of the influence they’d once had when the Council of the Elements had ruled over the entire Parallel?
“Looks that way,” said Devon. “Did you follow Bria into the tower?”
“The door wouldn’t let me in,” I said. “It was magic-proofed. Like the Death King’s hall of souls. I tried the back door, too.”
“Maybe it’s where he spends his nights.”
“Ha.” I shook my head. “I don’t trust Bria, but I think I have to gain her confidence if I want her to spill any more secrets. She’s the one who first mentioned the Houses of the Elements when I asked if she knew who might be trying to sabotage the contest. She brought up the Spirit Agents, too.”
“Maybe she’s trying to gain your trust in order to get information,” said Devon.
“I thought of that, but it’s not like I haven’t questioned the other participants, too.”
The doorbell rang. Not the Order again. I dropped off my plate in the kitchen, and, bracing myself, followed Devon into the shop.
Trial of Shadows (Order of the Elements Book 3) Page 10