“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, staring up at the parrot. I was back in the Tower’s head.
The Tower—wearing his younger skin—curled his lips in amusement. I accepted his hand and pulled myself upright.
He said, “Would you please come to my office?”
“Really? I’m right downstairs. Forget a phone call, you could have just stomped on the floor.”
“I thought you would appreciate the living memory.”
“You have an odd understanding of the word ‘appreciate.’”
Lord Tower looked back at the parrot, which had settled into a dead tree’s hollow covered with hanging vines. The bird squawked and preened a pale-violet chest.
Lord Tower said, “I’ll see you in my office.”
He shucked me back into the pool room, where a naked Addam was shaking my shoulders.
In all the time I’d known the Tower, I’d rarely been inside his private study. I didn’t know what to make of the invitation. Between the war room and the golem vault, I was getting one hell of a private tour today.
He met me at the door and waved me inside. He wore a long, silk bathrobe over pajamas, feet bare. It’d been a couple decades, though, since I was fooled by his sleepy handsomeness.
Once inside, I had a few seconds to form an impression of mahogany and green damask; of walls lined with bookshelves; of a black marble desk as imposing as a throne. Then my attention was drawn to the corner of the room, where the Tower was painting.
It was called jewel work. There were only a handful of artists in the world who even remembered the magic to create it. Jewel work used spells to melt precious gemstones into paints for only minutes at a stretch.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, standing before the painting. He’d finished half of it: a sunset sky dominated by the early appearance of a low, pale moon. Next to the canvas were hardened bowls of ruby and golden sapphire. As I watched, the magic in a bowl of liquid opals seeped upward like a sigh, and the surface hardened into crested patterns.
“Would you like to try?” Lord Tower asked from directly behind me.
“I don’t know how to paint.”
“Start the ocean for me,” he said.
On a shelf above the easel were small copper casks. He reached for one and brought it down to the mixing table. Inside was a selection of blue gems. He swirled his fingers through them and picked two, so dark they were nearly navy, with white starbursts in their centers.
“Are those star sapphires?” I asked.
“Blue star sapphires,” he said.
“Shit,” I breathed. “I don’t know why you asked me here, but I’m guessing it’s pretty damn bad if you’re going to melt down several thousand dollars and let me ruin your painting.”
He laughed. It wasn’t his public laugh—this was soft and questioning, as if the sound surprised him. “You won’t ruin anything. Just a brushstroke.”
He clicked the two stones into a shallow copper bowl. Mounted along the edge of the casket shelf were a series of sigils shaped like silver coins. Seven of them. Mounted. The sight gave my stomach a raw, familiar twinge. I imagined being part of a court that was so hale that I could toss away sigils for hobby magic.
The Tower released one of the spells. He traced a pattern with his fingers on the underside of the copper bowl. The blue star sapphires collapsed on themselves, effervescing into liquid. I took a paintbrush that the Tower offered, and dragged the bristles through the color.
As I painted a single stroke on the canvas, all envy faded. A reluctant, childlike smile spread across my face. The color was richer than anything I’d ever seen.
He took the brush from my hand and stared at the easel. I followed his cue. We stood there for a surreal minute and watched—literally—the paint dry.
I said, “You’re leading up to something.”
He gave me a sidelong smile and stepped away. He walked over to a corner of the room where a map of New Atlantis was carved into a wooden wall panel.
“There are things I’d like to tell you that must not leave this room. I would have your vow before I talk about them.” I opened my mouth to say something smart, and Lord Tower held up a hand. “This is information restricted to the Arcanum. Do you understand what that means?”
I did, and it tied my tongue for a second. “Aren’t I a little young for the missile codes?”
“You are, but needs must. Do I have your vow?”
“Can you imagine any circumstance,” I said, “where your sharing this information with me could cause me or mine to come to harm?”
The Tower smiled. It wasn’t humor; it was approbation. “You’ll come to understand, Rune, that there are secrets which could, yes, cause great harm if shared. That is our responsibility and burden, as Arcana. If it makes any difference, I’m asking you to trust that I would not burden you unnecessarily.”
“I’ll hold what you tell me in confidence,” I swore. A shiver ran through the air as my vow was realized.
The Tower turned so that I could see his finger on the map. He traced a square of land that spanned the border of the Westlands, all the way to the eastern shore, and all the way from the north and south shores.
“The Arcanum has laid several measures against certain emergencies. There is one in particular I would share with you. Buried along every street in this area is a network of wards and mass sigils, not unlike the safe roads in the Westlands. Upon activation, this defense would saturate the entire city in an aura of Bless-fire.”
“Like what you had around the Pac Bell yesterday.”
“The Bless-fire perimeter around the Pac Bell was raised by individuals. It was a controlled defense. The dormant Bless-fire network would have no such discretion.”
Oh.
The consequences spiraled through my head like a domino pattern.
Bless-fire was a weapon against the undead and deconsecrated. It had crippled Rurik when we’d fought. Surrounding the lich in a field of Bless-fire would be an effective, perhaps terminal weapon.
But there were other things that walked this city that were undead and deconsecrated, that lived a peaceful coexistence within Convocation law. What would become of them?
Also, our translocated buildings were filled with dark, deconsecrated power. We often drew on this power. It was a massive magical resource. What would happen to it, if subjected to Bless-fire?
The defense that the Tower talked about was sterilization. A last resort. Not unlike my Exodus sigil—a stored spell of such potency that I wasn’t sure I could stop how far the blast radius went.
“And here we thought you were just worried about the recarnate army,” I said tiredly.
“I am. But my guess is that the recarnates serve a temporary purpose: to assist and protect the lich in its early stages when it’s not entirely able to protect itself. As the lich grows, it will not need an army.”
He turned away from the map and looked at me. “I told you earlier that I was concerned that the Arcanum would not believe me, about the lich. That was . . . misdirection. My real concern is that they will believe me. I know our brothers and sisters, Rune. Some would react poorly.”
“So . . . we need to proceed as planned, before someone cuts off our nose to spite our face. I need to head into the Westlands and find where the lich was summoned.”
“And I will continue to search for the scions. I needed you to understand the gravity of the situation. We must act without hesitancy. The people responsible for the lich must die, and they must die quickly.”
“I understand,” I said. “Ella. Michael.”
I glanced toward the portrait. My mind jumped to another topic. There were unsettled things between Lord Tower and me, and I had to address them.
“I need to tell you something,” I said seriously.
His stillness was his attention.
“I want to thank you for helping me outside, when the spectres were after me. You revealed one of your defense mechanisms to save my life. I
know it wasn’t an easy, or costless, decision. I need you to know that—that I am truly, truly grateful for your help and protection. I always have been.”
“But.”
“But if you or your people ever leave Brand outside that protection again like you did downstairs—when it would have been so easy to save him as well—I swear, on my name, by binding oath, that we are done.”
The temperature in the room jumped with the force of the vow. The words coiled around us, and sweat popped along my hairline.
The Tower’s gaze was steady and dark and so unblinking that his eyes must have been burning with the effort of it.
This is the thing: I didn’t know—I honestly didn’t know—what my relationship with the Tower exactly was. Brand seemed to think that Lord Tower was fond of me. Maybe Brand was right. But even if I couldn’t put a label on the relationship, I knew I was important to him in a way that most people weren’t. So this vow involved playing a card I couldn’t easily play again.
Lord Tower said, “You’ve never forgiven me for hurting him, have you?”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“What’s to be gained by talking about that? Have you changed your mind about what happened? Do you see your son more clearly now? Do you still think it was Brand who deserved to be whipped?”
“I’ve always seen Dalton clearly, Rune. That’s not the lesson you needed to learn.”
“That was no lesson!”
I’d never shouted at him before. But what he said hit a button that made me see red.
I did not want to think about it. I didn’t want to think about those days after my father’s death, when I was recovering from my injuries. From the rape.
Lord Tower’s spoiled son had treated me like a new and vulnerable toy. Cornering me in empty rooms; touching my thigh under the dinner table; staring at me when no one else was looking.
Brand found out. He went after Dalton; he thrashed Dalton; and he was whipped for it.
In the aftermath, not even magic had taken the crook out of Dalton’s nose, and not even magic had removed all the scars from Brand’s back. It had been an untenable mess of a situation.
“You were sixteen years old and the last of your court,” Lord Tower said. “You had many lessons to learn, and you had no time to learn them. You had no resources or protection other than what I offered; you had no margin for error. You needed to understand that every aspect of your life had consequences for those around you. You needed to understand that your response must be measured and cautious.”
Tears gathered in my eyes. I was too angry to be embarrassed by them, too angry to hide them.
The Tower saw this and blinked.
I turned my back and went to the door, but before I crossed the threshold, he said, almost uncertainly, “It was a lesson, but perhaps one that was poorly planned.”
I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but I think the Tower had just apologized to me.
“Brand shouldn’t have spoken that way to you downstairs,” I admitted. “I’m sorry about that. He’s just worried about me.”
“I know he is. There are times I wished I had such a dependable shield, as he is for you. Mayan and I are very different Companions. Rune, I cannot promise to extend the same protection to Brandon as I would to you, not if it comes to a choice between you. I think you know Brandon would insist on that as well. But in situations where I can protect him, I will. I will do that for you.”
I let out a breath. “Thank you.”
“Good night, Rune.”
“Good night, Lord Tower.”
THE WESTLANDS
In a gesture that short-circuited my sense of context—like coming home to find the mailman cleaning your pool, or your dentist burning leaves in your backyard—the Tower decided to personally drive us to the Boundary.
We left the Pac Bell via a mile-long underground tunnel just before dawn, in an SUV limo that was shielded with so many defensive spells that the buzz of them practically lifted my ass off the seat. Lord Tower and Addam were in the front, and Brand and I had taken the back. I hadn’t even tried to suggest that Brand not accompany us as far as the Boundary. It had been messy enough saying goodbye to Queenie, who cried; and Max, who stared at me like the last bit of safety in the world was sinking out of sight. It occurred to me that my maybe going off and dying was one more thing he wasn’t prepared to handle, not after losing everything in his life just days ago. I tried to tell him that Brand would remember to feed him if I didn’t come back. It hadn’t been my funniest moment.
The Tower had suggested that Addam and I cross the Boundary in the city’s northwest corner, and that’s where we headed. In the graying light, the downtown skyline slowly collapsed into the weathered, two-story buildings of a fishing port. The neighborhood had been settled by the last original Nantucket residents, one of the few human holdout communities left. Magic was scarce there, which worked in our favor. It eliminated some of the means by which we might have been tracked.
The Tower pulled into an alley between a fish-and-chips shack and a hand-knitted sweater store. He made us sit still while he studied a monitor built into the middle of the steering wheel. When he was confident that we were unobserved, he nodded and pulled out a cell phone. “Addam, I’m calling you now, so you’ll have this number saved. It’s a private line I share with Rune. You’ll be unlikely to have service in the Westlands, but one never knows.” Addam’s phone rang once. The Tower glanced in the back seat and said, “Brandon, I should send it to you as well.”
He began dialing. Brand’s eyes went wide. He blurted, “Rune already gave it to—” just as his phone began to breathe like Darth Vader.
Lord Tower gave Brand another long look. Brand had the good manners to look almost contrite.
We all got out of the limo, left the alley, and stared at the Boundary.
Stretching from the north to south shores, it was a ten-foot wall inlaid with coral and obsidian rods. Fresh coal dust was scattered along the base—another substance that did well against supernatural threat. There were no guards. Why would there be? If anything was strong enough to overpower the Arcana-level defenses built into the wall, there wasn’t much a guard could do except die messily.
Lord Tower and Addam moved away from us to say their goodbyes. I went up to Brand and whispered, “I’ll be okay.”
Brand stared at me. After a very long minute, he dropped his gaze and started walking to the SUV.
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Addam?” I asked, stalling for a few more seconds. I could feel his hurt pulsing through the Companion bond, could feel how unhappy he was, how much I meant to him.
“Don’t worry,” Brand said. “He and I already had a long talk this morning.”
“Well, that doesn’t worry me at all.”
“You better come back to me,” Brand said, without turning. Then he opened the door to the SUV’s back seat and vanished into it.
As the door shut, Lord Tower said to me, “He’ll be fine.”
“I know he will,” I said. “You made a promise.”
“Pardon?” he said.
“You said you’d watch over him whenever you weren’t watching over me. I figure that means if anything happens to me in the Westlands, he’ll get your patronage for the rest of his natural life.”
“That—” Lord Tower said. His mouth closed and opened. “I’m not sure that was the essence of what I meant.”
“Maybe not, but oaths are tricky things. Just the other week I made one and got a teenager out of it.”
“I see. I’ll require you to survive this trip, then,” Lord Tower said.
I couldn’t leave things as lighthearted as that, though. It was too important. “At the very least, please, please watch over him if I don’t make it back. Keep him from . . . following me.”
Lord Tower dipped his head in a single nod.
“See you on the flip side,” I said.
I backed away, turned, shifted the backpack’s weight on my shoulders, and walked toward Addam. I felt Brand’s eyes on me every second as Addam and I went to, and then through, the Boundary gate. I felt Brand right up until the Boundary’s magic began crushing our bond into silence. At the last, I had the clearest sense of him grabbing his door handle so hard that he nearly tore a ligament in his hand.
And then the Boundary was behind us, and I was alone in my head for the first time since I was even capable of conscious thought.
Once upon a time, the Westlands was twenty-five square miles of dune, scrubby trees, field grass, and swimming holes.
Then my people settled in. In making New Atlantis on the eastern half of the island, the Arcanum expended centuries of stored power virtually overnight, teleporting abandoned human buildings from all over the world. While no one knows for sure what happened to the western half of the island, it’s theorized that the backwash of all that translocation magic mutated it into Something Else.
It became a dangerous wilderness, filled with nightmarish monsters and spatial anomalies and, most unpredictable of all, wild magic. Wild magic was a primal, planetary force—nearly sentient, composed of millions of independent parts.
I remember a newspaper article from the 1980s about a man who went into the Westlands with a compass. He got lost, traveled northwest, and didn’t hit an ocean until 1617. He died of a bacterial infection along with most of the Wampanoag tribe. His deathbed letter popped up in a museum of Native American history, a time paradox that made my head ache to think on it.
On the plus side, the pathways were safer than they’d ever been. The newest safety measures came after a highly publicized routing some twelve years back. Lord Hierophant, traveling in an armed party, barely escaped with his life after they stumbled into some sort of portal dimension where every shadow was filled with spinning shards of meteor glass. In response to the attack, Lord Magician pooled talent with other Arcana and beefed up the pathway’s powerful wards.
Addam and I planned a route that would keep us off the main east–west thoroughfare, yet still safely on ancillary pathways. We would be walking, since vehicles didn’t work in the Westlands, and renting the specially-bred horses would have drawn too much attention.
The Last Sun Page 21