by Sadie Moss
The barracks had quieted with Christine’s arrival, everyone riveted to the scene playing out before them. Faces that had been cautious and closed off were now openly wary or hostile, and I wished Christine hadn’t leveled her accusations against me in such a public setting. The Blighted had decades’ worth of reasons not to trust the Gifted. Now they had one more.
As we made our way to the war room, the men fell into the same unconscious flanking pattern they always did. Fenris kept a firm grip on my hand—the stubborn, independent part of me told me I should pull away, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it—while Jae fell into step on my left side, and the other two walked close behind us. But I didn’t feel like a prisoner being escorted.
I felt like a queen being guarded.
There were a few Resistance members I didn’t recognize gathered in the war room, heads bent low over a map laid out on the large table. Christine stood next to them, arms crossed over her chest.
Her head snapped up as soon as we entered, and she gestured to a chair in the corner next to a stack of crates. “Put her over there. Bind her.”
“We’re not going to do that, Christine. You have presented us with no actual evidence that Lana is a traitor. We’re here to listen and discuss. That’s all.” Jae’s voice was calm and firm, but his magic pulsed in powerful waves.
I was sure everyone in the room could feel it, and I wondered if he was doing it on purpose to intimidate the human Resistance members, or if he didn’t have as firm a grasp on his emotions right now as he usually did.
Christine’s jaw muscles twitched. “Fine. But watch her. And keep her out of the way.” She shifted her body to block my view of the map on the table, pointing toward the corner where the lone chair sat. Grudgingly, I walked over and plunked down onto it. Fenris went with me, never letting go of my hand. Christine noticed that connection and scowled as the other three men approached the table.
I couldn’t make out any part of the map from here, but I could see their faces as they leaned over to look at it. Corin’s eyes widened, and Akio cursed softly.
“You see it?” Christine asked, a note of triumph in her voice.
“Yeah,” Corin breathed, his expression anxious.
“These are all the houses that were hit?” Jae studied the large map intently.
“Yes. All the attacks occurred within an hour of each other. You see the pattern, don’t you?” Christine pressed.
“They form a perimeter around the Resistance’s location.”
“Exactly.” Christine tossed a glare over her shoulder at me. “Some of the houses hit belonged to Blighted civilians, not connected to the Resistance at all. Several belonged to our people. There were three casualties on our side and more injured. No prisoners taken, thank the gods. But you see how all the attacks are clustered around us? Someone is using a tracking charm to find our location. And they’re getting closer.”
My mind swam, trying to process what she was saying. I had no idea where the Resistance was actually based; I’d only ever come here through portals, and Jae said he moved those every few weeks to keep the Gifted government from being able to detect patterns of movement. For all I knew, our actual location was miles from the redbrick building we’d entered earlier.
I tugged on Fenris’s hand, and he leaned down toward me.
“Doesn’t Jae have some sort of concealment spell on this place?” I whispered.
He nodded grimly, eyes focused on the group gathered around the table as he answered in a low voice. “Yeah, he does. One other low-level mage helps him maintain it. But this is a big place. It’s hard to keep it totally concealed. What his spell really does is keep people from finding our hideout if they don’t already know where it is. They could walk by it twenty times and never notice it. But if a tracking spell is leading them here… well, it’ll still be hard to find, but on the fifth or sixth time passing by, they won’t overlook it anymore. That’s probably why the attacks were clustered around our location. The Representatives don’t know quite where we are yet, but they have an idea of the general area. They’ll keep testing and poking, following whatever tracking spell they have, until they break through the concealment.”
Fuck.
“I don’t know any tracking spells! I didn’t know any magic at all until eight days ago!” I called to Christine, though my mind was racing. If the Representatives were closing in on the Resistance location, that meant someone in the organization was a mole. And that was a problem.
Her steely eyes met mine. “Yes, Ms. Crow. I remember you telling me that story. But I have no way to verify it and no reason to believe you.”
“There are two attacks that don’t fit this pattern, Christine.” Jae hovered his graceful fingers over the map. He looked up. “One is Akio’s house. He’s in the Capital, miles away from here. The other is the attack on the portal at the building on Field Street. It was burned out, the portal destroyed. That’s an anomaly in this pattern as well.”
“You’re right.” Christine drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “But they do fit another pattern.” She turned to face me fully this time, head tipped back as she stared down her nose at me. “They’re both places your new friend Lana Crow has visited.”
Chapter 17
I surged to my feet, dropping Fenris’s hand. He caught my elbow instead, holding me back from charging at Christine.
“I didn’t fucking do it! I’m not running a godsdamned tracking charm!” I shouted.
“This place is more than just the headquarters for the Resistance. Did you know that?” The older woman regarded me evenly. “This is also a haven for those unjustly persecuted by the Gifted. We have families living here, hiding from death sentences leveled against them for crimes as minor as scavenging from a restaurant’s discarded scraps in the Capital. I hope you realize your actions have endangered those people along with the active Resistance fighters.”
I pressed my lips together, thinking of the hundreds of cots and blankets spread out in the barracks. All those people at risk….
“Then you should be trying to strengthen the concealment spell, figure out how the government is actually tracking the location, bolstering defenses—I don’t know, something! Something besides wasting time leveling baseless accusations at me just because you hate me.”
Jae had been studying the map carefully, his elegant brow furrowed. Now he looked up at me, his face grave. “Lana… it is possible.”
The air left the room.
It must have, because I suddenly couldn’t breathe.
My world tilted on its axis, leaving my head spinning. Jae didn’t, couldn’t, believe that. He couldn’t believe I’d betray the Resistance, betray the four men who had come to mean so much to me.
It hurt more than I would’ve thought possible to think I had lost his trust.
“No,” I said weakly. “I swear, I didn’t—”
“It’s possible,” he repeated, stepping closer. “That you’ve been tracking us and didn’t even know it.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I believe you when you say you were unaware of this. And I know you don’t know any tracking spells. But it’s still possible you’re carrying one.”
My stomach lurched. The relief of knowing Jae trusted me was nearly overshadowed by the new fear creeping over me. “Carrying one?”
He sighed, turning to Christine. “We need to take her to Asprix right away. When we had him read her magic, we didn’t have him scan her for any external charms. An oversight on my part, and I take full responsibility. But it didn’t even occur to me that she could be carrying a tracking spell. She was sent to kill Akio, after all. Whoever hired her had no reason to think she’d end up joining us.”
Christine tipped her head, glowering at me. I could practically see the gears turning in her head. Even if Jae convinced her it wasn’t intentional on my part, I was certain she’d never forgive me if it turned out I was the one who’d drawn the Representatives’ attention to the Resista
nce base.
Finally, she nodded curtly. “Do it. Report your findings back to me immediately.”
Fenris’s grip on my elbow had shifted from one of restraint to one of support, as my legs had grown weak. Now he gently ushered me toward the door, where the other three men met us. I followed them down the stairs numbly. When Corin pushed aside the curtain to Asprix’s little room, my blood chilled at the sight of the old man. He could give us answers, but I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know them.
Unaware of my inner turmoil, the white-bearded reader’s face lit up at the sight of us.
“Corin! It’s good to see you again, my boy! And you brought your friends with you, I see.” Asprix’s gaze fell on me, and the joy in his light blue eyes dimmed. “Are you quite all right, my dear?”
I shook my head, attempted a smile, and drew in a choked breath all at the same time. It was a confusing mix of signals, the sum of which probably gave him a clearer answer than words ever could.
No.
Fuck no.
“Oh dear.” The wizened old man tsked through his teeth. “Well, what can I do for you?”
“We need you to read her again, Asprix. But instead of focusing on her own magic, see if you can uncover any evidence of an external spell placed on her. Specifically, a tracking spell,” Jae said.
Asprix’s eyes widened. “Oh my! Yes, of course. If I may, my sweet?”
He held his wrinkled hands out like he had the last time. Forcing my body into motion, I knelt before him and rested my hands on his. A white film clouded his eyes, which almost seemed to glow in the light from the tiny glowing orbs that bounced and jostled against each other on the ceiling.
I gnawed my lower lip while he worked. He was in his trance for so long I was afraid I’d end up eating a chunk of my lip. I could taste blood by the time he finally blinked, his eyes clearing.
“Well?” I blurted.
Asprix pulled his hands back and sat straighter in his chair. Feeling suddenly cold, my fingers twisted around each other, my thumb reaching over to nervously spin the ring on my middle finger—the ring that was no longer there.
“I didn’t even notice it before,” he said softly, and my heart sank.
“So… I am being tracked?”
“I’m afraid so, my dear. It’s a small charm, very discreet. Not terribly powerful, but quite sophisticated. Whoever created it is quite skilled.”
The back of my neck prickled as a wave of nausea washed over me. Edgar, the Gifted man who’d blackmailed me into leaving Wyoming and working for him in this damn city, had branded me with a tracking charm on my nape, just below my hairline. I’d lived with that brand, along with the knowledge that he could always find me, for years. It had faded out after his death, the spell no longer having anything to connect to. But I swore I could still feel it sometimes.
Had someone reactivated it somehow? Was that even possible?
“Fuck.” Fenris gave a low whistle. “Trouble really does find you, doesn’t it, killer?”
He softened his words by stroking my hair gently, and I reached up to cling to his hand, gaze still focused on Asprix.
“Can you tell who put the tracking spell on me? Or when?”
Asprix ran his knobby fingers through his beard. “No, unfortunately. I do know that whoever created it is still alive. But I can’t tell you more than that. Can you think of any Gifted people you had contact with recently who would have reason to track you?” He hesitated for a moment, considering. “Although I suppose it would be possible for them to create a charm that could be applied by a third party. So you may never have even met the true caster of this spell.”
My jaw dropped.
Well, that narrows it done a whole fucking bunch, doesn’t it?
“So, it could be… anybody,” I choked out.
Asprix’s wrinkled face drooped as he confirmed my fear. “Yes. I’m sorry, my dear.”
“Well, that narrows it down a whole fucking lot, doesn’t it?” Fenris swore, and I looked up sharply. Was our shifter mind-connection growing stronger even in human form? Or were we just that much alike?
Either way, we were both right. The endless possibilities of who could’ve created the spell made tracking down the source virtually impossible. I thought I’d done a pretty good job staying under the radar, but I was beginning to realize the government was watching the Blighted population more closely than I’d thought.
“We need to tell Christine about this,” Jae said softly.
“Are you kidding me?” Corin rounded on him. He’d ditched his bloody shirt sometime on the way to Asprix’s room, and his muscles were bunched with tension. “If we tell Christine she’s carrying a tracking spell, she’ll never believe Lana didn’t do it on purpose!”
“We have to tell her,” Jae repeated. “If we don’t find the origin of that tracking spell, whoever is behind it will find us. There are lives at stake.” Corin opened his mouth again, his eyes blazing, but Jae raised a hand. “I will let her kill me before I let her kill Lana. But Christine needs to know.”
I tried not to hear the words I will let her kill me before I let her kill Lana. They were too much for my overloaded brain to process right now. I could no longer deny the connection that bonded the five of us on what felt like a soul level, but such a naked admission of it made my heart hammer with unfamiliar emotions.
Corin’s hands clenched by his sides. “You’re right. Fuck, you’re right. But we’re not bringing Lana back to the war room until we calm Christine down. I want her to guarantee Lana’s safety.”
Jae nodded solemnly. “Agreed.”
Akio turned to Asprix, who was watching the entire exchange with sharp eyes. “Can we leave Lana in your care for a while?”
I bristled, his words shocking me out of my stunned state. “Hey! I’m not a fucking baby.”
His dark eyes glittered as they perused my body. “I’ve noticed.”
Glancing down, I took in my appearance. Christine had barely blinked when she saw me, so I’d almost forgotten I was still wearing the top half of a deep green evening gown. I’d ripped off the bottom half at my upper thighs, and my empty dagger sheaths were still wrapped around each leg.
“Hey, I told you. If you don’t want to see anything, don’t look.”
“And I heard you,” he said, his lips tilting into a rare smile, his gaze still pointedly glued to me.
I lapsed into silence, unsure how to reply. Was he actually joking around with me? This was one of the least antagonistic exchanges Akio and I had ever had, and I was afraid if I opened my mouth again, I’d ruin it.
Fortunately, I was saved from having to formulate a response when Asprix spoke up. “Of course she can wait with me! We’ll get to know each other a bit better. Won’t we, dear?” He rubbed his hands together, looking excited at the prospect.
Well, at least one person in the Resistance—besides my four—didn’t hate me.
“Thanks, Asprix.” Corin patted the old man’s shoulder.
“Be good, killer,” Fenris added, winking at me as they disappeared through the curtain separating Asprix’s cubby from the main room.
I stared after them for a moment, trying to gather my thoughts.
“Are you all right, dear?”
A laugh burbled out before I could stop it. “As good as a newly made Gifted woman who just discovered she unwittingly betrayed the only people she’s ever truly belonged with can be. Thanks for asking.”
Asprix gave a watery chuckle. “Well, certainly none of those four believe you betrayed them.”
“It doesn’t matter though, does it? The plain truth is that however this damn tracking charm got put on me, it’s leading the authorities right to us.” A thought struck me, and I turned to face the old reader. “They hit Akio’s house and a portal location I’d visited before. So does that mean the tracker is sending signals from everywhere I’ve been? Like a… trail?”
He nodded, stuffing a small pillow behind his head and leaning back
. “Very likely, yes.”
I was suddenly doubly grateful for the day Fenris and I had spent running around the foothills in wolf form. Let whoever was tracking me waste time trying to follow that path.
“But the strongest signal will probably come from wherever you currently are,” Asprix added.
Sliding down the wall next to his chair, I propped my forearms on my knees and rested my head against them. My current location was the one I most feared the Representatives discovering.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Christine had said, about how this place was a haven for those in need as well as the seat of the rebellion. Her story about the Blighted families hiding out here had struck home. I knew plenty of other people who had run afoul of the Peacekeepers but hadn’t been lucky enough to escape. If the families who’d found safety here were discovered now, hiding out with a group of rebels, their punishment would be a thousand times worse. The Representatives would use them as an example, not caring what their actual crimes were.
“Don’t worry, dear.” Asprix looked down at me kindly. “It will all be all right.”
His eyes drooped tiredly, and I wondered for the first time how old he actually was.
Old enough that he should be living out his days in a comfortable house with big windows and curtains that flutter in the breeze, not this stuffy little cubby lit only by magic.
“Thanks, Asprix.” I didn’t believe him for a second, but arguing with him felt mean. If he still had some hope, I wasn’t going to take that away from him, even if I couldn’t share it.
A few minutes passed.
Then a few more.
After several more minutes passed, I lost track of exactly how long I’d been waiting, but I was leaning toward calling it “forever.” And with every second that ticked by, the vice of fear and anxiety tightened around my heart.
What was taking the guys so long? Was Christine unwilling to believe I hadn’t intentionally led the Representatives here? Had there been more attacks in the surrounding area? Were Gifted enforcement agents gathering outside even now?
Finally, I turned to Asprix, intending to ask him if tracking spells could be physically removed—I was willing to lose some blood, or maybe even a limb, if it meant getting this damn thing out of me—but stopped when I saw the old man’s head lolling, his face slack with sleep.