City of Storms

by Kat Ross

  I didn’t even plan to turn your brother that day. Call it a favor for an enemy, laqueus.

  All around him, he sensed things stirring. The hair on his arms rose up as, with infinite slowness, a crouching shape resolved in the opposite corner.

  Mikhail, gaunt and bloodless, feeding tubes trailing from his nose.

  I did it for you, Alyosha. I did it for you and look what it cost me, you faithless bastard—

  “Alyosha?”

  Alexei blinked in the sudden flare of a torch. The phantoms fled. His first thought was that Spassov was another hallucination, but then he smelled food.

  “Patryk?” he called hoarsely.

  “I brought you a pierogi.” Spassov placed the torch in a bracket. “How are you holding up?”

  Alexei climbed to his feet. The pain in his side brought the world into focus again. He lurched up to the bars.

  “I had him,” Alexei said in anguish. “I had him and he got away.”

  Spassov leaned in. He looked rougher than usual. “Forget the mage, brother. You’re in serious trouble.”

  “I didn’t kill Massot!”

  “I know. I told them so.”

  “They need to question the old man. He’ll tell them he saw me.”

  “I’ll make sure of it.” Spassov hesitated. “But he’s Invertido. Not the most reliable witness.” He held up a foil-wrapped package and a glass bottle of water. “From that stand you like by Komsomol Fountain.”

  Alexei ate the pierogi in six bites, then downed the glass bottle of water. He licked the wrapper and tossed it away.

  “Listen,” Spassov said heavily. “They found a bloody knife hidden in your room. The blood type matches Massot’s.”

  “What?”

  His partner’s bluff face registered pity. “You’ve made someone very upset, Alyosha. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Nothing,” Alexei muttered.

  “But—”

  “You’ll do nothing. They’d only destroy us both.”

  Spassov was quiet for a moment. Then he took out his flask, offering it. Alexei had always refused, but now he took a bracing swig. Straight vodka. He coughed, eyes watering. Heat flooded his chest.

  “What happened to Kasia Novak?” he asked, returning the flask.

  “They took her to Cardinal Falke. That’s all I know.”

  Alexei closed his eyes. “I ruined her life for nothing,” he muttered. “She must hate me. And she has every right to.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. I need to see Kireyev.”

  “I’ll convey the message. They found some banned books in your room, too. Stuff on Nightmarks.”

  “Those are mine. But not the knife!”

  “I’ll be a character witness, okay? We both know you’re the last person who would kill an Invertido.” Spassov smiled awkwardly. “I mean, you’ve stopped me from doing it a hundred times.”

  “They don’t care if I’m guilty or innocent. But I appreciate the offer.”

  Spassov blew out a breath. “This is wrong, Alyosha. It’s not what we stand for. Framing innocent men.” He took a long pull from the flask. “Just tell me one thing. How far does it go?”

  “Far enough that you can’t stop it.”

  “You’re allowed to have family visit. Anyone I should call?”

  “No.”

  Spassov looked away. He seemed ashamed, even though none of it was his fault. “Well, then. Try to get some sleep, eh?”

  The cog holding Alexei’s sanity in place slipped another notch. He gripped the bars. It took all his restraint not to reach through them and grab poor Spassov by the throat. “Please, Patryk. I want Kireyev. Tell him I’ll confess. Anything! Just get him down here. Or have me brought up.”

  Spassov nodded vigorously. “Of course. And I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

  The mist was closing in again. Maybe he shouldn’t have drunk the vodka.

  “Why did they let you in anyway?” he muttered.

  “I know the guards,” Spassov said. “We play dominos on Thursday nights.” He laid a hand over Alexei’s. “Don’t give up, eh? You might get a miracle.”

  Phantoms capered behind him, just beyond the edge of the torchlight.

  “Kireyev,” Alexei mumbled, clinging to reality by a thread.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll do everything I can, Alyosha, I promise.”

  Spassov left. Alexei sat against the wall.

  He dug the letter Kasia had copied for him out of his boot and tried to decipher the meaning behind Massot’s cryptic words. Certain phrases caught his eye, but every time he felt near to a breakthrough, it slipped away.

  The torchlight dimmed. And the phantoms crept ever closer.

  Mox nox.

  Soon, nightfall.

  Alexei traced the letters. They were wrong.

  Night was already here.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nikola was sitting in a chair drinking coffee when Malach woke. She was also naked, which he found distracting. He wondered how he’d feel when she was visibly pregnant. If it would turn him on more, or less, or make no difference. There was no way of telling. Passions came and went, and he acted on them or didn’t, depending on his mood.

  The only constant was his hatred of the Via Sancta.

  “I figured it out,” she said, eying him over the rim of a cracked mug. “You’re trying to scare me off. It won’t work.”

  “They don’t shell us anymore.” Malach rolled his left shoulder, working out the stiffness. “Not since the Cold Truce. It’s Beleth you should be afraid of when we get to the Void.”

  “If we get there,” she said tartly.

  “You think I can’t come and go as I please?”

  “From the city. Not from the Arx.”

  “I haven’t been inside before, that’s true. But there’s always a way.”

  “Then why haven’t you tried before?”

  “It wasn’t worth the price. Now it is.”

  Nikola gave him a defiant look. “I’ll help you,” she said. “On one condition.”

  He waited.

  “I don’t want to be a mother. When this child is born, you’ll take it away.”

  “You won’t even nurse it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe for a little while. But I don’t want to be responsible for it.”

  He shrugged. In truth, that suited him perfectly. “Half-blood children grow fast. I’m sure he or she will be self-sufficient in no time.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  He looked at her, puzzled. “Why would I?”

  She set her coffee down and came over to the bed, perching on the edge. “Will you Mark the child?”

  “Of course.”

  Nikola studied his chest. She reached out a hand—and snatched it back with a strangled curse. “It moved!”

  “You didn’t look so horrified last night,” Malach said dryly.

  “Not that. The Mark!”

  “Which one?”

  “Lady of Masks. She turned her head and looked at me.”

  “Oh.” He closed his eyes. “The ley is rising. It makes her feisty.”

  “But she’s you, isn’t she?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I’ll never understand how any of this works,” Nikola said.

  Malach opened his eyes. She’d bent a knee and propped her elbow on it, resting her chin on one fist. It reminded him of a picture he’d seen in an old book, but he couldn’t remember which.

  “Don’t be sad,” he said, pulling her on top of him. “I’ll show you how something else works.”

  Thus they idled the day away. He went for takeout noodles and they ate naked with chopsticks on the bed. He told her what he was after and who had it.

  “You’ll never get into the cardinal’s residence,” she said.

  “I don’t need the letter itself. Only its contents.”

  “Who’s read it?”

  “Besides Falke? Two others.”
<
br />   “Why don’t you ask them?”

  Malach fed her a slice of yellow pepper. “They’re inside the Arx, too.”

  Nikola chewed thoughtfully. “Men or women?”

  “Women.”

  “They’ll be with the vestals then.”

  Malach scraped the last noodles from the paper box. “Is that easier?”

  “Compared to the cardinal’s residence?” Nikola laughed. “Much easier. But I still don’t see how you’ll get past the Wards. If a single stela did that to you, the Arx will be a thousand times worse.” Her face darkened at the memory. “It might kill you, Malach.”

  “Doubtful.” He gave a tight smile. “Not that I expect it to be pleasant.”

  “You don’t know what will happen.”

  He set the box aside. “Pain is in the mind.”

  “You spat blood. That’s not imagination.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll find out.”

  “This is stupid.” She glared at him. “How do you know the letter is worth dying for if you don’t even know what’s in it?”

  Malach leaned over and lit a candle. Dusk was falling. Through the grimy window, he could see the glow of the Arx against the evening sky. The mighty citadel. A generation of mages had died inside those walls. He didn’t mourn them. They’d had it easy compared to the one that followed—what was left of it—and they’d still lost because they failed to understand basic martial strategy, foremost of which was to know one’s own emotional blind spots. The mages were arrogant. They couldn’t fathom the idea that the ley might be taken from them. Malach, who’d lived most of his life severed from his powers, was more pragmatic. He assumed nothing and expected the worst. If he had ley, he’d use it. If not, he’d fight with whatever was at hand.

  “Because Falke will do anything to keep it from me,” Malach said. “And if he wants something, I oppose it.”

  “Your pride will be your undoing, Malach.”

  “It’s not pride,” he said, tipping his head back. The abyssal ley tugged at him like a dark tide. “It’s hatred.”

  Nikola sighed. “Let me go in your place.”

  Under other circumstances, Malach would have leapt at the offer. Under other circumstances, he would have subtly planted the suggestion and let her think she’d proposed it herself. But not this time.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Is Falke’s residence part of your regular rounds?”

  She shook her head. “But his aides know my face. I could slip inside—”

  “And you’d be caught. You’re not falling into his hands,” Malach said harshly.

  Her gaze narrowed. “So I have no say in this?”

  Malach laced his hands behind his head. “What do you think they’d do to a woman who’s carrying a half-breed child?”

  “Why would they even know? You just knocked me up yesterday.”

  “Oh, they’d find out. One way or another. They’d lock you up until you gave birth, and then they’d thank you for your service to humanity and they’d cut your throat and throw your body in the river. They’d keep the child, but the mother is too dangerous because she knows what it is. So let’s do it my way instead.”

  Nikola stared at him. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”

  “I’m just being honest.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Go kill yourself. I have to get ready for work.”

  She pulled on a gray shift and gray cloak and tied her hair up in the scarf. It was still pouring, so she grabbed a pair of rubber boots.

  “There’s another way to help,” he said. “The risk would be much less.”

  Nikola’s lips pursed in the way of annoyed women everywhere. “What do you want now?”

  “Can you find out which room Kasia Novak is staying in?”

  “Maybe.”

  “She’ll be with Tessaria Foy. Either one of them will do.”

  Nikola rounded on him. “And what happens if you do get inside and find them? Will you kill them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Her eyes went flat. “You don’t know.”

  He sensed a conversational minefield. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it matters! Saints, Malach, they’ve never done you wrong. Falke used them.”

  “Well, I’m not planning to kill them, if that makes you feel better. It serves no purpose if I can use compulsion instead.”

  She yanked on her gloves. “You’re a seriously messed up person.”

  “You don’t like it when I’m honest,” he observed.

  “Maybe I just don’t like you.”

  That stung. He gave her a lazy smile. “You don’t have to like me. It’s not a requirement of this alliance.”

  “Is that how you see the world, Malach? Enemies and allies? Well, I’m neither one. Get me to the coast and find a ship bound for Dur-Athaara. I’ll give you the child and we’ll never see each other again. But in the meantime, I won’t enable your lack of a moral compass.”

  He looked pointedly at her gray cloak. “I thought your moral compass was defective, too.”

  “Defective isn’t the same as missing completely.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “Take it any way you want.” Her gaze was ice. “But if you hurt those women, the deal is off.”

  “How would you know if I did or not?”

  Nikola Thorn stared at him, unblinking. “I’d know.”

  Malach thought she just might. “Then I won’t.”

  Nikola shook her head. She grabbed an umbrella. “Do me a favor, Malach?”

  He waited.

  “Since you’re here anyway, could you take out the trash and wash a few dishes?” She surveyed the mound of takeout containers. “The flat’s even more of a pigsty since you showed up.”

  “I can do that.”

  “And try not to assault any of my neighbors.”

  “Only if they play loud music,” he said.

  She grinned, silver tooth winking, and banged out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Thank the Saints they found you in time.”

  Kasia glanced over. “I was perfectly fine, Auntie.”

  Tessaria Foy shot her a dark look. Inside the walls of the Arx, she wore a long midnight blue cassock. It swished at her feet as they walked. “I assumed you’d be grateful for my intervention.”

  Natalya strolled ahead, stooping here and there to sketch a flower. She had an artist’s love of nature and was always looking for inspiration. The gardens surrounding the Pontifex’s Palace were lush and fragrant, but Kasia hardly noticed.

  “Bryce was harassing you. I thought his superiors ought to know about it.”

  “I explicitly told you not to do that,” Kasia snapped.

  Nashka didn’t turn around, but Kasia knew she heard every word. Her friend wisely steered clear when the two women argued. She’d also seemed hungover this morning, subsisting on black coffee at breakfast and wincing when Kasia offered her a bowl of honeyed rice.

  Tessaria’s tone grew chill. “I assumed you’d be grateful. He won’t trouble you again.”

  “Because he’s under arrest for murder!”

  “That has nothing to do with me,” Tessaria pointed out. “Though it makes me feel entirely justified in reporting him. Bryce is dangerous.”

  Kasia kicked a twig from her path. “What about the letters? You just handed those over without asking me?”

  “As I recall, they belong to Cardinal Falke,” Tessaria replied dryly. “I thought you were eager to be rid of them. Was I supposed to lie to a senior member of the clergy and claim I had no knowledge of them?”

  Kasia lowered her voice. “Does he know about me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why does he tolerate the pretense?”

  “A personal favor.”

  “I didn’t know you were so close to the cardinal.” Suspicion edged her voice. “You’re not really retired, are you?”

 
Tessaria smiled. “We all serve the Via Sancta.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking.”

  The older woman arched a perfectly plucked brow.

  “Who,” Kasia said flatly, “did you telephone?”

  Tessaria sighed. “Archbishop Kireyev.”

  The truth dawned. “You’re in his pocket, aren’t you?”

  There was a pregnant pause. Tessaria fiddled with her gloves.

  “As are you,” she finally replied in an offhand way.

  Kasia ground to a halt. “What?”

  “Come, Kiska. Did you really think it was just idle gossip?”

  “Fog it all, yes!” She scowled. “Does Natalya know?”

  “Know what?” Nashka asked warily. Bleached spiral curls bounced around her head as she strode over. She was still wearing her outfit from the night before, a shimmery sheathe that covered her skin but left little to the imagination. Even hung over, Nashka was a vision. Eggplant-dark gloss made her full lips appear even more lush.

  “That we’re fogging spies.”

  Nashka glanced between them. “Heh?”

  “Apparently, we work for General Directorate.” Angry as Kasia was, the last two words came out in a whispered hiss, and only after looking around to ensure the adjacent paths were deserted.

  “Grow up, both of you,” Tessaria said wearily. “Half the city reports to the archbishop in one way or another.”

  Nashka shot a holy shit look at Kasia, but held her tongue. It wasn’t so bad for her. She focused on designing the cards and rarely gave readings. Kasia was the one who could recall every spread she’d ever dealt and every word her clients uttered. Tessaria had a way of drawing it all out in casual conversation, but she saw now that it was in fact a debriefing.

  Kasia had known most of her clients for years. Every one was a referral from Tessaria Foy, meaning they were prominent people—bankers and judges, deans at the Lyceum, luminaries in Novo’s art world. They believed the ley was speaking to them through the cards and it loosened the bonds of their own Marks, exposing intimate secrets. Sexual dysfunction. Family conflict. Petty jealousies. Hidden fears and desires.

  Kasia never probed, but something about her inspired their confidence. By the second or third reading—and occasionally even the first—clients often revealed personal details they had never told anyone before. Now she’d betrayed their trust utterly.