“This won’t go well.”
She brushed a wet curl from her face and grinned at him. “Aren’t those your favorite type of plans?”
Domek knocked on Paluska’s front door. Returning to the lamplighter leader’s narrow townhouse reminded Domek of his last encounter outside. Was Bazil still watching them? If so, the man was well hidden in the shadows and mist.
At least this time Domek felt confident that no pijavice were following him, since Kája was covering their trail from the house. Not that they needed to follow him. They’d ransacked his apartment—they knew who he was.
Then again, though Domek had seen all sorts of records in the nest’s office of their smuggling practices, he hadn’t seen any information about himself. If they were so desperate to get the wisp back from him, and knew his home address, why hadn’t they started gathering other information? Perhaps his date with Ora had been their next step in getting the jar from him. Why hadn’t she tried harder? He’d been vulnerable to her a dozen times that night.
“Stay quiet, if you can,” Domek instructed Kája as they waited for the elderly valet to open the door. “They’re not going to be eager to hear what you have to say. I warned my boss about your silver tongue.”
“Of course,” Kája said. “When I can.”
Domek was about to argue when the door finally creaked open, revealing…
“Anton?” Domek asked, surprised.
“Good. You’re finally here. We’ve been waiting.”
“You and Paluska? Is this where you’ve been staying since the break-in?”
Anton nodded, still standing in the doorframe. “He has spare rooms. I agreed to help him with some work in exchange for temporary board. Keeping Prague safe is not a weekday job, you know. He’s been helping me train with a sword,” he said, puffing up with pride.
“I didn’t realize this was where you were,” Domek said.
“You could have stayed too,” Anton said. “Did you get my note?”
Domek nodded. “I did. Webber will be missed.”
Anton’s jaw worked, tense and angry. “I told you to come here.”
“Abrahams needed me more than you did,” Domek said flatly. “I need to talk to Paluska. Is he still awake?”
Anton nodded and stood aside, allowing him to enter. He led him to Paluska’s office where they found the lamplighter leader examining a pile of maps and documents. He put them aside and stood up. “Hello again, Myska.”
“Sir,” Domek said. “There’s been an update with the…issue I came to you about the other day. Can we talk?”
Paluska gestured for him to continue, but Domek glanced over at Anton uncertainly. As much as he trusted his roommate, they had agreed to keep as few people informed as possible. Paluska cleared his throat. “Anton has proven to be a faithful lamplighter,” he said. “I believe that he’ll know the right way to use this information.”
Domek nodded. “Kája,” he instructed. “Let them see you.”
Though Domek’s vision did not change, Paluska and Anton both looked instantly to the light floating beside him. “Am I wrong in thinking that this is the wisp?” Paluska asked. “If anyone should be dismissed from this conversation, I believe this is it.”
“We’re working together,” Domek said. “What I have to say concerns Kája as much as it does us. I trust him.”
“Forgive me if I’m more skeptical,” Paluska said.
Domek pulled the jar from his bag, but then hesitated. Not only did Domek want Kája’s input for the conversation, it seemed cruel to isolate him after what he’d just witnessed. Instead, he set the jar on the floor at his feet. “Do not harm anyone in this room, no matter the provocation. That’s an order,” he told Kája. Turning back to Paluska, he asked, “Is that enough?”
“I suppose it will have to be,” Paluska said.
Domek briefed them on what they had found in the nest’s basement, the strange tools and materials, and the conclusion Kája had drawn about the nature of the serum. “We don’t know what they’re doing with it,” Domek said, “but it can’t be good. We need to stop them from getting their hands on any more wisps. I broke their machine, but that won’t stop them forever.” He pulled the obsidian shard from his pocket and set it on Paluska’s desk. “This was the key component in their machine.”
“Infusing pijavica blood with magic,” Paluska said, tapping his fingers methodically on his desk. “I wouldn’t have thought of it. It’s brilliant.”
“It’s dangerous,” Domek corrected. “I was talking to Kája, and he said that—”
“At what point did you switch from telling me not to trust the wisp to believing every lie it tells you?” Paluska asked.
Leaning on the wall by the desk, Anton added, “I thought you were smarter than this, Myska.”
“The wisps are the victims here,” Domek said.
“The pijavice are on to something, and this creature is trying to keep you in the dark. It’s been manipulating you for days. You’ve been keeping secrets from us.”
“I was trying to keep us all safe,” Domek said.
“You were trying to keep it for yourself,” Paluska said. “You claimed that you had left it behind the night you came to see me, but I know you had it with you.”
“No, I…”
Anton spoke up again. “The lamplighters come first. You lost sight of that in your selfishness.”
“Domek…” Kája said quietly.
Domek ignored them both. “I should have been honest, but it didn’t seem right to pass Kája along to a new master. The responsibility for seeing this through is mine. I couldn’t guarantee what would happen outside of my care. That’s not what matters right now. Wait—how did you know I had the wisp with me?”
“After you came to me that night, I went to talk to the expert on these mysteries—Imrich. He was very irritated that you did not bring this to him. As an alchemist, he understood the value of the trapped wisp, and was the one who encouraged me to take it from you before you could do any more damage. He told me that you’ve been a disappointing apprentice. You have no right to take responsibility of a creature like this.” Paluska shook his head. “I should have guessed that you were lying about having it with you, but it took searching your apartment to be sure.”
“Anton,” Domek said, the clues coming together with disturbing clarity in his mind. “You tore apart our apartment.”
“Paluska knew you were hiding something. Why else would you refuse to hand over the wisp?” Anton asked. “I was worried you’d guessed, when you disappeared afterward.”
“Luckily, that doesn’t matter now,” Paluska said.
This was getting dire. Domek looked down for the jar, but found that it was in Anton’s hands. He had snatched it from Domek’s feet while he’d been distracted. Anton tossed the jar across the desk and Paluska caught it neatly.
Domek lurched forward. “Kája, get—”
He gasped, the words disappearing on his tongue with the sudden burst of pain. His hands started to burn as fiercely as they had the first time he had touched the jar. His palms glowed for an instant before fading, leaving his skin clear of the binding symbols. Across the table, Paluska’s hands ignited as he opened the jar.
“Wisp,” Paluska said. “You have a new master.”
“You can’t do this,” Domek said.
At his side, Kája was very still.
Paluska was unimpressed. “I believe I am plenty up to the task to keep this new monster in line. Wisp, be careful to obey me. I have enough silver here to kill a dozen of you,” he said, nodding to his wall of weapons. “Immobilize your old master. If he moves, I’ll have you kill him.”
A length of red silk appeared and coiled around his wrists. Domek tugged against it, but he was bound fast. Though the fabric looked delicate, it was impossible to tear through. “I thought you were better than this,” Domek snarled. “Why are you doing this?”
“This is a war,” Paluska said. “A war we’ve b
een only scraping by in for decades, always one night away from defeat from the encroaching darkness. It’s my duty to turn the tide. It’s time for our fight to end. At dawn, you’ll see the world you’ve been helping me build. I’m going to have the wisp summon every monster in Prague and bring them out to face the sunlight, right in the center of the Old Town Square. We’ll cleanse this world and start fresh. We deserve to see the new beginning come.”
“He’s not that powerful,” Domek said.
“Imrich has an idea for amplifying its powers. He’s been experimenting for the last few days to prepare, but could tell he was missing a key element to convert the power.” Paluska picked up the obsidian piece. “This will complete his machine. With the wisp, I’ll be able to actualize what I’ve always wanted to do. The machine will drain every bit of its power for my command. I can make it bigger than it has ever been, guided entirely by my orders, and we’ll end this war.”
Domek remembered the way Kája had nearly flickered out after trying to save the footman. “He won’t survive that.”
“Then an extra monster dies.”
“He’s not a monster.”
“It’s an ancient, powerful demon that’s been deceiving you for days. There’s no humanity in that thing,” Paluska said.
“He used to be a human! A witch.”
“Pijavice start as human as well. And a witch? You know better than to trust them. With what Anton told me about your mother, I should have known you’d be soft.” Domek glared at Anton. He had shared his mother’s past with his old friend in confidence. Anton looked pale. “You don’t have what it takes to finish things. I do. I’ll use every last drop of this wisp’s power to finally bring peace to Prague—to the entire world.”
“But—”
“Wisp, gag him.” A loop of silk appeared and wrapped around his head, jerking tight across his mouth and then tying off behind his head. Before he could protest, more silk filled his mouth, threatening to choke him. “You don’t know the things I’ve seen, Myska. I can stop…everything. The world is going to change. You could have been a part of it. You should have handed the wisp over when I asked.” Paluska nodded to Anton. “Search him.”
Avoiding Domek’s gaze, Anton took his satchel and then patted down his pockets. He set his stakes out of reach, and then pulled out the rainbow-tinted glass container of wisp essence. He held it up.
“Liquid magic,” Paluska breathed, taking the vial. He held it to the light to examine it, and then slid it in his own pocket. “Of course you would take this and hide it from us as well. You don’t understand the resources you have. Anton, we need to go collect Imrich and his machine. We do this tonight.”
Anton nodded and, not looking at Domek, left the room.
“Wisp, put Myska inside the cell in the basement. Lock the door and then return here.”
In a sudden rush of movement, Domek found himself standing in a stone room. He blinked, disoriented. The only light in the room was Kája’s form, which was painfully bright against the darkness. The silk ties fell from Domek’s limbs into a bundle like fresh blood on the stone floor, and he spat the piece from his mouth. There was a small window, too high and narrow for anything larger than a sparrow to slip through. Trapped underground, the smell of raw power that rippled from Kája’s flames was nearly overwhelming.
“You can’t help them,” Domek said desperately, mouth dry from the gag. “You have to try to resist.”
“I have a new master now. I can’t choose not to work for him. I told you not to trust this to someone else. You took away my chance at revenge,” Kája said.
“This wasn’t my fault!”
“No, nothing is, is it? You were cursed to be the one to kill my last master, chaining you unwillingly to me. You were forced to keep summoning me, even after you had decided to resist the temptation. I told you I was a soul, but you had to keep using my powers. You were tricked into trusting the wrong people. You’re the victim in all of this, aren’t you?” Kája scoffed. “You’re incapable of taking responsibility.”
“I kept you because I was trying to be responsible,” Domek said. “I trusted myself more than I trusted anyone else.”
“You kept me because you finally had power, and you couldn’t bring yourself to give it up. You wanted to prove yourself.”
Domek stepped forward. “What other option did I have? I didn’t trust anyone else to do the right thing with you. I suppose I could have thrown you to the bottom of the Vltava; I thought about it.”
“You could have set me free,” Kája responded, voice unexpectedly quiet.
Wincing, Domek stuttered, “I…”
“I suppose you were too self less and noble for that,” Kája said. In a blink, he was on the other side of the door. The lock clicked into place with a resounding thunk, and then the wisp was gone.
When Sokol had spoken about the ministry in charge of monitoring monster activity in the emperor’s domain, Ora had always pictured a serious, authoritative group of the city’s best and brightest. As an insider, Ora knew that the threat was real and eternal. Though Czernin and the other Czech pijavice masters mostly stayed away from Prague and its dirty, crowded streets, bubáks and the less powerful pijavice were pushing back at the government’s initiatives to make the city safer. The lamplighters were a smart first step, but they were spread thin across Prague. The Ministry of Security, responsible for all of old Bohemia under Austrian-Hungarian rule, should have been keeping rigorous watch to supplement that work.
Instead, what Ora found when she entered the room in which Sokol had gathered his peers was an eclectic mix of those too elderly, stubborn, or unpredictable to work in other parts of the emperor’s service. In the lavishly decorated space, surrounded by ancient wooden statues and a high ceiling woven with golden chains, they seemed small and weak.
Válka sat in a corner of the room, keeping an eye on everyone gathered. With the scar on his cheek and his tense posture, he looked like a wolf locked in a pen full of bleating sheep. Though the ministry worked on nocturnal issues, everyone but Sokol worked during the day, so the men were grumbling among themselves as they settled into their chairs. One, a plump middle-aged man with thinning hair and a permanent wrinkle in his brow, sat in the center of the room. From what Sokol had told her, he was the one to impress. The chairman, he had been assigned to run the ministry, though he spent most of his time focused on his duties at the War Office. Beside him was a man with a hard glint in his eye that might have impressed Ora if he hadn’t been bent with old age. He must have been ex-military, aged out of active duty. The third was a young, reedy man with glasses so thick that his eyes were magnified.
“This is the team assembled to protect Prague from threats in the night?” Ora asked Sokol. They were standing by the door, waiting for the room to settle. “They look like the men whose wives drag them to the opera.”
“In addition to my personal team, we have access to police reinforcements and the lamplighters as needed,” Sokol told her.
“And who decides when it’s needed? That man?” she asked, tilting her head toward the ministry leader. “He doesn’t look like he’d know a sound military decision if it smacked him in the face. Your government does realize you’ll be fighting for your lives on the streets, does it not?”
“Why do you only align yourself with Prague when you like what we’re doing?” Sokol asked.
Ora ignored that. “It’s no wonder you had to send me to beg for information from Czernin,” she continued. “I can’t imagine you have much success here.”
Sokol frowned at her. “Despite appearances, we do good work. We have a vast network of information. My team is highly specialized. I asked for your help to reach into a group we can’t access.”
“You mean the pijavice,” Ora said. “The entire race you’re here to stop.”
Ignoring her, Sokol stepped forward. “Thank you all for coming out at such a late hour, but it was urgent.”
“Your message said as m
uch, but was otherwise frustratingly vague,” the supervisor said. “What is all this about? Who is your guest?”
“Ora, this is Lord Nosek, from the War Office. Beside him is Major Zaba, 75th Regiment. The other one is an archivist, Jaroslav Kundera. And, of course, you already know Válka.”
“She shouldn’t be here,” Válka said softly. “Sorry, my lady, but it’s true.”
Ora spared him a small smile. “Hello, Válka. No offense taken.”
“Everyone, this is Lady Ora Fischerová.”
Zaba straightened immediately. “You don’t mean the lady pijavica in Malá Strana?”
“You have a file on me?” Ora asked Sokol.
“Of course we do,” Sokol said, unabashed.
She sniffed. “All good things, I hope.”
“You can’t bring a pijavica to a ministry meeting!” Nosek declared. “Sokol, this is quite improper. I can’t stand for it.”
“I wouldn’t have, but she insisted,” Sokol said.
“Well, if she insisted,” Major Zaba drawled.
Ora interrupted. “I did. There’s something you all need to know.” She told them about Sokol’s request for her to look into the rumors of the cure. From their reactions, it was clear that Sokol had gone behind their collective backs from the beginning, aside from Válka, to get her help. She pushed on despite the interruptions, getting to the heart of the matter—namely that the Zizkov family had found a source of immunity from sunlight and hawthorn. She described Mayer’s demonstration with the stake, her own skin prickling at the memory.
The room was silent after she finished. Nosek’s ruddy face paled. Major Zaba crossed his arms. “That goes against everything we understand about monsters. That can’t be possible.”
“It is,” Sokol told him. “Ora saw it.”
“Have you seen it?”
“No,” Sokol said. “I wasn’t there, but I trust her report. We need to take this seriously. If pijavice break the daylight laws, but keep their strength and bloodlust, we’ll lose this war faster than you can blink.”
The Lights of Prague Page 27