He nodded his assent.
Perry wasted no time. The bottom fell out, even as Mirante’s men hurled themselves at them.
They disappeared into nothingness, that space between here and there.
Chapter 45
Veridan
Veridan’s shock nailed him on the spot, the window display acting like a cheap mirror. Nothing beyond its surface seemed to exist, only his reflection.
Red eyes.
He had red eyes in this realm. This must have been why those people deferred to him, calling him eminence and giving him a wide berth.
Earth Magic.
It had to be his caste. It was the only explanation that made sense.
The shock dissipated slowly. As it seeped out of him like magic from a weak amulet, he allowed his eyes to see past his reflection. A narrow table topped with a red cloth lay beyond. Amulets, small pouches, mortars and pestles of wood and stone, and other trinkets littered its surface.
Brews & Amulets.
A shop that would make humans laugh and point as if it were a joke, but which was perfectly normal here.
Veridan turned away from the window, now aware that the color of his eyes gave his caste away. He headed for The Hungry Moth, holding his chin higher than before. These people knew he was someone of import. A righteous feeling grew inside of him. He’d always known he was above most Morphids and, definitely, filthy humans. He felt more vindicated by the minute.
As he pushed open the heavy door to the tavern, he was greeted by the din of cutlery and conversation.
Eager for more information, he headed to the back of the room where a barkeep stood behind a tall counter, doling out tankards of some frothy drink Veridan could only assume was beer.
A few men sat at the front, atop tall stools. Most wore simple attires of trousers and loose shirts, but one of them sported a long cape with a hood. Veridan headed to the open seat next to the better-dressed patron.
A wave of silence followed him. Each table he passed grew quiet. The customers stopped their conversations and set their utensils down as they became aware of his presence.
No one said anything or stood from their chairs. They simply set their hands on their laps and stared down at the table.
When he reached the counter, he looked at no one but the barkeep. The man was thin, with a sparse, graying beard, and nubby hands that appeared to be in constant motion. He was in shirtsleeves and wore a stained apron.
He touched two fingers to the center of his forehead and inclined his head. “Welcome to The Hungry Moth, your Eminence. What may I serve you today?”
“I’ll have what he’s having.” Veridan pointed to his right where the man in the hood sat nursing a tankard. He had no accurate idea of what barkeeps served in this realm, so it was a safe request as well as a way into conversation.
The barkeep twisted his mouth disappointed, but set to fulfilling the request.
As Veridan had expected, the hooded man turned to face him—except, to his dismay—it wasn’t a man.
Instead, an extremely beautiful woman with eyes as red as his own glared back at him.
“My . . . my apologies,” he said with an uncharacteristic stammer. “I didn’t realize—”
The woman put a hand up and waved it with an air of nonchalance.
“I’m used to it,” she said. “Though you might want to reconsider your order. This brew is terrible.” She took another sip from her tankard, regardless. “Can’t complain when it’s free, though.” She shrugged.
So that was why the barkeep had seemed displeased. The brew was free—perhaps because he was a Sorcerer.
“Not from around here, I take it.” She looked Veridan up and down.
“No, not at all.”
The barkeep delivered his drink and backed away without a word. Veridan considered not tasting the brew, but who was he kidding? Of course, he would taste it. He’d waited too long to get here to say no to whatever this realm had to offer.
“Indeed, terrible,” Veridan said after taking a swig.
He shared a smile with the woman.
She put out a hand. “My name is Fina Rothblade.”
Veridan nearly choked. He put the tankard down and thumped a fist against his chest.
“Now, it’s not that bad.” Fina winked.
Rothblade! This woman shared Danata’s surname. What were the odds? Rothblades, Dabworths, Silvercreeks, and many others had left Nymphalia hundreds of years ago. Was she a distant relative of Danata? Had he come all this way to be made fun of by Fate? Typical.
“Charles Veridan,” he said.
“I can’t fathom where you come from, Charles,” Fina said. “Your garbs are unlike anything I’ve seen before, and I’ve seen a lot.”
Veridan thought to correct her, but he liked the way Charles sounded in her deep, contralto voice. He examined her clothes in turn, noting the fine quality of everything she wore. She was dressed like a man, with form-fitting trousers tucked into tall boots of supple leather. The inside of her cloak was lined in a silken material and edged with velvet. Her shirt was the only slightly feminine garment. It clung tightly to her chest, pushing up her exquisite bosom.
“I like them, don’t mistake my meaning,” she said, raising an eyebrow in a provocative way. “But they’re certainly not from these parts.”
He didn’t know what made him do it, but he leaned closer and whispered in a playful tone, “If I told you where I come from, you wouldn’t believe me.”
She laughed. “I don’t think there’s anything you could say or do to surprise me.”
Laughter to match Fina’s bubbled in his throat. It had been a while since he’d felt light enough for a half-sincere chuckle, much less the full, husky sound rumbling in his chest now.
“Don’t be so sure,” he said.
“So what brings a mysterious Sorcerer to our humble city?”
Two things got his wheels turning. Firstly, she knew he was a Sorcerer, likely by the color of his eyes, as he’d suspected. Secondly, Alas, in spite of its beauty and size, was considered humble. He couldn’t help but imagine what a non-humble city would look like in this realm.
“Running from the Unmaker?” she said with a dry, unamused laugh.
“The Unmaker?” The words slipped out.
Fina gave him a sideways glance from over her tankard. Veridan bit his tongue, upset at the involuntary way he’d revealed his ignorance.
“I guess you can surprise me,” Fina said after swallowing. “I thought everyone had heard about him. It’s all everyone talks about. I’m sick of it.” Her original good mood seemed to have soured. “First the Ripper and now this. No one cared when Integrals were being torn apart right and left, but they care now.”
Veridan’s stomach gave a twist. Bile rose into his throat. What was this? What inescapable fortune had befallen his kind?
“Are you good there? You look sick,” Fina said.
“I’m fine,” Veridan assured her. “Can you tell me more about this . . . Unmaker?”
“Not until you tell me where you’ve been hiding. If there is a place where no one’s heard of Altos Bluestone, that’s where I want to go.”
Veridan considered for a moment. Certainly no one had heard of this Altos Bluestone in London or anywhere else in his realm, for that matter. Certainly, Fina could go there to forget about this Unmaker and whatever it was that worried her. But could he gain something by taking her there?
Tired of all the years of waiting and eager to learn all he could about Nymphalia, he threw caution to the wind.
“I come from a different realm, and it’s definitely never heard of the Unmaker,” he said.
Fina turned to fully face him, a look of hunger in her eyes.
So he added, “A place that doesn’t belong to Morphids, but it’s ripe for the picking.”
Chapter 46
Sam
Sam had been crouching under the desk for a few minutes now. The office worker had sat two desks in fro
nt of her—thank God for small miracles—and was now typing away at her computer.
The seconds seemed to pound inside Sam’s head, reminding her how long she’d been gone from her cell.
She had to find a way to make the woman leave—maybe a distraction like the one she’d created for the guard. Sending her feelers out, she perused the area.
The woman faced the door, her back to Sam. She sat straight as a rod, spreadsheets and documents arranged carefully on her screen. She had a cup of steaming coffee by her side and a small Thermos next to that.
Yep, I’m screwed, Sam concluded when nothing in the confines of the office sparked an idea. She knelt quietly, racking her brain.
If only the electricity went off . . .
Wait a minute.
The card readers by the doors had microchips in them, the same bits computers ran on, right?
Wasting no time, Sam directed one of her vinculums into the computer’s CPU. From her basic Tech class in school, she knew computers had different parts for different functions. Long and short term data storage. A processor to compute things. Fans to cool everything off, and other things she couldn’t remember.
Now, if she only knew which was the processor, she could short it to cause the most damage.
Inside the computer, Sam found a labyrinth. There were slots, small chips in neat rows, cables, plastic bits, metal bits . . . and she had no idea what any of them did—not like it mattered since broken was what she needed, though.
Picking at random, she touched one of the microchips and sent a surge of electricity into it. At first, nothing happened, but after a moment, the worker banged her mouse.
“Oh, now what?” The woman tried the keyboard next which seemed to still be working fine. She went back to the mouse and banged it a few more times. “Bloody brilliant!”
The woman stood, her chair rolling backwards. Sam felt triumphant until the woman stomped across the aisle and took the mouse from one of the other computers.
Oh no, you don’t.
Sam went back to examining the other computer parts and, this time, picked one of the bigger chips. It read “Intel” on top, maybe the CPU? If not, she would zap part by part until nothing salvageable was left. And if any of the other computers in the room allowed the woman to do her work, Sam would fry those, too.
Focusing all her energy, Sam sent a strong surge into the chip. A loud pop and sizzle sounded around her, followed by a shrill scream.
Sam pressed a hand to her mouth, her vinculum recoiling and sending a painful current through the length of her body. She squeezed her legs together as her bladder threatened to burst.
“Oh no, oh no! What did I do?” The woman sounded frantic and her loud yelp still reverberated in Sam’s ears. She’d been in the process of plugging in the stolen mouse into the back of the computer when Sam zapped it, so she thought the electric surge was her fault.
Static had every hair in Sam’s body standing on end, even her eyelashes. Her teeth felt on edge, but she’d fried the computer without being noticed.
The woman hurried to return the mouse, not daring to plug it in. She gathered her cup and Thermos and left the room in a hurry, slamming the door behind her.
Sam waited until she was certain no one was outside the office, then slipped out. She traced her steps back the way she’d come, trying to feel hopeful about the one piece of information she’d acquired.
She was almost to the corridor with the suit of armor, when a strange feeling rolled through her. Pressing her back to the wall, she looked left and right, sure that a guard was about to discover her. She listened for footsteps, but heard none.
Tense all over, she waited for the feeling to dissipate, but it only got worse. Something was terribly wrong, but she had no idea what. Could it be Jacob? She came away from the wall, trembling, and took a step in the direction of the cell, then froze.
Not that way, some instinct seemed to say.
Up until that moment, she’d always felt that following her instincts was a good thing, but this time it was the opposite. Even the cell sounded ten thousand times more appealing than going into the corridor to her right, which was where the sudden urge wanted to take her.
Sam shook her head, even as her feet changed course and took her to a closed door with no signs or adornments on it. For several minutes, she stood quiet, listening for any sounds on the other side. There were none.
A dark force beckoned her inside.
Hand trembling, she raised it to the knob and turned it. Locked. The simple lock posed no obstacle to her vinculums, and soon she was inside, heart pounding.
It was a bedroom with a bed, mirror, and dresser. Nothing more. Immediately, her attention turned to another door in the back. This one was small and inconspicuous, but it was there her instincts took her. Shivers raked across her back as she pushed into the room.
An enormous black miasma filled the back of the tight space, floating in mid-air. It throbbed like a giant’s heart, emitting a low thrum that made her think of thousands of moaning voices.
The shivers on Sam’s back morphed into violent spasms that shook her. She grabbed onto the door frame, afraid to collapse to her knees. She shook her head, unable to understand why she felt so violently ill. Through the fog of her confusion, she noticed her vinculums had embedded themselves into the dark cloud and were thrashing behind its viscous wall.
Black shapes that, for all the world, looked like hands reached for her as if ready to pull her into the cloying darkness.
Gasping, Sam pulled away, taking several steps out of the closeted space. Her vinculums retreated with her, but not entirely. A sharp tug on them made her spinal column feel as if it would snap in two. She almost screamed, but managed to swallow the pain even as it choked her.
Sam beckoned, beckoned, beckoned.
Her vinculums pulled out slowly, slipping out of the miasma one millimeter at a time. When they came out entirely, they fell limply in front of her. Their usual brightness and life gone.
She dropped to her knees and crawled toward them.
No no no!
Her fingers slipped through the strands as she tried to pick them up.
“C’mon. C’mon.” Fingernails scratching at the cold, stone floor, Sam begged, “Please.”
Just seconds ago it had been so easy to command her them and now they were . . . dead.
Tears spilled hot on her cheeks. She would never be able to get back in the cell, but that wasn’t really what drove the fear into the very center of her heart.
What chilled her to the core was the fact that, with her vinculums dead, weaving herself back to Greg was now impossible.
Chapter 47
Perry
Perry magically produced a wad of quids, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. They were legal dollars from a large pile Ashby had instructed him to keep secure. After Veridan found them at The Plaza, they had gotten smarter about credit cards and using anything that belonged to the Regency.
Ashby took the money and walked back to the hotel’s main counter, while Perry stayed back with the others in the small lobby. He took Brooke’s hand and pressed it to his lips. She beamed up at him and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, and it felt so good.
After transferring from the MORF’s dilapidated headquarters to Brooke’s backyard, she had driven them to a hotel on the outskirts of West Lafayette, a place where they could stay until the Conscription Ball.
Mirante would be mad, surely wondering what her niece had morphed into, but it was best to keep it a secret until they rescued Sam. The woman seemed loyal to Roanna, but Perry didn’t trust her enough do the right thing once she found out there was a Regent in her family.
And then there was the matter of Finley’s other, unknown caste. That was more worrisome than anything else. Perry sighed, already tired of all the mad castes that kept sprouting everywhere.
At least he’d met Brooke through the ordeal. He wouldn’t tell her—not yet, anyway—but
he was in love with her. Head over heels, actually. Who would have thought? The Morphid world had really lost the plot when Singulars fell in love with creatures of a different species. He chuckled to himself. She would slap him if he called her a “creature” out loud.
“Clue me in,” she said. “What’s so funny?”
He shook his head.
Ashby came back with four card keys and handed them out. In minutes, they found themselves in Ashby’s room.
Greg was on the phone, ordering take out. He’d lived in West Lafayette and assured them he knew a good place that delivered tasty Greek food. Everyone was pretty much tired of Chinese and pizza. Only Brooke complained.
“Everything has those nasty kalapata olives.”
“Kalamata,” Perry corrected.
She pinched him.
“Sam loves them,” Greg commented, his eyes going all faraway and wistful. He hid his face and hung up the phone.
Finley kicked off the sneakers Brooke had let her borrow and wiggled her toes. The pinky one looked very red.
“They’re too tight,” Ashby noticed.
“Oh, it’s fine.” Finley sat on an upholstered chair in one corner. She pulled her now long legs up and hugged them. She looked like a lost child with her ill-fitting clothes and forlorn eyes.
Ashby got on one knee and took her hand. “Any more calls?”
She shook her head.
Brooke gave Perry a questioning glance. He shrugged and turned away. The moment felt too intimate for some odd reason.
“Um, we’ll be in my room,” Perry said. “Call us when the food comes in.”
“Yeah, me too.” Greg got ahead of them, leaving the room in a hurry.
“Guess I’m not the only one feeling like I’m playing gooseberry?” Perry murmured.
“Gooseberry?” Brooke scrunched her nose in that adorable way she had.
Weaver Page 20