Dabiri spoke loudly, heartily, over his subordinate. “Glad to meet you, Amy. I think I remember you sitting in the audience at our meeting in Justice?”
“I was there. Do you know where my father is? How he is?”
“Come and sit by the fire.”
Ickily, Dabiri’s invitation sounded as if he was luring Bataar and me in.
I looked around at the men watching us, those that I could see. All of them stood, and most stood taller than me. Without Rory’s visible-to-me presence, their intimidatory tactics might have worked.
But did they forget the two dragons listening to everything a short distance away?
“Coffee?” Smith asked me.
“No, thank you.”
He sat down on a log, long legs stretched out, and picked up an enamel mug that had been tucked against the log. He drank while watching Dabiri try to settle Bataar and me around the campfire.
As a centaur, Bataar wouldn’t recline on the ground unless he felt completely safe, which he didn’t, here. And I wasn’t going to sit and separate myself from him.
Rory kept guard beside a tent where no one would bump into him.
If Digger or Mike had come with us, as ex-soldiers, what would they have noticed at the camp that I was missing?
“It was good of you to bring Amy to us,” Dabiri said.
Bataar flicked his tail. “Is there someone she can speak to about her father?”
Dabiri smiled. “Me.”
“You and I have other matters to discuss,” Bataar said.
The smile on Dabiri’s face vanished like the falsity it was. He snapped an order. “Colonel Smith.”
Smith looked at me, and patted the log seat beside him.
I refrained from glancing at Rory as I crossed the short distance and sat on the log.
“I’m John Smith. Call me Jayse.”
“Were you a colonel before the apocalypse?”
His grin flashed quick and seemingly genuine. “Lieutenant colonel. I’m the real deal.” He was handsome in the firelight; clean-shaven, where a lot of men had grown beards after electric razors and hot running water disappeared. “I’ve met your father. Sean.”
“How is he?”
Smith’s head turned. Bataar and Dabiri’s conversation had caught his attention. “Sean’s well. He’s at Fort Knox.”
That he’d tell the truth about Sean’s location surprised me—or rather, he told the truth as he believed it to be. The militia here couldn’t know of Nils’s rescue of Sean yet.
“What did the vampires do?” Dabiri asked Bataar. The mayor had reported the human suicides in Memphis.
“They attempted to render first aid. They were unsuccessful.”
Memphis was a human town. The militia would have people observing events, not just the suicides, but the response to them both by the human townsfolk and the seethe. But those reports couldn’t have reached Dabiri yet.
“I thank you for the news,” he said. “But why tell me?”
Smith tossed the coffee grounds from his mug into the fire. “Do you have a letter you wish us to pass on to your father?”
“You said he’s at Fort Knox and well. But if he’s not injured, why isn’t he here?”
The firelight flickered over Smith’s face. It made reading his expression difficult.
I pushed. “You knew I was in Justice. You didn’t have Dad’s letter with you by chance.”
“Did you work that out or did the Faerene?”
“It was obvious.”
Dabiri raised his voice. “You think we forced those five unfortunate souls to kill themselves? We did not.” The final three words were spaced and definite.
However, Bataar had a lawyer’s experience—like my father did. And like my father, Bataar tore through misdirection. “Forced” was the key weasel word in Dabiri’s declaration. Bataar rephrased the issue. “Did you know of the suicide attempts before they happened?”
“Walk with me,” Smith said.
I rose.
There was a shift among the men near us, an adjustment of posture that spoke of satisfaction at my immediate obedience, even as they stayed focused on Bataar. They judged him the bigger threat; ignoring the dragons, who were beyond their control, and unaware of Rory.
Walking into the darkness with me placed Smith in far greater danger than I was, despite what the men here thought. The enchanted coat protected me from physical as well as magical assault. Nothing would protect Smith or the other militia members from Rory if they attacked or attempted to detain me.
“You seem to have adapted to living among the Faerene,” Smith said. “Flying by dragon, sitting comfortably in their town hall. Were the man and woman with you that day human?”
Dabiri and Smith’s visit to Justice had centered on a meeting in the town hall. I’d sat in the public gallery with Yana and Callum while the militia leaders spoke with Bataar and Sabinka. Smith had made a point of making eye contact with me.
“Werewolves,” I said briefly.
He halted at the edge of the tents, between them and the horses. “Bataar introduced you as Amy Hope Fang.”
I ignored the implicit question. “What does the postscript, ‘Be ready’, added to Dad’s letter mean?”
“Are there any other humans in Justice?”
As of today, there was my family. “Yes.”
He stiffened, leaning suddenly toward me. Not enough that Rory intervened. My answer to his next question mattered to Smith. “Other familiars?”
“No.”
He retreated the half-step distance that he’d closed between us. “What is your magic like? How did you know you had it?”
“Is that what ‘Be ready’ meant? That you had questions to ask of me?”
The horse nearest to where Rory lurked seemed to be the friendly sort, and capable of sensing him despite the camouflage spell. Ears registering interest, it craned its neck to try and reach him, presumably in search of apples or a nose rub.
I’d noticed this with Earth’s animals before. They accepted werewolves as human when they were in human form, but when they shifted to their half-form or full wolf, then the animals responded to a predatory threat.
I looked back at Smith. We didn’t need him tracking my gaze and noticing the horse’s seemingly inexplicable behavior. “If you’re not going to tell me about my father, I need to return. Bataar won’t be here long.”
“Stay,” Smith said.
“If I do, will you take me to my father?”
“Are you allowed to stay? Aren’t you important to one of the Faerene?” Smith referred to Istvan, the magician I’d vowed my magic to.
Meantime, Rory had crept extremely close.
I smiled. “I am very important to one of the Faerene.”
Smith stood straight and tall, not quite looming, but hinting at it.
Rory was a fraction taller, and stood in the colonel’s moon shadow.
“Why are you amused?” Smith asked.
I suspected that this game playing hurt us all, long term. “Because it’s laugh or cry. You don’t have my father any longer. A friend rescued him from you. But you want something from me, and I want to know what that is. I’m willing to believe that you don’t get to be a colonel by being stupid. You’ll have guessed that there are Faerene watching us.”
His right hand brushed the knife sheath on his belt. “More than the dragons?” He barely waited for my confirmation. He pitched his voice low and urgent. “This is why we had to do what we did. We are massively underpowered compared to the Faerene.”
“You instigated the suicides.”
“Yes. There will be more.”
“Dear God, no.”
His mouth twisted. Without the flickering firelight, it was easier to read his face. “The Faerene hide the truth of their actions, vanishing corpses overnight, hiding the evidence of their actions. It’s the one weakness we’ve identified in their conquest. They resist facing the consequences of their actions. So we’re attac
king their image of themselves. The one thing we have in abundance is despairing, suicidal people. Let the Faerene watch us die. In war, you use the resources available to you.”
He argued in defense of the militia’s actions, but he looked sickened.
I felt nauseous. “But why? The Faerene of Justice were listening to you. It was you who broke faith with the negotiations.”
“We saw the Faerene flying in after our meeting—”
“That was nothing to do with you,” I cried. My beautiful wedding. “Nothing at all. That was…oh you’re ruining more than you know.”
“So tell me.”
I stumbled back toward Rory before Smith could grab my arm.
“I won’t hurt you,” the colonel said.
“As if I’d believe you! You asked for an open line of communication with the Faerene, then threw deaths in their faces. That wasn't spur of the moment. You’d planned for people to be in Memphis. You sent some signal and…look, forget the tricks and why I can’t trust you. What do you want from me that you were holding my father hostage?”
“What makes you think he was in Fort Knox unwillingly?”
I snorted. I’d spent too much time with Bataar. His centaur quirks were catching. Nevertheless, the snort expressed my scorn effectively. “Dad coded a warning into his letter.”
“Sean wouldn’t—” Smith stared back toward the campfire.
My eyes narrowed. How well did this man know my father? I’d had enough of our conversation spiraling nowhere. “For the last time, what do you want from me?”
“Magic.”
There is no silence in the world, not true silence. Wind rustled the grass. A tent flap slapped, and slapped again. The horses shifted. A hoof stamped. But there were no voices.
“You are proof that humans have magic. You gave yours away. You chose the Faerene. They’re listening to our conversation, aren’t they? They don’t fear us. But there’s a tie to us. Is it your magic, our magic? Do they want to absorb all of it? No, don’t shake your head. They wouldn’t tell you. Amy, what does magic feel like?”
“I never knew I had it. I never felt it when I used it to heal people, the people of Apfall Hill who told you these stories of me.” A wave of bitterness flooded through me before receding. Information was currency in our apocalyptic world. Of course people would have shared my story of being kidnapped by a dragon and bonded with a Faerene magician, but allowed contact with my adopted family. “You should have dealt honestly with the Faerene.”
“We did.”
I headed back to the campfire and Bataar. “You threatened me by holding my father hostage. I’m a citizen of Justice. That means you threatened a citizen of the town you’re negotiating with. And what message do you think the five deaths in Memphis sends?”
“That our blood is on Faerene hands,” a man said from the darkness.
My pace didn’t slow although I heard the echo of my father’s attitude. “Does a faceless voice speak for you, colonel?”
The soldier fell into step behind us.
I trusted that I was safe with Rory around, and me wearing my enchanted coat, but the back of my neck still prickled a warning of danger.
“Wait.” Smith breathed one word a few seconds before we reached the campfire.
I halted.
The unnamed soldier stopped at my other side, hemming me in.
Smith turned, blocking my view of Bataar; but unknown to Smith, revealing Rory to me, standing behind him.
Smith spoke low and fast. “We broke the negotiations for you, Amy. Scouts reported an increased number of Faerene converging on Justice. We couldn’t risk letting them take you away. Knowing that your father lived and waited for you meant you’d fight to stay and reunite with him. We risked the crumbs of information from a connection with the Faerene of Justice—crumbs that are valuable and far more than we have now—because we couldn’t risk losing you. You’re the only human we know of with magic. Everyone else we’ve investigated, no matter how much they believe in their self-professed powers, are pretenders. You are humanity’s hope of gaining magic.”
The dragons landed us safely on the roof of the magistrate hall.
Bataar thanked them as I climbed from the back of the green dragon. He also asked them what they’d heard.
I’d learned a lot in the short time that Dorotta had been my guard. One of those lessons had been to never ever underestimate draconic curiosity.
Of course the dragons had eavesdropped on the militia camp.
The blue dragon rolled his massive shoulders, settling his wings. “The humans were excited and frightened to see us, dragons. One made a rude comment about Bataar. He—”
The green dragon puffed some warning smoke. She seemed accustomed to covering for her partner’s lack of tact. “Apart from General Dabiri and Colonel Smith, the humans spoke little beyond initial exclamations. They are disciplined, but they also wanted to listen.” She twisted her neck to study me. “They were interested in Amy, but when anyone began a comment involving her, others would silence them.”
“They expected us to be guarding her,” Rory said.
Relief and rightness surged through me to be able to hold his hand again. Thank goodness werewolves believed in lots of touching. No Faerene would condemn my behavior, my need to be in contact with Rory, as clingy.
We said our farewells and descended the outside stairs. Or rather, Rory and I took the stairs. The ramp better suited Bataar’s four legs.
“I have to see Sean.”
Rory squeezed my hand, accepting my statement. “I’ll debrief with Bataar. Nils will wait outside your father’s room.”
“They want magic,” I whispered to him.
“We’ll talk it through,” he promised.
It was complicated because humanity had possessed magic once, and our ancestors had renounced it millennia ago. Apart from Rory, Istvan and the kraken, Xi, no Faerene knew that secret. And I was the sole human to have learned it.
The Faerene had forced me to vow my magic to Istvan’s service, but the ancient secret of humanity’s lost magic, and the key to returning it, I’d voluntarily entrusted to my black griffin partner.
At the base of the stairs Rory and I rejoined Bataar, and Rory invited the mayor to talk in his office.
Entering the guard quarters, we found Nils in the common room, along with both guards and townspeople, and Digger. Well, he was a citizen of Justice now, too.
Digger and Nils rose at my entrance. By the worry that flickered across their faces, standing wasn’t a gesture of respect, but of concern.
“Amy’s going to talk with Sean,” Rory said. “Nils and Digger?”
“We’ll go with her,” Nils said instantly. He gripped my shoulder. “We’ll wait outside the door.”
“Listen in,” I said. “Please.”
We walked out.
“Sabinka, Sorcha, please join Bataar and me.” Rory turned in the other direction, headed for his office. He gave me support—Nils and Digger—but also autonomy.
Halfway down the corridor, I stopped. Past two more rooms and we’d reach Sean’s holding cell. I’m sure he thought of it that way, but I’d seen the real dungeons below the magistrate hall. Istvan and Rory had ensured my father’s good treatment. “What did you talk to him about?” I asked Digger.
Digger ran a hand through his black hair threaded with gray. More gray sprinkled his short beard. He’d given up cigarettes over summer and now chewed toothpicks he’d whittled himself. If toothpicks had replaced cigarettes in his mind, the fact that he wasn’t chewing one meant that he considered himself on duty. Talking with Sean had left Digger more wary rather than less.
“You’d said your dad was a lawyer. He questioned me like one.” Digger frowned at the locked door to Sean’s room. “Was I human? Why was I here? He had me recite details of life in the army, movies and flavors of food to prove that I was human. Then he asked me if I had magic.”
I flinched.
The two men
, one human, one elf, both reached to support me.
“I got it wrong,” I whispered. “The letter. I misunderstood Sean’s message, or I think I did. I have to talk to him.” But someone must have glued my boots to the floor. I couldn’t make my feet move.
“Sean asked if you are happy.” Digger tried to encourage me.
Unfortunately, I’d used up all my optimistic self-delusionary power. “If I’m happy here, then my loyalty is here,” I explained to Digger.
When I looked at the two men’s eyes, the sympathy in them meant that both had already deduced the reason for my father’s supposed concern. “Maybe this isn’t what I want, but it’s a path forward. The militia…” I bit my tongue. Me rambling helped no one. “I have to sort this so that I can start clear, tomorrow.”
I got my feet moving. I didn’t knock. Unlocking the door would be warning enough to Sean of someone’s entrance. I didn’t greet him, either, or sit. I stayed by the door that I’d left ajar. “I’ve just visited the militia camp. While Mayor Bataar spoke with General Dabiri, a colonel questioned me. Or perhaps questioned isn’t the right word. Appealed to me? Manipulated me? Colonel John Smith definitely wanted to deliver a message to me. How much of that message were you laying the groundwork for?”
“Pardon?” Sean’s hair was newly washed and he’d shaved. The cotton shirt and trousers he wore had the cut of Faerene clothing. He looked surprisingly rested for a man who professed to detest and distrust the Faerene who held him prisoner.
Sean’s appearance contrasted to and emphasized Digger’s exhaustion on the other side of the door. He’d had the strain of relocating our family to Justice and finishing the day by trying to help Sean and me. Anger made me push the point. “You’ve met John Smith.”
For long seconds we glared at one another.
In the end, Sean conceded the contest. “Jayse.” Colonel Smith had introduced himself with that nickname.
I nodded once, sharply. “He, or others in the militia, told you I had magic. They heard my story from the caravans that passed through Apfall Hill.”
Sean stared down at his hands. They were scarred, tanned and calloused. “The army tested me for magic.” Maybe the marks on his hands hadn’t all come from fighting his way to the French coast and sailing the Atlantic.
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