Pi didn't know where to find the Jade Queen, so she milled around, clutching the gift for Kikala tightly against her stomach. It felt strangely warm. Or maybe she was cold and the case radiated heat from when she was standing on the street in Invictus.
Most of the guests were maetrie, their allegiance unclear, bunched together in groups. She spied a few humans and non-humans amongst the crowd. What looked to be a talking dog was chatting with a gold-skinned nearly naked woman.
A knot of human mages surrounded a woman in a black dress. Pi recognized Celesse D'Agastine, the patron of the Alchemists Hall, so she went the other direction. She doubted Celesse would remember her from the delivery last year, but she didn't want to chance it.
Other areas were blocked by silvery doors. Sometimes maetrie went in and out of them. Pi didn't know if they were fancy bathrooms, or other rooms for the celebration.
Cutting around a glowing green pillar, Pi saw Slyvan standing by himself. He wore the same black three-piece suit she'd seen him in the first time back at the Glass Cabaret, and that same dismissive expression. He looked like he'd been waiting for her.
"You are aware that emo is a stage that you're supposed to grow out of," she told him on approach.
"Says the girl who looks like she's on a prom date at Denny's," he said, looking down his nose at her.
"Wow, nice one," she said. "I didn't know you had it in you."
Slyvan let a nearly imperceptible sigh out of his lips as if having to be in her presence was a special agony that only he had to suffer.
"So...where is the Jade Queen? I'd like to get this over with," she said.
Using only his eyes, Slyvan directed her towards the wall of black mist that few guests had been going through. As if on cue, a tortured scream echoed from the mist. A short, plump maetrie in a gray shirt ran out of the blackness and down the stairs, only to have a tentacle reach out and grab him around the midsection. The scream rose to a crescendo then ended abruptly as the maetrie was pulled back into the mist. The partygoers resumed their chatting as if nothing had happened.
"That was quite the shit show," said Pi, trying to calm her beating heart.
Slyvan smirked. "The Watcher knows if you have intentions of causing harm to the queen and eliminates the threat."
"Wonderful," said Pi, remembering her precautions, then blowing out a breath added, "Anything else I need to know?"
"Be polite," said Slyvan. "Lady Kikala isn't as informal as Lady Amethyte. She will take offense easily, so you might think about keeping that tongue of yours restrained."
Pi mimed zipping her mouth shut, then remembered one more thing and unzipped it. "What am I to say to her? Here's a gift from your ex-girlfriend? Can we be friends, and by the way, your son would like you to not to kill your dad, who's also kinda your mom?"
"You never seem to be at a lack of words, you'll think of something," he said.
"Great. Off to see the wonderful wizard of Oz," she said, moving towards the black mist. "Wish me luck."
Slyvan said nothing.
"Ungrateful bastard," she said, and glancing back, found he was gone. "Probably went to find a mirror to preen in front of, maybe take a few selfies, post them on Instagram like a proper teenage girl."
Before she went in, Pi liberated the explosive seeds she'd made from her pockets, dropping them on the steps. She didn't want the Watcher to confuse her intent. The rest of her enchantments, she hoped would be considered merely defensive, but she was going to miss the seeds. Since her faez was limited here, it'd been a way to circumvent the restriction. She only had to use enough faez to detonate them.
The black mist was cool upon approach, almost soothing, until she felt the presence probing her mind. The touch was so alien and forceful, Pi nearly panicked and unleashed faez to defend herself. Sparks formed in the darkness, a precursor to the tentacles. The Watcher filled her mind, violating her thoughts, laying them bare with the cold precision of a scalpel. It weighed her intentions, and to her horror, she sensed it deciding whether or not to destroy her. The enchantments she'd placed on herself as protection had drawn the ire of the Watcher. It plucked the strings of magic, and she felt tentacles stirring in the darkness. Pi thought of Radoslav, of her link to him, to prove to the Watcher that she posed no threat, and after a long fateful pause, she found herself stumbling through to the other side.
Pi stood in a throne room of mirrors and green glowing lines that made the space seem almost infinite in its reflections. The Jade Queen sat on a black throne in absolute stillness. Her straight black hair ended past her shoulder blades, the edges as sharp as a razor. She was clothed in silver thread, which left her nearly naked.
Pi'd expected to see others, and upon finding it empty except for the two of them, she stepped nervously forward.
"Hi," she said, cringing at the informality. "I mean, greetings, or it's lovely to meet you, Your Highness."
She'd bumbled from one mistake to another and felt the fool by the end. If the Jade Queen smote her on the spot, she deserved it.
Lady Kikala's somber expression deepened. "How is he?"
"Radoslav? Yeah, of course," she muttered. "He's well?"
"Who are you to him?" she commanded.
Pi almost gave an obfuscation but decided against it. "I work for him. Made a deal with him last year in exchange for my service. I'm a student in the Hundred Halls."
The Jade Queen appeared offended. "Why did he send you?"
Pi felt like a mouse in a buffalo stampede. There was nowhere to run. "I was available?"
The look that crossed Lady Kikala's face betrayed the sense of loss she had without her son. Pi suspected she had thought the choice of representation an insult, which was dangerous for Pi if she wanted to make it out alive. In these circles, honesty was usually not the best practice, but in this case, a little more clarity might save her life.
"Actually, he didn't," said Pi. "I shouldn't have said that. He told me not to come, but I did anyway."
Lady Kikala sat up straighter, her hair swaying sharply at the movement. "You are a strange girl. Since you weren't sent by my son, tell me why I shouldn't have you killed."
The case in her hands moved, or at least she thought it did, but Pi was too distracted by the queen's growing wrath to bother investigating. "I came because Radoslav couldn't. Lady Amethyte found his power conduit, threatened him."
The air tightened around Pi as if it were a constrictor. Lady Kikala leaned forward.
"You're lying. Something about you isn't right, Pythia Silverthorne. Out with it now or I feed you to my Watcher," she said.
Pi opened her mouth to refute the accusation, until the case moved again as if something was waking inside it. Both their gazes went to the gift.
As the case opened on its own, Pi threw it behind her. The stench of faez made Pi's nose itch. A massive hulking spider larger than the Jade Queen's throne expanded into the center of the room. Pi recognized the type of spider because Aurie had told her about it from her date with Zayn. Achaeranea magicaencia.
She dove out of the way as Lady Kikala blasted the critter with twin bolts of lightning, but the spider absorbed the magic without damage, and grew a few inches.
Pi knew now what Zayn had given the Ruby Queen in exchange for information: a way to assassinate her rival.
Lady Kikala was standing tall, fury clouding her brow. She was about to cast another spell.
Pi yelled, "Don't. It'll only eat the magic and get stronger."
To make matters worse, the building lurched as if it'd been hit by an earthquake.
Lady Kikala cried out. "They dare attack me, today?"
The massive spider advanced on Lady Kikala, who didn't look like she planned to move, oblivious to the danger the spider posed. Pi scrambled behind the throne, looking for a suitable weapon.
The mountainous guardian from the outer door came running through the black mist and leapt onto the spider. Pi cheered the development until the spider flipped him over and s
unk its fangs into his chest. His limbs quivered as he screamed, foam filling his mouth as the poison claimed him.
The look on Lady Kikala's face was the realization that the Ruby Queen had outmaneuvered her. She stared at the spider with consternation, but lifted her arms for magic no longer.
Pi hated that she'd been used, so she decided to help, even if doing so seemed ridiculously stupid. She ran around the edge of the room, staying away from the spider until she was near the black mist, but far enough away the tentacles couldn't reach her, she hoped. Unless Pi proved otherwise, the Jade Queen would probably think she was part of the assassination attempt.
Pi threw a fire spear at the spider, and as expected it absorbed into the furry body. But it didn't stop its march on the queen.
"Why are you doing that? You said not to," said Lady Kikala.
"Trying to distract it," yelled Pi.
The assassin spider had no reason to deviate from its goal, so she had to stop it another way. Pi reached into her clutch purse and pulled out a piece of ice. Like the metal shields she used in the contest against the bugs, it'd been magically reduced.
She threw it towards the spider, yelling, "Expand!"
The cube hit the ground, followed by a sheet of ice stretching beneath the spider's feet. Its legs went straight out as it scrambled to stay in the same place, trying and failing, again and again, to stand.
To her horror, once the spider had completely given up and rested its hairy body on the ground, the ice began to disappear, absorbed by the magic. The spider grew another few feet, making it even more dangerous.
"That didn't work so well," she muttered.
The spider started advancing on the queen again. She needed something that would hurt the creature without using magic, because otherwise the spider would grow stronger.
"I'm not going to like this," said Pi as she had an idea.
Moving a little closer to the black mist, Pi made another fiery spear, but rather than throw it at the spider, launched it towards the Jade Queen.
"Watch out!" she told her.
Lady Kikala knocked it out of the air easily, then screamed, "What is the meaning of this?"
The Watcher was stirring in the mist, but she didn't know how to get it to leave and attack the spider, or even if it could.
She shouted across the room, "Can't you get the Watcher to come out?"
Lady Kikala backed around the throne. She kept eyeing the mist as if she expected reinforcements. Pi guessed the Ruby Queen had attacked at this moment to distract her guards. It might be a slaughter in the other room for all she knew.
The spider leapt onto the throne, knocking Lady Kikala onto her back. It bent its eight legs, preparing to leap.
Pi sensed a presence in the mist, noises, shouting. A chunk of tentacle came sliding out of the darkness, smearing purple blood in its wake.
Then a maetrie came charging through with a massive runed two-handed sword made of obsidian. Pi almost didn't recognize Radoslav. His skin smoldered like ash, his eyes glowered. The single glance he spared for Pi was like realizing she was in a pool full of hungry crocodiles.
But Radoslav turned his attention to the massive spider. He blurred across the room, his obsidian blade screaming as it sung through the air.
The spider cleaved in two, pus and entrails spilling onto the floor. Noxious gases hissed from its split body, a mixture of spent faez and guts. It slowly reduced in size as they watched.
Lady Kikala sprung to her feet and upon reaching Radoslav, slapped him with the impact of a two-ton sledgehammer. He barely reacted.
"You abandoned me," she said.
The reunion was cut short when cold laughter entered the room from the other side.
Slyvan strolled through the fading mist, softly clapping his hands. Pi backed against the mirrored wall, sensing her chances of survival had gone to nil.
"Brother of mine, you always had to be the hero. I knew you'd come," he said. "You're such a fool, Raddie."
"This ends now," said Radoslav. He flexed his muscles, and black armor formed across his body. He was an obsidian knight. The runes on his sword pulsed with a faint green light.
A figurine appeared in Slyvan's hand. "Forgetting something, Raddie?"
Radoslav lurched to a stop, his sword held at the ready.
Slyvan winked at Pi. "Thank you so much, little mageling, for helping this whole thing come to fruition. I can't tell you how long we've been trying to get to her so we could lure him back to the Eternal City."
"Why?" asked Pi.
Slyvan sneered. "Watch and learn."
He whispered to the figurine. Radoslav turned and advanced on Lady Kikala. She backed against the wall, then thrust her arms forward, covering Radoslav in electricity. It did nothing to stop him. He raised the blade to strike the blow.
"Hold," Slyvan whispered to the figurine.
"That's not a power conduit," said Pi. "That's like a controller. What is he?"
Slyvan peeled his lips away from his teeth. "Ol' Raddie wasn't born out of the love of two soul mates. He was created with the sole intent of wiping out the Onyx Court. Only everyone realized after he did it that he was a power unto himself and could kill every single maetrie if he wanted. Too much power in the hands of one person. So after the battle, the queens conspired and created this figurine to control him, only before they could do anything, he stole it and fled the realm. But now he's back, and we have him, and after we're done with Lady Kikala, we'll eliminate the Diamond Court, and Lady Amethyte can finally rule as she was meant to do. So on behalf of the Ruby Court, thank you, Pythia Silverthorne. For your part in this you've earned a quick death."
Things were not looking good. The only tricks she had left, the explosive seeds, she'd dropped outside the mist. She could make them detonate, but the impact wouldn't reach him from there. Unless she could use them another way.
Pi took a step forward, let a cocky smile rise to her lips. "But you know what you forgot, Ol' Slithering Slyvan? We knew about your deal with Priyanka Sai for the assassin spider"—the surprise on his face was instant—"and that you were going to move the Ruby Court into position to attack. I'm not an idiot, I know what the Ecacathodian was for. Lady Amethyte gave it away when she said I was prescient about it being a moving piece. And now it's our turn for a surprise."
The seeds exploded on the other side of the mist, which had faded enough that the greenish lines of the great hall could be seen. When Slyvan looked back expecting an attack, Pi fired a force bolt at his hands. The figurine went flying out, sliding across the floor to bump against the mirror.
Pi leapt into action as Slyvan did the same. She was quicker and had her hands on it before he could.
"Defend me!" she said, hoping that was all that was required.
Slyvan's eyes went wide, and he ran out of the room before anyone could stop him. Radoslav chased him until he reached Pi's location, and stood over her with sword at the ready.
"Holy shit," she said, realizing what kind of power she had with him at her command.
Lady Kikala approached, cautious steps betraying her concern.
"They will be pulling back now," she said. "If you send my son after them, he will slaughter them to the last."
"Is that what you wish?" asked Pi.
Lady Kikala's nostrils flared. "I would reward you in any way that you desired."
The obsidian helm kept Pi from guessing Radoslav's thoughts. She looked at the figurine in her hands. It looked like a black knight from a chess set, carved from obsidian.
What should she do? Radoslav had warned her that he would kill her if she came. If she let him go, he might decide that her interference deserved death. On the other hand, if she let Lady Kikala have her wishes, Pi would be responsible for the murder of untold numbers. She wanted power to protect herself, but not this.
Pi began to understand why Radoslav had retreated to her world. They'd made him to be a killing machine, the Black Butcher. If he stayed, his people wou
ld kill themselves over his services.
She handed him the figurine. "It's yours to decide."
The armor and sword disappeared at once. Radoslav grasped the figurine with both hands like a drug addict finally getting a fix.
Lady Kikala glowered at Pi. "You're a stupid, stupid girl. Unfit to wield power."
"Probably," she said.
Radoslav faced the Jade Queen. "Goodbye, Mother."
She said nothing.
A portal opened up, and Pi followed Radoslav into the back of the Glass Cabaret. Once the portal closed, Pi tensed up, waiting for the inevitable tongue-lashing and punishment, and she didn't blame him. She'd nearly caused the annihilation of his people through her foolishness.
"Thank you," he said softly.
"Wh-what?"
"Thank you," he said. "I may hate them for all they do, but they're still my family. Thank you for not sending me against them. I could not take it again."
"You're welcome. I thought you'd be mad about me going even though you said not to," she said.
"There's time enough to be mad later," he said, a distant pain haunting his gaze. "However, this means I will tack another year to your service for disobeying me so carelessly."
"I guess I deserve that," she said.
"You will, of course, say nothing of this to anyone, including your sister," he said.
"I promise," she said right away.
He eyed her suspiciously, then nodded.
"What are you going to do with that?" asked Pi.
"Find a new place to hide it," he said.
"Can you destroy it?" she asked.
"I would die," he said.
She winced. "I'm sorry."
He lifted his chin. "It's not your burden."
But she could see he didn't want that burden either. How would that feel to know you'd been made for the purpose of destroying your own kind? No wonder he'd fled the Eternal City. And what a bunch of shits his parents were. At least she and Aurie had gotten to spend a good ten years with their parents, good parents, before their deaths. It was a reminder that some people had it worse, much worse.
She left him with the obsidian figurine. The red dress she'd borrowed from Ashley was torn in two places and the slit practically exposed her panties, but she was too tired to care. Pi called a cab and rode back to Arcanium slumped against the cold glass, relieved that she hadn't sparked a genocide of the maetrie.
Web of Lies (The Hundred Halls Book 2) Page 17