Brannon stuck his tongue out at the Elder’s retreating back. He took a deep breath and counted to ten, then scampered out of the shrine and into the tunnels. Knowing them a great deal better than Edrich did, he easily reached the temple before the Elder. He grabbed his fishbowl and his book and went back up to the monastery. After tucking them underneath Tallis’ bed, where he hoped the Elder wouldn’t find them, he climbed through a window and made his escape.
* * *
The noise and bustle of Nuan Huo quickly overwhelmed Brannon. He was not quite sure how he had gotten through the glowing square that Tallis had left hovering in the forest, but he had been adamant about finding the Warder, and after stepping through, which felt vaguely akin to being dumped into a tub of water full of tiny biting fish, he found himself in a busy courtyard.
Several people had asked if he was all right and where his parents were, and he stammered some replies and then ran away. He caught his breath in an alley and wondered what to do. He was already hopelessly lost. Having lived in the monastery his entire remembered life, he simply had no concept of how large and crowded a city like Nuan Huo could be.
He took some deep breaths and calmed himself. “It’s just like the tunnels,” he told himself. “Just feel your way around and you’ll eventually get it all remembered and find anything you need.”
Which was all well and good as to getting himself unlost, but how was he supposed to find Tallis in a place so huge? It was clear that asking people would do no good; they would all just want to know where his parents were.
He wandered for a little while, pulling his robes tighter around himself. The sun had set, and it was getting cold. He wondered if he should perhaps go back to the glowing square and wait for Tallis there. He worried that if he did, the Elder would find him. Although it was true that the Elder rarely got angry enough to actually hit him, he was sure he would get a walloping for this stunt.
After about an hour, he sighed and stopped trying to figure out where he was going. The city was interesting enough, with wide streets lit by lanterns at regular intervals, lined by shops advertising things he had never heard of. There was a vague tug at the back of his senses. He hoped very much that this was Tallis, somehow trying to find him, and headed in that direction.
He found himself in a central part of the city, in front of a small house, almost comically narrow. The tugging was very definitely coming from inside, so he knocked on the front door. Nobody answered. Brannon frowned in impatience, now more sure than ever that Tallis was inside. He looked around and saw nobody, so he started checking the windows. The house was dark and silent. Most of the windows were locked, but he found one that wasn’t and crept inside.
“Tallis?” he called softly, and the noise echoed. He flinched a little. The tugging was still at the edge of his senses, and he followed it up the stairs and into a large room. It was almost entirely empty; the walls were whitewashed, the floor plain wood with a black circle painted on it.
Sitting on a table in the middle of the room was the missing chest.
“Oh,” Brannon said, a little startled. He looked around wildly, but there was still no one there. Although he could see the chest rather plainly in the dim light from the lanterns outside, he decided to risk a little light. He pooled his hands the way Sienna showed him. The light drifted towards the ceiling, revealing that the room was, indeed, completely empty except for the table and chest.
He closed the door to the room and edged further inside, approaching the chest cautiously. It looked untouched. He studied the circle painted on the floor; there were no symbols surrounding it. After a few moments, he stepped over it and braced himself. There was no noise, no alarms. He proceeded over to the chest and looked at it for a few minutes.
He was so rapt in his attention that he did not hear the door open downstairs, or the quiet noise of footsteps.
After some time had passed, he reached out and lifted the lid of the chest. It opened easily, to reveal a mirror about the size of a small dinner plate with an ornate silver frame. The Imperial crest was set into the top. “Hello,” Brannon said to it, feeling rather foolish.
The door opened. Brannon slammed the lid to the chest down and spun around to face whoever it was.
The figure in the doorway stared at him in shock. “How did you – ” he stammered.
Brannon bolted for the window, but the man caught him easily by the back of his robes and pushed him to the ground. Brannon swallowed hard as he saw the sword unsheathed in the man’s hand.
“Don’t run,” Owain said. “I really don’t want to have to hurt you.”
* * *
Chapter Twelve
Calessa had a quick dinner with Tallis and Sienna and told them what Owain had told her about the girl who had been killed. They all agreed that Emory was evil and Owain was an idiot, but as neither of those things was likely to change any time soon, discussed it only briefly. None of them had been comfortable staying on the temple grounds to have their discussion, but they hadn’t bothered to go very far, riding for about fifteen minutes before stopping. They were sitting in their rented carriage, which Tallis had pulled to the side of the road.
“Let’s give it one more day,” Sienna said slowly. “I still don’t think that chest is here, and so far I’ve detected no trace of its presence with any of my spells, but it’s too late to get a warrant today; the magistrate’s offices will be closed. We can do that first thing in the morning and then come rip the place to shreds. Preferably in the middle of a service.”
Tallis just looked at her.
“Problem, Tallis?” Sienna asked, sipping her tea.
“No,” Tallis said, “no problem.”
“That would be the most efficient way to ruin the cult, wouldn’t it be?” Sienna pointed out, gesturing with her chopsticks. “If the followers can wake up long enough to realize that their beloved temple is being raided by the Warders.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Calessa said, obviously disgusted.
“That still bothers me, though,” Sienna mused. “How exactly he’s hypnotizing the people. I still say it must have something to do with the temple itself – otherwise, he’d be traveling. Also, if he had done any magic himself at that service, we would have noticed. So perhaps something he says or does triggers the spell in the structure.”
“It’s not a bad theory,” Calessa said. “But I still don’t see why it would have affected me and not both of you.”
Sienna frowned suddenly. “Tallis, were you here at the very beginning of the service?” she asked, and he nodded. “Damn. There goes my theory. I thought perhaps it had missed me because I wasn’t present in the hall at the time it had happened. I was wandering in and out. But if you two were both here the whole time . . .”
“Maybe it’s just Tallis,” Calessa said. She looked at him and said curiously, “Has anyone ever been able to do magic like that against you?”
“Not since I graduated,” Tallis said. “But I don’t often get people trying to do compulsion spells on me. Let’s face it; Emory is clearly a very powerful mage. It’s impossible to say whether or not a spell of his would affect me.”
“Something to keep in mind, though,” Calessa said. She yawned and stretched. “This place is horribly boring,” she added. “I feel like napping all the time.”
“Where’s Owain?” Sienna asked, amused.
“I don’t actually know exactly. He said he had errands to run in Nuan Huo and would probably stay the night at his townhouse, and I’d see him in the morning.”
“Will you be all right here on your own?” Sienna asked.
Calessa nodded. “I put warding spells on my room, and to be frank, if Emory had wanted to hurt me, Owain’s presence wouldn’t have deterred him. He’s proven that for a fact.”
Tallis nodded. “Then we’ll head back to the monastery,” he said. “We’ll come back tomorrow in the morning and get the warrant from the local magistrate. Agreed?”
The lad
ies agreed, and they took the carriage back to the temple. It was empty when they arrived, and Calessa’s footsteps echoed as she took the stairs back up to her room. It was getting late, so she decided to ward herself in for the night; without Owain there, she had no reason to leave her room. She was about to prepare for bed when there was a knock on her door.
“Who’s there?” she called out.
“It’s Emory.”
Calessa held out one hand and the magic flowed from her fingertips, solidifying into a knife. “Yes?”
“Could you open the door, please?”
“I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Certainly,” Emory said. There was silence outside for a few moments, and then she saw a symbol burn through the door. Moments later, the door was gone. Not open. Just gone. “I need you to come with me,” Emory said.
“I don’t think that would be wise,” Calessa said.
“For you, most likely not.” Emory’s voice dropped into the compelling tone he had used on her in his study. “However, it was not a request. Come with me.”
“No,” she said, looking steadfastly at his shoulder.
“Take down your wards, and come with me.”
“No,” Calessa repeated.
Emory sighed. “Must you make me do this the hard way?” he asked. He slammed his hand into the frame where the door had been, and her wards shattered. He walked across the room and grabbed her by the wrist, twisting it around behind her back before she could use her knife. “Now, come with me.”
Calessa stomped on his foot and managed to wrench herself free. She managed a well-aimed kick at his knee, hoping to knock him down long enough to run. The kick was off by a slight margin and hit him in the thigh, but she wormed past him and headed for the door.
“Stop.”
The word was simple, spoken in a conversational tone, and utterly overpowering.
She stopped.
Emory walked over to her, twining a few strands of her hair between his fingers. “Now, beautiful,” he said, “stop fighting, and come with me. I think I’m going to need you before the night is over.”
“You won’t win,” she managed between gritted teeth.
“You’re not the first to say so.” His hand twisted in her hair and he left the room, and she stumbled along behind him. He pulled her down the stairs and into the main temple, then exited through a side door that led down a narrow stone staircase. Calessa was somewhat startled. They had opened that door on their previous exploration of the temple, and only ever found an empty storage room.
“It seems I have a small problem I need to deal with,” Emory said, as they reached the bottom of the stairs. It let out into a room with stone walls and no windows, so small that Calessa could almost touch all the walls if she stood in the center. “You just stay here and make yourself comfortable.”
“What are you going to do?” Calessa asked.
“Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about.” Emory withdrew a slip of paper from his vestments. He scrawled a few marks on it with a charcoal pencil and placed it on the back of her neck. The paper held fast to her skin. “That ought to keep you from causing any trouble while I’m gone.”
* * *
Brannon swallowed hard and pressed his back against the wall, trying to not look at the sword in Owain’s hand. “Let me go,” he said.
“I really can’t,” Owain said. “For one thing, you’re trespassing in my home. Not that I really care about that, but it gives me legal right to hold you here and summon the authorities.”
“Well,” Brannon said, his chin sticking out stubbornly, “go summon them, then.”
“And give you a chance to climb out my window?” Owain chuckled. “I don’t think so. Now, what’s your name?”
Brannon glared.
“Mine is Owain. Shall I guess yours? That would get rather tiresome, but I promise I’d come up with a nice one for you.”
“It’s Luan Qiang Yu,” the boy grumbled, relenting.
“Thank you,” Owain said. “Now tell me how you got that chest open.”
“I don’t know,” Brannon said. “I just opened it. I wanted it to open and it did.”
Owain studied him for a few long minutes. “You know, I think you’re telling the truth,” he said, and sighed heavily. “Which is a problem. You stepped through the circle, and I don’t know how you did that, but it means that Emory is going to be here soon. I’m not sure either of us wants you to be here when Emory gets here.”
“So let me go?” Brannon suggested.
There was a long pause while Owain struggled with this. “Tell me how you got here, and why,” he said, “and I’ll let you go.”
“I just came here,” Brannon said. “I was looking for my friend Tallis and I felt a tug coming from here. I followed it thinking that it might be him, but instead it was the Mirror.”
“You know what’s in the chest, then,” Owain said. “All right. You’d better go.”
“You’re really letting me?” Brannon asked.
Owain gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, I’m really letting you. You might want to take me up on it sooner rather than later.”
“Yes!” Brannon darted towards the chest. Owain caught him by one wrist.
“I said you could go,” he said, amused, “not that you could take that with you.”
Brannon hesitated. “But if I leave without it, I won’t be able to find it again,” he said. “You’ll move it. I know you will.”
“Yes, we will,” Owain said.
“Then I can’t leave without it.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Owain said impatiently. “What’s more important to you – the Mirror or your own skin?”
There was a brief moment of silence.
“Can I get back to you on that?” Brannon asked hopefully.
Owain’s head turned slightly and he sighed again, this time quiet, resigned. “No,” he said. “It’s too late now, anyway. He’s here.”
In that moment, Brannon decided that his own skin was, indeed, more important than the Mirror. He wasn’t sure why, but the presence coming up the stairs made his skin crawl and his heart race. He ran towards the window, but before he could make it, a hand grabbed him and pulled him back inside.
“Well, well, well,” Emory said, “what have we here?”
“His name is Luan Qiang Yu,” Owain said.
Emory gave him a startled look. “That name – ”
“I know. He snuck into my house and found the chest.”
“Interesting,” Emory said. “Past all the wards, I noticed. They still notified me, but not one of them stopped him. Very interesting.”
“Emory,” Owain said, “he opened it.”
Emory’s gaze went sharply from Owain and then back to Brannon. “How?”
“I don’t know!” Brannon yelled. “Let me go! Tallis will kick your ass if you don’t let me go!”
“Shut up,” Emory said, and drew a brief sigil with his left hand. Brannon suddenly found that he couldn’t make a single noise. His mouth worked with indignation, but no sound came out. “Are you sure?” Emory asked Owain.
“Positive. He had it open when I came in here.”
“All right,” Emory said. “Let’s take him back to the temple. I’ve got Calessa tucked away there as well.”
Owain paled slightly. “What have you done to her?”
“Nothing,” Emory soothed him. “But they’re going to come back tomorrow with warrants, and if they tear down the structure they’ll find the spells I laid into the stone. I’m hoping that I can just use her as a little bargaining chip, that’s all.”
“I hate you,” Owain said, dispirited. “And I’m not going to just give the boy to you.”
Emory arched an eyebrow at him. “Really.”
“Yes, really.” Owain took a deep breath and stood, moving between Emory and Brannon. “You’re going to torture him to make him open that chest. He’s only a child.”
/> “Owain,” Emory said, “now really isn’t the time for a crisis of conscience.”
“You’re right,” Owain said, “the time for that was probably about four years ago. It’s a little late, but I still won’t let you have him unless you promise me that you’re not going to hurt him – and actually swear on something that I’ll believe.”
Emory sighed and took a step forward. He stopped when he found the blade of Owain’s sword pressed against his throat. “Owain, you’re not going to kill me,” he said.
“No, I won’t,” Owain said, “but I can still hurt you.”
“You won’t do that, either.”
Owain’s hand wavered a little. “Probably not,” he conceded. “But if you move, I might slit your throat by accident, and there’s nothing to stop the boy from leaving out the window.”
Brannon’s eyes widened. He grabbed the chest. The weight of it nearly dragged him to the floor, but he grit his teeth and started tugging it over to the window.
“Swear to me,” Owain said, “swear to me that you won’t hurt him to make him open the chest, and I’ll put down my sword.”
“You always did make everything so complicated,” Emory said. He grabbed the sword by the blade and shoved it away from his throat. Owain let out a pained noise as his wrist twisted. “But fine, if it makes you happy,” Emory said. “I swear on the soul of your dearly departed cousin Jacinta that I won’t hurt the boy in order to make him open the chest. All right?”
“You couldn’t stand Jacinta.”
“Neither could you. It’s all you’re going to get from me, Owain, so sheathe your sword before somebody actually gets hurt.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Owain pulled his sword back. He withdrew a cloth from one of his pockets and cleaned it of Emory’s blood before sheathing it. By the time he had looked up, Emory had a hold of one of Brannon’s wrists. The boy was kicking and flailing, though he still couldn’t make a noise, but his struggles amounted to nothing against Emory’s superior strength.
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