Each Guild that participated in this event had its own encampment where it received candidates and admirers. He led us to the one belonging to the Guild of Elementals. Along the way I caught sight of other children struggling to accomplish strange mental tasks, staring at cups of lemonade or handfuls of leaves or invisible objects with an intensity that made my heart quiver. But would I have struggled any less hard, if I had been in their place?
The Guild of Elementals was operating out of a colorful pavilion, with some kind of heraldic banner flying from the center pole. Very Renaissance Faire. The surrounding area had been marked off with velvet ropes, and people lined up at each of several openings, waiting their turns to enter. Servants in matching livery moved back and forth between the lines, taking down names and information, occasionally moving a visitor from one queue to another. Central to the whole arrangement was a grand fountain, with four stone angels pouring water down into a wide basin, in which flames burned brightly.
Yes, that’s right. There was a ring of fire surrounding the angels, and though water was being poured directly onto it, the flames didn’t even flicker. At first I thought it might be some kind of chemical fire that water couldn’t extinguish—dramatic but plausible—but then I saw that the water wasn’t affected by the fire at all. Droplets passed through the flames and then splashed down into the basin as if nothing unusual was going on. Shouldn’t they have turned to steam, or … or … or something?
“The Elementals like to show off,” Isaac said. The look on my face seemed to amuse him.
“But how … ? I mean … is that a Gift?” I shook my head incredulously. “You can’t just change the laws of nature like that. This isn’t a videogame—”
I stopped myself, but too late. I held my breath, dreading the questions that were sure to come. But if my use of a high-tech Earth term drew Isaac’s notice, he didn’t remark upon it. “Natural laws are never suspended,” he said, “though I’ve heard there are spheres where they function differently. Gifts simply channel energy into the natural system, giving it form.”
“But energy from where?” I demanded. What about the second law of thermodynamics? I wanted to ask him. But that sounded way too geeky, so I settled for, “What’s the source?”
He shrugged. “Where does any energy come from? You eat food, you digest it, you store the results as chemical energy, then use it to fuel physical movement, mental processing, whatever. Same as with any human effort.”
But … but … I looked at the fountain again. “Are you telling me that making something like that fountain is no more strenuous than—what? Picking up a rock?”
He laughed. “Hardly. Holding a single drop of water steady in a candle flame for a few minutes might be like picking up a rock. But that,” he indicated the fountain, “that’s more like building a ten-foot wall that stretches across the entire city. I’d be surprised if fewer than a hundred people were involved in making it. And since the Guild will probably keep it running all week, constant energy will be needed to sustain it. Thousands of people might wind up contributing to it by the time this event is over. Like I said … Elementals like to show off.”
Somehow it had been easier to think of these Gifts as alien magic than to try and fit them into a scientific framework. I struggled to make the adjustment. “You say people provide the energy for this thing, no one’s even paying attention to it. So where is the energy coming from?”
Isaac nodded. “That’s the Weavers’ job. They bind mental energy to physical objects.” He gestured off to the left. “Their setup is nearby, if you want to take a look.”
I did. But when we arrived there, so many people were crowded around their pavilion that we couldn’t get close enough to see anything. That was because this was the Guild that made fetters, Isaac explained—small objects to which a tiny bit of Gifted energy had been bound. Common types—such as glows, which were lamps with a Lightbringer’s Gift affixed to them, or harmonies, which were crystals used for communication—could be purchased just about anywhere, but some of the more esoteric varieties could only be obtained at events like this. Hence the crowds.
So these people had their own version of high tech, but it was powered by mental exertion rather than electricity. Wow. Imagine what a flashlight would cost if someone had to spend time running on a treadmill every time you used it. Suddenly the whole class system of this world came into sharp focus. Electricity was an equalizer on my Earth: easy to obtain, adaptable to many uses, and minimal in cost. But the technology that came from Gifts was none of those things. Its rarity and expense divided human society into three distinct classes: those who have, those who have not, and those who suck up to the ones who have in order to better their lot.
I wondered what our Walmart flashlights would bring on the open market.
Rita asked if the Greys had an encampment, and Isaac said that yes, they did, but we wouldn’t be able to see it, because that was the whole point. If you couldn’t locate the Guild of Obfuscates, then you didn’t have the Gift needed to join. I asked about the Shadows, and he said they didn’t come to this event. Their Gift was passed down from person to person, and was usually kept in-house, so they had no need to recruit. He didn’t offer any further details, but I suspected the Shadows were just so damn creepy that no one wanted to go near them. Even our smooth aristo guide seemed reluctant to talk about them.
The Seers did have a camp, and we headed there next. I wanted to see the arrogant bastards who controlled the fates of so many children and their families. Their setup was located at the western end of the park, where all the public walkways seemed to converge. Fitting. A narrow, minaret-like tower loomed overhead, and I realized that must be the one we’d seen when we first scoped out the city. Isaac said it was part of their Guild headquarters, situated a short distance away. The slender tower lined up perfectly with their pavilion, lending the encampment a sense of architectural majesty that none of the others had.
There were dozens of mothers with infants in their arms, lined up next to crowd-control barriers, waiting patiently for their turn to enter the Seers’ pavilion. They were mostly poor women, of course; aristo mothers didn’t have to wait in line for stuff like this. I saw one woman exit the tent with a nursing blanket thrown over her shoulder, but no baby in her arms. She was smiling and accepted the congratulations of the others with a gracious nod, though the tears in her eyes didn’t look like the product of happiness, and the tightness of her mouth suggested she was struggling not to cry.
What kind of sick world rewarded a mother for abandoning her child?
Suddenly a figure dressed in white emerged from the pavilion, and a hush swept over the crowd. She was a tall woman, striking in appearance, with golden hair swept up into a complex arrangement of curls and twists and braids, pearls tucked into the larger curls as if they had formed there naturally. Every twist of hair was perfectly controlled, every ornament perfectly placed. The style reminded me of something I’d once seen in a movie about ancient Rome. But her eyes looked more Egyptian than Roman, with thick bands of eyeliner that extended past the outer corners, drawing the gaze to them. Black on top, gold on bottom. The irises were a misty grey-green, the color of ocean waves right before a storm. Her fingernails were burnished gold, to match her eyeliner. Her gaze was arresting, and I instinctively stepped back into the shadows as she looked around the encampment, not wanting it to rest on me.
“That’s Alia Morgana,” Isaac whispered. “GuildMistress of the Seers. It’s said nothing happens in Luray that she doesn’t have a hand in.” He paused, then added in a conspiratorial tone, “It’s rumored even the Shadows are afraid of her.”
We watched as the woman in white made her rounds of the encampment; the people waiting for assessments moved out of her way like the Red Sea parting for Moses. This was the woman who would ultimately determine which families graduated to a new station in life, and which went home disappointed. The sycophancy was so thick in the air you could choke on it.
br /> At one point she stopped to study a little girl. The child was too fearful to look up at her, but Morgana reached out, and with a touch beneath the girl’s chin, tipped her head back till their eyes met. For a moment there was silence. The girl’s eyes widened slightly in wonder.
“Ah,” the woman in white murmured. “Very good.” She motioned for one of the attendants to come take the girl away, and whispered a few words to the mother that I could not hear. The latter’s grateful tears raised a knot in my throat. Was there any reward on Earth for which my mother would have abandoned me like that?
This isn’t the real Earth, a stern inner voice reminded me. And these aren’t your people. Never forget that.
But they were my people. I’d been born here. Some mother just like this one had chosen to hand me over to strangers, in exchange for a more promising child. Had I originally been born aristo, I wondered, or destitute? Had I been abandoned for greed, social ambition, or some other, as-yet-unimagined motive?
I felt tears rising in my eyes, and hurriedly wiped them away. If you’d been raised here you wouldn’t ever have known your mom, I told myself. You’d never have known Tommy.
Suddenly there was a flurry of activity at the far end of the pavilion; a thin woman with black hair broke through one of the lines and headed directly toward Morgana.
I gasped when I saw her.
“What?” Rita said. “What is it?”
This woman’s face was angular and thin. Her thick black hair gleamed in a smooth Cleopatra cut. She had on more eyeliner than when I’d last seen her, but that face was one I would never forget. Never.
“It’s her,” I muttered. Backing into the crowd a bit more, just to make sure she couldn’t see me.
It took Rita a second to put the pieces together. “Jesus. The one who watched your house burn down? You’re sure?”
I nodded. My throat was so tight I could barely the force words out. “She asked about my art. My dreams.” Out of one corner of my eye I saw Isaac look sharply at me, but my attention remained fixed on the woman. “She said that her name was Miriam Seyer—”
That’s when it hit me.
Seyer.
Seer.
Oh, my God. What idiots we’d been. She’d all but announced her true identity.
Heart beating wildly, I watched as the two women talked. Their voices were pitched too low for me to hear, but whatever they were discussing was clearly weighty business.
Morgana looked over the crowd, shook her head sharply, and then gestured toward the tower. Seyer nodded. They started to walk in that direction together.
I trembled, but not just from fear. From exhilaration. Miriam Seyer was part of the conspiracy that connected me to this world … which meant she was also connected to Tommy. She might know where he was, and how I could rescue him. Right now, she was the only lead I had.
Without further thought I started after them. But hands from both sides grabbed my arms, stopping me abruptly in my tracks. “Don’t,” Isaac warned sharply.
I tried to pull away from them, but though I slipped out of Isaac’s grasp, Rita continued to hold on tightly.
I lowered my voice to a fierce whisper. “That woman has information we need. That’s what we came here for, right? To get information?” I glared at him. “I can’t just let her walk away.”
Isaac started to voice an objection, but I was no longer listening to him. I jerked myself free of Rita’s grip and looked to see which way the two women had gone. The woman in white was no longer visible, and Seyer was about to pass out of sight as well, behind the Seer’s pavilion.
I didn’t dare lose her.
My instinct was to shove the milling sightseers out of my way and just run after the two women, but I knew that would be foolish. If Seyer heard a commotion and looked my way, the whole game was over. So I forced myself to walk at a pace that wouldn’t set me apart from the crowd. It was agonizing. I had to swing wide around the pavilion, out past long lines of people waiting to learn their destiny. It cost me time. Precious time. By the time I reached the back side of the pavilion the women were gone. A knot of pure despair clenched in my gut: I’d lost them! But then I saw a flash of white from an intersection nearby, where a local street met the park, and I hurried in that direction.
Rita and Isaac followed in silence, making no further attempt to stop me. I guess they accepted that I was going to follow Miriam Seyer no matter what they said, and they didn’t want me to do it alone. And they were right. I would have jumped off a cliff with no parachute if that’s what it took to find out where my little brother was.
The street the two women had entered was a broad flagstone promenade flanked by ritzy boutiques, and it was crowded with window shoppers enjoying the midday sunshine. Back in the plaza the crowds had been an obstacle, but here they provided a valuable blind. I tried to remember everything I’d seen on cop shows about using passers-by to mask your stalking, but I could have saved myself the trouble. The two women were totally engrossed in their conversation, and neither spared a glance for the world around them. Least of all the three teenagers following behind them.
How I hungered to listen to what they were saying! It had been less than forty-eight hours since we’d arrived in this godforsaken world, so this might well be Seyer’s first opportunity to report the details of the fire. She might be talking about us right now. It was maddening not to be able to hear her. But the women were speaking too softly for me to eavesdrop without getting much closer, and I didn’t dare do that. Not yet.
I trailed them from a safe distance while they walked, watching for any opportunity to close the gap between us without being noticed. Rita and Isaac followed, deliberately lagging behind me so that our group movement was less likely to draw notice. Soon shops grew scarce and the promenade gave way to a wealthy residential neighborhood, with well-maintained townhouses lining both sides of the street. There were fewer people in this part of town, and by the time we reached the main entrance of the Seers’ estate it was getting hard to find cover. Fuming in frustration, I was forced to fall back as I watched them approach the gate.
The estate was large and surrounded by an aggressive black iron fence, with several close-set rows of junipers planted right inside it, to serve as a privacy screen. The only thing I could make out through the wall of branches was a single large building. Overhead the tower loomed, and I could see there was an observation deck circling the top of it. From there one could probably look out over most of the city.
A pair of uniformed guards stood at attention on each side of the gate, as motionless as the guards outside Buckingham Palace. When they saw the two Seers they moved in perfect synch to open the ornate lattice-work doors, waited motionlessly for the women to pass through, then closed them again.
And just like that, my quarry was out of reach.
Damn.
I couldn’t even see where they had gone; a cluster of junipers blocked my sightline.
I wanted to scream in frustration. Or break things.
Or maybe just cry.
“Let’s go back,” Isaac quietly. His voice made me jump; I hadn’t heard him coming up behind me. I looked at him and saw sympathy in his eyes, but also a kind of wariness that hadn’t been there before. This place clearly made him uneasy.
“I want to hear what they’re saying,” I told him.
“I know,” Rita said gently, “but we can’t do that now. We just can’t. I’m sorry, Jesse.”
She tried to put a comforting hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off. Maybe she was ready to give up, but I wasn’t. The frustration of the last two days was a wildfire in my veins, and I had to give it outlet or I would explode.
I started to circle wide around the estate, to see if there was a break in the privacy screen that would at least allow me to peek inside. But the juniper barrier was several rows thick and there was no gap in it anywhere. I felt despair welling up inside me. To have someone who knew the truth about my situation so close by, and
yet so inaccessible, was maddening. But whoever had designed this place had done it well; I was not going to be able to spy on Seyer from outside. Which meant …
I stopped walking. Yes, there was one course of action that would allow me to spy on her, but it was unspeakably dangerous. How much was I willing to risk?
Rita must have read my mind at that moment. “Jesse … no.”
The bars of the fence were simple and smooth, with nothing to brace a foot on. The sharp, spear-like finials at the top were closely placed, allowing little room for a person to maneuver. I saw nothing in the immediate vicinity that I could push up against the fence, to help me climb.
Even thinking about what I wanted to do was crazy. Absolute, no-holds-barred, batshit crazy. Only a lunatic would try to sneak into a walled estate like this, to spy on women who had unknown mental powers. Maybe the stress of this whole experience had finally driven me insane. But I had to do something or I would explode.
I couldn’t climb the fence without help.
I looked at Isaac. He was taller than Rita and probably stronger. Besides which, l was willing to bet money she wouldn’t help me climb this thing, while he … he was an unknown quantity.
His face betrayed no emotion. “Unbelievably foolish,” he said quietly.
“You have a better idea?”
“You understand how bad it will be if you’re caught? Excuse me … when you’re caught?”
“Worse than it is for Tommy right now?” I demanded.
The dark eyes fixed on me. They were disturbingly unreadable. He’s alien, I reminded myself. And aristo, to boot. He has motives I can’t begin to guess at.
“He means that much to you,” he said at last. A question.
“He’s family,” I told him. But how much did that mean to a guy who had abandoned his own family for the company of strangers? Was there anyone he cared about enough that he would risk the wrath of the Seers for them? After a moment he nodded grimly and gestured toward the fence.