“So what do you use?” Zayvion asked. “For distance and precision?”
“Trigemina,” he said.
Zayvion’s eyebrows shot up and he smiled. “I never got the hang of that one. Three spells at once?”
“You have to hold them at once,” Roman said, “but you don’t have to cast them simultaneously.”
Zay leaned forward. “Really? Is there a preferred order?”
Like a kid in a candy shop. Zayvion had just found someone he could learn from, a man who had held the same position in the Authority as Zayvion. A man who had stood as the guardian between this world and any other place the gates could open upon.
“I find it easiest to begin with the most inward spell,” Roman said. “That sets your focus, grounds your will, holds magic to your direction. If you can hold it in your mind’s eye, then the companion spells flow easily from hand and voice. If not”—he gave Zay a quick smile—“well, there’s always a plane ticket.”
Zay actually laughed. “I suppose there is.”
It was great to see them talking shop and all that, but we still had an issue at hand. Several issues.
“Are you going to hunt Leander and Isabelle?” I asked.
“I am,” Roman said, the smile gone now. “But it may take me time to find them.”
“They’ll make themselves known,” Zayvion said. “Trip some trigger, open another Gate. You’ll know.”
“With a Gate shift at that distance, they’ll have to rest,” Roman said. “It could be a while before they do anything.”
“Then maybe you could help us,” I said.
He looked at me. Correction, everyone looked at me. “We are limited on manpower,” I said. “And there’s every chance we won’t succeed in what we’re doing. If we fail—”
“As if,” Shame said.
“If,” I continued, “we fail, the information we have needs to fall into the hands of someone who can do something to stop this plague.”
“What plague?” Roman shifted his gaze between me, Victor, and Maeve.
“Bartholomew Wray had Maeve and me Closed,” Victor said. “My memory’s spotty on some of the recent events.”
“As is mine, I’m afraid,” Maeve said. “Allie, would you tell him what you know?”
“We think magic has been poisoned,” I said. “We know the cisterns are tainted, and that the tainted magic is mutating the Veiled, who are in turn spreading the tainted magic by biting and possibly possessing people, which is causing people to become sick.”
“Magic can’t be poisoned,” he said. Even though it was a statement, his eyes questioned each of us.
“So we’ve always assumed,” Zayvion agreed.
“Roman,” I said. “You were there when we fought Leander and Isabelle at the Life well. Shame was possessed by Mikhail, and Sedra was possessed by Leander and Isabelle. Do you remember seeing Leander and Isabelle using a spell, or something else that could have poisoned the magic in the well?”
He shook his head. “They were using a lot of magic. Old spells. Mixed disciplines. Did things with magic that only Soul Complements can do. I can’t be sure of every spell they cast.”
“We have to be sure,” I said. “We have to find out if all magic has been tainted, or if it’s only the magic filtered through the cisterns. We have to find out how magic has been poisoned if we’re going to stop it. If we fail, we will need someone, someone we trust in a position of power, to know what’s going on here. I want someone to have a fighting chance against this if the poison spreads outside Portland and infects the rest of the world.”
That was the big problem we weren’t addressing. That was the long-range worst-case scenario. All magic in the world was connected in some manner. Something that had gone this bad this quickly had every indication of picking up speed as it spread. People dying from tainted magic could become the first magical pandemic we’d have to face.
“Who do we trust?” I asked.
Shame just scoffed. “You’re looking at us. Mostly.”
“What kind of person do you have in mind?” Terric asked, giving Shame a shut-up look.
“Someone in the Authority, high up, who can give orders people will listen to,” I said. “The Ward, maybe?”
“No,” Victor said. “He is only the power over the region. If we want this information in the best hands possible, it should be given to the Overseer.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
Roman raised his eyebrows, stunned. “It’s not a what. It’s a who. You don’t know who the Overseer is?”
“Should I?” I looked at Zay.
“The Overseer is the highest head of the Authority,” Zayvion said with the kind of rhythm that made it sound like he’d memorized and recited this years ago. “The final Voice. The end Watch, the last Ward. The Overseer guides the world of magic and all who use it.” He paused, then: “The position rotates between countries every four years. It is the highest rule, the highest position in the Authority. Right now, Margaret Stafford is the Overseer. She will be for three more years.”
“Will she believe us?” I asked.
Victor rubbed at the bridge of his nose, then sighed. He was tired. We were all tired. “I suppose it depends on what we have to tell her. And which of us attempts to reach her.”
“She needs to know that magic may be tainted and that the Veiled are mutating and possessing and killing people,” I said. “That as far as we can tell, the spread of poison here in Portland isn’t caused by a failure in the technology and magic integrations systems—”
Thank you, Dad said.
I ignored him.
“—which is what Bartholomew Wray may have told her, but that it may be the wells that are poisoned,” I said. “Is there any way to reach her?”
Terric shook his head. “Not with Bartholomew’s men still in town.”
“And out for blood,” Shame noted cheerfully.
“If Jingo Jingo is taking over the position of head of the Authority,” Terric said, “he’ll have every member of the Authority gunning for us.”
“And our blood,” Shame noted.
“They’ll monitor gates,” Hayden said. “Hell, they’ll monitor the airports, bus terminals, highways, trains.”
“And they’ll be looking for blood,” Shame said.
“Shamus,” Maeve said. “Please. Shut it.”
Shame rolled his eyes, but had the sense to seal his yap.
“Who will the Overseer listen to?” I asked.
We all looked at Victor.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve been removed from my position and Closed. She won’t listen to me or Maeve. Zayvion has walked away from his vows, Shamus has never been considered one hundred percent reliable—”
“Watch it, mate,” Shame said.
“—and neither have you, Allie. Which leaves either Hayden or Roman. With Roman’s past, I am certain he would be quickly detained. That leaves Hayden.”
“You want me to go to England to tell the Overseer that Bartholomew was killed because he didn’t stop the spread of tainted magic?” Hayden asked. “I hate to break it to you, Victor, but there was a reason I’ve spent the last decade in Alaska. More than a few black eyes on my record. The Overseer wouldn’t believe me.”
“I’ll go,” Roman said. “Though I don’t know if she’ll listen to me. What proof do we have to offer her?”
The box, Dad said.
What box? I asked.
The one I told you to pick up when you were in Bartholomew’s office, Dad said.
I frowned, wondering where I’d put it.
On the bedside table, Dad said.
Which meant he’d been paying close attention to what I’d been doing, so, ew, in the shower department, and that he was interested enough in the box to keep track of where I’d left it.
What’s in the box? I asked as I walked out of the room, leaving everyone else to discuss the situation.
Evidence.
Uh-huh. W
ant to give me a little more to go on?
“Allie?”
I turned around. I was in the hall in front of the bedroom door. Zayvion was following me.
“What?”
“Are you all right?”
I frowned. “So far. Why?”
“You left right in the middle of the plan you were making.”
“Oh. Right. Plan.” I flicked on the bedroom light and walked in. “This is a part of it. Or might be.” I walked over to the bedside table and picked up the metal box. Heavier than it looked. My dad had told me to take it after I’d shot Bartholomew. Somehow I’d kept ahold of it through our fight with the Veiled, closing the cistern, and then loading into Terric’s van to come here.
Frankly, if he hadn’t mentioned it, I probably would have left it behind.
“This,” I said, hefting the lead box, “is something Dad says might help us.”
“What is it?”
“He says it’s evidence.” How is it evidence?
“How?” Zayvion said at the same time.
It is a recording device. Very subtle magic. It’s been in that office, recording whenever it senses the vibration of speech.
“You’re kidding me,” I said out loud.
“What did he say?” Zayvion, luckily, was getting used to me losing track of who was talking with their outside voice and who was talking with their dead-guy-in-my-brain voice.
“That it is a recording device.” I handed him the box. “Can you make out what any of those spells are?”
Zayvion turned it in his hand and looked at all sides. He shook his head. “If I’d seen this any other time, I’d think it was some kind of decorative sculpture. I don’t see any spells on it.”
I could feel Dad smile in my mind. It was weird.
There are no spells on it, he said. But the magic within it is shaped into spells that record onto a disk. What you see is just a decorative sculpture.
“He said the recording is on a disk inside it.”
How do we open it? I asked.
“Ah,” Zayvion said.
Like that, Dad answered.
I looked over. Zay had slid one of the panels to the side and then pivoted it outward so that it was connected only by one corner.
Inside the box was a stack of a dozen disks suspended by copper, which surprised me, since copper is an inferior material when it comes to magic use.
Zayvion flicked a latch with his thumbnail, and the disks slid forward and then fanned out like, well, a fan. He tipped the box so he could read the spells on the disks. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “They must be pure silver and glass.”
He gently drew the first disk out from the others. It was thin glass with grooves etched into it and a swirling webwork of silver painted through it. It looked more like art, or a very expensive brooch, than a recording device.
I was once again, if a little reluctantly, impressed by my father’s genius.
“How much do you think that can record?” I asked Zayvion.
He shook his head, hard curiosity lighting his features as he tipped the disk to the light. “Hours at least.”
Days, Dad said. Months. Years.
“Holy shit,” I said quietly. “Dad says it can record for years.”
“Looks like it will play on a computer. Am I right about that?” Zay asked.
Dad sort of nodded inside my head—another weird feeling. The Overseer will have the correct equipment to extract the information.
“So this was running while I was in the office with him?” I asked, finally catching on to why this might be a helpful thing.
“Hey, you two,” Shame said from the doorway. “Enough snogging. Let’s get this party on the road.”
Yes, Dad said. It was running while you were there, and when anyone was in the room.
Bartholomew had held a lot of meetings in his office. That was where Melissa Whit had used that painful Truth spell on me. That was where Zayvion, Terric, and Shame had all testified on what had happened when we were fighting Leander and Isabelle out at the Life well. That was where Bartholomew had met with each of the people he had assigned as Voices of the Authority. It stood to reason there were a lot of interesting meetings held in that room. Plenty of information that could be used to clear our names, or at least get other people on our side to try to keep the poison from spreading.
If there was proof that Bartholomew was acting in his own interest instead of in the interest of the Authority, it was on those pretty, shiny disks.
“He said yes, Zay,” I said. “Our evidence of what Bartholomew had been doing is on those disks. Anything that happened in his office is on those disks.”
“Very nice,” Zayvion murmured as he very carefully replaced the disk inside the copper webbing and pressed another lever. The disks retracted back into the box and Zayvion set the locking latch.
“That’s a beaut,” Shame said. “Your da put it together?”
I nodded. “And we’re going to get this to the Overseer. Did that get settled? Is Hayden up for it?”
“Hell no,” Shame said with a grin. “Arguing like it’s buy-one-get-one-free doomsday out there. All I know is I’m not going to be the one who flies off to England to get audience with Stafford. I’d like my internal organs, and my memories, to stay right where they are, thank you very much.”
“Someone needs to go,” I said.
“Not me,” Shame said. “Unreliable, remember? So sad.”
“I’ll go,” Zayvion said.
It felt like a punch to the stomach. “You can’t.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Why not?”
Because I don’t want you to didn’t seem like a very logical thing to say. It wasn’t even a very convincing thing to say. So instead I just held my hand out for the box. “Because you are needed here.”
“Hmm.” Zayvion placed the box in my palm, holding eye contact. I knew what he was thinking. We were close enough, his thoughts would have been easy to read even if we weren’t Soul Complements. He thought I was being overly protective of him. He thought I was going to make decisions with my heart instead of my head.
Wasn’t he going to be surprised?
“We do this right, and we do this smart,” I said. “No one’s going to martyr on my watch. That’s just a dumb way to waste manpower. Understand, Flynn?” I asked.
Shame was leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. “Glare at some other sucker, Beckstrom,” he said. “I don’t throw myself in front of bullets. That’s your gig.”
“It’s not a gig if you’ve done it only once,” I said.
Shame held up three fingers. “I think you’re a little off on your bullet count.”
“Fine. Three times. But only twice to save someone.”
“You mean Zay,” he said. “Only twice to save Zay. Maybe you ought to get him out of town for a bit. Could make for a bullet-free day or two. Good for the staying-breathing portion of your plan.”
“Not talking about it anymore,” I said. “Going to go figure out who can get this info to England instead.” I pointed down the hall, and Shame turned and walked ahead of me.
“Who do you want to do this, Allie?” Zayvion asked as we followed Shame back to the living room, where everyone was waiting.
Correction—not waiting. More like strapping on weapons and preparing to leave.
Chapter Three
“Did someone make a plan?” I asked.
Roman shrugged. He had a sword lying across his back, the hilt rising just above his left shoulder. He was picking up and putting down several long knives spread out across what used to be a dining room sideboard.
“I’ll take the message to the Overseer,” he said.
“Why you?” I asked. “You’re just as guilty as the rest of us for breaking Authority rule.”
“No, I am not.” He turned. “It was Isabelle possessing Sedra who trumped up the charges to lock me away. Isabelle has never been the head of the Authority, though she has possessed
Sedra for years. I was wrongly imprisoned. The Overseer will hear my case.”
He sounded pretty certain about that.
“And I can get there in two gates,” he said. “I think even Zayvion would have to use more than five.” He looked at Zayvion.
“I could do it in two,” Zay said.
“Aye, but I’ll be conscious by the end of it.” Roman gave him a hard smile.
Zayvion strode over and Roman squared to meet him.
Zay was wider in the shoulder than Roman but just as tall. Where Roman had the long lean lines that spoke of height and his age and maybe too much imprisonment, it didn’t give him the fuck-you-up bruiser build Zayvion carried so smoothly.
If I had to put money down on a fight between the two of them, I’d side with Zayvion every time.
“How about we do this?” Zayvion said in that low rumble that usually resulted in someone getting his nose broken. “You and me. See who can punch holes through reality and come out smiling on the other side.”
“How about we do?” Roman agreed.
“How about we do not?” Victor said in the stern teacher tone I hadn’t heard for weeks. “This is not a contest of which of you is a better Guardian of the gates. This is a mission that will save lives. Let us remember our vows, gentlemen.”
“To keep magic safe,” Roman said.
“And the lives of the innocent,” Zayvion said.
“Even if we have broken with the Authority,” Victor said, “we have not broken with our honor.”
Zay paused, then listened to the man who had always been his teacher. “Safe journey, Roman.”
“And to you,” he replied.
Zayvion turned toward me. “Allie, he’ll need the box.” He gave me a quick smile. He liked Roman, liked a man he could compete with, prove himself up to. I was suddenly glad Roman was taking the mission. Otherwise I had a feeling I’d be spending the next several days trying to keep the two of them from daring each other into ever-increasingly stupid contests.
I walked past Zay and handed Roman the box.
“This contains a dozen disks of glass and silver. On them is all the proof the Overseer will need to know that there is a magical plague spreading in the city. It contains our statements about the fight with Isabelle and Leander out at the Life well, and it probably has a lot of other information. It’s been in Bartholomew’s office, recording conversations since Bartholomew came back to town.”