E MILY TOSSED AND TURNED ON THE bed, trying to sleep.
It wasn’t easy, despite the tiredness pervading her entire body. She simply wasn’t used to sharing a bed with anyone, even Caleb. Having someone next to her was… disconcerting, to the point she’d seriously considered asking for another bed or blankets or something, anything, else that would have saved them from having to share a bed. But it would have been out of character… Marah had grown up sharing a bedroom with her siblings and stepsiblings, while a travelling magician wouldn’t have had any qualms about doing the same. She kept her eyes closed and tried to meditate, hoping sleep would overcome her and fearing it wouldn’t. Too much had happened for her to rest easy.
The pocket dimension had surprised her, nearly killed her. She had to concede, as much as she disliked him, that Virgil was a very skilled magician. Anchoring a pocket dimension inside a house was tricky, without a near-infinite power source, and shaping the insides to become a house – to convince anyone who walked inside that it was a house – was incredibly difficult. She had no idea why he’d gone to so much trouble, although she had to admit it was a very effective trap. They’d been incredibly lucky not to have been crushed.
And where , she asked herself, is he getting that sort of power?
Her thoughts ran in circles. Whitehall was bigger on the inside – and so was Heart’s Eye – but they both drew on nexus points for power. Void’s Tower was carefully designed to absorb background magic, yet… she had no idea what would happen if the power reserves ever ran short. Whoever had built the tower had been a genius beyond compare, and yet… it struck her as inherently unreliable. They might as well have sculptured a castle in the clouds. The stories of magicians who’d done just that ended, always, with the magician taking a fall.
There weren’t many answers, certainly none she liked. If Virgil was a necromancer, he was a very odd one. It was rare, almost unknown, for necromancers to maintain a steady chain of thought, let alone pretend to be normal and sane long enough to allow their plans to come to fruition. Marah’s description of Virgil’s conduct hadn’t suggested any sort of insanity, which meant… what? Was he using necromantic power without actually being a necromancer? She already knew he could make batteries, and if he combined them with necromancy…
He’d have to find a way to channel the magic without letting it pour through his brain , she thought, numbly. She could see how it might work, if someone had a willingness to take risks mixed with a complete lack of scruples about human sacrifice. If he uses a pocket dimension, it might just be possible .
She cursed under her breath. Lady Barb had told her, years ago, that her batteries made necromancy practical. There was no shortage of sorcerers who wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice others – magicians and mundanes alike – in a bid for power, if they thought they could get away with it. A newborn necromancer might not remain coherent, might be killed by his own power… might go mad. Would go mad. But she knew someone would try to use batteries for human sacrifice, sooner or later. That secret was already out.
He certainly needed to charge the battery Marah used to try to kill me , she reminded herself, grimly. Where did he get that power?
Her thoughts ran in circles, outlining possible ways to make it work. She wanted to shy away from any such thoughts, all too aware she could be tempted too, but she had no choice. The basic concept was simple enough, yet making it work… her heart sank. Magitech might just make it work, if it was woven into the batteries… Virgil, whoever he really was, was clearly a modern magician. Emily knew dozens who regarded magitech as useless, little more than conjuring tricks. Virgil wasn’t one of them.
The question echoed through her head. Did he go to Heart’s Eye? Did he learn his tricks there? And… have we met?
She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew was bright sunlight streaming through the windowpanes. Marah was nowhere to be seen… Emily rolled over, a little alarmed, then heard her in the washroom. She checked the room’s wards automatically, allowing herself a moment of relief as she confirmed they hadn’t been breached. She wouldn’t have put it past the landlord to try to peek on them, although he’d have to be insane to try it on a pair of magicians. No one would say a word if he wound up blind, or worse…
Marah returned, looking disgustingly fresh. “Did you sleep well?”
Emily swallowed several angry remarks as she sat up and stumbled into the washroom. The chamber was surprisingly modern, by local standards, but unpleasant by hers . There was cold running water, thankfully, yet… she filled the sink, heated the water with a spell, and did her business as quickly as possible. The landlord clearly made money on the side by selling human waste to the saltpeter cooks, who made gunpowder. She supposed it was an improvement on simply tossing one’s waste out the window, splattering it on anyone unlucky enough to be passing at the time.
She stepped back into the bedroom, still feeling dirty and unpleasant. Marah was pulling on her cloak and tying back her hair, hiding the color under a shawl. Her red hair was hardly unique – it was common in Valadon – but it would make it hard for anyone to connect the travelling magician with the wanted criminal. Emily privately suspected the prince hadn’t bothered to put out an alert after Emily had taken Marah away. Even if he had, what could he say?
“We’ll go get breakfast,” Emily said, pulling her own cloak over her outfit. “Where do you recommend?”
“Anywhere that has food,” Marah said. “I’m not fussy.”
Emily nodded, then resealed the wards and led the way outside. The air was cold, tainted with pollution, and the streets were surprisingly empty. She glanced at the sun, silently calculating the time. The workers would have gone to their jobs, the children would have gone to school… everyone else would be having the morning after the night before. The streets wouldn’t grow lively, she suspected, until lunchtime. Perhaps not even then.
She let Marah lead her to a small café, right on the edge of the middle-class district. It was surprisingly classy, although she suspected the owners were trying a little too hard. The menu was short, the prices suspiciously variable… Emily had the nasty feeling food prices were steadily rising, the inevitable result of the mercenaries at the gate. It was hard enough feeding an entire city in peacetime, let alone when tension was rising and every cart had to be searched before it was allowed to enter. She suspected it was just a matter of time before the farmers simply stopped sending their wares. There were limits to how fresh they could keep their produce, as they took it to market. If they took too long…
The waitress looked nervous as she came to the table, eying the two magicians as if they’d hex her the moment she opened her mouth. Emily’s heart sank. Most mundanes were nervous around magicians, unsurprising in a world where only the very worst magical bullies received any form of punishment, but it still bothered her. She had never hexed a serving maid for some imaginary offense, or cast a spell to flip up her skirt…
“Please, can we have bacon and eggs, with bread?” Marah asked. She passed the waitress a tip. Emily hoped she’d have the sense to make it vanish before someone else saw it. “And hot tea.”
The waitress nodded, dropped a very low curtsey, then hurried off. Emily looked at Marah and was surprised to see a grim expression on her face. Marah had worked in an inn, she recalled… no, she’d been more of a slave. Emily had been lucky, she supposed, to escape such a fate herself. She knew students who had had to go work over the summer, to build up their experience as well as saving for the coming year. There were no child labor laws here.
Marah said nothing until the tea arrived, with milk and a broadsheet. She took the latter and skimmed it quickly, then muttered a curse and held out a sheet to Emily. The headline read WILD FOX BROWN-TROUSERS ARISTOS; the story, written in a disturbingly flamboyant style, went on and on about how Lord Bottom – Emily hoped it was a nickname – had been holding a grand ball for his daughter’s coming out, which had been spectacularly ruined by the Wild Fox. The story grew wilder and wilder, with the tone of an announcer narrating a football match on live TV, to the point she couldn’t tell if it was true… if any of it were true. She could buy a rebel crashing the party, challenging the guards and fighting his way out with effortless ease, but the story was just too… extreme. She was entirely sure the Wild Fox hadn’t swept the daughter off her feet and taken her away to live the life of a wild rogue…
“It’s him,” Marah said. “That’s what he does .”
Emily read the story a second time, then looked up. “He crashes parties…?”
“He said it was to show how weak and vulnerable the aristos really are,” Marah said. “He’s good enough to get in and out without being caught.”
“He’d have to be,” Emily said. She had her doubts. Sergeant Miles had told her private guards were rarely worth the money they were paid, and Lady Barb had agreed with him, but there’d be magical defenses backing them up. Getting in would be tricky and getting out even harder… her lips twisted, suddenly. Just waltzing through the front door was exactly the sort of thing Void would have done…
The thought made her heart twist painfully. She missed Void. She gritted her teeth, fighting it down.
She put the broadsheet on the table as the breakfast arrived. The story was probably unreliable. Whatever Virgil had done, the story had grown in the telling. It was hard to believe one man, even a blademaster, could fight off a hundred guards, then seduce a noble daughter with a wink and take her with him… but then, Virgil had magic. It was quite possible he could protect himself, or…
The guards might even have been bribed to put up a good show, she thought. They could have been seduced a long time before he showed himself .
She sighed inwardly. She had never liked such theatrics. It was all too easy to imagine that hundreds of things could go wrong, from the guests drawing their own swords and pitching in to the guards getting overexcited and accidentally hurting their own employers… or even slipping at the wrong moment, then being filleted as they tried to recover. And yet… Void had told her, more than once, that if someone saw the resplendent magician, it was often all they saw. No one would look at that same magician, dressed drably, and think it was the same person. Alassa had said much the same, more than once. She was incredibly beautiful, but when she wore commoner outfits, it was hard to believe she was the queen.
“We didn’t find anything last night,” Marah said, as she nibbled a piece of bacon. “What do we do now?”
Emily considered the problem. It was impossible to know where to start looking. Virgil knew the city far better than they did, knew where he could hide himself… hell, for all she knew, Virgil was a master of disguise. Nanette had posed as a maid for eighteen months, and Emily hadn’t had a clue… Virgil could easily change into something drab and pass unnoticed. If… she wondered, suddenly, if Virgil was a woman . It wasn’t impossible. A sorceress would have no trouble posing as a man, if she used the right charms to obscure her true identity, and she’d certainly understand Marah in a manner no man could match. And it would certainly be hard for the local guards to wrap their heads around the concept. The idea of a man dressing as a woman was hard enough…
Her lips twisted. Jade and Cat had posed as women once. It had worked perfectly.
“We need to find the missing children,” she said. “If we can find a family that lost a child, we can use their blood to track the kidnapped child and hopefully find the rest of the missing children.”
Marah scowled at her empty plate. “If it’s that easy, why hasn’t it been done already?”
“It needs a magician to cast the spell,” Emily said. If Marah was correct – and far too much of what she knew had come from Virgil – most of the missing children were lower-class, their parents too poor to afford a magician’s services. “Did Virgil ever mention the possibility?”
“No,” Marah said. “I never even considered…”
Her face darkened. Emily felt a stab of sympathy. There was no reason for her to know much of anything about magic – much of what the mundanes believed simply wasn’t true – but her ignorance had been turned against her, time and time again. No wonder Virgil had kept her away from other magicians, all too aware she was smart enough to start poking holes in his story the moment she noticed the discrepancies. That would have been a pretty big hole, she noted. Why would Virgil not perform the tracking charm? If he was devoted to helping the poor, why not offer his services for free?
“We’ll find someone and offer our assistance,” Emily said. It wouldn’t be easy. There was nothing like a crisis to bring con artists out of the shadows, trying to take advantage of very real suffering and loss. Most people knew better than to let someone – anyone – take a sample of their blood. “And then try to track down the missing child.”
Assuming the child isn’t hidden under heavy wards , her thoughts added. Or he hasn’t done something to make tracking them impossible .
She scowled at her hands. There were no other possibilities, at least not immediately. She could find another aristocratic ball and stake it out, in hopes the Wild Fox would show himself, but there would be no guarantees. The aristos would be hiring more guards and magicians, unless they were complete idiots. Virgil was a talented and powerful magician, but he wasn’t a god. If he ran into an ambush, he might not be able to extract himself. And he was smart enough to anticipate it…
Marah’s voice shifted slightly. Very slightly. “I have contacts,” she said. “People who’ll talk to me. I can ask them to point us to someone who lost a child. If I go alone, they’ll talk to me.”
Emily felt a frisson of alarm. She hid it carefully. “You don’t want me to come with you?”
“You’re too… too striking for them,” Marah said. “They’ll know me as a child of the city; you’re a complete stranger. They’ll be happier talking one on one.”
“And if you get caught…?” Emily raised her eyebrows. “How do you intend to get away?”
“The Royal Guard never visits the Coalsack unless they have overwhelming force,” Marah said, with more confidence. “If they’re on the way, I will know.”
She shrugged. “No one will sell me out, not there,” she added. “It would be the kiss of death.”
Emily kept her face blank. Marah’s argument was convincing and yet… there had been that tiny little moment of something . Emily wasn’t convinced someone wouldn’t sell her out, if he realized who and what she was. There was no such thing as honor amongst thieves. If the king offered enough money to get the tattletale a new identity somewhere else, hundreds of miles away, they’d be very tempted. Her argument made sense and yet…
You don’t know which way she’ll jump , Emily thought. And you want to let her make up her own mind .
“Be careful,” she said, finally. Marah wasn’t wrong to suggest her contacts wouldn’t speak freely with Emily there. And yet, her contacts would have links to Virgil. “If you feel endangered, get out. Use the teleport gem if you must.”
Marah smiled and stood. “I won’t let you down.”
“I’ll go see if I can find any clues elsewhere,” Emily said. She picked up the broadsheet and tucked it under her arm, carefully leaving enough money on the table to cover both it and the breakfast. The waitress waved cheerfully from the counter, where she was reading a broadsheet of her own. “Meet me back here in four hours?”
Marah nodded. “Of course.”
She turned and hurried off the moment they stepped outside, moving with surprising speed for someone who shouldn’t be in a hurry. Emily watched her go, her eyes narrowing. It was possible Marah did have contacts, true, but it was also possible she was going to do something stupid. Or… a nasty thought ran through Emily’s head. Virgil had had Marah long enough to leave quite a few surprises behind, planted in her mind. Or…
I need to give her some freedom , Emily thought. Void hadn’t been particularly controlling, unlike some other masters. He certainly hadn’t sought to dictate her every move. She wanted – she needed – to give Marah the space she needed to make up her own mind. But that doesn’t mean I have to be foolish about it .
After a moment, Emily turned and followed her.