E MILY HAD DETESTED THE BAR , the moment she walked into the darkened room.
The stench had been bad enough to make her think twice about following Marah. It wasn’t the worst place she’d ever been – she’d walked into necromantic lairs – but the stink of alcohol and vomit brought back bad memories, memories that threatened to overcome her. It had been all she could do to amble to the bar, wrapped in a simple glamour that should make it hard for anyone to realize she was more than just another drunkard intent on getting even drunker, and order a drink that smelled worse than the vomit. She pretended to sip while keeping an eye on Marah, her eyes narrowing as the Wild Fox made his appearance. She had to admit he was striking. His charisma was powerful enough to draw the eye right across the room, his roguish good looks making him stand out a mile. Emily couldn’t help being reminded of Jade, a man so confident in himself that he had no need to put others down. And yet, the more she looked at the Wild Fox, the more she thought she sensed a sour note surrounding him.
He’s halfway to being the next Robin Hood , she quoted, mentally. He steals from the rich, but he hasn’t got around to giving it to the poor yet .
Her lips quirked as she watched the two, her mood souring rapidly. The charisma was almost blinding… boosted by magic, if she was any judge. Marah had been too young and inexperienced to see it, but Emily shuddered inwardly. She had seen some striking glamours magicians wore like women wore perfume, glamours that were disquietingly close to lust spells without ever quite crossing the line. The Wild Fox was projecting an image of being brave and noble and true, and yet… Emily told herself, sharply, it was an illusion. He wasn’t winning his followers over naturally, but with magic.
She forced herself to wait, despite the temptation to grab him at once. They were in the middle of a crowded district. It was hard to get a good read on his power – looking at his charisma was like staring into a blinding light – but he had set up a pocket dimension that had come very close to killing Emily and Marah, which implied he was a very skilled magician indeed. And he knew how to make batteries. If she risked challenging him here, countless innocents would be caught in the crossfire. She cursed under her breath and watched, wishing she could hear the conversation. What was he saying to her?
And how , she asked herself, did he find her?
Her mind raced. Marah had been in a prison cell, then Emily's house in Dragon’s Den, and then finally the tower. Emily had a great deal of faith in her wards, and she knew it should have been impossible for anyone, even someone as skilled as Void, to see through the protective charms. Void had been paranoid about his privacy, with good reason, and his wards were close to impregnable. Virgil shouldn’t have been able to track Marah, and yet he’d been able to track her down the moment she’d returned to Valetta. Emily didn’t like the implications. Marah had been in his house, completely at his mercy. It would have been child’s play for him to obtain some of her blood, then conceal it somewhere else. And if he had…
He would have no trouble tracking her , Emily thought. Or influencing her mind .
She gritted her teeth. Marah was an innocent. She hadn’t known who she was trying to kill, and she hadn’t known that Emily would take her as an apprentice. Emily found it hard to believe anyone could plan on such a scale, even if they had a demon to help. No… Virgil had sent Marah to her death, then discovered she was still alive. And now he was trying to use her to… do what? Get to Emily herself? Or cause even more chaos within the city?
A frisson of alarm shot through her as the Wild Fox stood, practically posing in front of the drunkards, and strode out the door with undeniable purpose. Emily felt an odd little tingle running through her, one that made her grit her teeth in irritation. Even knowing the feeling was fake, produced by magic, it was hard not to feel something . She knew – now – why Marah had suspected nothing. Younger and far less experienced, she’d been as vulnerable as a sheep in the midst of an army of wolves.
Emily hesitated, unsure of what to do, as Marah stared at her drink, then waved to the bartender and exchanged a handful of words with him. Bartenders tended to do double duty as information brokers, she knew, although they rarely discussed matters their customers had told them in confidence. Marah hadn’t made a bad choice, coming here, except… Emily wondered, numbly, which way she’d jump when the time came. It hadn’t been easy for her to turn against Void, even though she’d been older and more mature. Marah would have the same problem. And that meant…
She has to make up her own mind , Emily thought, as Marah finished talking to the bartender and slipped out of the bar. She’s the one who’ll have to live with her choice .
She followed Marah at a safe distance, watching as she visited three more bars, a couple of shops and a brothel. The latter was heavily warded, enough to convince Emily not to risk going any closer. Whoever had cast the charms had done a very good job, ensuring the anonymity of the brothel’s customers… two charms, in particular, were crafted to convince anyone following the customers that they’d lost track of them long ago. Emily scowled inwardly – she was all too aware that conditions in the brothels were disgraceful, even in Cockatrice – and kept her distance. Marah emerged, thirty minutes later, and headed back to the café. Emily allowed herself to drop behind, then removed the glamour and walked around the roads so it would look like she’d come from the other direction. It was hard to tell if Marah knew she’d been followed. She hadn’t acted like it, but anyone who grew up in the underground – or the underworld – would be painfully aware of anyone who showed a little too much interest in them.
Marah looked relieved when she saw Emily. Emily braced herself, unsure what to expect. A full confession? Silence? She didn’t know if she would have had the nerve to bring her concerns to someone else, when she’d been Marah’s age, and she’d had people she could trust. Her heart twisted, painfully. She’d never talked to anyone about her stepfather when she was that young… but then, no one had cared. She’d been just another scrawny teenage girl with no real prospects of becoming anything other than a carbon copy of her mother. Marah had been in an even worse position.
“I got a handful of names and confirmed two,” Marah said. “What do you want to do with them?”
Emily kept her face blank, with an effort. “We ask for some blood,” she said. It would be a pretty big ask, but… they had no choice. “And we use it to track the kidnapped child.”
She allowed Marah to lead her through a maze of apartment blocks and shacks, studying her apprentice’s magic thoughtfully. Marah seemed normal, but there had been that little… something… before she’d set out to meet her former master. Blood magic? Marah had come to the idea of setting off on her own very quickly, and she’d been equally quick to dismiss the idea Emily should accompany her. Blood magic could be incredibly insidious, no matter how much the victim prepared for it. Marah could be influenced from a safe distance, which was bad enough, but she’d find herself inventing reasons to justify what she was doing – what she was being made to do – to herself. There hadn’t been time to teach her the disciplines she needed to overcome it.
But she already saw one chink in a story , Emily reminded herself. She can see the discrepancies here too .
They stopped outside a simple house, one of a row of cookie-cutter homes thrown together at great speed for the influx of skilled laborers. Emily couldn’t help thinking there was something oddly chilling about the sight, each and every home practically identical. There were few hints of individuality, save for a handful of icons and little shrines by the doorsteps. Emily could feel eyes watching from behind curtains as Marah knocked on the door. A red-eyed woman – she couldn’t have been more than a few years older than they were, but she looked old enough to be their mother – opened it and eyed them suspiciously. Emily felt a stab of sympathy. The woman had had a good life, by the kingdom’s standards, and her children had the promise of a better one, but now one of her children was missing and no one gave a damn. The Royal Guard wouldn’t help her hunt for the missing child. They were far more likely to arrest her for daring to suggest they should .
Emily let Marah do the talking, explaining that they’d been hired to search for the missing children and they needed a sample of the mother’s blood. The woman seemed unconvinced, at least at first; the odds were good, Emily reflected, that she’d already been harassed by private investigators offering to find her children, if she paid in advance. She’d seen it before, in Cockatrice. People were so desperate they turned to scam artists to find their children, but the scammers had no intention of looking. It wouldn’t change until someone managed to put together a proper police force.
“Thank you,” Marah said. She took a knife from her belt and carefully extracted a little blood from the mother’s palm. “We won’t let you down.”
Emily leaned forward. “Are all your other children here?”
“Yes,” the mother said, curtly. The look she bestowed on Emily was far from friendly. “They won’t be going out to play ever again.”
“Understood,” Emily said. It would save them from having to worry about false positives. “And your husband?”
The mother stepped back and shut the door in their face. Marah muttered a vile word under her breath, magic sparkling around her fist. Emily caught her arm before she could do something stupid, then pulled her away and around the corner. The question had clearly touched a nerve – the woman’s husband might be searching for his missing child or drinking himself to death – but it didn’t matter. The bloodstained rag was all they needed.
“Blood magic relies on the most intimate link of all, that of blood,” she said, as she prepared to cast the spell. “It is very capable of slipping through even the strongest of defenses, allowing a person with a sample of your blood to influence you.”
She kept an eye on Marah as she spoke, watching for a reaction. If she knew what blood magic could do, she might realize it had been – might have been – used on her. And then…
Marah frowned at the blood. “In what way?”
“The caster might want you to do something,” Emily said. “They use your blood to charm you into doing it and coming up with your own justification for carrying out your instructions. For example” – her voice hardened – “you might be influenced into bringing the caster dinner, but you’d rationalize it to yourself as being a good host, or buying favor, or something – anything – as long as it makes sense to you.”
“You might be charmed into falling in love with someone,” Marah agreed. “And you’d justify it to yourself by thinking he was handsome or wealthy.”
“Quite.” Emily stared at the blood for a long moment. “That’s legally rape, in case you were wondering.”
Marah grimaced. Emily wondered what she was thinking. Did she wonder what might have happened to her?
“If someone has your blood…” Marah made a face. “If someone does, is there a defense?”
“It isn’t easy to defend yourself against blood-linked charms,” Emily said. “A blood-linked curse can be even worse, because it is carefully woven into your very being, but… that can be blocked, or countered, with the right spells. The trick is recognizing that you’re being influenced in the first place, and that – I’m sorry to say – is very difficult. Your mind can be your worst enemy.”
“It’s my mind,” Marah objected.
Emily met her eyes. “If I cast a compulsion spell on you and forced you to walk from here to the gatehouse, you would know what I’d done to you,” she said. “You would fight the command and, even if you failed to overcome it, you would know what I’d done. But with blood magic? You would be telling yourself, all the time, that you are doing what you want to do. You wouldn’t fight because you wouldn’t realize you had to fight. If you knew… you could easily stop yourself. But you’d need to realize what was happening first.”
Marah looked down. Her voice was a whisper. “How?”
“Keep asking yourself why you’re doing something,” Emily said. It was far from a perfect defense. Most people didn’t stop to interrogate their own feelings, let alone wonder if they were interrogating their feelings from the wrong perspective. It wasn’t easy to force yourself to stop and think about what you were doing, and if you did you could easily wind up paralyzed by doubt and fear. “And if you can’t explain it to yourself, you need to stop.”
“Oh.” Marah looked unimpressed. “Is there anything else?”
“Not really,” Emily said. “Heavy wards can block blood-linked curses, sometimes, but it’s very hard to keep someone from influencing you – or even locating you – in a more subtle manner.”
She scowled as she held up the rag and mentally braced herself, carefully placing the woman and her other children behind her as she cast the spell. The blood wasn’t perfect – ideally, they would have a sample of the husband’s blood too – but it would suffice. She closed her eyes as the magic took shape, oddly unpleasant as it brushed against her awareness… she couldn’t help feeling, despite everything, that she was doing something fundamentally wrong. Her earlier thoughts came back to haunt her. She felt like a young man staring into the female changing room, all too aware he was doing something wrong and yet unable – or unwilling – to stop himself.
“There are seven links,” she said. Blood links tended to be hierarchical; the woman’s children would be below her, while her siblings would be on the same level… depending. “How many children does she have?”
“Seven, from what she said,” Marah told her. “One missing; the rest in their home.”
Emily wondered, briefly, if the next generation would be quite as prolific. The poor tended to have as many children as possible, mainly to ensure some would survive long enough to grow up and take care of their parents. As health care improved, and more children survived to adulthood, the birthrate would probably fall… she put the thought aside as she focused on the links. Six were behind her, relatively speaking; the seventh was faint, surprisingly so. She frowned, wondering if they were being conned. The blood link shouldn’t have been so weak.
Unless someone performed an adoption rite , she thought. But why bother if they’re taking the children as slaves?
She considered it briefly, then shrugged. “We have a lead,” she said. “Are you ready?”
Marah looked thoughtful, her mind elsewhere. Emily hoped she was thinking about her own decisions, and wondering quite why she’d made them. She altered the charm on the rag, isolating the blood link to the kidnapped child and then tightening it up so they’d have no trouble following it. They’d have to move in a straight line, but she doubted it would be a problem. Unless the blood link led them right out of the city…
They’d have to get the kidnap victim through the gates , she thought. But that wouldn’t be a problem .
Marah glanced at her. “Is there no other defense?”
“You have to make sure no one gets their hands on your blood,” Emily said. “If you bleed, you cut the blood link and get rid of the blood yourself. That includes your monthly blood. If you need the blood for alchemy, perhaps one of the more complex healing potions, you keep a sharp eye on the blood and ensure you reclaim it afterwards.”
She paused. “As a general rule, anything that involves blood is potentially very dangerous, even if your intentions are good. You can do yourself or someone else serious harm quite by accident.”
Marah swallowed. “What sort of alchemical charms involve blood ?”
“There are a few,” Emily said. “A potion to replenish one’s blood, for example, or a person-specific potion… perversely, blood-linked potions are one of the few ways to counter blood-linked curses. You won’t be brewing them unless you become a healer and take the healer oaths. Trying to learn such potions without the oaths could get you in serious trouble.”
“Because you’re using the patient’s blood?”
“Among other things,” Emily said. “The power to heal is also the power to kill. A healer with murderous intentions has both knowledge and nerve, which makes him very dangerous if he turns dark. He’s also in a position to do a great deal of damage indirectly, by breaking a confidence or revealing medical information or…”
She grinned, suddenly. “Do you want to try to become a healer?”
“They only help the wealthy,” Marah said. “I want to help everyone.”
“We’ll start by looking for the child,” Emily said. The blood link was pulling her east now. “Let’s go.”