THE TOWER

Among modern cities, New Atlantis is a precocious freak.

The expenditure to create it—in terms of money and magic—was incalculable. Hundreds of abandoned human buildings from all over the world were bought and teleported to Nantucket: sanitariums, madhouses, churches, palaces, hotels, skyscrapers. Taking possession of these ruins wasn’t as difficult as it sounded. Humans never appreciate what they’ve allowed to fall into disrepair.

New Atlantis now occupies half the acreage of Nantucket, just a little over the size of Manhattan. The former topography of the island—scrubby trees, sand dunes, wide-open spaces—lasted as long as it took us to strip it clean and slap on a coat of asphalt. Don’t even get me started on the west end of the island. The Westlands were the poisoned magical backwash of the translocation magic; a deadly mess of monsters, pocket dimensions, and heavily warded Arcana compounds. I had as much interest in taking a Sunday drive into that countryside as I did in getting a colonic with jet fuel.

The human world never figured out the phenomenal expense it took to create New Atlantis, or the unlikelihood that it would ever be possible again. To them, it looked as if we pulled our Gotham out of a cereal box. They saw their abandoned buildings turn into craters overnight, and assumed that that was the sort of thing we would always be capable of doing.

Not a bad rep to have.

I spent much of the morning in my sanctum, filling my sigils with a balanced blend of defensive and aggressive spells. Brand did his own preparation in the basement, only with knives and Kevlar. Our experience with the Tower had taught us well. A job offer and the actual beginning of the job were very often simultaneous events with Lord Tower.

That said, Brand wouldn’t come with me to meet Lord Tower; he’d just join up if I needed him. I kept him and the Tower in separate rooms as much as possible. They didn’t get along, which, when you’re talking about two personalities like that, was like mixing an oil spill and a tidal wave.

A few minutes before I was about to head downstairs, Brand poked his head up the spiral stairway. “The fuck?” he said.

“What the fuck what?” I said.

“Queenie is outside, fussing over Matthias.”

“He’s coming with me. I thought I’d bring him along, get a feel for him.”

Brand came up the stairs. “You’re taking him for a walk? To get a feel for him? You know he’s not a dog you picked up at the fucking pound, right?”

“Aw. Look who’s worried at being replaced. It’s okay, you’re still my best friend.”

Instead of swearing some more, Brand rolled his eyes. He was a master at eye-rolling. He used facial muscles and forehead wrinkles for the whole effect.

I picked up the sigils I’d laid around me, refastening them around my ankle, fingers, and neck. The ivory cameo had a pain-in-the-ass clasp, so Brand came around and helped me with it.

He said, “Look six ways before crossing the fucking street.”

“I will.”

“Don’t forget down. You always forget to look down.”

“I will,” I said. He was always uneasy when I left the house without him. If I ever got hurt when he wasn’t around, I wouldn’t even be allowed to the bathroom without an escort for the next six months.

I went downstairs, put on my boots, then met Matthias on the front stoop. Queenie had all but packed him a bagged lunch. She hemmed and hawed her way back inside, while Brand pretended not to look at us from the upstairs window.

“Ready?” I asked.

He stared at the ground. “If you insist.”

“Only in a friendly sort of way,” I said. When that didn’t get a rise out of him, I shrugged and set off.

Half House was on a cul-de-sac in a quieter part of the city; but, in a sold-out housing market, that only meant the quiet parts were two streets away from the loud parts. I made a beeline toward loud, where there was a coffee shop on every corner.

I ordered a triple-shot and bought Matthias a black iced coffee, which he indicated he’d prefer after a series of one-word answers to my questions. Then he made me wait while he dumped three inches of raw sugar into his coffee, packet by packet by packet. When he was done, I led us outside and away from the shop.

I snuck glances at him as we headed toward a nearby plaza. He was a good-looking kid. More pretty than handsome, but at his age you could still grow out of that. He had the strange fae coloring that managed to be pale yet luminous, and hair so blond that it was almost white.

At that hour, the streets were hopping with lunchtime activity. We passed the mundane and the miraculous. Rolling vendor carts steamed with cashews, a pair of lounging werelions stretched their bellies toward the sun; there were people in business suits and hair shirts, iPod armbands and cilices, high heels and webbed toes. A hunchback in silk swept by, three asphalt golems in her wake. Their pebbled arms were looped with pink shopping bags.

Matthias watched all this, and I watched him watching.

He touched his ear twice when the light turned from white to amber on a crosswalk; went blank when a werelion teased a crooked finger over his passing thigh; bit hard on the corner of his lip when the hunchbacked matron called him ‘grandchild’ after we stepped aside to let her pass.

I tugged my sunglasses out of my breast pocket with one hand. A brass translocation plaque in front of us stated that the nearby statues were from the ruined Kopice Palace in Poland’s Brzeg County. I said, “Is that an elk?”

Matthias didn’t so much as glance.

“They never go into enough details on these plaques,” I said. “I always have to look them up online. It’s a hobby of mine.” I waved at the antlered animals. “I’m thinking elk.”

Matthias offered the ground a tight smile and raised his drink to his mouth. My polarized sunglasses gave the lid of his cup a petroleum sheen, so that it looked like he was sipping rainbows.

I sighed, and we started walking again. “Is the guest room okay?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Good. Queenie did a run on our closets, by the way. To find you more clothes. You’ll probably get better stuff from Brand, if you don’t ask too many questions about the stains. You’re better off just thinking they’re blood.”

“I’ll make do with what I have.”

I let the ensuing pause stretch, then stuck out my ankle and tripped him. While he recovered from a windmilling stumble, I said, “You’re making it real hard to talk, Lord Saint Valentine.”

A brief surge of heat mottled his cheeks. To my delight, he didn’t check himself before he said, “What is it we need to talk about, Lord Sun?”

“Matthias, this isn’t an eighties sitcom. I can’t casually accept an orphan into my house for comic relief.”

“I just need a place to stay until I get on my feet. That’s all. Just a room for a couple weeks. Then I’ll leave and you can keep my grandmother’s sigil.”

“It’s not about the sigil. There’s—”

“So I can have it?”

“It’s not completely about the sigil,” I said. “There’s also this whole issue about my promise to watch you until your—”

“Age of majority? No. Her words were vague in order to get you to make a promise. There’s no way she expected that much from it.”

“It’s not what she expected that counts. It’s what I expect, and what the laws of magic expect. You burn an oath, it comes back at you threefold.”

“Her words were vague,” he insisted. “Give me safe harbor until the worst of this is past, and the price will be met. I’ll acknowledge it. That makes a difference, right?”

“There are still bigger issues. I know you can’t see them, but they’re there.”

“Bigger issues like how I feel about the raid that killed my court? The raid you participated in? Those issues? Or issues like people wanting me dead, people who’d like nothing more than to take a parting shot at my grandmother? Or issues about what people will say when they see you in the company of a seventeen-year-old male minor? Issues like how we’re going to live in a small house on top of each other? Or about how much you’re responsible for me? Whether you need to get me educated, buy me clean underwear, make sure I drink enough dairy?”

He wasn’t stupid, that’s for sure.

“No one will recognize me,” Matthias insisted. “I didn’t . . . I wasn’t in the public eye. I was not . . . popular. I served other purposes.” When I didn’t say anything to that, he finally raised his head and met my eyes. It was the first time we’d really looked at each other, and it seemed to startle him. The word please slipped out of his mouth as a mumble.

A crow-black limousine slid to a nearby curb. “Our ride,” I said.

I let the conversation die, because it felt like I was kicking a dead horse, and Brand was better at kicking things. Plus, part of me remembered Queenie saying, How was it with you? The day after you lost everything?

I didn’t recognize the driver, whose gaze traveled up my body as she held the door open. It was a safe bet she wasn’t admiring me so much as mapping my pressure points and joint weaknesses. Most of the Tower’s people were like that. Even his housecleaners knew how to balance a throwing knife.

Inside the limo, I fiddled with the temperature controls until the vents weren’t whooshing air, and turned on the radio. We had plenty of time to kill. Rush-hour snarls had reduced the two-mile distance to wagon speed.

“You a shapeshifter?” I asked Matthias.

“Yes.”

“Are we talking full-on animal form, or just cosmetic?”

Matthias held up a hand. The sleeve of his shirt slinked toward his elbow. He concentrated, and green whorls ran around his flesh. The fingernails turned shell pink and grew a couple inches into pointed tips.

“Functional cosmetics,” I amended. I hadn’t expected much more—though claws would have been nice. True animal shapeshifting was rare outside the Beast Throne, which was how Lord Devil preferred it.

“I can hold my own,” Matthias said.

“We’ll see. Do you have any sigils of your own?”

Matthias broke our gaze. “No.”

Not important enough for sigils, but important enough for Elena to save. To be singled out as her court fell around her. Curiouser and curiouser. “Have you met many Arcana, other than your grandmother?”

“No.”

“When we get to the Tower’s penthouse, you’re to stay in the antechamber. I need to figure out what to say to him, and how to introduce you. You were right—there are people out there who wouldn’t mind taking a grievance against the Heart Throne from your hide.”

Matthias’ eyes lit up with an unidentifiable emotion, but he kept his lips pressed shut. The skin on his arm returned to its usual paleness. His nails receded to a normal length.

The car stopped at the canopied front of the Pac Bell. An armed concierge opened my door. I got out and gave the area a quick three-sixty along both the x- and y-axis; then got bored of pretending I was Brand and just stared at the beautiful building. Once, it’d been the Pacific Telephone Building, built in San Francisco back in the mid-1920s. Twenty-six stories of art deco limestone magically restored to brand-spanking-new, right down to the eight terra-cotta eagles glaring at me from the parapet.

Matthias got out of the limo and we headed inside. The day’s heat gave way to the sterile coolness of a lobby. When I pulled out a key card to activate the private penthouse elevator, I got a startled reaction from Matthias. I wondered how much he’d heard about me and the Tower, or if he thought the rumors were true.

Lord Tower owned the entire building but kept the penthouse floors as his personal residence. In the entire time I’d known him, I’d never seen so much as a maid upstairs. He kept it clean with either magic or the things that magic could summon, and I wasn’t in a rush to learn which.

I stuck Matthias on a spindly-looking chair in the antechamber. Hoping that neither of the Tower’s children were about—his daughter wasn’t so bad, but Dalton was a monster—I headed toward the living room on the other side of the floor.

The Tower was waiting for me by the window, his face blurred by a ray of sunlight. It was a homey image, as if he’d been peeking out the drapes to follow the progress of my arrival.

“Rune,” he said.

“Lord Tower.”

The Tower was—or appeared to be—a not-too-tall man in his early forties, with waxy, black hair and cocoa eyes. He had constant five o’clock shadow, fingers like a surgeon, and a swimmer’s build. I’d once thought him the most beautiful man in all creation.

He stood before me barefoot in silk pajamas. The vulnerability was an affectation. The clothes buzzed with powerful wards. He probably could have bounced bullets off his chest or survived a jump from the patio ledge.

While some Arcana still existed on dangerous fringes, like the Hanged Man or the Fool, most had learned to mimic humanity. Arcana like the Tower mimicked it flawlessly. They had embraced and flourished in their exposure to the human world.

The Tower was a renowned artist, a politician, and an entrepreneur. He had been the old monarchy’s spy and executioner for centuries, and he held our people together when the royal court failed. The Emperor died in the last days of the Atlantean World War, and the Empress, in her unhinged grief, vanished into the wilds of America. Now and then there’s a tabloid sighting, largely at truck stops and waffle houses. Every culture, it appears, has an Elvis.

Lord Tower was the head of the Dagger Throne, and I had made promises to him at the age of fifteen in a desperate bid for protection. While my term of service had ended years ago, I remained on speed dial for projects he didn’t trust others to handle, which always made our visits interesting.

He led me to a sunken area on the other side of the room and sat on a sofa with his back to the doorway. I couldn’t have done that without fidgeting. Then again, I wasn’t wearing clothes that could deflect napalm.

I took the seat against a wall, facing the windows. They had the shape and height of doorways, which always made me feel like I was one stumble away from a suicide attempt. Still. Pretty view. I folded my hands in my lap and waited for the Tower to speak.

He’d just started to open his mouth when Matthias stuck his gods-damned head in the doorway.

Matthias’s jaw dropped when Lord Tower turned to stare at him. He stammered, “I—I—I wasn’t, I was, I needed to . . .”

I gave him another moment. He didn’t move or complete his thought. I said, “You’re two inches away from a trip wire that will melt your face off.”

Matthias retreated so fast that his footsteps sounded like applause.

“Must you make me so terrifying,” Lord Tower sighed.

Shit. I ground my palms into my eyes. “He’s a houseguest, Lord Tower. He wasn’t supposed to leave the foyer. I was going to talk about him. I’m sorry.”

“I know who he is,” the Tower said.

“You . . . know who he is?”

“Lady Lovers’ grandson. Matthias Saint Valentine. He’s been with you since yesterday. Quite a bold move, picking up side work for Elena on the eve of her destruction.”

He already knew everything. My brain scrambled for a diplomatic response. “We crossed paths on her roof. She asked a favor. It’s nothing against you or your interests, and it didn’t compromise my assignment for you. I promise.”

“I’m aware.” He gave me a small smile. “Such a big favor, though, even for such a nice trinket. It’ll be amusing to see how it plays out.”

It was hard to tell if he was secretly upset. Most likely, he just enjoyed seeing me squirm. The Tower loved to set off intrigue as if it were a firecracker, scaring the hell out of everyone around him.

He said, “Would you like me to learn more about Matthias’s immediate family? I could make enquiries to see if they survived the raid.”

It was a very generous offer, and I had no idea if it was wise to accept. While I thought it through, I said, “I heard Lady Lovers was being held by the Convocation.”

“Elena is allowing herself to be held by the Convocation. Not that she could do otherwise, I suppose, unless she wanted the Arcanum to step in. I expect she’ll be exiled. I’m not really sure. It’s a situation without recent precedent.”

“If . . . Yes, if you could find out about Matthias’s family, I’d appreciate it. Thank you.” I chewed on my lip. “Do you know anything about Matthias himself?”

“Such as?”

“Such as why he is important to Elena.”

The Tower took a few long moments to consider that. He finally shook his head. “I know that, when Matthias was born, his grandmother had high hopes for his magical potential, and she spent much time with him. As Matthias grew older, that magical potential never manifested, and he was given into the care of an uncle for other uses. Marital alliance, I believe. I’m not sure. It’s possible that Elena was simply fond of him.”

The Tower’s pocket began buzzing. He pulled a slim phone up to the light, and his expression went still. He relaxed it into a shallow nod for me, and stood up to walk to the edge of the room.

I tried not to stare, especially when I heard Lord Tower say, “Handle it, then.”

It’d taken years, but I’d come to learn some of the Tower’s poker tells. Mostly, it wasn’t a specific reaction that gave him away, but the empty place he retreated to when he was trying not to react. For instance: I was able to recognize the face he made when he ordered a man’s death.

After another moment, he came back to the sofa but didn’t sit down. I pretended to stare up at the ceiling and whistle. He narrowed his eyes, and then made an exasperated sound.

“I know nothing,” I said.

“You’d be a wonderful liar if you took any pains whatsoever to not joke in the same breath.”

“Sorry. Was that anything for me to worry about?”

“It’s entirely unrelated.”

I shrugged it off. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the Tower taking care of business, nor the fiftieth, nor the last. New Atlantis is not a democracy. Our elected Convocation only resembled representation. At the heart of everything in our city were the Arcana; they weren’t only the kings on the hill, they were the hill itself.

The Tower made a dismissive gesture. “You did very good work the other night, in case I didn’t mention it. The operating system you downloaded from the Heart Throne has been most instructive.”

“Good to know.”

“If you have time, I have another assignment.”

Ah.

He said, “There’s a person I’d like found. Come. We’ll have coffee outside.”

I headed to the patio while he prepared the coffee. The outdoor resin furniture had been soaking in sunlight all afternoon and was warm against the high-altitude chill.

I could barely see twenty blocks into the distance. The city smog was denser than usual. On a good afternoon, from this height, you could see the forest line of the Westlands through the careening alley of skyscrapers.

The Tower returned and set a cup of coffee in front of me. He slid a check and a manila folder underneath a ceramic ashtray.

“Do you know Addam Saint Nicholas?” he asked.

“Saint Nicholas. Justice family name.”

“Yes. Addam is Lady Justice’s middle son.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever spoken to him, but I think I can place the face.”

“He’s missing,” Lord Tower told me.

I took a second to absorb that. “That’s . . . not insignificant news. Why haven’t I heard anything about it? How long has he been missing?”

“He failed to appear at a business meeting yesterday morning. He was last seen by his assistant just after seven o’clock the previous evening, in the offices that he and three other scions let. When his assistant left for the day, he was alone. It’s unclear if he made it home from there.”

“How can that be unclear? Lady Justice must have a manned gate.”

“He doesn’t live exclusively at the family compound. He owns a private residence in Edgemere—an apartment in a converted church.”

“Does he live alone?”

“Yes. No consorts. A confirmed bachelor, much like you.”

I ignored the jab. He’d mentioned more than once that I could increase my power base through marriage. I said, “I’m still confused. I’m assuming the private residence has security. Why hasn’t the guarda been able to confirm if he ever made it home?”

“The guarda, at this time, is not investigating.”

“Should I take this to mean they don’t consider him missing?”

Lord Tower dipped his chin at me. “Addam has disappeared before, usually for a day or two at a time, never much longer. He calls them his ‘walkabouts.’”

“His walkabouts,” I said, with heavy sarcasm. “How strange. It’s so unlike rich kids to bastardize meaningful aboriginal customs. Tell me, do his walkabouts take him anywhere near drugs, whores, or malted spirits? Those are usually the best ways to lose a day or two.”

“It’s doubtful. Addam is a very . . . spirited young man, but well-grounded. He has great potential. I’ve prepared that folder for you. It has the names of close acquaintances, basic biographical data, and information on his company.”

I pulled the folder out from under the ashtray and flipped through the first few pages. One of the printouts listed Addam Saint Nicholas’s business partners. A name jumped out. I whispered, “Fucking great,” and turned the page before I could start brooding.

After a bit, I said, “Would I be crossing a line if I asked why you’re interested in finding Saint Nicholas? If the guarda—or his family—isn’t raising hell over his disappearance, why are you?”

He fixed me with an unusually serious expression. “Rune, I know that questioning assumptions is part of your process, but in the interest of time, I must ask that you operate as if something has happened to Addam.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Foul play.”

“Addam is also my godson. It’s not an unusual practice. I have many godchildren in other courts. But Addam is special, and I worry. Additionally, he’s the son of an Arcana, in particular Justice, and Justice—along with Temperance, Strength, and the Hermit—form a strong power bloc. How Addam’s disappearance could cause larger problems, I can’t yet say. That’s why I need you.”

“What sort of larger problems, in particular, could you see in relation to the Moral Certainties?” I asked, using the collective noun for their power bloc.

“They have their fingers in many pies. They’re brokering peace talks between the werewolves and werecats. They’re heavily represented in the Convocation. Justice is the traditional patron of judges; the others are patrons of religious leaders and the guarda. And let’s not forget their businesses interests—they net over a quarter trillion a year. Do I think Addam’s disappearance is related to any of these things? Not really. Is it a possibility? Of course. The connection may not be obvious yet.” He took a breath. “Will you help, Rune?”

I snuck a peek at the check. There was one more zero than I was used to. Well, for fuck’s sake, what more did he think I needed to understand?

“I’ll get started right away,” I said.