My mother wasn’t really a countess. ‘Countess’ wasn’t even an Agatos title. It was a Lidharan title from far to the north of Agatos, and, as far as I knew, my mother had never left the Erastes Valley. She, like me, had grown up in the Warrens. She had been picked out by the Wren to be one of his acolytes when she had been only thirteen and had worked for his criminal empire for three decades. Eventually, though, her power had grown too great. By mutual agreement, when the previous high mage died, Mother had left the Warrens and reinvented herself as the Countess, claiming the title of High Mage. She had abandoned her birth name. The name Solone Thorn would never mark her out as anything other than a child of the lower city. She hadn’t quite managed to flush the Warrens from her accent, but there were very few stupid enough to argue with a high mage. Now Mother sat in the senate as Senator Anatase Coldrock, and the government of Agatos didn’t make a move without her approval.
“I hear you are still using that ridiculous name,” my mother said.
I shrugged. It hurt my shoulders to do so, but it was worth it because I knew how much it irritated her. “It’s the name you gave me.”
She stiffened. “You could be a Coldrock.”
“No, thanks. I like being a Thorn.”
She sighed and waved a hand. Someone brought a chair. I heaved myself gratefully into it. I wasn’t too proud to let her see me like this. She could hardly think less of me.
“You disappoint me.”
“Nothing new there, eh, Mother?”
As far as I could tell, my entire life had been a disappointment to her. From the moment she had become a high mage, she had decided I should be her successor. She had dedicated her efforts and the efforts of her acolytes to training me. She had pushed me, tested me, punished me, and, I had to be honest, broken me. Until it became clear even to her that I didn’t have the talent to be anything other than a mediocre mage. Then she had dropped me the way she would yesterday’s newspaper. I was a disappointment, a failure, not worthy of her consideration. I could remain a minor acolyte, that was all, carrying out tasks too menial for her personal attention. Instead, she had switched her focus to my little half sister, Mica, whose burgeoning magical abilities had exceeded mine by the time she was twelve. Mother wouldn’t see me, talk to me, or even reply to messages, anymore. I was too irrelevant to the high-and-mighty Countess.
Two years after she had given up on me, I had left, and I hadn’t seen her since. I had done everything I could to separate myself from her and everything she stood for. I had made myself think of her as ‘the Countess’, a distant high mage who had nothing to do with me.
It had almost worked, and I was not fucking keen on her becoming ‘Mother’ again.
I tried to keep my face neutral. Benny’s trial must have started by now. I had lost most of my friends when my mother had taken us out of the Warrens and all the rest when I had walked away from the power and the wealth the Countess represented. Only Benny had stuck by me. Benny had never cared about any of that, only about debts, obligations, and promises. And I had promised I would be there for him. Breaking a promise or refusing a debt were the only true sins in Benny’s book. Bannaur’s balls! I didn’t have time for this shit.
“You could just have sent an invitation, Mother,” I said. Depths. Can’t help yourself, can you?
“Would you have come?”
“No.”
There was a streak of grey in her long black hair. And I used to think nothing ever touched you. Even the Countess couldn’t hide from age forever.
“Well,” I said, pushing myself up. “This has been lovely. We must do it again some time. Now, I have somewhere more important to be.”
A hand pushed me back down. I looked up to see the mage who had attacked me in my apartment and captured me with the net. I grimaced.
“I don’t much like your new pet, Mother. I think it might have fleas.”
The mage stiffened, but she didn’t say anything. Don’t dare in front of the Countess, do you? I could feel the resentment rolling off her.
Mother waved a hand. “I know about Benyon Field’s trial. I have been telling you to stay away from that lowlife for over twenty years. He is not a suitable companion for my son.”
I gripped the arms of my seat. “You knew about Benny’s trial and you decided to kidnap me anyway? What’s wrong with you?”
“You are being tiresome, Mennik. You are here because I asked you to leave the Silkstar matter alone, and you ignored me.”
I felt my face redden. “No, Mother, you didn’t ask me. You sent your dog to tell me. I don’t take orders from her or from you. Not anymore.”
“You are acting like a child!” she snapped. “The high mages of Agatos exist in a fine balance. I will not have you blundering in and upsetting that balance.”
Upsetting the balance? Upsetting the fucking balance?
“I’m not the one going around murdering high mages’ servants.”
Mother’s face tightened. I could see the same anger that I sometimes saw in my own mirror. Sharing an expression with the Countess only made me more furious. How dare she? How dare she think she could kidnap me and sabotage Benny’s trial and blame me for whatever fucking game the high mages were playing?
“You are my son,” the Countess ground out. “When you interfere with the business of Carnelian Silkstar or the Wren, they see my hand at work.”
“Then stop treating people like your fucking puppets!”
Her face creased in shock. I doubted anyone had sworn at her in the last decade.
“You do not know what you have got yourself involved in. We have all felt the power unleashed in the city. You play with candle flames. This is a volcano. It will obliterate you.”
“I never knew you cared.”
She looked coldly down at me. “Don’t be crass, Mennik.”
I leaned forwards, catching her gaze and refusing to let it go. “Are you behind this, Mother?”
Her gaze hardened. I forced myself to hold it in the face of her contempt.
“This is something new in Agatos. I do not know if it is wielded by one of the other high mages, but it is not me.”
Not that you would tell me if it was.
My mother stood from her chair-throne. “I will now make myself entirely clear. You are to abandon this investigation of yours. You will have nothing further to do with Silkstar or the Wren. I have given them my personal guarantee that you had nothing to do with any of this and that you will stay out of their business.”
I stared at her. Of all the fucking cheek. She still thought she could order me around like one of her acolytes. She expected me to hang Benny out to dry. Fuck that.
“That is all,” she said with finality.
Mother’s acolyte took me by the arm and pulled me out of the room. I shook myself free the moment we reached the entrance hall of Mother’s palace.
“Here’s an idea,” I said. “Keep your fucking hands off me or I’ll break them.”
She laughed. “Your bravado is pathetic.”
I wouldn’t have gone with ‘pathetic’. ‘Unconvincing,’ maybe. I didn’t really have anything to threaten her with. She had beaten me twice without breaking a sweat.
“Do not rely on Senator Coldrock’s maternal instincts to protect you if you disobey her.”
Oh, I wouldn’t. Even when I had been Mother’s intended successor, even before I had become her greatest disappointment, I hadn’t fooled myself on that.
I didn’t answer. I headed for the palace doors.
The mage called after me. “Your friend’s trial is over.”
I stumbled, stopped, and looked back. “What happened?”
She smiled.
Shit! I broke into a run.
The courthouse was closed when I reached it, the trials done for the day. The crowds of stone throwers on Bad Luck Way had mostly cleared, leaving behind only those few who hadn’t come down from the rush of making the city’s unfortunates’ lives even more painful and miserable. A couple of small groups still stood, stones held loosely in hands, not knowing what to do with themselves. I didn’t bother asking them if they knew what had happened to Benny. I doubted they cared whether the prisoners were guilty. The mob wanted blood. It didn’t mind whose.
I had messed up badly. I should have gone straight to the courthouse as soon as I had awoken instead of taking that pointless diversion to the university. Then, even if my mother had grabbed me, I would have been free in time to get there.
Why do you always fuck things up, Nik?
I didn’t have an answer for that.
Maybe the court had believed Benny. Maybe that thin story about bringing a message from the Countess had convinced them, even without me as a flesh-and-blood-and-mage-cloak witness.
If so, Benny would have walked free. He would have been pissed off, though, and he would have headed straight for my apartment to tell me what he thought of me. I wasn’t looking forward to that, but I would take it if it meant my failure hadn’t had any consequences.
I ran up the steps to my office, ignoring the aches in my joints, and threw the door open.
“Benny?”
There was no one there, not on the tatty couch, not sitting on my chair, not trying to pick the lock on my safe again.
Depths.
A knife pressed against the side of my neck. I felt the skin go taut under the pressure right over the artery. The slightest slip, and I would be bleeding out on the floor.
“Where were you?”
Sereh. The realisation sent a shiver across my skin. I would take a high mage’s anger over hers any day.
Scarcely daring to whisper, I said, “Put the knife down.”
The pressure increased. My pulse beat against the blade.
“You were going to be there. You were going to help him.”
She was furious. I didn’t blame her. I was furious at myself, too, and I was furious at my mother. But Sereh could kill me with just a twitch of her wrist. I didn’t want to die from a misunderstanding or a mistake.
“Whatever has happened, we can make it right.” Somehow.
“You can’t make anything right.” Her hand trembled. My skin parted, and for a moment I thought that was it.
Then the knife was gone. I stumbled away from her, into the office, and turned, putting a hand against the cut on my neck. It wasn’t deep, but I felt the blood run across my fingers.
Sereh stood in the doorway, knife still held loosely in her hand. She was utterly still, and the way her eyes were fixed on me terrified me. I had no illusions. I might count as family, in a way, but her loyalty to her father was unbreakable and very sharp.
“You said you would be there,” she said again. “Dad was relying on you.”
I winced. “I know. I tried.” I wet my lips. “I was kidnapped.”
Her expression didn’t soften. I wasn’t going to get any sympathy from her.
“You’re a mage.”
“So were they, and they were stronger than me.”
“So do better.” Her normally cool voice was stretched with emotion. “If you’re not good enough, be better.” Her knife moved hypnotically in her hand. Easy for her to say. I had found my limits a long time ago.
Did you? Or did you just stop trying? When my mother had given up on me, had I given up on myself as well? I would never be a high mage. I would never have the talent or the power of my mother’s new pet, either, but could I be better than I was right now? Maybe I could. Maybe I really had just given up.
“Just tell me what happened,” I said, as gently as I could.
I reached out a hand, not touching her but inviting her further in, like enticing a scared cat. And she was scared, for Benny and of feeling helpless. She was also very dangerous right now.
I backed slowly towards my desk. Reluctantly, Sereh followed. I indicated the couch, then slipped around my desk and sat. She mirrored me. There. At least I felt a bit safer now.
“Dad told his story,” Sereh said, “then he called for you to back him up, but you didn’t come.”
“I know.”
“They didn’t believe him.”
Of course they hadn’t. I had never truly thought they would, even though I had tried to convince myself they might. My word shouldn’t have been worth more than his, but it was, all because of my black cloak. I tore it off in disgust and dropped it on my desk.
“They found him guilty?”
She nodded. “Burglary, they said. Aggravated by murder.”
Pity! Aggravated by murder? That was insane. “Benny didn’t have anything to do with that! How could he?”
“They said it was too much of a coincidence.” Fury flashed across her face again. “I’ll kill all of them.”
Her knife snapped forwards, skewering the air. I had hardly seen it move. My mouth turned dry.
“What … What did they decide?” Benny. Come on. None of this could be real. I could scarcely remember a time when we hadn’t been best friends.
“What do you think?” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Death. They sentenced him to death.”
I closed my eyes. How could they? It made no sense. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even think I could speak. Death? For burglary? It was crazy. And a burglary that had been a set-up? Why couldn’t they see it? How could they claim Benny could even do something like that? Hadn’t they seen the aftermath? No ordinary human could have been responsible. Benny didn’t deserve to die for it. It wasn’t justice. It just wasn’t.
Someone is cleaning house.
I wasn’t going down that easily. Benny wasn’t.
Time to throw out all caution and move to plan B.
I forced the words out. “Did they say when?”
Sereh’s eyes were still fixed on me. Was she never going to blink? “Tomorrow. At dawn.”
Whoever was behind this wanted it over fast. It had to be Silkstar leaning on the magistrates. Fuck him and fuck every other high mage.
“We need to get your dad out of there today,” I said. Freeing him from the City Watch would be difficult, but we could do it. They weren’t set up for dealing with mages. We would have to be quick, though. The moment I used magic, someone would alert the Ash Guard. I didn’t want to be around when that happened.
Sereh’s look was still frighteningly cold. “What good is that? You said Silkstar would just track Dad down. You said that was why we shouldn’t get him out before. You can’t block a high mage.”
“No,” I said grimly. “I can’t.” I couldn’t even come close. He would smash through my magic like it wasn’t there. I knew of only one thing that could stop a high mage. “We’re going to have to get some Ash.”
A sound almost like a choke came from Sereh. I felt like copying her.
“Do you think the Ash Guard are just going to give it to you?” she demanded. “Do you know how much it costs on the black market? Even Silkstar couldn’t afford it.”
He probably could, but I took her point. The Ash Guard protected their source of Ash with a fury and fanaticism that no one in their right mind would go against. Even when they washed it off their skin, they did it deep within the fortress, re-gathering every flake, bit by bit. Being in possession of Ash was an immediate death sentence. Depths, I had heard a rumour that they even executed their own Guardsmen and Guardswomen if they lost their Ash. I doubted that was true. I hoped it wasn’t, because I liked Captain Gale and I didn’t want to get her into trouble. I certainly didn’t want her dead. But if Silkstar came looking for Benny, Ash was the only thing that would block the magic. Benny came first.
“I need you to go to the Ash Guard,” I said. “Leave a message for Captain Meroi Gale.” I ran through the timings carefully. “Ask her to meet me at Dumonoc’s bar at three o’clock — no, make it three thirty.” I pushed myself up, trying not to feel every bruise and cut on my poor, battered body. “Tell her I’ve got some information for her, but I want to keep it quiet. Say I don’t want people to know I’m talking to the Guard.”
I hoped that would be enough to ensure Captain Gale came carrying her Ash in a pouch, like she had before, rather than smeared on her skin.
“Uncle Nik?” Sereh said, turning as she reached the door.
“Hm?” I said, my mind already spinning the pieces of the plan.
“If this doesn’t work,” she said, softly, almost kindly. “If you don’t get Dad out, if you don’t free him, if this goes wrong. I’m going to kill you.”