Chapter Twelve

My head spun with the conclusion I’d drawn about Callan after finding the time remnant.

Why had he never mentioned he was a Temporal? Had he been part of the Temporal community? I had a million questions, but until he woke up, I’d get no answers.

So after showering, I treated my road rash with the balm I’d made the other day, which worked more wonders than the ibuprofen I’d gotten from the paramedics, and changed into jeans and a T-shirt.

Gideon and Toji had jotted their numbers down for me last night, so I borrowed a neighbor’s phone to tell Gideon about the accident, assuring him I was okay and didn’t need him to drop everything and come back over. I’d looked up the number for the magic museum online, informed Varian that I was coming over, then I strapped on the Gladius, and Ashe and I headed to the Upper East Side.

When I got there, the door was opened by Maxwell, who looked from me to Ashe, then back to me. His expression remained dour as he stepped aside and let us in. He took us to the security desk, and I asked if he could retrieve my bag, or let me go down to get it. He made a gruff sound and walked off. Hopefully to get it and let Varian know I was here.

Maxwell soon reappeared, holding my bag as though it was a snake that would bite him. I thanked him and fished out my cell phone, which was dead. But I had brought a portable charger, so I retrieved it from the small backpack I was carrying and plugged it in. Once it had a bit of juice, I’d turn it on. I didn’t want to miss any updates from the hospital about Callan.

A few minutes later Varian appeared, dressed in black jeans and a gray button-down. He smiled at me, and we shook hands. “I’m pleased to see you again. I’ve an office upstairs, shall we talk there?”

“Actually, can we chat in that exhibition room instead?” I indicated the room to the right, where the Mortalstones were.

Varian’s brow creased, but he nodded and extended his arm so I could walk ahead.

“How long will the museum be closed?” I asked. “I figure the damage to the conservatory was extensive.”

“Extremely,” he said gravely. We were slowly walking through the exhibition room. The Mortalstones were toward the back. “It will be some months before I can reopen.”

“I imagine you have a lot more on your hands other than the repairs,” I said. “A lot of people were hurt, or killed.” I was no stranger to carnage, but what happened here wasn’t the same as walking across a battlefield where a high body count was expected. People had dressed to the nines and come here to peruse magic artifacts, then magic had shown up and attacked them.

“Indeed. It has not been an easy time all around. I am not sure I can recover from this. My lawyers have warned me that there will be many lawsuits to fend.”

“The museum was the site of a massacre. Maybe it would be best not to reopen.” With everything I had going on I barely had the bandwidth to process the nightmare that night had been, but I mourned the people who’d died and felt sorrow for those who would miss them.

“It is something to consider,” he said with a tilt of his head. “Now, on to other matters. Have you an update?”

“Yes. I found other Talented people. It’s a small community, and I wanted to have this discussion here because there is something I need from you. Something they need.” We’d reached the back of the room, and I gestured to the Mortalstones. “They have a few magic users who don’t have Mortalstones, and because of it, their magic is unstable.” I decided to leave out the part about them having been brought back from the dead. “As we’ve seen with the Fire Conjurer and Tamer, unstable magic users are deadly, for themselves and those around them. I told them it might be possible to get them Mortalstones.”

“You found them.” There was a note of wonder in his voice. “Where? How many? There are a significant number of Temporals, I assume? They time jumped from the Auraxa Reiv, didn’t they?”

“Did you hear anything else I said? They need Mortalstones.” I didn’t want to mention my sister, but now that I was a mere foot away from the Mortalstones it was all I could do to keep myself from busting through the glass, grabbing them, and running out of here. I could do that, sure, but it wasn’t like I could take them to the Temporal trio without the Diviner half of the equation figured out as well.

“I’m sorry, I am eager to assist them, of course. Especially if they need help stabilizing their magic as it will be good for us all. I am happy to offer these Mortalstones. When can we go to them?”

“Ah…” I hesitated. “They are extremely wary of outsiders. I had three weapons at my throat and a call for me to be killed as soon as I found them. They do not want non-magic users to know their location. As you already know, they’ve been hunted by the Necromajin. I can’t take you with me. But giving them Mortalstones will be a sign of good faith, and I might be able to arrange a meeting with one or two of the community’s leaders later.”

“I see.” There was a tightness around his eyes, and he was frowning slightly as he looked past me, at the Mortalstones, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Give to get,” I prodded. I wasn’t leaving here without the Mortalstones, but it’d be much easier if Varian would give them to me as opposed to a smash and grab. I was showing more restraint than I thought I had. All I could think about was Kinari and making sure she didn’t end up like the Conjurer and Tamer.

“Very well,” he finally said, giving me a forced smile.

As someone who’d built an entire museum dedicated to the magic-era, I knew it couldn’t be easy for him to be on the cusp of an entire magic community, yet locked out.

But even though Varian was knowledgeable and resourceful, I didn’t know him very well and didn’t know how much he could really be trusted. His anthropological nature could cause him to make a spectacle out of the community when all they wanted was to live in peace, maybe even above ground one day. Once I took care of the Necromajin.

Varian opened the glass case and removed three Mortalstones, placing the dark blue stones in my palm. Mine always carried a slight warmth, an indication of its connection to my soul and my magic. But these were cool to the touch. Varian closed the case and my eyebrows rose.

“I must get something too,” he said. “I am happy to provide more, but good faith goes both ways. Arrange a meeting and we can go from there.”

I almost made a sound of frustration but managed to keep my composure. Three Mortalstones wouldn’t help everyone, and the last thing I wanted was for infighting to break out over which three should get them. Especially when I’d be advocating for Kinari to be one of them.

“I’ll see what I can do. Thank you for the Mortalstones, I’ll be in touch.” Ashe and I turned to leave but he called me back.

“Mortalstone ties are performed by Diviners,” he said, his frown returning. “Have you a Diviner to do this?”

I paused. No, was the most accurate answer. The more complicated answer involved the weak trail I was following with Toji’s relative. But I wasn’t going to let Varian in on what was happening yet.

“I’m working on that,” I said, then continued walking out, hoping he didn’t try to question me further. He didn’t, and Ashe and I left the museum and headed to the garage where I’d left my Jeep. I should have had a hefty amount to pay, but when the attendant saw Ashe and me, he waived the fee. I guessed there were some perks to being exposed.

I called the hospital for an update on Callan and was told he was improving, far quicker than they expected, but that he was still sedated. Now that I knew he was a Temporal, his faster than normal healing made sense and I was glad for it. He’d been moved from the ER to a hospital room. I wanted to go sit by his side, but I had something else to take care of first.

Hopefully by the time I could go see him, he’d be awake. And ready to answer some probing questions about being a Temporal.

Ashe made herself comfortable in the back seat, I checked in with Gideon and Toji, then drove off, stopping to fill the tank then heading back into Brooklyn.

I wasn’t going home yet, though.

After I’d gotten the card box and Annala’s business card from Gideon, I’d done a search of her business name and found that she was listed to participate in a street fair today. If nothing panned out with Toji’s relative, then maybe Annala could give us a lead.

The street fair was set up in front of the Brooklyn Museum, so I found parking down a side street and walked over.

There was a fair amount of foot traffic, but paths cleared pretty quickly when Ashe came into view. There were wide eyes, gaping mouths, and whispers galore. Not to mention a lot of picture taking that no one was trying to be subtle about. I really hoped the hype about us died down soon.

I walked around until I saw a tent that bore an Annala’s Creations banner and headed over.

Her tent was filled with eye-catching fabrics in the shape of bags in various styles, as well as boldly patterned dresses, hair wraps, and tunics. Three hundred years ago, these could have been goods made and sold by my textile Shaper mother, the quality was that good.

Annala spotted us coming, and a look of surprise came over her. She looked to be in her early fifties, dressed in a yellow wrap dress that flattered her dark complexion, with a matching headwrap wound around her hair. The closer we got, the more creases appeared on her brow.

“Hi, Annala?” I entered her tent. Hers was one of the bigger ones, large enough for a long table along each side, as well as a table down the middle. “Can I have a word with you?” I said that loudly and pointedly.

The customers in her tent got the hint; they dropped whatever they were perusing and hustled out. Ashe then lay down in front of the tent opening, ensuring no one else would drop in until we left.

“Uh, I guess.” She darted her eyes around nervously and took a couple steps back.

I hadn’t really put together a friendly plan for confronting her. Or any plan for that matter. So I cut to the chase. I opened up the backpack and fished out the card box.

“You sent this to my friend Gideon’s consignment shop,” I said. “This is a real Diviner’s card box. You sent him other authentic items, too, like a map that shows the location of Cillari Stones. Where did you come across these things? Especially the card box.”

“Uh…I…”

“Annala, I’m not here on some aggressive wavelength, I promise. I just have a lot of heavy shit on my shoulders and I’m hoping you can help me wade through some of it.” I took in her frightened expression. “You know about me, right?”

She nodded. “I saw the interview. You’re from the magic-era.” She paused. “I am too.”

My eyes widened. “You’re Talented?”

Annala nodded, dropping her gaze from mine momentarily. “I’m a Shaper, like you. My Talent is with paper.” She gestured to the items in her shop. “Might seem like it’d be textiles, but I happen to know how to sew very well. Living above ground, I couldn’t use my magic in case it drew the Jigori to me.”

“Above ground,” I repeated. “You’re from the Temporal community.”

Now she looked shocked. “You…you know about them?”

“I found them. Through a cave in Kiabi Park.”

Her mouth was slightly open. “You were there…you were…”

“Why did you leave?” I asked. “How did you leave?”

“I didn’t leave,” she said softly. “I escaped.”

That couldn’t be good. Now my eyebrows rose. “Can you tell me your story, please? I’m trying to help the community. What can you tell me about them? Why did you feel like you needed to escape?”

“I wasn’t the mastermind behind the escape, another Temporal was,” she said. “Her name was Linella. She was married to one of the others…Marcai.”

“Really?” Interesting tidbit. I couldn’t quite imagine what someone married to uptight Marcai was like, but as the mastermind of an escape from the community, I knew that Linella had to have been formidable.

“Yes,” Annala said, a sad note in her voice. “She was one of the leaders, too, but Marcai, Sorjin, and Chelara started drifting toward practices she didn’t agree with and she could not deter them. As the years passed in the time pockets, the population thinned. So they decided they’d use Chronspheres to bring Talented people back to life. They located and robbed magic-era graves all over the world…”

“They told me about that,” I said. “They brought back my sister.” It was so morally wrong, yet I’d gotten my sister back, so I didn’t know where I’d ever land on how I felt about what they’d done. “Linella opposed using the Chronspheres to bring magic users back?”

“Yes, because they were stealing time from people to do so. They couldn’t reap all of someone’s years because the deaths would be noticeable. So they took a few years from one person, a few years from another. Their time pockets are spread out all over the world. They were able to store hundreds of years.”

I felt like I had turned to stone. “They told me they used naturally filled Chronspheres. That they’d time jumped with Chronspheres that had decades of time stored and left them for a number of years to store even more.”

“They did, but they used those to reverse the elderly among us who were willing to trade their memories for their youth.” She shook her head. “That was their first attempt at keeping the community’s numbers from falling. And then those Chronspheres were all used up, so they went above ground and stole people’s time.”

I felt sick. Kinari was alive again because dozens of people had had their time reaped. And she had no idea.

Once that time had been used on Kinari and the others, everyone who’d had years of their lives taken would have been hit with a reversion. Losing years of their lives with no one around who could explain why. It was cruel.

“Linella wasn’t alone,” Annala was saying. “They kept up the façade that the Chronspheres were naturally filled to the community, but those of us who worked with them to run things knew the truth, and a lot of us opposed what they were doing. But they wouldn’t stop reaping time. They believed the sacrifice of their victims would be worth it to bring back Talented.”

“They fucking lied to me.” I was livid. I knew something hadn’t seemed right about their claims, but I hadn’t questioned it.

“Linella tried for a long time to convince them there could be other ways to keep the community thriving. But because we lost a number of us to the Jigori, they wouldn’t stop. So Linella plotted to leave and recruited anyone who wanted to leave with her. We gathered as many magic items as we could, not knowing what we might need once we were above ground. Linella gave me the card box for safekeeping, since she moved around so much, but I never knew how she’d come to possess it. I never imagined a Diviner would give up their card box to anyone.”

Mix’s motives were still unknown. “You were willing to risk coming above ground where a Jigori could find you?”

“Linella promised to keep us safe,” she said. “And she did. She spent a long time putting things in place. No one knew how life worked above ground more than the Temporals. She enclosed a small, remote neighborhood in a time pocket, which kept it hidden, and established time warps at various points outside it to keep people out. We were the only residents and were entirely self-sufficient.”

“She enclosed an entire neighborhood in a time pocket?” Impressive.

Linella nodded. “She was a force, incredibly strong in her Talent, even more than Marcai and the others. Because of her we were able to stay off the Necromajin’s radar. She took the risk of being the one to leave when it was necessary…and that’s how the Necromajin found her…” There was sadness etched into her expression. “Who would have been more careful than her? Yet somehow it got her, and with her dead, her time pocket collapsed. So we scattered and hoped we could continue to survive up here. No one wanted to go back to the community. The escape was about seven years ago, and Linella died about three years ago.”

“Fuck.” I leaned back against one of the tables while I digested all of this.

I hadn’t known what to expect from confronting Annala, but this wasn’t it. The community’s schemes were so dark and twisted that some of them chose to come above ground and risk being tracked down by the Necromajin and their Jigori rather than stay there. That spoke volumes about the danger I had on my hands with those Temporal leaders.

“When the Conjurer appeared, I got scared,” Annala said. “I worried that the Temporals might find me, so I wanted to get rid of any magical items I had. It was a panicked reaction.”

“I understand,” I said. “I was hoping you could lead me to an actual Diviner. The Conjurer and Tamer were revived and their magic was unstable because they didn’t have Mortalstones. I was able to get a few, but they can’t be tied to anyone without a Diviner.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help more,” she said, shaking her head.

I blew out a breath. I was angry and frustrated. The Temporals had lied to me, but I still needed to help them, needed to make sure Kinari didn’t suffer. So I’d have to swallow my anger until I got us all through this.

“It seemed like such a utopia down there, like a slice of the magic-era. It felt familiar, although I can understand that living underground within a time pocket when there’s a whole world above you isn’t living fully.” I sighed. “The cave spa reminded me of where I used to go with my mother and sister.”

“The spa?” Annala’s voice was sharp and she was standing rod straight.

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, I had a soak and a hot stone massage with my sister.”

“Oh no.” She came closer, looking me over as though there was something she could read on my skin. She took both my hands and squeezed them. Ashe stirred, sending a curious look in our direction. “The spa is how they used to do it.”

“What?”

“Reaping time is not a quick process; if they did it above ground they’d have been caught eventually. So they whisked people down into the time pockets, showed them magic, pampered them, let them soak in a pool controlled by a Water Conjurer. But it wasn’t Shapers giving the massages. It was Temporals. And among the hot stones was a…”

“Chronsphere,” I breathed, my eyes widening. “Holy shit.”

“Then they’d alter their memories and make them forget the time they spent there. There are spas set up everywhere within the time pockets. That’s part of what made it so cruel to Linella. The lies and the deceit…then the end result of their time being used.”

I felt like I was going to throw up. Ashe came and sat down next to me, gently butting my shoulder. She whined softly.

“You…you got here from the magic-era, by sleeping for almost three hundred years?” Annala asked.

I nodded slowly. “Once they knew that, they would have wanted that time more than anything. Linella took all of the Chronspheres when we escaped. She knew they would start over, but she wanted to delay them as much as she could, because they weren’t only reaping time to revive bodies.”

“What else did they want to do…” I swallowed hard, my throat dry.

“They want to open the nexus points when the Auraxa Reiv aligns in a few days,” she said, her voice a bare whisper. “They want to release magic into the world again. And with your three hundred years in a Chronsphere, they can reverse the nexus points to the last time they were open and allow the alignment to flood the world with magic again. Anyone born that night will be Talented and Wild magic will become active again.”

But if they did, I’d revert to the state I was in three hundred years ago—the start of my centuries of sleep for going against the card reading.

Fuck.