Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
MAXENCE
Fog thickened with smoke from burning cargo as dusk shifted into night. Soon, it was nearly impossible to see a few feet away, and I had to be careful with my footing, crossing the yard to reach the docks.
With two dice in my possession and adrenaline in my veins, I had no lack of magic to blow through a line of coppers hiding in the haze.
I turned into a wraith, appearing in the mist at the last moment, giving them no time to raise their guns before I sent a fist through their fearful faces.
I was wary of using my own gun, the fog too thick to know where my bullet would land.
I made my way to the edge of the docks. My hands were bloody by the time I made it to the barricade made of Andre’s car and the debris scrapped from the wreckage of the yard.
“Elli?” I called out.
The yard went quiet. Shadows moved behind the wreckage, crouching as they watched me. Something was wrong. Why weren’t they fighting? Why didn’t they notice me?
“Don’t shoot,” I called out. “It’s Max.”
There was no reply. The fog behind me was still, the figures behind the barricade quiet. The wind dragged a cloud of haze and with it, the click of a rifle bolt.
“Drop your relics, Maxence Antonin.” A constable appeared from the barricade, rifle drawn and ready. “Hands where we can see them.”
I tensed, every instinct screaming. Another copper appeared behind him, dragging a man I knew from the brothels. He was his prisoner, the Cursed man. Cuffed and gagged. I reached silently with the dice, sensing more behind the barricade.
“We have a few of your friends,” the constable with the gun said. “Come quietly and join them, and we’ll keep you all in one piece.”
“Bastards,” I hissed, conceding to neither of his demands.
“Take one step, and they all die!”
I let the essence from the dice flood my fury and took a long stride toward the barricade.
The rifleman fired, but I funneled the air between us, sending it over my shoulder. I focused on the spark from his gun, gathering it, and sending it back down the barrel to jam the chamber. When he pulled the trigger again, it ruptured in his face.
Chaos broke loose.
I dove into the smoke, pulling energy and heat from the burning cargo with the Forge die until it filled my chest and swirled around my form. Bullets cut the air around me. Every shout became distant as I called the wind to fill the yard, shoving aside the smoke and mist to reveal my enemies.
Every sheet of metal, every nail and bolt, I pulled from the barricade to send flying across the yard, shoving the coppers on their backs and exposing the half dozen men in chains behind the scrap wall.
Their cuffs were poisoned; their chains were not. I broke them free and shouted, “Get to the gate!”
Ronny would be able to free them from the cuffs, but they had to make it out of here first. They scattered, running toward the wall surrounding the docks. I covered their retreat with smoke from the fire, shielding them from any lingering copper.
When the last retreated, I fell to my knees, breath heaving from the amount of essence I’d channeled. The dice in my pocket were cool and dormant.
This entire exchange had been a trap for me, not for them. Which meant if the constables had gone through this much trouble to detain me, then Nina was next.
I stood, staring into the charred silhouette of the docks behind the flames. Somewhere in the smoke and ash, she was still vulnerable—and I’d burn through the whole yard to make sure she was safe.
“Max!”
Damien appeared in the smoke, flagging me down with an arm. His eyes went wide at the number of coppers on the ground. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to fetch you. Elli took Nina to a nearby warehouse to hide out until the streets cleared. It was too risky, taking a car out when every block is patrolled. She wants you to meet her there.”
Something wasn’t right. I sensed it by the wild look in his eyes. “Why did Elli send you and not herself or Andre? She knows I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t have a choice right now,” Damien hissed. “Andre is hurt, and I didn’t think you’d rather me be the one to stay with Nina, given our history.”
My jaw tensed with a long breath. “Fine. Bring me to her.”
The depot was nestled just outside the first gate, and Damien navigated us through the yard without running into anyone confrontational. The coppers had already begun to clear out, falling back as soon as the Cursed began to retreat.
The fight was dying, with no clear winner until the fog cleared and the bodies were counted.
“There?” I asked, pointing to the corner building just outside the gate.
Damien glanced up and down the street, breathing heavily. “Yes. Go on in. I’ll keep an eye out here.”
I would lecture the group of them later about hiding out so close to a high-alert area. For now, I just wanted to hold Nina again. I needed to feel her against me, listen to her hummingbird heart.
Why couldn’t I hear her heart from here?
I slipped inside the depot, keeping quiet. It was dark inside. The gas lamps were off; a few candles were lit in the center of the room. Windows lined each wall, outlining silhouettes of a small ship, mechanical equipment, hooks hanging from the rafters.
When no one greeted me, I reached for my dice.
A hard weight slammed into my back, shoving me to the floor. In the next second, my empty hands were bound, my face hooded, and I was lifted from the grimy hardwood floor to be pushed further into the depot.
“Fuck you, Damien!” I shouted, hoping he heard.
Something struck my temple, and I was overcome by a deeper darkness than the kind covering my eyes. Time came to a stop. The world obliterated by a dreamless sleep.
Voices stirred me. When I came to my senses, I still wore a hood, my face covered. My head throbbed with every slam of my pulse from where I was struck.
They’d taken me somewhere. It smelled different. The air was cleaner, no fog or smoke or damp. I struggled against the bindings holding me up against a wooden chair.
“Magister Reven—”
“Take off his covering.”
That voice. It was straight from every nightmare that haunted me. Someone pulled the hood from my face, revealing my worst fears to be true.
“You,” I whispered.
The lead engineer of the Trials grinned back at me. The Father.
“Hello, Maxence. It’s good to see you again, alive and whole.” His eyes darkened, roaming over me in a clinical assessment. We were in a grand office. The windows behind him overlooked both districts of the New City.
They’d taken me to the Academy, and this… this was the Magister’s office.
This psychotic engineer was now the Magister.
“I thought you were punished,” I croaked. “Yet now you’re here, holding the highest title in the land.”
“My work in the Trials was rewarded and respected. Even if it was destroyed by a traitor. Even if my colleagues were forced to reject it in public,” the Magister said. “You ran away, Maxence, just as we were going to change the world.”
“Whatever you lured me here for,” I said, fighting the tremor in my voice, “I will not comply.”
“Yes, you will.” He motioned to the goons who’d grabbed me. They brought someone else into the room, and I turned sharply in my chair, hoping it wasn’t Nina.
It wasn’t her. Instead, it was an older woman who shared her eyes.
“I have no use for Nina’s mother,” Reven said. “It would be cruel of me to harm her when she can go home instead. In fact, being the benevolent leader I am, I was thinking we could make a trade.”
“Why?” I asked. It didn’t make sense. After all he’d done, playing puppet master with everyone in the city, why would he just give her back?
“Because I saw the smoke from the lab, Maxence. You ruined my body,” he murmured. “Because I am desperate now. Because it is my understanding that the final process will not work unless I have a willing participant.”
I sat straighter in my seat, fighting the bindings in a feigned struggle. “Go on.”
“I will give Nina her mother back, but I want you to come to the Academy and help me finish this project.” He folded his fingers together, leaning across the desk. The movement caught my eye on a microphone connected to a large, black box.
Reven continued, “I need you more than ever. We tried to make a body that accepted all the bloodlines like yours does, but it was fragile. You are not fragile, Max.”
“You want to make a trade?” I asked, voice dry. “You already have me in bonds. Why make a deal at all?”
He nodded. “As I said, I need someone willing to do this, or we’ll run into more problems. I’m giving you a chance to do the right thing. Surrender your dice, give the girl you claim to care about so much her mother back, then join me, and fulfill your purpose.”
Reven needed me. Without my body, his plans would fail. It didn’t matter about Nina’s code right now, as long as he could have his lab rat back where he preferred me.
“And if I don’t agree to come quietly?”
A knife slid from its sheath behind me. I turned my head to see the goon pressing a blade to Nina’s mother’s neck.
“Stop,” I told him. If she died because of me, I would never forgive myself.
I had promised her I would do anything to keep her and her mother safe. I’d promised to be her sanctuary, to stand between her and these monsters in front of me.
It was an obvious choice—but a bitter one to swallow.
Reven could have my body. He could tear me open again, bleed me, use me, change me. Nina, however, could live. She’d have her mother and my family to protect her. My stare slid to the old woman, too frail and thin to last another day here.
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll do as you ask, but I want one thing.”
“Name it.”
I nodded to a recording device on his desk. “Does that connect to the speakers all over the city?”
“It does. Once used by the Council, Dupont took pleasure in using it for his personal announcements. It was one of the reasons he enjoyed working for me. Why?”
“I want to send a message to Nina.”
“Absolutely not—”
“I won’t tell her anything, I swear,” I told him. “I just want to say goodbye. So she won’t come looking for me.”
Reven glanced between me and the old woman. “You can record the message, and I shall play it if I deem it appropriate.”
“Understood.”
“Take the relics,” Reven said, coming to stand. “He won’t need them.”
“Give them to her.” I nodded to Nina’s mother. “To Nina, to help her remember me. Another one of my requirements.”
The Magister was getting impatient. “Take them.” He nodded to her as he messed with the microphone.
“Are you ready to see your daughter, ma’am?” I whispered to the old woman.
She smiled. “Nina?”
I nodded, reassuring her. “Yes. Nina. She’s a wonderful person, you know. I’m crazy about her. She’s been searching for you.”
A thin tear rolled down the woman’s cheek. “Nina.”
The peace passing over her face was enough to spread to my own. This was right. This would be okay. She’d be happy, and that was all I really wanted anymore.
“Escort her to the brothel,” Reven spat. “Make it quick.”
He slid the mic in front of my chair, and the light blinked on.
“Nina Veyr,” I spoke into the tape, hoping she’d hear me soon, hoping my voice stayed steady through the storm in my chest. “This is your partner in crime…”