Chapter 5
Doggbind smacked on a piece of chewing gum as he stalked across the training arena in the Bellator Sector with Arman hot on his heels.
“Listen up,” he bellowed, quieting the room. “New Militia Decrees have been passed.” He hopped onto a training platform. “I said, ‘listen up’!”
The room fell silent under his harsh stare. He reached in his mouth, pulled out the piece of gum and jerked his arm towards Arman. The blonde Captain did not hesitate to take, with his bare hands, the saliva covered piece of candy from his Premier.
Maeve couldn’t control the look of disgust plastered across her face.
“They already banned all travel on and off Earth,” muttered Roswyn. “What now?”
Maeve didn’t meet his gaze as she brushed past him and stepped further towards Doggbind and Arman.
The new Premier raised his voice, ensuring all could hear his news.
“Orator Moon will make a public announcement later, but I can tell you now that another Militia Degree has been ordered, signed, and executed.”
Doggbind pulled a scroll from his inside jacket pocket and whipped it open.
“The first order: The word Dread is banned.”
A hush of whispers shot across the hall of Bellator and Magical Militia.
“Silence,” called Doggbind. “Under the Unity of Magic act, The Orator’s Office decrees there shall no longer be talk of such Magic.”
His eyes scanned down the parchment as he continued.
“Second order: any unapproved private session or conspiracy to undermine The Orator’s Office will be met with the highest penalty of treason.”
Maeve’s shoulders lifted. She did not dare a glance back at Roswyn.
Doggbind rolled up the parchment and shoved it back in his coat pocket.
“No questions,” he barked, “Bellator are dismissed and Supreme Militias are to go with Arman.”
Doggbind dismounted the platform and stalked towards the exit, leaving Arman with his used piece of gum.
Maeve waited out of sight for Roswyn to round the corner. When he did, she silently snagged his arm. She Obscured them to her townhome in a twisting mist. Roswyn jerked from her at once, gathering Magic at his fingertips. He looked over her with heavy breathing.
“Relax,” she said, annoyed. “I know you aren’t dumb enough to go blabbing.”
Roswyn shook out his hand and stepped away from her. “Well someone is,” he grunted.
He crossed over to a long table, filled with glass topped stands, and reached for one filled with cookies.
Maeve’s Magic popped across his knuckles, forcing him to withdraw his hand.
“Those aren’t for you,” she said.
Roswyn snorted. “Let me guess, they’re for the multitude of guests you entertain regularly.”
“Quit whining. Merlin and the Seven Realms, you are obnoxious.”
Roswyn turned towards her in defeat and without a cookie. Maeve continued.
“Either one of your little recruits is talking, or they are just paranoid.”
Roswyn smiled. “Only one way to find out.”
“It’s going to look incredibly suspicious if we go knocking on doors this late at night, interrogating a very lengthy list of Mal’s sympathizers.”
Roswyn’s smile widened. “Who said anything about knocking?”
For all the brute strength he harbored, Roswyn, for once, had been quite clever to ensure that each recruit and member of their little underground rebel society gave him Magical permission to enter their home by either Obscuring or by using the Magical fires.
They Obscured, which was not easily tracked the way Magical fire was–a recent innovation, and completely regulated by the Double O. On the fifth residence they Obscured into, Maeve had grown tired of the incessant startled scream. By the twentieth, she had given up on even trying to assure them they needn’t scream.
Not yet, anyway.
Though, by the end of it all, Maeve’s head was spinning from determining if nearly a hundred memories were false, and Roswyn was angry he didn’t get to pound on anyone for being a snitch.
“There’s always tomorrow,” he said as he Obscured her back to the small garden behind her townhouse.
She slipped quickly into a small chair and held the sides of her face, rubbing the aches as Roswyn made a plan for keeping their meetings a better secret. But Maeve felt deep in her core that there was no snitch or traitor among them. The thought brought her no joy. It was far more worrisome that there was no snitch.
The Double O was merely making sure all Magicals felt the weight of their watchful eyes.
Too many eyes were on Maeve Sinclair. And the set of dark ones she desired on her were fading from memory.
“Stop being such a child,” snapped Agatha, as she pulled poisonous moraspera needles out of Maeve’s hand. The floral bush was over three hundred years old, and the only plant native to The Dread Lands that would successfully bloom on Earth.
“It hurts,” protested Maeve.
“You’ve had worse,” stated Agatha.
Maeve had a hard time arguing.
Agatha finished removing all the needles from Maeve’s skin and set aside the sharp tweezers.
“There,” said Agatha. “Pips swears he’s stuck himself plenty of times and never felt the poison.”
Pips was Agatha’s gardener. He was a human with such an incredible green thumb that Agatha deemed him worthy to know the secrets of the Magicals on Earth. In fifty years, Pips had never uttered a word of Agatha’s heritage or abilities.
Maeve rubbed a healing potion over the affected skin as she said, “Imagine, the Optimum of the Bellator taken down by a plant that doesn’t affect an old human.” Agatha laughed heartily.
“I haven’t made Optimum in months,” said Maeve. “Not honestly.”
“Are you not training?”
“Sometimes,” she replied quietly.
Agatha huffed. Maeve eyed her.
“Look at me like that all you want, child,” Agatha began. “You already know I’m right.”
“Optimum. Captain. Section commander,” said Maeve. “None of those titles matter to me.”
“Have you considered going back to Vaukore to finish your schooling? Academia and Practical Magic always suited you.”
Maeve shook her head. That was out of the question. The memories she harbored from Vaukore were nearly too much to bear. She couldn’t imagine returning to school there.
“All’s well,” said Agatha. “The reforms The Orator’s Office have implemented are hogwash, anyway.”
“Reforms?”
“The Militia Decrees for the school,” said Agatha.
Maeve shook her head.
Agatha frowned. “I paid for your newspaper subscription-”
“Zimsy uses them in the Garden beneath the soil.”
Agatha’s mouth fell open. “Well, that’s very rude.”
Maeve smiled softly. “I never asked you to buy me a newspaper subscription.”
Agatha’s lips pulled into a thin line. “I thought it was a kindness to keep you up to date about the current affairs of the world.”
“There is nothing that gossip column prints that would update me.”
“I’m afraid you’re incorrect there. Lies though they may be, I still want to know what webs they are weaving.”
“Circle back around, Grandmother. What reforms at Vaukore?”
“The Headmaster position is gone, replaced by that fool Doggbind. A puppet to control, no doubt. Larliesl tells me most of the staff are under strict new Magical guidelines in the classroom.”
Maeve didn’t look at her grandmother. They sat in silence for a moment.
“Have you been to Sinclair Estates?” Asked Maeve.
She had not been to Sinclair Estates since the night she left.
“No,” said Agatha roughly. “Not since. . .” Agatha trailed off, clearing her throat before changing the subject from Ambrose’s funeral. “The house itself kicked Clarissa out. Her Magic was completely useless in the estate. If she walked into a room, the firelights immediately died out. If she ordered Trudy to bake something, the house burned it.”
Despite how pleasing this information was, Maeve looked across the table sadly.
“Grandmother,” said Maeve, “why don’t you talk to me about him? He was your son.”
Agatha inhaled shakily. “He was not my first son lost.”
Maeve looked down at her fingers, rubbing the wounded skin. She traced over her black veins.
“Some advice, Maeve darling,” said Agatha, smiling. “Not everyone will grieve like you, even when your loss aligns. You can trust this old bag.”
“Grandmother,” said Maeve with a soft laugh.
Agatha winked at her. “How about we bake some lemon cookies today?”