Chapter Thirty Taissa
Chapter Thirty
Taissa
“Who made you do it?” Magis Elder calmly asks, seated across from Markus in the media room. He’d been on his way out for the night when Taissa had hurtled around the corner and crashed into him, shrieking that there was no way in all hells he was leaving yet. “Who made you contact Púca Púca?”
Taissa and Kion linger in the corner, allowed entry only due to the fuss (threats of violence) they put up when Elder tried to refuse them. A Level Three Truth glyph, administered by a pathetically teary-eyed Markus himself, burns black on the man’s own hairy arm.
“I told you, I don’t know,” he snaps back, red-rimmed eyes darting from the magis to Kion to Taissa.
“I was approached one night, outside the stables. Whoever it was, they were smart. They hid themselves with a black mask, black cloak. Like they were from Ye Olden Days, or something. They told me if I did this one thing for them, they’d pay me well. And they had the cash to prove it.”
Elder takes a long, almost theatrical, draw on his pipe. “What is it, exactly, that they asked you to do?”
“You said it yourself. Contact Púca Púca…” When Elder fixes him with a glare, Markus loses his nerve.
“They wanted me to ask for a favor, on their behalf. They called me a ‘proxy’—I’d go to a púca, carry paper messages between them until a bargain was made.
They didn’t want to use the aethernet. Too many risks, they said.
Lots of your sort lingering on there.” He glowers at the magis.
So Markus had been nothing but a carrier pigeon. Taissa chews on her thumbnail, trying to feel the least bit triumphant. They’ve pinned down Markus. Whoever was running him has to be close by.
It’s a bit of a shock. Could the person have come from inside the Nexitory? All this time, has the perp been right under their noses?
(It couldn’t be, right? It has to be some angry anti-fan local to Pinion. Everybody in this building has too much to lose from the ending of carriwitchet…right?)
“Do you have these messages?”
“What do you think I am, an idiot?”
“Yeah,” mutters Kion.
“Absolutely,” grumbles Taissa.
“Both of you, do be quiet,” hisses Elder around his pipe.
They exchange irritated looks.
“I passed them on,” finishes Markus, staring morosely down at the table where he’s been cuffed.
It would almost be funny, this sight: Markus, sitting in the press-conference room, in front of the team colors, being questioned for a heinous crime.
But nothing is quite funny, not right now.
“It was part of the job. Don’t know where they are now. ”
“What was the agreement that was made?”
“I didn’t read the messages.” He rubs his nose, blinking hard. “But after the agreement was finalized, the Dust Bite happened.”
“What was the agreed price? Ten years off a life? A soul?”
“Like I said, I didn’t look.”
“This person’s voice,” says Elder. “Was it that of a female or a male?”
“The mask distorted it. I don’t know.”
“How tall were they?”
“Tall.” Markus is beginning to look strained; the Truth glyph has obviously begun to wear on him. “But they were wearing boots, with large, I dunno, wedges? So I don’t know their real height.”
“Why did you break into the stables tonight?”
“I didn’t break in. The wards still recognized me. I told you. I left my coat. A good coat. From Havergourden’s.”
Taissa’s brows raise. So he was telling the truth about that. Interesting.
“Who was the púca you delivered messages to?”
“One of Orla Banes’s Withers.”
“Name?”
Taissa watches keenly as Markus clenches his jaw, beady eyes glancing about the room as if expecting someone to swoop in and save him. “Pieter Kenth. He’ll probably be long gone by now.”
She doesn’t doubt it. The Withers haven’t operated this long for no reason. The gang knows when to hide.
“Where would you usually meet your hirer? Always about the stables?” The way Magis Elder jumps from question to question, from topic to topic, reminds her of a leapfrog.
“Only for the first meeting. Other times I’d go about Lantern Street or Alley Hollow, sometimes even under Tam-a-Lin Bridge.”
Seems like their perp is local to Pinion. Magis Elder is evidently on the same train of thought.
“Was your hirer local to Pinion-upon-Keat?”
“I don’t know.” Sweat trickles down his forehead, where a vein has begun to bulge.
“Were they part of a larger organization?”
“I. Don’t. Know.”
“Why did they choose you? What was their motive?”
“I don’t know!”
Magis Elder sighs as Markus frantically scratches a Nullifying glyph over Truth, panting hard, eyes bloodshot. “Stop it!” he blubbers, chest heaving. “Stop it, I can’t take it anymore!”
Although she, too, has experienced the harsh pull of Truth, the higher levels of it are even more potent.
Yet Taissa feels no sympathy for Markus, even as his nose begins to bleed and he slumps forward, crying weakly.
Instead, she smiles. Magis Elder picks up his qyl with fingers pinched in distaste.
“Sir,” says the geancánach around his pipe, “you are under arrest by the CCB for the aiding and abetting of a cursecaster.”
Taissa and Kion take that as their cue to leave, slipping into the Nexitory’s corridor and silently making their way back to Kion’s room to gather blankets for the stables.
Although Elder has called other magistrates to watch over the stables, there’s a thick, sticky feeling of dread in her gut that can’t be ignored. She won’t leave Cronus’s side tonight.
In the lift running up toward the flats, she watches as Kion drags a hand down his face.
“Fucking Markus,” he mutters, and Taissa is inclined to agree.
Who hired him, though? And why? Taissa leans her head against the cool glass wall of the lift as it rises up, up, up, trying to think past the exhausted sludge coating her brain.
With a ding, the doors slide open, and Taissa stifles a yawn as she follows Kion down toward his room—only to frown as she sees someone standing right before her door.
Next to her, Kion stiffens. Before she can blink, he has a rough hand on the man’s shoulder and is shoving him around, revealing wide-eyed Edward Becerra.
In the warm lighting of the hallway, his blond hair and cherubic face seem to glow in a way that seems only cute now that Kion stands next to her, no longer intent on despising her forever (and prone to calling her “sweetheart” in that deliciously gruff voice of his—yes, so she’s a bit smitten).
“Oh,” says Edward, eyes flicking to Taissa, “there you are—I just knocked.” His smile is a bit bashful and a blush is staining his cheeks.
“I’ve been meaning to check on your head, Taissa, but I haven’t been able to track you down.
I was finishing up some late work in the infirmary when I decided I should see if I could catch you…
Even with Panaceas, head wounds are sensitive, and you had a fair bit of bladed feathers sticking from yours. ”
Taissa’s eyes flick toward the newly inked Protection glyph on her door, but as Edward pulls out an official-looking clipboard and paper from his leather satchel (rather than, say, her missing knickers), she relaxes.
Edward is like a wee puppy, so eager to please.
Besides, his whole practice is helping people; surely perverts don’t make a living off that.
It’s very hard to imagining him rummaging through her drawer and stealing away her underthings. “Any dizziness of late?”
Kion stands rigidly next to her as she answers Edward’s questions, the healer marking the forms with a black Pell-Mell Plume. Edward smiles, thanking her when she’s finished, and—blushing some more—bids her a good night before hurrying back toward the lift.
“Stop it,” Taissa hisses to Kion, smacking his arm.
“What?” He looks down at her, brows still furrowed.
“Glaring at him like that. You always look like you want to kill the poor lad.”
A muscle jumps in Kion’s jaw as he sets to unlocking his door. “He fancies you,” he grumbles.
Her brows raise as she steps inside after him. Is Kion Locke…jealous?
And why does it make a whole swarm of butterflies start flapping around in her stomach? Honestly. She must pull herself together. It’s embarrassing.
“Kion,” she tells him seriously as she gathers his blankets from the sofa, “there’s nobody I’d rather be in a fake relationship with more than you.”
It’s beautiful, how his face softens from hard granite to something warm, something gentle.
Like a cold pat of butter melting on the pan.
She’s still getting used to it; what it’s like, not hating each other.
And she’s found that she likes it a fair bit.
They make a good pair of friends, she and Kion.
(Although she’s still determined to show him that they can be something more.)
(Or are they already something more? Friends don’t call each other “sweetheart,” do they?)
(Taissa makes a mental note to call Estee as soon as possible, although she’ll have quite a bit of explaining to do.)
“Yeah?” he asks, voice gruff—and, Morgana, he’s practically preening, his ridiculous little ego stoked.
She sticks out her tongue at him and throws one of the sofa’s white pillows at him. “Don’t let it get to your head.”
He catches the pillow neatly in one hand, his eyes dancing even though his voice is as dry as always. “I’d never dream of it, sweetheart.”
Taissa wakes in a terrible mood.
(This in itself is not unusual. Taissa Cho hates mornings, hates dragging herself out of bed, and hates everything when it’s seven a.m.)
It was only after an immense amount of wheedling that Cronus reluctantly let her stay in his nest atop Yggdrasil. Now, waking up with a massive crick in her neck, Taissa isn’t sure it was worth it.
At all.
Sometime in the night, Cronus snatched her blanket away, instead using it as an eye mask, leaving her to shiver until the grump took pity on her and covered her body with one massive wing.
He did not relinquish her blanket.
He is still using it as his eye mask.
(Sansa would never.)
Yet she’s more relieved than annoyed. The stymphalians made it through another night with no affliction of the Sleeping Death.
Taissa can’t count the number of times she jerked herself from a light sleep to ensure that her Winged was still healthy and whole, poking him in the side to make sure a scarlet eye would open in annoyance.
Turns out that Cronus has many creative threats of death in his repertoire.
Now, she peeks over the edge of Cronus’s nest, blinking away sleep, looking down at Kion some branches below.
(Cato allowed him to keep his blanket. Must be nice.) He’s still asleep, one arm hanging over the edge of the nest, toward the ground far, far below.
The other Yggdrasil stymphs are already chattering amongst themselves—it’s what bloody woke her up—flapping their wings and cawing in anticipation of breakfast.
Pushing up her glasses, Taissa squints as the stable doors open, and a small woman walks in, bickering with Magis Elder.
Blinking a few times, Taissa recognizes the American accent, short, boyish dark hair, sleeve of delicate tattoos, and sharp brown eyes as Felicity Vance.
She hurriedly ducks back down into the nest, straining to hear their conversation.
If Vance is going to ghost her many calls, well, it’s only fair for Taissa to eavesdrop.
On her earlobe, she etches a quick, low-level Enhancement rune, and their muted squabbling grows loud enough that it seems like Taissa is standing right there between them.
“—we did tell you about the púca involvement, days ago, actually, and it’s not our fault if you never pick up the phone or listen to your voicemails…”
“Unfortunately, I—”
“Uh, no. Don’t tell me that you ‘lost’ my number again, Rowan.”
“These newfangled technologies—you must know how they confuse me—”
She’s never heard the implacably cool Magis Elder fumble for words like this. A smile pulls at her mouth.
“You are—ugh. Infuriating.” Vance takes a deep breath. “But now that we’re here, the Sleeping Death case will be an official merging between the CCB and the DMC. As it should have been from the start. We’re not equipped to handle the Withers on our own.”
“I wouldn’t expect so.” There is a smugness about Elder’s tone. “We, however, at the CCB are extensively trained in—”
“This is out of your ballpark, too, buddy.”
“Excuse me?”
Taissa, peeking over the edge of the nest again, hurriedly ducks back down as Vance’s head snaps up toward her. “Taissa Cho and Kion Locke?” she calls. “Would you please come down?”