11 #2
“It was, of sorts,” Myria said quietly. “It summoned the prefecture, but I think Vixius also meant for it to knock me out.”
“Just you?” Cassia frowned. “Why bother? Ain’t like you could’ve stopped him.”
“No,” she murmured, “but I tried, and that’s what he didn’t want. When we were in the silver lining that night, he offered me a place with him.”
Cassia and Leo sat back and scoffed in unison.
“Typical,” Leo muttered. “He would try and keep you. What was the secret? Golden locks? No respect for property?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Myria, even as Hadria’s strange remarks played back across her memory. “Carry on, old girl.”
“Well, next I knew, boss turned up, cool as you like. No sign of Leo, but I didn’t ask. He got Lysander to show him the box, then . . . ’fraid it all turns a bit blurry.”
“Not to worry. Here comes the remedy,” said Leo.
Myria felt the click of clockwork in the table stem.
Flame shot from the black hole in the center, and their drinks rose up amid the fire.
Myria took hers, pretending she hadn’t flinched.
It was a storm in a glass—a shimmering jet-black liqueur topped with mist that curled softly off the surface.
Alchemical ice chips rumbled at the bottom, loosing thin white lightning bolts as they dissolved.
“He took your powers,” she prompted. Cassia slumped in her seat and snatched her glass. The crimson alcohol burst into flames when she stirred it, sending smoke billowing over the rim.
“I think . . . he took the box from Lysander. There was a whacking great blast of arcana, and the boss swatted him straight down. I thought he was dead. Hadria went at the blighter like a jaguar, but he lifted that box, and . . . I’m not sure.
It was like he’d hooked her. She couldn’t move.
Something started coming out of her. Dark blue, like her powers. ”
Cassia let out a harsh breath and took a sip of her smoking cocktail.
“I socked him in the jaw, of course, so he turned that thing on me. I couldn’t breathe. It was like something was trying to drag the bones right out of me. After that”—she shrugged and shook her head—“nothing, till I woke up in Haideum, short four mates and one face.”
“May I . . . ?” asked Myria, gesturing at her mask.
Cassia flicked up the menu to hide her face, then removed one of the silver clips.
The charm died, and beneath it, Myria caught another stomach-turning glimpse of blackness—of features barely human, their surface shifting, collapsing and re-forming in one hideous loop. Leo squirmed in his seat.
“I don’t understand. If he nicked your powers, why aren’t you just . . . well, yourself, but without . . .”
“I interrupted him,” said Myria. “I suspect he only stripped the surface. Left an unstable layer of mercuria beneath it.”
“I reckon so,” said Cassia, restoring the mask. “I can still feel the power. I just can’t control it.”
“And he’s set about putting it to jolly bad use,” Leo muttered.
Cassia cocked her head. “Use? Has that piece of privy scum been using my powers?”
“And a half. Heard of Praetor Evander?”
“Seen him in the scrolls. Pretty fellow.”
“That’s him.”
Cassia fell dead silent. Her drink smoked before her in the stillness. Her expression was concealed, but Myria had never needed to see that woman’s face to know what she was thinking.
“You mentioned a plan,” she said at last.
“Yes,” said Myria. “A scheme for putting a certain turncoat where he belongs.”
“Mmm. Drew up one of those for myself. Find arcanic pistol. Find filthy bleeding turncoat. Shoot until desired consistency achieved.”
“It has a certain elegant simplicity,” Myria said thoughtfully, “but I think you’ll find mine more fun. You see, we’re going to take back everything he took from us.”
Cassia paused and cocked her head. “Everything?” she asked, with a subtle gesture to her vanished face. Myria smiled behind her mask.
“Everything.”
“I’ll grant you, yes, that might be even better,” Cassia admitted twenty minutes later, swilling the last flaming dregs around her glass.
“Certainly more options open to us at the end of it,” Leo added. “Besides harvesting, beheading or the eternity cells, that is.”
“Violence wouldn’t work, in any case,” said Myria. “He’s too well protected. I’ve already put it to the test.”
“Sniper shot?” Cassia asked sympathetically.
“Spilled drink. Near enough.”
“If he’s that well protected, though, do we stand a chance at all?”
“Oh, I think we do,” Myria said with a hard little smile. “In the end, though, it’s not a question of what we’ll gain from it. Not even whether we’ll survive it.”
“Well, from where I stand, it is substantially a question of—”
“Shut up, Leo,” Cassia interrupted.
“He betrayed us all,” said Myria, planing her voice dead level. “As good as murdered Hadria. If you’re in this, you’re in it to the death.”
The words felt unnatural in her mouth. Making those kinds of speeches was Hadria’s job.
Used to be Hadria’s job.
She was the imp, not the cracking whip. She planned. She played. She didn’t lead.
She isn’t ready.
Yet Leo drew a sharp breath and nodded. Cassia squared her shoulders and raised her glass. With that, they toasted and threw back the last drops.
“Then we have an accord,” said Myria. “We’re only one man short.”
“Mm. We’re going to need a thericist,” Leo said. “A dashed good one. We’ll have to pay a lovely lyrin to keep ’em quiet.”
“Oh, pish. We won’t pay a copper for the man,” she said with a lazy smile. “We’ll just break him out of Haideum Castle.”