Chapter 22 #2
“She’s fine!” Fabian threw up his hands in exasperation. “I told you, she doesn’t matter to them! She’s just leverage, nothing more. They’ve got no reason to hurt a kid like her.” He tilted his head, his expression earnest. “We might be Dark Sorcerers. Doesn’t mean we’re the bad guys here.”
One brow slid up Nigel’s forehead. “And since when did you become a Dark Sorcerer, Fabian?”
His brother’s face fell into deep scowl lines, made all the harsher by his strange gauntness.
“Well, as a matter of fact, depending on how tonight’s exchange goes, they’ve promised to officially induct me into the Brotherhood.
After all, it’s thanks to me that they’re finally getting hold of Garden. ”
“Right.” Nigel sneered. “And you feel no compunction whatsoever, turning over Dad’s great work to that pack of mangy hyenas?”
“Why should I? Dad never liked either of us all that much. With you, at least, he had some excuse; because of Mother, you know. But me? I never did anything to him. Simply wasn’t the son he wanted.
” His voice was bitter, his eyes filled with loathing, whether for himself or their parent, Nigel couldn’t guess.
“No,” Fabian finished with a firm shake of his head.
“I don’t feel any loyalty to Dad. As far as I’m concerned, Jastira did the world a favor when she got rid of the old man. ”
Anger roiled in Nigel’s heart. “You bastard,” he breathed.
“Oh, and you’re so superior to me? He hated you from the off, but you’re going to make yourself out to be the dutiful son after all this time? Don’t kid yourself, Nigey.”
The temptation was unexpectedly strong to utilize his last great spell.
Right here. Right now. Leaving a burning crater in the middle of this farmhouse driveway.
But that wouldn’t do Luna much good, would it?
Nigel clenched his fists tight. He started walking forward again.
Fabian’s eyes widened, but Nigel ignored him and simply strode past him, their shoulders brushing roughly.
He focused on the granary, ignoring when his brother trotted to catch up and matched his stride. They did not speak as they went.
The protection spells around the granary strengthened the nearer they came to that half-rotten tower.
It was a bit pathetic, really. Were Nigel in his full power, such spells would have no more influence over him than a fruit fly buzzing around his face.
As it was, however, he felt greater and greater reluctance to actually step inside.
There was so much old and broken spellworking stained deep into the wood slats and the brick base.
The radiating aura signaled doom—his own doom, foretold as clearly as any scried vision in tea leaves.
Despite all gruesome resolutions, Nigel’s heart stuttered.
This wasn’t at all the sort of location he would have chosen for his Last Stand.
But then, he supposed, one didn’t get to choose these things.
Jastira probably hadn’t expected her Last Stand to take place in a kitchen garden qua magical magnum opus. Fate was a funny beast sometimes.
The granary door opened. A dark, cowled figure appeared, beckoning both Fabian and Nigel to enter.
Fabian cast Nigel a warning look, though what exactly he intended by it, Nigel didn’t know.
At a nod from his brother, Nigel stepped through first and was immediately surrounded by three more cowled figures.
He felt the spells in their hands, searching him for any sign of active magic.
Good thing he hadn’t brought along that anti-sorcery vest. Nothing else he wore set off any alarms, though one of the faceless figures hesitated over his celestial robe.
In the end, however, they stepped back, and Nigel stood alone.
The granary loomed hollow and silent before him, a vast timbered shell.
Old grain bins, which had once held harvests, stood empty now, their plank walls warped with age and stained by decades of dust and weather.
High overhead, massive beams disappeared into shadows, their edges softened by curtains of cobwebs, which hung like forgotten lace.
The air carried the dry, lingering scent of oats and wheat buried beneath stronger smells of aged timber, mouse nests, dust, and damp earth.
There was little light inside, no natural light.
The only illumination came from a thaumatic lantern placed in the middle of a wooden table, which stood in the center of the echoing space.
On the far side of the table, Calista Anguish sat, very upright in her chair, hands folded in front of her.
She wore a neat, emerald-green suit with square shoulder pads and a cunning, black-trimmed hat with a little veil.
She looked for all the world like the politician’s wife she was, ready for a press stunt.
Behind her, lining the stained brick wall, loomed a series of hooded figures, thirteen in total.
And another figure. Smaller than the rest. Wearing a simple blouse, skirt, and winter coat. An old feed bag over her head.
Nigel’s heart lurched. Every instinct in both body and soul told him to rush forward, to cast aside all restraining hands, to dodge any wildly-shot spells, and clasp her in his arms. Stand firm, Grimm, he reminded himself harshly. You don’t know that it’s really her. It could be a trick.
“Well, well, well.” Calista’s polished voice filled the dust-filmed atmosphere with a bright crispness of enunciation.
“If it isn’t the Grimshade Lord, come to grace us at last. We were beginning to despair of you.
” She waved a manicured hand, indicating the chair opposite hers at the table. “Will you sit?”
Though it was the last thing he wanted to do right then, Nigel made himself cross the space.
Floorboards creaked under his footsteps, the sound lingering and loud in the otherwise hushed stillness.
He wondered what this place had been like when Calista and Montesquieu had their little operation up and running.
Apparently, the raiding wardsmen had gutted it down to the rotten wood siding.
Taking hold of the chair, Nigel dragged it back far enough from the table so that he could perch lightly on the edge of the seat.
His feet remained braced, his muscles tensed for action, even as he tried to assume a casual demeanor.
He met Calista’s lovely, painted eyes, answering her smile with a non-expression of his own.
“Nigel Grimm,” she said, “are you not happy to see me after all these years?”
“We’ve met recently, Mrs. Anguish,” Nigel answered, his voice dark and low.
“You attacked me and assaulted my home. I retaliated by wiping your mind.” He tilted his head forward, eyes narrowing slightly.
“You’re lucky I did not end your life while I had you strung up and helpless in front of me.
A mistake I won’t make again if pressed. ”
Despite all her carefully-applied cosmetics, her features flickered with a momentary revelation of fear.
Some residual, shade-memory of that altercation must lurk deep inside.
She masked all spontaneous feeling quickly, however, behind another siren smile.
“Did you bring the key to your miraculous garden, as requested?”
“Show me her face first,” Nigel said.
They sat for a long, tense series of heartbeats, eyeing one another.
Then Calista held up one hand and snapped her fingers.
Immediately, one of the cowled figures reached out and snatched the old feedbag off the head of the small, slender woman.
The glow from the thaumatic lantern was just bright enough to illuminate a pair of doe-brown eyes, flared wide and staring at Nigel with such an intensity of horror over a roughly-tied gag.
Luna.
It was her. Really her. Right there, alive and, so far as he could see, in one piece.
Nigel nearly surged to his feet, all common sense shattered in the need to reach her, to claim her.
But he held himself very still, though he could not stop the way his fingers tensed against his knees.
He forced his gaze to search for any sign of sorcery around her face, any indication that this might be a clever use of face-swapping cream. But there was nothing.
“Satisfied?” Calista inquired, gauging his reaction closely.
Nigel hesitated, his gaze sliding from Luna back to the woman across from him. He stared into her cold eyes for a long moment before finally inclining his head in the slightest nod.
“Good,” she said. “Now, I should like to see that key.”
This was it. This was when he learned just how far he could push this deception.
Nigel’s heart hammered in his throat hard enough that he could swear it was audible.
Luna was so close and yet so very far from him.
Flanked by thirteen Dark Sorcerers, with more lurking in the shadows behind him.
He must get her to his side before he hurled the severmist bombs.
He must know he could protect her, could shield her body with his if need be, until Ward’s arrival.
But if Calista wasn’t fooled by his stupid travel chest key, all this would be for nothing.
“Send the girl to me,” he growled, “and I will give you the key.”
Calista chuckled without amusement. “Do you think me a fool, Grimm?” She leaned forward, her eyes flashing from behind her little veil. “Place the key on the table in front of you. I want to see it. Now.”