Chapter 10
CHAPTER
TEN
EMBER
How do you detect when something isn’t real? First, you must have the sense to question it.
— Aurora Gallatine, Echelon to the
School of Illusions
The room spun, the thick wood beams blurring into the steep pitch of the vaulted ceiling.
I’d been on the living room floor long enough that the planks of hardwood now jabbed my shoulder blades every time I breathed in.
Day three in Everden. Day two-hundred-and-something of the phantom flu.
Weak, exhausted, I rested my cheek on the floor and thought of Gray to distract myself.
He’d called me on the morning of my seventeenth birthday from a bus stop in Spain, the first time I’d heard from him in two weeks.
I’d picked up the phone, smiling. “Hello?”
“Hello?” he said.
“Hello?” I said again. “Can you hear me?”
“Hello? Hello? Who is this?”
“You called me!” I shouted.
“That’s right,” he said, laughing. “I did call you. Are you having a good birthday, Ember Rose?”
I twirled a strand of hair around my finger. “Sort of? I’m home. Just had breakfast. Without Ash, it feels . . .” like the only place I have to talk to anyone is in my head. “It feels kind of sad.”
“Things can only be sad when you let them,” he said, tsking like he’d unlocked some great wisdom, an ability to squeeze from the world exactly what he wanted out of it. “Do you want to come to Spain?” he asked.
“I can’t go to Spain,” I said, though I assumed he wasn’t being serious.
“Oookay. I’ll tell my host you’re on your way.” He sounded like he was moving, smiling and moving. “Happy Birthday, Ember. I will look for you in Toledo, Spain.”
I’d bounced onto my bed after that, feeling brighter, gazing out the window, listening to the few birds still around and singing in October.
Across from my driveway, a beam of sunlight glanced off Gray’s car, and I’d smiled to myself, because Gray was having an adventure — in another country on Halloween — but he’d remembered my birthday.
When the daydream ended, my phantom flu was gone.
I felt good enough to stand, and the first thing I did — even before brushing my teeth — was write a quick letter to Dad.
Had the best pepperoni calzone of my life yesterday.
I put it in the letterbox drawer and closed it so it sent.
There wasn’t much else I could say that wouldn’t worry him.
* * *
A few hours later, I still hadn’t received Dad’s response.
It was driving me crazy, standing around staring at the letterbox, so I knew I needed to get out.
I was not going to do what Jaxan had asked — go to the Allwitch temple, get the Sword of Shifting from the terrace.
I knew enough about Everden to know that, if it had the word Allwitch in it, it probably wasn’t somewhere I should go.
But I was curious, and I didn’t think it would hurt to glimpse the sword from afar, so I found the Allwitch temple on the portstop map, got my shoes on, and went for a run.
The cobblestone path into town curled and swirled through bright-green hillsides and narrow glens.
I passed dozens of small homes on huge plots of green land, all with front gardens and latched gates; picturesque, shuttered windows; and flowerboxes adorning them.
In the tulip beds alone were more colors than I knew existed, and even though July in Hartik’s Hollow was as mild as May in Harrisburg, charming puffs of white smoke romped out of chimneys, filling the cool air with the rich smell of wood-burning fireplaces.
I suspected the small glass orb floating in midair a few feet over my head was Leland.
There was a Scrying spell for watching people remotely, never mind that Scrying was mental magic.
Leland was well-connected, and if he needed a Mentalist, there was no doubt in my mind that dozens would be lining up to help him.
I sprinted past hundreds of hateful stares.
Long looks that seemed to say half witch.
A feeling that I should head back to Helen’s crept over me.
And I would have. Except running helped alleviate the symptoms of my magic withdrawal as much as moonale did, so I ignored that nagging feeling and pushed on, turning right after I passed a run-down playground in front of an abandoned preschool.
Witches poured in and out of Foxcross’s Aspiring Artifacts and Lunda’s Limit Planning & Counseling, but it was hard to find a single friendly face in what was mostly an older crowd.
Citizens here, in general, skewed older, with over half the population well over fifty.
There weren’t children in Hartik’s Hollow — not that I’d seen.
Not on the shopping streets or on the field outside Odessa Hall, and not in the congested epicenter of Conventicles Crossing either.
It seemed odd now. The empty parks, the abandoned preschool.
When I reached Varanus Street, the street the Allwitch temple was on, I noticed something else that was odd.
Only half the cobblestones were being walked on.
Brick buildings, all clustered together on one side of the street, faced the gated, grassy park that housed the Allwitch temple.
It made no sense to me why everyone would crush together on one side, especially since at the end of the street was Conventicles Crossing, the busiest intersection in all of Hartik’s Hollow.
I eased out of my run and scanned for the reason. A flea-infested mattress. A loose dog. But I couldn’t find anything wrong. Shoving aside the apprehension that tugged at me, I stood on my tiptoes to peer over the gates for a closer look.
The Allwitch temple sat at the top of a low-sloping hill.
Two stories above ground, it was a magnificent stone building held up by lines of pillars reminiscent of ancient Rome.
Corporeal Animal Ethereal was written on the roofline in big block letters, a reference to the Goddess’s three forms — Witch, Familiar, and Ether.
There was a large, outdoor, worship terrace, decorated with sculptures of midsized, wingless dragons on plinths.
But that’s all there was. No sword. Just marble pedestal after marble pedestal supporting realistic sculptures of oversized Komodo dragons.
From the terrace, two sets of steps descended down the hill, one on each side of a cascading fountain, which ended near where I stood at the street level and filled a long reflection pool.
At the sound of high heels clicking down the cobblestone, I let go of the gate to look over my shoulder.
“Hi,” said a woman, her voice an affectation of friendliness as she advanced closer.
Her eyes were wide, and she was smiling, but it seemed fake somehow.
She was dressed in a plum skirt suit and shiny black pumps, her strides even and perfectly balanced, despite the bumps and cracks in the cobbles.
“You seem like you’re lost.” When I didn’t answer, she jutted out her chin. “Are you?”
“No.” I lifted my portstop map. I knew I should have lied, but I wasn’t doing that anymore.
She clipped around to my side, unsettling me with the inquisitive look in her pale-blue eyes. Farrah Prolix, I guessed, placing her face with the picture of the reporter from the newspaper, and remembering the message from Leland that I’d ignored. How he’d warned, I don’t suggest speaking to her.
“It’s a crime, you know? Standing so close to that temple is one of the most serious crimes you can commit in Everden.
I’m assuming you knew that?” She said the last part like she really thought I didn’t.
Or perhaps she did? Honestly, it was impossible to tell.
“You know it’s the rebels’ den, don’t you? ”
Rebels?
I glanced over my shoulder and looked through the bars of the gates, finding only a serene park surrounding a pretty, stone building. I suppose the Allwitches had rebelled once, in the war. But not now. Now they were either exiled or deteriorated.
Farrah removed a black camera from her purse and snapped my picture. “Do you have anything you want to say in regard to the crime you’re committing?”
“I — no,” I said, then added, “I didn’t know I was committing one.”
“There you are,” said a male voice, big and loud enough to turn every head on Varanus Street, but definitely talking to me.
At me, really, based on the way his shrewd, blue eyes didn’t flinch from the curious look coming from my own.
“I told you to meet me at the Countryside Tea Shop.” He jerked his head to the brick building closest to where we stood.
“Didn’t I tell you not to overshoot it?”
“No?”
He let out a sigh in response to my pushback, his shoulder lifting high then dropping heavily.
Something about him felt familiar. He was tall and lean like Leland was.
His arms were covered in colorful tattoos, his muscles rippling like he’d recently cranked out a hundred pushups.
There were probably a ton of people in Everden who would find him attractive, yet he had this tired, sunkenness around his eyes that lent a sad quality to him and didn’t quite match his energetic posture.
I got the impression he was one of those people always jittering their leg, chewing gum with their mouth open, and fidgeting with something they weren’t supposed to have.
He ran a hand through his almost shoulder-length blond hair as I blinked at him.
“You had plans to meet this young man? Here?” Farrah asked, the lilt of her question making her sound even more condescending than she had before.
She pursed her lips at him. “Who are you, by the way? Anyone this comfortable fraternizing with the half witch is a threat to Everden and someone the Council should absolutely be informed about in order to preserve the security of the realm.”
Instead of answering her, he slung a meaty arm over my shoulder and dragged me down the cobbles, away from the Allwitch temple.
I twisted my head as much as I could, turning back to make sure I answered Farrah’s question. “No. I didn’t have plans to meet him. I’ve never seen him before.”
“Ah,” he said, tightening his clutch around my neck and pulling me harder along. “Leland didn’t tell me you were dumb. Had I known, I would’ve prepared for that.”
I swatted at his arm until he dropped it. “Since when is being honest dumb?”
He grinned at that, something lighting up his eyes as he shook his head and said to himself, “Yup. He’s in for it.”
I risked a furtive glance over my shoulder to check if Farrah was still standing at the gate, but she was already stomping down Varanus Street in the opposite direction, heading toward Conventicles Crossing. Turning back, I asked, “How do you know Leland?”
“Lately? Casually.” He blew out a breath like he was disappointed about that.
“I’m Case.” He handed me his transmitter, letting me read his message history with Leland, where Leland had asked him to keep an eye on me while he was at Odessa Hall today.
“Wasn’t expecting that would take me to the Allwitch temple .
. .” He snatched his transmitter back. “But it’s nice to finally meet you either way. ”
I pushed my tongue into my cheek. “Jaxan sent me to do this. He told me . . .” What the hell.
I had no idea what I was doing here, and I’d had a bad feeling about the Sword of Shifting since Jaxan asked me to get it, especially after Leland’s warning.
Question everything Jaxan says. He’ll say anything to manipulate you.
“He told me I needed to bring him the Sword of Shifting or he’d cut out Leland’s tongue.
” He’d also told me he’d cut out my tongue, if I spoke about it .
. . and maybe I never would have, if I hadn’t just committed a crime because of him.
“I doubt that,” Case laughed. “The Sword of Shifting’s been missing for three hundred years.
If it ever does magically reappear, the Echelon won’t send an Unselected half witch with no spellcasting magic after it.
He’ll get it himself. And the last thing anyone wants Leland to be is without a tongue.
Truth-Telling? Kinda need to be able to talk for that. ”
“I know,” I said, “I figured it was a setup. I just didn’t know I couldn’t look at the temple without getting in trouble for it.” I chewed on my bottom lip as we walked. “Is Farrah going to report this to the Council?”
For the first time since Case had appeared in front of the gate to the Allwitch temple, he didn’t look amused.
I swallowed tightly, understanding he’d gone silent because he knew I was going to be punished, and that’s exactly why Jaxan had sent me here.