Chapter 53
Jane
Cahir marched me forward and sealed the door behind us. This time I noticed the latch as we passed, heard it engage when he shut it.
The corridor ended in a marble staircase. The air warmed as we climbed. On the upper floor, dark mahogany furniture lined the wide hallway, catching the light of iron chandeliers overhead.
I took in Cahir’s clothes. He wore tailored black trousers, an onyx buttoned-up shirt that appeared freshly ironed, and polished shoes beside my bare feet. I had the feeling it was intentional, as if it put us on different footing.
“Follow me, milady,” he said, the flame-eyed sigil at his temple shifting as he spoke.
Voices drifted from adjoining rooms. Through an open door, I glimpsed a round table where a small group was gathered. Men and women draped in velvet and silk chatted and drank, glasses in their hands. All except one.
A blond woman poured drinks for the Scions, her grey dress plain among the finery. Her movements were stiff, her eyes a bit glassy. Vacant. She also wore no shoes.
I didn’t realise I had stopped until Cahir yanked my arm.
“Is she human?” I asked.
“Walk,” he ordered low.
I winced at the tightness in his hold.
More faces with the same vacancy emerged as we passed, their clothing simpler than the others. Some of them had silver bands circling their wrists and bruises blooming along exposed skin. I couldn’t see the Order’s mark on them.
Because those weren’t Scions. Those were prisoners.
Cahir shoved between my shoulder blades. My teeth gritted as he led me into another wide hallway just as opulent as the rest of the place.
Another doorway opened as we passed, revealing a table surrounded by well-dressed figures, mostly men. A young woman sat perched on one man’s lap, her gaze unfocused. He twisted a lock of her brown hair around his finger and looked directly at me, lips pursing in appraisal.
“Is this the half-breed Lady?” he asked Cahir.
Something clamped tight around my throat. I didn’t hear his reply.
“She is human,” I said, loud enough for the room to hear. The entire table turned toward me, all except the girl, who didn’t so much as blink. “You cannot keep her here.”
“Who says she is human?” the man asked, unbothered.
She was. I was certain of it. Human and compelled, like the others.
“What is the holdup?”
My pulse spiked at the proximity of Madden’s baritone voice.
“She’s asking questions,” Cahir muttered once the Order leader stood before us.
“Hm. Perhaps the title she wants already went to her head,” Madden sneered, looking down at me with such contempt I could almost feel it. “Come.”
He strode past us, and I was forced forward.
It would be easy to panic, to try to run, but that would get me nowhere. I had to keep myself alive. There wasn’t time to think about the humans as I was steered behind Madden. Masking my fear, my outrage, I arranged my face in a semblance of calm.
A glimpse through a window revealed a rocky landscape with no other houses or buildings in sight. The mountains were several shades darker than the ones I was used to. I doubted we were in Mountheim, but perhaps still some place north.
Madden entered a room washed in another sterile glare. My heart stuttered as I followed.
Wooden cabinets lined one wall, and a thin gurney occupied the middle of the room. A bald man dressed in a pristine white apron waited inside, his attention fixed on Madden as we entered. Cahir shoved me toward the gurney.
“Angus,” Madden said. “Is everything ready?”
“Sit,” Cahir ordered me.
I had a sinking feeling as I glanced between him and the man in white before perching on the edge of the gurney.
“It’s almost ready,” the bald man said.
“What is this?” I asked Cahir.
He didn’t answer.
“It’s Jane, isn’t it?” Madden’s voice drew my attention back to him.
Cahir had taken a position near the wall to my right. I wondered how much authority he held, or if here, he was nothing more than my handler, assigned to move me where he was told.
“You keep human servants,” I said, the accusation clear in my tone.
The leader of the Order approached me idly, his jet-black vest perfectly pressed, and so were his fine trousers. “You make serious allegations, Jane. Tell me. What do you know about the Order of Scions?”
“What I know is that you treat humans and hybrids as lesser beings,” I said, angling my chin toward the door. “And now I know you like killing and forcing them to work for you.”
His pale brow flicked as he nodded, unbothered by my words. Madden reached into his pocket and lit a cigarette. Tobacco-scented smoke curled in the beam of the spotlights as he exhaled.
“Let me ask you something,” he said mildly. “Why do you carry this?”
I held my breath as he withdrew Joy’s necklace from his pocket, cocking his head.
“It’s a charged amulet,” he went on. “Did Reagan give you this so you could play mageborn?” He inhaled a puff from his cigarette. “Did I guess correctly? Can you even function without it?”
The condescension might have grated if I’d been relaxed enough to feel anything but fear. I didn’t answer.
Madden slipped the necklace back into his pocket. “Right.”
He crossed to the table where Angus seemed to be working on something, then stubbed the cigarette out on a metal tray.
“Most of the people here are scions of a noble mageborn line. We are one kin. Others, like you, belong to another kin. What the Order stands for is that we stop pretending there are no differences between us. We value human work and hybrid work where they are best utilised. And a weak half-breed has no place ruling any mage territory in this country. The Order of Scions exists to speak for the mageborn. To ensure our kin progress without thinning the mana in our veins. Today, the labour you saw is hidden because it has to be, but we want a future where every class understands their contribution to a prosperous nation. The best way for this country to move forward is for half-breeds like yourself to perform tasks suited to your level of skill. Humans will handle what requires no skill at all. Otherwise, they would all need booster relics, wouldn’t they? ”
I shouldn’t try to reason with a sick zealot. Yet my restraint only went so far.
“Why not just live separately, like the treaty says?” I asked. “What you’re doing here breaks the mage folk laws.”
He smiled. “That treaty was drawn up by pacifists who would let half our resources go to waste. Pacifists like them will sink this country. I like to benefit from things that have use for me. So prove you have use to the Order, and I’ll keep you alive.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Angus.”
“It’s ready,” Angus replied, stepping forward.
Blood drained from my face when I saw what he carried.
It was a helmet of black metal and stone, with wiry filaments over the crown. Gold streaks threaded through the sand-coloured stone.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Lie down,” Angus ordered.
“I want you to divine for me,” Madden said. His power pressed against my skin, numbing my fingertips as he attempted to compel me. “I doubt that you can. So Angus will use the helmet to confirm it.” His gaze didn’t leave mine. “You’re going to let him put it on.”
His compulsion had tried to force me, yet he hadn’t seemed to notice that it had failed.
When Cahir had searched me, he’d never thought to search my skin. The Algiz scar etched into my thigh would shield me from compulsion and from spells meant to harm.
If I played this convincingly, it could become more than protection. It could become leverage.
But the helmet was still concerning.
“What will this do to me?” I asked.
Angus lifted the helmet. Fighting every instinct, I let him place it over my head, as Madden tried to compel me to do. The stone warmed against my forehead.
Angus glanced at Madden, who nodded.
“There’s an area in your brain that activates when a diviner uses foresight,” Angus explained. “If you’re truly having a vision, the helmet will register it.”
“Is it sanguinite?” I asked.
Surprise crossed his face. A Healer, perhaps.
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “The gemstone helps draw out the presence of Sight in the correct places we need.”
Madden watched me closely. “Tell me the truth. Can you divine for me?”
“Yes,” I rasped, letting it sound dragged from my throat.
“Who knows I shuffled the Mage Lord’s threads?”
His gaze bore into me until my temples throbbed.
“Me,” I murmured. “Reagan. Varian. The Second and the Third.” I mentioned only the ones he would have already assumed.
Angus monitored the top of my head.
This was dangerous. At any moment they could realise I was resisting the compulsion.
Madden narrowed his eyes, and for a heartbeat I thought he saw straight through me.
“Varian must have told them,” Cahir said quietly. “He’s a loose end.”
Madden hummed, gesturing vaguely in my direction. “But if she’s a diviner, she might have seen it.”
“It’s ready when you are,” Angus said.
A faint smile touched Madden’s mouth. “It’s time, Jane. Divine for me. Tell me something from my future.”
He was still testing me.
“I need a glass with your blood to drink,” I said.
Madden arched one brow, then nodded once to Angus.
Without warning, the helmet pressed into my temples, and pain slammed into my skull. I shut my eyes against the pressure, reaching for my head, but someone shoved me back against the gurney, restraining my wrists.
“The helmet is one of Angus’s finest creations,” Madden said.
“The gemstone you see is indeed sanguinite. It helps draw your access only where we need it. But you missed something far more important.” His gaze flicked to my forehead.
“The filaments along the crown, the ones that are touching your skin, are made of pure bloodbane. Do you know what that is?”
It was cleaving my head in two.
“They are minerals that form as stalagmites. We grind them down into a fine powder and weave it into the filaments. It suppresses wielding almost entirely, while the sanguinite allows access only where we require it. Difficult to mine, but fascinating. A little painful when rubbed against the skin though.”
The pressure began to fade, leaving a residual pounding in my temples. When I blinked, the overhead light burned into my eyes.
Madden watched me. “Your kin once used it on us. They called it witchbane. These days, it is mostly reserved for prisons.”
A terrible inkling coursed through my mind. That I should have run, that I should never have come here.
My wrists were bound to the metal frame.
“Lie to me, and you’ll feel that again,” Madden threatened. “Is that clear?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to see him despite the blinding light.
Before I could brace for it, a forearm pressed against my mouth. My spine locked as numbness crept through my legs. Copper flooded my tongue, and I coughed.
His blood. It mixed with the bile burning the back of my throat.
This was what they did. They humiliated, they harmed, and given the chance, they killed.
“You’ll tell me the truth,” Madden compelled.
When I’d used my foresight with Reagan, it had been instinct. The eagle had followed a thread that smelled of him. That was all I remembered.
Now Madden’s blood stirred the eagle again. A single thread hovered over a black abyss. Others swarmed around it, none as clear as the one I followed. Leading into nothing.
Return, child, a sinewy voice whispered.
My breath whooshed out of me, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end. Something deep inside told me not to fear it. It wouldn’t harm me. Yet a single whisper of its will could annihilate everything.
It made me acutely aware of every word I spoke.
I turned in the darkness, recognising the presence even though I’d never faced it fully. There was nothing.
Return, the Chantress whispered. You do not heed him.
Please, I asked.
My breath fogged in front of me.
She wouldn’t let me divine for Reagan; his threads had been shifted. It dawned on me that she would likely refuse the same for the one who had moved them.
We could destroy him. Stop him from touching the threads again, I said in my head.
I existed in two places at once. The version in the back of my mind saw only the thread of Madden’s fate ahead. The other lay in the mansion’s room, hearing muffled sounds of the man speaking.
For the longest time, there was nothing, and I thought I would have to pretend. Then a luminous tunnel glimmered in the dark, something shining within it.
The Chantress had given me something.
When my eyes opened in the mansion, I could see both planes. I could see Madden’s gaze widening as I looked at him, my eyes likely fully white. I could see what the entity showed me.
“I see a tunnel,” I said.
A laugh echoed in my ears, and I couldn’t tell whether it was aimed at Madden or at me.