Chapter 17 Syneca
Syneca
To walk willingly into a cage is either the highest bravery or the most profound ignorance. The difference only becomes clear after the lock clicks shut.
I’d seen Chancellery House a thousand times.
Connected by a pristine lawn manicured by scorched workers, the Chancellery and the House shared more than just grass.
They shared a purpose. Where the office processed the mundane horror of witch registration and taxation, and tyrannical government, the House was home to the Magistrate’s special projects.
The ones that required closer observation.
Four stories of gray stone rose before us, built in the years following the last Burning when the world still smelled of ash and ambition.
Not ancient, but old enough that the mortar between stones had darkened to black.
Old enough that every surface bore runes, protection marks, binding symbols, tracking spells carved so deep most were foolish enough to believe it would survive the next Burning.
Movement in the shadows caught my eye before Silas stepped into view.
He’d kept himself small, only slightly bigger than a house cat, but his talons still clicked against stone with deliberate menace.
His blue eyes found mine, narrowed to slits, and his beak, sharp enough to punch through a skull, parted in what could only be described as a bird’s scowl.
“Still pissed then?” I muttered.
He snapped his beak once. Yes.
“An unregistered familiar.” Wickett’s voice carried that particular hunter tone, halfway between accusation and interest. “That’s a capital offense.”
I lifted a shoulder, keeping my voice light despite the way my pulse jumped. “Good thing I’m not bonded to him then.”
His eyes sharpened. “A griffin just happens to cross the House’s yard and come to your heel, and you expect me to believe—”
“He just prefers my company.” I flashed him a smile. “I’m a fucking delight.”
Silas made a sound that might have been agreement or might have been him choking on his own disgust. Hard to tell with him sometimes. Grumpy griffin and all that.
“Delightful people rarely need to announce it.”
“And hunters rarely need to state the obvious, yet here you are.”
Wickett took a step closer, and I hated how my body noticed the way he moved. “You realize lying to me about this is pointless. When we hunt, I’ll see exactly what he is to you.”
“Will you?” I tilted my head, meeting his stare. “Because from where I’m standing, you see what you expect to see. Witch equals criminal. Friendly beast equals violation. Must be exhausting, viewing the world through such a narrow lens.”
I was afraid of this. I knew the second they found out I had an unregistered familiar, I’d be locked up. But I also knew Silas would not avoid me for the last thirty days of my life. So...
Wickett’s jaw flexed. “The law—”
“Oh look! A kitty!” Pip had been studying the building, but her delighted squeal cut through our standoff as she dove toward Silas, her tiny hands already reaching for his feathers. “Such pretty black wings! And those little paws!”
“Don’t.” Wickett snapped. “Griffins are notorious biters. They’ll take a finger off without—”
But Pip was already scratching behind where Silas’s ears would be if he were actually a cat. My familiar made a low, rumbling sound in his throat that vibrated through the air like a threat.
“He’s not a biter,” Calder said dryly, appearing at my shoulder with his usual perfect timing. “He’s just particular about who touches him.”
Silas turned his head to regard Calder, then, impossibly, leaned into Pip’s touch. The little sprite gasped with delight.
“He likes me!” She spun in the air and then dropped into an elaborate curtsy that would have been at home in a royal court. “Thank you, noble Heartless One, for defending the kitty-bird’s honor!”
Pink spread across her cheeks as she held the curtsy a beat too long, and even Calder looked momentarily thrown by her theatrical gratitude.
“It’s... just a griffin,” he managed.
“A magnificent griffin,” Pip corrected, already reaching for Silas again.
The Oracle cleared her throat softly, and we all turned as she shifted away from a hunter with a clipboard, escorting us. In daylight, without the drama of prophecy and accusation, she looked younger. Fragile, almost.
“Please,” she said, gesturing toward the door with one thin hand. “We should go inside.”
Had she really been attacked, like she had told everyone in Blackbriar’s Square?
The ivy covering Chancellery House moved wrong.
Not by wind, but strangely, its tendrils reaching toward us as we approached before recoiling like a child’s guilty fingers.
One vine stretched toward Lucette, and she sidestepped without breaking stride, yanking her blonde braid from its grasp.
We all knew better than to let strange plants touch us after today.
The entrance was ironbound oak studded with more runestones. This was where they housed dangerous assets. Valuable problems. And now it would house us.
The Fury’s raven cawed once from her shoulder, head swiveling to track something none of us could see. Her fingers found its feathers, stroking in a rhythm that looked like comfort. Or warning.
“I tried to arrange more comfortable housing,” she said as we entered, her voice carrying genuine regret and a slight accent I hadn’t noticed before, lilting and lovely.
“Somewhere with windows that actually opened, perhaps with a view that wasn’t just stone and more stone.
But the Magistrate insisted you stay close by. For your protection, he said.”
The Guardian snorted behind us; the first sound I’d heard him make the entire journey over. When the Oracle tilted her head toward him, something passed between them. Not words. Something older.
“Play nicely, Riot,” the fury-born told him.
“Riot? That’s your name? That’s a nice name.” Pip flew closer to him, studying his face. “Do you live with the Oracle?”
The Guardian smiled, warm and beaming at the sprite. “When she travels, I am her companion. It’s my job to make sure all Furies, sisters or otherwise, are safe.”
“Oh,” Pip answered, her wings dropping. “It’s sad that we need that when the Furies are so special.” She zipped over to the Oracle, hovering in front of her, even though the woman couldn’t see the sprite. “You’re like a goddess. I’ve never met a goddess before.”
The Oracle laughed. “Not quite, little one.”
Inside, the building was worse. Not decrepit.
The Magistrate would never house people in what he regarded as squalor, but still the space was oppressive in its cheerlessness.
The walls were the color of old bones. Portraits lined the entrance hall, but the faces had all been burned away, every single one.
Now there were just empty frames holding shadows where people used to be.
“Former Phoenix hunters,” the hunter with the clipboard said with pride, staring down his pointy nose at me. “Their faces have been forgotten.”
I didn’t bother pointing out how shitty they’d been at their job.
Water dripped somewhere deeper in the building, each drop echoing. The ceiling was too high, disappearing into darkness the light couldn’t quite reach, and I swore I could hear scratching somewhere up there.
“Your temporary quarters are on the third floor,” the Oracle continued, leading us upstairs that groaned despite looking solid. Each step had a different rune carved into it, and they glowed faintly as we passed. “You’ll share a hallway. For convenience.”
Pip zipped ahead. “Dibs on the room with the best light!”
“They’re all the same,” the Guardian said flatly.
“Then dibs on making mine different!” She disappeared through the first door we reached, and half a second later her voice echoed back. “Oh. Oh no. This won’t do at all.”
She burst back into the hallway, hands on her tiny hips.
“It’s so... brown. And empty. And there’s not a single mirror or sparkly thing anywhere!
” Her enormous eyes found the hunter who’d been silently escorting us with a clipboard.
“Can I get some things from home? Just a few bits? My lucky charms and maybe my lamp that looks like a constellation, and definitely my collection of shiny buttons because this room needs something that doesn’t look like sadness decided to redecorate. ”
“No,” the man said without looking up from his papers.
Calder stepped forward, lowering his chin to look down on the man. “Why?”
The hunter—younger, probably newer to the ranks—shifted uncomfortably under Calder’s stare. “I... You’re only staying here until your homes are cleared. Those are the rules.”
“Whose rules?” Calder’s voice stayed soft, which somehow made it worse.
“The... the rules.” The hunter checked his clipboard as if it might save him.
“She’s asking for personal items, not weapons.” Calder moved slightly, just enough to put himself between Pip and the hunter. “What possible threat could a lamp pose?”
Pip’s wings fluttered faster, and even in the dim hallway light, I caught the way her hands went up to stroke her pointed ears.
She stared at Calder like he’d just offered to slay a dragon for her.
Which, knowing Calder’s protective streak, wasn’t entirely out of the question either, if the Guardian caused any trouble.
The hunter fumbled with his papers. “I don’t... it doesn’t say why. Just no personal items retrieved from residences.”
Lucette stepped forward, eyes deliberately scanning the paperwork. “Then who do we talk to about changing that?”
“I don’t know.” The hunter was already backing toward the stairs. “I just... I have other duties. Your rooms are assigned. That door for the witch, the Ripper across from her, the Heartless One at the end. Shifter beside him. Sprite keeps the one she claimed.” He practically ran down the stairs.
“Well,” Lucette said dryly. “He was helpful.”