Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
I open the car door.
Cáel sits in the back, thoroughly spent. His complexion is tinged with grey—the look of a man who has used far too much healing magic in far too little time.
His clothes are still rumpled and streaked with dust from the square, and the hand he raises towards me trembles slightly.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” he replies.
I slide in beside him and, before I can think better of it, lean over and kiss his cheek. His skin is rough with new stubble, cooler than usual, and he still smells annoyingly good beneath the dust.
I buckle my seat belt before he can react. “Where’s Mina?”
“With your sister.” He tilts his head and touches the place I kissed. “What was that for?”
“Thank you. For getting me out. And an apology.” I glance down at my hands. “I’m sorry if I worried you.”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“No, but I rattled a few cages. There was a blonde woman in there ready to murder me. I expect she’ll track me down eventually.” I settle against the seat. “I may need to stay at my government apartment for the next few days. Better she finds the address in my file than the place I actually live.”
“Oh, brilliant.”
“You look exhausted. Have you eaten?”
“No.”
I rummage through the car’s miniature fridge and find a small bottle of orange juice. “Sugar. You need it.”
He nods. “Please.”
I twist the top and hand it over. He drains it in two large swallows.
“More?”
“I’ll manage until we’re back.” He raises one hand, palm towards me. “May I check you for injuries?”
“No. You’ve already overexerted yourself today.”
“You’re sore.”
“They pulled me around a little. I’m fine.”
“Your wrists are red. They’ll bruise.”
“I’ll be fine, Cáel. I promise.”
If all I leave with is a sore shoulder and red wrists, I consider the day a success.
He grunts and twists the empty bottle between his hands, but lets the matter drop.
The drive is short. Nothing in the Zone is far away.
Outside my sister’s rental house, Cáel thanks the driver and slips him several folded notes.
We use the side entrance. I have taken only two steps into the utility room before Vivian crushes me in a hug, then lands a sharp swat between my shoulders. “What were you thinking?”
“I’m fine. Honestly.” I ease out of her grip. “Cáel has a cut on the back of his neck. Could someone fetch the first-aid kit?”
She glances at him, spots the cut and vanishes upstairs. “Thea! Medical kit. Cáel’s hurt, and nobody bothered to mention it.”
“On it!” Thea calls.
Mina lies in the kitchen, guarding the empty table on the sensible principle that food sometimes appears there.
I scowl at her.
She yawns, entirely unimpressed by my recent arrest.
“Thanks, pup,” I mutter, scratching behind her ears.
“You’re staying here tonight,” Vivian says as she re-enters.
I cannot stay. I have things to do. Immortals to catch.
I will argue once Cáel is no longer at risk of infection and has eaten something.
Thea steers him into a chair and lays out her supplies. “This will sting,” she warns.
“I’ll live,” he replies.
She mutters something I do not catch.
While Thea cleans the wound, Cáel watches me. I smile. He does not look away, and my foolish, soft heart stumbles when he smiles back.
Once the cut is dressed, he lifts the familiar slim black diplomatic case onto the table. A touch of his finger makes the clasp flare purple and release with a quiet click. “Something has happened to the map,” he says, his voice tight.
“The case began smoking at the exact moment the building came down,” Vivian explains.
“Pardon?”
Cáel pulls out the first drawing—the official square and its anchor rune.
The lines of the anchor have curled inwards and burned away, leaving a black-edged blank at the centre of the square. The feeder lines that once ran towards my government apartment now stop abruptly at the scar.
“That’s odd,” Vivian murmurs over my shoulder.
“I have a theory.” Thea retrieves the secured Velmoran device and hands it to Cáel.
He enters the encryption code and opens the corresponding photograph from yesterday.
On the screen, the anchor remains intact.
“The copy is only a record,” I say. “The original is connected.”
“You said you felt connected to the rune magic.” Cáel taps the untouched edge of the sheet. “This is proof. It appears we have a live guide.”
He reaches into the case again. “And there’s more.”
More?
It seems I have created an interactive rune treasure map, one I would prefer to put away until I understand what it might do next.
He produces the Bone District page. Near the old storage site, the network bends around a small, black-edged void.
“This was already missing when you drew it,” he says. “We thought the graphite had smudged.”
“Huh.” I lean closer. “Interesting.” I study the broken lines.
The first anchor was gone before I ever understood what I was seeing. The Bone District explosion, the day we met.
I look to Cáel for insight, but his navy eyes meet mine blankly.
“You’re the Governor for Education and Magical Welfare.” I gesture towards the maps. “Surely you have something useful. What is going on?”
“I have nothing,” he admits, gazing at the pages. “I’ve never seen magic like this. At home, I could consult the archives, but the references available here are limited.”
“Right.”
My body wants to pace, but I force myself to remain still.
The edges of something unravel inside me. I can cope with hostility, puzzles and knife-wielding strangers. This magic—threading through and ahead of me—makes me unsteady.
Unsteady is not something I can afford.
My drawings updated themselves inside a locked case while I sat in a government interrogation room, and I have no idea what else they can do.
I watch Cáel return the maps to the diplomatic case. The clasp glows purple and seals.
I rub my temple.
I need to go home. To think. To plan. To confront the Overseer about what he has done.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Vivian correctly interprets the glance I send towards the door. She folds her arms. Her expression is so like Mother’s that it is deeply unsettling.
“Vivian—”
“Don’t ‘Vivian’ me.” She points at me. “You got yourself arrested.” The accusing finger shifts towards Cáel.
“He rescued you and risked his neck.” Then back to me.
“You were released into Velmoran diplomatic custody. Until this ‘attacking government security’ nonsense is resolved, the two of you are legally stuck together. You wouldn’t want to get him into trouble, would you? ”
I shake my head.
“No. I didn’t think so. Wash up. You’re both still covered in dust. I’ll cook. Spaghetti bolognese.”
“I don’t eat meat.”
“Since when? I watched you eat bacon.”
She is right.
I ate it at breakfast.
I hesitate. “Habit. The meat in the Districts makes me ill. I stopped eating it. Mina ate the bacon first and showed no reaction, so it seemed safe.”
I pause. “My idea of scientific rigour.”
Thea’s head snaps up. “Makes you ill how?”
“Dizziness. Stomach ache. A heavy, hungover feeling. The water doesn’t help either. It runs brown and never clears. The vegetables are poor quality, but they don’t affect me the way the meat does.”
I nod towards Mina. “She won’t touch it at all.”
Everyone looks at my dog, who continues guarding the kitchen table with solemn dedication.
“So what do you feed her?” Thea asks.
“Imported food.”
“You import dog food?” Vivian blinks. “That must cost a fortune.”
I say nothing.
“No wonder you have nothing to wear,” she mutters. “Importing dog food. She’s adorable, but, Elmo, that’s quite mad.”
She can think what she likes.
It keeps Mina healthy and me sane. I am not explaining further.
“Could you bring me samples?” Thea asks. She fetches a case from the hall, counts a dozen sealed pots into a paper bag and hands it to me. “I never unpack the field kit. Different foods from the Districts. I’ll run tests.”
“I can bring some the next time I’m down.”
“If you could take samples from each District—”
I give her a look.
“The Ink District will do,” she amends quickly.
“Humour me. Water from your tap and whatever you normally eat. I want to know what the Districts have been feeding you. That’s enough to begin.
I can send the sealed samples through Cáel’s diplomatic courier.
My laboratory will have the results within days.
” She makes a note on her device. “I’ll find out what’s in the food. ”
A case that locks itself with magic. Encrypted channels. A courier who can carry sealed samples across a border and have them tested within days.
For a man who came here to collect one bounty hunter, he travels with a great deal of apparatus.
It is fortunate for me that he does.
“Thank you,” I say, aware that I sound grumpy but unwilling to be ungrateful.
She is trying to help.
I consider the arrangement Vivian has imposed: staying close to Cáel until this is resolved.
Of all the people to be tethered to, he is no hardship, though I would sooner lose my fingernails than admit it.
“I’ll help with the cooking,” I tell Vivian, my conscience pricked by the bacon incident.
“Go and wash. Just looking at the pair of you makes me itch. There are some clean clothes on the bed for you both.” She waves us upstairs.
Later, at dinner, I may or may not slip Mina a little mince beneath the table. When she licks my fingers clean without hesitation, I know the meat is safe.
Habits die hard.
I should not spoil her, but that is a problem for another day.
I make sure Cáel receives the largest portion. He raises an eyebrow but eats without argument. By the time he finishes, colour has returned to his cheeks and the tremor in his hands has eased.
After dinner, Cáel hands me a terminal.
I stare at it like someone who has never seen one, which, in truth, is almost the case.
I am not a technophobe. Given the opportunity, I would probably have taken to it naturally. That opportunity never came, and now I am holding something I do not know how to operate.
Cáel tilts his head. “You don’t know how to use it,” he says gently, without the slightest edge of mockery.
“No idea,” I admit. “Technology doesn’t exist in the Districts. Not for people like me. The most advanced thing I manage is resetting the clock on my car dashboard, and that car is nearly thirty years old.”
It does the job. The seat belts work. The windows go down, provided I hold my elbow at an awkward angle.
That is enough.
I say none of this.
I merely smile sheepishly and hand the terminal back.
Rather than giving up, Cáel pulls his chair closer, opens the machine and switches it on. His fingers move over the keys with quiet confidence.
He connects through secure Velmoran diplomatic channels before he starts the search, so our questions remain hidden from Elyrion’s systems.
The pages load far more quickly than I remember. As he searches through theories and references, he talks me through his findings.
Public sources discuss isolated runes and ancient bloodline magic, but nothing mentions anything resembling a citywide living rune network.
I listen.
At least, I try to listen. Good food and the day’s exhaustion weigh more heavily than I expect. Somewhere between one explanation and the next, I fall asleep.
I wake with my face pressed against the wooden dining table and a blanket tucked around my shoulders.
“Hi,” Cáel murmurs.
“Hi,” I croak.
“Come on. Bed. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”
“I know,” I grumble. I haul myself upstairs, Mina trailing behind me, both of us yawning.
She curls up on the floor. I do not bother to change. Still dressed in the sweatshirt and jogging bottoms I put on after my shower, I burrow beneath the covers.
Somewhere below me, inside a locked case, a sheet of paper is waiting to change again without being asked.
Which anchor will explode next?
I am asleep before the thought finishes forming.