Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
I wake with a cold, sinking dread. My thoughts pick up precisely where they left off before sleep claimed me.
The rune network is overloading.
That is why the anchors are exploding.
The Fade is growing more prevalent, more aggressive, touching more lives, because the magic has gone haywire. The network is taking too much.
Like most things, ancient runes require maintenance. Regular attention. Periodic calibration. Somebody rebalancing the draw so the system never takes more than it can hold.
So who has been doing it?
I would have noticed Immortals working significant magic in public; that never goes unremarked here. But smaller interventions could be hidden underground, behind government walls, disguised as structural repairs.
Whatever has been done, it has not been enough.
The question that will not leave me is what happens when two anchors fail in quick succession. Does the load redistribute through what remains, forcing the surviving anchors to absorb it?
If so, every explosion makes the next one likelier. The failures compound and accelerate, the gaps between them shrinking, until the whole network goes at once.
If we do nothing, that is exactly how this ends.
Then there is the other thought, the one I have been avoiding.
If those behind this know I am making noise—if they haven’t already decided to silence me—they may try to use me instead.
I can feel the network. I can see it when nobody else I know can. That connection is too specific to be a side effect of my magic returning, and I have stopped pretending otherwise.
Which makes me useful.
And anybody who knows I am useful becomes a way of reaching me.
The first person likely to have genuine answers is Overseer Preston.
His people were on the ground in both the Bone and Ink Districts within minutes of each explosion, before the dust had settled.
Government operatives do not race to scenes the police are already handling.
You do that for one of two reasons: to hide something, or to find out what has gone wrong with something you control.
Either way, it is too neat, and I no longer believe in coincidences.
For now, I must wait to see what Bob uncovers.
But Preston is Cáel’s official liaison, and we are sleeping in a guest house that adjoins his estate. I trust Cáel more than is probably wise. I am trying to trust my sister. Thea has given me no reason to doubt her, and I barely know her.
Do I trust any of them enough to put an entire city in their hands?
No.
I am not certain I trust myself with it either.
I sit in bed, the covers pooled around my lap, and feel the whole weight of it settle on my chest.
Fear keeps me warm.
Fear keeps me moving, because the alternative is paralysis, and paralysis means the city continues to hollow out one person at a time. Another anchor will fail beside a crowded street. People will die, and I will have known what was coming and done nothing.
I cannot live with that.
I get up.
Cáel joins Mina and me for an early run, although his pace is more measured than mine. Vivian and Thea have sourced raw food—chicken this morning—and Mina’s extra energy suggests it agrees with her.
We circle the Overseer’s estate several times before heading back.
Breakfast is simple: scrambled eggs, toast and hot drinks. Cáel, Vivian and Thea drift in one by one. I hand out plates and mugs, then sit and watch them eat while picking at my own food.
I keep my theories to myself.
Not because they would fail to understand them. Because if I am right that somebody wants to use me, then every person who knows what I can do becomes either a way of getting at me or a reason to remove them.
I have already told them too much.
I will not add to it.
Afterwards, Thea shoos me away and clears the dishes. I change into my own clothes, freshly laundered by Vivian, who says nothing about their condition, and go in search of Cáel.
We need to leave.
Mina is already waiting by the front door with her harness in her mouth, which she appears to believe is subtle.
During the drive to the lift, I tell him about the blonde interrogator. I expect she will come for me sooner or later.
I do not mention the rest: my growing certainty that the failures are cascading, the darker suspicion that the government may find my connection to the network useful, or the likelihood that my continued freedom is due only to the foreign official sitting beside me.
Without him, I would have been tidied away quietly and efficiently.
Mina stretches across the back seat without being invited. She has decided this car is acceptable.
I still lack the complete picture, but the dread remains steady and undeniable.
We are running out of time.
Once we reach the Districts, Cáel drives to my tower block and leaves his car outside. From there, we continue on foot. Walking will attract less attention and allow me to feel the network more clearly.
We spend hours crossing the city.
Mina works the whole way. She has two speeds on a job: loose and swinging when a street is empty, tight at my knee when it is not, and she changes between them before I ask. Twice she puts herself between me and a doorway I had not thought to look at.
Cáel is more inconspicuous today: no crown insignia, only combat trousers, a plain top and his warded coat. The garment still draws lingering glances. He is the sort of man people notice without quite understanding why.
I do my best to ignore the attention.
The maps would help enormously. We could see at a glance whether any anchor is beginning to fail. But carrying them down here feels wrong, and if they fell into the wrong hands everything would be compromised.
So we have left them behind, sealed in the diplomatic case, in a house that adjoins Preston’s estate.
Every instinct I own objects. I overrule it and keep walking.
While Cáel fetches tea from a corner coffee shop, I find a low wall beneath a bare-limbed tree and sit.
Mina sits down in front of me, facing outwards, and does not look round once. She has done this before. Whatever I am doing behind her is my business; the street is hers.
I slip my arm from my coat—the sleeve is too tight to push up—and raise my top enough to expose the skin.
The feather sigil is there, pink and almost invisible.
This magic is mine.
I control it.
I press two fingers against the feather and slide it gently towards my biceps. The sigil slides beneath my skin, unhurried, the way a drop of water travels down a windowpane, and compresses neatly into the curve of my upper arm, leaving a clear patch below.
I had forgotten I could do that.
Not new magic, then. An old habit resurfacing after years without magic. Our family’s sigils are living things, not tattoos fixed permanently in place.
I use my fingertip as a pencil and picture the map: roads, feeder lines, surviving anchors, the places we have searched and those still ahead of us.
Black ink unfurls behind my touch, sketching itself across the cleared skin.
Cold prickles through the muscle beneath it, followed by a dull ache as the design spreads around my arm.
The map is less detailed than the original, but it is alive.
I trace the network, searching for signs of strain.
Most of the lines remain black.
One anchor flashes silver beneath my fingertip.
The Iron District, close to the two dead sections of the network.
The light pulses again, bright and taut.
That makes sense. The surviving anchor nearest the Bone and Ink Districts must be absorbing the redirected load.
Then another answers.
One brief, tight pulse far to the north, beneath the Salt District.
I frown.
That makes no sense at all.
Mina’s ears swivel.
Footsteps approach.
I sweep my palm across the design. The temporary lines fold in upon themselves and vanish. The feather slides back into place, fading to pink until it is barely visible.
I lower my top, tuck my arm into my sleeve and settle on the wall.
Cáel arrives carrying two cups, his head tilted in silent question.
“My wrists,” I say. “Still bruised. You were right.”
It is not entirely untrue. The skin remains tender.
I hate lying to him.
He sits beside me and sets the cups between us, then offers his palm.
I shake my head.
“I’ve recovered,” he murmurs. “You won’t harm me.”
No one is watching. The day is bitter, and everyone hurries past with heads bowed against the wind. Mina leans against my leg, glaring suspiciously at anyone who comes too close.
I let him take my arm.
Warmth spreads at once.
He works on my left wrist, then the right, and the soreness dissolves beneath his hands.
“Your shoulder is badly bruised,” he says. “The tendons are stretched. May I?”
“If you’re certain you’ll be all right.”
“I’m fine.”
With my hand in his grasp, he mends the shoulder.
Relief floods through me. I had not realised how much it hurt until the pain disappeared.
“Thank you. That feels much better.”
We sit quietly for a moment. I blow across my tea, letting the steam warm my face, and glance at him.
He looks well enough.
“I want to check the anchor in the Iron District,” I say.
“It lies closest to the two failed sections. If the network is redistributing pressure, that is the obvious place for it to go next.” I wrap both hands around my cup.
“And I may have something waiting at the Bone Inn, near the first explosion. It’s worth the detour. ”
I do not mention the Salt District. I have nothing to say about it yet beyond the fact that it should not have answered at all, and I would rather understand a thing before I hand it to anybody.
Cáel nods. “Let’s walk to yours and take the car. We’ll make better time.”
Saving time matters more than staying unseen, and if I drive, at least we are making some attempt to blend in.
I agree.
He stands and offers his hand.
I take it, and he pulls me upright.
He does not let go.
We head towards my tower block, his hand still clasped around mine.
Heat rises to my cheeks. I sip my tea to occupy my other hand—and my thoughts.
I have no idea what the protocol is.
Do I pull away?
Would that be stranger?
We are partners investigating a threat to an entire city.
Yet holding his hand feels so pleasant that I do nothing at all.