Chapter 7
SEVEN
The tranquilizer dragged me into a deep sleep that was neither peaceful nor restful.
Strange dreams filled the time, pulling at my mind until it was threadbare and tired.
One moment I was drowning in the canal, the dead faces of those delivered to the buyer staring up at me from the brackish water every time I submerged.
The next, I was yanked from that cold hell and thrown into a boat.
It was an unremarkable, simple rowboat. I didn’t recognize it from my memory, but I knew the one who pulled me from the water.
The outsider.
I wiped imagined water from my eyes, trying to catch my breath. My heart raced like I was still fighting off the dead, my skin cold all over from the damp dress clinging to my form.
His orange eyes trailed my body, inciting new shivers. “It’s alright. I have nightmares, too.”
“I don’t dream of you.” The words shook as I spoke, unable to cease a single tremble racking my bones. “How did you get in my head?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “We were interrupted earlier. I followed you back to the Gatehouse.”
“And now you’re using the dice?” My teeth chattered as he nodded. “Are you stalking me? Wasn’t I arrested?”
“Stalking is a little harsh. I’m just… watching over you. Closely.” He winked.
This was all too strange.
The Glamour Archetype was known to manipulate the mind and craft illusions. Perhaps that also extended to dreams. But how exactly had he entered my dreams?
If the police had captured me, I must be in prison. Was he there with me?
To use magic, he must have his dice. But if he had already taken them back, why was he still following me?
“I don’t have much time, Nina,” he said, leaning his forearms across his knees to look down at me. “I need to know what the hell you’re doing in this city. Why can you use my dice? And why did you kill the Governor?”
“I didn’t kill him—”
“You were caught with his dead body. You were charged with his death. Why?”
I licked my numbed lips before replying. “Because you broke my cart and then left me for the enforcers. If you wanted answers, you shouldn’t have set me up. The chase is over, Outsider.”
The side of his lips curled. “Outsider? Is that what you call me in your head?”
I thought for a moment about capsizing the little boat and taking my chances with the bodies below.
“Only because Pain In My Ass is a mouthful. Now I don’t know if you realize the trouble I’m in at the moment, but I’ll be sent to the mines by daybreak tomorrow if I don’t figure a way out of this.
So if you’re not here to help me out of the mess you got me into, then fuck off. ”
“Why are you moving bodies?”
“None of your business!”
“If you want to see the outside world again, you’ll make it my business.” His smirk returned. “You’ve been lucky our last few encounters. But if I were you, I’d stop betting your life on risky odds.” Something hard knocked the boat and tipped it, forcing me to grab the edges of the bow in reaction.
The outsider sneered. “You know it, too. I can hear your pulse dancing.”
He wanted me to fold, to give up, but there was no certainty in giving a man—this man, especially—any measure of power with my secrets. No, I kept my cards close to heart. “My life is not a game to gamble, and you have no influence in this city to be of worth to me. You’re full of shit.”
“What does worth mean to you, then?” His brows rose an inch. “The way I see it, I’m the only one in this city who can help you, so I think that increases my value. Or do you think your babbling mother will come bail you out?”
My knuckles went white, nails biting the varnish over the wooden boat.
Oh, he aimed low and hit where it hurt. I glared at him, hoping my obvious anger revealed every ounce of disdain I held for him in my heart.
Had I not been sopping wet and frozen stiff, I might have sent a fist through his perfect teeth—the only part of him that seemed to lack a scar or blemish. That piece of charm felt wrong on him.
He huffed an impatient sigh, leaning back against the hull. “Answer me one question, at least, and I promise, I’ll get you out.”
Curious, I entertained him. “What?”
His tongue darted along his lips, taking a moment before choosing his words.
“You didn’t know it was the Governor in the box, that much I could gather myself.
Still, this wasn’t the first body you’ve pushed across the city, is it?
You and your surgeon were too prepared. Too casual, riding the streets with a dead man in your cart. Are you sending them somewhere?”
I straightened on the bench. “Does it really matter to you?”
He nodded once. “It does.”
A shiver rolled down my spine. “Yes. I get paid for them.”
His eyes shifted toward something beyond the boundaries of my dreams, a long sigh collapsing his chest. “You really are my ace, Nina.”
If my business made me valuable to him, then I’d use it to get myself out of here. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Outsider.”
“You should.” He grinned. “It suits you.”
The water went still beneath the boat, some of the fog clearing. A bright light broke the haze, obliterating his illusion. His voice was a whisper, slipping in the space around us even as his lips remained sealed shut.
“The chase isn’t over, Nina.”
I woke to a liquid being forced down my throat, my nose pinched to make me swallow. My chest convulsed in reaction, and I aspirated some of the tonic, setting the rest of my chest aflame. The hands left my nose and mouth, letting me cough and sputter, while another pair held back my head.
My eyes flew open, tears blurring my focus on a copper as he shoved my head forward, now that I’d been efficiently roused and tortured at the same time.
“State your name.”
The command came from a man seated behind a massive oak desk, a dark stain aged and worn across the top.
Four arched windows made a wall behind, overlooking the canal and the gate that sealed the city’s only prison from the rest of the world.
He folded his hands neatly on top of a stack of papers.
Unfiltered moonlight glared a silver silhouette around the broad shoulders of the Commissioner, head of the Valveron police—the man who would decide my fate.
His uniform was different from that of a regular copper, though he still wore a crimson overcoat buckled tight across the chest, with a high black collar peeking out beneath it to frame his thick neck.
Leather straps held up a belt of weapons—he was still armed to the teeth despite being safe in his own office, surrounded by his own men.
The Commissioner only answered to the Governor, but he still obeyed all the laws put in place by the Architect, so he must work side by side with the Academy.
Banners hung from the rafters on either side of the room, bearing the symbol of the Architect and of his noble heart.
One side of the heart was gilded and reflected the glow of the gas lamps.
The other was colored black. Strange relic runes circled the heart.
Like the language inscribed on the outsider’s dice.
“Name,” the Commissioner repeated, glaring at me over his papers.
“Nina,” I replied. I wanted to hide my full name for as long as possible, and hopefully give Bernard time to run before they linked me to him. Surely, he had learned of my arrest. Word would have made it around the city by now.
“Full name,” he demanded.
“It’s just Nina.”
The man cursed and scribbled something on his forms, revealing a long scar disrupting his cropped hair as he bent forward.
The room was poorly lit, draping shadows across the walls where guards stood at attention.
Their blades were arranged neatly, guns strapped to their tactical vests.
They must belong to some special unit of the police, not the kind that lurked on the streets.
They wore masks below their eyes to conceal any discernible feature of their identity, aiding their air of intimidation.
I was strapped to a chair, bound by chains that were glowing a faint green.
The police never used relics or any kind of magic from the Academy, but they still had ways of dealing with bloodlines, and they covered anything that had the possibility of connecting to someone with an Archetype with a solution that inhibited magic.
“Who are you?” I dared to ask, thankful my voice didn’t tremble as I asked the simple question. My body was still shaking from the dream.
“I am Commissioner Cassien. But you, Nina, should think of me as the last man who can save you from exile.” He folded his gloved hands over his desk, thickening the wall of muscle across his shoulders.
Cassien was younger than I’d expected, being such a high rank, hardened beyond the age marking his handsome features.
His chestnut hair was cropped close, parted neatly on one side without a lock out of place.
“You want something from me?” I asked.
He nodded once. “If you agree to be cooperative, the Council will hear what you have to say, and in exchange, they may drop some of the charges against you.”
“Why would they do that?” Unease tamed any rise of hope. They had the evidence they needed—and they didn’t even need that. Not really. The police enforced the law, and the law was the word of the Council.
Cassien licked his lips, framing his words.
“Because, Nina, you made a show of yourself today in the Old City. There must have been a hundred witnesses. And if the city comes to believe that you alone killed the Governor, many will lose faith in our security. It might even encourage others to try similar atrocities.”
“You mean, if someone like me could murder a government official, then others might try their luck?”
His lips paled as they pressed into a line. “I wouldn’t call it luck, but essentially, yes. I have been tasked not only by the citizens of the city and their Governor, but by the Magister himself. He’s given me full authority over his enforcers until we figure out what is happening in Valveron.”