Queen of faces, p.5
Queen of Faces, page 5
But they would come at a price.
The pool of blood grew beneath me. The black letter floated on the surface, like a leaf on a river. ‘You want me to kill people.’
Carriwitch stared at me. ‘Tell me what you know,’ he said, ‘about Khaiovhe.’
I flinched. A bitter wind howled across the bridge, and the night sky seemed to blacken.
‘A dark witch.’ I swallowed. ‘The worst dark witch in history. She graduated from Paragon and joined the Eldritch Guard during the war against Shenten.’ My mother’s homeland. Back when magic had been secret from the Humdrums.
The headmaster nodded. ‘And then?’
‘She—’ Pain twisted through my belly. ‘She went mad fighting the Shenti. The radio said—’ My voice lowered to a whisper. ‘The radio said bamboo forests burned like matchsticks, that the sky turned red for a month. That mountains covered in snow turned black and dead as charcoal.’
My mother had immigrated to Caimor years before, but many of her friends back home had not escaped the inferno. And in the witch’s slaughter, she’d exposed the hidden world of magic to the Humdrums. A brutal first impression.
‘The Guard sent Tybalt Ebbridge after her,’ I said. Her old professor at Paragon, leading dozens of mages. I choked. ‘She sent their ashes back in a flour sack.’
Carriwitch’s face darkened. ‘And after?’
A familiar chill racked my body, and I shook away the memories darkening my mind. ‘She flew back to Caimor, far across the oceans. And she blew up a dam. Almost drowned a whole village in the south. And she took her own life in the process.’
‘Yes.’ Carriwitch twirled his beard. ‘She blew herself up. That’s the story we told, isn’t it?’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’m terribly sorry, but we lied.’
My chest jolted. ‘What?’
‘The Black Wraith is very much alive. When she killed Professor Ebbridge and blew up that dam, the explosion did not kill her. In the aftermath, she vanished.’
I stared at him. ‘You lied?’
‘The public was in quite the tizzy, learning that witches and wizards were living among them, wiping their memories and living in secret castles. Paragon was enduring its own sort of panic. If they’d all learned Khaiovhe was still out there, well.’ He shrugged. ‘Chaos. Besides, the Shenti were continuing to invade. We still had a war to win.’
‘Why did she do it?’ I said. ‘Why that dam? Why that village?’ I swallowed. ‘Why make herself vanish?’
‘An excellent question,’ said Carriwitch. ‘One that our brightest intellects have failed to answer.’
Blood soaked my clothes, trickling into the puddle at my feet. ‘And what does a living nightmare have to do with me?’
‘You, dear Ana,’ he said, ‘are going to hunt her for me.’
‘Hunt her?’
‘The Black Wraith has cloaked herself. Gathered her strength in shadowed corners as the water rose. We’ve never caught more than a whisper of her presence. A dark hair out of place, a black ember burning in some quiet corner of the country. Until now. As rumour has it, she’s put herself in charge of Commonplace.’
Commonplace. Clementine’s new employers. A violent coalition of angry Humdrums and illegal mages who’d failed the entrance exam. A self-styled revolution, demanding that Paragon disband and share its magic with all.
‘What does she want with a terrorist group?’
Carriwitch stared at me. ‘Last night, a group of Humdrums attacked a girl your age. She’d been waving her acceptance letter all over her neighbourhood.’ His half-smile faltered. ‘They shot her in the chest, then mobbed her with baseball bats.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
Anger flashed in the calm blue pools of his eyes. ‘The Humdrums are not fond of us. Nor are the mages we’ve rejected from Paragon. Mages we’ve locked out of our world.’
Mages like me.
‘Given the chance, I daresay they’d flay us all, burn down our pretty school.’ He sighed. ‘In my day, we would have just wiped their memories and moved on. But they know things now. The kinder doors are closed to us.’ Carriwitch gazed out towards the ocean. ‘The old kings are gone. Their wisdom, the wisdom of the Star Prophets, is all but lost. Caimor’s parliament is ruled by primped-up bureaucrats. Khaiovhe plots revolt. And,’ he said, ‘the water is rising.’
Dark waves crashed against the bridge beneath us. The tide had risen.
‘Wh-why me?’ I gripped the wooden slat beneath me. ‘I know only one spell. My Codex. You have the Eldritch Guard.’ The entire magical law enforcement of Caimor. Law enforcement and military.
‘Had the Eldritch Guard. I haven’t been chief for nearly a decade.’ His face seemed to grow older, sagging before my eyes. ‘Khaiovhe’s massacre was my failure, you see. She was my pupil as well as Ebbridge’s. My soldier under my command. I’m only still headmaster thanks to my connections. But I am a hundred and forty. In a few years, my Pith will decay from old age, and it won’t matter how young my body is. When I pass, my legacy will be in that flour bag. A fetid pile of ashes, drifting away on the wind. I’d rather it was something else.’
I pressed a hand over my torn belly. Talking made the pain spike. ‘You really think I can find her? Kill her?’
‘I think you can help,’ he said. ‘Denis Sutcliffe, my replacement in the Guard, is trying, bless him, but with every passing day, parliament ties his hands with more rules. There are laws he can’t break. Lines he can’t cross. You can.’
I swallowed.
‘Pick the right locks in Commonplace. Snuff the right flames, and the Black Wraith will reveal herself. When that time comes, you will assist me in removing her.’
‘Snuff the right flames.’ It didn’t take a genius to guess that metaphor.
‘Indeed, I ask much of you,’ he said. ‘But you can’t eat steak without a knife, and you can’t run a country without violence.’
‘And I’m your hero.’ I chuckled weakly. ‘Over the thousand desperate geniuses you could recruit.’
‘I have seen millions of geniuses fail the entrance exam,’ said Carriwitch. ‘But none quite so spectacularly as you.’ He smiled. ‘You are my hero, Anabelle Gage. You just haven’t realised it yet.’
A wave of dizziness crashed into me, turning my thoughts to mush. Relax, my mind told me. Dissolve. It would be so much easier to fade away, to let go and allow the sea to take me.
Carriwitch waved a blurry hand in my face. ‘Ana. Ana?’ My eyes snapped open. ‘To me, it appears you have two choices. You can die, and your last words can be whimpering self-pity. Or you can take the envelope.’
A cool summer breeze blew against my skin. I took one ragged breath, then another.
‘See yourself as a caterpillar. Imagine your future as a butterfly.’
I chuckled, and the pain spiked. ‘You know, my mother used to say that cliché all the time.’ When I was in the hospital. ‘It’s funny, because most caterpillars die in the cocoon. They’re eaten by ants or birds or reptiles. Wasps will lay their eggs inside them and sprout out. They’re not inspiring; they’re victims.’
Carriwitch fell silent.
I gazed at my old Edgar chassis. The broken taste buds and grey skin I’d dreamed of leaving for almost a decade. It lay on the rusted train tracks, its withered hair cut short by Clementine’s knife. It was a boy’s body, designed for a boy. And it was dying. A grey cage, getting smaller every day.
I stared at the black letter, floating on a pool of my blood. If Carriwitch betrayed me, I was dead. And if next summer came and I didn’t have a new body, this Edgar would kill me anyway, slowly and painfully.
Drifting away would be simpler. Cleaner. Like falling asleep and floating down a river.
‘If I may,’ said Carriwitch. ‘I have one more question. With only one answer, if you choose life.’ His eyes lit up with a manic fire. ‘No matter how bad it gets, do you think your soul is worth fighting for?’
I wiped away my tears. I’m going to taste that pomegranate cider, I promised myself. I’m going to taste it with a friend.
My eyes glanced down, taking one final look at my perfect, broken physique.
Then I pressed a hand against the dying boy’s forehead, and reached back into the cage.
at the crack of dawn, I would begin the deadliest challenge of my life. A battle with no holds barred, a final exam against an enemy who had bested me at every turn. If I failed, my family would cut me out like a tumour. My school would expel me, and I would never see my fiancé again. Everything hinged on this one singular test.
So, naturally, I didn’t start studying until the night before.
I had made promises to myself, reminded myself of the consequences if I failed. A low hum of panic had kept me awake for days.
It didn’t matter. The longer I waited to start, the more impossible the task appeared, and the more I had to distract myself. Until, at the last moment, my mind snapped into wild focus.
In this way, I had passed essays, tests and tactical slugfests designed to confound geniuses. I had managed the bare minimum for my mother, my professors and my fiancé’s family.
Until now.
I awakened to the stench of smoke. An electric shock ran through my body, and my limbs jerked, splashing water all over my bed.
No, not my bed. I was drifting on our estate’s swimming pool, far at the edge of our gardens. The surface had hardened beneath me with magic, and a carpet of waterlogged spellbooks surrounded me. The detritus of last night’s study binge.
My pool hung off a cliff at the edge of Hightown, near the peak of Mount Elwar. I’d drifted to the far end, my hand clutching the filigree iron rim, with a twelve-storey drop stretching below me. Smoke rose from the streets of Lowtown, the squat houses and crooked gables at the putrid bottom of the capital.
It wasn’t just the usual smog from the steelworks and textile mills. One of the blocks was on fire, a cluster of orange blots among the ocean of grey. Another Commonplace riot. Further east, Elmidde’s Home Fleet guarded the harbour, stationed at the capital during the civil unrest. My mother’s warships, cold and hard and perfect, just like her.
‘Good morning, dear!’ Samuel crouched before me, his dark sandals making ripples on the water. His left hand was hovering over the pool, and electricity crackled around his fingers.
He shocked me, I thought, more irritated than angry.
‘Are you feeling roused?’ he said. ‘Or would you like another wake-up call?’
‘Good morning, pumpkin,’ I groaned, massaging my temples. My sleep this morning had amounted to minutes, not hours. ‘An alarm clock would have sufficed.’
Samuel leaned down and picked me up. I breathed in the smell of his spotless dress shirt. Oak and tea leaves. Perfection.
Then he pulled me close and whispered three of my favourite words in the Common Tongue. ‘I fetched breakfast.’
I leapt out of his arms and kissed him, my exhaustion melting away on his lips, his warmth, the feel of my hands on his hair. ‘Why ever didn’t you lead with that?’ I flicked his cheek. ‘Moron.’
Samuel floated a cooler between us. I opened it like a treasure chest, and my heart soared. ‘Oysters,’ I breathed. Oysters filled the cooler, buried in a sea of ice like gemstones. I stuffed my hand in and poured one down my throat. Briny and smooth, with hints of sweet melon. ‘You’re a visionary.’ I kissed him again, ten times as hard.
When we broke off, my gaze flitted down, past his dark blond hair and sharp jaw, to his spotless sandals. Two of his toes were missing on his right foot.
‘That bad?’ I said.
‘That bad.’
I ground my teeth. A week ago, we’d been patrolling Lowtown, a regular element of our Paragon training. An alert had barked through the police radio, and things had gone utterly topsy-turvy. Some unhinged thief had shot Samuel in the leg, after tricking him into chopping off my hand. We’d both got fresh bodies, but the bullet had clipped his femoral artery, and he’d bled a small lake before the medics had found us. Paragon always had replacements on hand for their students, and thanks to our two families’ extravagant coffers, we’d managed to get identical replicas of our old ones.
Still, the damage had already been done. Samuel’s blood loss had caused brain damage before the medics swapped him, disrupting his Pith. Even in his new chassis, two of his toes were permanently missing. Too much damage to your Pith and your limbs could crumble away like burnt paper.
‘That girl is lucky Carriwitch finished her off,’ I said. ‘I would have made a carnival of it. The works.’
‘I know, pumpkin,’ he said. ‘I know.’ He bit his lip, the way he always did when he was stressed. ‘You’re late.’
‘You worry too much. They won’t start the duel until I get there.’
‘They’ll start when your mother feels like it,’ said Samuel. ‘And your mother’s feeling rather peeved.’ Samuel gazed round the cluttered pool. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’
Memories crept back to me. Last night, my Paragon dormitory had begun to feel stuffy, a luxurious cage of pine and velvet. The library had closed, and I’d needed somewhere private to study. So, at the witching hour, I’d ventured off campus to the sweeping marble and gilded rooms of my family’s mansion in Hightown. I could’ve studied inside, but I had foul memories tied to these halls. Over the years, my tutors had screamed at me in nearly every room, telling me to pay attention, listen, sit still. And when they fell silent, my mother had stepped in.
The interior wasn’t an option. So, I’d hiked through the gardens and into the pool. I must have drifted off in the throes of my cramming.
I shrugged at Samuel. ‘I wanted to cool my head.’
‘And did you?’
‘Not remotely,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
We walked back up the hill as I gulped down the rest of the oysters. ‘How do I look? I just slept in a puddle.’
‘You look like my ravishing, radiant wife-to-be.’
I beamed.
‘Who just slept in a puddle.’
I glanced at a storefront reflection. My long blonde hair hung in matted clumps. Mud stained my cardigan and skirt. On good days, this chassis looked like a porcelain doll, all pale skin and high cheekbones. Right now, it looked like a doll fished out of a sewer.
The two of us walked towards the peak, past racing sedans and bike couriers. Samuel handed me a bar of soap and a tube of toothpaste. ‘Unless you want to knock her out with your seafood breath.’
‘These are Tenshi oysters,’ I scoffed. ‘You wish you smelled this good.’ But I took the offered gifts.
As we walked, I extended my Pith into the cooler ice and melted it with magic. Then I ran the water over the soap. I lifted a finger, and the lather washed over me, cleaning my clothes, showering as I walked. A simple spell, one I used most mornings.
‘I can’t believe I agreed to marry you,’ said Samuel, shaking his head and smiling.
‘Technically,’ I said, ‘your mother agreed with my mother. You’re just lucky you’re as rich as I am.’
The toothpaste scrubbed itself over my teeth. When I finished, I smoothed my pale cardigan and froze the water into a mirror. In the reflection, I looked sparkling clean.
Most kids at Paragon would call my face a great beauty, lithe and feminine and perfect. I thought it looked hideous, and had said as much to my mother at the chassis store. But she’d insisted.
‘I can’t believe she’s doing this to you,’ said Samuel. We hopped on to a passing tram headed up the mountain. ‘You passed all your classes this term, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I studied two weeks for that physics final. You showed up twenty minutes late and aced it. You got a better score than Adam Weaver.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But last week, my mother found out that Aniros Olwen wrote all my papers.’
‘Olwen?’ Samuel raised an eyebrow. ‘Why?’
‘He has a drinking problem,’ I said. ‘And he doesn’t want his parents to find out.’
Samuel glared at me. ‘You’re smart. You don’t have to cheat.’
I shrugged. In truth, I’d tried my utmost to get honest grades this summer, and in maths and science, it had been easy. But for the rest, my textbooks had been thick as tree trunks, and dull as rocks. Whenever I opened one of them, my thoughts would melt into soup and my eyes would burn. Halfway through every lecture, my focus would slip, my hands would fidget and my thoughts would drift to more stimulating subjects.
No matter how hard I tried, some electric core of my Pith rebelled at all stillness. And this body didn’t help, a perpetual itch that never went away. My hand had been forced, and I’d had to get creative.
Still, it wasn’t enough. Case in point.
The tram slid through the forest above Hightown, light spilling through the bright green canopy high above. We reached the top of Mount Elwar, jumped off and descended the slope of a crater, winding down a rocky path towards the shore.
Before us, fog bathed a lake coated with rust-coloured leaves. We strode across, our footsteps rippling the surface. The mist seemed to extend into the water itself, obscuring the depths below with thick grey clouds.
Before long, the Everautumn emerged from the haze, a massive tree with red and brown leaves stretching five storeys out of the water. No matter the season, this plant was always in fall. Continually shedding its body, as it had for thousands of years. According to legend, its roots stretched far beneath the mountain, all the way to the burning heart of the world.
A tall blonde woman stood by a carved doorway in the trunk, her eyes cold.
‘I’ll meet you up top,’ I said to Samuel, giving him a farewell kiss.
‘Before you go.’ He handed me my wingsuit. ‘You left it in your room.’
‘What would I do without you?’
‘You would die.’ His voice hardened. ‘So don’t lose.’
He jogged up a spiral staircase woven into the tree, and I approached the blonde woman at the base. Admiral Rowyna Ebbridge. High Strategist of the Eldritch Guard. Commander of Caimor’s Home Fleet, hero of the Shenti War, and military adviser to the prime minister. Killer of mirth and ruiner of birthdays.
