“Hey, Zero,” Fitz said, trying to sound casual as he all but dangled from Daniel’s grip. “The boss home?”
There was a swishing sound, as if someone had thrown a large ball at considerable speed. And then Aristedes said, from directly behind us, “I am.”
Daniel twitched, but Butters concealed his reaction masterfully. He simply glanced over his shoulder and regarded Aristedes, who now stood in the newly doorless entryway. Butters arched an eyebrow, as if he’d seen the trick before but at least found it well-done, and turned to face Aristedes.
He gave the man a slight bow and said, “I am Warden Valdo. This is Warden Smythe.”
Daniel glowered.
“If you aren’t otherwise occupied, I wonder if we might ask for a moment of your time.”
Aristedes studied the three of them for a silent moment, his eyes narrowed. He was wearing a ragged, old dark blue bathrobe over loose cotton chinos and a tank top. The hair on his chest was thick and dark. The tattoos around his skull and over his cheekbones stood out sharply against his pale skin.
“You are from the White Council?” he asked.
Butters studied him for a moment and then sighed. “Should I start at the beginning again? Our files describe you as a minor but competent operator. Were they mistaken?”
Aristedes folded his arms, his expression a neutral mask. “I am, of course, aware of the White Council. What business do you have with me? And why are you holding my apprentice prisoner?”
I did a quick circle around Aristedes. Since I was all ghosty, he never knew I was there. He didn’t so much as get goose bumps on the back of his neck. I guessed that he was the opposite of Forthill: Being a selfcentered megalomaniac hadn’t prepared Aristedes to be sensitive to anyone’s soul at all.
“There’s a bulge under the robe at the small of his back,” I said to Fitz. “Blink twice for
Fitz shot a glance at me and blinked twice.
“A weapon?” I asked.
Two blinks.
“Gun?”
One blink.
“Knife?”
Two blinks.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s definitely a need-to-know fact. If you get a chance, or if things get violent, tell Daniel about it.”
Two more nervous blinks.
I hesitated, and then said, in a gentler voice, “Hang tough, kid. I’ve been where you are. It’s going to be okay.”
No blinks. Fitz bit his lip.
Butters, meanwhile, kept the dialogue going. “Clearly, the Council finds the recent activities of the Fomor somewhat repulsive. Just as clearly, our recently concluded war with the Red Court has left us less able to act than we would have been otherwise.”
Which, thinking about it, probably wasn’t true. The Council finished the war with the Red Court with more active, experienced, dangerous Wardens than they’d had when it started. Granted, the vast majority of them were a bunch of kids Molly’s age or younger, but they were already veterans. But I was betting that the Fomor picking on a bunch of lowlevel talents was a problem that was fairly far down their priority list.
“I’d heard the Wardens were adept at coming to the point,” Aristedes said. “Should we start again at the beginning to give you another chance to get there?”
Butters gave the sorcerer a frosty smile and a small inclination of his head. “You and your crew are still here. That suggests competence. We approve of competence.”
Aristedes tilted his head to one side and was silent for a moment. “You’ve come to discuss a relationship of some kind?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Butters replied. “I’m not a recruiter. This is a visit. A ground-level evaluation, if you will.”
I hated to leave the three of them standing in front of Aristedes and his knife, with nothing but Butters’s gaming accent and a few yards of grey cloth to protect them, but we hadn’t come here to face down Aristedes. We were here for Forthill. The hasty plan I’d sketched with Butters called for me to locate the father while they kept Aristedes’ attention.
Besides, those cloaks represented something that Aristedes would respect, if he had two brain cells to rub together. The Wardens of the White Council had never been regarded as friendly figures like your local traffic cop. People feared them—probably all the more so since the war with the Red Court. The Wardens were the guys who gave you one warning, way before you were anywhere close to crossing the line by breaking one of the Laws of Magic. The next time you saw them, they were probably there to cut off your head.
Whether they were more respected or more feared depended greatly on one’s point of view, but no one ever, ever took them lightly.
It felt right somehow that Butters was trading on their fearsome reputation. Maybe it felt right because that reputation was, like me, immaterial—but not unable to alter events. The ghost of the Wardens’ ferocity could do as much as I could to keep an eye on my companions. So I wished them luck within the silence of my thoughts and set out to accomplish my part of the plan.
I vanished and reappeared at ceiling level, being careful to stay out of any direct sunlight as it streamed through a few small windows high up on the walls. The ceiling wasn’t all that high compared to the area of the factory floor, and it took me several tries before I recognized the location of the gang’s camp in all that abandoned space. I willed myself over to it and found Forthill.
The priest was lying very still on the floor, curled into a half circle. I couldn’t see if he was breathing, and I couldn’t touch him to check for a pulse. I grimaced and knelt to thrust my hand into the matter of one of his feet. I felt the sharp, odd sensation of contact with living flesh, like when I’d touched both Morty and my apprentice, and not the sharp tingling of contact with something solid but inert. He was alive. It felt like my own heart had stopped beating and then lurched into gear again.
I studied him for a moment, trying to assess what had happened to him. There was blood coming from several cuts around his face, where his thin, elderly skin had broken open under a sharp blow—across his cheekbones, his brow ridges, and on his chin. His lip had been split and was swelling. He’d taken a beating from someone’s fists—or possibly from open-handed slaps delivered with supernatural speed.
That felt right. The old priest, a living, breathing symbol of everything Aristedes resented, must have shown up to talk. No matter how polite the father had been, his simple presence would have been challenge enough to the ego of anyone like the sorcerer. Challenges could be answered only with violence, and the slaps he delivered would have been both painful and insulting.
Forthill’s left arm was pressed against his ribs. He’d fallen and curled up around his midsection. The sorcerer must have given him some body blows as well. Broken ribs, maybe, or worse. Everything about trauma was worse when it happened to the elderly—thinner skin, less muscle, less bone, worn organs. They were vulnerable.
I ground my teeth and looked around the camp. Aristedes had left a guard to watch Forthill. He was a boy, and he might have been a very scrawny and underfed ten-year-old, at most. He sat near the fire barrel, shivering, holding a rusted old steak knife. His eyes roamed everywhere, but he wouldn’t look at the priest’s still form.
Forthill suddenly shuddered and let out a soft moan before sinking into stillness again.
The little boy with the knife looked away, his eyes suddenly wet. He wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth. I wasn’t sure which sight hurt more.
I clenched my jaw. What animal would do this to an old man? To a
“It is better not to let such thoughts occupy your mind,” said a very calm, very soothing voice.
I spun to face the speaker, the words of a spell on my tongue, ghostly power kindling in the palm of my right hand.
A young woman stood over Forthill, opposite me, in a shaft of sunlight that spilled in through a hole in a blacked-out window. She was dressed in a black suit, a black shirt, a black tie. Her skin was dark—not like someone of African ancestry, but like someone had dunked her in a vat of perfectly black ink. The sclera, the whites of her
