“Like when she betrayed us?” said Shelley.
I shook my head. “I know you don’t like Tay. I don’t trust her either. But if she’s found guilty, she dies, and the real killer gets away with it. Besides, someone smuggled that cantrip into jail in order to commit murder, and I’d like to know who was responsible. And where they got it.”
Tay’s own magic had been cut off and she’d been thoroughly searched when they’d taken her in, which meant there was another party involved in this, and they’d got the cantrip from somewhere outside of the jail. Somewhere which traded in reusable cantrips marked with the Family’s seal.
“I’ll check with our supplier,” said Miles. “He might know where the latest reusable cantrips in the city are coming from.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Um—any word on Shawn? I know he isn’t locked up in one of the Houses, but I didn’t hear where he ended up.”
“The vampires in Arcadia imprisoned him,” he said. “Lord Blackbourne saw to it.”
“Oh yeah, you’re allies.” A detail I’d forgotten, considering everything else that’d happened lately.
“Yes, we are, though Lord Blackbourne makes no secret of the fact that he prefers not to get involved in human affairs,” he said. “It would be nice to know he has our back.”
“Especially if the Houses keep sending people to search the place,” I added. “You’d think they’d have more important things to worry about.”
Like the murder, the Family… and the rogue spirit mages scheming behind the scenes. I knew they couldn’t all be dead or jailed like Shawn was.
“Like your brother?” said Shelley. “If he has mind-control powers, what’s to stop him from walking out of there?”
Precisely what worries me. I had zero desire to see him again, but I might have to, if the Death King agreed to take on custody of the House of Fire’s prisoner in exchange for their help.
“What’s to stop him?” I echoed. “The Death King, I hope. Anyway, I need to report to him before he thinks the House of Fire locked me in a cell.”
“Good call,” said Miles. “I might drop by the castle later. The Death King asked us to look around the citadels to see if we can figure out if Shawn and his friends left clues behind about how they turned on the spirit mages’ old technology. We haven’t yet, but we’re keeping an eye out in case Shawn’s allies decide to come back.”
“I hope not.” Dealing with my brother again would be bad enough, but I couldn’t delay any longer. It was time to head back to the Death King and see what he thought of taking custody of a new prisoner.
4
I walked back to the Court of the Dead alone, this time watching my back in case Harris tailed me again. Luckily, it seemed he’d gone straight back to the House of Fire after searching the Spirit Agents’ place, because I reached the castle without encountering anyone. I hardly believed he’d had the nerve to march into Miles’s home, but a depressing number of guards who worked for the Houses were all too keen to use their authority to make trouble for people. Especially non-House mages.
I found the other Elemental Soldiers gathered in the break room. When I walked in, Cal, the Earth Element, gave me a dismissive look and returned to playing video games on the console hooked up to a flat-screen TV against the wall. Felicity, the Water Element, gave me a smile, but that was somewhat overshadowed, literally, by the lich lurking next to their group. It wasn’t unusual to see liches everywhere in the castle, but the way that particular lich kept glaring at me was so personal that I wondered if I’d accidentally said something to offend them at some point.
“Is the Death King around?” I asked Ryan, the Air Element, trying to ignore their hostile companion.
“Not at the moment,” they said. “Where have you been?”
“Talking to the House of Fire,” I said. “I have an update I think he’ll want to hear.”
Ryan rose to their feet. “All right. If you’re that certain you want to disturb him.”
They accompanied me to the main hall. The Death King was nowhere to be seen, but Dex zoomed over to me when I entered.
“Hey, there,” Dex said. “What’s up?”
“Seen the Death King?”
“He’s through there.” He pointed to the door to the storeroom off the main hall, which I knew contained the Death King’s personal cantrip collection. I wouldn’t have thought he needed to use cantrips, considering his lich powers, but Ryan headed that way, pushing open the door.
Sure enough, the tall figure of the Death King stood within the room, for all the world like he’d been eavesdropping from the other side of the door.
“Bria,” he said to me. “Have you come with an update from the House of Fire?”
As I told him about the day’s events, he crossed the hall to the dais and took up his usual position, while Ryan retreated from the hall, leaving the two of us alone.
“So the House of Fire has lost their head jailor,” said the Death King. “Unfortunate.”
He sounded as indifferent as I did. I couldn’t believe I’d ever wondered if he’d secretly had an alliance with the Houses, because they seemed to be his lowest priority.
“The House of Fire’s guards think Tay committed the murder,” I added. “She was out of her cell at the time, and she won’t say what she was doing.”
“What do you think?” His tone was neutral, but he knew Tay and I had been friends. It was hard to keep anything from the King of the Dead.
“I don’t think that’s all there is to it,” I told him. “For one thing, Adair is imprisoned in the same place as Tay is, and he has the ability to use mind control to influence people into doing his bidding. For another, if Tay actually committed
