“Haven’t a clue,” I said. “I eavesdropped on those mages, but they didn’t give it away. They did say it wasn’t the COS who’re carving them because they’re being watched closely, so it might not be taking place in Arcadia. Hell, the operation might well be in Elysium for all we know. Somewhere underground.” Literally, considering the earth mages’ penchant for moving around under the city.
I heard shouting from the direction of Liv’s house and tensed, then relaxed as then Dex flew past us. “There’s a node this way. Come on. I don’t think Devon is going to let you back in her house.”
“Figures,” I said. “What’re they shouting at?”
“Dice.”
“Right,” I said, as if that made any sense to me whatsoever.
“What about us?” said Shelley. “I know the earth mages didn’t recognise us, but our base is way too close to the Houses for my liking.”
“The Houses already know where we live,” Miles reminded her. “We’ll be okay. We can use the node from the Death King’s territory to hop back to Elysium. That way we won’t have to spend too long outside of our base.”
Unless the earth mages decide to tunnel up through the floor. I didn’t think they had seen Miles or Shelley, so they shouldn’t target the Spirit Agents, but the Family was up to its old tricks, all right. That they were recruiting mages from within the Houses didn’t come as a big surprise, but the fact that the House of Fire still refused to believe a word I said annoyed the shit out of me. I hoped the blast might have shocked some sense into them, but there was a depressingly high chance of the blame landing on yours truly. Again.
The Death King, to my consternation, remained absent all weekend. Whatever he did with his free time was beyond me, but I had no opportunity to give him the unwelcome update on my failed attempt to expose the traitors within the House of Earth. At least Miles and Shelley had made it back to their base in one piece and told me later on that the House of Fire had escaped the inferno cantrip by mere inches, only losing their door to the blast.
But the fact remained that the House of Earth were now holding an entire box of illegal cantrips marked with the Family’s signature, some of which might well have been able to inflict a silent death on anyone who threatened to expose their secret. To top it all off, Devon still hadn’t brought me an update on the cantrip I’d given her to identify, most likely due to her annoyance at me for crashing her game night, so I had yet to figure out what kind of spell had caused the deaths of Zade and the second victim.
With nothing better to do, I found a bag of costume props in the break room which presumably belonged to Devon or Liv, and spent a productive hour sticking googly eyes and moustaches onto the skulls in the pillars on either side of the entrance hall.
“Perfect.” Dex snickered. “Much better.”
“I agree.” I tweaked the eyes in the sockets of a lopsided skull. “Has Devon forgiven me yet?”
“Ask her yourself.”
“Wait, she’s here?” I stepped back from the pillar. “Oops. I think I may have swiped her costume supplies.”
While part of me expected her to start lobbing dice at me if I disturbed her, I wanted to find out what kind of cantrip had killed the jailor, even if the House of Fire was about as likely to ask for my help as the Death King was likely to be amused by my new decorations.
I walked down the corridor and found Devon in the dormitory, sitting on the bed. Her hands were no longer bandaged, her face screwed up in concentration as she used a delicate tool to carve runes into a cantrip.
“Bria.” She put down the cantrip. “Come to apologise for crashing our game?”
“Uh,” I said. “Yeah. I really didn’t know the node led into your house. Dex didn’t say.”
“I’m inclined to believe it was his fault, to be honest,” she said. “What was chasing you?”
“Turns out the Houses have a few traitors within their ranks,” I said to her. “The House of Earth does, anyway. We were trying to get some illegal cantrips off their hands, but they outnumbered us. If we hadn’t gone through the node, their inferno cantrips would’ve burned us to cinders. We barely made it out. Sorry I wrecked your game.”
“Apology accepted,” said Devon, reaching behind her and retrieving another cantrip, this one blank and gleaming with the Family’s symbol. “This cantrip, though, it’s a nasty piece of work.”
My heart skipped. “You figured out what it is?”
“Eventually,” she said. “The last spell used on it was like a mechanised magical virus which breaks down the body from the inside.”
“That’s how Zade died?” Damn. “Guess it’s less flashy than an inferno cantrip.”
“Just as lethal, though,” she said. “If the killer wanted to hide how they did it, they shouldn’t have used a reusable cantrip.”
“Maybe it’s all they had on them,” I said. “The cantrips the House of Earth was smuggling in were the same sort, I think. But I don’t think they were carved in Arcadia.”
Curiosity flickered in her eyes. “Then where?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted, “but this isn’t a spell you’d find on the market. And that mark on the back… it belongs to the Family. It’s their signature.”
She lowered the cantrip in her hand. “Gonna tell me who the Family is?”
“Only if you promise not to say a word to the Order,” I said. “I heard you work for them.”
“I did,” she said. “I mean, technically I still do. They thought I was dead for a while… it’s complicated, but they’re one of the few organisations who buy cantrips on Earth. I don’t like them, but I need to pay my bills. If they
