I unlocked the drawer and found it empty. Ah, shit. Should have known it wouldn’t be that simple. No keys, and nothing else either. The other drawers were empty, too. Someone had cleaned out the place, all right. So the new head jailor could move in… or because they’d wanted to hide something.
My suspicion rising with each passing second, I searched every inch of the office, even under the carpets. Finally, I found a slip of paper half-hidden underneath a cabinet and pulled it out. It appeared to be a letter, scrawled in Zade’s messy handwriting, which had been written before his death.
Yes, we got the cantrips. Are you sure about using the WO as a trading spot, considering their location?
Cantrips? My heart missed a beat, and I reread the note, unable to deny the implication. The House of Fire hadn’t been compromised… at least, not in the way I’d thought. The jailor was the one who’d worked with the enemy.
And it seemed someone had killed him for it.
Given the letter’s location, it had never reached its recipient, whoever that was. Did that mean he’d been murdered by someone trying to protect the rest of the House? It still didn’t explain how the cantrip had got all the way downstairs, but perhaps Tay had taken it off the jailor and used it against him herself. Maybe it didn’t matter, but if Zade himself had turned on his fellow members of the House of Fire, they couldn’t sentence Tay to death for murder even if he’d died at her hand.
First, though, I needed to get her to confirm what I suspected.
I left the office and went back downstairs, heading for the staircase leading to the lower floor. I passed Dex on the way, and at a whispered instruction from me, he flew ahead of me to distract the guards by throwing sparks around the opposite end of the corridor. The guards headed that way, snapping at the prisoners to quit fooling around, while I silently approached Tay’s cell. She sat on the floor, her gaze fixed at some point in the distance.
I didn’t quite dare take off the invisibility cantrip, but I moved right up to the bars and whispered, “Tay.”
She glanced up at the spot where I stood. “Bria? What are you doing down here?”
“I think I know why the jailor was murdered,” I told her in an undertone. “Zade was working with the Family.”
Her breath caught. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“Tay, do the rest of the House know?”
She didn’t answer.
“Tay, everyone else in here is vulnerable if you don’t tell them,” I whispered. “You have nothing to lose. If anything, they’ll thank you for it. They’d want you to warn them the Family is recruiting allies from within their own ranks.”
“When did I ever say I cared about the House?” she muttered. “They can all rot for all I care.”
Oh, damn. So that was the problem. She was more than happy to watch the Houses crumble, and at one time, I might have agreed with her. On the other hand, I’d rather tear off my own arm than let the Family gain power over the ruling force in Elysium.
“The Family already took over the House of Earth,” I said in a low voice. “Maybe the others, too. Look, I don’t much care about the Houses, either, but I care about you. If you’re in here when it all blows up, the backlash will catch you, too.”
She sighed. “The House doesn’t care about me any more than I care for them. Besides, they deserve what they get.”
“You don’t think they’ll leave a power vacuum if they all drop dead at once?” I said to her. “Besides, those cantrips are lethal. I’ve seen them. The House of Earth’s mages are buying them up in bulk, and when I tried to confront them over it, they threw an inferno cantrip at me and nearly took off the doors to this place.”
Tay hissed out a breath. “I wish you didn’t insist on putting yourself in harm’s way, Bria. There’s no need for you to be involved in this.”
“Tay, it’s my job to get involved,” I said. “Also, Adair is still taunting me about the rogue spirit mages coming to take over the Court of the Dead. Was it really him who told you to kill Zade, or did you decide to take the decision into your own hands?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” I said, “because I’d like to know if you’re still working with the Family or not. I want to know if I can trust you.” As far as it was possible to trust someone who’d betrayed me once already, at any rate.
“I’m not working with anyone,” she said.
“Were there any others?” I pressed. “Aside from Zade? Was the second guard who died a traitor, too?”
She didn’t reply. Then I heard footsteps from the direction of the stairs. Cursing inwardly, I backed away from her cell, trusting the invisibility cantrip to keep me hidden from the guards. Two of them walked past, and I waited for them to disappear around a corner before making my way back upstairs. I glimpsed Dex hovering beside the back door as I approached and walked outside into the street.
“Dex,” I whispered. “Hey—Dex. Over here.”
“There you are,” he said. “This is worse than talking to a lich.”
“We aren’t all eight inches tall with the ability to fly through walls,” I pointed out.
“Most walls,” he said. “Not in that place. I tried.”
The House of Fire must be shielded against sprites, and presumably spirit mages as well. Despite the odds being against me, though, I’d managed to get my hands on some genuine proof of Zade’s treachery, but I knew better than to take said evidence to a certain guard. Especially if he turned out
