“If you say so,” he said. “All right. You guys wait outside.”
While the other spirit mages stood back out of range, the pair of us entered the pub. The grey-haired owner of the Withered Oak stood behind the bar, while his assistant was serving drinks to a couple of shifters. The muscular black man spotted us and moved over to exchange words with his boss. Uh-oh.
I took the lead and approached the fire mages near the window. “Hey, there.”
Bark reacted as though he’d expected me to attack. He swung around, fist in the air—which I dodged. Instead, Miles’s punch knocked him flat on his back, and the other two mages leapt to their feet with exclamations of fury.
“You again?” growled the Withered Oak’s owner, crossing the room at speed. “What trouble are you causing this time?”
“This man,” said Miles, indicating the fallen mage, “was a contender for the Death King’s new Fire Element before he got kicked out of the contest for conspiring against the Court of the Dead. Trust me, you don’t want him in here.”
“I don’t want you in here either,” said the grey-haired man. “You and your friends are always hanging around breaking shit.”
“Hey, I haven’t been here in weeks,” Miles said. “Have you seen a spirit mage recently, then?”
“That’s confidential, that is.”
Everyone was staring at us. Okay, there were only about ten people in the room, but maybe drawing attention hadn’t been the smartest idea. Did the ex-Spirit Agents who betrayed Miles come here? They had some nerve showing their faces in public, but then again, the enemy already had one of the Houses dancing to their tune. Made sense that their allies would have started getting bolder. Especially if the dude who owned this place gave shelter to known criminals.
Bark dragged himself upright and glowered at Miles. “I’m not breaking the law.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “We’ll just forget how you used an illegal cantrip to cheat in the Death King’s trials and were then caught in the act. Still keeping up old habits?”
Two of the other patrons rose to their feet and made for the door. The three fire mages, meanwhile, approached me, and I smelled the smoke before they conjured flames into their hands.
“Stop that!” yelped the bartender. “We barely cleaned up the last fire.”
“You ought to invest in a fireproof bar,” I told him. “Really sorry about this.”
I ducked under Bark’s arm and kicked him in the back of the kneecap, causing him to face-plant, before flinging a paralysing cantrip at the other two fire mages. They froze midmotion, flames dying to a flicker in their hands.
Miles, meanwhile, ran at the two men who’d made a hasty retreat, and a cantrip flashed in his hand, causing both of them to collapse into a heap on the spot.
Miles grabbed one of the men’s hands and retrieved a gleaming coin. “Inferno cantrip. This could easily have killed everyone in the building.”
“Fuck.” The bartender paled. “You lot—don’t move.”
I looked around the bar at the remaining patrons. “Anyone else want to make any confessions?”
Nobody said anything. Bark groaned at my feet, while the other two mages unfroze only for the black man from behind the bar to use air magic to levitate their flailing bodies into the air. I flung another paralysing cantrip at them to make it easier for him to move the intruders out into the corridor, then employed a similar cantrip on Bark before he launched into another attack.
“Good job we showed up when we did,” I murmured to Miles.
“I hate to break this to you, Bria, but I reckon we’re the reason they brought out that inferno,” he whispered back. “They figured we know what their game is.”
I grimaced. “What’re the odds of there being more illegal cantrips hidden in their rooms?”
“Good point.” Miles addressed the owner. “Where were they staying?”
“This dude was in the first room on the right.” He indicated Bark’s limp form.
“You might want to vet your guests in future.” With Miles behind me, I hurried upstairs and ran up to the room on the right.
To no surprise, I found the door locked, and not with an actual lock either. From the electric charge in the air, he’d sealed the door using magic. I reached into the pendant at my neck for an unlocking charm, hearing some odd scuffling noises from inside the room.
The door sprang open as I activated the spell, revealing a large hole in the floor—newly created, judging by the splintered mess of floorboards at my feet. A box of gleaming cantrips lay at the far edge. I trod carefully around the hole and reached for the box, only for a pair of dirt-stained hands to snatch it away from me. “What the—?”
A wild-haired mage stuck his head out of the hole. “Who are you?”
I blinked down at him. “I’m the Death King’s Fire Element. I take it you’re one of the dickheads who’s using this place as a base to trade illegal cantrips?”
He gave a high-pitched laugh. “We’re trading a lot more than that, sweetheart. Be seeing you.”
I lunged for the box, but he vanished through the hole in the floor. The whole building gave an alarming shudder as the earth mage tunnelled his way down, and I caught my balance before I tumbled headfirst into the hole. Unlike an earth mage, I didn’t have the inbuilt ability to navigate underground tunnels without suffocating to death.
I ran out of the room and found Miles looking up at me from the hallway. “What’s going on?”
“There was an earth mage in there. He took his box of contraband underground.” I took the stairs two at a time and caught him up by the door. “I’d follow, but I don’t trust this place not to collapse on my head. Pretty sure the moron took out the foundations.”
“Then we need to evacuate.” Not that there were many patrons left. The bartender’s assistant ushered the rest of
