“I wouldn’t speak too soon,” I told him. “The people who raised me didn’t care about anyone but themselves. They still don’t, not even my brother and me. We were supposed to be their soldiers, nothing more. Now they want to take over the Houses of the Elements, and I’m not so sure we can stop them.”
“You got them to admit it?” he said. “That they’re after the Houses?”
“More or less,” I said. “Though Lex wouldn’t tell me where those cantrips are being created. She did more or less admit she has practitioners doing her bidding.”
“We can go back to Dawson’s place and trace them from there,” he said. “Not a perfect idea, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Might be our only choice now,” I allowed. “But you know… the Family isn’t beatable. Not by normal means. They’re functionally immortal and have a nasty habit of running away.”
I’d inherited that trait, but I’d have to find a new way to thwart them again, no matter how impossible it seemed. And there was no room for anyone else in that struggle. I knew that much.
“Hey.” Miles floated closer to me again. “It’s okay. You beat them alone last time, right? This time you have backup.”
“You’re deluded.”
He grinned. “Maybe. But you’re forgetting I once learned spirit magic alongside the Death King.”
“I did forget that,” I allowed. “The Death King, though, he’s not exactly—”
“I wouldn’t finish that sentence.” He jerked his head at a spot over my shoulder.
Unseen in the darkness, the Death King himself approached both of us, looking as menacing as ever. “Bria, go back to the castle and join the other Elemental Soldiers.”
I faced the Death King. “I have something I need to tell—”
“Later,” he said. “Miles, I need to talk to you. Bria, go on.”
“What—” I broke off, sensing that now was not the time to admit I’d gone and given away the location of our new prisoner to the one person who might be able to slip past his security. Besides, Miles’s revelation was a reminder that I wasn’t alone. Hell if I knew what I’d done to deserve that level of loyalty, but I wasn’t complaining.
I went inside the castle via the back doors, leaving a trail of mud behind me. I didn’t have time to change into clean clothes, but since nobody said I shouldn’t, I took the opportunity to wash the mud off my face in the bathroom and then went to find the others Elemental Soldiers. All three of them were in the break room, strapping on weapons and slipping cantrips into the pockets of their coats.
“There you are, Bria,” Ryan said. “Where have you been?”
“Dealing with a bit of family drama,” I said. “What’s going on here?”
“Liv,” Cal said. “As usual. She wants us to go on an absurd rescue mission.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Hawker was keeping and torturing a bunch of elemental sprites inside one of the citadels,” explained Ryan. “She wants us to get them out of there while Hawker is gone.”
“Sprites?” I echoed. “What’s he doing with those?”
“Sounds like he was using the sprites as a battery to keep the transporter running,” said Ryan. “I’m not all that keen on the idea of walking right into a trap, but I’m more than happy to shut down his little experiment.”
Experiment. Using sprites as a battery to power the transporter linking the citadels? Was that how they’d been kept running for so long? It sounded like the kind of twisted idea the Family would come up with, which, after my narrow escape from Lex, made my gut clench in dread.
“I can come, but…” Dammit. The Death King might not be willing to listen to me, but maybe I’d have more luck with the other Elemental Soldiers. “But I found out where those illegal cantrips are coming from. Where’d you put the ones we got from those earth mages in Arcadia?”
“Here.” Ryan indicated a muddy box behind the sofa. “Devon isn’t around, but we’ll give them to her later. You know where they’re being made?”
The others watched me, and the words stuck in my throat. “I’m not exactly certain where they’re being manufactured, but I found out where those mages were going when they went underground in Arcadia, and why the Family recruited them.”
Quickly, I summed up what I’d discovered at the Family’s old estate. I left out most of my confrontation with Lex, but I did tell them about the cantrip’s source.
“They’re not going to come back to get them, are they?” said Felicity, eyeing the box of cantrips.
“Nah, probably not,” I said. “I’m guessing Liv hasn’t seen them yet, if she’s been planning rescue missions. How’d she get that close to Hawker, anyway?”
“He tried to recruit her,” said Ryan.
My jaw dropped. “He thought Liv would join him?”
“Apparently,” said Felicity. “Didn’t work. She escaped him, but there were issues, and she had to leave the sprites behind.”
I studied the box of cantrips. “You sure it’s safe to leave them unattended?”
“Safer than anywhere else,” said Ryan. “I’m confident that nobody within these walls will betray us. Only the liches are an uncertain bet, and they can’t pick up cantrips.”
“Might be an inferno or two we can use.” I crouched down and peered into the box, picking up one of the cantrips. The topmost stack were all infernos, but beneath, the other cantrips bore unfamiliar marks. “Nobody touch any of these.”
“Why?” asked Felicity.
“In case they’re laced with that magical virus,” I said, thinking of Lex’s warning. “Liv couldn’t have picked a better time for this, could she?”
“No,” said Ryan. “We’d better go before she comes back here and drags us outside in person.”
“All right,” I said. “Adair hasn’t made any trouble, has he? Because the Family knows he’s here.”
“His cell will be under close guard,” Ryan said. “We’ll make sure of it.”
“Okay.” That would have to do. Lex’s abilities didn’t work on liches, so she wouldn’t get past the gates, and the only humans living
