Miles gave her a nod, then he turned back to me. “Will you be okay?”
“Sure.” I fixed on a smile. “Nothing wrong with me that a long nap can’t fix.”
“Come on,” said Ryan. “We have to report back to the Death King.”
I grimaced. “I can’t wait to see what’s gone to shit in the Court of the Dead while we’ve been gone.”
16
Nothing, as it turned out. The grounds were quiet, the castle undisturbed. I made my way back to my room and more or less collapsed on the bed. I woke a few hours later with a blazing headache and checked the time. I’d slept half the day, to no surprise given how long it’d been since I’d last had a proper rest. I went to shower and dress, then grabbed some food from the break room. Nobody else was around, including the Death King. I had yet to update him on my discoveries of the previous day, but it was his own damn fault for leaving us alone in the middle of nowhere and expecting us to walk back to the castle on foot.
It was pure luck that had spared us from running into the Family again, and while I wanted to tell him they’d reclaimed their own hideout, the Houses needed to know more urgently. Someone ought to clue them in about the incident at the Withered Oak, for that matter, but I doubted Harris would give a shit that a group of rogue mages had got themselves locked up by Arcadia’s vampires. I hadn’t checked up on Tay for a while, come to that, but if anyone else in the House was working with the Family, then it was only a matter of time before they picked up where Zade had left off.
Since nobody seemed inclined to give me orders, I left the castle for the node and travelled to the centre of Elysium. The first thing I noticed was that the lock had been removed from the door to the House of Fire. Had they got over their brief spell of paranoia? Or had they somehow learned I’d broken in? I doubted that was the case, so I knocked on the door.
Harris answered, along with another half-dozen guards who spilled out and surrounded me on all sides.
“Hey, there,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“Bria Kent,” said Harris. “You’re under arrest.”
For a brief moment, I considered running, but I figured it was best to humour them until we cleared up whatever they’d got themselves worked up over this time. They can’t possibly know I broke into Zade’s office, right?
I raised my hands in surrender. “Hey, I just got here. What am I being arrested for?”
“Conspiring against the Houses of the Elements,” he answered.
“What does that mean?” I said. “Seriously, I haven’t been anywhere near the Houses in the last day.”
“We saw you go to your family’s estate,” Harris said.
Oh, shit. I should have known they’d be watching me—from a safe distance, of course. “I wanted to see if they’d left any clues behind. It turns out they’re hiring earth mages—”
The guards shunted me through the doors to the building and down the staircase off the corridor. Shit. They’re seriously taking me to the jail? To my horror, someone grabbed the pendant from around my neck and pulled it free, then more hands dug into my pockets and took my spare cantrips.
“You met with the Family,” said Harris. “Don’t deny it.”
“I didn’t expect to find anyone there,” I protested. “How was I supposed to know you let them move back into their old property after their escape without even trying to stop them?”
There was more I wanted to say, but I couldn’t reference Zade’s files without admitting I’d broken into his office. Not that anyone was inclined to listen, either way. The guards herded me downstairs, then led me to a cell and pushed me into it. Tay’s cell, in fact… but she was no longer inside it.
“Where’s Tay?” I asked.
The door slammed on me, and Harris leered at me from the other side of the bars. “You’ll be staying here this time. No escaping.”
“Where’s Tay?” I called after him as he retreated. “Seriously, this isn’t a joke. Where did you take her?
Nobody replied. I stared into the darkness in disbelief for a long moment. Had Tay made a break for it? That was the best-case scenario. Because if she hadn’t escaped… if they’d killed her…
I shut down that line of thinking hard, instead examining the door for a possible way out. Of course, it was magic-proofed, too, so after trying every angle, I sat down on the bench and waited for someone to come back.
The minutes dragged. It felt like a million years before anyone came downstairs, and I was beginning to doze off when Harris walked into view again.
“Where is Tay?” I demanded. “If you had her killed, I swear to the Elements, I will rip out your throat.”
“Your friend Tay gave us the slip last night,” said Harris. “Tell me where she is.”
“What?” I said. “You think I helped her escape?”
She’s free? It didn’t surprise me that she’d run, and I wouldn’t deny it was a relief that she’d got out before they’d decided to punish her for Zade’s death. Question was, where had she gone?
“Was that a confession?” he said.
“Look, if I’d helped her escape, I wouldn’t have come back here, would I?” I said. “Ask the Spirit Agents who were with me yesterday evening. Or ask the Air Element. We spent a fun night stranded in the middle of nowhere after staging a rescue mission on the Death King’s orders.”
“Your allies are no more reliable than you are,” he said. “You were seen heading to the Family’s house several hours before her escape—"
“Look, I don’t even know when the Family got back to their estate, or how they rebuilt it,” I
