“Didn’t they kill the Council of the Elements?” The spirit mages had done a fair job of wiping each other out, too, but I couldn’t forget they were the ones who’d built the citadels. And, presumably, the transporters, too.
“Did you know this territory used to belong to the elves?” she said. “Before the mages forced them to leave, that is. We’re hardly the first to take the Parallel’s resources for ourselves.”
I frowned at the change of subject. “The mages drove out the elves?”
“Why is that hard for you to believe?” she queried.
“It isn’t,” I said. “I’m surprised you care.”
“You need to understand why the mages’ attempts to take power will always end in failure,” she said. “They’re a poison. Killing one another off was the best thing they could have done. This new war will have a similar result, except it will be the Houses that fall. The Houses, the Order… they’re all fatally flawed.”
“Speak for yourself.” The Family’s motto was to let everyone else kill each other and then rise from the ashes. Yet they’d hardly stood on the side-lines in this case, considering they’d provided the enemy with the tools to wreak havoc on two worlds. “You want to take their place, do you? I thought you hated the spotlight. Unless you want to spend the rest of your miserable existence watching people die for your own amusement.”
She smiled. “I can guarantee you’d have been much happier if you’d just stayed put and hadn’t intervened. You should have stopped asking questions. Then we wouldn’t have had to find a way to destroy you, too.”
“That’s funny, because it was asking questions which made me realise what scumbags you were,” I said. “That you never cared for me at all.”
As if I could ever forget what she and the others had done to me. To everyone. Even Adair was a victim of their lies, even if he’d embraced them wholeheartedly. He’d been brainwashed from the moment he could walk.
“Then I’ll let you stay here for a while and think on your mistakes.” She took a step back from the door to my cell. “I imagine Elysium’s mages will be desperate by now. Desperate enough to accept help from anyone… even such abominations as we are.”
She walked away, leaving me alone in my cell. Several long minutes passed before I heard footsteps. I rose to my feet, ready to face the last remaining member of my family.
Instead, someone else altogether walked into view. I rose to my feet and leaned up against the cage bars. “Tay?”
Tay edged up to the cell door and whispered, “I had to let them think I’m still completely under their control. Adair didn’t tell me not to come back here, so I found my way to a node as soon as he looked the other way.”
“Damn,” I said. “Thanks for taking the risk.”
“Also, I have help,” she added.
The outline of a fiery humanoid figure appeared above her head. “At your service.”
“Where’d you come from?” I asked Dex.
“I saw that dickhead of a brother of yours haul you out of the Death King’s jail,” he said. “I tried to intercept him, but he moves fast, doesn’t he?”
“He does.” Relief washed over me. “Can you get me out of here?”
Tay strode up to the door, an unlocking spell at the ready. She flicked the switch on the side of the cantrip and the door sprang open. Then she pressed the pendant into my hand. With a mouthed thank you, I slid it open and found my cantrips were still inside it. I retrieved two invisibility cantrips, but when I passed one to her, she shook her head. “I’m still under Adair’s control. I can’t risk it.”
“I’ll come back for you.” I flicked on my own cantrip, vanishing from sight. I was free, but it wouldn’t be long before they realised Tay was in here.
I walked towards the exit, but I hadn’t gone ten steps before Lex reappeared, seeing the empty cell… and Tay. “You.”
Tay’s hands crackled with magic, blasting Lex off her feet. Lex sprang upright with her teeth bared in a snarl, and I took the opportunity to sprint out into the corridor. Freedom beckoned, and I pelted for the door. Dex swooped out ahead of me into the night, while I followed, my heart torn in two. I didn’t want to leave Tay behind, but if I didn’t run now, I’d never make it back to Elysium in time to make sure my allies weren’t caught up in the chaos destroying the Houses.
I’ll come back, Lex. And this time I won’t let you cage me again.
19
Dex and I ran over the collapsed gates to the Family’s estate and out into the wasteland, where I pinpointed the glowing shape of the node. “That way.”
While the fire sprite flew above my head, I put on a burst of speed and left the remains of the Family’s house in the dust.
“Evil fuckers,” said Dex. “This place is a dump, isn’t it?”
“I bet Elysium is in a worse state,” I said. “Those infected cantrips kill anyone who touches them. Except me, and that’s if I trust what Adair told me.”
“If you’re going to explode, give me some warning first.”
“Ha ha.” I ran on towards the node. “We never did find where they were manufacturing those cantrips, either.”
“Not much out here.” Dex zipped past me. “Your spirit mage friends are waiting on the other side. In Elysium. They thought that’s where you’d been taken.”
“Shit.”
We vanished into the node’s light, then reappeared in an alleyway. A pillar of light shone above the rooftops, indicating the citadel. My feet caught on something on the ground, a golden disc engraved with a now-familiar pattern of runes. Someone had left a cursed cantrip by the node, so that anyone unlucky enough to land on top of it would fall victim to its magic.
“What sick bastard would put that there?”
