Ilsa shivered. She understood what Cassia did not want to say, and when she forced the words past her lips, they were a whisper. “They killed my parents.”
The Sorcerer shook her head. “Not just your parents. The Sage believed that if they ended the Ravenswoods’ rule, Camden and its people would fall. They rallied enough of an insurgence against Camden that your family were forced to abandon the Zoo. They were hiding in a wine merchant’s cellar in Soho when your mother gave birth. Oren was just a young wolf at the time, but your mother chose him to smuggle you to the portal. He left the cellar with you just in time.”
Cassia’s gaze was hollow. Ilsa couldn’t find it in herself to urge her on. She could only wait.
“They killed seventeen that day. Your mother and father. Your mother’s younger sister and her husband. Your grandfather. His brother, who was Hester’s father. Two of your mother’s three lieutenants, and nine wolves.”
A massacre. Ilsa felt the bile rise in her throat and forced away the images. She had to put her teacup down; she was shaking again.
Cassia produced the dagger Ilsa had brought from Blume’s flat, and held it across her palm. She pointed to the inscription along the hilt. Ilsa had not noticed at first, but the foreign letters were followed by a different sort of symbol, more intricate and pictorial. It was a cog, or sprocket, and contained inside was a head in cross-section, the brain outlined within.
“This is the Sage’s seal. The Zoo never learned who they were. I shan’t go into the aftermath of the massacre, but Hester pulled Camden back from the brink, and the Sage disappeared soon after you were born. As the years went on, it was assumed they had fallen from power. Only… this blade is newly made. Whoever it belonged to is still loyal to the person who killed your family.”
The dagger had been cleaned of Bill’s blood, but now it held new horror. It had belonged to someone who wished harm not only on Ilsa and her magician, but her whole bloodline and anyone allied to them.
Anyone Changeling.
Cassia shook her head. “I don’t know how they knew about your friend Bill, or even that you were alive. But the timing. It can’t be a coincidence. Perhaps if we knew who sent that messenger from the Docklands…”
It didn’t make sense that someone would warn both the Zoo and their enemies about the assassination attempt, but Cassia was right about one thing: it wasn’t a coincidence. Bill was dead because Ilsa had been saved. Ilsa squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears came anyway.
Cassia studied her, her usually cold eyes flecked with tenderness. “I need to thank you, Ilsa. I think you saved my life when that man overpowered me.”
“You saved mine too,” said Ilsa, remembering the haunting image of her steely fortitude as she pointed that pistol. Then she remembered her own slapdash self-defence, and the Sorcerer’s rapid-fire spells and shields. “Probably more than once.”
“I’ve never fired a gun before,” Cassia said, almost whimsically. “What violent things.” She read the question on Ilsa’s face. “My magic is… different. It doesn’t truly come from the soul, but it feels that way to wield it. We Sorcerers are just conduits, in reality. We have the ability to channel and shape raw power. But our bodies love magic, and the magic loves us. It’s intimate and sympathetic – friendly, you might say, at its core – even when it harms.
“But fire and metal. Holding that gun was a different kind of power. I don’t think any Sorcerer can wield magic as brutal. One can dream.”
Ilsa had to assume that was another joke, but the Sorcerer’s expression remained grave as always.
Cassia let a long moment pass before rising from her chair to leave. “None of this will be easy, Ilsa, but it sounds as though your old life wasn’t easy either. Now you have us to help you.” She sighed. “But I do wish we were better.”
Ilsa read the self-deprecation in her lovely face, and felt some tenderness for the girl too. For better or worse, she had nothing left to lose by falling down this rabbit hole. She didn’t know what would become of her if she went back to the Otherworld now, with Blume gone. Her secrets, and thus her stage career, had gone with him. Suddenly, her grim history here was not what she wished to run from. She saw a path forward, away from the lies and hardships of her old life in the Otherworld, and the legacy of loss she had inherited in this one.
Cassia was nearly at the door when Ilsa stood, arresting her attention.
“I want to help find my brother.”
Cassia’s mouth opened in surprise, and a light sparked in her eyes. It dulled just as quickly as doubt appeared to set in. “That’s admirable, Ilsa, but… how?”
“Gedeon thinks I’m dead, don’t he?”
Cassia nodded. “He never had cause to question it,” she said with a sad smile.
“And… the Sage. And the Fortunatae and this rebellion, they don’t know I’m here, neither.”
“We hope as much. Most of this city should never have known you existed.”
“Then let me find him,” Ilsa said imploringly. “Whatever it is Gedeon’s up to, he thinks he’s got nothing to lose. But things’ve changed since he went, and he don’t know. If he knew I’m here and I want to help him… p’raps I can make him change his mind.”
In truth, she had no idea how she was going to do what she was saying she would, but feigning confidence had made her hope. Ilsa wasn’t sure she believed in Fyfe’s stars, or any design that steered her course. But if she did, if there was meaning in all this, perhaps this was why she was here.
Cassia took Ilsa’s hands. “It occurred to me too that you could change everything,” she whispered. “Most days I don’t
