Chapter 19 – Birdcage

Septum waited patiently while the guard struggled with the key to the interrogation room. He didn’t blame the man. He was young, and he had never expected that someone of Septum’s status would ever visit this little backwater facility.

The choice of containment, however, was very deliberate.

Tired of waiting, Septum sapped away some of the guard’s anxiety so that he could focus better on his task. A few seconds later, the door clicked open. Septum entered while the guard stood aside and snapped to a brisk salute.

Mesa Mara waited within, arms folded behind her back. She wore a skintight bodysuit which hugged her slender curves. Her face was a mask of stony indifference, and she wore her black hair in a short bob.

At the end of the sparsely decorated room, back against the wall, sat a middle-aged man, trapped in a sturdy chair with magical restraints.

Tesman Granhorn. Father of Linton Granhorn.

“Excellent work, Mara,” he said as he slowly approached Tesman. “You have the other three as well?”

“Yes, sir,” Mara said. “I convinced the Linvalan lords to… part with them.”

Septum nodded. He squatted in front of Tesman, inspecting him closely. He was drabber than he expected, considering his offspring. He had the same eyes, however. The same flint-hard gaze.

Dried blood flaked Tesman’s upper lip, and his nose was swollen and red.

“I thought I instructed you not to harm him,” Septum said.

Mara simply shrugged, inspecting her nails. “He resisted.”

Septum pursed his lips and turned back to the prisoner. “You have some fire in you, huh?”

“We Granhorns are strong,” Tesman croaked. Despite obvious signs of exhaustion, his voice was deep and proud. “They will come for us, you know.”

“I certainly hope so.” Septum smiled. “Until then, why don’t I ask you some questions? Don’t feel pressured to answer. I’ll get what I want with or without your cooperation.”

***

Aeva worked her tired muscles, stretching. She faced the morning sun as it shone through her room’s window. Fingers laced above her head and standing on her tiptoes, she rocked this way, then that.

Yesterday had been trying, but she needed to stay vigilant. Gisa’s blessing ensured that any fatigue was short-lived. She also needed to test the boundaries of her new power. With a sharp exhale, a lick of flame escaped her parted lips.

Linton had given the Bluebirds a day off to recoup before continuing with their next mission. Aeva intended to make use of this day as best as possible, to hone her body and keep herself sharp. There were hard times still ahead.

Aeva held up her hand. With but a thought, fire spread across her palm. Following her silent command, it coalesced, became solid, taking the form of a simple blade. Warm to the touch, without leaving a mark on her skin. She let it dissipate.

“Someone! Anyone!” a shrill voice shouted. “I need help!”

Frost.

Aeva barged out of her room and into the corridor. Frost’s room, at the end of the hall, was open a crack. She rushed over, conjured flame growing across her furry arms, ready for whatever might lay beyond. Black-coats, or worse.

She opened the door and found Frost standing inside the cluttered mess of a room, stooped over a table. He looked up, hiking his goggles onto his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Ah, finally someone with a sense of urgency around here,” he said. “Come. I need a hand.”

Aeva glanced around the room but found no sign of danger, apart from the delicate pieces of machinery, most only half-finished, stacked precariously high in almost every available bit of floor space. Narrow paths wound between the various projects, from the door to the table to the bed. The window had been covered by a tattered black cloth, leaving the room illuminated only by pale blue magelights that gave the room an industrial feel.

“You made it sound like you were in trouble,” Aeva said sourly.

“Science is trouble. Science is a lot of things, actually, but trouble is about fourth on that list, so pretty high overall. Now, I could use a hand, so don’t just stand there.”

With a sigh, Aeva shook the fire from herself and entered. She stepped over metal rods, instruments, plates, and sprockets as gingerly as she was able, but still managed to knock over a few piles. With difficulty, she made it over to the table. Looking over the lubbard’s thin shoulder, she found that he was fussing over his wooden wand. A snaking crack ran down its length, splitting the runework.

“Hold that, will you?” Frost said, nodding towards the wand.

Aeva did as she was asked, grasping the slender piece of wood firmly by each end.

“Much better. Thank you.”

Frost slipped on a leather glove laced with metal wires and a small cylinder of greenish ooze on the back of it. A pointer extended from the forefinger, which he placed against the wood. The wand threw off green sparks and began to mend, plant material fusing back together.

“I kind of landed on it when the fire lady fell,” Frost explained. “It won’t be the same as before, but I think I can get it working again.”

Aeva shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. “Is this all you need me for? To hold your thing?”

Frost shrugged. “My vice broke.”

“You lame slug,” Aeva muttered in Gjosi.

Forced to wait while Frost tinkered, she looked around the room. Among the clutter, a few pieces stood out.

“What is that?” she asked, pointing to a circular disc the size of a dinner plate, covered in concentric circles of tightly linked runes. Sporadically, shards of an image sputtered from the disc, fragments of a person in motion.

Frost glanced over and clicked his tongue. “Materializer. Like a scryer, but smaller. A bit different. You see, a materializer can take any recorded footage you feed it and…”

“I see,” Aeva said, making it clear by her tone that she required no further explanation. “And that?” She pointed to a sheet of sheer, sparkling fabric draped over one corner of the messy bed.

“That’s an exciting one! It’s a concealment matrix. Makes you invisible. Mostly invisible. Actually, more like…”

“Invisible. I understand. What about that?” She pointed to a tall rack attached to the back wall which held myriad cylinders of colored liquids.

“Anima cells. Wouldn’t be much of an enchanter if I couldn’t make my inventions run, would I? Just powering an enchantment is an art form in itself. Each one requires a slightly different blend. A little red, a little green, a little blue, a little raw… You get the picture.”

“I assume you created all these yourself?” Aeva looked around the room, hundreds of inventions strewn about.

“Of course. A lot more than this, too. This is just the stuff Linton might need.”

“Does that mean you are a mage as well?”

Frost giggled. “Don’t let Cat hear you say that. No, enchanters are different from mages. I don’t actually know how to use spells or summon anima. I’ve focused all my training and energy on making runes go together in practice, like puzzle pieces. I might not be able to make perfect glamors on the spot like Linton, or flip around in the air like Cat, but I can utilize all five arcane disciplines.

“Enchanting has different uses from regular magic. Take rumblers. A mage couldn’t give you that. Enchantments are the veins that make this world run, and anima is the blood being pumped through those veins. That make sense, Antlers?”

“A little, actually,” Aeva said. “But you still need mages to donate their anima to make all this function, do you not?”

“Half a millennium ago, you might have been right. These days, we have more efficient methods. Like the bioplant that provides most of Northmark’s power. They use these man-made creatures called lumplings—ugly fucking things—genetically modified to hold as much anima per kilo of living tissue as is physically possible. Their anima is harvested each day, goes into reserves, and the city can keep its lights on.”

“Lumplings,” Aeva said, stifling a giggle.

“I didn’t come up with the name, alright?”

Frost’s glove produced a large spray of sparks. He swore and stepped back, patting away at his arm. A spark had landed on his arm, and his skin quickly bruised and turned purple in a blotch around it. When he managed to flick it away, it seemed fine, however, and he returned to his work after adjusting a few of the wires on his glove.

“You appear highly invested in your work,” Aeva noted. “An odd fit for a rebel band.”

“You mean you’re surprised I’m not tucked in a workshop somewhere, ignoring everything going on around me?” Frost asked. He looked up for a moment, wide mouth upturned in a slight smile. “I was like that, once. Couldn’t have cared less if the sky was crawling with demons or if the seas boiled away, so long as I had my work and my family.”

“Then…”

“They went for my family. Yeah.” Frost’s smile dropped away. “The truthers burst into the house, middle of the night, nabbed them. Probably suspected they had ties to the clans, working as spies or some such. Never saw them again, but I assume they died horrible deaths in the Arcanex somewhere. Maybe you can relate.”

“I am sorry,” Aeva said with heartfelt sorrow.

“It’s alright.” Frost gave a shaky shrug that told her it was nothing of the sort. “Happened a long time ago. You know something nice, though?”

“What is that?”

“The truthers only missed me because I was out at the time. I was unregistered, see. But if any of my family had blabbed, I’d have been right there with them. But the MOW never came for me, which means that whatever the torture, those noble bastards never gave me up.”

Aeva nodded. She took a hand off the wand to clap Frost’s back. “Blood takes care of its own.”

“That’s the funny thing. We weren’t even related, any of us. But we clanless gotta stick together, I guess. When you’re banished from your people, you make your own.”

Aeva frowned. The concept was absurd. In Anderland, if a member of the tribe was banished, it was with the understanding that they wouldn’t survive long before succumbing to the danger of the wilds. The rare exception was if they were accepted into another tribe, but to create their own…?

Regardless, it was an honorable sentiment.

“I didn’t have much after that,” Frost said. “My whole world was ripped away in one day. But I’d been taught to use what I have to make something better, so that’s what I did. Joined up with Linton to bring the MOW down a peg and make the Concord a better place. Shit as it is, it’s my home. Always been.”

Frost picked up his mended wand, new runes etched into its surface. He swung it around a few times, creating trails of light that lingered in the air. “There we go. All better. You can go now, Antlers.”

Aeva stood back. Hesitated. “If you ever need to… talk… about…”

“I won’t. I’m over all that.” The lubbard pulled off his glove and stuck the wand into a pocket on his leather apron. He turned to face her, large pink eyes meeting hers evenly. “But thanks for listening. I didn’t think you wildkin were much for that sort of thing.”

“We are not,” Aeva said. “Perhaps that is the human in me, after all.”

Frost didn’t laugh at her joke. He returned to his table and pulled out another half-completed project, having seemingly forgotten that she was there.

Aeva left the room. She closed the door gingerly behind her.

Whatever his eccentricities, she had gained a little respect for the lubbard.

Walking downstairs to procure food, she found Cat sitting at the bar in the common room. The red-haired woman dragged on a cigarette, rolling an empty shot glass around on its side.

“I hear you got a bit of an upgrade,” Cat said without looking up.

“I would not refer to it as an ‘upgrade’, but yes, Gisa gave me her blessing,” Aeva answered.

“That’s good. Maybe you’ll be able to carry your own weight from now on.”

Aeva’s temper flared. “I can do more than that.”

“Remains to be seen.”

Aeva clenched her teeth. She breathed hard through her nostrils, feeling heat rise to her face. Gisa’s power swelled within her breast in response to her anger, eager to be used. “You would not be so dismissive if you knew what your goddess or war is capable of.”

Cat grinned. She threw a glance over her shoulder. “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

“We spar.”

“That might just be the best idea you’ve had yet, wildkin. Come, I know just the place.”