Chapter 20 – The Miracle

Linton watched with mild amusement as the two women circled each other. He leaned against the wall of the walk-in freezer, swaddled in sweaters and a big coat, while Aeva and Cat had stripped down to tank tops and roomy pants.

Frost was spending his day off fixing up Hunter, who had sustained heavy damage in their assault on Tamos’s residence. Doc busied himself with some light reading, ghastly piano music radiating downstairs from his room.

Aeva and Cat were sparring. They had steered the shelves and boxes of frozen foods to the corners of the room for extra space.

“Alright, let’s see what you’ve got, big girl,” Cat said. She crouched in a ready stance, breath white.

Aeva charged forward, fists flaming. Cat used a Knuph spell to push herself out of the wildkin’s path, but Aeva spun on a dime and struck out with a kick that knocked Cat flat on her back.

Aeva pulled back to finish the fight before it started with a fiery punch. Cat raised her hand to cast a spell.

“No Baku!” Linton shouted.

Cat clicked her tongue and rolled out of the way of Aeva’s attack. The wildkin’s fist connected with the floor and split a tile with a sharp crack. Cat jumped back on her feet, and the two fighters circled each other once more.

Cat had years of arcane know-how and a knack for quick thinking. Aeva, on the other hand, possessed speed and strength far superior to any human, both thanks to her wildkin blood and, assumedly, a passive boost from Gisa’s blessing.

Aeva drew close and twisted her torso for an uppercut.

“Knuph!” Cat shouted and threw up her hand just in time to deflect Aeva’s strike, fist going wide. She retaliated with a well-placed blow under the ribs that sent Aeva reeling.

“Drida!” she followed up, and a heavy slab of meat flew off a shelf next to Linton. It struck Aeva in the back of the head. She fell forward with a grunt, meat slab sliding along the floor before coming to a stop against the opposite wall.

“That’s enough,” Cat said as she gathered anima for one last spell.

Aeva looked up and threw her hands forward. A leash of flame shot out of her hands and bit at Cat like a snake. She jumped over the fire, but the distraction was enough for Aeva to fight her way back on her feet, wobbly but determined.

“Ljisa,” Cat spoke.

Linton sighed and closed his eyes, putting an arm over his face. Half a second later, Aeva screamed in agony, and even through closed lids his eyes were overwhelmed by a flash of light.

When he opened his eyes again, Cat was right up against the wildkin. She spoke a Knuph rune, struck her opponent in the chin, and her opponent went flying.

Aeva landed on her back. She moved sluggishly, groaning as she tried to get back up, but Cat placed a foot on her throat and pinned her back down.

“You’re pretty good for a beginner,” she said, “but you’ll need more practice if you want to beat a real mage.”

Aeva growled. Her whole body shook with rage, but she accepted the defeat. Cat helped her back up and made sure that she hadn’t sustained any serious wounds.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Linton said as they made to leave the freezer room, “you’ve made a striking improvement.”

Aeva brushed past him, still fuming over her loss.

They went back out into the common room where they found Doc waiting for them, shuffling anxiously. He had even switched off his grating music.

When he noticed Linton, he sighed so deeply that his mustaches quivered. He came up and put an arm on Linton’s shoulder.

“Listen here,” Doc said. “I’ve got some bad news.”

“I’m always prepared for bad news,” Linton said. “No need to ease me into it.”

“Your family has been captured and brought here, to Northmark.”

Linton stiffened. “That’s impossible. I sent them to Linvala. They’re safe there. The LIS won’t extradite them.”

“Some sort of trick?” Cat asked. She looked frightened. “This can’t be real, can it?”

“There are pictures of their incarceration,” Doc said. He handed Linton the newspaper where he’d read it.

Linton read through it closely and scanned over the pictures of his family being brought from a rumbler into some unfamiliar facility. It was real. The MOW could fabricate images, but nothing this believable. He was intimately familiar with their techniques.

“Couldess has started playing dirty, I see,” Linton said. He folded up the paper and threw it on the bar. “He has them. All of them. There’s no mistaking it.”

Cat kicked over a chair with a shrill yell. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She let out her rage on the furniture, resulting in several splintered chairs. Doc looked like he wanted to intervene, but said nothing.

Eventually she calmed down and swept her wild hair out of her face. She looked imploringly at Linton. “We have to go get them. Right now. Wherever they are, we’ll find them.”

Linton held up a hand. “Slow down. We have to be rational about this. The only reason we know about their incarceration at all is because Couldess wants us to. If he wanted to interrogate them without us knowing, he could. Which means…”

“It is a trap,” Aeva said.

“Exactly. Almost certainly a trap. Meaning that if we run in, spells flying, we’re only giving Couldess what he wants. We need to talk about this. Doc, get everyone together. We’re holding a meeting.”

Cat’s jaw dropped. “You… You can’t be serious about this, Linton. You can’t just let them rot in cells. The MOW will torture them!”

Linton sighed. He put on a softer tone. “Trust me. I know better than anyone what the MOW has in store for them. And I know that if we don’t do this right, there’s not a chance we’ll see any of them alive again.”

Cat went silent.

She was too strong to weep, but he caught her lip quivering.

***

The six of them sat around a table in the common room. Cat puffed diligently on a cigarette and tapped the ash into an overflowing tray.

“This is a waste of time,” Hunter said. His half-finished chassis whirred with energy. “I didn’t ally myself with you, Linton Granhorn, so that we could take care of your business. I did it so that we could kill Lazarim Drakemyth. If your plan is deviating from that, count me out.”

Cat looked like she was about to chew them out, but Linton silenced her with an intent stare.

“I understand your reservations,” he said, “but please, have patience. Couldess has set a trap for me, personally. If we foil him, we might gain some insight into his plans. Disregarding the lives of my family, I think that’s worth the risk.”

“Hey, it’s okay that you want to save your family, can’t blame you for that,” Frost said. He tinkered with one of Hunter’s arms using his glowing wand, goggles over his eyes. “But make no mistake—this is about them, nothing else. Don’t expect the rest of us to go along with that. We all know you wouldn’t do the same if it had even a chance of hurting your precious plan.”

“With any luck, you won’t need to get involved,” Linton said. “As always, I have formulated a plan. One that won’t require us to spring the trap directly.”

“Yeah?” Hunter asked. “And what’s that?”

“I’m going to call on our seventh member. I suspect she’ll have the power to resolve this matter.”

“Is that wise?” Doc asked. “We can’t afford for her involvement to be discovered.”

“We would have to bring her in at some point, anyway,” Linton assured him. “I’ll make sure her cover stays intact. I’m no fool.” He cleared his throat and looked around the table at each one of the Bluebirds. “You’re right, Frost—this is a family matter. All who wish to stay out of it can do so. Are we in agreement?”

“I’ll give my aid,” Doc said. He shrugged. “I’m a doctor. My services are open to anyone in need—especially you, Linton.”

“And I as well,” Aeva said. “We must be as one if we shall hold any hope of defeating our enemy.”

Hunter shook his head. “Count me out. This is idiocy.”

“Me too,” Frost said. He gave the mechanical arm a last tap with his wand and closed up the protective paneling. “There, try that.”

Hunter lifted his arm, moved his fingers around, and made a fist. “Adequate.”

Linton rose from the table. “Well, then,” he said. “I’ll make the preparations. Hunter, Frost, you take this time to rest up. We will be tackling our next archon as soon as we finish this detour.”

“One last thing. Who is the seventh member of the Bluebirds?” Aeva asked. “You have never told me about her.”

Linton grinned wide. “I suppose it’s time you knew. Her name is Tessla Couldess. Daughter of Septum Couldess.”

***

Aeva shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. She hadn’t touched the human food Linton had set in front of her.

Linton himself, however, ate with hearty enthusiasm, taking large bites out of something he called a ‘burger’. Just watching him made her feel queasy.

“How can you trust her?” she whispered, then looked around the diner to make sure no one was watching. “She is the spawn of our enemy.”

“She’s trustworthy,” Linton said calmly.

“How can you be certain? She could be a spy.”

“She isn’t. I’d stake my life on it.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I, like you, entertained a healthy suspicion when we first met. In order to prove her loyalty to our cause, she let me view her mind.”

“What did you see?”

“Everything. Every desire. Every dark secret. She held nothing back. The kind of information I could use to ruin her life, should I wish to do so. So, trust me—she’s not a spy.”

Aeva allowed herself to be placated. His assurances, however, did not ease her nerves. They were both glamored so that Aeva looked like a gangly human male and Linton a pale-skinned male in his early middle age.

“And you are certain she will appear?”

Linton finished his burger and licked his fingers. “I’m sure.” He wiped his chin with a napkin. “Don’t worry, alright? I’ve got this handled.”

“Then why am I here?” Aeva asked.

He didn’t answer.

A woman entered the diner. She looked delicate, even by human standards, and wore her flowing, golden hair in a tight bun at the back. Her high-heeled shoes clacked on the floor as she crossed the diner. She sat down in the booth directly behind Aeva, separated by a thin wooden backboard.

Tessla Couldess. It had to be.

“Nice weather we have today, isn’t it?” Linton said, loud enough that the woman could hear them. “Lots of birds about.”

“It is, sir,” Tessla answered. “Sunny and clear, but not too hot. I love days like that.”

Linton nodded to himself and stroked his illusory beard.

Tessla ordered and ate her lunch. They didn’t speak. Aeva looked on in great confusion as Linton wasted time, folding the napkins into little people and yawning intermittently.

Aeva cleared her throat. “We have a job to carry out, do we not?”

“Relax,” Linton said. “There’s no rush.”

Tessla ate, paid, and left without speaking another word to either of them. A few minutes after that, Linton got up and directed Aeva to follow.

Once they were out of the diner, she pulled him aside into an alley.

“What happened?” she asked. “Why did you not say anything?”

“I said everything I needed to,” Linton said. He kept walking.

Aeva trailed behind him, confused, when a sudden, foreign thought formed inside her head.

I’m a psychomancer, remember? I don’t need to use my mouth to speak. It was Linton’s voice, but at the same time it wasn’t. It was more like a memory of a conversation than an actual sound.

“I’ve set up a safer meeting place with her,” he said, speaking normally. “We’ll be meeting her tonight in earnest, so dust off your best manners.”