Page 34

CHAPTER 34

A fter dinner, I helped Dominica with the dishes, and then we joined the men on the porch. The house overlooked the lake, and it was a quiet, pleasant evening. The opposite of what I suspected was going on in the city.

Jonas dialed his phone, then set it on the table in speaker mode. Master Adolphus answered.

“Jonas? Did you make it to Mikhail’s all right?”

“We’re here, Adolphus. We just finished one of Dominica’s wonderful dinners.”

“Kaitlyn?”

“I’m here, Master. I’m all right.”

“Tell me what happened to the building,” he said.

“They weren’t going to let me go. They tried to put shackles on me and said they were taking me to a Church jail. So I pulled in as much power from the ley line as I could. None of them seemed to understand what I was doing, even the spirit mage, except the woman. When I overloaded, there was an explosion, and the roof caved in.”

Master Adolphus’s tone was clearly disapproving. “Did it occur to you that it might be dangerous?”

“I was shielded. Until you teach me how to walk through walls like Sima, I have to knock them down.” I shrugged. “You said I do sloppy magic very well.”

There was silence from the other end of the phone, and then the Master started laughing. He laughed for a long time, then gasped, “Mikhail, Jonas, do you see what I have to contend with?”

Adolphus was in contact with Luka, who was directing the Guild Enforcers in their efforts to resist the insurgents. Of the thirteen members of the Guild Council, he knew that Master Noah was dead, two were sitting with me, five had retreated to a building at the university, and the other four were each hiding out alone. One was unaccounted for.

“Luka’s spies tell him that the Knights plan to take Mikhail tomorrow night,” Adolphus said. "It doesn’t appear that they know you’re with him, Jonas.”

Dominica chuckled. “Unfortunately, Kaitlyn, I do not have popcorn, but I think you can help me whip up some other snacks to enjoy the show.”

“Are they total bloody idiots?” Master Mikhail asked, shaking his head.

“We know the Knights attract very few master-level mages,” Adolphus answered. “My assumption is that they don’t have many geomancers in Zürich. But most people think of you as a smith, not a geomancer. Obviously, they haven’t thought things through.”

* * *

I spent the following day helping Dominica harvest vegetables from her garden and fruit from her orchard. I preferred picking the fruit. It was a lot easier for me to reach up than to bend over to the ground.

Then she gave me a cooking lesson.

“You don’t know how to cook?” She was aghast.

“I never had to learn. I mean, I can fry an egg, boil water, and heat stuff from a can, but in Queen City, I either lived with Master Elias or stayed in a room at the Guild House. I didn’t have a kitchen.” I didn’t mention the years I spent on the street. My mom wasn’t much of a cook, either—she had grown up in a house with servants.

She set me to work, and together we made Polish cabbage rolls and rosti, a kind of Swiss hashbrowns. For snacks, she baked little donut things filled with sweet cheese. We also hauled a keg of cider up from the basement.

“Luka’s man says the Knights will wait until dark,” Mikhail said, “so we’ll eat early.”

After dinner, he took me to the back of his property, uphill through the trees, until we reached a fence.

“I want you to watch from this direction,” he said. “Glamor yourself, and if anyone comes, call Master Jonas.”

“Yes, sir.” I worked up my courage, and asked, “Why is Master Jonas’s aura so confusing? I mean, I understand that he has affinities for air and water, but there is lightning shooting through it as well.”

Mikhail chuckled. “He’s a storm mage. If he has to get involved, make sure your shield is waterproof, and find a place where trees blowing past won’t hit you.”

I hoped he was joking about the last part. In Queen City, I had been told about storm mages, and that they were so rare as to be almost mythical. I looked up to see a starry sky without a trace of clouds.

Mikhail gestured toward the lake. “He wouldn’t need clouds to find water to use.”

It was eleven o’clock before I saw headlights coming up the driveway. I counted three vehicles and thought they were probably APCs, but with no moon, it was hard to see in the dark.

The lead vehicle crossed the fence that completely circled Master Mikhail’s property. The headlights abruptly dropped, and the vehicle slowed. Then it began to sink out of sight, and I knew what the Master had done—he turned the ground into a liquid.

The men inside started bailing out, but there was no solid ground for them to land on, and they sank alongside their vehicle.

The other two APCs stopped, and their crews watched the disaster in front of them. A few men fanned out and climbed the fence on either side of the road. But when they dropped to the ground inside the fence, they also sank out of sight. Even a hundred feet from the road, the ground was unstable.

After about an hour, the remaining two APCs turned around and drove away. I popped another donut.

I waited until Master Jonas appeared out of the dark.

“Kaitlyn, come on in. We don’t think they’ll be back tonight.”

I sheathed my sword and followed him.

Master Mikhail did have a television, and we gathered around it, trying to find any news of developments in Zürich. There wasn’t much. One of Müller’s stooges from the police was interviewed and ranted about the danger of the strigoi and lycans. There wasn’t any mention of the coups against either the Kanton government or the Guild.

“They’re blaming damage and deaths caused by fighting between Knights and Enforcers on the supernaturals,” I said.

Master Jonas nodded. “They’re casting all the conflicts as between humans and monsters. Adolphus and I think they’ll wait until they have the supernaturals under control before they engage with us publicly.”

“The Church versus the Guild?” I asked.

Both masters nodded.

“Müller and the Church want to re-negotiate the Treaty of Krakow,” Master Jonas said. “The problem is that both want to end up in control. The Church thinks that their Knights will give them the leverage they didn’t have in 1685. Müller’s Guild faction that wants to establish a magiocracy is simply delusional.”

“Müller once told me that we caved in too easily in 1685,” I said.

“Both sides were exhausted,” Master Mikhail said. “The destruction of the cities was done to try and shock the Church into coming to negotiations. Before that, the magic users were losing. Yes, we could have continued slaughtering massive numbers of innocents, but that wasn’t the strategy very many of the mages wanted to pursue. We wanted the normals to leave us alone. Instilling terror has limited long-term value.”

“You were there,” I said.

He nodded. “Adolphus and I. We were young, and not part of the group making decisions for the magic users, though my father was. The witch covens were most violent, but they had also taken the most harm from the Inquisition. We think that Müller is getting support from them now. He holds them in contempt, but he is a charming con man.”