Chapter Twenty-Four
The keypad outside Audrey’s door beeped five times before the lock snicked. She’d positioned herself in the back corner, prepared to fight like hell when that rotting corpse of a man came back for another meal. She may not have her magic, but all that physical training hadn’t been for nothing—she could still kick some ass. She’d dismantled the camera in the corner first, and then she’d managed to take apart her cot.
She waited with one of the rails poised overhead, ready to smash his sneering face into a bloody pulp. But no one came in. A few heartbeats after the door opened, a mousy voice whispered, “Audrey.”
The metal rail clanged to the cement floor in her shock, and she cringed as she lunged for the doorway. “Lilly?”
Sure enough, the demure girl who had haunted her dreams many nights the past month was standing in the hallway. She was dressed in a pair of clean scrubs with cartoon cats on them. Her hair had started to grow back in a thick black fuzz, her skin had color, and her cheeks had rounded out. Her eyes were the same though—dark and piercing, eons older than they should be.
“You’re okay!” Audrey’s legs went wobbly with relief as she pulled the small girl into her arms, looking down the hall in both directions. “What are you doing here? How did you get out?”
Lilly’s answering smile was the most heartbreaking thing she’d ever seen. She’d begun to doubt that she ever would see it. Despite everything Lilly had been through, it transformed her from an internment-camp victim to a bright, beautiful young lady.
I’m here to rescue you, Lilly said silently. We have to be quiet. Follow me.
She took Lilly’s offered hand and followed her down the hall on quick, silent feet, her senses hyperaware as she listened for any small sound.
Where are we going? she asked in her head.
Up and out, Lilly replied, confirming Audrey’s suspicions that they were underground.
This way.
They rounded a corner and came to an elevator bay. The hair on Audrey’s arms stood on end, and she couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder as Lilly pressed the button and the car beeped its way down to them. She felt way too exposed in the brightly lit corridor, without any weapons or magic.
Lilly squeezed her sweaty hand in reassurance as the elevator dinged and the steel doors slid open.
Audrey’s heart stuttered. She jerked Lilly behind her.
Standing there, as if waiting for them, was her mother and another sorcerer, both in black pantsuits. The sorcerer lifted his hand to an earpiece, and Audrey readied to kick him in the solar plexus to knock the wind out of him, but before she even shifted her weight, his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed into a heap.
Her mother lowered her raised palm slowly to her side. Her eyes flicked from Audrey to Lilly, her face blank of any expression, then she shoved her arm forward to keep the door from closing. “Hurry,” she said in a raspy voice.
Lilly tried to step around her, but Audrey held her back, unable to look away from the woman who embodied all her dearest dreams and darkest nightmares in one. She shook her head, trying to take a step back as Lilly corralled her forward.
“It’s okay, she’s here to help us.” Lilly slid out of her grip.
“Audrey,” her mother said, “I’m not who you think I am. Please. We have to go now—you have to trust me.”
Though her torn emotions threatened to swamp her, Audrey latched onto her instincts, which told her to get out first and ask questions later. She stepped into the elevator, and the doors whispered shut.
There were more urgent questions as the elevator crept up and up, through six below-ground levels toward the fourth and top floor—where were they going, how would they get out, what kind of resistance could they expect to meet—but the only thing she could articulate as she stared into that achingly familiar blue eye was, “Why?”
Her mother seemed just as transfixed. “It would be easier to show you, if you’ll permit me.” She held out her hand.
Lilly looked back and forth between the two of them, then let go of Audrey’s death grip, encouraging her to reach out. Her sweat-slicked palm met her mother’s cool, dry one, and a bright flash filled her vision.
A pair of young girls—twins—huddled in a cell much like the one she’d just left.
Flash.
They were young women, holding hands and looking at each other in a mirror as the head sorcerer put matching moonstone pendants around their necks.
Flash.
One of them was giving birth as the other stood by her side, holding her hand.
Flash.
A teary goodbye as one of them snuck out a window with a small, blond-haired bundle strapped to her chest. Their hands held until the last second, then slipped apart.
Flash.
One of them was a broken body on a stone altar as blood dripped from every limb into ceremonial bowls. The other twin held her hand, gazing down with a face cold as stone. Then she picked up the nearest knife and jabbed it into her eye.
Flash.
Audrey bent over, clutching her gut as it threatened to heave. Her eyes adjusted to the vision of the unconscious sorcerer at her feet, and slowly, she looked up at the woman she’d thought was her mother.
“You’re her sister,” she whispered, struggling to keep her breath even.
Her aunt closed her eye and bowed her head as a single tear streaked down her cheek.
“What was her name? My mother?”
“Marina,” her aunt answered, her voice like gravel. “And I am Esther.”
She didn’t have time to process any of it. Her brain was completely overloaded with conflicting emotions and flooded with adrenaline. All she could do was accept these new facts. Now she had a name for the woman in her memory. Now she had a story. Her mother had sacrificed herself to try and get Audrey to safety, away from the sorcerers.
Yet you still ended up here.
We always knew that you would, Esther’s voice answered.
The elevator dinged on the fourth floor and opened to a small lobby encased in black marble, with rich wood trim and an elegant rug in the center. Across from them was a set of tall mahogany doors inlaid with detailed carvings.
Esther pulled a cardkey out of her jacket pocket and swiped it through the reader on the wall. The doors unlocked, and she swung one open, gesturing them into the dark room beyond. Audrey went first, with Lilly close on her heels. She took two steps inside and froze, recognizing where they were from her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling glass. They were back in the head sorcerer’s office. The lights of the bay and the city beyond twinkled in a crescent around the dark water. The full moon was high in the sky, shrouded in a layer of wispy clouds.
“Why are we here?”
Esther was already across the room, entering a code into a hidden safe. When it opened, she pulled out an ornate wooden box and set it carefully on the desk.
Audrey scanned the room for cameras but didn’t see any.
Esther flipped the box open. Inside were two giant gemstones. They looked like rubies the size of her palm. She wanted to scream that they didn’t have time for cat-burgling, but as if reading her thoughts—in fact she probably was—Esther said, “Hold out your hand.”
Audrey hesitated but complied. Esther set one of the heavy stones in Audrey’s palm, then walked behind her. “This will hurt for a second.”
Before Audrey could respond, Esther laid the other stone against the crown of her head. A sizzle of magic coursed through her like lighting the fuse on a firecracker, and then the stone in her palm warmed and flashed green. She hissed and dropped it to the floor, shaking out her hand as if she’d knocked her funny bone with a sledgehammer. She turned a questioning look on her aunt, who set the other haphazardly on the desk.
“Your powers,” was all she said as she crossed the room and slid her card through another door, this one opening onto an outdoor terrace. “This way.”
Audrey paused a moment to test her magic and found it restored. She cloaked herself in invisibility, and Lilly stared at where she’d just been with bulging eyes. She reappeared, then grabbed Lilly and cloaked them both. “Stay close to me—don’t let go.”
“Audrey…” Lilly said in wonder, “I didn’t know you were a superhero.”
I wish, kid. But she felt a lot better about this jailbreak now that she had magic. Thanks to the full moon, she was fully recharged after being drained earlier. Her heartbeat hammered in her chest at the first scent of cold, salt air as they skated around the side of the building and took two levels of service stairs down to the roof of one of the outbuildings. A foghorn blared in the distance, but no alarms sounded. Aside from the lapping of the water against the dock below them, all was quiet.
There were floodlights on the roof, and likely cameras, but Esther took a path that kept her in the shadows, and Audrey and Lilly were invisible. At the far end of the rooftop, a service ladder went down another two stories to the concrete dock.
Lilly went down first, exposed for those few seconds, with Audrey and Esther close behind. They inched their way along the side of the building as Esther strode ahead of them. They rounded a corner, and Lilly gasped. Audrey yanked her back, only to see another fallen guard crumpled to the ground, this one in black paramilitary garb and armed with an automatic weapon. Just like the other, he seemed to have collapsed on the spot, like a windup toy that had run out of juice.
Neat trick, Audrey thought.
I can only hold one under at a time. The other will wake now and raise the alarm. We have to hurry, Esther answered.
Are we going on the boat now? Lilly chimed in.
Yes, darling girl.
Audrey searched the concrete loading dock before them and spotted a stairwell about a hundred yards away. Beyond that, a smaller dock extended out into the bay. A large yacht was moored there, but in front of the yacht was a smaller power boat. She squeezed Lilly’s hand tight and called a ball of energy to her other palm, holding it cocked and ready.
This is where I leave you, Esther said, her eye glowing a milky white like a miniature moon.
What? No, you’re coming with us. Audrey dropped her cloak and let her energy blast snuff out. Lilly sniffled beside her.
You cannot cross the ward unless I disable it, Esther answered. She knelt in front of Lilly and held her by the shoulders, speaking to her silently, then unclasped her moonstone pendant and put it around Lilly’s neck. Lilly nodded as tears tracked down her cheeks, then threw her arms around Audrey’s aunt. Esther hugged her tight, then stood and faced Audrey.
Besides, I have unfinished business here. Her eye flashed an electric blue in the gloom. She reached out to cup Audrey’s cheek, and the earth felt like it was dropping out from under her feet. She’d only just found the last bit of her family—her history—and now she was already saying goodbye? Esther’s thin mouth curved up in the hint of a smile. “She would be so proud of you.”
Audrey’s mouth fell open, and she wanted to reach out to her aunt, but Lilly clung to her side, rooting her in place.
Stay hidden until the ward falls, then run to the boat. The keys are in the ignition. Get away, and then send the Synod back for the others.
How will we know when the ward falls?
All hell will break loose.
Audrey swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. She projected a shield around her and Lilly like a bubble and reinforced it with invisibility magic as Esther turned to leave.
Her aunt took two steps into the shadows, and then bright light flooded their hidden corner, blinding them. Two tall, dark figures in suits appeared out of nowhere, flanking Esther. Gun clicks echoed from the rooftop overhead, and several armed guards flooded up the stairs that were supposed to be their escape route, like ants fleeing a disturbed sand hill.
Lilly made a small sound, and Audrey clasped her hand over the girl’s mouth as she called forth an energy blast and scooted them and their bubble a few feet back, silent.
Esther froze, her shadow casting a long, dark stripe on the wall behind her. The sorcerer who’d drained Audrey earlier approached Esther with a handgun pointed at her head. She didn’t fight him as he turned her around and bound her in handcuffs. He shoved her toward the head sorcerer, who stood in the middle of the floodlights, and then forced her to her knees.
The other guards closed in around them, and Audrey had nowhere to go. The head sorcerer stared in her general direction, his ice-chip eyes missing her by a couple of feet. “I can’t see you, Audrey, but I can taste your magic. You’ve nowhere to go. Let’s stop these games before someone gets hurt.”
Her shield couldn’t stop bullets, but she wasn’t about to drop it and lose her only advantage. Instead, she dragged Lilly a few steps closer to him. Hopefully his guards wouldn’t risk shooting their master. Sweat beaded at her hairline as she worked to control her breathing and keep a tight rein on her power. It still required focus for her to hold her shields, and that was in short supply with her emotions zinging every which way. She thought of all her morning exercises with Cian, the pool of stillness he’d helped her invoke. But then that made her think of Corvin, and that she might never see him again.
The sorcerer turned to face Esther, his handsome face twisting into a sneer as he gazed down at her. “It appears blood is thicker than power after all. How lamentable.” He caressed her cheek beneath her good eye, almost like a lover. “What am I going to do with you?”
To her credit, Esther stood as still as a statue.
Go now, she yelled in Audrey’s head. Run!
But running toward a wall of guns and away from someone in need of her help was so counter to Audrey’s instincts she stayed stuck in place. Lilly whimpered, and the guards nearest them adjusted their positions.
Think … think …
Run!
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and her hand holding her energy blast started to shake. She placed herself between Lilly and the head sorcerer—clearly the bigger threat, though he didn’t look it—and let go of her invisibility magic.
“Ah,” he said, whirling on her and looking her up and down with a smile, “there’s my girl.”
All thirty guns trained on her in a single motion.
The sorcerer held up his hand. “Do not harm her, but get the little one.”
Four guards closed in on her and Lilly. Audrey blasted the first one in the face and used telekinesis to knock the other two together. As they fell back in a tangle of guns and gear, the last tried to tackle her. She whirled on him and got in a solid punch to the side of his head, but he shook it off and took her down. She readied another energy ball and kneed him in the stomach. Lilly screamed as a different guard yanked her away, and Audrey threw it at him instead. Lilly got free, but it cost Audrey her advantage. The guard she’d been wrestling pinned her to the concrete.
She gathered her magic to force him off, but then the ground shook with a distant explosion. For a breath, everyone stilled, listening. A webbed dome of red lightning sparkled overhead like a million tiny stars dying as the ward disintegrated.
And then all hell broke loose.