“I didn’t Heal you,” he lied, but I knew what he meant.
As a fourth-year Creator, Leland shouldn’t have healing magic. I may not have known how he’d Healed me, but I did know one thing for certain. Leland was hiding something.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
EMBER
A good Tongue Binding will clamp a witch’s tongue so well not even Uninhibitor will coax her to speak.
— Velleza Luna, Echelon to the
School of Enchantments
Ireturned from my long shower to an empty room, with no one around to explain how Leland had Healed my phantom flu.
“Where’s your mom?” I asked Nova as I picked out my palace clothes for my meeting with Starvos. Nova sprawled lazily on Skye’s desk, her legs stretched and her belly exposed, clearly ignoring me. “Suspect,” I said. “Very suspect.”
I had two new messages. The first, from the Messenger to the Council of Echelons, was a blast all of Everden received, a warning to avoid the Dark Witch uprising in the catacombs in Gnarlton until the area had been cleared by the Echelon Jaxan D’Oron. The second message was from Leland.
Leland Stray:Busy this morning. Run in the gym.
Ember Blackburn:Will you tell me how you did it?
Leland Stray:Later, if you run in the gym.
I clicked off my transmitter without replying. I would’ve toldhim where I was going, if Jaxan wasn’t his godfather, who he reported everything to. I would’ve maybe stayed inside and done nothing — let the Council figure out who the Shadowrealm was — if I hadn’t gotten my first strike yesterday, a reminder that I wasn’t completely in control of how much time I had to waste.
I knew Jaxan was responsible for the abductions. I knew his footsteps anywhere. And for better or worse, it was time to tell someone. I stashed my cuffs in my sock drawer and packed a water bottle full of moonale into a non-magical tote bag.
I had decent control over my nerves, until I stepped off the egress at Conventicles Crossing. My mind replayed the same scene as I continued on to Odessa Hall. As real as a Vision, as loud as my heart pounding in my chest, I imagined being chased through the palace by one of Jaxan’s staff members, and at the end of the long hall I’d sprinted down, I realized that staff member was Leland. My pockets were raided, my moonale taken, and my second strike was given for another crime I didn’t know I was committing.
That was my mindset when I opened the door to Odessa Hall, doubting if I’d evenget tomy meeting with Starvos. I turned down the corridor of Echelons’ offices, and my heart fell. There were a dozen deteriorated witches on custodial duty, robotically polishing the floor, the smooth surface area of marble endless and backbreaking. Other higher-ranking staff members roamed the hall, but they mostly ignored me. At Starvos’s door, I lifted my fist to knock.
Aurora Gallatine chose that moment to step out into the hallway. “What are you doing in the Echelons’ corridor?” she asked, sharp and accusatory.
I lowered my fist and faced her. Her black eyes glittered with a hunger that should have sent me running, but I’d made my vow to answer her.
“The Echelon Charley Starvos asked me to come during officehours,” I said. “Is he in?”
She curled a bone-white finger and beckoned me to follow her. My instincts screamed for me to run, but by that point, there was nothing I could do besides listen to the Echelon.
Her office was decorated like a gloomy, Gothic lair. Tall, pointed arches were everywhere — in the haunting shape of the windows, the cabinetry, the pass-throughs in the walls, and the sharp curvature of the U-shaped stairs.
Aurora strode across the dark stone floor, her black lace skirt sweeping past the staircase that rose to an upper-level viewing area.
“Sit,” she said, pointing to an ornate black chair.
I slumped down as she took her seat in the sorceress’ throne chair beside it.
Sunlight pierced through a window and struck an open shelving unit storing hundreds of vials of illusion magic. The metallic liquid shimmered like holographs, sending refracted light dancing across Aurora’s pale, porcelain skin.
“Water?” she asked, water pouring from a blood-red decanter into a heavy silver goblet before I had the opportunity to decline it.
My nose wrinkled as the air thickened with the sharp sting of iron. Last time I checked, pouring water didn’t require illusion magic. But disguising potions and poisons . . .
Aurora shifted in her throne, crossing her legs, settling in. “Have some,” she said.
