“Good luck to you,” Commander Rojas said with a brief, sour smile as he put his helmet on and started issuing orders.
“Everyone who isn’t going with Rojas, come with me,” the director said, turning on his heel and heading back to the Conclave meeting room.
Hallie fell into step behind Girard and didn’t stop until they were through the enormous double doors and inside the chamber. Then she did stop. She couldn’t have moved any further forward if she’d wanted to, amazed not only at where she was but at the spectacle in front of her.
The Conclave meeting chamber was the single biggest room she had ever seen, larger than anything she could have imagined. It rivalled the railway terminus in midtown for scale and height. It was formed in an oval shape. She had entered at one of the ends. Straight ahead of her, the other end of the oval was made of glass that stretched at least as high as the main entrance to the building. This glass was etched with designs Hallie couldn’t make out just then. The walls soared overhead, several storeys high, gracefully curving inward until they reached a glass roof. The marble walls she remembered from television screens started at the base in a dark, deep green that reminded her of the ocean, the colour seamlessly fading and blending into blue, paler and paler as the walls rose until there was barely any colour before the glass domed roof. It was deceptively simple, with no adornment, but the kind of simplicity that murmured of skilled craftsmanship and great expense.
The floor of the chamber was made entirely of pale, veined marble, a shocking display of wealth even byhochlenstandards. The centre of the floor was recessed, accessed by a dozen rings of wide, shallow steps that ran around the entire chamber. At regular intervals around the stairs, wooden benches had been placed. Hallie hadn’t been aware that any audienceswere allowed, but perhaps the Conclave members’ aides were permitted to sit in from time to time, or the benches were used for a break between meetings. At the bottom, in the centre of the chamber floor, was a large oval table with seats evenly spaced around it. In contrast to the understated elegance of the room, the table surface was scattered with electronic tablets and bundles of papers as well as glasses of water, tea and coffee cups, and silver trays of what looked like miniature cakes. The signs of preparation for the meeting, far more ordinary and mundane than the extraordinary window, helped Hallie regain her focus and turn her attention to the people in the room.
No one was sitting around the table just now. The Conclave members, all of them wearing floor-length robes in the same deep green as the base of the walls, were gathered in small groups. Some were on the very lower floor, near the end of the meeting table. A few of the members were standing on the steps, some near the main doors, and still more were settled on the benches. There were a few otherhochlenmixed in. Aides, Hallie guessed, and spotted the familiar figure of Emmet Lowery farther into the room, seeming to be in close conversation with one of the aides. Even at that distance, Hallie could still see the overlay of Emmet’shochlendisguise over his true form. Those gathered were almost all male, with very few women present and, among the women, only Cotovatre wore the robes of a Conclave member. Hallie had known that, of course, but seeing thehochlenidea of hierarchy so clearly illustrated still gave her an uncomfortable jolt. She remembered Verain Abbott’s proposal, his ambition that she should marry his son not to make either of them happy but so that Girard would step into place as Cotovatre’s heir. Seeing all the men in their robes made her even more confident in her choice to say no and even more determined to follow in her ancestor’s footsteps.
With her mind working fast, she moved with the director and investigators several paces into the room and down the first two shallow steps. She could see surprise and irritation on the faces that were turned towards her group.
“Ladies, gentlemen, I need you to come with us,” the director said, pitching his voice to carry through the whole, vast room. With so much of the room formed of hard surfaces, every sound should have echoed. Instead, there was a subtle richness in the air that mellowed and tempered all the various noises, from voices to footsteps. Magic, Hallie guessed.
“What’s the meaning of this, Roth?” Lamorat asked. He was several steps further down towards the floor of the chamber, standing with Ulfiam, neither of them looking all that happy.
“There’s been an explosion in the basement,” the director said, with what Hallie thought was admirable calm. “We’re concerned about other devices.”
“This is unacceptable,” another member said. The florid-faced, angry man Hallie had noted at Cotovatre’s party. Nanters Gable. His hands were balled into fists at his sides. “You are expected to secure the building and protect the members here. Not order us about as if we were children.”
“You can shout at me all you want later,” Peredur said, irritation sharpening his voice, “but right now, you need to move.”
Apart from a few Conclave members standing near the door, no one moved. Instead, they started muttering among themselves. Hallie looked around in disbelief. They had been told they were in danger, and none of them seemed to be taking it seriously. She wanted to shout at them, but if they weren’t paying attention to the director, no one was going to listen to her. Meantime, she was stuck in here while Findo and Russet Welliver were somewhere else in the building carrying outwhatever they had planned. She didn’t imagine for one moment that they were going to stop at a few grenades.
Cotovatre detached herself from a pair of white-haired men at the foot of the stairs, one of whom was Ocvran, and made her way up. Hallie took another step down to meet her.
“What’s happened?” Cotovatre asked. She was maintaining her calm, but Hallie could see the concern in her ancestor’s face.
“Someone threw grenades at us. At least two people armed with explosives are in the building,” Hallie answered, urgency adding an edge to her voice. She didn’t know much about the rest of the Conclave, but she cared deeply about Cotovatre and wanted her as safe as possible. “They managed to gain access through the parking area earlier this morning. We need to get everyone out so we can do a proper search and make sure it’s safe.”
Cotovatre kept her eyes on Hallie’s face for a long moment before looking past her to where the director and the others were standing. Then she gave a quick nod, much as the commander had not long before. “We’ll go with you.” She turned away and raised her voice. “We should listen to the director. We have charged him with our safety. So, let’s go now.”
“I’m not going to run from danger,” Hoel Buchanan said from his position by the table. Even from that distance, Hallie could see the disdain on his face.
“That’s your choice,” Cotovatre said, a hint of impatience in her voice, “but if you value your life and well-being, I would listen to the director and his people.”
With evident reluctance, the Conclave members began to stir, heading towards the exit. They were still moving too slowly for Hallie’s liking, but at least they were moving. Finally.
As they moved, a muffled explosion sent a shock wave through the air, shaking the ground, reverberating through Hallie’s chest, sending a static charge across her skin. Thezauberwokeup at her hip, coming fully awake and watchful between one heartbeat and the next. Cries of alarm, swearing, and a few shouts of anger and disbelief had her turning to follow the direction everyone was looking in, out of the double doors. There was a wave of golden light heading towards them. No. Not light.Gold. Molten gold. Hallie could feel the heat of it even from that distance.
Hallie’s mind spun. The golden bubbles. The endless waterfall from the great entrance to the building. It had to be. Someone had blown it up, with enough force and enough heat to melt the bubbles and turn them into a river. A river of super-heated metal that would consume everything in its path. And not just heat, but Hallie could sense fragmented magic in the river. The magic that had been used to keep the perpetual waterfall in place. Hallie opened her mouth to cry out some kind of warning.
Before she could make any sound, Peredur was moving and shouting. “Close the doors.”
As he moved, Hallie could see that he was going to be too late. He was going to be an eternity too late.
There was only one person next to the doors. Mel. Melechan Mills. Thehochlenwho despised Hallie and who would happily have killed her. But he moved. Not to save himself, as Hallie would have guessed, but instead to close the doors, swinging the great heavy slabs of wood shut even as the molten metal streamed closer, the heat of it scorching Hallie’s skin.
Mel didn’t have a chance. He closed the doors, swung the latch into place, tried to move away, caught as molten metal poured through the paper-thin gap in the doors, sliding across his shoulder, arm, then his whole body. Mel died screaming as more metal poured over him, setting him alight until there was not one bit of him left. Hallie had no time to feel anything but shock at the sudden, violent death as the doors simply evaporated, barely slowing down the river of metal as it continued into theroom, sweeping forwards towards the investigators, Conclave members and their aides. Panicked shouts and cries of alarm filled the air as the people closest to the river - a few Conclave members and their aides - tried to run from it. Hallie watched in open-mouthed horror as the molten river caught the trailing end of one of the member’s robes and flames licked up the fabric, engulfing the man between one heartbeat and the next, swallowing him whole, even the screams.
Thezauberflared, a shield forming in the air in front of Hallie. She braced herself, holding her hands out, pushing the shield forwards, her whole body shaking from the heat and the effort. It wasn’t bullets this time, and the white hot heat scorched through her, sending her to her knees as she struggled to contain the metal river and the bits of broken magic she could sense coiling through the depths.
Dimly she heard more cries and shouts behind her. Not panicked this time. Cotovatre, speaking with firm authority, calling out for Emmet and another two names Hallie barely knew and didn’t have time to place.
Then she felt Cotovatre’s presence beside her and heard the lady’s voice, gentle and firm. “Emmet is almost here. I can’t channel my energy into the shield. I don’t have that ability. But Emmet can, and he can link us. Hold on, Hallie. Just a few moments more.” As Cotovatre spoke, Hallie felt a trail of her magic rise. Her ancestor was using a different spell, her magic blessedly familiar. A cooling spell. Useful for reducing a fever, or trying to tamp down the fierce heat of molten metal.
Hallie was blind and gasping for air, sweat coating her body from the heat, every part of her skin feeling singed, but the shield was holding. Just. Long, slim fingers curled around her wrist and another familiar presence joined her.
