Crown of the Queen (The Wardbreaker Book 3) Read online

  The things Mages do for Aetherglass and treasure.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The sands of time were well and truly falling, now. I wasn’t a stranger to spells designed to change a person’s appearance. I’d done this once before, what felt like a lifetime ago. Unlike most other spells, I knew how long this one would last. Eight hours. That was all the time we had before the magic making us look like different people wore off.

  The two prisoners we’d knocked out, however, would probably be discovered way before then. We had stuffed them in a closet, but once they woke up, they were bound make all kinds of noise and get themselves noticed by someone who could raise the alarm.

  “You’re shuffling around a lot,” Axel said. He’d taken the appearance, and the voice, of a much older man—someone easily in his fifties, with crazy, grey hair, wild eyes, and a gruff voice; the kind of man who often flagged up on TV as someone the police wanted for questioning.

  “Wearing someone else’s skin is uncomfortable,” I said, “And the duct tape keeping my spells strapped to my skin is already starting to chafe.”

  “Count your lucky stars you don’t have as much hair as I do, then.”

  Axel headed over to the door the other prisoners had been shuffled through. I was fully prepared to have to deal with anything from an electronic locking mechanism to a vault-door type situation. I had no way of knowing exactly what kind of internal systems the people running this fine establishment used, so I figured I would pack appropriately.

  The cellblock door, however, was an old, metal door requiring a simple key to unlock. I pulled a pair of hairpins out of my hair and got to work on the lock, carefully feeling and listening out for the click while Axel watched the corridor.

  “I think my magic is about to wear off,” Axel said. “Not that I’m trying to rush you, or anything.”

  I took a deep breath and concentrated on working on the lock. I thought about Ifrit as my fingers carefully searched for the click. Axel had been connected to his Guardian, Phades, for a long time. Ifrit was new to me. I wasn’t sure what was meant to feel normal and what wasn’t yet. In some ways it was still weird having him around, but I was starting to feel comforted by his presence.

  I had a lot to learn about Guardians, still. Ifrit was part of me. He was a being wrapped around my literal soul, an entity without which I was an incomplete, imperfect Mage. That meant he didn’t live in the Tempest anymore, but inside of me. The fact that the prison seemed to have the power to suppress Ifrit meant it had the power to affect my soul in that way, and I didn’t like that. I didn’t like it one bit.

  Click.

  The cellblock door unlocked. I looked up at Axel, who waited a second, and then slowly he opened the door. He inched it open at first, taking a second to scan the cellblock before finally opening it wide enough for him to slip through. I followed, shutting the door as quickly as I could and spinning around to press my back against it.

  My ears popped, and the hum of magic strumming through me fell away. Axel’s spell was gone, and that meant everyone could see us, now. And boy if there weren’t a ton of people crammed into this cellblock. The cacophony of voices was wild, and untamed.

  There were tables and chairs all along the ground floor, with a shielded guard post on an elevated platform at one end of the room. The walls were all lined with cell after cell. A set of spiral stairs curling around the guard post led to the next floor above, where there were even more cells. There was no natural sunlight in here, only the light from huge fluorescents up in the ceiling—some of which were buzzing and flickering.

  It was a mundane place, not at all what I’d expected considering everyone in here was a supernatural creature of some variety—whether Mage, Shifter, or Outsider from across the Rifts. This was Harrowgate Prison, the single most notorious place I had ever heard of. And sure, it was dirty, and mostly dark, and the guards looked like they were always a hair-trigger away from beating someone senseless, but where were the horrors?

  “We should spread out,” I said, “We know who we’re looking for, right?”

  “Right, but I don’t think splitting up is a good idea,” Axel said, “We don’t know anything about this place or the people in here.”

  “We also don’t know if the bodies we’re wearing are in different gangs.”

  “Maybe we are, but if one of us gets into trouble, the other needs to be there to help.”

  “Axel, I know you’re trying to look after me, but the reality is, we’re in prison. If one of us gets into trouble, we’re going to get thrown into our cells. I’d be more worried about getting frisked by one of the guards than getting into a fight with one of these idiots.”

  “I don’t know…” Axel trailed off, looking around. “Some of these idiots look pretty big.”

  I grinned at him. “You worried?”

  Axel grimaced. “Please don’t do that… you don’t have enough teeth to do that.”

  “You don’t look so hot yourself, grandpa.”

  He shook his head. “Alright, fine. I’ll look around down here, you take the top floor.”

  I nodded, and we parted ways, pressing into the crowd of prisoners going about their daily lives. Most of them were hanging out on the ground floor, sitting around the tables, talking. Others stood shiftily about in dark corners, watching, eyes peeled for likely threats.

  The cell doors were open, and as I walked past some, I was able to catch glimpses of the prisoners who chose to spend their time away from other people. Most of them were lying down in their bunks, but others didn’t look too great.

  One woman sat on the edge of her bed, her knees all the way up to her chest. She was obsessively chewing her nails and rocking back and forth. In the cell next to her, a man was talking to the wall at the far end of his cell. He was having a full-blown conversation with it about sparrows; different types of sparrows, different sparrow colors, his favorite types sparrows.

  Going up the stairs, I bumped shoulders with a man who growled at me as I moved past him. Already I was out of breath, my heart pounding. My feet felt like they were made of lead, my head was spinning, and the cold had only gotten worse. Then I realized what the true horror of this place was.

  It sapped the life out of you, slowly.

  I had felt it vaguely when I stepped inside, the cold coming off the walls. It wasn’t just cold, it was something foreign, and dark; something that fed off you, like a vampire, draining your energy away bit by bit so even getting up and out of bed required an almost herculean effort. Panting, I surveyed the prison from above and confirmed what I’d come to suspect.

  The prisoners weren’t briskly walking around or having enthusiastic conversations. No one was playing any games. Most of them shuffled around, dragging their feet. When they spoke, they lacked a certain energy—they lacked life. There were some exceptions, of course, and that meant there was a power structure in here based on who had the strongest willpower.

  It seemed reasonable to me that, in a place where your own energy was your best resource, the people who could hold onto it most effectively were kings. Hugo, I had a feeling, was probably among that number. Even without his powers, he was still a Mage; a Mage with a Guardian and a unique ability he had spent years, maybe even decades, training to master.

  Then I saw him.

  Hugo.

  I had only caught a glimpse of him as he moved into what I assumed was his cell. Grey hair, tall and gaunt, a little emaciated, probably from all the time he’d spent in here. He was surrounded by inmates—a King’s entourage—and had stopped to speak to them before disappearing behind his own door. He must’ve told them not to let anyone bother him, because his entourage formed something of a protective cluster around his cell as soon as he was through his door.

  If I wanted to get to him, I was going to have to go through them.

  There’s always a problem, isn’t there?

  I searched for Axel from above, wondering for too long why I couldn’t find
him before I remembered he didn’t look like himself. Worse, from up here, a lot of the inmates started to look a little too much like each other. I’d lost him completely. Shit.

  If that wasn’t the blunder that got us both found out or killed, I’d be surprised—dead, but surprised.

  Alright. It was up to me. With my target in my sights, I headed over to the cell where Hugo had disappeared to. I was here to retrieve him and break him out of Harrowgate, so I had a card I could play to earn his trust. Of course, I needed to get past his guards without telling them that; there was also the fact that I looked like someone else he’d probably seen around the prison before.

  Convincing him wasn’t going to be easy, but I had a plan for that, too.

  All I had to do was— “Where do you think you’re going?” one of the inmates snapped, raising his hand toward me. “Turn around and get the hell out of here.”

  “I need to talk to Hugo,” I said.

  “Like hell you do. Get your junkie ass out of here.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “—bitch, you don’t understand.” He closed in on me, shoulders rolling, arm cocked.

  I guess I wasn’t as popular with Hugo and his entourage as I’d have hoped. Time for plan B. The inmate had made his favored form of attack known way too early, so dodging his punch was easy. Too easy. I twirled off to the right, pressing my back against a cell door. He swung with his other fist, but I side-stepped the attack easily.

  I was about to throw a right hook of my own, when someone grabbed me, turned me around, and sent a foot smashing into my abdomen. I hadn’t seen him coming. The impact knocked the wind out of me and sent me into a nearby wall. He came at me again, but this time I managed to duck away from the blow and deliver a blow of my own into his groin.

  The guy who had struck me toppled over, clutching his crown jewels. For a moment I celebrated a victory, and then someone stunned me. The spell struck me in the back, causing me to topple forward and land face first on the ground. My vision was swimming, darkness moving in and out at the edge of my senses.

  I caught only glimpses; flashes of light and sound, the hum of magic as it whizzed overhead. I wanted to get up, to keep fighting—to beat the hell out of the guy who’d kicked me. But right now, that wasn’t on the cards. Right now, I was a heap of a person, stunned, lying face first on the metal gantry, and probably drooling.

  Great.

  Vaguely I became aware of someone dragging me away from the spot I’d fallen in. Whoever had hold of me picked me up by the scruff of my jumpsuit and unceremoniously shoved me into a cell. Staggering, barely able to stay upright, I hit the wall at the far end of the cell and stared at the guard.

  “That’ll teach you to start fights, Rita,” the guard said. It was the one from outside—the one with the beard.

  I wanted to say something clever, but I couldn’t speak. Not yet. The spell still had a strong hold of me. The door shut, and I sat down in a pile of myself. Alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Who are you?”

  Good question.

  My head was fuzzy, my limbs numb, aftershocks still coursing through my body. That stunning spell had felt like a hammer slamming against my back, and now I couldn’t even feel my tongue, let alone the rest of me.

  A shock rippled through me, and I seized up, then relaxed. Crap. I hated being stunned. I guess I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on, considering I had personally stunned more than my fair share of people. I’d never been stunned by an Elemancer before, though.

  This is the worst.

  I shook my head. Okay, think. Who am I? Rita, that was what the guard had said. Was that my name? I didn’t know the name of the person whose skin I was wearing, but having the name was better than nothing. I tried to stand, but my body was still a heap.

  I decided to try and relax until the spell wore off.

  “Who are you?”

  Holy shit; is that a real voice? I thought I’d imagined it, but someone else was in the cell with me. Slowly, with a lot of effort, I managed to angle my head to the side just enough to catch the face of a person staring down at me from the edge of the top bunk. She had black hair, pasty white skin, and wide bug-eyes that almost seemed… reflective.

  I hadn’t tried speaking yet. I was pretty sure if I tried, I’d just end up drooling and slurring my words. Instead, I gave it a moment and sat staring at the woman looking down on me from the top bunk.

  If she wanted to hurt me, I didn’t think there was much I could do to stop her, not in my current state. And that look in her eyes, that fear mixed with curiosity, told me she was a hair-trigger away from… something. Attack? Maybe. Or maybe what I was seeing was fight or flight, and she was trying to determine which to do.

  Come to think of it, I was starting to feel something in my chest; a tightness and heat that had nothing to do with the stunning spell I’d just been hit with. If anything, being stunned was delaying the feeling—the reaction—from moving through me like an unstoppable wave.

  Then it hit me.

  I’d felt this once before. It felt like a lifetime ago that I first met Seline; the Aevian without wings. In my stunned daze, images of the white-haired Outsider walking into the bar where I used to dance, the Glittered Goddess, started flashing in front of my eyes. I was Kandi, back then. When she walked into the bar, I was on the stage, dominating the pole being showered with dollar bills.

  She’d locked eyes with me as she walked past, and I knew she felt the same thing I did. I didn’t know who she was, or what she was, not at first sight. But the hostility I felt toward her was unnatural, and difficult to control.

  The moment she left my view, the tightness in my chest went away and I never felt it again. Not with her, anyway. With others of her kind, with other Outsiders, though… we all needed to get past that initial want to destroy each other if we ever had a chance at being cordial. In order to do that, though, we needed space. Right now, I was locked in a cell with one.

  “Y—you’re…” I said, “Out… Outsider…”

  She cocked an eyebrow, swayed her head from left to right, but didn’t say anything. Was she getting ready to pounce?

  Again, I tried to stand. This time, my muscles twitched and tensed. I reached for her, but that sent her skittering away and out of sight. I shook my head, and that helped with the daze, but only a little. “I don’t want… to hurt you,” I said.

  I had to remember that I wasn’t Izzy right now. I didn’t look like me, didn’t sound like me. I looked and sounded like this woman’s cellmate; someone she probably knew, and had spent at least a little time with. But if she knows me, why did she ask who I was?

  “Don’t you?” came a meek voice.

  “I don’t. You know that.”

  “Do I?”

  Dammit. “I’ve been stunned. I’m just trying to stand.”

  “Serves you right for lying.”

  “Lying to who?”

  “Everyone.”

  My strength had started coming back. I was able to wriggle my toes, move my hands, flex my fingers. Careful not to make any sudden movements, I rolled onto my side and planted my hands against the floor. Then, one leg after the other, I hoisted myself up to standing, and the room spun. If I hadn’t reached for the wall and used it to ground myself, I would’ve fallen again.

  I turned my head to look at the woman on the top bunk, only to catch her skittering away… up along the walls and onto the ceiling. I wasn’t sure I was seeing things right. It looked like she’d just perfectly impersonated some kind of spider. She was certainly hanging from the ceiling in the corner of the room. But had that actually happened, or was I more stunned than I thought?

  “Stay where you are,” she warned.

  I turned around, slowly, seeing her clearly now that my vision had stopped swimming. She was clinging to the walls, somehow. Both of her hands were sticking to the far wall, she had her back pressed against the ceiling, and her knees were tucked into he
r chest. Her head swayed from left to right, her hair dangling down.

  “I’m not going to get near you,” I said. “But why do you think I’m lying?”

  “Mother says you aren’t who you look like.”

  I scanned the room, thinking there was maybe a third person in here that I hadn’t seen before. No, it was just us. “Whose mother?” I asked.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m… inmate… Rita?”

  “Not true. Try again.”

  Could she see through my magic disguise? This place dulled psychic senses and suppressed supernatural powers. My magic, having come from the outside, was perfect. How could she possibly see through it? In the end, how didn’t matter. She clearly wasn’t going to accept any other answer, so I had to come clean.

  “Fine,” I said, “I’m not… this.”

  “Then who are you?”

  I frowned. “I won’t tell you my name, but I’m here to rescue someone.”

  She angled her head to the side. “Rescue?” she asked. “Rescue who?”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this… I don’t know who you are, and you could get into trouble for just knowing about me.”

  “I am Azlu, and mother says I cannot let you leave this room unless you tell me what you are here to do. There are many dangerous people in this prison, and we cannot allow you to try to free someone who did something bad.”

  “Who is this mother you keep talking about? There’s no one else here.”

  “Mother is mother, and mother is everywhere. But I don’t suppose you will understand. Now… the name?”

  A pause. “Hugo West,” I said.

  Azlu shut her eyes, sighed deeply, and swayed again. Left, to right… left, to right. Her eyes shot open. “I know him,” she said. “He’s like you.”

  “Like me?”