House of Fire (Parallel Magic Book 2) Read online

  “A what?” Miles said blankly. “Inspection? What are you now, our landlord?”

  “The Houses of the Elements own all the properties in this city,” said Harris. “Step aside. If you have nothing to hide, this will go quickly.”

  Miles looked as baffled as I felt. “You should let me tell the others first, otherwise they’ll think we’re under attack.”

  He pushed open the front door and walked in. I heard him exchange words with one of the other mages, and then he stuck his head out again. “Come on in. Don’t touch anything if you want to keep your fingers.”

  I walked into the house behind Harris, more to keep an eye on him than anything else. The other spirit mages had gathered downstairs, watching the intruders with a mixture of wariness and confusion as their group split up to search the upper and lower floors. The war’s impact on the Parallel’s population of spirit mages explained why none of their group was older than their late twenties. They hadn’t been born when their predecessors had met their tragic fates, yet like everyone here in the Parallel, they’d lived under the shadow of the war their whole lives.

  As the guards continued rampaging through the house, I ended up awkwardly standing next to Shelley, Miles’s second in command, who’d replaced Shawn after his betrayal. She was Tate’s brother, as I’d learned recently, and they shared the same dark skin and broad features. Where Tate’s hair was shaved to stubble, Shelley’s contained a vibrant pink streak. While she was friendly enough to the others, she wasn’t my biggest fan. For good reasons… like the ones who’d followed me here.

  “I swear, if they trample the lawns…” Her mutters trailed off as one of the uniformed guards marched past and into the kitchen. “Don’t you even think about stealing our food supplies.”

  “Not sure that’s what they’re after.” I shifted uncomfortably as a couple of the other mages shot me accusing gazes. Both were teenage girls, already bearing the scars and distrustful air of people who’d long since resigned themselves to being treated as pariahs by the magical community at large. Damn if I didn’t relate.

  There has to be a better way than this. The Houses’ original purpose was to protect the public, not paint mages as a dangerous menace and ignore the real problems. The intruders showed no fear of the spirit mages in their presence as they continued their search of the house, and Harris returned to the sitting room carrying a box of cantrips. “Just what are these for?”

  “The cantrips?” said Miles. “For protection, what else?”

  “Acquired legally?”

  My heart sank a little. Was this part of the Houses’ long-neglected promise to start cracking down on illegal cantrips? You’d think they’d be more concerned with the one which had killed the jailor, but this might be a test to learn if the Spirit Agents had been involved in his death.

  “Yes,” Tate told him. “We have a supplier.”

  Harris insisted on examining each cantrip individually, while his mates finished inspecting the rest of the house. Then he handed the box back to Miles. “We allow you to stay in this city with the understanding that you obey certain laws. If it turns out you have anyone or anything in this house which falls outside of those laws, we will punish everyone who lives under this roof equally.”

  “I don’t recall breaking any laws,” said Miles. “We were just minding our own business over here.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear from us,” said Harris. “As for you, Bria Kent, if I find out you’re lying, you know where you’ll end up.”

  Behind bars. Yeah. I’d figured as much.

  The three guards left the house without so much as an apology for the intrusion. Once they were gone, Miles went to the door and firmly closed it behind them. “Show’s over, folks. Go back to whatever you were doing.”

  The spirit mages dispersed, with the exception of Shelley and Tate, whose shared look of suspicion wasn’t lost on me. The former then went to the window to watch them leave, as though she didn’t trust them not to set the garden on fire on their way out. Which wasn’t that far out of the realm of possibility for a fire mage.

  “They overlooked the vampire chickens altogether,” I remarked. “What were they looking for, then?”

  I suspected I knew what… or who. Harris thought the Spirit Agents had been sheltering the escaped Family members. That, or he’d been more worried about the cantrip which had killed Zade than he’d let on.

  Miles shrugged. “Anything that might undermine their rule in the city, I imagine.”

  “That, or he wants to seize our property,” said Shelley. “Wouldn’t be the first time the Houses have decided the vampires’ old houses are theirs for the taking. Luckily, we have the paperwork to send them packing.”

  “Damn right we do,” Miles said. “It’s not like we’re encroaching on their territory. Unless you count the incident with the wyrm.”

  “Or the time we accidentally sent those phantoms inside the House of Water,” Tate added from behind him.

  “You did?” I said.

  “Miles’s fault, as per usual,” said Shelley, with an eye-roll. “Really, it’s amazing the Houses haven’t taken him into custody by now.”

  “How long have you been here in this house?” I asked curiously. “I assume you didn’t grow up here.”

  “We didn’t,” Miles said. “Not all of us did, anyway.”

  “You and Grey were already living here with some of the others when you were, like, fourteen,” Shelley pointed out. “Tate and I came along later. We moved out of our parents’ house when it became clear they viewed having two spirit mages in the family as a double dose of bad luck.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I know about family issues.”

  Miles shot me a look of sympathy, then glanced out the window. “They’re retreating. Don’t come back here, fuckers.”

  “Were you telling the truth about having a cantrip supplier?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he said. “Why?”

  “I think Harris might have been looking for the source of the cantrip which killed the jailor,” I said. “That or he thought the Family might be here, but it makes no sense for them to assume you were hiding them in the attic or something.”

  “Unless they know about Shawn,” he added.

  “Good point.” It was either that or they assumed I’d dragged the Spirit Agents into my nefarious plans, but Harris plainly hadn’t expected to find me here. “Maybe they do, but Shawn was jailed long before Zade’s murder.”

  “Help me out here.” Shelley looked between us. “You’re saying someone was murdered at the House of Fire. Did they follow you here and assume we were in on it?”

  “No,” I said hastily. “The guy was murdered before I even came to Elysium today. The Death King sent me to talk to the House of Fire, and I didn’t know anything about the jailor’s death until I got there.”

  Shelley made a noise of distaste. “Right. The Death King wants an alliance with the Houses?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Have the Spirit Agents ever cooperated with the Houses before? You mentioned the House of Spirit…”

  “The Court of the Dead is the House of Spirit,” said Miles.

  “Wait, it is?” I said, disarmed.

  “I thought you knew,” he said. “All the surviving members of the House of Spirit got turned into liches after the war. We’re what’s left of the next generation of spirit mages who managed to escape the cull, mostly because we were born into non-spirit mage families. That’s why we’re not given the same authority as the Houses or recognised as a House in our own right.”

  This was news to me. “I know the other Houses ended up turning into prisons for mages after the war, but I didn’t know there was ever a House for spirit mages. I assumed you did your own thing.”

  “We do,” he said. “But any spirit mage who’s related to anyone in the House of Spirit always ends up as a lich. Nothing we can do about it.”

  “You’re not going to turn, are you?” I asked.

&n
bsp; “Nah,” he said. “I’m safe. No spirit mages in my family except for me.”

  “Good.” I looked from him to Shelley and Tate, thinking of what she’d said earlier about him living here since he was a teenager. “So… you moved here when you were fourteen?”

  “Not alone,” he said. “There were half a dozen of us back then. Grey was the oldest… he became Death King at eighteen or thereabouts.”

  “Grey?” I echoed. “The Death King has a name?”

  “Most people do,” he said, amusement glittering in his eyes. “As for me… well, my parents are safely and happily incarcerated in the Houses’ facility in the north of Elysium. They couldn’t really take care of me after that.”

  His words knocked the breath from me. “They… they were arrested? For what?”

  What had they done to get themselves locked up in the highest security prison for magical criminals in the city? The same place my family had been locked up in, no less, before they’d escaped? It seemed I was mistaken in thinking I was the only one of the pair of us sitting on some major secrets.

  His mouth pressed into a line. “My parents are mages, but not spirit mages. They were House members, until they did something the Houses didn’t like, and that was the result.”

  “Damn,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said. “Those guys who came here to search the place didn’t taunt me about it, so they might not know who I am.”

  “I guess they were more interested in looking for the Family,” I said. “Or your cantrips.”

  Shelley gave me an appraising look. “Or the murderer?”

  “Hey, don’t look at me,” I said. “They’re the ones who decided to imprison Adair in their basement. The dude has mind-control powers which might be able to circumvent their magic-suppressing security. He might’ve convinced anyone to commit murder on his behalf.”

  “Isn’t your friend in there, too?” said Tate.

  Dammit. I should have guessed the others wouldn’t forget so easily. “Yes. She claims she didn’t do it. Even if she did, though, Adair’s power gives him total control over the other person. I guarantee he’d have given her no choice.”

  “Like when she betrayed us?” said Shelley.

  I shook my head. “I know you don’t like Tay. I don’t trust her either. But if she’s found guilty, she dies, and the real killer gets away with it. Besides, someone smuggled that cantrip into jail in order to commit murder, and I’d like to know who was responsible. And where they got it.”

  Tay’s own magic had been cut off and she’d been thoroughly searched when they’d taken her in, which meant there was another party involved in this, and they’d got the cantrip from somewhere outside of the jail. Somewhere which traded in reusable cantrips marked with the Family’s seal.

  “I’ll check with our supplier,” said Miles. “He might know where the latest reusable cantrips in the city are coming from.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Um—any word on Shawn? I know he isn’t locked up in one of the Houses, but I didn’t hear where he ended up.”

  “The vampires in Arcadia imprisoned him,” he said. “Lord Blackbourne saw to it.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re allies.” A detail I’d forgotten, considering everything else that’d happened lately.

  “Yes, we are, though Lord Blackbourne makes no secret of the fact that he prefers not to get involved in human affairs,” he said. “It would be nice to know he has our back.”

  “Especially if the Houses keep sending people to search the place,” I added. “You’d think they’d have more important things to worry about.”

  Like the murder, the Family… and the rogue spirit mages scheming behind the scenes. I knew they couldn’t all be dead or jailed like Shawn was.

  “Like your brother?” said Shelley. “If he has mind-control powers, what’s to stop him from walking out of there?”

  Precisely what worries me. I had zero desire to see him again, but I might have to, if the Death King agreed to take on custody of the House of Fire’s prisoner in exchange for their help.

  “What’s to stop him?” I echoed. “The Death King, I hope. Anyway, I need to report to him before he thinks the House of Fire locked me in a cell.”

  “Good call,” said Miles. “I might drop by the castle later. The Death King asked us to look around the citadels to see if we can figure out if Shawn and his friends left clues behind about how they turned on the spirit mages’ old technology. We haven’t yet, but we’re keeping an eye out in case Shawn’s allies decide to come back.”

  “I hope not.” Dealing with my brother again would be bad enough, but I couldn’t delay any longer. It was time to head back to the Death King and see what he thought of taking custody of a new prisoner.

  4

  I walked back to the Court of the Dead alone, this time watching my back in case Harris tailed me again. Luckily, it seemed he’d gone straight back to the House of Fire after searching the Spirit Agents’ place, because I reached the castle without encountering anyone. I hardly believed he’d had the nerve to march into Miles’s home, but a depressing number of guards who worked for the Houses were all too keen to use their authority to make trouble for people. Especially non-House mages.

  I found the other Elemental Soldiers gathered in the break room. When I walked in, Cal, the Earth Element, gave me a dismissive look and returned to playing video games on the console hooked up to a flat-screen TV against the wall. Felicity, the Water Element, gave me a smile, but that was somewhat overshadowed, literally, by the lich lurking next to their group. It wasn’t unusual to see liches everywhere in the castle, but the way that particular lich kept glaring at me was so personal that I wondered if I’d accidentally said something to offend them at some point.

  “Is the Death King around?” I asked Ryan, the Air Element, trying to ignore their hostile companion.

  “Not at the moment,” they said. “Where have you been?”

  “Talking to the House of Fire,” I said. “I have an update I think he’ll want to hear.”

  Ryan rose to their feet. “All right. If you’re that certain you want to disturb him.”

  They accompanied me to the main hall. The Death King was nowhere to be seen, but Dex zoomed over to me when I entered.

  “Hey, there,” Dex said. “What’s up?”

  “Seen the Death King?”

  “He’s through there.” He pointed to the door to the storeroom off the main hall, which I knew contained the Death King’s personal cantrip collection. I wouldn’t have thought he needed to use cantrips, considering his lich powers, but Ryan headed that way, pushing open the door.

  Sure enough, the tall figure of the Death King stood within the room, for all the world like he’d been eavesdropping from the other side of the door.

  “Bria,” he said to me. “Have you come with an update from the House of Fire?”

  As I told him about the day’s events, he crossed the hall to the dais and took up his usual position, while Ryan retreated from the hall, leaving the two of us alone.

  “So the House of Fire has lost their head jailor,” said the Death King. “Unfortunate.”

  He sounded as indifferent as I did. I couldn’t believe I’d ever wondered if he’d secretly had an alliance with the Houses, because they seemed to be his lowest priority.

  “The House of Fire’s guards think Tay committed the murder,” I added. “She was out of her cell at the time, and she won’t say what she was doing.”

  “What do you think?” His tone was neutral, but he knew Tay and I had been friends. It was hard to keep anything from the King of the Dead.

  “I don’t think that’s all there is to it,” I told him. “For one thing, Adair is imprisoned in the same place as Tay is, and he has the ability to use mind control to influence people into doing his bidding. For another, if Tay actually committed the murder, she would have confessed by now. I don’t know what she’s doing by delaying. Unless Adair ord
ered her not to admit she did it, of course.”

  “I cannot comment on her innocence,” he said, “but Adair doesn’t seem to be in the securest place. The House of Fire’s jail is primarily designed for mages, but not people like him. I understand that he already broke out of the Houses’ securest facility, and they must know they’re only delaying a repeat of the same scenario.”

  “It’s your lucky day,” I said. “The guards at the House of Fire said they were willing to consider negotiating an agreement if you take Adair off their hands and imprison him here in the Court of the Dead.”

  “Is that so?” he said. “What are his abilities, precisely?”

  “He’s half-elf and half-human,” I said. “He can move faster than most humans, and he can influence anyone using mind control, but his power doesn’t work on liches. That’s why the House of Fire is confident that handing him over to you will solve the issue of his potential escape.”

  “Did they assume I would agree to their offer?” he queried.

  “I’m not sure they cared either way,” I admitted. “But the whole Family escaped from jail a month ago and they’ve only managed to recapture one of them. Not sure what your track record is, but it’s gotta be better than that.”

  “Then I’ll take him off their hands and ensure he is secured here in the Court of the Dead,” he said. “Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the cantrip I’d taken from the House of Fire. “This was used to kill the jailor. It has the Family’s signature on it, but I know for a fact that their old factories burned down five years ago.”

  “There’s a strong possibility they may have rebuilt, isn’t there?” he said. “I think we must assume they did.”

  “Yes, but this cantrip is new,” I said. “They never used reusable cantrips before, and I don’t know where this one came from. I don’t know how it got into the jail, either.”

  “The reusable cantrips recently came into use in Arcadia before spreading through the Parallel,” he said. “They’re manufactured at the local warehouses. There have been a few incidents involving illegal cantrip trade in the city, as it happens, and I’m not convinced it has been stamped out.”