Earth and Salt, Fire and Mercury Read online

  “I looked into the matter you asked me about yesterday,” she said, leaning back in her chair.

  Frank nodded. “All ears.”

  “I asked around the typing pool,” she said. “It turns out he mentioned to one of the girls—Sarah Gibbs, and she’s not given to making up gossip—that he was heading out to meet with Alestair Winthrop.”

  Frank paused, coffee cup suspended in midair. “Alestair Winthrop? What the hell is Gabe doing with MI6?”

  “He and Sarah chatted about it a bit,” Emily said. “I suppose he was feeling gregarious enough to mention it. He told her he had to maintain those diplomatic ties, you know. Could be about that NATO symposium, maybe.”

  “Right.” The NATO symposium. Frank had been so preoccupied with the CI investigation—and with his own investigation of Gabe—it had slipped his mind. But it might make sense.

  Still, Frank couldn’t shake that niggling sense that something was wrong.

  “I can see what else I can find out,” Emily said. “Gabe keeps these things close to his chest, though. He doesn’t do much flirting.”

  “Keep your eye out,” Frank said. “But this does help. Thanks.”

  Emily nodded and disappeared out of the office with her stack of files. For a moment Frank just stared at the closed door. Damn Gabe for making him run his own investigation in tandem with Langley’s. At least he had an ally in Emily. She’d proven herself useful with this kind of thing before.

  He picked up the phone, hit the call button. Emily chirped a bright, “Yes, sir?” at him on the other end.

  “See if you can put me through to Winthrop,” he said.

  “Of course, sir.”

  The phone trilled in his ear. Frank settled back in chair, drummed his fingers against the desk. A secretary with the British embassy picked up. Alestair was in, and she’d connect him right away.

  “Winthrop, here.”

  “Alestair,” Frank said. “It’s Frank Drummond.”

  Alestair didn’t miss a beat, the slick bastard. “Well, good morning, Frank! I hope all is well with the Americans.”

  “Sure is. Listen, I’ve got a question for you. One of my guys met up with you yesterday, about the NATO symposium.” He was taking a risk here, guessing, but he didn’t want Winthrop knowing this was a probe call. “But he didn’t get his report in to me and I need it now. Langley’s up my ass about it.”

  Alestair chuckled. “I’ll be sure to give Gabriel a stern talking-to the next time I see him. He’s always more interested in action than office work, isn’t he?”

  Some of the tension slipped out of Frank’s shoulders. So Gabe hadn’t been lying about Alestair. And it seemed Emily was right about the NATO logistics.

  “I just need a quick run-through of where the project stands,” Frank said. “No details, just something to report back to Langley.”

  “Well, that I’m happy to provide.” Alestair launched straight into it. Nothing terribly specific, but they hadn’t switched over to a secure line, and it was enough that when Frank hung up the phone he was satisfied that, this time, at least, Gabe hadn’t been lying.

  Still, he wasn’t going to just forget it, either. He filed away the conversation. It was probably nothing. But Frank hadn’t made his way to station chief without understanding that sometimes nothing really was something.

  • • •

  Jordan waved a bundle of burning sage over the tables in the downstairs area of the bar. They were already cleaned, wiped down with lemony disinfectant, but in a place like Bar Vodnář she had to clean in other ways, too. Conversations lingered like a bad scent. Magic left its residue.

  The front door lurched in the frame, caught in place by the lock—and the wards. “We’re closed!” Jordan shouted as the smoke from the sage burned her eyes.

  “What about for a dear friend?” called out a familiar, well-polished Eton accent.

  Jordan sighed, dropped the sage to her side. She wouldn’t exactly claim Alestair Winthrop as a friend, but at least he wasn’t some Flame strong-arm. He was probably here on Ice business, though, which these days was just as bad.

  She plunged the sage in the bowl of lemon water to extinguish it. When she slid open the lock, Alestair sauntered into the bar, his hands shoved jauntily into his pockets. He gave the air a sniff.

  “Casting a charm or two?” he asked, winking at her.

  “Getting the place ready. What do you want?” Jordan glanced at the clock ticking on the wall. “It’s too early for a drink.”

  “It’s never too early for a drink, my dear, but you are correct in assuming that’s not why I’m here.”

  He ambled over to the bar anyway, and Jordan followed him, silent but secretly cursing herself—if he didn’t want a drink he wanted magic, or access, and she wasn’t in a mind to push her neutrality even further into the Ice side then she already had.

  He sat down on one of the stools and Jordan took her place behind the bar, falling easily into her role as bartender. “At least let me get you a glass of water,” she said. “On the house.”

  “You’re too generous.” Alestair laughed, but there was a steeliness in those blue eyes of his that had her wary. She filled the glass and slid it down to him. He took a sip, folded his hands on the bar, leaned forward. Jordan waited for him to get to it.

  “I’m afraid this isn’t purely a social visit,” he said.

  Jordan said nothing; they both knew that already.

  “I need information about the Flame.”

  Jordan sighed. “I knew it.” She grabbed the bar rag and started swiping at the counter, even though it had already been cleaned and cleansed.

  “It’s not so much to ask, really,” Alestair went on. “And I think when I tell you what I need, you’ll agree that it’s worth it to aid the Ice—”

  “I’ve pretty much filled my quota of Ice aid for this year,” Jordan said. “Or did you forget the ritual in my basement that blew up a plane and killed a Host?”

  Alestair sipped at his water, watching her. The “cleaning” was pointless. She tossed the rag over her shoulder and leaned against the far wall. Alestair’s eyes bored into her.

  “I think the Flame have learned how to hide their magical workings,” Alestair said.

  Jordan blinked. This was what he was coming to her about? Fairy tales?

  “Gabe had an experience the other evening,” Alestair said. “I don’t know if he told you about it.” He then proceeded to regale her with a tale of an encounter between Gabe and a woman who seemed to recognize Gabe’s Host without setting off any of the magical alarms he had clanging around in his head. It was an interesting story, to be sure. If nothing else, something about the description of the woman reminded Jordan of her own strange encounter the other day. But she didn’t say any of this to Alestair.

  “Doesn’t it strike you as odd?” Alestair said. He drained his glass of water. Jordan gave him a refill.

  “I suppose.”

  “We know the Flame have been moving into Prague,” Alestair went on. “This is concerning. Not just for Ice. For all sorcerers.”

  Jordan sniffed. As if anyone in the Ice considered a neutral witch like her a sorcerer. That was their view of themselves: elite, special, almost sacred.

  “I don’t know anything,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” Alestair peered at her. She peered right back.

  “Positive,” she said.

  This wasn’t entirely true, of course. The Flame was definitely planning something, and she knew it. A ritual, although she didn’t know what for, exactly. She had gleaned, from the fragments of conversation that drifted around Bar Vodnář, that it involved the Hosts who had escaped the barge explosion the other night. But she wasn’t going to tell Alestair that. She wondered, as he stared at her across the counter, probably considering his next stratagem, if the Flame really had developed some way of dampening their magic.

  “This is a rather serious matter,” Alestair said. “Surely even you can se
e that.”

  Jordan raised an eyebrow. “Even me?”

  Alestair spread his hands, shrugged. “I didn’t mean any offense! But just because you’ve removed yourself from institutionalized magic, it doesn’t mean you can’t see its effects on the world.”

  “I can,” she said, adding in her head, from Ice and Flame both.

  “So you understand why we need this information,” Alestair said. “If the Flame were able to wield that sort of power, it would devastate the world. Surely you know that.”

  She didn’t disagree. Not completely. “I don’t think you understand what neutral means.”

  The steel in Alestair’s expression hardened. He wasn’t here to charm, not anymore. “The Flame would burn down everything down,” he said, his voice low and calm and dangerous. Jordan didn’t move. “If you don’t help us, you might as well be with them.”

  The air seemed to crackle around them, and any vague unease Jordan felt was subsumed by a rush of anger. “I don’t see the world that way,” she snapped. “And you are not respecting what I do here. I gave my aid to the Ice—against my better judgment, I might add—but I am not one of your Ice witches. So no, I will not tell you anything. I’m not here to spy on the Flame for you.”

  Alestair regarded her with an unsettling severity. But then he blinked, and it was gone, as if he had taken off a mask. “I see.” He stood up, smoothed the lines of his coat. “If you won’t be convinced, then far be it from me to try to sway you.”

  She heard the lingering sharpness in his voice. She didn’t care.

  “You want charms,” she said, “I’ll get them for you. Same as anyone else. But nothing more.”

  He watched her.

  “The center cannot hold,” she said. “And so things fall apart.”

  “You have that backwards.”

  Jordan smiled, although there was no joy in it. “Not in this case.”

  3.

  When Gabe arrived at the square, Tanya was already there, sitting beneath a streetlamp with a beat-up paperback. The yellow light spilled over her as she turned one of the pages. He flipped up his collar against the early spring chill and kept walking, strolling past her without looking, all the way into a narrow alley on the opposite side of the square. He hoped it was good enough cover. Being out here like this was stupid. Every time they met in public, it pushed him closer to discovery by Edith, closer to being branded a traitor and a criminal. But they couldn’t let the Flame run wild, either.

  He stopped at the end of the alley and leaned up against the wall. It was dark down here, everything shrouded in shadows. The air was quiet and still. Only a glimmer of light from the streetlamps on the square filtered in through the alley entrance, and he had set himself far enough back that he wouldn’t be seen.

  Footsteps echoed off the buildings. A figure moved into the entrance—small, lithe. He could recognize Tanya by silhouette now.

  She struck a match as she approached, a tiny flare of sulfuric light that cast long, eerie shadows along the sides of the buildings. She walked up to him, held the match up between them. It should have burned down to her fingers by now, but it hadn’t.

  “Nice trick,” he said.

  “Don’t be so impressed. It’s something we teach children.”

  Gabe smiled, but they didn’t have time for banter tonight. They needed to track down the stranger who’d known his secret. Needed to find out if she was Flame or some other player. Needed to find out if she was somehow hiding her true magical nature.

  “Alestair told me you had a plan,” Gabe said. “I hope it’s more than a fancy match.”

  It was impossible to read Tanya’s expression in the murky shadows that washed over her face, but Gabe thought she almost looked pleased. “I do have a plan,” she said. “A tracking charm. It will work better if we go to the place where she spoke to you.”

  Gabe scowled in the darkness. “Is that really necessary? We need to do this quickly. I can’t risk being seen with you.”

  Tanya shook her head. “The magic is most effective when it can be tied to the target somehow. All we know is where you saw her last.” She paused, smirking a little. “Unless you forgot to tell me you cut off a lock of her hair for a keepsake.”

  Gabe sighed. “Fine. It was in the embassy district, at a tobacconist’s shop. Well, on top of it, technically. The rooftop.”

  “Close by,” Tanya said. “That’s good.”

  And they were on their way.

  • • •

  The Acolytes of Flame were gathering, moving like moths through Prague, converging on a single flicker of light on the city’s edge. A farmhouse. Or what had once been a farmhouse, centuries ago; it had been subsumed by the woods and then later by the outskirts of the city as the city grew and expanded. An isolated place that happened to have been built—through luck or through knowledge, Zerena did not know—atop the more powerful of the ley lines slashing their way beneath Prague. Luckily this one hadn’t burned like that poorly protected ritual house in the city—a mystery even Zerena’s whisperers hadn’t been able to solve. Yet.

  Zerena parked her car and stepped out into the slushy, frozen mud. It was too warm for fur but she wore it anyway, a glossy white stole that she had draped over her shoulders. It made her look elegant, she thought, and powerful. And after what had happened to poor Karel, she needed to look as powerful as she could.

  Candles burned in the windows of the farmhouse, inviting the Flame to ritual. Already Zerena could feel power sparking on the air, like the thrum of anticipation in the moments before a symphony begins a performance. All the instruments tuning, preparing themselves to be played. She was even more certain now that the ritual would succeed. The power in the air was too strong. There was no way they could fail, not on a night like this, blustery and cold, the stars glimmering in the gaps between the clouds.

  Tonight she would finally prove to Terzian that she was still that girl in whom he had seen so much promise. That she was willing to take the necessary risks to see the Flame to victory.

  Their attempts at creating new Hosts had failed before. But she wasn’t afraid. Tonight Terzian would see her courage, and he would choose her. The next time the Flame attempted to create a new Host, she would ensure their success. The other candidates had been unworthy—she was certain that was why the elementals had rejected them. But Terzian would see tonight that no elemental would be able to refuse her.

  She pulled open the door to the farmhouse and slipped inside. A scent like dying flowers wafted through the air. All but one of the participants had arrived, and they had paired off, murmuring softly to each other. Terzian stood in the corner, speaking into the telephone. His cane leaned against his thigh. A clock ticked on the wall above the old collapsing fireplace, charms of flowers and metal twisted around it to ensure that it ran at the same second as other clocks spread across the globe.

  In the center of the room, the symbols for the ritual had already been laid out on the floor in white chalk.

  “You’re late.” Zerena stiffened. Sasha, sneaking up behind her. “And overdressed. This isn’t the opera, Zerena.”

  Zerena turned on her heel, the skirt of her dress flaring around her. She slid the fur away from her shoulders—the cool air was like a kiss on her bare skin—and stared calmly at him.

  “I can take that, if you’d like,” Sasha said, his words oily, tipped in venom. “We’ve set up a coat check in the bedroom.”

  “I can take care of it myself.” Zerena breezed away, hoping that was enough of a rebuff to deter him. It wasn’t. He followed along, smiling to himself.

  “I hope you aren’t feeling too much pressure,” he said, chattily, as if they were old friends and not old rivals, as if he didn’t actually want to see her succumb to that pressure and fail. “It’s an important night. Terzian has high expectations for the ritual’s success.”

  “So do I.” Zerena shoved open the door that led into the only other room in the farmhouse. Coats hung from the
mismatched racks someone had brought here years ago. Zerena laid her stole over one and turned to walk back out into the main room—but Sasha stepped into her path, grinned up at her.

  “I, for one,” Sasha said, “must disagree with you and Terzian on that matter.”

  Zerena said nothing, although she felt anger warming the space inside her ribs like a furnace.

  “But you were always so fond of far-fetched schemes,” Sasha sneered, “that your position this time doesn’t come as much of a surprise.”

  Zerena knew better than to let him see her rage. “Oh, Sashenka, no one knows as much about complicated plans as you, so perhaps I should take your opinion into consideration.”

  His eyes narrowed. Zerena smiled.

  “After all, I believe many of us voiced opposition to bringing that American CIA officer over to secure the defector Host.” She tsked softly, and Sasha scowled at her. “I, for one, had never seen a plan as complicated as that—”

  “Stop. Both of you.”

  Zerena froze. Terzian’s voice cut straight through her chest. She turned to look at him over her shoulder. He had always been a thin man, but seemed larger, less gangly, in the face of a ritual. An effect of his magical power.

  “I would remind you,” he said, “that a ritual such as this is contingent on collaboration.” His eyes flicked between Zerena and Sasha. “Amongst all parties involved.”

  “Of course, sir.” Zerena gazed at him through her long eyelashes. When the ritual worked, Sasha would be left behind in the shadows.

  “It’s time,” her mentor said, and whirled away from them. Zerena glanced over at Sasha one last time. He was frowning, his beady little eyes burning.

  She took her place in the circle, ready to work her magic.

  • • •

  The hitchhiker thumped in Gabe’s head, a gently rhythmic pounding that would have incapacitated him just a few months ago. Had incapacitated him, in fact—he still heard grumbles of complaint about his bungles with Drahomir from Frank.