Frost Prisms (The Broken Prism Book 5) (15 page)

“And you would build that bright future on the corpses of all those that Aleric ruthlessly slaughtered over the course of a decade? You would call their deaths a cost of doing business?” Hayden had never heard Master Willow sound so undiplomatic before, or so angry.

“It would give their deaths more meaning than they have right now,” Laris countered easily, not bothered by the opposition of the others. “Someone has to be thinking about the future of mage-kind, and we’ve become a stagnant group; spell-discovery is at an all-time low, mage-count is down as well, and the monsters are gaining the upper hand against us—everyone knows this.”

Reede said, “The monster population goes in cycles; it always has. It’s true that this is a particularly bad one for us, but that is largely because so many mages were killed by Aleric the last time he was powerful, so our fighting force has been greatly depleted. We will catch up in time. The same can be said of the reduction of our numbers and discovery of new spells.”

“All I’m saying is that I’m not yet convinced we should kill the man on sight,” Laris persevered. “I think we should see what he has to say and determine whether he can be of any use to us before we consider terminating his life.”

“And that is why we will lose,” Hayden said softly, but everyone at the table somehow seemed to hear him.

An uncomfortable silence fell in the wake of his words, but Hayden had heard enough. If his allies couldn’t even agree that his father was evil and needed to be taken out, then their fight was over before it even began.

His chair scraped loudly on the floor as he pushed it backwards and stood up. Without another word to anyone, he turned and left the room. He could hear Zane following him by the time he entered the hallway, and the conversation resumed inside the meeting room once they were gone, though he was no longer interested in any of it.

“Well, that was awful,” Zane summarized, catching up to him and matching his pace.  “Always nice to have your allies bail on you.”

Hayden scowled and said, “I’m starting to think poor decision-making skills and a general lack of morality are prerequisites for working on the Council of Mages.”

“Well, there goes our career in politics,” Zane sighed in a mockery of wistfulness. “To be fair, Mrs. Trout doesn’t seem too bad, though I never thought I’d be defending anyone whose last name is ‘Trout.’ She’d make a decent Chief Mage.”

“Assuming she can get rid of both Laris and Calahan, sure,” Hayden agreed.

“Hey, I wouldn’t put it past her. She seems like a pretty determined lady.”

Hayden nodded weary agreement.

“I think I’m going to turn in early tonight. Watching our alliance begin to fall apart before the real work even begins kind of sapped the energy out of me.”

“Well, don’t go into a funk just because we’ve hit our first big roadblock. I’m sure this won’t be the worst thing we have to face before it’s all said and done, so we need to stay positive and focused.”

Hayden turned to him outside the door of his bedroom and said, “You still believe that my father’s evil?”

Zane looked at him like he was stupid.

“Of course I do. You and Asher said he is, and I trust you both—on this, at least.” He smiled briefly. “Besides, it sounds like most of the others in there are still on your side as well. Don’t lose heart just because we might have to kick Laris out of our little cabal.”

“Too bad he knows where I’ve been hiding out, and he could walk into Calahan’s office tonight and get Magdalene fired and me arrested all without lifting a finger. He’ll look like a hero.”

Zane grimaced at that unpleasant realization.

“Well, we’ll just have to hide out somewhere else for the time being. Get some rest, and tomorrow morning we’ll start fresh and work out a new plan, even if it’s just you and me. If it isn’t safe here anymore then we’ll go somewhere else, and we can contact the others as we’re able.”

Hayden nodded, reassured by Zane’s words and his determination not to give up. He wasn’t sure what he would do if his friend hadn’t been here tonight, but he didn’t want to think about it.

Maybe along the way we can free Tess too. I know enough magic now to break through Binders, and I can probably take down whoever the Council has guarding her…

He bid Zane goodnight on that note and entered his bedroom. Bonk wasn’t there, which meant he was probably still out hunting squirrels; there were alarmingly few to be found on the Trout lands, so he had to fly a bit further away to find his prey of choice.

Hayden changed into his pajamas and climbed into bed, dimming the magic-powered lamp on the end table.

His dreams that night were disturbing, filled with friends who turned into cobras and tried to bite him, and faceless strangers condemning him to death.

The sound of someone barging into his room and grabbing him by the arm abruptly woke him. Confused and groggy, Hayden looked around wildly and said, “Wuzzgoinon?”

He squinted, but the room was still dark and it was pitch-black outside. He couldn’t even tell who was hauling him roughly out of bed until an unpleasantly familiar voice said, “Shut up and get moving, Frost.”

“Master
Sark?
” Hayden asked in shock, stumbling to his feet and tripping over his shoes in the darkness. “What in the world are
you
doing here? I haven’t seen you in—”

“Keep quiet and come with me,” the Master of Powders commanded in the terse, annoyed tone he usually reserved just for Hayden.

“Hang on, let me change clothes…”

“There isn’t time for that.” He pulled Hayden roughly into the hallway. In his sleep-addled state, Hayden didn’t immediately register that there was something off about this entire encounter, but as they padded through the library—Hayden still barefoot—his brain began to reengage.

“Wait a minute…” he spoke into the darkness as they continued towards the foyer. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night? Where are we going? Why do I have to keep quiet...?”

He dug in his heels and forced them to stop in the middle of the hallway. Apparently furious at being questioned, Sark tugged on his arms so hard that he nearly dislocated Hayden’s shoulders. Reflexively, Hayden reached for his prism circlet to fight the man, but then realized that it had been left behind in his bedroom, along with all of his weaponry.

“HEL—!” Hayden screamed at the top of his lungs, but before he could finish the word ‘help’, Master Sark threw a pinch of powder into his face that caused him to choke and gasp for air.

While Hayden was desperately trying to breathe, Sark took advantage of the opportunity to drag him into the foyer, where they would be able to translocate away from the estate. Hayden struggled as hard as he could, but since he was still trying to recover from the effects of that awful powder, Master Sark was able to successfully pull him into the foyer, where he took hold of his Mastery Charm.

Lights were coming on in the house behind them. Someone had heard Hayden scream, they knew something was wrong, they were coming to help…

Between one blink and the next the Trout manor disappeared, and Hayden found himself standing outside in the cold, shivering as the full effects of winter hit him now that they were beyond the climate-controlled area surrounding the Trout estate. His bare feet sank into two inches of snow and immediately began to go numb. The only bright side was that the wintry air seemed to clear up his lungs, and suddenly he could breathe normally again.

Master Sark was still holding his arm as Hayden tried to take in his surroundings, but it was hard to see properly in the dark. All he could make out as the Powders Master shoved him forward was some kind of giant structure in front of them that glittered oddly in the moonlight. It was the tallest building he had ever seen—dozens of stories high, and also oddly shaped, like a giant needle....

The Crystal Tower. I’m at the Crystal Tower.

Remembering the numerous times he had been told that if he ever walked into this place he would never walk back out, he began fighting much harder, managing to elbow the Master of Powders in the nose. Sark cursed as his nose bled freely, but didn’t release Hayden, instead shaking him hard enough to rattle his brain and make his head hurt.

“Pull another stunt like that and I’ll have you vomiting yourself unconscious,” he threatened furiously, pushing Hayden through a set of double-doors that opened when Sark put his hand against them.

“Why are you doing this?” Hayden demanded hotly. “I know we’ve never exactly liked each other, but I thought you were at least on the right side.”

“You aren’t nearly as clever as you think, Frost,” the Master grumbled as they stepped inside the Crystal Tower. When the doors closed behind them Hayden thought,
Well, there goes my freedom.

At least the interior of the building was still lit by mage-light, so for the first time since he’d been abducted, Hayden could properly see. From the outside, the Crystal Tower had looked like a giant glass needle, but from the interior the walls looked as opaque as any other building. It was odd to him that he couldn’t see outside, knowing that the exterior walls were glass.

The Crystal Tower was also roomier on the inside than it looked, an effect that probably took a lot of magic to achieve on a place so large. Mage-lights in sconces dotted the wall along both sides of the narrow corridor that Master Sark was now towing him down.

“You of all people should want to see an end to my father,” Hayden informed his least favorite Master quite calmly, accepting his fate. “How is locking me up going to help anyone achieve that?”

Sark didn’t answer, though a muscle tensed in his jaw, and Hayden gave up on the man. They stopped in front of the first office they encountered, and Master Sark raised his fist and knocked firmly on the door, using his free hand to check his nose and verify that it had stopped bleeding. Hayden only wished he had hit him harder.

The door was answered by one of Hayden’s least favorite people in the world a moment later.

“Hello, Hayden,” Calahan greeted him with real delight, not bothering to conceal his surprise at having Hayden delivered to his door. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Hayden answered flatly, allowing himself to be steered into the office. Master Sark shut the door behind them, giving Hayden the feeling that he was being entombed in here with the two men.

Calahan’s office was circular and high-ceilinged, giving the illusion that they were standing in a large well. A floor-to-ceiling bookshelf lined the walls behind an enormous mahogany desk, which was mostly filled with neat stacks of paper or file folders. Two filing cabinets flanked the desk on either end, and Hayden didn’t doubt that every folder inside was color-coded and in alphabetical order.

Hayden was shoved roughly into one of four padded chairs surrounding a small meeting table, also circular. Calahan sat down opposite him, but Master Sark remained standing near the door.

“Well, well, Kirius, fine work,” the Chief Mage smiled tiredly, the flickering mage-light in his office casting ghostly shadows over his face. Up close, Hayden was surprised by how wrung out the man looked: his skin had a slackness that Hayden didn’t remember seeing before, and there was something almost grey about him.

Paranoia—and his colleagues—have really done a number on him.
If he wasn’t about to be locked up by the man, he might feel sorry for him.

“I discovered his hideout and removed him before anyone could miss him,” Sark drawled, almost sounding bored.

“And where was he hiding all this time?” Calahan asked with interest.

“With a friend,” Sark shrugged, his eyes not meeting Hayden’s. Hayden thought it was odd that he wasn’t mentioning Magdalene Trout by name, but perhaps Sark had his own reasons for keeping silent about it. Whatever those reasons were, Hayden had no intention of selling out the woman who had given him shelter, so Sark’s vagueness on the matter happened to suit him.

Calahan opened his mouth and looked like he was going to press for more detailed information, but Master Sark beat him to it by adding, “You said there was a reward involved?”

The Chief Mage actually looked surprised that the man would ask about such a thing, as though this was out of character.
Or maybe he just doesn’t want to actually cough up any money for me.

“Yes, of course. Once the guild banks open tomorrow, we can arrange the transfer.”

“Do you seriously believe that I brought my father back from the other realm on purpose and turned him loose on a world that my friends live in?” Hayden asked Calahan, wishing he had something to cover his feet, because they were still freezing and wet from the snow outside.

“If you were innocent, you would have turned yourself in as soon as you returned to Mizzenwald and proven it.”

“Oh sure, because you’re nothing but fair. I learned an important lesson last year while I was studying up on estate law to get my inheritance back.”

Calahan looked only vaguely interested as he said, “And what was that?”

“That the law cares nothing for morality. You can be on the right side and still lose.”

Neither man made any attempt to deny the truth of this.

Switching tracks, Calahan turned to Master Sark and said, “I don’t suppose you found any of your colleagues helping him conceal his whereabouts?”