The Veiled Diplomat Read online

  A general excitement permeated the air. After two years in the Academy of the Subtle Arts, they weren't fresh-faced novices getting their butts handed to them day in and day out by Instructor Allgood. They'd tangled with the Black Council and come away with the Word of Annihilation, a task once thought impossible, and saved the Hundred Halls. They were ready for anything the world could throw at them in their third year.

  Chapter Three

  Seventh Ward, September 2015

  Biscuits but NOT gravy

  A small fire had broken out in the kitchen, setting off the alarms and bringing Zayn rushing down to find his cousin Keelan in an apron covered with flour. He was standing in the middle of a room full of black smoke, coughing as he pulled a tray of burnt food from the oven.

  Zayn opened the back door to let the smoke out. Keelan carried the tray outside, tossing it onto the concrete pad behind the house. Charred bits of bacon scattered across the grass.

  The rest of the team flooded into the kitchen, waving their hands. Skylar used a wind spell to push the smoke out of the kitchen.

  "What happened?" asked Zayn.

  "I was busy with the pancake batter and forgot about the bacon in the oven. I don't think the timer works," said Keelan with his forehead scrunched.

  At that moment, the oven dinged, and Keelan's shoulders shrunk as his head flopped back. "Or maybe I set it for too long. Neveah makes this look so easy."

  Vin was poking the bits of charred bacon in the grass with his boot. "Bacon abuse. We might have to turn you in to the authorities."

  Portia patted Keelan on the shoulder. "At least you burnt the bacon so bad that there was no chance of anyone eating it, unlike my chicken cordon bleu, with frozen centers and lava-like cheese, a culinary impossibility."

  Vin put his finger into his mouth and tapped on the top while mumbling, "I think the roof is still burnt."

  "You'd think we'd be able to figure out a simple recipe. We can do magic, after all," said Skylar, chuckling.

  The ringing of the doorbell turned their heads towards the front of the house. The burnt bacon was quickly abandoned, as everyone ran to the door to see who had come to visit.

  Zayn hoped it was one of the instructors with which they were familiar. While they'd spent the week getting used to living in a house together and reading through the tomes Eddie had brought them, they were anxious to start real learning.

  No one was at the front door. A Zephyr Delivery truck was pulling away as they piled onto the porch. An antique chest sat on the doorstep. Portia, who was first, checked it for traps before bringing it inside. She placed it on the dining room table carefully, as if it might contain a bomb.

  "Locked?" asked Vin as Portia examined the magical signature by exhaling faez. It was a bit like blowing on a window in winter to see if anyone had left a message. It was a trick that Pennywhistle had taught them last year, though it had its limitations.

  "Yes," she said, "but it appears keyed to individuals. It looks like Academy work, so I think it's safe to open."

  Everyone except Portia backed away as she pressed her finger against the lock to transmit faez into the mechanism. Once she did, there was an audible click, and the lid creaked open.

  Zayn crowded around the open chest with his teammates. Portia pulled out a handful of passports, along with an envelope that they quickly determined held plane tickets to London, roundtrip, with a one-day turnaround.

  "Secret mission?" asked Keelan hopefully.

  "I doubt it," said Zayn. "They're in our real names. And the flight is this afternoon in Philadelphia. We'll have to hurry to get there."

  "I can't believe there's no note, or anything telling us what this is, or where to go," said Vin as he searched the chest.

  Zayn flipped the envelop over. It had an address in London written on it. "I have a feeling we'll figure it out when we get there."

  They kept packing to a minimum, nothing more than would fit in a backpack. As they headed to the airport, Zayn could hardly sit still, bouncing his knees in the back of the taxi-SUV. While he'd been through portals to other realms, he'd never flown in an airplane. He hoped they came with less nausea.

  They had to go through the special line for people with magic. When they got onto the plane, they realized they were in coach class. Vin was disappointed, on account of his size.

  The six-hour flight was uneventful. They landed in London, found a ghost taxi—the driver was wearing a top hat—and made their way to the address on the envelope.

  They clustered outside the bright blue door of the house. Well-manicured bushes stood outside like sentinels. Before Zayn could raise his hand to knock, the door silently opened revealing a resigned Percival Davies in a three-piece suit, his wire-rimmed glasses firmly against his face.

  "Cheers," he said, without a trace of warmth. "Do come in. Try not to touch anything."

  Vin turned to everyone with his eyes wide with excitement and mouthed, "Imbuements."

  "Thanks, Inspector Clouseau, when did you figure that out?" said Skylar, pushing Vin forward.

  As they followed Percival through a delightfully English house with lace-covered couches on oriental rugs, paintings of older relatives hung on various walls, and the smell of coriander lingering in the air, Zayn found his mind whirling through the possibilities of what their third-year imbuement could be. It'd been a topic for the team during the week in the house. It was a bit like waking up on Christmas morning to open presents, only the present was something that would make you more awesome. The rest of the team looked like they were bursting with giddiness too.

  A tattooing table and artist chair had been set up in a small kitchen. The team sat around his breakfast table in a sunlit nook while Percival addressed them.

  "There's tea in the pot and biscuits on the plate. Help yourself while you wait, but please don't touch anything unless absolutely necessary," said an exasperated Percival, who looked like having them in his personal space might cause him to explode—politely, of course.

  Keelan put his hand up.

  "Yes?" asked Percival.

  With a perfectly serious face, Keelan pointed to the plate and said, "Those aren't biscuits. You eat biscuits with gravy. That's a cookie."

  The whole team stifled their chuckles.

  "Seriously though," said Keelan. "What's the imbuement this time? I had my bets on the ability to see through walls."

  Percival took his glasses off and carefully polished them with a lace-edged towel that had been daintily hanging over the oven handle. When he was finished he placed the glasses back on his face and said, "The imbuement will provide you with the ability to move unseen."

  "Whoa, invisibility?" asked Vin.

  "Not exactly, and not without limitations." He sighed heavily. "This sort of thing is best delivered by the mistress, but since she is currently unavailable, I will have to do my best."

  "Where is she?" asked Portia.

  Percival suddenly looked like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. "It is not my place to speak of her duties." He cleared his throat. "The imbuement does not make one invisible, or allow you to walk through walls, rather it is a slight shift into another space, one inhabited more keenly by the more incorporeal of beings."

  "Ghosts," said Portia.

  "That is one common description, but that is not what these are. The proper term for this realm is the Veil. It's the place of change, that some interpret as death, but that's not entirely the right description. The imbuement allows you to step into the Veil, not completely, but enough to hinder others from seeing you. The mistress wanted me to warn you that using this imbuement for longer than a dozen heartbeats is unwise and that while you are there, you should not use magic."

  "And why is that?" asked Zayn.

  "She did not explain, and since I am not a member of your hall, I do not have personal experience to draw from, so I would take it as a hard limit," said Percival. "You may, of course, experiment within those limits. If there are no more questio
ns, I'd like to get started. Who's first?"

  A general excitement passed through them, shared with bright-eyed glances. Portia moved to the tattoo table first, leaving Zayn and the others to busy themselves while she received her imbuement. While the others, against Percival's wishes, wandered the lower level of his quaint English house, Zayn stayed at the table, his mind dancing through ideas on how they might use the imbuement first. As soon as they got back to Invictus, they were going to investigate the golden building.

  Chapter Four

  Seventh Ward, September 2015

  No risk, no reward, but maybe death

  "Are you really sure we should be doing this?" asked Skylar, perched on the back of the couch in their living room. She was wearing a white tank top and ratty jeans. "We've got class tomorrow morning with this Instructor Konig. Shouldn't we get some sleep? I doubt we're going to get any once the semester really starts."

  The others watched as Zayn paced in front of the tiny fireplace. He'd been rehearsing the argument in his head for why they should investigate the building, but it didn't stand up to his own self-evaluation.

  "I think we should...no." He paced back to the fireplace and rapped his knuckles against the mantel before turning back around. "We should go because it's there. Clearly Priyanka wants us to investigate it. Everything's been pointing in that direction since we arrived in Invictus."

  "Shouldn't we wait?" suggested Vin, scrunching his shoulders. "We've only been back a week. We've got our imbuements, but nothing else."

  "We've got each other, and we escaped the Bastille with the Word last year. Surely we can do a little reconnaissance on a building in our home city. I'm not saying we're going to do anything crazy, just a little reconnoitering," said Zayn.

  Keelan made an exaggerated gagging cough sound. "You just wanted to use that big word, didn't you?"

  "Says the straight-A student," said Zayn. "I've got to impress you somehow. Come on, let's go. Like you said, we've got class tomorrow. We might not get another chance."

  They finally agreed to investigate the golden building. Everyone changed into more appropriate clothing, which in another time might have looked suspicious, but the prevalence of hoodies and workout gear made them look like they were out for a nighttime jog: an illusion which was helped by subtle Look-Away enchantments and a mask of shadow that hid their identities.

  The golden spotlight emanating from the center of the building project made navigating the streets easy. They passed through an eighth-ward neighborhood and came up on the backside of the building.

  It was near enough to the Glitterdome that Zayn could hear the crowds even without his sensing imbuement. Visible over the buildings, a massive illusion of a feathered Tyrannosaurus rex rampaged down Orpheum street, bringing faint screams of delight to his ears.

  Wooden walls built to keep people out of the area surrounded the building, along with a chain-link fence. The protections were mundane, and quickly bypassed. A security guard had wandered through the area, but they easily avoided him.

  A door in the wooden wall revealed the building beyond. Zayn felt a stab of familiarity, followed by bewildering strangeness. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement like the heat haze coming off a desert highway. It reminded him of the feeling he'd had when he first stepped into the city.

  "What the hell is that?" whispered Vin, looking up at the monstrous building with suspicion.

  "It looks grown," said Portia. "Not Stone Singer work at all. I'm not sure I like this."

  Zayn had spent enough time studying his mother's architectural drawings to recognize the influences contained within the designs, but also that other portions were otherworldly.

  "It looks like Parisian architecture, a bit of Notre Dame, a bit of the Grand Palais, but also something different," said Zayn in a hushed voice.

  "What now?" asked Keelan.

  "We still don't know who's making this or what it's for. Let's go deeper, see what we can find," said Zayn.

  There were no doors in the nascent building—clearly they would be added later—so they strolled inside, finding large rooms with arched ceilings. Each one was empty. The deeper they went, the less defined the interior was, as if it were still being formed. In one vast room, the grand pillars holding up the roof looked like they were sagging.

  "I think we should go," whispered Portia. "I feel like someone is watching us."

  The feeling of unease made Zayn's shoulder blades itch, but he wasn't ready to leave until they knew the identity of the owners of the building. He motioned for them to follow, but Portia stayed back at the exit of the large room. The others seemed to share her discomfort, so Zayn gave their secret sign for "watch and listen" as he moved ahead alone.

  Amping his senses, Zayn didn't hear anything besides the slow breathing of his teammates. He was about to give the sign for "continue" when he noticed that one of the pillars in the room had been finished. As it was strikingly familiar, Zayn moved closer, and about the time he reached it, the answer came to him. He'd seen one just like it last year on an errand with Priyanka.

  "The Diamond Court," he whispered.

  The identity of the owners blew a chill wind through his gut. While the maetrie were not an enemy, they were inherently dangerous, and the fact that one of the three factions was making a more substantial investment into the city of sorcery worried Zayn on a fundamental level. The maetrie, or city elves as people like to think of them, were individually more powerful than the combined abilities of his team. Academy lessons about the maetrie had boiled down to one simple idea: avoid conflict.

  "Get out, now!"

  To his right, a piece of void spilled into the room, followed by two smoky pale maetrie in billowing white robes wielding hooked blades. Zayn threw a force blast as covering fire while sprinting towards his team, but two more maetrie appeared directly in his way, forcing him into veer to a side chamber.

  He glimpsed Keelan throwing up multiple illusions of himself to cover his teammates' retreat. While Zayn wanted to get back to them, the maetrie on his tail left him so focused on his own survival that he could hardly spare them a thought. He raced through the hallways at a blinding speed, barely looking before he made each turn. Each time he thought he had outpaced them, they appeared in a new location, cutting him off.

  Pausing at an intersection for only a blink, Zayn nearly lost his head as a maetrie appeared around the corner, smashing her blade into the wall, right where Zayn had just been standing. He faez-sprinted across the large room towards an opening he knew led to the outside. Right before he reached it, a shimmering golden fist appeared, slamming into his gut and throwing him into the far wall.

  Almost as soon as he hit the ground, two more maetrie appeared in their flowing robes and hooked blades, joining the other two that were already in the room. Zayn kicked off a pillar, flinging himself out of the way of their blades and flipping onto his feet, but a second shimmering fist punched him into the wall.

  With the wind knocked out of him, Zayn looked up to see that he was surrounded by four maetrie, who had every angle of escape cut off. The maetrie in the middle, a tall female, motioned to the others, and a shimmering field blocked him into the corner of the room. Then they approached slowly, as if they knew he had no chance to get away.

  Chapter Five

  Diamond Court Embassy, September 2015

  Sometimes things come back

  Trapped inside the golden building, surrounded by four maetrie guards, Zayn reviewed his options. There was no way he could overcome even one of them in a direct fight, so battling the four of them was out. He had no avenue for escape either, since he had stone walls behind him and an unknown shimmering field keeping him from sprinting past them, not that he thought he could avoid their hooked blades.

  "Shall we kill him or capture him, Captia?" asked the maetrie on the far right with golden-flecked gray eyes. They like looked stray rays of light slipping through an overcast sky.

  "Hold him, Precept
," said Captia, the tall female maetrie in the front. She had a severe, angular look. "I want to know who is plotting against us. The seers have been useless thus far."

  "They told us about this incursion at least," said Precept, sneering.

  Zayn squeezed his hands into fists in frustration. Once again, he'd rushed into failure. His teammates had been right to express caution. He just hoped they'd gotten away.

  Precept straightened, letting his hooked blade dip towards the floor. He held his hand out peacefully. "Come now. Let us not fight. It will only go badly for you. Show us who you are. Pull back your hood."

  The last time he'd been exposed to the maetrie, Priyanka had given him an alchemical antidote to counter their ability to influence. Without it, Precept's voice was like a tendril in his mind, wrapping around his will. Zayn lifted his hands to pull back his hood. He felt like an observer in his own body.

  As his fingers brushed the soft fabric, he fought against the command. He had almost resisted when Captia spoke.

  "Listen to him. He wants to help you."

  The moment her words entered his ears, he felt all resistance fade. His will was shoved to the back of his mind. He had to watch as his hands hooked around the edges of the hood and pulled it off his head.

  "His face is hidden in shadow," said Precept angrily. "Let me take his head off and then we'll see who it is."

  Internally, he breathed a sigh of relief that he had prepared an enchantment that the notoriously sharp-eyed maetrie couldn't see through, although that relief faded the moment Precept lifted his sword.

  Zayn used the window of opportunity to act, doing the only thing he could think to do. He pushed faez into the stealth imbuement.

  Instantly, his skin tingled, especially the sensitive parts like his lips and eyes. The world around him quivered as if he were seeing the vibration of the universe. The maetrie reacted, their heads turning this way and that.