Ari Marmell - Agents of Artifice

He sneered at her, crossing his arms over his bare chest. She chuckled and aimed a finger toward the wall at his left. The metal shimmered, flickered, and Tezzeret's face appeared.

"Why am I alive?" Jace asked bluntly, refusing to give the bastard a moment to gloat.

Tezzeret merely lapsed into a thoughtful expression. "I believe I've explained to you on past occasions how poorly I take betrayal, have I not?"

Jace rolled his eyes.

"You are alive," the artificer said, "partly because I want to give you some time to truly comprehend the depths of my disappointment-but mostly because I require a few months to complete my arrangements for you. You see, Beleren, since I've actually managed to take you alive, I've decided your talents are too valuable to waste. Mind-reading is a precious commodity indeed.

"So if I cannot trust an agent to perform such tasks for me, I'll simply have to construct a device to do so. An artifact that will preserve and manipulate the portions of your brain that allow for such wonders."

Despite himself, Jace felt the urge to fall back from the image on the wall.

"I should think," the artificer said with an oily grin, "that if I build the device just right, I can retain enough of your persona that you'll remain conscious and aware of what's happened to you, without the slightest ability to do anything about it."

Baltrice leaned in toward the bars, enjoying her captive's fear, no matter how hard he sought to mask it.

"You'll try to escape, of course," Tezzeret said matter-of-factly, as though it were a foregone conclusion. "And you'll fail. Even if you somehow find a way past the bars, I've poisoned you while you were unconscious. It's an eldritch toxin, dormant for now, thanks to the lack of magic in that cell. Step beyond the bars, though, and you'll be so sick as to be nearly dead in a matter of minutes." The image shrugged. "It'll metabolize out of your system in a few months, but I imagine I'll have your new accommodations ready by then."

He nodded to Baltrice, and the image faded from the wall. She grinned in anticipation, overjoyed as Jace began to tremble openly. "In the meantime," she exulted, "the boss has told me that until he's ready to cut you apart, as long as I cause no permanent damage- you're mine!"

Flames erupted on the three open sides of the cell, inches beyond the enchanted bars, and if magic couldn't penetrate the claustrophobic prison, the heat and the smoke could. Jace fell back, arms thrown up to protect his face. His skin blistered, his lungs cried out for air, but he swore, he swore, that he would not scream.

It was an oath he succeeded in keeping for almost a minute.

He lost track of time, there in that manmade purgatory. How long at a stretch was he left alone, filthy and starving, wondering if the next time that door opened would be the last? How many times did he flinch when the door did open, before he knew if it was some servant come with gruel and water, or Baltrice eager for another of their "sessions"?

The lights in the chamber neither dimmed nor brightened. The consistency of the food never changed. Jace slept fitfully, never knowing how long, never knowing if he'd wake up again, or even if he wanted to. His hair was brittle and uneven where the edges had burned away, his skin charred in spots and patches, some of which might never fully heal.

And Jace endured, for what else could he do?

It might have been days, then, or possibly weeks, when the door to the outside world opened once more, and it was neither Baltrice nor a food-toting servant who stood within.

"Hello, Jace."

"Get out of here," Jace demanded, his voice made hoarse by smoke and screams.

Liliana allowed the door to slide shut behind her. Tentatively, as though each step pained her, she moved through the room until she stood barely more than an arm's reach from the bars.

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," she told him, her voice quiet. "I told Tezzeret that I was trying to deliver you to him, but it took him some time to even start to trust me, even after his damned truth elixirs. As it is, he's 'letting me stay' while we discuss my future place in the Consortium mostly so he can keep an eye on me."

"Either go away," the prisoner growled, flexing his fingers, "or take a step closer."

"Damn it, Jace! They're going to kill you!"

"So I'm told. You came to watch?"

"I came to get you out, you idiot!"

For the first time in who knew how long, Jace laughed, laughed until his battered lungs could take no more and he collapsed against the bars in a fit of choking.

"Of course," he gasped, when he could finally speak once more. "Because you've helped me so much to this point."

"I have!" she insisted, her face distraught. "How many times have we saved each other's lives, Jace? How many times would you be dead now, if not for me?" "For all the good it's done me," he muttered, but he couldn't deny the point. "You really want to help me escape?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to see you go through what they're planning to do to you."

Jace shook his head. "No. No, Liliana, you don't get to play that card anymore."

"Even if it's true?"

"No. I want the truth. All of it. I want to know why-not just why you want to help me escape, but why all of it." Jace crossed his arms and stepped back from the bars. "Otherwise, I see no reason to depart this delightful establishment."

Liliana's jaw dropped. "You're joking!"

"No, I'm not." His tone left no doubt, no doubt at all, that he meant it. "This hell I'm in, Liliana? It's nothing compared to the one you put me through. So if you expect me to trust you even so far as getting me out, to believe that this isn't another trick, you're going to have to convince me." He glanced meaningfully at the door behind her, then at the wall where Tezzeret's image had appeared. "And I'm guessing," he continued, "that you don't have indefinite time."

She sighed. "No, but I have some. Tezzeret and Baltrice are off-world, and the guards outside the door are possessed. Once I release them, they won't remember me being here at all.

"All right, Jace." She lowered herself to the floor, sitting cross-legged before the cell. After a moment, Jace did the same, waiting expectantly.

"I never did anything," she started softly, staring down at the floor, "that I didn't have to do."

Again Jace found himself laughing, and laughing harder still at the hurt expression that flashed across her face. "Where do betrayal and murder fall on the list of necessities, Liliana?" he asked her.

"What do you know?" she snapped at him, her whole body tensing. "It's all come so easily to you, Jace! When did you work for anything? Your mind-reading? You just discovered you could do that. Your money? You blackmailed rich idiots until Tezzeret dropped an opportunity in your lap! Some of us have had to struggle a very long time for what we've gained."

"Oh, please," Jace scoffed. "You're, what, maybe a year or two older than me? You haven't had a very long time to struggle."

"You're off," Liliana whispered, "by about a hundred years."

Jace opened his mouth to deny the possibility, and then froze at the expression on her face. "How?" he demanded in a hoarse whisper. "Even archmages age, and you're no archmage!"

"Someone made me a better offer." Her lips twisted in a faint, self-mocking grin.

And with that, Jace knew. "You made a deal with something," Jace breathed, shaken to the core of being. "Damn, Liliana, I've done some stupid things in my life, but you…!" He shook his head. "A demon?" he asked, remembering her reaction on Grixis.

"Four of them," she told him. "Four demons, four deals. Jace, you can't imagine what they offered in…" She consciously unclenched her fists, which had risen of their own accord as she spoke. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Who they were, why I did it. The point is, I was young, I was stupid, and I did it."