Lisa Shearin - Armed & Magical

“Where is she?” Mychael asked.

“Cut right to the chase, don’t you? I’m fine, by the way.”

“Good. Where is she?”

“Relatively small room, completely dark, stone walls and floor. She’s not tied up, but she’s too scared to do anything about it. She’s alive and unhurt—for now.” I paused and glowered. “And as best I can tell, she’s being held in the central city.”

Mychael glowered back. “Best you can tell?”

I resisted the urge to snap. “Yes, as best I can tell.” I told them both about the trail vanishing, and Rami’s three reasons why it could have happened.

“Do you know if Banan Ryce has that kind of power?” Mychael asked me.

“He’s been known to pack a punch, but he can’t do anything like that.”

Mychael was silent for a moment. “That’s a lot of trouble to go to for a getaway hostage.”

“Yeah, it is. But Megan Jacobs isn’t alone. There’s another girl being held with her.” I looked at Sedge Rinker. “Did you know that you have two kidnapped girls?”

Mychael looked sharply at the chief watcher.

The watcher clenched his jaw. “Megan Jacobs was the second victim,” he told Mychael. “The first was taken last night.”

“Why wasn’t I notified?” Mychael wanted to know.

“Her parents are here and want to keep it quiet.” It sounded like Rinker liked saying that as little as Mychael liked hearing it. “If it was a random kidnapping, they don’t want the abductors to know who she is. They also don’t think we’re working quickly enough, and have hired their own investigators.”

Mychael scowled. “Who’s the girl?”

“Ailia Aurillac.”

Mychael’s scowl deepened. “Her father is Gerald Aurillac,” he told me.

“The shipping magnate?” I certainly recognized that name. Phaelan had helped himself to several of Gerald Aurillac’s ships over the years. Rich takings, quality merchandise. No doubt Aurillac would be put out at the Conclave college losing his little girl. I thought I’d keep my family’s connection to the Aurillacs to myself. If Sedge Rinker didn’t know, I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. He had a good opinion of me; I thought I’d let him keep it a while longer.

“She’s petite and blond, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Rinker said.

“That’s probably her then.” Even worse for local law enforcement—a missing heiress.

“When two of my men went to the Aurillacs’ yacht to inform her parents, Magus Silvanus was already there and had broken the news.”

Mychael didn’t swear, but his eyes sure did.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Carnades Silvanus,” Mychael told me. “The senior mage on the Seat of Twelve.”

“How does he know the girl?”

“He’s her faculty advisor,” Rinker told me. “As soon as her dorm housemother discovered she was missing, she notified the magus and then the watch. The magus went directly to the girl’s parents.”

And stepped hard on some city watch toes when he did. Bet that hadn’t earned him any popularity points with Rinker’s people.

“What’s in it for him?” I asked. “Besides a brown nose?”

“A black eye for local law enforcement,” Mychael said. “Guardians included.”

I carefully wrapped the hairbrush. “Banan Ryce took Megan Jacobs. Since Ailia Aurillac is with her, I think it’s safe to say that Banan or his Nightshades are responsible for her as well. Where was Ailia taken from?”

“Her dorm room.”

So much for campus security.

“By any chance does she have a large mirror?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine a wealthy heiress who wouldn’t.

“She does,” Rinker said.

The girl I saw with Megan wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t moving, either. “Were there signs of violence found in the room?”

“None. But we did find a rag soaked with wiccbane.”

“Good,” I said.

That earned me an odd look from both men.

“I’d rather get wiccbane than clubbed over the head,” I told them. “Linking with her might make me woozy, but that’ll be it.”

“But you’ve already seen Miss Aurillac,” Mychael said.

“I saw her, but I didn’t see how she got there. Megan Jacobs is conscious and scared to death. The only thing I’m getting from her is light-headed. Ailia Aurillac is asleep or unconscious. That means a link with her just might let me see the last people she saw before the wiccbane got to her.”

Rinker’s dark eyes shone. “You can do that?”

I met his gaze. “I can do that.” Then I leaned forward with a conspirator’s smile. “And I’m betting you have something of hers in that bag.”

“I do. I was one of the first watchers on the scene. I found a gold locket on the floor of her room. The chain was broken.”

“Any blood on it?”

“A little.”

Bad for Ailia, good for me. That should make my link all the more powerful. I held out my hand. Rinker dropped the pouch into it.

I opened the bag and dumped its contents onto the couch beside me. I picked it up by the chain, careful to avoid for now the specks of blood on one section. I’d found through unpleasant experience that a chain conducted images a lot less than a pendant. I didn’t know why; it just did. I looked at Ailia’s pendant—gold, high quality, beautiful workmanship. The pendant was large enough to contain engraving inside or even a tiny painting. My money was on the latter. The Aurillacs could certainly afford a miniature portrait, or perhaps it was a gift from the girl’s fiancé.

“Is she engaged?” I asked Sedge.

“Not that I am aware of.”

Probably a gift from her parents then.

I hesitated a moment longer, then dropped the locket and chain into my hand and closed my fist around both.

I had been grabbed from behind before. I knew what to do. I had a couple of responses that had served me very well. Ailia had never been attacked. Panic was the only response she knew. I didn’t enjoy feeling it along with her. Panic, terror, frantic struggling against at least three attackers in the near darkness. She didn’t stand a chance and they knew it. They were laughing. She managed one muffled scream before they’d made sure she couldn’t. Two wore masks; one didn’t. I knew the one not wearing a mask. Ailia didn’t, but she saw him. That wasn’t good. Generally kidnappers who let you see them might be planning on collecting a ransom, but they weren’t planning on letting you go once they did.

The unmasked kidnapper was Banan Ryce. That made it even worse.

The last thing both Ailia and I saw was Ryce’s green eyes.

The next thing that blurred into focus was Mychael’s concerned blue eyes, which was a vast improvement.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I nodded, then shook my head to clear it. “Do you know if Banan still has those two mirror mages working for him?” I asked Mychael.

"He does. ”

“Looks like they’re earning their keep.”

Banan’s two mirror mages were identical twins, bound to each other by more than appearance. To take something or someone through a mirror took a pair of mages working in perfect unison—one at a receiving mirror, one at the origin mirror. Anything less and a mirror was just a mirror. Banan’s twins were good, the best I’d ever seen. One of the twins had probably been hiding in that courtyard this morning, keeping the getaway mirror warm and running for his boss. A lot of stolen goods—or two kidnapped girls—could be passed through two magically connected mirrors.

“Are Megan Jacobs’s parents wealthy?” I asked.

“They’re well off,” Rinker told me. “But not anywhere near the Aurillacs.”

“Banan Ryce could still be after a ransom,” I said. “But I doubt it. Even the Aurillacs would be small change for him. And Banan Ryce doesn’t take a job unless he’s paid a lot of gold up front with more on the way.” I paused uneasily. “He’s got some—shall we say—expensive tastes.”