Chapter 166: Poisoned Pawn

Chapter 166: Poisoned Pawn

Siobhan

Month 4, Day 9, Friday 9:45 a.m.

Judging by the lack of nearby screams, curses, or sounds of movement, Millennium and the others were completely unconscious. In the stable behind them, horses were whinnying and the workers were alarmed, but the vague sounds of a deep voice she couldn’t quite make out comforted them. One of their attackers, most likely.

Siobhan couldn't feel anything from the waist down. She chose to believe that was from the effects of the stunning spell and not because her spine had been broken.

No help was coming. And the world was still spinning dizzily. ‘Did I hit my head?’ Or maybe that was the effects of the stunning spell. It contained Kuthian frog spit, or something, in addition to the electrical charge. She was pretty sure Professor Lacer had talked about it in one of his lectures. Which suddenly seemed hilariously ironic. She held back a giggle, then did her best to sober up.

‘I am about to be either captured or killed,’ she realized. ‘And there is nothing I can do about it.’ The adrenaline spike helped to settle her uncharacteristic and totally inappropriate giddiness, but did nothing to help her regain control of her body.

She fumbled with the hand of the arm she was lying on for the chain holding Professor Lacer’s Conduit and her beast core, hoping no one was watching yet as she snapped the chain with a single hard yank toward her chest. She hesitated, her mind running wild as she tried to figure out what to do with them, somewhere they would be safe in the off chance that she somehow got free and was able to return to Sebastien Siverling’s identity.

Professor Lacer would kill her if she lost his Conduit.

There was no time, and with no other viable ideas, she shoved both into her mouth, trailing metal chain and all. Her arm had some trouble locating her mouth, but after smashing her nose flat and poked herself in the eye with a finger, she managed to get it all inside.

With the most painful, strained gulp of her life, she swallowed both rocks, keeping the chain in her mouth. She was lucky that she was still a young thaumaturge, because her Conduit was only the size of a large grape, and the cheap beast core a small walnut. But neither were polished or smooth. For a moment, she thought they might get stuck in her throat and suffocate her, but with a painful, scraping stretch, they passed into her stomach. She smelled blood on her exhale.

Siobhan held back a whimper, pressing her tongue hard to the roof of her mouth to trap the chain there securely. As a child, she had kept one end of a long noodle in her mouth while swallowing the rest, then pulled the whole thing back out, to the disgust of everyone else at the dinner table. She could use the chain to do the same with her Conduit and beast core.

Footsteps approached from behind her as well as to the side, but she closed her eyes despite her racing heart. There was no sense in letting the enemy know that the stunning mine hadn’t quite done its job.

A strange clattering sound came from above, and then a heavy thunk followed by what might have been a body collapsing to the ground. This was followed by a horrified gasp. “Oh please, oh please, don’t be dead,” a young man’s voice muttered, cracking under the strain of heavy emotion.

Siobhan’s stomach churned with burning acid. ‘Who is he talking about? Please, not Miles.’

More footsteps came from the sides, half-muffled thuds traveling through the ground as they hopped over the courtyard wall. A man said, “One of them is still up.”

Siobhan suppressed a twitch. ‘How did they know?’ she wondered, but immediately realized that they were talking about the young man behind her.

“I’m not one of them!” he protested. “I’m just a bystander, and um, a journalist,” he added threateningly.

There was a moment of silence, followed by grunts of effort and pain and sounds of impact that seemed to indicate fighting. Siobhan picked out the sound of choking, the young man muttering “oh shit oh shit oh shit,” under his breath, and even another small crackle of stunning magic.

“He’s trained!” one of the men called, much less nonchalantly than earlier.

‘Is that boy actually fighting to defend us?’ Siobhan wondered in dawning surprise. She cracked one eyelid open just a sliver, allowing a blurry section of light through. She caught a glimpse of legs running past from the side of the courtyard—even more enemy backup.

A grunt came from behind her, and then the brown-skinned boy from before, the one who had been talking to Copper Robards in the street, stepped over her sprawled body. “The coppers are on the way! I called for them right away, and they’ll be here any minute!” he warned.

Mr. Irving, the copper had called him. He had Millennium thrown over one shoulder, the child’s insensate fingers dangling around his lower back. Irving’s other hand held...a clay roof tile? He waved the arched terracotta threateningly in Siobhan’s general direction, looking at the enemies standing over and around her. “I’m trained in the art of magi-kundo,” he announced. “I’m warning you, stay back or I can’t be responsible for what I do!” He waved the roof tile again.

Siobhan had never heard of this art. In fact, it sounded quite made-up. But she couldn’t fault him for his verbal flailing. He was a child himself, and obviously trying to protect Millennium, even if his chances were hopeless. Perhaps, if he bought enough time, she would recover enough to be of use.

“Kill them?” another suggested.

“No,” the leader said. “Take them with us.”

The man who had suggested Siobhan was the Raven Queen added incredulously, “Don’t you know this whole thing is a plot to draw her out? There’s no need to make her angrier or give her a reason to get revenge on any of us personally.”

“But won’t she be captured after this?” the one who had wanted to kill her asked.

“Sure. If it works. Haven’t you read the reports? I’m not going to gamble on her losing. Not when it’s so easy just to capture a few more people for ransom. Right, captain?”

“We weren’t ordered to kill anyone,” the man said, though Siobhan wasn’t sure if that was agreement with his subordinate’s statement or not. And if she was now more than fifty percent certain that these men were plainclothes Pendragon operatives. Though it was also possible that they were mercenaries working for the Architects of Khronos, or even some other group she’d never heard of.

Soon after, Siobhan was lifted and tossed into the back of wagon, followed by the others, limbs dropping painfully onto her.

“Go deal with the coppers,” the leader ordered.

When her ankle twisted painfully under a limp, heavy body, she almost wished she was still numb. She couldn’t move to escape the pain without giving away her consciousness. At least her sensation of balance wasn’t careening around quite as giddily. Perhaps she would be able to escape out of the back of the wagon with Miles when no one was looking. The Nightmare Pack enforcers and maid would have to fend for themselves. She couldn’t save them all.

Siobhan risked a peek out of one eye, noting the cloth covering stretching in an dome over the wagon itself, disguising the contents within.

“What about the other kid?” someone asked.

“One of the coppers vouched for him. Some small-time journalist who fancies himself a vigilante. No connection to the gangs or the Raven Queen.”

“Leave him,” the leader ordered.

Apparently “dealing with” meant working with the coppers and exchanging information, not fighting or killing them. Another tally for the Pendragon operative theory.

“Everybody clear?” someone at the front of the wagon asked. A handful of affirmative responses followed.

And then Siobhan was engulfed in darkness.

It was a darkness so complete she had never experienced anything comparable, completely different than the shadow of her closed eyelids, or even the shadows on a moonless night.

That was what she noticed first.

Then came the fact that she could not hear anything, even the sound of her own breathing or heartbeat, which normally became discernible in extreme silence.

Then, that she could feel nothing, either. Not her body pressing against the wooden planks of the wagon, nor the pain in her squished and twisted ankle, nor even her tongue inside her mouth.

Her consciousness floated in nothing, completely unmoored.

She panicked. She tried to move, to scream, to bite her own tongue, anything. But if she was still connected to a brain—which she wasn’t sure of—it was no longer sending or receiving signals to her body. And then she had a horrible thought. One so horrible that it stilled her mind.

‘I am dead.’Read latest chapters at nov(e)lbin.com Only