White Heart of Justice (8 page)

Chapter 7

R
afe and I were told to gear up at Kalisto's Crystal Palace. Kalisto was a minor demon who spent summer in the deep south of Halja and winter at her New Babylon palace. The word “palace” was a misnomer; it was really a bazaar, although the building that housed all of Kalisto's merchants was as big as a palace. It was made of cast iron and plate glass and inside it was a maelstrom of vendors, wind, and ice. It was the place where rich Haljan hunters outfitted themselves for southern hunting trips.

Rafe and I had been given leaves of absence to compete in the Laurel Crown Race so we'd decided to meet Tuesday morning to catch a cabriolet to the palace. The race would begin at noon on Friday, so we had three days to prepare. There was no official starting line (although racers weren't allowed to enter Halja's hinterlands until the start of the race), but there was an official finish line: Timothy's Square at St. Luck's.

Every year, the finish line was held at a different demon law school. Since St. Luck's had hosted the rank matches, we'd also been given the honor of creating this year's Laurel Crown and placing it at a finish line of our choosing. The St. Luck's faculty had opted for a crown made of gold leaf, which they planned to hang on one of the lampposts at the start of the race. The first
Primoris
to make it back to Timothy's Square would exchange their target for the crown and win. It was that simple. (Or rather, it was that simple on paper. In practice, the race was often lethal.)

A sampling of other racer's targets included:

†
EIDOLON'S ALTERNATE ENDING

Commissioned by the demon lord Nickolai as a bride gift for his inamorata, the painting is purportedly “enhanced” by the Angel artist's botched spell. The scene in the painting changes for each viewer so no one knows what the original subject was. Anyone who gazes upon it is ever after incapable of feeling love. The painting was stolen sometime around the turn of the century by the Graeae, the trio of demonesses who were spawned from the ground together and who are now bound by their shared flesh and formidable magic.

† 623 BARS OF GOLD BULLION

This weighty amount was the grand total stolen from the New Babylon Mint over the last three months. The thieves are reputed to be hiding somewhere around Rockthorn Gorge. Liberating the gold and returning it to the mint will take not only a Guardian but a small army of magic users prepared to battle the outlaws and then protect the heavy cargo on its way back through a dizzying array of steep, narrow mountain passes full of argopelters and hidebehinds.

† GOU NAN JOUNEN AN

A.K.A. Rasha Pearl, a Hyrke courtesan and spy. Employed by the Office of the Executive since the age of eighteen, no woman is as well educated or as well traveled. She speaks almost as many demon languages as an Angel, she knows hundreds of exotic and erotic dances, and she's been to nearly every
regulare
outpost—and not a few
rogare
hotspots. Problem? She acted as a double agent while doing so. Since the early 1990s, she passed all sorts of supersensitive Council information on to her
rogare
contacts. In 1997, she was arrested. But she escaped from her Maegester captors shortly thereafter and has been on the Council's “Most Wanted” list ever since.

† 1 OZ. EACH OF BLITHE AND BITTERS

Two fabled spices highly prized by the Mederi. One is a powerful aphrodisiac, nearly a love potion for those who use it, and the other is a sedative, one strong enough to keep someone asleep for a hundred years or more. Both spices are harvested from the same legendary tree, the Saeculi Spinae, which only grows in Halja's western volcanic mountains—an area protected by the fierce, fiery djinn. The djinn's price for just a pinch of blithe or bitters? Helping with the harvest.

† LILITH'S LAST RESTING PLACE

I'd found Lucifer's tomb two semesters ago, but the location of Luck's lover's gravesite was still unknown. History is clear that she survived Armageddon and lived for another two centuries or so. But the stories surrounding her death are wildly inconsistent. Some say she went north, beyond Rockthorn Gorge, toward Warja hoping to start another fight. Others say she went west and made a deal with the djinn to be sealed away in a room full of blithe and bitters forever. Still others say she went east and sailed off toward the Morning Star. So it would take far more than Luck's blessing to find her remains. Or any of the other targets we racers were being asked to retrieve.

Friedrich had given me a race file, which was much thinner than the case file I'd received before heading off to the Shallows last semester. Inside it were only two things: a map and some route notes. Valda had to practically pry the thief's journal out of Peter's hands in order to give it to me, but the Angels had finally handed that over as well. The thief turned out to be none other than Kaspar Bialas, Metatron's squire. According to the Divinity, Bialas stole the White Heart shortly after Metatron's death and the Divinity has been looking for it ever since. I couldn't honestly say that it gave me any confidence to have my name included among the bounty hunters who'd searched for (and failed to find) the White Heart before me: the little known Graemite and the illustrious Percevalus and Jacindus. And yet I couldn't honestly say that it didn't.

If not them, why not me?

The weather, while we waited for our cab, was typical of Eis, our first month. The mercury in the thermometer was barely visible and the wind was punishing. The thing is, the temperature and wind gusts were going to be just as bad inside Kalisto's Crystal Palace as out. She paid an Angel to keep it that way because, as her off-season marketing campaign often reminded New Babylonians,
anyone who geared up for a blizzard in less than blizzard-like conditions deserved to die
.

So, with that optimistic thought in mind, we piled gratefully into the cab's warm interior. On the way, I discussed our traveling plans with Rafe.

“I booked us tickets on the North-South Express for Thursday afternoon. You'll need to be at the train station by twelve thirty. We should arrive in Maize an hour or two before nightfall. We'll stay the night—”

“I guess you're going to ask your brother to regrow your tooth, huh?”

I worried the gap in my teeth with my tongue.
Undoubtedly.
I gave Rafe a lopsided smile and continued.

“The Mederies in Maize will supply the food, the barghests, and the sledge we'll need for the trip.”

Rafe grinned. “Barghests! Do we get to ride them like the legends say Lilith did?”

I snorted. “Only if you want to get yourself killed before we even make it to Corterra.”

Corterra was one of the old, abandoned outposts in the Verge. South of Maize, there were no more inhabited outposts. But the Old Trail continued, in greater or lesser states of repair, past the railroad's terminus in Maize. The land between Maize and Mount Iron was a huge, frozen steppe, full of formerly occupied outposts like Ironworks, First Forge, Furnace Town, and East and West Blast. Corterra sat in the very heart of the Verge. In fact, one could almost draw a straight line from Maize to Corterra to Tartarus at Mount Iron. Since speed was a priority, we'd take the shortest, straightest route, even though there were other, safer ones.

Rafe whistled. “I'll bet even Ivy's never been to Corterra.”

“She hasn't,” I said, wanting to move on. Frankly, Ivy had turned so pale when I'd told her we were headed to Corterra that I hadn't had the heart to tell her our real destination—Tartarus, which was even farther south.

“After Corterra, we'll continue south using the map and route notes Friedrich gave me, Kaspar Bialas' journal, celestial navigation, and Luck's guiding hand.” I cleared my throat. Except for my trip to the Shallows and back, I hadn't spent much time out-of-doors. Still, I was trying hard to keep my spirits up so it wouldn't appear as if our mission was hopeless. “Before Thursday, I need you to find the spells Sigma Octantis and Joule and add those to your spellcasting repertoire.” Sigma Octantis was a spell that boosted celestial navigation skills and Joule was a jumped-up spell of warmth.

“Already done,” Rafe murmured, gazing out of the cab at the immense hilltop structure that slowly came into view.

I paid the cabdriver his fare, and we climbed out. In front of us, on a high windswept hill on the outskirts of north New Babylon, was the Crystal Palace. We made our way up the steep stone steps that led to its entrance and I imagined how enticing this building might look during spring. With its great glass dome full of wintery winds nestled atop a hill full of grass and flowers, it would, no doubt, look like an enormous snow globe set on a colorful perch, a veritable beacon to would-be adventurers, Haljan hunters, and other wannabe travelers dreaming of something different. Today, however, there was little difference between the gray sky behind the building and the gray atmosphere within it.

Just outside the entrance was a fountain, but instead of water, this one sprayed snow. At its base was a sign:

Winter either bites with its teeth
or lashes with its tail.

Make a wish and swish.
All proceeds benefit
Kalisto's Hunters' Widows' and Children's Fund

Beneath the sign was a cup for offerings. I looked up and suddenly my pulse and signature skyrocketed with the snow. High above the fountain was the wispy outline of a yeti—a snow beast. Its face materialized from the snow with black eyes the size of the cab we'd just climbed out of and an open jaw at least half the size of Timothy's Square. It swooped toward us, teeth gnashing, just as Rafe dropped a coin in the cup. He waved his hand in the air and the snow yeti slowly dissolved. A mist of cold, wet snow rained down on us.

“Did you wish for an umbrella?” I said, wiping my cheek with the hem of my cloak.

“Nope, I made a
serious
wish.”

I gave him a dubious look. “Uh-huh. Let me guess. You wished that Kalisto would have a nose warmer with whiskers inside?”

He shook his head.

“Levitating snowshoes?”

Same response.

“Hot chocolate, at least?”

Rafe didn't answer. Instead he locked his arm with mine and led me toward the iron-doored entrance. On the way, he sang softly:

“I wished I could kiss your gap-toothed smile.”

When he saw my reaction, he stifled a laugh.

“It would be bliss to do so awhile.”

He stopped abruptly and turned me toward him, keeping a hold on my shoulders.

“But you're fierce and you're fiery and oh so wisery.”

He lowered his head close to mine and then said
sotto voce
:

“So it's certain you'd yell, ‘Go straight to hell!'”

The wind buffeted us from every direction as the snow continued to fall from above. Suddenly, I was acutely aware that Rafe was holding on to me. He stared at me and for a single second I wondered if he'd meant it when he'd said he wished for something serious.

“Wisery?” I said finally, stepping back. “Only you could come up with a word like that, Rafe.”

*   *   *

I
nside Kalisto's Crystal Palace, I immediately sensed the presence of two very different waning magic users. The first felt like a she-bear. Her signature was grizzly and rough, strong, capable of great violence, but not malevolent. The second, however, fell over me like a pall. It felt like the shadow of a signature, like a signature that had been cloaked by a gifted and powerful Angel. A waning magic user with less sensitivity than me probably wouldn't have been able to feel it. But I did, and the personal animosity I felt within it was like a punch to my gut. I stumbled and would have sprawled headlong onto the floor if Rafe hadn't caught me and cast a simple shielding spell over me.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, looking around for the offending magic user. “I should have cast you up before we came inside.”

I regained my balance and my magical equilibrium and shook him off, angrier with myself than him. I should be used to feeling malignant waning magic signatures by now. But, even I had to admit, I'd never felt one like this. There was something vaguely familiar about it, but because it was cloaked, I couldn't tell if the signature belonged to a demon, Maegester, or fellow MIT. All I could feel was a whisper of it, lingering around the edges of Rafe's shielding spell. It had felt my signature too. I could feel its interest. But it stayed away. Because the other one was coming closer.

Before the she-bear signature arrived, I took a moment to check out the Crystal Palace. We'd entered on an upper level that circled the perimeter of the lower level bazaar. Rafe and I walked over to the railing and peered down at the vendors below. It was like looking at a miniature snow village—one that was combating a blizzard. The snow and winds were just as fierce here, under the glass dome, as they had been outside. In fact, the iron cast work that held the glass together was barely visible against the sky. Below us were hundreds of log cabins, timber huts, leather tents, and ice igloos. Firelight made the tents and igloos glow in various shades of yellow, gold, and amber.