Quartz (18 page)

And the lights went out.

With an almost audible sigh, darkness poured back into the world and clapped a hand over Rafe’s eyes. Rafe blinked away white sparks, and waited for his eyes to adjust.

Then he crept towards the door, stepping carefully around maps and books from memory, and pulled it open. The well-oiled hinges made no sound.

Leo’s house smelled of wood and age, oil and varnish, with a hint of cedar. The forests had been lost long ago in the Scorching, and the agri-caves grew mostly bamboo and rattan for wood, along with a few fruit-bearing trees. Leo had hunted down and rescued wood from old buildings, reclaimed splintered boards and half-rotted beams, had them cut, sanded, and oiled to form floors and panels and furniture for his house. In the corridor, wood breathed out the scent of life lived and gone ages ago, felt fine and smooth under Rafe’s fingers, a steadying counterpoint to the tingles all over his skin.

There was a presence in the house. Someone—or something—had come in. All his senses tugged him towards Leo’s study.

Where the Renat Keys were kept.

Faint threads of color slid across the walls and floor, streaming towards the study. Some shone bright and violent, others were pale and sickly. They scratched across his mind like burrs. Rafe flinched away from them—they looked and felt too much like the light that accompanied his quartz sickness.

Rafe pulled out his Renat Key from his pocket. A deep blue unwound from its surface, twined through his fingers, slid away to the study. Its touch was almost pleasant, like the sour-sweet tang of citrus.

If he could see it and feel it, could he hold on to it?

Inside himself, in the same place where he could see things no one else could see and hear things that no one else could hear, Rafe put himself into the flow of color, blocking it, taking it into himself. A jolt ran through him; he braced his feet for the electric onslaught of white light.

It didn’t come.

Instead, whatever power was in his device filled his veins like honey.

Light flickered from under the study door.

The power flowing through Rafe was like wine, kindling a fire in his belly. He thrust his device back in his pocket and pushed open the door.

The Renat Keys glowed in many colors, creating patterns of light and shadow in the dim room. A black-clad figure crouched by the cabinet, half-turned on its heel. Colors slithered into the dagger it held, which burned like a slash of light. A sheathed dagger at the figure’s belt gave off a chill that cut Rafe to the bone.

Isabella.

Darkness chattered in Rafe’s ears. He
remembered
—the cavern, the voice, the dark fluidity—and the memories threatened to drown him.

But only for a moment.
Get a hold of yourself, Rafe. Get her away from the cabinet.

“Isabella.” Rafe stepped into the room. The Keys’ low murmur increased to a croon and their light display intensified. “I thought we were allies. Why are you doing this?”
Get her talking. Distract her.

“Sorry, Rafe, but Leo is never going to listen to you.” Isabella plunged the moon dagger into the lock of the display case. With a hiss, it cracked open.

Rafe crossed the room in three strides. He grabbed an inkwell off Leo’s desk and flung it at her. Isabella flattened herself against the cabinet and it thunked into the wall, splattering ink. She swept the Keys into a bag, drew the string tight.

Rafe scrabbled for something else to throw. Paper rustled and pens clattered to the floors. His fingers closed around something hard and heavy, fist-sized—a paperweight, perhaps—and he threw it at her head.

Lightning-quick, Isabella raised her hand. It smacked into her palm and she whipped it back at him. Rafe managed to dodge it, but not the antique grinding-stone she followed up with. It caught Rafe in the gut and he doubled over. The golden energy thrumming in his veins surrounded the pain, dissolved it.

Isabella leapt the desk, ran past him like a wind. Rafe grabbed at her arm. His fingers snagged cloth for an instant before she yanked free, pulling him off balance. Rafe scrambled to his feet and lunged through the doorway.

Mage lights exploded all down the corridor, showering Isabella with broken quartz and sparks as she fled for the window at the end. A bronze light fixture crashed to the floor in front of her. Strands of color snaked through the wall and paintings and plates fell off in response. Isabella flung up an arm to ward off a portrait of a distinguished Grenfeld ancestor. Rafe charged, not heeding the sting of sparks on his skin, and tackled her.

Her elbow smacked him in the head as he ripped the bag free off her belt with one hand. Rafe lost his grip, fell, grabbed for her ankles, brought her down. The Keys rolled out of her bag, threw a kaleidoscope of light across the ceiling. Another shot of honey-light burst through Rafe and his skin tightened in aching response to hold it all in.

Isabella wiggled—couldn’t that woman be properly stunned for half a moment?— and kicked up with both feet. Her heels caught his jaw, sent stars shooting through his skull.

Isabella turned her kick into a flip and landed lightly, facing him amidst the scattered Keys. Her moon dagger was in her hand, and her voice was steady and low. “Let me go, Rafe. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Enough of your lies.” Sel, his head ached! His tongue was thick and his voice raspy as if he’d been baking in quartz-heat for hours. “You are working with Rocquespur. You brought Pyotr to die in his warehouse.”

“I told you I hated him.”

“Hating him is not the same as not working for him. Sometimes you can hate someone and still work with them. It’s called expediency.” Rafe crouched, staring not at the lights dancing on her face, but at her hands. Her light dagger glistened with the same kind of energy he’d felt from the device.

Something he could use.

“The light is more important than any alliance or your sensibilities. Your uncle’s at a cabinet meeting right now, strong-arming the rest of the ministers into backing up a plan for using the Keys to create mage weaponry. He’s not interested in finding the Tower.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to persuade him.”

Isabella lunged. Light blazed around the moon dagger, light of a diamond clarity, different from the acidity of the colors it had drawn in. As if the dagger had transformed that energy, cleansed and purified it. It was a natural extension of his own mind to reach out and
tug
at it.

The dagger wavered and Isabella turned, swept a low kick at him. Rafe dodged, barely.

“You’re a fool, and you’re dangerous.”

Rafe had no breath for talking. He tried to come in low and grab her but she slid bonelessly out of his reach. The Renat Keys hummed at her feet. She kicked one up into the air, reaching to catch it, and reversed her grip on the moon dagger, readying for a throw.

I can do something about this.

A moment in time, Isabella paused and poised like an acrobat, the Key in midair, tumbling designs of light, that dagger ready to strike, and Rafe looked at that moon blade, dripping energy, grabbed the whole mass of it somehow…

… and screamed as it seared the inside of his skull. A tangle of colors roiled inside his head, burning, scorching.
Had… to… get… them… out!
Just like he’d done in Leo’s study a few days ago.

Shaking with the agony, Rafe dispersed the knot. He flung some at Isabella, some into the Keys which shrieked their fury. Most crashed into the walls.

A giant boom, and supports somewhere cracked and gave way. Plaster showered down onto Rafe. He had no time to see where Isabella was or what had happened to her, but he grabbed for the Keys—one, two, and three—and held them tight, while the electric pain ran its course.

Perversely, the remaining mage lights came back on, dim with embarrassment, showing a huge gap in Leo’s house where Isabella had been standing. The walls bowed and cracked, the ceiling buckled and the window she’d been aiming for had vanished, along with the wall it had been set in.

There was no sign of Isabella herself.

Sitting in the intact foyer of his wrecked house, Uncle Leo had plenty to say, most of it unrepeatable. When he finally ran out of breath, he glared at the hapless members of the Guarda Publica who’d been unfortunate enough to be on duty that night.

“I want that scorched woman found! She’s a menace and thief.” Leo gestured toward Rafe, who’d sank down upon a hard bench beside the door, head in his hands. “Look at what she did to my nephew! And my house! She’d have run off with my artifacts, no thanks to you. What do I pay my taxes for, eh?”

Rafe wondered why he couldn’t seem to summon up any of the rage that fueled Leo. The world had taken on fuzzy edges, wavering as if under water. A familiar sick feeling crept over him.

“If you’re done collecting my statement, am I free to go?” Rafe clenched his teeth, the warmth in his veins bitter and tainted, like poisoned honey.

“Yes, go home, Rafe.” Leo responded before the guard could even open his mouth. “No, wait. You need a chair. No arguments, boy! You look half-dead.” He turned his megalamp stare on the guards. “Well? What are you waiting for? Go summon one.”

The thought of being transported in a chair filled Rafe with a mild horror, but he was in no condition to protest. Leo’s manservant helped him in, and Leo called out, his face stony, “Don’t worry, Rafe. We’ll get her, and Rocquespur, too.”

Then the carriers hoisted the poles on to their shoulders and set a brisk pace for Rafe’s lodgings.

Rafe managed to walk himself up the stairs to his rooms. His insides were hot and roiling and his skin tight and dry, so that he felt as if he would burst open, like an overripe fruit. His hands trembled so badly that it took him several tries to unlock his door. Once inside, he stumbled straight into his bedchamber, shoved his Renat Key under a loose floorboard, and fell on top of the sheets. He was asleep in moments.

Much later, Rafe woke up, his throat and mouth parched. There was less than an inch of tepid water in his bedside jug. Rafe finally mustered the strength to slide off the bed and make his slow crouching way to the water basin. The plumbing creaked and complained like an arthritic old man. Water sputtered, then gushed out of the tap. Rafe managed to catch some in his cupped hands, lifted them to his mouth. Most of it went down his chin and soaked into his shirt. He tried again and again, splashing water over himself, getting a sip here and half a gulp there while it flowed out the tap, circled the basin, and disappeared straight into the drain and the sewers. He could’ve wept for the waste of it, and finally, someone else might’ve thought so too, because the water was shut off.

So, rationing had started.

Rafe turned the knob off and slouched back to bed, this time kicking off his boots as he slithered on top of the covers. He drifted into a fitful sleep, visions of twisting fire burning themselves onto the back of his eyelids. He ran among ruins, towards the flames, calling and calling, his voice ragged and smoke-scoured till he could hardly speak. Sometimes, it was a man he sought, another time a woman, sometimes he stumbled over a wide-eyed corpse that collapsed into dust as he fell, and then he was off again, looking, looking…

In the background, violent colors clashed and burned.

Bells rang, a frantic chime and jangle, and Rafe woke up again, racked with chills. He was no longer hot, but cold. He wrapped blankets around himself, too tired to actually get under them, but it was no use. Shivers ran down his body, he curled up into a little ball, and was back in the sewers under Blackstone, in the moldy dark. Raptors ripped into his immobile limbs with their sharp teeth. Rafe tried to lash out, but ropes bound his arms and legs. He cried out for help, and something dark and nameless flowed up his legs to muffle and blind him.

Cool hand on his brow, damp rag against his lips. Rafe sucked in the moisture, grateful for the easing of his parched throat. Hands took away his blanket. He shriveled up even more, burrowing head into his arms, too tired to argue. Cold wet cloths pressed on his forehead, cheeks and eyelids, wiped the back of his neck. Rafe had no energy to protest, and the blankets were beyond reach. His exploring hands found nothing to cover himself up with.

“Leave it, Rafe. Just lay still. I’ll take care of you.” Cool, calm voice. Isabella, to his rescue again? He flinched away.

“I… don’t want… you… here,” he breathed, not knowing whether the words left his lips or died on his tongue. There was more noise in the background, like a dull roar. He strained to listen, and then the singing came over it all—a familiar lullaby, sung in a kind of sad and angry way, also familiar. He was a little boy again, lying in the dark, feeling warm, comforted and safe. A smile stretched his lips.

He slept dreamlessly.

Rafe awoke in a room full of shadows, disoriented and confused. A pale gleam slipped through the crack between the curtains and he gazed at the dark shapes of the furnishings, wondering where he was. Not the barracks. Not the grim room he’d had in Blackstone, with its rusty iron bedstead and a flaking picture of the Father painted on the wall. Not the crowded firedancers’ tents, smelling of sweat, perfumed oil, and alcohol, nor the stone shelters they’d stayed at in the Barrens.

Oh. He was home.

Rafe mouthed the word, feeling it take shape on his lips, trying it on these three poky rooms for size. Home had always been Grenfeld, the home he had left in anger eleven years ago and had been an exile from since.

Whatever this place was, it wasn’t home. It was merely the place he stopped at when in Oakhaven, because a body needed somewhere to sleep and somewhere to store stuff.

These philosophical musings flitted over his head in an airy way, until the door cracked open and a youth he had never seen put his head inside.

“Who in blazes are you?” Rafe sat up—or tried to. He ended up half-slouched against his pillows, trying to keep himself from sliding back down.

“Um…” the young man stuttered. “I-I-I’ll fetch M-m-madam W-w-wellfound.” He disappeared, leaving the door ajar. A shaft of light fell across Rafe’s bed. Rafe tried to think who Madam Wellfound could be.