“Well, the connection has been severed, if that was what it was,” Acantha said sourly, the seething rage in her belly only seeming to intensify. “I’m never going to see that asshole again, that much is certain.”
“Nothing’s certain,” Morgan said, shrugging her shoulders. “Until last year, we thought the Fog was the limit of our world. Now we know that’s not true. Who knows what we’re going to know tomorrow?”
She thought about the glimpses Cato had given her of the world beyond the Fog, of the way it had felt to feel the very horizons of what she’d believed possible shifting before her eyes. She’d always been grimly suspicious of change, but somehow, when Cato had been telling her about the worlds beyond this one, she’d felt a giddy feeling that was almost excitement.
Well, this was what she got for embracing new things. Tricked, betrayed, and humiliated. The only thing she wanted to do now was forget she’d ever met the smooth-talking mage—but even as she thought it, she knew it was a lie.
Just like everything he’d told her.
Chapter 8 - Cato
“The moron returns!”
Cato had barely found his balance when the mocking voice rang through the forest, magically amplified by the Fog that twisted and danced around the branches of the trees all around him. He found his footing, carefully stepping off the rune that was carved deeply into the stone at his feet. When they left this place, they’d destroy the carving, but for now it was the beacon that would bring them safely home whenever they strayed. And Cato had certainly strayed for a lot longer than he’d intended. Nearly a week, all told. He gritted his teeth as the sound of footsteps and laughter grew closer. Part of him had hoped they wouldn’t catch up with him quite so soon—he’d have appreciated a few minutes at least to decompress and get his story straight before he had to confront his coven.
But as the always-unfamiliar figure of Inota came into view, he forced a sunny smile onto his face and performed his most elaborate bow in response to her sarcastic round of applause. As much as he was still reeling from the last few days, it was genuinely good to see her. He always knew where he stood with Inota. In contempt, usually.
“Oh, look at that face. Still trying to change yourself into my perfect woman, I see. You’ll get there one of these days.”
“Shut up,” she said cheerfully. Inota had first turned to magic as a means of disguising her identity from an increasingly more fanatical pack of bounty hunters. Even after Haspar had stepped in to resolve the bounty hunter issue in a more permanent way, the habit of changing her face had stuck. Today Cato was looking at a slight woman of maybe fifty, with jet-black hair that fell to her waist—when he’d left, she’d looked like a gangly teenager with bright red curls and a birthmark on her cheek. It took a little getting used to, meeting an apparent stranger every day, but there were clues once you knew what to look for. Her voice might change, but her accent and her choice of words were familiar. And if all else failed, there were always the runes they all had tattooed to more potently channel their spellcasting. Inota’s traveled with her no matter her transformations, though for obvious reasons she kept them all in places usually covered by clothing.
“Yes, ma’am. Shutting up.”
“Haspar’s getting the disemboweling knives ready, you know that, right? What the hell happened to you? I was picturing you getting flattened to a fine paste by solid rock, that stupid teleportation stunt you pulled—”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but the teleportation spell went off like a firecracker. Absolute masterpiece. My finest work.” They were walking through the Fog, Inota’s fingertips dancing rhythmically by her side as she wove the spell that kept their minds clear. He was grateful she was taking the load for both of them. Cheerful banter aside, they both knew this conversation with their leader wasn’t going to be a pleasant one.
“So successful that you stayed there a full week to gloat? And—not to steal Haspar’s part, or anything—I can’t help but notice a distinct lack of loot. Where’s the bag?”
“Uh, the bag is with my throwing knives and my dagger, which is to say…somewhere.” He spread his hands theatrically, wiggling his fingertips. Inota scoffed laughter. “Look, I got caught.”
“How?”
“The usual way.” Inota clearly had more questions, but the house had come into view ahead and she fell silent, shooting him an aggrieved look from the corners of her gray eyes as she did so. It was a weird old building, like many of the safehouses in the Fog—strange, alien architecture, a lot of unusual geometry and inexplicable shapes built into the design. Cato’s theory was that it had something to do with protection magic that had since been lost to understanding. Something had to explain why these houses still stood in the Fog, untold years after everything around them had been destroyed or disintegrated.
They’d been staying in this one for a few months now, which meant it wouldn’t be long before they moved on to somewhere new. Haspar liked to stay on the move. There was no geographical justification for it, really. The Fog defied any attempt to map or chart it, and to say any place was closer or farther away than any other place was functionally meaningless. Nor was there really any way to track them without knowing the runes they used to navigate to one another… not that they knew of, at any rate. Still, there was always the chance that other mages knew more than they did. And at the end of the day, Haspar had a gut feeling that it was for the best to keep moving, and Haspar was the one who called the shots around here.
Speaking of…
Cato gritted his teeth as he saw the big man’s figure unfold itself from a chair on the house’s weirdly triangular porch. Haspar had always been built like a fighter, tall and impossibly broad, bound with the kind of muscle that always put Cato in mind of a draft horse. Funny, then, that the man was absolutely useless in a physical fight. The trick, of course, was that any fight Haspar took on rarely needed to get physical. With the rings on his fingers and the force of his will, he could handily deal with any threat as quickly as breathing. Or not breathing, as the case may have been.
Cato could already feel the wind dying away, feel his breath coming harder. “Haspar, can you give it a rest,” he called tiredly, his voice already strangled. “Just—please?”
The big man was moving down the steps with a grim expression on his face, and Cato could tell from the clouding of his eyes that he wasn’t imagining the magic that was pulling the breath from his body. It had been a little while since he’d been subject to their leader’s displeasure.
“Haspar,” Inota said beside him, clearly uneasy. “Should we speak before you start—”
“I don’t see any need to speak, really,” Haspar said in his low, rasping voice. “I see a mage who disappeared for a week with no warning, and I see no evidence of the prize he left to procure. I fail to see what his scintillating conversation could add to the story.”
Yep, this was going to be bad. Already dizzy, Cato fought for breath, well aware that he didn’t have any magic on him that would help, even if he was unwise enough to resist Haspar’s will. “Got—captured,” he managed with what breath he could inhale, his voice barely audible. He considered trying for an apology, but the pressure intensified and he dropped to his knees instead.
“Captured,” Haspar repeated, his tone disgusted. “Captured? By the residents of an insula without even a rudimentary grasp of magic? I was wrong, Inota. He does have something to add to the story. Even more shame.”
“He’s going to pass out,” Inota said quietly, a neutral observation. It was true, Cato thought dizzily, his hands clawing helplessly at his throat as if that was where the problem lay. And just when he felt the darkness beginning to rush in, there was a subtle shift in air pressure. Just enough to afford him a tiny little sip of air. Just enough to keep him on the knife-edge of consciousness. Haspar was a real craftsman like that. Cato’s staff was lying in the leaves at Haspar’s feet, and the mage nodded down at it.
“At least you destroyed all memory of your presence in the minds of your captors?”
No sense lying to Haspar. No energy to spare to construct a good lie even if he thought he could get away with it. “No,” he wheezed—then buckled under the fresh onslaught of pressure.