Exava’s reaction was slow. But then a zigzag smile spread across her face. “Oh, thank you, Master,” she said gaily, and spun on her heels, a sword in each hand.
She appeared in the hallway, and the freaks snapped at her, links of heavy iron chain securing them to the wall.
“Time we start a riot,” she said.
One by one, she sliced through the shackles, releasing the slavering spikers and cultists. One by one, the imps and warriors formed up behind her, grabbing weapons and snarling in sadistic delight. One by one, she enlisted her soldiers of chaos, and their howls sang Berrim’s name.
Jace walked through the tunnels ahead of Emmara, listening to the way her footsteps made little splashes on the dank floor and the wet sound bounced around him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.
“For what?”
“When you sought me out, I know you weren’t looking to get in the middle of all this. Trouble just seems to follow me around.”
“Yes, it does,” she said. “You are a vortex of trouble. Always have been, as long as I’ve known you. But it’s not just you. Things are bad up there. I’ve been around for a long time, and the guilds have never been this tense. Kidnappings. Territorial attacks. Killings. And it’s going to get worse.”
“And through it all, you’ve kept me safe.”
“I’m glad you’re safe,” she said. “It was worth it.”
“If I hadn’t ruined my own memories, I could be of more help.”
“No. You were doing the same thing I was. You were taking steps that you thought would keep us safe. Paying the cost.”
“Once we get you back to the Conclave, once Trostani knows you’re alive, maybe we can put an end to all this. Defuse these guild tensions. You’ll be an example for peace. We’ll show them how the Selesnya don’t retaliate, even against the Rakdos.”
Emmara smiled. “That sounds nice.”
They walked through the undercity, climbing staircases when they came upon them, making their way toward sunlight.
“Hey, Emmara?”
“Yes?”
“Remember that carved leaf you gave me? The artifact, to use to contact you?”
“Yes.”
“Did it work?” he asked. He wanted to ask: Did you hear the words, “I need you?”
“Yes. I heard it. I was preoccupied with my Rakdos captors at the time, but I heard it.”
“All right, good,” said Jace. “Just making sure.”
He was walking ahead of her, and he didn’t look back to see her face, to know what, if anything, those words meant to her. But he felt a warmth in his chest, just knowing that she had heard them.
UNFAMILIAR DEPTHS
In print, the words looked formal, inescapable, and undeniably official.
“Notice of Change of Assignment.”
Officer Lavinia’s spirits sagged. The letter seemed to be taunting her in its gleaming blue print. It listed her greatest honor—ultimate responsibility for the enforcement of law for the whole of the Tenth District—under “Previous Position.” Under “New Position” it said merely, “Supervisory Official, New Prahv.”
She knew it was more than a change of assignment. It was a demotion, a punishment for her failure to capture Beleren. For that, she was effectively jailed in her own guildhall, chained to her post by her own strict compliance with guild law. She knew that meanwhile, Beleren walked free.
Before her guildmaster, the sphinx Isperia, assigned her to the towers of New Prahv, Lavinia had never spent much time in her office. The chair and desk were utilitarian but beautiful pieces of furniture, and her pen set gleamed under the luminous sphere that hovered near the vaulted ceiling. Everything around her had been designed to rigid specifications. But to her, nothing was perfect but walking the streets of the Tenth. Nothing could approach the sound of her boots clacking against pavement, the scent of a crisp morning dawning after a night’s patrol, the feeling of a suspect’s cheek mashing against the cobblestones.
The hardest part to take was that she had no way to track down Beleren from inside the towers. Kavin’s visit had given her fresh motivation to capture the mind mage. Kavin had been with the Azorius years ago, and had been as fine a lawmage as any she had encountered—so when he came to her, his mind invaded and altered by this man Beleren, her imprisonment had become too much.
She stood up from the finely-crafted desk and traveled down the flights of equally finely-crafted stairs. She approached the main entrance of the Lyev tower: her would-be doorway out into the bright streets of Ravnica.
“Greetings, Officer Lavinia,” said the head gatekeeper.
“Hello, Samil.” She moved as if by somnambulism, telling herself she only wanted to ask the guards something. Anything. “How goes the shift?”
“Well, the rioters have all passed through. No Azorius casualties. Some property damage.”
He was talking about the Rakdos, of course. She hadn’t done more than scan the reports. She knew it was important, that such a large-scale uprising by the chaotic cult merited more of her attention. But her mind was fixated on finding Beleren. “Any arrests?”
“Many writs filed with the Minister of Territories and Holdings. No arrests.”
“That’s good. I mean, it’s good there weren’t casualties.”
“Right.”
Lavinia looked past the gatekeeper, who was backlit by the bright afternoon out on the street. The marketplace in the plaza nearby would be in full swing by now, pickpockets cutting their way through the crowds, swindlers luring their marks into illegal dice games, agents of the more corrupt guilds eavesdropping and casing the wares. And somewhere out there Beleren, a mage capable of even more devious crimes, walked free, unknown to the populace. While she was in here.
The gatekeeper wasn’t standing in the way of the exit, and didn’t even have his polearm angled to block her path. The way was open. She could simply walk through the doorway and leave New Prahv. She knew the gatekeeper would rely not on force, but on her loyalty to the law, on her devotion to the judgment of her guildmaster, the Supreme Judge Isperia, to prevent her departure. It was a gate made of principle rather than iron. All she had to do was to forget that Azorius loyalty for one moment, to sleepwalk her way through a hole in the wall, and she would be free to pursue Beleren.
“Can I help you with something, ma’am?”
She glanced at the gatekeeper. She could see that the man could read her dilemma, and that it was creating a profoundly embarrassing moment for him. The shame was excruciating—not only to consider violating the direct order of her guildmaster, but to have an underling witness her entertaining the idea.
Nevertheless, she took a step toward the door. It was just one step, no further.
“Ma’am?”
“Just let me do this,” she said quietly, hovering on that one foot.
The poor gatekeeper looked terrified. He didn’t move to bar her way, but he didn’t move aside, either.
But she had pivoted on the ball of her foot and had returned to the heart of the tower, leaving the gatekeeper behind her. The word of the sphinx was law. If she did not live in accordance with that law, she would be no better than the criminals she pursued.
In the spiral staircase, she paused. She produced the sheet of paper again, the official words in tall blue type, the runes of the writ that shackled her to the building. As long as she was part of the Azorius Senate, this was what she must obey. But she thought of the Tenth all around her, just beyond the walls of the tower, the people of the district constantly under siege by the schemes of the other guilds. And she thought of Jace Beleren.
She pulled another piece of paper from her cloak—the hurriedly scrawled notes given to her by Kavin. What a horrifying ordeal, she thought: to lose your memories to some mind-withering spell, and to try to capture them on paper as you lose them.