Of course, maybe that was normal for wherever she was from. A lot of fey refugees, from all over their world, had been coming into ours for a while, to escape the constant fighting there. And with the war about to escalate into a new phase, the steady trickle had turned into a flood. I bet places like this were doing a bang-up business.
They certainly were with me.
I ended up with two new perfumes, as well as the glamourie, which I checked out in a mirror before I left. “And this will last how long?”
“Two weeks guaranteed. Most of our clientele discover that they receive something more like a month of coverage, however the spell may begin to flicker before then.”
“Good to know.” Hopefully, I’d have this whole thing with Mircea settled in way less time than that!
The attendant handed me a lovely
white and gold bag which turned out to contain my perfume, and my nasty, peasant clothes. I dumped the latter in a skip a few blocks down, while rain spotted the nice, yellow and white umbrella that I’d gotten free with purchase. And which I didn’t need, because I shifted to my lunch date a moment later, only a little late.
~~~
The Stratford Headquarters of the Silver Circle, the world’s chief magical organization, looked like hell. For one thing, it was underground—this part, anyway—and I don’t mean just in location. There was actual dirt over my head, because the place was a rabbit warren of interconnecting tunnels, purposefully built to be claustrophobic and confusing by the designers, in order to discourage attacks.
Not that that had worked lately. As evidenced by the blackened roots sticking out of the soil, like grasping hands. And by the strange striations on the walls that had been sand before a dark mage spell tore through them and turned them into glass. And by the remains of cave-ins piled along the walls. There were no actual flames—at the moment—although the scent of old fires lingered, remnants of the recent attack.
Well, sort of recent. It had taken place over a month ago, but with the war raging, clean-up had been pretty far down the priority list. Meaning that the farther flung areas like this one had been left to fend for self.
They hadn’t fended much, I thought, stepping over a pile of loose dirt. And then freezing in place. Because a little landslide had revealed something else that the clean-up crew had missed.
The stench of rotting flesh hit my nostrils, mixing sickeningly with the expensive perfume of the spa’s glamourie. There was no gleam of white; instead, an ugly yellow bone stuck out of what appeared to be a ragged sleeve, or maybe a trouser leg. I wasn’t sure, like I didn’t know if the grisly remains were part of a Corpsman, fallen while defending his home base, or a dark mage stopped in the middle of his attack.
It was funny how you couldn’t tell now, I thought, staring. Like you couldn’t tell if a lot of the bodies around Vlad’s city of the dead were male or female, after a while. They just turned into corpses, blackened and split open, with ropes of trailing entrails festooned with maggots and dripping with unknown liquids. Mothers, fathers, lovers, friends; they were all the same in death, rotting under a cheerful blue sky . . .
“Cassie!”
Somebody grabbed me, which was just as well. Because I hadn’t put my foot down, and I was starting to get wobbly. Another second and I might have ruined a second outfit in one day. Or one day for me, I thought dizzily, looking up into clear green eyes.
“Are you all right?” Pritkin had appeared out of nowhere to grasp my upper arm, and now his hold tightened in worry. But then he got a look at my face and visibly relaxed. “You are all right.”
That must be some glamourie, I thought, feeling sick.
I nodded, but glanced down, I couldn’t help it. And he followed my gaze. “Damn it!”
He kicked dirt over the remains, whatever they were, and a second later, a glowing yellow dot appeared in the air above the pile.
“Yellow means human remains,” he informed me, before I could ask. “Red is for unexploded ordinance. Green is a burst pipe or other minor issue.”
“Is that new?” I didn’t remember a polka dotted corridor the last time I was here.
“We’re trying to get things organized.”
“Oh.”
He led me away.
I didn’t see any red dots—I guessed some things were priorities—but others were everywhere, now that I knew to look for them. Including some blue ones that I learned were for potions’ residue that needed to be cleaned up before it leeched into the ground water, and purple ones that indicated the buried entrances to tunnels or rooms. There were black ones, too, glimmering in the darkness, barely discernable against the rough and pitted walls. But Pritkin didn’t tell me what they meant.
I didn’t press him.
“Tough day?” I asked, because he was unusually silent, just answering my questions in short, two- or three-word sentences.
“Busy.” He didn’t turn around, although he held my hand, threading us a way through the wreckage.
“Are you sure you still want to get lunch?”