11
By the time I made it back to my apartment, exhaustion had caught up with me, and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Dreams came to me that night, or rather faces – my mother, sad but smiling, Roanas, stern but encouraging, and Melantha, furious and despondent all at once. There were other faces too – their features in shadow but for their colorful shifter eyes, luminous with pain and desperation. I knew instinctively that these were the faces of the missing, and that all of them were trying to tell me the same thing – I needed to find out where they were and bring them home.
When I woke up, the grief and fury in my heart was gone, replaced with a single-minded determination. I was going to find out who did this, and when I did I would bring them in, dead or alive. True, my relationship with the Jaguar Clan was strained, but they were still my mother’s people, and they didn’t deserve this. No one did.
I was just coming out of the shower, a towel wrapped around my body, when my phone rang once again. Resigned to the fact that my apartment was no longer a place of solitude, I walked into the kitchen and answered it, fully expecting another threatening phone call.
“What is it now?”
“Good morning, Miss Baine.” I blinked at the sound of Dira’s cool voice – the same secretary who’d called when I was at Comenius’s shop. “I’m calling on behalf of the Chief Mage. He requests your presence in his study at nine o’clock this morning.”
“What?” A quick glance at the clock on my wall had me scowling – it was already eight-thirty! “But I had the morning off!”
“I’m afraid I’m just the messenger, Miss Baine,” Dira said lightly, not at all bothered by the fact that she was throwing off my plans for the morning. “I suggest you leave soon if you want to make it on time.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, hanging up the phone. Oh well, I thought as I rushed back into my bedroom to pull on some clothing. I needed to warn Iannis about the threat from the Resistance sooner rather than later anyway. I might as well fit that in around whatever else he wanted to see me about this morning.
The weather was hotter than usual today, so I chose a bright red clingy tank top to wear with my leather pants and jacket. Even the breeze rushing past me as I rode my steambike up to the Mage’s Quarter wasn’t enough to cool me, and by the time I arrived at Solantha Palace I was hot enough that I slipped off my jacket and carried it over one shoulder. The usual stares followed me as I strode through the halls toward the Chief Mage’s study, but I noticed they lingered less than usual. Maybe the Palace residents were actually getting used to my presence.
As I approached the door, the sound of several voices talking made me pause. Was I not the only one being summoned today? Maybe Dira had been wrong about the time, and Iannis wasn’t actually ready to see me yet.
“Hello?” I called, knocking on the door. “It’s Sunaya.”
The voices on the other side quieted. “Come in, Miss Baine,” the Chief Mage called back.
I opened the door, then froze as I took in the number of people in the room. No, it was clear that I wasn’t the only one who’d been summoned. Fenris stood at Iannis’s side, as usual, and Director Chen was there too… but to my surprise Inspector Lakin was also there, and next to him a gangly teenager with pale brown hair dressed in a set of red mage’s robes.
“Morning, Naya,” Inspector Lakin said with a grin.
“Morning,” I said, my eyebrows raised. “Didn’t realize I was being invited to a party.”
“I believe the term ‘meeting’ would be more accurate,” the Chief Mage said mildly, drawing the attention of the room back toward him. “We all know each other, correct?”
“I think so,” I said slowly, turning toward the young mage. “You’re Elnos Ragga, right? Noria’s boyfriend?”
“At your service.” He gave me a crooked grin as he bowed, and I grinned a little as his gangly body tried to execute the motion. He was a strange combination of charming and awkward, and I could already see why Noria liked him.
“Same to you.” I bowed back, then turned back toward the Chief Mage. “So what’s this all about?”
“These three are here to make a report, and I wanted you to be here for it,” Iannis said, gesturing toward Director Chen, Elnos and Lakin. “I’d prefer you come stand on this side of the desk, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Oh. Right.” Slightly flustered, I moved around the desk to come stand next to Iannis, on the opposite side of where Fenris stood. Fenris gave me a quick wink as I did, relaxing me a little – it made sense that I would stand next to the Chief Mage as his apprentice, but I was far more used to being on the other side of the desk.
“Very well,” the Chief Mage said, settling his violet gaze on Director Chen. “Deliver your report.”
“Yes, sir.” Director Chen’s silk robes rustled lightly around her as she stepped forward – she’d chosen to wear robin’s egg blue today, with silver leaves embroidered across the fabric with fine thread. “As some of you may you already know, Inspector Lakin came to the Mages Guild two weeks ago with evidence that shifter-specific drugs are still being sold on the market.”
“He did?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Annoyance at the interruption briefly disturbed Director Chen’s placid expression, but she nodded. “Yes. He confiscated a bag of incidium from a wolf shifter. Apparently the shifter bought the supply from a human downtown, and was planning on reselling it to friends and family.” Her lip curled ever so slightly.