Wishing for my steambike, I considered changing into beast form and running down to the Port. But running around as a jaguar after my entire clan had been arrested was probably a bad idea, so I decided against it and hoofed it down to Witches’ End instead. The five-mile walk was even more depressing than the mob outside the Palace – the once-clean streets were now strewn with refuse from the piles of uncollected garbage bags rotting on the sidewalks, storefronts were smashed in or boarded up, and the few people out on the streets walked quickly, eyes darting around nervously as though expecting someone to jump at them from the shadows or through a broken window. The streets stank of garbage, grief, and fear, and it made my heart hurt.
Worse, though, was the fact that Comenius’s glass storefront was now covered in plywood, battened down and closed to the public. For a heart-stopping moment I feared that he’d skipped town, but when I ran up the side entrance and pounded on the second level door, he answered.
“Oh, Naya.” He threw his arms around me, and we both squeezed each other so tightly I wondered which of us would bust a rib first. “I am so glad to see you’ve come back safely.”
“I thought you’d left,” I told him as he let me into the apartment, my legs shaky with relief. Elania was just inside, and I embraced her too, soaking in her exotic scent. “So many shops are closed, and when I saw yours was boarded up, I feared the worst.”
“We’re still here, and we’re alive and well,” Comenius said gently. “Elania and I decided it would be best to close up our shops until this disaster blows over.”
The sound of a toilet flushing caught my attention, and I turned to see Annia walk out of the bathroom. Her eyes were unusually dull, her shoulders slumped, and she barely managed a smile when she saw me.
“Hey.” I rushed over to her, my heart sinking faster than a downed ship as I embraced her. “What’s going on?”
“Noria’s gone,” Annia muttered as she hugged me back. “When I came home, Mom was crying in the living room and clutching an old photograph of her. She told me that Noria had left the day before to join the Resistance.”
“No.” I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach, and I pulled back to stare at Annia. She only gazed back at me woodenly, no sign in her face that this was a joke or prank. “Fuck,” I exhaled.
“Yeah, fuck.” Annia let out a bitter laugh as she threw herself onto Comenius’s sofa. “Here I was, rushing off with you to save the Chief Mage so I could cash in on that huge bounty, when what I really should have been doing was sticking to my sister’s ass like glue and making sure she didn’t do anything stupid.”
I let out a sigh as I sat down next to Annia on the couch. “It’s not your fault,” I told her. “She was going to do it anyway –”
“No.” Annia sat up straight, tears thickening her voice as she glared at me. “Don’t you fucking dare say that. That’s like saying it was inevitable, that there was no fucking choice, no fucking chance for me to change her mind.” Her voice shook as she balled her hand into a fist. “That’s like saying it’s fate, and I don’t believe in that shit.” Her dark eyes burned, as if daring me to challenge her so she could plow her fist into my face.
“You’re right.” I dropped my gaze, partly because I didn’t want to fight one of my best friends, and partly because she was right. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Here,” Comenius said gently, placing two cups of tea down on the coffee table in front of us. “Drink this.”
“I need whiskey, not tea,” Annia muttered, glaring at the cup as though it were personally responsible for all her woes.
“It’ll help soothe your nerves.” Comenius lifted the teacup and offered it to her. “Come on, Annia. You can’t keep going on like this.”
Annia didn’t say anything to that, but she did take the teacup. I took a sip from mine, and sighed as the hot, soothing blend slid down my throat and warmed my stomach. Comenius’s tea wouldn’t solve my problems, but it would make me feel better, and right now I needed all the pick-me-ups I could get. “Thanks, Com.”
“You’re quite welcome.” Comenius sat down heavily in the wicker chair and regarded me with a troubled look. “I hope your return means that the Chief Mage is going to do something about this catastrophe. The humans and shifters who haven’t run off are targeting anything connected with magic, which is why I’ve had to close down my shop. With the constant riots and lack of authority to get the population under control, the streets aren’t safe. Just the other day, the fortuneteller who works next door was beaten and raped in the street on her way home. Elania and I spent all night healing her, and now she won’t leave her apartment.”
“By Magorah.” I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes, unable to cope. “That’s fucking awful. Iannis has yanked the Council back into line, and he’s working on getting all the wrongfully imprisoned citizens freed, but I don’t know how long it’ll take to bring the city back under control.”
“I’m afraid it will take much more than that to get Solantha back to normal,” Elania said sadly. “The Mages Guild has broken the trust of the people, what little there was of it, and they will not easily be reined in again.”
“Which I’m sure is exactly what the Resistance wanted,” I said bitterly.