Bryce
“I think I’ve got it,” I said as I opened my eyes to see Marcel, still in the form of the devil who had held her prisoner, sitting on an upended bucket. The two of us were in a narrow janitorial closet a few floors above where we had been held. Modifying the spell had taken nearly a full hour, which was a lot longer than I had hoped, but I learned a new trick while I was at it. Which was hopefully going to make it all worth the delay.
“Okay, are we ready to go, then?” Marcel asked, and I stood up from where I had been sitting cross-legged on the floor before rubbing my thighs to get the feeling back.
“Yep, let me just cast the spell quickly and we can finally leave.” I didn’t wait for her response before I started casting. A blindingly bright green arcane circle appeared in front of me, and I was forced to close my eyes. The spell finished in an instant, and I blinked away the spots as my vision slowly came back to me.
“Ow,” Marcel quietly complained from under a mountain of cleaning supplies. The poor girl had fallen backwards into a shelf, causing it to collapse on top of her.
“Shit, sorry,” I apologized as I quickly tried to unbury her. “I didn’t expect it to be that bright.”
“You said that was a stealth spell, right? I’m not sure it worked how you wanted.”
I pushed mana into my eyes and looked down at myself just to confirm what I already knew. “Actually, it did. You shouldn’t be able to feel my mantle anymore.”
She pulled a mop off her head before looking up at me. “Oh, I guess it did. How long can you stay like that?”
“I can’t maintain the spell in my sleep, but otherwise, indefinitely.” I helped Marcel up, and she wiped some sort of white powder off her clothes.
“I guess that makes the, uh, ‘side effects’ of casting it less terrible. You would just need to find somewhere out of the way once a day.”
“It shouldn’t be nearly that bright next time. What I’m doing is a combination of arcane casting and a normally impractical version of enchanting. Essentially, I just converted all the verbal and somatic components of the spell to basic enchanting runes, then wrote out the circle in the air using my own mana. In this case, I underestimated my own ability to manipulate mana outside my body, and in an attempt to overpower the magic suppressing wards, I used way too much.”
Marcel stared back at me blankly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand very much of what you just said.”
“I’ll make the spell less bright next time,” I explained the important part with a chuckle. “Sorry, I’m just excited that I discovered a new way for me to cast.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me. While I don’t know much about magic, I’m sure what you did was very impressive.”
Her response definitely felt a little demeaning, but I didn’t let that get to me. This new method meant I no longer had to deal with minute long casting times in the middle of a fight. I could just visualize the spell diagram and it would appear almost instantly.
Although, there were a few serious limitations. Like how I needed to get every detail of every rune exactly right. Otherwise, it would fizzle, or worse, mutate into an entirely different spell. It would be like changing letters in a sentence at random. Most of the time it’s just going to come out as nonsense, but every once in a while you’ll create actual words and change the meaning of the sentence entirely.
“Um, should we be heading out now?” Marcel asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Yes, we should.” I turned towards the door to leave, but then paused before continuing. “I don’t suppose you have any suggestions on the best way to get out of here without getting caught?”
“Don’t spend an hour hiding in a closet,” she murmured under her breath, but then actually answered when I turned back to look at her. “I only really saw the one way out when I was looking around earlier. There could be others, but I doubt it.”
“So, we just walk out the front door, then?”
Marcel gave me an apologetic grin. “Well, it’s a portal, but yeah, that’s basically it.”
“A portal?” I asked, and she nodded. “Do you know what’s on the other side?”
“No, sorry. It’s kind of just a black void. I couldn’t see through it.”
If she hadn’t been able to see through the portal, then that probably meant it wasn’t attuned to a specific location. Which complicated things.
Depending on which spell or device was holding it open, we would either need to provide a destination ourselves or ask the caster to do it for us. Either way, it wasn’t going to be a simple matter of us just walking through. Of course, that didn’t mean it was hopeless. It just meant it was going to be much more difficult.
“Do you know if an alarm has been sounded or if people are searching for us?”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“It’s been half an hour since the last time I checked, but no, I haven’t heard anything.”
That was strange. I activated the wards carved into my bones nearly an hour ago. Prince Al’Kais should have been alerted when that happened, and would have found the devil woman when he went to check the cell. That either meant he hadn’t checked it yet, or they were being discreet while they searched for us. Either was possible, but then there was another issue entirely. I still hadn’t heard from Lilith.
The connection from my messaging spell was still open, and I could feel her on the other end, but she hadn’t said anything since telling me to lie low. Sending another message through the wards risked making it easier to find us, but that was assuming anybody was actually looking. Which didn’t seem like the case, and at this point, the information felt worth the risk. So, I started casting.
Lilith, we’ve found a place to hide, but as far as we can tell, nobody is looking for us. I have reason to believe that we’re being held by Prince Al’Kais, and the only way in or out is through a portal that needs to be attuned to a destination. We think there’s a good chance we can make it to the portal, but don’t know where it leads.
I sent the message, and Lilith immediately dropped the connection to my other spell so she could respond.
Al’Kais refused to meet with me. So, I had to use my new title to force Orrid to mediate, and the three of us have been in discussions for over an hour. He’s denying everything, and won’t allow me anywhere near Ne’ara. I’m loath to admit it, but I’m beginning to doubt that I’ll be able to make it to you myself. I’m planning on reaching out to an old mentor next.
“Captain Virra, is something wrong?” Marcel interrupted before I could respond, so I held up a finger to ask her to wait.
In that case, just continue to keep the prince distracted. As best I can tell, Mother still hasn’t returned, and the longer we wait, the more likely that is to change. I don’t think she’s a problem I can solve on my own, so leaving now to try to avoid her feels like our best option. Keep this connection open if you can. I’ll let you know if we can make it out.
She didn’t respond, but I could feel her maintaining the connection, so I finally turned back to Marcel. “Sorry about that. I’m in communication with somebody on the outside, but she’s not going to be able to get to us. Which means, we’re probably on our own for now.”
“Okay, so our situation hasn’t really changed, right?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I admitted. “But for what it’s worth, I think I know why the alarm hasn’t been sounded yet. Lilith, my woman on the outside, has been keeping Prince Al’Kais busy. He probably thinks that the devil I sent to his dungeon is actually me.”
“Sure, that makes sense, but what about me?” she asked, and I paused for a moment, so she explained. “Even if they think they know where you are, that still leaves me missing. Besides, your theory is based on the assumption that the prince is the only one who has access to wherever the devil got sent. If anybody else does, then it would just be a matter of them checking to figure out that you’re not actually trapped.”
“That’s… fair. We could assume that your room hasn’t been checked yet, and that wherever the devil was sent is secure enough that not many people have access, but both of those are still pretty big assumptions.”
“In that case, wouldn’t it be better for us to move forward as if they already know we’ve escaped?” Marcel asked.
“You’re right, it would be. But I’m not sure how much that changes for us.”
“Well, for one thing, it means I should choose a different form,” she said as her body morphed to a male devil I didn’t recognize wearing a similar uniform. Then she continued in a more masculine voice. “And for another, it means that it might be better if we left any face-to-face interactions to me. Well, unless you can do something about your eyes, because everyone I’ve seen so far has been a devil and it’s pretty obvious that you’re not.”
“Well, then lead the way.” I moved aside, and she nodded before stepping forward to open the door. After taking a moment to peer down the hallway, she motioned for me to follow her out.
I straightened my back and did my best to act confident as I stepped into the empty hall. It looked identical to every other one we’d seen, with soft carpets and crimson walls. The only real difference being the numbers on the doors. The nearest room was labeled five-hundred and twenty-nine, which seemed to imply we were on the fifth floor. That meant there were probably more than a hundred rooms like the one I had been trapped in, and while I had no idea how many were actually being used, the thought of that many existing caused a chill to run down my spine.
“The elevator is this way.” Marcel pointed towards our left before marching in that direction. “It’s probably safe enough to use now that your mantle is hidden, and I don’t want to waste more time taking the stairs.”
I nodded to agree, but didn’t say anything. If she wanted to take charge here, then I wasn’t going to object. Not only did she have a lot more experience moving around stealthily, I had also already started focusing on solving our next problem. The portal.
A lot of the art and decor we passed in the hall felt legitimately high quality, and likely very expensive. Which probably meant Prince Al’Kais wasn’t cutting corners with cost. If that was the case, and he was aiming for the best possible ‘client experience,’ then the portal could probably be attuned to any other existing teleportation circle.
I knew of four that I could potentially use, five if you counted the one on my parents' estate, but I would almost rather spend another week with Mother than travel there. The most obvious destination would be the circle in Lilith’s manor, but there was a risk that we could be tracked or followed, and I really didn’t want knowledge of that circle’s existence getting out.
My second option would probably be the circle we used as a target when Thea, Esme, and I traveled to Hel. It would put us firmly in Lilith’s territory without implicating her directly and even give us a crowd to blend into if we were followed. The only issue being that it was nearly an hour's walk to get to Lilith, which was a lot of time to get to safety if we were being chased.
The third option was the hotel we left from on Paradise, but there was no guarantee that the circle was even still there. Which brought me to option four, the old Syndicate compound on Drassun.
Rajak had used a portal device to travel between the compound and his personal lair. It wasn’t technically a teleportation circle, but it would still work as a focus point, and it was abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Plus, it had the benefit of existing on the mortal plane, which would make it harder to track. Albeit only slightly.
The two of us stepped onto the elevator and Marcel pressed on the L button to move us to the lobby as I came to an internal decision. If we were allowed to choose a destination, then Hel was going to be our best bet. It provided the best combination of anonymity and security. I just hoped I still remembered how to get to Lilith’s estate from there.
That concern was quickly replaced by a much more pressing one as the elevator doors opened, and we saw a familiar djinn progenitor shouting at a female devil who was cowering behind a reception desk. “I don’t care. Get your ‘prince’ down here immediately or heads are going to roll, and I swear to The Seven that yours will be the first.”