Chapter 50

She was gone.

Camilla's fire had disappeared, taking her along with it. Darkness had once swirled in a violent cyclone within the barrier, and then suddenly it settled to reveal an empty circle. Even with the hole in my side and the burn of the Niner poison beginning to take effect in my blood, I worried only for her.

Felix was equally concerned, but for entirely different reasons, frantically pacing around the circle like he could make her reappear. "What the hells, Aramis? Where is she?"

The idiot balked. "I... I don't know! She's never done that before!"

Felix was dangerously quiet for a time. The symbols the alchemist had painted on Aramis faded into a dark color, no longer glowing without the connection to Camilla's remnant.

"I don't believe you, Marchese. Stay here while we go look for your sister."

My chair was shoved forward, tipping over as the legs caught on a crack in the floor. I crashed hard on the other side of the line, within the barrier's containment. The wound in my side pulled, and I braced my hand against the site to hold it together.

It wasn't as deep as the amount of blood on the floor had suggested. My shirt clung to the site, but there was no fresh blood soaking the area. Oddly, of all the times I'd been stabbed, this wound was the most merciful.

Felix glared at me as he barked orders. "Watch the Attano until we get back. I want eyes on the river and the house and everything in between. Wherever she's gone, she'll come back for the bender. Find her!" His men followed his lead out the door.

"Find who?"

In his rage, Felix hadn't noticed the warehouse doors open. Inspector Neal Caldwell filled the doorway with a group of watchmen behind him—and Vanya on his arm.

She didn't even glance my way, even as I begged her silently to look at me, if only so she could see the consequences of her choices. Whatever her motives were, however pure or self-concerned her intentions, her betrayal had been the most blindsiding. My blood boiled as I stared at the place she clung to Caldwell.

"Inspector!" Felix startled. "We were just about to... what are you doing down here?"

"We've had word on the missing mirkwood. There are a series of unmarked cars being pushed through the city. Two have already passed over the viaduct, the last is about to reach the Main Station, where we have guards posted to catch the smugglers."

"I told the inspector you'd need to be informed immediately since the mirkwood is your most important ingredient for glint production," Vanya said, slipping her hands off her escort. "You've been looking for this stock, haven't you?"

She glanced at me finally with wide, purposeful eyes.

"Yes, well—"

"And if you lose this stock," she continued, "there would be a very good chance that your entire glint business could go under, leaving the rest of us without any protection whatsoever from remnants besides the laws my father so diligently worked to have passed? Just to be crystal clear."

Felix was seething silently, and sweat beaded across his brow. "Yes, Miss Vanya. It would be devastating to lose the mirkwood."

Vanya hummed. "Seems important to check on then."

Caldwell's gaze fell to me, trapped behind the barrier. "Where is the girl?"

"She escaped," Aramis told him. "She must have used the key you lot didn't want her to know about."

Felix shot him a look made of daggers.

The key? If she had found a way to use the key, then that meant...

"You let her open Oblivion?" Caldwell's face shifted then from composed to outraged. His strides ate the distance between him and Felix. The men the alchemist had surrounded himself with lowered their guns, hesitating in the presence of their inspector.

"You were supposed to destroy her remnant, Felix. You vowed you had this under control!"

"It's his fault!" He jutted a finger at the Marchese. "He wanted to take her remnant so that he would die instead. It was our deal. Aramis would bring her to us, far from her lines of protection. In exchange, he'd die in her place, I'd have rid ourselves of the Attano problem, and we'd have the key and a world without Chaos."

Aramis scoffed. "How is any of that my fault?"

"You were supposed to keep her drugged, Marchese," Felix growled. "She wouldn't have been able to escape had her fire been sufficiently medicated."

Had Aramis intentionally not given her glint—just as Vanya hadn't drugged me? Or had Milla just refused, like the previous times he offered? He was too unpredictable to figure out, but I still tried. Even while he feigned confusion in front of the inspector, pretending to be a piece on Felix's shifting gameboard, I had a feeling he was the one holding the dice.

"All I know," Caldwell said slowly, "is that you've managed to lose Chaos twice, and this time, she has torn through the veil and possibly opened Oblivion. Do you understand how vulnerable you have made us?"

"Inspector—"

"Enough." Caldwell paced. "They will not be pleased with you or your family, Felix. They'll call for your head, then mine. And I sure as hells won't end up like the last inspector that fucked up because he put his faith in the Firenzes."

"She might come back," Felix offered. "She can't stay in the void forever—"

"You better hope she comes back," he spat. "Because if Order returns too soon, while she still lives, he too will be vulnerable for the first time in history." He glanced at me again. "Why is he here?"

"A loose end finally taken care of," Felix replied without looking at me, as if I were already dead.

Caldwell assessed Aramis then, staring at the markings on his skin. "You were transferring the remnant to him like they tried in the tower?" When Felix nodded, his brows pinched. "Why are some of them beginning to glow?"

Aramis's eyes widened.

"She must be returning already." Felix blabbered something about getting the men back in position. I didn't hear him, too focused on the Marchese, whose boot was inching closer to the nearest arcane rune constructing the barrier.

I slid to the opposite side of the circle and stripped off my vest and shirt, trying to draw the attention of the guards in the room away from what he was doing—if he was trying to disrupt the symbol. Using a dry end of the sleeve, I used my right arm to tend to the site, feigning a grimace that wasn't necessary.

Either Aramis had terrible aim, or he intentionally missed anything important.

"Can you feel her?" the inspector asked Aramis. "Can you lead us to her?"

Felix answered in his place. "The spell tethers them temporarily. He should be able to feel the pull of their connection."

"The Society will take it from here, Felix," Caldwell said coldly. "Vanya, please go back to the house and put the property on lockdown. No one leaves. I'd hate for anyone else to get hurt tonight."

The smallest of smiles flickered across her cheek. "Yes, Inspector. Felix, should I inform the Nine—"

The bang of a gunshot ambushed the warehouse.

The room went still. We were all spooked animals, too afraid to draw the attention of the hunter while the shot still echoed in the air. The pistol in Felix's hand was smoking.

Vanya was the first to scream, snapping me from a trance. "What the hells have you done, Felix? You shot the inspector—"

"Quiet!" The alchemist trembled. Whatever control he had over the room was slipping. The guards inched back, their weapons only half-raised as the head of their unit lay dead at the hands of the one who paid salaries.

Inspector Neal Caldwell had been murdered, and everyone in this room was now a witness. I didn't think even Felix could get out of this mess if the truth got out. My uncle had always warned me there was a consequence for every stolen life, that killing was a last resort. Had it been Felix's? The tide was shifting back in our favor if he'd been desperate enough to turn on his own man.

Aramis and I crossed gazes. His chin barely dipped in a confirming nod before tearing his gaze back to the dead man in front of him.

What was he up to?

Felix dragged my focus back to him as he resumed his shouting. "You will shut your mouth, Vanya, and refrain from being the insufferable gossip you are until this is handled."

She straightened as he looked at her, undoubtedly using the conduit Caldwell described to control her mind like he had done to me. "You will go back into that house and lock it down. Make up any excuse besides the truth if anyone asks what happened."

He pointed to the guards that escorted her here. "You all will follow, and similarly not breathe a word. I know your names and faces, and I know where you pull rank. If you enjoy your life and privileges, you'll forget what happened here. My truth is the only truth that matters."

A docile expression crossed Vanya's features; her shoulders drooped slightly. "Okay," she murmured, obeying the mind-controlling abilities of a Mirth remnant, before turning on a heel to walk back to the estate, her guards in tow.

"Marchese." Felix snapped toward the door. "You will lead me to your sister, or I'll spare neither of you. We're going to finish this now." The alchemist turned, starting toward the door.

Aramis looked at me again. A startling understanding bridged itself between us—and then he smudged the arcane rune with the toe of his boot.

He set me free.

"If you care about her like she claims, you'll get those cars out of the city," he whispered, before sneaking out the warehouse behind Felix like his dog.

Could I do it? Could I leave Milla behind by the order of her brother—the same man who already betrayed us once tonight? What Vanya said had stuck with me. If this missing stock was the same stuff on my cars, and if I could keep it out of their hands, I'd have finally taken down our enemy. If the Firenzes truly meant to industrialize magic, they had to be stopped before it was too late.

The decision truly depended on if I meant my words, if I meant what I'd said to her earlier. She didn't need me. She didn't need anyone else to protect her. Aramis, in his oddness, was actually right. If I truly cared about her, and I loved her more than this life, I'd make sure she was safe when I was gone.

I could make this city safe for her at last, weakening the Firenzes with a critical blow to their business. Their house would fall, the Nine and the Watch would suffer without their biggest investor, and there would be no more glint for an unforeseeable future.

I could give my family everything—could give Milla the life she deserved. I'd just have to let her go first.

Letting go of forever was much more painful than the hole in my side—incomparable to the chasm she left in me. But I stood despite the pull of the wound and limped to the nearest horse.