To Catch A Sorcerer

Longwark didn’t respond.

Gray waited to see if his chest was rising.

It was.

Gray took his cue from Longwark and cast around the cell in silence.

The cell was the same one he’d been in earlier. Dimly lit. Dripping pipe. Gray found the softest patch of ground to sit on that was not easily seen from the door, awkwardly slithered down, and leant his back against the damp wall.

He kept his eyes trained on the sliver of sky visible through the window in the far wall, twisting his fingers together. The walls were not moving in on him.

‘Are you … hyperventilating?’ mumbled Longwark.

Gray started.

If Gray hadn’t been looking right at him, he wouldn’t have recognised Longwark’s voice. It wasn’t sharp, or sarcastic.

Gray wasn’t hyperventilating. He was OK. He breathed out slowly and returned his gaze to the sky outside.

He was burning to pepper Longwark with questions.

Was he a traitor? A spy?

A sorcerer?

But Longwark – Gray wasn’t sure he trusted him. And hell, he’d not forgiven him – not for forcing Alistair out of his classroom that day, not for bringing kingdom soldiers to Krydon.

A crow hopped past the thin window on the outside wall. It paused, head tilted, staring at Gray with bright eyes, a glinting coin in its beak.

It slipped through the narrow space and landed neatly inside the cell.

Longwark rolled over at the sound. He darted a glance at Gray, then back at the crow.

The crow ignored both of them, inspecting the far corner of the cell. Then, carefully, gently, the crow placed the coin on the ground.

Gray held out his hand.

The crow looked at Gray, and then resumed hopping around the cell.

‘That yours?’ grunted Longwark. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and the other was almost as bad. His lip was split. He slurred his words and Gray suspected Killian had punched him on the jaw a lot more and much harder than he had done with Gray.

Gray shook his head, and dropped his hand into his lap.

Longwark sat up with a horrible groan. He clicked at the crow. ‘Come.’

The crow considered him. Swaggered closer, then stopped just out of reach.

Longwark muttered a northern profanity. ‘Come, damn it.’

It clicked its beak, and with a soft whip of wings, it landed on Longwark’s outreached hand.

Longwark muttered to it, low and fast, in a language that wasn’t any northern dialect Gray knew, and definitely not Lismerian.

The crow hurried back to the window. It gauged the distance, and then neatly flew back outside.

Gray staggered upright, and hobbled over to the window. The crow was already a black speck in the sliver of sky. He cast around, and stooped to pick up the coin in the corner.

It was an ardent.

The ardent was cold and clean with a small gash across the centre.

Gray’s heart thudded. He turned the ardent over, his fingertips tracing the outline of the king’s face and crown embossed in the metal.

This ardent.

It was the one Gray had kept and hidden from Barin. It was the tip from Branbright.

The ardent Alistair had taken when he’d disappeared.

Gray pressed together his trembling lips, winded. Curling his fingers painfully around the coin, Gray glared blindly at his clenched fist.

Where the actual gods had the crow gotten this ardent?

And it had brought the ardent here …

Gray was sure the crow was Branbright’s. He thought maybe the crow was looking for his lost guardian, or returning his guardian’s lost things.

‘What you got there?’ slurred Longwark.

Keeping his back to Longwark, Gray tossed the ardent across the floor to him.

It clattered and rolled.

There was a moment of quiet, as Gray imagined Longwark examined the coin.

‘He’s put you in here to test me,’ said Longwark.

Gray struggled to compose himself. He hobbled back over to his corner, and awkwardly sat down.

Despite himself, pity stirred in Gray’s stomach. Longwark was so beat up.

‘He’s a fool,’ Longwark said. ‘Doesn’t know the first thing about my kind. He’s taken my wand. There’s nothing to draw with. I’m not bleeding Wilde. I can’t go anywhere without my tools.’

More to hide the bald surprise snaking its way through Gray’s insides than anything, Gray stared hard at his hands.

Longwark’s words whirled in his mind.

My kind.

I’m not Wilde.

Longwark was as good as admitting he was a sorcerer.

And he said it so casually.

‘He’s not cut out your tongue, has he?’ said Longwark.

‘No,’ Gray said gruffly. It was a relief not to speak Lismerian. ‘He …’

The charm was tight around his ankle and felt almost like it was pulsing.

Longwark was looking at him, waiting.

But, Gray hesitated. The image of Killian raising his finger to his lips, in the gesture to keep it secret, sprang to his mind. ‘I’ve got a job for you,’ he’d said, and then just … tied a charm around his ankle.

Some charms could be triggered by certain words or actions …

Gray barely had time to meet Longwark’s good eye and shake his head, before a chorus was taken up in the prison.

An old northern war cry this time.

‘Here comes the traitor, striding wide,

Here comes the traitor, on the wrong side,

Here he comes,

Here he comes.’

Gray glanced up at the slit in the door, just in time to see a balding, middle-aged man peer into his cell. Gray recognised him as the plump man who’d poked his head into the Captain’s office, yesterday.

He beckoned Gray towards him.

Clumsily, Gray approached the man.

‘Gray, is it?’ said the man.

‘Yes,’ said Gray slowly.

‘I’m Mr Vaddenham, Gray,’ he said, speaking rapid northern. ‘You all right?’

Gray stared hard at him. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘The men here,’ said Vaddenham, ‘they were singing the …’ he trailed off, shifting his weight. He blinked rapidly. Cleared his throat. ‘... ash-stink nursery rhyme, yes?’

‘It was nothing,’ said Gray.

Vaddenham was flushed and so was Gray.

Out of all the slurs for a magic user, ash-stink was Gray’s least favourite.

‘I heard them,’ said Vaddenham.

Gray dropped his gaze.

‘Gray,’ Vaddenham continued, ‘I want you to promise me you won’t let anyone talk you into doing something dangerous,’ said Vaddenham.

Gray suppressed a frown.

‘You care for the safety of the people here, yes?’ said Vaddenham.

‘I don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone,’ said Gray quickly. ‘I want no trouble.’

‘The men’s attitude towards you is troubling me,’ said Vaddenham.

‘They won’t harm me,’ said Gray.

Vaddenham hesitated. ‘The men here are angry enough to go against their traditions and …’

Gray edged forward. ‘What?’

‘They’ll use you.’

Vaddenham’s pouchy eyes were taking everything in. He was staring at Gray’s gaze, his expression, his stance.

He was intimately observing Gray’s state.

‘Are you,’ said Gray slowly, ‘are you evaluating me? As a threat?’

Suddenly, Killian was standing behind Vaddenham, looking hassled.

His soldier's cap was pulled low over his scarred face.

He’d arrived without footsteps echoing off the stone walls, without the guards singing his arrival.

‘What’s the problem, kid?’ said Killian.

‘There’s no problem,’ Gray muttered. ‘There’s no threat.’ It took a moment, of looking at Killian's slightly furrowed brow, for Gray to realise he’d spoken in northern. ‘No problem,’ he corrected, speaking careful Lismerian.

Killian’s dark gaze narrowed. ‘Pickering,’ he called. ‘Why the fuck am I here?’

In the cell across the hall, the guards were stirring.

‘Set fire to this one, mage, and we’ll be eating roasted wolf for dinner,’ one guard said.

Another one, his yell bouncing off the walls, ‘Come on, mage. Do something.’

Gray dropped his gaze.

‘Ah,’ said Killian. ‘I see.’

He heard Killian’s soft, almost silent, retreat.

No - not retreat.

He was prowling. Back and forth. He was dragging a dangerous energy with him, like a predator gleefully messing with its prey. His presence clawed, it filled the whole corridor, and then swallowed the mutinous mutterings from the guards inside the prison cells.

A hush fell.

‘I like quiet in my prison,’ said Killian. His voice was barely audible. It sent a shiver down Gray’s spine. ‘If I hear anything above a sneeze down here, I won’t be happy.’

Silence echoed.

‘Vaddenham,’ said Killian. ‘Come with me.’

Gray quietly went back to his corner, careful of his swollen ankle, and listened to the faint echo of footsteps retreating.

Longwark glared at Gray through his swollen eyes, his hair wilder than ever, as though electrified.

‘You could use this to your advantage,’ rasped Longwark.

Gray frowned. ‘What?’

‘Advantage, Gray,’ said Longwark, his tone becoming disdainful. It was as though they were back in the alchemy lab, and Longwark was explaining a simple concept for the third time already. ‘That animal is being very soft with you.’

Gray let out a disbelieving breath.

Longwark’s lip lifted in contempt. ‘Perhaps you prefer to be a little victim. Perhaps you don’t want to use any advantage.’

Anger swept through Gray, and he struggled to keep a lid on it. ‘Advantage?’ Gray said, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper. ‘How? I’m locked in a prison. I’m - I’m completely screwed.’

Because of you lingered between them, unsaid.

‘If you can’t use his softness to your advantage,’ said Longwark, ‘then your head is as much use detached from your body as it is on.’