The City on the Edge

Ronnie led the way to the door, using her superior flexibility and balance to weave around the poles and creep over the criss crossing beams. She kept low, arms down and out at her sides as she stepped quickly, one foot in front of the other. When she reached the doors, she stopped and waited for Malik and Lorna to catch up. She inched as close as she could to the eye shaped window and touched it. She nearly sank forward as it gave way.

Surprised, she yanked her hand back, shaking it. Weird. She looked over her shoulder at Malik, who seemed to understand what had happened. He nodded at her and she turned back to the window. She reached out again, carefully this time, and touched the window. It rippled like the surface of a still lake disturbed. Her fingers slid through the window, like sinking her hand into a pool of cool water. She leaned headfirst through the window. The coolness pushed back against her and rushed in her ears, leaving her feeling like she was standing under a waterfall. She felt her feet leave the beam and she tumbled through window, landing hard on the rough stone floor.

“Ow,” she grimaced, sitting up.

The room she sat in now was just as dim as the lobby. Barred cells lined the walls, darkened by the lack of light from the overhead lamps. Ronnie wrinkled her nose at the unpleasant odor of sweat, bad meat and dirty cold stone. While the lobby on the other side of the black doors gleamed of cut polished marble and gold accents, the holding cells were like the stables of a farm. A frigid draft breezed through from some unseen crack in the foundations. It was as if the White Guard thought they were holding animals in pens back here. Given how humans perceived the supernaturals, she supposed they figured they were.

Ronnie climbed to her feet and looked up. The window didn’t seem any different from this side. She could just barely make out a distorted face looking down at her. It startled her at first, until she saw the crown of red hair.

A hand came though the window, holding Malik’s leather satchel. The hand shook the bag, waited a few seconds and dropped it. Ronnie caught it easily. She watched as the hand retreated and a booted foot, Lorna’s foot, poked through seconds later. Ronnie immediately knew what Lorna was trying to do and wondered if she could catch her. A hand shot through the window and flailed around, trying to grasp anything it could hold on to. Suddenly, Lorna came tumbling though the window sideways. Ronnie had her arms out and managed to at least keep Lorna from banging her head on the floor.

“Malik pushed me!” she grumbled, shocked that he would do such a thing to her.

He came though the window far more gracefully than either of them had, feet first and landing carefully in a crouch. Ronnie imagined him scooting forward through the window like a child riding a sled and suppressed a smile that didn’t fit their current circumstances.

“You pushed me!” Lorna hissed at him.

Malik took his bag from Ronnie and shrugged at her. “You were moving too slow.”

Ronnie pointed to the window. “What is that? I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“It’s a Witch’s Eye,” Malik said as he stepped around Ronnie and began examining the cells. “It was once used by witches to keep humans away from places of magical significance. Only beings of magical lineage can pass though.” He looked at her, a crease in his brow. “I’ll admit that it’s…odd that the White Guard has one over their holding cells. They don’t have a single drop of magical blood in their veins.”

“It’s a trap,” a man’s voice answered from the end of the line of cells. “You can get in, but you can’t get out.”

The response was startling and seemed too loud in the otherwise silent block. Ronnie listened for the telltale slide of metal that announced a sword, in the event the man was a guardsman announcing they were trapped, but she only heard the steady beat of his heart. Still, she moved toward the cell with caution, lifting her nose to sniff at the air. Nothing unusual.

While she passed the others, she noted with a heavy heart that they were all empty. The rising thump of Malik’s pulse told her that he was thinking the same thing she was- they were too late.

At the end of the cell block, sequestered away into the farthest corner of a damp and dirty cell, was the skinny hunched frame of a young man, not much older than Malik. He looked up when they stopped in front of his cell and Ronnie could see his golden eyes glittering in the darkness. Her eyes trailed along the walls and picked out several long scratches in the stone. Gouges would probably be a better word. Her own claws ached as she imagined the man hacking away at unforgiving stone while his claws fractured and broke off. Had he honestly thought he could dig his way out?

“I have to say,” the man began, “that this is a first. I’ve never heard of anyone actually breaking into this place.”

“We’re looking for my sister,” Malik said, abrupt and to the point. “Her name in Anya. She’s a witch. She has long black hair she wears in a braid.”

“I saw her, but you missed her. They already shipped her off.” The man moved his fingers through the air like someone walking.

Lorna sucked in a breath and pushed her bangs out of her face. “We won’t be able to get to her once she reaches the Iron City. She’ll be lost to the Cavern.”

Malik opened his mouth to answer but a sharp laugh cut him off. The man was shaking his head. “The Iron City? That’s not where the witches go.”

Malik wrapped a hand around the bars. “What do you mean? Where do they go?”

The man rose up on shaking legs. He steadied himself against the wall and Ronnie wondered when he’d last eaten. “Rumor has it that all the witches that see the inside of the Cage get sent to Sloan at his request. He’s doing terrible things to them at his estate.”

Malik’s grip on the bars tightened and sizzled as sparks of bright yellow magic crackled over his hands. “What kind of experiments?”

“No one knows for sure, but I can tell you this,” the man stumbled over to Malik and leaned in. “Witches go in but they never come back out.”

“How do you know that? Who are you?” Ronnie asked.

The man shrugged with a lopsided grin. “Haron. No one special. But I know what happens in the Edge. What really happens.”

Malik’s jaw tightened and he stepped away from the bars, turning away from Ronnie and Lorna, who were both at a loss on how to proceed. Their quick and sloppy plan hadn’t accounted for this. If the circumstances were different, then maybe they could have intercepted the White Guard on the road while they transported prisoners. Maybe they could have over powered them and made off with Anya before she reached the depths of the Iron City. Maybe they would have missed her entirely and would have had to come up with a way to break past the dwarves’ impenetrable gates to the Cavern. Maybe they could have done all of those things, but Sloan? The heartless warlord who thought himself the king of the Edge? Could they waltz into his estate, into a horde of guardsmen and Sloan’s elite and come back out with Anya? Ronnie didn’t like their chances.

Still, Anya was family. They would come up with something. They wouldn’t leave her to perish under Sloan’s unforgiving hands, even if it killed them.

“Malik? What do you want to do now?”

He stood quiet and still while Ronnie spoke. It appeared as though he hadn’t heard her, but his hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides, his shoulders a squared line of tense muscle.

Ronnie tried again. “We could go back to home and regroup. If she’s at the estate, at least she isn’t far. We can gather some friends, ask Hazel for help, and-”

Malik turned suddenly, his hands ablaze with glittering yellow magic. He lashed out at the nearest empty cell, wrapped his magic around the bars like the tendrils of deep sea demon and pulled hard. The bars creaked and groaned, the sound tremendous in the small cell block, and with the great sound of splitting stone, Malik separated the bars from the cell and flung them across the block. The massive chunk of stone and metal crashed loudly against another cell.

“What are you doing!” Lorna screeched, ducking out of the way. “They’ll hear us!”

Ronnie dove for Malik with outstretched hands, ready to take him to the ground, but he ripped the stones out from under her feet, sending her crashing to the floor, with a flourish of waving hands and flung them at the black doors. They smacked loudly against the thick metal and broke apart in small explosions of gravel and dust.

Ronnie scrabbled to her feet and snatched one of his hands in hers. “Malik! We’re going to get caught!”

He looked down at her, his green eyes shining in an expression of grim determination. “I know.”

At the end of the block, the black doors were opening. They scraped against the floor and pushed against the rubble Malik created. Guardsmen filed into the room in a show of stomping boots and swirling white coats and formed a line in front of them, rifles cocked and swords drawn. A young man, with fair curls that reminded her of Sebastian for some reason she couldn’t comprehend, pushed his way between the guards and stopped in front of them.

A scowl crossed his face. “Like rats to rot.” He grit his teeth while he stared at them. “Pests.”

Ronnie recognized him. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been pointing a sword at her while she stood tense at the entrance to Poor Street. She really hoped that Sloan wasn’t outside somewhere, waiting to glide in like a phantom heralding their demise.

“You three are trespassing. This is a violation of the law.” His voice boomed in the small space.

“Sir,” a woman spoke up behind him, “they’re witches.”

The man narrowed his gaze, moving from Lorna to Malik and taking in the green of their eyes, before coming to rest on Ronnie. “Not all of them. Send them with the others.” He pointed at Ronnie and she glimpsed the pinky of his glove pinned to his palm. She was right before. He was missing a finger. “Her too. Captain Sloan has expressed an interest in this one.”

The guards moved past him like an ocean wave of dangerous creatures. Rifles were kept pointed while the others marched forward with glinting silver shackles in their hands, the same that they’d put on Anya before taking her away. Ronnie had anticipated the shackles to be heavy and rough on her skin, but the metal was smooth and light. It was almost as if she wasn’t even wearing them, though her muscles sagged regardless in faux exhaustion. The carvings etched into the metal were beautiful and foreign. The strange swirls and lines danced together in a language that Ronnie couldn’t read, but recognized from scraps found around the Edge and in the Rust. Dwarves had created these shackles. If she weren’t so afraid of what was coming next, she might have paused to appreciate the craftsmanship of the world’s greatest builders.

Ronnie flexed against them, pulling her hands away from each other, but the shackles remained firm. She tried harder, calling on the animal just beneath her skin, but it was as if a barrier had been erected. Her strength was gone.

An unkind hand gripped her arm and hauled her out of the room. Behind her, she could hear Lorna struggling, but she seemed far away. Ronnie looked over her shoulder. Lorna was only steps behind her. She tried to focus herself, to hone in on the beat of Lorna’s heart and the scent of her, but nothing reached Ronnie’s senses.

Panic thumped in her chest and Ronnie tried to swallow it down. She’d never been cut off like this, blind and deaf to the world around her. Though she was born without the ability to transform, she’d always had her enhanced senses. Her strength and speed. It was like the shackles had taken the very breath from her body, taken her livelihood.

Ronnie’s eyes flitted from Lorna’s struggle to Malik, who walked calmly beside two guards. He met her gaze and nodded once. She wasn’t sure what he was planning, but she sincerely hoped it didn’t get them all killed.