She almost tripped over the refresher, and she bruised her hip on the sink, but she made a full circuit of the crystal-lit cell. She could see better, and it was getting easier to move with each hummed bar of her warding spell, each second she stood and walked instead of sat, but it did exhaust her. Sinking back onto the bed let the pain fade, but it also made her leg muscles tremble from the effort.
So I can move, though it’s a struggle to fight the spell. Thank the Gods that Mekha isn’t around anymore, she thought, rubbing her hands over her face. I don’t know how many other mages have meditations they could have done—probably not many, beyond my mother—but even without His will enforcing the spell, I can see why those first well-trained mages found it impossible to resist and escape once the drainings had begun.
It was not a pleasant thought; in fact, it churned her stomach. Rexei forced herself off the cot and over to the refresher, bracing one hand on the glazed rim of the sink. That made her think of another need, one starting to grow urgent in spite of the blinding headache the Sit down command had given her. Taking advantage of her moment of privacy taught her that any seat would do, to the point that standing up again was not pleasant on several levels. The bed, however, was a far safer seat to be found at than the porcelain one.
She had no idea when they’d come for her or when they’d discover she was a female not a male. Nor did she know what was involved in a demonic summoning, nor how long she had left to live. But Rexei did know she wasn’t going to wait to be killed. Nor could she be sure that anyone had seen her on her walk through the temple. The first step was to try to get the others to see her, despite being locked in a room without a functional paper roach.
Turning to the crushed, folded bug on the mattress, she picked it up and started gently pulling it back into a puffed-out shape, in the hopes that that was all it would need to work.
How did they know I’d be coming out of the Consulate by the front door and headed that way? she wondered, thinking about her half brother’s note. She pulled it out. Is . . . is this even Lundrei’s handwriting? I don’t remember. I don’t remember what any of their handwriting looked like, save for I think I remember Mum’s handwriting on the jars of preserves we made together.
A sick feeling churned in her gut. Did he do this? Lundrei, my own kin? I’d like to think he wouldn’t have done it of his own free will . . . but there are nearly twelve years between the half brother I knew when I was ten years old and the man I met last night. She swallowed down the uncomfortable thought and felt her throat muscles pressing against the metal circling her neck. Of course, I could be mentally accusing him of the wrong things.
I know the priests had their hands on my cap and coat for a while. Long enough to find hairs. And I’ve heard rumors of mage-kin being tracked down despite changing their names, identities, regions . . . They might have used a location spell on him, something the Hunter Squads use. And if they caught up with him last night and slapped one of these collars around his neck . . . wait, would anyone hunt down one of my kin just to . . . ?
She all but slapped herself on the forehead; only the delicate, half-crumpled paper bug in her fingers kept her from doing so. Of course they would, Rexei thought, wincing. I made a fool of the Archbishop of Heiastowne. And not only did I make a fool of him for two months, and gain a Guild rank elevation out of it, I’m now the head of the Holy Guild, utterly supplanting everything he and his cronies enjoyed, stood for, and gloated about for the whole length of their perverted, power-hungry lives.
I’m more surprised he hasn’t personally carved me up yet, now that I think about it.
The paper roach shimmered and moved. Freaked, Rexei jumped. The good thing was, she confined the urge to scream into a throttled-down squeak. The bad thing was, the enchanted cockroach—which now looked disturbingly real—moved again, making her instinctively fling it away from her. It hit the ground with the faintest papf sound as one of the fluffed-out bits crumpled . . . and the roach stopped moving again, turning back into mere, if colorful, paper.
Panting, she forced herself to calm down. Just a spell . . . just a spell . . . Guildra, she prayed, staring wide-eyed at the enchanted paper on the stone floor, help me to get out of here! I don’t want my nerves to break . . .
It took her a few more moments to calm her racing heart. “Come on, Rexei,” she whispered to herself, knowing that standing up and fetching the paper back would hurt. “Come on . . . stand up and get it back . . .”
Bracing herself with a deep breath, she pushed to her feet . . . and felt no pain. That startled her into freezing—and that was when the pain started to creep into range, pushing her limbs forward. Toward the paper spy on the ground.
Oh! Ohhhh . . . I’m already touching the collar, and my mind isn’t so deeply sunk under the weight of Mekha’s will that I cannot even think . . . so I can give myself orders that the collar forces me to obey? Oh, thank you, Guildra!
For a moment, she thought she heard the faintest whisper of, You’re welcome, but the pain was getting in the way. Letting it go, Rexei stooped and carefully plucked the roach from the ground then returned to the bed. The new order cancelled the compulsion to sit down, but if she didn’t sit, she might get caught not sitting, since there was no telling when the priests would come back.
And if I can think . . . Oh yes. I never apprenticed to the Locksmiths or the Law-Sayers, but I know exactly what to do. Thinking swiftly as she gingerly re-plucked at the corners and curves of the paper bug, she stated aloud, “I am to completely ignore any and all spell-based compulsions forced upon me by this collar, following the completion of this order. I will be free to act in any way I desire, or not act, and I command myself to use the power of any reinforcing spells on any other commands to instead reinforce this order: I will have complete and total free will from this point forward. This is the only order that will apply to me from this point forward.”
There, she thought, smiling. That takes care of that. Now to pick this open again . . . and . . . almost got it . . . eurghh, it’s moving—ick! she thought, wrinkling her nose at the lifelike roach now perched on her hand. From a scrying mirror, they had looked a lot more paperlike, but she supposed that was just the scrying spell’s method of letting a mage know which cockroaches were the paper ones without tipping off the people being spied upon to the reality underlying the carefully folded, mobile illusions. This reminds me of those tenements back when I was in the Cobblers Guild, learning how to repair shoes . . .