She took a sip of Kava, hoping–devoutly–that she had stumbled across something they could use. The desperation in Jade’s eyes bothered her more than the cold, vindictive anger she’d seen in Tam’s when they’d told him about Flower. She could only pray that he’d listen to them when they urged using the woman to feed false information to the king, instead of killing her as brutally as possible. Tam had every right to be angry. Flower had come far too close to getting him killed.
“The Tower has three lines of defense,” she said, after a moment. “First, it has the outer wards; second, it has the armed guards, which presumably include a few magicians; third, somewhat indirectly, its interior is a complete mystery. We don’t know where Alassa and Imaiqah are being held, let alone what internal defenses and security wards might be holding them in place. They will either be drinking potions or be held under very strong wards.”
“Or both,” Cat put in, unhelpfully. “I’d do both if I ran the Tower.”
Emily nodded at him, wondering how he managed to look so relaxed when she felt so stressed. Jade was sitting down, but he looked as though he was going to jump up and start pacing at any moment. His hands were clasped tightly in front. Emily had the feeling that, if she was wrong, Jade would do something drastic very soon. He just wasn’t the type of person to wait while his wife was in danger.
“And so would I,” Jade said. His voice was harsh. “Get to the point. What do you have in mind?”
“The wards, from what we’ve been able to sense from the outside, are actually relatively simple,” Emily said. “They are nothing more than solid walls, magically speaking. They’re designed to keep magicians out, and to sound the alarm if they’re weakened by an outside force, but little else. They don’t have many weak points that we can exploit without setting off alarms.”
“If indeed they are weak points,” Cat grunted. “They might be bait in a trap.”
“Sergeant Miles was fond of that trick,” Emily agreed. She didn’t think Randor’s wardcrafters would take the risk, but with a bit of work they’d be able to rig up a set of traps–or simply force any attackers to waste their time–that would be very difficult to spot until it was too late. “Either way, we need a great deal of brute force to break down the wards…which we wouldn’t be able to muster without them stopping us.”
Jade glowered at her. “We know all this, Emily.”
“I know,” Emily said, dryly. She pressed on before he could interrupt again. “The downside with such wards is that they can be taken apart quite easily, from the inside.”
“Yes.” Jade’s voice was angry. “And how do you plan to get inside? There seems to be a piece missing from this plan of yours…”
“Dignity,” Cat said, dryly. “Jade, let her finish before you tear her to shreds.”
Emily looked from one to the other, then shrugged. “I don’t plan to get inside,” she said. If they could get inside with their magic, the problem would be solved instantly. “I plan to have one of the guards take a chat parchment inside the wards for me.”
“A chat parchment,” Jade repeated.
“Yes,” Emily said. She explained, quickly. “In Beneficence, the Fists of Justice used a modified chat parchment to tear down the wards protecting a number of houses. They worked through the chat parchments, once they were inside the wards, to take control of the wards and bring them down. We could do the same. If we could take control of the wards, we could turn them against the guards or bring them down.”
“If the wards are smart enough to be turned against the guards,” Jade said. He sounded as though he was trying not to be too hopeful. “What happens if they’re not?”
Emily had no way to know for sure, but she suspected the wards wouldn’t be anything like smart enough to be turned against anyone. Randor wouldn’t want to rely on complex wards that could have flaws and imperfections, not when he’d have to put someone else in charge of monitoring and maintaining them. He’d prefer to rely on simplicity. The wards wouldn’t be able to support him as much as he might wish, but they wouldn’t be turned on him either.
“Then we have a problem,” Emily said. “I…”
“A big problem,” Jade said. “We’d have to get the parchment into the Tower. And then we would still have to storm the Tower.”
“Not quite,” Emily said. “I was thinking we’d open a portal into the Tower.”
Jade stared at her. “Have you gone mad?”
“No,” Emily said. “I…”
“We don’t have the tools to open a portal,” Jade said, sharply. “And we don’t have the magic to power it.”
“The only other option is teleporting into the Tower,” Emily said. “We can bring down the wards, if my plan works, but teleporting will leave us drained. A portal would allow us to get into the Tower, find Alassa and Imaiqah and then get out again.”
“And it would let us bring a small army into the Tower with us,” Cat said. “They won’t be expecting us to appear in their rear.”
“Not as long as they don’t realize the wards have been hacked,” Jade said. “Emily, if we have to crash the wards, they’ll know it.”
Emily nodded. “I was thinking that we’d have to do it very quickly, if at all. If we failed, they’d know about it. We would force them to move the prisoners at once.”
“Or kill them,” Jade said, darkly.
Cat had another concern. “It’s a large building,” he said, thoughtfully. “How would you know where to target the portal?”
“And how would you gather the power to make the portal?” Jade sounded scornful, as if he’d already given up. “Emily, can you solve that problem?”
“Yes,” Emily said. She swallowed, hard. She’d promised to do everything in her power to help them, but revealing a particularly dangerous secret came hard. “I think I can.”
Jade’s eyes went wide. “How?”
Emily took a long breath. “I need you two to swear you’ll keep it to yourselves, at least until I die or I give you permission to talk,” she said. “It’s a very dangerous secret.”
Jade and Cat exchanged glances. “Very well,” Jade said. He swore. Cat followed him, slightly more reluctantly. “What is this secret?”
“I designed a magical battery…ah, a way to store magical power,” Emily said. The word battery wouldn’t mean anything to them. She explained the concept as quickly as she could. “We can store power, then use it to cast a spell.”
“A portal,” Jade mused. “But…wouldn’t we still have to forge the portal stones?”
“Not if we had enough power,” Cat said. “We’d be able to shape the magic directly…”
“And then our brains start leaking out our ears,” Jade said. “If we’re lucky, that is.”
“We don’t have to risk madness,” Emily said. She understood his concern. Channelling vast amounts of magic in seconds drove necromancers insane. Some managed to hide it, for a while, but eventually they all cracked. “We can build the spell inside a pocket dimension”–she decided it would be better not to mention that Caleb had helped her develop the technique–“and then create the portal. It’ll last as long as the power holds out.”
Jade stared at her for a long moment. “You don’t think small, do you?”
Emily blushed. “No.”
“It strikes me as a workable plan,” Cat said. “That said, there are some problems we need to solve. Starting with the obvious, how do we find them once we’re in the Tower?”
“I do have a marriage bond to Alassa,” Jade said. “Once the wards are down, I should be able to find my way to her.”
“We could also use your blood to track your unborn child,” Emily said, slightly more doubtfully. There was no reason, in theory, why it wouldn’t work, but there was something about the concept that worried her. “It should be workable.”
“I hope so,” Jade said. He met her eyes. “Can we make it work?”
“I’d have to do the calculations, then build the batteries,” Emily told him. “And then we’d have to put the spellwork for the portal together, as a group. We need to keep control of the way out.
“Point,” Jade said. “And then what? What do we do after we get out?”
“Get out of the city,” Cat said, simply. “After that, you can decide what you and Alassa want to do next.”