She read Alicia’s message again, wondering if Randor was watching over her shoulder. The chat parchments were charmed to ensure that only the users could read what was written, but there were ways to get around that for at least one end of the conversation. There was no way to know if Alicia was alone or not, no way to know which side she was really on. Her messages made it sound as though the courtiers were waiting for something to happen, as if they were waiting for an imaginary axe to fall…
Except it isn’t imaginary, she thought, grimly. She disliked politics, but she wasn’t blind to the implications of what she’d been told. Refusing to attend court when summoned by the king was a declaration of war, to all intents and purposes. Randor was hunkering down, readying for the storm, while his opponents plotted their first move. Something is going to happen. The only question is what.
“Anyway, we have to move,” Jade said. “Do you have everything bottled up?”
“It’s all packed and ready to go,” Emily said. She put the parchment in her pocket, then followed him into the workroom. “I’ll take one bag, you and Cat can take the others.”
The bag felt heavier than she’d expected, but she told herself–firmly–that she was imagining it. It hadn’t been that hard to put the spare ingredients, the items she’d purchased to confuse any potential investigators, to good use, brewing everything from strengthening potions to healing salves. The Levellers could use them, when the time came. She wished they’d had more time - she could have crafted a great many more wards - but Jade was already chomping at the bit. It wouldn’t be long before he wanted to move.
Mouse met them downstairs and escorted them through the streets. The air felt tense as they walked past a row of soldiers, their weapons clearly visible. Emily could taste the anger, hanging in the air like a cloud. The population was angry, spoiling for a fight. It wouldn’t be long before something happened to spark off an explosion. Emily wondered, as she looked at the castle, if Randor realized how bad things had become. Aristocrats rarely understood the mood of the common folk until the pitchfork-armed mobs started swarming the streets, crying for noble blood.
“Thank you for the supplies,” Tam said, once they dropped them off. “I think I found you a suitable place.”
“As long as it’s big enough, it will do,” Jade said. “And our assistants?”
“They’ll be ready too,” Tam assured him. “Coming?”
He led them through a maze of streets, quietly pointing out places where material was being stockpiled to make barricades. Emily doubted most of them would stand up to a real offensive, but combined with the weapons that had also been stockpiled…the soldiers were going to take a beating. She hoped Tam would have the sense to time the uprising properly, although she knew it was going to be difficult. The mood on the streets was ugly. Tam would have very real problems keeping his cells under control.
“This warehouse originally belonged to a combine owned by a multitude of people, including Lord Nightingale,” Tam said, as they stopped outside a large building. The smell of fish hung in the air. “They ran into financial trouble and offloaded it to one of our front companies five months ago. We were…shall we say pushed…into buying it.”
Jade frowned. “Nightingale owned the warehouse?”
“He was one of the backers,” Tam said. “I don’t know how invested he was in the building.”
Emily braced herself as Tam opened the door. A gust of dead air, carrying with it the scent of rotting fish, wafted across her nose. She started breathing through her mouth as Tam entered the building, plucking a torch from the wall and lighting it with a firestarter. Emily breathed in smoke, rolling her eyes as she cast a night-vision spell. The warehouse was huge, easily large enough to hold a small fleet of carriages…
…And empty, completely empty.
“Check the front of the building,” Jade ordered. His voice echoed oddly in the air. “Make sure we’re alone.”
Cat hurried off while Emily surveyed the giant compound. It was easy to see why it had been abandoned, although she was surprised it hadn’t been knocked down and replaced with something more efficient. The warehouse was too large for anything other than the biggest merchant companies to use–or the military, she supposed–and it wouldn’t be easy to divide it into smaller units that could be rented out to a number of different merchants. She wondered, absently, why Nightingale hadn’t tried to turn it into a garrison. The air was thick and unpleasant, but Nightingale wouldn’t give a damn. He wasn’t the one who had to breathe it.
She looked down, noting the layers of dust on the stone floor. No one had been in the warehouse for months, perhaps ever since it had swapped hands. Once they set up a layer of protective wards, they could do a few spells to get rid of the dust. There was just too much of it to remove the old-fashioned way. Ideally, she would have opened the hatches and allowed fresh air to roll into the building, but that wasn’t a possibility. Attracting attention to the building would have been a deadly mistake.
“The office is empty.” Cat sounded amused. “They even took the desk and chairs.”
“It was barren when we purchased it,” Tam informed them. He sounded more like a real estate agent than a rebel. “Is it suitable?”
Emily looked around. It was bigger than they needed, she thought. There was plenty of room to set up their tools, with additional space for a few dozen workbenches and equipment to charge additional batteries if necessary. Her mind started to run away with itself as she thought of a dozen ideas for using the space, before she reminded herself that they’d have to abandon the warehouse in a hurry. The king’s sorcerers might not know what they had in mind, but they’d have no trouble tracing the portal once it opened.
“It will do,” she said. “We’ll start setting up here.”
Tam bowed and left. Emily grinned at the boys, then started to draw out the first set of protective wards. Jade and Cat would have to do the second set, meshing them together carefully so the warehouse appeared empty when–if–an enemy sorcerer took an interest in it. The illusion wouldn’t last long–and certainly not when the portal opened–but it might buy them some time. She added a set of early-warning spells hidden under the first set of wards, then let the boys do their work while she sauntered into the office. Cat had been right, she noted. The office was really nothing more than a barren room. The only thing separating the office from the rest of the warehouse was a wall so flimsy that Emily thought she could put a fist through it with minimal effort.
“That’s the wards in place,” Jade called. His voice echoed in the immense chamber. “Do you want to wait while we get the supplies?”
“You just want to get out of cleaning,” Emily said, dryly. “You’d better bring a cleaning cloth with you when you come back.”
She watched them go, then started to cast a series of cleaning spells. The mischievous part of her mind wanted to animate brushes and buckets, even though she knew it would be a colossal waste of magic. It would be fun…she considered it for a moment, then cast more practical spells instead. The dust started to move, billowing up like waves on the ocean as her magic pushed it into the far corner. She walked after it, drawing a handful of runes on the floor. They wouldn’t last long–Alexis wasn’t a high-magic environment–but it would keep the dust from contaminating their workspace. She made a mental note to see if there was a way they could get rid of the dust…
Not that it matters, she told herself, firmly. We’re not going to stay here forever.