ItCP16

## Chapter 16

**Chapter 16** of **Into the Crooked Place** is told by **Wesley**.

## **Full Version**

WESLEY HADN’T SEEN THE sun in two days.

The train was dimly lit so they could make out each other’s faces during the day and not be too disturbed to sleep during the night. Or what they thought was night.

Outside the windows was nothing but darkness, peppered only by flashes of light that punctured through the gravel and concrete of the underground tunnels they were now inside, before filtering down to them. But the train passed by so quickly, the glimpses of day never offered much of a reprieve.

Wesley supposed it was not the worst thing.

He lived most of his life in the shadows, keeping company with dark magic and darker people, and the tunnels were the safest way to travel, with a clear route all the way to Wrenyal.

Falk counted the hours for them, proclaiming when it was dusk and when it was dawn like an announcer, using his wristwatch to steer Wesley and their makeshift army into sleep, or let them know it was time to wake or eat or meander.

They’d lost nearly half a dozen buskers back in Creije. The remaining walked through the days with sharp eyes and quick hands, as though another attack could come at any time.

It had been two days and they still had three to go until they reached the Wrenyi realm, which was outside Ashwood’s reach and would allow them safe haven.

Three more days of waiting.

“Our biggest problem is that we do not have the element of surprise,” Karam said. “The shadow moon is less than a month away and without enough time to prepare, we will fail.”

“You’re just a bundle of positivity, aren’t you?” Tavia said. “Tell us more about how the future is dark and we’re all going to get killed by the Kingpin.”

“Not you,” Karam said. “I am going to kill you myself.”

Saxony snorted. “You two have issues.”

“I will not be part of a suicide mission,” Karam said.

“Would it be easier if I didn’t give you a choice?” Wesley asked. “I could force you, but I think it would be easier to just pay you instead. Double your usual rate should do it.”

“I was not aware I had a usual rate for getting myself killed,” Karam said. “Or for saving the realms.”

Wesley nearly recoiled. “We’re saving a place I have great stakes in. Don’t make out like I’m a good guy. It’s disheartening.”

“Nobody is going to mistake you for a good guy in that suit,” Tavia said. “You look like a gangster threw up on you.”

Wesley looked indifferent. “But a very high-end gangster.”

He sat back. The four of them were gathered in the main carriage, which Wesley supposed would have been first-class once upon a time, only now the windows were shot out and the cold from the tunnels battered through.

They had been plotting for the entirety of the two days and Karam continued to discuss strategy at excruciating length.

Wesley’s buskers slept and ate and used trick bags to pull pranks on each other to pass the time and ease the rigid tension impending death brought. They played cards and romanced and picked fights until something or someone ended up broken.

And all the while, Wesley did nothing but plan.

It was so incredibly tedious.

Still, he took note of what Karam and Saxony were saying, and offered solutions when he could. He glowered when they said something awful about him and smirked when they said something awful to each other. He was aware of every word they said and every move they made.

But mostly, Wesley was aware of Tavia, sitting beside him, still smelling of magic and gunpowder.

She had pouches tied to her belt, brimming with the stolen charms she hadn’t let him take inventory of. To have it all so close and be unable to touch it was torture, but Wesley owed Tavia one. Or two, if they were counting her help at the train station.

Not that Wesley needed anyone’s help.

Still, he liked hearing Tavia talk about fighting off the consort’s guards with blinding charms and how, when she jumped from the top of the headquarters, the ground absorbed her like a sponge and then spat her back up.

How she felt like she could run through the wind and toward their train forever.

He liked how Tavia smiled when she told them that story. Wesley hadn’t seen her smile like that in years.

But in the moments outside those small respites, he felt like a tiger in a cage. Like one of those zoo animals, whose claws were filed down while people stared from behind the safety of bars.

He was a predator with no prey.

Two days of only talking.

It was like his own personal fire-gate.

“We don’t need surprise,” Saxony said. “The Kingpin won’t run from a fight.”

*He’ll be waiting for you. And he won’t be alone.*

Wesley loosened his tie.

He wouldn’t listen to that voice and he wouldn’t think about it.

“The Kingpin will have a militia. Fifty buskers will not change things,” Karam said.

Wesley set his tie on the table. “We don’t even have fifty anymore.”

And it still stung.

*But letting people die is what you do best.*

“We could have the biggest army in the realms and still lose,” Wesley said. “It’s not bodies we need, it’s magic. The Kingpin is one of the most powerful people alive, and now that he has Crafters under his thumb we have to even the playing field.”

“We’re not going to Rishiya,” Saxony said. “I’m not taking you to my family.”

“I never mentioned your family. I told you we would go to Wrenyal and that’s still the plan.”

Wesley turned to Karam, who stiffened as though she knew what he was going to say.

“We’re heading to the five-river city,” he said. “Granka.”

Karam blinked.

Wesley knew how long it had been since she’d left Granka and exactly how long it had been since she’d decided never to go back. The two were coincidentally the same.

There was no life for Karam there. She was rough and deadly and belonged in Creije more than she could ever belong in the holy realm. Wesley could barely imagine her as a dutiful daughter, praying to her Indescribable God and preaching peace. She was a weapon and he’d spent years making sure she was pleased about it. The last thing he wanted was to undo all of that hard work by making her nostalgic.

“You want me to arrange a meeting with the Crafters in Granka,” Karam said. Her voice was more gravel-toned than usual. “You assume I would be able to do such a thing.”

“Let’s not pretend we don’t know our history,” Wesley said. “Wrenyal worships Crafters and your grandparents led insurgent groups to protect them during the War of Ages. You’re a child of the Rekhi d’Rihsni.”

Karam’s hands twitched by her sides.

“I’ve known it for a while,” Wesley said. “Just like I knew what Saxony was.”

“So you’re exploiting all of our pasts, one by one,” Saxony said. “And not even giving us the chance to say no.”

Wesley almost laughed at the idea.

If Saxony thought he hadn’t given her chances, then she was delusional.

He could have turned her in to the Kingpin when he first discovered what she was, or bribed her to help build his city into greatness, but he didn’t. He didn’t force her to create magical weaponry or put her life in danger at any turn.

Wesley hadn’t so much as looked at her wrong.

He had left Saxony to live her secret life in Creije, undisturbed.

Despite what they all thought of him, how evil they liked to preach that he was, Wesley was not Dante Ashwood, stealing Crafters from the streets and harnessing their magic with no regard.

He had a line. He had sins to atone for.

“The reason I’ve survived this long is because I know my assets and keep them close,” Wesley said.

Karam was too well trained to look hurt by the notion that Wesley might have used her, but years in the trenches meant he knew her well enough to read the signs.

And he was a little sorry for it.

“You really are unbelievable,” Tavia said.

It wasn’t exactly a compliment, but Wesley shrugged it off.

“Even if Karam doesn’t know where any Crafters are, her family does,” he said. “That kind of loyalty lives through generations. The only way we stand a chance against Ashwood is with Crafters of our own.”

“I do not know where you heard those stories about my family,” Karam said. “But nothing was proven.”

“Right. The old Kingpins executed them due to reasonable suspicion.”

“There is nothing reasonable about execution.”

Wesley didn’t agree.

After all, he’d executed his old underboss and that was most definitely reasonable.

Or was it only execution when those in power did it? Everyone else just got saddled with plain old murder.

“If we do this, then any Crafters who join our side are under my command,” Saxony said. “Not yours.”

Wesley laughed. “You went from not wanting to give me Crafters to asking to be their leader?”

“I won’t have you deciding the fates of my people.”

“They’re Karam’s people.”

Karam folded her arms across her chest defiantly. “And I will not take you to them unless she is the one to lead.”

And that was precisely why Wesley hated working with a crew.

He sighed.

Wesley always preferred to get things done alone, or order someone else to carry out the task, because teams were messy and encouraged sentimentality alongside camaraderie.

They made everyone so damn sensitive of each other’s feelings.

“I’ve been training with my amja since I was a child,” Saxony said. “I’m skilled in both magical and hand-to-hand combat. I was made to lead.”

Wesley remained unimpressed. “Aren’t we all.”

“And my specialty is in Energy,” Saxony said. “Which is going to be a great help in the battle.”

“And here I thought your specialty was being a magical snob,” Tavia said.

Her tone was teasing and Saxony let out a sarcastic “har har.”

But Wesley’s curiosity was piqued.

Crafter magic was split into three specialties: Intuition, Energy, and Spirit. Though any Crafter could cast spells and master all kinds of magic, they were only gifted with one specialty.

Wesley had spent his childhood alongside Tavia, memorizing all there was to know about Crafters and their powers. There were records, endless archives, of every trick and charm and elixir, every spell and curse, every piece of magic that had come before, written into word and filed away for history.

Energycrafters, with control over the element they were most akin to, able to create protection and invisibility fields.

Spiritcrafters, who could commune with the dead and control nature’s spirit of the weather.

And Intuitcrafters, the most dangerous of all, who could spawn illusions and work their way into people’s minds and futures.

Wesley and Tavia had spent so much time in the libraries, studying those tales, flooding their childhoods with them, imagining what a place with such free magic might have looked like. They got lost together, in stories and memories of the past.

“So we agree to officially split the leadership,” Tavia said. “Wesley handles the buskers and Saxony handles the Crafters. What about the journey?”

Wesley stared at the route Saxony had drawn from her mind.

Their journey to the Kingpin’s isle was traced over a map of the four realms, culminating in their arrival at a point of the Onnela Sea, a place commonly referred to as Ejm Voten. Which translated to *lonely water*, because it was miles away from civilization and deadly enough that nobody dared cross. Plagued by tumultuous storms and hard-to-navigate rock formations, Ejm Voten offered no through-route to any city or realm.

At least, no safe route.

It had been the subject of sailors’ stories for years. Travelers said there was a sunken city beneath it and that cries from the ghosts of all who drowned in its depths could be heard in the wind, readying to pull boats under. Compasses spun madly because the sea devils patrolling the waters had so much iron in their blood. The list went on.

The more Wesley thought about it, the more it made sense that the Kingpin would make his home in those waters. Where better to hide than a place nobody dared go?

“If there are Spiritcrafters in Granka, it will come in handy when we cross Ejm Voten,” he said. “Maybe all of the legends are actually part of the Kingpin’s trials Eirini mentioned.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Tavia said. “Leave it to the would-be dictator to make us face our regrets. Who is he to pass judgment on us?”

“It’s not about judgment,” Wesley said. “It’s about strength.”

“If you’re going to say *strength of character*, then I’m going to throw up.”

“My guess is the trials will be about defeating our own weakness,” Wesley said. “Proving that we’re capable of being more than human.”

“Gods do not have regrets,” Karam said sagely.

Tavia turned to Wesley. “You’re half set. Nobody would ever accuse you of being human.”

“Are you saying I’m godly?”

Tavia snorted and something in Wesley’s chest jolted too suddenly for his liking.

“Eirini also said something about time,” Saxony said. “She told me we should carry it with us. I don’t know what she meant.”

Wesley withheld his frown alongside his surprise.

“I know,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons why I brought Falk along with us. He’s not just here to drive the train.”

Tavia groaned inwardly. “Please tell me that you two haven’t been working on a way to magically blow everyone to pieces.”

Apparently, Falk’s reputation as a magical weapons expert preceded him.

“They’re time barrels,” Wesley explained. “They’re yet to be perfected, but I’ve had Falk helping me work on them for a while. A time charm can freeze someone in a second, but I’ve been trying for nearly a year to find a way to engineer it so the magic isn’t focused on just one person. The plan is for the barrels to go off with a bang and freeze any enemies in our path.”

Wesley sighed, a little put out.

“I thought I’d be presenting it to the Kingpin rather than using it against him,” he said. “Life’s funny that way.”

“A time bomb.” Saxony shook her head, like she was caught halfway between outrage and appreciation. “What’s to stop it from freezing us too?”

“That’s the *yet to be perfected* part.”

“Maybe the consort knew about the weapon,” Saxony said. “It would explain what she meant. And if she knew, then maybe Ashwood does too.”

“We can’t be sure that Eirini was talking about the time bombs,” Wesley said.

“I still can’t believe that you *have* time bombs,” Tavia said, incredulous.

Wesley almost grinned. “Brilliant, aren’t I? When they’re finished, they’ll incapacitate anyone with nonlethal force. We get the bang, but not the destruction.”

“And you are sure you can finish?” Karam asked. “I do not want to carry around unperfected ticking time bombs.”

“We’re nearly there,” Wesley said. “The timeline isn’t ideal, but I’ll crack the fine-tuning with Falk.”

“On the subject of time,” Tavia said. “Back when I was performing at the magic markets, I tried to hock a fortune orb to the crowds.” Tavia looked at Wesley by way of inclining her head and not meeting his eyes. “You know the one.”

He did.

They’d worked it together, drunk on magic, the stars sprinkled above them and a wild, wild feeling in Wesley’s chest whenever their hands entangled.

It was full of junk riddles and mostly mechanics in place of magic, but somewhere deep inside, Wesley felt like he’d placed a piece of himself in that orb, buried amongst the trickery and illusion. A sliver of magic that felt very much like part of his soul.

Though perhaps that had been the reverie charm talking, or the feeling of Tavia so very close and the grin that slid onto her lips when she held up the finished orb.

That grin was a drug in itself. Magic, in itself.

*When you get a girlfriend,*Tavia had said, eyes dancing, *I hope she’s awful at this.*

It was as much a curse as anything she carried around in her pocket.

Wesley bristled, pulling himself a little straighter. “I know the one,” he said.

Tavia nodded, then, to Karam and Saxony, she said, “It was mostly a trick orb, not much real magic inside. Something for the tourists. Only, the crowd was kind of restless, so I used a proficiency charm to bump up the show and give them something to fawn over.”

The frown across her brows was delicate.

“The orb made a prediction I’d never heard, something Wesley and I didn’t put inside. It mentioned time undoing battles. I thought maybe it malfunctioned, because trick magic is so damn testy. But now it seems like too big of a coincidence.”

Wesley knew coincidences and that wasn’t one.

“It seems the realms are trying to tell us something,” Karam said.

“I think *magic* is trying to tell us something,” Saxony said.

Karam nodded. “The Indescribable God speaks in many voices.”

Wesley resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Whatever the reason, I’ll make sure to perfect the time barrels. But if we’re going to get to the Kingpin in time for the shadow moon, then we have to steal a ship once we reach Granka.”

“Why not just steal a train?” Tavia asked.

“The floating railways will be too hard to commandeer and there are no magic tracks anywhere near Ejm Voten. It’s a no-go zone. A ship is our only choice.”

“Ships belong in museums,” Tavia said. “And the lines for the floating railways are just fancy magic dust. Can’t we use Saxony’s powers to create our own lines and keep a train afloat on whatever course we plot? Falk could drive and she could be the compass.”

Wesley turned to Saxony. “I supposed that’s a question for you. Do you think you could work on a spell?”

Saxony straightened. “If you think my powers can be conquered by a train line, then I’m not sure why I’m even here.”

Wesley smirked.

If that was the case, they could plow the train straight into the sand and any Energycrafters they found in Granka could shield their army from view. They could walk right up to the gates without even being seen.

It was all coming together, the plan he had hurriedly tried to jigsaw.

And even if Ashwood did spot Wesley with Crafters and his best busker at his side, he would still be too curious not to hear him out. Too arrogant to think that letting Wesley in could ever lead to his own destruction.

It would be the Kingpin’s downfall.

*You’d do anything to win*, the voice said, and for once Wesley agreed.

He was coming for Ashwood and when he found him, he would have no mercy.