Page 20 of Until the End of Ever
Designed like a London cab but forest green, with two benches facing each other, the taxis were a necessity up in theVale, given that there was no public transport to speak of. But there were only two hundred and fifty of them for the whole city.
The only horses kept up here were Poseidon’s herd—proud, gigantic beauties, mostly wild, and only answering to the guardians of the god’s temple. It was a pleasure to see them every winter on Poseidon’s festival. But no one kept carriages here.
Transport had been one of the many points of discord between unders and the vale. Valers, mostly coming from the outside world, wanted their cars. The rest of us argued they could build a tram and shut up about it. The part of the council made up of founding families point-blank refused to accept cars running on gas stinking up our air. They begrudgingly accepted granting a hundred car licenses, mostly to city officials and the kind of wealthy arriviste happy to chuck millions at the city council in order to retain their privileges. I was fairly certain the Valescos had a car. But none of those measures fixed the issue of transport for most valers.
The Vale was two thousand, five hundred and twenty meters longs—a fact I knew only because it was the exact length of our town circle down in the underside. Small enough, but realistically, the bulk of the population still wanted rapid transport.
Electricity didn’t play well with the residual magic in the air of our city, and gas was out of the question. That left magic.
The elder and the ruler side of the council bickered for decades, until finally, a solution was brought forth by my father. Always a tinkerer, Kaelius Saltzin loved playing with mostly useless but fun concepts, such as making self-driving prams with security features keyed to the kid’s parent—pretty certain he got that one done when he was tired of pushing Damian around—spoons which could be set to automatically stir potions at predetermined intervals, and his all-time favorite: the stovehe used for all his miraculous roasts, fully compatible with magical households, semi-sentient, capable of basting joints or screeching when sourdough bread was anything but perfect.
Father let the council shout at each other for about fifteen years before deciding to make it his problem when my grandmother complained about the argument one too many times. I was about five when he grumbled, extended his lab, and got to work. Six weeks later, he’d changed the mechanics of cars to be fueled by a mixture of residual magic and water, making them all but silent and without any odor or nefarious discharges.
He presented his marvel to the council, got it approved by all parties, and would have happily returned to his domestic tinkering, but naturally, the council wanted hundreds, if not thousands of those vehicles as soon as possible. Refusing to share the ins and outs of his discovery, he roped in his hard-working brother to fulfil the council’s demands: producing the cabs, and managing them.
Thanks to Damn Cabs, Uncle Athan was as rich as Midas, and as Father retained twenty percent of the company, it made him, well, as wealthy as his wife.
The Saltzins might have been a founding family, but because they reproduced with mortals, at a rapid rate, they squandered most of their fortunes one or two centuries ago. Not that it even mattered to Athanasius or Kaelius Saltzin; the elder was happy so long as he could cook, play around with inanimate objects and love his wife. The younger was born with a permanently grumpy disposition, but my cousin certainly appreciated the endless piles of gold entering her accounts every month. My grandmother was also rather keen on being able to show off to her friends, although she kept the modest brownstone on Spider’s Avenue she’d bought with her husband a century ago.
I got my love of experimenting, and my general dislike of handling the business side of things from him.
“I’m missing something,” Gideon grumbled, eyes narrowed.
Ronan tilted his head towards me. “That posh git owns the cabs.”
“Highly inaccurate,” I objected. “Damn Cabs is owned by five individuals, none of whom are me. And pot? Cauldron. I can acceptposh gitas a suitably valid insult from most people, but a man dressed in handstitched black lace and silk to go cave exploring doesn’t get that prerogative.”
Ronan straightened the silk cloth at his neck. “What was I supposed to wear, a polyester shirt and shorts? I’m not a savage.”
Gideon looked down to his own gray shirt—likely polyester—and cargo shorts. “I think I hate you.”
Ronan’s gaze took him in from head to toe, judgmental to the extreme. “A compliment.”
Well, I did think they’d end up fucking or murdering each other before they met. I still wouldn’t put money on guessing an outcome.
With an eye roll, I decided to reply before these two decided to start shooting spells at each other. “My uncle owns the majority of the company, my father has twenty percent, and the twenty-nine odd percent left belongs to various noble and founding families—the Nachtigall included. All of us are prioritized when we call for a ride.”
Gideon whistled. “At six, most people would wait an hour or more, if they haven’t prebookedandpaid a premium. Hey, maybe you could call Kleos a cab, so she doesn’t have to walk all the way from Silver’s to the bar?”
That got my attention. She wouldn’t truly stroll around town in the evening, would she? Not with what was going on right now, surely.
“I could,” I replied slowly. “Are you escorting her tonight?”
“Huh?” Gideon asked.
Comprehension lit his blue eyes before I had to smack the back of his head to remind him that his cousin was in danger.
“Oh, yeah. She shouldn’t go anywhere alone, huh? I mean, she can handle whatever milquetoast Aunt Zenya approved for tonight, but still.” He wrinkled his nose. “I need to give a report to my mum, after today. I mean, none of what we’ve seen is making it to myofficialreport, but Ma will wanna know a bit more off the books. I’m sure Silver will take Kleos.”
“Howsure?” I bit, jaw tight.
Gideon hadforgottensomeone was attempting to curse, capture, subjugate, and possibly rape or murder his cousin. Then again, he was Gideon, so I shouldn’t be surprised. And Kleos was objectively too strong and independent to automatically think of her as someone who needed to be protected. Never mind that all my instincts told me otherwise.
How likely was it that Silver would remember not to leave her friend alone?
Gideon scratched his head. “I’ll text her. Remind her, just in case.”
So Silver might need a reminder.
