by Allie Therin
The Tempest Ring glittered in her hand.
He stared at it, realization hitting. “You switched the rings,” he said, grabbing his ring back and sliding it straight onto his finger without hesitation. “You never gave Becker my ring—you gave him Ellis’s wedding ring, full of the paralysis magic of the Venom Dagger.”
In the chaos, her eyes met his. “I’m sorry for the deception,” she said. “And I had to lie about the lead; no magic gets through that. But I didn’t lie about the strength of your magic. Find Becker, and use that relic to get his damn blood magic out of Arthur.”
Rory didn’t need telling twice. He took off toward the house, dodging as a much bigger man came barreling toward him with a pipe.
But someone else crashed into Rory from the side, sending him flying. He hit the ground, skidding through dirt and gravel as the crunch of fist on bone rent the air.
Rory looked up and his gaze found Arthur.
He was fighting Ellis—and winning. Blood was gushing from Ellis’s nose and from a scrape on his face, and there was real fear in his expression. Because even if Arthur probably couldn’t see Ellis, the Puppeteer could, and he was pulling Arthur’s strings.
Arthur swung again, and Ellis dodged, but Arthur followed his first strike with a second, like a boxer in the ring. The second, harder swing connected with Ellis’s temple, and Ellis hit the ground.
“Arthur, no!” Rory scrambled back up, stumbling forward. It didn’t matter that he was someone else’s weapon; Arthur was never going to forgive himself for violence on someone who’d been his own soldier. “Ace, stop—”
Arthur whirled and Rory dodged the fist that came his way, getting clipped on the side of the head instead of his face.
Oh Jesus, the look in Arthur’s eyes—
But like the marionette he was, Arthur swung again.
Rory dove for the ground, skinning his hands and bruising his knees as he rolled away. He hit the side of one of the convertibles with a grunt of pain, and caught sight of his own hands in the gravel.
The Tempest Ring gleamed up at him.
As Rory stared at it, the breeze kicked up around him, blowing his hair off his forehead, making the tiny rocks around his hands dance.
He heard footsteps approaching in the gravel. “Had enough?” Becker taunted, from somewhere behind him.
Rory closed his eyes. “Have you?”
And this time, when Rory reached for his magic, he fully opened the floodgates.
Magic rushed him like a burst dam, like a bolt of lightning up his arm from the ring, like electricity sparking from his heart. His eyes popped open, his limbs trembling under the onslaught of magic pouring into him.
Across the manor, there was a low rumble, like distant thunder.
Rory forced himself up to shaky feet and turned around to face Becker. “Get your magic out of Ace,” he said, “or I’m gonna get it out myself.”
The wind was picking up, like the start of a storm, leaves and debris scattering around them. The edges of the green fog that hung over the manor’s drive were being blown away. In the distance, something was getting louder.
“As if your magic could overpower mine,” Becker taunted. “I rule your sweetheart now. Just look at him.”
Just behind Becker was Arthur, standing statue-still, Ellis’s blood on his fists, his gaze on Rory. One of the lost guns was now in Arthur’s hands, ready at his side.
Rory’s anger rose, and the wind with it.
There was no high-pitched whistle this time. Instead, the distant rumble became a roar, like a freight train rushing toward them. The ground under Rory’s feet began to tremble.
In the moonlit sky above their heads, silvery clouds very slowly began to spin, like the hands of a clock.
“Oh Christ,” Rory heard Gwen say, somewhere down the drive. “Everyone, get down!”
Becker looked at the sky with alarm. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Calling the wind,” Rory said, as a gust whipped across the grounds. His clothes flapped as the clouds above his head turned faster, and then even faster. “And this time, it’s a twister.”
Arthur and all the other guards were suddenly still as Becker paled. “You can’t do that,” Becker said hoarsely. “You can’t possibly.”
Rory gritted his teeth as magic coursed through him like a current. “Can’t I?”
Another gust swept over the drive, powerful enough that Becker stumbled. A shingle blew off the roof. Then another off the dormer, the broken pieces not falling to the ground but caught like the air was a whirlpool. More shingles followed, the magical green fog sucked up to join the debris circling overhead as it came closer to the ground, spinning like water circling a drain.
Becker stared wide eyed at the mess whipping around them like a giant handcuff. “Shoot him!” Becker barked at Arthur. “He’s going to kill all of us. Shoot him, and then yourself—”
“No!”
Rory’s shout split the air as his magic leapt from him.
The night sky burst with a roar that shook the ground. Cars creaked and branches snapped as magic cracked through the air. It arced like a lightning bolt from Rory to Arthur, and he could smell it, taste it, like a summer thunderstorm opening in the heavens, like a twister touching down.
Arthur gasped.
His eyes went impossibly wide and the hand without the gun flew to his chest. His tuxedo jacket flapped as the enchanted tornado encircled them, but Rory knew in that moment that Arthur could have walked straight through the tornado and come out unharmed, because he was right, Rory’s magic would never hurt him.
The tornado roared louder as Arthur’s shout cut across the driveway. “Close your eyes, Teddy!”
Rory shut his eyes automatically, trusting but not understanding, as Arthur whirled away—
And a gunshot split the air.
Rory hit the ground like a reflex, his tornado zipping straight up to the sky and disappearing into the clouds. Shingles and broken branches fell to the ground around them as he curled into himself, his arms automatically covering his head. He took a terrified breath and forced his eyes open.
In the midst of the destroyed grounds, Becker was crumpled across from him, unmoving.
The gun in Arthur’s hand was still smoking.
Arthur glanced over his shoulder at Rory, shoulders heaving. “Thank you, love,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
And then he was sprinting toward the driveway’s edge, where Ellis’s still-prone body lay.
Rory let out a breath, using the car to pull himself to his feet. The fighting was quieting. All of the guards seemed to either be unconscious or wearing their own cuffs. Several guns were floating in the air again, and Rory heard two of them cock.
“Next guard to twitch finds out how good my telekinetic aim is,” Jade said, her expression daring anyone to come closer.
Rory crossed the drive to where Gwen had gone to Ellis’s side. Arthur was there too, his face ghost-white as he watched Gwen help Ellis sit up with heartbreakingly gentle touches. She carefully wiped blood off Ellis’s face, and he turned and kissed her hand.
“Where are Zeppler and the Puppeteer?” he asked.
“Becker’s dead.” Arthur didn’t even sound like himself. “After what he made me do to Rory, I—” He swallowed hard. “His life was forfeit.”
Rory balled the fist with the Tempest Ring on it.
“Zeppler is at the foot of the stairs,” said Zhang. “Still paralyzed.”
“I want to see him,” Ellis said tightly.
Gwen helped him to his feet. Ellis leaned on her as the two of them led the way over to Zeppler, Arthur and Jade at their heels, and Rory and Zhang behind them.
Their group encircled Zeppler, who still lay on the ground in the exact same position they’d left him, his eyes fixed on the sky. Ellis’s wedding ring st
ill glinted on his finger.
Gwen stared dispassionately down at Zeppler. “He wanted to unlock the Venom Dagger’s magic. He used us to try, put Ellis though the pain of choosing between Philippe’s life and mine.”
“Gwen saw only magic for two years because of him.” Ellis entwined his fingers with hers. “And we’re not the only ones he’s hurt.” His eyes strayed to Jade and Arthur.
Gwen cocked her head. “I have so many thoughts about what we should do with you,” she said, almost sweetly. “I hope you can hear them all.”
“I hope you hear my thoughts too,” Ellis said, with deep loathing. “And I hope you’re afraid.”
Zeppler stared straight at the night sky, not blinking, not moving.
“Ellis, love,” Gwen said, her eyes never leaving Zeppler, “can you reach the siphon?”
Jade folded her arms but didn’t speak. The other firestarter, Philippe, had been her friend too, Rory remembered. And Arthur’s.
Arthur was standing just behind Jade, tense and drawn, his skin far too pale. He glanced up, in Rory’s direction.
Rory opened his mouth.
Then Arthur quickly averted his eyes, looking down at the ground, his shoulders hunching.
Rory swallowed and wrapped his arms around himself.
Zhang was the one who picked up the siphon clock from the steps. He handed it over to Ellis without a word. Ellis crouched on the other side of Zeppler and set the siphon against his hand. He wiped some of his own blood off his face and added it to the final clock hand as Gwen reached for her own left hand and pulled the wedding band off her finger.
“We’re making a new relic tonight,” she said to Zeppler. “So that you can’t hurt anyone ever again.”
Rory sucked in a breath as Arthur and Jade exchanged a look, silent agreement and support.
Zhang was suddenly at Rory’s side. “Come help me check on all of Zeppler’s henchmen?” he said quietly, making it a question.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s go,” Rory said hastily.
He followed Zhang away from the manor, away from the baron and the others. Gravel crunched under their feet as they walked down the drive.
Several yards away, they crouched next to the first guard, who was breathing but still unconscious.
“They’re doing the right thing,” Zhang said quietly, as he checked the man’s handcuffs. “I just—I don’t know, maybe we should help, but I wanted to give them a moment.”
“Yeah,” Rory said, with feeling. “This was their fight. The baron ripped apart their lives, destroyed their friendship, got their other friend killed. Let them finish it. I hate the prickling of all that magic in the air anyway.”
He glanced back up at the four of them, eyes soft. “And Jade and Ace are probably gonna have a lot of complicated feelings after this. Sometimes what you can do to help is be ready to be the strong one when they need you.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
By the time Rory and Zhang finished their rounds and walked back to the others, they found Zeppler unconscious on the ground. Gwen had her wedding band in her hand. Ellis passed her the ring box, and she closed the ring into it.
Rory tensed—
Gwen held the box out to Jade.
Jade blinked.
“This ring now holds Zeppler’s telepathy,” Gwen said quietly. “Do what you will with it. I suggest giving it to the de Leons; when they get their siphon back, they should be able to put it under protection with the relics.”
Ellis bent with a grunt and picked up the siphon. “Here, Ace,” he said gruffly, pushing it into Arthur’s hands. “Destroy that pomander, then give this back to Sebastian’s family. Maybe they’ll decide to destroy all the relics, or maybe they can figure out a way to use it to help subordinate paranormals instead of just making paranormal despots.”
Arthur held the siphon awkwardly against his chest. He still looked too pale, and deeply exhausted. His eyes were haunted, and no matter how hard Rory tried to catch his gaze, Arthur couldn’t seem to bear to look at him.
“So.” Rory folded his arms. “Ace getting snatched by the Puppeteer was your plan of last resort.”
“No,” Gwen and Ellis said, in the same breath.
“You getting captured by the Puppeteer was never part of any plan,” Ellis said, with feeling. “That would have been too far, even for revenge.”
Gwen bit her lip. “We hadn’t come up with anything better than switching rings. But when Arthur fell under blood magic, we ran out of time.”
“You double-crossed us,” Arthur said, his voice hoarse. “So you could triple-cross the baron.”
“And for what?” Jade looked deeply hurt. “I thought we were coming around, I thought maybe we’d get there again. How could you betray us?”
Gwen swallowed. “Thoughts are impossible to hide,” she said. “Rory and Arthur couldn’t know the plan. To fool a telepath, they had to believe the betrayal was real all the way down to their bones.”
“But why not involve, or at least tell one of us?” Jade said plaintively. “How are we ever supposed to trust either of you again?”
“You probably can’t,” Gwen said quietly. “And that’s why we couldn’t tell you.”
She gestured at the four of them, Arthur and Rory, Jade and Zhang. “Friendships like yours, feelings like yours—they are their own kind of magic. And a betrayal this deep, necessary to fool a telepath—your trust in one another might not have survived.”
She shook her head. “We would not destroy you like that. Better Ellis and I do it alone, and remain your villains, while your love for each other stays unspoiled.”
Arthur took a breath. Rory’s heart clenched as Jade stared at Gwen.
And then Jade suddenly pulled her into a hug. “I am so mad at you.”
Gwen hugged her back, something desperate around the edge. “Can’t exactly blame you.”
“I’m going to be mad at you for ages. Possibly forever.”
“Probably fair,” Gwen agreed, as her arms tightened around Jade.
Arthur looked at Ellis, blood smeared on his face from Arthur’s blows. “You’re still bleeding,” he started.
But Ellis waved him quiet. “It’ll heal. I’ve done you dirtier than this, and I wasn’t under blood magic,” he said. “Maybe we call it square?”
Arthur swallowed. “Give me time,” he said, tightly but not meanly.
Rory had a lump in his throat. The tenseness in Arthur, the visible pain, hurt Rory worse than any of his own scrapes or bruises. He moved behind Jade and Zhang to Arthur’s side and put a hand lightly on his arm.
Arthur flinched.
Rory drew his hand away as fast as he could. “Sorry, so sorry, I didn’t—”
“You didn’t,” Arthur said quickly, with so much emotion in his voice that Rory’s throat tightened. “You didn’t do a single thing wrong. You are so innocent in all of this, and I can’t—I didn’t—you’re fine.”
Rory bit his lip. “I was gonna ask if your aura’s all right.”
Arthur shrugged helplessly. “Everything about me is so very far from all right.” He ran a hand through his own hair, the normally perfect strands a disaster. His tuxedo was a disaster too, mud stained, dusty, and worst of all, the white shirt covered in blood.
Rory had so much he wanted to say. But they were surrounded by friends and enemies and whatever Gwen and Ellis were, so instead of words, he reached for Arthur’s hand. Arthur’s fingers were cold, his palm clammy, and Rory held on with his warmer one.
He looked back at the others, and found Gwen’s eyes on them.
“So what happens to Zeppler now?” Jade said.
Gwen shook her head as if clearing it, then turned to Jade. “I was thinking we’d give him to the French police.”
Jade raised an eyebrow.
“He has no magic left in
him, and as long as you keep that ring away from him, he won’t be a paranormal anymore,” said Gwen. “He’s wanted for several murders in France alone. He murdered Mr. Zhang’s friend ten years ago, and we have Becker and Chance’s bodies that we can blame on him tonight. Let the mundane police have him.”
“You don’t want to torture him to death?” Arthur said tightly. “Because I spent mere hours in his company, and I do.”
“I admit, it is tempting to take him out into the Channel and see just what I can make the ocean do.” Gwen was staring down at Zeppler. “But no. Let him spend his life in prison without his magic.”
“And the guards?”
“They were under Becker’s blood magic. They’ll be free now.” Gwen looked at Ellis. “Maybe we’ll all be free.”
Rory felt Arthur’s hand in his, cold and clammy, stiff as a corpse.
It wasn’t gonna be that easy.
* * *
Arthur’s body was on a new kind of automatic, not the Puppeteer’s magic but an automation of his own. He jerkily went through with the motions to help the others clean up while his brain tried to bury every feeling, because if he thought too hard about what had happened, he might start screaming and not stop.
Doing even more damage was an unbearable thought.
Zhang found the manor’s telephone and Jade called the police, alerting them to Zeppler as a wanted murderer, with no mention of magic.
As they stood on the drive, hearing the approaching cars, Zhang was frowning.
“You’ve noticed too, then,” Gwen said to him.
Arthur glanced between them. “Noticed what?”
“Zeppler had a relic of his own, didn’t he?” said Zhang. “The brooch he stole from me before the war. But it isn’t on his body, and it’s nowhere to be found in the manor.”
“He isn’t bound to it anymore,” Gwen said quietly. “Two years ago, I could see it in his magic. Tonight, it was gone—or at least, it was gone by the time I got here. Maybe the connection was severed when he put on Ellis’s ring with the magic of the Venom Dagger. Or maybe something else.”
Zhang looked troubled. “But then where is the brooch?”
