Royals of Villain Academy 8: Vicious Arts

by Eva Chase

  He was silent for a long moment. “All right. Thank you. I—I really don’t know what I’d want at this point. I haven’t even talked to anyone except the staff and occasionally you or Mom and Dad in years.” He let out a self-deprecating laugh and raked his hand through his hair. “We’ll see how I feel once I’m getting a handle on my magic and finding out how everyone else is going to adapt to my return. Their respect matters just as much as our personal preferences.”

  I bristled automatically. “Anyone who treats you like you don’t deserve respect will have to answer to me.”

  Holden raised an eyebrow at me. “Which I’m sure will make them feel so much more respectful, watching my brother fight my battles for me.”

  Okay, he had a point there. I let out a breath. “First things first, I guess. Who knows what the pentacle of barons will even look like after this mess. But I do want you to be a part of the scion discussions and all that. You’re just as much a scion as I am.”

  Holden inclined his head. “I can agree to that. I’m looking forward to seeing how the other guys have changed since I last saw them—and to finally meeting the Bloodstone scion.” He gave me a crooked smile. “Let’s hope the current barons don’t burn everything down before we get any choices about our future at all.”

  Chapter Six

  Rory

  The room we’d claimed for the Scions’ Guard was crowded now, our numbers nearly doubled in just a few days. Looking at the classmates who’d gathered to support us and our cause, hope swelled in my chest even though we had a long way to go before we were anywhere close to victory.

  Declan, Malcolm, and I had done most of the talking, Jude preferring to hang back with the knowledge that he wasn’t officially a scion and Connar not being much of a talker in general. Malcolm finished the meeting off with a clap of his hands and a grin he aimed at the whole assembly.

  “Keep up the good work, and make sure the people you’ve reached out to are prepared to speak up as soon as the barons’ activities become public. If we all push back together, they can’t dismiss us.”

  Someone toward the back of the group let out a whoop of encouragement, and a few others laughed—a little nervously, maybe, but the fact that they were here at all showed how committed they were. Associating with the scions right now was treacherous ground when our eventual victory was hardly a sure thing.

  As our Guard filed out of the room, I touched Malcolm’s arm. “You do know how to get them pumped up.”

  “Best part of the job,” he said, shifting his hand so he could squeeze mine. His gaze lingered on me for a few seconds longer, and that uneasy vibe of intensity and uncertainty struck me again.

  Something was bothering him, something he hadn’t been able to overcome on his own. It didn’t matter how much else we had to deal with right now—I couldn’t see any good coming out of letting it fester any longer.

  “Hold on a minute,” I said to him, and he nodded, but his cocky smile looked a bit tense around the edges too. I saw the other scions off with a kiss here and a hug there while he hung back. When I turned to him, just the two of us left in the room, he sauntered closer with more of his usual self-assured air.

  “And why exactly were you looking to get me alone, Glinda?” he said in a low voice, slipping one arm around my back. “Couldn’t resist my impressive leadership skills?”

  I gave him a pointed look. “They are very impressive, but I wanted to talk. You’ve been edgy about something all week. Something to do with me, it seems like. I think it’s about time you told me what’s going on.”

  His body tensed next to mine. He swallowed audibly, his attention sliding away from me for a moment. “It’s nothing you’ve done. It might not be anything at all, so I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

  “Think about what?” I gave his chest a gentle shove. “After everything you’ve already put me through, it can’t be that bad.”

  He met my eyes again, with enough turmoil in his dark brown gaze that my stomach sank. He thought it could be that bad. Shit.

  “What?” I said again, my voice softening.

  “Like I said, it could be nothing.” He let out a ragged breath. “When I grabbed my sister to get her away from my parents, I went back to the house to pick up a few things. My mom was out, and I thought my dad would be holed up in his office working… but he had a guest over. Your mother was with him.”

  My mother hadn’t told me about any one-on-one visits with the other barons, but then, I wouldn’t necessarily have expected her to. “I guess that’s not so surprising. It seems like they were always the closest friends out of the original pentacle.”

  Malcolm let out a dark chuckle. “Oh, they were being a lot more than friendly. It wasn’t a business meeting or a platonic social call—they were hooking up. And from the way they were talking, it’s an affair that’s been going on for a long time. They were seeing each other while she was married.”

  “Oh.” The thought made me slightly queasy. I disagreed with my mother on a lot of topics, but she had a good side too. I didn’t want to add “cheater” to the list of her transgressions. I had wondered, having met my paternal grandparents, how much she’d actually respected my father if he was anything like them… Apparently she hadn’t very much at all. “Well, that’s unpleasant to know, but I can’t say I’m totally shocked. Is that all you were worried about telling me?”

  Malcolm studied my face for a moment as if he were looking for something else. “If they were involved before you were born… your father might not even really be your father.”

  I stared at him for a moment before the full implications of that statement sank in. Then my eyes widened even more. “You think—”

  “I don’t think anything,” he said, quickly and firmly. “It’s possible, that’s all. And I—I don’t fucking care, even if it’s true, okay? I’m sure as hell never going to see you as a sister. If we’re related by blood, I’ll still want to be with you just as much as I did before. We just… won’t take the risk of bringing kids into the equation, and then it doesn’t really matter, right? You’ve got plenty of other options when it comes to providing Bloodstone heirs.”

  The corner of his mouth crooked up at a wry angle, but the intensity in his eyes hadn’t faded. He was afraid that it’d matter more than that to me. I looked back at him, trying to wrap my head around the idea—that we might share a father, that we could theoretically be half-siblings—and how I’d feel if it were true.

  Maybe that didn’t even have to matter. “I don’t think it’s likely,” I said. “She’s said things about my father, at least once—about why she picked him, about balancing out my strengths, since she only has three… And I can’t imagine her being careless about bringing her heirs into the world.”

  “On the other hand, the fact that you have more strengths than she does could indicate a particularly powerful partner. She can say whatever she wants about your father to deflect the idea.”

  True. I hugged myself and leaned into him instinctively. Malcolm’s arm tightened around me, the tang of his aquatic cologne filling my nose.

  I didn’t want it to be true, because if I knew it was, maybe I wouldn’t be able to look at him quite the same way. And the last thing I wanted was to give up the fire and devotion he offered up so easily now.

  “There’s no point in letting the possibility hang over us,” I said. “There are spells that can identify a genetic connection, aren’t there? That’s why Lillian had me help with the spellwork to find my mother.”

  Malcolm nodded. “We’d need someone at least somewhat experienced with them doing the casting, if they’re going by the two of us. Any connection less direct than parent to child or full sibling to full sibling is harder to confirm. It’s in the physicality realm, so Connar might be able to pull it off without specific training.”

  But then we’d have to admit the problem to him. And if he couldn’t, to someone completely outside the pentacle of scions. I wasn’t eager t
o involve others either. I bit my lip.

  “Before we go to that length, then, maybe I can talk to my mother. I should be able to get a pretty good read on her at this point. If I can get a good enough answer out of her, then we won’t need to worry about the rest.”

  “Or we could just… decide it’s fine either way and not poke at the possibility any more than we already have.”

  I looked up at him. “Would you really not want to know for sure?”

  His mouth twisted. “It’s hard to say. If finding it out as a fact makes it impossible to ignore…” He ducked his head next to mine, tugging me even closer to him. “I’ve never denied that I can be selfish, Rory. I don’t want to lose you.”

  A pang shot through my heart. Malcolm didn’t often let himself express any kind of vulnerability. And I understood that emotion, because the same fear was coursing through me. I raised my hand to his cheek, struggling to put into words why I’d be willing to take that risk.

  “I don’t want to lose you either,” I said. “And we could find out it’s not true at all, or that if it is we can handle that. I want to know—I mean, we can’t even be sure how official our relationship is ever going to be—but if we make it work… Maybe I’d want to have an heir with you if we can.”

  Malcolm made a rough sound in his throat, and then he was kissing me, so hard my legs wobbled. I gripped his shirt and kissed him back, and in that moment, at least, the ideas he’d raised didn’t matter one bit.

  “Okay,” he said when he drew back. “You talk to your mom if you find the chance, and after we see what she says, we’ll figure out where to go from there.”

  It wasn’t exactly a resolution, but it was a plan. I felt a little more settled for about five seconds, and then my phone rang.

  It was Maggie—calling rather than texting like she usually did. My pulse stuttered as I answered. “Hey. What’s up?”

  “I’m not completely sure.” Her voice had a slightly hushed quality, as if she were afraid of being overheard. “The blacksuits got in touch with your mother—something about ‘joymancers’ location’—and she and at least one of the other barons went off with a squad, looking pretty scary. I think they were looking for the mages who broke the wards around that town by campus. They figured some of the joymancers had stayed in the area to keep an eye on what we’d do next.”

  “And the blacksuits figured out where the joymancers are?” Oh, shit. My mother had been shaken up by the conflict with the joymancers. Their leaders had held her imprisoned for years—it was no wonder she wanted them to stay as far away from her as possible. And given the rage she harbored after her treatment at their hands, I had no doubt she’d go to awfully violent lengths to see them gone.

  “I don’t know if they’d found them or just had some promising leads,” Maggie said. “I just didn’t like the vibe I got from the group when they left. And the fact that your mother didn’t ask me to come along—it didn’t seem like it was just a fact-finding mission.”

  I shivered. “You must have plenty of connections with the blacksuits after all your time working for Lillian. Do you think you can get any of them to find out where that squad was going?” If they had located joymancers nearby, maybe I could warn the other mages to get out of there before it turned into outright warfare. It was my fault they were in this part of the country at all; I’d asked them to come defend the Naries the barons were tormenting.

  “It depends… I might be able to find the right angle to get it out of someone. Here, let me make a few calls. If I turn anything definite up, I’ll let you know right away.”

  “Thanks. I know you’re putting yourself in a precarious situation tipping me off like this.”

  Until recently, my secret second cousin and I had been at odds, her seeing me as just as bad as the Bloodstones her part of the family had told her about as she grew up. Now that we understood we both wanted a gentler approach to ruling, I couldn’t have asked for a better ally on the inside.

  “It’s the least I can do,” Maggie said. “Hopefully you’ll hear from me soon.”

  When I hung up and turned back to Malcolm, he was frowning. He’d obviously caught enough to have a general idea what was going on. “The barons are out for joymancer blood?” he said.

  “It sounds like it.” What could we really do about that? I dragged in a breath. “We should get the others back here so we’re ready if Maggie can find out where they’re going.”

  Within ten minutes, the other scions had rejoined us, along with a few members of the Guard they’d been able to call on nearby. Just as Connar came into the room, Maggie texted me an address.

  It’s a motel, looks like about an hour away from you. Whatever you do with that information, be careful.

  As if we were the ones in any danger. I looked up the motel’s main phone number and dialed it as quickly as I could.

  A busy signal beeped in response. I grimaced, hung up, and paced the room’s mats for a minute before trying again. Still busy.

  “I can’t get through,” I said to my companions. “The place isn’t that far from here. Maybe we should go, see if there’s anything we can do. The blacksuits might still only be surveilling the area.”

  Declan nodded, his jaw tight. “We should be able to stop them from noticing us if we’re properly prepared. We’ll take two cars, all of us go? If any sort of violence breaks out, I think we’ll be better off having solid numbers.”

  “I’m in,” Malcolm said. “Let’s get going.”

  Jude drew back. “As much as I’d like to contribute, you all know I’m more of a liability than an asset at this point.” He motioned to his chest, to the space where he could no longer contain much magic. “I’ll keep an eye on things here and let you know if anything that seems useful comes up?”

  “It’s probably good to have someone stay back and keep watch.” I bobbed up to give him a kiss before the rest of us hurried out to the garage.

  I ended up in Declan’s car, two of the Guard members in the seat behind us. For all his usual reserve, the Ashgrave scion had no problem gunning the engine and racing down the highway with a quick casting to reflect the notice of any traffic cops we passed. I peered out the window with my hands clasped on my lap, my heart thudding hard. Every few minutes, I tried the motel’s phone number again. It was busy a couple more times—and then it just rang until it went through to the answering machine.

  “If they’re fighting when we get there, should we risk intervening?” I asked. Taking the joymancers’ side would be clear-cut treason, no questions about it, but the last thing I wanted to do was help the barons attempt to do away with them.

  “I don’t know,” Declan said. “Better we wait and see what the situation is when we get there. Maybe we can deflect some of the fighting without being too obvious about it, but enough to give the joymancers time to get out of there.”

  That thought reassured me until we raced into view of the squat building just off the highway. It wouldn’t have looked like anything all that striking—except three ambulances were parked out front along with several police cars, lights flashing all over. Another ambulance was just pulling away toward the nearest town.

  My hopes plummeted. We were too late.

  Declan slowed, and we parked at the far end of the lot outside the motel. A woman in a cleaning uniform was standing on the patchy grass nearby, dragging on a cigarette she held with a shaky hand.

  “No rooms available right now,” she said with a humorless laugh when we got out. “My God. I don’t even know…” She gazed toward the building with a haunted expression.

  “What happened?” I ventured.

  She shook her head. “Fucking crazy. Everything seemed totally normal, and then there were these screams… By the time anyone got out to the rooms, it was all just blood, and more.” Her face turned a little green. She sucked on her cigarette again. “Nine people staying here the last few days, came as the group of them, and all of them look like they got shredded. No one
even saw who did it.”

  It hadn’t been a battle then. It’d only been a slaughter. The barons and the blacksuits had descended on the joymancers and blasted through their defenses too quickly for them to fight back. And then they’d eviscerated them all without a second’s hesitation.

  Chapter Seven

  Rory

  I hadn’t spoken to my mother since the day at our house when the other scions and I had confronted the barons. To say I was nervous meeting with her now was like saying the ocean is damp. But the staff office Ms. Grimsworth had let us borrow for this talk felt like at least somewhat neutral ground.

  My mother didn’t seem to see it the same way—or else she did, and that was why she cast a narrow gaze around the bookshelf-lined space with a disdainful curl of her lip. She’d have preferred an environment where she had the upper hand.

  “Is this really necessary, Persephone?” she said. “Surely we could have met up for lunch or at one of our properties like we always have before. We may have our differences, but you’re still my daughter.”

  True, but I didn’t think I could stand to expose the townspeople she’d lorded her power over to her presence, even if the memories of that horrible time had been magically wiped from their minds. Some part of them might react even if they couldn’t consciously understand why. And I didn’t trust her enough to risk venturing onto territory that was completely under her control.