by Eva Chase
My gut clenched. “Wonderful. I guess we’ll go over the details once everyone is here?”
He’d made it clear his summons was urgent. More of the Guard trickled in by the minute, along with our fellow scions. Connar drew up the rear of the procession, with a guy who looked with a thinner, shaggier version of him walking a little stiffly beside him.
He’d mentioned his brother would be coming to the school to start his education, but I hadn’t had the chance to meet Holden yet. The protectiveness with which the Stormhurst scion hovered near his twin sent a twinge of fondness through my chest.
There wasn’t time for proper introductions at this exact second. Malcolm appeared to have judged that everyone important had turned up. He nudged his friend, who swiveled the laptop around. A news website with a video report was open on the screen.
“We have reason to believe that the barons have gotten their lackeys to start magically influencing major Nary political figures into pursuing extreme policies, most likely to purposely stir up conflict among the Naries,” Malcolm said. “Several politicians announced major changes in approach today, things that their constituents are already expressing shock and horror over—things that are going to badly affect a lot of those people, as far as I can tell. All this appears to have come out of nowhere, too.”
His friend started the video playing, and the tinny sound from the speakers carried through the room.
“There’s a lot of confusion here in D.C. today as figures from both parties have come forward with proposals no one could have expected—but that they seem adamant about passing through Congress,” a reporter said in dramatic tones. She listed several announcements including the rolling back of employment anti-discrimination policies, a huge increase in health care costs, and, most overtly strange, a motion to see actual soldiers patrolling high schools. Even though I’d been prepared for extremes, my eyebrows rose at that last one.
“When asked, none of the officers and representatives involved were willing to give an explanation for these sudden and significant shifts in their expected platform,” the reporter went on. “We will continue to press for more details and share them as available. In the meantime, an outcry has already risen up across the country against the proposals.”
The guy let the video play through a few clips of regular citizens talking about how the changes would shatter their lives, and then clicked it off. Declan, who’d come over to join us at the front of the room, looked to me.
“I’m not an expert on Nary politics by any stretch, but this sounds awfully extreme to be coming from the officials themselves,” he said. “You’d have paid more attention to this sort of thing growing up the way you did, Rory. Would you agree?”
A hollow sensation had already formed in the pit of my stomach. “Yeah. For so many huge shifts in approach to all be coming out at once like this, and such significant changes from their previous policies… and when we know the barons intended to tackle the Naries from the top down—this has to be fearmancer interference, undermining the Nary leadership. I have no idea where exactly they think they’re going to go with it, but it’s obviously not anywhere good.”
“So we have proof that they’re meddling with the Nary government now,” one of the Guard members said. “Where do we take it from here?”
The other scions would have a better idea of how fearmancer politics worked than I did. I glanced around at them. Declan frowned in thought.
“We’ll figure out our most powerful talking points,” he said. “Then we all need to contact at least one of the barons and express those objections. And not just us, because they’re not going to give a lot of weight to the opinions of students, but all the people you’ve made overtures to in the last few days. If you think you can get your parents, other relatives, family friends who are more established—anyone from the older generations—to speak up now, let them know what’s going on and do your best to encourage them if they’re worried. Let them know they’ll be far from alone.”
“We’re just going to talk,” a guy said skeptically. “Do you really think that’s going to accomplish anything? They haven’t paid attention before.”
“Do you really want to jump into full-out war with the barons and the families that are supporting them?” Jude asked with an arch of his eyebrows. “We didn’t have specifics to argue against before. This is the first time we’ve been able to raise a real protest against their current actions. That’s what we’ve had you reaching out to your friends and family for—so they’re ready to speak up now.”
“Exactly,” I said. “We’ve only just started opposing them. I don’t know if talking will be enough, but we’re better off trying that first. I don’t want to see anyone here getting hurt from the fallout if I can help it.”
“I don’t want to get into some kind of battle if we don’t have to,” Victory piped up. “Let’s get going with the talking part. How are we going to approach this? We’re going to need better arguments than that we don’t like it.”
“The barons don’t care about the well-being of the Naries, so we can’t use that angle,” Declan said. “We’ll want to focus on how it affects the people they’re supposed to represent.”
We shot ideas back and forth as a group for several minutes until we came up with what seemed like the most pointed criticism: the barons should be focused on improving our own society, not ruining the Naries’, and getting a little extra power from scaring them openly wasn’t worth all this distraction. That and the fact that none of us wanted to take control over the Naries on any scale, let alone a national one, I hoped would get through to them if they heard it from enough people. How long could they keep believing they were helping all of us if dozens of fearmancers were telling them the opposite?
Maybe I couldn’t summon a lot of optimism, but I wasn’t giving up on peaceful tactics just yet.
As the Guard headed out to start talking up the issue with their families and friends, I went over to properly meet the only member of Connar’s family besides him who mattered all that much right now. Connar smiled when he saw me coming.
“Holden, this is our long-lost Bloodstone scion,” he said, grasping my hand. “Rory, I’m glad you can finally get to meet my brother.”
“So am I.” I tipped my head to the other guy. “It’s great that you can properly join us here at the university, even if I wish it wasn’t in the middle of such a chaotic time.”
Holden shrugged, the motion only slightly stiff. Connar had said he wasn’t completely physically recovered yet. “If it wasn’t for the chaos, you all might not have found out that I could be cured—or been in a position to arrange it. I can’t resent that. I understand you helped find the doctor who was willing to work behind our mother’s back. Thank you so much for that.”
“Of course.”
He glanced around the room. He had something of a detached air that I guessed came with having been set apart from his peers and the rest of fearmancer society for so long. “I’d like to be able to contribute more to your efforts, but I’m afraid I don’t have any outside connections at all after all this time.”
“That’s not your fault,” Connar said firmly.
“No, but I can still lament it.” Holden gave his brother a mild smile.
I wasn’t sure what to do with the subtle but awkward tension that had risen between them. Declan spared me from having to decide by herding us all toward the door. “Let’s take some time to regroup and discuss next steps in the scion lounge. I’ll go grab lunch for all of us from the cafeteria.”
Holden exclaimed over the lounge with the same distant vibe, and we all dug into the sandwiches Declan brought back. I didn’t think any of us really wanted to think about what our next steps would have to be if putting vocal pressure on the barons didn’t work, let alone talk about them. The silence started to grow heavy as we finished our meal—and then Jude glanced at his phone with a pleased cry.
“What?” I said with a holt of hope.
Declan perked up. “That’s a huge step in the right direction. With pressure from within the baronies themselves, and not just us scions, they really can’t ignore how many of us disagree with the direction they’ve taken.”
“It seems like something’s going around,” Malcolm said in a grimmer tone. He’d pulled out his own phone during Jude’s announcement. “My father wants to arrange a parley with me, as soon as possible—alone.”
Chapter Nine
Malcolm
It was a strange sensation, both wanting someone with me and yet wanting them as far away from me as they could possibly get. I glanced over at Rory as I drove past the edge of town toward the meeting spot my father had picked. She sat tensed in the passenger seat, her expression so fierce with determination it sent a stutter of desire through my pulse despite everything ahead of us.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. I’d expressed a similar sentiment to all of my fellow scions back in the lounge, but it was harder to accept Rory’s insistence than it’d been with the guys. “The three of us can handle him—I can handle him myself if I have to.”
She gave me a bemused look. “Are you suggesting you dump me on the side of the road? I think the ship has already sailed.”
“I could bring you back to town. It’d only take a few minutes.” Declan and Connar in the car behind us would wonder what the hell I was doing, but I was okay with that if it got the woman beside me out of Baron Nightwood’s attack range.
“Sorry,” she said. “You’re stuck with me. The more of us you have with you, the harder it’ll be for him to hurt any of us. And maybe you could handle him on your own… but he is a baron, and your dad. It’s… different when it’s your own parent. Even when you haven’t known them that long.” A strain came into her voice as she must have thought of her own confrontations with her mother.
I wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that I didn’t give any more of a shit what my dad did or said than any of the other barons, but that would have been a lie. If I’d been driving out to face Baron Killbrook or Declan’s asshole aunt, I wouldn’t have had this coil of dread clamped around my stomach.
I hadn’t told him I was bringing company. Did Dad really think I was stupid or reckless enough to drive out to the middle of nowhere on his command with no backup whatsoever? It wasn’t as if the other barons hadn’t proven how willing they were to go on the offensive against their own heirs, and he’d never been more forgiving than the rest of them.
But before now, I’d never really stood up to him. I’d played the role of the avidly dedicated scion every time I’d been with him; I’d accepted his “lessons” and punishments without complaint, thinking I deserved them, that he was shaping me into someone stronger.
Maybe I was stronger because of all that. But then, Rory had been raised by parents loving enough to leave her horrified by the way my and Connar’s and Jude’s parents treated us, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever met anyone stronger than her. Maybe he’d just enjoyed exerting that kind of power over my sister and me.
It wouldn’t be the worst thing I’d found out about him in the past few months.
“You just—you stay a little farther back,” I said. “He’s had it in for you practically from the moment you turned up. He probably blames you, at least in part, for me turning against him. If he’s going to target any of us more than the others, it’ll be you.”
“We’ll all be standing together,” Rory said. A smile crossed her lips, sharper than usual. “And I can handle him. You focus on protecting yourself.”
I wasn’t sure she’d mind if she was forced to throw a few spells his way in self-defense. She’d been pissed off enough over the way he and the other barons had tried to sabotage her—she’d been even more upset when she’d seen how he’d retaliated after I’d stood up for her during her murder hearing.
I probably didn’t need to worry like this anyway. Rory had the most composure out of any of us except maybe Declan. It wasn’t as if she’d go in looking to provoke a fight.
When the location Dad had sent me came into sight, my heart sank. It was an abandoned farm with an ancient For Sale sign that was faded from the weather posted near the road. The windows on the house were boarded up, and the roof of the big barn sagged. My father’s car was parked outside the barn. The door stood a few feet ajar.
He was waiting for me in there. And the only reason for him to lower himself to setting foot in a decrepit place like that was if he wanted to make sure no one outside could witness any magic he cast my way. He might as well have thrown the first shot before I’d even set eyes on him.
Rory might not have automatically thought through Baron Nightwood’s choice of setting to the obvious conclusions, but Declan and Connar had clearly recognized the implicit threat the same way I had. When they got out of Declan’s car, parked next to mine several feet from my father’s, they both eyed the building with blatant wariness, Declan’s shoulders stiffening, Connar flexing his muscles as if the barn would be intimidated by his posturing.
I didn’t really want to bring any of them in there to face my prick of a dad, but fucking hell, I was glad to have them with me all the same. Poor Jude back on campus was probably pissed that he wasn’t here too, even though he’d automatically bowed out the way he had for anything that would require much use of magic ever since his own supposed father had messed him up.
“Ready?” I said to my three colleagues—friends and lover. They all nodded. There was nothing for it but to march right in as if I wasn’t at all fazed.
I’d rather die than let the old man see he’d shaken me even slightly. He didn’t deserve the satisfaction.
Dad would have been monitoring the area around the barn with a spell. He couldn’t be surprised when the four of us walked in rather than me alone. Still, he made a show of turning to face us where he was standing by a few scruffy bales of hay at the far end of the gaping space and lifting his eyebrows with the perfect mix of astonishment and admonition. A smell like dank dead grass trickled into my nose. I restrained a grimace.
“I asked to have a private conversation, Malcolm,” Dad said in his cool voice. The wind made the bowed-in roof creak overhead.
“This is my pentacle,” I said. “Whatever you say to me, they’ll end up hearing it anyway. I’m just streamlining the process.”
If he made anything of the fact that one of my theoretical pentacle wasn’t with us, he didn’t show it. Instead, he let out a sigh. “It was bad enough that you roped several of your fellow students into this backlash against us. Now you’re putting out calls for support farther abroad? Do you think they’ll respect you as baron after you’ve shown how little you respect the barons you have now?”
I resisted the urge to grit my teeth. “I think they’ll respect the fact that I cared about what they want and encouraged them to say their piece instead of expecting them to fall in line just because I said so.”
“Is that how this looks to you?” He chuckled dryly, but a weird light came into his eyes, something almost manic. “How I raised a son this ignorant… We’ve done all this for you, you idiots.”
“How can it be for us when we’re telling you in every possible way that we don’t want it, and you’re ignoring us?” I demanded.
He shook his head. “You have no idea—how many generations of our family have dreamed of reaching this point, how long we’ve gathered support among the families that matter, all building up to when I could offer you the world. And you can’t think of anything better to do than throw that generosity back in my face.”
My temper started to fray. “I don’t care how long you’ve been hoping for this or how hard you worked. I don’t want to be a fucking Nary overlord. I had all the power I needed already. Don’t pass your greed off on me and try to make it out as if it’s
for my benefit.”
“That—that attitude.” He waved a finger at me. His gaze slid to the others as if he thought he could sway them against me. “You have no idea what could be possible. What you’re shutting yourselves off from.”
Rory’s voice rang out, pure and beautiful and oh dear God why couldn’t she have hung back like I’d asked her to?
“We’ve seen exactly what you’re doing. Dozens of people have told you they don’t want this either. Is it really so hard to understand that not everyone feels the same way you do?”
“You.” Dad’s voice took on a cuttingly cold edge. “Your mother might not see it, but I have from the start. Those superior assholes got their claws into you too deep for anyone at that university to pry them out. We should have tossed you back to the joymancers, and you’d see what sort of kindness you’d get there.”
“The reason they hate me is because fearmancers like you behave like monsters,” Rory shot back.
I held up my hand for her to stand down. A prickling ache was forming at the base of my throat. I had to force my words past it.
“None of this matters. We’ve heard it all. You just refuse to hear us. Well, I’m done. I’m done with taking your shit. I’m done with being your whipping boy. You thought you were so smart with all your sadistic little tests, but all they taught me was that you’d rather put your heirs through hell than have to justify what you believe.”
“Malcolm,” Dad said, wielding my name like a warning.
I hurtled onward. “You cheat, and you screw people over, and you throw the fearmancers you say you’re working so hard for to the wolves when it suits you. I’m more worthy of the Nightwood name already than you ever were or will be. My only regret is that it took me this long to figure that out.”
