by Sarah Fine
“Asa, wait! All those men—”
“Glamour.”
“Oh.” I let out a strained laugh. “It was a good one.”
“Come on.”
My brow furrowed as I took in the flat, unemotional sound of his voice. “Are you really all right?”
He didn’t answer.
I dug in my heels. “Wait.”
He yanked on my hand. “No.” He glanced at a watch strapped to his wrist. Beneath it seemed to be some sort of white wrap—a bandage? “We have forty seconds.”
“What? Who has forty—”
He put his arm around my waist and forced me forward.
“No!” I jabbed him in the ribs and grabbed at the panel. “I’m not going that way!”
“Reza and Lila are waiting,” he said in that cold, dead voice.
I began to fight him, slapping at his chest as he tried to wrestle me along. Horror and confusion had replaced my joy. “Asa, listen to me. You can get out. This is your chance. Come with me. We can leave this way!” I threw my body toward the Central Park exit, but Asa caught me and lifted me off my feet. I grabbed one of his forearms, right over the white wrap I’d seen, and he flinched, grunting in pain and dropping the mosaic to the floor. A piece of orange stone popped out and landed by Asa’s boot.
“Freeze,” bellowed a cop as he ran into the Medieval Art gallery. “Put her down and get your hands up, both of you!” He aimed his revolver at us.
Asa paused, eyeing the police officer. Slowly, he relaxed his iron grip and lowered me to my feet, taking just a half step behind me as he did. As I raised my arms I heard a soft smack, like a hard object hitting skin.
“Step to the side, sir. Hands up.”
“You got it,” said Asa. He took a large step to the side. But as he lifted his shaking hands, he flicked his wrist, sending a small object flying toward the cop. It landed at the officer’s feet—and he screamed. His weapon spiraled halfway across the room as if he couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.
Asa pocketed the piece of orange stone that had come loose from the panel. When he lunged for me, I scooped the mosaic from the floor and smacked him across the face with it, leaving him staggering. “Stop it,” I shouted. “We’re on the same side.”
His steps unsteady, he advanced on me as I backed up into the side gallery again. The look on his face scared me—as did the realization that he hadn’t once made eye contact with me. I wished Kira would appear and help me out. Maybe she could dose him with her magic and get him to come with us? I hated that I was considering doing that to him, but as more cops ran into the gallery and the room echoed with their shouts, I was desperate.
“Asa, please,” I cried as he reached for me again. I stomped my heel down on his foot, and he cursed and shoved me away. My ankle buckled, and I fell to my knees.
“Mattie?” Kira ran into the room, her eyes wide.
“Goddammit,” Asa said.
“Kira, get your hands on him,” I shrieked.
But Asa was too fast. He ripped the panel from my grip and kneed me in the chest when I tried to follow him. Then, as Kira ran forward, he drew a water pistol from beneath his jacket and shot her in the face. She stumbled back, gasping, and Asa muttered something to her as he ran by. He was out of view in an instant. The Medieval Art gallery was filled with the shouts of police now, coming closer with every second. I pushed myself up to my feet as Kira raced past me, shouting as she charged the cops.
“Kira, no!” I staggered after her.
She let out an animal scream and barreled into the Medieval Art gallery. I threw myself behind a pillar as the shots rang out. “Hold your fire,” a man shouted, and the gunfire finally stopped.
I peeked out from behind my pillar to see Kira sprawled on the floor of the gallery, her eyes empty, blood trickling from her mouth.
“Hands up!” the cop nearest to me shouted.
Too stunned to do anything but obey, I raised my arms. The cop ran forward and grabbed my wrist, then jerked it down and behind my back. He did the same with my other arm and cuffed my hands tightly. Blinking in disbelief, my ears ringing with the alarms and the aftereffect of the bullets, I trudged past Kira, so obviously dead, and into the Great Hall. The burglar alarm was still shrieking, but there were no masked, armed men, no fire.
Only a lone body, lying next to one of the columns in the entryway. A man in a slick blue suit.
“We got one male victim here,” called the cop who was escorting me out. “Someone get a paramedic.”
As we walked past, I saw what lay next to the man’s limp hand. A lipstick. My eyes darted to his face. Pavel’s features were frozen in an expression of absolute agony. Frothy, blood-tinged saliva leaked from his parted lips. His face was covered in claw marks, and his fingernails were crusted with blood.
Magic wasn’t supposed to affect him . . . but something certainly had.
Tucked in his collar was a note, scrawled in big letters, hastily written. As the cop marched me past the dead conduit, I was able to read it, the words carving themselves into my already broken heart.
Nice try.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
My vision blurred with tears as I was marched down the steps of the Met to a waiting patrol car. They were parked up and down the block, police officers on foot everywhere, interviewing gala attendees, directing traffic. Two ambulances were up on the sidewalk, their rear doors open. There were a few paramedics providing first aid while others carried stretchers up the stairs.
It was too late for Kira and Pavel. I could only hope that Daniil had gotten away. He probably didn’t even know that Kira was dead.
Or that Asa was responsible for her death. He’d told her to charge the cops after dousing her with manipulation magic, I was sure. I’d seen him do this kind of thing before, but only to someone who deserved it.
I couldn’t figure out what had happened in those wild minutes. It felt like a giant hole had opened up inside me, like someone had torn him right out of my heart. The memory of his cold, flat voice . . . He’d barely seemed to recognize me, and yet he’d kissed me. He’d wanted me to go with him. He’d tried to force me to go with him. I shuddered.
“It’s warmer in the car,” said the cop. He opened the door and put his hand on my head as he guided me inside.
“Don’t I have rights or something?” I asked. “I assume I’m under arrest.”
“Lady, you are in serious trouble. Got at least one witness who saw you with that piece of art that went missing tonight. But right now we’re just trying to figure out what the hell happened.” He slammed the door and spent several minutes conferring with his colleagues while I pressed my face to the window, watching for Daniil. Things had gone wrong so quickly. Could he get word to Volodya?
And even if he could, with his empire crumbling and his money running out, could Volodya do a single thing to help us? And would he want to?
The cop came back with his partner, and the two of them got in the front. The cop who’d cuffed me read me my rights, his voice washing over me like white noise as I watched two news trucks pull up to the curb.
How was this going to be contained?
When we got to the station, I was taken to a small interrogation room, where a dour-looking cop asked me several questions I refused to answer, including my name. Finally, I just put my head down on the table. She let out an exasperated sigh and left.
Asa was gone. Whatever they had done to him, they were controlling him completely. He’d been planning to turn me over to Brindle, something he had been willing to die to prevent in the past. I didn’t want to think about what they’d done to him to destroy his will. They’d taken him from himself. My fists clenched as hatred and fury trickled into the pit Asa had left behind.
The door to my interrogation room opened, but I didn’t open my eyes. My forehead was pressed to the metal table. They could question me all night. They could toss me away. I didn’t—
“What a mess, Mattie,” said Keenan.
/> My eyes popped open. “Oh, great. Here to disappear me?”
He chuckled and sat down across from me, his blank badge held loosely in his fingers—probably a Knedas relic that had allowed him to fool the cops into letting him in. “That might be doing you a favor at this point.”
“And I’ll bet that’s the last thing you want to do.”
“It’s not about what I want, Mattie.”
I lifted my head. “What is it about?”
“Who has the panel?”
I sagged in my chair. “Asa took it to Brindle.”
Keenan cursed under his breath. “Brindle is the last person who should have it.”
“So you know about it? You know what it can do?”
“No one knows exactly what it can do. But if the exterior is any clue, the interior will reveal secrets that have been hidden for thousands of years.”
I tensed. “The interior.” Volodya had believed it was the underlying images that were valuable. He hadn’t warned us that the stupid thing was full of magic—a kind I’d never felt before. A kind I now had stored inside my vault.
Keenan nodded. “X-rays will likely reveal layers beneath—”
I sagged in my seat. “Oh.” Maybe none of them had known.
His eyes narrowed. “What did Volodya tell you?”
“He just said it was the key to translating the pages of the Essentialis Magia. Specifically the ones that say how to use the original relics.”
“Exactly—can you imagine one of the bosses with that power?”
“I’m not even sure what that power is—only that it wasn’t enough to protect that original sorcerer guy from execution, despite the fact that he also had all that magic and all those followers.”
“My hope would be that the tome has answers to that as well. It was written by the survivors of those events. And we need to understand all of it, especially if any of the bosses is able to get hold of more than one relic.”
“Well, you have two, don’t you?”
“Right. But the Sensilo is still out there—”
“Might want to ask Zhong Lei about that.” Assuming Tao made it back to Chicago to give it to him.
Keenan’s eyebrows rose. “That’s good to know. We still have no idea where the Knedas original is, though, and it’s arguably the most dangerous of all of them.”
“It’s not in some boss’s collection somewhere?”
“I’ve been searching for any hint of its existence for the last twenty years. If anyone does have it, they’re not using it, and it’s hard to see how any boss could resist that temptation.”
“Would the Essentialis Magia offer any clues as to its location?”
A slow smile spread across Keenan’s face. “The right pages, I would think.”
“So this panel is basically the key to everything.” I rubbed my hands over my face. I was pretty sure I had the actual key tucked inside my chest.
“And right now, our focus has to be on getting it back.”
“Our?”
Keenan leaned forward. “You have some choices to make, Mattie. I want to make your options clear. I want you to think about your priorities.”
My eyes burned. My priority had been to rescue Asa. But it didn’t seem like he wanted to be rescued. I didn’t know how to reach him, or what it would take. I couldn’t reconcile the dead look in his eye with the passion of his kiss, with the way he’d laid his hand over my heart . . .
Wait. He’d laid his hand over my heart. Like he always did when he was trying to feel the magic in my vault. And then he’d kissed me, slow and deep—because being that close to me made it easier for him to detect what lay inside. Had he felt the ancient magic inside me? Is that why he’d wanted me to go with him?
“I’m listening,” I said.
Keenan gave me a piercing look, one that reminded me he could sense everything I was feeling. “It wouldn’t be hard for me to make a case that you’re a danger to our world. I could imprison you indefinitely. I could take away the sun and the sky.”
I stared at the one-way mirror, reflecting my exhausted face, my smeared mascara. “Or?”
“You help me. And this time you don’t double-cross. You don’t waver. You act as my eyes and ears, and you help me get the mosaic back from Brindle. When that’s safe and sound, your debt will be paid.”
“And Asa?” I whispered.
“Asa . . .” Keenan sighed. “Are you really holding on to him?”
“Someone has to,” I snapped. “You of all people should know he’d never willingly work for a boss.”
“Or anyone at all,” Keenan said regretfully, rubbing his knuckles against his jaw.
I took in the sudden tension in his posture. “How long were you together?”
He sat back quickly, looking startled. But as our eyes met, he gave me a sad smile. “I saved him, you know. You’re not the only one who’s been determined to rescue him.”
“From a boss?”
He shook his head. “From himself. The Headsmen have sweep programs in the prison system. We find imprisoned naturals, assess their threat level, and help nonmagical authorities manage them. Asa was discovered in the hole at the maximum security facility in Menard, Illinois, over fifteen years ago.”
“Maximum? He was only serving a year for breaking and entering and assault!” Charges that were completely trumped up, pure betrayal by Asa’s father, or the man he’d thought was his father.
“True, but he’d gotten into several brutal altercations with other prisoners. He had a penchant for fashioning improvised weapons and using them to pretty nasty effect.”
“I guess some things never change,” I murmured, thinking of what he’d done to Kira.
“So it wasn’t actually the initial charges that had gotten him where he was. It was what he did afterward. How dangerous he was. How feral. But our sensing relic picked him up easily, and I was brought in to evaluate him.” He chuckled. “Ever dealt with a wild animal that’s cornered?”
My heart squeezed. I’ve been in cages before. Every time, I thought I was going to lose my mind. “How did you get through to him?”
“I had him set free. Immediately. And I made a deal with him. If he cooperated, I would have all pending charges cleared, and there would be no more prison in his future. He had no idea how valuable he was. He was lucky he hadn’t been scooped up yet. But I made sure he knew, and I promised to protect him.”
“I bet that meant a lot to him, once he realized you were serious,” I said. At that point, Asa had been tossed out like trash. And here was this guy, taking him out of his cage and swearing to keep the wolves at bay.
“There was something about him,” Keenan said quietly. “I wanted to protect him. He just seemed . . . wounded. But so, so gifted.” He ran a hand through his graying blond hair. “It got personal for me quickly.”
I folded my arms over my stomach. I knew exactly what he was talking about. Asa had this lethal combination of strength and vulnerability, charm and need, and all of it mixed together to make him utterly magnetic. For me, at least. And apparently for Keenan. “It got personal for him, too, I guess?”
Keenan shrugged. “You know, I’m not really sure. I thought so at the time. It was forbidden, of course. He was under my protection and authority. I should have left him alone. But he drew me in, and then . . .”
I squirmed. I hated the idea of Asa with someone else. It didn’t matter if it was a man or a woman. “You fell in love.”
His lips twisted. “It almost ended my career. I was playing a dangerous game, but he was addictive. I told myself it would make my career if I got him to join us. I could imagine it—as partners, we would have been unstoppable.”
I bowed my head. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“Then you should know it could never last. He took off the day before he was going to be initiated. He left the Headsmen. He left me. And I didn’t see him again until Bangkok, when he once again proved why I never
should have trusted him in the first place, why I never should have forgotten how I found him, and why.” Keenan touched my hand. “And I sense how much you feel for him, Mattie. It echoes inside me, bringing all those memories to the surface. We’re more alike than you believe. And we could be on the same side.”
“Is this about Asa, or the mosaic?”
“Maybe both, considering he’s the one who took it. Considering both are priceless. And maybe we can get both of them back.”
I let out a shaky breath. “He doesn’t have all of the panel, though.”
Keenan’s brow crinkled. “It broke?”
I shook my head. “There was magic in it, Keenan.”
“No, it couldn’t be. Jack scanned it with a sensing relic before the gala.”
“It was weirdly heavy. I think the magic might have been packaged inside the mosaic somehow. But it was there.”
“Was?”
“I have it,” I whispered. “When my conduit grabbed it, he was touching me, too. And the magic just . . .” I waved my hand at my chest. “It was like nothing I’d ever felt before.”
“You—you have magic from that panel inside you.” He let out a bemused laugh. “This is incredible. Who else knows?”
“The conduit I was with. But he’s dead.”
“Ah. Pavel Mizenov. Low-level Volodya associate. Not usually a first-stringer, but then again, most of Volodya’s top agents have been killed or have defected from his service over the last fifteen years. Arkady was the last of his inner circle to fall. And as for conduits—Volodya usually contracts with Jack for stateside transactions.”
“He decided to give Pavel a chance.” I hadn’t been crazy about Pavel, but I felt terrible about the way he’d ended up. “We uploaded the magic by accident. It was quick, and I doubt anyone else knew.” I sighed. “But Asa might have figured it out.”
