Reign of Mist: Book of Sindal Book Two

by D. G. Swank

  His question caught me off guard. “Uh… I’m older than my sisters. Since everyone is capable of creating glamours, my parents thought I was late to develop. Then they thought I was a magical dud.”

  A soft smile spread across his face. “I’m sure that was difficult. But when did you first learn that glamouring was your gift?”

  “When I was nine.” Which was late for a witch or mage. Our gifts usually manifested early, around age five or six, but if a magical person had a particularly strong gift, they could display signs of it sooner. Celeste’s rare talent had first made itself known when she was three. I realized now I’d begun to resent her, even then, which was ridiculous. I’d resented a toddler.

  “And how did your mother come to the conclusion that glamouring was your gift?”

  My defenses went up. “How did you know my mother was the one to make that call?”

  “Because I know your mother insisted on being in charge of your magical training. Your father would have preferred to be more involved, but she refused to let him.”

  “And you knew this because you knew my parents?”

  “As I said, your father and I were close.” His gaze lifted, catching something over my shoulder.

  I turned to see a young woman striding toward us. The puckered look on her face told me she hadn’t been thrilled to receive Arthur’s summons.

  “What are we doing out here?” she demanded when she was about twenty feet away.

  “Letting Rowan get some fresh air,” he said in an amiable tone. “It’s a beautiful day.”

  Her arms stiffened as she shoved her hands deeper into her pockets. “It’s freezing.”

  He glanced up to the clear blue sky. “The sun will warm you.” He smiled as he lowered his gaze to the woman. “Marni, this is Rowan. Rowan, Marni.”

  If he expected us to shake hands, Marni’s glare and the fact that she was trying to tunnel her hands even deeper into her pockets made it clear that wasn’t on the agenda.

  “Marni also has the gift of glamour.”

  I gave her a curious glance. Why would she be with the Dark Set? I had a feeling Lisa was being coerced somehow, but I didn’t get the same vibe from this woman. What could possibly compel her to work with them?

  “What do you want, Arthur?” she asked, clearly annoyed. Maybe this wasn’t the rewarding life she’d hoped it would be. Whatever the case, she was working with the Dark Set willingly. Her reasoning didn’t really matter.

  “I want you to each create a garden, complete with a bench. Then we’ll compare them.”

  “A competition?” I asked in surprise. It seemed ludicrous, and like a waste of time to boot, but the daggers of hate Marni was shooting at me sparked the competitor in me.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said.

  “Are you currently working on anything other than kitchen duty?” Arthur asked.

  “No, but—”

  “Then you should be happy for the reprieve. The one caveat is that you’ll have your backs turned to each other the whole time. Any peeking will result in an immediate disqualification. The winner will get a reward.”

  Marni snorted. “What sort of reward?”

  “One free day to go anywhere and do anything you want.”

  Her eyes widened. Then she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “You’re on.”

  “Do I get the same reward?” I asked in a saccharine tone.

  “No, but I’ll give you the gift of speaking to a sister of your choice.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Do they know anything about what happened to me?”

  His eyes lit up with a smirk. “Win the competition and find out.”

  Marni propped her hands on her hips. “Other than we can’t look at each other’s glamours, what are the rules?”

  “None. You have an hour. Make the most of it.”

  “An hour?” I asked. That seemed excessive. I could create the kind of glamour he’d requested in five minutes or less. What was he looking for?

  “When you’re ready,” Arthur said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Let’s do this,” Marni said.

  “I have one request,” I said. “I would like to create a wall between our gardens to block the view. It’ll allow us to walk around without seeing the other’s work.”

  “As long as Marni agrees,” Arthur said with a nod.

  Marni shot me a look that said she considered this a trick, but she reluctantly nodded.

  A huge smile spread across Arthur’s face. “Let the competition begin.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  An hour later, I was sweating under the overhead sun, but not from the heat. I was standing next to my created wall, waiting for Arthur to give his judgment.

  To make the contest fair, we’d each created our own wall. Mine was a crumbling, centuries-old stone structure covered in vines that I’d painstakingly added at the last minute. It wrapped around an English garden with a central fountain and a hidden bench in the back corner. Mature trees, rose bushes, and a host of other plants and flowers that created separate “rooms” along the stone path that meandered through the twenty-by-forty-foot space. I’d even added the sound of gurgling water and the scent of roses.

  I had no idea what Marni had created, but I was pleased with my garden. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d created something so intricate and in-depth. Most of my glamouring in the past had involved hiding the book, something that only needed to be done once a month.

  “Let’s tour Rowan’s garden first,” Arthur said.

  When he and Marni walked around from the other side of the barrier, I heard her gasp at the sight of the long stone wall surrounding my garden. I let Arthur push open the gate and followed them both into the space. They wandered the path, taking time to smell the roses, reach into the fountain and wet their fingers, and—the true test—sit on the marble bench I’d made with carved roses on the base. Marni seemed to get more and more pissed the farther we went.

  When we finished, Arthur beamed. “Beautiful. Good work, Rowan.”

  I knew his approval shouldn’t matter to me, yet I felt a burst of pride anyway. I shoved it down and prepared myself for what I’d find in Marni’s garden. I hoped her attitude meant her effort wasn’t as good as mine.

  We walked out of my garden, and I tried to hide my shock as we rounded the corner.

  Marni had chosen to make a vegetable garden. There were rows and rows of corn, tomatoes, and green beans, but they looked unfinished, as if she hadn’t known how to create most of them. There were multiple bushes, some with strawberries, some with pea pods, and another area with carrots partially sticking out of the ground with parsley tops. In front of her brick wall, which actually looked much better than the rest of the glamour, sat a plain concrete bench.

  “This wasn’t fair,” Marni protested.

  “It was fair,” Arthur said. “And I haven’t even declared the winner yet.”

  “It’s obvious who won,” she pouted.

  “Is it obvious to you, Rowan?” Arthur asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

  “No,” I said, slightly worried by the concerned look on his face as he stared at his screen. “Nothing is as it seems with you Dark Set people. I can’t see you letting me talk to one of my sisters, so I’m guessing there’s some rule you withheld that makes Marni the winner.”

  “Oh, so cynical, Rowan,” Arthur said, sounding amused. “And so wrong. It was a simple contest and you obviously won. But I’ll still let Marni out of kitchen duty.” Looking at her, he continued, “I’ll assign you a new task that shouldn’t take you much time, and then you can have the rest of the afternoon and evening off anyway.”

  “What’s the catch?” she asked.

  Arthur chuckled. “You two aren’t all that different, you know. There’s no catch, but you’ll have another glamouring job tomorrow. A much more difficult one.”

  “When do I get to talk to my sister?” I asked.

  “Which sister do you cho
ose?” he asked.

  His question caught me off guard. I’d presumed he’d pick, but I quickly blurted out, “Phoebe.”

  It wasn’t a difficult decision. Phoebe and I were much closer, and she was with the captain of the Protective Force—and Donall’s brother, no less. If Brandon was on our side, she’d pass information to him, and if he wasn’t, all the more reason to warn Phoebe.

  Disappointment flickered in Arthur’s eyes, but it quickly vanished as he pulled out his phone and tapped on the screen. He lifted his gaze to Marni. “Go prepare a nice lunch for two. Afterward, we’ll discuss your afternoon assignment.”

  Marni shot me a glare and started to cut through her garden toward the building when Arthur called after her, “Marni, we don’t need your garden anymore.”

  She continued walking but lifted her hand up to her shoulder and snapped. The entire garden and her section of the wall disappeared.

  “Captain Cassidy?” Arthur said, and my eyes instantly snapped back to him. Based on the way he held the phone in his hand, he’d already placed a video call. My mouth went dry. Was I really about to talk to Phoebe? “I have Rowan Whelan with me,” he said, “and she would like to speak to her sister.”

  Even as my ears strained for the sound of Phoebe’s voice, it struck me that Arthur was known to Brandon, and vice versa. How had their paths crossed, and why? What did it mean?

  There was a moment’s pause before I heard Brandon say in a stern tone, “Their bond has been broken. There is to be no communication between the Whelan sisters.”

  Arthur frowned. “Their coven bond may have been broken, but they’re still sisters. Rowan has been left alone for the first time in her life and is struggling. Surely you can make this one concession.”

  “The Small Council has forbidden it.”

  Arthur took on an authoritarian pose. “I assure you, Captain Cassidy, that I have permission to make this happen. Would you like me to have Alfred Gambier, the acting president, intervene?”

  It didn’t exactly surprise me to hear him drop Alfred’s name. It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots when there were this many of them—clearly, the council had been compromised before this whole mess began. Even so, it felt defeating to have the connection confirmed so openly.

  There was another momentary standoff before Brandon replied in a clipped tone, “No, that won’t be necessary, but I’ll be standing next to Phoebe during the call. Rest assured that I’ll be making a full report.”

  “As you should,” Arthur said with a solemn nod. “Now, if you could put Phoebe on the line?”

  Seconds later, I heard my sister’s voice. “Where’s Rowan?”

  I wanted to lunge for the phone, but the smile on Arthur’s face made me think better of it.

  “She’s here,” he said.

  I started to reach for the phone then, unable to help myself, but I pulled my hands back at the last moment. “What’s the catch? What are the rules?”

  Arthur pressed a button on the phone, then held the screen to his chest. “There’s no catch, Rowan, and there are no rules. But keep in mind that Brandon will make a full report of the call to the Small Council. I would hate for you to put your sister at risk.”

  Put my sister at risk? I recognized a threat when I heard one, but what exactly did he mean? Would they harm Phoebe if she discovered I was being held prisoner?

  Before I could work it out, he unmuted the call and handed me the phone.

  “Rowan?” Phoebe cried out, sounding desperate.

  I grabbed the phone, eager to see her face. It felt like we’d been apart for so long, but she looked just as I’d left her. Unharmed. Her beautiful brown hair hanging loose around her face, tears coursing down her cheeks. I wanted so badly to hug her, but all I could do was touch the glass over her image.

  “Is it really you?” she asked.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” I said, giving her a soft smile. But my heart was breaking. Phoebe and Celeste were like an extension of me, and this separation was hurting my soul. I wasn’t sure I could learn to live without them, which meant I needed to figure out a way to get them back.

  “Who is that with you?”

  Arthur had insinuated there would be trouble if I told Phoebe, and thus the council, the full truth. Which meant I needed to downplay my situation. “That was Arthur. He was a friend of Dad’s.”

  “How did you find him?” she asked, wiping tears from her cheeks.

  How much did Brandon know? I felt a push-pull between my inclination not to trust him and the hope that I could. He obviously knew Arthur, and he was also the one who’d suggested splitting up the three of us. Yet he’d also written that message…a message that meant he knew what his brother, and the Dark Set, thought I could do.

  Until I had something more to go on, I’d presume Brandon had joined forces with his brother after all and was party to everything, hoping to be proved wrong later.

  I forced a smile. “He found me.” I knew she’d want more details, so I added, “He knew we’d been split apart and wanted to check on me.”

  “Where are you?” she asked. “That doesn’t look like our farm.”

  I realized she could see the stone wall of my glamoured garden behind me.

  “It’s not,” I said. “Turns out I have some time on my hands now that I don’t have to guard that stupid book, so Arthur and I decided to visit a botanical garden.”

  Confusion filled her eyes, likely because she knew going to a botanical garden with a man I hardly knew would be out of character. “I’ve been so worried about you,” she said, starting to cry again. “All alone at the farm.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” I said. “I’m not alone, and obviously I’m currently not at the farm.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “How are you? Are you safe? Have you heard from Celeste?”

  “I’m with Brandon,” she said as though that answered my first two questions. “I haven’t spoken to Celeste, but Brandon has gotten reports from Xenya. She’s helping Celeste calm her mind.” She smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. “So maybe this isn’t so bad after all.”

  She didn’t believe it for a moment, which made me think she wasn’t so keen on this arrangement after all, despite her previous pro-Brandon attitude.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

  She nodded, but her chin quivered. Another tell.

  “Do you remember the night Mom took us stargazing?” she asked, tears filling her eyes again. “When she showed us Orion and Sirius?”

  What was she talking about? Mom had never done any such thing, but the look on her face implored me to agree, so I nodded. “Yeah, of course.”

  Relief filled her eyes. “Do you remember how Mom said the best time to watch was late at night, the later the better? She wanted us to get up at two in the morning to see the stars, but Dad threw a fit.”

  What on earth was she talking about? She was obviously trying to give me some kind of message, so I nodded my pretend acknowledgment.

  “It took her two days to convince him. When we went out, we saw Orion and Sirius. Do you remember?” Tears were still streaming down her face.

  I pressed a finger to her cheek on the screen, wanting so badly to comfort her. “Oh, Bee, don’t cry. This is for the best, remember?”

  “Do you remember seeing Orion and Sirius, Rowan?” she repeated with some urgency.

  It was the third time she’d said those words. What in seven hells was she trying to tell me? If she kept pressing, Arthur and Brandon were going to get suspicious.

  “Yeah,” I said quickly. “I remember.” I’d figure out what it meant later.

  She nodded, looking relieved.

  “I love you, Bee. I never told you and Celeste often enough.”

  “We know you love us,” she scoffed. “We never doubted.”

  Maybe she didn’t, but I had to wonder if the same were true for Celeste. She and I had always been like orbiting moons around Phoebe, our home plane
t. We were connected through her but seemed to repel each other more often than not.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said wistfully, “about that day at the park when we were little. Remember when those two older girls were making fun of Celeste because she was talking to rocks?”

  I blinked in confusion at the sudden change in direction, but I did remember this one. “Yeah.”

  I’d been furious because Mom had seen the entire thing and hadn’t intervened. I’d confronted her later and asked her why she hadn’t stopped the bullies from tormenting her four-year-old daughter, instead leaving it to her seven- and eight-year-old daughters to intervene, and she’d given me a look that suggested I was a fool.

  “You three will have a coven bond of your own one day, and you need to stand up for one another. Today seemed like a good day for you three to learn that lesson. I won’t always be here, Rowan. You need to learn to depend on each other.”

  But Phoebe had no knowledge of my conversation with my mother. Only that we’d stopped the bullies.

  “Do you remember what I told Celeste after you chased them off?”

  I did, if only because Phoebe had sounded like a mother even then.

  “Yeah,” I said, not repeating it. She’d told Celeste that we’d always be there to watch out for her, no matter what. Just another reminder that I’d let my sisters down. Again.

  “The same goes for you, Ro. I haven’t forgotten you.”

  Arthur cleared his throat. “Time’s up.”

  Panic filled my head. We’d hardly said anything at all. Our conversation had been a series of cryptic messages I hadn’t understood. “I love you, Phoebe. I’ll find a way to fix this.”

  Phoebe shook her head. “I love you too, Rowan. Just wait for me. I’ll come home to you. I promise.”

  Then, before I could say anything else, the call ended.

  My gaze lifted to Arthur, wondering if he’d somehow cut our connection, but the look on his face told me Brandon had ended the call.

  I was going to kill him. In that moment, I hated him with everything in my being, but I had to stuff it back down, just like everything else. I had more immediate concerns.