“I can’t take the risk.”
“No, you won’t even try.” Arabella shook her head.
“It’s irresponsible!”
“Hanging out with a cute guy is irresponsible. Listen to yourself. You’re eighteen, not thirty.”
“I can’t treat people like toys. I might start liking him. I might want to hang out with him.”
“And?”
“And sometimes that’s how little it takes.”
“Why don’t you give up and be a nun, then!”
“Maybe I will!”
We rode in silence.
“I’m not saying you should fall in love or make out with him or chase him around screaming, ‘wife me now!’” Arabella said.
“I know.”
“All I’m saying is that you could give him a chance. A tiny chance. A sliver of a chance. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“My control might slip a hair. My magic might leak. He’ll become besotted because of my magic and follow me around with a slack look on his face listening to my every word and doing creepy things like stealing hair from my brush so he can hide it under his pillow and sniff it at night when he gets lonely.”
Arabella looked at me. “That was oddly specific.”
“Michael Sanchez in my freshman year. Eyes on the road.”
“Suppose this happens.” My sister merged into the middle lane. “Let’s say he becomes ‘besotted.’ So what? He is leaving in a week. Your magic wears off with time and distance. Even if the worst happens, in a month he will be fine. People take that long to get over normal summer flings.”
“It still isn’t right.” I had no right to manipulate other people’s feelings. It didn’t matter that I wouldn’t have meant to do it. The possibility existed.
“Do you remember the ranch?”
The ranch was owned by one of Mom’s friends, two hundred acres of scrub and rocks in the middle of nowhere. We would take Arabella there, so she could metamorphose without anyone freaking out.
“We went to the ranch, so I could practice. And I went every time and I did my best. Even when I was twelve and a crazy ball of rage, because I knew that if I wanted to have any kind of life, I had to learn my magic. I had to figure out what I could do, how long I could do it, what I couldn’t do. It’s like driving and learning where the car ends and how quickly it can stop. You don’t practice.”
I glared at her. “I practice all the time.”
“Yes, you practice not using it. You’re excellent at not using your power. You’ve got that part down.”
“I am excellent at not using it. I have to be.”
Arabella’s eyes narrowed. “Then Xavier is in no danger, is he?”
She got me. “I hate you sometimes.”
“You hate that I’m right. Seriously, what’s the harm in talking to Xavier? You’re going to college in the fall. There’s going to be all kinds of people there. Guys, Catalina. There will be cute college guys.”
“Maybe I won’t go to college.”
“Sure,” Arabella said.
I didn’t say anything.
“Wait, are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Why was complicated. There were many reasons. It was expensive. I didn’t know what I wanted to major in and I didn’t want to waste my time and the family’s money. But most of all, I had spent the last four years racing to the graduation finish line trying to get the highest score in everything. I had existed in a state of constant pressure, where something was always due and once I finished it, I was already behind on the next paper, the next exam, or the next project. When they finally ran out of courses to give me and I finished this Christmas, I felt like I had breathed fresh air for the first time since I started high school. They were still making me come back for the graduation and walk across the stage. I would graduate this May. I would finally be free.
And when I told Mom and Grandma Frida that, there would be hell to pay. I had scored 1580 on the SAT out of a possible 1600. I was in the top 1 percent nationwide. I had my pick of schools. I could get a scholarship almost anywhere. They would tell me I was throwing away my future.
“Even if you don’t go to college, you have to interact with people outside the family eventually. I don’t want you to be alone, Catalina. If you want to be alone, that’s fine, but I don’t want you to be forced to be alone because you think you have no choice. If it was just about magic, then you could’ve gone out with Alessandro. He is an Antistasi Prime. He could’ve resisted you.”
She had to bring that up. “He had been exposed to the full power of my magic.”
Arabella grimaced. “Oh don’t give me that. I’ve seen people after you charmed them. He had none of the symptoms. All he wanted to do was take you for a drive in his fancy car and to talk to you. You threatened to call the cops on him. Seriously, what are you afraid of?”
“That it wouldn’t be real.” The words dropped like bricks. “Nobody ever likes me for me, Arabella.” And I had really wanted him to.
Silence stretched.
Arabella reached out and petted my hand. She kept petting it, like I was a dog.
“Quit it.”
“There there.”
“I said quit touching me.”
“How can they ever like you for you if you never talk to them? Who outside of the family knows you? It’s a serious question. Are people supposed to telepathically scan you to make friends?”
I groaned. “If I give Xavier a chance, will you shut up?”
“Yes!”
“Then fine. If he comes up to me again, I will talk to him. Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
“Good.”
She had a point. I couldn’t keep complaining that nobody liked me for me if I didn’t give anyone the opportunity to see who I was. Maybe if I started small. Just one boy. Just one conversation. I would keep a steel hold on my magic.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
I liked Rogan’s house much better than his mother’s mansion. It was still filled with expensive furniture, but it felt different—simpler, rugged. More like a home and less like a palace. Being here was almost like being in the warehouse. I had called ahead to make sure Rogan would be there, but we could’ve just showed up and nobody would have been surprised.
I rang the doorbell. The door swung open, revealing a sturdy man with broad shoulders and short blond hair. Like most of Rogan’s people, he was ex-military.
“Ladies,” Troy said. “I’m authorized to tell you there is sushi in the kitchen.”
“Ooo.” My sister veered off and made a beeline for the kitchen.
“The Major is waiting for you in the office,” Troy said.
“Thanks.” I climbed the stairs, crossed the balcony, and entered the business part of the house, where Rogan conducted his affairs. I waved at people I knew on the way until I got to the surveillance room, where a thin wiry man with dark hair sat in front of nine monitors. He spun his chair around when he heard me coming. His face twitched.
“Hi Bug.”
“Hi.”
Bug was a swarmer. Swarms existed in the arcane realm. Nobody knew much about the arcane realm or the creatures within it. Summoners and other arcane mages could reach into it and draw things out, but they didn’t really understand it.
For example, it was an established fact that implanting a swarm in a human would skyrocket their surveillance capabilities, allowing them to process visual information at an insane rate. It was also an established fact that these augmented humans died within a couple of years. Bug had volunteered for the procedure during his time in the Air Force. Everything went as planned. He survived the implantation process, became a swarmer, and received a substantial bonus. There was just one snag—Bug didn’t die. When Nevada first found him, he was borderline insane. Somehow Rogan managed to fix him and now Bug presided over all of Rogan’s surveillance.
“Xavier Ramírez Secada,” he said. “Age 19, fir
st son and heir of Iker Ramírez Madrid and Eva Secada Escudero. Rated as a bottom tier Significant Telekinetic. He likes to tell people that he is Rogan’s Sobrino .”
“So?”
“He is not Rogan’s nephew. His father, Iker Ramírez, is Rogan’s cousin, which makes Xavier Primo Segundo or first cousin once removed. Hard pass, Catalina. Hard pass.”
“Stay out of my life, Bug.” I kept walking.
“His Instagram is called Boss Moves,” he yelled.
“Stay out!”
I took another turn and came to Rogan’s office. Most of the time he used the room adjacent to Bug’s nest, but once in a while he hid in the back, in his study. I knocked on the heavy red oak door. It swung open, inviting me inside.
Like his mother, Rogan devoted the entire wall, floor to ceiling, to books, but here the wood was dark, the chairs were soft chocolate leather, and the floor was old weathered wood. Rogan sat behind a large desk, his fingers dancing over the keyboard of a laptop. A chair slid out for me. I sat. A large glass with an extra wide straw floated over and waited in empty air, motionless. I took it and sipped. Mmm, lychee boba tea. My favorite.
I didn’t know if Rogan genuinely liked us, or if he treated us well because we were important to Nevada and he loved her. I liked to think he liked us.
Rogan looked up from his laptop. “Budget update?”
“In your in-box.”
He checked the file. “A bedazzler for $19.99?”
“It’s a small gun that attaches rhinestones to fabric.”
He frowned. “Is that for her veil? Because you know I can’t have anything to do with that.”
My sister and Rogan had reached a compromise. Neither of them had wanted an expensive wedding. Our family couldn’t go half and half with Rogan either, not on the scale this wedding was happening, so it was decided that since Mrs. Rogan wouldn’t be denied, we would buy the dress, veil, shoes, and the bouquet, and Rogan would pay for everything else. Rogan would’ve been happy to pay for all of it, but Nevada insisted, and if she found out we went around her in any way, there would be hell to pay.
“No, the bedazzler isn’t for the veil. It’s for Mia Rosa García Ramírez Arroyo del Monte’s stuffed unicorn.”
“Okay then. Next?”
“Sealight is missing,” I told him.
There was a second of silence.
“Those assholes stole it,” he said.
Wow. He went right to it.
“Mrs. Rogan asked me to look into it. She wants it handled quietly, and she doesn’t want Nevada involved.”
Rogan sighed. “Of course. The less my future wife has to do with those dickheads the better.”
“Are all of them dickheads?”
“No. Uncle Inigo, his wife Emilia, and their three kids have my complete confidence. Same for Uncle Mattin and his family. I don’t agree with his politics, but he would never dishonor the family name. We can scratch them off the list. Aunt Miren and her daughter, Cousin Gracia, are women of impeccable integrity, and I trust Gracia’s wife and their two children. But the younger of my mother’s siblings are perfectly capable of stealing from the bride at the wedding.”
I leaned back. “Tell me about it?”
He sighed. “My grandfather is one of those men who believes that children belong to their mothers until they are old enough to contribute to the family business. He is an old cantankerous bastard. He married my grandmother and had four children, including my mother. When mom was ten years old, her mother died, leaving my grandfather with four kids and no idea how to raise them. As soon as he was done with mourning, he remarried. The second wife was only twelve years older than my mother. He married her because she had the right pedigree, the right set of powers, and was young and healthy. I’ve met her. She was very young when she married, and she had dreams of a loving husband and a beautiful family, and instead she found herself relegated to the role of a glorified babysitter, whom my grandfather mostly ignored.”
That wasn’t fair.
“My grandfather had three children with her. By the time the last one was born, the older children were grown and assumed their responsibilities, so they received the lion’s portion of his attention. The three younger ones were left to fend for themselves and their mother denied them nothing. They grew up hedonistic and entitled. They have a deep disdain for our side of the family and once the old man dies, the family will likely split. But my mother remembers them as the cute babies whom she looked after. She is determined to forgive them their faults, and they are perfectly willing to use her. The only time I hear from them is when they want something: money, influence, guarantees, and so on. Aside from that they don’t even bother with basic maintenance like sending her Christmas cards. So you have Inigo, Mattin, Miren, and my mother on one side and Markel, Ane, and Zorion on the other.”
I checked my tablet for the houseguest chart, which I grabbed from Mrs. Rogan’s desktop before leaving. They had put the three oldest siblings and their children in the east wing and the three half siblings and their children in the west. That made my job easier. “Your grandfather isn’t coming to the wedding?”
“No. He had an odd rivalry with my father. It was one-sided, but now that Dad is gone, he’s carried it over to me. His health is failing, and he doesn’t want anyone, especially me, to know it.”
“Could any of your relatives open Mrs. Rogan’s vault?”
Rogan grimaced. “It’s possible. They pride themselves on hiding the full extent of their powers. It’s a family sport. Curiously, it keeps the peace. Nobody is sure how strong everyone is, so nobody wants to risk a confrontation. Most of that side of the family ranks in the Significant range, but once in a while, usually once per generation, they produce an off-the-charts Prime. My mother is one. My father came to Basque country because she matched the right set of powers he wanted in a bride and once he met her, he refused to let her go. He’d signed off almost half of his capital over to her father to marry her.”
“So, your grandfather sold her?”
“Pretty much. Ask her to tell you the story sometime.”
Better and better. “Who would know that cameras in the office are nonfunctioning?”
“Everyone. Mother assured everyone that they would have privacy inside the house.”
We stared at each other with identical expressions. Sometimes Mom did things like this. Like when we said, “don’t climb into the crow’s nest today, because your leg is hurting,” and she would do it anyway and then spend the evening rubbing Icy Hot into her knee and limping.
“I’m going to bug the house,” I told him.
“Did my mother agree to this?”
“Yes, on the condition that nobody except family views the recording. Bern is family.”
Rogan leaned back. “You got further than I have in the last twelve years. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. She really wants the Sealight found. She showed me the wedding album.”
“What do you need from me?”
“I need files on everyone, even people you don’t suspect. I need someone to sneak in as part of the landscaping crew and install the cameras. I could get Bern to do it, but if they had done their homework, they will recognize him, and I don’t want to take chances. Also, I would like you to take over the monitoring of the Sealight sensor.”
“Which is an antique.” Rogan grimaced again.
“I want to be notified immediately if the tiara leaves the grounds.”
“Very well,” he said.
“Also, I need you to convince Nevada that blue lilacs don’t belong in her bouquet.”
His eyes flashed. “Nice try. You’re on your own.”
“It was worth a shot.”
Chapter 4
People said that the kitchen was the heart of the house. If that was true, what would it make the kitchen table? One of the atriums, because food flowed into it, or one of the ventricles, because we ate the food and flowed out? Sometimes weird things like that got stuck
in my brain. Usually when I was tired, and my brain wanted to do something else.
I rubbed my face and drank more coffee. The table was covered with tablets and notepads. On my right, my cousin Bern was messing with hummingbirds—tiny waterproof cameras in casings that could be tinted the color of your choice. We decided to hide them in the pretty shrubs. Bern was a huge blond bear of a guy, the cameras were tiny, and he handled them with the precision of a surgeon. He was the oldest of all of us, except for Nevada.
Across the table Arabella was going over the catering menu on her tablet. When Mrs. Rogan was a child, she was almost poisoned at a birthday party. Her little cousin had died instead. Now she prepared most of her food herself, but that wasn’t an option for the wedding. Nevada deferred to Mrs. Rogan, and after interviewing seventeen catering companies, she finally settled on one. Now we had to select the menu, and Mrs. Rogan had delayed till the last minute.
Next to Arabella, Bern’s brother, Leon, dark and lean, had taken apart some sort of a gun and was cleaning it. Ever since Leon discovered his magic talent a few months ago it was all guns all the time. Mom didn’t even try to stop him anymore. She was by the sink, trying to precision pour melted gelatin into silicone molds. Arabella had told her that there was no way homemade gummy bears would ever taste the same as store-bought. Now half the fridge was occupied with silicone trays.
My brain hummed, trying to sort through the background files on the two branches of the family Rogan suspected.
We all used to sit just like this when we did our homework.
“What’s a canapé?” Arabella asked.
“Something with a melon on it,” Leon said.
“It’s a bread thing,” Bern said.
A door swung open deep in the warehouse and a couple of moments later Grandma Frida emerged wearing a pair of heavy-duty twill overalls, smudged with engine grease. Her platinum white curls framed her face like a halo and her blue eyes sparkled. Grandma Frida was almost never in a bad mood. I once asked her why and she said she didn’t have that much time left so she didn’t want to waste it being miserable. I obsessed over every cough she made for a month after that.
Diamond Fire: A Hidden Legacy Novella Page 4
