by May Dawson
“It’s certainly an unusual position,” Tera agrees as her smile vanishes. Faint lines deepen around her eyes, the only giveaway of her tension. She’s wary, and she’s right to be.
“The man who murdered Erik and who almost killed you is still loose,” Radner says.
My hands flex at the memory of the boy with a bomb tattooed onto his wrist. When the True damned him to death, he did his best to drag Tera with him.
“The True who murdered Erik,” Tera corrects. She understands why Radner has us here. A stalled police investigation would hardly matter as much if it didn’t involve the True. One dead boy is a tragedy, already in the past. The True are crafting hundreds, thousands, of future tragedies.
“Since Erik was trying to punish the True by taking your life as well, we believe you can draw them out. And fortunately, you have these men to look out for you. They do have their uses.” Radner flashes us all a quick smile that no one returns.
“Fortunately,” Tera echoes.
“I’m sure you remember what I told you earlier, Tera.” Radner’s cold eyes are fixed on Tera in a way that makes me question how long I’ve been loyal to her, and if I’ll always be loyal in the future. “You’ll have to find a way to prove yourself useful to stay in Avalon.”
Tera’s chin rises quickly, but she doesn’t say anything. She stares at Radner with cool eyes.
“Do you understand me?” Radner asks.
“Yes, ma’am,” Tera says. “I’d do anything in service to the Crown, of course.”
“Of course,” Radner says. “Because you’re nothing like your father.”
“Not a bit.”
The tension between them vibrates in the air.
“After all,” Radner says, “Your father may have used magic for evil, but he was a powerful magician. And you’ve nothing now, correct, Tera? No gifts?”
Mycroft whirls from the window, but I take a step forward before he can. God only knows what trouble Croft will get us all into.
“Enough!” I hold out a hand to shut up both him and Radner. “Tera has her own gifts.”
Radner’s eyebrows arch over amused eyes. “I guess we’ll see about that.”
“May we go?” Cax grinds out.
“Let me know what your plan is,” Radner says. “I’m sure the veterans can come up with something. After all, you’ve certainly all been sneaking around.”
“Everyone needs a hobby.” I say.
Radner hands me a file, no doubt stuffed with what they know about the local True, not that we aren’t already well-informed. I lift it to my forehead in a mock salute as I reach behind me for the door knob and open the door.
I’ve got to get the three people I care about most in this world out of this room before someone says something I can’t fix.
Chapter 2
Tera
“Don’t you think she’s desperately in need of a new wardrobe?” Stelly appeals to the three men sprawled around our dorm room.
Airren’s on her bed. Stelly ceded the territory to him, so she sits cross-legged on the floor with Cax and me. Mycroft is taking an actual nap on my bed. So much for the helpful upperclassmen who are supposed to be tutoring us before our Casting test.
“No,” Airren says. “I think she looks beautiful as-is.”
“I like him,” I say, to no one in particular.
Airren winks. “I know.”
Stelly rolls her eyes. “You would also look beautiful in a new dress instead of those ancient jeans, but Airren hates shopping with a passion.”
“If the two of you stop doing that stupid thing with your pinkie fingers that freshmen like to do when they cast, I’ll take you shopping,” Cax promises.
I look down at my stupid pinkie just in time for him to tuck it firmly away. Cax’s long, warm fingers linger for a second on my hand, and our eyes meet.
Stelly groans. “The way you two just looked at each other while talking about pinkie fingers makes me want to throw up.”
“How are things going with the oh-so-cute boy from Calc?” Airren asks, looking at the ceiling. He does a horrifyingly accurate mimicry of Stelly’s voice when he says oh-so-cute.
“Not well,” Cax answers before Stelly can. “Or she wouldn’t be so grouchy.”
Stelly pops her eyes at me, cocking her head to one side, as if to say, can you believe this nonsense we put up with?
I used to wish I was like the boys’ little sister, like she is, because I desperately wanted to fit into their group.
But I’d rather be the one they kiss.
“I don’t think the boy from Calc was ever the boy for me.” Stelly pulls the pillow out from under Croft’s head, and he doesn’t open his eyes as his head slams into the mattress. She plops it underneath her as she sprawls onto her chest, kicking her legs into the air. “But we’ll see who I meet on Friday.”
“On Friday?” Airren repeats.
“The fall masquerade?” There’s a disbelieving note in her tone. “Everyone will be there.”
“Not everyone.” Mycroft’s voice is low and deep, and it makes me jump.
I reach over my blanket to smack his leg. “I thought you were asleep.”
His eyes are still closed, and he makes a soft snoring sound.
“He never sleeps. He only bides his time,” Cax says. “Or at least that’s what he’d like you to think.”
“Everyone,” Stelly says firmly. “You cannot keep Tera boxed up forever. Especially when you aren’t any fun.”
Airren sits up on his elbow, quirking an eyebrow as he looks down at us from the bed. “I’m lots of fun.”
Stelly meets my eyes again with her large, dark-lashed eyes, then shakes her head so subtly the boys aren’t meant to see it.
Cax smacks her knee, although his touch is all playful. “You don’t get to disrespect Airren when you’re still sticking out your pinkie like you weren’t even paying attention in class.”
“I can disrespect Airren with many other fingers,” she says, and raises both her middle fingers above her head.
“Apparently that gesture translates across realms,” I say.
Stelly jumps to her feet. “Come on, I’m bored. Let’s go out.”
“Mycroft doesn’t shop,” Cax says.
“I don’t need to. I’m a goddamn wizard.”
I twist to look at him, but his chest is rising and falling so slowly under his tight black t-shirt that I’d be convinced he was still asleep if I didn’t know that was his deep, rich voice.
“Does he just make quips in his sleep?” I ask Cax.
Mycroft sits up abruptly, resting his elbow on his knee. “Tera and I are not going to any masquerade. I’m not letting anyone get close to her in a goddamn mask. Someone tried to murder her two weeks ago, remember?”
My heart rate speeds a little, and not just because of the heat in Mycroft’s voice. I don’t like my name and murder in the same sentence.
“It wasn’t really personal,” I rattle off. This is the thought that helps me sleep at night. “Erik wanted to murder me to get back at the True, who were going to murder him.”
The look Mycroft gives me suggests I am not helping my case.
“No one is going to murder Tera at the masquerade,” Stelly says impatiently. “This wouldn’t happen to be a problem because you hate parties, would it, Mycroft?”
“How many times can we use the word murder in a five-minute span?” I wonder aloud. “Because the word is starting to sound really weird to me. Mur-der. Mur-DER. Murder. It starts sounding less scary and more like the sound of your foot slipping in the muck the more you say it. Murder.”
Cax rests his hand on my knee. “We’re not going to let anyone hurt you, Tera. There’s always one of us right around the corner.”
Maybe my repetition of the word murder didn’t make it sound like I feel entirely calm, after all.
“Always,” Stelly says. “Right around the corner. If not in your bed.”
There’s a playful little smirk on her lips. I can’t te
ll if she’s accusing them of being unhealthily obsessed with me, or if she’s accusing all of us of being perverted.
“Tera’s got a tough life,” Cax agrees, glancing over at me with the same smirk. They’re clearly brother-and-sister.
Airren leans forward, his elbow propped up on his knee. He looks thoughtful. “I think we should all go to the masquerade.”
Mycroft’s eyes pop. I look up at Airren quickly too, shocked he wants to go to a party.
Cax’s lips widen into a real smile, one that makes his cheeks dimple.
I push his shoulder. “You’re incorrigible. You live for drama.”
“Freshmen are not invited to the masquerade,” Mycroft says.
“Unless they have an invitation issued by an upperclassman.” Airren’s tone says that, as the rule-follower of our group, he would know.
Mycroft meets Airren’s eyes. I glance between the two of them as Mycroft’s gold-flecked, dark-brown eyes bore into Airren’s ocean-blue ones.
“Why?” Mycroft demands.
“Stelly’s right. We can’t keep Tera locked up.” Airren says.
Stelly’s lips part in a grin. She reaches across my book to pluck up the nearest wand, which happens to be Mycroft’s. “Hold on. Let’s rewind fifteen seconds. I need to hear that again.”
Cax snatches the wand out of her hand. “I am not ending up in an infinite time loop for the sake of your ego, Stelletta Roman.”
Mycroft holds Airren’s gaze. The look he gives him says they’re going to talk more about this later.
“Why don’t you two stop trying to communicate through eye-squints and talk to all of us?” I ask. “We’re on the same team. And I’m pretty sure Airren is not looking out for my social life.”
“You don’t need a social life. You have us.” Airren says.
I exhale a long, slow breath at the thought of these three impossible men constituting my entire social life.
“You want to use Tera as bait,” Stelly accuses. “See who takes an interest in her.”
A rueful smile twists my lips. “Because the people most likely to give me the time of day are True.”
My fingers fall to stroke my shifter’s egg, which is nestled in a fleece-lined metal box to my right. The pulsing blood-red egg warms under my fingertips.
Comfort washes through me when I pet the egg, as if it were some kind of strange cat instead of an unborn shifter. I always wanted a cat while I was growing up, but I was dispatched to boarding school shortly after I turned seven, and I only came home when my father began preparing his reign of terror. Poor little rich girls don’t get pets.
Then I lost everything, and gained a dragon. There’s some strange magic in Avalon.
“That’s not true,” Cax says. “You’re a beautiful girl, and you’ve drawn a lot of attention lately, what with the exploding building and the dragon’s egg. People’s reactions might range from morbidly curious about you to lustful intent.”
“Lustful intent?” I mouth back at him because he’s a giant dork.
The way his lips turn up at the corners when he teases me make me light and happy. I’m pretty sure he’s describing his own lustful intent.
“And Mycroft will want to kick all their asses.” Stelly glances at Airren. “And probably Airren too, no matter how cool he’s trying to play it.”
“We have a mission, so to speak,” Airren says. “I enjoyed my years off, but here we are, back in the saddle.”
“There it is,” I say to no one in particular.
“And Tera is not our girlfriend,” he adds. “She’s our partner. It’s far more important than any feelings that…” He shrugs.
“Listen to that,” Stelly says. “He can’t even use the word feelings without his brain freezing up. Can. Not. Process. Human. Emotion.” She moves her arms like a robot.
“Any feelings that we may or may not have are irrelevant now.” Airren shoots a hard look at Mycroft. “Mycroft and I were professionals. We can summon that again.”
I nod as my cheeks warm. The kisses we’ve shared flash through my mind. It didn’t feel professional when Mycroft kissed me, his lips bruising in his passion, leaving my lips swollen red. And it didn’t feel professional when Airren wrapped his hands around my hips and pulled me against his hard pelvis, pressing his lips to my shoulders in an intimate good night kiss. Are those kisses over? Now that they have to be here, protecting me, as ordered by Radner?
I’m the stupid, lonely girl who would give almost anything for someone to wrap their arms around her and say she’s loved. I don’t know if they see me that way or not, but that’s who I am. I have to guard my walls carefully because I could be a fool for these men.
Cax’s long, agile fingers rub across my knee. “Tera, he doesn’t mean to sound like an ass. It’s just who he is.”
I nod some more, smiling brightly, but Cax’s eyes are fixed on me like he sees right through the pretense.
He purses his lips as if he’s about to say something that will reveal far too much of what he thinks is in my heart. That’s not a conversation I want to have with the room. I miss the playful banter we had a few minutes ago, before this blush heating my cheeks gave away too much of how I feel.
I scramble to my feet. “Come on. If you’re going to use a girl for her connections to the forces of evil, you really should buy her a pretty dress first. And some shoes.”
“We’re going to buy you so much more than one dress.” Stelly jumps to her feet, too, full of excitement.
“When are you going to finish your casting homework?” Cax leans back, his head resting on the side of the bed.
“You never do your homework!” Stelly cries in exasperation.
“I never have to,” Cax says, in a pointed way that makes Stelly pop her hands onto her hips and level him with a look.
“Look.” I grab Mycroft’s wand and quickly run through the casts we’re supposed to be doing, slashing to cancel the spell after each one—even though they won’t work anyway. “Obedient pinkie. Not that it matters.”
I lost my ability to invoke magic when I was dirt-side.
That’s a pretty serious character flaw in this world where everyone carries a wand. This is also a world where suspicion runs hot regarding how close Avalon should knit itself to Earth and its poisonous technology. My father fought that war in the worst way, but the battle still rages, even as the population of Avalon tries to recover from his sins.
“She has a point.” Airren leans back on the bed, on his elbows. His button-down shirt is fitted across his broad shoulders and the narrow taper of his waist. He’s built like a god, and the late afternoon sun slanting in through the open windows shines across his black hair. “The least we can do is buy her some shoes.”
Mycroft yawns, not bothering to cover his mouth as he stretches with feline grace despite his big frame, then sags back down to the bed. “I’m not going.”
Cax rakes a hand through his blond hair, telegraphing exasperation, and Airren shoots him a warning look. Mycroft and Cax are close—the best of friends—but Airren and Mycroft have a different friendship. After serving together through the Divide war and mourning friends and family, they’re like brothers.
“That’s fine,” Airren says. “When I drop my tux off to be pressed, you want me to take yours too?”
Mycroft tucks his hands under his head, still staring at the ceiling. “Sure.”
Stelly hooks her arm through mine and leans in close to me to roll her eyes at the charged messages passing between the guys. But nothing can dull her enthusiasm about a good shopping trip.
“Let’s go spend my family money like it’s our patriotic duty,” she says with a wink. “So many pairs of shoes…in service to the Crown.”
“Stelly.” There’s a part of me that wants pretty things. But I want to be able to buy them myself, someday. I don’t want to owe her too much.
“In service to the Crown,” she says firmly. “No one’s going to take you for the next coming of the d
ark lord in those ratty sneakers, Tera Donovan.”
I roll my eyes, but I tuck my arm into hers and let her drag me toward the door.
“In service to the Crown,” I repeat.
Chapter 3
“We need to go all the way to Wolrick,” Stelly says, leading our small band through the twisting paths of campus toward town and the train station.
Airren sighs under his breath.
“Problems?” she says. “I do believe that in this context, I’m the proper mission leader.”
Airren throws her a lazy two-fingered salute. “Yes ma’am.”
His slow, aristocratic drawl makes me melt a little. I turn around, biting down on my lip. Stelly’s arm is still hooked through mine like we’re best friends, a casual familiarity I haven’t had with another girl since I left boarding school. When she turns her head to look over her shoulder at Airren, her hair carries her perfume, a bright floral with sugary notes that perfectly captures her bubbly personality. The air is heavy with true floral scents from the last blooms of the white-and-red flowered trees that hang low over the stone paved trails.
The train station is a long gray-stone building with high ceilings. When I arrived, I’d been anxious about finding my way and surrounded by quick-walking students who seemed far more certain than I was. This time, I get to take it in.
We wind our way through the courtyard outside the train station, which is filled with vendors selling fruits and vegetables, cheeses and glass bottles of milk, fresh-cut flowers, candles in glass jars and piles of colorful, fragrant handmade soaps. Cax falls behind for a second, and by the time I turn, he’s catching up to me with a few quick strides. He carries a single orange tiger lily, which he offers to me with a wink. I breathe in its sweet scent, and then he takes it from me, his fingers overlapping mine briefly, to tuck it behind my ear.
When we walk through the enormous doors, we step onto floors of beautifully inlaid wood in shades both dark and blond. The room is filled with light from the glass bubble that forms most of the ceiling. Several rows of wooden tables and chairs fill the room, and behind them are glass windows for ticket sales and a small shop selling magazines and sandwiches. Two train tracks run through the center of the building, which stands open on one end to the weather today; enormous wooden pocket doors close in the wintertime to hold in the heat.
