by Bec McMaster
Bishop glanced sideways. Hell. Perhaps now was not the time for politeness if Morgana was alive and the demon was still out there. Perhaps now they all needed to begin working together. "Are you going to take a tilt at it?"
Ianthe scowled. "Not you too."
"You are the perfect candidate," he pointed out. "You have Drake behind you, and years of experience as his seneschal, dealing with all his dirty work. You know the Order inside and out—"
"Are you going to do anything about your attraction to young Verity?" Ianthe countered.
Bishop fell silent. It bothered him a little that matters were so transparent. "That's really none of your business."
"My point precisely."
"It's not the same." He held a hand up when she moved to argue. "We're on the same team. You, me, and... Lucien. Right now Drake's barely any help at all, as inclined as he is to stick his head in the sand. And if the three of us cannot join forces, then what happens to the Order? Do you wish me to be blunt, Ianthe? Ascension is three days away, as you say. Someone's going to end up sitting on the Prime's chair at the end of it. Now whether that someone is Morgana and her puppet, you, or one of a half dozen other candidates, is up to you. Your husband seems reluctant to put his hand up and I'm fairly certain I know why." He'd seen the ruin of his brother's aura a month ago, after all. It was healing slowly, but a Prime needed to be invulnerable. "I'm an assassin and I don't have the experience, the skill set, or the aptitude to rule. Which leaves you. Could you sit back and watch Morgana rule? Could you sit back and watch the Earl of Tremayne rule? He's still out there, after all. And he's no friend to either of us. If someone else sits on that chair, then Drake's life remains at stake, and you will no longer have any say in the running of the Order. Can you do that?"
Frustration sparked in Ianthe’s blue eyes. "What about Lady Eberhardt?"
"Not interested," he replied, "and quite frankly, her health worries me."
Silence settled over the pair of them.
"I know you've only just gotten your daughter back in your life," he continued. "I know you nearly lost her and Lucien. I also know that you're the best option—the only option—that we've got."
At that her shoulders slumped. "You sound remarkably like your brother at times."
Hope flared. "Lucien thinks you should do this too?"
Ianthe rubbed at her temples, her skirts swishing as she rested her hip against the balcony. "He thinks everything we risked our lives to achieve last month will be destroyed if I don't."
"Then you have Drake on your side, your husband, Lady Eberhardt... and me."
Ianthe smiled sadly. "Thank you."
"But...?" He could sense that she still held reservations.
"If I do this," she whispered, "then a great deal of scrutiny will fall upon me and my past. Upon Louisa."
Ah. That was what was holding her back. Louisa might have been Lucien's, but there would always be whispers about her birth. "Your husband has formally adopted her as his own. She has both of you to fight at her side. And we're sorcerers, Ianthe. Her illegitimacy is never going to go away, but we accept all as equal within the Order. After all, I'm a bastard too. It's never stopped me."
"That's not all. If I do this," she continued, and he realized that this last confession was the true crux of the problem, "then I'm going to end up facing my father head-on."
Bishop racked his brain. Nothing came to mind. "And your father is—?"
"Sir Grant Martin."
Hell. He suddenly understood her reluctance. "The Head of the Vigilance Against Sorcery Committee."
"The very same."
They stared at each other.
"He despises me for what I am," Ianthe pointed out. "If I do this, then VASC will come after us with everything they have. He won't rest until the Order—and I—are destroyed."
Sir Grant Martin had been lobbying parliament for over a decade to see sorcery declared illegal, and in the past few years had taken his cause to the streets to rouse the common people. Parliament held firm. After all, the sorcerers who served as Servants to the Empire were too important to the crown and its expansion plans. But the people....
When things went wrong in the lives of the poor and uneducated—mysterious accidents, illnesses, houses catching fire—most people needed to point the finger somewhere. Martin had been very successful in using that superstition and ill will to make headway among the populace. Some even suspected his handful of loyal followers set fires themselves.
Bishop frowned. It was a problem. One that might affect them all. "He's already working against us."
"If I become Prime, I can guarantee that those efforts will triple, at the very least."
"Do you want me to take care of the situation?" It wasn't an option lightly offered.
Ianthe stared at him, hunger lighting her blue eyes momentarily before she shook her head. "Good God, listen to us. Plotting murder. I'm not even in the chair yet."
"Yet."
Ianthe pushed away from the balcony. "That's enough. The Sicarii were formed to protect the Order, mostly from threats within. Not to annihilate those who might become a problem. If we take that step, then where does it end?"
Bishop scrubbed at his mouth. She was right. And he wasn't entirely certain if the offer had come from pure cold-blooded practicality, or from that never-ending itch that shifted beneath his skin. Death, the maladroise whispered. Power. He could practically feel the rush of that assassination whispering at him, like some devil breathing temptation.
"I'll consider what you've said, and... think about the VASC problem,” Ianthe finally said. “I don't think it needs to—"
Something slammed into the house wards.
Bishop stepped in front of Ianthe, his etheric blades springing to life in his hands.
A flicker, then a woman fell onto the lawn. A tumble of skirts. Chestnut hair. Pale skin. His heart kicked inside his chest. "Verity?"
He vanished the blades as he sprinted toward her. She moved with a groggy groan, and relief flowed through him. Why was she here? What had happened? He glanced around, but nothing seemed to have followed her.
And what was wrong with her? Why wasn't she getting up?
"Verity?" he demanded, sliding to his knees beside her in the gravel. "What's wrong? What happened?"
Lady Rathbourne was but a second behind him.
"Oh, God." Verity lifted her head, saw him, then collapsed back down weakly. "Those are very strong wards. I slammed right into them."
Bishop helped her to sit up, fussing with her skirts and brushing strands of honey-brown hair out of her eyes. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. "Why are you here? Where's Agatha?"
She swayed alarmingly. "I'm—"
"Here," Ianthe murmured, catching Verity's face in both her hands. A soft glow warmed her fingertips, and then Verity managed to straighten as Ianthe fed her some of her own vitality. "You've burned too much energy. Didn't you feel the warning signs?"
"She's Hex," he muttered to Ianthe. "Self-taught, mostly."
They shared a look.
"That's better," Verity said, touching her head. Color washed back into her cheeks. "Thank you."
He helped her to her feet, still fussing. Verity was so self-assured, so strong and confident. He didn't like seeing her like this.
"Bishop, we need to get to Seven Dials as soon as we can! Lady E's heart is giving her problems. I think I can take you with me."
"Agatha's what?" he demanded, snuffing out the magic that she tried to weave around him. "And stop that, you've barely gotten your feet back under you again. You're not ready to make another jump so soon!"
"She's dying!" For the first time he saw fear in her eyes, and then they glistened with tears. "I have to get you there right now, or it might be too late!"
No matter how deeply he felt those words, he clasped hands with her. "Not by yourself," he said, pushing aside all of the fear he felt for his mentor. Why the bloody hell was Agatha in the Dials? "Link
with me. You use my energy and all of the power I can draw into myself while I act as a wellspring."
A single tear slid down Verity's cheek, but she nodded and swallowed hard. "How?"
Bishop reached out toward her psychically. "Can you feel me reaching for you?" Verity nodded, and he opened up to her. "Accept the link. Let me in."
There was a fumbling touch against his psychic offering. Verity tried, but her shields were fully engaged, her mind locked down so tightly that he could see years of abuse behind it. Years of mistrust.
"Do you trust me, Ver?" he whispered.
"Y-yes. Of course I do."
That inner core of protection remained, however. He knew not to take it personally. From the little she'd told him, and from what he'd seen, she'd led a tough life. Opening herself up to trust was difficult, and went against every instinct she most likely owned.
"Then accept the bond." He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers, the faintest of touches. "Let me in, so I can help you."
Her breath caught and she kissed him back. Her last remaining shields fell, one by one, until she bloomed suddenly within him, her mind brushing up against his.
For a moment he was lost in the exhilarating feel of her as they linked. Verity didn't have the experience to shield her thoughts here, and he caught the edge of some of them. She was pure hope, despite the fact that she'd been beaten down so many times. Fear for Agatha danced through her veins; curiosity about this new type of spell craft; a hunger for learning; and... a throat-filling, tremulous desire for him that extended beyond simple lust.
He almost broke the kiss at the shock of that realization.
In those odd moments at night when he'd wondered what sex would be like, he'd thought of this. Of two people merging, their breaths and dreams filling each other, until each body was but an extension of the other, each soul just another missing piece that finally fit together.
It was breathtaking to experience it. To understand his wildest imaginings could not even come close to the reality of the experience. Simply stunning to conceive that in this moment he was not alone, that the maladroise had no hold on him—none at all—and that the possibility of forever stretched ahead of them.
Them. Not just him. He didn't know if he could ever think of himself separately anymore.
"Like that?" Verity breathed, withdrawing from their kiss, her eyes shining with surprise and delight.
"Just like that," he said, and smiled at her, feeling like they were alone in the world. "Now, use my strength and take us to Agatha."
* * *
The landing was smoother this time. He knew this, because some part of her noted it as they sprang back into being in a small bedroom with a pair of beds. No stomach-jarring jolt like when they'd escaped from Balthazar's Labyrinth.
One of the beds had a crocheted pink blanket laid lovingly across the bottom half, and there was a well-used toy cat stuffed with wool. Gifts from Maggie Henderson, who'd had the keeping of her in the workhouse. Her thought, not his. And sent only because she'd noticed the direction his gaze turned.
She was picking up thoughts from him, and he from her.
Bishop cleared his throat as he caught flashes of memory from her: a dark, grimy workhouse; hundreds of ill-washed bodies; cold, always cold; and a pit of hunger so deep in his stomach that he feared he'd never fill it. A little girl cried out, "Mama, please!" as she tried to shake the cold, still body of a woman in a narrow bed. "Please wake up!"
Jesus. He clutched at her shoulder, feeling her grief inside him like a fist of cold in his gut. Orphaned early, the pair of them. Only he had discovered a father much later, a strange gift that he'd never fully embraced.
They stared at each other. "I'm sorry," he said, feeling her loneliness and knowing it intimately.
Verity shrugged sadly. "So am I."
And he dulled the brief glimpses she'd caught of his thoughts of Drake.
It would be difficult to concentrate when they were linked so explicitly. "I can keep the line between us open," he said, "but I need to withdraw. I'm getting tangled in your thoughts."
"Probably a good idea," she replied.
The pair of them withdrew to a respectable distance, though he could still feel her on the edges of his consciousness.
"Guthrie's room is this way," she said, and strode for the door. "He has the Chalice."
"What?"
Verity hurried to explain, detailing her little side excursion with Agatha. He could have wrung both their necks. What had Agatha been thinking?
"I managed to get her back here, but only because this place is so ingrained in my consciousness. I can't quite explain it. I can leap blindly as far as I can see, or within a certain distance, but I have to know a place intimately to make a massive leap. I don't think I've spent enough time at your house, and I worried that I'd leave part of her behind if I tried."
He sensed the worry in her voice, and the guilt. "It's fine, Ver. You did better than expected considering the circumstances. We'll get her back."
And the Chalice.
"So how do we play this?" he asked.
"What do you want more? The Chalice? Or Agatha?"
"That's not even a question."
She nodded, looking relieved. "Agatha then. Guthrie will make us pay dearly if he can, but he won't give us both. Not yet. If we get Agatha to safety, I might be able to come back and steal the Chalice."
"We," he corrected.
She blinked, then nodded. "We. Here we are."
Rapping on the door earned swift attention. The tall, dark-skinned man opened the door, his eyes carefully narrowed when he saw who was there.
"Why, it's our Ver and her... friend," Conrad muttered back into the room.
"By all means," called Daniel Guthrie, "send them in."
Bishop was swiftly starting to despise the owner of that voice. The coursing chill of the maladroise slid through his veins like a lover's call: Kill him now and you get both Agatha and the Chalice.
Common sense said that they'd be prepared for him now. And Bishop had two potential casualties standing nearby. If he were in their shoes, he'd strike at Agatha or Verity first. Possibly both. And not even Bishop could cast wards to protect all three of them at the same time.
"Ah, my sweet Verity, returned to the fold," Guthrie mocked.
"You have something we want," Verity said.
Bishop's gaze went directly to Agatha, who lay recumbent on the daybed in the far corner of the room with the assassin girl sitting by her side, holding her hand. Fear shook him. Agatha had always seemed invincible. He simply couldn't comprehend what life would be like if she... wasn't.
Bishop took three steps toward her then froze as Conrad pushed away from the wall, stepping between them.
"Uh, uh, uh," Guthrie called, sinking into the chair behind his desk. "A sorceress of the Order stepped onto our turf, which means she belongs to me now."
Agatha? He sent the psychic touch toward her but she only flinched and waved him off with a hand, the other pressed over her eyes.
"I've done what I can," said the assassin girl. "It's not much but she'll survive another hour or two."
"Which gives us plenty of time to negotiate her release... or not." Guthrie smiled pleasantly.
"You little pissant, Guthrie.” Verity snarled. “There are rules! We don't go up against the Order."
"Rules change," Guthrie said flatly. "Murphy's no longer in charge here and I think the Crows deserve to have a little bigger slice of the pie."
"You're making a mistake," Bishop told him.
Daniel Guthrie laced his fingers together, looking triumphant as the old procuress beside him settled the Chalice on the desk on front of Guthrie. It gleamed, but Bishop tore his gaze off it as it began whispering to him. Hell. They had no idea what they held in their midst.
"Magical object like that.... Oh, it looks like it'll fetch a good pound or two on the black market," Guthrie said.
"You don't know what kind of
forces you're dealing with." Bishop ground his teeth together.
"The Order's been breathing down our necks for years," Guthrie shot back. "I think I know what they can do. And what they can pay."
"I wasn't talking about the Order." Bishop took a threatening step forward but Guthrie clicked his fingers.
Everybody in the room turned stiff with anticipation.
"If he twitches one finger in my direction, Mercy-lass, then you sink one of your magical shivs straight through the old broad's heart." Guthrie's shark smile stretched as he looked back at Bishop. "Do you understand?"
Bishop had never felt so helpless. He could snuff the young assassin in an instant, but she was both innocent and Verity's friend. Verity would never forgive him and Bishop didn't kill women unless he couldn't avoid it.
"Understood," she replied in a flat, distant voice.
"Then it seems you're at somewhat of a disadvantage." Guthrie was thrilled by this, and barely managing to contain it. "I have something you want—two somethings, by the way—and you have something I want." His gaze slithered past Bishop and alighted on Verity.
"No." Not her. She belonged to him.
Kill him, the maladroise whispered. Squeeze his heart in his chest and drink in the power of his death. It wouldn't even be that difficult. He wanted it. The maladroise wanted it. He could almost imagine the power of that death exploding through his body, igniting every one of his nerves, and leaving him a veritable God. Invincible. Unstoppable.
"Actually, I think we have two things you want," Verity said, stepping past him to lean on the desk. "And they're not the ones you think."
Thank God. Bishop was sweating with the need to destroy this gnat. It was all he could do to rein it in.
"Pray tell, Verity-lass." Guthrie smiled, toying with a pair of coins on his desk. "I always did like your brash heart, but I know when you're bluffing."
"The problem, you see, is that what you're holding in your hand is a very powerful object and unfortunately we're not the only ones who want it."
"Sounds like we've got a couple of buyers then. You're not convincing me, Ver."
"You're still thinking of this in terms of coin, Guthrie, but those who want this item don't think like that." Verity settled on the edge of the desk. "They had it in their hands and I stole it right out from under their noses." She tugged the edge of her sleeve back, revealing the crow tattooed on the back of her hand. "And I made sure they saw this."
