Royals of Villain Academy 5: Corrupt Alchemy

by Eva Chase

  “Okay,” I said, even as my gut twisted. All her attention was focused on locating my mother, whatever the cost, clearly. I didn’t feel any of yesterday’s concern for how the casting would affect me.

  Lillian drew back to join the ring of her colleagues. Maggie had drifted all the way to the cars. I had the urge to protest somehow, but I didn’t know what I’d be arguing for. It’d only taken a few hours for me to get my strength back yesterday. Today I was better prepared. And I didn’t want the blacksuits to see me as someone easily shaken. So I steeled myself and shut my eyes.

  My heart was thumping so hard I barely heard the low voices forming their casting in the ring around me. The cool breeze ruffled my hair, bringing the smell of damp earth to my nose—and then the surge of magic crashed into me like a thunderclap.

  I stiffened my legs to keep them from wobbling. Power crackled through me from my toes to my scalp. Like before, it burst out of me through the top of my head, pulling some of my awareness with it over the gloomy field and far away across the country to the warmer, drier zones the joymancers called home.

  My nerves quaked with dozens of tiny jabs already splitting into my consciousness. It wasn’t just power that rushed through me, though. Whiffs of emotion flavored the magic that was coursing into my body. Hope and anticipation, yeah, but also acerbic ripples of hostility and sharp tongues of anger that lashed at my awareness alongside the general thrum.

  The blacksuits knew for sure now that one of their rulers had been stolen from them, hidden from them for nearly twenty years. And they were just as furious as I’d sensed my mother was. The vicious edge to their rage made my muscles shiver for reasons that had nothing to do with the impact of their spell.

  How long would it take them to train that violence on the joymancers when they narrowed down their search for my mother? Were they going to go charging off ready to burn down everything between them and her the second this ceremony was over?

  How many mages like Deborah who didn’t even know about their prisoner would be slaughtered in their charge to get to her? How many Nary bystanders would be injured or killed? They wouldn’t care about the nonmagical civilians any more than my fellow students gave a damn about Shelby.

  Panic washed over me, even sharper than the fury pelting my senses. At the same moment, a wisp of the presence I’d latched onto before touched the edge of my awareness. My mother.

  Two instinctive reactions, toward and away, collided in my head. I wanted to help find her. I didn’t want to help dozens of people to be massacred.

  My thoughts spun with the whirlwind of magic, and the panic overwhelmed me. My mind jerked back, my jaw clenched tight, and my nerves rang out with resistance.

  The magic hurtling through me snapped away in an instant. The loss of it left me gasping for air. I swayed and tumbled forward onto my hands and knees. This time Lillian wasn’t close enough to help catch me.

  “What happened?” she said tersely, striding over. “We seemed to hit some kind of block—did you notice anything?”

  She couldn’t tell that I’d done it—that I’d shut down their spell. I fumbled for the right words to answer her.

  “I don’t know,” I managed. “It just… felt wrong.” That wasn’t entirely untrue.

  She swore under her breath and peered down at me. I tried to push myself back onto my feet, but my arms trembled at the attempt, barely keeping me off the ground. The spell had taken a lot out of me even in the short time it’d been active.

  “We can’t try it again now,” she muttered. “We’ll just—damn it. We were so close. Take the day to rest, but be ready. Next time we’ll have to punch through even harder.”

  Chapter Ten

  Connar

  Six months ago, none of us scions had even known Rory existed. But in that short time, she’d left her mark strongly enough that I felt it even when she wasn’t around. The vibe in the scion lounge just didn’t sit right with all of us there except for her.

  Of course, Malcolm’s stormy pacing in front of the entertainment system didn’t help with that.

  “What could the blacksuits want with her now?” he demanded. “We can’t just sit around while they might be arresting her all over again or Lord knows what else.”

  It might have been funny hearing that sentiment from the guy who’d been determined to crush Rory’s spirit just a short while ago if genuine frustration hadn’t rung so clearly through my best friend’s voice. If I hadn’t known just how awful a price he’d paid in the last few days for his decision to help her, one he’d shown no regrets about.

  To look at him, I wouldn’t have had any idea his father had hurt him, let alone as badly as Rory had described. Remembering the account she’d given us made my muscles tense all over again with the urge to pay Baron Nightwood back in kind, but Malcolm hadn’t let a word or gesture slip that hinted at the torture he’d endured. I couldn’t even be surprised by that. He’d never let anything shake him much—other than Rory.

  I glanced at Declan, who was sitting in one of the armchairs with a cup of coffee in his hands. He offered me a thin grimace. We knew what the blacksuits would have wanted from the heir of Bloodstone, but she obviously hadn’t said anything to Malcolm about her mother’s possible re-emergence yet. And it wasn’t really our place to tell him for her, no matter how much distress the current situation had put him in.

  Jude sprawled even more languidly into the corner of the sofa and raised his glass with a clinking of ice cubes. He’d gone straight to the liquor cabinet when he’d come in—although I couldn’t really criticize him for a little afternoon indulgence when I hadn’t seen him actually drunk in weeks, and that had only been a brief lapse I still didn’t totally understand.

  “I think you should have a little more faith in our community’s law enforcement rather than acting as if they might have stuffed her in the trunk of a car with the intent of leaving her in a ditch somewhere,” the Killbrook scion said. “If Rory thought she needed help, she’d have told us. She looks after herself pretty well, as you of all people should know by now.”

  That was definitely a dig about Malcolm’s past campaign against her. I watched my friend’s expression carefully, but Malcolm only looked as if he’d suppressed a wince. I guessed he couldn’t really get angry about Jude pointing out something undeniable.

  “I think we have good reason not to totally trust the blacksuits too, after the murder fiasco.” The Nightwood scion glowered at the floor and then dropped into the other armchair. “So, what? We just wait for her to get back? There isn’t much point in discussing her safety if she’s not here to contribute—and I know the three of you aren’t going to want to tell me anything I don’t already know without her go-ahead.”

  “We weren’t completely sure where you’d stand on the subject until recently,” Declan said mildly.

  “I get it. It’s fine. I’d rather hear it from her too. But she’s not here.”

  “We could throw on one of the games for a while and see if she turns up,” Jude suggested with a motion toward the consoles by the TV, but even he didn’t sound convinced that would be a great way to pass the time.

  Malcolm expressed what he thought of that idea with a huff of breath.

  I looked around at my fellow scions, a thought rising in my head that I wasn’t totally sure how to put into words. I wasn’t usually the talker of the bunch, after all. I hung back and listened to what the rest of them said, and then put their ideas into action. But I’d had some decent ideas that had gotten things done in the past.

  “Maybe it’s a good thing if we have a little time to talk, just the four of us,” I said cautiously, feeling out their reaction. “About… how we’re going to handle ourselves when it comes to Rory.”

  Declan considered me with a thoughtful expression that might have been a bit tense as well. I didn’t think Jude or Malcolm had any idea about his more intimate relationship with Rory, however far that went beyond the interlude the three of us had recen
tly shared. “What do you mean, Connar?” he asked, even though I suspected he’d already figured out the gist.

  I suddenly didn’t know what to do with my hands. I folded them on my lap in a position I hoped didn’t look as awkward as I felt. “Well, we all care about her. A lot. And she obviously cares about us too. And that could be a little… complicated to navigate, going forward.”

  Malcolm folded his arms over his chest. “If this is about staking some kind of claim on her, I think she’s already made it crystal clear that she’s not planning on committing to a favorite any time soon.”

  She had—to me and Jude. And maybe to Declan too. When would the subject have come up yet with Malcolm? Had he already made some kind of move on her in the middle of his peace-making?

  The possibility didn’t even surprise me. Of course he would have. This was the heir of Nightwood we were talking about. When he wanted something, he went for it—and even when Rory had been frustrating the hell out of him, he’d been trying to stake a claim on her.

  “That’s not what I’m trying to do,” I said. “I just think we should talk about exactly what we’re doing here. How far we’re going to take this. What it’ll look like to our families and the rest of the community if it becomes obvious all four of us are involved with her—and how we’re going to handle that.”

  I realized I’d made a slip a few seconds after the words came out of my mouth. Declan tensed in his seat just slightly, at the same moment as Jude sat up straighter, peering at the Ashgrave scion with his head cocked. “All four of us, huh? I seem to have been out of the loop.”

  Declan gave him a slanted smile. “Until a few days ago, any ‘involvement’ I’ve had with her could have gotten me into deep shit as a teacher’s aide. And it could still get me in shit with the other barons. So there hasn’t been a lot of acting on it, and what there has been, we haven’t exactly been broadcasting widely.”

  Jude dropped his head back against the cushions with a chuckle. “She did say something about other guys, plural, when I first started taking her out, but I thought she was just keeping her options open, not talking about the actual current situation. But of course you got in there while you were being her white knight.”

  His tone was only lightly snarky. I couldn’t tell whether he was actually annoyed by the news or just hassling the other guy. Declan seemed to take it as the latter.

  “We do have to handle our relationships with her carefully,” he said, moving on to the core of the matter with his usual academic precision. “I think some closeness among the scions won’t raise eyebrows, and the fact that she’s been dating both you and Connar hasn’t caused any real problems… but three guys at once, or four…” He considered Malcolm, apparently not sure of how deep the Nightwood scion’s involvement ran either.

  Malcolm shrugged. “Whatever happens between her and me, I have no problem keeping it behind closed doors. I’ve never been interested in making a big show out of my private life. Neither have you, as far as I can tell. So, there you go. Problem solved.”

  “It’s not just that,” I broke in. “It’s—We all know this isn’t going to last, right? Or do we? I know I can’t ever offer her anything permanent, because I’m the only Stormhurst scion left. I can’t leave the barony to be tossed into the hands of some mage at random.” That was what happened if there were no blood heirs left. When the last baron of a family line stepped down, the heart of that family’s power would arise in some other mage it deemed worthy by standards no one really understood.

  “No one thinks you should,” Declan said gently.

  That wasn’t the point. My stomach clenched. “I guess any of the rest of you could make the decision to step down. You all have younger siblings, or you’re going to. Are we all on the same page? Because if one or more of you would seriously consider giving up your own barony to be with her… Maybe I should back off and get out of the way of whoever of you is willing to make that kind of commitment.”

  “Conn,” Malcolm said, sounding startled. When I looked at him, his expression was almost pained. Then his eyes flashed with the ferocity he brought to bear any time he sensed someone in our pentacle was threatened. “You don’t have to give up your happiness for anyone else. She shouldn’t have to give up what she has with you if she doesn’t want to. It’s not like we’re anywhere near the marriage stage anyway.”

  Even after everything I’d told Rory about how much Malcolm had done for me, how he’d always looked out for me, I’d honestly expected him to be happy at the thought of less competition for Rory’s attention. His protectiveness turned the tightness in my stomach into a softer ache.

  “I just figured it would make sense,” I said. “For her to be spending more time seeing how well she connects with the people who can actually offer her something in the long run. If any of you thinks you would offer that.”

  I glanced around at my fellow scions. Declan’s mouth had twisted. “I can’t,” he said. “I’ve been upfront with her about that from the start. I’ve put too much into getting where I am—and there’s no way I can dump all the responsibility onto my brother’s shoulders.”

  Jude had shifted into an oddly defensive stance, his knuckles paling where he gripped his glass. “I can’t really make any evaluations based on a sibling who hasn’t even arrived yet,” he said with unexpected tartness. Was he offended I’d even suggest that he might give up his position? It was so hard to tell with the Killbrook scion and his erratic moods. Something about the conversation appeared to be bothering him, anyway.

  Malcolm leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been preparing for the barony for a hell of a long time too. Rory’s better off with us beside her in the pentacle than playing house at home. That doesn’t mean we can’t make the most of the time we have before we need to think about heirs of our own.”

  We were agreed, then. We wanted everything we could have with Rory right now… but we understood that eventually we’d have to give our more intimate relationships with her up and go back to just being colleagues. I should have been relieved that we were all on equal footing, that we’d talked through the situation, but for some reason my chest had constricted.

  I didn’t want to have to give her up. I wasn’t sure I’d ever really wanted the barony. I sure as hell hadn’t planned to fight for it. If my brother Holden had wanted it, if my parents could have let us just decide instead of forcing us into that horrible fight… I’d have given it to him in a blink.

  But now I couldn’t. Because of how badly I’d hurt him.

  Malcolm was right, though, as he was about most things. We could do more to support Rory by taking our baronies and working together with her than leaving her to fend for herself with other uncertain heirs.

  “Well,” Jude said, setting down his glass on the coffee table with a solid thump. “We’re settled then. Our futures mapped out, our present accounted for.” He shot us all a smile that still looked tighter than usual. “I’ve got a godawful assignment to finish before tomorrow. Give me a holler when we’re ready for a meeting with all the scions.”

  He sauntered out of the lounge without a backward glance, leaving me wondering if we were entirely united after all.

  Chapter Eleven

  Rory

  What happens next? Deborah asked when I’d told her about the failed attempt to locate my birth mother.

  “I guess I just wait for Lillian to call on me again.” I tipped back my head in my desk chair, giving her back a little rub where she was perched on my knee. The view out the window looked ominous. The clouds had thickened and darkened, but no rain had fallen yet. Flecks of white gleamed on the lake—froth from the waves tossed by the rising wind.

  What was I going to do when we went through the locating ceremony a second time? The memory of the anger I’d felt surging through me from the blacksuits left me queasy.

  My mother was out there, and I wanted to get her out of whatever prison the joymancers had her locked in… but I also didn’t want to be
responsible for unleashing that kind of fury on far more people than those who deserved it.

  Whatever the Conclave did with your mother, you can be sure they felt they had good reason—

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, cutting her off. “The way they went about it was incredibly shady, and let’s not forget they kidnapped me at the same time. And not because they wanted to give me some better life. You know the Conclave wanted to keep me more like a prisoner. I wouldn’t have had a better life at all if my parents hadn’t stood up for me.”

  And look at how the fearmancers repaid them for that kindness.

  My jaw tensed. I still hated the brutality the blacksuits had inflicted on my adoptive parents. Mom and Dad hadn’t deserved that. But… that didn’t give the joymancers a free pass to do whatever they wanted to any fearmancer they got their hands on.

  Before I could answer my familiar, a knock sounded on my bedroom door. I swiveled my chair to face it. “Yes?”

  “It’s Maggie Duskland,” a familiar bright voice said, maybe a little more subdued than usual. “Lillian wanted me to follow up on your last… conversation.”

  They were still keeping my activities with the blacksuits secret, even though we were sure of my mother’s continued existence now. Had they even told the barons yet?

  Deborah scurried down my pantleg, and I got up to answer the door. Maggie beamed at me the second I opened it, but her gaze slid past me to eye the room beyond. How long had she been standing there before she’d knocked? I’d been keeping my voice low, but had she managed to hear me talking to Deborah anyway?

  “Do you have a few minutes?” she asked, her attention coming back to me.