by Eva Chase
She tipped her head against my shoulder and let her hand rest on my thigh where it wouldn’t get in the way of my typing. Her fingers didn’t fall too close to any, ah, sensitive areas, but suddenly it was a little harder to drag my attention back to the computer.
This wasn’t a good time to be getting horny. I was supposed to be saving all of our lives here.
And I could still feel the tension in her body even as she leaned into me. She knew how much depended on our success even better than I did.
I ran a deeper search, and my heart leapt. “Here’s some messages about your marriage… These ones are just him passing on word that the original reception date has been cancelled. Apologies and all that. Lots of condolences in return.”
Rose laughed, but the sound had an edge to it. “Imagine the condolences if they knew the truth.”
About her real consorts? My gut clenched.
I made myself go on, sorting through more emails and text messages along the same lines, but my uneasiness didn’t fade.
Fuck it. I should just say something. Last time I’d gotten all twisted up thinking I knew how Rose felt, it’d turned out I was totally wrong. We were partners now. I had to trust her, not jump to conclusions.
“Rose,” I said tentatively, “have you been having any… regrets about the consorting?”
She turned her head to look at me, her expression puzzled. “The consorting? You mean with you and the other guys?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, just that—it got you out of the ceremony your stepmother was planning, but now you could be in even worse trouble. You could end up having to hide your magic for the rest of your life. If you’ve been thinking that maybe it would be better to sever the bonds, now that your spark is kindled, so you can look for a guy your people wouldn’t, you know, kill you over, I think we’d all understand.”
Rose’s eyes widened. “Kyler,” she said, sounding pained. She slid her fingers up my jaw and kissed me, so achingly sweet I didn’t know how to take it, only that I wished we didn’t have to stop. I pushed the computer onto the couch beside me and turned to face her. She ducked her head, her hand running down my chest.
“Why would you ask me that?” she said thickly.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Common sense? I can already see how hard it is for you. And—when I brought up that other ceremony, the soul-bound one, the idea that it would be permanent seemed to really bother you.”
She shook her head, raising it again. Tears glinted in her eyes. “Ky, I haven’t regretted committing myself to the four of you for a single second, not for what it’s meant for me. If we ever dissolve the consorting, it’ll be because you want your freedom back. I sprang it on you all so fast, and you hardly had time to really think about it, and now your lives are on the line… The last thing I’d want is for you to be tied to me even more than that.”
“Oh.” Her hesitation wasn’t for her sake, but for ours. The ache of my worries fell away. I pulled her to me, kissing her hard. At the pleased hum that crept from her throat, it took all my self-control not to tip her over on the couch and forget about the damned computer and all the rest.
I pulled back just far enough to speak, my face still close to hers. “I haven’t regretted it for one second either. This is exactly where I want to be, Rose. There’s no risk that wouldn’t be worth it.”
Her mouth twisted into a bittersweet smile. “Are you sure? This can’t be the kind of life you were expecting. What future were you imagining for yourself before I came along?”
“Nothing I can’t do now that you’re here,” I said. “You know what I’m into. I figured I’d keep doing my work and gaming and reading up on new things. Do you have any idea how much new research you’ve inspired?”
A laugh burst out of her at that. “Were you really in danger of running out?”
“You never know,” I said. “And—you know, I’ve always kind of dreamed about coming up with really useful code of my own. Programs that will help people in ways no one has thought of yet. And you, and the magic, and this whole world I’m aware of now… It’s opening up totally new ways of thinking that could take me way farther than I’d have gotten otherwise. I couldn’t have gotten that inspiration anywhere else.”
“I’m sure you’d have come up with something brilliant anyway,” Rose said, but her voice had softened. “But what about when you’re not working? You must have thought you’d find a girlfriend—a wife—you could actually go out in public with, share a house with… All that usual stuff.”
I touched my forehead to hers. “Rose,” I said, “I spend at least half of my social life online, talking to people I’ve never even seen in real life. The only long-term girlfriend I’ve ever had, I never got to touch, never heard her voice except through the computer speakers. I don’t really do ‘usual.’ I didn’t dream about having what I have with you right now because I never would have thought I’d get this lucky, not because it’s less than what I’d want.”
“Oh.” A brighter smile crossed her face. “Well, all right then. When everything with my dad is over, we’ll see how good a dream we can make it.”
I kissed her one more time, offering up every ounce of feeling in me before I got back to work. “Let’s get this part over with as quickly as possible, then.”
I grabbed the computer and dove back in. I had to live up to the love Rose was offering me. Had to prove myself worthy of it.
Maybe the estate manager would give us the key. If Rose’s dad had texted Mrs. Gainsley about the contract, he might have mentioned other aspects of the plan to her in the past.
I scraped through the computer’s history, the files and history her dad probably felt had vanished into the ether. But very few things are ever fully deleted once you’ve brought them onto your computer, not unless you really know what you’re doing. And if Mr. Hallowell was lax enough to let his text messages sync to his laptop, I could tell right off the bat he wasn’t a tech security expert.
The name Gainsley came up in a discarded message from last week. I pulled up that thread and started to skim it.
“What’s that?” Rose asked.
“Your dad was discussing hiring Mrs. Gainsley with some other guy… That name looks familiar. Hold on.”
I snatched up my own computer and checked the notes I’d made in Seattle. Rose peered at the messages. She said what I was just confirming. “Frankford. I know him. He’s with the Assembly. The head of one of the divisions—Education, I think. Dad’s always been very careful to stay on his good side.” Her wry smile slanted. “I wouldn’t have thought he’d be checking with that guy about our estate manager, though.”
“It looks like Frankford was recommending Mrs. Gainsley to him. Look at this. You need someone with the proper discretion and the skill required, of course.”
I paused. Discretion and skill were reasonable things to want in an estate manager in general, I guessed. But something about the phrasing sent a chill through me. I dug farther back into the thread of communication between the two men. Then my hand stilled. My stomach dropped as I read an earlier exchange.
Integrating a binding into the ceremony? Frankford had written. I’ll be interested to hear of your success with that.
My wife is investigating the details, Mr. Hallowell replied. There has to be a subtler way than the current methods of control.
And then, most damning, Frankford’s response: We’ll all be grateful for your efforts if you succeed.
Rose had been reading alongside me. Her hand tightened around my arm. “He was talking to Frankford about it. Openly. And Frankford…”
“He approved of it,” I filled in. My heart had started to thud. No, this wasn’t how our investigations had been supposed to go.
“Not just him,” Rose said quietly. “’We all.’ How many witching folk know about this?” Her voice started to rise. “And what does he mean about ‘the current methods.’ How many other witches have they done something to, to control their magi
c? Spark help me… How many people in the Assembly are part of it?”
“You could still take whatever evidence we can find to the Justice Division, right?” I said, but my voice sounded weak to my own ears.
“The Justice Division that has a secret department for killing off any witches who step out of line in a way they decide is intolerable?” She buried her face in her hands. “I should have known. The Spark only knows how many other secrets they’re keeping. If it’s my dad’s doing that Celestine is dead, he wouldn’t even have needed to make up a story. They were covering up their own tracks too.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
“No,” Rose said. “But we know enough. I’m not getting any help from the Assembly. Not when it comes to my freedom.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rose
The last time we’d all gathered by the old stone towers it’d been an exhilarating celebration of love. Coming here now, with so much gloom hanging over me, felt almost wrong. But with Derek gone and Dad away, the estate seemed like the safest place for a group meeting. I’d made sure no one was nearby this time before I’d cast a wide rebuffing ring around our meeting spot.
I stepped into a pool of early morning sunlight that streaked between the branches overhead. The day was already warm, but even that glowing beam couldn’t quite shake the chill that had gripped me since the discovery Kyler and I had made last night. The lush scents of the vines and the foliage around us tasted too tart as I inhaled.
Everywhere I looked, everything I touched, I seemed to find sharp edges.
Jin sat down on a rock near the edge of the clearing. He held a stick braced against the ground as if he meant to sketch in the dirt with it, but his hand stayed in place, his gaze fixed on me. Damon stood near him, his arms folded over his chest and his expression even darker than usual. The twins had arrived together, but Seth had hung back as if to keep an eye on the whole group while Kyler had walked right up to me, taking my hand in his with a squeeze of support.
And Gabriel. Gabriel, who was one of my guys but not, leaned against one of the towers in a stance that looked relaxed, but his gaze never quite met mine. I could kind of understand that. Every time I looked his way I remembered the feeling of his body pressed against mine in the dark car yesterday morning.
After I’d sent out the group message last night, I’d texted him separately. You don’t have to come. If you’d rather sit this one out, it’s fine.
Don’t be silly, he’d written back. I want to be there. That hasn’t changed.
Right now, it felt as if an awful lot had changed. The awkwardness after our first kiss had expanded at least tenfold. But I wasn’t going to confront him in front of the other guys. Especially not when we had so much else to worry about.
“The group has assembled,” he said now in his usual easy voice. “What do you need from us, Sprout?”
My lips twitched at that old nickname, wanting to smile but not quite making it. “I’m… not completely sure. There might not be anything else we can do now. But I was hoping if we talked it through together, we’d figure out any possibilities we do have.”
“What’s the picture right now?” Jin asked. “What are the pieces we do have?”
I sucked in a breath. “Well, there are clearly people in the ruling body of witches who support the kind of scheme my dad was orchestrating. It sounds like there are other witches who’ve been trapped in similar ways. So if I report him to them, there’s as much chance they’ll help him finish the job as bring him to justice.”
“Let’s get down to the foundations, then,” Seth said. “What needs to happen so you can be safe?”
“It sounds simple,” I said. “It’s the same thing I needed before. I need my dad off the estate, stripped of any authority over the property or me… and I need it before he tries to see this new consorting through. I just don’t know how I could justify it if I can’t point to his crime.”
Damon cocked his head, his dark eyes flashing. “You can’t point to that as his crime. If you want someone out of the way, you just have to find something to pin on them. It doesn’t even have to be something they actually did, right?”
Gabriel straightened up. “That’s a good point. If they won’t care about his real crime, frame him for something they will care about.” His gaze came back to me, settling somewhere in the vicinity of my cheeks rather than directly looking me in the eyes. “What do you think your Assembly would get worked up about?”
I blinked. I hadn’t thought about that. “I’d still need proof of whatever it was. But I guess there’d be all the same sorts of things regular law enforcement cares about.”
Kyler nodded, his hand tightening around mine. “So, theft, assault, murder…”
“I can’t set him up to have killed someone,” I said. My stomach turned.
“They’re very concerned about how you all use your magic, aren’t they?” Gabriel said. “Keeping it a secret. Not mingling with the ‘unsparked.’ If he exposed that part of your society somehow…”
“He doesn’t have any magic himself,” I said. “I can’t pin anything magical on him.”
Seth frowned. “Is there any way he could do something with magic without it being magic he cast himself?”
Jin tipped his head toward me. “You cast that spell on the necklace I made for you. I take it it’s possible for magic to stay in objects. Are you the only one who can use something you worked on?”
I hesitated, my hand rising to the lump of the pendant under my shirt. I’d kept wearing it even though Derek was gone. It still made me feel safer, as false a feeling as that might be.
“No,” I said. “Anyone could use the power that’s been put into an object.” That was what my stepsister had accused me of doing, wasn’t it? Hurting Celestine with some sort of enchanted tool. I hadn’t. But Dad could hurt someone that way. Or at least, could look like he had…
“We’d need an object. And witnesses, so it wasn’t just my word. Enough witnesses that the Assembly couldn’t ignore it.” My pulse skipped a beat. “His Cairo deal. It’s the most important thing he’s worked on all year. They only just finalized it—some of his colleagues have been encouraging him to host a celebratory party.”
Gabriel snapped his fingers. “Yes. I’ve heard him talking about that on the phone out by the garage. More than once. He was putting them off because of your wedding coming so soon…”
“But my wedding isn’t happening anymore. At least not that soon, as far as he knows.” The tendrils of an idea started to twine together in my head. I slipped back through my memories to that first day when Dad had returned, when everything was different. The fancy case he’d shown me, the artifact he hadn’t dared let the unsparked staff handle. All the power it had once contained. “I think that’s it. At least, it’s the start of a plan.”
Gabriel grinned. “All right. Then all we need to do is work out the details.”
Dad had said he’d call around noon to update me on progress with my potential consort. It was half past twelve, and I was so wound up at the thought of the conversation ahead that I startled whenever a door squeaked in the house.
“I think you’d better send one of the cleaning staff around with some oil for those hinges,” Philomena said, with an arch look.
“It’s an old house,” I said. “Things squeak.” I paced from one end of my room to the other and then sat on the bed. “Come here?”
She sat down next to me. It used to be that Phil was so real to me, so solid in my imagination, that I could all but feel the layers of her dress as they fell against my leg, smell the powdery floral perfume she wore. Now, she was so far from the life I was living and all the dangers that had come with it, she’d gone almost filmy.
But it still was a comfort having her here next to me.
My phone trilled. I jumped again, and then I pawed for it. Dad’s number showed on the screen.
“Dad,” I said, hoping I sounded reasonably normal. �
��Hi. How’s it going over there?”
“Oh, very well,” he said in his warm baritone. He did sound happy. Killian must be getting on board. “I’m taking my time to do my due diligence, but I do think my instincts were right. There’s a good partner for you here.”
“I guess it’ll be easier to tell when I actually meet him,” I said.
“Well, yes.”
“Dad,” I dove in. “I had an idea—not to do with the consorting. Well, sort of. I thought it would be a good way to take my mind off of everything that happened with Derek. And your mind off Celestine’s leaving. I know how hard that was for you.”
“I’ve made my peace with that,” Dad said.
He didn’t take the bait. Didn’t mention her death. Trying not to distract me from my consorting? How long did he think he could hide that information?
Then again, Evianna hadn’t bothered me again. Maybe he had reason to believe no one would ever mention it in my presence. I knew how much one spell could control what people said.
I restrained a shiver. “I know,” I said. “But still…”
“Why don’t you just tell me about this plan?” Dad said. He sounded curious, not suspicious. That was good. “What are you up to, Rose?”
“Well, that Cairo deal was so important for you, and I feel bad that you couldn’t properly celebrate it because of all the wedding plans—but now that those have been postponed, I thought we could host a party at the manor this weekend. You won’t have to do anything other than invite the right people. I’ll take care of getting the house ready. It’ll give me something to do. So it’d be for you and for me. What do you think?”
Dad was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure, lamb?” he said. “Having a bunch of my business associates in the house, when you’re dealing with so much?”
He made it sound like he cared. He made it sound like my well-being meant something to him. My fingernails dug into my palm. I forced myself to smile, as if he’d be able to hear my expression over the phone.
