“The two men who attacked you were sent by someone from the inside.” Cadence’s mahogany eyes held his.
With careful steps, he glided around the table and set the mug on the placemat in front of Cadence. Preshea shifted uncomfortably in her chair, and Tim sat as stiff as a statue, his eyes locked on the Collective leader and missing nothing.
“Thank you,” she said.
Eldon ignored the pleasantries and took a seat on the opposite side of the table. Rho shifted over one seat and set her hand on his knee. The moment she touched him, he released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, the muscles in his shoulders relaxing. Her nearness calmed him instantly.
He placed his hand on top of Rho’s, the feel of her cool skin familiar to his touch. “How do you know they were sent by the Collective?”
“I questioned them personally. They don’t know exactly who sent them, but they did tell me the one who did can definitely wield our brand of magick. They’re movers. They would know,” Cadence said.
Even if they were movers, there would be no way to determine whether they were actually sent from someone inside the Collective. There were only twelve members. Scratching his chin, Eldon considered each of the members individually. He’d known Nick his whole life and Cadence nearly as long. She had a deep-rooted love for magick and a need to play by the rules. Nick might enjoy bending the rules a bit at times, but he’d never go against Collective orders.
Eldon frowned. “You know certain they were hired by magick movers?”
“Not for certain, but I do believe so.”
Rho tilted her head, eyes narrowed. “What makes you think it’s an inside job? What if it was just some magick mover and not a real Collective member?”
Cadence pulled the mug to her lips and drew a long sip, as if to gather her thoughts, before setting it on the table in front of her. “Only the Collective members have the keys to the compulsion spells.”
“Compulsion? You use magick to force someone to do function against their will?” Tim’s brow creased into a deep line.
Cadence shot Tim a firm look. “We don’t use compulsion spells unless we have to, and even then, their use must be documented in our archives. That type of magick isn’t taken lightly.”
Preshea let out a low grumble but didn’t say a word. He couldn’t blame his teammates for being unnerved by the level of power the Collective could control. Sometimes even he was daunted by their combined skills, and he’d been a member since his father passed away.
“So you believe they were coerced into attacking us? Like, a hired hit?” Eldon asked.
“I see no other reason for them to fight against you.” Cadence brought the mug to her lips and sipped slowly before setting it back down again. “I must tell you, over the past several months, things have been…out of sorts. Money missing. Objects moved. You know I appreciate order.”
He nodded. Cadence was a by-the-book woman, with everything from ley line fire to the organization of her desk. It wasn’t in her nature to veer from the path.
“Last week I found a tracker on my car.” Cadence’s gaze traveled over to Eldon. “One bound in mover magick. And then today, while here in Paris, I found another on my driver’s car. Tell me how many people you know who could pull that off.”
“I know a few people who could pull off a solid tracker spell.” Eldon could list at least three movers he’d grown up with who had a knack for tracking. It wasn’t easy, but with the proper aptitude, it could be learned.
“And do you know where I live?” Cadence asked.
Eldon frowned as he considered her. Come to think of it, he didn’t. Not her personal home, anyway. He’d never asked and she’d never told him. The subject simply hadn’t come up.
Cadence snorted. “Of course you don’t. No one does. I keep my private life extremely private.”
“Most leaders do,” Preshea said.
Cadence was a smart woman. Being the leader of the Collective was a little like being the president of any country or the leader of any other race. The likelihood of someone coming after you at any given moment was small, but the threat was always present.
“I’ve left my home.” Cadence’s expression clouded, a deep sadness touching her gaze briefly before she shook her head and it vanished. “I can’t be certain I’m safe there.” She lifted her mug and drew another sip.
Eldon lifted a brow. “Lukas and Evette’s home was broken into last week. That’s why we’re here.”
Cadence nearly spewed her coffee. “When? When did someone break into their home?” she asked between choked breaths.
“I’m not sure exactly what day.” Eldon lifted a shoulder. “You’d have to ask them. I just know it was last week.”
The coughing finally stopped, and Cadence touched her lips with her fingers. Her brow furrowed. “I visited Evette last week.”
That made no sense at all. He wasn’t sure where the Collective leader lived, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t Paris. Not with that American accent of hers. “She’s not exactly a neighbor. Why would you visit with her?”
She settled a level stare at Eldon, somehow making him feel like she was speaking to him at the exclusion of everyone else in the room. “By now I’m sure she’s told you about the protection spells she cast. The ones I hired her to perform to safeguard our Kamen.”
He nodded.
“As you also know, they were overridden and our Kamen was stolen. I wanted to walk through them with her to try and retrace her steps. See where she went wrong. Evette’s spells are usually so strong. It’s hard to believe someone could break them so easily.”
His eyes narrowed. “Any chance you were bugged?” They’d all be in big trouble if someone managed to put a tracker on her body somewhere.
She shook her head. “My car, maybe. I didn’t find the tracker until after our visit. No way could they have bugged me personally.”
“Are you sure?”
“They would have had to break into my house. Considering my backup wards have backup wards, if someone had gotten in, I would have known.”
“They got to your car.”
“My garage is detached. It’s not a part of my home, and I didn’t ward it as tightly.” She shook her head. “Obviously I should have. And they could have placed the tracker on the car at any time, not necessarily at my home.”
“How many people know where you live?” Many knew about Eldon’s family’s main property. His family had run the store from that location since before he’d been born. The safe house, on the other hand, was a well-kept secret.
“Only my family and a select few in the Collective.”
“Would anyone have a reason to try and track you?” Eldon asked.
Cadence shrugged. “Given recent circumstances, I suspect someone could believe that I have the mover Kamen. It’s conceivable my movements were tracked.”
“It doesn’t make much sense.” Eldon tapped his chin with a finger for a moment. “Is that all you came here to tell us?”
“All I came here to tell you? We have a leak inside the Collective. You, as a fellow member and a friend, should appreciate how serious this matter is,” Cadence said.
“Oh, it’s serious.” With a loud clank, Rho set her empty coffee mug on the table before settling back in her seat and folding her arms across her chest. “I just don’t see what you want him to do about it.”
Eldon wasn’t going to say it out loud, but he’d wondered that same thing.
“I need you to be careful.” Cadence’s mahogany eyes stared from team member to team member. “All of you. I know you’re here to investigate the location where the mover’s Kamen went missing. What you must understand is that you are not the only ones who are after that Kamen. Someone tracked me here before my people’s relic ever went missing. Someone knows where it was hidden and had enough power to override Evette’s protection spells to remove it. You must be cautious.”
“If it’s already gone, why are you here?” Preshea
asked.
Cadence set her mug on the table. “I wanted to tell you about the breach. From this point forward, you can’t trust anyone but yourselves. You’d be wise to be skeptical, even of me. Considering you already have two Kamens, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone is trying to track you down as well.”
Eldon’s eyes narrowed. She knew they had two Kamens. They’d hidden them at his safe house, where no one should have been able to find them. He hadn’t told anyone outside of the team about the one additional Kamen they’d picked up a few weeks ago.
Not the king of the vampires or the forerunner of the wolves. Not even his sisters. And he certainly hadn’t told Cadence. Even if he did, no one could access them with the level of magick he’d used to hide them. It would require the cooperation and consent of every member on the team.
Cadence chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m not angry with you for not telling me. I’m impressed.”
He hadn’t really been worried about her anger. This was unnecessary exposure. His brow furrowed as he tried to figure out where she was going with this.
Cadence’s lips lifted into a gentle smile. “I know because it’s my gift to know these things. I’m a precog, like your sister. I just have a great filter that allows me to target what I see.”
No shit. His sister, Adelle, had never been a fan of her gift. She’d always tried to suppress it, afraid to ever use it. Most precogs kept quiet about their skills, not wanting to be exploited for their ability to see into the future. Sometimes people really didn’t need to know what was coming for them.
He’d had no idea Cadence had the gift of future sight.
“Frankly,” Cadence continued, “I would have done the same thing. The fewer people who know about those relics, the better.”
“I agree,” Tim said, finally speaking up.
Cadence acknowledged him with a quick nod before rising to her feet. “You all need to get out of town as quickly as you can. If you see anyone suspicious or you’re attacked again, I want you to call me immediately.”
“Wait.” Eldon stood quickly. “About that tracker. Did you destroy it?”
Cadence shook her head. “No. I hid it behind a painting at the Louvre. At least there I know it’ll be under constant surveillance. I thought it could be useful.”
Perfect. “Do you mind if I take a look at it?”
“Not at all. But be careful. It didn’t react to me, but there’s no telling what type of spell someone could have cooked up.” Cadence grabbed her purse off the back of her chair before meeting Eldon’s eyes. “You already have one too many death marks to worry about.”
Eldon’s body went rigid, and he suppressed a groan. Great, she knew about that, too.
“Honestly, Eldon.” Cadence’s smile flattened into a serious line. “I thought we were friends. You can tell me about these things. I only want to help you.”
“I know.” He shook his head. “But it’s hard to know who to trust right now.” Understatement of the century.
“I understand. You’re right to question people.” She shook her head. “But I want you to know that you and I are on the same side. You’ve known me a long time. Long enough to know where my true loyalties lie.”
He wanted to believe her, but with all the deception and politics playing out, he feared putting too much faith in anyone. After their last run-in with a fae queen, a kidnapping, and loads of green fire, he’d count on his team alone. They’d already proven their alliance. Everyone else was guilty until proven innocent.
Her brow creased in concern. “I hope you’ll be leaving town very soon?”
“We have one more errand to run. Then we’ll go,” Rho spoke up.
Cadence made her way to the door. “The sooner the better.” She set a hand on the knob before swiveling back around to face the team. “And if a single mover steps one toe out of line in the presence of any of you, I want to be the first to know about it.”
Preshea rose from the table and gave her a firm nod. “You got it.”
Cadence offered a slight bow. “Thank you for the coffee. And remember what I said. Get out of Paris as soon as you can. I can’t guarantee your safety here.”
She turned and disappeared into a ball of blue light, making Eldon wonder if she’d only appeared outside and knocked on the door to be polite. Not that it made much of a difference either way, he supposed.
He gave Rho a slight smile, trying to downplay the nervous energy running through his mind. A breach in the Collective was bad news. Very bad news. And whoever the person was, he or she had managed to get close enough to Cadence to track her at her home. Maybe that tracker could give him some clue about what they were up against.
They’d just added one more errand to their to-do list tonight.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rho scanned the perimeter of the large room, her vision bathed in a tinge of blue light. Despite the protection circle that Eldon had cast around them both, she was thankful the Louvre was mostly empty during the weekday mornings. Even if people couldn’t see him working, she didn’t like the idea of having anyone nearby when he spun his magick. Gifts like his were the secrets of the DarqRealm and had to remain hidden. Especially from humans.
“Did you find it yet?” she asked over her shoulder, her back turned to Eldon. He’d been weaving his fingers through the air in complicated patterns and murmuring foreign words for what seemed like forever.
“Still looking,” he answered. “And this isn’t going to go any faster if you keep asking me.”
“Oh, shut up and hurry.” She hid the smile on her face, and her gaze darted from corner to corner, keeping tabs on the three entrances into the room. Still no one in sight. “Did she have to pick the largest painting in the place?”
“The Coronation of Napoleon is a great piece. It’s a staple in the Louvre. Easy to find.”
Rho snorted. “Yeah, and really high-traffic. You’d think she could’ve put it somewhere less conspicuous.” A shadow filled a doorway, and she snapped her head toward the opening, relaxing only when an elderly woman tugged on the old man’s arm and pulled him away. “How much longer?”
At over thirty feet wide and nearly twenty feet tall, the painting took up almost the entire wall. She glanced toward the ceiling, marveling at the ability of an artist to ever create a painting that large with any proportion. Art wasn’t her thing, but she could respect it.
“Found it,” he grunted.
“About time.”
“Watch it, woman.”
“Or what?” she teased. This time she couldn’t keep the smile from her face. She glanced over her shoulder to find him staring at her.
He smiled. “Come over here.”
She arched her brows. “Now’s not the time, Eldon.”
“Not that.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Your mind…always in the gutter. Come look at this.”
She traced her gaze along the perimeter one more time before she nodded and drifted toward where Eldon was crouched. At the bottom right corner of the painting, tucked behind the edge, was a tiny blue square.
“That’s definitely a tracker,” he said, leaning in for a closer look.
“If you say so.” She kneeled down beside him and wrinkled her nose. “Pretty unremarkable.”
“That’s because you don’t know the magick behind it. The unremarkable things are the ones that can be the most dangerous.”
She shot a glance toward the doorway once again. Still no one. “So how exactly do you plan on evaluating this tracker if you can’t touch it?”
“Good question.” Eldon sat back then crossed his feet beneath him. “Best thing I can think of is taking an impression of it.”
“Like a picture?”
“Basically.” He tilted his body back and shoved his hand into a pocket. A moment later, he pulled out a little gray stone. “Here, hold this.”
“What is it?” Rho extended a hand.
He placed the cool stone in the center of her palm and gave
her a sideways grin. “A rock.”
“No shit.”
He pointed to Rho’s open palm. “I’m going to cast an impression into that stone while you hold it.”
Rho glanced down at the rock in her hand and frowned. “Can’t I just put it on the ground while you do this? I need to be watching the doors.”
“First, even if someone comes by, we can’t be seen. I told you, I set a circle.” Eldon shifted forward to sit on his knees and extended a hand toward the tracker. “And second, I need your life source to help capture the spell.”
“But I’m undead.”
He turned his gaze slowly toward her then shook his head. “Not entirely. You’ve got something else in you, too. Since you can wield magick, I’d be willing to bet that whatever is inside of you is enough to help me take an image of this tracker.”
Probably true. She’d only ever thought about herself as being one of the undead. She still hadn’t quite adjusted to the idea that she had mover in her as well. That was going to take some getting used to.
“You sure I can’t get hurt with any residual magick by holding this?” Rho asked.
Eldon’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think I’d allow you to hold it if you could?”
She sighed. “Do your thing, magick man.”
“Don’t worry. I’d never let anything happen to you.” With a smile, he leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on her cheek. “Agate has excellent absorption properties. It’s the perfect stone for impression casting. I’m just lucky I brought one with me to Paris.” He extended one hand toward the tracker and hovered his other palm over the stone. “Hold as still as you can. I’d like to get the impression right the first time so we can leave.”
Rho snorted. Only a few years ago she’d thought she was nothing but a human. Now she was gripping an agate stone to perform an impression spell in the Louvre, which would help her magick-moving boyfriend figure out who might have taken one of five relics said to contain the magick of their world. Yeah, times had changed just a little bit.
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