Bonds and Broken Dreams (Amplifier 2)

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  “You’re worried about her betraying you?”

  “Her presence here was intended to be a gesture of good faith between brothers. It’s time for Aiden to return to the Azar cabal. Ruwa’s presence will make him more receptive to that idea.”

  “Because she’s the lover you once shared? Does he think her dead? Killed because she helped him?”

  Isa Azar stared at me, visibly shocked. Then he wet his lips and whispered, “Tell me that you just put that together now. That you have the mind that matches the …” He shook his head as if struggling to articulate his thoughts. But it felt like a false gesture, similar to Ruwa’s carefully crafted poses. “Your beauty … your power …”

  “Aiden mentioned it,” I said, lying.

  The sorcerer hummed in the back of his throat doubtfully. “Yes. Ruwa is the lover we once shared. A child of one of my father’s … wives, but not blood related. To either of us.”

  “Bound to you for her transgression.”

  “Would you rather I’d killed her? After she’d already been abandoned by my brother?”

  “Maybe she’d rather be dead.”

  He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Would you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “This is a strange conversation to have on a front patio in the snow, amplifier.”

  “It is.”

  “Invite me to sit by the fire. I swear I will be a model guest, neither inflicting or allowing harm to befall you and yours as long as I’m welcomed in your home.”

  Magic shifted between us. I brushed it away, making a show of doing so even though I didn’t actually need to move to deny the power backing Isa’s words, his vow. “You don’t want to be bound to me. Ties like that, you take to your grave.”

  He chuckled. “Am I dying of old age in this scenario or …?”

  I turned my back to him, crossing down the hall toward the kitchen. “As I said before, it’s teatime.”

  Isa Azar stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind him.

  Idiot.

  Without accepting his vow, nothing stopped me from inflicting harm on him either — bodily or otherwise. Except for the laws of hospitality, of course. But I really wasn’t the kind of Adept that followed traditions blindly.

  Most of the time, I didn’t even know such niceties existed. I had played the warrior far more often than I had the host.

  Isa Azar meandered through the house behind me, taking long enough that I had the kettle on the stove and the loose-leaf tea measured into the strainer before he stepped into the kitchen. He paused as the fir flooring gave way to white porcelain tile, casting his gaze around. The kitchen, with its glassed upper cabinets, speckled quartz counters, stainless steel appliances, and large kitchen island, didn’t match the rest of the house.

  Isa was holding one of the leather-bound spellbooks that I’d had out on the coffee table in the front sitting room. Typical sorcerer. Touching things that didn’t belong to him.

  I was using the spellbook as a reference in my attempt to decipher the final few runes of a grimoire I’d been working on translating for just over a year. A text concerning the construction and casting of magical transference and binding spells. An area of study that I’d been focused on for the previous two years. Though the power of amplification was embedded into my DNA, I couldn’t cast the spells contained within the grimoire, not even after I translated them.

  I could, however, try to thwart others from using such spells against me.

  I moved around the kitchen, pulling out stoneware mugs and matching side plates from the upper cabinets, as well as a slightly larger plate for cookies. I arranged the dishes next to the teapot on the far end of the kitchen island.

  Isa Azar crossed through to the French-paned doors that looked out at the back of the property, one hand shoved deeply in the pocket of his pants, bunching up the side of his suit jacket. He held the pilfered spellbook loosely at his other side. “Will the two others I can feel on the property be joining us for tea?”

  “One of them, perhaps.” I wasn’t surprised that a sorcerer of the Azar line could feel Christopher’s and Paisley’s magic even though neither of them was in the house. “The snow, this cold snap, is late for this region, and my brother is concerned about the eggs he’s incubating.”

  “Ah … I didn’t think you were the gardener.” He turned from the view, wandering over to stand at the end of the island.

  I neatly arranged eight ginger snaps, perfectly spaced on the larger plate. Then, just so the sorcerer wouldn’t read anything into that action, I haphazardly added three more on top.

  “Shall we sit by the fire?” he asked, watching my hands. “I added a couple of logs.”

  “If you like.” I retrieved a teak tray that I’d purchased from Hannah Stewart’s thrift shop, setting the tea fixings on it.

  He held up the spellbook. “This translation is inferior.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I have a copy I’ll have sent to you. The original was written by my grandfather on my mother’s side. I had thought my father had gathered all known copies, but here you have one.”

  “My lawyer sourced it for me, upon request.”

  He laughed quietly. “A witch, I presume?”

  “Most Adept lawyers are of the witch persuasion.”

  “That they are. And certainly not at all intimidated by a sorcerer’s demand for the return of a magical text from their collection.” He casually flipped through the hand-inked book, revealing page after page of cramped writing, English intermingled with runes. “The law firm likely inherited it from an unclaimed estate. Though technically there is no time-sensitive legal transference of ownership when it comes to Adepts. The line between life and death isn’t always clearly defined when magic is involved.”

  I wasn’t sure why the ownership of an inferior spellbook mattered to the sorcerer. But I also wasn’t interested in continuing the inane conversation. “It’s on loan, not a gift.”

  Isa set the book down on the counter.

  The kettle boiled. I removed it from the burner, turned off the gas, and poured the steaming water through the strainer set into the teapot.

  He leaned across the island, inhaling deeply. “A darjeeling?”

  He was close enough that I could have touched him with little effort, without him even seeing me move. The sorcerer was testing me, perhaps even daring me. Though that would have implied that he knew I was more than simply an amplifier, and I wasn’t certain he had access to that information yet. “Castleton,” I said. “First flush.”

  “I’m delighted you would share it with me.”

  “It seemed appropriate. It was a gift from your brother.”

  I placed the lid on the teapot and set the timer on the stove for three minutes. The delicate leaves — the first harvest of a season — shouldn’t be oversteeped, though the tea could be steeped multiple times. I met the sorcerer’s intense gaze.

  “You’re interested in binding spells?” he asked casually, touching the leather-bound spellbook on the counter lightly.

  “They intersect with something that interests me.”

  He hummed in the back of his throat. Again. “A conversation to take to Ruwa, perhaps.”

  “Binding spells are her area of mastery?”

  He laughed quietly. “Well, you had already sorted that out for yourself.”

  I hadn’t. Not definitively. But he was clearly inferring that Ruwa had not only accepted being bound to him, but had also cast the binding herself. “The sorcerer who authored that spellbook, your maternal grandfather, is also Ruwa’s grandfather?”

  His smile widened. “Don’t worry. Her mother was adopted. It’s all written down so no Azar sorcerer accidentally procreates with a near-blood relation.”

  I frowned. The Azar genetic lineage was none of my concern, and I had no idea why Isa would think it should be.

  “I am no longer surprised that Aiden somehow found his way to you, amplifier,” the sorcerer sai
d. “Despite the incongruity of the remote location and the proximity of the witch coven in Vancouver. You are more than just your magic.”

  “You weren’t surprised in the first place, Isa Azar.”

  He laughed involuntarily. But he was still oddly pleased in a way that made me distinctly uncomfortable, as if I were missing a veiled context underlying our seemingly neutral topic of conversation.

  Silence stretched between us until the timer went off. I took the tea strainer out of the teapot, placing the pot on the tray along with the mugs, plates, and cookies. The sorcerer set the book next to it, picked the tray up, and crossed back through the house toward the front sitting area.

  Magic shifted across one of the four blood tattoos on my upper spine — the T3 vertebra to be specific — where Christopher’s magic was bound to me, tied to my magic. The blood tattoos were just one of the reasons I was studying magical transference and binding spells. But not to try to remove the connection. Even the mere idea of cutting Christopher’s magic from my skin, from my nervous system, made me feel as though I were contemplating suicide.

  I was many things, including an amplifier and a killer. But ultimately, I was selfish. Self-centered. I would never voluntarily sacrifice the existence I’d forged through so much bloodshed. No matter how tattered my soul was.

  I took three linen napkins from the drawer, the ones with the blue lace that Hannah Stewart had sold me, then glanced up as Christopher stepped through the door to the laundry room. A mudroom, the real estate agent had called it when she’d shown me the house, and it was still fulfilling that function as well, as the place we stored all our inclement-weather gear. Christopher was barefoot as always, though the drop in temperature and the snow that followed had finally forced the clairvoyant into the rubber boots I’d bought him for gardening, with the addition of wool liners.

  He was in the process of tugging on a charcoal knit sweater that he’d grabbed from the drying rack, pinning light-gray eyes rimmed with his magic to me once he got it over his white-blond head. “The sorcerer?” he asked, sounding amused. Though whether he was reacting to the present or to the near future playing out in his mind, I had no idea.

  “In the front sitting room.”

  He cast a gaze across the empty counter of the kitchen island. “You let him abscond with your tea?”

  “Paisley?”

  “Stalking the sorcerer waiting in the car.”

  “Did you say hello?”

  He shook his head, grimacing. “She’s something pretty to look at. But her magic is …”

  “Chaotic?”

  “Tainted.”

  That was interesting. Perhaps the clairvoyant was picking up the bond that Isa Azar held over Ruwa? Or perhaps the forced combination of their magic created the discord I’d felt when in her presence? Magical bonds usually worked the other way, though — uniting, creating a flow between wielders. As did the blood tattoos that tied together the Five. In fact, the more research I did, the more I was becoming convinced that the Five were so tightly bound that the death of one of us might possibly mean the death of all of us.

  I headed into the dining room, which exited into the sitting room at the front of the house. I let my gaze linger on the single teacup that sat in the china cabinet — the only piece of furniture in the room, inherited from the house’s previous owners. The teal china teacup with its black rose pattern, also sourced from Hannah Stewart’s shop, had been a birthday gift from Christopher last fall. I had never spoken out loud of my unusual desire to own the piece of Royal Albert china, but maintaining any sort of secrets when living with a clairvoyant was near impossible. Especially for someone blood-tied to his sight.

  Christopher closed the space between us, lightly brushing his shoulder against mine. The magic of the tattoo that tied us together shifted.

  I slowed my pace, glancing at the clairvoyant. A brighter flare of white momentarily obscured his already-pale eyes, then dispersed.

  He shook his head, indicating that whatever his magic was showing him of my immediate future, it wasn’t anything I needed to know about ahead of time. So it was unlikely that Isa Azar was going to try to murder me in the next ten to thirty minutes.

  That was disappointing.

  Being Emma Johnson was much more peaceful than being Amp5 — though sometimes maybe it was just a little too peaceful. I brushed away the irrational and ill-conceived notion, likely born out of boredom. Emma Johnson murdered far fewer people, and got far fewer friends hurt, than Amp5 ever had. Emma Johnson actually had friends. Burgeoning friendships, at least. And one relationship that might possibly be more than simply friendly. So not murdering Aiden’s brother was a good idea for a multitude of reasons.

  Christopher laughed quietly, as if he could read my thoughts. He couldn’t. Not without Bee, aka Tel5, to connect us telepathically. But he knew me, better than anyone.

  Of course, it was always possible that the clairvoyant would allow whatever he had glimpsed of the future to play out just because it would amuse him. So all I really knew for certain was that if the sorcerers had come to harm me or Christopher or Paisley, they wouldn’t be successful.

  And I didn’t need confirmation from the clairvoyant to know that Isa Azar would be attempting to manipulate me in some other fashion. I had known that from the moment he stepped onto the property, heavily resembling the man I was in the process of building a relationship with. Resembling his father as well, Kader Azar — a sorcerer who had founded the Collective and been instrumental in the plan to breed me, manipulating my genetics and turning me into a magically honed killer. A sociopath, really. On the days I didn’t fight that tendency.

  Isa Azar was standing near the fire but gazing out through the front window, hand thrust deeply in his pants pocket again. His head was tilted just enough that his dark hair fell across his brow. Posed. Waiting to be seen.

  But he was simply a shadow of the man I wanted standing in my front sitting room. And that rendered him powerless, no matter what game he was playing. Though it was becoming fairly clear that Aiden was his target, not me.

  “Sorcerer,” Christopher said, crossing around the couch toward the coffee table and the teapot.

  Isa Azar turned, already smiling and raising his hand toward the clairvoyant. But he faltered as he laid eyes on Christopher, leaving his arm hanging awkwardly in midair.

  Christopher grinned, ignoring the stifled attempt to shake hands as he stooped down and snagged a ginger snap from the plate next to the teapot. “Shall I pour?”

  “Yes, please.” I settled down on the far side of the couch facing the windows, away from the fire.

  Isa Azar dropped his hand and rearranged his expression, smoothing it and leaving a smile in place — though that smile no longer crinkled the edges of his eyes. I was having a hard time reading him. I wasn’t particularly skilled at parsing human behavior in general, but the sorcerer’s intentions seemed to shift from moment to moment. It was obvious that even though he’d picked up Christopher’s magic from afar, Isa hadn’t known he was a clairvoyant.

  “Isa Azar,” the sorcerer said. “Aiden’s brother.”

  “Kader Azar’s eldest son.” Christopher knelt to pour the tea into the mugs.

  The sorcerer glanced over at me, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully.

  “But you aren’t here to discuss your father.” The clairvoyant tipped a splash of milk into the first mug, then handed it to me.

  “No,” Isa Azar said. “I’m not. I wasn’t even aware that you’d met him.”

  “I haven’t,” Christopher said, pouring a second mug. “Milk? Sugar?”

  The clairvoyant hadn’t been on the rooftop in Los Angeles when we had rescued the sorcerer Azar from a pack of rogue shapeshifters. Shapeshifters who’d been aligned with the black witch, Silver Pine. So technically, he hadn’t met that one architect of the Collective, of the Five.

  “Normally both.” Isa glanced at me again. “But with a first-flush Darjeeling? Perhaps just a splas
h a milk?”

  Christopher nodded, laughing quietly — presumably at something only he could see in his mind’s eye. He added the milk, passing the mug of tea to the sorcerer.

  Isa Azar leaned forward, careful to touch only the stoneware mug as he took the tea from the clairvoyant. Interestingly, Aiden had never avoided contact with either of us. Isa’s determination to do so might just have been polite. Or the sorcerer could have been hiding something.

  I caught sight of a thick platinum necklace at the edge of Isa’s unbuttoned shirt collar as he straightened. It was strung through with rings of various metals. I glanced at the sorcerer’s hands as he turned the mug so the handle faced left. He already wore rune-carved rings on each of his fingers.

  The bands strung on the chain could have been extras. Replacements, in case the rings he currently wore were drained and he didn’t have the time to renew their spells.

  Or they weren’t his.

  Silver Pine had stripped Aiden of any and all magic he carried before dumping him on the side of the highway leading into town. He’d had tan lines on all eight of his fingers. The witch had returned one of those rune-marked bands, taunting Aiden with it.

  I laughed quietly, knowing with that simple glimpse, that simple assessment, why Isa Azar had knocked on my door looking for his brother. I had no doubt that the seven rings currently hanging around his neck belonged to Aiden. A gift from Silver Pine.

  Christopher settled his gaze on me, his own grin widening, becoming edged with anticipation. His magic had settled into a thin, bright ring around each iris. He’d already seen what was about to happen, which was why he’d mentioned Kader Azar. Though I would have likely made the connection anyway.