“Cursed fae. He’s occasionally useful, but mostly just annoying.”
“He’s also a complete pig. Did you curse him?”
He snorted. “I don’t have that kind of power. I found him on the black market and bought him so some stupid sorcerer didn’t break the seal and loose a bloodthirsty fae lord in the middle of a city.”
Remembering what Kai had said about the Ghost buying up nasty Arcana magic, I reevaluated the cluttered room. “How much of this stuff did you buy off the black market just so no one else could get their hands on it?”
He stretched his legs out, eyes closing. “Half, maybe. Some of it I trade to fae, since they usually take it far away from humans, and some is just waiting until I have time to destroy it.”
“Huh. You know, Zak, I don’t think you’re as bad as you think you are.”
His eyes opened, sunlight gleaming across his green irises. “I told you not to get the wrong idea.”
“Oh, sorry. What I meant to say was you’re an evil bastard and I can’t wait to see you burnt at the stake for your evil crimes of evil.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Kill me? That’s what an evil rogue would do.” I thumped a hand against my chest. “Go on. Stab me dead.”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I like that shirt.”
I eyed my borrowed black t-shirt, then hopped off the bed and stretched. “I’m so done sleeping.”
“Great. You can leave now.”
As he sprawled out over my half of the bed, I cast a mocking look over my shoulder. “You sure you want to set me loose already, Zak?” His expression darkened and fear skittered down my spine. I flapped one hand. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. I don’t want you confining anyone else to permanent imprisonment on your ranch.”
Leaving him in bed, I wandered over to the workshop side of the room. The tables were piled with jars, bottles, vials, herbs, artifacts, weapons, crumbling scrolls, thick leather-bound books, and strange tools. I paused to examine three shimmering white feathers, then moved down the table to an ivory horn with a spiral pattern.
I pointed. “That isn’t what I think it is, is it?”
Without sitting up, he craned his head to see what I’d found. “Unicorn horn.”
“Unicorns are real?” It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.
“They’re a type of fae, like dragons.”
I stretched my hand out but didn’t touch it. “Does … does taking its horn kill the unicorn?”
“Yes.”
“Did you do it?”
“No.”
I remembered the rigid fury in his face as he’d pulled the harpoon out of the young dragon’s side, and his growled promise to deal with the culprits. Something told me the unicorn hunter hadn’t fared any better than the dragon hunters would.
Continuing down the table, I passed a sinister black mask, then leaned over to examine a stack of books with gleaming text on the spines in a language I couldn’t read. Beneath the pile was a box, one exposed corner revealing a glimpse of something shiny.
Rustling blankets drew my attention to the bed as Zak swung his legs off. He sat on the mattress, rubbing his face with both hands, the cleansing crystal hanging from his neck. When he stood, I hastily returned to my perusal of his collection before I started perusing his physique. Hot damn.
He disappeared through the door beside the bathroom—a closet, I was assuming. I minced over to the cabinet, surveyed the magical skull-silencing box, then lifted it.
“—black-faced gadabout with the wit of a headless chicken—”
I slammed the box back over the skull’s snarling tirade. Counting to ten in my head, I lifted the box a second time. Silence.
“Don’t be a rude old geezer and I’ll leave the box off.” I held it out threateningly. “Deal?”
The skull’s red eyes glared balefully at me. Taking that as an agreement, I set the box aside. The closet door opened and Zak walked out, halfway through pulling a dark gray t-shirt over his head. I watched wistfully as the fabric fell over his beautiful abs. I should’ve snuck a feel while he was sleeping.
See? I’m a bad person too.
He fed a belt through the loops of his dark jeans. “Morgan and Terrance will have noticed you’re missing, so there’s probably no way to hide that you …” His eyes narrowed. “What’s with that look?”
“Um.” I sidled along the table, avoiding his gaze. “Morgan came by in the middle of the night. She was hammering on the door so I … went to see what the big fuss was.”
Huffing in exasperation, he joined me at the table and straightened a stack of ancient papers. “What was the fuss about?”
“Oddly, she never said.”
“Her breast heaved with chagrinned denial,” the skull cackled, and I jumped at the sudden noise. “Pale cheeks flushing as her womanhood swelled with furious—”
Zak rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Harry.”
“Do not address me so!” the skull barked. “You are naught but a crawling worm cherishing the dregs of power cast upon him by beings far superior than—”
Zak took a threatening step toward the cabinet and the skull quieted. He folded his arms. “Foul old spirit.”
“His name is Harry?” I asked bemusedly.
“A nickname.” A mean smirk flashed over Zak’s lips. “He hates it.”
I laughed and leaned against the table, reassessing the druid with interest. “So you do have a sense of humor.”
“Not at all.”
Snorting, I poked him playfully in the chest. “Liar. You totally—”
Loud knocking on the door cut through my sentence and I jerked off the table with excessive force—triggering a chain reaction of klutziness.
The whole table jostled and the stack of books tumbled over. I whirled around, grabbing for the books, and accidentally knocked a heavy tome into the box with the shiny blue object, nestled in crumpled packing paper. The box tipped over and the object—a glossy orb in shades of aquamarine and fuchsia—bounced across the tabletop.
I lunged to grab it—and so did Zak. I caught it, crashing into him at the same time. He grabbed me around the waist before I fell.
And, of course, that was the exact moment the door opened.
Morgan hung in the threshold, her mouth gaping open. Zak dropped his arms and I stepped away from him, holding the orb in both hands. Since she appeared offended instead of shocked, I assumed she’d seen his face before.
“I heard crashing—” she began.
“What do you want, Morgan?” Even irritated, Zak’s husky rumble was unfairly sexy.
“I—I don’t think we should discuss the matter in front of—”
“Just say it.”
She inhaled angrily. “Nadine left us.”
Zak stiffened. “What?”
“She ran into someone she knew—an old neighbor. They stopped at a coffee shop to catch up and the woman asked Nadine to live with her.” Morgan’s voice softened. “I thought Nadine enjoyed it here, but I guess …”
A long silence. My lungs felt like lead in my chest.
“Is that everything?” Zak asked flatly.
Morgan’s gaze flicked to me. “Yes, but—”
“Thank you. I’ll be down later.”
“Y-yes.” With a final glare at me, she stepped back and shut the door.
I stared at nothing. “Nadine … left?”
“It would seem so.”
I looked down at the orb. Roughly round, with odd ridges and lines, it glistened in blues and pinks. The smooth texture felt oddly warm in my hands. “What is this?”
“It’s a fae.” He straightened his shirt. “In a dormant form, I think. I haven’t had time to figure out what’s wrong with it.”
Not really thinking about what I was doing, I hugged the orb to my chest. Nadine had left. As reality sunk in, a bitter taste welled in my throat and I had to choke back a na
sty laugh. I was such an idiot. I’d surrendered to the Ghost to save Nadine, and she’d rescued herself through pure chance.
She’d never been trapped in the Ghost’s clutches, but now I was. The irony hurt.
“Tori, did you tell Nadine anything about me?” Zak asked. “I talked to her after the fae encounter in the woods, but if she connects me with the Ghost …”
Alarm rippled through me. I had warned Nadine about his reputation, but in the vaguest terms.
“No,” I lied. “All I ever said was you’re a bad person.”
“How complimentary.” His dry response was distracted, his attention drifting around the room without seeing it. I said nothing, my gut twisting into knots. Nadine had ditched me, but she was safe. She’d talked fondly about her neighbor, and I hoped she would be happy.
But why did my stomach hurt? And why was Zak’s forehead creased with worry?
“Zak, the town they went to … is it a tourist destination or something?”
“Not in the slightest. I assume you’re wondering the same thing as me—how her neighbor was in that town at the exact right moment to meet Nadine.”
“Did Nadine tell you why she ran away from home—the envelope and stuff?”
He nodded. “I looked into it. I couldn’t find anything on the people who raised her. They seem entirely human. The Emrys’ bloodline, however, is famous overseas for producing talented sorcerers going back generations. Stephen Emrys was the guild master of the largest, most influential sorcery guild in the UK.”
“Someone killed him and his wife, then kidnapped Nadine and … what?” My forehead crinkled. “Flew her across the ocean just to dump her in the adoption system?”
“The kidnappers may have run afoul of law enforcement and lost track of her.” He shook his head. “I’d planned to investigate her adoptive parents more, but since no one could have found her here, I thought I had lots of time.”
“No one could find her here, but now that she’s back with her neighbor? How long until her parents find out?” I realized I was squeezing the fae orb and loosened my grip. “Nadine’s smart. She should have realized going with her neighbor wasn’t safe.”
His frown deepened. “She never mentioned a neighbor to me.”
“She talked about her a bit yesterday. Some old Russian lady named … Varvara Niko-something.”
“Ahh!” The cackling voice echoed from Harry the skull. “Would you be speaking of Varvara Nikolaev?”
“Yeah, that’s it.” I stared at Harry’s glowing red eyes. “How do you know her name?”
“Varvara Nikolaev,” Harry croaked reverently. “A woman of truly divine stature and utterly demonic cunning. A fine female specimen and, despite her inherent weaknesses as a creature of the fairer sex, a most chilling sorceress.”
Chapter Seventeen
“A sorceress?” I repeated blankly.
“A sorceress?” Zak snarled, stalking toward the skull. “How do you know that?”
“Before your contumelious purchase of my person, I passed through the possession of many exquisitely gifted humans who truly excelled in the darkest arts—true masters, whereas you are a soft, sympathetic boor with no sense of—”
Zak grabbed the top of the skull, knuckles turning white as he squeezed it. “Get to the point or I’ll bury you in the deepest cave I can find.”
Harry hissed furiously. “For several most pleasant months, I enjoyed a sojourn from disrespect and defiance in Varvara Nikolaev’s pristine possession. Sadly, she chose to sell my sealed form, though I would have—”
“Varvara is a dark arts sorceress?” I interrupted. “Are you sure?”
“Assuming you speak not of a female possessing the same unlikely appellation, then indeed there can be no question. Varvara Nikolaev has immersed her very being in the most depraved magic of which I have rarely relished myself. She is truly a—”
Zak slammed the box over the skull, his eyes blazing.
“Varvara is the one who killed Nadine’s real parents.” My voice grated from my tight throat. “It’s the only explanation. She brought Nadine here, and stayed close while … while humans raised her? I don’t understand.”
“A layer of insulation,” he growled. “In case Varvara was discovered, she could disappear without anyone noticing Nadine’s existence. With a different name and ignorant human parents, Nadine was invisible to the MPD.”
“But … why? Why would Varvara do any of this?”
The muscles in his arms bulged as he clenched his fists. “She wants an apprentice. It’s largely fallen out of practice, but it used to be common for dark-arts masters to abduct the young children of their staunchest rivals. Turning an enemy’s offspring into your devoted apprentice and future legacy was once the ultimate triumph for an aging dark sorcerer.”
“That’s … sick. Really, really sick.” I leaned weakly against the table, still holding the fae orb. “So you think Nadine’s real parents were Varvara’s enemies?”
“It’s also possible she targeted them because they opposed the dark arts in general.”
I nodded, realizing it didn’t matter why Varvara had gone after Nadine’s parents. What mattered was that she’d killed them, brought Nadine here, and fostered her with human pawns while Varvara stayed close, cultivating a friendship with Nadine so that …
“Oh,” I gasped.
“What?”
“The envelope. All that information about who Nadine really is. Varvara must have sent it to her, planning to show up shortly after. Nadine would’ve given herself over to Varvara, the only adult she trusted—except Nadine ran away instead.”
“That makes sense,” Zak agreed grimly. “She wanted to win Nadine’s absolute trust and loyalty before beginning her training. Nadine would have seen Varvara as her savior, never knowing she had killed her real parents.”
“She arranged it so Nadine would willingly depend on her. It was a fifteen-year con.” Before I accidentally crushed the fae orb, I set it back in its box. “And now she has Nadine, just like she wanted.”
“But did Nadine go willingly?” Zak paced the length of the table and back. “Nadine knows a human can’t protect her from whoever killed her parents, so why would she go with Varvara, believing her to be human?”
I pressed my hands against my thighs, momentarily startled by the feel of my own skin. Right. I wasn’t wearing pants. “Nadine loves it here. I don’t think she went with Varvara of her own free will.”
“That’s my suspicion as well.”
“Zak.” I stepped toward him. “We have to save her.”
His jaw flexed. “Varvara was in the town where Morgan and Terrance take the kids every month. She knew where they’d be.” He turned away. “I need to find out more about her and how she found me before I can act.”
“What?” Pushing off the table, I swung in front of him. “You want to wait? That sorceress has Nadine. She’s had her for—for an entire night.” Because Morgan hadn’t told me Nadine was gone when she’d come up earlier. “We can’t leave her with that woman!”
“I can’t go up against Varvara without knowing what I’m fighting.”
“But you’re the most powerful mythic I’ve ever seen! Surely you can—”
“I have other lives to protect!” He glared down at me, our faces a foot apart. “If I go up against her and die, everyone here will die when my defenses on the valley fail.” He stepped closer, forcing me back. “If I go up against her and fail to kill her, she’ll come after me—and possibly rally a force of dark sorcerers against me. I don’t know how she found out where I am or what else she knows. I can’t risk ten lives to save one.”
“But Nadine—” I bit off my protest. “How long before you can go after them?”
“Days? Weeks?” He raked his hand through his hair. “It depends on how difficult it is to find information on Varvara.”
With weeks to gain a head start, Varvara could vanish with Nadine. She’d already done it once when she’d kidnappe
d Nadine as a baby, and she’d had an entire sorcery guild hunting her.
I drew myself up. “Let me go, then.”
“What?”
“Let me leave! Let me find Nadine!”
“You? You can’t—”
“I’m only here because of Nadine!” I yelled, startling him into taking a step back. “I let you take me so I could save Nadine!”
Something dark and dangerous slid across his face. “What are you talking about?”
I clenched my hands and plunged in. “Her parents—the fake ones, but they still care about her—came to the guild I work at and—”
“Guild?”
“—and we took on the case—well, not we—the actual guild members did—but I helped because—”
“You work for a guild?” His low, vicious snarl didn’t sound human. “There’s no record of your employment at a guild!”
“I, uh, haven’t quite … finished the paperwork … yet.”
As I spoke, I retreated on trembling legs. He advanced on me, menace rolling off him in waves. My pulse raced. I slid my hand toward my back pocket—but I didn’t have a pocket. My pants were on the floor in his bathroom, my Queen of Spades card out of reach.
“Calm down, Zak,” I said weakly. “I’m not a mythic. Even if I planned to, which I don’t, I have no idea how to report something to the MPD. I won’t say a word about you to my guild. All I care about is saving Nadine.”
My back hit a rack of crystals. He towered over me, green eyes hard as steel and burning with fury. I gulped, fighting my terror. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him the truth. He was taking it worse than I’d expected. What a drama queen.
Pushing my shoulders back, I glowered at him. “Quit looming over me! Either make a move or back the hell up.”
A startled twitch of his eyebrows revealed I’d gotten his attention. His fury faltered. “Make a move?”
Uh. Oops. Bad choice of words. “That’s … not …”
I forgot what I’d been about to say as his gaze flicked across my face, then back to my eyes—and my disobedient stare jumped to his mouth, his lips perfectly kissable despite the terse lines at their corners.
He shifted closer, one arm reaching past me to brace against the shelf, rattling the crystals hanging from it. With nowhere to retreat, I pressed backward into the rack. He was blocking any escape, too close, his broad shoulders filling my vision.
Dark Arts and a Daiquiri (The Guild Codex: Spellbound Book 2) Page 15
