by K. F. Breene
“You’re intentionally painting a target on your back?”
“I always have a target on my back, Miss Ironheart. All powerful mages do. You will have a larger target than I do, just you wait. Your power level, your power type, and your dirty little fetish for laying animals…”
His eyes glinted, and a deep, dark rage washed over me, followed by a powerful undertow, sucking me under. My magic stuffed the tunnel, churning and spitting and electric, a hairsbreadth from being unleashed.
“Not here,” Austin said softly, and I felt his calming touch on my back and through the link. “Don’t unleash whatever that is, babe. I hate to say it, but he’s right. It could jeopardize the structure of the tunnel.”
With incredible effort, I forced down the blackness seeping into my blood. The rage. The disgust. I blinked, trying to clear the red haze from my vision.
“I apologize,” Elliot said, his smile dripping off his face, his eyes laser-focused on me. “I was just testing your…closeness to your alpha. I didn’t mean the last. Don’t get me wrong, that will be a common thought, but it isn’t shared by me. As I said, I think shifters are my favorite magical type. I would’ve liked being a shifter. Anyway, yes, Kinsella was one of the mages that I took out. Quite recently, in fact, as I’m sure you know. You just met him, didn’t you?” He touched his pointer finger to the edge of his nose. “I’m well informed.” He surveyed the wall again and slipped his hands back into his pockets. “There are many, many more faces that could go on that wall, but the repository doesn’t care about lesser mages, or those without money. It’s a pay-per-play system, you see. Bribe them, and get protection and what passes for justice. Ignore them, and if you’re small potatoes, you are also ignored. But if a wealthy, powerful mage like me ignores them, they won’t stand down so easily. You might want to establish that professional relationship soon. It’s easy for bodies to pile up in this business.”
“Why did you kill him, though? Where did you even find him? He ran away from me.”
“Maybe someday I will explain. Maybe I won’t. We shall see.”
Frustration still ate at me. “And Sebastian? Why isn’t he on that wall?”
Elliot’s grin faded. “He was just a kid who liked doing magic. The Mages’ Guild crunches up people like that. They don’t respect them, and they certainly don’t waste time looking into their murders. They are the small potatoes I spoke of.”
“You also crunch up kids like that. Since, you know, you killed him.”
“He chose his path. He accepted what came. As we all will. It’s been really lovely talking with you, Miss Ironheart. Don’t bother looking for those exits—if you break through the wards, I will know, and you’ll be in a world of hurt.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brochan tense. His fists clenched.
“My goodness,” Elliot said, his gaze slipping to Brochan. “Broken Sue is a good name. His leash will prove faulty. I don’t envy the person who gets on the business end of that wrath.”
“When do I get to see you in person?” I asked him, anger brimming.
He took a step back. “You’ll find out this evening. Goodbye.”
His image vanished.
“He looked like a hologram,” I said, staring at the empty place he’d been standing.
“I wonder if they can use an invisibility potion when they’re like that.” Austin turned, facing me, able to watch both directions of the tunnel out of his peripheral vision. “I couldn’t smell, hear, or sense him.”
“Even if they can’t… They can all do that,” I murmured, starting to walk again. I wanted to see the exit for myself, warded or not. “The high-powered ones can all do it. They can spy without putting themselves in actual danger. Unless there is some sort of risk…” I shook my head. “I’ll need to add that to my list of spells to research, which doesn’t help at the moment because there’s no internet in this godforsaken place.”
“Alpha,” Brochan said, his voice gruff. “I think I was mistaken. When that mage was threatening your mate… I don’t think I have as much control as I thought I did. I might be a danger to your efforts.”
“Understood,” Austin said. I suspected his need to suss that out was the reason he’d brought Brochan with us instead of sending him off with another group.
“Don’t worry about being a danger to our efforts,” I said. “I don’t recall you trying to blast a hologram twice in as many minutes. You’re the least of our problems. I nearly brought the mountain down on us.”
A roar echoed through the tunnel, thick and ferocious. The basajaun ran into view at the other end, his hair puffed out, making him look even larger. He stopped in the center, facing us, and let out another roar. The mountain trembled beneath our feet, as if quaking from the force of his anger.
“Where is the threat?” the basajaun said, looking around wildly. “I felt your blast through the mountain. It quails under your might.”
Niamh and Ulric caught up with him, eyes wide, faces long.
“It’s over,” I said, putting out my hands and glancing behind us down the hall. “Shh. It was a magical trick, basically. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“He crushed someone who barred his way,” Ulric said, breathing hard. “I don’t know if it was friend or foe, but one of the mages has one less person on the payroll.”
“He wasn’t barring the way,” Niamh said. “He was frozen in fear.”
“Well…it comes down to the same thing,” Ulric replied. “He wouldn’t move, and the basajaun doesn’t say please.”
“Jessie, ye might have a problem dealing with that wee hiccup come dinner,” Niamh said. “We weren’t exactly defending ourselves on that one. That was all our fault, so it was. That death is on us. Without internet, I can’t figure out whose camp he might be in, either.”
I sighed, hands limp at my sides.
“Definitely don’t worry about being a danger to our efforts, Brochan,” Austin said. Dark humor and bewilderment trickled through our link. I fell in step with him toward the supposed exit. “You’d be hard-pressed to even stand out amongst this crew.”
“I’m heading into dinner after insulting one mage and killing the staff member of another,” I murmured as Austin and I took the lead. The dim lighting was somewhat welcome. It felt like I was hiding from my problems in a strange way. “Dinner might just be a grudge match.”
“Let’s just hope that’s all it is.”
Seventeen
My bright red dress covered my shoulders but plunged deep down my neckline. The hem reached the floor, but a large slit worked up my leg to my upper thigh, with the loose fabric flowing around it. The material was somewhat stretchy, and the dress could be shed in a hurry. It had almost certainly been dreamed up by a straight male designer envisioning his perfect date.
I hadn’t wanted to wear any jewelry, because I didn’t know if I’d have to assume my gargoyle form, but Austin had strongly encouraged me to rethink that stance. In this crowd, wealth and prestige went hand in hand, and he thought I should look the part, as did Mr. Tom and the rest of them, so I gave in.
Austin had chosen a black tux that fit even better than his expensive suit earlier, if that were possible, with a red tie and pocket square that matched my dress and fit with the shifter color code. A watch encircled his wrist, different than the one he’d been given, and his shoes had been polished to a mirror shine.
We walked down the tunnel, my dress swishing around my legs, a sparkly clutch in my hand (courtesy of Mr. Tom, not Elliot Graves’s gift basket) and flat-soled ballerina slippers on my feet. I didn’t care who said what; I could not run in heels, and I was not wearing something I couldn’t fight in. Case closed.
“Have I told you how beautiful you look?” Austin asked as we sauntered down the hall, a little late but not hurrying.
Cyra followed behind us, without an invisibility potion, and the basajaun, Niamh, and the shifters were behind her, all under the protection of my invisibility spell. Seba
stian and I had found this particular blend in one of Ivy House’s training books. Technically speaking, I was only allowed to bring Austin and my “poison-control specialist,” but the rest of them would stand invisibly by in case something went down.
“Only twice since you saw me in this,” I said, then bumped his side. “Have I told you how incredibly handsome you look?”
Humor leaked through the link. “You told me you wanted to rip into my clothes and suck on anything that popped out.”
I smiled, having decided to continue to let Austin handle my worry. It might kill me in the long run, but right now it felt like it was worth the risk. “Did I?”
“Maybe that’s just what I heard.”
I laughed as we passed through the entranceway. The woman who stepped out was the one who’d led us to our rooms yesterday.
“Miss Ironheart.” She bowed as we came to a stop. “I will lead you to dinner.”
“Wonderful.” I gave a graceful nod like royalty in the movies.
Once we were underway again, she glanced back to get my attention. “Miss, Mr. Graves would like to know why you didn’t use the ward spell provided. He thinks the tripwire spell beneath you.”
My perfectly penciled eyebrows climbed up my forehead. “I didn’t trust his spell.”
“Yes, miss. He thought you might say that. He’d like you to know that he only offered the spells to you—a concession because you are so new to the world of mages. He suggested that your tripwire spell would be too easy for most of the higher-powered mages to pull down. If you use his spell and put all your power behind it, Mr. Graves himself won’t be able to get in.”
“Why is he telling me this?”
She hesitated. “Honestly, ma’am—miss, he didn’t specify. I’d recommend asking him when there are no other mages in the room. But I know he was worried about the integrity of the mountain and your…inability to properly control your reactions, begging your pardon.”
“It’s a fair point,” Austin said. His alpha mask was on, but I felt his compulsion to laugh.
“You can also change the spell he gave you,” the woman said, “to fit your needs. He said it was…robust, I believe. Easily adaptable.”
“Thank you. I’ll think about it.”
“Yes, miss.”
She took a right at a fork, heading down the tunnel that Nathanial, Isabelle, and Edgar had explored earlier. They’d made it to the end, only to discover a big, fat wooden door—similar to what we’d found at the end of our exploration—that could not be moved by magic or physical force. There would be no fast exit, and given the magic I’d seen around the exit we’d investigated, there’d be no sneaking in. We couldn’t even ask the town gargoyles what lay on the other side, since they were in rock form, and even if they weren’t, there wasn’t cell service and the cave phones in our rooms didn’t call out.
There was one glimmer of hope: the basajaun thought there was another grouping of tunnels elsewhere in the mountain. Above us, he thought, or maybe in a sister mountain. Possibly both. All mountains were different, it turned out, and this one was hard for him to read.
The question was, could we access those other tunnels through this grouping?
He didn’t know the answer yet, but he hoped to keep exploring and figure it out.
Like the tunnel I’d explored with Austin and Broken Sue earlier—that name was too good not to use, especially since Brochan didn’t seem to care—the space and light diminished the deeper we went, the tunnel a little cramped. The basajaun would have to stoop back here, which meant we were probably getting close to one of the exits.
The woman stopped beside a double door painted green, covered in a mural designed to make it look like the grand entrance to a dining hall. Magic crisscrossed over it. She wiggled her fingers and the spells bled away.
“They’ll have to stay outside.” She gestured around us, and I didn’t hide my confusion. My people had already lagged back so I could assess the situation. They weren’t crowded in around us like she clearly thought. Which meant she couldn’t see them but still knew they were there.
“What?” I asked, squinting at her.
“I am equipped with a revealing spell, and your people will need to stay outside. Except for the phoenix.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Good guess, obvious lie.”
She paused. “Beg your pardon, miss?”
“You can’t see my people. Yes, I have some, but no, they aren’t where you’re guessing. Did Elliot tell you his revealing spell probably wouldn’t be powerful enough to break my invisibility potion?”
She stared at me for a long beat. “Yes, he did. Your honesty is…odd.”
“Yeah. I probably shouldn’t’ve tried to smuggle them in,” I mumbled.
“We have spells that should still work to point them out. I should’ve run interference to make up for my lack of sight, but I am not used to being in this situation. I’ve never met anyone that has more power than Elliot Graves. Please, after you.” She gestured me in.
The room on the other side had a high ceiling, brightly painted walls, and a stage for a small band. Currently a string quartet was stationed there, quietly playing soothing music into the dim light provided by several hanging chandeliers.
A large table spanned the space to my right, and the eight filled spaces save one flickered with holograms of varying strengths. The other was a gaunt man with graying hair, loose skin, and spindly hands resting on the table.
“No, no, Burke…” Elliot sat at the head of the table, his hologram the strongest of the group, barely flickering. “No hands on the table for those here in the flesh. You know the rules.”
“What are you going to do about it?” the man sneered. “You’re too chicken to show your face. All of you are.”
“What is there to fear? No one sitting at this table in the flesh is worth half a thought,” said a young man with a snooty voice, blonde hair parted pristinely to the right, wearing a perfectly knotted bow tie the basajaun really should study.
The woman in red closed the door after Cyra before leading Austin and me to the two empty chairs next to each other, in between two holograms. Cyra would apparently need to stand behind us.
“Is it Jane culture to be late?” asked a man opposite Austin’s place, his face pulled tight like a rubber band. Clearly he lacked the ability to pull off a convincing magical illusion and had chosen to pay a plastic surgeon. White hair crawled out of his ears and nose.
“Yes,” I said as Austin pulled out the chair for me and waited for me to sit. “It’s called fashionably late. Do you not have TVs in the magical world? That’s not a new term.”
Elliot rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers, watching me as Austin sat down.
The man across from me didn’t take his hands off the table, and the corner of his upper lip pulled back from his teeth as he watched Austin.
“Since when do we allow animals at the table?” asked a mage with reddish hair and thin lips, seated next to Elliot. It looked like someone had been about to blow freckles onto his face like pixie dust and then accidentally sneezed. I pegged him for late twenties. At least, he looked that age. I had no idea what age any of these people actually were, since they could probably all mess with their appearance, with magic or money.
I breathed through my mouth and closed my eyes, forcing down my instinctive reaction to hearing any insults to Austin.
“One day soon, I don’t think anyone will say that to their faces, Noah.” Elliot smiled behind his steepled fingers. “Burke, I will only ask you once more: please follow the rules and remove your hands.”
Burke huffed, staring at Austin, and then slowly removed his hands from the table.
I turned to Austin. “I really wasn’t worried about it, were you?”
Austin placed his napkin in his lap before meeting Burke’s stare with a pulse of primal aggression and power. It slammed into Burke so hard that he jolted. His eyes widened and he sat back in his chair
like he was in a very fast car and the driver had just slammed the gas pedal.
“No,” Austin said with an extra hint of gravel in his voice.
“And why would you be?” Elliot said as a side door opened and two service people in red coats walked in carrying bottles of wine. “Those of you who are joining us from the comfort of your…quarters, or wherever you had to hunker down in order to cast your soul’s shadow into this room—please, synchronize your dinners with us. It doesn’t work when some of us are eating and some are not.”
The people in the red coats split up, one walking toward Austin and me while the other went around the table to serve Burke. I leaned back in my chair to make it easier for her to pour.
Cyra stepped forward immediately, pushing between me and the person next to me, a chubby man in a light gray suit, sticking her butt into his hologram as she reached for the wine. “I got it.”
“Meet the phoenix, everyone,” Elliot said. “Cyra.”
Cyra straightened up, her nose in my glass, inhaling deeply. She swirled it, nodded, and held up her finger for the service person pouring Austin’s glass. “I’ll have one of these too, please.”
“Yes, of course,” Elliot said. “I would never pass up an opportunity to serve a legendary creature such as yourself. After we discuss business, we’ll happily make room for another animal at the table. Or do you count as something different? I can never tell how this stuff goes.”
Cyra shrugged as she tasted, lowering the glass slowly. “Hmm, that is very good.” She set it down in front of me. “Wait a moment. If I don’t die, you may drink.”
“I would never destroy such a great power as yours, Miss Ironheart. You have no need to worry,” Elliot said.
Noah snorted.
“Did you have a comment, Noah?” Elliot asked, hands still steepled.
