Sorcerer's Spin

by Anise Rae

  “You don’t have to go back,” Daegan said.

  She nodded slowly, cognizant of her vibes fluffing around her. In a way, he was right. She couldn’t go back to the way things were. Not anymore. Not ever again.

  She studied the brilliant blue of the sky that swept wide and everlasting, above and beyond her sight, gracing both east and west. The sun lifted high, reaching its peak, casting the vast depths of the universe behind it invisible…but not forgotten. “The Rose Moon is coming. Since you know the prophecies, I assume you’re aware that’s the supposed deadline for all this.” She felt the moon’s pull behind the spotlight of the sun. She felt its threat. “Considering everything that’s happened to me lately, my luck is not going to hold out forever.”

  Daegan raised an eyebrow at her. “You can rest easy in that.” His voice was full and certain. “Luck will always hold out for you.”

  She dropped her gaze to the water. He was talking about his god. She was talking about chance.

  She took one.

  She pulled her spectacles out of her pocket, reached back, and tossed them as far as she could into the Mississippi. Her shield fell away without a splash.

  23

  The stained glass windows of her house were dark and dim. No light shined behind them. Mara eyed the place as she drove past, blinking wearily. She was exhausted despite staying in a hotel last night. She’d hoped to be well-rested for the drive across the Republic. That had been a waste of money.

  To her tired eyes, her house looked intact. She wouldn’t have put it past the women of the High Councilor’s receiving chamber to have cast rock or graffiti spells against it because of their fear of her spider silk cloth. Then again, those high-society types probably would have hired underlings for such activities, unwilling to enter her low-class neighborhood. It was close to the Drainpipe, where the dark mages lived.

  A push of vibes tingled against her ear. It was the tenth time…maybe the eleventh. Somehow Gregor had found her calling card connection, and he’d been ringing her since she’d crossed back into the Republic.

  “Mara.” Gregor’s voice was close. Too close. He’d cast that word directly to her ear, not through a calling card. Could he see her?

  A slow burn of anger built as she pictured him inside her house staring through the stained glass windows. That was as high-handed as putting Power United tracker tech on her.

  She sped up, her car squealing through the last two turns to get to her carriage house. Gravel crunched as she pulled into the alley that bisected the block. She parked her car in its spot, grabbed her pack, got out, and kicked the door shut. Four paces later, she turned back to get her purse.

  She’d left the thing sitting on the passenger seat.

  Again.

  With a swirl of her finger, she caught a thread of power, simple and easy, and spun out vibes to close the large carriage door and open the smaller one—person-sized, not vehicle-sized—that led into her gated backyard. She’d never used her power for those simple actions, and it felt brave and bold. And she needed brave and bold to face Gregor.

  He stood on her back porch—not inside her house. He must have spied her over the fence as she drove past the front. She faced him with her glowing eyes and swallowed down her heart that had lodged in her throat. She let anger bubble up in its place. That was much easier to handle.

  “I’ve been so worried.” Lines traced his temples. His jaw was shadowed with golden whiskers. His shirt was rumpled. “You weren’t on the train. I couldn’t find you.”

  She stopped on the stone path that led up to the porch steps, needing to maintain distance between them. “I imagine it’s tough to find a person when you drop your tracker,” she snapped. “You should be more careful with your Non-mage tech. I don’t think your employer will appreciate you losing it.”

  He sucked in a slow breath. Remorse ran down his face. “It was a back-up. A necessary one considering what we’d already encountered. The madame destroyed the tracking spell I put on you before you left for the mill.”

  She squinted. Her face felt tight. “Why would Fancy do that?”

  “I would guess she wanted me off your trail so the Skulls could take you.”

  Fancy’s betrayal was yet another layer in all this, but she couldn’t get her mind around it, too distracted by the hurt of Gregor and his tracker.

  He held out his hands. “The tracker tech was all I had left.”

  “Thanks to Power United! How could you do that to me? After everything I told you. Do you work for them?” She was shouting. She never shouted.

  He pulled his fingers through his hair. “I should have told you. I’m sorry. But I knew you’d say no.” He looked at her from the porch, his lips parted, his face tight. He didn’t come down the steps. Maybe he needed distance too. “The tracker helped keep you safe. If I hadn’t used it, you would have faced that bounty hunter on the train alone.”

  So much had happened between now and then that it took her a moment to remember that awful encounter.

  “He would have had you in his cuffs and carted you off. Without that tracker, I never would have been able to find you fast enough.”

  She shivered as the memory crept up her spine.

  He combed his fingers through his hair again, leaving it spiky and scattered. “I can’t even think about what would have happened then, but you can be damn sure I would have tracked you down.”

  She knew exactly what would have happened. She’d lived it once. Though Nils had been right there, he wouldn’t have been able to save her. Not without blowing his cover. He’d never risk that.

  “You can call it deceptive or high-handed,” he said. “And you’d be right. But nothing I’ve done to keep you safe has worked. You’ve got enemies coming from every direction. I haven’t stopped one of them from getting their hands on you. Bounty hunters on a train, Black Skulls in the middle of the Wild West and then again outside the mill, and”—a fast shield of vibes formed around them blocking out the neighborhood’s sounds—“threats from our own government, too.”

  His spell disintegrated as quickly as it formed. “Of all the people in the world, it’s you that I want to keep safe. And I’m failing. Mara”—his voice softened—“you gave me my hope back. I’m damn well going to do everything possible to protect you. Hence, the tracker. Like it or not.” His eyes held worry, his face haggard, but she didn’t offer him any solace. She didn’t want protection. Though even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t quite right. She didn’t want to need protection.

  “You never answered my question about your employment.”

  His gaze sharpened. “I can explain. But I need more time than we have right now. I just need you to trust me on this.”

  That was answer enough.

  She stomped up the steps ready to tell him exactly where he could put his plea for trust. But then she saw the pillow on the porch floor. Beside it was the blanket she’d given him, wadded up. He’d slept on her porch last night while she’d stayed in a hotel after crossing the Mississippi. Was he that desperate to find her? He would have been better off searching the roads. Surely he knew that, but she didn’t bother asking.

  She unlocked her door with the key. This was the last time she’d use it. She’d cast a lock spell from now on. If the neighbors didn’t like seeing her eyes glow, then they shouldn’t look.

  As she’d driven home, she’d gotten horrified looks from every bounder mage at the territory checkpoints between the Wild West and here. Two had tried to stop her, but they were powerless against her citizenship card.

  “Wait, Mara. Can we just talk for a minute longer?” His shoulders went crooked again.

  Some part of her begged to say yes. But she could still see the Power United emblem glistening on the back of that device. “Did Nils give you the tracker?”

  He looked away and sighed hard and short as if the question made him mad. But she knew him well enough to realize it was the answer that angered him. “Cecilia did.”
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  Of course. She gave a bitter laugh at the new betrayal. Her chest hurt from its sharp stab. Gregor knew the woman was no friend of hers. How could he have accepted Cecilia’s offering? She was full of greed and vengeance and nothing more. “How long had she been tracking me? Is she still?”

  “I don’t know. On either count.” A desperate regret pulled at his face.

  She knew that feeling, wanting to beg for forgiveness and knowing it would never come. Carrying that burden was a never-ending punishment. She was quite familiar with it. Whether it was weak or not, she didn’t really want to do that to him, but she couldn’t puzzle it out now.

  “I have to get the cloth to the mill. I really don’t have time for this.” She pressed her lips tight as she turned her back on him and stepped inside. She paused for a moment, her heart fluttering like a tiny bird in its last throes, and then she closed the door, forcing herself to keep moving.

  Dropping her keys into the bowl on the counter, she slung her purse over the back of a kitchen chair and left the pack on the floor. The air smelled like dust though she’d only been gone for two days. Bits of it danced over the kitchen sink where the window hosted a beam of sunshine. She looked out the window. He was still there. Was his chest hurting as much as hers or was it all a lie? Maybe there was some spell she could learn that would judge his trueness.

  “Not exactly a practical option,” she whispered aloud. Not for her. And not when the countdown clock on the jeans was ticking away.

  She should have driven straight to the mill, but she needed fresh clothes; it was partly vanity, partly a simple need for cleanliness. The mild version of her keep clean spells woven through this outfit could only do so much. Because of the Nons in the Wild West, she kept the spells subtle in her traveling garments. Her Republic clothes contained much stronger spells. She could wear them for two weeks, day and night, and they’d still look fresh.

  She headed for her bedroom, striding through the kitchen and then the dining room with its high ceilings and ornate molding. Stillness drenched the atmosphere.

  She’d bought the house years ago on a lucky fluke. The owner had wanted out fast, the neighborhood going to trash, he’d said, improper mage powers moving in all around.

  Her kind of place.

  It was more than big enough for two. But she’d never had a person in her life with whom she might have been two. The man she’d just left on her porch was the only one.

  Just us.

  Damn that tracker.

  A wave of pressure smashed against her as she stepped into the front parlor. She stumbled back. What the hell was that?

  A crackle ripped through the room. The windows shook in their frames, and the illusion of emptiness vanished.

  Her living room was crowded with men. And one woman.

  Mara forgot to breathe.

  Two older distinguished-looking men sat on her couch in front of the windows. The one on the left was Senator Rallis, and on the right, Senator Warren. Three others stood along the wall with her winged back chairs and fireplace—Senators Standish, Prower, and Howland. Senator Alden, Harry’s grandfather, sat in one of the chairs. All were dressed in the finest wool suits and silk ties, and all wore Medallions around their necks, indicating they each ruled a territory.

  Most citizen mages would have recognized them, though few would expect them to appear out of thin air in their living rooms.

  Scariest of all, the High Councilor stood at Senator Rallis’s left. She strode forward, weaving smoke trails between her fingers. “My monk boy says you have the Mad Prophet’s scroll.”

  Mara froze. He’d told on her. She couldn’t trust him. But then she couldn’t trust anyone when it came to the High Councilor’s power.

  “He had to tell me,” the High Councilor replied as if she’d read her mind and then peered around Mara as if her eyes worked. “Did you leave him behind? I know he hasn’t left.” She clicked her tongue. “Better go get him.”

  Retreat. The word rang through her mind.

  Mara pivoted on her heel and retraced her steps with a flurry. Outside, she shut the door behind her, putting a barrier between her and her unexpected guests.

  Gregor paced the porch. His eyes flickered with the same useless anger burning in her gut. “She wouldn’t let me tell you they were in there.”

  She tried to ignore the know-it-all voice in her head that chirped the facts at her, that if she’d answered his calls, if she’d given him the chance to explain, none of this would have caught her by surprise.

  He offered no defense. He offered nothing. He stayed silent and pacing as if that’s all he could do.

  “Are you coming in?” she asked. “I can’t go back in there without you.” Not just because that was her order, but because she needed his strength. She looked away, not wanting him to see the truth.

  He paced on.

  She squinted at him, impatient, and finally saw it. “What is that?” Her body went tight at the view before her.

  Ropes of energy tethered him to the far column of the porch. It must have had some stretch to it, long enough to let him pace a few feet beyond the door. She crouched by the knot, the twists and turns of the thin energy visible to her mage sense. “She tied you up like a dog.” Sharp pricks of outrage tingled through her like coarse wool against her skin.

  “Mara,” he whispered with a furious force. His vibes popped around her, eating away at her words. “Be. Careful.”

  She stood with a jerk. “I’m tired of being careful. I’m tired of tiptoeing around these people who won’t leave me alone.” But he was right. She closed her eyes and dropped her shoulders. His vibes caressed the aura around her. “Don’t,” she whispered, but she wasn’t sure she meant it because when he obeyed, she missed them.

  She crouched back down and studied the knot, sending the thinnest stream of her vibes into the powerful strands that spelled him in place. Letting her vibes merge into the strands, she loosened them, pulling the tight knot apart and making it hers.

  “What are you doing?” Panic saturated his voice. “Stop.” He pulled her up hard by the shoulders.

  “I almost had it,” she cried.

  “I know.” His silence spell descended. He leaned down, face to face with her. “Mara, you can’t do that. That should be impossible. That’s the High Councilor’s spell—”

  His bubble of silence popped with a sharp shot of vibes. The High Councilor, standing in the dining room, had a clear view through the kitchen window. “I can hear you!” she sang.

  Mara closed her eyes. The consequences of what she’d almost done played in her mind. Gregor had stopped her from breaking the crone’s leash spell just in time. The leader of the Republic would never stand for someone breaking her spells.

  He’d saved her life.

  She dropped her head to her hands. “I’m out of my league. I can’t do this.”

  He wrapped his hands around her arms, his touch gentle. “You can. You are brave and smart.”

  “I’m not. I chose a Power United man. Again. That’s not smart.” She was so close to him that his warm scent teased at her nose. He’d soaked in the sunshine. She shrugged free of his hold, twisting away and moving back. Was she really going to let her history repeat itself? “Now, how am I supposed to retrieve you if I can’t unravel the spell?”

  “I’m not allowed to tell you that either.”

  Frustration and dismay rolled over her. She was sick of these games. She doubted she was smart enough to survive them for much longer. She stepped closer for a better look at the leash spell. It weakened as she watched, and not because of what she’d done to the knot. That had faded the moment she’d let go. She sidled toward him again. The spell’s vibes weakened further. “It’s being near you, isn’t it?”

  She looked up at him...so close she could lean in and be in his arms. “By the lost girls, it’s a kiss, isn’t it?” she whispered. She didn’t hesitate, needing to get it over with. Threading her fingers through his short hair, s
he pulled him down to her lips and pressed gently, reacquainting herself with his touch, and then tilting her head to press deeper still. Their tongues danced, their connection sealed. His sunshine scent warmed her from the inside out. He wrapped his arms around her…they were strong and safe.

  Just like that, she wanted to forget about the tracker. Was she that weak? The answer was apparent as a sense of rightness settled over her, of comfort, of heat. A hungry flame flickered to life in her core, devouring the fuel his kiss provided and demanding more.

  Somewhere, a foreign energy snapped and released. The leash was gone. She shoved back, her lips tingling, her chest pushing and pulling for air. She held out her hands between them, holding him back while she waited for that flame to taper off. It took its sweet time.

  He bent down to her. “Listen to me.” His whispered words were rushed. “I think you were right all along about Power United having the white wheel.”

  She squinted at him, her mind hesitating at leaping away from the kiss and toward such an unpleasant subject. “But Prophet talked like he knew where it was.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this while I waited for you. There’s no way the Black Skulls have the capability to string the West with electricity. They’re either working with P.U. or Prophet is planning to hijack their company somehow when the border falls. And we know Power United’s people were in the West at the same time we were.” He wrapped his hands around her arms. “I’m going to find the white wheel. I’m going to search Power United high and low. That’s why I accepted the job. I won’t stop until it’s found and you’re safe.”

  A tsunami of vibes hit Gregor so hard he lost track of space, time, and his own mind. He let them go instead of fighting to hold on to them. Like his last experience with this, the spell retreated as quickly as it arrived. He and Mara stood in her front parlor instead of her back porch.