Jake let out a low whistle. “Shit, Isaac. What kind of trouble could she be in that you’d have to—”
“That snake Dorian Garcia is behind this, isn’t he?” I suddenly interrupted.
My bondmate and I exchanged a look as his expression went glacial. Jake may have made peace with my giving Keith a second chance to save Bianca and my unborn twin siblings, but hell would freeze over before he’d ever entertain the same thought for slimy-ass Garcia. Just like there’d be no way in hell I’d forgive Garrett or Baby Brother. I still wasn’t even sure about Lily, to be honest.
Isaac whirled to face me, rage written across his face in tight lines and clenched jaw. “You got it in one, Firebird.” He’d taken to calling me Dia’s nickname sometimes. I liked the nickname—and him—so I let it slide since he was my sister’s guy. Dia jumped to her feet and thrust both arms across her chest. “You’re never gonna guess who’s helping him screw us over, Cass.”
Because that’s what this was an attempt to do. Interfere with Clan Zi’s alliance with the St. Louis Freeholders. Something we definitely needed to solidify to stand a true chance against Garrett and his Minion Army. Wheels began turning inside my head as I considered her words. “Well, that’s pretty vague, but I’m gonna guess it has something to do with Zoe Stevens’ brother going to work with those mercs near Springfield.”
My sister practically spat she looked so angry. “Close. Except doesn’t have to do with Zoe Stevens. She’s the root of it all herself. Since every other attempt they made failed, she’s now at Garcia’s side helping stir up even more shit in St. Louis. They’ve drummed up some bullshit charge against Avani they’ll only drop if Isaac steps down so Garcia can take over.”
I rose to my own feet and let out an explosive breath. Jake stood to place a comforting arm along my shoulder. Zoe Stevens was sleazy in more ways than one. Not only had she betrayed the Freeholders by contacting assassins to ambush me outside the store where I’d first met both her and Isaac, but she’d also tried tricking Jake into forming a bond with her by faking a pregnancy. The treason had earned her the punishment most Elementals considered far worse than death.
I steadied my nerves and asked the logical question. “How the hell can someone stripped of all magical powers be exerting any sort of influence that helps that snake?”
Isaac bared his teeth in a sneer. “Because somehow that traitor got her powers back.”
For a moment I thought I’d hallucinated his answer. Every Elemental I’d discussed this with had been adamant. Stripping someone of their Elemental abilities was permanent. Irreversible. The reason that Elemental criminals would far rather face death and beheading to that soul-crushing punishment. Zoe herself had begged for that mercy—and been denied by both Isaac and Jake.
“But—but—everyone told me that was impossible!”
Isaac gritted his teeth and ran a hand through his long braids. “Yeah, well, unfortunately everyone was wrong.”
Jake appeared even more shook up by this news than me. “Fuck. So you’re telling me that somebody has worked out how to reverse stripping Elemental powers?”
Isaac nodded, hands clenching as he fought for composure. “Yeah, J. Meaning that any Elemental criminal with a grudge could conceivably get their powers back. Assuming whoever figured out how to pull that miracle off offers it to them.”
Dia’s lips twisted again. “I think it’s pretty damned obvious who worked out this little miracle.”
Our eyes met, and I nodded in realization. “Daddy Dearest.”
“Or Baby Brother. Either one’s just as bad.”
Jake’s arm dropped from my shoulder as he began echoing Isaac’s earlier pacing. “That makes more sense than I like. It takes all four physical elements to strip someone’s Elemental abilities, with their own element being the primary one in the spell. Everything we’re learning about Spirit now that we have several people capable of channeling it has been pretty damned amazing. Telepathic abilities; teleportation abilities; the most impressive form of invisibility and warding most of us have ever seen.”
Isaac nodded grimly. “Too true, J. It only makes sense that Spirit would be the key to reversing a magical stripping.”
My eyebrows rose in sudden realization. “We needed Spirit mixed with Earth earlier to heal Lily from that death spell Drew threw at me. I bet that’s also the key to reversing a magical stripping. Mixing Spirit with the same combination of the physical elements that took away the ability to work magic.”
The four of us chewed on that thought for a few moments, until Isaac finally shook his head and got that panicked expression again. “As intriguing as all that is, my concern is with Avani right now. I can’t just leave her hanging. She’s had my back more times than I can count.”
I gave a determined nod. “You’re right. But we need more information before we go jumping in. Just what sort of bullshit charges have they brought against her?”
Isaac sighed. “Avani...well, Avani has a fondness for gambling.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Yeah, well, she also has a fondness for taking out loans to cover her gambling debt until she hits a winning streak again. Which she always does. I’ve found myself wondering lately whether she has a touch of talent for Spirit now that I know what I do about Jake’s Aunt Ju Hai and her abilities. Usually she’d come to me to cover her losses with a personal loan, but during that time I was busy helping you all she lost way more than she ever has before. And rather than hit me up while I was preoccupied she...she tapped into the Chapter’s funds to cover her loss. I’m pretty damned sure that fucker Garcia set her up, to be honest.”
My pulse picked up speed. “So she...borrowed...money from the Chapter’s account to cover her losses and now Garcia is threatening to reveal that fact?”
He nodded and his fingers went white as he tightened them into fists at each side. “He says I have 36 hours to step down as Steward, or he’s going to send the evidence directly to the Executive Board.”
“So they’d the Board would bring charges against Avani. Couldn’t you just pay back the money and have her owe you directly?”
Jake’s arm slipped back along my shoulders. “No, sweetheart, that’s not how it works. They have pretty strict governance laws on how Chapter funds can be spent. She’d face censure for borrowing money for personal use, and the punishments are pretty harsh depending on how much she took.”
Dia stepped close to wrap her arm around Isaac as he let out an anguished sound. She whispered, “She took a lot. Nothing she wouldn’t have paid back eventually. But...they would kick her out of the Chapter over how much she took. And she’d never be able to get another Chapter to take her in after that. Clans would also be unwilling to consider her for membership because she’d be marked as untrustworthy.”
I frowned. “I...look. I’m not suggesting we hang her out to dry or anything, but we have a lot more to consider than just one person’s well-being. We’re at freaking war, Isaac. And I have to ask the really shitty questions that nobody wants to ask. Is saving Avani’s reputation really worth the cost of losing you as Steward over the Chapter? I mean, this is obviously a power play by Garcia and likely my father to prevent us from getting the St. Louis Freeholder support we need in this war.”
His expression went thunderous. “Are you legit suggesting to me that I not help Avani?”
I raised a hand placatingly. “No, I’m suggesting that we consider all the pros and cons of what each potential action we could take so that we make the best—or least shitty—choice possible given our current circumstances. And as much as I like Avani, she is the one who chose to gamble more money than she could afford and then borrow money from the Chapter to cover that fact up.”
He opened his mouth to probably curse at me, but Dia squeezed him none-too-gently. “She’s right, Isaac. No matter how much you care about Avani, nobody forced her to do what she did. Even if Garcia took advantage of her weakness to exploit our o
wn weaknesses. And Cass is right, too. We have to consider all our options. Even the ones we don’t like.”
His mouth opened again, anger still written on his face, and Dia narrowed her eyes to give him a glare of her own. “If you’re even thinking about suggesting this is jealousy over my earlier wrong assumptions, you best just shut that mouth right now.”
Isaac’s lips snapped shut so quickly that her lips pursed. “Mm hmm, that’s what I thought.”
My brain kept spinning as possible ways out of this whole mess presented themselves before being rejected. But then I reminded myself of the many strengths Isaac and his closest colleagues had repeatedly demonstrated. “Why—why can’t you just put those hacking skills you all have to good use and—I don’t know—alter the records? If Avani has always made the right choice to seek personal loans from you in the past, and she only gave in to the wrong temptation this once because you were helping the rest of us, why can’t we just alter things to look like she did what she’s always done in the past?”
Jake let out another whistle. “Wait, are you—my law-abiding bondmate—actually suggesting that Isaac hack into the Chapter’s financial records to make it look like Avani never borrowed that money?”
I shrugged with a saucy smirk. “They hack shit all the time. Wouldn’t it just be like the status quo for them?”
Dia let out a bark of laughter. “She’s got a damned good point.”
Isaac shrugged uncomfortably. “I mean, we hack into mortal records all the time, but this is different.”
My expression went sardonic. “Oh really. So it’s okay to fudge records so long as they originate with humans, but not if they belong to only Elementals.”
He had the grace to flush slightly. “Uh, well, when you put it that way it sounds a little…”
“Bigoted?”
“Ah, um, yeah. I guess.”
I snickered. “Yeah is right. Normally I would be the last one to suggest this sort of thing, but if Garcia and my father aren’t going to fight fair, then neither can we. Not if we want to have a true shot at winning. And this isn’t a game. We have to win because it’s every damned body’s life and freedom on the line. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? If you fail, I assume they’d kick you out of the Chapter along with Avani. And then you’d be welcome in either Clan Zi or Cassidy’s Own no matter what anyone else says.” I glared at Dia and Jake to indicate I meant business. “But we have to at least try to beat them at their own dirty tricks. If we can pull it off, then Avani’s ass will be pulled out of the fire without us having to sacrifice Isaac’s position—that he’s damned well earned and shouldn’t have to lose. And if we fail…”
Isaac’s panicked expression had completely faded only to be replaced by sheer determination. “We won’t fail. We can’t afford to.”
Jake leaned over to give him a high-five. “There’s the Ice Man I know and love!”
Dia snuggled closer to Isaac and gave Jake a mock glare. “Back off, buddy. He’s mine. You’ve already got a bondmate.”
“All right,” I said with a sigh. “Given the new information that Zoe Stevens is working at Garcia’s side, and the accusations Lily has made against Drew, I think we’d better make arrangements to travel to St. Louis. Nothing is more important right now than securing the support we need from the Freeholders. We need their help in this war if we’re to stand a chance of success. And I want to figure out whether Lily’s telling the truth about our two missing siblings.”
Dia nodded thoughtfully. “You think she could be lying?”
“It’s definitely a possibility. I have those records Beverly gave us before she was murdered. We can use them to track down the truth on whether those two siblings are actually dead—and whether Drew went behind our father’s back to kill them.”
Jake’s hand began rubbing soothingly along my back as he sensed my growing agitation over that possibility. “You planning to bring Lily along for the ride?”
“Oh yes,” I said with bared teeth. “Our darling little sister is most definitely coming with us. No way do I trust her alone here without us to keep an eye on her—and we may just give her the rope she needs to hang herself if she’s not truly trustworthy.”
“Oh goody,” Dia drawled. “Time for our first ever Garrett Sisters Road Trip!”
Chapter 8
Technically it turned out to be a Garrett Siblings Road Trip, because Nic insisted on accompanying us once we’d filled him in on the details. He and Lily actually made pretty quick recoveries thanks to the previous evening’s healing with Spirit paired with devouring a ton of food to help replenish their energy reserves. We hit the road just before noon, leaving Jake’s sports car for his parents to return to Greener Pastures in favor of two SUVs. Pretty much always our preferred transportation method when conducting investigations or rescue attempts.
Jake, Dia, Isaac, Theo, Melody, and I kept watch over Lily in one SUV while Liam, Nic, Rhianne, two hybrid Mindbenders, a Clan Zi Gryphon named Micah (who’d helped us in the past) and Breena’s Phoenix niece Ashlynn rode in the second. Riku and Colin stayed behind to start whipping my other new liegesworn into shape, and Ju Hai volunteered to help select the best candidates to train as double agents and send on to Daddy Dearest’s headquarters, St. Gabriel. That would also give her and Breena a little breathing room from each other. The downside was that it left me the only active Spirit-user of our group besides Lily, but I trusted those three more than any other to determine which of my new liegesworn could be trusted with such a dangerous mission.
We rolled into St. Louis just over three hours later, and Isaac directed us to the same Chesterfield safe house we’d used weeks earlier while working to save my mother from slimy-ass Garcia’s clutches. Seemed pretty fitting that we’d use it as our base of operations to thwart him once again.
You’d think he’d get tired of being made to look the fool, I thought to myself after we assembled in the first floor conference room that often served double duty as an informal dining room. But you would apparently be wrong in light of the fact he just kept right on failing. Just like my father, or so I had to believe. I couldn’t entertain the thought of either succeeding for a single second; not with the stakes so impossibly high.
We ordered pizza since so many of us had gone through recent revivals and intense bursts of battle magic, meaning our appetites were ravenous. Magic always had a cost. Just like everything else in the world. Some costs just seemed easier to pay than others. I couldn’t really complain too much about having to stuff ooey-gooey cheesy goodness in my mouth. Not without making other people want to smack me anyway.
Avani showed up about halfway through our meal, accompanied by several of Isaac’s most trusted Freeholders. Her lips wobbled when she met Isaac’s gaze, which was one part compassionate and one part stern. But he didn’t voice that sternness, instead pulling her into a hug and sitting her down to eat the vegan pizza he’d ordered specifically for her while the rest of us finished our own meals. There’d be time for recriminations later (knowing Isaac, in private since he wouldn’t want to humiliate his second-in-command), but for now we had a whole lot of planning to do and anything but a lot of time.
After we’d finished eating, I made a point of working with Isaac to assign several people—the two hybrid Mindbenders, a bondmated couple named Iesha and Kelvin, Micah, and two Freeholders—we trusted along with the one I was not yet sure of to set up wards around our safe house. They would also take the first guard duty while the rest of us worked out our plans.
Lily’s sardonic expression when I assigned her to that group said she knew what I was up to, but I just smiled. I wanted her to know she would have to work to gain our trust. My plan to send double agents to infiltrate Garrett’s Evil Genius Headquarters at St. Gabriel was by no means original or unique. Who was to say that Garrett hadn’t arranged for the falling-out between Drew and Lily as an opportunity to insert his own double agent among our number?
And if she weren�
�t a double agent, that didn’t mean someone else might not be.
Once Lily and her guardians left the room, I summoned a second-level firewall to ensure complete privacy. And that’s when the real planning began. We left most of it up to Isaac, Avani, and their crew because they were the computer experts who created new identities for Elementals whenever they had to abandon their old ones. A necessity in a world where our aging slowed to a crawl for centuries and most mortals had no clue we existed.
I glanced at Jake as the others lost themselves in discussion peppered with tapping away at the laptops before them. “So, fixing this particular problem isn’t going to discourage Garcia a whole lot. He’ll just come up with some new angle. I can only assume his messing with Isaac’s leadership of the Freeholders is Daddy Dearest’s requirement for that snake to buy his way back into Garrett’s good graces.”
Jake tilted his head thoughtfully. “Makes sense after you sent Garcia’s ass back to Garrett in pieces. He made that power play for your mother and lost not only her but Si Si as well. Leaving him with zero pawns to use against you.”
“Yeah. What leaves me most uneasy, though, is pondering how the hell they gave Zoe Stevens back her Elemental powers. And is whatever method they used easily repeatable?”
He shook his head with a disgruntled expression. “Damn good question. If it is—there’s nothing to stop them from recruiting other criminals who’ve had their powers stripped.”
I let out a disgusted sound. “Just what we need. More big bad enemies with extremely large grudges banding together against us.”
“Story of our lives, right?”
“Unfortunately. I’d love to get to the peaceful part of our relationship. I mean, assuming that’s a thing. Please tell me that’s a thing. Your parents have had moments of peace, right?”
“Sure they have. Bound to happen when you live for centuries. You know, assuming you survive the non-peaceful times.”
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