The raised depiction in the center of Alaric’s office door held a triangle with weaving lines wrapped around each of the three sides—the symbol for magical energy, reflecting Alaric’s stewardship over energy distribution and the training of magic users. Atticus had taught me a lot about the Council.
I pulled Ripper from my thigh holster.
Silas raised an eyebrow.
I shrugged. “I’m not taking any chances.”
“I’m pleased to see you taking your safety seriously for once.”
I rolled my eyes, and Silas activated the door with a little chuckle. He tapped a panel inside, and the door materialized behind us.
“No locks?” I asked.
“Not for Councilors. Our offices remain accessible as a symbol of our trust and unity.” He snorted. “And Alaric’s additional security was already neutralized when the Council swept his chambers.”
Shelves overflowing with random objects lined the walls. I could’ve spent hours examining all the things in the room. Most of his collection seemed to be household items from Earth except that each one glowed with pale-magic power. My eyes snagged on a glowing toaster and a TV remote that both radiated faint, clear energy.
In contrast to the clutter of the rest of the office, Alaric’s desk held only one item—a small opaque crystal resting on a three-pronged stand. I picked it up and jumped when an image appeared in my mind. A little girl ran with a gleeful smile, her long blond hair swirling behind her. Aria. A warm feeling of fatherly pride spread through my chest.
“That’s a memory catcher,” Silas said behind me.
I set the stone back on its stand, and the feelings faded with the hologram. I still didn’t understand how Alaric could risk his own daughter to set me up. Maybe he hadn’t intended for her to be swept up in the skimming spell. “Do you think these”—I gestured around the room—“knickknacks are going to be a problem?”
“The Magistry neutralized them. They shouldn’t have enough residual power to do anything. But we should be careful. Don’t stand too near.”
I moved to the center of the room. Each of the magic-powered objects had a small presence in my mind, creating an outline of the room I could have seen with my eyes closed.
Silas’s magic flared next to me. “I am ready.”
“Here goes nothing,” I whispered.
I imagined Silas’s magic funneling to me, out through my hands, and back into the room. The energy began to respond, and I shivered in pleasure. I hadn’t taken very much through our bond, but it was hard to let it go again. I focused and pushed it outward. Once I kick-started my power by absorbing his, I kept the flow going from my own magic, just as I’d practiced with Atticus and Tessa. The objects closest to me glowed brighter. I pushed the power farther, lighting up items along the way.
Terrified I would take too much, I carefully drew more of Silas’s magic by pulling a small stream through our shared bond. I held all the building magic inside until the pressure became uncomfortable. With Silas watching closely, I threw my palms out and pushed all of our combined magic into the room.
The blast of magic sent an entire wall of knickknacks vibrating. The clattering noise grew louder as I funneled the entire burst of energy into the small office.
The air in front of us shimmered and formed an iridescent doorway.
I stared wide-eyed, almost not believing my plan had worked. We’d found the second portal.
The surface flickered. I cocked my head to the side, trying to figure out what it was doing.
“Shite!” Silas pushed me out of the way.
I fell to the floor in a heap just as magic surged over my head and flexed back.
A man walked through.
Legatis Landas froze mid-step with his mouth open in surprise. We stared at each other. Silas tackled him from behind, and Landas fell to the ground with a surprised yelp. Silas’s magic flooded the room, forming a multilayered matrix of energy before it solidified into a pattern more complex than anything I had seen before. There were at least five layers that settled over Landas in a net-like spell.
Pinned facedown, Landas struggled against Silas’s hold without success.
“Get something to tie him up,” Silas said with a grunt.
I scanned the room, spinning in a full circle.
“Hurry!”
“It’s not like this is the Home Depot!” My eyes landed on an old lamp. I grabbed it off the shelf and held it out to Silas.
He raised an eyebrow. Damn his judgy eyebrows straight to hell.
“Use the cord.”
The lamp clanged on the floor as Silas looped the long cord around Landas’s hands, binding them with efficient movements.
“What did you conjure?” I asked as Silas sat Landas up, still locked in an unbreakable hold.
“I blocked his magic.”
No wonder the layers were so complicated. I wondered if that was the same spell the Brotherhood had used to make the necklaces that held Aria and me. A remembered shiver of terror flashed over me, but I pushed it down. We were going to stop the Brotherhood from hurting anyone again, and Landas was the first one on the list.
“You’re going to tell us everything you know, you manky arsehole,” Silas demanded.
Landas scowled but kept silent.
“I could get it out of him,” Silas said with a sideways glance at me.
I grimaced. There had to be a better option than beating him. “What about a compulsion?”
Landas lost his smug expression. Real fear burned in his eyes.
“You can’t put a compulsion on someone with magic.”
“But the Brotherhood did it to Atticus,” I said. “Maybe there’s something different about their magic?”
“It’s worth a try.” Silas’s power wove through the air, forming the layers of the conjuring. He tried for several minutes, but each time the last layer finished, it sort of slid off of Landas. “Gods dammit! It’s not working.” He adjusted his hold on Landas. “It’s just not possible to compel Aeternals.”
But Atticus had been compelled by someone with the Brotherhood’s stolen powers, and Silas had put a compulsion on that Mundane officer. “Could it be something about their magic being different—like Humans to Shifters?”
Landas tried to rein in his growing terror and failed miserably. His eyes flicked between us. We were onto something.
Silas’s eyes lit up. “Not races. Differentiated power sources.”
“That’s how the Brotherhood put the compulsion on Atticus!” I said. “By using the stolen life magic as a completely different source from Atticus’s magic!”
Landas struggled against Silas’s hold.
“Does the Lost Sect use Earth’s Source?” I asked. Maybe I had access to that source.
“Let’s find out,” Silas replied in sync with my thoughts.
With Silas still holding him from behind, I crouched in front of Landas. “I don’t know how to do it.”
Landas slammed his head forward and tried to head-butt me. I fell back on my rear, narrowly dodging his attack.
Silas punched him hard across the chin with a solid hit that made my teeth ache. Landas slumped to the ground and stayed there, groaning.
I remembered firsthand how much that hurt. “Was that really necessary?”
Silas shrugged and shook out his hand. “It was satisfying.”
Silas told me how to build the compulsion, layer by layer. I had already seen and unraveled each of the layers on Atticus’s, so I was able to build the conjuring quickly. The layers solidified and covered Landas. This time, it stuck to him.
I had a moment of conflicted emotion about forcing him to follow our commands but decided it was different than what the Brotherhood had done to Atticus. It was only active as long as I held it—it wasn’t permanent. We weren’t going to make him confess to crimes he hadn’t committed or make him our slave. All we needed was the truth, then we would let him go to face the consequences of his actions.
&n
bsp; “Tell me who you’re working with on the Council,” Silas demanded.
The door pinged open. Hunched over Landas, I froze in complete surprise. Elias stood in the doorway, flanked by Guardians, and glowing a vibrant yellow. He took in the room and Legatis Landas tied up on the ground.
“What’s going on here?” Elias demanded.
“This man is part of the Brotherhood,” Silas said. “He’s going to tell us who he’s working with on the Council.”
Elias narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re using compulsion.”
“We realized that Maeve could—” Silas paused, his brows drawn together. “How did you know that a compulsion spell was possible on an Aeternal?”
My entire body tensed. “And how can you see what we’re doing?”
Elias’s eyes flicked between Landas and us before his mouth pursed.
Silas slowly unfurled from his crouch as he stood and faced Elias. His eyes stayed locked on the Councilor. “Landas, who are you working with on the Council?”
“Lord Elias,” Landas responded blankly.
Elias’s magic flared. With a flick of his hand, the Guardians fell to the ground. I couldn’t tell whether they were unconscious or dead before a wave of energy slashed through the chamber. Silas dove in front of me, blocking it with a wall of his own magic. He rolled to his feet just as Elias flung another attack at us.
Silas and I dove to the ground. I landed next to Landas just as the compulsion spell around him crumbled. He picked up the heavy, antique lamp between his tied hands and swung it like a baseball bat at my head. I dodged and slashed at him with Ripper, drawing blood from a shallow cut to his forearm. He scrambled behind the desk.
Elias lobbed magic through the small office. Knickknacks shattered with deafening sounds all around us. A wooden shelf exploded to my left. Splinters flew at my face, and I threw myself on the ground again. Too close.
Landas reemerged from behind the desk with his hands untied. He ran at me, and I popped back onto my feet, preparing to fight him off.
“Down!” Silas yelled.
I dropped like a good soldier and covered my head with my arms. Silas’s magic flashed, sending a wave of power toward our enemies.
Elias threw up a shield and blocked Silas’s assault. He backed into the desk, where Landas once again crouched under cover. Silas followed them both with his sword clutched in his hand, blood dripping from a gash on his other arm.
Elias grabbed Landas, twisted, and spun him into the sword’s path. The blade slid into the Legatis’s chest. He didn’t even have time to react. His body went limp, and he slumped over the sword with a surprised grunt.
Elias kicked the Legatis’s body forward, knocking Silas off-balance. He fell backward and landed on the ground, pinned under Landas’s dead weight.
Energy swirled around Elias. A snarl twisted his handsome face with animalistic fury as he intentionally sliced his palm on the blade still sticking out of Landas’s back and grabbed Silas’s wounded arm. Their blood connected, magic flared, and Elias pulled the magic from Silas.
Silas cried out, and his whole body convulsed.
“No!” I screamed. I pushed to my feet, gripping Ripper. I reached for my magic, but I couldn’t grab hold. The energy drained in streams from Silas. Elias’s aura flared brighter, a harsh golden brilliance surrounding him.
I threw my knife at Elias’s chest. He flinched away at the last second, and it caught him in the shoulder. He stumbled backward and tripped over a busted toaster oven. He fell. His head smacked the edge of the desk, and he crumpled to the floor.
I helped roll Landas’s dead weight off Silas, and he pushed shakily to his knees.
“Silas! Your magic!” His aura had faded from a brilliant golden color to a sickly pale yellow. The wrongness of the color made my insides twist.
A fresh group of Guardians rushed into the room.
“Help!” Elias groaned from the floor, grasping his bloody head. “They’re trying to kill me!”
“Seize Elias!” Silas commanded.
The Guardians stood frozen between the Lord Councilor and their new Lord Commander.
Elias pushed himself up along the desk, my knife sticking out of his shoulder. “Lord Silas is working with the Brotherhood!” Elias’s voice was a perfect mixture of horror and anger.
“No, wait. Elias is the traitor!” I yelled.
“They killed the Guardians!” Elias countered.
Covered in Landas’s blood, Elias pointed toward Silas’s sword still sticking out of the Legatis’s chest.
The guards’ faces hardened as they took in the sight of that plus the bodies of dead Guardians littering the floor.
Silas pulled the sword out of Landas’s chest with a wet sucking sound that made me cringe. He wobbled as he pushed himself to his feet and raised his sword. His magic flared that sickly pale yellow color as he faced down the four men approaching us. We weren’t going to be able to fight our way out of this mess. If we surrendered, it would be our word against Elias’s, and there was a whole lot of bloody evidence against us.
“Lay down your weapons,” Silas commanded. But the guards didn’t stop. The visible evidence against us was too damning. Silas snarled as the guards advanced.
I grabbed the first thing I could reach—Alaric’s memory catcher. I pulled energy from it to kick-start my powers and pushed magic toward the hidden portal. It flared, and everyone dove, avoiding the burst of magic that flexed into the room.
The portal was our only escape route. “Come on!” I yelled at Silas.
With a feral snarl on his face, Silas spun back toward Elias, who had worked his way over by the door and to safety behind the Guardians. The Guardians moved in unison, like the well-trained unit they were, throwing a wave of energy at us. I threw my hands over my face, but the expected blast never came.
Silas held a shield between us and the wave of searing magic.
The guards on the other side blurred behind the incredible heat as Silas strained to hold it back.
“Silas!”
His shield cracked around us, unraveling. We backed toward the portal.
“Go! I’ll hold the shield!” he yelled.
“Hurry!” I yelled as I jumped through the portal.
Chapter Thirty-One
I landed hard, stumbling face-first onto the dusty plywood floor. The memory catcher rolled out of my grip and landed in a strip of sun streaming from a huge window framed in industrial black metal. I grabbed the drained crystal and twisted around to stare at my portal. All that remained was an old brick wall embedded with the stone outline of a gate.
The portal was closed. I was alone, and Silas was nowhere to be seen.
The realization clicked—Silas had never planned on following me through the portal. I scrambled to my feet and placed my hands on the brickwork. I had to get back there. Silas wasn’t going to be able to hold that shield on his own. I tried to access my power, but nothing happened. I was too frantic, and I had no one else to absorb magic from to kick-start my own. Even the memory crystal was drained.
I pounded on the brick wall with both fists. “Dammit! You stupid, stubborn idiot!”
He was going to get himself killed. I took a deep, unsteady breath. There was nothing I could do for him now. I had to trust that he would be okay, because the alternative was unacceptable. In the meantime, I had no idea where I was. Panic flared. I’d just traveled through the Brotherhood’s portal, which meant some of them could be there. I had to get out quickly. Judging from my view out the window, I was on an upper floor. The building had structural, exposed brick walls and a thin layer of dust. An attic. The room had a random assortment of mismatched furniture that had to have been acquired from the streets on trash day. I inhaled the sweet smell of fortune cookies.
I swore at my own stupidity. It made sense that the Brotherhood’s portal was where they’d kept Marcel, back near Boston. I was an idiot for not thinking of that earlier.
A narrow set of winding s
tairs led to the only exit from the floor. I pocketed the crystal and crept down them, expecting an attack at any moment. The staircase groaned, and I froze. My own breathing was loud in my ears as I inched down the last five steps and emerged on the main floor of the factory. I escaped through the empty storefront without issue. Outside, in the early morning sun, it was cold without a jacket and only a thin tunic for cover. The change in temperature was a surprise. The warm, moderate weather of Aeterna had not prepared me for the crisp fall air of Boston. I wrapped my arms around myself as my mind spun in circles.
I needed to get away from there before the Brotherhood found me. But I had nowhere to go and no money to get there. I ached to head to the shelter and pretend that Father Mike would be there to comfort me. The pain of his betrayal stabbed me again. Instead, I forced myself in the direction of Davis Square and the bus station.
Ten minutes later, I slid through the back doors of an overcrowded bus of morning commuters. The driver either didn’t notice me avoiding the fare or didn’t care. I crouched low in my seat as we rumbled through Boston. I got off a dozen stops later, a random choice that landed me in Copley Square, an upscale urban area in Boston’s Back Bay.
Wandering through the streets, surrounded by a mix of historic brick buildings and modern skyscrapers, I still had no idea what to do. I found an out-of-the-way spot where I wouldn’t have to worry about people passing by—especially at such an early hour—and slumped on a green metal bench. I was out of options. I had no resources and no plans.
My fingers clenched around Marcel’s charm as my thoughts returned to Silas. The stubborn idiot was either dead or imprisoned. I rubbed the arm branded with his House sigil. Fear curled up my spine. Silas could be dead. I closed my eyes and tried to sense him through our bond but felt nothing. I didn’t know if I was too far away or if that meant he was dead. I shook off the terrible possibility. He was too damn stubborn to die. I had to believe he would be okay and focus on keeping my own butt safe. Silas would insist on it.
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