by T. S. Snow
“I have full-body protection that will save me from most spells and even bullets. You’re a liability.” And if this was an ambush, he’d only be in the way.
“I can take care of myself. Just lead the way,” he said, and I rolled my eyes.
Fine.
“Have it your way. But if things go south, I’m not risking my life to save yours,” I replied.
“Same goes to you. Now let’s move it. If we stand at the entrance much longer, we’ll attract more attention than just a few grumpy ghosts.”
I couldn’t agree more.
I unsheathed my MET from the invisible scabbard around my waist—courtesy of Charisma and her ingenious engineering skills—and with the short sword in hand, I walked inside.
19
Andres
There were less than twenty-four hours until the duel, and I was ready to take up day drinking, except the mere idea of drinking anything made my stomach revolt.
I wished my father would stop with his crazy ideas and just announce he’d made a miraculous recovery so my uncle would back out of the duel, but Dad had been adamant.
There was no way we could prove Ricardo Illudere had tried yet again to poison his own brother, but worse than that, my father was starting to suspect my uncle’s corruption went deeper than that. He refused to give me more information, but his orders had been clear.
I had to win this damn duel and use the power granted to me once I won to banish him from Illudere lands. Strip him of his name and everything he’d been born into.
I ran my hands over my face. It felt so fucking wrong to do it. But then again, this was the same man who had tried to kill my father. The same man who had challenged his own fucking nephew to a duel.
It wasn’t like anybody had forced him to challenge me.
Unfortunately for me, I had no choice but to face the challenge…and win. Not if I wanted to keep my life. Not if I wanted to make sure my family stayed whole. This wasn’t about power, it was about staying alive.
I went back to pacing around the room as I waited for Char. She’d texted, saying she had finished my MET and asked to meet up.
I’d given her my address, and she’d agreed to meet me here.
That had been almost an hour ago.
I didn’t do well with stress. I was the first to admit my upbringing had made me more than a little spoiled, and while I’d had responsibilities and the knowledge that I’d one day lead my people, I’d never really had to do much as an heir other than attend meetings, parties, and any other event my parents told me to.
So I was a little unprepared to be the actual head of the family, but I’d always figured there would be plenty of time to learn once I got older.
Until I thought my father was dying, that was.
It felt like a switch had been flipped inside my head, and even though I now knew he was okay and that I wouldn’t actually have to start leading all Illusionists, I still felt like I had to play catch-up. I had to win so I’d survive, yes. But just winning wasn’t enough. I needed to do more, to be more.
Because one day, I’d be the one leading them.
My people depended on me to not fuck things up for them. They depended on me to grow the fuck up and be better, do better.
They looked up to me, so I had to set an example, no matter how hard that might be.
I had to win this duel. It was the only way I could ensure all Illusionists would be treated fairly. Because if there was one thing I knew, it was that my uncle was a piece of shit.
I heard the front gates opening and rushed to the door, hoping Char had finally arrived.
When Blair’s Harley, with two figures on top, came through the gates and stopped right by the front entrance, I smiled.
Thank fuck Char had come, and it looked like she’d brought reinforcements.
The rumbling noise from the bike was suddenly cut off, and Char jumped from the back of it, said something to Blair that had my sister shaking her head, and then took her helmet off. Char’s pink strands shone under the sunlight, and she grinned when she saw me. She was wearing ripped jeans, and today’s shirt—which I’d started to learn she picked with care every morning and were a reflection of her mood—had an angry looking Stitch holding a book as if ready to throw it. On top were the words “Greatest Weapons.” It made me smile.
“Hey, Andres. Ready for your mind to be blown?” she asked loudly, walking closer to me after having dropped the helmet on the back of Blair’s seat.
“Beautiful, you can blow my mind and any other part of me as many times as you want,” I flirted. She blushed, and Blair groaned.
“Gross. I know you finally got on board with the whole harem thing, but do you really have to make a pass at my brother in front of me? Seeing you and Loverboy making moon eyes at each other is bad enough,” Blair complained, but her eyes shone with amusement.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” Char protested. “I just meant that the MET I developed for him is going to blow his mind. Because it’s so awesome. I didn’t mean that I’d blow it. Or him. Not that, like, I’m against blow jobs or anything. I actually like them. I just meant… You know what? Never mind. Just point me in the direction of the training room so I’ll stop making a fool of myself.”
Char’s face was almost the color of her hair by the time she finished rambling, and both Blair and I wore matching grins. She was so cute when she was flustered.
It made me want to mess with her even more.
“It’s this way,” I said, pointing in the direction I’d just come from.
Because we wanted my uncle to believe my father was still sick, I’d been staying at my parents’s mansion for the time being, and I’d had to invite Char here rather than my actual apartment in order to not raise any suspicion.
But that gave us access to the Illudere training room, which was pretty good.
Charisma made a beeline to where I’d pointed, probably in the hopes that if she ran headfirst into work, things would be less embarrassing for her, but she miscalculated one of the steps and tripped. She plunged forward, and without thinking, I moved so my body would intercept hers and prevent her from falling face-first on the steps.
The last thing I wanted was for her to get hurt because of me.
Char’s head hit my stomach and I grunted with the impact, but at least I managed to hold her steady.
Blair laughed. “Hey, Char, can you do that again? I wasn’t fast enough the first time.”
I glared at my sister, only to find out she was holding her phone up, probably trying to record it.
Char groaned against my chest, burying her face deeper in the fabric of my shirt, as if she wanted to disappear inside of me or something.
“Dammit, Blair. Put the phone down,” I said.
“You’re no fun,” she replied, but she did stop recording us and put her phone away.
I refused to even think about the fact she decided to store the phone in her boobs.
Just…no.
I picked Char up, climbed the rest of the stairs, then released her once we reached the top.
“There you go, beautiful. To get to the training room, just turn right once you’re inside, go through the glass doors until you reach the gym. Then through the gym, there’s a door. You can’t miss it. You can go on ahead, if that’s okay. I kinda want to talk to Blair for a bit.” I wanted to draw her closer to me, to kiss her and tell her she had nothing to be embarrassed about. But I knew I still had a shit ton of atoning to do, and even if Char seemed to have forgiven me for the most part, I knew I still had to prove to her I took her seriously.
Char refused to meet my eyes. “Thanks,” she replied, running inside.
Blair walked up the steps towards me, and we both watched as Char disappeared inside the house. We heard her “Woah” when she took in the entrance, followed by her footsteps as she followed my instructions.
I waited until I couldn’t hear her anymore before I turned to Blair.
“Listen
, there’s something I wanted to tell you,” I started while I rolled my MET and cast an illusion around us to make sure our conversation remained private.
Blair’s arms crossed in front of her, as if bracing herself for bad news.
“Well, spit it out,” she demanded. “Is it our father? Was Nana not able to help him?” She cursed. “I knew I should’ve come along with the two of them. I could’ve at least said goodbye or something.”
I reached out a hand and touched her arm to stop her from walking away. “No, that’s not it. I mean, it is about Dad, but it’s not what you think. Erh, I don’t have to tell you to be quiet about this and tell no one, but long story short—Dad isn’t ill or dying. He’s perfectly fine. Healthy as a horse, in fact.”
Blair’s eyes widened. “So Nana managed to fix him?” she asked, relief clear both in her gaze and tone.
I shook my head. “No. Apparently, he was never sick to begin with. This was all some crazy ploy of his to force Uncle Ricardo’s hand. He, uh, found out Ricardo was trying to poison him again, and let him think he’d succeeded. Gran saw right through his illusions, though.”
“I need to sit down.” Without waiting for a reply, she walked down a couple steps and sat on the ground, putting her head in her hands.
Shit.
With a quick look around, I used my MET to cast an even bigger, more intricate illusion around us that would show us walking into the house with smiles on our faces. Then I created a bubble of sorts that would make sure no sound carried out as we talked.
Suddenly, Blair shot up to her feet. “I’m going to murder him,” she declared vehemently, heading towards the doors. Her face had gone from white to flaming red in a split second, and she was furious.
I managed to grab her arm before she marched inside the house.
“Listen. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go in there and kick him a bit for the deception. Hell, my mother literally set the bed on fire with him in it. But before you do all that, I need you to set up an illusion strong enough to fool anyone who might be passing by or spying. So you can barge in there and kick his ass, but make sure the world thinks you’re going there to pay your respects to your dying father.”
It wasn’t a request.
Blair nodded, begrudgingly.
“And the duel?” she asked, and I knew she was thinking the same thing I had.
I just shook my head. “I’ll have to go through with it. And I have to win, so I can banish him.”
Blair placed her hand on top of mine, where I still held her arm, and squeezed.
“You got this, Andres. You’re stronger than you think. You’ll kick his ass, and then I’ll personally make sure he leaves the area without causing any kind of chaos. Besides, you’ve got a pretty amazing girl developing your tech for you. She won’t let you lose.”
And with that, she grabbed her MET, keyed in a code and stormed into the house.
Blair’s faith in me helped ease some of my worries as I dismantled my own illusion and headed inside to meet Char.
I just hoped I could prove to my family their faith in me wasn’t misguided.
When I opened the door to the tech room, Charisma’s head swung to face the entrance so fast, I worried she’d break her neck. She was sitting with her back to me in one of the ergonomic chairs we had. She’d made herself right at home in the room, with her backpack thrown at her feet, the computer on, and a pile of files by her side.
I had no idea if those files were ours or hers, but I hoped our engineers hadn’t left any crazy secret information lying around. Not that I didn’t trust Char, but unless she agreed to work solely for us, my mother might try to set me on fire too.
Her eyes moved past me to the door, then she frowned.
“Is everything okay? Where’s Blair?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah, uh…she went to see our father.” Crap. I couldn’t tell her the truth. I wanted to, but I’d already gone against the “tell no one” order by telling Blair.
Char’s face fell, and her lip wobbled. “Oh crap. I completely forgot about him. Is he okay? Was Mrs. Alma able to help? Bast said Mr. Illudere would be okay, but he didn’t really tell me anything about what went down. Should I, uh, go…pay my respects? No, of course I shouldn’t. He doesn’t even know me. How dumb. Well, anyway. Uh, I hope he gets better soon and that Mrs. Alma was able to help with whatever it is. I had initially planned to program both your and Blair’s new METs and then have you two face off against each other, but I can just do you. I mean, do yours, and then be on my way so you can be with your dad. I’m so sorry, Andres.” She finished her rambling, turning and pulling a laptop and a piece of hardware from her backpack, clearly wanting to be done as fast as possible.
I walked to her and placed a hand on her shoulder when she opened her laptop, ignoring the computer that was already on in front of her.
“Char, it’s okay. He’s going to be all right, don’t worry. You don’t have to rush things. Take your time. Blair will be downstairs soon. Pretty sure you won’t be able to escape finally programming her katana for her. In fact, I quite like the idea of a mock duel with my sister. Maybe if I manage to drop her on her ass, she’ll stop being a pain in mine.”
Char’s grin was almost upside-down when she tilted her head up to look at me.
“I doubt you’ll be able to win that easily,” she teased, and I sent her a wink that had her blushing.
“Wanna bet?” I waggled my eyebrows at her, and she laughed.
“No. You’d probably cheat and I’d end up having to do something ridiculous. There’s no way I’m taking that bet. I’m distracted, not stupid.” She blew a raspberry at me.
I wanted to lower my head and kiss her gorgeous mouth until we both ran out of air.
But I held back.
She’s not yours, Andres, I reminded myself.
But hopefully, one day, she would be.
20
Theo
I knew Logan thought we were walking into a trap, but I didn’t see how they could’ve set a trap for us when we’d gotten our information from the dead.
Even if they had a Spirit Mage with them, it didn’t mean they’d automatically know what I’d done.
So while Nightshade might’ve thought this was a trap for us, I was pretty confident we would catch them unaware. If they were actually here, that was. So far, other than the lack of ghosts, I hadn’t really seen much that would indicate the resistance was actually making this place their secret hidey-hole.
Logan entered the building, and I followed after him. The minute I crossed the threshold, I felt the faint push of a ward, but it wasn’t one meant to keep us away.
One look inside the room, and the lack of ghosts outside made sense. As did the ward.
At least for me.
It was one massive open space, with an elevator at the very end, as well as a fire door that probably led to the emergency stairs. On the ground floor, there was nothing but broken furniture, discarded trash, and ghosts.
So many ghosts.
There were dozens of them trapped in here. They were everywhere—on top of the busted couches, circling near the ceiling, clinging to the faded wallpaper.
The farther Logan walked into the room, the more ghosts I could see illuminated by his light orb, and the more angry I felt.
This was so wrong, so fucked up. They’d warded the place to keep the ghosts inside. But why would anyone do that? What did they have to gain?
Logan turned his head to say something, but one look at me had him gripping his MET even tighter. “What is it?” he demanded.
“They’re up to something. I don’t know if this is really a resistance building or not, but there are ghosts everywhere.” As I spoke, the lost souls took notice of me. Whether they were drawn to my power or my words, I didn’t know, but as more and more ghosts started to pour in from the ceiling, the doors, and even the floor, I knew we were in trouble.
“Shit,” I said, gripping my MET.
“What
now?” Logan asked, unaware of the threat we were facing.
“It’s a damn swarm,” I answered, gritting my teeth as more and more of them came closer to me, some brushing my arms, legs, and face. “I have to either break that fucking ward or banish them all. I have no idea why they’re holding this many ghosts inside, but if I don’t do something now, there’s no telling what they could do to me. And if there’s another Spirit Mage inside, they could manipulate the ghosts to attack us.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I didn’t want to have to banish them. If I did, they’d all end up in the underworld instead of having a chance at a peaceful crossing. It wasn’t their fault they were in here.
“Can you control them?”
I could barely hear Logan’s question over the hundreds of voices calling to me.
“Yes,” I bit out. “But then you’ll have to break down the wards. Controlling this many ghosts for too long…it’ll make me an easy target,” I admitted.
“Get them under control. I’ll take care of the wards,” he replied.
I didn’t bother waiting. I closed my eyes, even though every instinct in my body was yelling at me to keep them open and watch out for the threat, but I needed them closed if I wanted to pull this off.
I’d never had to control this many ghosts before, and the thought of failing was terrifying.
No. I couldn’t fail. I wouldn’t fail.
I’d do this and then figure out what the rebels wanted with this many ghosts. I’d help Nightshade find their leader and get him behind bars so Char could be safe.
So my family could remain safe.
There was no room for doubt. No room for error.
I pushed my magic into my MET, pulling at the bead that would enhance my magic. I’d had this MET for years, since I was seventeen. Char had designed it for me for my birthday, and I’d never replaced it or let anybody else mess with the programming. I knew it was probably outdated, especially compared to the ones she could develop now, but this MET had history and meaning.