by Karen Chance
“Nothing changed. I will always be the poor boy from Napoli, in here.” He touched his chest, which today was covered by a plain white tee that fit like a glove. Most of my other bodyguards wore suits, except for Marco, who resorted to golf shirts whenever he could get away with it, probably because they fit better over the bulging muscles. But Rico preferred T-shirts and jeans, maybe finding them more comfortable.
Or maybe he just liked the looks it got him, I thought, noticing a couple of the older initiates glancing this way.
“I do not deserve her,” he declared, like a proper romantic hero.
“But?” I said.
“But I am not poor now,” he told me proudly. “I am not as rich as the master—who is? But I have means. I can take care of her. She would want for nothing; I promise you that.”
Looking up into his suddenly passionate face, it occurred to me that I had somehow ended up in the position of guardian, who was hearing a plea from an ardent suitor. I was surprised he hadn’t asked me for my blessing yet, although maybe that was coming. It was disconcerting, to say the least.
“Rico—”
“I know what you will say,” he rushed on. “But you and the master were together for a time; such pairings are not unknown—”
“No,” I said, thinking about Jonas. And wondering what his reaction would be to a vampire boyfriend come calling.
I wanted to be a fly on the wall when that conversation took place.
“Then I have your permission?” Rico asked. “To pursue her?”
I rolled my eyes. I was twenty-freaking-four! He was something like four hundred years old. This was . . . insane.
It also wasn’t up to me.
“That’s Rhea’s call,” I pointed out. “Not mine. I’m not her mother—”
“No, you are her Pythia, and she idolizes you.” He paused for a moment. “That is the right word, no? Idolize?”
“I have no idea.”
“I think it is,” he said, the dark eyes shrewd. “And I do not think Rhea wants to be Pythia. I think that is why she cannot master those spells, when she is so good with many others.”
I leaned back against the hitching post, and watched my heir apparent fly about overhead. It was dark up there; she might not realize that Rico had landed. She seemed to be looking for him.
Or maybe she just liked being above it all for a while, away from the problems and responsibilities down here.
I could relate.
“Do you think that?” I asked him. “Or do you just want it to be true?”
“Can you think of another reason?” he demanded. “She is an excellent witch, no? Powerful.” He looked up, and there was pride on his face. “There is nothing that she wants to do that she cannot do. Except this.”
“If that were true, she could just quit,” I pointed out. I wasn’t running a prison here. The little girls had to remain at court until they were old enough to control their gift—and anyone who would try to exploit it. But the older ones could leave and usually did so, to get married, to get a career—a powerful Seer was a valuable asset to a number of businesses—or to just live life on their terms.
Rhea could leave any time she wanted.
But Rico was shaking his head.
“That is what I am telling you. She won’t quit, not for love of the job, but for love of you. She knows the burden you carry; she will not leave you to manage it alone.”
“So, you want me to make her do it,” I said, finally seeing his point. “You want me to fire her.”
“I want you to do what you think best, of course.”
I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t help it. Rico knew I’d grown up in a vampire’s court, and that I’d been Mircea Basarab’s . . . something . . . for much of the summer. Yet he tried a lame ass manipulation tactic like that?
I should have been insulted.
But, mostly, I was just worried.
Rhea had finally landed, over by the big item under the sheet, which wasn’t under a sheet anymore. But I still didn’t know what it was. We started walking that way and Rico never took his eyes off her. I didn’t believe in love at first sight, but their attraction had been pretty darned close.
So he had an agenda. And while he was a fairly straight shooter for a vamp, he was a vamp. If he could turn circumstances in his favor by planting a seed of doubt in me, he’d do it.
But that didn’t mean he was wrong.
Rhea and I needed to have a talk, but that was just it: we had talked. Several times. But I didn’t know if anything I’d said had actually gotten through. It honestly hadn’t looked like it.
What if that was because Rico, accidentally or not, was right? What if Rhea’s seemingly never-ending impasse was because she didn’t like the job but she felt she couldn’t leave? What if her subconscious was protecting her from moving forward into a future she didn’t want, when there was another one, walking right beside me, that she did?
I hated to admit it, but it would explain a few things.
But, of course, there were other possibilities, too. Considering Rhea’s upbringing, there were a lot of them. Damn it, I just didn’t know what the problem was, and she wouldn’t tell me. Or even admit that there was one!
“Ah, they did get it, then,” Rico said, as we approached a swarm of older initiates at the end of the street.
“Get what?”
“A more grown up toy,” he said, as somebody turned on the mystery item, and I finally realized what I was looking at.
“Oh, damn,” I said, vaguely horrified, as a huge mechanical bull started doing its thing, bucking and gyrating and lewdly flaunting itself all over the place.
Milly was going to shit.
“What is it?” Rico asked. “You do not like it?”
“No, I like it fine,” I told him. “But some of the acolytes are a little . . . uptight.”
He laughed. “I have noticed.”
And then Rhea looked up and saw us, probably drawn to the booming laugh. And Rico’s smile changed. He really does love her, I thought, watching the expression that flitted over his face.
I glanced back at Rhea, and couldn’t tell much about her own expression at this distance. Except that she was smiling. And I guess that was good enough for Rico, because he was suddenly on the move.
“Rico!” I called after him.
He turned around, still jogging backwards, and spread his arms. “If it is not going to be here long, we should enjoy it while we can!”
He turned around, ran to the bull, and didn’t even wait for it to stop. He jumped on and, with vampire reflexes, made that thing his bitch. Even on the highest setting, they couldn’t knock him off.
I walked over to Rhea, who was laughing and clapping like everyone else. Until she saw me and started to drop into a curtsy, because she’d been raised at the old Pythian Court and lifelong habits die hard. But she caught herself in time.
“Lady.”
“He’s good,” I said, watching Rico. Somebody had thrown him a cowboy hat, and he was working it.
“Yes, very good.” She smiled at me, a little nervously. “Thank you for your help last night. I heard that you were the one who stopped . . . everything.”
“Yeah, about that. I think we’ll hold off on training for a while.”
“Lady?”
“Just for a while. Let everyone cool off.”
Rhea looked confused, worried, and not a little relieved, all at the same time. “Lady, I can do it,” she said earnestly. “I know I can. I just . . . need some time to figure things out.”
I smiled. “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.”
Chapter Nine
Next stop was HQ, where I was supposed to meet Pritkin for dinner, after texting him an apology for ducking out yesterday. I’d blamed the cat. Damned thing should be useful for something after basically dropping me like a hot potato. Last time I’d seen it, the fluffy bastard had been curled up on Annabelle’s bed, preening itself.
Men.
I’d taken some care with my looks, spending some time to make my hair extra bouncy and wearing my new outfit, since Pritkin had basically had no time to admire it yesterday. But before I could relax with my boyfriend, I had an errand to run. Fortunately, I had a couple hours, since his shift didn’t end until eleven.
I turned my feet toward the library.
It looked much the same as yesterday, except for being even more deserted. I thought I saw the banker looking guy shortly after I came in, but the next second there was just a bunch of glowing watch fobs disappearing behind some stacks. And when I went to look for him, he’d disappeared.
Figured.
I finally found a librarian, or somebody official looking anyway, only to be informed that the section with the manuscript I needed had been firebombed in the attack. Nothing at all remained. And there was no digitized copy, as the record in question had been placed on restricted access, which didn’t allow for copies, electronic or otherwise.
“So, you’re telling me it’s gone forever?” I asked her.
She adjusted a little pair of pince-nez, and sniffed. “Unless you have a time machine,” she said, and moved off.
I stared after her for a moment.
Well, there’s an idea, I thought, and shifted.
The library, as it turned out, looked a little different a month ago. And because I hadn’t moved, except in time, it was like watching a video in reverse. Shattered stacks leapt back together, books fluttered up from the floor and refiled themselves, blackened starbursts popped out of sight on the walls, and missing bits of carpet magically reappeared, like puzzle pieces fitting back into place.
And a different woman suddenly showed up in front of me.
“Oh, dear,” she said, and stumbled back a step. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
I didn’t say anything. I was too busy taking in the steel gray cap of hair, the almost smooth, chocolate mocha skin, and the bright blue eyes of the woman who I’d previously seen only in a photograph. She had glasses on a little chain around her neck that practically screamed librarian, and a bright floral dress that didn’t.
Shit, I thought, feeling my stomach fall.
I hadn’t been prepared for this.
“Can I help you, dear?”
“Mrs. Lantham?” I said, feeling sick.
“Yes.” She squinted at me, which probably explained why she hadn’t screeched and run when a woman popped into existence in front of her. It looked like she was pretty blind without her glasses. Of course, there were spells for that, but the wards down here interfered with them, so the older staff continued to use glasses.
She settled hers on her nose and squinted at my face. I braced myself, but nothing happened. Guess I wasn’t all that well-known at the moment, I thought.
“I need information about an obscure spell,” I told her. “They, uh, told me that you’re the person to see.”
She smiled. “Yes, I am known as a bit of an authority on esoteric enchantments. Which one would it be, dear?”
“Nodo D’Amore. It means—”
“Lover’s Knot.” She frowned. “Yes, I know it. But that’s a bit tricky, I’m afraid.”
“Tricky?”
“It’s under restricted access. Do you have top secret clearance, by any chance?”
“I . . . don’t know.”
“They didn’t tell you when you were hired?”
“I . . . wasn’t exactly hired. I’m, uh, I’m the Pythia.”
Her eyes opened wide, allowing me to see that they were almost the same color as her cat’s. “Why, what a pleasure! I heard, of course, that we had a new one. Should I curtsey?”
“Please don’t.”
She smiled. “It must get old, doesn’t it?”
“Unbelievably.”
“Well, let’s not worry about that, then.” She leaned in. “It’s just as well. I have no trouble getting down these days, but getting back up is problematic.”
I smiled, because I didn’t know what else to do.
“Let’s just get you verified, and then we’ll see about that spell,” she said.
Verification turned out to involve more spells—of course. I don’t know what else I’d expected. And they weren’t done by the kindly little librarian, either. No fewer than six large war mages arrived within minutes, surrounded me in a back area of the facility, and applied a series of incantations, some so strong that they felt like they burned my skin.
“Ow!” I told a huge Asian guy, who was being a little less than careful with his magic.
He didn’t even look at me. “Inconclusive,” he said, and stood back.
A tall black guy came forward who I guessed was the leader. He had been standing back from the others, legs planted and arms crossed, glowering at me. That would have been more of a concern, but the stance was war mage standard. I was pretty sure they taught it in training.
He reminded me of Caleb, a friend who was also in the Corps, but he didn’t look very friendly. And neither was the spell he hit me with. Something slapped me, not just in the face but all over my body, like a million tiny pinpricks slamming into me at once, causing me to cry out.
And then to get really pissed off.
All I wanted was a damned library card!
. “Agreed,” he said—to the other guy—before finally addressing me. “You have a strong enchantment on you. What is it?”
“None of your damned business,” I said, because I wasn’t feeling real cooperative. And because admitting that I was in Lover’s Knot with a master vampire wasn’t going to go down well.
Of course, neither did that.
“Take her,” he barked, and the war mages closed in, almost as one.
Or they did until I shifted outside the circle, behind the leader. “Cut it out,” I told him, and he whirled on me.
“How did you—grab her!”
That started an absurd few moments of me shifting here, there and everywhere, staying just ahead of the reaching hands and lunging bodies of half a dozen mages. Until I finally got sick of it and shifted to the top of a stack. And then just sat there, watching them bumble around below, searching for someone who was no longer there.
“I think I’ve seen enough,” Emma Lantham said, eyeing me.
“Ma’am!” The leading mage said. “Please stand back! We have a potential dark mage incursion—”
“No, we don’t.”
“—and are sealing off this section until we find her. Benson! Sato!” the leader looked at two members of his team. “I need a perimeter around the library, make sure nothing gets through. Including anything under an invisibility spell!”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
“Jenkins, Thompson, McKennon, with me!”
He strode off, his leather coat swinging out impressively out behind him, and Emma and I watched him go. I shifted back down to her after a minute, when it was clear that he wasn’t coming back. She sighed.
“They are dear boys,” she told me. “But a bit . . . overly enthusiastic . . . at times. If you would come with me, Lady?”
I came with her.
We passed her office, where I thought I saw a pair of blue eyes peeking at me from under the desk. And then wove our way through a pleasant reading area with leather armchairs bearing the impressions of thousands of butts, and comfy, overstuffed sofas. We finally came to a small room off to the side which the librarian opened with a key taken from a bunch at her waist.
“Take a seat anywhere you like,” she told me. “I’ll bring it out to you.”
She disappeared through a small side door, which I guessed was to the archive, and I sat down at a small table.
The room was small, too, with bare brick walls and eight little wooden carrels crammed close together. Each had its own chair and an old-fashioned task lamp with a green glass shade, I guessed to help with tiny print. I found myself staring at them. I’d seen them before, or ones just like them, melted into little clumps in a mountain of broken and burnt f
urniture. It was hard to believe, standing in the quiet, pedestrian surroundings, that this whole area would soon be a battleground.
It struck me as an odd place for it. Why would anybody attack a library? In fact, why would anybody be in this part of the complex at all? From what I’d understood from Pritkin, the main point of the attack had been to liberate some fell beast from the holding cells in the high security levels below. So why come here?
I supposed the attack could have been as a distraction, as a way to pull war mages from the main area of focus to other parts of the complex. But it still seemed like a weird choice. There weren’t that many people here, even now, with barely a dozen scattered across the large area outside. Wouldn’t it have been better to go after a more populated area, to ramp up the threat?
Of course, maybe they had. The main hub for this section wasn’t far off, after all. And yet it hadn’t been nearly so damaged. In fact, other than for a few blackened marks on the buildings, I hadn’t seen much of an aftermath out there at all.
Yet this place had been gutted.
“Here we are,” Emma said, bustling back in. She had a huge old tome with her, leather bound with massive old buckles. She plopped it down with a relieved grunt on the table instead of in one of the carrels, as I wasn’t sure it would have fit in those.
She opened it up, and inside was . . . not what I’d expected. There weren’t any uniform pages like in a regular book, where everything was uniform and all fit together nicely. Instead, there was a hodgepodge of colors and shapes and sizes, everything from tiny pieces the size of my hand, which had had to be mounted on large blank pages so as not to get lost entirely, to medieval manuscript leaves with elaborate decorations and gold lettering, to old hand written vellum, to woodblock prints that looked like Johannes Gutenberg might have cranked them out himself. It was a mess.
“A compendium of forbidden spells,” Emma explained. “Removed from a number of other grimoires, when one was found that was considered . . . problematic. The collection covers quite a large span of time, but what you’re looking for would be in the Renaissance section.”