by Eva Chase
If it’d been totally up to me, I’d never have set foot in the Stormhurst residence, at least not while Connar’s mother was baron. In theory, the soiree they were holding was being hosted by all the barons—although the other four hadn’t asked my opinion about that—so it’d have made more of a statement than I was ready to put forward just yet if I’d declined to attend. Instead, I figured I’d make as much use of the opportunity as I could for my own interests.
The barons had brought in at least fifty families for the party. I suspected they were a mix of already loyal supporters and more hesitant potential allies they hoped to win over. The ballroom held a faint chill even with lights, both electric and magical, glowing overhead and the cheerful classical music piped from speakers in the corners, but the wine was flowing liberally and everyone was dressed to the nines. I resisted the urge to tweak the collar of my tuxedo jacket as I circulated through the room.
“Good to see you,” I said with a smile here and a shake of a hand there. “Wonderful evening, isn’t it? Glad you could make it.” The other barons holding court in their finery at one end of the room wouldn’t find one misstep to accuse me of. Anything they’d have considered treason, I was committing only in my head.
It was useful to note who’d decided to attend. The Warburys were here, even though Cressida’s parents had generally been the aloof, standoffish type. Her mother was gripping Cressida’s shoulder tightly as she bobbed her head at something Baron Bloodstone was saying, while her father loomed over her younger brother.
Professor Crowford and his wife had settled into intense conversation with a few other couples in another corner of the room. One of the junior fearmancers who’d pulled a vicious prank on my brother a few weeks back had come along with what looked like his entire extended family: parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Also interesting were the absences. Not a single Blighthaven appeared to have accepted the invitation, despite how enthusiastically Victory had always courted Malcolm’s favor. Rory hadn’t been sure of Professor Burnbuck’s allegiances, but he hadn’t turned up, even though I spotted an elderly woman I believed was his aunt and her middle-aged son. Not every family stood together on every political issue.
I made careful note of who’d shown up and who I might have expected but hadn’t, of which expressions looked eager or celebratory in the face of the barons’ most recent decisions and who looked more uncertain. With each greeting, I also sent out the gentlest feeler of insight magic. If I could find an ally of the barons whose shields were on the weaker side, I intended to take a peek inside their head and find out what my colleagues might have been discussing with them behind closed doors.
My aunt Ambrosia had come, of course, her eyes never far from the prize of the barony. She sidled over to me with two glasses of wine and offered me one as if in a friendly gesture. “They really went all out tonight, didn’t they?” she said, fixing her piercing gaze on me.
“If the barons can’t impress, then who can?” I replied evenly.
She tucked her silvery shawl closer around her and tossed back the slick curls she’d styled much like my mother—her sister—used to. “I’m just pleased I could be a part of it.”
A gloating gleam sparked in her eyes before she sashayed off. The barons had arranged for her to weigh in on the policy change at the university, ensuring that I would be unreachable while they were taking the vote. I’d bet she was incredibly pleased about that. The last three months until I graduated from Blood U and could take on the barony in its entirety couldn’t pass quickly enough.
I didn’t bother to check the wine she’d offered me—if she’d doctored it in one way or another, as she had at least a few times I’d caught in the past, she’d have done it subtly enough that it could be passed off as an accident. Instead, I simply meandered around the room until I passed a potted plant that wouldn’t mind an extra drink.
Malcolm caught my eyes from across the room where he’d ended up chatting with the parents of a couple of our schoolmates. The slight arch of his eyebrow said he wasn’t particularly enjoying the conversation. But he was still putting on his own show of loyalty too. As was Rory, standing graceful at her mother’s side, laughing when Baron Bloodstone did as if on cue.
She really was something. I allowed myself just a moment to admire her poise from afar. We’d all driven up from the university together, and she’d sat tensed in the seat in anticipation of the evening. As soon as she’d stepped out, though, she’d managed to shed those nerves as if she were exactly the devoted daughter her mother would have hoped for.
It must make it harder for her that she had to go without either of the scions she might have been able to rely on for public support. Jude had the excuse of still being monitored in the infirmary to justify his absence, not that I expected he’d have forced himself to come to save face for his father anyway, and Connar… I wasn’t sure what explanation the Stormhurst scion had given his parents for failing to attend an important party at his own family home. All he’d said when we’d discussed the party was, “There’s no way in hell I’m giving them another chance to brainwash me.”
I’d already overheard a few murmurs among the guests about where the Stormhurst scion might be or why he wouldn’t have come. One woman had been so bold as to comment on his absence directly to Baron Stormhurst, who’d given a brief and vague explanation with a tightening of her jaw.
The elder Burnbuck had been hovering rather close to both Baron Nightwood and Baron Killbrook for several minutes. I hadn’t felt much defense against mental intrusion when I’d tested her earlier. I ambled closer, picking up a glass of my own choice and raising it to newcomers who acknowledged me.
Rory left her mother to grab a few morsels from the refreshments table. I let myself drift in that direction. “Enjoying the party?” I said, as if in polite conversation.
She gave me a wry smile that made me want to tug her off into some secluded hallway and kiss her until we both forgot about the awful politicking happening out here for a little while. Too bad giving in to that urge would be incredibly unwise.
“I’m certainly getting to know a lot of people,” she said. “How late do these events usually go, anyway?”
“As long as more wine keeps getting poured, it could be hours yet. But this is your first big gala, so you could probably get away with ducking out early if you need to.”
Rory glanced toward her mother with a pensive look. I couldn’t tell if she was wondering whether the baron really would be all right with that or if something else was on her mind that she didn’t dare say out loud in this company.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, and headed back with a slight squaring of her shoulders.
Ilene Burnbuck had wandered a short distance away from the barons while Rory and I had talked, her place taken by other fearmancers eager to pay their fawning respects. I eased closer to the wall, nibbling on a cracker topped with pate. With the lift of my hand to my mouth, I disguised the movement of my lips as I spoke my casting word for a general insight spell.
I didn’t push my magic hard, only encouraged it into a steady seeping through the barriers the woman had up around her mind, watching carefully for any sign that she’d picked up on the intrusion. Hazy impressions started to filter into my head.
She was awfully happy with herself to be attending this party at all. In the glimpses I caught of her interacting with the barons, they seemed more standoffish than friendly. “I can’t wait to see how the rest of this chain plays out,” she’d simpered at one point, here or in the recent past. “If there’s anything I can do to help speed that progress along…”
Other bits and pieces had nothing to do with the barons at all. Puttering around her home, lunch with her son. There was a fragment of an argument with Professor Burnbuck, something about her accusing him of “not knowing what his family deserved.”
I pulled back after a little more, not wanting anyone to notice my insight-casting daze. She didn
’t seem to be involved in the barons’ most secretive plans anyway, more a lackey than a co-conspirator.
As the night wore on, my phone buzzed with an incoming text. Malcolm had surreptitiously sent a message asking if I wanted him to come up with an excuse for us to get back to school.
My gut said, Hell, yes, but self-discipline kept me in check. I was already here. I might as well give myself every possible chance to get something out of the gathering.
If Rory is ready to take off, go ahead without me, I wrote back. I can find my way. If it came to that, I’d imagine I could get away with borrowing one of Connar’s vehicles from the garage here. Connar certainly wouldn’t mind.
Do you really think she’d let us leave without you? the Nightwood scion shot back with an emoji that looked as if it were rolling its eyes. Fair enough.
The crowd in the ballroom had thinned, but only a little, since most of the attendees wanted to show they were just as devoted to enjoying their barons’ hospitality as everyone else there. The guests also got louder as their alcohol consumption escalated.
Fearmancers rarely let themselves get outright drunk in the presence of others—even Jude on his worst days had usually kept himself to the scion lounge or his dorm room—and a small buzz didn’t give me much of an opening. I did manage to delve into the mind of one of the younger teens who really had no business drinking at all, although she also knew nothing of importance that my foray revealed.
As I contemplated a new strategy, one voice rose even higher than the others, bouncing off the ceiling. “Fucking fantastic!” said a new senior I recognized from school, sounding overjoyed, and swept his arm and the glass he was holding in an overly extravagant arc over the nearby table.
He smacked into several wine bottles that tipped and smashed onto the floor. The guy froze, his head swaying a smidgeon with his inebriation, his eyes widening as his parents stiffened in horror. No one wanted to be the family that had caused a scene at the barons’ gala.
The Stormhursts marched over, all generosity with a hint of sneer. “Never mind that,” the baron said with a flex of her sinewy frame. She motioned over a couple of her staff. “Let’s get this cleaned up. We’ve got more in the cellar.” Her hand rose to her husband’s arm. “Why don’t we pick out something even more suitable?”
They were going to retrieve more wine themselves rather than send their employees to do it? Both of them, together? My nerves sprang to sharper alertness. There had to be something they were hoping to discuss apart from the crowd—something urgent.
Before they could head off, the parents of the wayward guy started prostrating with their apologies. The other guests moved toward the spectacle; I eased away. Spotting another of the Stormhursts’ staff moving to clear the now-empty hors d’oeuvres plates, I directed a quick insight question at him under my breath. “How do you get to the wine cellar from the ballroom?”
Images flitted through my head like a blurry slideshow: a hallway and a sharp turn, a staircase on the left, another dim hallway at the bottom, a room with a wooden door from which a dry but sour scent wafted. That was all I needed. I slipped out of the ballroom as if heading for the main floor bathroom, but veered to follow the path I’d just seen as soon as I was out of view.
The dimness of the basement hallway worked to my advantage. I wouldn’t need quite as strong an illusion to disguise me here. I wavered between staking myself out closer to the stairs so I’d hear more of their conversation and farther, beyond the cellar, so they wouldn’t need to walk right past me, but I couldn’t afford to weigh my options too long.
The base of the stairs held an alcove full of thicker shadows a few feet from their base. I pressed myself into that spot and murmured the words to blend myself into the stones and darkness.
I finished drawing the layers of magic into place just in time. Hinges squeaked overhead. Footsteps thudded down the stairs.
No voices reached me until the Stormhursts had come all the way to the basement floor. “You called him again?” Baron Stormhurst demanded.
“Twice,” her husband said. “And sent texts. His phone is either off or he’s ignoring it.”
“Which amounts to the same thing.” She exhaled sharply. “If he would make even a brief appearance...”
They had to be talking about Connar. I held myself as still as I could. If they were going to retaliate against him for his decision to skip the party, I could at least warn him of their intentions.
“It has raised a lot of eyebrows,” Mr. Stormhurst muttered. “He had to know it would.”
“Of course he knew.” The baron stopped outside the cellar door and spun on her heel to face her husband. “He obviously isn’t what we need if his behavior can be warped that quickly by the arrival of one pretty girl. Maybe it’s time to consider a change before this gets any more out of hand.”
“Our options are pretty limited.”
She shrugged and yanked open the door. “We have another heir. Bring a doctor in, announce that with an experimental magical intervention, Holden has made a miraculous recovery, and the rest won’t matter. We’ll just need to be completely sure we have him in hand before we take that step. Which is why we’d better start on that now.”
Their voices faded as they stepped into the cellar. I stayed where I was, my pulse racing.
Connar’s brother could be cured? His parents knew they could produce a “miracle”? From the things he’d said, he obviously had no idea.
I’d seen what his temper was like when anyone he cared about was threatened, and I knew his altercation with his brother still weighed on him. How awful would it be to throw this possibility at him if it turned out I’d misunderstood? I could do a little digging, see what I could confirm from medical records or lack thereof if possible—and I’d do it quickly. Because if this was true, he deserved to know as soon as I could tell him.
Chapter Nine
Rory
I hadn’t come to the blacksuits’ headquarters since the first day my mother had woken up from her magically-induced healing coma. Looking up at the boxy gray building, I wasn’t sure I felt any less nervous about the conversation I was hoping to have now than I had back then.
With a few discreet inquiries, I’d been able to find out that Maggie, Lillian’s former assistant, was working out of an office in the building, presumably until they decided to assign her to a new blacksuit. I hadn’t given any warning that I was coming. If my suspicions were wrong, then this would simply be a very short conversation.
The blacksuit at the front desk snapped to stiffer attention at my entrance. He didn’t look exactly friendly, but the wariness I’d experienced right after my arrest and hearing had faded. Maybe my show of working alongside my mother had put any lingering worries they’d had about me to rest—and now they were just worried about staying on the good side of the Bloodstones.
“I don’t need access to any of the higher security areas,” I told him. “I’m just checking something with the administrative department.”
“Not a problem. Do you need any help finding the offices?”
I shook my head. I’d rather approach Maggie alone. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
He let me through the inner entrance, and I headed left down the first floor hallway to where the lower level employees who weren’t quite blacksuits themselves maintained the organization’s records, communications, and scheduling. There were only a few rooms devoted to their work. I spotted Maggie’s spill of chocolate-brown curls when I peeked into the second. She was stationed in one of six cubicles that took up most of the space.
I cleared my throat and knocked lightly on the open door. All of the employees glanced up, but the others showed nothing but mild curiosity. At the sight of me, Maggie’s jaw twitched, her posture going rigid for a second before she caught her reaction. Just like that, I knew I’d come to the right person.
“Hi,” I said with a quick smile, as if this were more a social call than anything else. “I need to speak
with Miss Duskland for a minute. Is there somewhere we can talk alone?”
The request shouldn’t sound odd to the other employees. After all, Maggie had recently been employed by a woman with whom my mother had worked closely. There were all kinds of confidential subjects I might want to discuss with her.
Maggie hesitated for a second, but she must have decided that refusing the request wouldn’t be a good look in the long run. “Sure,” she said, managing one of her usual bright smiles. “One of the meeting rooms down the hall should be empty.”
I stepped back to let her pass and followed her around the corner. She didn’t say anything else until after she’d nudged open one of the doors and ushered me into a room not much bigger than my bedroom, with a modern rectangular table and matching chairs. A silence that felt magically charged fell over the space with the click of the door shutting.
I dragged in a breath of the chalky-smelling air, but Maggie spoke first. “What’s this about, Miss Bloodstone?”
She’d positioned herself around the table from me. Her tone had been light, but her arms had crossed over her chest in a defensive stance. She had to be hoping that this visit was unconnected to our recent texts—that I still had no idea she was my mysterious harasser.
I didn’t see any point in dragging the confrontation out. I propped myself against the edge of the table as if I wasn’t all that tense, but my gaze didn’t leave her for a second. “Well, I’d like to know why you’ve suddenly developed the hobby of threatening and trying to gather dirt on me. Since you weren’t willing to explain much over text, I figured an in-person visit was called for.”
Maggie wet her lips. “I don’t know what you’re—”
I cut her off with an incredulous look. “Can we please skip the bullshit? You know my specialty is Insight. I don’t enjoy poking around in other people’s heads without their permission, but I’m pretty sure I could break through your defenses to confirm it if I needed to. How about we don’t let it come to that? I’ve got nothing against you. I just want to understand what you’ve got against me.”