Great. He’s a misguided man of many talents.
He slipped the manacles off Conner’s wrists. The Vertu then gave me his undivided attention. As he whispered an incantation, color shone brightly from the blade. I narrowed my eyes to soften the blinding deluge of colors and bright light. A magical pull jerked the knife out of my stomach. Pain curled my toes and jolted through me as I crashed to the floor. Conner was holding the knife he’d retrieved from my gut.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he cooed, finding a perverse enjoyment in me cringing at his endearments.
Willing my body to recover, I kept my focus on the knife in his hand, planning my movements so I could disarm him.
“You want to drive this straight into my heart, don’t you, my little warrior?” His slow movements were purposeful and dramatic. “I’m better than you are.”
Anger-riddled, I lunged at him, hitting a magical barrier he’d placed between the two of us. The shield held despite my pounding on it, and it felt as though I was hitting a wall.
I coaxed whatever magic I had to the forefront.
Laughing, Conner watched, amused, as I attempted to break the barrier. “You’re not going to have access to powerful magic for some time. You have no idea how much it takes to break out of Barathrum. I had the benefit of others helping when I did it. Mr. James had to use the blade to source all the magic from you to break me out. You didn’t know that could be done, did you?” he taunted. “I could have taught you so much, and you squandered that. Right now you’re weak, defenseless. An unkind person would take advantage of it.” He looked at the knife in his hand, examining my blood that overlaid it.
“Thank you, love, for getting me out. That place was dreadful. But you already know that, don’t you?”
Rarely did I allow myself to feel defeated, subjugated, but now I did. Conner was better than me, steps ahead of me each time. I glared at Mr. James; the hopefulness his face once held was extinguished. I wanted to kick him while he was down and tell him he’d placed his trust in an unscrupulous man.
“You have to keep your promise. You said you would keep your promise. No more magic.” I winced at what the man was asking for—another version of the Cleanse. While Conner wanted to divest the world of magic for his own selfish desires, Mr. James wanted to do it to rid the world of what he considered nefarious.
“I made that promise to you and I will keep it,” Conner said. His voice was so earnest that in that moment, I could see what his acolytes did. He was charismatic, charming, and confident to the point it seemed like he could do the impossible and possessed godlike abilities that made him seem invincible and capable of performing miraculous tasks.
“No one will get hurt? You promised,” Mr. James entreated as concern wavered in his voice.
Really, a knife in the gut isn’t someone getting hurt?
“I will do all that we discussed,” Conner confirmed, giving the man a gentle pat on the shoulder. I wanted to despise Mr. James—he deserved it—but he wasn’t a person with reprehensible intent. Self-hate was something entirely different. While most could see the beauty and mystique of magic, he saw its cruelty, tenebrosity, and obscurity. Blood soaked my hand as I glared at Conner, searching for a modicum of magic that I could use against him. Magically depleted, I relaxed onto the floor, closing my eyes for a moment, hoping the few minutes of inactivity would restore my magic.
“You said this wouldn’t kill her. She seems like she’s going to die.” Concern coursed over the older gentleman’s words.
Conner didn’t display the same worry; his voice held a cool sharpness. It drifted through the room with conviction. “I assure you it will take more than a stomach wound to stop her. She possesses more tenacity than you will ever see.” Admiration and intrigue were in his last words. My gaze lifted to find him looking at me with an odd combination of wistfulness and anger. And cruelty. I couldn’t ignore that. It was the look of a megalomaniac who’d been denied, and he was struggling to commit to an emotion, seemingly overwhelmed by so many.
He dropped his wall and inched closer to me. Narrowing his eyes on me, he said it again. “Yes, it will take more than a knife wound to kill Anya.” There wasn’t the promise of death in his words. Hatred works just as good as adrenaline and in an explosion of it, I lunged at him, only to grab air as he disappeared from the house. I paid dearly for it as pain ripped through me. I just needed a few minutes and then I’d be able to heal myself. Or at least I hoped I would.
Mr. James pressed his warm hand to my shoulder and said, concerned, “I’m going to call an ambulance.” I didn’t want him to be kind and misguided; I needed him to be cruel and callous. I could work with that. It wouldn’t make me feel bad about wanting to take an old man down. But a kind, gentle man, who was misguided enough for Conner to persuade and use, made me feel sorry for him. Dealing with the irony of pitying someone who had just stabbed me in the stomach was difficult.
“Don’t call an ambulance. Call the Supernatural Guild and ask for Gareth. Let him know that I’ve been injured by a—” I waited for him to fill in the blank so I’d at least know what was used on me and if the loss of magic would be permanent.
“Quardon blade,” he offered softly. “It redirects magic.”
“Redirects?” I panted, becoming increasingly weaker from the loss of blood. I looked back at Kalen, who had just come to his feet with a moan. Hitting the wall with such force had knocked him unconscious. Rubbing his head, he glared at the older gentleman as he made his way to me.
“Are you okay?” he asked, approaching me slowly. Each step was pained and forced, making me wonder if he’d injured his legs when we’d crashed to the ground.
“I don’t know. I don’t have the use of magic,” I admitted in a pain-rasped voice.
“Your magic will return,” Mr. James assured me. “You should go to the hospital.”
“I want to go to the Isles,” I said firmly. At the hospital, I’d get stitches, but at the Isles I’d get a gifted mage or witch who could seal the wound with magic, leaving me without any scars.
“I think you should go to the ER,” the elderly man pushed.
“I just texted Savannah. She’ll get Gareth,” Kalen said. Anger reverberated. A tinge of magic flickered from his hand. Fae magic was strongest with cognitive use and glamour manipulation; the defensive magic he possessed was so negligible that it was useless.
Seeing the flicks of magic that danced over Kalen’s fingers was more impressive-looking than what harm it could inflict. Mr. James stood taller in defiance or acceptance of guilt. I had no idea which, or if there was a combination of both.
“Kalen, don’t,” I said softly.
“You shouldn’t rely so heavily on magic. It will soon be gone,” Mr. James warned.
“No, you’ve made a deal with the devil. Conner has no intention of just getting rid of magic. He’ll get rid of the people who possess it as well,” I told him as I made a futile attempt to come to my feet. After several tries, I made it but staggered. My hand was coated in blood; it was only a matter of time before I’d lose too much to stay conscious. The booming sound of the door being broken down thundered, followed by loud footsteps. The elderly man remained reserved, but even I had to cringe a little at a pissed-off Gareth, whose attention went to my blood-soaked hand and the wound that wouldn’t heal.
My weak objection to being picked up went ignored. “I can walk.”
“I’m sure with the amount of blood you’ve lost you think you can fly, too. I’m just going to take your foolish talk as the incoherent babble of a terribly injured person.”
“I’ve had stab wounds before.”
“I’m not sure why you’re bragging about that,” Gareth shot back, his anger at the situation hardening his joyless, dark chuckle.
CHAPTER 21
Heat traveled along my skin from Gareth’s hand that was placed lightly over the now-healed wound on my stomach. It was distracting as I attempted to give a detailed account of the story.
His other hand was on his phone, scrolling through objects in the Magic Council’s database as well as the prohibited ones in the national database.
“I don’t see that dagger mentioned,” he finally admitted, scowling.
“Maybe it’s an unknown,” I said.
I made an attempt to sit up, but he added enough pressure to discourage it. “Levy, give yourself time to heal.”
“I’m healed.” I lifted his fingers to reveal my unmarred stomach.
“Do you have access to magic?”
Reluctantly, I shook my head. For the past twenty minutes, I’d been trying to use it, wondering if that was the reason I hadn’t been released. It had been close to four hours since the doctors had seen me. The first two hours I wasn’t conscious to notice the minutes passing. I woke up to a healed wound and Gareth hovering over me. Something he was still doing. I wasn’t sure if it was a shifter thing or a Gareth thing.
“Gareth, I’m fine. I give you my word.”
“She’s always fine.” Savannah came around the corner, holding a basket and balloons. I was willing to bet the brightly colored balloons were her idea and the basket of goodies was Lucas’s. When it came to gift giving, Lucas was an all-star and Savannah was in the minor leagues, peddling her bags of granola, sugarless abominations, and gluten-free whatever. “Oh, it’s just a stab, give me the duct tape. What, my arm’s dislocated? Give me an ACE bandage,” she mocked in a falsetto voice. She placed the basket on the counter and came closer to me. “May I?” she asked Gareth, who removed his hand to let her see the nonexistent injury.
“How bad was it?” she asked him, giving me a look as if she wasn’t willing to accept anything I said because I tended to downplay my injuries. It wasn’t as if I didn’t think they were serious, but whether it was major or minor, Savannah behaved as if I needed to be airlifted to the hospital for life-saving medical attention. And then for days afterward, I’d get her overzealous nursing treatment. She approached it with the same gusto she did yoga and her need to push her honey-sweetened muffins.
“What is Conner up to now?” Savannah rolled her eyes as she scowled. Something she did every time his name was mentioned.
“He’s taken Levy’s magic,” Gareth said.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Kalen corrected from his place on the sofa where he’d been sitting and fuming over Mr. James’s betrayal—not against us, but the magical community. He’d tried to understand it, look at it from the man’s perspective, but Kalen, who loved his magic, didn’t understand how someone could hate it or make an effort to eliminate it from the world. He wasn’t willing to accept my explanation of the man being misguided.
“There’s misguided and there’s willfully ignorant. He’s the latter if he chooses to see the world in black and white when magic has so many shades of gray and can’t be placed in a box and labeled bad,” he’d seethed an hour ago, when I’d made my last effort to explain the man’s actions. Anger had clouded Kalen’s ability to be reasonable and he’d seen my explanation as acceptance. It clearly hadn’t been. My perspective was different because I came from a people that had been villainized for the actions of a small group. I would never do the Cleanse, but everyone treated me as if I was five seconds from doing one. Conner wasn’t helping.
I kept looking at my fingers for that spark, or the lively feeling of magic awakening and pouring through me, ready to be used. There was a flicker, like a lighter being ignited but not quite catching. For several minutes I kept at it until my fingers glowed a weak blue and white. Relief flowed through me, even when the colors fizzled and died as quickly as they had kindled. My magic wasn’t gone, and that was a relief.
“It might take a while. He used your magic to break himself out, and based on what was reported, it was explosive,” Gareth said.
“I’m ready to go home.”
Gareth made a face.
“You can’t possibly think I’d be safe here.”
“Safer,” Gareth whispered. “I don’t think Conner will come here.”
“No, there’s nowhere I can go to get away from him.”
Gareth knew this and it seemed to weigh heavily on him. “We need to stop him.” Gareth shook his head. “What was Mr. James thinking?” he breathed out, exasperated. I had a feeling he was team misguided, while Kalen stuck to his opinion and Savannah, who had gathered the gist of what had transpired from questioning Gareth, seemed to have sided with Gareth. Once the Supernatural Guild was done cataloguing and checking Mr. James’s collection of items against the databases, Kalen and I became their owners, per the contract.
I couldn’t wait for Kalen and Blu to get their hands on them. They were useless at digging through boxes, negotiating the confines of an attic, and cleaning out barns to find things of value among the garbage; however, when it came to research, the fashionistas were a power couple. Anyone could tell their similarities didn’t just stop at their fashion sense. They loved magic and had a huge thirst for knowledge of it.
“Conner should never have been sent to Barathrum.” I evaded saying what I wanted to but Gareth got the picture.
“When we catch him again, he won’t.” Menace and anger reverberated in his words.
“Is this what you’re going to be like from now on?” Savannah asked as I approached her, emerging from my bedroom after my second nap of the day. My recovery was taking a lot of energy. I’d been released from the hospital two days ago and my magic had just fully returned.
“Give me a break, I’ve only had full use of it for fourteen hours.”
Taking a seat next to her at the kitchen table, I allowed magic to curl around my fingers in a rainbow of colors. She watched me as I played with it, surging it into a ball of power only to extinguish it with a flick of my finger.
“The agents at the SG are nervous. You had your magic pulled from you. No one wants that. You know what that means for anyone who isn’t a Legacy.”
Frowning, I wasn’t so sure that it didn’t mean death for us, too. The Legacy and the Vertu had hidden behind a nearly impervious ward while the world had collapsed around them. I suspected the Cleanse would have had an effect on them as well.
Not using my magic was one thing, but the inability to use it was another. It was a part of me, how I protected myself, and without it I was left with only the twins, which I’d kept with me the whole time.
“Are they still out there?” I asked, frowning, jerking my head at the door where Victor had placed two of his agents in cars. Gareth, I assumed in an effort to show that his was bigger, had three of his agents—two high mages—at our door, and a shifter doing perimeter sweeps.
“They were out there when I took them beverages and snacks.”
“Stop feeding them and maybe they’ll go away. Or better yet, give them your muffins. That will make them hate us so much, they would be glad to let us be assassinated.”
She made a face and stuck out her tongue. “We need to find Conner before he does whatever he plans.”
“The SG and FSR are looking for him.”
Several minutes passed as Savannah chewed on her lips. “If they find him, they’ll just arrest him, again.” Her voice was low, crisp, and dark. Enough so that my eyes widened on her. It cast a dark shadow over her usually bright features. It was the first time I’d seen raw, unfettered anger and spite in her in regards to Conner. What he’d done to her was a violation and his egregious acts only added to it.
I searched for a vehement response to dissuade her, but I didn’t have it in me. I wanted Conner dead as well. Not in a prison where he’d find a way to escape. Dead.
The silence between us spoke volumes; we’d settled on a silent pact. We would see to it that Conner died and stayed that way.
Our silent pact was one thing, but letting Savannah be actively involved was another. When you killed someone, it took something from you; it didn’t matter whether they deserved it or not. I wouldn’t let Savannah be burdened with it. Conner was my problem and she was caught in th
e crossfire.
Watching the SG guard as he passed my window for the third time that hour, I wondered at what point my neighbors would start a petition to get us evicted. In the past few months, Savannah and I had brought our share of violence and extra police surveillance. They were still polite, or as polite as one could be while casting looks of suspicion every time they saw one of us. Our dating choices hadn’t made things easier. We’d quickly devolved from the quiet ladies in the building to the freak show that no one wanted anything to do with.
After sheathing the twins at my back, I checked the knives I had at my ankles and flicked magic at my fingers, testing it again. The last thing I wanted was a magic mishap going up against Conner. My plan relied heavily on Conner wanting to be found. Thinking about the look he’d given me at Mr. James’s home, I knew he couldn’t wait to get at me any more than I could him. His ego was his weakness. He wanted a fight, to know that he’d conquered and bested me. I waited for the guard to get far enough past my window that he wouldn’t see me. It was the mage doing the sweep. Patiently, I’d waited until they traded shifts, knowing that the shifter would be able to smell and hear me.
“Is the shifter gone?” Savannah whispered in the darkness, before turning on my bedroom light. I jerked my attention from the window to take a look at my roommate. Her “quest bag” draped over her shoulder, she had on calf-length yoga pants and a pale blue shirt with “Namaste” scrawled across the front. A knife was sheathed at her waist. She had a butcher knife in her hand. “No one saw fit to get me proper weaponry, so I had to make do.”
“Why are you holding that knife like you’re about to dice vegetables?” I gave the woman who wanted to be my partner in vengeance another sweeping look. She looked dangerous but only to herself. Taking the butcher knife from her, I laid it on the bed. “You’re not going. I’ll be back soon.”
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