by Eva Chase
My gaze slid to the remains of the addition’s frame. How the hell had that collapse even happened? Dad was incredibly careful about the wood he used, and he had a good supplier. I couldn’t believe we could have built that whole frame without noticing there was something wrong with our materials.
Looking at the strewn boards around us, I couldn’t see any sign of a flaw in them. No lines of rot, nothing mis-cut. They should have been perfectly sound. There was no way it made sense for them to have just snapped like that.
A chill washed over me. No, there wasn’t any way in the regular world they should have broken like that. But I knew now that the world I’d used to live in wasn’t the only one that existed. A witch had come into town last week to start a freak fire next to Jin’s gallery. I was willing to bet everything I owned that there was some spell that could make wood act like it’d rotted through.
The Frankfords again. Who else could it be? How had they skewed that spell to avoid showing they were targeting us?
A deeper sliver of cold pierced my gut. Had Dad’s first accident with the saw even been an accident, or had they meddled there too? It was the first injury bad enough to require a doctor that he’d had in at least a decade.
That’d happened before the fire. They hadn’t managed to really hurt him, so they’d tried again, weaseling their way around their oath one way or another? The more I thought about it, the more that idea rang true. My jaw tensed.
They still hadn’t won. He was hurt, but he was alive. The doctors would patch him up at the hospital.
I had to believe that.
The wail of the siren sounded in the distance. I glanced at the phone I was still clutching. I needed to call Mom so she could meet us at the hospital. And Ky?
I hesitated. There wasn’t any reason to worry him yet. What could he do anyway? I’d listen to what the paramedics said. If it seemed really serious, I’d call him over. Otherwise, I could at least save him some of the stress.
The ambulance screeched to a halt outside the Nelsons’ house. Feet thumped up the drive to where I was crouched. Two of the paramedics were carrying a stretcher. I pulled back as they knelt around Dad, checking him over.
“He’s been unconscious since the accident?” one of them asked me.
I nodded, my jaw tight. “He hasn’t moved at all.”
I restrained a wince as they lifted him onto the stretcher. No one was saying anything about how serious they thought this was. One of them waved to me as they hefted Dad up.
“Are you riding with us?”
“Yeah,” I managed to rasp.
“Then come on. The faster we get him to emergency, the better shape he’ll be in.”
I followed them into the back of the ambulance and listened to the doors swing shut with a clang that sounded way too final.
Chapter Thirteen
Rose
I looked at the grandfather clock farther down the hallway. Its steady ticking echoed through the wide space. It was twenty minutes past the hour.
“Seth isn’t usually late,” I said. If anything, he was the most punctual of the guys. Jin and Kyler were prone to getting absorbed in whatever they were working on, art or some new line of research. Damon liked to flaunt social norms. And Gabriel didn’t have to try all that hard, since he lived just across the driveway.
Ky checked his phone. “I texted him, but he hasn’t replied. He’s probably on his way right now. He’s a stickler for leaving the phone alone when he’s driving too.”
Damon shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his shoulders slightly hunched in his loose tee. “Do you think we should get started without him? You snooze, you lose.”
Gabriel shot him a half smile where he was leaning against the wall. “I think that would kind of defeat the purpose of the get-together. The whole idea is to see if we can work those practice forms with all of us together instead of just one-on-one.”
“We made do with four before you came along, in case you don’t remember,” Damon said archly, but there was no venom in the comment. Gabriel just shook his head.
Jin was rolling his shoulders, his lean muscles flexing where his paint-flecked tank top bared them. “Are you getting stiff from the painting?” I asked him.
“A little,” he said. “But I think those extra touches I added were worth it. I was wondering if there’s some way I can start working on the wall around the estate… But I guess any paint on the stones would stand out as something strange.”
I considered that possibility. “True, but we could do tokens like we have before. I could bury them around the property. That would give my protections an extra boost without anyone even seeing them. And we could make them really simple since no one will see them, so you wouldn’t have to work too hard.”
“Perfect!” He pointed a finger at me. “That’s tomorrow’s project, then.”
Ky glanced at the door and then his phone again, frowning. A nervous twitch wriggled into my stomach. I pulled out my own phone to scroll back through my messages. Yes, I’d checked with Seth that he could get here at six. He’d said it’d be no problem, that he should be finishing his shift with his dad at five.
What if something had happened to him? Something that had left him so incapacitated he couldn’t even contact us?
“Can you try your dad?” I said to Ky. “They were supposed to be working together most of the day. At least then we’d know he was okay until recently.”
“I already texted him too,” Ky said. “No answer there either. But that’s less surprising. Dad still hasn’t gotten totally used to the whole cell phone thing. We’re lucky if he’s got the battery charged half the days of the week.”
I paced from one end of the hall to the other. “If they’ve hurt him…”
“We don’t know that’s what happened,” Gabriel said in a low, smooth voice. “They shouldn’t be able to do that. He’s only a little late.”
Damon’s head jerked up. “Hey,” he said. “That oath—does it cover your father too? He shouldn’t be able to hurt any of us, right?”
A cold prickle shot down my back. “It should cover all the families allied with the Frankfords. Even if they were sticking to the barest letter of the law, that would include everyone named in the files. My father’s in there.”
His shoulders came down, but not completely. “What about that Courtland guy?”
Master Courtland, my former tutor, had been conspiring with my stepmother, sharing research on how she might twist my consort ceremony so the fiancé she and Dad had chosen would have direct control over my magic. I didn’t know what Master Courtland’s stake in the conspiracy was, or if he even knew the full extent of it. His name hadn’t come up anywhere else. But Dad clearly had the older witching man in his pocket.
“My father couldn’t order him to do anything that would hurt us directly,” I said. “And neither of them have any magic of their own to attack us with. Why are you asking about them?”
“I just remembered,” Damon said. “Yesterday I was cruising by the old guy’s house and I saw him in the yard with your dad. Just talking, but it’s not like I trust anything they’d be talking about.”
Before he’d even finished speaking, I’d bristled. Snuff my spark, what was my father doing around town?
He wasn’t forbidden from visiting a friend near the estate. Technically he wasn’t even forbidden from coming here and requesting entrance—he just couldn’t waltz right in like he owned the place, because he no longer did.
Like Damon, I couldn’t imagine any good reason for him to be poking around. If he’d wanted to see Master Courtland, he could have invited him somewhere else. How long had he spent in town? Was he still here, just a few minutes’ drive away?
“If you see him again, it’s fine with me if you make it clear he’s not welcome,” I said. “However you feel like doing that.”
Damon grinned sharkishly. “Oh, angel, that’s an invitation I’m not likely to turn down.”
Ga
briel raised his eyebrows. “Is that really a good idea?”
“It’s a horribly bad idea for him to come anywhere near here,” I said tersely. The memory of the last time I’d talked to my father swam up—the way he’d talked as if what he’d tried to do for me was beyond his control, not taking any responsibility—the way he’d sneered at my consorts as if they were unworthy of me.
The way he’d looked at me when I’d bluffed that I’d release the demon to do whatever it wanted with him, as if he’d really thought I was that stupid and that sick-minded.
Suddenly I felt nearly as queasy as I had in the cave with that thing and with him. Why couldn’t he just leave me the fuck alone?
Imogen appeared at the bottom of the stairs, which she must have descended more quietly than usual. “Rose?” she said hesitantly.
“We’re in the middle of something,” I snapped. A jab of guilt hit me immediately, sharpened by the way her eyes widened. Most of my anger deflated. I stepped toward her. “I’m sorry. What is it?”
“I just… I was hoping I could talk with you.” Her voice was unusually quiet too. Now that I was paying more attention, it was hard not to notice how subdued she was in general. Even her bright red curls hung a little limp against her shoulders. “If now isn’t a good time, though, it can totally wait.”
“No. I—” I glanced at the guys.
“Go ahead,” Gabriel said. “We’re still waiting for Seth anyway. If he hasn’t shown up soon, we’ll split up and scout out the roads between here and the house and wherever he was working.”
I smiled at him with a rush of gratitude and motioned for Imogen to come with me into the parlor. Having seen how nervous she looked, I closed the door behind us for privacy.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did something happen?”
“Sort of.” The young witch slumped into one of the armchairs, her elbows splaying over the sides. “My aunt and uncle have been blowing up my phone since I left. I was just ignoring them… But my aunt sent a text saying there was some kind of emergency with my sister.”
My pulse stuttered. “Is she okay?”
“Yes.” Imogen grimaced. “I ended up calling her and asking what was going on, trying to get her to let me talk to my sister—she’s not the problem there, she’s only fifteen; if I could have, I’d have brought her with me. It turned out my aunt was just making shit up to try to convince me to come back. And then once she had me on the phone she went on and on about how I’m embarrassing the family and I should be grateful for all the time and energy they’ve put into finding me a match and what am I even doing with myself and…” She pressed her hands over her ears as if to block out the voices she could no longer hear anyway.
“That’s tough,” I said quietly, wishing I could say more. “You’re sure there was something off about the potential consorts they were bringing around, though, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I was just being too picky. I mean, Aunt Florence and Uncle Sherman have never acted like they cared about me like parents, but they’re not my parents, so… They got saddled with me and my sister when I was only nine and she was just two. They weren’t planning on having kids. What if they are just doing the best they can?”
“I don’t know.” I propped myself against the side of one of the other chairs. “I don’t think someone with totally good intentions would try to use your sister’s well-being as bait.”
“True. But, I mean, I am going to have to find a consort sooner and not later. If I look like an ungrateful hysteric, that’s not going to make it easier.” Imogen let out a huff of a sigh.
Spark help me, if only I could have brought her up to the room where Thalia Ainsworth was still recovering—hardly talking, mostly just sleeping restlessly and eating and expressing how thankful she was to be here—and told her that was the future her aunt and uncle had planned for her.
I gritted my teeth and then forced my jaw to relax.
“Look,” I said. “Everything you’ve told me about the two of them gives me a bad feeling. It reminds me of how my father and stepmother were acting—and they were trying to tie me to a consort who would have used me for his and their selfish ends. I don’t want that for you. What you do, whether you stay here, is up to you, always. But you have to know I don’t think you’re the slightest bit wrong to be worried. I’d say get your sister out of there as soon as you can too.”
Imogen gazed back at me thoughtfully. “And where do I go from there? I just live here with you until I hit twenty-five and lose my magic?”
“That’s up to you,” I said. “But you could still look for a consort yourself. I’d be happy to help any way I can. It doesn’t have to—”
It doesn’t have to be a witching man, you know, I’d wanted to say. But the oath clamped my throat shut around revealing that.
Of course, Imogen had been living here. She had eyes, and while I wasn’t allowed to discuss the status of my relationship with my consorts, I hadn’t tried to hide it from her or the other witches under asylum like I had the staff. Her comments after she’d gone to that bar showed she’d figured out that an unsparked guy would light at least a little magic in her.
“The five of them, they’re all your consorts, aren’t they?” she murmured. “And they’re just regular guys from the town? Not witching families at all?”
I wet my lips and gave her a meaningful look. “I can’t talk about that.”
For a second, hope lit her face. Then she sagged back into the chair. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. If I leave my aunt and uncle for good, then I’ve got no claim on their estate either. Consort with an unsparked man? Moldy cinders, I might as well be unsparked too, for all I’d be part of witching society then.”
That was true. Maybe I’d been too harsh on her, blaming her hesitation completely on prejudice. I hadn’t thought through all the consequences she’d face. I’d had an estate waiting for me, enough properties in the family that I could simply shunt my dad off to one that was hours away—not that he’d stayed there. For someone with so much less means…
“You’d figure something out,” I said. Anything was better than ended up drained and haunted like Lady Ainsworth. “We’d figure something out, if you stayed here. There have to be better options.”
Imogen gave me a small tight smile. “It’s easy to say that,” she said. “Not so easy to just make those options appear. Sometimes your only choices are not-so-great ones. I guess I just have to pick which not-so-great one I can stomach.”
My stomach balled. No, I wanted to say. Don’t give up. But who was I to tell her that when I had so much more than her and I still couldn’t keep my consorts and their families safe?
Chapter Fourteen
Gabriel
I watched the door close behind Rose and the younger witch with a twist in my gut. She’d simmered down, but for a few moments there… I’d hardly felt as if that was the woman I knew.
“I’ve never seen Rose snap at someone like that before,” I said, keeping my voice low.
Damon shrugged. “She’s got a lot of crap to deal with right now. Who can blame her?”
“I know she’s stressed, but…” I glanced at him. “Did you think you’d ever hear her encouraging you to go off on someone like that? Don’t you remember how she freaked out when you had your friends rough up Derek?”
Damon’s face darkened for a second. “That asshole deserved it. And they’re not my friends. They’re hardly even work associates at this point.”
I raised a conciliatory hand. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not getting on your case about what you did. My point is, back then she was horrified that you took things that far. Now she’s saying go ahead and do whatever you want to scare off her dad?”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Kyler’s frown deepened as he looked up from his phone. “No, Gabriel’s right. We’ve been through a lot of crap, sure, but it’s getting to her more than it used to.
I don’t like hearing her talk that way either. But—maybe that’s how cutthroat we all need to be thinking right now?” He let out a sharp breath and rubbed his forehead. “If I could just find a point of leverage we could really use to end this, it wouldn’t matter anymore. You’d think with all those files there’d be something I could work with.”
“You’re doing everything you can,” Jin said. “And so is Rose. I trust her judgment. This is her world a lot more than it is ours.”
“It is.” I hesitated. “I just never imagined I’d see Rose be that vicious. You weren’t there in the cave the last time we saw her father. She trapped him in there with that demon, with no way to call for help. He could have died in there if he hadn’t been found. And she didn’t seem to care at all.”
“Why should she care about that prick?” Damon said. “He tried to force her to be chained to that thing somehow, doing whatever he and the rest of those shitheads want.”
“There’s a difference between not caring about someone, even being furious with them, and actively doing something that could kill them,” Kyler said.
“Exactly,” I said. “I know she’s been under a ton of pressure. I just hate that it seems to be pushing her into becoming someone who’d be that cruel. That can’t be what she’d have wanted.”
The first time Rose had tried to take on her father directly, she’d come to me freaking out that she might be enjoying the thought of briefly hurting him and his colleagues too much. Worried about the darkness her power might bring out in her. Back then, I’d reassured her that she was justified, that it made sense for her to want to hit back, that I knew she’d never take things so far.
That’d only been a handful of weeks ago. Could I have said the same thing now? She’d done things since then that I never would have believed her capable of.
That uncertainty sat like a jagged lump in my stomach.