by Eva Chase
My heart squeezed at that thought. I looked at Dad, who was talking about some other theoretically wonderful thing about my theoretical new consort-to-be—at the light in his hazel eyes and the warmth of his smile and all those familiar things that were part of the father I’d used to love.
No, that I still loved. You couldn’t break a lifelong bond so easily. I hated what he planned to do, what he was already doing, trying to bring the scheme together… But that couldn’t totally erase all those fond childhood memories. The thought of what I meant to do to him brought a sharper ache into my chest.
That father had loved me too. Surely he had. Where had that man gone? Why was he doing this?
“Dad,” I heard myself asking when he paused. “If you had magic, the way I—the way I will, what would you use it for?”
Dad blinked at me. A shadow darted through his gaze, so briefly I almost missed it. But it had been there. Some darker intention my question had roused.
He had an answer. And that was my answer, maybe. There was something he wanted to use my magic for, something he knew he could never have simply asked of me.
“I’ve never really thought about it,” he said, lying as easily as breathing. “I’ve been more interested in seeing what you’ll do with yours when your spark is kindled.”
“Really?” I said, letting my brow knit. “You’ve never considered it at all?”
He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “That isn’t a witching man’s place, is it?”
The reply was so absurd in the context of everything I knew that it sent a flare of anger through me. I couldn’t help saying, a little pointedly, “I suppose. But you know if there was ever anything you needed, once I have my magic, you’d only have to ask.”
His eyes twitched, just slightly. A tiny hint of guilt. The twist of my gut wasn’t really triumphant.
“I appreciate the sentiment, lamb,” Dad said, glancing away. “Now why don’t you tell me all about this party you’ve been planning?”
All the parts he was allowed to know about, I’d be happy to ramble on about. “I came up with the menu and Mrs. Gainsley put out the order for the groceries we’ll need. Lots of hors d’oeuvres to start, and then for the big dinner I decided on goose, just to make it extra special. I arranged for a band to come for a little live entertainment, and…”
I went on for a few minutes about my various plans, which I had put a fair bit of thought into. When I started to wind down, Dad brought his hands together in a brief round of applause.
“I didn’t know you had that kind of event planning aptitude in you,” he said playfully. “You seem awfully keen on celebrating this deal of mine. You hardly know what it’s about.”
I shrugged. “I know it’s something that’ll bring more money into the witching community, to make it easier for us to survive without relying on the unsparked. And I know it meant a lot to you. That’s enough.”
He studied me a little longer than I really liked. I jumped to a change of subject. Something I was going to have to bring up eventually anyway. “I was thinking… We could show off that artifact you brought back. Use it as a centerpiece on the dining table. If that’s all right with you? I’d make sure none of the unsparked staff handled it—I’ll set it out myself.”
“I like that,” Dad said with a nod. “I picked it up on my way out of the city. None of the others have seen it yet.”
“Are many of your colleagues going to be able to make it?” I asked. “I know it’s short notice…”
I held my breath waiting for his answer. He smiled again. “Most of them were more than happy to make the trip, considering they’ve been hassling me to do something like this for days.”
“Anyone I’ve met?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve met most of them at one time or another. The Wilkinsons, the Hardings, the Frankfords, Evelyn Kingsley…”
He kept going, but my mind caught on that one name. Frankford. The man who’d advised Dad on hiring Mrs. Gainsley, who’d been eagerly looking forward to the results of the bastardized consort ceremony, would be here in this house in just a few days.
My jaw set. He’d get a show all right. They all would. Just not the one they’d been imagining.
“That’s great,” I said when Dad finished. “I’m preparing for lots of guests. Invite as many more as you’d like.”
The more witnesses, the faster he’d fall—and the sooner my consorts and I would be safe.
Chapter Thirty
Rose
The rumble of a car engine reached my ears all the way in the dining room where I was laying out the decorations. My pulse skipped. I slipped down the hall to the sitting room to look out the front window.
A sleek silver sedan had just pulled past the gate. Another car, longer and even more stately, drew up beside it. The passengers, one couple that looked around Dad’s age and another older, stepped out.
Dad came into the front hall. “Did you tell people to arrive this early?” I asked him. It was only mid-afternoon. I’d been working around a supposed six o’clock cocktail hour start.
He shot me a smile. “They’re not your responsibility yet, Rose. Don’t worry. A few of my closer associates are coming a little early so we can discuss other business before we begin our celebrating.”
That was just like Dad. Squeezing work into every spare minute he could. Proper etiquette dictated that I should stick around and say my hellos before they all holed away in Dad’s office.
Mrs. Gainsley appeared, moving past Dad to open the front doors, which was somehow more dignified than him doing it himself. The two couples came up the front steps, murmuring in quiet conversation with each other. The younger couple both had gray sprinkled in their light brown hair, the man’s tousled and ash-brown, the woman’s a cinnamon-brown bob brushing her jaw. The man in the older couple had gone completely slate-gray, the woman’s hair ivory-white and cropped close to her head. His eyes were a paler gray. Something about them and his thin, angular face struck a chord of recognition in me.
“Rose,” Dad said with a sweep of his arm, “Diana and Renato Almeida all the way from Lisbon. And I’m sure you’ve met Helen and Charles Frankford at least a few times. Ladies and gentlemen, my daughter Rose.”
“A pleasure to meet you, dear,” Mrs. Almeida said. She shook my hand, and then the others in turn. My skin crawled as Mr. Frankford’s cool, dry grip closed around mine. I smiled at him as well as I could manage.
Here was the man who’d encouraged my father to enslave me. My gaze slid to his wife, her faintly lined face nearly as pale as her ivory hair. Did her smile look a little stiff as she accepted my hand? Had he harnessed her magic to his will somehow—or his daughters, if he had them? Nausea crept through my belly at the thought.
“Lovely to meet you too,” I said on autopilot. “I’m so glad you could make it. I know what a great win this deal was for everyone who was working with Dad.”
“An even more delightful young lady every time I see her,” Frankford said, slapping Dad on the back. I wanted to vomit.
Another engine sounded outside. I stayed where I was, greeting and offering compliments and thanks, ignoring my queasiness as another couple, then a solitary witch and an unpartnered man, arrived in quick succession. They all smiled and complimented me, our house, and the idea of this party in return. My quick searches of their expressions gave me nothing to go on. How many of them knew what my dad intended to do to me? How many of them encouraged it?
Could all of them know? These were his closest associates, he’d said. Perhaps in more ways than one.
When they went up to Dad’s office as I’d expected, I drifted back into the dining room. Almost everything there was already in order. Dark blue silk table cloth, candles in silver holders waiting to be lit, white roses spaced down the length of the long table and on the side tables around the room. Jin’s little artworks lay under them, the hidden glyphs ready to help channel any magic I cast their way.
The spa
ce in the middle of the dining table, in front of the seat reserved for Dad, was lacking its centerpiece. I’d taken the Egyptian wand from Dad this morning for my preparations, but it was still in my room. Waiting to have its magic cast on it.
I’d better get that done before the real party kicked off. Dad might be the host in name, but I needed him to feel totally confident in the arrangements I’d made and my ability to keep things running smoothly—so that he wouldn’t feel the slightest doubt about how the night was going before the grand finale.
And Killian would be here not long after the party started. I’d be expected to entertain him and pretend I found him entertaining.
“What a beautiful spread,” Philomena said, shimmering into being beside me. She clapped her hands. “I wish it were a better occasion.”
“No kidding,” I said, moving away from the table. “I wish I’d planned dinner first instead of three hours in. Then we could get everything over with.”
“Oh, but half of the impact is in the build-up,” Phil said sagely. “I can’t imagine I ever would have frightened off that rival of mine—Claudette, like to put wagtails to shame—if we hadn’t had the most luxurious picnic before the bees.”
I raised my eyebrows at her, but my stomach balled as I headed up the stairs to my room. “Your bees didn’t even sting anyone. This… is going to be a little more dramatic than that.”
I closed the bedroom door and locked it. Before anything else, I dug out my secret phone and sent a quick text to the guys. All’s well so far. One more piece to put in place.
Make them wish they never messed with you, Damon wrote back, with a devilish emoji.
We’re standing by if you need us, Seth added. I could picture him side-eyeing Damon’s enthusiasm.
They were standing by, but this part only I could do. I went to my desk where I’d left the gilded case. My breath came a little shaky as I popped it open. I didn’t want any magic lingering on the case itself where one of the witches present might sense it. That power had to stay completely contained until Dad opened the case to show off his prize.
The polished wood felt warm, the edges of the inlaid gems almost gritty, as I eased the wand out. I set it on the floor in the middle of the room.
It would have been better if I could have worked in the magicking room—the public one or even the private one that had been Celestine’s but should by all rights now be mine. But that would look far too suspicious, so I’d have to make do in here.
I shut the curtain, cutting off all but a faint glow of sunlight. Then I pulled out the tools I had secreted out of the magicking room yesterday. A dagger, a length of fine silver chain, and a sprig of dried belladonna. In theory, any spell could be cast with just one’s mind and one’s magic, but with a larger magicking, it was much easier to focus your energy when you had tools to direct it.
“I trust you’re not actually planning to unleash a dramatic storm of stinging bees,” Phil said, plopping down on my bed.
I had to laugh. “No. It’s more complicated than that too. I need it to… to hurt some of the guests, and to affect Dad’s behavior so it looks like he’s doing it on purpose. But nothing so powerful it can’t be subdued.” A tricky balance.
Breathing slow and even, I laid the chain in a circle around me and the wand. Then I grasped the hilt of the dagger in one hand and the belladonna sprig in the other. First… first I would need an urge to dig into my father.
I swiveled on my feet and looped my arms through the motions I’d charted out over the last few days, piecing together fragments from my years of learning with lore gleaned from the old texts to weave a spell completely my own. My spark flared brighter in my chest. Its warmth bled from my muscles and spilled from my skin. Magic coalesced around the wand by my feet.
Yes, grip him. Grip him and control him the way he’d planned to do to me. At least he’d get to shake off that spell after a few minutes. I wasn’t going to enslave him for a lifetime.
My fingers tightened around my tools. I dipped low and stretched my arms high. A fancy illusion to begin with, as if he only meant to entertain. Ease them into it. Phil was right. The more build-up, the deeper the shock.
I cut the dagger through the air. Deeper, sharper, the urge turning angry. Vision twisting, seeing more than what was there. And then a burst of violence, turning it out on them. All of them—smiling Frankford, cool Mrs. Gainsley, every other person at that table who’d have happily seen me in magical chains or dead alongside my consorts.
A jolt of my own anger shot through me. For an instant, I pictured writhing figures, expressions contorted with pain, and my spark danced higher with a heady wave of satisfaction. All the ways I could bend them to my will, punish them for all the crimes they’d already committed…
I started to whip the dagger faster through the air, and caught myself at the last second. A trickle of cold ran through my body, momentarily dampening my energy.
What was I doing? That wasn’t the plan. I wanted just enough damage for them to think Dad was a true threat. Nothing permanent. No long-term damage.
And yet some part of me was disappointed, knowing that.
I swallowed hard and refocused on the spell. With a twist of my fingers, the belladonna caught fire. I trailed its pungent smoke through the air. Clouding the mind more, adding an extra edge to the punch of aggressive magic, and then burning it all away.
I was breathing hard when I eased to a stop, hunched over the wand. My nose prickled with the thin smoke and sweat dripped from my forehead. But it was done. When I brushed my fingers over the wand, it thrummed with contained power.
A knock thumped on the door. I startled, the last shreds of the belladonna sprig falling from my hand.
“Rosalind?” Mrs. Gainsley said. Snuff my spark, if she smelled that smoke—if she saw any hint of my magicking—
I scrambled to my feet. “Yes?” I said. A quick kick sent the chain sliding under my bed. I thrust the dagger under my pillow.
“I wanted to go over a few last minute meal considerations,” she said. “May I come in?”
I could practically feel her already reaching for the door knob. How suspicious would she be to find it locked?
My hands darted in opposite directions. One whisked a breeze through the room and back out the opposite window. The other released the lock. I snatched up the wand and tucked it back into its case, just as the knob turned behind me.
“All right,” I said, turning around with a quick swipe at my forehead. “I was just deciding what to wear.”
Mrs. Gainsley stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind her. She cocked her head. “I’m surprised you didn’t choose your dress days ago.”
Had her eyes narrowed a little, taking in the room? I pushed a giggle from my throat. “Oh, I had, but now I’m rethinking it. So hard to decide.”
The estate manager’s lips curled with a hint of amusement. Yes, let her think I was being a ditzy, nervous girl. She wouldn’t look for a powerful witch there.
“It turns out we’re short on radish,” she said, glancing over a slip of paper she was holding. “The chef wanted to know if you’re all right with substituting red onion—that’s his recommendation. And he wondered if you had any preference which of the hors d’oeuvres went around first.”
Was that all? I could have really laughed. “Red onion is fine. And he can use his own judgment for the order—whatever’s the easiest sequence to prepare them in, I suppose.”
“Good. Thank you.” The estate manager gave me another sharp look. “You’d better get on with that dress-choosing. Your potential consort will be here in just a couple hours, along with the less important guests.”
She hustled away, leaving me with an uncomfortable prickling in my chest. I waited until she’d descended the stairs, and then I tucked the wand’s case into the box with Jin’s art and followed.
The staff had strict instructions not to enter the dining room until after Dad and I had admitted our guests. And
the initial magic on the case should only work on Dad. But my lungs still constricted a little as I laid out the last pieces of my plan.
It wasn’t all an unpleasant sensation. I imagined Killian’s slick figure sitting at Dad’s left, facing the first blow of magic, and that satisfied heat flickered inside me again. He’d deserve it. So many of them deserved more than I was doing—
I halted, bracing my arms against the back of one of the chairs and leaning my face into my hands. No. That wasn’t how I wanted to think. That wasn’t how I wanted my magic to make me feel.
It was a dark spell I’d cast. There was no escaping that. How much of that darkness had crept into me during the magicking?
How much had already been there?
The power of my spark stirred in my chest. I could bring this whole house down in an instant if I wanted to. I knew it, as surely as I could count the staccato beats of my heart. That was exactly why Dad and Celestine and whoever else had wanted to constrain my power. But I would never do anything that destructive, lose control over good sense and decency… Would I?
My gaze came to rest on the gilded wand case, and a fresh tendril of nausea coiled around my stomach.
Spark help me, what if I already had?
Chapter Thirty-One
Gabriel
I gave one more swipe with the rag to the freshly waxed side of Mr. Hallowell’s Bentley, my eyes on my work but my attention on the gate. Most of his guests—and Rose’s—weren’t supposed to be arriving for a while yet, but I couldn’t help listening for the sound of a car.
The car in front of me was a fine one. I always thought it was kind of a shame when total jackasses owned nice vehicles. His car deserved better.
And let’s not even get into what his daughter deserved.
To check the task sheet Matt had pinned to the board just inside the garage hall, I took the long way around—skirting the front of the garage and coming around to the side door so I could casually glance toward the manor. The old house with its weathered stone and spiking turrets looked no more ominous than usual, but that was still pretty ominous.