As Lewis returned the greeting, elevator doors chimed and three opened, delivering a crowd of tired, grumpy and curious mages to the foyer.
Gina recognized seven from the board meeting. Either they hadn’t slept, had returned to work early, or were here because Lewis had summoned them.
Kora was among them. The commander of the guardians had purplish circles under her eyes, suggesting that she was one of the sleepless ones.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been here without some sort of confrontation,” Steve murmured. The were seemed only mildly interested, even when eight guardians entered from a side door.
“This isn’t a confrontation,” Lewis said. “This is a statement.” He raised his voice. “The Collegium is currently in pursuit of an unnamed individual who is employing mages and mundane methods to destabilize regions throughout the world for their own benefit. Previously, this individual worked with four others, whom we have captured and questioned. Now, in an attempt to distract us and evade capture, this individual has started a rumor that the power I demonstrated yesterday in containing eleven mages’ magic must be the result of a gift from a demon.”
“Which is patently ridiculous.” A woman in her sixties, gray-haired and grim, who’d been present at the board meeting, strode forward. “As chief demonologist, I can tell you no demon of that degree of power could be summoned and its bindings sustained by someone lacking years of demonology experience. Lewis simply could not have done it, and hasn’t done so. I and my team,” a gesture encompassed six people at her back, “have studied Lewis and there is no shadow of demonic presence around him.”
“But to stop this insane rumor before it spreads,” Lewis firmly regained control of the gathering. “I’ve requested Fay Olwen, whom you all know as a powerful demonologist and independent of the Collegium, to confirm my demon-free status.”
Fay spoke out strongly. “There is no demon taint around Lewis or his girlfriend, Gina Sidhe.”
Gina jolted. She hadn’t considered that people might think she was the demon’s conduit to Lewis, even though that was precisely what had happened with the previous Collegium president and his lover. If Gina could have struck her forehead with the flat of her hand in a doh moment, she would have. This was why Lewis had worried how the rumor would affect her as well as him.
A glimmer of sympathy flickered across Fay’s face before she looked away from Gina back to their audience. “I can accept that you’re all nervous after the debacle with my father a month ago, but Lewis is known, respected and an honorable man. I’m shocked that he had to call me in to counter this rumor. The statement of the chief demonologist and your own knowledge of Lewis, whom you elected as president, should have been enough.”
Well, that was telling them.
Gina stared at the crowd, watching expressions of bafflement, shame and even anger cross people’s faces.
“I had never heard the rumor. What utter rubbish!” A middle-aged Englishman, portly in an expensive suit, hurried across from a small group at a collection of chairs, leaving behind a suitcase and carry-on. He patted Lewis a couple of times on the back. “You and a demon, unthinkable.”
“For heaven’s sake, Martin, none of us believe such trash. Don’t make yourself special.” Neville of all people, the troublesome geomage from the board meeting, answered the challenge. “I don’t like change. Geological change is either glacially slow or cataclysmic. Lewis, your new power unsettles things, but not liking more change doesn’t mean we’re stupid enough to believe that you’d do a deal with a demon. Good grief! That you had to respond, and respond so strongly, to a stupid rumor is a shame on us.”
He paused for breath and no one interrupted. “After Richard,” Fay’s father and Lewis’s presidential predecessor, “we’re running scared of demons, afraid of their presence undetected in the Collegium, but running scared makes us just as much the demons’ plaything as if they were actually here. I say, enough!”
Gilda, the woman who’d phoned Lewis with the rumor and who was also the chief demonologist, nodded thoughtfully. “I agree.”
Kora stood with the guardians. “We will serve.” The Collegium’s motto and purpose. “We’ll find who started this rumor.”
People murmured and shuffled. There was a sense of anticlimax, and yet, if Lewis hadn’t tackled the rumor of his demonic dealings strongly and openly, would it have undermined him and the Collegium? Since they had the expressions of support Lewis needed, it was better to downplay the whole thing.
Gina took the box of muffins from him. “If everyone is now satisfied about the obvious—that you are the most trustworthy man here—then I’d like breakfast.”
“So would I. Or lunch. Or whatever time my stomach thinks it is.” Steve took the box from her and started for the elevators. The crowd of mages parted before him.
Fay grinned faintly and followed her fiancé.
“Thank you, everyone,” Lewis said. “If you hear any other rumors, please report them to Zhou and his team.” With a nod to the chief forecaster, Lewis put a hand to the small of Gina’s back and guided her after Fay and Steve.
The doors of the elevator closed out the curious faces of those watching, but technological and magical surveillance remained, and none of the four spoke till they were inside Lewis’s inner office with the door firmly closed.
“Thank you,” Lewis said to Fay.
“No problem. Although I’m not sure my support really made much difference. I don’t have friends within the Collegium.”
“You have respect and fear, though.” Steve grinned at her, sharing some private joke. “Close enough.”
She smiled back and chose an apple muffin.
The two of them were comfortable together in a way that proclaimed their intimacy without making a show of it. Steve had stood close to Fay in the elevator, his hand brushing her hip. She obviously relaxed at his touch and teasing.
Fay Olwen was a legend in the magical world. She was one of the strongest mages anyone could remember. Certainly the first to ever have the power to break her oath-ties to the Collegium. And personally, she’d had the character to challenge her own father, to free the Collegium of demonic possession, and then, turn her back on the only world she’d ever known, the world of magic, to partner a were and enter his world where magic wasn’t used.
Yet Fay, even with lines of tiredness at the corner of her eyes, radiated happiness, and the lean, watchful man lounging in the chair beside her was the obvious cause.
Gina glanced at Lewis.
Fay was proof that the most disciplined and controlled of guardians could find happiness in love.
“Sven told me about your new power,” Fay said.
Chad Price, the bodyguard PA currently on duty, knocked at the door. He carried four coffees on a plastic tray and the downward tilt of his mouth indicated displeasure with the duty he found himself undertaking.
“Thank you.” Lewis’s words were a dismissal.
The door closed with a small bang. Possibly the worst thing for Chad was that no one cared. Fay sipped her coffee and watched Lewis, Steve finished a blueberry muffin and chose a cherry one, and Gina ate a delicious mocha muffin.
Lewis finished his savory muffin and answered Fay’s question. “I briefly outlined the situation for the board, yesterday. Having burned out my magic, I’ve found a new way of seeing the world. Instead of magic appearing as gold threads, it is layers of silver energy. As I pull and move through that silver world, things happen in the physical world.”
“Dangerous,” Steve said neutrally.
Gina froze a moment as she sipped her coffee. She hadn’t considered just how dangerous the Deeper Path would be without Morag’s guidance.
“Very,” Lewis said succinctly. “It’s not magic, yet I’m not sure that it’s a way of seeing the world accessible to people who haven’t seen the golden threads of magic. I’m treating it cautiously.”
Fay nodded. “People will be curious.”
“I’ve
said I’m willing to answer questions.”
“Would you be willing to teach it?” Steve asked.
“I hope no one burns out their magic.” Lewis’s instant and emphatic response revealed how much losing his magic had affected him. He took a sip of coffee while everyone pretended they hadn’t noticed the crack in his armor. “I would teach them what little I know if they showed an interest and aptitude for it.” He paused. “I wouldn’t want anyone to burn out their magic on purpose to acquire this other way of moving through the world, but I don’t think burning out one’s magic is so easy to do.”
Fay and Steve exchanged an unreadable look. Then Steve nodded.
Fay leaned forward. “Two weeks ago, Lewis, I came here to tell you of a rogue mage enchanting weres.”
“That’s not possible,” Gina exclaimed.
“The woman found an ancient spell, cobbled together a very shaky enchantment and managed it. But at a price. She was untrained in magic and suffered significant abuse. In attempting to resist the abuse, she burned out her magic. She lacked the trips and containments we learn as we’re taught by family and mentors. Her magic is gone.”
“I won’t teach a rogue mage this new power,” Lewis said.
“She wouldn’t agree even if you offered. Narelle wants no more power,” Fay responded.
“For a woman who enslaved people, she’s pathetically and desperately remorseful.” Steve’s dark eyebrows drew together in a frown. “But the point is that other mages of natural, untaught talent could burn out their magic, making it possible to attain this new power.”
“No,” Gina said.
Fay and Steve stared at her.
She realized that they wouldn’t expect her to be an expert on Lewis’s experience. Morag, after all, had been carefully excised from the explanation of his new power. The Deeper Path hadn’t been mentioned as such. She chose her words carefully. “Lewis is incredibly controlled. I doubt an untrained mage could match his self-discipline and I suspect it’s that quality of control and alertness that lets Lewis see this silver energy.”
Fay put her coffee cup down. “Could I do it?”
Steve went predatorily still. But he didn’t utter a protest.
“You have more magic than I did,” Lewis said. “I’d hate to think what burning that out would cost you.”
“So would I.” Steve took her hand.
She turned her fingers to return the clasp.
Lewis stared at their joined hands. “And I don’t think you have the necessary detachment any more. You’re too tightly bound to Steve. I think it’s more than magic that I burned out.”
Fay blushed and glanced uncomfortably at Gina. “But…”
Given her hopes and their lovemaking that morning, it hurt, but Gina beat Lewis to the answer. “I’m only Lewis’s pretend girlfriend. I’m an excuse for him to hide from the Collegium.”
“Oh.” Fay appeared even more discomforted. “I truly thought…none of my business.”
“I have feelings for Gina,” Lewis said. “But the silver sight came first.”
Gina stared at him. “What did you say?”
“Our cue to go.” Steve sounded amused. He and Fay stood. “We’ll see ourselves out.”
They went. Gina barely noticed.
Then Lewis locked the door behind them.
Chapter 11
“I can’t offer you a guarantee of peace or happiness.” Lewis stood with his back to the door, facing Gina where she sat frozen in her armchair.
Very slowly she put down her cup of coffee. “No one can guarantee those things.”
“Other people have more predictable lives than mine, and lives less subject to scrutiny. You saw the effects of rumor downstairs.”
“I also saw the respect people have for you that is helping to carry the Collegium through a difficult time in its history. I think I understand how important the Collegium is to you, and you to it. I wouldn’t ask you to relinquish any of your duties.”
He took three steps forward and gripped the back of an armchair. “I don’t know how the Deeper Path Morag introduced me to is changing me.”
Tears stung the back of Gina’s eyes. She opened them wider, denying the tangled emotions of fear and regret, and of incipient loss. “I think it is making you more distant. When you believe the Collegium is through this transitional stage, you’ll resign as president and go out to explore other worlds. Like my aunt Deborah, the unknown will call to you.” She stood clumsily. “I would go into a relationship with you knowing that would be the ending. You’re worth it.”
He released the armchair with a muttered curse and strode around it to her. “Gina—”
She put both hands on his chest, holding back his protest. “But when you go out to explore other galaxies, the relationship ends. I can’t live waiting for your return, feeling you grow ever more distant not simply geographically, but in your experiences and emotion.”
“You could come with me.” He clasped her upper arms. “That’s your dream. You told me you were trying for clarity of sight. I could work with you on it.”
She slid her hands up to his face. “I don’t know if I want it any more. But I do want you. For however long we have.”
Their kiss had a hungry, sorrowing edge that soon submerged under the flood of desire. Simple lust, but there was nothing simple about it. She craved him for so much more than his body, and she offered him so much more than hers. Soul, dreams, caring.
She wanted to forget thought as she had just hours ago and surrender to the storm in her blood.
He tore his mouth from hers. “I have to find this fifth group member, first. Then we’ll have time for us. I’ll make time,” he vowed.
She believed him, and pushed aside thoughts of how short that time might be. “So let’s find this Mr. or Ms. X.”
But it wasn’t that easy.
When she opened the door of Lewis’s inner office, intending to go and see if she could help Zhou’s forecasting team, she rocked back on her heels. “Huh.”
The outer office was filled with people, with Chad attempting to impose some sort of order. It seemed everyone wanted to assure Lewis that they would never have believed a rumor about him and a demon.
For Gina, it was a bit like walking the gauntlet. Everyone stared at her. She looked back at Lewis, but he was expressionless.
“Five minutes each,” he instructed Chad. “We have work to do.”
Gina escaped to the forecasters’ Zone where she found Zhou in conference with Gilda, the chief demonologist. They were visible through the glass walls of his office at the edge of the Zone. Their conversation appeared intense.
“Any good news?” Gina asked the people she’d worked with yesterday.
“Lewis isn’t demon-haunted,” one of them joked.
Gina forced a wry smile at the gallows humor. “I always knew that.”
“Yeah.”
She hesitated. She wasn’t actually part of the forecasters’ team. They’d accepted her yesterday for their own reasons, but today…she reached a decision. The Collegium wasn’t her home territory and Lewis could reach her anywhere.
“Going home,” she texted him.
Giant, invisible weights lifted off her shoulders as the doors of the Collegium closed behind her. Argh. So much tension. She walked fast, unable to shake a feeling that someone watched her. Had Kora assigned her a bodyguard?
Gina readied a protection spell in case the watcher wasn’t well-intentioned. However, she made it to Paul O’Halloran’s portal without incident, and since he was sulky and monosyllabic, travelled through to Emmaline’s portal with a minimum of hassle or conversation.
Emmaline, looking like a gray heron in a summer-weight linen suit, gave her a searching look. “If you need any help, remember we’re family.”
Gina hugged her, but was grateful that Emmaline never pushed for confidences. Riaz would have peppered her with questions after the show the Collegium guardians and the hired combat mages had put on ye
sterday.
Home looked wonderful, and feeling its protective wards close around her felt even better. The sense of being watched had been left behind in New York. She brewed a cup of green tea and dried rose petals, and sipped it as she wandered through her house. She halted in front of the door to the closet beneath the stairs.
Lewis had invited her to journey with him along the Deeper Path. In a sense, he’d dared her to share her dream with him. The offer had hit her hard, and not pleasantly.
She set her tea cup down on the top of a low bookcase and opened the closet door.
Finally, the torrent of people who just had to see Lewis eased. He leaned back in his chair and replied to Gina’s texts. Not only had she gone home, she’d gotten home safely. She was more secure there than inside the Collegium, and that was an indictment on the organization.
“Still hunting 5,” he texted. “Stay safe.”
He put the phone down and reached for the papers in his in-tray, trusting that Chad had acted as an efficient PA and prioritized the various reports so that any dealing with the Group of 5 were on top.
Chad seemed to have dismissed whatever mood he’d been in. Possibly shared adversity had allied them. Neither appreciated a horde of emotional people invading their day.
“Of course he’s busy.” Gilda’s voice came from the outer office, rougher than usual, showing signs of strain. “We’re all busy. And worried.”
Lewis resigned himself to the inevitable. “Come in,” he called.
She did, accompanied by Zhou.
“Five minutes,” Lewis said bluntly.
Gilda and Zhou collapsed onto chairs on the far side of the desk.
“Suits me.” Gilda rubbed her eyes. “I need to sleep. But Zhou and I noticed something, and oddly enough, it was Neville who pointed it out. He’s done good work containing the Turkish earthquake’s aftershocks, too. Not as young as he was.”
Zhou broke into her tired rambling. “Neville identified a critical point. The Group of 5’s activities have been wide-ranging, malicious and characterized by self-interest, but when their activities have crossed paths with the Collegium, it’s you, Lewis, who has been their focus.”
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