by Eva Chase
I held her up. “This is Deborah. And I’m—I was Rory Franco. If you have any questions about my intentions or where I’ve been, she’s told me she’s happy to show you whatever she can through insight spells.”
I felt a little ridiculous talking about what to the man in front of me must have looked like a regular mouse, but to my relief he nodded. “Why don’t you come in?” he said. “I think we’ll have a lot to discuss.”
That sounded promising. I inhaled deeply as I stepped over the threshold, the scent of freshly baked bread tickling down my throat from somewhere deeper in the building. The walls were painted a warm cream, and the rhythmic sound of typing filtered from a nearby room.
The man motioned me down the hall, shutting the door behind me.
“I’m sorry to drop in without any warning,” I started. “I didn’t have a lot of choice. I—”
Three figures hurtled through the inner doorway I’d just come up on. Casting words tripped over their lips before I could summon any sort of defense in my surprise.
A spell slammed into my knees, locking them together and knocking me to the floor. Another slapped over my mouth, silencing the cry that tried to escape my lips. My shoulder jarred against the floor. Deborah tumbled from my hands.
A woman with sharp green eyes leaned over and snapped the necklace with my dragon charm from my neck. “There’s magic on this,” she told the guy next to her. “Test its capabilities.”
I strained to speak against the spell, but it bound me too tightly. Panic flared through my chest. Where had Deborah gone?
The woman’s expression hardened even more as she straightened up, staring down at me. “We can’t be too careful. This girl murdered her own parents.”
Then, with a jerk of her hand, my mind went black.
Chapter Twenty
Connar
Like me, my familiar didn’t have to do anything other than exist to generate a certain amount of fear. People saw the python cruising through the field or looping across my shoulders and gave off the same tickle of anxiety they did when they saw me striding toward them, strong, solid, and with a murderous family reputation.
I wasn’t sure Rex minded or cared—he wasn’t the most emotive familiar, although I could sense his satisfaction as he got to stretch his muscles winding through the grass—and frankly, most of the time it worked in our favor. We didn’t get hassled. I got a steady supply of fear to fuel my magic. But every now and then I couldn’t help thinking it wasn’t completely fair to either of us.
A couple of juniors crossing the field startled at the shifting of the grass. They veered to the side to put more distance between us and them. They’d have to get used to a lot worse than snakes if they were going to survive Blood U—or the rest of fearmancer society, for that matter. Shaking my head, I straightened up and snapped my fingers. “Rex. Here.”
The python slithered over and twined up my arm when I reached for him. He settled into his favorite position: lounging across my shoulders.
On my way back to Ashgrave Hall, I ran into Declan on the green. He tipped his head in greeting, looking like he was on his way to someplace or another he needed to be soon, but the sight of him jostled loose an urge I couldn’t suppress. I held out my hand to stop him.
“Have you heard anything from Rory?” I asked.
He gave me a smile that was both knowing and sympathetic. “Not so far. She won’t have even been in California that long yet. I’m sure when she has news, she’ll share it with all of us.”
I couldn’t picture her favoring any of us over another either, but somehow asking made the worrying a little easier. At least Malcolm was out there with her. There was a hell of a lot I could have criticized about how he’d treated the Bloodstone scion in her first few months here, but now that he’d come around, I knew how quick he’d be to fight for her if he needed to. I only wished I could have been out there too.
“I know,” I said. “It’s just hard not to wonder what’s going on out there.”
“Tell me about it.” He paused. “Were you expecting a visit from your mother?”
My back stiffened. “No. Why?”
“I saw her getting out of her car over at the parking lot. Maybe she just has business with one of the staff. But I figured you wouldn’t mind a heads up if it’s more than that.”
“Thanks,” I said, and he set off again. My jaw tightened as I turned toward the dorm building. What the hell did my mother want now?
A few of my dormmates were hanging out in the common room. They nodded to me, but I caught the flashes of wariness. One of them badly hid a grimace at the sight of Rex. I was too occupied with what Declan had told me to summon much offense.
I opened the door to my bedroom cautiously, but my mother hadn’t made another surprise visit here. I guessed she wouldn’t have wanted to march right in with so many other students around this early in the evening. She hadn’t contacted me in any other way, though. If she’d come for a chat, where was she?
I lowered Rex into his terrarium, and he curled up on his stone beneath the lights. He’d done a little hunting in the forest a few days ago, and with a python’s eating habits, that meant he was good for at least another week.
Some of the other students enjoyed tormenting their familiars with a mix of harsh and kind treatment, getting extra spurts of fear and anxiety from that, but I’d always found that approach sickening. The familiar was supposed to be our partner in creating magic. I checked to make sure he had everything he needed and then left him to his nap.
With a few quick words, I set the magical security on my door back in place. Then I headed out of the building. I’d meant to get started on an essay on the theory of Physicality magic that Professor Viceport had assigned to the Physicality specialists, but I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate knowing my mother might turn up at any moment.
Her car, a sleek BMW, was parked in the lot out front of Killbrook Hall like Declan had said. As I made for it, my mother herself emerged from the hall, loping down the stairs with her brisk athletic strides. She caught sight of me and raised an eyebrow in question.
“Were you looking for me?” she asked in her typical brusque way.
“I thought maybe you were looking for me,” I said. But obviously she hadn’t been. She’d only come to speak to one of the professors—or Ms. Grimsworth? What kind of business could she have had with them that she’d needed to carry out in person? Rory had mentioned that a few of the professors or their relatives were on the list of co-conspirators she’d gotten from her mentor.
Or maybe my mother had meant to come looking for me next, and she was simply enjoying putting me off-balance by pretending otherwise. She motioned to the car. “Since you’re here, there is something we should discuss. But preferably more privately. Let’s take a quick drive.”
Well, I’d asked for this. And if she had something she wanted to talk about, it was probably better to get it over with.
I sank into the front passenger seat. The car had the tang of the sharp citrusy stuff the Stormhurst staff used to maintain the leather.
My mother dropped into the driver’s seat and had the engine growling within a second of shutting the door. With practiced efficiency, she jerked the wheel and brought us around to the road into town.
“Word seems to be spreading quickly, at least through the baron families,” she said as we roared toward the woods. “I’d guess you already know about Baron Bloodstone’s impending return.”
She sounded completely confident that Rory’s mother would be rescued and be well enough to take up the barony almost immediately. The sinews stood out in her wiry hands where she gripped the steering wheel, but the glint in her steely eyes was all happy anticipation.
“I do,” I said. If I hadn’t already known about it from Rory, Malcolm obviously would have told the rest of us. “That was unexpected.”
“Unexpected, but very welcome. Her heir will be her responsibility, and we can get on with things th
e way we meant to without any further hassle.”
She cocked her head at the road in front of us and pulled over to the shoulder with a lurch. The shadows of the trees stretched long across the car. We were far enough from both campus and the town that I couldn’t see any sign of either, only the forest looming darkly on either side.
My mother muttered a few words that I assumed were a security casting of some sort—making sure no sound could leave the car, or maybe even disguising it from view so no one who happened to pass by would realize we were sitting here talking. Then she swiveled in her seat to face me.
“You’ve still been romantically entangled with the Bloodstone scion,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but then, how likely was that to have changed in the week since I’d stood up for Rory at her hearing?
The memory of telling Rory I loved her, of her saying it back—as exhilarating as soaring through the air with her holding onto my dragon form—quivered through my mind. I schooled my expression as impassive as I could. Those reactions wouldn’t fit with the story I wanted my mother to believe.
“I have,” I said. “After the hearing, she trusts me completely.”
“Hmm. Well, at least we can get some satisfaction out of knowing she’ll be heartbroken as a little payback for the trouble she’s caused us. The moment she comes back from this mission to California, I want you to break things off with her. As callously as you know how.”
I blinked at her, my stomach sinking. I’d thought we’d gotten past the idea of breaking Rory’s heart—I’d managed to convince my parents once that staying with the Bloodstone scion worked in their favor as well as mine.
“There are still so many ways it could be useful for me to have her ear,” I said, scrambling for any excuse I could find. Verbal sparring wasn’t exactly one of my strengths. “Why throw away the work I’ve already put in?”
My mother shrugged. “We don’t have to care what’s going on with the little bitch anymore. Like I said, she’ll be her mother’s responsibility. And her mother will be making the calls for the Bloodstone barony.”
“For now. Rory will be baron eventually.”
“And in the meantime, she’s making a mockery of her family name. I don’t want to see the Stormhurst name dragged through any mud alongside her.”
“I can look after myself,” I said stiffly, but my mind was racing for some other argument to offer. I couldn’t throw my relationship with Rory away. If I’d thought doing that would help her, I would have in an instant, but just to satisfy my mother? Hell, no.
The time I had with Rory was the most happiness I’d felt since I’d ruined Holden’s life.
I latched onto one final effort. “Won’t Baron Bloodstone be upset about a Stormhurst causing her daughter that much pain?”
My mother snorted. “Althea will be just as disturbed by her daughter’s behavior—and just as eager to see her brought to heel—as we’ve been.” Her eyes narrowed as she considered me. “For someone who was supposedly only using the girl, you seem awfully reluctant to break things off with her. I’m starting to think you’ve fallen for her.”
The words sprang to my tongue to deny it, but at the same time an unexpected sense of resolve rose up inside me.
What was the point in denying it? I wasn’t going to follow my mother’s orders anyway, and she’d know that I hadn’t. Didn’t Rory deserve a guy who’d stand up for her not just in front of a judge but to his own parents? Who was willing to own his feelings for her even when it might make his life a little more difficult?
What could my mother do to me, really, that I couldn’t handle? I was her only real heir. It was time I started acting like I knew that.
I looked back at my mother, letting the strength I could feel coiled through my body harden my gaze. “If I have, isn’t that my business, not yours? I’m twenty years old. I think that’s past the point when you should be dictating who I spend my time with.”
A flash of surprise crossed my mother’s face before she managed to contain it. I caught it with a spark of triumph that lasted until her mouth set in a grim line.
“You need to be brought to heel too, then. And that’s my responsibility as both your mother and baron. We’ll see what we can make of this… misguided infatuation.”
“It isn’t misguided and it’s not an infatuation,” I said.
She ignored me, gunning the engine again. My heart lurched, and my hand shot to the door. Alarm rang through me. I had to get out of here, away from her.
I yanked at the door handle, but it didn’t budge. My mother chuckled and hit the gas. As the car sped onto the road, I spun toward her, just in time for her to whip a spell at me with a single snapped casting word.
My body slammed back into the seat. My jaw locked shut. My muscles strained, but I couldn’t move any part of me as much as half an inch. All I could do was stare straight ahead as my mother tore off to some unknown destination.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rory
I came to on a hard wooden chair in a room the size of a closet. Glancing up, my head still a little foggy, I realized it might very well be a closet, just an empty one. A rung ran across one side near the top of the space, and the open doorway in front of me appeared to lead out into a larger room rather than a hallway.
Cuffs made of thick metal encircled my wrists, weighing them down on my lap. Otherwise, I didn’t seem to be restrained at all. I stood up, braced myself against a rush of dizziness, and took a tentative step toward the doorway.
It was a good thing my hands were locked in front of me. They, instead of my face, banged into an invisible but sharply solid barrier across the doorway. I jerked back as lances of pain shot up my forearms. My calves jarred against the chair behind me. There wasn’t a whole lot of room to maneuver.
Which I guessed was the idea. A woman stepped into view—the woman with the penetrating green eyes who’d taken my necklace and accused me of murdering my parents. She eyed me warily, her square face framed by a chin-length bob of mixed gray and nut-brown.
“You’re not going anywhere,” she said. “Whatever plans you had for harming the Conclave, you can forget about them.”
Okay. I’d known the first part of this confrontation might be hard. I forced myself to sit back down on the stool where I could rest my arms at a more comfortable angle.
“I didn’t come so I could hurt the Conclave,” I said. “Admitting who I am upfront and walking in here peacefully wouldn’t have been the smartest approach if I had, would it?”
“That depends on how much access you were hoping to get before you revealed your true intentions.”
I breathed in and out as calmly as I could, holding my temper. It made sense for her to be suspicious of me. She had no idea what had happened to me or where I’d been for the last six months.
“Why don’t we start by clearing a few things up, then?” I said. “I had nothing to do with my parents’ deaths. I didn’t even know what was going on when the fearmancer squad came to get me. I tried to save Mom and Dad. But there wasn’t a whole lot I could do considering I didn’t even know I had magic, let alone have any training in how to use it.”
The woman folded her arms over her chest. Her gaze flicked briefly to the side, making me suspect someone else was following this conversation out of my sight.
“If you were an unwilling victim, where have you been all this time? Why didn’t you reach out to the Conclave for help?”
Seriously? “I didn’t exactly have a chance. The only joymancers I knew were my parents, and they were gone. I couldn’t have taken off across the country without the fearmancers chasing me down in an instant. It wasn’t like I could look you all up in a phone directory or something.”
“But you made it here now.”
“Yes. I—” I hesitated, not sure it’d be wise to reveal my exact reasons for being here. There wasn’t any point in bringing up my birth mother and tipping off the joymancers that we were aware they were keeping her captive
until I was in a position to start negotiating instead of just defending myself. “I was able to take part in a trip out here. My familiar told me how to find this place. Deborah can confirm everything I’ve told you. If you’ve looked at the records, you must know she’s more than just a mouse.”
The woman let out a huff. “A human mind trapped in an animal—no doubt easily manipulated. I wouldn’t trust anything we saw in that little rodent head at this point. Why bother looking at it?”
My heart sank. I shifted my wrists on my lap, the cuffs chaffing my skin. They must have been like the ones the blacksuits had put on me when I’d first been taken into custody for Imogen’s murder—blocking my magical abilities. I couldn’t sense a hint of the magic that’d been collected behind my sternum.
“You could look in my head at my memories, then,” I offered, even though the thought of making myself vulnerable to this woman left my skin crawling. If taking that risk made my case for me, it’d be worth it.
But she was already shaking her head. “You’d have come prepared. I have no reason to believe anything you say—or anything you show me.”
I groped for some other proof I could give her. “The necklace you took off me—that charm was one my parents gave me. I wouldn’t be wearing something I got from joymancers if I didn’t still care about them and miss them.”
“Again,” the woman said, “I have no reason to believe anything you say.” She rocked back on her heels, her jaw working. “The Francos were always too easy on you. They believed the toxic stain wouldn’t show through as long as you never had the opportunity to work your magic. And yet you fell in with our enemies so easily. With the people who killed them, if your story is true.”
“I hate what the fearmancers did to Mom and Dad,” I said quietly. “And they’re not all like that. I’ve been trying to make a difference in the fearmancer community as much as I can. I don’t know what you want from me, if you’re not going to believe anything. What can I do or say that would count?” Or were they going to keep me locked up here until the end of time?