Cast in Balefire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Mage Craft Series Book 4)

by SM Reine

  “Any time,” he said, patting the back of the chair beside him. “Share our ganja!”

  “It’s important,” she said.

  “Then wait around a bit. I’ll make time for you as soon as possible.” He patted the chair again.

  Charity sank to the chair, painfully conscious of the men looking at her. She was far from the ugliest thing in Sheol, but these were creatures of Earth, where the likes of Charity never saw daylight.

  “Lemme introduce you, Char.” Arawn pointed to the vampire. “Lucifer, the biggest name in lethe sales on Earth. He’s trying to talk us into an exclusive distribution deal.”

  “I know.” There weren’t a ton of vampires around. Of the few that existed, fewer reached celebrity. Charity hadn’t had many others of her breed to keep tabs on in the news, so she’d been reading about Lucifer for years.

  “This gentleman is Adàn Pedregon of Los Cambiasformas Something-Something,” Arawn said without missing a beat. “Stag shifter.”

  His face was new to Charity. “Here for lethe, I presume?”

  Adàn gave her a dismissively empty look, as if trying to discourage her from speaking. This was man’s business, she understood, and even a revenant woman was still only a woman.

  “She hasn’t agreed to a meeting yet,” Adàn said. He’d picked up the conversation from where they left off when Charity interrupted them. “We can’t schedule the assault until she’s been secured.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Arawn said. “What are the chances she’ll be in Dilmun when we make the swap?”

  “She won’t keep her promise to the angels anyway. She may never be in Dilmun. I don’t see a reason to wait for her,” Lucifer said.

  They very well could have been talking about any random angel, but Charity doubted it.

  Arawn caught Charity’s gaze. “Yeah, we’re talking Marion. You like the mage kid, yeah? You’ll love this. Adàn here wants to yank Marion into safety before we make our assault on Dilmun. Don’t suppose you’ve got any ideas how to lure Marion away from danger?”

  “You’re going to assault Dilmun?” Charity asked. No wonder Arawn had amassed so many centuriae.

  It had been years since demons had been on Earth in significant numbers. During Genesis, demons had been cleaned off the face of the planet and tucked into the musty corners of the Nether Worlds. Arawn moving a demon army onto Earth would be enormous trouble.

  As in, working-against-the-gods’-will-and-pissing-them-off kind of trouble.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.” Arawn waved off the arguments she hadn’t gotten a chance to voice yet. “Focus, Char. Marion? What do we do with her?”

  “We don’t need a revenant’s help with that.” Lucifer’s voice was oily-smooth, like a man who knew he had a royal flush when everyone else was barely scraping pairs. “You wouldn’t believe who I got a ping on the darknet from today.”

  “Marion?” Arawn suggested.

  “Someone who wants me to do a favor for her. I’ll tell her she can’t have what she wants unless she comes and sees me. And then just like that—she’s safe, and we can stop fussing around with all this stupid shit.”

  “I’m not sure why any of you care about Marion’s safety,” Charity said, aware it was probably an awful idea to poke villains cackling over expensive weed.

  Both Arawn and Lucifer looked at Adàn, who didn’t look at anything except his joint.

  It didn’t matter why a stag shifter wanted Marion safe. Knowing what Charity knew of Marion and the men surrounding her, it was more than likely a decision steered by his dick in one way or another. The mage girl could take care of herself. She wasn’t the confused patient who’d appeared in Charity’s emergency room anymore.

  “We should get Marion into Sheol,” Charity said. “Make sure she is in Dilmun when the attack happens, so that we can secure her personally.”

  “You want her dead? Is that what this is? Because you’ll have to get in line if you’ve got a grudge,” Lucifer said.

  “I just don’t want her delivered into the arms of a vampire. I’d rather have her with me.” And then Charity could deliver Marion to Seth’s altar.

  He burst into laughter. “Remind me what you are?”

  “Someone that Marion will be safe with,” Charity said. She focused on Adàn rather than the vampire while speaking. He was the one with leverage, and she needed to convince him. “I will protect her with my life. That’s not a small thing with me.”

  “Sounds good to me, let’s do it,” Arawn said.

  She hadn’t expected the response to come from him. “Really?”

  Arawn’s lips curled into a smile. “Oh yes. Let’s drag Marion to Sheol.”

  Charity was escorted back to her room by a dozen demons. Legs was there again, as well as Gunner. She didn’t recognize the rest. Her babysitters had been shuffled around.

  She hadn’t gotten in trouble for slipping her guards to crash Arawn’s party, but it hadn’t gone unnoticed. They weren’t letting her out of their sights.

  That degree of security was only inconvenient when she needed to use the bathroom, really. Charity had a shy bladder.

  She would soon need to get away again. Demons were gathering along the inside of the Bronze Gates, so they must have been planning to march on whatever door led to Earth, and Charity needed to be there.

  Somewhere in eternity, Seth was still screaming.

  Arawn’s entrance was preceded by the jangling of chains on his hips. He snapped his fingers at his guards. “Everyone out.”

  Legs and Tongueless whooped, the former more coherently than the latter. “Get ‘er! Get up on that!”

  They thought they were being dismissed so Arawn and Charity could do…private things. A nauseating idea. The man’s organs were dangling out of his chest half the time.

  Arawn cackled and swung a joking kick at their posteriors as they scurried out.

  Charity shuttered her window. “What do you need?”

  “You’re up to something, Little Miss Revenant.” He stretched an arm past her to push the shutters back open. “Watching the army, butting in on meetings, asking for Marion… I’m thinking you finished your altar.”

  “I did,” Charity said.

  Arawn braced his hand on the wall beside her, eyes dark with mirth and his skin glowing from the balefire outside. He was shorter than her by several feet. He managed to make her feel intimidated by the cage of his presence anyway. “And?”

  “I have to get Marion to the altar. Seth’s suffering. He needs her.”

  He drummed his fingernails on the windowsill, like nails hammered into stone. “It’s a shitty idea you’ve got. No way it goes right. Marion Garin’s riddled with angel blood, and she’ll be dying the second she sets foot in Sheol. You won’t have time to sneak off with her.”

  “I assumed you’d supply those red potions she used last time she was here.” Charity risked a smile. “You agreed to take Marion into Sheol so that I could protect her, so I thought—”

  “I wanted to see what was ticking in your brain, and now I know for sure it’s to help Death.” Arawn groaned loudly, like a teenager told he wasn’t allowed to visit the mall with his friends that weekend. “I can’t stand that self-righteous piece of shit!”

  “He’s my friend.” More than her friend, though she feared it wouldn’t be in the way she’d always half-hoped. She’d often fantasized about a life with eligible bachelor Dr. Flynn when she’d been hiding behind magic so that she looked like a normal woman.

  Seth had always been blunt about his emotional unavailability, though. Nice, but…honest. Seth wanted to be alone.

  Well, he’d gotten what he wanted in a sick way.

  Arawn flipped his dreads over his shoulder with a twitch. “You’re friends with Death, my immortal enemy. Peachy. What are we?”

  Charity grimaced. “I’m a prisoner in your demon-infested tower of darkness.”

  “I let you build the altar,” he said.

  She wavered. “We
ll…okay. Maybe I’m not your prisoner, but I don’t know what else we could be.”

  “Enemies?”

  “No. Whatever we are, it’s not enemies.” It felt so weird to say that, but it would have been wrong to say anything else.

  “Stop that,” Arawn said.

  “Huh? Stop what?”

  “Your chin wrinkles up when you’re thinking shitty things about yourself. Stop it.”

  Her claws scraped lightly over her pointed chin. It was wrinkled. “You have no idea what I’m thinking.”

  “Does it involve trying to stop my army from doing whatever the fuck I want on Earth?”

  “No,” Charity said honestly. She was truly every inch the monster, inside and out. She ate raw meat that was probably human, made not-enemies with a psychopathic demon lord, and had no interest in trying to subvert Arawn’s cruel plans.

  “Cool.” Arawn took her hand, fingers linking with hers. Charity’s claws broke the skin over his bones by the faintest brush—in part because they were so sharp, and in part because Arawn’s human-like form was so frail. He didn’t seem to care.

  He pressed a vial filled with red potion into her hand.

  “Don’t sneak around,” Arawn said. “Nobody’s gonna stop whatever you wanna do, so long as you don’t mess with what I wanna do.”

  He chucked her in the shoulder gently and gave a wink.

  When he exited, he left the door open behind him.

  14

  Marion survived three more assaults from assassins by the time she heard back from Benjamin.

  That was how time was measured in the Winter Court: how many times she gritted her teeth through dinner beside Konig, how often she wondered if Benjamin had forgotten about Shamayim, and how many people tried to kill her.

  Getting rid of the urisk had done only that—getting rid of the urisk. There were many other sidhe in the Middle Worlds.

  “Your problem’s that there weather in them Coronal Ridges.” Wintersong waved a hand over the looking glass. The reflective surface shimmered, revealing a mountain on the outskirts of the Winter Court rimmed by ocean. “It’s getting too warm.”

  “That’s absurd. Look at it.” This came from Aoife, who was currently serving as advisor rather than as handmaiden. She was chillier than usual, but she seemed happy in it. This was a woman with a mind sharp as the surgeon’s scalpel. She suffered when forced to fret over Marion’s fashion. “Does that look warm to you?”

  The trees were the same shiny, ice-tipped wood that Marion had always known. The main difference was that snow around the trunks was beginning to tunnel. “That’s a sign of melting,” Marion said.

  “It’s barely a change,” Aoife said.

  “Doesn’t take much to soften up ice for them naiads to liquefy it with magic. They’s gots a den taking root on our shores.” Wintersong believed that this was another consequence of Konig’s rule—the reshaping of the kingdom he knew as home.

  Marion believed it was more insidious. The fact that the Raven Knights readily disposed of the naiads was a sure sign of how unserious the attacks were. Someone was trying to send Marion a message, not cause harm.

  The first of the assassins that Leliel had sent after Marion had been urisk. The second assassins had been naiads. It couldn’t be coincidence that they were back at the same time that Leliel was getting her scent all over Titania.

  Maddisyn entered the throne room. “A visitor has arrived, Your Majesty. He doesn’t have any paperwork so I don’t know how he got here.” She giggled nervously behind a hand. “And he’s pretty darn cute to boot.”

  Marion’s heart leapt. Benjamin hadn’t forgotten about Shamayim after all. “Send him in.” She turned to Aoife. “If you don’t believe the presence of naiads are a result of a changing climate, then I want an alternative by the end of dinner tonight.”

  Aoife mostly concealed her scowl. “As you command.”

  “Have Maddisyn help you look for solutions,” Marion said. “And any of the other handmaidens you want. I’d like to be alone with my visitor.”

  Maddisyn gave another of those shrill giggles.

  By the time Benjamin Flynn came into the throne room, he was alone with Marion and two Raven Knights. That was about as alone as Marion got these days.

  She drank in the sight of Benjamin as he drank in the sight of her throne room. He took a long time reaching her because he kept pausing to examine insignificant curves on the furniture—installed by Konig’s late mother—and icy flourishes on the walls—a development following Konig’s personality.

  His eyes got brighter when he was studying such minute details. Benjamin would lose himself in thought, and he would smell amazing for a few seconds before remembering to move again.

  Wait. I can smell Benjamin at this distance?

  Marion would have looked weird sniffing at the air. Werewolf Alphas could get away with it, not mages. She was certain that she smelled something from him, though. It made her heart race.

  The scent reminded her of the academy.

  He finally reached her end of the throne room, gazing up at Marion on the dais with that same delicious aura. He smelled like knowledge. Learning. Benjamin was excitedly absorbing new details from the sidhe court, and it appealed to Marion. Leliel wasn’t the only one with angel tricks. Marion just usually wasn’t around mundane humans to take advantage.

  “This place is awesome!” Benjamin’s enthusiasm was as infectious as his thirst for learning.

  “Thank you. It’s been a struggle to make the palace livable, but we do what we can.” It had been Konig doing the steering, but she’d sacrificed blood to secure the Winter Court, and she wouldn’t yield her due credit.

  “Livable? This is so much better than livable.” He gave a lopsided grin. “I always knew you’d end up in a castle.”

  Her cheeks managed to heat despite the chill. “Let’s take a seat.”

  She couldn’t get her eyes off of him as they sat at one of Violet’s smaller tables. Tove arrived with mead before Marion had even managed to get her dress tucked around her knees the way she liked.

  “Are you not helping Aoife?” Marion asked.

  “I was gonna, but then I heard what Maddisyn said about visitors, and…” Tove lifted her eyebrows at Benjamin. Had she winked at him too? “I’ve got the best hook-ups on the drink anyway.”

  Benjamin eyed the crimson fluid sloshing into the glass. “I’m not sure I should drink that.”

  “You’re an adult as far as the sidhe are concerned,” Marion said.

  “Right, yeah, because I’m going to college. Okay.” He sipped, and made a face.

  “Does it taste bad?” Marion asked, sniffing her glass. It smelled as it always did.

  “It’s strong,” Benjamin rasped.

  Maybe they didn’t let alcohol into the sanctuary, so he hadn’t had an opportunity to drink it. And the sidhe stuff was much stronger than what they had on Earth.

  “I can get you stronger,” Tove said, slinking around his chair. She wasn’t restraining her power for Marion’s benefit as the handmaidens usually did. She was trailed by the aroma of sticky smoke and crushed grapes.

  “Bring us roast pig,” Marion said. She didn’t mean to bark the order, but watching one of her handmaidens trying to magically seduce a guest had gotten her hackles up. To get pig this early in the day, Tove would have to have it cooked, and she’d be gone for hours.

  Tove drooped with sullen irritation. “Fine. Your Highness.”

  Before she left, she shot a look of pure acid that Marion likely wasn’t meant to see.

  Tove was usually too inebriated to have a personality. That was the first glimpse Marion had gotten of what Tove really thought of being handmaiden—and what she thought of Marion’s cock-blocking angel ways.

  Marion shrugged it off. “I hope you’re here with good news,” she said, swirling the wine in her glass.

  “I’m here for the interview, remember?” Benjamin eyed the sidhe remaining in the room mis
trustfully.

  He was trying to keep the Shamayim matter away from Marion’s people.

  They’d report back to Konig if Marion dismissed everyone for a private conversation. She wasn’t meant to be alone, not ever.

  “The interview, yes.” Marion smoothed her hands over her skirt, trying to make it look like she was adjusting herself rather than fidgeting with impatience. “We can begin when you’re ready.”

  He set a tablet on the table between them. “Mind if I record audio?”

  “Can you?” The amount of magic in the Middle Worlds made recording devices fail.

  “I’ve got resources.”

  Marion opened her mind to the delicate strands of magic clinging to the tablet. She got an immediate vision of a witch close in age to Marion, who was shorter and plumper with patches of paler skin on her face.

  “Sinead McGrath is your resource,” Marion said. Sinead was the high priestess at the shifter academy, so it was unsurprising that she would be friends with Benjamin.

  He laughed nervously. “Your lack of memories are awfully sharp.”

  “You can record if you’re capable.”

  “Awesome.” He tapped the screen. “Let’s just roll with that whole train of thought. You just sensed Sinead’s magic. Are you getting stronger again now that you’re Queen of the Unseelie?”

  The coronation had only made Marion weaker, if anything.

  “My growing magic is not related.” How would she want her story told when mundane humans learned about her new rule among the sidhe? “I’m strengthened in myriad other ways by occupying the Middle Worlds. I find myself familiarized with the intricacies of sidhe magic, and knowledge fuels me.”

  “Hmm, could you try to repeat that in a more boring way?” Benjamin asked. “I’m writing a book, Em. Don’t you want people to like you?”

  Being liked had never seemed to be an option. “I’ll settle for their respect.”

  “You don’t have to settle,” Benjamin said.

  “Remind me what this book is meant to be about, exactly?” she asked coolly. Anything to redirect the subject.

  “My proposal primarily involves the secret history of the sidhe courts,” Benjamin said.