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

by SM Reine

  “What does it secondarily involve?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t gotten that far.”

  “Your publisher must have a lot of faith in you,” Marion said.

  “I think they have a lot of faith in my mom’s ability to sell things. You know the first volume of her autobiography hasn’t left the bestseller lists since she published it?”

  “Everyone wants to understand why they were killed in Genesis. Rylie’s firsthand account is practically the Bible.”

  “This will be another definitive perspective on circumstances surrounding Genesis, probably,” Benjamin said. “I haven’t published it yet. Nothing’s certain.” His smile drooped. “Except that I need to figure out these ‘dreams’ I’ve been having.”

  A tray of macarons was set on the table between them, and, at last, the servants were gone. Only Wintersong and Dwynwen lingered near the doors. There was no shedding them. This was as much privacy as Marion could get.

  She punched a button on Benjamin’s tablet to stop recording. “Tell me more about the dreams.”

  “I’m interviewing you,” Benjamin said.

  “You were. Now you’re not. You want Shamayim—why?”

  “The red-haired woman told me that I need to get there,” Benjamin said. “I saw it in this weird vision where I was wearing a collar, and she called me Nathaniel.”

  “Those are the important details?”

  “They stuck out,” he said. “I’m not named Nathaniel, and I’ve never worn a collar. You know, in public.” He gave an exaggerated wink that was likely intended to be suggestive of the kind of sex acts faeries happily performed for audiences. “She asked for me—Nathaniel—to come to Shamayim because it was time. Obviously it must be since you’re heading there too.”

  “It was only brought to my attention because someone else wants it,” Marion said. “The person I’ve spoken to doesn’t have red hair.” She hadn’t seen Onoskelis without the hood, but it was unlikely a goat had any kind of human-like hair.

  “It’s connected,” Benjamin said firmly.

  That was yet to be seen. “Did you get in touch with Lucifer?”

  “Oh yeah, it was really easy. I just hacked into his email, left him a message with my phone number, and waited for his phone call. Anyone could do it.”

  Marion certainly wouldn’t have been able to. “That’s quite the circuitous route to contacting him. Why hack?”

  “It was the easiest way to get a meeting.”

  “Hacking is easy?”

  “When your big sister’s a computer wiz, it is,” Benjamin said. “Summer basically designed the Office of Preternatural Affairs’s software from scratch, and she’s crazy good with digital security.” He hastened to add, “She didn’t help me with this. I had notes from the time I hacked another email as a joke.”

  The Gresham way of joking was very strange indeed. “You did meet with Lucifer, though? What did he say?”

  “He won’t give me a super-user account for the darknet, but he’ll give one to you if you meet him on Earth.” Benjamin looked so smug with himself. “You alone.”

  She twirled the stem of her glass between forefinger and thumb. “Without Konig.”

  “He suggests you guys meet in Dilmun. I know that’s weird. Why would he want to send you all the way over to the EL? And it’s not bloodless territory.”

  “I have a meeting planned in Dilmun soon. Leliel may be in the Summer Court, and we’re attempting to form a plan of action. The fact he knows that is disturbing.” Lucifer had been paying too much attention to Marion’s dealings. “Is he spying on me?”

  Benjamin lifted his hands defensively. “I didn’t want to tick off a vampire by asking that. I wouldn’t stand a chance! I’m a powerless guy with really delicious blood.”

  He certainly smelled delicious, though Marion didn’t think she was picking up on his blood. “You know how your blood tastes?”

  “You don’t have to hold a million bucks to know it would be awesome,” he said in a pseudo-wise tone.

  Marion rolled her eyes, even though she couldn’t keep from chuckling.

  Wintersong edged toward them. “Your Royalness?”

  “Don’t interrupt us,” she said. “We’re busy.”

  “But your husband’s gotten in Niflheimr. He’s coming right for you.”

  Marion pushed her wine glass away. “Let’s continue this conversation elsewhere.” Somewhere that the king wouldn’t see her talking to Benjamin.

  He scooped up his tablet and followed.

  They exited through the rear doors of the throne room—the opposite direction from which Konig usually entered the dimension. Ymir had shown Marion a hallway that looped behind the bedrooms and led to the frozen courtyard. It was as private as anywhere else in Niflheimr.

  “I want to come to your meeting with Lucifer in Dilmun,” Benjamin said.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Marion said. Onoskelis’s note had commanded her to get darknet access through him, not drag Benjamin around like next fall’s hottest fashion accessory.

  “We both need Shamayim. And you said you’d help me once I helped you.”

  They stepped out into the courtyard, and Marion shut the door before Wintersong could follow. She kept a firm hand on the seam between doors, but the Raven Knight didn’t try to push through anyway.

  “Why should I believe you about these strange dreams you’re having when you supply so little detail?” Marion asked, searching Benjamin’s eyes.

  He wasn’t bothered by the weight of her cold blue eyes. He’d grown up probed by the piercing golden stare of werewolves. The writer stared at her just as hard as she stared at him, and he advanced until the hem of his fur coat touched hers.

  “I’ve given you all the detail I have,” he said.

  “Who is the red-haired woman?” Marion pressed.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s Shamayim like? Is there really a weapon in there, as they say?”

  “I don’t know,” Benjamin repeated patiently.

  “It sounds like you want Shamayim, not that you need it. I do need to reach Shamayim rather desperately and I can’t be encumbered in my pursuit.”

  “I’m helpful, not encumbering,” Benjamin said. “You could use a friend.”

  Marion’s hackles lifted. “I’m never without handmaidens and family. I’m hardly surrounded by enemies.”

  “You’re not?” he asked.

  Her hand crept instinctively to her cheek. Even though the bruise had long since healed, the memory of it was worse than physical pain anyway.

  Marion released the door and moved toward the memorial. There were still fresh flowers under the stone with all the names of those who had died. Though it had been months, the surviving families still tended to their graves.

  “I don’t even know you.”

  “You know me great, and the other way around. You don’t have to remember us being friends. We are.” Benjamin caught up to her in a couple of long strides, leaping in front of her path. He walked backwards so that he could face her.

  He was a lot more sunshiney than Seth. The word that came to mind was “unburdened.” Benjamin hadn’t sworn himself to a life of loneliness after his ex-fiancée left him for his brother. He hadn’t remade a solitary life in California, far from home.

  Still, he reminded her of Seth. It was comfortable spending time together. Marion never felt so comfortable, even when she was receiving a simultaneous pedicure and scalp massage from the handmaidens.

  “How exactly do you think you could help me find Shamayim?” Marion asked. “I’m a mage. A queen.” She lifted a hand, and lightning sparked along her fingernails.

  “My mom always tells me how smart and adorable I am, so I’ve got that going for me,” Benjamin said.

  Her laugh hurt and the hurt didn’t go away once she’d stopped.

  Marion tugged her glove off and extended a hand. “Touch my fingers.”

  Benjamin
blinked. “Why?”

  “I just need to know if there’s a reaction,” Marion said.

  His laugh was uneasy. “Slow down there, Seabiscuit. You could buy me drinks first.”

  “Don’t be dramatic. I’m sure we held hands as children.” Not that she could verify that. “Please, Ben.”

  “All right, just don’t get weird,” he said, still in that joking tone.

  But his hands stretched out tentatively, and when their fingertips touched, Benjamin was shaking—just a little bit.

  Marion didn’t get a surge of anything except choking despair.

  There was no reaction. No swell of recognition or onslaught of memories. Even once touching Seth had stopped giving Marion new memories, there hadn’t been no reaction. There had always been something between them.

  “You should put your gloves back on.” The knot in Benjamin’s throat bounced as he swallowed. “You’re cold.”

  Onoskelis wouldn’t have put him in Marion’s path without a reason. He didn’t want to reach Shamayim by coincidence.

  Benjamin Flynn must mean something.

  Whether it was impulse or desperation that drove her forward, Marion wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she pushed into Benjamin’s personal space, trapping his hand at her side, and she kissed him.

  Niflheimr reacted to Konig’s arrival like a resentful ex-girlfriend conceding to a booty call. The castle wasn’t excited to see him—an unseelie prince of the wrong court—but it knew him on such an intimate level that it was hard to refuse.

  The tower where he arrived had recently reshaped itself to Konig’s whims. He wasn’t so self-serious as to be unamused by the metal phalluses that budded from the ice, sharpened to sword points with glans-like tips.

  Considering how hard up Konig had been for sex since Nori’s death, he was surprised the unseelie courts hadn’t reformed into a big-breasted naked woman with nipples flavored like hops. Swords were comparatively subtle.

  One of the Raven Knights he’d left to guard Marion was waiting to receive him. “Where is she?” Konig asked. “Why aren’t you watching her?”

  “She sent us away,” said Dwynwen. “Wintersong’s still attached.”

  Wintersong was the one who’d been snooping around on Marion’s behalf. He wasn’t a reliable guard.

  “Stay out of my way,” Konig said.

  The halls of Niflheimr had been reforming to his will too. Where he’d been carefully sculpting his childhood home of Myrkheimr, he took no such care in the Winter Court.

  Konig thrust his fist toward one of the doorways, and he exploded through the atoms of the court.

  One hall vanished. Another appeared.

  Cracks splintered the ice, all the way from floor to ceiling. The wind that swirled through them was too cold, even for Konig. A flick of his fingers turned parts of the roof into sconces, and another flick summoned witchlights to warm him. Eventually they would also melt parts of Niflheimr, but that would be Marion’s problem.

  Marion was about to have a lot of problems, in fact. Benjamin had been spotted sneaking into the Winter Court. They were currently alone together in secret.

  Konig would make her respect him.

  His crimson cloak billowed behind him as he descended into the bowels of the palace.

  Though she wasn’t sidhe, Marion’s rule had left fingerprints of its own. The displaced halls whispered at her passing. They told him that she was in the courtyard, so he gestured to move towers around. A bend appeared where there had been nothing but straight lines before. Fresh witchlights blossomed, caged in vine-like stalactites.

  Konig beckoned the courtyard toward him.

  It wouldn’t budge. There was too much magic affixing it to its position in the world. He would have to walk.

  A woman stood in front of the doors to the courtyard. Konig mistook her for Marion until he drew nearer and realized this woman’s hair was touched with gray, and her eyes weren’t pale-blue.

  It was his mother-in-law. He knew Ariane Kavanagh had been visiting Marion, but he’d made excuses to avoid meeting her.

  He itched to get through the door to the courtyard where Marion and Benjamin were meeting. Courtesy was ingrained too deeply into the gentry to brush past Ariane, as he’d have liked.

  “You must be Marion’s mother. What a pleasure.” Konig bowed shallowly—all the respect a king owed to in-laws. “I see where Marion inherited her excellent taste.”

  Ariane did look good. Her dress was as elaborate as anything her daughter wore, but entirely in black lace with steel boning. The ruffles draped over her skirt’s hoops were parted to reveal fluffy bloomers, above-the-knee leather boots, and the kind of heels Konig’s mom would have loved.

  She had every inch of Marion’s proud arrogance, too. She glowed with smug satisfaction at the compliment. “Your Majesty is as gracious as he is handsome. I regret that it took so long for us to have the pleasure of meeting.”

  “As delighted as I am to meet you, I’m in a rush,” Konig said. “Speak with my people—let’s arrange a dinner.”

  Ariane followed him onto the mezzanine overlooking the courtyard. “Should I be concerned about an emergency?”

  Only if Konig found proof that Marion was deceiving him, sneaking around with this Benjamin behind his back. “Not at all, Mrs. Kavanagh.”

  “Call me Ariane, please.” She paced him to the railing, which had once been made of stone, but had been replaced by wrought-iron spirals. It was firm under Konig’s hands as his eyes swept over the courtyard.

  The memorial to the dead refugees filled its center, like a morbid fountain with no water. Its crystalline shapes blocked his view.

  He could just make out a sliver of Marion’s dress. Only she could afford to wear mink fur drenched in diamonds.

  “You look troubled.” Ariane stepped in his path when he tried to get along the edge of the mezzanine to see better. “Is there a problem?”

  “Nothing to concern you,” Konig said.

  “Allow me to guess. It’s related to Marion’s returning memories.”

  Now she had his attention. Ariane’s look of superiority was something out of Marion’s inventory of facial expressions.

  “What do you know about that?”

  “I’m sure you know as much as I do,” Ariane said. “The Librarian is assigning labors to Marion to help her reach Shamayim.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of any such thing. What librarian?”

  Ariane’s hand flew to her heart. “She didn’t tell you?”

  Marion had stepped far enough forward that Konig could see her face in profile. She was looking up at Benjamin, who was still hidden by the irregular shapes of the monument. She looked to be arguing with him rather intently.

  “Marion and I have been busy with matters of state,” Konig said. “Our time for talking has been limited.”

  “I’d have thought she would consider restoration of her faculties to be urgent.” Ariane was faking that apologetic look. Konig was sure of it. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “But it’s true? Marion is getting her memories back?”

  “She’s had a fistful returned, but she’ll get the rest once she completes enough tasks. I have the next of her assignments right here.” Ariane fanned herself with an envelope sealed shut by wax. She held it out of reach when Konig tried to take it. “Don’t open the letter. I wouldn’t put it past the Librarians to curse it.”

  “Give it to me.”

  She did.

  Konig’s fingertip hovered over the wax seal. “What’s a Librarian? Nerdy old woman who loves books?” His eyes flicked up to Marion, still talking to Benjamin. She’d lifted her hand as if offering to shake with him.

  Wait, were they going to hold hands?

  “Librarians are more powerful than the gods, in their ways,” Ariane said. “They are omnipresent, though not omnipotent. They see all, they write all.”

  Marion pulled on Benjamin’s hand.

  “They sa
y that you’ll eventually rule all the sidhe,” Ariane said.

  Konig swung around to look at her, even though it meant turning from his bride. “All the sidhe? Including the seelie?”

  “It’s coming,” she said, hands folded in front of her. That all-knowing smile lingered on her lips.

  “And the Librarians know this? I’ve never heard of them. If you’re messing with me—”

  “Ask Marion. She’ll tell you,” Ariane said.

  Konig glanced over his shoulder at the courtyard.

  Marion was storming away from Benjamin, looking furious. He’d missed the end of their argument.

  He suddenly found it hard to care.

  King of the Sidhe.

  It would be the least he deserved.

  15

  Even a mundane kid got some degree of prestige by being the son of the Alpha, so Benjamin had never been short of admirers around the sanctuary. Half of them had been unwilling to admit it out loud because it wasn’t “cool” to crush on a non-shifter, but their longing gazes were unmistakable.

  Being near the top of the food chain at the sanctuary was nothing compared to being at the top of whatever food chain Marion was on. The kind of chain that hung out with gods.

  Marion was just so cool. She’d been cool as a kid, when the two of them had shared a swing set as his parents met foreign rulers. And she’d been cool in those preteen years they’d hung out, when Marion had battled Sinead for high priestess of the sanctuary.

  Benjamin was smart enough to know when a girl was out of his league. Marion was so far out that they weren’t in the same universe.

  But here she was, yanking him around for a kiss.

  Her strength was in magic, not her upper body, so he could have easily broken free. It just didn’t occur to him to try.

  Did he want to try?

  It was a lot weirder kissing Marion than he’d have expected. He’d been thinking about that snowflake dress nonstop for days. But kissing Marion wasn’t like kissing a pretty girl—even though she was—but more like when his adult sister, Summer, used to pin him down for sloppy kisses. He’d thought it was funny as a child, but now it was just…sort of gross.