“I understand, but you have to be fair to her.” I opened my eyes to see Ellen smiling at me, but there was a look of sadness in her wide brown eyes. “This is a difficult relationship to be in and the only reason Gideon and I have made it is because he talks to me. When things go bad, he tells me because he shouldn’t have to go through it alone. Neither should you. But it’s a burden for the other person and they have to make the choice to wade through the darkness with you. Right now, your girlfriend is trying to wade through the darkness but she doesn’t know why it’s dark.”
“Don’t you worry about the danger to you and your daughter because of Gideon?”
“Of course I do,” she said sharply, glaring at me. “But I won’t let that worry ruin our life. We take precautions and I trust in Gideon to keep us safe. In the end, life happens. I love Gideon and he loves me. We love our daughter. We are all happy together. I think it’s selfish to demand more than that.”
A bark of laughter escaped me. There was something so wonderfully practical about Ellen, and maybe that’s how she managed to thrive in a forbidden relationship with a warlock. It gave me a little shred of hope for Trixie and me.
“Thank you. I’ll talk to her.”
“Soon?”
“I promise.”
“Good.” The smile had returned to Ellen’s face and she relaxed again. Turning her attention back to the crowd before her, she let a contented little sigh escape her. I followed her gaze and found Gideon kneeling before his daughter as he talked to her and looked at the board game she had gotten from Santa Claus. The camera hung around his neck and he had one arm across the girl’s slim shoulders. At the same time, his other hand was holding Paola’s hand as she clutched what looked to be a box with a chess set. Even from this distance, I could tell the young woman was fighting back tears, but they looked to be happy tears.
Something inside my chest ached for her and the other runaways. How long had it been since any of them had received a gift or celebrated a holiday in a warm, loving atmosphere? For some, it was close to ten years. Paola was safe and loved in Ellen’s home.
As I looked up at Bronx and Trixie surrounded by kids, the sexy elf caught my eye and winked, putting the smile back on my lips before she turned her attention back to the task of soothing a frightened child. The last of the darkness that had a hold on me faded. The good will and cheer I had been desperately trying to find with this holiday party had soaked into my parched soul. I knew it wouldn’t last, but it would get me moving forward again. It would help me get my relationship with Trixie back on track again.
I just needed to tell her what had happened that night in the Towers.
Chapter 3
Checking the time on my cell phone, I stuffed it into my back pocket and turned the heat down on the spaghetti sauce. Trixie would be arriving any minute and I was proud to say that everything was ready. The bread was out of the oven and the salad was chilling in a bowl in the fridge. Stepping out of the kitchen, I surveyed the apartment one last time. The place was mostly clean and anything that wasn’t had been shoved in a closet or under the bed. Candles flickered on the card table covered with a new heavy linen tablecloth.
I frowned as I looked at the setup. The whole thing screamed “forgive me.” It was what I was going for, but it didn’t need to be this damn obvious. For other couples, it might have passed for romantic, but I wasn’t known for grand romantic gestures. Romance was usually offering to pick up the pizza while she chose the movie we’d watch.
Two days had passed since my talk with Ellen and I needed to live up to my promise to her and myself. I couldn’t put if off any longer. Trixie had to know, but I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation.
A sharp knock at the door sounded through the apartment and I nearly jumped. This was not a good sign. I needed to relax, reassure her that everything was okay, but some part deep down knew it wasn’t. There had been no fights, no shouting match where words bounced off our thick skulls. But the silence was getting deeper and I could feel a distance between us that hadn’t been there months ago.
Smoothing the worry from my face, I forced a broad smile and opened the door. Trixie smiled weakly back, looking tired but lovely. She still wore her glamour cloak, making her appear as a brown-haired human rather than the blonde elf that I loved so much. She didn’t need the disguise any longer now that the king of the Summer Court was bound to his wife, but the people of Low Town had come to know her as the brunette, so the disguise stayed for the sake of time and ease.
“Mmmmm. Something smells good,” she said as she kissed me. I stepped back to let her enter. “Did you order from—” Her words broke off sharply and I found her staring openmouthed at the table. “You cooked,” she finished in wonder.
I snorted, shutting the door. “Don’t get your hopes up too high. It’s spaghetti. You know, boil water. Don’t burn the bread.”
Trixie dropped her purse on the coffee table and tossed her heavy wool coat on the couch. “What did you do?”
“What do you mean?” I quickly replied. A little too quickly.
“You don’t cook. I honestly thought your oven was broken. You never clean. And is that an air freshener I smell? You’re either breaking up with me or you did something you need to apologize for.”
For a couple of seconds, I thought about teasing her and batting her questions away but I’d only prove her right in the end. Why insult her intelligence?
I sighed. “There is something we need to discuss, but I think any potential breaking up will be in your hands.”
Trixie took an involuntary step backward, fear flooding her wide eyes. “You’re going to tell me what happened in the Towers that night.” Her vibrant voice had become dull and flat, as if she had already started to steel herself against the horror of my words. I couldn’t tell if she was asking or making a statement so I just nodded. She had never asked about that night beyond checking on my physical well-being and I never volunteered any information. Of course, it had taken about a month for me to get past the impotent rage and hopelessness that consumed me.
“How bad is it?” She had wrapped her arms around her stomach and pulled in as if to protect herself against what I was going to tell her. I felt like shit and I had yet to open my mouth. This was going to be a bad night.
“It depends on a lot of things. Why don’t we eat and relax for a little while? Then we can talk.”
She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
I had a feeling this would happen. “Sit. I’ll be right back.” As she moved to the sofa, I jumped into the kitchen to turn off the spaghetti sauce, cover the bread, and grab two beers out of the fridge. Trixie frowned as she saw me approach.
“Can I just have water?”
Spinning on my left heel, I put one beer back and grabbed a bottle of water instead. When I sat on the couch, I was on the far end from her despite the fact that I’d have rather pulled her into my lap and held her tight, but I figured that she could use a little space. With my elbows on my knees, I leaned forward, staring at the coffee table without actually seeing it.
“You know I went for Reave,” I started slowly as I dredged up memories of that night in September. The dark elf was threatening the safety of the world. He had gotten the exact locations of seven of the Ivory Towers, the homes of the witches and warlocks, and he was threatening to sell the information. The warlocks and witches were in a panic, killing people off left and right, as they searched for the culprit. Every living creature in Indianapolis had been destroyed because of Reave’s plot. I had gotten dragged into the mess because Reave decided to use my older brother Robert as a courier, and because the Towers had begun to fear that I would reveal the locations of the hidden Towers. It became a fucking mess.
“I remember,” Trixie said evenly.
“I took Reave to the Towers in hopes of striking a deal with them. They were det
ermined to kill me because I was seen as a threat.”
“A threat? Why?”
I looked up at her and smiled at the anger in her voice. “I stood against their ideology. They also realized that I could tell others of the Tower locations. I was a potential security leak. The best way to plug that leak was to kill me.”
Trixie sat back against the sofa, relaxing a little bit more. “Obviously you managed to strike a deal with them since you’re sitting here alive and well.”
Alive? Yes. Well? That was a matter of opinion. There were nights I woke up screaming from nightmares that were old memories from my years in the Towers that had been dragged to the foreground of my mind. When I walked down the street, there was a little voice whispering in my head, warning me that if the people of Low Town discovered that I was a warlock from the Towers, I was dead. Before, I had been a former warlock-in-training who had escaped. Now I was a spy.
“What was the deal?” She gasped suddenly, clapping her hands over her mouth in horror. “They didn’t make you kill your brother, did they?”
“No,” I said with a relieved sigh. At least there was a scenario that was worse than the reality. Robert had been given the coordinates of the seven locations by Reave, but with a bit of magic and several potions, I wiped his memory, gave him a new identity, and sent him far from me.
“Then what? What was the deal?”
“I had to go back to the Towers,” I said softly. The words became acid burning away the back of my throat. At sixteen, I escaped the Towers and got my freedom back after nearly losing my life. I had refused to be a cold, heartless killer like them. The world was not something for me to stand on so I could achieve my own goal of gaining more power.
Trixie leapt to her feet and backpedaled away from me as if I had lunged at her with a knife. I didn’t move. “What are you talking about? What do you mean you had to go back?”
“I convinced the Towers that they were out of touch with the people of the world. I convinced them that there were going to be more Reaves if they didn’t act. I . . . offered to be a spy for the Towers.” Trixie’s gasp was a lash tearing across my back, but I pressed on. “The position gives me value so they won’t kill me. It allows me to stay here rather than returning to live in the Towers.”
“You would turn the people of this world over to the Towers? Your friends and neighbors?” she demanded in horrified tones.
“Of course not!” I shouted, leaping to my feet as my temper snapped. “I’d rather die than turn an innocent person over to those bastards. But if I’m standing between these people and the Towers, I can act as a buffer. As one of their guardians, I know what’s going on in the Towers. I can better protect people. Before, I was operating blind and couldn’t do shit. Now I know what’s happening, what they’re thinking.”
Trixie shrank back into herself at my burst of anger. “What about Reave?”
“What about him?” I asked warily, my voice dropping close to a whisper.
“You handed him over to the Towers.”
“Reave wasn’t innocent,” I growled. “Not by a long shot. He was going to get everyone killed by auctioning off that information. We both know a war with the Towers can’t be won. Handing in Reave was the only way to save us all.”
“Then where does that leave you now? What do you have to do?”
The anger left me in a rush and I flopped back down on the couch. Leaning back, I propped one foot up on the edge of the scarred table. “That’s still a little vague.” I mumbled. “I’m regarded as a guardian, though I don’t have all the rights and privileges that go with such a title.”
Trixie edged back over to the sofa and sat on the corner. “What does a guardian do?”
The urge to hold her was overwhelming. I needed to hold her, but she was looking at me with such wariness that I was afraid to move, afraid to face the rejection that was waiting just around the corner. Closing my eyes, I forced my voice to become as calm and even as possible. “Guardians are the ones that you see when the Towers attack. They do the dirty work. They head up investigations and hunt down people of interest for the Towers. They’re like the FBI, CIA, and Special Forces, all rolled into one.”
“And you’re one of them?”
My eyes popped open at the incredulous sound in her voice. I smirked, feeling a little of my usual dry humor start to return. “I’m more of a distrusted junior member. They’re sending me out with another warlock to investigate strange things. I’m allowed to use magic in a limited capacity. The Towers are keeping me on a short leash for the time being.”
“But you’re considered . . . one of them?”
I swallowed a sigh and my smirk died on my lips. “Yeah. I’m a warlock again.”
Trixie looked down at her hands tightly clenched in her lap and rapidly blinked her eyes as if she were trying to hold back tears. I couldn’t blame her. Leaving the Towers meant that I had reached for something better and achieved it. Going back felt like a betrayal to all the people who still lived in fear. It was a betrayal to the four Tower runaways who were living in hiding and using me as a symbol of hope for a better life. Going back was failure.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t tell you sooner because I was still trying to adjust to the idea myself. I can’t change what I am. I was born to be a warlock and wield this power. What I can try to control are the people I hurt and who are hurt by the Towers.”
“What would have happened if you didn’t go back?”
“I would have been killed on the spot.”
The silence stretched between us. I stared at my untouched bottle of beer sweating on my coffee table, willing Trixie to say that she was glad that I hadn’t chosen death. I needed to hear that she could understand what I had done and that she was glad that I was still here with her. But she didn’t speak.
A huge number of her people had been hunted and slaughtered during the Great War. Their numbers had dwindled to a fraction of what they had been. It was all done by the Towers. And I was now a warlock. A killer without conscience. One of them.
I could easily remind her of everything I had done for her. Everything I had done to protect her and her people, but the memory of the Towers loomed between us.
The unexpected knock on the door was a welcome interruption breaking the silence. I jumped up, inwardly praying that it wasn’t Gideon on my doorstep with a new task that needed completing for the Towers. Now was definitely not a good time to go running off to my other life.
A woman with short brown hair and light brown eyes smiled nervously at me when I opened the door. “Gage Powell?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I replied, leaning against the door. She didn’t look like she was selling anything and I couldn’t recall anyone moving into the building recently, so she wasn’t a new neighbor borrowing a cup of sugar. There was no magic energy signature around her, so she wasn’t from the Ivory Towers. She was a rare creature—a normal human being.
“My name is Serah Moynahan and I’m a special investigator with TAPSS.”
She flashed her badge at me in one of those leather wallets, but I didn’t care. Her mention of the Tattoo Artists and Potion Stirrers Society (TAPSS) had me closing the door in her face. The government agency that monitors and certifies all tattoo artists had been a regular pain in my ass over the years. I had a feeling that it was because a handful knew that I wasn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill tattoo artist and they were hoping that I’d finally leave the industry. Not fucking likely.
“Not interested,” I said.
She stopped the door from shutting by putting her shoulder into it while I pushed. “Please, Mr. Powell. I’m not here about Asylum!”
“Gage,” Trixie said in warning.
Frowning, I released the door and stepped back. Serah took advantage of the break and quickly stepped across the threshold as if it
meant that I couldn’t throw her out. We’d see about that. Serah flashed a grateful smile at Trixie, who was standing beside the couch. Trixie didn’t smile back. The elf may be willing to hear what TAPSS wanted, but she wasn’t going to pretend to be happy about it.
Serah’s smile disappeared as she looked at me while tucking her badge in her pocket again. “The vamps warned me you’d be difficult,” she said in a low voice before taking a deep breath and starting again. “I was hoping that you’d be willing to consult on an investigation.”
“What investigation?”
“There’s been an incident at the Tattered Edge.”
“Then you should probably speak with Bronx down at Asylum. He worked there for a short time,” I said dismissively at the mention of the tattoo parlor on the north side of town. I wasn’t interested in doing TAPSS any favors, particularly if it got Kyle in trouble.
“Someone is already speaking with Bronx.”
This made my heart stop for a second before all my protective instincts came surging to the foreground. I stepped closer, backing Serah up. She hit the door, closing it behind her so that she was now trapped between it and me. “Bronx hasn’t worked for Kyle Wight in years. You’ve got the wrong troll if you’re looking to draw him in on whatever dirt you’re bringing against Kyle.”
“Kyle Wight is dead,” Serah announced.
I stopped cold. My brain locked up on those few words.
“What?” Trixie asked when I couldn’t.
“Kyle Wight was discovered murdered in his shop,” Serah said, looking straight at me. “Bronx isn’t a suspect. We’re talking to him to get information on Kyle. We think he was killed by a customer he had just tattooed. I was hoping you would come with me to the parlor and look over the remains of the ingredients and the design. Tell us what he did for the killer.”
Stepping away, I ran one hand through my hair. I hadn’t been close to Kyle. We made polite chitchat whenever we saw each other at industry functions or around town. He was an extremely talented artist, but a little too scattered to run a business. Bronx had told me years ago that Kyle wasn’t keeping up with his potion supplies and that was why the troll left, before he got drawn into trouble with TAPSS. I had always thought that it would be TAPSS that ended Kyle’s career. Not something like this.
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