Brian touched my shoulder lightly as he turned away.
Isa caught the gesture. His eyes widened, then narrowed. He had wrapped the thick-linked platinum chain around his fingers, closing them to a fist like the chain might be a weapon. Unlike Aiden’s rings, I could pick up a hint of magic from the necklace.
“What do you think you know of me, sorcerer?” I asked, wanting to draw Isa’s attention firmly to me — and away from any idea of using my friendships with mundanes against me. “That I’m a powerful amplifier who’s infatuated with your brother? Your misogyny is odd. And not just for this decade. But because the female sitting to your right is more powerful than you. By far.”
Isa’s lips curled into a smile. “I would suggest you’re overestimating your ability to read magical power. But I would also say — what good is raw power if you don’t know how to use it?”
Aiden settled back in the booth, laughing quietly.
I leaned forward. “I once laid hands on your father, sorcerer. Perhaps you should ask him how that felt.”
Isa’s face blanked.
It was a huge bluff on my part. And I wasn’t particularly good at bluffing. Except I already knew that Isa Azar was never going to mention me, or Silver Pine, to his father. If he hadn’t come to kill Aiden, he had come to persuade him to help kill their father. Because I couldn’t conceive of any other reason why he would have been asking his youngest brother to return to the cabal.
Though admittedly, my understanding of typical familial relationships was limited to the intense study of one TV show set in the early part of the twentieth century, and anything else I randomly watched on Netflix.
I slid my gaze to Ruwa. She was watching me intently, presumably reassessing her earlier dismissal.
Isa settled back in the booth, mimicking his brother. Though I had no idea whether that was a conscious choice or not. “I pose no threat to you, amplifier.” He waved his hand to casually indicate the kitchen. “Or to anyone in the town. I understand the value of anonymity. I’ve simply never felt the need to hide, myself.”
Aiden laughed. “You’re still a piece of work, Isa.”
“As I assume you are, Aiden. Taking your mother’s name, allowing a witch to get the better of you, letting this girl speak for you? Utterly ridiculous. Reckless. Beneath your birth.”
“Which birth is that, Isa?” Aiden asked darkly.
Isa snapped his mouth shut.
Ruwa laughed huskily, then took a long sip of her milkshake as she peered at me, then Aiden, through her long lashes. “Do you like to play?” she asked, looking at Aiden but speaking to me. “Aiden always liked to play.”
“No.”
She pouted prettily, then took another sip of the milkshake. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered, as if she and Aiden were the only ones at the table. “Isa is boring.”
“He doesn’t like to play?” I asked archly.
“I haven’t given you one single thought,” Aiden said dispassionately. “Isa obviously assumed it was he who you betrayed. When it was actually both of us. Which leads me to believe that my father wanted the playing field leveled up.”
Ruwa smiled over her glass, but she didn’t answer.
“So it wasn’t just quick thinking on my part that saved my life the night you tried to kill me, Aiden?” Isa asked. “How demoralizing.”
He didn’t sound particularly surprised. But the more time I spent with Aiden and his brother, the more apparent it became that an ability to hide their true feelings and reactions was an Azar trait. Perhaps even a hard-learned lesson.
Aiden nodded to his brother, keeping his attention trained on Ruwa. “The one thing I don’t know was whether or not you were sleeping with my father as well. The three of us at once.”
Ruwa’s smile widened. A red sheen of magic glinted across her pupils.
Again.
When I’d seen the crimson hue the previous day, I had thought it might have been a reflection of the late afternoon light. It obviously wasn’t.
Aiden deliberately laid his hands on the table. Presumably, he had seen the same thing I had. My instinctive guess was that it might have been some sign of the magic that bound Ruwa to Isa. But as far as I understood such things, the color was wrong. Sorcerer magic usually appeared in shades of medium to dark blue.
“Delightful,” Isa said wryly.
I had lost track of the conversation. Something about Ruwa sleeping with father and sons.
“Yes.” Aiden’s tone was stiff, unyielding. “Perhaps something you should have clarified before you allowed Ruwa to bind herself to you.”
Isa’s lips thinned. “I’m not an idiot. The binding is one way.”
Aiden hummed doubtfully in the back of his throat, but he dropped the conversation as Brian approached with our clam chowders, carrying one plated bowl in hand and three on a large tray. We remained quiet as he set the soup in front of each of us, serving me first. Then he turned back to the end of the counter, grabbing a basket of garlic bread and a large plate of fries. He placed those in the center of the table, the fries nearest me.
I flashed a pleased smile at him. He laughed quietly as he turned to the counter a second time, grabbing a bottle of malt vinegar.
“Perfect,” Aiden said. “Thank you, Brian.”
The large man nodded, then he crossed back to lock the door and flip the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed.’
Ruwa pushed the remainder of her milkshake away, picking up the soup spoon set at the edge of her plate and repeatedly drawing it through her soup. To cool it, I guessed.
Isa reached into the pocket of his jacket, withdrawing something that glinted with magic.
I thrust my arm across the table, half out of my seat in order to span the distance over the food, grabbing his wrist before he saw me move.
Isa flinched.
Ruwa stilled, her mouth dropping open in surprise.
Aiden stiffened beside me, then curled his fingers around the knife he’d just freed from a napkin roll.
Isa eyed me warily, magic coiling around him tensely. But he made no attempt to free his wrist from my grasp.
I had moved too quickly. For a regular amplifier, at least.
I glanced at the object Isa had pulled from his inner suit pocket. It was an envelope. It teemed with magic, mostly concentrated around the embossed seal.
I had thought the sorcerer was about to throw a spell.
I flicked my eyes up to meet Isa’s gaze. His magic had settled into its regular hum. He’d decided I wasn’t a threat.
How very idiotic of him.
“Aren’t you a marvel, amplifier,” he murmured intimately, speaking as if his lover wasn’t seated beside him. As if his brother, who I hoped to take to my own bed, wasn’t seated beside me. “You have me in your grasp. Skin to delightfully potent skin. What are you possibly going to do?” He laughed.
His dismissal, his nonchalance, filtered through the empathic connection I had made by touching him.
He raised one eyebrow. “Amplify me?”
I applied pressure to his wrist, twisting it until he grimaced, then dropped the envelope to the table beside his soup.
It was addressed to Aiden Azar. Not Myers. If I’d been forced to guess, I would have said that the handwriting wasn’t Isa’s.
“Strong … fast …” Isa murmured, still completely nonplussed.
There was something seriously annoying about being so badly underestimated. Possibly because a sorcerer of Isa Azar’s power level should have known better — which led me to believe that he was simply skilled at masking his emotions, even to my empathy. A dampening spell perhaps, carried in one of the rune-carved rings he wore on each finger.
Still, I allowed myself to be goaded. Too much of Amp5’s ego — aka the Collective’s mandated arrogance — still resided in me. I smiled, keeping my grip firm on the sorcerer’s wrist.
The lines that edged Isa’s dark-brown eyes tightened.
“Have you ever been amplified without permission, so
rcerer?” I asked conversationally. “Hard and fast, overwhelming your senses? Charging your magic, wiping your mind, your control?”
“Have I ever been raped, you mean?” he asked edgily. “No.”
“Then I suggest that mocking what an amplifier can do to incapacitate you is ignorant. Ill-conceived.”
“Point taken.” He leaned toward me, forcing intimacy. Again. “But consider my permission expressly given, Emma. No sorcerer would ever say no to what you have to offer.” He flicked his gaze toward Aiden, then back to me. “But that isn’t news to you.”
My stomach souring, I loosened my grip on Isa almost involuntarily, then covered by shifting back in my seat and snagging a few fries as I did so.
Aiden pressed his knee against mine. I didn’t move away. I also didn’t acknowledge the tension still stretched over the table, like a net of magic ignited by our conversation.
I didn’t want to be tied to the sorcerers seated across from me, not even through the exchange of words. I tamped down on a sudden desire to leave, lifting my gaze from my soup as I acknowledged the path unfolding before me.
Fight or flight.
And I wasn’t going to run.
My stomach settled at the decision. I ate more fries, holding Isa Azar’s gaze. I would have no trouble killing the sorcerer. I wasn’t even sure whether I’d allow Aiden to stop me if he was so inclined.
Isa curled his hands into fists, leaning away from me. Ruwa’s chaotic magic was writhing around her as if tasting the tension. Reveling in it.
“Did you come here to die, Isa?” Aiden asked.
The sorcerer tore his gaze from mine, looking at his brother. “No.”
“Then stop goading Emma. You’re the interloper here. An offense that no territorial Adept takes lightly.”
Isa laughed. “You’d have had me ask permission? From an amplifier living without the backing of a coven?”
“When did you figure out that father knew you helped Silver Pine kidnap him?”
Isa didn’t answer.
I took a sip of my soup. Ruwa did the same.
“If you knew Silver,” Aiden continued, “if you worked with Silver, then you know she was fixated on Emma.”
“I knew no such thing.”
Aiden laughed nastily. “Then you’re a moron. Simply being moved into place by external forces.”
“And what place is that?”
Aiden shrugged. “I imagine you’re a sacrifice.”
Isa scoffed.
I glanced over at Aiden. “On what altar? And to what end?”
Instead of answering, Aiden reached across the table and picked up the envelope, angling it toward me so I could see his name written across it. Then he flipped it, showing me the embossed seal. The dark-blue wax was pressed with a rune I didn’t recognize.
“A missive from my father,” he said. “Is Kadar Azar on his way, Isa? Are you relegated to being his errand boy?”
Isa clenched his jaw. “I’ve been carrying that letter for over six months. Our father has no idea I’m currently in a position to deliver it.”
Aiden scoffed, then tucked the envelope into his pocket. “Are we done?”
“No!” Ruwa cried, overly dramatically. “You haven’t even tried the soup. It’s surprisingly good.”
Aiden ignored her. “Emma? Shall we get the brownies to go?”
I nodded, eager to step away from the table and annoyingly disturbed by the suggestion that Kadar Azar might show up. The sorcerer Azar. As sorcerers, Aiden and Isa effectively had the power of children when compared to their father’s mastery of magic.
I brushed the concern away, stepping from the table to call out to Brian over the counter.
“I would speak with you, Aiden,” Isa said urgently.
“I’m not interested, Isa. Out of deference to Emma, I’ve sat here peacefully —”
“Peacefully,” Isa spat. “Please —”
“Get your foot out of my fucking lap, Ruwa,” Aiden snarled. “Or I’ll remove it for you.”
Ruwa laughed, darkly delighted. The sound carried a disconcerting energy that ran up my spine.
Isa hissed, glaring at Ruwa. So he’d felt it too. Or perhaps he simply had a problem with her making a pass at his brother literally under his nose.
“Brian?” I called toward the kitchen. “We’ll take those brownies to go, please. And a burger for Paisley.”
With a glance at me, Isa tugged a ring from his forefinger, placing it in the center of the table between the fries and the garlic bread. He gave the rune-scribed band a sharp spin. Magic snapped into place, arcing over the table.
Aiden said something, looking angry, but I couldn’t hear the words. Isa had cast a sound barrier spell.
“I thought you might,” Brian said, pulling my attention away from the table. He carried a brown paper bag in one hand and the bill in the other as he crossed out of the kitchen. He glanced toward the sorcerers still seated at the booth, then inclined his head toward the cash register closer to the entrance.
I stepped alongside him, traversing the long counter as I tugged my Visa card out of my pocket. Only in that moment did I realize that I was still in my boots, my shoes forgotten in the SUV. I likewise hadn’t bothered to remove my pink raincoat when I sat down.
Brian set the paper bag on the counter, then silently took the Visa from me, running it through the new debit system he’d installed on an iPad. The cash register was literally only used for cash.
“Things going sideways, eh?” he asked in a low murmur as he turned the tablet toward me.
I nodded, tapping in a tip, then scrubbing my signature across the screen when prompted.
“That’s the way with family, love them or hate them,” Brian said.
I glanced up at him.
He smiled. “The brothers look alike. Emailed receipt?”
“Yes, please.”
I glanced back at the table. Aiden slammed his hand over the ring, and the magic sealing the sound around him and Isa dissipated with a pop. He stood without another word, grabbing the plate of fries, the basket of garlic bread, and my bowl of soup as he stepped into the aisle.
His expression was a storm of emotions as he crossed toward me, then set the food on the counter near me. “You didn’t get to finish your dinner,” he said, sitting on the next stool over with his back to the counter. “But you shouldn’t have to eat in bad company.” His gaze was on Isa and Ruwa still in the booth.
Brian chuckled. “Good man.”
I sat down beside Aiden, brushing my shoulder against his as I picked up my soup spoon and took a sip. He leaned into me lightly.
“Fries?” I asked.
Aiden twisted back, taking a few fries, then settling in to keep watch on Isa and Ruwa. I grabbed a piece of garlic bread, tearing off a hunk and dipping it into my soup.
Given that we couldn’t leave the diner before the sorcerers, I knew I might as well eat Brian’s tasty food.
Chapter 5
It was the same dream, but I wasn’t myself. I knew that, because I could see myself sprawled across the concrete. Naked, red hair everywhere, blood-etched runes marked across the pale skin of my forehead, chest, stomach, and thighs.
But if I wasn’t myself, then who was I?
I could feel the hard, cold concrete beneath me, hear the chanting of the sorcerers situated at the five points of the pentagram as magic dripped, draining from me. I couldn’t move. I was pinned, curled on my side with a sharp slash of pain across both my wrists.
I was dying.
I had died before. At least twice.
But this death felt different. This was a slow, painful pull into the abyss, dying drip by drip.
I was the witch.
I was dreaming that I was the young witch who’d been bled in order to bind me in the pentagram.
I took a breath.
I could smell the magic.
Any moment, Christopher and Paisley were going to arrive, disturbing the casting and freeing
me.
Except I wasn’t me.
How could I be the witch in the dream? How could I feel her pain, her slow death?
Magic.
I was being spelled.
Again.
The dream walker had returned to drill into my mind, somehow gaining access to me despite the fact that I’d destroyed the rune on my bureau. But why project my psyche into the witch’s consciousness? How was that even possible?
In the pentagram, the projection of me turned her head — my head. She looked at me, emerald-green eyes simmering with unleashed magic.
I couldn’t see my magic in that way. But apparently the witch could.
As I watched from the dying witch’s perspective, a realization dawned across the face of the other me, followed by an expression of terrible, deadly promise.
That was what the moment before fierce, bloody vengeance looked like. For me, at least.
The dream faded, then snapped back.
I was being carried aloft now. The arms around me gripping me harshly, painfully. Long, brilliant red hair crusted with blood, falling all around my face. Searing magic that wasn’t my own racing through me.
But I knew I was going to be okay.
My avenging angel had rescued me. The other two had come, their magic thundering around them. Sorcerers had screamed, dying, disrupting the spell holding the angel in place.
She had risen. The first sorcerer falling under a brush of her fingers, power crashing over me. She’d snapped his neck, never taking her blazing green eyes from me. She took two more sorcerers down, batting away their feeble attempts to stand before her. Then she’d knelt, laying her burning, searing hands on my forehead and chest, filling me with magic, pulling me back from the death weeping from my veins.
Emma.
Her name was Emma.
My avenging angel.
I wrenched myself free from the dream, sitting up in bed. My heart was racing with emotion that wasn’t my own. My bedroom was dark, the house silent. I couldn’t feel any foreign magic anywhere nearby. But something, someone had snagged me, pulling me into the young witch’s mind.
Opal.
The witch’s name was Opal.
I threw back the covers, crossing swiftly out and down the hall toward Christopher’s bedroom before I’d consciously made the decision to check on him. I pushed open the door. He was sprawled across the bed, naked, face down, sheets tangled through his legs. His curtains were wide open. It was still snowing.
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