“Niamh did tell me he’d put on a show,” Austin said, picking our conversation back up as he guided me to the chair setup. I sat down happily enough. There was plenty of luggage outside, but I wasn’t supposed to help my people get it. This week, I would act like some sort of duchess, expecting everyone to do everything for me. I wasn’t all that put out by that.
He sat down in the other chair. “Given your reaction, however,” he continued, “I assumed we were being magically attacked.”
“I mean…we were. With blindness. I feel like that’s an attack.”
“It can certainly be construed as such.” Austin crossed an ankle over a knee and extended his arm until it was resting across the back of my chair. “Not all mages give a show of their power. If the host knew the mages he’d invited were more powerful, for example, he wouldn’t take the risk. A more powerful mage would tear the spell down and send a message, not only for the hosting mage, but for everyone else at the…meetup. Or party. Elliot Graves put on a show to declare that he is the most powerful mage here. He holds all the cards.”
“And by tearing it down…”
“You’ve just sent your message.”
“Except I didn’t know I was doing it,” I whispered.
“You knew exactly what you were doing. You just didn’t know it was a statement. You also wrecked his transportation and blew a hole in the side of his—certainly warded—front door. If there was ever a question of who had more power, you just answered it. We just have to be more careful now, is all.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he’ll know that, head to head, your brawn will win. If he comes at you, it’ll be from behind. When you least expect it.”
Thirteen
Sebastian sat at his desk and watched the cameras in utter delight. The heir of Ivy House had made an entrance that would be gossiped about for years to come. Her team apparently hadn’t alerted her to the protocol at one of these things, and wow, he marveled at her sense of survival and her reactions in a tight situation. Blowing out the limo doors and the entrance? Scaring the staff?
That display would create fear-soaked rumors that would travel to the other mages, no problem. She was wild and unpredictable. Incredibly powerful. She’d broken Sebastian’s spell from the inside out. Cracked it open like an egg. No finesse, no meticulous approach, just brute strength.
No one else would be able to counteract that spell. Not in the time allotted. The drivers had been given precise instructions on how fast to drive from the start of the tunnel until they pulled up to the curb. Not even Sebastian could work a counter-spell—or counter-curse, if you wanted to be dramatic—in that amount of time. Not with the precision it required.
Still, every single mage he’d invited would try to do the impossible. They’d experience the power of the spell for themselves, which would make it even more difficult for them to believe she had torn it down. They’d probably tell themselves the staff had gotten it wrong. Or maybe they’d convince themselves the shifters—the animals—had wrecked the place.
But that would scare them, too. This was a no-lose situation. Ivy House would be proud of her heir’s debut in the magical world; Sebastian would make sure of it. He might die for his troubles, but magic was risky.
The huge and hairy basajaun entered the screen on the main camera, angled to pick up the loading zone. The basajaun held his prize, a scared-senseless driver who would almost assuredly quit and take whatever punishment he was given. Sebastian wasn’t sure he blamed the guy.
The driver hung upside down, his palms over his face and his ankles captured in one of the basajaun’s giant hands. It was the worst game of peekaboo the world had ever known. For that driver, anyway.
“Sir, the living quarters are ready for— What in the…”
“Yeah, yeah.” Sebastian motioned to Nessa, his right-hand woman, organizer of all things, and the only person he could really call a friend in the magical world. “Get a load of this.” He pointed at the screen, then gestured to all the other screens showing the entranceway and tunnel.
“Oh wow.” Nessa leaned closer, pointing at the basajaun. “You weren’t kidding. Holy hell, that thing is huge.”
“And ferocious. Seriously, you will pee your pants, I am telling you. I hope they sign up for the trials. I half wish they didn’t have to be a secret until the last minute so I could have gotten a general feel for if she’d go for it.”
“She wants to kill you. She’ll sign up.”
“Let’s not dwell on the details.”
“She did all that? Or did the shifters help?”
“No, no. She did all that. Amazing, right? She literally blew through my magic. Like…blew it up, I mean.”
She gave him a look that was half amused and half perturbed. “Normal mages wouldn’t be tickled by that fact.”
“And they also wouldn’t get the opportunity to train an ancient, fabled magic that will dwarf all other magics.”
“If she doesn’t kill you first,” Nessa said dryly. “Your sister didn’t finish her Sight.”
A heart attack had knocked Sebastian’s sister out of her trance right before she made it to the outcome of the final battle. She’d died five minutes later, before they could get help.
Sebastian had been preparing for years, counting down to this meeting, with the blind hope that the heir wouldn’t kill him in the final moment. He very well might have been planning his death all this time. It was a helluva leap of faith, but he’d clung to his sister’s dying words, which she’d struggled to say right before giving in to eternal night. “You must…walk this journey. You must follow the stars.”
Follow the stars. It sounded lofty and full of purpose. Or so he hoped. It was what he’d clung to this last decade.
The waiting was almost over. The pivotal scene was upon them.
He was doing everything he could not to think about it. His elaborate game of cat and mouse with the other mages showing up would hopefully distract him from the possibility that he might be about to follow Jala into death.
“Oh…hel-lo.” Nessa looked at the screen showing the waiting area. An attendant had stopped next to the couple, no doubt relaying the information that their rooms were ready. The alpha stood, helping Jessie up after him, both of them dressed to the nines. “He is all man.”
“Don’t even think it.” Sebastian put his hand in front of the screen. “Don’t even look. Ever. Eyes and especially hands off him, unless you want a world of hurt.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to steal the heir’s man. But I don’t mind looking, not one bit. You said he was in shape; you didn’t say he was a god. The guy is H-O-T, hot.” She fanned her face, nearly salivating.
“Seriously, Nessa, I’m not joking. That female gargoyle is entering the mating phase—or maybe she’s in it by now—and she will literally tear your face off and wear it like a party favor if you encroach on her territory. That man is her territory. Do not pass go; do not collect two hundred dollars. He likes violence, too. He’ll like watching what she does to you.”
“All right, all right,” she said softly, her gaze still lingering on Austin. “He’s incredibly handsome, though. And just…so…masculine. They don’t make mages like that.”
“They don’t make shifters like that either, I think. From what I’ve seen, he’s unusual for his kind. More powerful and more intense. It has something to do with his father and mother—I couldn’t get a straight answer out of anyone. They only trusted me when Jessie was around, and I didn’t want to make her suspicious by asking too many questions. Just wait until you meet him in person, though. He is terrifying. More so than the basajaun. Or the phoenix. Or the thunderbird. Or even the vampire. That one is wily, the vampire. Half the time, he didn’t make sense—he’d just pop up next to me randomly, offering some strange sort of floral anecdote. He kept giving me doilies, too. Oddly shaped doilies. I couldn’t tell if it was a threat or a joke or… He really unnerved me—I got the feeling he was intentionally trying to disorientate me. He definitely didn’t trust me, that was clear. I think he knew I was hiding something. I kept waiting to turn around and find him sinking his fangs into my neck. It was a crazy couple of weeks.”
“So you’ve said. Who is…” She leaned closer to one of the lower screens—the whole office was covered in them, every inch of Sebastian’s compound affixed with cameras, recording to the cloud. He wanted to know every important detail of the meeting and hopefully glean secrets from the visiting mages that he could use against them. He also wanted to watch over Jessie and make sure she didn’t get tangled up with one of his other visitors. “Who’s that? I don’t recognize him. He’s a looker, too. The scar on his face makes him seem…dangerous.”
“He’s a shifter—he is dangerous,” Sebastian murmured, squinting at the screen. “I haven’t seen him before. He must be new. What’s it say on the roster?”
Nessa pointed at each member of Jessie’s party in turn before landing back on the incredibly large shifter who looked like he was draped in a black cloud. “That doesn’t look like a Shauna to me.”
“A guy like that can go by whatever name he wants. I’m not judging.”
Nessa took a step forward and grabbed the office phone off the cradle. She hit three buttons and waited for a moment.
“Yeah, Rick, hey…who’s the stand-in for Shauna? He hasn’t been approved.” She waited a moment. “Yeah, patch me through.”
Sebastian watched one of the screens as a red-coated woman holding a clipboard glanced at the phone resting on a nearby end table.
There was no cell service in this mountain. The only way to call for help was via landline, wired in a few of the tunnels and in select rooms. The chances of finding one of those landlines and getting help in time was next to nil.