His cold blue eyes assessed me for a moment before flicking to those around me, lingering the longest on Austin. I continued my progress undaunted. Mostly. Staring like that was incredibly rude.
“You’re the Jane, are you not?” he said as I entered the doorway.
I paused and turned back. “Sure.” It was easier than explaining why he was an idiot or coming up with a scathing put-down.
He folded his paper and placed it in his lap. His gaze went back to Austin. To his credit, he didn’t give any of his thoughts away. “And that’s your shifter?”
Again, many possible answers came to mind, but I settled on: “Sure.”
“And your crew.”
“No. They just followed me in off the street.”
Everyone had a breaking point.
His lips tightened, his gaze mostly steady on me, but flicking to Austin every so often. The silence stretched. Was he waiting for something?
As if reading my thoughts, Niamh said, “He’s waiting for ye to recognize him.”
“Oh.” I squinted one eye and half smiled. “Right. Uhm…” Only Niamh hadn’t told me anything about the other guests. I belatedly realized I was flying blind.
“Don’t bother,” Niamh said. “He’s nobody. Walk on.”
I couldn’t stop my eyes from widening. Sarcasm was one thing, but blatant rudeness entirely another. It wasn’t something I was comfortable with.
Austin applied pressure to the small of my back. Mr. Tom’s steady gaze on my face said to comply.
I held my breath and turned away, burning with shame. This was not like my “training” at country clubs and work functions. Politeness had always been key in those situations. There were certain protocols to be followed whether you liked the person or not. Maybe especially when you didn’t like the person. This was worse than high school, and I hadn’t exactly been a mover and shaker.
I followed the wishes of my team, though, and started walking. Many—some?—of them were experienced, if rusty. Besides, eccentricity! That had to count for something.
“Your shifters tore up the front area,” the man called.
I kept walking, separating from Austin’s touch, and alarm rang through the links I shared with the team. Hadn’t they wanted me to keep going? I stopped in confusion and turned around. These were very mixed signals.
The man was leaning forward to see me around the doorframe.
“Your shifters tore up the front area yesterday,” he said again, having dropped the paper between his spread knees so he could lean without looking too eager.
“I mean…” I raised my hand in exasperation. “Sure, why not.”
“How’d they beat Elliot Graves’s spell, though?”
I squinted at him, then shot a confused look at Niamh. Why was he going through mental aerobics to assure himself that I had played no part in the destruction? What could I even say to him without it devolving into insults?
“Yes, Miss Ironheart,” Mr. Tom said. “Sometimes dealing with mages of a lower thinking capacity can be a lesson in patience.”
Hollace’s lips quivered as he tried to suppress a smile, and he half turned away to hide it. He wasn’t as good as the shifters at keeping a straight face.
Edgar raised his hand. “If I may?”
I lifted an eyebrow, not quite sure what Edgar was asking, but totally willing to let someone else take the lead.
“Sir.” Edgar clasped his hands in front of him, bowed, and gave the man a comforting smile. With all that fang, though, I doubted he was comforting anyone. “Shifters are good at a great many things, like stalking you without your knowledge and snapping your neck when you least expect it. Or working together to close in on you, fighting through the pain of your spells so they can snap your neck. Or even— Well, you get the point. They are very good at killing people.” I was pretty sure I was watching a train wreck, one that would give us the reputation as the weirdest magical crew. Not that we had any competition. “But shifters are very cool and collected creatures, prone to rage but not panic. Miss Ironheart, on the other hand, is the only being in this underground complex capable of laying ruin to a powerful mage’s headquarters out of panic. Because she didn’t like being in the dark. You may not want to admit that a past Jane is more powerful than you, but…well, you’ll just look stupid if you don’t. Best board this train rather than rail against it—get it?” He paused to see if his joke had landed. The mage stared, and no one on earth was good enough to keep confusion from their expression after a talking-to from Edgar. The vampire continued, “Because when she’s not panicking, well…” He held up a shaky finger at Brochan.
“I’m Brochan Sue,” he growled. “How do you do?”
“Jaysus,” Niamh muttered.
Without comment, I turned and started walking. Really, what else was there to say? That last bit had made zero sense. I’d be a laughing stock, if I wasn’t already.
Austin lowered his hand on the small of my back in no time, and I could feel the mixed emotions through the link. Through my link to Hollace, all I could feel was his urge to laugh hysterically.
“I’m not sure if I just created an enemy, or found someone who will take pity on me,” I murmured, walking stiffly.
“He’s one of the highest-powered mages here besides Elliot,” Austin whispered. “Let’s hope it’s pity.”
Sixteen
A couple of hours later, Austin, Brochan, and I walked down a small tunnel with low ceilings, dim lighting, and rough, slightly damp walls. It was a far cry from the tunnel leading to our rooms. Light fixtures hung from the ceiling on chains, weak magical flames flickering within them. There was supposedly an exit at the end, but the tunnel was much longer than the map suggested.
“Look at this,” Brochan whispered, always behind us but now slowing until he lagged.
I looked up from the map and glanced back. Brochan was pointing to a strip of lettering above a row of men’s portraits, surprisingly clean in this dank place.
“‘Wall of Death,’” he read.
Austin looked both ways down the tunnel and then back at me before stepping closer to Brochan. I waited for a moment, not really wanting to look, but curiosity got the better of me.
Shadows flickered across a dozen or so faces, all rendered in black-and-white photographs enclosed in cheap plastic frames. Each had a date below it, and I pushed in closer when I saw the last face.
“Kinsella,” I breathed out, pointing. There wasn’t a date associated with this one.
Austin pointed at others. “Frauchini. Cross. Stokes. All mages Elliot Graves killed in cold blood, or so I’ve heard.”
“But Kinsella?” I pushed in even closer to make absolutely sure.
“Yup—”
“Hah!” I spun and flung out my hands, but instead of a karate chop, I slung a blistering spell that crackled the air and burned through a man’s middle.
He flinched and looked down, but the spell had gone right through him—and kept right on going until it crashed against the tunnel’s soft turn and sent sparks into the air.
The man shimmered, like a hologram, turning around to see the damage the spell had wrought.
“I don’t smell or sense his presence,” Austin murmured, pushing away from me somewhat, eyes on the man and ready for action. He obviously didn’t want me to get hurt in the crossfire.
The man, about mid-thirties, with slicked-back black hair and pale blue eyes, surveyed me with a little smile, his hands lodged in his pockets.
“You don’t smell or sense me because”—he lowered to a whisper—“I’m not really here…” He smiled, smug and self-assured. His image flickered a little more, then wavered before mostly solidifying again. “I think I might like shifters best of all. I know, I know, it’s out of character for a mage.” He shrugged. “But you are correct, Sir Alpha. Nice watch, by the way.”
“Yours as well,” Austin replied. “A vintage guy, I see. That is one of the rarest finds on the planet.”
I glanced down at it, finding a vintage watch with a black leather band.
“How kind of you to notice. I stole it, of course. From…” The man pointed at the row of faces. “The man in the middle, there. Jacobson. He didn’t deserve it, and the crows in his employ wouldn’t have appreciated it.”
“You’re Elliot Graves,” I said, my anger bubbling up, hot and heady. Magic pulsed around me, eager to be used.
His focus was acute and his smile disarming. “Hello, Jacinta. Lovely to finally make your acquaintance.”
The slicked-back hair—I recognized it from the first time I’d seen him, the night I’d claimed Ivy House’s magic. He’d blown me a kiss that had turned into words. He’d had facial hair that night, but today he was clean-shaven. And the pale blue eyes—those belonged to a delivery guy about half this guy’s age. He’d delivered a note from Elliot Graves and then disappeared in his truck on the street. Clearly Elliot Graves could change his appearance at will.
He’d also attacked me, tried to have me kidnapped, had his people spy on me, killed my—
“No, no, no!” He bent and pushed out his hands, but my spell had already been let loose. It passed straight through him again, cracking into the wall on the other side of the tunnel. A deep rumble rolled beneath my feet. Elliot looked at the ceiling. “Keep doing that and you’ll bring this mountain down on top of us.”
“Why does it go right through you?” I asked, taking a step forward. Could an illusion be this lifelike?
Austin stepped with me, staying even.
Elliot laughed softly, shaking his head. “You are something. You’ve grown in might since I last…” His speech hitched, but then he spread his hands wide. “Let’s just get it out there, shall we? Since I last spied on you.”
A boot scraped the ground. Austin spread his fingers in a stop motion, keeping Brochan from doing whatever a moving boot indicated.