He shrugged. “Just a guess, based on what Simon’s told me about her. Why come to you?”
“She wanted to give me this.” I unzipped my pocket and dug out the paper, standing up so I could hand it across Maven’s desk.
Maven unfolded it and frowned, looking back up at me. “Lex, this is blank.”
“What?” I stood up again so I could see over the edge of the desk. The writing was plain as day. I pointed to it. “Right there, see? It’s calligraphy.”
Maven raised her eyebrows at me, bemused. “What color is the ink, Lex?”
The question was jarring, but I was too confused to do anything but answer. “Black? No, wait.” I peered closely at it. “Very dark red, maybe.”
“Ah.” She handed it back to me. Quinn held out his hand and I automatically passed the paper to him.
He glanced at it and shook his head. “I can’t see anything either.”
“That’s because the ink is mixed with witchblood,” Maven told us. “There’s a little charm on the blood to keep it from being viewed by anyone without active magic. I’ve seen this before.”
Quinn held the paper under his nose and sniffed deeply. He nodded. “I can smell it. Just a little. They must have added some sort of sealant or powder over the ink.”
“Wait. Wait. How is that possible?” My voice came out a lot louder than I’d intended. “When I met you-all, the first thing everyone said is that magic doesn’t work against itself. So how the hell can there be magical ink that’s invisible to vampires?”
Quinn’s eyes slid to Maven; he was obviously worried that I was being insubordinate. But Maven simply said, “Lex, when we first met you, you received a rudimentary explanation of our world, the most basic details. And on that primary level, no, magic doesn’t work against itself. I could never turn you into a vampire. You cannot cast a spell that will cure a werewolf. The fundamental rules of how we function are unbreakable.” She paused, as if to make sure I wasn’t going to argue that. “But there are nuances, spaces in between the rules.”
Quinn spoke up. “Like illusions.” Maven and I both looked at him. “Simon can make illusions that work on me,” he said, looking somehow . . . guilty. I raised my eyebrows, and he grimaced. “There have been some . . . uh . . . pranks.”
I had to grin at that, and even Maven smiled a little. “Yes, illusions are a good example,” she said, “especially if you don’t know they’re there. Witches can bend light, move air, disturb water—and those things affect our bodies, which are made to function in ways that are similar to humans. By the same token, we can get physical sustenance from witch or werewolf blood, but we can’t press them to forget about it.”
“Nuances,” I grumbled. It seemed like every time I thought I had a handle on the way things worked in the Old World, I got blindsided.
I looked down at the flyer in Quinn’s hand. “So the ink is like an illusion spell?”
“Something like that. Perhaps,” Maven said, with the infinite patience of vampires, “you could read it to us.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” I took the flyer back from Quinn. “Your presence is requested at a public forum to discuss the state of our community in Colorado. The time has come for new leadership. All clan witches are welcome. Please join us at the Meadowlark Ranch Barn, Friday at 4:00 p.m., Tie Siding, Wyoming.”
“Wyoming.” Maven looked pensive. “And the Pellars are being forced to stay at the farm. Someone wants to wrest power away from Hazel Pellar, and they don’t want me to be able to stop it.”
“Couldn’t you anyway?” I asked. Both Maven and Quinn gave me surprised looks, and I shrugged. “You told me there’s no cardinal vampire in Wyoming, right?”
“Correct. Wyoming’s entire population is smaller than that of Denver, and they’re spread across nearly a hundred thousand square miles. The state is all wrong for vampires.”
“So why couldn’t you fuck up a meeting?” I replied. She wouldn’t go herself—the sun didn’t set until four thirty—but she could send someone. Sending a boundary witch would probably be too antagonistic, but she had plenty of people working for her. She could even press someone in Wyoming, like the police. For a second, I entertained a little fantasy where the anti-Pellar witch club got busted by the cops.
“I can’t,” Maven said calmly, bringing me back to the present, “because if I take aggressive public action in Wyoming, I’m claiming it as my territory. And I don’t have the resources to hold an enormous amount of undesirable land. Especially right now.”
I started to ask what that meant, but Quinn spoke over me. “My question is, did whoever set up this meeting—I’m assuming it’s a she, because of the witchblood—recognize an opportunity and throw this together quickly, or did she kill the werewolves to set this in motion? Because it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to, when you could just kill Hazel and Lily,” Quinn remarked. Then he winced and met my eyes. “Sorry.”
I waved it off. “No, I had the exact same thought. If all you wanted was to take those two people off the board, it’s ridiculously convoluted.”
“Although,” Maven mused, “Quinn mentioned that the entire clan is being threatened with magical binding. If that was the goal, perhaps it isn’t so convoluted.”
I shook my head. “Honestly, I just can’t see it—or at least, that can’t be the whole picture. Maybe if it was personal, like if Dunn or the Ventimiglias had been involved with Trask, but all three of them were new to Wyoming.”
“At any rate,” Quinn said, looking at Maven, “what do you want us to do?”
She looked at me, the force of her attention cresting against me like a tide. I’d gotten better at bracing myself, but sometimes being near her made me feel like I was being pulled in by her personal gravity. “I want you at that witch meeting,” she told me.
I blinked a few times to make sure I hadn’t accidentally started hallucinating. “But you just said—”
“As a spy,” she interrupted. She gestured at the flyer. “The meeting is before sunset, so I can’t send any of my people.”
“You have human employees—” I began, but she interrupted.
“If they’re this serious about security, Lex, they’ll likely set up wards to block anyone without witchblood. Don’t worry. All you have to do is stand in the back and listen, then return here to report.”
A spy? The walls of Maven’s little office seemed closer than they had just a moment ago. I was not the person you called for an undercover mission. I was the person you called when you needed to either punch someone or talk to ghosts.
Trying to make my voice even, I said, “I’m not a clan witch.”
“No,” Maven replied, “but you’re my only witch. The Pellars are unavailable, and I can’t trust anyone else in the state.”
I wished that was because she was so sure of my loyalty, but we both knew Maven also had fantastic leverage on me. If I ever turned against her, Charlie would pay the price.
“Still,” I insisted, “if they invited Tracy, they invited other members of Clan Pellar. Someone there will recognize me.”
A smile spread across Maven’s face, and it was one I did not like at all. A thousand-year-old vampire should not look mischievous. “I believe I can help with that.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “A disguise?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m not . . . that’s not my kind of thing,” I sputtered, panic clawing inside my chest. “Give me a security problem, a safety issue—”
“Lex,” Maven interrupted, “why is this bothering you so much? Haven’t you been wanting more to do?”
I cut my eyes to Quinn, who was sitting there with a perfectly blank face. Had he told Maven I was unhappy and bored? No, he wouldn’t do that. She’d probably just worked it out based on the tiny amount of work she had been giving me.
They were both looking at me curiously, so I swallowed hard. “Ma’am,” I said, as calmly as I could manage, “I was a soldier. That’s my skill set. I’m not an actor or an undercover cop. If they figure out I’m there, knowing I work for you . . . it will make everything worse.”
Maven folded her hands in her lap. “I see no other course of action, Lex.” Her voice had hardened, just a little bit. On the desk in front of her, her cell phone began to vibrate, and she glanced at the screen. “I should get this.”
I stood up abruptly. “Would you excuse me for a moment? I’d like to get some air.”
Maven nodded, picking up the phone, and I fled through the exit.
Chapter 17
Quinn found me crouched on the other side of the emergency exit door, my back planted against the building. It was way too cold to be leaning against a brick wall, but I barely noticed.
“Lex?” He sat down next to me, close but not touching. “What is it? I haven’t seen you this shaken in years.”
I shook my head, unable to explain. The trip across the sand dunes had unnerved me enough to bring back the Iraq nightmares, but . . . he was right. It had been ages since I’d freaked out like this. It took me a few more minutes before I was sure I could speak.
“If I fuck this up,” I whispered, “Simon and Lily will lose their magic for sure. The entire Old World relationship in the state could collapse.”
It sounded unnecessarily dramatic when I said it out loud like that, but we both knew I wasn’t wrong. Quinn scooted a little closer and put his arm around me. He didn’t emit any warmth, but at least it blocked the chill from the bricks.
“Why is she making me do this?” I mumbled. “She hasn’t had much use for me in months, and now she wants an undercover op?”
There was a long pause, longer than I would expect even from my taciturn boyfriend. “I don’t know all her plans,” he said at last. “But I know you can do this.”
I turned my head to look him in the eye. “How? How do you know?”
“Because you have to,” he said simply.
That wasn’t very inspiring. I leaned my head against the cold building again, watching the icicle lights twinkle. Maven had set them up all the way around the building, even though only a handful of people ever came through the back door. “Why did she say she doesn’t have the resources, especially right now?”
He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. Something’s going on, but I’m not in the loop . . . yet. She’ll tell us when she’s ready.”
I just gazed at him for a minute. He sounded so calm. Sure, vampires were generally pretty patient, but could I trust him to tell me the truth about this? He hadn’t told me about the weekend pass, and he’d been evasive about his reasons. I couldn’t tell if he’d kept quiet on Maven’s orders, or if he’d done it to protect me. And asking him would be pointless, because if Maven had ordered him to lie to me, he’d have to obey her.