Emerald Blaze

Chapter 3

I walked quickly, the pristine white wall on my right, the cobalt windows on my left. My heart hammered against my ribs. My throat closed up, squeezing itself too tight to swallow.

The wall ended abruptly, giving way to a short hallway that branched off, two doors on the left and an arched niche on the right, inlaid with a sea glass mosaic. I stepped into the hallway and leaned against the wall, letting it bear the brunt of my weight. Alessandro’s voice surfaced from my memory.

Look at me. Look me in the eyes. Your witchery doesn’t work on me. I’m already obsessed with you.

I breathed in slow and deep.

Beyond the glass, the horizon ignited with the yellow and orange of a Texas sunset, the sky enormous and deep above the city. The blue lights playing on the white walls turned aqua and green. The short hallway turned dark.

If I closed my eyes, I could conjure him right here next to me. I remembered his voice, his face, his scent . . . He was engraved in my memory. The relationship might have meant nothing to him, but it was my first. I hadn’t known it was necessary to guard myself against committing completely. I didn’t realize it was doomed from the start. I just fell in love.

I’d spent the last few months gluing my heart together shard by shard and seeing him stabbed me again, right in the still-raw wound. It was so easy to just rage about it, because the alternative would be to hurt. Anger was better than pain, but I couldn’t afford either. I had to be sharp.

Someone was coming down the hallway. I heard nothing, but I sensed someone moving closer. I sank into the wall niche, my back flat against the glass tiles, found the phone in my pocket, and turned it off.

Alessandro stalked into view. He moved silently; a jaguar, sleek, stealthy, an ambush predator capable of explosive power. I was being hunted.

He stopped.

The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose. I sank deeper into the shadowy niche. The trick to staying invisible was to think of nothing at all.

Alessandro turned. A focused expression claimed his face. None of the charismatic, urbane son-of-wealth-and-privilege persona remained. He looked predatory and slightly vicious. Bright orange flames curled in his eyes, his magic smoldering just under the surface.

I breathed quietly through a barely open mouth and pulled my magic to me. It built inside me like a geyser ready to erupt.

Alessandro took a step toward the hallway.

That’s it. Come closer. Make my day. This won’t go the way you think it will.

“Prime Sagredo!” Marat called.

The orange fire vanished. Alessandro’s expression rearranged itself. His brow relaxed, his mouth curved, and his eyes lost their lethal concentration, softening. He turned around with a dazzling smile.

“Are you looking for something?” Marat asked.

“A bathroom,” Alessandro confessed, looking helpless. If I hadn’t witnessed it, I wouldn’t have believed the two were the same man.

“It’s the other way,” Marat said. “I’ll walk with you.”

“You’re too kind.”

“I want to make sure you don’t get the wrong idea about this project,” Marat started. “The profits could be sky-high, but we must play this just right.”

Alessandro opened his eyes a bit wider. “Not to worry. As we say in Italy, profit è il mio cavallo di battaglia.”

“What does that mean?”

It meant that profit was his battle horse.

“It’s my forte,” Alessandro said. “Making money is what I do.”

“Fantastic.”

The sound of their voices and steps receded.

I waited another full minute and slipped out of the niche. He would come looking for me. I would bet our family’s entire annual budget on it.

I turned left and hurried down the hallway, turning my phone on. It pinged. A text message from Linus.

I sent a car.

I walked into the waiting area. Cornelius stood by the windows, looking at the city below. Tension radiated from his posture. His shoulders were stiff, his arms crossed on his chest, and a guarded expression hardened his face. It would’ve been a grave sight, except that Rosebud perched on his head, clutching his blond hair in her adorable little hands.

I raised my phone and snapped a picture.

“Where’s Leon?” I asked.

“Calling 911.”

I almost groaned. “Audrey?”

Cornelius nodded.

“What is it this time?”

“There’s an intruder in her house,” Cornelius said. “Leon has to come and save her.”

For some reason, our family had the worst luck with women named Audrey. On the first day of kindergarten, blond Audrey, whose last name I couldn’t remember, didn’t like my backpack so she spat in my hair. In high school, Audrey Swan got together with the guy Arabella liked and the two of them posted a video mocking her on Snapchat. Grandma Frida had a nemesis, a nasty old lady with a shrill voice, who used to be her next-door neighbor. Her name was Audri Burns. The worst officer my mother ever served with was named Jenna Audreigh. Leon’s Audrey was no exception.

Audrey Duarte was an influencer. She specialized in “total look” tutorials, combining trendy fashion with the right makeup and hair, and made a lot of money promoting cosmetics and clothes labels. Her 1.2 million followers thought she walked on water.

About two months ago, she contacted our firm. She’d been receiving threatening letters promising to disfigure her. Leon had taken the case, because its “noir nature” appealed to him. Somewhere in his head a 1930s soundtrack must’ve been playing while a rich baritone announced, “A beautiful dame walked into my office. She was trouble. Dames always are.” He quickly determined that the threatening mail had come from her competitor, which was fortunate since real stalking cases were difficult to resolve. Convincing someone to let go of the object of their affection took a long time and often ended badly.

Leon closed the case and moved on. Audrey didn’t. Leon was attractive and dangerous, and she decided he should belong to her. She was used to being adored for things like curling her hair and she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t falling at her feet and promising her the world. In an ironic twist, she developed stalker tendencies. She sent him hundreds of texts a week. He blocked her number, so she went on a disposable phone spree. She showed up at our place, but security blocked her. We watched her try to charm, then pout, then scream at our guards, until they threatened to call the cops. She bought him a motorcycle and had it delivered to us, and we refused the delivery.

Her latest strategy was to bombard Leon with emergencies from her numerous burner cells. The last time it was a fire. The time before that, she heard strange noises in the garage. No matter what the emergency was, the request was always the same—her life was in danger, and Leon had to come and save her.

With the emergencies, Audrey graduated to threats of harm, in her case, to herself. Once was an isolated occurrence, twice could be coincidence, but the third time constituted “a pattern of behavior.” Stalking was a third-degree felony in the state of Texas, and she had just given us enough ammunition. Tomorrow I would authorize Sabrian Turner, our House counsel, to contact Audrey’s family and arrange for a heart-to-heart.

Cornelius looked at me. “I saw Tatyana Pierce.”

Ah. That explained his expression. House Harrison and House Pierce didn’t get along. Nevada knew more about it than I did, but she told me before that both Cornelius and his older sister Diana detested the Pierce family.

“Is she involved in this matter?” Cornelius asked.

“She is. I’ll understand if you choose to avoid this one.” Cornelius had full discretion when it came to our cases. Some he claimed, others he passed on.

Cornelius locked his jaw. “Oh no. Quite the opposite.”

Rosebud pulled on his hair and trilled at me for emphasis, clearly ready to do battle.

Well, we had a pint-size battle monkey on our side. This case was as good as solved.

Leon strode around the bend of the wall, his face annoyed. He saw me and grimaced. “I handled it.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. She sounded really freaked out. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe her.”

“But you do know better. You called 911. They’ll take it from here.”

He puffed his cheeks and blew the air out slowly. “What’s next?”

“I have to go see Linus.”

“Do you want me to take you?” Leon asked.

“No, he sent a car. Could the two of you take Rosebud to Maya?”

“Linus will wait,” Leon said. “Come be a hero with us.”

“You barely slept for three days,” Cornelius added. “You worked really hard on this. You deserve to be there when Maya gets her back.”

I wanted to. So much. “I can’t. Take a video for me. Please?”

“This sucks,” Leon said.

Cornelius shook his head. “Video is not the same. Happy moments like these don’t happen very often. You should be there.”

I should, but Linus couldn’t wait. “I would if I could. I’ll see you tomorrow, Cornelius.”

I started down the hallway. A stray thought made me turn and I walked backward. “Leon, don’t go over there. Don’t go to Audrey’s.”

“Give me some credit.”

“I mean it.”

He waved me off. “Stop worrying.”

I turned and headed for the elevator.

It was so simple to say. Stop worrying about this. Stop worrying about that. It will be fine. But often it wasn’t fine. Sometimes I felt like a spider who’d spun a web across a bottomless drop. My family was walking across, balancing on hair-thin strands, and it was my job to keep them from falling.

Of all the ritzy neighborhoods in Houston, River Oaks was the most exclusive and the most expensive. The minimum home price ran upward of three million, and yard space was worth its weight in gold. Common wisdom said one should never own the nicest house in the neighborhood. Linus Duncan didn’t give a damn.

The ostentatious mansions rolled past the armored window as the Rolls Royce Cullinan glided up the picturesque road. In the driver’s seat, Pete checked the rearview mirror for the seventh time since I started counting. Six feet three inches tall, with pale skin and light hair cropped short, he was in his late forties. He could throw me over his shoulder, run eight hundred meters at full speed in under three minutes, set me down, do forty pull-ups, then drop and do fifty push-ups. He also fired a gun with deadly accuracy and could kill a skilled opponent with his hands, which was why he was one of two people Duncan trusted with his personal safety. And now Pete was cautious.

I didn’t ask why. The home defense turrets Linus made emitted a specific sound, a magic twang, followed by the crack of a bullet leaving the barrel. Once you heard it, you never forgot it. I hadn’t imagined hearing it during our phone call. Whatever had happened wasn’t good. Pete had to concentrate on keeping me safe, and nobody won if I made his job harder by asking questions. I texted Runa Etterson instead.

Six months ago, we had helped Runa find her kidnapped sister and avenge her mother’s murder. Runa had been working on her postgraduate degree at UCLA. But now both her sister and her brother needed a lot of support, and therapy, and reassurance. Their life was here in Houston, and she’d decided not to force them to abandon everything by dragging them to California. A great deal of paperwork later, she walked away from her research at UCLA and ended up starting over at Rice. I saw her every week and her siblings, Ragnar and Halle, every other week or so. For the first time in my life, I had a best friend. It was weird as hell.

I need a favor.

The phone chimed back. Shoot.

Do you know anybody doing work on merging of organic matter and metal? I need something assessed and I have to keep it quiet.

Linus?

Yes.

Runa had been at the center of the investigation into her mother’s death. She’d very quickly figured out that Linus and I were connected; she’d watched me stumble, shell-shocked, through my first couple of cases, and she’d grown more and more worried. Eventually I broke down and told her about the Deputy Warden thing. I shouldn’t have, but I had to tell someone and it made things so much easier.

I know someone, Runa texted back. Do you want me to take the thing to her?

Thank you. I’ll ask Cornelius to drop it off at your place.

Are you okay?

I was pretty damn far from okay, but I didn’t want to do this over text. I’ll live. Thanks for asking.

Pete steered the Rolls Royce around the bend and Linus’ house came into view.

The sturdy wrought-iron gates hung askew, wrenched from their mounts by some powerful force. Behind them, unnaturally bright blood smeared the paver stones of a wide circular driveway. Normally, in the center of the driveway a white fountain rose from the middle of an artfully landscaped flower bed, water cascading out of its top and spilling into the triple basin. Right now, the fountain was dry, its top scattered in pieces across the driveway. A broken turret jutted on the right between the decorative shrubs, knocked off its retractable mount. Ahead a palatial mansion waited like a castle from an animated fairy tale. The blood smears stopped ten yards short of the door. No assailants had reached the front steps.

Pete parked, exited the car, and held my door open. I stepped out and he led me to the front door. There was a momentary pause as the security system recognized my face, then the locks clicked, and Pete opened the door and ushered me into a three-story foyer.

The interior of the house was as grand as the outside promised it would be. The polished white marble floor gleamed like a mirror, reflecting walls of Venetian plaster in white and cream decorated with acanthus-leaf molding. Another ornate fountain rose in the middle of the foyer, cradled by a double grand staircase twisting to the second floor on both sides. Above it, a stained-glass dome offered white clouds floating over the blue sky. An enormous chandelier dripped long strands of crystal from the center of the dome, illuminating the fountain, and the entire place glowed, white and elegant despite its opulence.

“He’s waiting in the study,” Pete said.

“Thank you.” I turned right and crossed the foyer to the side doorway, then walked through a small sitting room, through another hallway, and entered the study.

The Venetian plaster here was beige rather than cream and trimmed with light brown. Bookshelves filled the arched alcoves—Linus embraced technology, but he loved the texture of paper. Like the foyer, the study was elegant and uncluttered—two padded chairs, a love seat in the corner, a black-and-gold desk that would have been at home in Versailles, and a single ficus tree to the left of the fireplace that somehow thrived despite Linus’ neglect. The air smelled of aromatic tobacco and coffee. He kept loose tobacco on hand because he liked the scent and either Pete or Hera, his other bodyguard, replaced it every few weeks when it lost its aroma.

Linus Duncan sat behind the desk, engrossed in his tablet. A heavy crystal glass with about a finger of whiskey waited forgotten on his right.

I sat in the nearest chair.

Linus leaned back and looked at me. “How did it go with Montgomery?”

Apparently we were going to ignore me being attacked in the park and him being attacked in his house.

“I’m in.” I would have to phrase this next bit carefully. “There are complications.”

He pinned me with his gaze. “What complications?”

“Lander Morton and Alessandro Sagredo are a package deal.”

He rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers, thinking. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” I lied. “It’s not a problem. It just makes things slightly more complicated, because I have to account for an overpowered assassin with an unknown motive.”

“Don’t we all.”

“I’d like permission to run a Warden Network search on Sagredo.” The Warden Network included access to several law enforcement databases that were off-limits to civilians.

“Why?”

“I don’t like to be surprised.”

“Denied,” Linus said. “You know his capabilities and his temperament. In some ways, you know him better than almost anyone else. Anything the Warden Network would tell you would be a guess at best. How are things progressing with Albert Ravenscroft?”

“They’re not.”

Albert Ravenscroft, the heir to House Ravenscroft, was a Prime psionic, twenty-six years old, handsome, and very persistent. He operated on the assumption that if he just put in enough time and effort, I would recognize his beauty and wit. Even if his efforts had managed to wear me down, our relationship would be doomed. Albert was interested in marriage.

Six months ago, when a psychotic mind ripper mage had trapped Alessandro, I made a deal with my evil grandmother. She gave me what I needed to save him. In return, I swore to dedicate myself to House Baylor. I would never become a part of another House. The man who married me would have to join mine. He would have to take my name and abandon all claims on his previous family. I hadn’t shared this bit with Linus because he didn’t need to know. Albert was looking to strengthen his House, not to run away from it.

Linus mulled it over. “His choice or yours?”

“Mine.”

He watched me carefully. “Albert would be easy to manage.”

“I have no interest in managing him. Besides, I’m busy. Why are we interested in House Morton?”

Linus’ tablet chimed. He glanced at it. “It appears I have a guest. I think he’s here for you.”

He turned the tablet toward me. On it Alessandro drove a silver Alfa Romeo Spider through the broken gates and parked in front of the door.

We waited in silence. Five seconds. Ten . . .

Alessandro walked into the study carrying an unconscious Pete over his shoulder, deposited him on the love seat in the corner, and sat in the other chair.

Linus looked at Pete and sighed. “Please join us, won’t you, Prime Sagredo?”

No. Don’t join us. Turn around and go away as far and as fast as you can.

Linus looked at me, then at Alessandro. Neither of us said anything.

“Well.” Linus spread his arms. “Let’s start with you, Alessandro. Why are you here?”

Alessandro threw one long leg over the other and leaned back. “Officially I’m here because Lander Morton hired me to kill the person or persons who murdered his son.”

Linus raised his eyebrows. “Do you think I’m hiding them here in my house?”

“Unofficially I’m here because she is in danger.” Alessandro looked at Linus. “Does the name Ignat Orlov mean anything to you?”

He pronounced Ignat with an uh, so it sounded almost like ignite.

Linus grimaced, as if he’d bitten something sour.

“It doesn’t to me,” I said.

“Former officer of the Russian Imperial Defense,” Alessandro said.

“An Imperium-sanctioned assassin,” Linus supplied. “Trained, experienced, and very good, since he managed to survive all these years.”

“Goes by the name Arkan,” Alessandro added. “It means lasso.”

The nicknames professional killers gave themselves never failed to make me roll my eyes. “Because he snares his enemies?”

“Yes,” Alessandro and Linus said at the same time.

“Why is he important?”

“Excellent question,” Linus said.

Alessandro gave us a short, humorless smile. “Because he stole your serum.”

The Office of the Warden had a primary directive: to safeguard the Osiris serum. In unscrupulous hands, the serum had the potential to wipe out our civilization. A couple of years ago, someone broke into the Northern Vault and stole five samples of it, labeled 161-165AC. Six months ago, we had gone against an assassin firm, Diatheke, to get one of the samples back. They’d used it to turn humans into magic-wielding monsters. We’d managed to recover sample 164AC and its derivatives, and destroyed Diatheke along with Benedict De Lacy, the assassin who ran it, in the process. Four other samples were still missing.

How was that connected to the Pit? I looked at Linus.

Linus pondered Alessandro, his eyes calculating. He was trying to decide how much Alessandro knew and how difficult it would be to dispose of him, if things came to that.

“Felix Morton ran into me at the last Assembly session,” Linus said finally. “Quite literally. He collided with me in the elevator, apologized, then told me that ‘it’s been ages since we last talked.’ I found it curious, because we’d never spoken. Also because he passed me this envelope.”

Linus took out a white envelope from his desk drawer and slid it toward me across the desk.

I picked it up. A plain unmarked envelope, generic, the kind you can buy in any office store. It was unsealed. I opened it and pulled out a photograph. A shot of the swamp, probably the Pit, taken early in the morning or late in the evening. The photographer must have been aiming at the derelict building on the other side of the bog—it was in focus—and if I hadn’t looked closely, I would have missed it. Two spinning rings, half-submerged and churning water about ten feet from the shore, with a blue light glowing under the surface.

The hair on the back of my neck rose.

I flipped the photograph. On the back in a hurried cursive someone had written “Jane Saurage, my appraiser, disappeared in the Pit 07/09. This was the last image uploaded to her cloud. I need to speak with you ASAP.”

Alessandro held out his hand for the envelope.

I put the picture on the desk instead and tapped the spinning rings. “One of these controlled the creatures that attacked us.”

“I now have one in my basement.” Linus frowned. “And I have no idea how it was made. It’s biomechanical in nature, but on a level I don’t understand. I have an expert coming, but it may take some time.”

Alessandro rose, picked up the envelope and the photograph, and sat back in his chair.

Linus continued. “Four hours after he handed this to me, Felix was murdered in the Pit. His body wasn’t found until the next morning. Do you remember Agent Wahl?”

“Yes.” I tried to keep a groan from my voice and failed.

Agent Wahl had spearheaded an investigation into the trafficking of the magic-warped—people so transformed by magic, they were no longer human. Some of them had come from the Diatheke’s assassin lab which Linus, Alessandro, and our family had destroyed. I had taken that case away from Agent Wahl at Linus’ direction and his wail of outrage could have been heard all the way in Amarillo. He made it plain that he didn’t respect me, didn’t recognize my authority, and generally felt that a two-year-old could have done a much better job in my place. He had to cooperate with me, but he spent the entire time convinced that I would screw everything up beyond all hope, so he’d bugged my car, tried to clone my phone, and had me tailed in case I failed and he would have to ride in on a white steed, or possibly a black SUV, to save the day.

“He came to see me today,” Linus said.

“Has his leg healed?”

“Yes, although he’s still using the cane. Apparently, Felix contacted him about some workers disappearing and mentioned 162AC.”

Shit.

“Agent Wahl, in a rare fit of common sense, gave your name, and mine, to Felix. He left town on assignment shortly after and didn’t return until this morning. He didn’t know if Felix got ahold of me, but once he learned about the funeral, he wanted to be sure.”

And of course, Wahl would have recognized the formula. When we pulled the corpses of the magic-warped people out of a mass grave, they had been tattooed with 164AC followed by the number of the serum variant. I didn’t know what Linus told him, but at some point, Agent Wahl stopped asking inconvenient questions.

“We were having our chat when a swarm of giant arcane snakes with moth wings attacked my home.”

Snakes with moth wings? “How did Agent Wahl take it?”

“Oh, he had a grand time. He also shared with me that any time the Office of the Warden becomes involved in something, the ‘world falls down.’ He finds this fact very exciting. Interesting fellow.”

Linus turned to Alessandro and made a your-turn gesture.

“Sixteen years ago, Arkan went private,” Alessandro said.

“That’s debatable,” Linus said, “but go on.”

“Right now, Arkan stays at his estate in Canada. I’ve secured means of surveilling him.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I have a personal interest in killing him.”

Ask a stupid question . . .

“When Arkan broke into the Northern Vault and stole the serum you’ve been trying to recover, he didn’t do it because someone paid him. He was the driving force behind the theft, but the operation was complex and expensive, and he did have investors. The serum was divided between the participants.”

“Was Diatheke one of these investors?” I asked.

“Diatheke was run by a board of shareholders,” Alessandro answered. “Arkan owned the controlling interest. It was his firm and Benedict De Lacy answered directly to him.”

The memory of Alessandro’s assassin database flashed before me. At the time I thought he was simply studying the competition. However, if Arkan was his target all along, the database took on a new meaning.

“Three days ago, one of these investors called him,” Alessandro said. “I don’t know who it was. I only heard his end of the conversation.”

“What was said?” Linus asked.

“The person on the other line had killed Felix Morton and panicked. They must’ve mentioned your name”—Alessandro looked at Linus—“because Arkan told them that he would handle Duncan and there was nothing to worry about.”

Linus raised his eyebrows. “Did he now?”

“He did.”

This lined up with Augustine’s theory that Felix’s killer was one of the board members. Only a well-connected, powerful Prime would be brazen enough to become involved in the theft of the Osiris serum.

“Arkan assured them that he would be sending help,” Alessandro continued. “After the conversation, he called in someone and instructed them to go to Houston. He mentioned you by name.” Alessandro nodded to Linus and turned to me. “And then he mentioned you. Arkan knows that Linus is the Warden and that you are his Deputy.”

Great.

“The plan is simple. Linus is too hard of a target. Killing a Warden would unleash a meteor shower, and Arkan wants to avoid the attention of the National Assembly. His people will go after you instead. You’re easier to kill. Arkan’s banking that once Linus discovers that his apprentice is in danger, he will move to protect you, all of which will disrupt the investigation. I don’t know if he’s buying time to clean it up or if his plans are more complex, but I know you’re his primary target.”

“Do you have any proof?” Linus asked.

Alessandro brushed a speck of lint off his knee. “Proof is your problem. I don’t plan on taking him to court. I know and that’s enough. I reached out to Lander Morton through an intermediary and offered my condolences. Lander is a vindictive old buzzard. The most important person in his life had just been murdered. I knew he would jump on the chance to get revenge. He hired me.”

“I imagine he’s paying quite well,” I said.

Alessandro didn’t rise to the bait. “Money is of no consequence. I’m here to make sure you don’t die.”

“I’m touched, Prime Sagredo, but your protection is not necessary.” Or welcome.

Alessandro turned to Linus. “The contract you had me sign has no expiration date. I’ll abide by its provisions. Let me keep her safe.”

Linus pondered it.

No. Absolutely not.

“Work with him,” Linus said.

The betrayal stung. I had three seconds to pick an emotion. I could storm off angry, which would be childish; I could refuse and show everyone just how deep Alessandro had hurt me; or I could swallow my feelings, act like it didn’t matter, and be professional about it.

“Is that an order?” I kept my voice casual.

“Does it have to be?” Linus asked.

“He shares no information unless his arm is twisted, which makes him unpredictable, and he’s driven by self-interest, which makes him a liability. He has no loyalty, he can’t be counted on, and his principles are murky. I have no problem working with him, but I want my objection noted, so when he cuts and runs at the worst moment, I can tell you ‘I told you so.’” And I would really rub it in.

“I told you before that I would see things through,” Alessandro said. “I kept my promise and I’ll do it again. When I sign on the dotted line, I always deliver.”

I shrugged.

“You do remember what betraying the trust of the National Assembly of the United States means?” Linus said. “There is no place on this planet where we won’t find you.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Alessandro said.

Linus smiled again, showing even white teeth. “See? He knows the consequences.” He clapped his hands together. “It’s settled. You will investigate, he will protect you, and everything will come up roses. Moving on.”

This was some kind of nightmare. Not only did Alessandro reappear in my life, now I had to work with him. He would insist on following me everywhere. We would be around each other all the time. I would rather walk on broken glass all day than spend fifteen minutes talking to him.

I had picked my path. I swore an oath to the Wardens. Like Mom said, it was time to put up or shut up.

I wrestled my mind back to the problem at hand. There would be time to vent all of this later. “You don’t know who Arkan sent?”

“No,” Alessandro said.

“Do you think he is behind the two attacks?”

“Unlikely. Arkan’s people are precise and fast. This was stupid.”

As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. “Agreed. First, they attacked Linus in his home where he is the strongest. Second, they attacked both of us and simultaneously. It wasn’t just an assault on two Primes, it was an assault on the Office of the Warden. All of this guarantees that we will drop everything and investigate. Why?”

“That’s what you’ll need to find out.” Linus leaned forward. “The recovery of the serum is your first priority. Get in and shake them up until it falls out. Get me the evidence I need to force my way in. Don’t die.”

He looked at me and said, enunciating every word, “Do me this favor, Catalina.”

“Of course, Mr. Duncan.”

We went through this ritual with every assignment. I called it “Victoria Tremaine’s insurance.”

Linus nodded at Alessandro. “Wait outside. She’ll be along shortly.”

Alessandro rose from the chair with that liquid grace and walked out.

I waited until he’d had time to reach the front door. “How could you?”

“I know it hurts. I know you’re angry. He’s an arrogant jackass, but he is very, very good at what he does. Your survival matters to me a great deal more than your feelings.”

“Anybody but him. I could have taken Pete.”

Linus raised his eyebrows and pointed at the unconscious Pete with his thumb. “He would be difficult to carry.”

My feelings must have shown on my face, because Linus sat back.

“Do you understand why I can’t take this over now?”

“You have no justification. The Office of the Warden can’t just run over the private affairs of Primes. The Houses would scream bloody murder.”

Linus nodded. “I have a lot of things to verify. If what that hotshot said is true, I have to cover a lot of ground. I may not be available to provide assistance.”

“I’m not sure I can count on Alessandro to provide it either.”

Linus steepled his fingers. “You’ve had a chance to observe him here. Tell me what’s different about him from the Alessandro you remember.”

I ran through the last twenty minutes in my head. “He didn’t challenge you. You gave him multiple chances to mouth off, but he didn’t take them.” No, Alessandro was in full Artisan mode. Ice cold, calculating, resolute.

“What else?”

“He offered information without being prompted.” That was new as well. The last time we met, I had to pull every bit of intelligence out of him with tweezers even when our lives depended on it.

“Something must’ve happened to him,” Linus said. “I suspect it was extremely unpleasant. I like his determination. It’s a welcome change.”

I gave up. “How dangerous is Arkan?”

“Dangerous enough that the Imperial Department of Defense let him go rather than kill him, which is their usual procedure. It was judged to be more cost-effective.”

“Wow. He gave the Russian Imperium pause?”

“Yes. The man is a mass murderer, Catalina. He has a black tag. Just him alone.”

In the Warden Network, potential threats were tagged with different colors, from low to high. Black indicated the highest level, critical. It was usually reserved for criminal organizations and small governments rather than individuals. Even my brother-in-law, who could level an entire city once he got going, was marked as brown.

“One wonders how much easier our lives would be if the Russian Imperium had collapsed during the farmer revolt.” Linus opened a drawer of his desk, took out a large box, and held it out to me. “I’m throwing you into a den of wolves. The least I can do is give you a stick to hold them at bay.”

“Thank you.”

I took my present. Made of polished cedar, it was about two and a half feet long. A stylized tree branch with five leaves was carved into the lid, wrapped in a ribbon of Norse runes.

“It’s beautiful.”

“This is a prototype, with all the issues that entails. I planned to refine it, but we have no time.”

I opened the box. Inside on turquoise velvet lay a short sword. It was a straightforward weapon, almost plain: about fourteen inches overall, with a ten-inch double-edged blade, and a wooden grip wrapped in a leather cord. Both the simple cross guard and the round pommel shimmered with blued steel, catching the light. The blade seemed unusually wide for the length, about forty-eight millimeters, at least.

Aww. He made me a sword. He never made swords. He specialized in projectile weapons.

I set the box on his desk and plucked the weapon out. Heavy. And weighted oddly, most of the mass at the hilt. This wasn’t a functional sword, more like a decorative sword-shaped object you would hang on the wall.

It didn’t matter. It wasn’t a very good sword, but he’d made it specially for me.

“I love it,” I said. Nobody had ever made me a sword before.

Linus sighed. “Flick it.”

“What?”

“Stand up and wave it around.”

I got up and sliced through the air. The blade unfolded like a telescopic pole and I almost dropped it. The new sword was thirty inches long.

Um . . . I raised the sword and studied the blade. Logic said there should have been lines between the segments, but I couldn’t find any. I spun, swinging in a quick combination of slashes. The blade held. Still, the structural integrity of it had to be crap. A good sword was essentially a somewhat flexible length of sharpened steel designed to slash and stab through objects with high resistance and would be sturdy enough to block a strike. A segmented sword, by definition, was hollow. If I tried to cut something, it would snap at the joints. If I tried to block, it might snap at the hilt.

I manufactured some enthusiasm. “Awesome.”

Linus shook his head. “You are a terrible liar. Sink some magic into it.”

I relaxed my hold on my power and let it flow into the hilt. Faint dark lines formed on the blade, growing into an intricate pattern of tiny arcane circles. What was this? Mages used arcane circles to supplement and channel their magic. Some circles amplified magic; others contained or shaped it. The most prominent families developed House spells, which unleashed catastrophic power and required circles of dazzling complexity. But all circles had to be drawn fresh with chalk or other organic substances like soap or wax. That’s why I redrew the trap circles in our house every couple of weeks.

I looked at Linus.

He pointed at the box. “Hit it.”

A sword wasn’t an axe, and since this one was hollow, it would break. But he ordered me to hit it. I raised the blade and chopped down.

The sword cut through the box like it was butter and sank into the desk. Crap. I reversed the swing, expecting resistance. There was none. The weapon came free, and if I hadn’t gripped it tight, I would’ve flung it into the air. The momentum pitched me back, and I spun, bringing the sword in a wide arc around me, shut off the flow of magic, and stopped, blinking.

Linus slow clapped.

Holy shit.

“How?”

Linus chuckled. “Null space.”

Some arcane circles required so much magic that their boundary ceased to exist in our physical realm. It was a place where our reality touched the arcane. Nothing could penetrate it. A mage inside such a circle was invincible until his magic ran out, which would happen quite quickly. The very nature of such circles made them unsustainable long-term.

“I don’t understand.”

“I used an organometallic compound to embed the arcane lines. It contains a bond between metal and carbon atoms, which makes this particular substance suitable for magic channeling. Unfortunately, it’s also sensitive to moisture and air and you wouldn’t believe the hoops I jumped through to modify it.”

Oh my God. He’d just revolutionized the entire science of arcane metallurgy. If it ever got out, the line of people trying to kill me for this sword would stretch down the I-10 all the way to San Antonio.

“Every time you feed it magic, the compound reacts, so in effect, you are redrawing the circles with every application. It remains to be seen how durable it is. Like I said, it’s not perfect, but I’m not unhappy with it.”

I choked on air.

“This is an emergency blade,” Linus said. “Swing it long enough and it will drain you dry. You know what happens then.”

First, I would see glowing dots, then the world would shrink, and if I kept going, I’d either pass out or die. I nodded.

Linus Duncan fixed me with his hazel eyes. “Be careful, Catalina. The night is dark, and the wolves have vicious teeth. Guard yourself.”

“I will,” I promised.