Sapphire Flames

Chapter 13

“Leave it,” Alessandro said. “It will disappear once I’m out of range.”

“By disappear do you mean it will teleport back?” Linus asked.

“No, I mean it will cease to be.” Judging by the set of his jaw, disclosing the details of his magic brought Alessandro actual pain.

“Is this a copy of my suit or the original? I don’t wish it to disappear, if it’s the latter.”

Alessandro unclenched his teeth and waved his hand. “It’s a copy.”

Linus stroked his beard. “How peculiar. You see, the suit is keyed to my biometrics. You shouldn’t have been able to use it. How exactly did you manage that?”

Alessandro gave him his dazzling smile. “It’s magic.”

Smartass.

“Where did you find this charmer?” Linus asked me.

“In an abandoned mall. He followed me home. Could we please stop talking about the exosuit?” I asked.

“Why don’t we sit down?” Linus said.

I landed in the nearest chair. My head felt woozy and the room kept trying to crawl sideways. Linus poured two more glasses of whiskey and handed them to us. Alessandro sat in the chair next to me and inspected the amber liquid.

“Thirty-year-old Scotch whisky,” I warned him.

As hilarious as watching eight-hundred-dollar whiskey come out of Arabella’s nose had been, I didn’t want him to repeat her experience. Linus was offended enough as it was, and I didn’t savor the prospect of listening to another lecture about the unsuitability of aged Scotch spirits for shot taking.

“Single malt.” Linus held his glass up to the light and smiled.

Alessandro sipped from his glass. His face took on an appreciative expression. “Exquisite.”

“There may be hope for you yet. A very slim hope.” Linus leaned back. “The Office of the Warden was founded with the singular purpose of protecting and preserving the integrity of the Osiris serum. Over the years, its role has been expanded to respond to the most egregious crimes committed by the members of the magic public. We do not concern ourselves with run-of-the-mill House feuds, murders, kidnappings, and such. A crime comes to our attention only when it puts the survival of humanity or the National Assembly at risk.”

He paused to take another sip.

“I’m not qualified for this position,” I told him.

“Actually, you are, which is ironic considering the situation. You have power and investigative experience, and your House has very few ties to the rest of the families, which makes you impartial.”

“Is this going to cause difficulties for you?” I asked. I should have brought this up earlier. Now it was too late. Not my brightest moment.

“On the contrary. The selection of a deputy is left to my discretion. They’ve been after me for years to train someone. In my defense, I did offer the position years ago to a certain telekinetic you know quite well. He declined. So I do believe the National Assembly will be overjoyed and I won’t have to endure any more questions about whether or not I plan to live forever.”

Rogan had passed on the job. Should I have passed on it too? “Why did he turn it down?”

“He didn’t want to be accountable to anyone but himself. Which conveniently brings us to my next point: rules and limitations. You are subject to my orders. You will not undertake any investigations, follow any leads, or make any decisions in your official capacity without consulting me. Please bear in mind that every action you take means I’ll have to explain or defend it before the National Assembly. Do not reveal your position as Deputy Warden without my permission to anyone.”

“Can she breathe without asking you?” Alessandro asked.

“A more important question is can you keep her breathing in the immediate future?”

“I’m going to leave the room,” I said. “You two can brawl and settle this. Would five minutes be long enough?”

Alessandro rolled his eyes. “I won’t need five minutes.”

Linus shrugged. “Good, because you won’t last five minutes.”

They stared at each other.

I sighed. “Can we get to the warped, please?”

“Each sample of the Osiris serum is synthesized using DNA from an actual human being,” Linus said. “It follows that each strain bears a particular genetic marker. Eighteen months ago, the Northern Vault was breached. Five samples of the Osiris serum were stolen.”

I hadn’t heard anything about it. It wasn’t reported online or in the news.

“The recovery of the serum is our highest priority. Our society functions because we all agreed that the serum must be locked away. If it were to become widely available again, the world would drown in violence. It’s the Pandora’s box of our age. War, political upheaval, crime, pandemics; every sin a civilized society sought to eradicate would be released.”

“Have you recovered any of it?” Alessandro asked.

“No.” Linus grimaced. “About twenty years ago a sample of the serum was stolen from China and used in experimentations by a private laboratory connected to a temporary alliance of three French Houses. They sought to bolster their magic abilities. They succeeded in refining the serum to produce a new variant, 971, as it came to be known. The 971 serum strengthens weaker inherent magic but warps the subject beyond the limits of humanity.”

“So the human subjects went from duds to magic-capable monsters?” I asked.

“In essence, yes. The lab was destroyed by the combined actions of the international Assemblies, and all of the research was eradicated.”

“Clearly not all of it,” Alessandro said.

Linus grimaced. “It would appear to be so. The 971 serum contained DNA from a powerful magic user. Everyone altered by it exhibits the same genetic marker. Fullerton informs me that the bones in your plastic bin have that marker and the marker from one of our stolen samples.”

“Explains the jump.”

The two of them looked at me.

“Diatheke rapidly expanded over the past year, probably by using overpowered warped magic users. Biomagical research takes time, and the information related to the serum is strictly controlled. Analysis of the serum alone could take years, never mind synthesis of a new variant or clinical trials. Eighteen months isn’t enough time to go from zero to viable warped mages. However, if Diatheke gained access to the 971 serum and the underlying research, they could springboard from it. They likely used a pure sample of the Osiris serum and the 971 serum to create their own new variant.”

The wheels in my head turned faster. “Did the 971 serum have a high mortality rate?”

Linus nodded. “Yes, higher than pure Osiris serum. It’s stronger but deadlier.”

“What are you thinking?” Alessandro asked.

“Runa mentioned that Halle specialized in purification. She excels in removing toxins from the human body. They may be using her to cut down on their fatality rate.”

“None of this explains why Diatheke decided to murder you,” Alessandro said.

Linus tapped some keys on his tablet. A screen slid from the wall and came to life, showing an empty parking lot lit by a single lamp that barely held back the night. A woman with long dark hair sprinted across it, little more than a silhouette. A swarm of familiar flying ticks tore into the woman. Lightning burst from her, arching over the pavement. Ticks rained to the ground, but the swarm kept coming, a black cloud wrapping around her. A piercing scream rang out and died. The swarm boiled, folding in on itself, as the ticks tore into the body in a feeding frenzy. Behind them Lawrence strode into the frame, the light of the lamp playing over his warped features. The video ended. Linus pressed pause. The image froze, showing a dark computer screen and in it a faint reflection, a hint of a silhouette with glasses and familiar sharp hair.

“Augustine,” I breathed out.

Linus nodded. “It was sent to my business office a month ago from an anonymous source.”

Alessandro smiled. “He let you know that he’s aware that you’re the Warden and he wants credit for bringing the matter to your attention, but nothing in that recording is strong enough to tie him to it. Clever.”

“Benedict knows,” I said. “When he was menacing me in his office, he told me to say hello to Augustine. He thought I was working for him.”

“MII is a mammoth beast,” Linus said. “And Augustine is entrenched in the state’s power grid.”

“Benedict couldn’t go after Augustine,” Alessandro surmised. “Too loud and too dangerous, but he couldn’t take the chance that the recording reached the Wardens, so he tried to eliminate you instead. One man versus a corporation.”

Benedict had badly miscalculated. I would rather take on Augustine with all his resources than Linus any day.

Linus studied the whiskey in his glass. “This Magdalene the psionic mentioned. She’s likely the brain of this warped factory. What do we know about her?”

“Nothing,” I said. “A cursory search of the Prime database didn’t reveal any Primes with related specialties. There are four Magdalenes currently in US Houses, of which two are under the age of twelve, one is eighty-two, and the fourth is a telepath and unlikely to be involved.” I tapped the armrest of my chair. “We would be looking for a mage with chemistry or biological specialization.”

“It’s a code name,” Alessandro said. “Everyone in Diatheke takes a new professional name. It’s the firm’s policy.”

Selecting a code name would be personal. It would carry meaning to the person. Very few people chose an alias at random.

“Then here’s your first order,” Linus said. “Identify Magdalene. Nothing else matters. You may use Fullerton to assist you if necessary. If you need money or access, let me know. You’ll tell nobody about what happened here today or about what you’ve learned. Not your sisters, not your cousins, not your mother or grandmothers. Are we clear?”

“Yes,” I said. “But that’s not realistic. I’m not a tyrant, I’m in charge of a family. They’ll want explanations. They know that I came to see you. The moment I start accessing government databases, they will put two and two together.”

Linus took a heavy leather binder from his desk and passed it to me. “Congratulations. House Baylor has been hired as a subcontractor for an unspecified government agency.”

I opened the binder. Nondisclosure agreements, contract, lots of scary language, . . . generous compensation.

“And if I tell them the truth, I would have to kill them?”

“Quite literally.”

My insides turned cold. He wasn’t joking.

“Your mother and your grandmother are both veterans. They understand how it works. Get them on your side and the rest of the family will fall in line.”

“What about the Ettersons?”

“What about them?”

“They’re victims in this case. I don’t want to involve them in this.”

Linus’ face was merciless. “Runa Etterson is the Head of her House. She could’ve collected her brother and flown back to California. Instead she chose to stay here and take care of her family business. She involved herself. Every action carries a consequence.”

He was leveraging my family and friends against my cooperation. I finally understood why Rogan watched him the way he did. Except it was too late.

I forced my shoulders to relax, leaned back, and let Victoria Tremaine’s granddaughter rise to the surface. “Very well. We’ll view the Ettersons as part of my House for the duration of this investigation. Since you mentioned access, I’ll need entry to all the crime databases; the Assembly Prime criminal list, the FBI’s Mages of Interest, the Department of Motor Vehicles, the whole thing.”

Linus took the seal from the table and turned it over. On the back was a username and password. “With this you will be able to log into the Warden Network, which pulls data from every government network you mentioned. Everything you look at will be recorded and examined by me. Do not use it outside the scope of this investigation.”

“Understood.” My fairy godfather had just waved a magic wand and granted me top-secret clearance.

“My dear, I’ve been doing this for a while. Do give me some credit.” Linus pinned me with his stare again. “I want to be crystal clear in regards to what’s at stake. If means of manufacturing the 971 serum became public, every unscrupulous House in the world would jump at the chance to have it.”

“They would breed magic monsters for their private armies,” Alessandro said.

“Exactly. Eventually, there would be more monsters than people.” Linus’ face turned hard and unyielding. “And that, children, I will not permit.”

Alessandro and I didn’t speak on the drive back. He seemed lost in thought, and I felt like I had signed my soul away and sealed the contract with my blood. What had I gained? Was it anything at all?

Just before I reached the warehouse, I took a detour to a coffee shop. Alessandro didn’t want anything, but I bought a huge latte full of sugar and whipped cream and all the things that were bad for me. And then I drank it in the parking lot.

Alessandro stared at the giant cup with a mix of horror and morbid curiosity. “What is that?”

“Coffee-flavored sugar and cream.”

“I thought you only drank tea.”

“Why would you think that?”

“You post pictures of your tea on Instagram. It’s really very exciting. Will it be English Breakfast or Earl Grey?”

I should just delete my account. “Well, right now I need coffee.” I aggressively sucked the latte through a straw and nearly choked.

“It will be fine,” Alessandro told me.

“No, it really won’t.”

By the time Linus had gotten through the first half of the explanations about the 971 serum, half a dozen terrifying scenarios unfolded in my head and they kept spawning others, each more disturbing than the last. The weight of responsibility crashed on me like an anvil falling from a great height. It was Alessandro, me, and Linus between my family and the total collapse of our society.

“Of course it will be fine. You’re smart, resilient, and don’t forget conniving. Now you have the authority to be all those things in the service of humanity.”

I shut my eyes.

“If you keep doing that, someone will kill you. Or kiss you.”

My eyes snapped open.

“Ah, missed my chance.” Alessandro’s wolf eyes laughed at me.

“Is everything a joke to you?”

He thought about it. “Yes.”

I slumped against the car’s seat.

“He was right, you know,” Alessandro said. “Unless we stop this, it’s the beginning of the end. Dangle enough money and people will line up on the street to get warped. At first only a few Houses will have them, then others will have to match them and will get their own pet monsters, and then it won’t be if you have them but who has more of them, and who can breed the best strain, the most vicious, the most durable, with the greatest magic.”

“It’s wrong. All of it.”

“Yes, it’s very wrong. I never take more than one contract at a time, but I took this one. It’s bigger than Sigourney or Halle or me and you.”

“I know. I’m scared for my family. What if I fail?”

He dipped his head to catch my gaze. “‘We.’ What if ‘we’ fail. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay here with you until we see this through.”

He would, I realized. I wasn’t alone. It didn’t undo the weight that settled on my shoulders, but it made it lighter. Alessandro would stay with me.

I started the car and headed home.

If we did fail and die, my sisters and cousins would inherit a nightmare world. In human history whenever one social group enslaved another, the slaves suffered until they could take no more, and it always ended in an explosion of violence. And the warped would be enslaved as living weapons, I had no doubt of it. They were too dangerous, and they operated at a diminished mental capacity. Without Jocelyn, Lawrence would have killed the first person who pissed him off and eaten their face.

Atrocities would be committed to keep the warped in line and then more atrocities would follow when the warped were deployed. My stomach lurched, sending acid into my throat. Failing to contain the 971 serum would spark a biological arms race, while well-meaning politicians debated if it was more ethical to destroy the new monsters or heavily regulate their use.

By all reasonable projections, our system of individuals with remarkable powers who existed parallel to the rest of society should have collapsed. What kept it stable was the deep-seated human urge of self-preservation. The Primes tempered their feuds and minded the safety of the general population because they were afraid to die.

I didn’t even know if the warped had a sense of self-preservation. Cherry, the woman to whom Nevada used to bring chicken, didn’t. She stayed in the Pit, the flooded area of Houston, because she liked it, not because it was safe. The one time she had gotten out, because she wanted to eat a little dog running along the highway, she walked straight into traffic, oblivious to the oncoming cars, and a semi hit her so hard, she flew almost twenty feet. She was dead before she had landed.

Lawrence knew Benedict ordered me to be captured alive. But during the fight, he just wanted to kill me and eat me. The idea that Benedict, scary, scary Benedict, would be angry with him didn’t even cross his mind.

There wouldn’t be enough Jocelyns in the world to keep the Lawrences from setting it on fire.

We passed through a now heavily-fortified entry point, stopped by the security booth, where Alessandro and I were examined and questioned by two stone-faced guards, and then allowed to park in front of the warehouse.

Alessandro went to change. I went into the conference room and called a family meeting.

The room filled. I looked at the faces of my family, and I was so scared for them I couldn’t even breathe.

“As of this moment, all of us are working for the US Government.” I placed the leather binder on the table. Victoria Tremaine’s granddaughter. Project strength. Radiate confidence. Reassure. “We’ve been retained by an unnamed governmental agency to perform a specific task. I can’t tell you anything more. You know where I went this morning and whom I met. Draw your own conclusions.”

Nobody said anything. I looked to the left where Mom and Grandma Frida sat next to each other.

“We’ve been drafted,” Arabella said.

“We’ve been retained. We will be generously compensated.”

“What if we say no?” Leon asked.

“No isn’t an option. We have no choice in this matter. It’s decided and done. That’s the only way we can survive right now.”

“What do they want?” Mom asked, her voice calm.

“They want us to find someone. Sign the NDAs please so I can tell you more. Runa, House Etterson’s participation is optional. If you want out, you and Ragnar have to leave this room right now.”

Runa drummed her fingernails on the table. “If we assist in this research, will anyone with real power remember it?”

“Yes.” I would remember it and so would Linus.

“Then we are in. We need friends in high places.”

I waited until all of the NDAs were signed and returned to me. “We are looking for someone named Magdalene. She’s a monster maker.”

Arabella was the one who found it. An old account on Herald, abandoned for six years. The user’s name was Magdalin and the posts consisted of House snark. Making fun of this Prime celebrity’s hair, that singer’s nose, calling a young darling of the Houston elite a “skank” because she slept with more than one guy. The sort of snark a teenager might post, but the voice was older. She read more like a woman in her twenties, playing to a younger crowd. Once in a while she posted a piece of juicy gossip, proving that she was “in” with the local House scene, and her adoring teenage mob went crazy.

Eventually the posts slacked off and stopped altogether. Bern read through the last fifty, getting a feel for her voice patterns. The rest of us scoured the feed for any clues. Magdalin was careful to never mention names, other than the people she made fun of, and her pics were coy. A sparkly shoe, a designer bag, a half-smoked joint. No obvious clues to her identity. A search of the other social networks didn’t uncover any relevant Magdalins, so we went after her followers.

Of those, Killer Bee was the most frequent contributor. She liked all of Magdalin’s posts even after most of her fans had abandoned ship, and their banter referenced particular restaurants and clubs. On one of her later posts, Magdalin seemed dejected. Killer Bee had replied, “You’re brilliant as fuck! Can’t wait to have our lunch tomorrow. BFF forever.”

Which was redundant, because BFF already stood for Best Friends Forever.

Magdalin and Killer Bee knew each other in real life. Leon found a Killer B Twitter account, and Bern confirmed that the vocabulary and sentence patterns matched Killer Bee on Herald.

We sifted through her images until we found a picture of five women, all drunk, wearing party hats and screaming. The hashtags said #DoctorBitch and #BFFForever. Three other accounts were tagged. Of those two were dormant. We went through them to other networks until we found Lillie Padilla, an Herbamagos mage from a small House. Her Facebook account was set to private, but her education was left public. Lillie Padilla was a Ph.D. and she got it from Baylor.

At this point, Runa rubbed her hands together and got on the phone to the Baylor Alumni Association. The rest of us worked Lillie Padilla until we determined that her Ph.D. was in ecology and she was not our Magdalin.

Following a reverse image search uncovered two more women, one of whom, Shondra Contreras, turned out to be our Killer Bee. She had earned a master’s in entomology and had abandoned her quest for a Ph.D. in favor of charitable work in Africa. Last year she had been honored for her humanitarian work restoring bee populations and promoting the revival of bee farming.

Runa’s phone calls gave us two more names, Noriko McCord and Cristal Ferrer. Noriko had died in House warfare three years ago. Cristal Ferrer was a prodigy. She graduated from high school at fifteen, earned her bachelor’s two years later, and three years later successfully defended a dissertation in molecular biology followed by a second in genetics. She would have been a scientific savant, if it wasn’t for her magic. She was a Magister Examplaria, like Bern, but her specialization wasn’t computers and code, it was the microbiology of the human body.

I logged into the Warden Network. In five minutes, I had everything the government and the Assembly knew about Cristal, from her SSN and DL to the particulars of her magic and the family scandal of her grandmother running away with a Chinese businessman. House Ferrer was well connected, with half a dozen active alliances and an MCI badge by their name, which stood for Military Contractor Inactive.

Cristal ticked all the boxes. She was a Prime from House Ferrer, which specialized in genetic research and treatment. She ran her own lab, Biocine Laboratories. She had a reason to resent her parents, who had likely pushed her out of her peer group and into college. And after Bern read three of her scientific papers, he declared that her written voice pattern matched Magdalin’s posts.

I stared at her picture. She didn’t look like a monster. Twenty-six, average height, average build, pale, with dark blond hair and golden highlights. Pleasant features, a heart-shaped face, large blue eyes. She seemed brittle in her images, likely half upbringing and half deliberate effect. Cristal was clearly trying to fit into the fragile flower category of high society; lovely yet delicate and looking for someone to shield her from the harsh world.

I could have been a version of her, if I’d wanted to. I’d had Arrosa and three years of education on how to look, what to say, what not to say, and how to say it. Cristal spent that time earning her degrees. The fragile flower pose allowed her to fit neatly into an established niche.

She blended in, but she was still broken. Somehow Cristal never learned that it was wrong to rob people of their humanity.

It took us half an hour to assemble Cristal’s dossier. It took me less than five minutes to tie her to Diatheke. Cristal was a member of the Houston Opera Admiration Society. Randall Baker, Diatheke’s figurehead founder, was also a member. A picture of last year’s gala had run in the newspaper, gushing about the money the society had raised for charity by selling invitation-only tickets at one hundred thousand dollars a pop. In it, Cristal sat at a round table. To her left, four seats down, Benedict De Lacy raised a champagne flute to his lips.

This was as close to a smoking gun as we could get. It would never stand up in court, but it didn’t need to. I went into my office, shut the door, and emailed the dossier to Linus. I could see straight through the glass door into the conference room. The entire family was watching me, silent. Runa’s face turned white again.

My phone rang. I picked it up.

“What’s your assessment of access?” Linus asked.

“Extremely limited. Her family is well connected and has a history of cooperation with military forces.”

All of which I had put into our report. Getting an interview with her would be difficult, getting her House’s permission for me to magic her would be impossible, and if we used brute force and demanded she submit to interrogation and I was wrong, there would be hell to pay.

“I can compel her testimony, but we will need verification,” Linus said.

“Cristal rarely leaves the House Ferrer compound,” I continued.

“But she does enjoy the opera,” Linus said.

“Yes, but the next HOAS gala is tonight, in less than three hours. The tickets for the Crystal Ball are invitation-only and have been sold out for months—”

“I’ll pick you and Alessandro up at seven.”

He hung up.

No good job, no thumbs up. Just pick you up at seven.

Arabella jumped up, ran across the hallway, and opened my door. “What did he say?”

“He wants me to go with him and Alessandro to the gala. Tonight. At seven.”

I stared at my phone. 5:37 p.m. There was no way. The hair alone . . .

“Up!” Arabella snapped at me. “You have less than an hour and a half. You need a shower.”

I texted Alessandro, Opera, 7:00 p.m., tuxedo, and ran upstairs, thanking Arrosa in my head for insisting that I buy a small but expensive wardrobe.

I had three evening dresses: a white sheath, a red dress the color of blood, and a flowing blue gown that hugged my breasts and waist, spilling into a flowing skirt. The sheath was too tight to allow any sort of running, the red dress drew too much attention, so the blue gown was it.

It had taken a miracle, but at 6:58 p.m. Arabella herded everyone into the kitchen, so I could go into Runa’s bedroom and change, because there was no way I could make it down the stairs in the gown.

I stepped into a pair of small silver heels, slipped the dress on, and examined myself in the mirror. My dark hair fell on my shoulders in wide waves, combed back behind one ear in a deep side part. It framed my face, showing off the diamond earrings glittering in my ears. The diamonds were lab made. Arrosa had insisted on the real thing, but I’d refused. Nobody had died digging my earrings out of the ground, and that mattered more to me than what Houston’s elite would think.

My makeup was light for the evening. I never looked good wearing bright lipstick, so I opted for a lighter pink and smoky eyes. Given another half an hour, I would have done a better job contouring my face, but it would have to do. I looked appropriate for the evening, and nobody would laugh in my face. Most of it was in your poise anyway. As long as you looked like you belonged at the venue, people assumed you were supposed to be there, and being escorted by Alessandro Sagredo and Linus Duncan meant most of the attention would be on them.

I took a deep breath and walked out of the room. Voices drifted from the kitchen, and I headed in that direction.

“. . . a dignified pleasant gentleman,” Alessandro was saying. “I was honored to make Mr. Duncan’s acquaintance.”

Honored my ass.

“We shared a drink. It was perfectly cordial—”

I walked into the kitchen. Alessandro stopped in mid-sentence.

He was wearing a tuxedo. It fit him like a glove. He looked like he was born in it, every inch a Prime.

I had seen him in a tuxedo a dozen times on his Instagram, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the real thing. My pulse sped up. I felt slightly light-headed. I wanted to reach out and touch him to make sure he wasn’t a hallucination. People weren’t that handsome in real life. It just didn’t work that way.

It dawned on me that he was staring at me with a slightly bewildered expression.

My sister opened her mouth. Runa elbowed her.

Silence stretched.

I waited for him to speak, but he seemed content to just stare at me.

And this wasn’t awkward. Not at all.

Everyone’s phone chimed, announcing someone at our front door. The most beautiful assassin in the world blinked. It was enough to snap me out of my trance.

“That’s probably Linus. We should go.” I slid my phone into a small, glittering Edie Parker clutch.

Alessandro came back to life. “Yes, we should.”

Grandma Frida blocked the way. “Neither of you are going anywhere until I get a pic for my Insta.”

“Grandma, they’re not going to the prom,” Arabella protested.

“Shush. They’re going to a high society shindig and I’m getting at least one good picture of them together.”

If we didn’t do it, I’d never hear the end of it. “He’s supposed to be in Hawaii right now.”

“I won’t post it until next week.”

I turned to Alessandro. “She’s lying.”

Alessandro graced her with his brilliant smile. “I’d be delighted to pose for a picture.”

“Smile, Catalina,” Grandma commanded.

I arranged my face into a carefree smile.

Grandma took the pic and checked it.

“Good enough?” I asked.

“It will do.”

Alessandro offered me his arm, I put my hand on his wrist, and we walked down the hallway. He smelled of sandalwood, vanilla, and a hint of citrus. I felt completely ridiculous. I was Cinderella going with my prince to a ball. Where I would beguile and interrogate a woman who made monsters for an assassin consortium, and I had to do a very good job so the National Assembly wouldn’t murder the lot of us.

We reached the door to the office, he held it open for me, and we headed to the front door. Every step was an effort, like someone had put a rubber band around my legs.

“You look very beautiful,” Alessandro said.

When given a compliment, always respond, Arrosa’s voice murmured in my head. “Thank you. You look very handsome.”

He opened the door and I walked out into the street, where Linus’ armored Escalade waited under the light of the streetlamp.

“Weapons?” Linus asked.

“No,” I said. I had checked the security requirements for the gala. Ever since Baranovsky, one of the richest Primes in the country, was murdered at his own charity dinner, the safety measures for high society events had risen to ridiculous levels.

Alessandro shrugged. “No need. There will be plenty of security people around.”

And they would be carrying weapons he could copy.

“How wide is your range?” Linus asked.

Alessandro gave him his wolfish smile.

“I ask, because I brought a full trunk. How close does the vehicle need to be to the building?”

“How far away will the car be parked?”

Linus shook his head. “If it’s parked 0.14 miles away, would that be close enough?”

“Yes.”

The car turned onto Texas Avenue and pulled up in front of the Wortham Theater Center, joining the line of other luxury vehicles dropping off their passengers, as if we all were elementary school kids. Night had fallen, but the entire street was bathed in bright electric light.

“All right, children,” Linus said. “We’re going to walk inside, mingle briefly, and be seated at our table. The ball will consist of five acts with twenty-minute intermissions. Dinner will be served in courses during the intermissions. It is customary to dance and socialize between the acts. Catalina, you’re going to find Cristal, and when an opportunity presents itself, become her best friend in the whole world. We need definitive proof of her involvement, the location of the facility, and an admission of guilt, if you can get it. Record everything she tells you. Alessandro, under no circumstances is Catalina to be harmed. Avoid violence, but if you have no choice, try to take care of it quietly. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said.

Count Sagredo didn’t dignify the question with an answer.

The Escalade slid to a stop. The usher opened my door and offered me his hand. I leaned on it and stepped out of the vehicle into the night.

A hundred and fifty feet of red carpet stretched across the narrow plaza, bordered by lush oaks and lit by globe streetlights. At the end of it, the glass entry archway glowed with golden light. People in evening attire strolled toward it, women in glittering gowns and men in suits, pausing at the topiary to have their pictures taken against the red-carpet backdrop. Onlookers waited on the edges of the path, eager for a glimpse of the rich and famous. A TV crew lurked in the distance, by the entrance, the correspondent interviewing the guests. Cameras flashed, ushers hurried back and forth, jewels sparkled on skin and hair . . .

The urge to crawl back into the Escalade gripped me.

I raised my chin. I wasn’t some Cinderella with a magic dress from my fairy godmother. I bought my own dress with money I earned, I bought my shoes and my bag, and nothing was going to turn into a pumpkin at midnight. I didn’t like this fake world of glamour and excess, but nobody had the right to question my presence here. I had a job to do, and I would do it.

Alessandro came around the car and offered me his arm again. A few heads turned our way.

Linus exited the Escalade. A subtle change came over the crowd. They didn’t exactly gape, but the Primes of Houston paused. Every single one of them knew Linus was there.

Linus flashed a thousand-watt smile. When he was young, he might have given Alessandro a run for his money. He waved at no one in particular, and the onlookers went wild.

Linus strode up the red carpet. We followed. Ahead, the TV crew realized that a Big Name Prime had landed, and the correspondent was desperately trying to wrap up her current interview.

Alessandro walked next to me, beautiful and slightly aloof, a prince just a touch above it all, while Linus grinned and played up to the crowd. Ahead, the walls of the Wortham Theater glowed with colored projections of acrobats and rings of fire. The Houston Opera Admiration Society was celebrating the opening of Madame Trapeze, a new hybrid show that blended elements of the circus and opera. It had sold out in London and New York, and somehow Houston was the next to get it. We wouldn’t be getting the entire performance, just a few chosen acts before the real thing was open to the general public, but it was exciting being one of the first people to see it.

A woman shrieked from the left, “Alessandro! Look at me!”

He turned without breaking his stride and winked. The group of girls on our left erupted.

“Oh my God!”

“Marry me!”

“Who’s the girl?”

“My number is 830 . . .”

We resumed our march toward the entrance.

“Enjoying yourself?” I murmured.

“Jealous?”

“Of your many admirers? No.”

“You never say anything nice to me,” he said, his voice low and slipping into an intimate tone that brushed against my skin like velvet. We were on display in front of hundreds of people and he was speaking to me as if we were about to make out in my bedroom. “It’s always ‘Stop driving so fast, Alessandro.’ ‘You have to leave, Alessandro.’”

“What would you rather hear?”

“I could think of a few things.” His face took on a wistful expression. It looked good on him. Like everything else. “I missed you, Alessandro.”

Why did I ask?

“Hold me, Alessandro.” His seductive voice wove around me. All my senses came to attention. The crowd was fading and only his voice mattered.

“Kiss me, Alessandro.”

Heat warmed my face. I was blushing. Damn it.

“Will you stop?”

We were almost to the TV crew. Maybe we could slip by them unnoticed while they pounced on Linus.

“Don’t go, Alessandro. Don’t stop, Alessandro . . .”

“Stop lying about who you are, Alessandro.”

His face shut down as if someone slammed a door closed. I hit a nerve. Good.

The correspondent pounced on Linus. Alessandro smoothly passed by him and we joined the throng of overdressed people walking through the wide-open glass doors. Nobody asked us for our invitations. Apparently just arriving with Linus Duncan was good enough.

Six armed security guards in black suits lined the sides of the short lobby. We passed through the arch of the metal detector, then the airport-style bio scanner, and took the escalator up.

The Grand Foyer had been transformed. An enormous wagon wheel chandelier supporting stage lamps hung suspended fifty feet in the air. Above it yards and yards of midnight-blue fabric stretched from the ceiling to the walls and dripped to the floor, imitating the inside of a big-top tent. Strings of golden lights curved from the chandelier to the sides of the room where the walls met the ceiling, glittering like summer stars against the night sky. Colored lamps tinted the fabric with splashes of lavender and turquoise. Soft music played from hidden speakers, a complex modern interpretation of the circus theme performed with a full orchestra.

A round stage dominated the center of the room, level with the floor, smooth, and shimmering with flecks of gold. Rings of round tables surrounded the stage, each covered with a golden tablecloth and set for ten.

A pair of tall metal golden supports towered on the opposite sides of the foyer. A high wire stretched between them. Two female acrobats twisted in the air, suspended by lengths of blue ribbons. To the left, on a small raised platform, a contortionist in a black bodysuit ripped in strategic places bent backward, touching his elbows to the floor. To the right an animal trainer strolled through the crowd, two lions in tow on absurdly thin silver chains. The lions followed him, oblivious of the onlookers. He had to be an animal mage.

The sights, the sounds, the colors, and the hum of the crowd combined into a fairy-tale opulent circus. Reality ceased to exist. If I turned, I could still catch a glimpse of it through the giant window, the dark winter street, but here only fantasy existed. I could wander through it for hours, making up stories and watching people.

“It’s beautiful,” I murmured, as the current of people carried us to the right.

“Eh.” Alessandro shrugged. “The Melbourne Christmas Gala was better.”

I punched him in the arm. I didn’t punch him hard, it was more of a tap, but his eyes sparked with orange. “Careful. I’m a bad man, remember? Who knows what I might do when provoked?”

“If you decide to get provoked, let me know, and I will bring you back to Earth with the rest of us mere mortals.”

He lifted his hand and a waiter appeared as if by magic, wearing a blue vest over a black shirt, black pants, and a red clown nose, and carrying a tray with champagne flutes. Alessandro took two glasses off the tray and held one out to me. “Champagne, tesoro mio?”

My tolerance for champagne was about two sips. Any more, and I lost coordination. If I finished two glasses, I would fall asleep in my chair. But he was holding it out to me and I didn’t want to cause a scene.

I took the flute and sipped. Linus materialized next to us. “Children, work now, bicker later. Follow me.”

We trailed him to a table in the outer row. We didn’t have the best view of the stage, but we had an excellent perspective of the room and the crowd. Alessandro held my chair out. I sat. Alessandro was a touch slow to take the chair next to me. I glanced in the direction of his gaze.

Benedict De Lacy raised his glass at me from across the room. He sat in the back row almost directly opposite us. I raised my glass and offered him a pleasant smile. Alessandro laughed next to me.

I scanned the crowd. Cristal sat to our left in the front row on the opposite side of the stage. An older woman in a silver-green dress with blue-black hair and harsh features sat on her left. I remembered her from Alessandro’s hired killer gallery. The woman had an Armenian first name, Yeraz, and Alessandro’s database had listed her as a Magus Sagittarius, which meant she never missed. It was highly unlikely that she could have smuggled a gun through security, but MS magic came in many forms, my own included. Maybe she would throw forks at us.

The white man in the chair to the right of Cristal looked like he had jumped out of a pro wrestling match. Sitting down, he still towered over everyone else at the table. His impossibly broad shoulders strained his tuxedo jacket, and when he raised his glass, I thought his sleeve would rip. He had the face of a street brawler: a misshapen nose that had been broken too many times, scar tissue chewing up the skin around his eyes, and a heavy square jaw that would break your hand if you punched it. His haircut, a short, blond stubble, did nothing to soften his impact. His eyes, sunken deep under heavy brows, scanned the crowd, looking for someone to hit.

“Of all the idiotic things,” Linus growled.

“Yes, you’d think Benedict would have more brains,” I murmured.

Alessandro had caught us looking at the giant. “Who is that?”

I leaned toward him, keeping my voice low. “Frank Madero.”

House Madero included five brothers, and of those five, the oldest two looked so alike, they could be twins. But Dave Madero had a permanent scar on his left cheek.

“And what does Frank do?”

“His skin and bones harden, his muscles swell up, he grows to seven and a half feet tall, and then he punches through furniture. Or walls. Or people. Whatever is in his way.”

“House Madero is what happens when you breed for strength instead of brains,” Linus said, his voice dry. “In a couple of generations, they’ll have to hire handlers to help them put their pants on in the morning.”

“There are more like him?” Alessandro asked.

“There are five brothers total and a grandfather,” I explained. “They’re mean, stupid, and they hold grudges. And they’re for hire.”

In theory, hiring one of the Maderos as a bodyguard made sense: they were huge and scary even before they used their magic and they served as an excellent deterrent. But the Maderos had a temper. Bringing Frank here was like dragging an enraged bull to a toddler’s birthday party.

Alessandro pondered Frank. “Do your families have a history?”

“His brother, Dave, tried to kidnap Nevada, and Rogan broke both of his arms. Frank also tried to kidnap Nevada and ended up in the ER. If Frank turns, bullets and knives won’t work on him and the only way to fight him is to dodge and hope his body gives out from the strain before he gets his hands on you. The Maderos can’t sustain the combat form for too long. They overheat and pass out.”

Alessandro narrowed his eyes. “Does he still have to breathe in combat form?”

“As far as I know.”

“Excellent,” he said.

“Remember, be discreet,” Linus warned.

“We may not have a choice. Benedict brought friends.”

I surveyed the crowd, trying to pick out faces I had seen on Alessandro’s laptop.

“How many Diatheke employees are here?” Linus asked casually.

“Seven,” Alessandro said. “The dark-haired man to the left of Benedict is an aegis Significant.”

I glanced in Benedict’s direction. A lean, pale-skinned man in his late forties sat by Benedict, picking at the appetizer with his fork. Aegis mages specialized in protection. They could throw a barrier in front of themselves that would absorb physical impact and block elemental magical assaults. An aegis Prime could walk through a modern battle with everything from snipers to artillery shooting at him and emerge unscathed. A Significant would be considerably less powerful, but still, shooting at Benedict would do no good.

“Catalina, lean toward me again,” Alessandro asked.

I turned slightly and tilted my head closer to him.

Alessandro smiled. “Benedict is having a fit.”

Looking at Benedict would be entirely too obvious.

Alessandro’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s see what happens if I do this.”

He reached over, took my hand, gently rubbed his fingers on mine, and kissed my knuckles.

All my hormones stood up and gave him a standing ovation. Damn it, Alessandro.

“Careful,” Linus said, raising his wineglass to his lips. “He might explode.”

I finally glanced in Benedict’s direction. He was staring at me with a kind of possessive hatred. If I were in range, he would have hit me.

“What is his deal with women?”

“He’s a half phobic with sadistic tendencies,” Linus said. “He finds pleasure in inflicting torture and fear, and the more exquisite the woman, the more he wants her.”

“He prefers mental mages for his amusement,” Alessandro added. “Maximum satisfaction.”

I turned to Linus. “Why has he been allowed to operate?”

Linus grimaced. “I could give you a long explanation about magical checks and balances, but the short answer is that powerful people find him useful. He’s a known quantity; he’s reliable and rarely unpleasantly surprising. There are a great many things I wish I had the ability to change.”

There were nine other people at Benedict’s table and nine at Cristal’s. Most of the tables around us had filled. Several women were looking in our direction, some at me, but most at Alessandro. Our table remained empty except for the three of us.

“Will we be joined by anyone?” I asked.

“No,” Linus said. “The Society maintains a table for me to use as I see fit.”

If Linus wasn’t here tonight, nobody would have sat at this table. For some reason, I found that more disturbing than all of his turrets, guns, and exosuits.

A handsome older Hispanic man in a ringmaster’s suit of blue velvet strode to the middle of the stage, a top hat in one hand and a cane in the other.

The opening act began.