Sapphire Flames

Chapter 14

The beautiful acrobats in silver bodysuits cartwheeled off the stage to enthusiastic applause. The clowns, the animal trainers in pink, the magician, and the rest followed. The baritone in the ringmaster’s suit took a bow and strode off. The first act was over, and the intermission began.

Soft music filtered in. People got up and began mingling, some drifting to the tables, others to the stage. Half of them could kill me, and the rest would put up a serious effort.

Avoid Benedict, get to Cristal, get her to confess, and go home. Don’t screw this up or we would never find Halle.

A stunningly attractive woman jumped to her feet and crossed the stage, heading straight for us. Petite, with a perfect figure, golden skin, and a wave of glossy black hair, she seemed almost elflike, otherworldly, as if she had stepped out of some fantasy painting. I caught sight of her face. It was perfect. Too perfect, with the same flawless coldness as Augustine.

I knew her. Natasha Popova, Illusion Prime from the Russian Empire. Alessandro’s fiancée number three.

“Do we have a problem?” Linus asked.

Alessandro put his fork down. “No.”

Natasha crashed to a halt at our table, her eyes blazing. “You! How dare you show your face?”

Alessandro smiled.

Natasha spun to me. “Are you with him? You shouldn’t be with him. He’s a liar. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. He isn’t who he says he is. His family is—”

“Do I need to remind you why you ended our engagement?” Alessandro asked, his voice carefree. “Perhaps you would care for another demonstration, right here?”

Natasha froze for a furious second. Fear flickered in her eyes. She spun on her heel and walked away.

Alessandro’s expression turned dark. “See? No problem.”

And that wasn’t weird. Not at all.

I rose to my feet. Both Linus and Alessandro stood up.

“Where are you going?” Alessandro asked.

“Cristal is on her third glass of wine and they refilled her water. She’s going to have to visit the bathroom and I want to get there first.”

“I’ll escort you,” Alessandro said.

“Play nice,” Linus warned.

We strolled through the stage toward the back of the Grand Foyer, where a hallway led to the women’s restroom. We turned a corner, and suddenly the hum of the crowd and the lights receded. We walked side by side. The women’s bathroom was almost halfway down the hall, past a couple of doors presumably leading to other smaller rooms. We were completely alone.

I leaned against the wall by the bathroom. I would step inside as soon as we saw her coming.

We waited.

Minutes ticked by. My skin was on too tight.

Maybe I had miscalculated, and Cristal had a bigger bladder.

Another minute. Two . . .

She wasn’t coming. I started back to the Grand Foyer. At least I could see where she was.

“So, about this business of me lying,” he said.

You’ve got to be kidding me. “What about it?”

“Care to explain what you meant?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.” I felt like I was running on the edge of a sword as it was.

Alessandro fixed me with his stare. Magic flared around him, flashing with orange for a fraction of a moment. “I’m afraid I have to insist.”

I stopped and crossed my arms on my chest. “Or what?”

“You’re just going to throw it out there and walk away?” The stalking killer was back in all his glory. “A bit cowardly, don’t you think?”

“Fine, let’s talk about it. When Benedict’s goons chased me into that mall, I beguiled four of them. As they cheerfully murdered their friends for me, they told me this charming story about how they killed a lawyer in his own home. They put a gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger, and left him for his wife and daughters to find. They killed him with no remorse, collected their payment, and then went about their lives, fishing, saving for their kids’ college, and doing whatever else hired killers do in their off time.”

“And you think I’m just like them.”

“That’s precisely my point. You’re nothing like them. At first, I thought you might be, but it made no sense. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. You’re a Prime from one of the oldest and most respected Houses. You have a noble title. You’re smart, funny, handsome, charming, and rich. If you see a fast car you want to drive, you buy it. If you find a woman you like, you seduce her. You could be anything. Every door is open to you. The world is your playground.”

He winced.

I should’ve stopped, but he’d started it and now I was on a roll like a runaway train. “So I thought to myself, why would a man with your opportunities become a hired killer? It could happen if you were an adrenaline junkie. There probably comes a point when the cars, yachts, and women no longer provide enough of a thrill. Perhaps taking the life of another human being is the only way you feel alive.”

His expression was flat, but his eyes were drowned in orange fire. “So that’s how you see me?”

“A man like that would be fundamentally selfish, Alessandro. He would put his enjoyment above the lives of other people. He wouldn’t give a half-starved dog a treat. He wouldn’t pose for a picture for an elderly woman just to make her happy or comfort a teenager lost in guilt and grief. He wouldn’t fight his way through an assault team to save a girl he barely knows. He wouldn’t promise her that he would stay with her to see things through. Because a man like that only cares about himself. Why are you doing this, Alessandro? What is it you want?”

He just looked at me.

“Will you answer the question for once in your life?”

His face was resolute. “You have family obligations. I do too.”

“What does that mean?”

He didn’t answer.

“I hate you.” The emotional dam broke and words tumbled out. “You walked into my life and screwed it all up. I’ve wanted you for so long, and now you show up, and you flirt with me, and you hold me to protect me, and you tell me things like ‘I’ll stay with you as long as it takes,’ and all the while I have to constantly check myself because I’m scared to death that if my control slips, I’ll turn you into a lovesick zombie. I know you’re trapped somehow, and all I want is for you to be happy, Alessandro. Tell me what’s going on, and I swear I’ll do everything I can to help you. Tell me. It’s driving me insane . . .”

His big body braced mine against the wall. I saw his eyes, amber and heated from within, he bent his head, his lips touched mine, and I tasted the faint hint of champagne . . .

He kissed me.

It felt like lightning. It tore through me in one blinding jolt and then I was on fire. There was nothing hesitant or gentle about it. He kissed me like he needed me to breathe. I grabbed his jacket and pulled him closer, fierce and desperate, my body screaming for more of him. It was reckless and stupid, and I knew we had to stop, but nothing in this world could make me let go.

His tongue licked mine, his strong arms gripped me to him, his hand slid into my hair, and it felt so good, all of it. So impossibly good.

His magic boiled around him, the searing flashes of orange dancing, the power churning and twisting. There was no going back. There was life before this kiss and there would be one after, but they wouldn’t be the same.

He broke away and looked at me, his amber eyes full of lust and a searing need. That hint of the terrifying edge I’d glimpsed in him before was out now, dangerous and glaring right back at me from deep inside him. It took my breath away.

He should’ve never kissed me. He was mine now and I wanted him.

I threw my arms around his neck and sealed my mouth to his. Touching him was like coming home. I’d wanted to do that since the moment he put his arms around me on that roof. I tasted his mouth, trying to feed the howling need. He growled low in his throat.

His hands slid over my back. The wall behind me gave. I stumbled back, but he caught me, and then we were in a small room and he shut the door behind him. He kissed my lips, my neck, my throat. It felt like I had shattered, and he was putting me back together with every touch of his lips.

There were too many layers between us. I clawed at his jacket and he let me go for a torturous second to shrug it off and toss it to the side. We came back together like two fighters about to grapple. He cupped my butt, picked me up, and hoisted me onto something, a counter, a sink? I didn’t care. I threaded my fingers through his hair, knotting my fingers in it, and kissed that gorgeous jaw, tasting his skin. I was burning up.

He yanked the straps of my dress down my shoulders, trapping my arms, and buried his face in my bare breasts. I gasped and arched my back. His lips found my nipple. I closed my eyes, savoring each delicious moment. His teeth grazed the sensitive bundle of nerves, his hot tongue tasted me, and he sucked, sending a tiny electric shock through me. I moaned. I wanted to make love to him, and I wanted it to be amazing, so he would stay with me forever.

“Angelo mio,” Alessandro whispered, his words ragged and rough. “So beautiful.”

I opened my eyes and saw the edge of my feathers glowing as his magic roiled around us. I was sitting on a counter, gloriously half naked, and my wings were out, spread wide above my shoulders, each luminescent feather deep green at the base then brightening, like the water of the Aegean growing lighter as one rose from a deep dive, turning emerald, then grass-green, then turquoise until finally at the tips, they shone with radiant gold.

My wings were out.

Reality punched me with a cold hard fist. I jerked away and shoved him back.

“What is it?” Alessandro spun, alert, looking for threats.

My magic was all around him. I had lost it. It made sense now. Why else would he suddenly want to make love to me in the hallway and then kiss me like his life depended on it? Oh my God, what had I done?

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry . . .”

“What are you sorry about?”

“We have to go.” Panic clawed at me, ripping me apart from the inside. I’d destroyed his life. “I have to drain you. We have to . . .”

“I don’t have to drain.”

“You don’t understand. I didn’t mean to. We have to fix it.”

He grabbed my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Look at me. Look me in the eyes. Your witchery doesn’t work on me. I’m already obsessed with you.”

He was too far gone. He was saying nonsense. “Of course you are.”

I turned around. Where the hell did it go? “It’s okay, it will be okay, I’ll fix this.”

“What are you looking for?”

“My clutch. I have chalk in it.” Even if I drew a circle, it would take forever to drain him. He was a ridiculously powerful Prime. I could run out of magic before he did, and then it wouldn’t work.

“What should I do?” he asked. “Should I stay right here, out of the way, and not go anywhere? Would it make you happy?”

“Yes, stand right here and don’t move. It will make me very happy.”

“Don’t move. Got it.”

He grabbed his jacket off the tiled floor and walked out. My magic wailed in mourning.

I was alone in the bathroom. Sitting on the sink counter. The sound of rushing water came from the pipes.

He had walked away from me. No person I’d beguiled could’ve done that.

This was too much. I couldn’t process it.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My neck was red. Lipstick smears stretched across my skin from my lips.

In the distance a loud chime announced the end of the intermission. I pulled my dress back up over my breasts, jumped off, and frantically looked for my clutch. I’d put a compact and lipstick into it, and I had to make myself presentable again.

I slipped out of the bathroom. My neck was back to a neutral color, my hair was fixed, and my lipstick tinted my lips and nothing else. Alessandro was fully dressed. We rushed down the hallway to the foyer.

“This did not happen,” I told him.

“Oh, it happened. Stopping felt like the hardest fucking thing I had to do in my life. Fighting Benedict now would be a breeze.”

“No, it didn’t happen and we’re not talking about this.”

“We are going to talk about it. Tonight. My room, your room, wherever we can find some privacy.”

Privacy was the last thing we needed.

We reached the end of the hallway. The second performance was about to start. Alessandro walked me to the table. Cristal was at her table with another glass of champagne.

“I was getting ready to send out a search party,” Linus said.

“That’s all right,” Alessandro told him, “we found our way back.”

Pairs of acrobats in silver suits took to the trapeze to the sound of haunting music. The soprano stepped onto the stage. She was about my mother’s age, a beautiful black woman wearing a shimmering gold suit that set off her brown skin. Her glossy dark hair fell on her back in a cascade of locks and golden jewels. She tilted her face up and began to sing, her voice rising to the ceiling, clear, pure, and tugging on some deeply buried emotion I couldn’t identify. Everything stopped. Madame Trapeze sang her heart out, pouring out emotion as if she had torn herself open for us. I had to fight to keep from crying.

Alessandro covered my hand with his. I should have pulled away, but I didn’t. I would get to the bottom of this. I didn’t know if I could pry him loose from whatever forced him into murder. I would try as hard as I could. But there was nothing to be done about it right now. We had a job to do, so I listened to the best singer I had ever heard in my life, while the only man I wanted in the entire universe sat next to me and held my hand. Whatever came after, I would always have this moment.

The last notes of the aria died. The song was over. An overwhelming sadness settled over me. We all applauded, Madame Trapeze bowed, and the lights came on.

A waiter came to clear our plates and faltered, perplexed because I hadn’t eaten anything. A new lively melody filtered through the speakers.

“Dance with me,” Alessandro said.

I put my hand in his and we made our way to the stage. He rested his hand on my back and we swayed among other couples. I had taken enough dancing lessons to not embarrass myself, but nobody around us was doing anything identifiable or complicated. Drifting in pairs seemed to be perfectly acceptable.

Alessandro drifted with a purpose, moving us slowly but inevitably to Cristal’s table.

“What are you doing?” I murmured.

“I don’t know yet.”

“That’s great.”

“It probably will be.”

Humility, thy name is Alessandro. “Were you always immune?”

“No. You sucker-punched me at your trials. Your magic was unfamiliar. But I recovered. If you’re asking whether I pretended for your sake, I didn’t. I would never falsify the test of a Prime.”

“What about when you came to see me after?”

“Back then I just wanted to get to know you better. After I received the invitation to your trials, I looked you up on Instagram. I thought you were cute. I followed you and you deleted your account. I was intrigued. Then I came to invite you for a drive, and you called the cops on me.”

“I thought you were besotted.”

“I know. You tried to save me from yourself. It was adorable. Almost as adorable as seeing you chase Conway down the hall.”

I quashed the urge to growl.

“You’re right, you know.” He raised my hand to his lips and kissed my fingers. “I am besotted.”

My face was on fire. “Stop.”

“Never.”

We were nearly to Cristal’s table. A pink flush tinted her cheeks. Her eyes were glistening, and her movements, as she leaned in to listen to a young, attractive aquakinetic Prime, were very deliberate. It was the most animated I had seen her all evening. Cristal seemed to suffer from crippling social anxiety and she dealt with it by getting drunk. It was easy to be the queen of snark online. Real life was a whole different war.

A young, dark-haired woman stepped into our way. We had two choices, to stop or to collide with her. We settled on stopping.

“Alessandro Sagredo,” she purred.

Alessandro gave her a polite smile. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Mira Fiore, House Fiore. The American branch of the family. You dated my cousin last spring, Constantia.”

Was there anyone he hadn’t dated?

The expression on Alessandro’s face cooled by several degrees. He didn’t respond, he just waited.

His silence and cold stare took some wind out of Mira’s sails, but she bravely sailed on. “My friends and I were wondering about your date.”

She wasn’t even looking at me.

“She’s basically a nobody,” she continued. “Her House is five minutes old.” Her voice rose. Other nearby couples had stopped dancing and watched us. “Her sister marrying Mad Rogan is the only thing that her family is known for. So, you could have had my cousin, but here you are with Catalina Baylor. I’d like to know why.”

Okay, that’s about enough. I didn’t even have to reach for Victoria’s granddaughter. I was already there. I looked at her, and Mira wilted.

“Go back to your table.” My voice was icy. “You’ve embarrassed yourself enough for tonight.”

Mira opened her mouth and saw the people around us. That’s right, you look rude and stupid. Run away while you can.

“Baylor?” a deep voice rumbled.

Oh crap.

Mira scooted off to the side. Behind her Frank Madero lumbered to his feet.

“What are you doing?” Cristal squeaked. “Sit down.” She put her hand on his forearm as if to restrain him and he pushed it off.

“Your sister put me in the hospital.” Madero peered at me, pure rage in his eyes.

I stared him down. Maderos understood strength, nothing else. “You tried to kidnap her.”

“Well, I’ve got just one word to say to you. Rematch!”

He flexed and his suit exploded. His skin turned red, his muscles swelled. He grabbed a table and hurled it at me.

I dodged left, Alessandro dodged right. The table flew between us and froze in mid-air. An older black man next to us turned and fixed Frank with a hard stare. Shelton Woods, Head of House Woods. “That’s enough. Sit down.”

“I didn’t ask you shit, old man!” Frank bellowed, and charged.

The telekinetic swung the table with his magic and smashed it against Frank. The table shattered into splinters. Frank didn’t even slow down. Lilian Woods, Shelton’s wife of nearly fifty years, grabbed her husband and yanked him out of Madero’s way. The pieces of the table and silverware rose in the air and pelted Frank. It didn’t stop him, but he had built up too much speed to turn. He tore past us and crashed into the row of tables.

Yeraz, the Armenian Magus Sagittarius, jumped to her feet, grabbed a knife off the neighboring table, and hurled it at Lilian. The knife stopped, reversed, and sank into the table an inch from Yeraz’s hand.

“Don’t do that again!” Lilian snapped.

Yeraz hissed at her like a snake, grabbed a handful of silverware, and launched it into the air.

Frank rolled to his feet, grabbed two tables like they weighed nothing, and slammed them together, screaming obscenities. Shelton Woods waved his hand. A third table slammed into Frank, slapping him down like a flyswatter coming down on an annoying insect.

Yeraz’s barrage of knives and forks fell harmlessly on the floor. The glass next to Yeraz shot into the air and splashed water into her face.

“Cool off,” Lilian told her.

“Kill the old bitch!” Yeraz howled.

Everything happened at once: Diatheke’s killers zeroed in on Yeraz’s target; the guests realized this was not part of the performance and half of them headed for the exit, while the others stayed to watch or fight; security rushed through the staff entrance and stopped, not sure who to target, and Frank Madero screamed and hurled tables into the air. Magic crackled, furniture flew, and to the left a table burst into flames.

Where the hell was Cristal?

I spun to look behind me. Linus pounded his fist on the table. The silverware flew to his arm, melting, twisting, and snapping together into a barrel. Linus swung his new hand cannon and fired at Frank, who was rampaging in the middle of the floor. Frank’s head jerked as the bullet bounced off his skull. He spun around, roaring. I caught sight of Benedict, his face twisted with rage, standing in the middle of the melee, the dark-haired aegis directly behind him. A stray chair hurtled at Benedict’s head hit the translucent blue screen of magic and bounced off.

Across the Grand Foyer, Cristal ducked into the hallway leading to the bathrooms.

Frank finally saw me. His beady dark eyes lit up. He barreled at me through the crowd, enormous, brick red, and breathing like a charging bull.

Crap.

Alessandro thrust himself into Frank’s path.

“Go!” Alessandro yelled to me. “I’ve got this.”

I ran after Cristal. The last thing I saw before I turned the corner was Alessandro on Frank’s shoulders, choking him with a plastic bag.

The hallway stretched in front of me, empty. I sprinted, checking the doors with my hand as I ran.

Locked, locked, locked, empty, bathroom. Nobody in the stalls.

I kept running. The hallway turned, ending in a big round room. A stack of tables waited at the opposite side, where two other hallways branched off. Next to the tables, Cristal had halted, obviously trying to choose an escape route.

“Cristal,” I sang out, sending my magic her way.

She turned, a panicked look on her face.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” I said in a cheerful, singsong way.

Her mind fluoresced in my magic’s eye, a pale glowing smudge. She had a lot of power. It burned bright, but her will was weak and she wasn’t a mental mage. My magic wrapped around her, cushioning her from the world and reality. It was almost too easy.

Cristal turned to me.

If I pumped too much magic into her, she would do anything to keep me happy. I needed her to be honest and answer my questions, but not so far gone that she started lying. Linus would have to defend this interrogation, and I didn’t want to give anyone ammunition to question it. It had to be evident that Cristal still had some control over herself.

“You know what helps me when I’m scared? I like to sing a little song. Twinkle, twinkle, little star . . .”

“How I wonder what you are,” Cristal finished. “It’s a baby song. It’s stupid.”

Perfect. “Do you feel better?”

“I do. But I’m still scared.” She knotted the fabric of her skirt in her hands. “Big events are difficult for me. This was supposed to be safe. It was supposed to be nice. There are only nice people here and I have two bodyguards.”

I had no idea how much time I would have with her. “It’s okay. You’re safe with me.”

“I know. You seem like a nice person.”

I turned my phone on and started Bern’s app. He’d written the custom piece of software specifically for times like this. With one tap, I turned on recording, encrypted it, and uploaded it to our cloud. Even if I lost the phone, the conversation would be saved.

“Tell me about Lawrence. Was he a good subject for your research?”

Cristal frowned. “He survived. In terms of compatibility, we could have done better. The goal of the process is to enhance magical talent without the warping side effect.”

“What did you use to enhance him?”

“The 1012 variant.”

No good. “Variant of what?”

Cristal gave me a look like I was stupid. Even besotted, she still kept her natural disdain for people below her level of expertise. That was some deep personality flaw.

“Variant of the Osiris serum.”

“Is 1012 a derivative of 971?”

Cristal gave me a bright smile. “Of course it is.”

“Why are you experimenting with the secondary application of the Osiris serum on human subjects? Do you know that it’s illegal?”

“Throughout human history a great many things have been illegal. There are always people who stand in the way of progress. There is no difference between Galileo and me. He was the first to discover that the Earth revolved around the sun. I’ll be the first to cure a failing vector.” She paused, looked at me, and added, “A person born into a magical family whose talent is weaker than their parents’ magic.”

She had dumbed it down for me. How nice. I wondered what she would say if I told her that the model of heliocentrism was first developed by Aristarchus in the third century BC, eighteen centuries before the birth of Galileo. “That’s so interesting, Cristal. Who is financing this important research?”

“Diatheke. Benedict isn’t a scientist, but he understands the value of scientific discovery.”

“Do you know what Diatheke does?”

“Of course. They’re assassins.”

And that didn’t bother her at all. “How many warped assassins have you supplied to Diatheke?”

“Three.”

“How many test subjects died?”

“Seventeen.”

“How were these people selected?”

“They were homeless and addicts. They would do anything for their next hit.”

That had to be enough. She admitted to doing the research, she acknowledged that it was illegal, and she specified that an assassin firm was paying her bills in return for her supplying them with warped killers. Linus couldn’t ask for anything more. It was time for my questions. “Why do you need Halle?”

Cristal frowned again. “Why are you interested in Halle? Halle doesn’t matter. You should be interested in me. I’m the important one. Halle is a tool.”

She saw Halle as a rival for some reason. I fed more of my magic into our bond. This part wouldn’t have to be presented to the National Assembly.

A happy smile stretched Cristal’s lips. She linked her arm with mine and stared at me with adoration.

“Tell me about Halle. It would make me happy.”

“She’s a stupid girl. I’m using her to counteract the toxicity of the serum. You would think a person in her circumstances would figure out that she was trapped and try to please the people who have power over her. If I tell Benedict that she’s not useful, she’ll just disappear, and nobody will ever find her. I’m keeping her alive. She should be grateful. Instead, everything is a fight with her. I actually had to threaten to have her sister and brother killed to get her to do the simplest things. I mean, does that seem rational to you?”

“Clearly she isn’t as smart as you.”

Cristal nodded enthusiastically. “I’m very smart. I’m not a failing vector. I’m smarter than my parents.”

That’s great. “Where is Halle now?”

“At my lab.”

“House Ferrer lab? Biocine?”

“No, my personal lab. The real lab. Biocine is where my parents work.”

“Where is the real lab? Can you give me the address?”

Cristal’s mouth gaped open. Her eyes widened, her eyebrows rose, pulled together, her lips stretched, baring the edge of her teeth. Horror stamped her face, and she stood petrified, locked in place, but shaking. I turned around. Behind us, at the mouth of the hallway leading back to the Grand Foyer, Benedict stood, his face twisted by pure rage. The aegis waited two feet behind him, his face flat. He had seen it all before and none of it bothered him.

Cristal fell to the floor and scrambled up on all fours. A high-pitched animal shriek broke free from her mouth. She spun and dashed down the nearest hallway, sprinting away like she was running for her life.

“Well.” Benedict raised his arms. “Here we are. She’s an expensive asset. It will take me weeks to undo what I did. Stupid bitch.”

I didn’t ask which one of us he was referring to. He was a combat Prime and he had an aegis. My best bet was to make it past him and run back to the Grand Foyer, where I’d have the combined firepower of Alessandro and Linus and hundreds of witnesses. Problem was, Benedict stood between me and that hallway.

“I’ll need that phone,” Benedict ordered.

“You can have it. Let me go and I’ll give it to you.”

“Let you go?” Benedict tilted his head. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to recruit a Prime from an active House? I cultivated Cristal like a priceless orchid. I flattered her, I did her favors, I consoled her when she failed, I rewarded her when she succeeded. I have eighty million and four years wrapped up in this project, and you almost fucked it up for chump change and a dead woman.”

I could run into the hallway behind me, but I wasn’t a fast runner. If he didn’t catch me, his magic would.

Benedict shook his head. “Until now I stayed my hand, because I thought you were working for Montgomery, following that mishap. But now I have confirmation that you’re on your own. So, let me break it down for you, Ms. Baylor. You’re not going anywhere. You will hand me that phone and walk with me out of this theater. You will get into my car and you will smile the whole time, because if you don’t, I’ll murder your entire family and I’ll make sure they suffer.”

You arrogant asshole. I slid the phone into my clutch and gave him a tepid golf clap.

His magic slithered out of him, splaying out like a black thundercloud. The ghostly serpents snapped, demonic mouths forming and melting.

The more I delayed him, the higher the chances were that either Alessandro or Linus would get here. I stalled.

“At first I thought you were creepy, but intelligent. Sadly, I was mistaken. Only an utter moron would bring a Madero into this setting. You’ve offended two hundred of Houston’s most powerful Primes. Yeraz, one of your employees, attacked Lilian Woods in public, in front of witnesses. Do you really think you’re coming back from this?”

“Nothing that can’t be fixed.” Benedict stared at me, his gaze cold and hungry. “Last chance. Come with me or die here.”

Behind him, the aegis looked bored.

Benedict’s arrogance had curdled his brain. He killed people without remorse. He kidnapped women just like me. They were scared just like me. He tortured them, squeezing out every drop of fear for his perverse pleasure until there was none left, and then he threw them away like trash. I wanted so much to rip into him. For the first time in my life I wished for Arabella’s magic. If only I could grow huge and strong, I’d grab his bodyguard and beat Benedict to death with him. I’d kick him and bounce him off the walls, while his pitiful little snakes bit at my hands. The sight of his terrified face before I stomped him into human pulp would mean everything.

“Fine,” Benedict said. “I would have rather done this in private, but why wait?”

The ghostly serpents rose around Benedict. He was about to strike.

My wings snapped open, every feather visible, glowing, radiant with power. Emerald fire danced across their width, flowing into dazzling gold at the tips. My magic erupted and soared, free from being constrained for so long.

Benedict halted in mid-step, his face shocked. Behind him the aegis gaped at me, his face slack.

“Beautiful . . .” Benedict whispered.

I opened my mouth and sang out a high, powerful note, born of pure magic. There was no need to calibrate it. It was utter power made into sound. Madame Trapeze would’ve been proud.

Benedict jerked his serpent swarm to him, wrapping it around his mind to shield himself.

The note resonated and died, tiny echoes of it traveling into the hallways. I fell silent.

The ghost serpents uncoiled, melting and twisting. Benedict smiled, emerging from the dark storm of his power. “You missed.”

I looked past him at the aegis and said, “Save me.”

With a primal scream, the aegis tackled Benedict from behind. They went down in a tangle of limbs. I sprinted to my right toward the hallway leading back to the Grand Foyer.

Behind me, the aegis howled, a sound of sheer terror, cut short. I didn’t look back. I knew what I would see—Benedict’s demonic snakes ripping into the aegis’ mind.

The walls of the hallway flashed past.

I turned the corner and almost collided with Alessandro. He caught me. “Hurt?”

“No.”

“Benedict?”

“Behind me.”

Alessandro sprinted back in the direction I’d come from. I followed. The reasonable thing to do would be to go back to the Grand Foyer, get Linus, get backup, security, other pissed-off Primes, instead of dramatically running toward danger to have a duel with a deranged megalomaniac with snakes growing out of his soul. But if he left the building, he would go straight for my family. And I was done. I was done listening to him, I was done with him killing people and everyone else acting like it wasn’t a big deal, I was just done. Someone had to step on that cockroach. Combat mage or no, I could block Benedict’s magic enough to give Alessandro the edge, and two Primes were always better than one.

Ahead of me Alessandro slowed and walked into the round room. The body of the aegis lay crumpled against the wall, his face a twisted, terrified mask. His eyes had rolled back in his head, the milky whites staring up unseeing, as if he had looked his death in the face before it devoured him, and the sight of it had struck him blind.

At the opposite wall, Benedict paused at the mouth of a hallway leading deeper into the building. His jacket hung on his body, one sleeve ripped. Blood stained his pale blue shirt. He saw us and bared his teeth. “You’re back. How fortunate for me. You could have run away. Who is an utter moron now?”

Magic flashed with orange, pulsing from Alessandro. A shoulder cannon flashed into existence on his shoulder. He raised his right hand, and an oddly shaped sword popped into it, resembling a violinist’s bow, except that the stick was an amalgam of metal parts and the ribbon was a metal cord, thin and razor sharp.

Linus made some weird stuff.

Shock slapped Benedict’s face. He recovered almost instantly and raised his eyebrows, his voice mocking. “The artisan graces us with his presence. I’m flattered.”

The sword in Alessandro’s hand let out a high-pitched metallic whine. The metal shuddered, spinning into the sword, turning it into a weaponized buzz saw.

Benedict’s magic lashed out. Orange pulsed from Alessandro. The black serpents fell short.

Benedict turned and sprinted into the hallway. Alessandro’s cannon spun and fired, spitting bullets into the corridor. Alessandro marched after him.

I moved to follow.

“Stop.” Linus’ voice snapped like a whip.

I froze.

Linus strode into the room, still the picture of elegance. If he had gotten into a brawl in the Grand Foyer, he’d come through it undamaged.

“Did you get it?” Linus asked.

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

“But—”

“That isn’t your fight. He can handle himself. He took the contract as your bodyguard. Let him do his job while we go and do ours. Follow me.”

“But—”

“Now.”

I gritted my teeth and followed Linus back to the Grand Foyer.