Sapphire Flames

I popped open the hatchback of Runa’s rental Rogue. An open suitcase tumbled out, spilling underwear and clothes onto the pavement. I jumped out of the way.

The back of the Rogue looked like an airport baggage claim after a tornado. Clothes strewn in a heap, tangled charging cords, shoes, a pack of sanitary napkins, and on top of it all a bottle of conditioner with its cap half off. The bottle had leaked pale green goo over the entire mess like the corpse of some alien creature. Arabella’s room was cleaner than this.

I grabbed the suitcase and frantically stuffed the fallen clothes and shoes into it. Alessandro waited next to me, a patient look on his face.

I just wanted to get out of this parking lot.

The suitcase was full, and half of the stuff still remained. How in the world had she packed it all in there?

“Backseat,” Alessandro said.

I heaved the suitcase into the back, slammed the hatchback closed, and opened the rear passenger door. He deposited Lawrence onto the floorboard. The bones clacked, pushed against each other.

Alessandro held out his hand. “Keys.”

I opened my mouth to fight with him about it and realized I had nothing left. I’d burned through every reserve I had. The world had gone soft and fuzzy, my legs refused to carry me, and the pavement of the parking lot looked very comfy and inviting. I could curl up on it, right here by the car, and sleep until morning. I was in no shape to drive.

I put the keys into his palm and climbed into the front passenger seat.

He got behind the wheel, moved the seat back, and started the car. The engine purred and we rolled out of the parking lot.

Alessandro cracked the rear windows half an inch and turned up the heat. I watched for the first few minutes, but he drove with easy confidence, comfortable behind the wheel, and merged into traffic as if he was born in Houston. Fatigue filled me, sand trickling into an hourglass. I lay back against the seat and closed my eyes.

“Catalina, are you all right?” he asked gently.

“I’m just thinking.”

“What about?”

“Lawrence’s hands. They didn’t look anything like the hand in Sigourney’s video, and his talent is completely different. I understand one warped person capable of magic. Strange things happen, and in life there are no absolutes. But two?”

He didn’t answer.

“And he was strong, Alessandro. Stronger than a normal summoner Prime. You said Diatheke had rapidly expanded over the last year. Are they manufacturing warped assassins somehow? Is that what’s fueling the expansion?”

“I don’t know.”

“Magic warped don’t occur naturally in significant numbers,” I recited from memory. I sounded tired even to myself. “The incidence of babies born with magic-induced birth defects is one per roughly nine hundred thousand. Almost all warped are the result of us meddling with inherent magic through experimentation. There is an Everest-size mountain of research on it, and none of it mentions them retaining any magical abilities post-transformation. Where would Diatheke get warped mages?”

“Again, I don’t know.”

“You can’t just cook up a warped human out of thin air. It requires fundamentally altering their talent. It requires years of research, complex arcane interaction, teams of mages working together. And money. A great deal of it.”

“Diatheke has the money,” Alessandro said.

“What about the rest of it?”

He shook his head, his gaze distant. “Every time I get close . . .”

“Close to what?”

He didn’t answer.

I should have probed deeper, but I was so tired, and thinking hurt. I wanted to feel him holding me again. I wanted him to pull over so I could climb into his seat and wrap myself in his strong arms again. I would put my head on his hard chest and let the steady pulse of his heart carry me off to sleep; safe, warm, and free of this oppressive sense of doom that hung over me like a storm cloud.

This could never happen. He and I could never happen. I was a siren. My magic would turn him into a lovesick zombie. He was an assassin. He killed people for a living. What did it say about him that he felt comfortable ending the life of a human being and getting paid for it?

What did it say about me? When he was with me, I felt alive. I had my family, I was never by myself unless I chose to be, but when he walked away, I suddenly felt alone, like someone had torn a vital part out of my life and I desperately needed it back. This wasn’t who I was.

I closed my eyes. The scarred hunter’s face surfaced from my memories, his eyes devoid of human emotion like the eyes of a gator. He and the man who’d put his arms around me on the roof were a world apart. The hunters had felt flat to me, as if some integral thing that made them fully human had withered and died, leaving only self-interest and bitter pragmatism. Alessandro felt vibrant and alive. When he talked about finding Halle, when he went out of his way to buy Shadow a treat, when he had asked me if I was all right a few minutes ago, he showed compassion. He had nothing to gain by doing any of these things. One couldn’t be compassionate and be a hired murderer.

Bits and pieces floated through my mind, trying to string themselves into a coherent whole. The derision in his voice when he called the assassins “they,” the dossier on Diatheke, the way he had explained how Sigourney hired him. I have a certain reputation, the kind people like Sigourney make a point to note. He wasn’t a simple assassin. There had to be more there.

Or perhaps I was deluding myself. I wanted him to be something more, because I wanted him. I would settle for the mere possibility of a future, a hope. Was it making me blind? Was I deliberately twisting the facts so I wouldn’t feel guilt about falling in love with a hired killer?

No, love was too strong of a word. Definitely too strong.

I had to stop thinking. Right now. “Why a shovel?”

“What?”

“On the rooftop when we fought the swarm, why did you conjure a shovel?”

He paused, obviously deciding how much to say. “It’s the way my magic works.”

“So it’s intention-based?”

He sighed, resigned. “Yes. I imagine the action, and the magic does the rest. It’s very fast. Sometimes I’m not fully aware of my intent before the item manifests.”

“So if you imagine stabbing someone, your magic produces something sharp?”

“It might. A knife, an ice pick, a shard of broken glass. Whatever is in range. It’s magic, not science. It takes a lot of training because thinking too broad or too narrow is useless.”

“What were you thinking of on the roof?”

“A really large bug swatter.”

The reek of Lawrence’s bones spread through the car, diluted by the wind but still strong enough to turn my stomach.

“Tell me about Linus Duncan,” he asked.

“I first met him at our trials and then again at Nevada’s wedding. He is charming and intelligent and very retired. Or at least so he claims.”

“Is he retired?”

“Men like Linus never truly retire. One time I asked Rogan about him, and he said Linus Duncan was the most dangerous man he knew.”

Since we became a House, Linus had been a constant presence in our lives. Sometimes he stopped in for dinner without warning. Sometimes we received an invitation to his house. His magic was off the charts. Nevada thought the world of him because he helped broker a ceasefire between us and Victoria Tremaine. Rogan respected him but treated him the way one would handle a loaded gun, aware that a single mistake could lead to tragic consequences.

With us Linus was always pleasant and charming. But no matter how likeable, a man who steered the Assembly full of bickering Primes had to be ruthless.

The image of him dancing with Victoria Tremaine popped into my head. My grandmother had cut a bloody path through the country’s magic elite. People were terrified of her. Just mentioning her name killed the conversation.

Who the hell dances with Victoria Tremaine?

He had to have done something for Diatheke to want him dead. I had no idea how he would react to me bringing this information to him. Did I want him to be aware that I knew someone had put a hit on him? How mad would he be when he found out that we knew about this?

I wish Nevada was here.

I wanted my big sister. I needed her advice. I wanted her to hug me and tell me the right thing to do.

No. At this point I knew more about all of this than she did. She was in Spain and I was here, on the ground. I had a front row seat to all of this. The responsibility for the decision was mine. If I called her, she would tell me the same thing. She would tell me to trust my instincts.

Jocelyn’s words floated up from my memory and stung me again.

“I didn’t climb over Nevada.”

“I know,” Alessandro said.

I glanced at him. I loved the way he looked right now, his profile etched against the light-studded night city. His expression had turned harsh, his eyes scanning the road in front of us. The wolf was out of the woods and on the prowl.

“How?”

“You hate being the Head of the House. Every bit of it.”

I had to work on hiding it better.

“Why did you do it?” he asked.

“There was nobody else.” I had no idea why I was even talking about this. He didn’t care about my family problems, but it felt vitally important to make him understand.