Elysia straightened in her seat and kept her voice level as she met the queenpin’s gaze. “Name your test.”
Sylvia Reyez evaluated her and smiled coldly. “A court-raised woman trained by the heir of a criminal empire. Yes, I can find a useful test for you.”
Chapter 17
Out of all theplaces Elysia Parker had gone snooping, this might’ve topped the list.
The Lights was the newest and most popular club in Saarspur. Located in the Endless Forest, it was slung up in the farthest reaches of the branches. Just looking at the club had made Elysia uneasy. The roofless club stretched through the weakest and smallest branches of the pines, gently swaying in the evening winter wind. Architecturally, it was, in a word, precarious.
Elysia wasn’t used to magically designed buildings. She now realized she had a strong preference for concrete, structural beams, and buildings that were connected to the ground. The Lights gave her the distinct impression that one body too many within its doors would send the whole place crashing down, leaving them all impaled on the excrement of what was once a very stupidly constructed club.
Despite its stupidity, The Lights, she had to begrudgingly admit, was beautiful.
Dazzling, colorful lights shimmered and waved through the night sky, and because The Lights didn’t bother with a roof, its inhabitants were able to be as close to the gorgeous expanse of starlight as humanly possible. The pines of the Endless Forestwere only a fingertip’s reach away, rustling in the wind and scenting the air perfectly.
But Elysia wasn’t here to luxuriate in the beauty of the night sky.
She was here to steal the plans for some new magic-fueled gambling machine. The Lights was one of the few clubs not owned or under the protection of the Reyez empire within Saarspur, which normally they would have been willing to overlook so long as The Lights didn’t cause anyproblems.But The Lights had procured a new distributor. This distributor was bringing in all sorts of fresh products—drinks, drugs, games, beauty potions. It looked like the beginnings of someone edging in on their market. And the products were good too. Creative, underground types of ideas that Bellia, one of the richest and most stable kingdoms, hadn’t seen in a long time.
The Reyez family had no desire to stamp out such ingenuity. They wanted to poach it. And that started with an introduction—one Elysia was guaranteeing when she stole the foreign distributor’s newest design. Everyone knew theft and blackmail were how all great working relationships began.
Elysia sat at the bar, sliding her hand up and down her thigh. The rhythmic, smooth sensation beneath her palm was a poor attempt to quiet the steadily growing alarm within her, but unsurprisingly did next to nothing to rid her of the distracting tension in her neck or silence the inner voice demanding her to get the fuck out and forget this club. Elysia forced her hand to still. She couldn’t be giving herself away like that.
At least her dress was pretty if it was what she ended up dying in. The deep, sensual green of the fabric was woven with a warming magic, so that even with the blustery chill, her muscles were as warm and relaxed as her nerves would allow. Long sleeved with a wide boat neck and slim-fitting body, the dress moved with her rather than constricting her motions. Resting on the seat of her stool was a cropped black jacket with a high collar and golden brass buttons.
Unable to help herself, she ran her thumb over the soft fabric again. It was unsettling to realize just how crippled Kava must have been in the years that followed the Fall. Buildings that had once relied on magic needing to be reinforced and reconstructed. Clothing, crafts, and every product you could think of suddenly needing to be produced in a mundane manner. She wondered how long it took people to learn how to make something as basic as food without magic. It must have been a disaster. And yet now, Kava boasted electricity and steam-powered engines. The rest of the world found them strange and unnatural, but she knew they were survivors. It took a rugged, immeasurable sort of strength not only to keep your creativity but to find the will to create something new in the face of your entire world breaking. And her people had done so, over and over.
Elysia played with her drink as her magic crawled through every corner of the club.
Money, sex, impulsivity, and longing.
People who were here to escape. People who were here to amplify. People who had felt nothing for a very, very long time. The rare few who were just genuinely enjoying themselves.
Elysia bit back a sigh of frustration. She’d been hoping this would be good practice for searching for the talisman given that she’d never used her magic to search for anything specific before. It just dragged her around and she hoped for the best. Elysia rattled the ice in her glass. It looked like she was going to need some magic lessons after all—from Maya. Aidan could bite her ass if he thought she was going to fall for his bullshit just because he’d been nice to her when she was about to cry. Her throat thickened with discomfort just thinking about that interaction. She was letting him get too close. They didn’t have to cry on each other’s shoulders to work cordially together.
Her glass hit the wooden bar with a thud, her eyes latching onto a newcomer. Stuffed into a three-piece charcoal gray suit, the man strode through the club with a quiet but powerful energy. She tracked him as he cut a sharp, direct line to where she sat. Herinterest thrummed higher as she freely perused her mark. Light skin, dark brown hair tinged with red, and a neatly groomed beard paired with muscles that were ready to bust out of his finely made suit. Elysia’s magic slithered out, and she inhaled a nibble of his secrets. Flashes of violence ripped through her mind along with numbers and a sense of astuteness. As a former unbranded Reyez enforcer turned businessman, it all made sense.Interesting, indeed.
She smiled lazily, tipping her gaze up from the well-oiled leather boots now standing an inch from her stool all the way up to hard blue eyes.
“Welcome to my club, Ms. Parker. Given our mutual friends, I assure you that the sizable bounty on your head is all but forgotten.” Her mark stressed the wordsizablewhile his gaze drifted from her face to roam all over her body as if the gleaming pinkish-red skin of the Reyez brand would suddenly make itself known from beneath her dress.
Resting a hand on the bar, he leaned against it. Intelligence shone in his eyes, giving away how he’d moved from mere muscle to owning a club like this in the heart of Reyez territory. He leaned in as if they were having a private moment, waiting a few seconds to speak. Elysia sensed eyes on them from around the club as he held his position near her ear, but she maintained her indifferent posture. As if people hadn’t stared and panted after the Crown Prince. She was immune to such rabble. Heat rolled off the club owner’s body, and his voice this close to her neck made her skin crawl.
“The games here really are unique. You’ll have to let me know how they compare to Kava’s.”
Elysia maintained her half-lidded stare, giving him a barely perceptible nod. “As you’re well aware, our games rely strictly on cunning given that we cannot use magic to,” she paused, opening her gaze to better meet his, “enthrallthe masses.”
He smiled mirthlessly, dropping a handful of gaming chips onto the bar in front of her. “Perhaps you should let yourcunning rest and allow us to enthrall you then.” With that, her mark stalked off, the crowd giving him an easy berth.
Elysia’s nostrils flared the second he was gone. He knew. He didn’t know exactly why they’d sent her, but he’d taken a solid stab in the dark with that little quip about the games at The Lights.Fuck me.She might as well have strolled in here with a banner that said,Hi, I’m a Reyez initiate and I’m here to steal from you! Would you like the bounty on my head before or after you kill me?
But Simon Maspan was her mark, and there wererulesshe had to follow.
Rule number one. No fated magic or underrealm creatures. In other words, no magical traveling, or man-eating pint-sized dogs.
Rule number two, as spoken by Sylvia Reyez. “There are no rules. Steal the damn plans, or we’ll kill you and send you back to Gage as a present because both he and our death god deserve better than some girl who can’t even steal or kill properly.”
And then she’d been given an address, the whisper of a name in her ear, and instructed to be home by dawn before being booted out the door with a hearty chorus ofmay death guide you, which was quite possibly the creepiest farewell she had ever received.
