Vayra had worried about Malefic’s probable indifference towards any children they might have. She’d worried about his possible harshness to their firstborn in particular, given how he himself had been raised, and given the responsibilities placed on the titled heir, in particular.
She had never anticipated this.
Malefic curled his muscular body around the small bundle in his arms like a dragon bent over and around its most beloved piece of treasure. From his posture and that fire of covetousnessin his eyes, Vayra wondered if Malefic would even harmher,the child’s mother, if she were to get too near without his permission.
The look there disturbed her.
The hard set of that preternaturally handsome face disturbed her.
It sent a shiver of fear over her bones and skin that felt like premonition.
Whatever this was, whatever had so changed Malefic’s mind about fatherhood, about his role in it, about the singular role of the mother regarding the early years of their firstborn, Vayra doubted it boded well for the bundle in his arms.
The thought made her want to take her son and flee.
To where, she did not know, but the urge felt nearly physical for those few seconds. It nearly overwhelmed her––but only briefly, and, obviously, irrationally.
Of course, she would do no such thing.
That moment would come back to her, though.
It would come back to her for many years.
2
Masked Figure
Present Day
August 15th
The Dragon’s Keep, London
Afist pounded on the door, rattling the wood. The hammering echoed loudly enough to jerk me out of my meditative state, and to bring my heart, panicked, to my throat. I’d been staring into a candle flame, using that as my focus point while I worked.
For a few seconds, I didn’t move.
I was still sitting there, on the blue, velvet couch in my one-bedroom suite, when the pounding started up again.
That time, it sounded even louder, and more frantic.
I shoved myself up off the couch and walked to the door, already assessing the chimaeras I’d set up around the outer walls of my hotel suite. As soon as I recognized the magical signature of the person who stood at the edges of my outer hallway and front door shields, I let out a sigh of relief, then scoffed at myself for my brief panic.
Gods, I needed to stop reacting to everything like a frightened rabbit.
It had been nearly a year, and no one in the Praecuri or any other branch of Magical law enforcement had so much as questioned me seriously about Ankha’s death. Not a single person seemed to even entertain the possibility I might know anything about it. They’d all assumed I must be devastated by the loss of my aunt, and I hadn’t tried to dissuade them.
Once I felt my friend there, I practically ran the rest of the way to the door.
I should have known it was him, by the frenetic energy behind the knocking alone. It might actually be humorous that I was generally the cautious, semi-conservative voice in our little extracurricular project, despite how obsessively single-minded I felt about it myself.
I rapidly unhooked the reinforced chain-lock I’d requested from the hotel, and dismantled my magical shields around the opening, before yanking open the door itself.
Alaric Greythorne stood there.
An excited, borderline-manic expression shone in his hazel eyes.
Alaric, despite being from the upper strata of the royals himself, was the only person I could imagine trusting with what we’d been doing for most of the summer––essentially a mad attempt to spy on a large chunk of the richest and most powerful Magicals alive, all in the hopes of finding the absoluteworstamong them.
