Absently, I rubbed my throat. “Huh.” My voice had sounded different when I told Seraphina to get out. And shehadleft very abruptly. It wasn’t like her at all. Seraphina usually drifted around gracefully, floating like a delicate soap bubble. She didn’t march jerkily like a robot. “But… mermaids lure people in. They don’t push them away.”
“They only lure people in when they want to eat them,” Bart explained. “They can also make nosy researchers go away by commanding them to scram. If you draw some magic up and express it from your throat chakra, you can probably do the same thing.”
I took a breath and blew it out. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that kind of power.”
Bart chuckled. “You command people every day. You’re a manager, Susan.”
“I don’tcommand. I gently request that my team do their jobs. And if they don’t, I gently manipulate them until they do.” I furrowed my brow, rubbing my throat again. “This feels… too much. I would never want to take away someone’s free will.”
“Get used to it,” Cecil said cheerfully, throwing back the rest of his martini. “You’ve got it now, and you can’t give it back.” He pointed with a hoof. “Now, honey, get out of that dress. You’ve got twelve, maybe thirteen more to try on before we do hair and makeup.”
I groaned. “No more dresses.” Stirred up by my exasperation and confusion, the hot feeling in my belly flared again.
“It’s a black-tie dinner.” Cecil struck a pose, still standing upright, one hoof on his hip. “We have to get this right, Chosen. This is your rebranding. Your coming out party. You have to strike exactly the right note. You?—”
I drew up a little heat from the depths of my belly and sank some power into my voice. “Go get the red one.”
Cecil jolted. He tossed his empty glass behind him, fell to all fours, and pranced stiffly like a dressage pony, clip-clopping straight out of the drawing room, his tail flicking behind him.
Bart chuckled, shaking his head. “You are a fast learner, Sue.”
Istill felt unsettled and edgy, so I paced back and forth a few times, my enormous tulle skirt rustling in the silence of the drawing room, breathing in and out, trying to rid myself of all the excess energy swirling in the pit of my stomach. The feeling of imminent catastrophe was hard to shake, but it was dissipating slowly. I knew how close I’d come to losing control in front of my husband’s new fiancé. I could have killed her.
“Are you sure Seraphina is a human?” I asked the room in general. “She’s the only person who’s been able to really get under my skin like that.” I shook myself, bristling, and tried to brush off the lingering sadness and despair that clung to me.
Ugh. Grief. That was the one emotion that was so hard to shake. I’d lost the love of my life, but he was still alive. Maybe I’d never be able to shake it. “I’m a good judge of character,” I went on. “And Seraphina always seemed so genuine. She comes off as the sweetest, most innocent young girl.” I shook my head. “But…”
“Considering her current circumstances,” Bart replied. “I know exactly what you mean. She’s human, though. I’ve never sensed a trace of magic around her.”
I chewed on my lip for a second, thinking. Cecil trotted back into the room, holding a scarlet dress in his teeth. “Seraphina’s such a delicate creature,” I said, almost to myself. “And she’s so scared of me, Old Crazy Susan. But she came here, to my apartment, alone, to ask me where Vincent’s alimony check was. That’s not something you would do if you were scared of your partner’s ex.” Suddenly, I remembered something. “Did you hear her saying something about a building deed?”
“We heard everything,” Bart replied.
I rubbed my lip where I’d bit it too hard. “I wonderedwhat that was about. She said her lawyer thought I was hiding assets.”
Cecil spat the red dress out on an ottoman next to me. “Their lawyer probably got his hands on the purchase notification.” He scowled deeply, moved back up onto two legs, tossed back his hair and lit another cigarette. “I wonder how that happened?”
I was too confused to complain about the smoke. “What purchase notification?”
Cecil stared at me like I was an idiot. In the background, by the window, I noticed Donovan’s shoulders had tensed even further. “The building purchase notification,” Cecil replied slowly.
I sighed. “Can you elaborate on that a little more, please, Cecil?”
“Lord have mercy.” Cecil echoed my sigh even more dramatically and tossed his bangs out of his eyes. “I can’t graft the bones of a Domicile onto a piece of land you don’t own, Chosen. You didn’t own that tiny box you called your apartment.”
“Oh. So… you bought my apartment?”
He curled his lip. “Ew. Gross. No.”
“Oh.”
“The magic of the Domicile has to be grounded to work properly, and it must be secured to the master of the House for it to grow.”
I frowned. “I’m confused.”
“The mistress of Violet House must own the ground she sits upon. When his Highness installed me here, we found out you were”—he shuddered dramatically—“renting. So, we quickly purchased the building.”
My mouth dropped open. “You… You what?”
