“He can be that.What’s up?”
“Lots of things.”Caleb still looked furtive.“We need to talk, but every time I try, I get thrown out on my ass.You carved your way through six goddamned Relics; I think you can take care of yourself!”
“Is there a reason why you’re whispering?”
“Yes!And keep your voice down!Or the bastard is gonna throw me out again, and I have had enough of that shit.He has anger management issues, okay?Not to mention being as controlling as—”
“He isn’t controlling.”
“Just what someone with a controlling boyfriend would say,” Caleb muttered.
“He’ll be fine once I’m better.But right now...honestly, it’s all I can do to drift here.”I gestured at the eager beavers plundering the coat pile.“You want to give them a lesson?”
“No!We have bigger issues, Lia!”
“Like?”
“Like the fact that the raid the other night—oh shit.”
He ducked down behind the pool as Cyrus came out of the back door with a bag of briquettes and a charcoal chimney starter, because he had a sensitive nose and hated the reek of lighter fluid.He went to the egg-shaped grill—another new acquisition—and got a few pieces of crumpled newspaper going under the chimney with some charcoal on top.He glanced at me, and I lifted a hand; he nodded and went back inside.
I didn’t have the heart to tell Caleb that Cyrus didn’t need to see him.He’d smelled him before he got within a block.But I was feeling better, if only marginally, and Cyruswasn’tcontrolling.
He might not want Caleb here, but now that I was up and around, sort of, it wasn’t his business who I talked to.
“Are there any others?”Jen called, gesturing at the pile of rejected outerwear.Everyone else had found something, but our resident glamour girl wasn’t pleased.
Then I got an idea.
“Yep.Check my closet, all the way in the back on the right-hand side.But be careful—it bites.”
“W-what bites?”
“My learner coat from when I was your age.It’s...not fond of me.Maybe it’ll like you better.”
She looked dubious, but went off to check it out.“You’re giving her that thing?”Caleb said.“Do you hate her?”
I shot him a look.
“And what are you gonna use?”he added.“You burned your old coat to survive a Relic attack a month ago.”
And it still stung.That coat had been in my family for generations.Hundreds of years’ worth of spells had been layered onto it by war mages of the de Croisset line, which was one of the oldest in service.
Yet I’d had to sacrifice it, castingInvolucrumto cause it to wrap around and smother the creature attacking me, to survive.I mourned that coat like a lost friend.I probably always would.
But I didn’t think a coat would help me much now.
“Do you think I need one?”I asked pointedly.
“I don’t know.That’s the problem.We don’t know anything about what we’re dealing with here, because Jenkins’ buddies burned all his notes before we could get to them.Like those stupid ass mages the other night burned the last of the potion—”
“What?”Okay, I was paying attention now.
He nodded.“The chindi they were using couldn’t force a mage to steal it for them, so they had to go in after it, once the wards were down.But with all the spell fire being flung about, the vials were incinerated along with half the lower levels—”
“Half?”
“Yeah, no wards means no wards, including the kind that put out fires.We’re still sorting through the wreckage, but it isn’t looking good.”
