We’ve come too far, worked too hard. Waited too long.
We find the pull off, but don’t leave the main road. Instead, Marcus veers off onto the soft dirt shoulder, and Simon hops out of the SUV, carefully taking readings with the device he created. He finds the illusion spell easily, and he gives it a wide berth, slowly stepping into the woods until the device pings. He’s found it. Saints, he’s found the main wards that surround the facility.
He takes a few readings, each taking longer than the last, and all of them taking much longer than it took to translate the simpler warding spell I cast to test the device out.
“Fuck me,” he mutters. “Mage tech andthreelayers of warding. I am so fucking glad this is Ian’s problem now.”
And itisa problem, but not one Ian isn’t up to solving. Every minute he’s not teaching or working with me on my affinity, he’s pouring over the pages and pages of sigils Simon captured for him until, late one night, he dashes up to my nest, waking me, Simon, Cassian and Luca.
“The wards,” he says, talking quickly as we rub sleep from our eyes. “Cadigan made them. I know how he casts, because he taught me to cast the very same way. I can… I can undo these wards.”
“Ian,” I yawn. “That’s wonderful and you’re brilliant, but, and I say this with every ounce of my love for you, get your butt in my nest so I can cuddle you to sleep.”
He holds up the stack of papers and his face falls. “Oh, all right. Fine. Let me put these downstairs.”
“How dare I make you sleep for once,” I mutter as he retreats downstairs, but I kiss him when he finally slips in beside me. I don’t know which of us falls asleep first, but I wake in his arms the next morning.
He kisses me softly. “For luck,” he says.
Because today’s the day we tell the resistance we’ve found the facility.
CHAPTER36
Early February’s biting chill slips in through the abandoned warehouse’s high, broken windows. The building lies in disrepair, the concrete floor cracked, and the metal catwalks rusted. Ian’s wards may keep prying eyes from seeing inside the warehouse, but they do nothing against the bitter cold.
Fifty mages gather in the warehouse, huddling together under heating charms, stamping their feet and rubbing their hands to stay warm.
Graeme bounds over when he sees us, eagerly shaking my hand and then Luca’s. “I hear congratulations are in order once more, Miss Rose. Will I be congratulating you a third time in the near future?” he asks, eying Ian, who’s talking with Sienna, Mai, and a few alphas I don’t recognize.
I stammer. Saints know Iwantto mate Ian, but it’s complicated. I’ve been through the academy’s bylaws at least a dozen times and while relationships between professors and students are strictly forbidden, it’s frustratingly unclear as to whether a professor and his student mate are allowed to be at Fairhaven together. I know a mating can be hidden. Trinity hid her mating to Jaime Brentwood, but their relationship was forbidden for other, far deadlier reasons.
Luca nudges me and I look up toward the door, where the widower alpha in question stands uncertainly. Jaime was the last person I expected to see at this meeting; from what Cassian and Ian have told me, he hasn’t attended a single resistance meeting since Trinity’s death.
“Would you excuse me, detective inspector?”
I deftly weave through the crowd, Luca on my heels and when Jaime sees me, he freezes. His thoughts bombard me. He’s full of apprehension and chafes at being around so many people. The last time he was in a crowd like this was the Lunar Ball, where Trinity took her own life. Grief ripples through him, and I approach him cautiously.
“Juniper,” he says with a tight smile, his voice rough from disuse.
In just a year, he looks like he’s aged a decade. Grief is a potent poison, and it still pumps through the alpha’s veins.
He bows his head. “You escaped him,” he says softly.
I don’t tell him that I don’t believe Rad’s truly given up on me, not when the alpha I was once betrothed to took the most precious thing in the world from him. Trinity never escaped from Rad, not from his bite, and not from his control.
“I saw his interviews online. He’s cracking, Juniper. He’s never lost anything he wanted before. I fear it’ll only make him more dangerous. But you have good mates, and I hear you’re a talented mage in your own right.”
“Thanks, Jaime. I’m glad you’re here,” I say, and I mean it. I don’t know Jaime Brentwood well, and I hardly knew Trinity aside from the one class we shared, but I know he’s a good alpha. “I don’t think I ever got to say it, but I’m so sorry about Trinity. I can’t… I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”
“Me being here, it’s what she would have wanted. Well, she would have wanted me to help the resistance succeed in toppling the Soldiers of Saint Aldous, but saints rest her soul, she’ll have to be content with me beating the absolute shit out of Radcliffe.”
“Save me a punch? I’ve been working on my left hook.”
He smiles at that and nods before disappearing into the crowd. I watch him go until Simon waves me over to the projector he’s set up to display our diagram on the wall of the warehouse. “Ready, kit-kat?”
I slip my hand into his. “Ready.”
Ian calls the meeting to order just as Jack Rudolph slips into the warehouse.
