“The principal and the senior staff were aware of who she was,” he continued. “My sister wanted it that way, and I acquiesced.”
“Arabella also attended Donovan,” Diana said.
“Yes. They are friends.”
The strangest friendship that sprouted from a bizarre crisis. It made sense. Both children had been held back a year, both were the oldest students in their graduating class at 19, and now both were doing the transitional post-graduation program designed to pad their college applications because neither qualified for the school of their choice without it.
The old him would have never expected his sister to be held back or struggle with her academics. He would’ve expectedVerena to blaze to the Valedictorian spot and have her pick of schools the way Seraphina had.
A familiar cold vise squeezed his throat. Losing a sibling fundamentally altered his expectations for his remaining sister, brother, and the cousin he had taken in. He was less of a brother now and more of a parent, and he went from expecting traditional success and academic excellence to celebrating minute signs that they were slowly but steadily moving past the horror that almost destroyed their family.
Diana was waiting for him to elaborate.
“They’re both enrolled in Path to College. It is a gap year program that offers AP courses, which makes students more attractive to college admission departments. Both Arabella and Verena are taking House Business Administration, which requires one hundred and sixty hours of an internship with a business owned by a House other than your family.”
“You swapped,” Diana said. “The Rogans took your sister, and you took Arabella.”
He nodded. “It’s an arrangement that works for both children. I know that Connor and Nevada will not put my sister in harm’s way, and they understand that I will do the same for Arabella.Have I passed the trust test?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, how may I help you?”
“What I am about to tell you is secret,” Diana said. “And I would kill to keep it that way in the literal sense of that word.”
“Understood.”
“Are you familiar with Zeus?”
“The Greek god or your brother’s tiger?”
“The tiger.”
She took a slim tablet from her purse, flicked her fingers across it, and showed it to him. On the screen, a massive animal stretched, vaguely feline, a distant cousin of a tiger if tigers hadblue fur splattered with darker and paler rosettes and a fringe of six-inch-long tentacles around their necks.
All the magic talents in the world fit into three broad categories: elemental, mental, and arcane. The elemental mages commanded the proverbial elements—fire, water, weather and so on. The mental mages displayed powers of the mind, like telekinesis, illusion, and truthseeking. Everything else, everything that was odd and unusual, fit into the category of arcane.
Of the arcane discipline, summoning was one of the least understood. Summoners reached into the arcane realm, a place of magic outside of normal reality, called forth monstrous creatures, and hurled these biological weapons at their opponents. Nobody knew exactly how any of it worked, and the summoners were not forthcoming with explanations.
Creatures brought over by weaker summoners vanished when their temporary masters lost focus. Monsters conjured by upper-level mages stayed in the world permanently, but most summoned creatures had short lifespans, even with the best of care. They withered, like repotted plants that failed to take root. Sometimes it took days, sometimes weeks, but eventually all arcane creatures perished. With the exception of the organisms that were planted into a human host.
Zeus had been plucked from an arcane realm by a summoner Prime, who used him to attack Nevada Baylor and Diana’s brother, Cornelius. Somehow during that confrontation, Cornelius had tamed Zeus against all odds, severing the link between the creature and the summoner.
Augustine had looked into it after the incident. No animal mage on record had even been able to bond with a summoned beast. Cornelius was the only exception, and the bond between them somehow kept Zeus alive and thriving.
“We decided to call the species Tigrionex,” Diana said.
Tigris, Latin for tiger, andnexmeaning violent death. “Tiger of slaughter?”
“Yes.” Diana slid her finger across the tablet. Another image appeared, still of Zeus. Wait, no. This blue tiger was slightly different. It looked a little smaller, and its blue fur had a slight purple tint.
Augustine glanced at Diana. “You obtained a second tiger?”
She nodded. “Cornelius and I had purchased her at great expense. She had been manifested by a Prime summoner during a feud with a rival House and critically injured in that fight. They agreed to sell her to us because she was dying.”
The cost must’ve been astronomical.
“Her name is Celeste. I was able to form a pact with her.”
