My baby-blue power boiled the cauldrons, filling the usually moody pub with bright light and exposing every dirty nook and cranny. Shadows covered the stone floor in a patchwork.
A wine bottle popped open, destroying our pregnant silence. I turned, unable to fathom who wanted to drink in the middle of all of this. Cayden’s shadowed face twisted before he took a swig directly out of the bottle.
I gave it to him. In fact, I took back my mental judgment.
Rowan released my arm, and I sagged with exhaustion, the toll of consuming my own magic no longer deniable.
“That’s all I know.” Cayden gestured to the pile of forest-green scrawls covering one of the tables. “I was fully in the Prophet's light.” He sucked down another mouthful of wine. “I knew there was unrest. Several of my brothers are not quite right in the head. We called them blessed.” He grimaced. “Emil wasn’t blessed, but he was never strong of mind. The Prophet would never…” Cayden trailed off. “He’s dead now, so I guess it doesn’t matter what he would or wouldn’t have done.”
“Who controls your family now?” I asked.
Cayden looked at his bare wrist before running his hand up his arm. Quinn had used her Majekah on him. The fine white tattooscovering his body were gone. With his Prophet dead and the truths about his family out, the missing runes must leave him feeling exposed.
“I don’t know.” Cayden took another drink. “He and his inner circle are dead. I came here before Emil split the family.” He took another drink. “Can I go back to Quinn now?”
I shook my head. “I need you here.”
Cayden scowled but didn’t move.
I couldn’t physically stop him if he chose to ignore me and slip to Quinn’s side. In fact, with Everly and Hero here, I would meet resistance if I even tried.
Cayden didn’t realize that only my words held him in place. The turmoil inside him churned. After arriving, I gave him a task. When he completed it, those same dead eyes turned to me again, desperate for something else to occupy his thoughts. Although his alliance was my ultimate goal, this was not how I wanted it to happen.
Since arriving at my castle, Cayden had fought my leadership at every turn, even roping Rowan into plotting against me. This docile version of the rune mage felt wrong. If I could go back in time and kill his Prophet myself, I would.
Cayden slid to his stacks of scrawls and started organizing them.
Unlike the rest of the world, every Lawson learned Majekah the same way. If their Majekah developed outside of ‘normal,’ the ‘correct’ rune magic was literally beaten into them until they changed or died. Once their training capped out, they were placed in the family and taught only what they needed to complete their assigned role. Each person was a puzzle piece, except they never got to see the whole picture. Only a select few did, and those people were blindly loyal to the Prophet.
As if reading my mind, Cayden took another swig of wine and trained his gaze on the ground.
“My father—” Jamie Abernathy began into the awkward silence that had descended on the room.
I put out a hand. “Erick will only get reinforcements if he successfully takes my castle. And even then”—I locked my gaze with his—“I don’t need an army.”
Abernathy paled. I’d filled his mind with information multiple times. He understood what I was. But until recently, he’d never seen me use my mental powers for more than transferring information.
Professor Holiday chuckled. The ancient self-named professor’s dry laugh sounded like nails on a chalkboard. The sticky, sweet smell of his experiments still clung to his layers of white robes. Although he always looked half dead, today, his skin hung off his skeletal body. Less than thirty-eight hours ago, I’d physically pulled him out of his lab, just on the edge of Erick’s shield. I don’t think he’d even realized we were under attack.
Professor Holiday met my gaze. I knew what was in his lab because I’d broken in with Quinn. Professor Holiday didn’t realize I’d been at Quinn’s side, but he had to suspect I knew everything she did. The ancient man survived by leeching magic out of the very air. What were the chances his side project also consumed magic and could eat a shield of pure force?
The massive body built of metal and muscle metaphorically filled the space between us. Professor Holiday’s dark gaze burned into mine. With every passing second, his dry, cracked lips curled up into a parody of a smile, as if he were the mentalist reading my thoughts.
Ezra would tell me to keep a tight leash on all my monsters and warn me not to encourage a possibly evil being desperately searching for immortality.
But my lover’s focus was elsewhere, and I needed that shield down.
I gave Professor Holiday the barest of nods. He rapped his staff on the ground twice and hobbled out of The Rooster. Every person tracked his progress until he vanished into the dull drizzle of the late afternoon.
I tapped my map again, returning everyone's attention to me. “In less than three hours, Emil will have his portal completed. If that happens, London’s neutrality will quickly end, and that will be the conclusion of everything we’ve built.” I let my words sink into the room. “I will have the shield down before then, and we must be ready to act.” The Great Hall, with the Alun under it, had four external entrances and two internal. I pointed and assigned men to them. “Rowan and Cayden, with me.”
Rowan crossed his arms over his chest. “The three of us cannot bring down that shield.”
“The three of us have a different task,” I simply stated. “You must trust me.”
Rowan grunted and didn’t speak again.
I looked at each of my men. We’d failed to penetrate the shield. Yet here I was, asking for them to try again with no proof that anything would be different this time.
