“Maybe he wants her dead, too.” Eluned flopped onto her stomach, chin propped in hands. “Maybe we’re doing him a favor. Could he be turned to join us?”
“They didn’t flinch. Not really.” Amabel’s eyes narrowed on the scrying pool. “The dark one’s hunting for traces, but the blond…”
“He didn’t evenblinkwhen the curse bit him,” Eluned interrupted, pacing now.
Then the robin twitched.
A minute shudder ran through the connection, the bird’s instinct flaring like a struck match. Through its eyes, I watched Koa Cimmerian tilt his head like a wolf catching a scent. Zane’s lips moved, soundless through the scrying link, but the shape of them was unmistakable:Robin.
Our spy’s final vision: Koa hurling a silver streak as Casimir’s shoulders blocked Serafina from view, then the world fracturing into prismatic shards as the spell shattered.
The mirror cracked with a sound like frozen bone snapping. Eluned shrieked as the vision dissolved, leaving only our three reflections warped in the fractured glass, Amabel’s lips pressed into a bloodless line, Eluned’s face flushed with rage, my own expression a mask of detached amusement.
“Thosemonsters!” Eluned slammed her palm against the desk. “That was an innocent bird!”
“They’re faster than I thought. Smarter, too,” Amabel acknowledged.
“You left the bird watching too long,” Eluned accused.
“We needed data!”Amabel paused as her phone buzzed three short, one long. She glanced at the screen. “Foster’s finished sweeping the eastern perimeter.”
“Tell him to check the apple orchard.” Eluned was already flouncing toward the door. “I’ll wager my best athame the redhead planted listening charms in the—”
“No.” I didn’t turn from the window, didn’t raise my voice. “You’ve shown your fangs. Now let them wonder when you’ll bite.”
My daughters stilled. Good. Even vipers know to freeze when the shadow above might be wings.
“You wanted the girl’s pain? Crude. Common.” I trailed a finger along Amabel’s rigid spine. My other hand settled on Eluned’s shoulder, nails biting through silk. “But those creatures’ instincts? Their secrets?” The mirror went dark as I severed the connection. “That’sinformation worth savoring.”
“You’re not even angry,” Eluned pouted.
“Darling,” I breathed into her ear, “I’mfascinated.”
Eluned opened her mouth to whine, to argue, to pick at the scab of her humiliation. Amabel caught her wrist, dragging her toward the door. They left arguing about surveillance routes, and I waited until their footsteps faded down the hall before exhaling.
Children playing with live ammunition, I thought.
How many times had I watched them trip over their own ambitions? Each failure a stitch pulled tighter in the shroud they wove around themselves. I’d made certain of it.
Amabel would rather swallow live coals than admit weakness. Eluned needed constant proof of her own cleverness. And Serafina… Oh, that ragged little sparrow. So desperate to protect, she’d walk into hell wearing kerosene perfume.
“They will never stop chasing you, Serafina,” I purred. “That makes them predictable. It also makes them fools.”
Their fixation on Serafina was a bonfire in a drought: Useful for now, but requiring careful containment. Let them rage at the dhampirs’ interference, let them plot increasingly elaborate traps. Every moment spent scheming against the Cimmerians was a moment not spent questioningmygrowing influence in the vampire courts,myquiet acquisitions of land bordering the werewolf kingdom,mysecret meetings with a certain desperate king…
While their eyes remained fixed on Serafina’s shadow, they’d never notice the knife at their backs.
“Obsession makes such pretty shackles,” I murmured, picking up my favorite pen.
My journal lay open to yesterday’s note. Shipments of wolfsbane tincture diverted to Montreal, three human familiars “retired” near Lake Erie. With a tiny smile, I crossed out Lord Mordecai Wince’s name. His demise would serve me well, so long as that icy little wife of his didn’t start asking questions.
Although if she does, her death will prove just as useful to hide my tracks.I tapped the pen against my chin.And now what to do with Foster Collins and Austin Cho?
Foster. Lone wolf turned rogue. My new enforcer. My fingernail idly tapped the silver bell on my desk. Last week, I’d sent him to intercept a certain courier near the Ro?u border, but he’d returned empty-handed, claiming someone beat him to the package. That evening, however, his boots had bore traces of cemetery soil that stank of vampire.
As for Amabel’s new pet, Austin’s file still sat in my top drawer. Human, twenty-two, formereverything: pool cleaner, computer repair, gas leak detector, security camera installer… The boy hadn’t been able to settle into any kind of career after high school. Seemingly clean, but there was something hidden. I was sure of it.
I didn’t care that Eluned and Amabel dallied with the hired help. I did, however, care about the hired help dallying with my plans.
