“You don’t need luck, Zoodle!” I told him with more confidence than I’d have thought possible even a month ago. “You’ve got this!”
With a wink, he disappeared through the doorway.
“Seri, Ko and I will be in the security room if you need anything.” Casimir leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “Keep your phone with you. You don’t know how badly I want to scold you for not having it on you to call us this morning.”
“I think Imightbe able to guess how badly.” I wrinkled my nose and looked around. “It’s here somewhere.”
He rolled his eyes before laying his own phone on the desk beside my ward designs.
“It’ll unlock with your fingerprint or facial recognition. All of our phones will.”
The gesture was so casually intimate, such an easy sharing of something personal, that it momentarily took my breath away. Three weeks ago, I’d owned nothing but the clothes on my back and a few hidden treasures. Now I had husbands who shared everything they had without hesitation.
As Casimir left the library, Koa gave me one long, lingering kiss before he, too, stood and walked toward the door. He paused and looked at me over his shoulder, the soft late morning light turning his skin to caramel.
“I can stay if you want. It’ll be recorded for me to watch later.”
“Go,” I laughed, making a shooing motion. “I’m fine, I have work to do, and I know you’re dying to watch Zane live.”
With a little nod, he left, and I settled into one of the plush armchairs, pulling a book on protective magic from the stack I’d set aside yesterday.
“They fuss too much,” I murmured to the empty room, but it wasn’t exactly a complaint.
19. Mosaic of Fears
Zane
I took the basement stairs two at a time, whistling theJawstheme because nothing says, “Your impending doom approaches,” like John Williams’ greatest hit.
The concrete steps were still unfinished, like most of Evermere’s underground level, but hey, what’s an interrogation without exposed pipes and walls that practically scream, “No one will hear you”? Three weeks in this place and we still hadn’t gotten around to turning the basement into a proper dungeon. Between Seri’s recovery, magical hawks trying to curse her, and the general chaos of moving, interior decorating had fallen to the bottom of our priority list.
Not that I was complaining about the aesthetic; it was givingYou’re royally fuckedin all the best ways.
I paused on the landing, rolling the small mechanical object between my fingers. Koa’s spy eye, one of his more brilliant creations, looked like a mechanical ladybug had a drunken one-night stand with a surveillance camera. Its tiny crimson eyes glinted in the dim light, waiting to be activated. I’d need this to give my brothers a front-row seat to the shitshow I was about to conduct.
The thing about Eluned Harrow was that she wasn’t built like normal people. Pain wouldn’t work. Girl got off on it like some perverted Victorian heroine. Threatening her? Please. The bitch lived with Arabesque “I’ll eat your soul for breakfast” Harrow. Torture was practically her love language.
That’s where I came in. The crazy guy. The one people underestimated.
Casimir had his ice-cold precision, the kind of methodical questioning that would make CIA interrogators take notes. Koa had that terrifying berserker rage that made monsters piss themselves when his eyes went empty. But me? I had something infinitely more invasive, a backstage pass to the trauma circus touring inside your skull.
Usually, I didn’t go rummaging around in people’s heads without permission. Telepathy without consent was a dick move, and I tried to maintain at leastsomeethical standards. But after what that psychotic witch had done to Seri? All bets were off.
Images of our girl flashed through my mind. Seri’s too-thin body when we first found her, the panic in her eyes whenever someone moved too quickly, the way she’d flinch if a door slammed, the panic attacks and nightmares… All the scars, both physical and mental, that Arabesque and her demonic offspring had carved into our beloved.
And, maybe worst of all, the theft of her magic.
My jaw clenched. Yeah, Eluned had forfeited any right to mental privacy the moment she helped her mother hurt our beloved.
I flexed my fingers, feeling that familiar tingle that always preceded using my gift. The ability to slip into minds like they were unlocked houses, to sing nightmares and sweet dreams with equal ease.I’d spent years honing it, making sure I could get in and out without leaving fingerprints. But tonight? I was going in with a sledgehammer and zero fucks to give.
“Let’s see what twisted fairy tales are bouncing around in that demented head of yours, Luney,” I muttered, resuming my descent with deliberately heavy footsteps.
I wanted her to hear me coming. Wanted that flutter of anticipation to build in her chest. Psychological warfare 101: Let them stew in their own imagination before you even open your mouth.
At the bottom of the stairs, I turned down the narrow hallway that led to our improvised cell. Koa and I had reinforced one of the storage rooms with extra wards after we threw Eluned inside. Not the best set up, but it would work for Witch Containment Unit No. One until we could do better.
The spy eye warmed in my palm, its tiny mechanical wings vibrating with anticipation. I made an ugly face at it, knowing Koa would be watching the feed.
