The Bard’s lip curled. “This garbage heap is a rental.”
I looked around the luxurious penthouse and contained a laugh. Only a Bard would think a palatial apartment with a stunning view was a garbage heap.
“Our network of media contacts has been compromised. Long-standing relationships severed. Accounts closed. Traps set to activate when I or my heir cross the threshold. I’ve not been able to eat at my favorite restaurant—a trap covers the entry. Same with the theater. The concert hall. Do you understand?”
I nodded. “Someone’s out to get you.”
“I thought it was the Smiths. But the Smiths aren’t subtle. Wolfgang . . . he could be subtle. But his son is a brute. The both of them are stupid brutes. They attack head-on—for instance, destroying your home this morning. They aren’t smart enough for subtlety. They don’t understand long-term strategy. They’re like dogs who sniff a bitch in heat and have to go after her. They require immediate gratification. This is different.”
“The Clarks?” I asked, heeding Jagger’s command to sow seeds of doubt. “Except . . . no.”
“No?”
“No. They’re your ally. They don’t have any reason to make you weak. It wouldn’t benefit them at all to have you destroy the Smiths and then, once you were weak from battle, destroy you. They’ll need strong allies when Primus has the crown. Besides, Luvic’s going to be a Clark.”
Under the table, Luvic stepped on my toe. I kicked him.
“Luvic is a Bard,” Dagrid snapped. Then, taking his cloth napkin from his lap, he set it on the table and stood.
Luvic stood too, and I quickly joined them.
“Luvic. Take the creature around the city. Have her disable the traps. Then go to Rockefeller. I want that Tower of Babel knocked down.”
Luvic frowned. “What?”
“You heard me.” The Bard tugged on the sleeves of his indigo suit coat. “We shored up their media empire with illusion. The entire structure is made from the mortar of our conjurings.” He turned to me, narrowing his eyes. “You can tear it down? You can do what the null did at the closing ceremony?”
I stared at him, speechless. He wanted me to pull out the knots of illusion from the Rockefeller Center? Tens of thousands of people worked there. There was a daycare there. Children.
Why was it that everyone had suddenly decided it would be great fun to have me blow up or tear down buildings around the city? They were like toddlers stomping around, kicking over block towers.
“Why?” Luvic asked.
“Because they insulted your sister. She was meant to be Grace Kelly, not Marilyn Monroe. She was perfect, and they’ve made her obscene. A love child? Drug abuse? No one insults a Bard.”
Luvic sighed and slouched his shoulders. “Yes. But Rockefeller? You know I hate making a mess. Rubble. Debris. Road closures. Traffic will be a monster for weeks.” He mentioned the traffic as if that would be the worst part of it all. “After, they’ll make tragi-films about it, and those films will win all the awards, and it will be so . . . predictable. Do we really want to do that? What happened to the good old days, when a gory assassination or two would do the trick? No mess. No fuss. Just someone decapitated for insulting Lia.”
The Bard jabbed a long, ringed finger at me. “Can you do it?”
I nodded. I could.
“Good. Then leave. You stink, creature. It’s offensive. Next time I see you, I expect you to have bathed.”
I followed Luvic out the door, discreetly sniffing my arm.
In the elevator, Luvic laughed as I tugged at my shirt and sniffed.
“He was talking to me,” he said.
I glanced at him. “Really? The Bard calls you ‘creature’?” I frowned and sniffed the air around him. I couldn’t smell anything.
He tapped my nose, and I swatted at his hand. He laughed and then put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the elevator walls.
My stomach fell with the elevator’s quick descent. “Luvic . . . I have to do what the Bard says, but you don’t.” I was talking about Rockefeller Center.
“Actually, I do.”
I frowned. Did he? “Well. The Smiths don’t.”
