Page 30

Saga thought of her grandmother the day her grandfather had died. Was this why his chair and pipe remained untouched? Had they spoken often? Had the years apart been agony, knowing she might possess the power to bring him back but would not be permitted to? Was this the agony that drove Osian to such desperate acts? “I understand.” She forced a smile, but her aunt did not look convinced.

They set the table for tea together in silence, allowing the pause in conversation to soothe the remaining tension.

When at last they sat, Saga poured them each a cup, took a deep breath, and finally prompted, “What’s the second law?”

“Magic shall not seek to control.” Leigh dropped a teaspoon of sugar into her tea. “One of the more ambiguous laws, but primarily it is applied to taking possession of someone’s body or mind without their consent.”

“People consent to that kind of thing?”

“You’ve heard the fairy tales, the legends, the horrors… Men and women have been enslaved for thousands of years in Faerie because they accepted a poor contract.”

Saga was raised on her grandmother telling those kinds of stories on a dark and rainy night. They had, helpfully, made her extremely cautious of anything requiring her signature. Often she read through such documents twice. “Those are still legal?”

“We are tolerated in their world, Saga, we are not protected.”

“What does that mean?”

“That there may come a time when you are very tempted to break one of these laws.”

Did that warning come from something Leigh saw in her or from Leigh’s personal experience? Saga thought of the Winter Court, which had not helped Osian Goff when his human wife was diagnosed with cancer. She thought of the measures he took, the lengths he went to in order to ensure he did not fail his daughter in the same way. Could Saga be tempted? Hadn’t she been already? “What about innate magics, like siren songs? Don’t those control people?”

“There’s a level of nuance applied to abilities of that nature. It taps into an existing impulse, so it’s considered a different act.”

“That’s not different at all though,” protested Saga. “Just because I have an intrusive thought about strangling someone who pissed me off doesn’t mean I actually want to act on it. If someone used their magic to coerce me into it, that should count as control.”

Leigh looked surprised by her niece’s intensity but shook her head. “Those kinds of magics are trickier because there is a point at which the target does consent—you have more control over your willpower than you think.”

So resisting Iona was possible. The iele would have no control over her that Saga herself did not grant. She was preying on Saga’s desire for retribution, which Saga could not deny was there. She was leveraging Saga’s attraction to her, which Saga could also, unfortunately, not deny was there. The woman was attractive, in all definitions of the word. But resistance was possible. “So, if someone was say…tempted toward a murder and something fed into that desire for revenge—the creature that did the murdering would still be the only one responsible?”

Leigh read her far too easily. “Have you seen Avery lately?”

Saga, far more accustomed to shame than her aunt, averted her eyes. “I think she might be avoiding me.”

“Why?”

Saga tried to find a more comfortable position in her chair without success. “In the end I was a liability. I didn’t keep my cool, I couldn’t defend myself, and ultimately, I would have got myself killed if she hadn’t…” She flinched, remembering that feeling of helplessness. “My point is, she had to rescue me.”

“As I understand it, you ended up rescuing her in the end.”

“Thanks to sheer dumb luck and old magic.”

But Leigh wasn’t dropping it. “You like her. You like having her around.”

“Of course I like her,” scoffed Saga, more at herself than Leigh’s assertion. Did she, the mortal medical school dropout, have a crush on the breathtaking supernatural being completely out of her league? Naturally. Fate wouldn’t have had its cosmic pranks any other way. “She’s smart, and clever, and unintentionally funny, which is somehow even better than if she knew how to make a joke…” She gnawed on her lower lip while debating how honest she was willing to be, then added, “And I liked helping her.”

“Do you think you might want to become an investigator?”

That didn’t quite feel right. If she was on her own, she was fairly certain the process wouldn’t have the same appeal as working with Avery on a case. Was she repeating the same mistakes she’d made in medical school?

No. She did want to be doing this. She had always liked problem-solving and puzzles, and she enjoyed the way she and Avery collaborated. “I think… I felt really passionate about what I was doing. For the first time in a long time.” It was not a specific answer, but it was a sincere one and the simplest she could currently give.

Unexpectedly, Leigh smiled. “You should talk to her.”

The directness startled Saga. “No!”

“Why not? She’s not far. Just march upstairs and knock on her door.”

“And say what?” Saga drank her tea so she could pour herself another—anything to distract herself so she didn’t have to focus on the awkward feeling radiating from her bones. “I miss solving crime with you?”