To all my peeps back on Finchley and Stevies. You are missed.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Jocelynn Drake

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

THEY WERE KILLING pixies.

I glared at the brown brick house with its neat little lawn and trimmed hedges. I wanted to storm inside and set the pixies free before I took a baseball bat to the head of whoever was running that slaughterhouse. Instead, I slouched in the passenger seat of Bronx’s Jeep, thinking of all the ways I would love to kill Reave, but I was no closer to getting out of the car.

I couldn’t set the pixies free and I couldn’t beat anyone’s head in. I was there to set protective wards on the house, not burn it down.

Bronx shifted in the driver’s seat, watching the house as well. “You know we can’t sit here all night.”

“They’re killing pixies,” I said, glancing over at the troll. “They’re making fix—killing not only pixies, but anyone who is stupid enough to take the drug. I can’t put a protective ward on that house. I’d rather hand myself over to the Ivory Towers.”

“Reave isn’t going to let you out of your deal just because you have moral objections to his business pursuits.”

“Fucking bastard.”

Months ago, Reave discovered that I was a former warlock. Well, just a warlock-in-training, but the information was enough to get me killed. To keep him from selling me to the highest bidder, I had to work for him. And because I was an idiot, Bronx was stuck working for the dark elf Mafia boss as well. I needed to extract both myself and the troll from this mess, but I didn’t have a clue as to how. So for now, here I was protecting drug manufacturers and helping them kill creatures for their livers.

Sitting up, I unbuckled my seat belt. “I warned Reave that I wasn’t going to kill anyone for him. Protecting these assholes would make me an accessory to murder.”

“Then we go back to Reave and we tell him that we’re not going to do it,” Bronx said as he reached for the key still sitting in the ignition.

“No,” I snapped. I wasn’t angry at the troll. I was angry at Reave and maybe even angry at myself. If it was just me, I’d tell Reave to shove his little task up his ass. But Bronx was in this mess too, and if I told Reave to fuck off, Bronx would get hurt.

Unlocking the door, I pulled the handle and rolled out of my seat to the sidewalk. Bronx climbed out of the Jeep at the same time and walked around to stand beside me. The large troll with the spiky blond hair scratched the stubble on his chin as he stared at the house. “Let’s take a look,” he suggested. “You should know what you’re protecting. Things could go wrong, through no fault of your own, if you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

An evil grin spread across my mouth as I shoved my hands into the pockets of my baggy jeans and strolled down the block toward the two-story house. Man, I loved his wicked sense of humor. We were going to see what kind of trouble I could cause while maintaining a somewhat believable alibi. It was unlikely that Reave was going to buy any excuse that we came up with, but it was worth a try. If I taught the Svartálfar anything, it was going to be that you never backed a warlock into a corner.

A woman with a blue handkerchief wrapped around her greasy brown hair jerked the door open after we stood pounding on it for a couple of minutes. A cigarette was pinched in the corner of her mouth, while lines dug deep furrows in her face. Working for Reave wasn’t helping her preserve her youthful vitality.

Slipping the cigarette between two fingers, she pulled it away long enough to blow a cloud of smoke in our direction before barking, “What do you want?”

“Reave sent us,” Bronx replied while I coughed, gasping for some clean air.

“Oh. You’re him, huh?” Her eyebrows jumped toward her hairline and her mouth hung open in surprise. Apparently I wasn’t exactly what she’d been expecting.

“Yeah, I’m him,” I said.

“You gotta come inside to do your thing?”

“It helps. Reave said he wanted this place thoroughly protected. If I don’t know what I’m protecting, things could go wrong.” I leaned close, flashing a wicked grin while struggling to ignore the gagging body odor rising from her. “Horribly, painfully wrong for anyone inside.”

The woman jerked away from me, her dull brown eyes going wide. She pulled open the door and moved out of the entrance so Bronx and I could enter the house. From the exterior, it looked like a normal suburban house. You would have expected to see a tidy living room with upholstered furniture in floral patterns, neatly piled magazines on the coffee table, and maybe a stack of cartoon DVDs beside the TV in the corner. You would have been wrong.

The house was a lie. It had been chosen so it wouldn’t draw any attention. The police didn’t expect to find a lab for manufacturing lethal drugs in the middle of suburbia. They were looking for things like that in the slums on the other side of town.

The curtains were drawn over the front windows and the living room was lit by a single desk lamp resting on an old orange crate. A large man sat on a metal folding chair behind the crate, cleaning one gun while another was disassembled and resting on the crate. A small TV played in the corner, sound muted so he could hear our conversation at the front door. The guard watched us as we entered, but said nothing.

The stinky woman shut the door behind Bronx. She dropped her half-burned cigarette on the hardwood floor and crushed it under her stained pink house slipper before guiding us to the back of the house. We passed through an empty dining room and she started toward the kitchen, but I stopped her at the stairs leading to the second floor.

“What’s up there?”

She shrugged her thin shoulders. “Couple cots. Bathroom. Reave don’t keep any kind of furniture or valuables here.”

“Where are the other guards?” Bronx asked. The woman narrowed her eyes and I held my breath. I didn’t want her to whip out a cell phone and call Reave to check our story. I wanted to get in and out. “He needs to know. Otherwise your own guards could be locked out.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” she murmured, and it was hard not to laugh because Bronx was just piling on the bullshit. “The other two are picking up dinner. There’s usually only three guards here, plus me and my husband. Except on delivery and pickup days. Then Reave sends over four more guards.”

We continued to the kitchen, where we found all the counter space covered with take-out containers and greasy fast-food bags that desperately needed to be thrown out. The trash was overflowing with empty beer bottles and more rotting food. This place needed more than extra security. It needed a cleaning service, but then both the people I had seen so far also needed a few lessons in personal hygiene.

At the back of the house, the woman pulled open another door and we descended into the basement. This wasn’t one of those nice finished basements with a big-screen TV, minifridge, and pool table. This was an old-fashioned basement with cold stone walls, concrete floor, and exposed pipes overhead. All the lights were bright bare bulbs and an odor of mildew hung in the air.

A man looked up from where he was leaning over a long table, his black eyes enlarged by his thick glasses. “Where the hell have you been, woman? I’m ready for the next batch,” he shouted as we came into view. Along the wall behind him was another long table, but this one held a row of silver boxes and several glass containers with tubes coming out of them.

“Those men Reave called about arrived,” she snapped irritably, waving one hand back at Bronx and me.

The man’s eyes settled on us and his frown deepened. “Why they down here?”

“We need to see all of the premises so that the work can be done properly,” Bronx said, but the man didn’t seem to be as trusting as his wife. His frown deepened as his fists landed on his hips.

“Is that one of the new gravity convection ovens or are you still using forced air?” I asked, stepping around the woman to approach the table. The man straightened, his frown disappearing as he glanced over his shoulder at the row of ovens behind him.

“The two on the far end are forced air. I just got in the new gravity convection,” he said slowly, sounding as surprised as Bronx looked beside me. Unlike a lot of tattoo artists, I had studied various methods of preparing ingredients used in potions. Most tattoo artists bought their ingredients prepared for them, while I liked to work with the raw materials. The result was that I knew a fair amount about the machines found in professional laboratories.

“How do you like it?” I asked, scratching my head as I looked over the ovens. “I’ve worked with the forced air for years and think they’re great. I’m reluctant to change when I think something works just fine.”

“The gravity is a dream,” the man said with a chuckle, his whole demeanor relaxing as he imagined that he was talking to someone who was in the business as well. “It took me forever to talk Reave into getting me one, but it has sped up production. It’s a lot more reliable than the forced air.”

“You’ve got a great collection of desiccation jars, particularly the vacuum ones. I wasn’t expecting you to use those.”

He shrugged as he took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses on the hem of his dirty Black Sabbath T-shirt. “They come in handy if you get backed up. If we can’t get the livers directly into the ovens after harvesting, they’ll go into the traditional desiccators, but if we need to let them sit for a while after coming out of the ovens, we’ll drop them into the vacuum desiccators. With all the moisture in the air down here, we have to be careful that the product doesn’t get contaminated.”

I nodded, pretending to be interested in his tools and gadgets when my stomach was churning inside. I knew the basics of how fix was produced. Pixies were torn open, their insides ripped out and separated. Their livers were used for the drug, but most of their other organs could be sold to vendors for potions and a few delicacies. The livers were thrown into laboratory-grade ovens and dried until they could be pounded into a fine powder, which was later snorted or injected by trolls, ogres, giants, and other large races. A smaller creature’s heart would quite literally explode in its chest in a matter of seconds.

“Yeah, that’s got to be a problem,” I murmured before turning back to the man. “Do you keep the pixies on-site?”

“Have to. The product has to be fresh.”

“Can I see the room they’re kept in?”

The man’s expression closed once again as he crossed his arms over his slightly bulging stomach. “I don’t know why you need to see that.”

At the same time I could hear the heavy thump of two sets of footsteps descending the wooden stairs into the basement. The men fetching dinner had returned. Excellent—more gun-wielding assholes running around this enclosed space. Three people with guns we might have been able to handle quietly, but five was getting tricky. The scent of salty fries and greasy burgers hung heavy in the air, adding to the uncomfortable gurgling in my stomach.

I forced an indifferent shrug. “Fine. Reave said to protect the house. It was my understanding that meant the most important parts of the house. I’ll just do the upstairs. You can explain to Reave why I didn’t protect the pixie storage room. You can also tell him that I’m not making a second trip. I’ve got better things to do with my time.”

Bronx was expressionless as he started to follow me back toward the stairs. I didn’t even reach the bottom stair when the man was anxiously calling me back.

“Look, man, I didn’t mean nothing. If anything happens to the supply, it’s my neck.”

“I’m just trying to do a job,” I said, still standing by the stairs as if I was going to bolt at any second. “The sooner you let me do it, the sooner I can get out of your hair.” What this guy didn’t know was that Reave hadn’t said anything about protecting the pixies. I think he wanted me to put a quick ward on the front and back doors and drop a fireproof charm over the house before calling it a night. I had something better in mind.

“Here. The storage room is right here.” The man scurried to a door in the far wall. He took an old iron key out of his pocket and unlocked the door while waving me over. I gave a quick nod to Bronx to hang back while I stepped over to the room. The man flicked on the light and there was no stopping my harsh gasp. It was a small room, barely larger than a walk-in broom closet. The entire back wall from floor to ceiling was covered in small cages made of fine mesh metal wires so the little bodies they imprisoned couldn’t squeeze through the openings.

The small room was filled with the sound of rapidly beating wings like a thousand insects gathered in a single space. Over that, there were high-pitched cries. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was heartbreaking to hear. Unlike faeries, pixies glowed with an almost phosphorescent light from the inside, a variety of red, blues, greens, and orange. Their lights seemed dimmer than usual to me.

The man in the thick glasses grabbed a baseball bat from near the entrance and hammered on the front of the cages. “Shut the hell up! Nasty vermin.”

The pitiful cries stopped, but not the sound of those desperately beating wings. It was all I could do to keep from ripping the bat from his meaty hands and using it on his skull. I kept facing forward, walking up to the cages with my hands buried deep in my pockets. Tiny hands reached between the mesh wires at me while wide, liquid black eyes held my gaze.

“How do you keep them from using magic on the locks?” I said in a rough voice, struggling to keep the anger from my tone. The people in this house saw the pixies as animals, or worse, something to be used up and thrown away.

“The inner workings of each lock are made of iron and each lock is opened with an iron key. Their magic don’t work on iron.”

I nodded. I’d guessed as much, but I had to be sure.

“So, you got a way of protecting them?” the man asked my back as I continued to look over the wall of cages.

I winked at the pixie hovering directly in front of me. “Yeah, I’ve got something that will protect them,” I said. The pixie cocked her head to the side, looking a little confused for a second before a small smile lifted one corner of her mouth. Turning back to the man, I motioned for him to precede me out of the storage room. “I’ll need you to leave the door open and stay out of that room while I work.”

“How long is that going to take?” he demanded, looking over his shoulder at me.

“Not long. Few minutes at most. Go eat dinner while I work.”

The man hesitated for several seconds before he walked over to the guards holding the food, his head shaking as he went. I smiled to myself and pulled some blue chalk out of my pocket. Time to go to work.

All around the door and on the interior doorjambs I wrote a series of symbols in blue chalk, murmuring a spell as I went. Each glyph briefly flared to life with bright white light as I finished writing it, then went out. The spell and ward combination was what I considered loud magic, like sending up a signal flare on a cloudless night for anyone who might be watching the magical currents in the area. There would be no escaping Gideon’s attention with this, even using the excuse of defensive magic. Since leaving the Ivory Towers and turning my back on the warlocks and witches, I had been banned from using magic except in self-defense. This was not what they had in mind.

Gideon may have admitted that he wasn’t opposed to my staying alive, but that didn’t mean he was willing to risk his life and his cause in order to protect me. If it meant protecting himself and his family, the warlock would haul me in front of the Ivory Towers council in a heartbeat and let me be executed.

Stepping back into the storage room, I knelt down and started drawing more symbols on the sloped concrete floor. The sound of the beating wings had died down and the room was silent as the pixies intently watched me. The pixies held no love for the drug-makers, but I suspected that they liked the warlocks and witches even less. The Ivory Towers had been hunting them for centuries to obtain the magical properties found within their organs. We all knew that any good potion could be made even better with a little pixie heart. I was afraid that whatever trust they had put in me was dissolving before my eyes as I sketched each symbol, but it didn’t matter. They didn’t have to trust me. They only had to escape when the time came.

Standing again, I looked over the cages and smiled at the pixies before turning and leaving. The man and woman were seated at the end of the long table in the middle of the basement, inhaling some fast food, while a pair of guards stood watching over Bronx and me. On a patch of dry floor, I drew one more symbol.

“Stay out here for a few more minutes. I’m almost done,” I announced while motioning for Bronx to accompany me up the stairs. The troll was silent, watching my back as I walked through the house, drawing on each door and on the floor before reaching the front door. No one questioned what I was doing. We had all been raised not to question the witches and warlocks. Hell, you never approached one if you could help it. People had been killed by the members of the Ivory Towers just for wishing them a good day.

Drawing one last special symbol on the doorknob, I pulled the front door closed as I whispered the last word of the spell. I chuckled to myself as I followed Bronx down the front steps to the sidewalk.

“Should I ask what you’ve done to the house?” Bronx asked while picking his way across the front lawn beside me.

I smiled up at him, unable to hide my excitement as I tucked the piece of chalk back into my pocket. “It’s called the Spell of Defenseless Enticement.”

“Reave is going to be pissed. You were supposed to do a protective spell.” Bronx shoved one hand nervously through his hair as he turned back to look at the house. Everything looked fine, but that was part of the enticement. That so-called fine was only going to last for another second or two.

“I did. It’s a very powerful protection spell, but to achieve it, you have to leave yourself completely defenseless. In this instance, all locks become useless. You can’t lock a door, a window, or, say, a cage in this house.”

As if on cue, screams erupted within the house followed by loud banging. We paused in the middle of the lawn and looked at the house. Lights could be seen being flicked on through the cracks in the curtains, followed by more bangs. A few sounded like gunshots, but I wasn’t worried about the pixies. They were wickedly fast when they took flight. The humans were more likely to shoot each other than a pixie in that chaos.

“What’s the protection?” Bronx asked.

“Oh, if you enter the house with ill intent toward the occupants, your feet become stuck to the floor,” I said. I was still waiting to see the pixies escape. “A warlock has to release you, or you have to have your feet cut off to get unstuck again.”

“That’s pretty powerful.”

“I’ve been dying to use it for years, but could never come up with a good excuse.”

The front door was thrown open and the man I had spoken to in the basement and one of his guards came running out. They had their hands over their heads while screaming at the pixies, who were pelting them with what looked like scalpels. As they hit the warm night air, the pixies scattered in all directions, rising higher into the sky until they disappeared from sight.

“What have you done?” shouted glasses man. “They’re all loose.”

I gave him an indifferent shrug. “It’s a protection spell. Unfortunately, it has the side effect of disabling locks. I thought you could handle the pixies.”

“You’ve ruined me!”

The asshole grabbed a gun from the guard and pointed it in my direction. Bronx jumped in front of me, acting as a shield. Grabbing at the troll, I tried to shove him away. My magic was out in the open here. I could stop a damn bullet without risking harm. He couldn’t.

“I don’t think so,” said a calm, irritated voice over the din. The gun exploded in the man’s hand, leaving behind a bloody stub. He screamed, clutching his wrist as he fell to his back in the grass. The guard stood beside him, frozen and white-faced as he stared over my shoulder.

I didn’t want to look, because I knew who I would find. There were things in this world worse than a pissed-off dark elf and his Mafia thugs. Like an irritated warlock with a chip on his shoulder.

Gideon stood behind me, glaring at the moaning man. Reaching into the left sleeve of his shirt, he pulled out a wand. With a quick flick of his wrist, the night was filled with an ugly gurgling before becoming completely silent. The man was dead and I was definitely fucked.

2

“TWO MONTHS,” GIDEON muttered, shoving his wand back up his sleeve. “You couldn’t go two full months before I had to track you down again.”

“I missed you too,” I said with a nervous smile. Mocking and irritating Gideon was something that I specialized in. However, he had never approached me before when others were around—the world wasn’t supposed to know what I was. With Gideon’s attention now on me, the surviving guard ran into the house and slammed the door shut, leaving us alone with the pissed-off warlock.

“Gage?” Bronx said softly.

I moved in front of the troll, not that my smaller body offered much protection. I didn’t have a wand on me, which made any type of magical protection shaky at best, but I’d protect Bronx from Gideon the same way the troll had intended to protect me from the gun.

“It’ll be okay. I’ve got this.”

Gideon stopped in his pacing and arched one eyebrow at me. I didn’t mean it to sound so challenging, but I needed to try to reassure my friend. Gritting my teeth, I tried to think of some way to placate Gideon. It was as if I was standing in quicksand, the earth slipping away from my feet the more I spoke. A smart man would keep his mouth shut. I wasn’t always a smart man.

“This is a surprise,” I started again, trying desperately to think of a way to defuse some of Gideon’s anger. His mouth firmed into a hard line, proving that I was failing miserably. Warlocks and witches were a testy lot in the best of times. Gideon had proven that he was a good guy, or at least as much as a warlock could be, but he hadn’t batted an eye at killing that fix producer. I didn’t know whether it was because the dealer pulled a gun or because Gideon had been annoyed by the man’s screams. Either way, dead was dead and I wasn’t about to let that happen to Bronx.

“Two months, Gage,” Gideon said, picking up his earlier thread of conversation, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Bronx and I were standing there waiting to see if our lives were about to come to a messy end. I watched, barely breathing, as he tugged on the cuffs of his blue, collared shirt within the dark gray business jacket he was wearing. He could have been a banker by all appearances, with his shiny shoes, Rolex, and blue-and-gray-striped tie. The only thing missing was the wedding band on his left hand, but then warlocks and witches weren’t permitted to marry. I wondered if the missing ring bothered him, or his hidden wife.

“I seem to have fallen into a bit of trouble,” I admitted.

Gideon’s gaze drifted over to the house I had protected, his face expressionless. The occasional pixie slipped from its hiding place in the eaves to the nearest tree, thick with leaves that were only now starting to show the colors of autumn. “So I gathered. Your new job involves freeing pixies?”

“Not quite.”

“I gathered that as well,” he muttered, turning to walk toward Bronx’s Jeep. “Come along. I’m not going to kill you or your troll.”

I sighed, my shoulders slumping. Motioning for Bronx to accompany me, I walked over to where Gideon was standing beside the Jeep. It was somewhat larger than many of the vehicles people drove simply because it was one of several styles that had been enlarged to accommodate large creatures like trolls and ogres. The warlock peered into the passenger-side window, seeming curious about the interior.

“This is the one that works with you?” he said, straightening to look over my shoulder at Bronx. His expression was the same as when he was looking over the car, only mild interest but largely dismissive.

“Yes, he’s a good friend,” I bit out, but I stifled my irritation. The fact that he had deigned to notice Bronx at all was a compliment. In general, warlocks and witches considered any creature as beneath their notice. All the same, his manner was insulting.

“My name is Bronx,” my companion said in a smooth, even tone, betraying neither fear nor anger.

Gideon said nothing, so I spoke for him. “And this is Gideon, a dear friend. You’ll have to excuse him—the Ivory Towers don’t teach manners.”

“That would explain a lot,” Bronx replied, earning a shocking, surprised bark of harsh laughter from Gideon. I turned to find that the troll was looking straight at me, the butt of the joke. Ha. Ha. Ha.

“You … you seem very protective of Gage despite what he is,” Gideon said stiffly. “Are you worried about your job?”

I could hear the shrug in Bronx’s voice when he spoke. “Jobs come and jobs go. There will always be others. Gage is my friend and there won’t be others like him. I would prefer to keep him alive.”

“He’s a warlock.”

“And I’m a troll. He’s my friend not because of what he is, but because of who he is.”

Gideon’s tone grew hard, intent on pushing him. “He’s going to get you killed.”

Bronx smiled as he looked down at me. “Better him than cholesterol.”

To my shock, Gideon was smiling when I turned back to him, but there was a sad look in his eyes. “He reminds me of Ellen,” he whispered. “She says she’d rather die because of her association with me than because of boredom.”

My smile died before it could rise on my lips. Ellen was Gideon’s secret wife. He had shown me a picture of a pretty blond woman and their daughter, Bridgette, two months ago. If the Ivory Towers found out about Ellen or Bridgette, all three were dead, but Gideon would be killed only after he had watched his family ruthlessly tortured to death.

“Are they all right?” I demanded. Gideon’s eyes snapped to my face, as if he were waking from a dream. “Has something happened to them?”

Gideon wasn’t someone I would dare to call a friend. We had similar goals and ideas and we had both been brought up in the Ivory Towers, but that was where the similarities ended. Gideon had been a thorn in my side for years, a shadow chasing my every step. Even so, I couldn’t help but feel something for the man. Particularly since I had discovered that he had been protecting me.

“No, they’re both fine.”

“Safe?”

“Yes.”

“Hidden?”

“Not unless you drop it,” he growled.

I breathed a soft sigh of relief. “Then what are you doing here?”

“You mean other than because of your display?” he said, waving one hand at the house we had just left. Honestly, I had almost forgotten where we were and why we were even there. But then a pissed warlock standing in front of you made you forget about everything else.

“Well, you usually pop in, smack me around, threaten me, and then leave. This is an extended visit.”

“I came to warn you.”

And with that, all the joking was pushed aside.

Gideon was my main source of information on what was happening in the Ivory Towers. I may have left years ago, but I soon learned that I wouldn’t be able to safely turn my back on the group. Many of the witches and warlocks of the Ivory Towers had wanted me dead for leaving, and it seemed that despite the passage of time, that was still the prevailing sentiment. Gideon’s job wasn’t so much to make sure I didn’t break the agreement to not use magic as it was to come up with a reason to haul me before the council so I could finally be executed. Gideon was the only buffer I had between myself and death at the hands of the Towers.

“I might soon be removed as your guardian.”

My knees buckled, but I didn’t realize it until I felt a pair of large hands slowly lowering me to the ground. My mind was too busy trying to absorb the information that he had dropped on me. Gideon not my guardian? I was fucked. Totally, undeniably fucked.

Yes, Gideon was an asshole. He had taken pleasure in beating me and scaring me every opportunity that he had. But I wasn’t an idiot. I knew that I had given him plenty of opportunities over the years to drag me before the council. Hell, he had the council’s permission to kill me on sight if he caught me using magic. If anyone else had been tasked with watching me, I wouldn’t have survived my first year away from the Towers.

I’d gotten better, severely cutting back on my magic use. I didn’t absentmindedly flush the toilet with a wave of my hand anymore, but I still used magic and I would have to continue to use it until I got free of Reave.

“Why? What’s happened?” My voice was hoarse when I could speak. Bronx released his hold on my arms, but was hovering close.

Gideon paused and looked over at Bronx.

“Trust him!” I shouted. “He’s not going to run off and tell your secrets.”

“The Towers are in chaos,” he admitted in a rush. “While a body hasn’t been located, the general consensus is that Simon Thorn is dead, and with few exceptions, all fingers are pointing in your direction.”

Simon had been my mentor at the Ivory Towers. I’d left at the age of sixteen because of my hatred for their beliefs, and Simon wasn’t pleased with my decision. He tried to kill me, but I survived by some insane stroke of luck. The council let me live and leave, but Simon had never accepted the decision. When an opening on the council recently popped up, Simon decided to kill me so the blemish on his past was eradicated. He had failed and was now buried under a residential street in an extremely shitty part of Low Town.

“I doubt you’re going to find a body,” I said, and then glared up at Gideon. “You can’t tell me anyone is upset the bastard is gone.”

He shook his head, looking tired. “No. Some are pissed that you managed to kill someone from the Towers. Others were simply reminded that you’re still alive, and are focused on having you killed, legally.”

Legally.

Now, that was the big joke. A witch or a warlock could come down from the Towers and strike down anyone they wanted with no fear of retribution from anyone. However, there were rules for killing a witch or a warlock. Problems within the Towers were brought before the council to be decided on and people were punished accordingly—most of it being a painful death sentence. Of course, there were exceptions: people who secretly took matters into their own hands. But I could guess why most wanted me put down legally and it had to do with the recent jump in the number of runaways from the Towers.

“And since you’ve not succeeded in bringing me back before the council for my inevitable execution …”

“They are considering replacing me with someone who will get the job done,” Gideon finished.

“Does anyone suspect that you’re helping me?”

“I’m sure someone does, but so far no one has dared to voice it out loud.” Gideon paused and I could feel the weight of his gaze on me. There was something he needed to say, but was holding back.

“Spit it out.” My nerves were already frayed with fear. I didn’t like being pinned between the forces of the Towers and Reave’s Mafia.

“I’m currently left with two choices. I think I’ve got a matter of weeks before they agree to replace me, if not less time. I can either find a reason to bring you before the council …” Gideon paused again, lifting one hand gracefully toward the house I had “protected.” “Or I can let them replace me, leaving you to fend for yourself.”

“Does the council still have an empty seat?” There were a total of thirteen seats on the council, but if there was one open, a tie vote would mean at least a temporary stay of execution.

“Yes, but with things in such turmoil, I don’t think you’ll get the tie vote you’re obviously hoping for. You’ll be dead within an hour of arriving before the council.”

“Fuck.” I sighed, dropping my head into my hands while resting my elbows on my bent knees. The Ivory Towers needed a scapegoat, someone they could use as a warning to the others who were training to be witches or warlocks. There was no escaping. There was only one way in the world—theirs.

Sadly it took me a minute to think of another angle. My head snapped up so I could see Gideon again. “Are you safe?”

“What do you mean?” Gideon demanded. His brow furrowed at the sharp question, casting his gray eyes in shadow.

“If they replace you, it’s likely they suspect you’re at least a sympathizer. It would put you in a dangerous position. You and your family. Are you safe? Are they?”

A ghost of a smile crossed his grim mouth. “They are safe for now, and I will manage. But if it comes down to protecting them and protecting you, I’m sure you know how I will choose.”

With a grunt, I pushed back to my feet and brushed off the back of my pants. They were damp from where I had been sitting on earth soft from the recent rains. Unfortunately, I had bigger problems than a mud stain on my ass. “Yeah, I know.”

“Have you spoken to any of the runaways?” Gideon suddenly asked.

I blinked, my mind struggling to keep up with the swift change in topics. “Not knowingly.”

“Are you sure?”

“Look, I don’t know who left the Towers. I didn’t know any apprentices while I was there and you and Sofie are the only ones that I speak with now. If one stopped in the parlor, I wouldn’t know it. Are you saying they’re in Low Town?”

“Yes. My group knows they’re in town, but rumors are starting to circulate in the Towers that they’re here.”

“And I imagine rumors are stating that I drew them here,” I grumbled. “Damn it, Gideon! The Towers aren’t even supposed to know where I am.”

The warlock nodded. “Four more left recently. We’ve tried isolating the apprentices more than ever before, but it seems to be getting worse.”

“Four? What’s that make it? Seven here in Low Town.”

He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Five. Two were killed in their escape attempt.”

“Wouldn’t it be best if these runaways sought Gage out?” Bronx inquired.

“No!” Gideon and I said in unison. For a moment I had forgotten that the troll was even there, I had been so lost in a world that I had tried desperately to leave behind.

“But you’ve survived; thrived even. You could help them,” Bronx suggested.

“Things were different when I left ten years ago.” I looked down at my hands and tried not to imagine the blood that had been splattered across them during my short time living in the Towers. “I was the only one to ever consider leaving. An anomaly. They let me go, but with restrictions, and many are still calling for my head.”

Gideon shifted, crossing his arms over his chest. “If the Towers can confirm that Gage has anything to do with the runaways, they will see it as a sign that he’s attempting to lead some kind of revolution.” The warlock frowned, staring at me. “It will be war, and the Towers won’t stop until Gage and all the runaways are dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if they chose to wipe out an entire generation of human children as a warning. It’s been done before.”

I leaned against the side of the car, my hands shoved in my pockets. Low Town was becoming a dangerous place for me and there wasn’t much I could do about it. I was tempted to ask how well known it was in the Towers where I was located, but I bit back the question. Running would happen eventually, but not yet. I’d make plans, but I wouldn’t leave yet. There were too many things I needed to get done here first.

“Thanks for the heads-up on everything,” I said. My mind wheeled in endless circles, leaving me with more questions than answers. And the answers that I did have were pretty shitty.

Gideon nodded, his mouth quirking slightly as if he were trying to fight a smile. “I have to go. It’s dangerous to be around and not try to kill you.”

“You’re not the only one who feels that way,” I grumbled, glaring at the ground.

“But … I could use a favor,” he said. He wet his lips, hesitating as if he was afraid I would instantly turn him down. That or he simply didn’t want to feel like he needed me for something. “Find out who cursed Sofie.”

“That was a long time ago.”

Some of the tension eased from his face. “Afraid she forgot?”

“Not likely. You thinking of helping her?”

Gideon remained silent so long, staring off in the distance, that I thought he might not answer me. But when he spoke, my stomach knotted in pain for the man who wasn’t my friend but was. “I thought if Sofie were human again, she might like to take on an apprentice. If I remember correctly, she had a gentle way with children.”

My mouth fell open and some part of me wanted to say something comforting, but there weren’t any words. Gideon must have known, because he stiffly nodded to me and disappeared. I leaned my head back against the roof of Bronx’s car and closed my eyes. Poor Gideon.

“I’ll admit that I didn’t understand a lot of what you were talking about,” Bronx said, drawing my eyes open again. “But that part about Sofie … why is he interested in her? Is he trying to get her to go back to the Towers as a spy?”

“No,” I said, straightening. “Let’s get out of here. Now that he’s gone, I’m sure the cops will want to descend on the house.”

Bronx nodded and punched his key remote to unlock the doors. We got the hell out of there, letting me sink into silence for a minute and get lost in the rambling thoughts.

The Ivory Towers were the ultimate rulers of this world, deciding life and death (well, mostly death) for its inhabitants, but when they weren’t around, the cops tried to maintain some semblance of peace. The fix maker’s death would be chalked up to a DBW—death by warlock/witch and the book would be closed. Naturally, they would search the house and find the drug-manufacturing equipment. The house would be confiscated, but I knew better than to hope that it would be tied back to Reave. He was too smart for that.

It wasn’t until we reached the highway that I felt some of the tension that was threatening to choke me start to ease. Bronx didn’t turn on the radio and I was content to listen to the sound of the car cruising down the smooth concrete while the streetlamps flashed overhead. As dire as my own situation was becoming, I found my thoughts centering on Gideon and his young daughter. She would be turning seven soon.

“You asked about Sofie,” I started, and then stopped. Bronx patiently waited while I attempted to organize my thoughts. It wasn’t so much that I was trying to censor myself, but that it was simply better if he didn’t know certain things. Swearing softly, I reached up and touched the ceiling of the car while whispering a quick word, creating a protective bubble over the car so no one could magically overhear me. Damn, I was getting paranoid.

“Gideon has a daughter,” I confessed after another lengthy silence.

“Is that a bad thing?”

A smile quirked the corners of my mouth. “Witches and warlocks aren’t permitted to marry or have children. It’s seen as a weakness and a liability.”

“What does Gideon’s daughter have to do with Sofie?”

“His daughter has either exhibited some magical talent or he’s afraid she will. If so, she has to be trained, and he can’t send her to the Towers. They would know in a heartbeat that she was his daughter.”

“And Gideon, his daughter, and eventually his wife would be killed,” Bronx concluded.

“Yes.”

“But if Sofie was changed back to human, would she stay here or would she rather return to the Towers?”

I stared out the passenger-side window and frowned. “I don’t know.”

I had known Sofie in human form only briefly while I was living at the Ivory Towers during my apprenticeship to Simon Thorn. She had been nice and motherly, albeit a little meddlesome. Somewhere along the way she had run afoul of a witch or warlock, and had been turned into a big Russian-blue cat. As far as I knew, she couldn’t return to human form until the person who cursed her died. After spending several years as the pet of an elderly woman, she was now living fat and sassy with Trixie.

Unlike Gideon, Sofie gave no indication that she didn’t approve of how things ran in the Ivory Towers. The only reason she had left was that she felt more vulnerable in cat form. Her ability to use magic had been severely limited. I feared that if Sofie were human again, she would happily return to the Towers, which would be of no help to Gideon and his daughter.

There wasn’t much I agreed with when it came to the beliefs of the witches and warlocks of the Ivory Towers, but I thought they were right when it came to training all human children who possessed magical talent. It was for the children’s protection and those around them as much as it was about spreading knowledge. An untrained child who could unconsciously tap magical energy was a serious danger. In moments of fear or anger, people died around the child without the child intending it to happen.

Gideon knew that. If Sofie couldn’t train his daughter, he had few options. He couldn’t do it himself without risking others finding out. Training was an intensive, full-time gig and Gideon was already working for the council as a guardian. But if Bridgette wasn’t trained, she’d have to be killed.

I closed my eyes against the ugly thought but it was still there. For a brief second I thought that I could at least teach her a few basic things about control and protection, but I crushed the thought before it fully formed. What the fuck did I know about caring for a seven-year-old girl? I was an outcast former warlock-in-training now a tattoo artist who moonlighted nights doing odd jobs for the local mob. Not a great role model. Sofie was the best choice. I’d have to convince her of it.

“As much as I hate to ask after all the fun we’ve had tonight,” I started, shoving my thoughts back to my most immediate problem, “but what are the chances that Reave doesn’t know about tonight’s events?”

“Oh, he knows,” Bronx said as he took the exit ramp off the highway. “He definitely knows by now.”

“Retribution?”

“Oh, yeah. Expect pain.”

I leaned my head to the side, hitting it against the window. It was my fault. Bronx had nothing to do with my decision to free the pixies but I knew that Reave would punish him along with me. “Damn it! I’m sorry.”

“For what? The pixies?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No.”

“Then don’t apologize,” Bronx said. He slowed the car to a stop at a red light and glanced over at me. “You saved lives tonight, and if you didn’t do something, I would have.”

“Thanks.”

He shrugged. “It’s been a rough night. You want me to drop you at Trixie’s?”

“You think it’s safe?”

“Reave’s going to need time to realign his distribution network after tonight’s escapade. We’ve got a day or two. Besides, I’m sure he knows about Trixie and you. Staying away won’t protect her if he wants to attack you from that side.”

“Then Trixie’s would be great,” I said with a sigh. “You can come up too. She won’t mind.”

Bronx chuckled. I knew that trolls were naturally solitary creatures, but sometimes I worried about him feeling lonely even if my worry was unrealistic. “I’ll be fine. I’ve had enough fun for one night. I don’t need another session of strip Chinese checkers burned into my brain.”

I gave a snort of laughter. “We don’t have to play that. Trixie said she’s been working on a way to make a drinking game out of The Princess Bride.”

The troll rolled his eyes, one corner of his mouth quirking in a half smile. “Let’s save it for this All Hallows’ Eve. Go spend some quality time with your girlfriend.”

Smiling, I relaxed in my seat as we got closer to Trixie’s apartment. Beautiful green eyes. Musical laughter. A soft touch that soothed the tears in my heart and the holes in my soul. Tonight, I would fall asleep holding Trixie and I would deal with the rest of the world tomorrow.

3

REAVE SURPRISED US as we reached Trixie’s apartment complex. Escorted to a large, dark warehouse in a not-so-nice part of Low Town, we stood in an open area with large wooden crates lining the far walls. Reave’s black clothes and liquid black hair allowed him to nearly disappear into the shadows. Streetlights leaked through the dirty second-story windows, but he avoided the light for the most part.

To say that Reave was pissed would be an understatement. The Svartálfar wasn’t raving and stomping around the room while intermittently throwing things at us. Dark elves, like their Summer and Winter Court brethren, didn’t show emotion like that. But the telltale muscle spasm at the corner of his eye and the constant fisting and unfisting of his hands said it all.

“Why do it, Gage? That’s all I want to know,” Reave said in a low, even voice. He almost sounded reasonable.

I shrugged, fighting to not look over at Bronx. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about. You wanted the house protected from intruders. I protected it.”

“While destroying my supplies in the process.” Each word was ground between clenched teeth. “There are consequences for every action.”

It happened too quickly for me to react. Two pairs of hands roughly grabbed my arms, jerking me away from Bronx while at the same time turning me so I could easily see him. Five large trolls stepped out of the darkness toward Bronx and began beating on him. He fought back for a few seconds, ducking blows and swinging his meaty fists, but they were too many and too strong. Trolls can take a beating, but even they will start to fold under so much abuse from their own kind. As Bronx was knocked to the ground, I increased my struggles against the hands holding me while screaming at Reave until I was hoarse as they kicked Bronx in the ribs and stomach.

The dark elf jumped from the shadows; a long curved blade winked in the faint light before it was pressed against my throat. The sharp edge bit into my skin, sending a trickle of blood down my neck.

“Easy, warlock,” Reave snarled in my ear. He was taller than me, forcing him to bend his head down and press it against the side of my head so that I could hear his ragged breathing. The knife sawed into my neck while he crowded close, but my eyes were locked on Bronx as he tried to regain his feet under the punishing blows. “Hold it together. We wouldn’t want any accidents.”

“Let him go, Reave!” I shouted. “You know he had nothing to do with what happened at the house. It was me. Punish me.”

Reave chuckled in my ear, tilting the blade so that it slipped a little deeper into my throat, sending more blood down my neck. “Does it really feel like you’re not being punished right now? If you want to break a man, you hurt the ones he loves first.”

“Stop it! You’ve fucking won!” I couldn’t pull my eyes from Bronx. He had stopped moving and was lying on the dirty warehouse floor, curled into a fetal position as he tried to protect his head and gut.

Reave pulled the blade away and smiled at me as he stepped into my line of sight. “I won months ago. You’re just slow to realize it.” As he turned from me, he snapped his fingers. The trolls stopped beating Bronx and stepped away while the hands on me fell from my arms. Pressing one hand to my throat to slow the bleeding, I hurried over to Bronx and knelt beside him. What I could see in the darkness wasn’t good. His face was bloody and swelling so that he could barely see out of either eye. I couldn’t tell if his nose was broken because it had always looked somewhat broken to me, but I figured it was a safe guess that it was by his labored breathing through his mouth.

“I warned you, Reave,” I said in a low voice. “I warned you that I wasn’t going to do anything that would hurt someone else. I’m not going to kill anyone for you, and leaving that house as it was would have meant killing pixies. I don’t regret what I did. And if I find another one of those fucking fix houses, I’m going to do it again.”

“And risk putting Bronx in danger again?” Reave asked lightly. His voice echoed across the warehouse, dancing through the shadows. He was walking, but I couldn’t see him.

Energy crackled around me as I grew angrier with each passing second. I wanted to burn away every shadow and dark corner in that room so Reave had nowhere to hide. I wanted to run him to ground and beat him the same way Bronx had been beaten. But I did nothing because I couldn’t afford to draw the attention of the Towers, and Reave knew it. “No. This was the last time you’ll ever touch Bronx. I promise you.”

Reave laughed. The sound was like razor blades across my back, leaving me gritting my teeth until my jaw ached. “You’re right. I’ll leave Bronx alone. You’ve got plenty of other people in your life that you care about.”

I kept my mouth clamped shut, fighting the urge to warn him off of Trixie. He knew about her. There was no reason to prove my feelings for her even more, deepening the danger. My jaw throbbed from my clenched teeth while I mentally repeated to myself, If you use magic, the Towers will kill you. Everything was insane right now in the Ivory Towers, and they would jump on the opportunity to string me up in hopes of reining in the chaos. Gideon wouldn’t be able to protect me.

My death meant that Bronx would be trapped working for Reave. A dead Gage meant that Trixie was in danger and on the run from the Summer Court. If I kept my temper and was smart, I could stay alive and help my friends.

“If you have no more use for Bronx as leverage, then release him from your little organization,” I said when I had my emotions somewhat under check. “You only need me.”

Bronx groaned softly. “Shut up, Gage.”

“The troll is right. Shut up, Gage. I have plenty of uses for Bronx. I’d hoped that he might be a voice of common sense for you, but he has failed at that endeavor. I guess I’ll have to find something else to do with him.”

“You’ve got plenty of others to do your dirty work. People who want to be here. Let him go.”

Bronx shifted beside me, slowly uncurling his body, but still remaining on his side so that his back was to Reave. “I work with Gage or not at all.”

The dark elf stepped close, moving away from the shadows to the edge of a square of light. His expression was blank as he stared at Bronx’s inert form. I tensed, waiting. If Reave did anything more than breathe, I would jump the bastard. My friend had been hurt enough because of me. I wasn’t about to let Reave inflict more harm.

“Fine. Rein him in,” the dark elf bit out. There was an “or else” left hanging in the air. We both knew that if I crossed Reave again, Bronx would be killed regardless of whether he could stop me.

He paced away, brushing his hands against each other as if wiping away the distasteful business that had brought Bronx and me to his doorstep that night. I wished he would leave so I could work on healing Bronx. A handful of healing spells could fix the worst of his wounds, but he would still need to get home and rest. The cold concrete floor that he was currently lying on didn’t seem like the best option.

“Now then, since my first task seemed too difficult for you to handle, I’ve got a new job for you,” Reave began, as if he was content to wipe away all the previous unpleasantness. I frowned, keeping one reassuring hand on Bronx’s shoulder. I wanted to tell this asshole where to shove his new job, but I kept my mouth shut. Obviously Reave was done trying to get me to cooperate through beating me. He was going to drag in one person I cared for after another and beat them until I agreed to his terms.

He paused and turned to look at me, waiting.

“What job?” I asked through clenched teeth, earning a grin from the dark elf.

“I’m so glad you asked.” Reave chuckled and resumed his pacing. “I have someone that will be doing an important errand for me and he needs some added protection. Unfortunately, he can’t travel with the usual assignment of muscle. It’s too conspicuous. As a result, you will be giving him a tattoo that will provide him with the needed protection.”

It seemed too easy and it appeared as if it would be legal as well. “What kind of protection does he need?”

“I think that will best be decided by you.”

“How can I do that? Who am I protecting him from? What’s this job that he’s doing for you?”

“Delivery.” I waited for Reave to elaborate, but he didn’t say anything else. I sighed, running my free hand through my hair, leaving it standing on end. It was turning out to be a long fucking night. “Fine. Am I to meet this person somewhere or will he come to my shop?”

“He’ll stop at your tattoo parlor for the work.”

“When?”

“Soon,” Reave called over his shoulder as he started to walk out of the warehouse with his flunkies following behind him.

“Hey! You never told me his name!” I shouted, lurching to my feet.

“You’ll know him when you see him.” Reave’s comments were soft as they floated across the empty expanse toward me.

I stared at the door that slammed shut behind the last thug as he exited the warehouse, leaving me alone with Bronx. My heart thudded in my chest and a chill crept down my spine. I’ll know him when I see him. Yeah, that sounded bad. I knew a lot of guys who were involved in some shady shit, most of them being tattoo artists. But as far as I was aware, none of them had these kinds of dealings with Reave and his sort. I wanted to pretend that Reave hadn’t found another way to strike at me, but even my imagination wasn’t that good.

Bronx groaned as he rolled onto his back. The pain left him panting heavily and I could see sweat—or blood—shining on his wide brow in the faint light.

I knelt at my friend’s head and hastily pulled off my light jacket. Fall was just settling on the city and the nights were still warm, but I had grabbed it more out of habit than real need. I rarely remembered to glance at the weather report most days and I had learned from experience that weather in Low Town was unpredictably strange on the best of days. I placed my hands on either side of Bronx’s face and angled his head so that he was staring straight up at me. He winced at the movement, but didn’t make a sound. Quickly folding my jacket, I gently placed it under his head.

“Where’s the pain?”

“My body,” Bronx grunted.

“A little more help, please.”

“Get me home. I need some rest.” His words were labored between bursts of heavy breathing. Each breath was wheezy and slightly liquid, making me think that one of his lungs had been punctured, possibly by a broken rib or two. If I had to guess, he had internal bleeding from several organs and broken bones, and a concussion. From what little I knew of trolls, they weren’t the quick-healing type like shifters or vampires. If I didn’t do something, Bronx would drown in his own fluids.

“You need a lot more than rest, but you don’t seem the take-me-to-the-hospital type.”

“Go to hell, Gage.” Bronx gasped as he tried to move, clenching his eyes shut.

“Already there,” I said, but my mind was elsewhere, focused on setting up the cloaking spell I needed in order to do my work. I was planning to do a whole lot of loud magic and I wasn’t stupid enough to do it right out in the open to draw the attention of every Merlin and Morgana in the Ivory Towers. Gideon might not have been actively hunting my ass, but that didn’t mean others weren’t watching for me to fuck up.

The cloaking spell wasn’t without its defects. No one would be able to see what I was doing, whether they were using magic or not. To the naked eye, we were invisible. When I was using magic, a warlock or witch would simply see us sitting on the warehouse floor, but at the same time there was an energy void around us. Voids were anomalies created by magic spells, which would raise questions should a warlock or witch stumble upon us. My plan wasn’t foolproof, but without the cloak, my healing spells would be like fireworks in a frigid winter sky.

“You using magic?” Bronx asked.

I sighed as the cloaking spell fell easily into place with a wave of my hands and a couple of whispered words. “Just a bit.”

“Don’t. You’ve … got enough problems.”

“Stop talking. You don’t want to distract me,” I said, earning me a low growl. “Got to heal you. I’m not carrying your heavy ass to the car.”

“Fucker.”

I smiled and closed my eyes as I placed both my hands on his shoulders. “Just a warning: this might not work. I’ve never tried it on a troll.”

Bronx stiffened under my fingers, sucking in a ragged breath. “Great.”

Truth was that I had never tried this healing spell on anyone but myself. Warlocks and witches were more concerned with their own survival. Hell, when we were learning to heal wounds, it was always the hard way. Our mentors beat us until we were barely conscious and then left us alone in an empty tower. You learned to heal yourself or you died overnight from a ruptured kidney or drowned in your own blood as it poured into your lungs.

Focusing on the spell, I sent a wave of energy coursing through Bronx’s body, kicking off the first phase of the spell. Organs were mended so that they were no longer losing vital fluids and were returned to normal functioning levels. They were still battered, bruised, and extremely sore, but no longer in danger of failing him. As the spell moved through him, I could feel each organ as it healed. One lung had been punctured and flooded with blood, the other bruised. A kidney had been badly damaged and it looked like his spleen was on the point of rupture. A few blood vessels had been crushed, but were now open again, sending blood through his body.

As the energy exited through my hands, I sent in a second wave. This was the painful one. Each broken bone was set back to rights, causing a sickening echo of snaps and clicking through his body. Bronx groaned loudly as the spell took effect, causing him to arch off the ground while trying to pull away from my hands. I rose up on my knees and pressed down, holding him in place. The spell needed additional time for the bones to properly set and harden again.

The second phase lasted less than a minute, but there was nothing I could do about the pain, leaving both Bronx and me covered in sweat and breathing heavily. The energy flowed back to my hands and I sent the final wave through. This one knit together any cuts in his skin, stopping any additional bleeding while urging his body to speed up the process of creating fresh blood to replace what he’d lost. There weren’t many cuts and the final wave returned to me after only a few seconds.

I fell backward, sitting on my ass on the cold concrete, trying to get my breathing to even out again. I was exhausted, but Bronx’s life was no longer in danger from his wounds. I looked down at my friend. He breathed evenly without the sickening rattle and squish I had heard before.

“What the hell did you do to me?” Bronx asked. He had yet to move and I was glad for it. He needed time to recover. You didn’t walk away from a troll beating even if you were a troll.

“Heal you.”

“Then why the hell do I still feel like shit?” he growled.

I laughed, my head dropping back so that I could stare blindly up at the ceiling. There was nothing but blackness broken by dirty light filtering through a grime-encrusted skylight. “The spell fixed broken bones, stopped bleeding, and mended organs. You’re still badly bruised and battered. Time needs to heal that. I don’t have the energy in me to fix it all.”

“You didn’t have to do it,” Bronx murmured.

“Yeah, I did.” My eyes fell shut as the memory of his beating rose back to the forefront of my mind. He wouldn’t have been touched if I had protected the house like Reave had ordered. Fuck. Bronx wouldn’t have been in this mess to start with if I had killed Reave two months ago when he first threatened me with exposure.

But I was clinging to the idea that I wasn’t a killer. Warlocks were mindless, empty killers who thought nothing of taking a life. Witches were heartless killers. I chose to leave the Towers. I chose not to be a killer.

Simon’s laughter picked that moment to rattle through my brain like the Ghost of Christmas Past. I had killed Simon, but it had been self-defense. Right? I had to kill Simon or he would have killed me.

“Gage?” Bronx said, jerking me from my thoughts. Silence had stretched between us, but I didn’t know for how long. Had he been talking to me, waiting for my response? I had to let these doubts go. Fuck you, Towers. I wasn’t one of you. And fuck you, Simon Thorn. I hoped you liked your new job as ferryman to the dead.

“I had to heal you,” I said, my voice picking up strength as I returned to our conversation. “It was either leave you to die or carry your fat ass to the car. Do you know how hard it is to find a good tattoo artist to work in our part of town? Not that easy.”

Bronx chuckled. His normally deep voice was even deeper from the pain that lanced through his body. I rose and offered him a hand while bracing my legs to help pull him to his feet. It took a couple tries and we were both puffing heavily when it was over, but Bronx was standing without help. The troll was roughly triple my weight. There wasn’t much I could do if he couldn’t walk to his car on his own.

I waved my hand in the air, dispersing the last of the cloaking spell before bending down to scoop up my jacket. My back protested and my knees were stiff from sitting on the cold floor. I needed to get back to the gym. I had been trading off my usual trips there in order to spend time with Trixie before going into the parlor. Maybe it was time to find a little balance. I was beginning to think that I needed to be in shape if I was going to keep up with Reave and his band of thugs.

“Now what?” Bronx asked around another wince of pain as he hobbled toward the door.

“Home. Shower. Bed,” I listed, keeping pace beside my friend. “We’ll deal with tomorrow when tomorrow comes.”

“Not Trixie’s?”

Trixie’s place felt like some distant dream, an oasis in the wasteland my night had become. I would have given anything to see her and settle in her soft arms, but I shook my head. “Home.”

Trixie didn’t need to see me when I was in this mood. She would have argued otherwise, but our relationship was still too new for me to be dumping the weight of my past into her lap while I grumbled the last of the night away. She would try to help me forget and move on, but the only thing that would help me was sleep. In sleep, there were no memories to haunt you and no doubts to chase you. There was just the cool bliss of nothingness.

4

A SOFT CHIME tinkled through the parlor as the front door opened. At the same time magic prickled lightly across the bare skin of my forearms. Someone had activated the antiglamour spell upon stepping into the shop. The feeling passed, but I picked up my pace as I walked from the back room to the front lobby. I set a worn clipboard on a stack of papers and glanced at the surveillance monitor to see Trixie crossing the lobby. The elf in human disguise smiled at me as she moved around the front counter and stepped into the tattooing room.

To the world, she appeared as a lovely brunette human with soft features that included brown eyes, lush lips, and a heart-shaped face. But I was able to see the real her through the glamour she wore as protection. The sexy elf with acres of blond hair and crisp green eyes still managed to make my dick twitch when I saw her for the first time every day. She had only recently started to tone down some of her outfits now that we were officially dating. Bronx joked that he had told her to cool it or I was going to kill the next man who looked at her, which wasn’t too likely but wasn’t impossible either. I wondered if she had only dressed like that to catch my attention, but shoved the thought aside. My ego wasn’t that big.

Today she wore a somewhat sedate outfit. A black halter top hugged her breasts, revealing the perfect expanse of her back complete with a sparkling butterfly wings tattoo. Her snug jeans rode low on her hips, revealing a narrow strip of her stomach and belly button, which contained her newly acquired belly-button ring. Yet another thing to make my dick twitch. She had exchanged her usual belly-button ring for a red gem that winked in the overhead lighting.

Trixie’s throaty chuckle caused me to jerk my head up while a surprised blush lit my cheeks. She had caught me staring. Fuck, she was lucky that I didn’t have to pull out the mop to clean up the drool. What this woman saw in me I didn’t have a fucking clue. Brown hair, brown eyes, and barely her height when she was in heels, I wasn’t that much to look at. My body wasn’t bad. All lean muscle, the result of frequent trips to the gym, but you wouldn’t know it under the baggy T-shirts and faded jeans I wore. Maybe it was my charming personality. Not. Fucking. Likely.

“Seen enough?” she teased.

I closed the distance between us, wrapping my arms tightly around her so that I could feel every inch of her soft body pressed against mine. Of course, that meant she knew exactly how happy I was to see her, but I didn’t mind. We were still early in our relationship. If we weren’t screwing like rabbits every chance we got, I’d be worried. Her mouth found mine as if drawn to me, her lips already parted. She tasted of strawberries and something sweet and intoxicating that was uniquely her. Her hand drifted down my back, bunching in my T-shirt so that it pulled up my back as she held me close. A soft moan slipped from her throat and I was ready to go. The parlor was empty. The counters could be resterilized.

Someone called my name in an angry and plaintive voice. I jerked my head away from Trixie, breaking the kiss but not releasing her. I heard it again and groaned as my dick throbbed in frustration. We weren’t alone. This time, Trixie blushed as I stepped backward and looked down at the forgotten cat carrier in her hand. She had brought Sofie in to work with her.

“Sorry, Sof,” I muttered, walking to the opposite side of the room in hopes that the distance would get my hard-on to pass. Her only response was a soft growl while Trixie set the carrier on the floor and unzipped the opening. Trixie brought the cat into the shop a few times a week so she had a little variety in her day. Trixie’s apartment was smaller than Sofie’s previous home with an elderly woman named Mae. It also didn’t include a balcony, limiting Sofie’s time outside. I didn’t mind since she spent most of her time lounging on the glass counter or sitting in the front window, watching the people walk by.

“I still can’t believe you let her put you in that thing,” I said as the large Russian Blue jumped from the floor to the tattooing chair at Trixie’s station. The cat gave a little shudder and rubbed against the arm of the chair a couple times as if to put mussed fur back into place.

“It’s not bad so long as you don’t distract her when she walks in,” Sofie grumbled, sitting in the middle of the chair.

“Sorry about that.” I flashed Trixie a smile that wasn’t at all apologetic. She shook her head as she turned and shoved the cat carrier in an empty cabinet.

I walked over and scratched the cat’s head in greeting, trying to once again suppress the thought that Sofie was a witch and not some weird talking cat. You didn’t rub the head of a witch. Sofie never complained and I had heard her purr a few times, but I didn’t want to think too hard about any of it.

“I’m worried that you’re not getting enough exercise; getting a little soft around the middle from letting Trixie put you in that carrier.”

Sofie growled and took a swipe at me with a lethal set of claws. I jerked my hand back, but she caught my middle finger, tearing a thin red line along the side.

“Hey!” I yelped. “I know a couple good vets who can take care of those claws.”

“And I know a couple good ways to make you a soprano,” Sofie threatened. I stepped back over to the counter I had been standing at earlier, sticking my wounded finger in my mouth.

“Gage!” Trixie sank gracefully onto her stool. Sofie jumped into her lap and curled up while Trixie proceeded to stroke the witch/cat. “You know better than to tease a woman about her weight. Sofie is the perfect weight.” Trixie lowered her head and rubbed her forehead against the top of the cat’s head while cooing at her. Under those noises, I could hear Sofie purring.

“She knows I was teasing!”

Trixie looked up and frowned at me. “That’s no excuse.”

My eyes fell shut as I swallowed a sigh. Sofie was a witch. She had been born human, and despite the fact that she walked around as a cat, she was still a witch. It seemed wrong to treat her as a cat, but Sofie didn’t balk at any of Trixie’s attention, which was more than a little disturbing. Maybe Sofie had spent too much time in the form of a cat and it was starting to affect her sense of self.

“You didn’t stop by last night,” Trixie said softly.

I opened my eyes again, watching as she lifted her head from Sofie. Her expression was filled with questions, but she didn’t say anything else, leaving it up to me as to whether I would tell her anything of my adventures with Bronx and Reave’s little organization.

The sigh I thought I had swallowed rose back up and escaped me. I would have to say something since I wasn’t completely sure that Bronx would be in to work that night. He would need time to heal and it was very likely that he would still be feeling like shit when the sun set.

“Things didn’t go too well. I wasn’t in the greatest of moods when we were done and I didn’t want to drag that over to your place last night,” I said with a frown. “Also, Bronx might not be in tonight. I’m going to call him in an hour or two to check on him.”

“Not in? How bad did things go last night?”

Leaning against the counter, I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at the floor. While the lobby had a nice old hardwood floor, the main tattooing room was covered in this crappy yellow linoleum that was cracked, chipped, and lightly stained with splatters from dropped ink containers. “I was sent to protect a fix-production house.” Trixie gasped and I clenched my teeth and chanced a peek up at her. Pixies weren’t directly related to elves, but it was my understanding that they were at least seen as some kind of distant cousin—a lot closer than humans were believed to be. “I relieved them of their supply in the process of protecting the house.”

“Thank goodness,” she breathed, her shoulders slumping in her relief. But they stiffened again as her mind traveled along the next natural conclusion. “Is that how Bronx was injured?”

“Sort of. We got out of the house fine, but Reave decided that I needed to be punished to make sure that I didn’t try anything like that again.”

Trixie’s brows furrowed, meeting over her petite nose as she looked at me. “So Bronx was hurt?”

“Reave knows that the best way to handle me is to threaten the people I care about. I’ll take whatever beating that he can dish out, but I break when he threatens my friends. I guess we all have to have a weakness, right?”

Trixie opened her mouth to say something, but never got the chance. Sofie jumped out of her arms and back onto the tattooing chair between Trixie and me. “Absolutely not!” she snapped. Her tail flicked back and forth as she paced along the chair. If she had been human, I think she would have smacked me.

“You are a warlock, Gage! You do not have weaknesses. You do not allow ordinary, weak-minded thugs to control your actions through threats. You take care of them and continue on your way.”

I gave a little snort. “This coming from a witch trapped as a cat for the past several years.”

Sofie primly sat in the middle of the chair, facing me. “My condition has no bearing here. You are a warlock!” Her chest puffed up as she added that last bit, as if it was supposed to instill some kind of latent pride.

I shrugged. “I’m not a warlock. I never finished.”

“You became a warlock the minute you were taken to the Towers. Doesn’t matter if you finished.”

“No. I’m not a warlock. I don’t kill.”

I didn’t know it was possible, but Sofie managed to arch one little cat brow at me in mocking question. Fuck. Simon was haunting me.

“That was self-defense,” I said slowly through clenched teeth.

“You’re saying that you didn’t go there intending to kill him?” Sofie pressed. While it didn’t show now, I could easily imagine the smug expression on her human face.

I looked away, glaring at the wall. I could argue that I didn’t go across town looking for Simon because I had been looking for answers from my old tattooing mentor Atticus Sparks. But deep down, I had always known that it would all lead back to Simon and that matter came down to killing him before he killed me.

“Does Reave know about me?” Trixie asked, breaking into my train of thought.

I jerked my gaze over to her and stiffly nodded. I wasn’t going to lie to her in an effort to leave her feeling safe when she wasn’t. It would be better if she at least knew to look over her shoulder on occasion, not that I wanted to add to her worries. She was already looking over her shoulder in expectation of seeing another elf hunting her. We might have earned a reprieve from her people, but neither one of us trusted it.

“I won’t let him touch you,” I said.

“Why? Because you’ll kill him?” Trixie’s words were soft and gentle, possessing a wealth of sadness for me and this life I was trying to live.

I pushed away from the counter and walked over to the doorway so that I could look across the lobby and out the front picture window to the street beyond. Shoving my hands into my short hair, I leaned my elbows against the doorjamb and stared at nothing.

“No, he won’t touch you because I’ll do as he asks until I think of some way to take care of this problem.”

Trixie slid her arms around my waist and laid her head against my spine. I flinched. I hadn’t even heard her move from her seat she was so quiet. “And sell out your morals and beliefs in the process. Things like that damage the soul.”

“Who says that I’ve got any soul left to damage?” I teased, but dark truth underlay that comment. I was already missing a piece of my soul. Simon had stolen it and I failed to get it back before killing him. After all the decisions I had made, I was beginning to wonder if I wasn’t missing more than that one piece.

“Your soul is beautiful, Gage, if a little tarnished.” I didn’t say anything. I wanted her to believe this if only so that she would keep her arms around me for a little longer. “This Reave deserves to die for what he’s done to the pixies and everyone else he’s hurt. I won’t mourn him if you decide to get rid of him. Just don’t kill him with magic. You’ve already lost one year.”

I closed my eyes against that horrible reminder. That little fact woke me up from a deep sleep on more than one occasion, scaring the shit out of Trixie during the few times I had slept over at her place.

Magic had some strange rules. There had to be a little give for everything you got—particularly for the big things like killing someone. For the most part, you simply moved energy that already existed in the air, directing it to do your bidding. But killing someone with magic was another matter. You were ending a life, removing a big source of that energy from the earth, and that unbalanced things. The price was that you lost one year of your own life for each person you killed with magic. And it wasn’t one of those crappy years off the end. No, you could be twenty-five, healthy and happy in the prime of life, and fall dead while walking down the middle of the street with no warning. You’d be dead for exactly 365 days and then wake up as if nothing had happened; assuming that those around you were nice enough to preserve the body so that it could start up again

I had killed Simon with magic. He was dead and I owed magic one year of my life. I didn’t know when it was going to happen, but I was terrified that it would happen before I could help Trixie solve her problem with the Summer Court. I was terrified it would happen before I could get Bronx free of Reave. I was terrified that it would happen and the Towers would discover my body helpless and unprotected. I was terrified of Lilith, who was waiting for me with a chunk of my soul on the other side.

Forcing my eyes open, I drew in a slow, steadying breath before dropping my hands down to cover Trixie’s where they rested on my waist. “It’ll be fine. I’ll find a way to deal with Reave before he even thinks about bothering you.”

“It’s not me that I’m worried about,” she said against my back.

Turning, I smiled at her. “I’ll deal with Reave before he even thinks about bothering Bronx again.”

Trixie made a sound of disgust as she shoved away from me and returned to her workstation. It wasn’t what she meant and we both knew it, but at least my comment succeeded in removing the concern from her eyes.

“Do you have any appointments?” I asked, redirecting her thoughts.

She glanced up at the clock on the wall and shook her head. “Not for another hour and I’ve already done the prep work.”

“You mind keeping an eye on things for a little while? I’ve got a couple things I want to check on downstairs.”

Trixie gave a little wave of her hand as she sat back on her stool, leaning against the counter behind her. “Go for it.”

“Thanks.” I flashed her a quick smile before I turned to look down at Sofie. “You care to join me in the dungeon?”

“Fine with me,” the cat replied, jumping off the chair to follow me. “I’ve been waiting to see your stash of goodies for a while now.”

I gave a soft chuckle as she trailed me down the narrow hallway to the back room. I closed the door behind her, but didn’t lock it. Trixie wouldn’t enter unless it was an emergency. She knew of the dangers associated with my private storeroom.

“Hang back until I call you,” I said as I knelt and pulled up the trapdoor in the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sofie give a little nod as she sat a few feet away, her tail softly swishing across the floor.

The basement was one of the reasons I had chosen this building when I decided to open up my own shop. After living several years with Sparks, I had been eager to get out on my own and a part of it had been because I thought I could set up a secret place to practice a little magic. I had been stupid. It was only recently that I discovered that Gideon had always known about my secret spot, though I was hopeful that he didn’t know about everything it contained.

I paused while descending the stairs as a thought struck me. If Gideon was no longer the guardian who kept an eye on me, I would need to close this spot down or whoever was assigned as my parole officer would drag me in before the council in a heartbeat. I’d have to get rid of everything, or get Gideon to help me hide it better.

The warped wooden stairs creaked under my feet as I continued to the dirt floor. I walked to the center of the pitch-black room and blindly reached up, feeling for the beaded metal cord that hung from the only light. I had been in the basement a thousand times, knew it blind, but my stomach still churned the first few seconds after entering. I had already checked it once when I first arrived at the shop, but it was only after I turned on the light and saw that nothing had been touched that I started to relax.

Lifting my right hand, holding the open palm toward a symbol spray-painted on the far blank wall, I murmured a few words and directed a little energy toward it, disarming the protective spell.

“It’s clear,” I called, leaning toward the stairs and the opening in the ceiling.

A second later, Sofie poked her head in the opening, peering down before delicately descending the stairs on silent paws. She stopped halfway, the hair on her back standing on end. The cat gave a little shake, settling her fur back while narrowing her eyes on me. “Goodness,” she said, sounding a bit breathless. “You’ve got some powerful magic down here.”

I smiled a bit stiffly at her. This was the first time I had allowed another witch or warlock to come into my secret dungeon. I felt the heaviness of the energy too, but I had grown accustomed to it after so many trips. I even felt it when I was on the main floor, but only slightly. I wondered if Sofie did as well.

“I’ve got some dangerous items down here.”

Sofie started to come down the rest of the stairs, but abruptly stopped when her eyes fell on the black symbol that covered the only blank stone wall in the room. Every muscle in her body had gone stiff and I could almost hear her heart pounding in her chest. “That’s a very strong protection spell.” Her voice was tight and barely above a whisper, as if she was afraid that the slight sound would awaken the dormant spell.

“Like I said, I’ve got some dangerous items down here.” Sofie continued to stare at the wall, unable to move. “Sof, I wouldn’t invite you if I couldn’t properly shut down the spell. You’re safe.”

“But it’s not shut down. I can see it … moving … underneath the paint.”

I squinted at the symbol, but didn’t see anything. It might have had something to do with the fact that she was looking at it through the eyes of a cat, but she was right. It wasn’t completely shut down. I could feel the energy humming around it. “I mean, shut down against you, me, and Trixie. You’re safe.” To prove my point, I walked over to the stairs and gently picked her up. She growled at me, but didn’t move, her eyes locked on the symbol.

Sofie was right. It was a dangerous spell and not very discerning. If the spell lashed out at her, it was going to get me as well. When someone entered the room who wasn’t supposed to, it attacked violently and the results were always lethal. If anyone entered while I was away, I wouldn’t find a dead body at the bottom of the stairs. I would find mangled body parts and a lot of blood.

I had installed the protection spell when I was younger and didn’t know as many spells as I should have. It was the most dangerous and strongest spell I knew. I had picked up a few others over the intervening years, but I had never bothered to change it simply because this one, while frightening, was still the best.

With a half smile, I picked Sofie up and cradled her against my chest while rubbing my knuckles gently against her cheek. Slowly, the muscles in her body started to loosen and her breathing evened out.

“Better?” I asked.

Sofie took a deep breath, rolling one shoulder and then the other. “You’re insane, you know that?”

“Have to be to try to escape the Towers and expect to live,” I said. “Do you want me to put you on the floor or on the table?”

The cat tore her eyes from the wall to look around the room, taking in the three walls of cabinets and the makeshift, chest-high table against the far wall. “Table.”

Keeping her close, I carried her to the table and set her on the flat surface amid the random flotsam I had collected over the years. There were bits of twigs, half-burned candles of every imaginable color, a row of old baby-food jars holding pieces of chalk arrayed in a line of colors, feathers, and a few dead animal parts—magic, as with potions, wasn’t always the prettiest of things to watch. Crystals of different shape, size, and color hung from leather thongs along the back wall.

There was also an old, wooden box at the back edge of the workbench. I could hear it humming as if resonating in time with some silent song that rose from my soul. The locked box held my wand. I had told the council that it had broken in my battle with Simon. I had even shown them the remains of a wand I had used a couple times and then snapped. I knew that if they allowed me to leave the Ivory Towers, I couldn’t let them take my wand. Regardless of what sanctions they put on me, I knew I would need my wand in order to survive a witch or warlock attack. I rarely took it out, rarely used it. The risk was too big.

Now I prayed that Sofie didn’t notice the box, couldn’t hear the humming. Sofie and I were friends, but I knew better than to try to push the friendship too far.

“Nice collection,” the cat said as she picked her way across the table. She leaned down, sniffing here and there, but always careful not to touch anything. “Albeit a little messy.”

“I don’t exactly have a housekeeper doing rounds down here,” I muttered. Rolling my shoulders, I forced my jaw to unclench and relax. I told myself that I didn’t have anything in common with other warlocks, but it was a lie. I didn’t know of another witch or warlock who was comfortable with someone else touching their collection. It was like letting a stranger rummage through your underwear drawer while reading your diary. “I don’t get to spend much time down here.”

Sofie paused and glanced over her shoulder at me. “That is probably for the best.” She continued on, stopping at the end of the table, where I had a large stack of black hardback journals. “What’s this?”

“Notes. For the most part, it’s potions that I’ve come up with for one thing or another.”

Sofie jumped up and sat on the top journal while staring at me with wide eyes. “And the parts that don’t fit in your ‘most’?”

Leaning against the table, I crossed one leg over the other and smiled at her. “Take a wild guess.”

“Gage,” she said sternly.

“Oh, come on, Sofie!” I angrily waved one hand at her and the journals. “Did you expect me to quit? I can’t. I can’t quit magic any more than I can quit breathing. At first, it started out with me making notes, listing all the curses, wards, enchantments, and charms that I learned while I was with Simon. It wasn’t about learning anything new. I didn’t want to forget anything that I had learned.”

“But …” she prompted when my voice died off.

I shrugged, my eyes dropping to the sundry bits on the top of the table. I picked up the severed leg of a raven. The claws were turned inward, still looking as sharp as the day I found it in a potion ingredients shop. “I started remembering things that Simon did, but didn’t necessarily teach me. With a little time and thought, I pieced the spell together. Others, I thought of on my own, so I made note of them. Sometimes, magic comes easy to me. A lot easier than tattooing ever has.”

“Why did you leave?” Sofie shook her head at me. There was a sad note to her question. She lay down on the top book, tucking her paws in at her chest. “Learning magic would have made you so happy. You’ve got such raw, natural talent. You could have been great.”

“And I can’t be great now, as a tattoo artist? I could only achieve greatness as a warlock?” I teased, but Sofie wasn’t amused as her ears flattened a little against her head.

“I don’t know what a tattoo artist can achieve, but I know what you could have done as a warlock.”

“I loved learning magic,” I admitted. “When I held my wand for the first time, it was like all the buzzing around in my soul and along my skin settled and found a direction, or like music notes lining up into a symphony. But I couldn’t be a warlock if it meant being like Simon or any of the others that I knew, and I had to do that if I was going to survive in the Towers.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. If you want to be a warlock, you have to be willing to kill. You have to kill other warlocks and witches to get ahead. You have to kill other creatures to use their organs in potions and spells. You have to kill innocent people or risk them not fearing you. The Towers survive on two things: power and fear. To achieve both of those, you have to be willing to kill.”

Sofie remained silent when I finished talking. She was staring at the far wall, looking at one of the cabinets with the glass-and-wood front. There were locks on each of them. If someone managed to get past the protective spell, I didn’t think the locks would stop them. They let me sleep better at night.

“How did you do it?” I asked softly. “You were there for years, but you were the only one I ever saw who didn’t beat the shit out of an apprentice if they failed to cower before you. You seemed nice.”

The cat sighed heavily, closing her eyes. “At first, I was no different than you described. I killed, constantly and indiscriminately. I think that might be how I stayed a little sane while there. Young and old. Helpless and powerful. I killed them all without blinking an eye, and nearly all were for no reason. I told myself that God didn’t need a reason to kill any of them, so why should I? But when I reached my second century, I started to mellow. I killed less, though when I did, there didn’t need to be a reason. I no longer had anything to prove to anyone. That may be why I seemed nicer than the others when we met.”

I tried to smile at Sofie, but the corners of my mouth weren’t working properly. I didn’t know if she was any saner than the ones who lived in the Towers. She had found a way to deal with the violence that that life required, but her way wasn’t the answer. Gideon was closer to the middle ground, but I felt his underground movement was progressing far too slowly. The Ivory Towers had to stop. Stop being overlords for the world. Stop demanding abject fear and total obedience.

Magic wasn’t about being powerful and controlling the world. Magic was about tapping into something beautiful and about becoming more than a fleshy meat bag if only for a couple seconds.

“Would you go back if you had the chance?” I asked.

Sofie cocked her head to the side as she looked up at me. “What do you mean?”

“If you were human again, would you go back to living in the Towers? You weren’t exactly escorted to the door. You could go back now if you wanted and no one would stop you. If you were human again, rather than a cat, would you go back?”

The cat stood and arched her back, stretching while extending her claws briefly to scratch along the rough surface of the book. “It’s going to be a long time before I see skin again, if ever.”

“But if you could?”

“I don’t know.” Sofie sat on the book and looked at me. “It’s been several years since I was last there. I’ve lived with a human that I depended on for several years. I’ve lived with you and Trixie for a while now. I honestly don’t know if I could return to that life. I’ve changed and I feel like I’m too old now to change back to the way I was when I was living in the Towers.”

“I’m glad,” I said with a smile. It was a good answer. It was one Gideon could accept. If he could get Sofie changed back to a human, he would have someone safe who could train his daughter if she proved to have magical talent.

Sofie made a noise. She was either scoffing at me or coughing up a hairball. I prayed it was scoffing. “You make me sound soft.”

“No, just a good person.”

Sofie wouldn’t look at me. She jumped down from the table to the dirt floor. The air directly above her seemed to grow a little hazy. I stood and looked over at the symbol, but the protection spell was quiet. As I looked back at the cat as she crossed the room to peer in one of the cabinets, the misty haze above her solidified slightly so that it looked like I was seeing a ghost. But it wasn’t a ghost. It was a misty image of Sofie as she looked when she was human. She was right. There was a lot of powerful magic down here.

“Who cursed you, Sofie?” The cat or the ghost didn’t look over at me, but I could see her stiffen. It was the first time I had ever asked her that question. Sofie didn’t talk about the attack and I respected her privacy, but I had someone who might be able to help her.

“It’s none of your business, Gage,” she said in a low voice.

“I know, but tell me anyway.”

“Why the sudden interest?”

“Because I know of someone who may be willing to help you.”

Sofie jerked around and quickly padded closer to stand in the middle of the room. The freaky thing was that I could see hope scrawled across the face of the ghost as she peered at me. “Who?”

“Gideon.”

“You’ve spoken to Gideon?” The ghost’s mouth hung partially open and it was only then I realized how much I had gotten accustomed to trying to discern Sofie’s moods by her tone of voice and the expressions presented on a cat’s face. I was beginning to think that I was wrong … a lot.

“Yeah, we’re not exactly mortal enemies, though I can’t say that I would trust him with my darkest secrets. He’s indicated to me that he could help you if he knew who cursed you.”

Sofie moved away from me. She sat and then stood as if she meant to pace around the room, but she didn’t move. “Her name is Victoria, though I liked to call her Vicki to piss her off.”

“It worked.” I snickered.

“That wasn’t why she cursed me.”

“I hope not. I don’t want to think about this lunatic running around using magic. Last name?”

“Tremaine.”

“I don’t remember her.”

“She didn’t spend much time in the Tower you were living in. You wouldn’t have met her.”

“Would it help Gideon if he knew why she cursed you?”

The ghostly Sofie frowned at me. “If he needs to know, then he can talk to me.”

I threw up my hands and smiled at her. “That’s fine with me. I don’t need to know.”

“Why is Gideon doing this? Particularly now after all these years.”

“That’s something you’ll have to discuss with him, but I will give you the same warning that he recently gave me.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and leaned back against the table. “Things are getting bad in the Towers. Lot of unrest and anxiety, from what he tells me. I’d keep your head down as much as possible.”

“What does that mean for you?”

I sighed, my shoulders slumping. “Nothing good. As it stands, I’ll most likely lose Gideon as my assigned guardian soon unless he hands the council my head on a pike. From there … well, I’m sure you can imagine the shit storm that’s going to follow.”

“I’m sorry.”

I shrugged helplessly. There wasn’t anything I could do about it. “Thanks. I would appreciate it if you could keep this info to yourself. I don’t want Trixie worrying yet. You know how slow the council can be at times. It may be months before anything happens.”

“Or days.”

“Even so, she has her own problems, things that we can do something about. For now, we have to sit with our thumbs up our asses until something is decided in the Towers.”

“Agreed.”

I pushed away from the table, stretching my arms above my head. “Thanks, Sof. We better get back upstairs before Trixie comes looking for us.”

Sofie started to walk beside me then paused. “I thought you had some things you needed to do down here.”

I stopped with one foot on the bottom step and smiled down at her. “I did. Gideon wanted me to talk to you and I didn’t think you’d want to discuss this in front of Trixie.”

Sofie purred as she headed up the stairs. “You always were a smart boy.”

I snorted at her, but kept my mouth shut as I followed her. For such a smart boy, I seemed to be in a hell of a lot a trouble with few ideas on how to get out. As soon as the cat reached the main floor, I waved my right hand at the symbol on the wall and, with a little push of energy, reactivated the protection spell. One thing at a time. First, Trixie and the elves. Then, free Bronx from Reave. And if there was anything left of me after that, I’d find a way to wipe my memory from the Towers.

Yep. I was in big trouble.

5

AFTER LAST NIGHT’S clusterfuck, I was relieved to find that tonight was quiet at Asylum. Sofie had settled on the glass counter at the front of the shop, lounging between the cordless-phone charger and the framed article proclaiming Asylum the top tattoo and potion parlor in Low Town for 2012. It was the third year in a row we had won the local award. We didn’t get anything for the title besides a nice certificate and an increase in business. I preferred to display the article rather than the certificate, since it contained a cheesy photo of Bronx, Trixie, and me sitting in the lobby of the shop.

Business was steady, but far from hectic. Trixie finished up her appointment with a banshee in a matter of minutes. From what I overhead of the conversation, the death wailer had recently gotten a job at a nursing home. Unfortunately, she had been bemoaning the dying so much that she had gotten a sore throat, which was threatening to give way to laryngitis. Instead of a tattoo, Trixie gave her a mixture to be steeped with tea daily and advice to get a job at a day care.

From there, I tattooed a drake with an antiseasickness potion. Apparently the cannibalistic ogre was going deep-sea fishing with some friends off the coast of Florida in a few weeks but was having problems managing boat trips. I kept my mouth shut for most of the tattoo. Drakes, who are not related to dragons as many people believe, are more likely to take a bite out of you than hit you if you piss them off. Trixie enjoyed lightly teasing this one despite my glares, but then a pretty girl could get away with so much more than a guy.

Trixie then handled a pair of goblins wanting matching tattoos to express their love for each other. At least they didn’t want to get each other’s name tattooed on their shoulders. But I wasn’t being fair. From what I heard, goblins were among the few races that were good at relationships. Once they bonded with a mate, it tended to be for life and they were happy with each other the whole time. Humans couldn’t even come close to understanding something like that.

I was finishing up a tattoo on a young werecat when Bronx came in. The werecat had wanted a tattoo on her hip that would keep her from getting pregnant for the next five years. She’d still go into heat every season, but the ink would protect against pregnancy. There were special waivers required for that particular tattoo since I didn’t want to be sued in case something was off. I had yet to have that one come back to haunt me, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

The troll settled onto his stool with only the softest of grunts. The swelling had gone down in his face and there was only a slight discoloration around one eye. Otherwise, he looked normal. He was moving a little slower than normal, but most wouldn’t notice it.

“You know you could have stayed home tonight,” I said after the last client left the shop.

“So you said yesterday,” Bronx grumbled. He set up his station with his usual meticulousness, checking to make sure that he had all the supplies he had put aside the previous night.

Trixie flit across the room and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, laying her head on top of his. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” Bronx said, patting one of Trixie’s hands.

“I knew that Gage would be trouble. I don’t think you should hang out with that bad influence any longer,” Trixie continued in her best doting-mother voice.

At that, Bronx finally smiled. “Yes, Mother, but he’s my only friend.”

“No, dear, you’ll always have your mummy,” she said, earning a bark of laughter from me. Trixie kissed Bronx’s cheek and then walked over to where I was lying back in the tattooing chair in my station. She put a knee between my legs, a little too close for comfort. “What are you laughing at? I’m old enough to be a great-great-great-grandmother to both of you. Sometimes I think I need to take you over my knee, spank some sense into you.”

I placed my hands on her hips and tried to pull her closer, but she grabbed the top of the chair, halting her descent. “I could be up for that.”

“Good grief,” Bronx muttered under his breath with no small amount of disgust. I laughed. For the most part, when Bronx was in the shop with us, Trixie and I maintained a somewhat professional atmosphere. Well, as professional as it ever was before we started dating. Every once in a while I let something slip to make Bronx shake his head.

The chime for the front door sang through the lobby as someone walked in. “Saved by the bell,” I said, starting to push Trixie back.

“So it would seem,” she said with a glare before easing into a smile. “Stay. I’ll get it.”

I nodded and then watched her walk toward the front. Turning, I found Bronx relaxing on his stool, his back leaning against the counter behind him. He looked tired, both physically and maybe even a little emotionally. I opened my mouth, but he held up his hand, stopping me.

“Apologize again and I’ll hit you.”

“I can’t help it.”

“If you hadn’t done something, I would have and I’d be feeling worse if not dead right now.”

My eyes hardened on his face while my hands clenched the arms of the chair I was sitting in. “I’ll get you out of this.”

“You’ll get us both out,” Bronx corrected, his eyes drifting closed. “I’m not leaving you alone with Reave. Both or none at all.”

I nodded in a sharp, jerky motion as Trixie’s heels thudded across the floor toward me. I looked up and forced a smile on my face. She’d talk to Bronx after I left for the night and then again to me when we met up after her shift. There was no hiding the Reave business from her now, but I didn’t want to worry her while we were in the shop.

Trixie motioned toward the front with her head. “He’s asking for the owner.”

“Problem?”

“I don’t think so. Doesn’t seem angry. I don’t remember ever seeing him before, so I don’t think we’ve tattooed him.”

“Got it.” I pushed to my feet and gave her hand a quick squeeze as I stepped around her and walked to the lobby. I hadn’t heard any of her conversation with the customer because my attention had been on Bronx. I hadn’t heard his voice, but I wished I had.

Stepping behind the counter, I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach, forcing all the air out of my lungs. The blood drained from my face as I stared at the man. He was older than I remembered, but it had been more than ten years since I had last seen him. His blondish-brown hair was longer, brushing against his shoulders, but it was the same brown eyes.

“Shit! Robby?” I gasped when I found my voice.

The man’s brows snapped together as he stared warily at me. He even backed up a step. “Yeah, it’s Robert. Robert Grant,” he said slowly. He looked like he was about to bolt for the door, but he paused, squinting at me. “Ja—”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said, cutting him off. “Baby brother.”

“Holy fuck!” Robert shouted as I came around the counter. He pulled me into a rough hug, thumping hard on my back several times. I hugged him back, laughing. I hadn’t seen my older brother in a decade. What were the insane odds that he’d walk into my shop? I didn’t care. I had my brother back; didn’t matter if it was for an hour or for the rest of our lives.

Robert pulled away, holding me by the shoulders as he looked me over. We were about the same height. I was leaner in build, while Robert had become stockier, with a thick chest and neck. There was a small scar on his chin that hadn’t been there when I last saw him and more worry lines stretched around his eyes, but he was the same.

“You’ve changed,” he said, seeming to talk mostly to himself. I smiled, running one hand through my hair. When last he had seen me, it had been longer, stretching past my shoulders. And pale blond. “You dyed it?”

I shook my head, my smile changing to a cocky smirk. “Tattoo.”

“Then you’re not wearing contacts either?”

I shook my head again. Stepping from his grasp, I turned and pulled up my T-shirt to reveal the tiger tattoo that stretched across my back. It was my only tattoo and it had taken three months to complete. Woven throughout it were a series of potions that tweaked my appearance and the way people remembered me. It was as much for their protection as my own. “The tattoo permanently changed my hair and eye color to brown.”

“Must be easier than having to dye your hair once a month,” Robert joked as I pulled my T-shirt back into place. I turned to face him and he clapped me on the side of the head, pulling me close so he could press his forehead to mine. “Doesn’t matter. You’re still the same old Ja—”

Again, I had to stop him. “It’s Gage now.” I pulled back so I could see his smile fading and sadness enter his eyes. The Ivory Towers had come between us. He was trying so hard to bridge that gap, but it was crumbling under his feet. First, I no longer looked like the brother he had known, and now my name. There were other things, I had no doubt, but I wasn’t going to let him slip away. Grabbing one shoulder, I thumped him hard on the chest, right over his heart, with my fist. “I’m the same in here. They couldn’t change that. They didn’t take that away.”

“Yeah,” he said, then continued, his voice gaining strength. “Yeah! My brother. Gage?”

“Gage Powell,” I said with a smile as I released him.

He nodded. “Gage Powell. I guess it’ll do. I can’t believe this. How long have you been in Low Town?”

“Ten years.” I shrugged. “It’s where I ended up after leaving Mom and Dad’s. It seemed far enough away. Big enough to get lost in, small enough to avoid notice.”

Robert chuckled. “You think like Dad.”

“What do you mean?”

“They moved here eight years ago. They live up in Shadybrooke.”

I felt my knees start to give out. Somehow I stumbled backward, so that I ended up sitting on the bench that ran the length of the back wall rather than sitting on the floor. Shadybrooke was one of the suburban outskirts of Low Town near the north side of the city. Nice if you don’t mind bland and monotonous.

“Here? Why? They loved Vermont.”

Robert plopped down next to me on the bench and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. They’re here and they like Shadybrooke.” He then cocked his head to the side as he looked at me. “I’m guessing you haven’t seen them.”

“No, not since I left.” I shook my head, lost in a sad memory for a moment, when my brain checked in with a thought. “Wait! When did you last see them?”

Robert grimaced, looking down at the hardwood floor. “Been a few years.”

I bit my tongue hard to hold in the questions. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t like the answers and I didn’t want to start a fight within five minutes of seeing my brother for the first time in ten years. I’d save the fight for when I was sure there was going to be a later. “What about Meggie?” Inwardly, I prayed our younger sister was a safe topic.

Robert’s smile returned, softening his features. “She’s in Romania, teaching English and French.” His hands dropped into his lap, where he loosely threaded his fingers together.

“She didn’t go vampire, did she?” I asked hesitantly. Romania was heavy vampire territory.

“No!” he said with a laugh. “Well, not since I last heard from her, which was about six months ago, and she didn’t sound like she had any plans to. She’s teaching a couple night classes for the vamps.” His smile faded and a frown returned to his eyes. “Though it does sound like she’s fallen in with some Gypsies. In her last e-mail, she was bragging about getting good with her hands. I thought it was best not to ask too many questions.”

I chuckled, scratching the back of my head. Yeah, that was our mom’s influence on us. She always seemed to know when it was best to pry into our lives with questions to put us back on the straight and narrow and when to let us run wild. “How’d she end up in Romania?” When I had last seen Megan, she had been twelve years old with blond pigtails, freckles, and a glare.

Robert relaxed on the bench beside me, stretching his legs out while rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. “How do you think? Some guy.” I laughed at the disgust in his voice, but he wasn’t serious. “You know, our sister didn’t turn out half-bad-looking. Good thing she was the one in the family that also ended up with the brains. As soon as she finished college and got her teaching certificate, she ran off to Germany with this guy she met.”

“She still with him?”

Robert snorted. “Lasted three months.”

“And she didn’t come home after that?”

“Would you?” He arched one brow at me, mocking. I shrugged. Truth was, the Ivory Tower I had lived in was in Europe and I’d seen most of the hot spots in Europe by the age of fifteen. They were nice, but I liked living in Low Town.

“She lasted in Germany for another few months, then ran off to Austria, Croatia, Uzbekistan—don’t ask me why—and then Romania. I doubt that’s everywhere, but our dear sister has been kind enough to censor her e-mails to me.”

I smiled at his tortured expression, leading me to believe that our dear sister wasn’t censoring her letters enough for Robert’s comfort. I held on to the smile, pushing down a nagging feeling. By my guess, Megan had been traveling Europe for a couple years and Robert hadn’t seen our parents in a few years, so who was watching over them? When I left my family the second time after escaping the Ivory Towers, I had consoled myself with the thought that my parents still had my siblings.

There was one other bothersome question nagging me. Why had they left Vermont? It could have been nothing, but I doubted it. I pushed the question down with the other and looked at my older brother. It could wait. He was living in Low Town. We had found each other again, and if I was careful, we could safely stay in contact without the Towers ever getting wind of it.

“You know that leaves only one important question,” I said.

Robert stiffened a little as he looked at me. “What’s that?”

“What the hell are you doing here? I mean, of all the tattoo parlors in Low Town, how did you end up here?” I laughed.

The tension instantly flowed out of his body and he lounged against the bench again. He waved one hand at me and smiled. “Oh, that. Reave sent me.”

6

I DON’T RECALL getting to my feet, but I suddenly found myself standing in the middle of the lobby, barely holding together the rage that was burning through my brain. That fucking bastard! Reave had my brother. My older brother was working for that low-life Mafia scum. The dark elf had found a way to get even with me. I thought it was over when he had ordered Bronx’s beating. I had been punished and I thought we would be starting fresh, but Reave had shoved the knife a little deeper into my gut.

The Svartálfar was using my brother for whatever horrible job he needed done, putting him in danger. It was the perfect way to force me to do exactly what he wanted. I had to protect my brother. No matter what he was doing or how he was involved, I had to protect my brother.

“Reave?” I demanded in a rough voice when I could get my teeth to unclench enough so I could speak. “You work for the fucking Svartálfar bastard Reave?”

Robert pushed to his feet and pointed one finger at me, his expression losing all its earlier lightness. “Watch what you say about Reave,” he warned. “He’s my boss and he’s been good to me.”

I pressed my hands to my temples, my fingers threading through my hair as I swallowed a scream of frustration. It had suddenly become hard to breathe, as if the air had been sucked from the room. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to block out the sound of blood pounding in my ears like a tribal drum. Energy sizzled against my skin. The magic was building, pressing against the seams of the walls. With a push, I could blow the entire building down. I could rip it apart like a twister blowing through a trailer park.

Trixie’s voice was suddenly there. Soft, breathless, and desperate. Her pleading penetrated the fog, so that I could feel her gentle hand on my cheek and the other arm wrapped around my back, her slim fingers digging into the side of my waist.

“You have to breathe, Gage. Just let it go,” she was saying. “Let go of the magic. If they catch you, they’re going to kill you. They’ll kill us all.”

Another, larger hand landed on my shoulder opposite to where Trixie was pressed against me. Strong and firm. Bronx. “Let it go, Gage.”

Overhead, soft popping followed by the tinkle of glass echoed through the shop. The lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling were exploding and the glass was falling inside the protective containers that surrounded them. I opened my eyes to find that the parlor was black except for the light coming in the front window and door from the street. Robert was standing with his back pressed against the far wall. There was no missing the terror on his face.

Fresh pain lanced through me. I flinched and Trixie pressed closer, holding me a little tighter as if she could absorb the pain. Robert was working for the devil but he was looking at me with fear in his wide eyes—as if I would ever hurt him. We had had scuffles as kids, but I didn’t hurt him and I had never hurt him with magic.

“He’s got my brother,” I whispered in a rough, broken voice. My world was breaking apart around me, but Trixie and Bronx continued to press close.

“We’ll fix it,” Trixie murmured in my ear, and Bronx’s hand squeezed my shoulder.

Dropping my hands from my head, I dragged in a deep breath in an attempt to relax the muscles that had tensed throughout my body. The energy dissipated. The soft snap and crackle faded to nothingness and the air seemed less thick. Trixie loosened her grip on me, but remained close.

Bronx waited for a nod from me before dropping his hand. He looked up at the darkened light fixture above us. “I think we’ve got some spare bulbs in the storage closet. I’ll go get them and the stepladder.”

“It could have been worse,” Trixie said, drawing our gazes. “It could have been the front window … again.”

Bronx shook his head as he left the room. I tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it. Trixie was trying and I appreciated it. “I’ve yet to break the front window. That’s Bronx.”

Trixie dropped her arms from around me and grinned. “It’s not like you didn’t want to.” She was right. Less than a year ago, a customer Trixie was tattooing had hit on her hard. She was polite but it was obvious that she was becoming uncomfortable with his persistence. Bronx gave the asshole one warning, but he didn’t listen. A minute later, he was flying through the front window.

Trixie tried to step away from me, but I grabbed her wrist, holding her in place. “Trixie, this is my older brother, Robert,” I started, looking at my brother. He was still pressed against the far wall as if he were trying to sink into the plasterboard rather than be in the same room with me. The fear was gone from his eyes, but so was the easy laughter. “Robert, this is Trixie. She’s a tattoo artist here, and she’s … my girlfriend.” The last two words fumbled from my mouth, but then it was the first time I had ever introduced her as such.

Trixie shot me a smile before turning to face Robert. She extended a hand toward him and he hesitated before quickly shaking it. “It’s nice to meet someone from Gage’s family.”

Robert mumbled something that I didn’t quite catch before sinking back against the wall. Trixie turned to me and gave a little roll of her eyes. She wasn’t afraid of me and I loved her for it. Bronx wasn’t afraid of me, and in my own way, I loved him for it, though I was grateful that I didn’t feel the need to kiss him like I needed to kiss Trixie.

She wrapped her long arms around my neck as she snuggled close. “Get out of here. Your shift’s done. Spend some time catching up with your brother.”

“I’ll see you later tonight.”

“You’re stopping by?” she asked, going for innocent, but the wicked light in her eyes ruined it.

“Oh, yeah. Gonna need to.”

Trixie gave me one last lingering kiss that managed to put a different kind of tension into my body before gracefully sauntering from the room. I glared at Robert when I saw his eyes following her. My older brother opened his mouth, but I stopped him.

“Watch what you say or I will give you a reason to be afraid of me,” I warned.

Robert glared at me. “She’s hot,” he said as if daring me to argue with him.

I snorted and shook my head. “Yeah, I’ll give you that one. Let me grab my jacket and we can get out of here.”

“What about the tattoo Reave said you’d work on?”

Rage flooded my veins once again, but I kept my head this time. It wasn’t as much of a shock as it had been the first time. “I doubt what Reave has planned is something I can slap on in a few minutes. We’ll need to talk and plan. And drink.” The drinking probably wouldn’t help much with the planning, but it would help me from exploding again—safer for all those around.

Using the dim light from the front window, I walked into the main tattooing room to find that Bronx had already lit some candles and was in the process of setting up the stepladder so he could replace the fluorescent bulbs I had destroyed.

“I’ll be upstairs in case you need anything,” I announced. I crossed to the far cabinet and knelt down as I pulled it open.

“You taking the Mordred?” Bronx asked from the stepladder in the center of the room.

A little shudder racked my frame. “Absolutely not. I need to mellow out, not get stupid. I’ve got a bottle of Jack that should get us through without killing each other.” I may have hated Reave and held no love for the entire Svartálfar race, but by all that was sacred and pure, they knew how to make a damn good whiskey. Mordred was fucking hard to get your hands on if you weren’t Svartálfar and like liquid fire going down, but damn, it was good.

“I can take your keys to the shop. Protects against intoxicated tattooing,” Bronx offered.

“Fuck you,” I grumbled with no real venom. The last time Bronx and I had drunk Mordred together, the results were not good. Suffice to say, Bronx had tattooed an incubus, resulting in an outbreak of mass fornication that needed to be stopped.

I grabbed the liter bottle and stood, shutting the cabinet with my knee as I scooped up my jacket off a nearby chair. “I’ll talk to you guys later.”

Robert was out in the lobby when I returned, looking as if he wished he had left but was afraid to after my temper tantrum. He followed me out the front door of the parlor, but paused when I started down the alley beside the shop.

“Where we going?” he demanded, stopped at the mouth of the alley.

“Somewhere we can talk and drink.” I held up the new bottle and gently shook it back and forth as if trying to tempt him. Or hypnotize him. I’d take that. He frowned, but started to follow after me through the alley to the back of the shop and then up the wooden stairs to the second floor of my building.

After Asylum took off, I managed to buy the entire building from the owner instead of renting. I had lived in the second-floor apartment for a while, but had moved out a few years ago so I could get a little space in my life from work. The apartment above the parlor was kept empty for times like these, when it was better to deal with matters here rather than drag anyone into my home.

“This your place?” Robert asked as he shut the door behind him.

I shook my head. “Just somewhere I crash on occasion.” Setting the bottle on the scarred coffee table, I walked into the tiny kitchen and grabbed a couple plastic cups that I kept there. I paused, staring at the disposable plastic cups. It had been a while since I had gotten plowed in this apartment with a friend or two. Was I mellowing out too much? Getting old? I rolled my eyes and wandered back into the living room with its cracked beige walls and stained carpet to find Robert sitting on one of the sunken cushions of the couch.

Sitting on the other end of the couch, I poured us each a healthy shot of whiskey and sat back. “All right, talk.”

Robert took a big swallow and winced as it went down. Definitely not as smooth as Mordred, but it would get the job done. “I don’t have to tell you shit.”

“You’re going to talk and tell me every fucking thing I ask for. I deserve that if I’m going to protect you from whatever Reave has got you involved in.” I set my own glass down without drinking. It was like talking had triggered all the emotions that I had managed to get a handle on. “Why are you fucking working for Reave? You’re not an idiot. Fuck. How could you do this to Mom and Dad?”

“Do this to Mom and Dad?” he repeated, looking at me like I had lost my mind. “I’m not doing this to them. I’m helping myself, and what the fuck do you care about Mom and Dad? What the fuck do you care about any of us? You left!”

“Of course I left!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. Robert pushed to his feet as well so I wouldn’t tower over him. Whatever fear he was feeling toward me wasn’t there now—we were both too pissed. “I had to leave if I wanted to protect you and Meg and Mom and Dad. The Towers might have let me go, but they weren’t going to let me live happily ever after. I’ve had warlocks and witches hunting me for years. You think they wouldn’t have tried to use you or Meg as leverage to get me to do what they wanted? Fuck! I left because I had to.”

“You should have never come back in the first place!” Robert roared. I took a step back, my anger instantly melting away, but Robert didn’t notice. Apparently there was something on his mind that he had been itching to vent. “When you disappeared as a kid, we told the world that you had been killed in an accident. You think we could tell anyone that you became one of them? We would have been lynched in a heartbeat. But no! You came back, destroying everything. Dad tried to make up stories, like you were a distant cousin, but no one believed him. They knew you had been taken to the Ivory Towers. They knew you were a warlock, and everything changed.”

Robert paced a couple angry steps away from me and then turned back, his face twisted with pent-up rage and pain. “You want to know why Mom and Dad moved to Low Town? Because of you. They left Vermont and New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and West Virginia because they were trying to outrun the rumors that they had given birth to a warlock. They came to Low Town to hide!”

I collapsed on the couch behind me, staring blindly at the wall. Whatever anger I had felt only seconds ago about my brother being a part of the Low Town Mafia evaporated. My chest ached and there was a lump growing in my throat threatening to cut off my breathing. In my lifetime, I had been burned, stabbed, poisoned, shot, and had a chunk of my soul ripped off. This felt worse. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. It hurt to think, but I couldn’t stop my mind from churning over the same thought. If I had never returned home after leaving the Towers, my family would have been happy, healthy, and safe.

I had been sixteen when I left the Towers and I couldn’t think of any place I wanted to go more than home to my family. I hadn’t seen them in nine years, but they still represented the only happy memories I had in my life. They were laughter, warmth, and love wrapped in a modest middle-class home on an old tree-lined street in Vermont. I had nowhere else to go and nowhere else I wanted to go. I knew that it was only temporary; I didn’t trust the council’s promises and reassurances. But I needed help and my feet set. I was only sixteen.

When I walked in the front door, Mom cried. She held me so tight and cried tears of joy. She cried for four days every time she looked at me. Dad cried too, his arms wrapped around Mom and me. No one asked questions. We hugged, cried, and were happy to be together. I could only guess that was before anyone started to think about how the rest of the world would react to my miraculous return from the dead.

I should never have gone home.

“Gage, man,” Robert whispered beside me. The couch shifted as he sat down again, but I was still staring straight ahead, my body so stiff that muscles ached. I was afraid that if I moved, I’d shatter. I had destroyed my family. I destroyed them by being a warlock and by returning home to give away their secret shame.

“I didn’t know.” My voice was rough and low like I had been gargling razor blades, and it was starting to feel that way as well.

“I know. They didn’t want you to know and, man, I’m a fucking idiot. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not your fault.”

A short, bitter laugh escaped me as I looked over at him through narrowed eyes. “Yeah, not my fault that I was born a warlock, but it was my fault that I came home.”

“We never felt that way.” I frowned at him, not needing the lies. Robert squeezed my shoulder and smiled. “Well, okay, so maybe I was pissed at you for a year or two right before I dropped out of college, but then I got my shit together. Mom and Dad never regretted you coming home. Not once.”

“I ruined their lives. I’m guessing I screwed up yours pretty badly as well as Meg’s.”

Robert gave my shoulder a shove but didn’t let go when I started to look away from him. “It’s not your fault. Blame it on the assholes in the Towers. Hell, better yet, blame it on the assholes that ran us out of New England. They only focused on the fact that you’d been born a warlock—which could have happened to any one of them just as easily. They should have been focusing on the fact that Mom and Dad raised a kid who was smart and brave enough to fucking leave the Towers.”

I nodded, trying to breathe. “Thanks.”

Robert dropped his hand back to his lap while reaching for his drink with the other hand. I did the same and we both finished our first glass before either could speak again. The alcohol would numb the worst of the pain. There was truth to what Robert had said, all of what he said. It wasn’t all my fault, but by the same token, I should never have gone home when I was a teenager.

“You should go see them,” Robert suggested. He reached across the table and snagged the bottle, pouring us both a new glass.

“Mom and Dad?”

“Yeah. I know they’d love it. They miss you.”

I sat back against the couch and stretched out my legs, trying to ease the tension crawling through my frame. “I don’t know if it would be safe.”

“I think they would argue that it’s worth the risk.” Robert took a drink and smiled at me. When he spoke again, his voice was rough from the whiskey burn. “Do you honestly think it’s ever going to be safe? You’re wasting time.”

“You could always go talk to them first for me. Warn them that I’m in town, what I look like now so it wouldn’t be such a shock if I showed up on their doorstep.” Robert frowned at me and remained silent. Yeah, I wasn’t exactly subtle. I wanted to hear why he was no longer talking to our parents. “Did you fight?”

“No, not really.”

“So … what? You just stopped seeing them? Stopped answering the phone when Mom called?”

“Pretty much.”

I set my cup on the table and waited. Robert sighed before downing the last of his drink and placing his empty cup next to mine. “Things didn’t work out at college,” he started.

“Because of me.”

He shrugged. “Part of it, but I think I was looking for an excuse. I was tired of school, wanted to be doing something. I made some friends here that I probably shouldn’t have, started helping them out on the occasional job. I knew the business they were in, but I told myself that I wouldn’t get drawn in.” He stopped and stared down at his hands.

“But you did.”

Robert looked at me with a little self-mocking smile. “Reave came to me and offered me a job personally. Said I was good. He offered me a lot of money and I took it. I told myself that I wasn’t hurting anyone, so it was no big deal.”

I clamped my mouth shut. People were getting hurt by the things that Reave was into. Robert might not have been the one to pull the trigger or wield the blade, but anyone who supported Reave was only adding to the body count.

“Did Mom and Dad find out what you were doing?”

“No. Well, I don’t think so.” He stopped and threaded a loose strand of hair behind his ear. “They had such hopes for me at college and getting some big job in an office building wearing a tie and carrying a briefcase. Every time I went to see them, I had to see those hopes. Got tired of it, so I stopped going.”

I stared at the bottle of Jack on the table, a part of me wishing that I had brought up the Mordred. Numb and stupid would have felt a lot better than what I was feeling right then. After leaving for Low Town, I didn’t let myself think about my family much because I knew that I couldn’t go back, but I told myself that they were all happy and safe. Unfortunately, happy and safe were extremely relative terms, I was learning. All I knew was that they weren’t the kind of happy and safe that I had imagined.

“I’ll get you out,” I said in a low voice.

“What?”

I looked over at Robert, meeting his confused expression. “I’ll get you out. Get you free of Reave. I’m stuck with him holding threats over my head, but I’ll get you out when I get out.”

“I don’t want out,” he said. “Didn’t you hear me? The pay is good and I’m good at what I do. It might not be legal but I’m not hurting anyone. I don’t need you to rescue me.”

I sat speechless for a minute, staring at him. Between Bronx and me wanting out so badly, I had naturally assumed that Robert would consider himself trapped as well. But he wasn’t trapped. He was exactly where he wanted to be and … I was being an asshole. I might find Robert’s line of work distasteful, but I couldn’t judge him because he had chosen to color outside the lines. There was a good percentage of my own work that was off the books because it wasn’t exactly legal. Well, that and the whole warlock thing, which wasn’t illegal but it wasn’t a crowd pleaser either.

“Sorry,” I muttered, feeling like an ass while, at the same time, finding a whole new reason to hate Reave.

“No problem. Are you still going to help me? Reave said you would.”

I nodded as I moved to the edge of the couch. Snagging the bottle, I filled up my cup and Robert’s. I had a feeling that I was going to need this. “Keep you safe? Sure. What’s Reave got planned for you?”

“Nothing too major. I’m just a package boy.” Robert shrugged, but there was something in his expression that wasn’t quite modest. He might have been a package boy, but there was such a thing as a valuable package boy based on intelligence, courage, and resourcefulness. “He wants me to deliver some information to a buyer.”

“What kind of information?” Robert was silent so long that I finally looked over at him to find him frowning down at his whiskey. “You have to at least give me some kind of hint if I’m going to be able to protect you effectively. It will give me an idea of whom I’m protecting you from.”

“You don’t think we’ll be overheard here?” Robert asked, lowering his voice to a whisper.

It was a struggle not to whisper as well. “By who?”

“Them.”

Fuck. What the hell was Reave dealing in that my brother was worried about drawing the attention of the witches and warlocks? We all worried about the Ivory Towers, but for the most part, we didn’t worry about them listening in to our conversations. They pretty much ignored the fact that we existed until we stepped on something that did interest them. Apparently, Robert had stepped into something big.

Putting my cup on the table, I stood and quickly tapped the energy floating around in the air. It only took a couple of seconds and a brief wave of my hand to summon the silencing spell that was becoming a regular part of my repertoire recently. For someone who had chosen to break away from the Towers, I was frequently in the midst of things that would most interest them.

“Don’t move,” I said, flopping back down on the couch. “I created only a small bubble—attracts less attention. No one can hear you.”

Robert looked at me a bit skeptically. “I didn’t see you do anything but wave your hand in the air.”

“The best spells are the subtle ones. Now talk.”

A smile peeked out for a second. “I still can’t believe you’re a warlock. My brother …”

“My brother, the warlock. Scourge of all that is good and just in the world. Yeah, yeah,” I said a bit irritably. When I lived in the Towers, I was told that I was being reborn into godhood. When I moved back among the “mortals,” I became the bane of their existence. Such a fall back to earth tends to bruise the ego. “Now, what does Reave have you transporting?”

Robert’s smile faded. “I don’t know how he acquired this information, but Reave knows the exact location of all the Towers.”

My heart stopped and then started again, pounding away like a madman on crack. I lurched to my feet, wanting to put some distance between my brother and his words as if I was expecting a bolt of lightning to strike him, but I remained rooted to the spot. I couldn’t move outside of the spell without disrupting it and I definitely needed to do a little venting that wouldn’t be overheard.

The first of the Ivory Towers was built before the Great War, but the warlocks and witches forced everyone after the war to work on building others—one on every continent plus a secret eighth so that they could tighten their hold on all the peoples of the world. As each Tower was finished, the memory of everyone was altered and powerful spells were placed over the Towers to hide them. No one but the warlocks and witches knew where they were, and I believed it to be for the best. If you couldn’t find them, then you couldn’t start shit that was going to get everyone killed.

Reave was going to get us all killed.

“What the hell is he thinking?” I yelled.

“Maybe that he’s tired of being under their thumb,” Robert snapped.

“We all are!” I shouted simply because I couldn’t stop shouting. I dropped back down onto the couch and put my head into my hands, trying to learn to breathe again. When I spoke, my voice was low but not particularly calm. “I don’t want to know what he’s planning. That’s the least of our problems. If they find out he’s got that information, they will come down off the Towers and kill us all.” I glared at my brother. “You don’t know them like I do. If they suspect anyone has that information, they won’t bother to hunt down you or Reave. They will destroy the entire city, every living creature, to make sure the information has been silenced.”

Robert tried to smile. His mouth moved in the right direction, but it was strained, while his eyes flickered with fear. “Then I guess you better come up with something good.”

“Has he told you yet? Do you know the locations?”

“Just one. He said it was insurance so that you wouldn’t try to ‘rescue me.’ He also said that if you tried to erase the location from my memory, he’d kill me.” Robert didn’t look particularly disturbed by the threat, probably because he knew that I would do everything within my power to protect him.

My teeth were clenched so tightly that my jaw had begun to throb. I was going to kill Reave. I wasn’t a killer, but this dark elf was driving me to it. My brother might not have wanted out, but he needed out because Reave was shortening his life substantially by putting him in the path of the Towers.

“I need time to think and prepare.” The words were stiff and hard when I spoke. “When are you scheduled to make your delivery?”

“I get the information in three days. You’ll have one day to tattoo them on me—”

“What?”

“Reave is giving me the locations as coordinates. I can’t memorize seven sets of exact coordinates and he doesn’t want paper or digital copies traveling. He wants them tattooed on me, and you have to include a spell to protect the information.”

Sitting back against the couch, I rubbed my eyes with my right hand against the pain that had started there. There was some small relief that he said seven—even Reave didn’t know about the secret eighth Tower. Hell, even I wasn’t completely sure where it was. All the same, I could feel the strands of the web Reave was weaving around Robert and me tightening, entrapping us so perfectly. It seemed as if he had thought of everything, tying my hands so I couldn’t free my brother.

I needed to think. This was more than protecting Robert and all of Low Town from this information. The Towers had become a powder keg of unrest, and Reave was creating a human torch out of Robert. If the Towers and Robert collided, the war that ensued would make the Great War look like a playground scuffle between third-grade girls.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t turn to Sofie or Gideon for advice. They would have only one answer. Kill Robert. Kill Reave. There had to be another way. I had to figure out what the hell it was.

7

IT WAS DARK. The world had been reduced to shapes lacking definition so that everything took on a menacing demeanor. My eyes strained, desperately trying to give meaning to my world, but it was useless. Any light that crept into the room was quickly swallowed up in the great maw of blackness that enveloped me.

I stretched out both hands, determined to use my remaining senses to figure out where I was, how I had gotten there. My fingers hit cold, damp stone. Dirty grit crusted under my fingernails and embedded itself in the fine grooves of my fingers as I slid them along the rough surface. The wall beside me was composed of giant stones, while the floor beneath my feet seemed to be made of the same uneven rock. The room curved slightly, as if it were circular rather than square.

There was no sound beside the soft scrape of my fingers along the stone wall and the scuff of my feet on the floor. My heart pounded in my ears, frustrating me. Was I alone in this room? Was someone else here, tracking me by my thudding heart and shuffling feet? Would it kill me? Help me?

Footsteps broke through the silence. I froze, waiting in the stillness as they grew steadily closer. The tread sounded even and familiar. A friend? The footsteps stopped close, followed by the clang of metal on metal and then scraping, like a key turning a rusted lock.

Light surged into the room, blinding me. I fell back against the wall, throwing my arms up in front of my face to protect myself from the sudden invasion. Shrinking back, I squinted and blinked, willing my eyes to adjust to the brightness rather than stay frozen and helpless.

“Come along!” snarled an angry voice that chilled the blood in my veins.

I moved shaking hands from my face, praying that I was wrong, but I wasn’t. Simon Thorn stood in the open doorway, a magical ball of white light hovering above his shoulder. This wasn’t right. Simon was dead. I’d killed him months ago. Simon had to be dead.

But if Simon was dead and trapped in the underworld, did this mean I had died as well? Had I passed during the night, called by Lilith to pay the year I owed magic for killing Simon? I couldn’t be dead. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and the cold seeping from the stones through my thin shirt. I wouldn’t feel these things if I was dead, right? Was I dreaming? Remembering? Both?

In the bright light, I stared down at my hands to find them smaller than I remembered. My arms and body were smaller and thinner, while Simon was taller. It all seemed wrong, but my mind kept stumbling as if the wheels in my brain were slipping as they tried to puzzle out this problem.

“Now, boy, or I’ll drag you by your hair,” Simon said, pulling me from my internal struggles.

As if willed by some unknown force, my body obeyed his command and I pushed away from the wall. On shaky legs, I crossed the small stone cell and followed my mentor down the long, narrow hall marked by other heavy doors in front of silent rooms. There were others behind those thick doors, huddled in the darkness, cold and wounded.

At the end of the hall, we turned left and walked down a wider hall until we came to a large circular room. There was more light here, created by torches and little balls of magical light. A pair of witches and a warlock stood near the back of the room, silent and grim. I stopped just past the threshold and looked around, taking in the bleak gray walls. This room was familiar, creating a cold chill in my mind. I’d been here before and it hadn’t been a pleasant place.

Simon roughly grabbed my shoulder, his thin fingers biting through the ragged cloth of my shirt to pinch muscles and nerves. “Get in there,” the warlock said. He gave me a hard shove and I fell into the shallow circular pit in the center of the room. My knees hit the hard compact dirt, sending a sharp pain down to the bone.

Placing my hands against the dirt floor, I pushed back to my feet and my eyes fell on Bryce. Oh God. Now I remembered why this place seemed so familiar. The young boy lay on his side, his breathing ragged as the air slipped between split lips in short, quick gasps. Dirt and blood crusted his face. His clothes had been taken away, revealing an all-too-thin frame covered in ugly bruises and long, festering cuts. Pain glazed his eyes, making me wonder if he was aware of where he was and that I was near him.

I backpedaled until my back slammed into the wall of the dueling pit. Turning, I looked up at Simon. My hands were on the chest-high rim, ready to climb out of the arena. I couldn’t do it. I knew why I was here and I couldn’t do it.

Simon stepped directly in front of me, blocking my escape. “This is your third and final chance to finish this. You kill him and we will move on with your training, or we will keep him alive indefinitely, locked in constant pain. Kill him or I kill you.” Placing his foot on my shoulder, the warlock shoved me backward, away from the wall and into the center of the pit.

I stumbled, but managed to stay on my feet. Swallowing back the bile in my throat, I looked down at the wounded apprentice again. Three days ago, Bryce and I had been placed in the dueling pit. We had both been learning curses used in fighting, and our mentors had decided that the best way to prove we were proficient was a duel to the death. I won the duel, but refused to kill Bryce. I had been locked in a cell, while Bryce had been beaten and tortured as they waited for me to submit to their wishes.

Shaking my head, I tried to backpedal again when I heard Bryce give a little whimper. His head moved so that he was now looking up at me. Pain cut heavy lines through his young face, sweat glistened on his brow. His lips moved, forming the words Help me but he lacked the strength to put sound to it. There was only one way to help him, to remove the pain and the fear.

My hands were trembling when I raised them, gathering together the energy I needed. I kept repeating in my head that if I did it quickly, Bryce wouldn’t feel more pain, he wouldn’t have a chance to be afraid.

“No!” Simon’s harsh voice sliced through the silence. A wave of energy swept through the room, pushing the magic I had pulled from my fingertips. I twisted around to look at my mentor in confusion. “You had your chance to kill him with magic and you threw it away. You’ll kill him with this.”

Simon reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out something that he tossed into the pit. I looked down and my stomach lurched. At my feet was a small wooden dagger. The tip was sharp, but the blade was dull. There would be no saving Bryce from pain.

Slowly, I bent down and picked it up. It was incredibly light and smooth. It didn’t feel like a weapon, but a toy I might have used when I played pirates with my brother in the backyard so many years ago. You couldn’t kill someone with a toy. It wasn’t right.

“Do it! You have until the count of three or I will kill you!” Simon shrieked, his voice cracking in his growing rage. “One!”

“Gage.” A woman’s voice gently drew my attention back to Bryce.

My head jerked up and I saw Lilith lying on the ground next to the pain-filled apprentice. She was on her side in a languorous pose with one arm curled around his head. “Send him to me, Gage. He’s in such pain. Set him free.”

“Two!”

“Set him free, Gage. Help your friend.”

“Three!”

I screamed, my voice hammering against the cold stone walls as I charged across the pit toward Bryce. The wooden blade was jerked over my head as I fell to my knees next to his prone body. All I saw were Bryce’s brown eyes widening in terror so that I was nearly drowning in them as I brought the knife down. The boy screamed in pain as the blade broke through his chest, but I had to bring all my weight down on the knife to push it through his heart.

Blood splashed over my hands and I remember thinking that it wasn’t as warm as I thought it would be. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as I watched the light fade from his wide eyes.

A cold hand cupped my cheek and I looked up to stare into the dark pools of nothing that composed Lilith’s eyes. She was smiling at me. “I’ll be coming for you soon, Gage. And you’ll set me free.”

I screamed, the sound ripped out of my throat like a banshee’s wail. Something shook me hard and I jerked upright to find myself sitting on my bed with my brother kneeling on the edge, his hands braced on my shoulders. He said something, but I didn’t hear it past the pounding in my ears. As I gasped for air to scream again, my stomach lurched.

Shoving him aside, I jumped off the bed only to get tangled in the sheets. I fell to my hands and knees, but managed to crawl the final few feet across the room to the small wastebasket before I started heaving my guts up. Bile burned its way along my throat and my lungs locked up, crying out for air. I couldn’t purge my mind of the memory, but my body could purge the contents of my stomach. Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I doubted it was because of the vomiting.

When the spasms stopped, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and fell to my side near the basket. I sucked in deep breaths, willing the shakes to stop as I lay there with my eyes closed. My skin was clammy and covered in a cold sweat, while my entire body hurt as if I had pulled every muscle.

I hadn’t had a nightmare about my time in the Towers for years, and never one about Bryce. I had suppressed that bitch of a memory until I had forgotten about it completely. I had been thirteen when Simon first took me to that damned dueling pit. Bryce looked like he was no more than ten or eleven at the time. We had never met before that day, but I could still remember that nervous smile he had flashed me before we found out what we were expected to do. I remember thinking that he seemed like an okay kid and that if I had met him at home, he would have been someone I would have ridden bikes or played wiffle ball with. Instead, I killed him.

Looking back nearly fifteen years later, I wasn’t sure what had spurred me on to kill him. I wanted to say I had been saving him from more pain and torture. Oh God, I wanted that to be the reason. But a slick and horrible voice whispered in my ear that I had killed Bryce because I had been afraid to die.

“Gage?”

I flinched at Robert’s voice despite its soft and gentle tone. The old wounds were suddenly fresh and the memory was raw in my mind. I was having trouble climbing back into the present, where I was free of Simon and the Towers.

“What time is it?” My voice was rough and hoarse as it escaped my injured throat. I lay on the floor with one arm thrown over my eyes, blocking out the world a little longer. I wasn’t ready to look at my brother when I could still see Bryce’s wide brown eyes in my mind. Even more, I didn’t want my brother to look at me.

“A little after one.”

“Could you start some coffee? I’ve got to jump in the shower before I head to the parlor.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I got it.” He didn’t move for several seconds and I think he was debating whether to ask me something, but he must have decided against it because he left my bedroom without speaking.

When I was alone again, I moved my arm from my eyes and looked around my messy bedroom. The heavy curtains were pulled over the two windows, blanketing the room in a thick darkness that was broken only by light pouring from the open door. Clean and dirty clothes were strewn everywhere along with all the other bits of flotsam accumulated in the normal course of a life. The familiar helped to push back the swell of ugly memories from the Towers and the pain dulled to a throbbing ache that sank in to become a part of my soul.

Around three in the morning, Robert and I had come back to my apartment, where we watched a movie before he crashed on the couch. I made it to my bed, where I slipped into a sleep that left me dead to the world and the trouble that was brewing.

Wincing, I shoved to my feet, but paused as my eyes caught on the bed. I rarely dreamed about the Towers and that was the first time I had ever dreamed about Lilith. Was it a nightmare brought on by the stress of Robert’s news? Maybe my mind demanding that I confront something that I refused to think about—my dwindling time until I paid my debt. Or was the nightmare a warning? Was my time almost up? Would I soon have to pay for the year that I owed magic?

Shaking my head, I grabbed a pair of clean boxers, jeans, and a T-shirt without looking at them and headed for the bathroom. Fear curled in my queasy stomach. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to leave Trixie and Bronx in the lurch if I suddenly died. If all went well, I’d be back in a year. I was afraid of facing Lilith for that year in the underworld. As keeper of all visiting souls, she was going to make my year an undead hell unless I found a way to set her free so that she could visit the land of the living on a more permanent basis.

And this world had enough to deal with. It didn’t need someone like her running around.

Stripping off my dirty boxers, I turned on the water and jumped into the shower, not giving it time to warm up. The cold water cleared away the last of the fog and got my brain working past the old memories and horrors. If Reave was threatening to bring the world to war and put my brother in the dead center of it all, I needed to be thinking clearly. The only problem was that I didn’t have a fucking clue as to what I was going to do, but I needed to figure it out fast. Preferably before the Towers learned that the puny mortals were plotting something.

As the water warmed up, I grabbed the shampoo and lathered my hair, wishing I could wash my mind clean just as easily. The bathroom door opened and I stilled for a second before ducking under the spray to rinse away the soap.

“Gage?” Trixie’s voice rose above the rush of water, pushing away the last of the tension.

Wiping the water from my eyes, I pulled the curtain back and forced a smile on my lips. “Want to join me?” I teased, but I had no interest in sex. Just the sight of her helped to ease the pain in my chest. For once, I simply wanted to hold her and let her presence chase away the last of the ghosts from my past.

She shook her head, smiling at me, but I still saw the worry in her eyes. “Not this time.” Leaning forward, she gave me a quick kiss before stepping away so that I couldn’t pull her into the shower with me.

I closed the curtain again and grabbed the soap. “Give me a minute. I’m almost finished.”

“It’s okay. I just stopped by to tell you something.”

There was a long pause and I froze in the process of spreading soap over my chest. Her voice didn’t sound like it was going to be a happy something.

“You’re here to tell me that you’re pregnant and want to run away with me so we can be broccoli farmers in Montana,” I said, trying to get her to laugh.

“Do they grow broccoli in Montana?”

“I have no idea.”

Another long pause twisted in my tender gut. I dropped the soap and jerked the curtain back again. “Are you pregnant?”

Trixie scowled at me. “No, I’m not pregnant.”

“Oh. Good.” I closed the curtain and quickly finished rinsing off. “Then what’s up?”

“The Summer Court is in Low Town.”

I turned off the water and jerked the curtain completely open. Trixie’s eyes skimmed over the entire length of my naked body before rising back to my face.

“Nice,” she murmured with a grin.

It was my turn to scowl at her. I grabbed a towel hanging opposite the shower and started to dry off. “Have you spoken to your brother?”

“Not yet.”

“Have the king’s men made another grab for you?”

“No.”

I stopped drying off and stared at her in confusion. “Then how do you know?”

Her lovely mouth twisted up into a frown. “I just … know. It’s a feeling. I can’t explain it. Summer elves know when the Court is near. This isn’t just a few of my people. Both the king and the queen are in the area.”

I nodded, wrapping the towel around my waist before stepping out of the shower. “Fine. Then we have to be careful.”

“I trust my brother. He’ll be fair about this. He’ll send word as to whether the queen will meet with us before he comes after me again.”

“All the same—”

“All the same,” she interrupted with a knowing smile. “I’m going to stay with Bronx this afternoon until my shift and then I’ll be at the parlor with you until we go on our little adventure tonight.”

“Shit! That’s tonight?” I groaned.

My nightmare had completely wiped my memory of the fact that I was scheduled to conduct a little larceny with Trixie this evening. I wanted to strangle the king of the Summer Court. He had been hounding Trixie for three centuries, trying to force her to be his consort after it was discovered that he and his wife couldn’t have children. If he made another grab for her, I was afraid that Trixie would bolt and I didn’t want to think about living without her.

“I’m going, Gage,” she warned. “I’ll agree to extra precautions, but I won’t stop living because of the bastard. So you can get that look off your face.”

“What look?” I tried for innocent, but knew she wouldn’t believe it.

“The one that says you plan to lock me in a room and guard it with a thousand trolls.”

I grinned at her. “That’s not a bad idea.”

Trixie leaned up and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “I’ll see you tonight and I’m still going.” The elf quickly slipped out of the room before I could grab her, leaving me with only the haunting scent of her floral perfume.

With a sigh, I finished getting ready and met Robert in the kitchen, where he was pouring himself a cup of coffee. He stepped out of the way as I grabbed a mug and filled it.

“Everything good?” he asked from the doorway as I took my first sip.

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh as my grumbling stomach accepted my peace offering of heat and caffeine. I’d appease it with actual food when I made my way to the parlor.

“How long have you two …?”

Robert’s voice drifted off and I smiled. I had never let myself imagine this day. I never thought I’d see him standing in the kitchen with me while we drank coffee. I never thought we’d talk again.

“I’ve known Trixie for a couple years, but we’ve been dating only a couple months.”

He grunted and took another drink of his coffee. Last night he’d told me that he was divorced and had no kids. We had learned odd facts and collected strange stories about each other’s life, but there were big gaping holes in his past that I was waiting to have filled in.

“I want you to stay in my apartment,” I said before draining the last of my coffee.

“Why?”

I walked over to the faucet and rinsed out my mug before putting it in the sink. “It’s safer. I don’t know who else knows about the information Reave’s trying to move or if anyone knows you’re involved. We need time to think and plan. No one knows we’re related, so they won’t think to look here.”

Robert frowned at me, looking as if he was ready to argue.

“Just for a few days. It won’t be bad. I’ve got cable, Internet, video games, and food in the fridge. You can spend the day eating, gaming, and watching Internet porn for all I care. Just stay here.”

“Can I at least go back to my place and get some clothes?”

“Fine. Be quick and don’t make any calls. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he grumbled, leaning against the counter across from me.

I pulled open a drawer and grabbed a spare key to my apartment. Tossing it to him, I walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. “I’ll be at Asylum until dark and then Trixie and I have to run an errand. I should be back here near midnight,” I said as I picked up my keys, wallet, and cell phone from the coffee table and shoved them into my pockets.

“Anything else, Mom?” he asked with a sneer.

“Yeah, don’t do anything stupid.”

Robert flipped me off, but he was smiling when he did it. I flashed him dual birds in return and then headed for the door. I needed to get to Asylum. I did my best thinking in the parlor.

“Hey, Gage.”

Robert’s voice stopped me as I pulled open the door. I turned to look back at him and frowned. He looked genuinely uncomfortable and for a moment I thought he was going to tell me to go on.

When he spoke, his voice was gruff and halting, as if he was afraid to speak. “That nightmare you had. Was it about when you were in the Towers?”

I quickly glanced out into the hall and was relieved to find it empty. My nosy neighbors didn’t need to know I was an ex-warlock.

“Yeah,” I said on a sigh.

“Was … was it bad there?”

My eyes fell closed for a second. Robert and I had never discussed my time in the Towers. I never discussed it with anyone. They were dark, ugly memories, for the most part filled with pain and screams and someone somewhere dying.

“Yeah, it was bad.”

“I’m sorry. When you were taken, I made all kinds of plans on how to rescue you. But I guess after about three years, I finally figured out that I couldn’t rescue you. No one could.”

I smiled weakly at my brother. He was leaning against the wall, his hands fisted at his sides as he stared at the floor, lost in the pain of an old memory. “The Towers are a bad place, but I don’t entirely regret it. If I hadn’t learned to control my powers, I could have hurt you or Meg without meaning to. I could never have lived with that.”

Robert nodded, but remained silent. I waited, not sure if he had anything else to say. I felt like we were both treading on eggshells. A sigh escaped me as I started to leave again.

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