When Maia parked in front of Cassandra’s house, I realized that, at some point, I’d crossed the line from needing more caffeine to having had too much. My stomach felt jittery, and my fingers were drumming a matching pattern on my thigh.
On the plus side, I’d gotten my reports finished and sent off, but that meant I’d had time to kill before Maia had arrived to take me to Berkeley. Which left me with plenty of time to wonder where exactly the afrit had come from, and what it would be like meeting a member of a foreign Cestis, and stew myself into a mess of nerves. I’d done another round of stretching, followed by a session on the treadmill, but it hadn’t really taken the edge off.
The drive over hadn’t helped either, the traffic over the bridge slow, leaving us sitting in the middle of the bridge for a few minutes, which I always hated, part of me braced for another quake to hit and collapse the bridge.
None of Damon’s vehicles were parked on the street, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t already here. If he wasn’t planning on returning to Riley, he would have sent Boyd home, knowing he could ride back with me.
Maia had been quiet during the drive, though I’d told her what had happened in Dockside. As my bodyguard, she needed to know what she might be coming up against. And she was a witch into the bargain. She seemed to take the news of the afrit in her stride, only asking a few quick questions before dropping the subject. Perhaps Damon—or Cassandra, even—had already briefed Mitch Angelico, Damon’s Head of Security, and he’d briefed his team in turn.
“I’m going to check the perimeter,” Maia said to me, once she’d killed the engine. “Then I’ll be out here if you need me.”
Cassandra’s house was probably the best-warded house in the entire country, but there was no point telling Maia not to do her job. I pushed the door open, exiting cautiously as I’d been trained to do.
Maia held up her hand for me to wait, her expression turning focused in the way it did when she was listening to something coming through her earpiece. I braced myself, but then she said. “Boss man is already inside. Boyd dropped him off a little while ago.”
My grin was instinctive. “Thanks. See you soon.” Maybe the fact that just knowing Damon was inside made me happy meant that I was a sap, but I’d take happy and sappy over stressed out and alone these days. It had taken me a long time to find someone who could get through the walls I’d built in childhood, thanks to my mother. At first I’d resisted, but now I liked the fact that being around him made things better.
It took me the usual amount of time to navigate the security measures guarding the Archives below Cassandra’s house, but nothing new had been added to them. Hopefully that meant her guest had arrived safely and there’d been no more fallout from last night.
I passed through the last door and walked into the long, brightly lit room. As always, the size of the Archives was a little startling. They were bigger than the house above them, with rows and rows of dark wooden bookshelves that filled about three-quarters of the room, stretching on in an impressive—or alarming—display of accrued witchy knowledge. I scanned what I could see of the shelves, then focused on the long table that dominated the open space at the front of the room. Cassandra and Lizzie sat to the right with a tall blonde I didn’t recognize. Radha Morgan and Ian Carmichael, the other two members of the US Cestis sat opposite them. Damon was standing at the far end, setting up a portable holoscreen. He saw me first, a smile breaking over his face. “Hey, Maggie.”
Everyone at the table turned in unison. The blonde woman had a narrow but beautiful face, with eyes an intensely icy shade of blue-gray. Her hair was pulled back in a slick ponytail and the pearl studs in her ears matched the creamy shade of her silk shirt. Another pearl on a slim gold chain adorned her throat. For someone who’d recently flown halfway around the world, she looked far too awake and put together.
She kind of matched Ian. He wore a pearl-gray button-down shirt, open at the throat as some concession to informality. It fit him so beautifully, it was obviously made for him. I couldn’t see the rest of his outfit due to the table but, if I had to guess, I’d say he was wearing equally elegant charcoal trousers and Italian leather shoes to go with them. His silver-streaked dark hair was tamed as always, brushed back from his face. At least Radha looked a little more relaxed, in a rust-colored linen tunic that made her blue eyes pop against her brown skin and matched the tones in her beaded earrings.
Cassandra, dressed in a sunshiny yellow shirt that brought out the gold in her eyes, stood and beckoned me forward. “Come and join us.”
When I reached the table, she gestured toward the blonde. “Maggie, this is Aubrey. Aubrey Carter. From England.”
I nodded politely. “It’s very nice to meet you, Ms. Carter.” I took a seat beside Lizzie, who flashed me a quick smile. Her hair was electric blue, which she’d paired with a vivid green shirt covered in a design of silver skulls and daggers. The kind of thing one might wear to unsettle a stuffy Brit, perhaps. I couldn’t decide if that was funny or whether I should be worried that Lizzie was wary of Aubrey.
Aubrey smiled, though it wasn’t particularly warm. “Please, just call me Aubrey.” She tipped her head to one side, studying me as though I was an interesting specimen in a museum, the gaze coolly assessing. “So you’re the famous Maggie Lachlan.”
Her tone was as cool as the gaze. Not the best start. I shook my head, telling myself not to be paranoid. “I don’t think I’m so famous.”
“Believe me, Ms. Lachlan, anyone who’s survived being bound to a demon, let alone managed to kill one, has a certain amount of notoriety in the magical community beyond the borders of the United States,” she said briskly.
That was something I didn’t really want to think about. “These days I just try my best to be boring.” I glanced around the room, then caught Cassandra’s eye. “Is anyone else joining us?” I meant Callum or Cerridwen. Or even Zee. Trick, the witch who was one of the agents employed by the Cestis full time, was off on assignment again, so that ruled him out.
“Not yet,” Cassandra said. “I thought we’d let Damon do his demonstration and then we can move on to other matters.” Meaning I just had to wait to find out if there was anything more to our visit from the afrit the night before. Hopefully not. Ugh. Coffee overload and patience didn’t mix. But I wasn’t in charge, so I had to suck it up. I sat quietly next to Lizzie and turned my attention to Damon.
Damon ran through his demonstration with ease, reeling off technical information in a way that made it easy to grasp as he went through the features. He didn’t mention the virtual monster simulator that he’d built me for training, sticking solely to the database that contained the information that had been uploaded so far. Perhaps Cassandra thought that the Brits wouldn’t approve of virtual imps. She didn’t particularly approve of them herself, but she and Damon had come to some sort of accord where he made monsters for me to fight and she didn’t interfere, as long as I stuck to fighting them with weapons, not pretend magic.
Aubrey watched the demonstration with those icy eyes and only interrupted twice, asking intelligent questions that made it obvious she had a reasonable grasp of the tech.
When Damon finally wound down, leaving the last image of the login menu hanging in the air behind him on the holoscreen, I had a few questions of my own to ask. He’d added a few tweaks I hadn’t seen before, but I decided to wait until we were alone before I asked about them. No one else would want to geek out with us about algorithms and metadata taxonomy.
“Any questions? Ms. Carter?” he asked, reaching for his datapad.
Aubrey shook her head. “No. Or, rather, yes. But I think I need to digest all of this before I ask them. Otherwise I would just be wasting your time. Thank you for this though, I know you’re a busy man.”
Damon looked pleased. His eyes found mine briefly, a quick smile curling his mouth before he focused back on Aubrey. “If you have questions at any time when I’m not available, I’m sure Maggie could explain. She’s done a lot of work on the project as well.”
Aubrey’s gaze shifted to me. “Oh, yes, you have a technology business yourself, don’t you?”
Apparently she’d been doing her research. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, though in her position, I would have done the same. I smiled politely back. “Yes. I work freelance. A troubleshooter is the easiest way to describe it.”
“A tech witch,” she said softly.
“The tech part is more lots of study and hard work, rather than magic.” She didn’t need to know that we’d decided it was likely my magic did, in some way, power my knack for finding ways to sort out systems issues that no one else could. After all, it wasn’t like we could explain to her how it did.
Aubrey twisted a ring on her right hand. A gold signet set with a dark-green stone. Not an emerald. Something more opaque. Enamel or something like jade, perhaps. Protection and wisdom and harmony. Suitable for a witch with her role.
As she turned the band, I glimpsed some sort of carving or engraving, but couldn’t make out what it might be.
“It’s good marketing. Clever.” She twisted the ring again, her expression skeptical. “You really had no idea that you had magic?”
I exchanged a quick glance with Lizzie, wondering how much Aubrey already knew about me. “No. My mother was a witch, but she told me I didn’t have any power.”
“And yet, from what we hear, you have quite a bit.”
Because my mother had lied to me and sold my magic to a demon, an act that could have killed me in the end. But that wasn’t something I wanted to discuss with a stranger, no matter who she was.
“I’m merely learning,” I countered, wondering why exactly she was so interested in me. “But I can help. As Damon said, I understand the project well.”
“Isn’t it unusual for an inexperienced witch to spend time in the Archives?” Aubrey asked. “You’re not employed by the Cestis, are you?”
“Maggie’s not employed by us, no,” Cassandra cut in. “But we are training her, since she has come to her magic late, and she has been kind enough to lend us her skills in undertaking this project. In fact, without her, we wouldn’t have met Damon. He came up with the idea. One that is proving useful.” Her tone was tight, her expression a little annoyed. My interpretation was she was probably telling Aubrey to back off.
Apparently Aubrey respected Cassandra enough to take the hint. “Of course,” she said with a small smile. “You must run things here as you see fit. I’m just interested in the differences to how we do it back home.”
Cassandra inclined her head slightly. “I understand. It’s some time since I’ve been to England, but I’ve always found my visits there to be…instructive.”
“Yes. The last time you were there I hadn’t even joined the Cestis.”
“No. Verity was still alive. I was saddened to hear that she had passed away.”
Aubrey looked down briefly, twisting the ring again. “Yes, it was a great loss to the community. But she had a life to be celebrated. She left quite the legacy.” She straightened and turned her attention back to Damon. “Thank you for the demonstration, Mr. Riley. I can see how such a thing might be very beneficial. Definitely plenty of food for thought. I hope you don’t mind if I ask for your contact details, so I can ask some of these follow-up questions?”
“Of course not.” Damon smiled politely. “Cassandra has my assistant’s number; that’s the quickest way to get to me. And please call me Damon.”
Annoyance flitted across Aubrey’s face. Had she hoped for his personal number? That seemed…optimistic at best, and rude at worst, given she seemed to know plenty about me and that had to include the fact that Damon and I were together. Hopefully the former. Which, as I said, was optimistic. He was one of the richest men on the planet. He didn’t hand out his personal details easily.
He’d told Aubrey the truth: Cat was the one who acted as the traffic controller to his schedule and who got access to him. Perhaps Aubrey thought that, because she was one of the Cestis, she would automatically earn his trust, but he hadn’t gotten to where he was by being fooled easily. He was cautious. Even more so since Jack had pulled his stunt. If he hadn’t offered Aubrey his number, that meant he hadn’t yet decided how he felt about her. Neither had I.
“Of course, thank you. And I’m Aubrey.” Aubrey turned back to Cassandra. “Will you remind me to get that from you later? I fear the jet lag is catching up with me. Perhaps we should move on to the next topic?”
There was another topic? Had I forgotten that, too? Or had Aubrey sprung it on Cassandra? I shifted in my chair, suddenly uneasy.
Cassandra nodded. No one else moved, which made me feel like somehow I’d not been given an agenda and everyone else had. “Of course. And yes, why don’t you go ahead and explain your proposal.”
“While I am here, I hope to pay my respects to the Elders. Now that they’ve reestablished a door here, it is only polite,” Aubrey said, as though talking to the Elders, aka the oldest and most powerful Fae, was no big deal.
Lizzie stiffened beside me. I resisted the urge to look at her. If I looked, I’d blurt out some dumb question and break some rule I didn’t know existed. I knew nothing about the protocol for a meeting of Cestis and a Fae council. I’d barely scratched the surface of the protocol just for dealing with Cerridwen. And she was friendly. Was this usual? Certainly the Cestis here had reacted with caution when the Fae had returned, not eager for the Fae to interact with anyone they didn’t have to. Of course, it could be different in England.
Cassandra held her hands out, palms up. “As I’ve already told you, I can make a request, but I can’t offer any guarantees. They are still settling back in here and keep mostly to themselves.”
Which none of us were sad about.
Cassandra glanced around the table. “But I will make the request.” Either she’d already discussed it with the others—though I wasn’t sure why Lizzie would be surprised if she had—or she was telling them there was nothing to talk about. Radha and Ian were paying attention, but they didn’t look alarmed.
Aubrey smiled. “Yes, I imagine they are. You needn’t fear I’m going to do anything to upset them. Dealing with the Elders falls under my responsibilities back home.”
She said it so casually, I couldn’t help a little squeak of surprise. I found the realm an uncomfortable place and so did Pinky and Lizzie. Cassandra hadn’t expressed an opinion, but she preferred to remain on our side of the door whenever possible. “You work with the Fae regularly?” I asked, unable to help myself, even though this conversation wasn’t really any of my business.
Aubrey looked startled at the question. “I deal with the Elders, yes.” She frowned at me. “You speak freely of them here?”
“We have had some dealings with them since the door was restored,” Cassandra said. “They do not mind the use of Fae, if it is spoken with respect. And their secrets are maintained, of course.”
“I see,” Aubrey said.
Apparently things were more formal in England. When I’d first learned about the Fae, Cassandra had called them the Elders, too, and cautioned me about using other words for them. But since working with Cerridwen and Callum so closely, we’d all become a little more relaxed about saying the word “Fae” among ourselves. “Fairy” was still taboo, though. They didn’t like that one.
“What does 'dealing with them' involve?” I asked.
“I'm our liaison with the realm,” Aubrey said calmly. “So whatever comes up, really.”
How often did things come up? Dammit. Why hadn’t I asked Zee more about his time in the United Kingdom? He’d dealt with the Fae on occasion and spent time with the tanai fol over there. Had he met the Cestis as well? But if that was the case, why wouldn’t Cassandra have asked him to be here? Was he still mopping up after last night? Or did he just have a more mundane reason like practice with his gaming team. I tried to remember what was the next big competition that Trueno Diablo were competing in, and drew a blank. Which made me guiltily aware that I hadn’t spent as much social time with Lizzie—and Zee—recently as I should.
“I will be talking to the Lady Cerridwen soon,” Cassandra said. “I’ll ask then. It may take a little while to arrange, if they agree.”
Aubrey nodded. “I expected as much. I can wait. I’m not in any particular hurry.”
Cassandra raised an eyebrow. “You’re not eager to return home?”
Was she keen for Aubrey’s visit to be a brief one?
“We have planned for me to be out of the country for several weeks, at least,” Aubrey said, with a smile. “Given that it’s rare for any of us to travel to this part of the world these days, I took the opportunity to have some time to play tourist, alongside my official duties.
“That makes sense,” Cassandra said. “So. I will talk to the Lady, and we will see what she and the others have to say.” She rubbed her hands together and rose from her chair. Apparently the formal part of the meeting was over. “Well, perhaps we should all just get on with it. Aubrey, please feel free to explore the collection, and we can discuss anything you’re interested in later on. I’ll show you the basic layout.”
Did the Cestis share resources? The collection in the Archive was full of mostly old books and scrolls and ledgers. Some were even handwritten. One of a kind. Irreplaceable. Or, they would have been until Damon had suggested digitizing the records. Most were simply too valuable to risk transporting between countries by any method other than being taken individually by a witch and, even then, I doubted some of them would stand up to the travel. We’d come across several that were becoming very fragile and had consulted with a few museum conservators on how we might best approach scanning them. Luckily, there were museum conservators with magic, who understood the precise nature of the problem. Cassandra limited access to the Archives, but she was in touch with the other Cestis. So maybe, if there was a need for more information than could be summarized in an email or vidcall, coming in person was the only way.
Aubrey and Cassandra headed toward the long rows of bookshelves, speaking softly.
I rose and went round to Damon, kissing him hello quickly. He dismissed the holoscreen and was packing his datapad into his backpack.
“Hey, you,” he said. “Good day?”
“I finished my reports. So that was good. The rest of it remains to be seen.” I tilted my head back toward Cassandra. “Has she said anything?”
He shook his head. “Ms. Carter was already here when I arrived. Cassandra introduced us but that was about it.”
That made sense. Cassandra didn’t know how much I’d told him and she probably didn’t want Aubrey to find out about the afrit. And if she hadn’t brought it up, then damned if I would be the one to let the cat out of the bag.
Before I could say anything else, Lizzie, still sitting next to Ian, burst into laughter, pulling my attention back. Ian was pulling a mock annoyed face at Lizzie, but then he waved her away with an affectionate grin and focused back on his datapad as though he had work to do. Lizzie left him to it and came over to us.
“Hey,” she said. “How are you feeling today?” She studied me a moment, and I wondered what she was seeing in my energy field.
“Tired,” I admitted, “And, right now, over-caffeinated.” I lowered my voice in case Cassandra heard. “But don’t tell Cassandra. She’ll make me drink something terrible to counteract the effects.”
Lizzie made a little zipping motion across her lips. “Your secret’s safe with me. Today is so one of those days.”
“What time did you get home?”
“A little after three. Luckily, I wasn’t working today, so I slept in.”
I glanced cautiously over at Cassandra and Aubrey. “And everything was okay?”
Lizzie followed the direction of my gaze and nodded. “Yes, everything is icy. We’ll tell you more about it later.”
I’d half expected that, but it was still frustrating. But at least it confirmed my instinct that the Cestis were reluctant to discuss everything in front of Aubrey. “Sure. But even the… complication?” I asked delicately, miming the shape of a hat over my head.
Lizzie’s expression lightened. “Yeah, even him. He woke up fine, and Callum managed to convince him that he’d just been having a bad trip.”
Had that involved some Fae persuasion? Not one that the Cestis objected to, if it had. “Well, that’s a relief.”
“Yes. But also, can I just say, Callum’s kind of intimidating? That much power. It’s so effortless for him.”
Good to know it wasn’t only me who found Fae magic scary. Beanie Dude had been out for the count. If Callum had been called away or killed, anything could have happened to him.
But that was one of those things we weren’t going to discuss in front of Aubrey. I for one, wouldn’t be spilling any secrets until I decided if I trusted her. “I thought Zee might be here.”
“He had to do some team stuff.” Lizzie dropped her voice. “At least, that’s what he said.”
“Does he know Aubrey? From when he worked in England?” Damon asked.
Lizzie grimaced. “I think so. He didn’t seem that happy about her coming here. But he doesn’t talk much about what happened over there.”
Zee had been working undercover for the US Cestis. Things had gotten…complicated. I wasn’t in on the details, but some of it must have been bad because he’d been called home and hadn’t done another serious undercover job for the Cestis since.
Would he tell me anything more about it if I asked? If I pitched it as wanting to figure out how far we could trust Aubrey? It seemed ridiculous that I’d known the woman for a whole half an hour and felt so wary. But she seemed wary of me, so perhaps my instincts were merely repaying the favor.
Before I could ask Lizzie more, Cassandra headed in our direction, stopping to say something to Ian I didn’t quite catch. Aubrey was still studying the contents of the shelves, seemingly engrossed.
“Maggie, now that we’ve dealt with the formalities, perhaps you and I should go back upstairs, and you can have a lesson. Ian can keep Aubrey company. Damon, do you mind if I steal Maggie for a while or do the two of you have to get back to the city?”
“No,” he said. “I can wait, no problem. We have an update to the cataloging program I can run, anyway.”
“Great. Thank you. I promise I won’t keep her too long. Come on, Maggie. You, too, Lizzie.”
“Have fun,” Damon said, raising an eyebrow at me. “Bring me back a cookie.”
Cassandra snorted. “No cookies down here. But I’ll pack some for you to take home.”