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MALACHI STUCK HIS HEAD out of the living room when he heard Eden descending the stairs. “Hey, sis,” he said in greeting. “Step into my office for a minute, will you?” he added when he saw she was wearing workout gear rather than one of the tight dresses that was her usual garb.
“What’s going on?” Eden asked warily when she followed her half-brother into the living room and saw Sorcha sitting on the couch. “This isn’t another intervention, is it?” she added. “I haven’t seen the vampire in weeks.”
“It isn’t an intervention,” Sorcha replied. Tall and slender, she had blonde hair and silver-gray eyes. Her natural skin tone was tinged with gold, as if she spent her days sunbaking rather than sleeping like everyone else in the city.
Malachi sank down onto an armchair and slung a leg over the armrest. Like all fae beings, he was gorgeous. His hair was short, black and spiky. His eyes were pale yellow and his ears were slightly pointed from his half elven heritage. He and Eden shared the same father. Tannic had passed on his incubus talents to both of his progeny. “We’ve been testing our bonds to the Immortal Triumvirate,” he told his half-sister as she took a seat on the couch next to the sorceress.
Fear leapt into Eden’s throat at that news. “What have you two numbskulls been up to?” she demanded.
“Ever since you told us you kissed that leech, we’ve been wondering just how strong our link to our leaders is,” Sorcha said, then leaned forward to pick up her teacup to take a sip of the brew.
Eden didn’t feel like a beverage and wine didn’t appear for her. Malachi had his usual glass of soda. “What sort of experiments have you done?” she asked.
“I’ve been trying to use my undine magic,” the sorceress replied.
“The magic Lord Dallinar locked away inside you?” Eden asked in alarm. “We’re forbidden from using our fae magic!”
“Yeah, we know,” Malachi said wryly. “Wort beat that into us ever since we were four years old.” They shared grimaces of hate at the mention of the sadistic satyr who had trained them. He’d used his fists and goat-like hooves to beat them into submission until they learned the skills he’d been instructed to teach them.
“I hate Fungus,” Sorcha muttered with a shiver and rubbed her arms as if she was cold. The fire was lit and the room was warm, but the memory of their trainer’s abuse gave them all a chill they couldn’t dispel. None of them had dared use the nickname they’d given him in his presence. He would have beaten them into next week if they’d ever slipped up. His name might be spelled with an o instead of an a, but he was definitely a fungus.
“Anyway,” Malachi went on. “Sorcha and I have both tried to use the magic that we’ve been forbidden from accessing except when we’re on a mission.”
“Did it work?” Eden asked. “Can you use it?”
Sorcha held her hand out and concentrated. Her brows furrowed, then a small lump of ice formed on her palm. “That’s all I’ve been able to conjure up from my undine half so far,” she said.
Eden held her hand out and a weak flame appeared. “I’ve been trying to use my magic when I’m not on a mission, too,” she admitted.
Both women turned to Malachi to see how successful he’d been at defying their orders. He held his hand up and blew onto his palm, directing it at the fireplace. A small gust of wind whipped through the air and sparks flew wildly from the flames. “I can use air, sort of,” he said.
“None of us have been punished, so the link obviously doesn’t alert the Triumvirate that we’ve been using magic when we aren’t on a job,” Sorcha surmised. “I think we’ll be able to use more of our locked magic if we keep practicing.”
“Why bother?” Malachi asked in near despair. “Who cares if we can use our other powers? It won’t change anything. We’ll still be their slaves.”
Morose silence fell at his dour pronouncement. Eden wanted to tell them about her plan to break the bond between herself and their overlords, but she stopped herself before she could blurt it out. It would be best to keep it a secret until she’d tested it to see if her scheme would work. It would be cruel to give them false hope if she was ultimately going to fail her quest.
The siblings’ heads turned towards the doorway when they heard a letter squirming its way beneath the front door. Sorcha didn’t hear it until it entered the room. “Here we go,” the sorceress said with an eye roll, wondering which of them had been chosen for the latest assassination.
The letter fluttered over to Eden and hovered in front of her face until she took it. She tore it open to see she had yet another fae being to dispatch. “Duty calls,” she said with a heavy sigh, then climbed to her feet.
“Shifter?” Malachi asked with one eyebrow raised.
“Elf,” his half-sister replied.
“It isn’t Onvier, is it?” Sorcha asked in wan hope.
“Nope. Nox is stuck with the new Magic Guild Master, I’m afraid,” the succubus told her. Personally, Eden was glad she hadn’t been sent to eliminate Onvier. He was the second strongest magic user in Nox, after Lord Dallinar. From the way her talents had been misbehaving lately, she wasn’t sure she would be able to bamboozle an elf of his caliber.
She headed back upstairs to change into a formfitting white dress, boots and a coat, then braved the snow to trudge a few blocks from the mansion. A carriage arrived to pick her up and she felt a stab of pity for the frail driver. Icicles had formed on the skeleton’s bones and its teeth were chattering from the cold. She called out the address where she wanted to go through the window and the carriage lurched into motion.
Snow obscured the cobbled streets and the streetlamps were so infrequent that she mostly rode through darkness. Twin lanterns clung to the sides of the black vehicle, dimly lighting the way. The skeleton managed to keep the carriage on the right path as it made its way from the City Square. It took a bridge to the Fae District and pulled up a couple of streets away from her real destination that she’d kept to herself.
Eden climbed out and almost slipped on the icy sidewalk. The carriage took off and she opened her white umbrella to shield herself from the relentless snowfall. She blended in with the storm as she made her way towards her target’s home.
When she reached the opulent mansion, she could feel her mark inside. She stopped at a distance from the building to examine it. Once again, she’d been sent to eliminate a prominent member of the Magic Guild. A thought occurred to the succubus and her cheeks heated that she hadn’t come up with the idea sooner. She’d killed countless magic users over the past decade and she’d never once thought to try to get one of them to break her bond with the Immortal Triumvirate. “It’s about time I used my talents for my own good for once,” she murmured, then crossed the street and circled around to the back of the property where she wouldn’t be seen by the neighbors.
