A faint hum of sorcerer magic prickled up my bare arms. I flipped over the back of the couch, grimoire still in hand, and peered through the front window. Despite the fact that the sun was out, the February air was still cold enough that the front section of the skirted patio was covered by the skiff of snow that had fallen overnight. Tires crunched on the gravel driveway, drawing my attention past the red-roofed barn. A black luxury SUV was slowly rolling toward the house, the driver having left the gate to the main road hanging open behind them.
Not locals, then.
That was ignorant, even rude. Especially in a rural area. Even I knew that, and I’d been raised to be a sociopath, confined for the first two decades of my life to a militarized magical compound.
The hum of sorcerer magic had made me think of Aiden, made me hope he’d returned unexpectedly. Just as I had each time one of his packages had been delivered since he left five months ago. At least I had finally learned to recognize the sound of the grocery delivery truck, so that I’d stopped springing hopefully to my feet every Tuesday afternoon. That had only taken a month.
But unfortunately, though the two figures occupying the front seat of the SUV both appeared to have dark hair, their obvious hesitation over where to park made it clear I was about to be forced to interact with strangers.
Magically inclined strangers. Which was far more annoying than the occasional mundane who dropped by to ask a question about the farm stand or to introduce themselves. We’d been living in Lake Cowichan for over a year, but we were still considered newcomers.
I glanced over at the barn. The double front doors were closed, my Mustang safely sealed within. Since the temperature had started dropping to below freezing at night a few days earlier, Christopher had kept the barn closed up, concerned about the chicken eggs he was trying to hatch within.
In the thin layer of snow, I could clearly see two sets of prints leading from the back of the house around to the back of the barn. And for some reason, the evidence of Christopher and Paisley’s passing made me feel vulnerable. As did the fact that I’d felt the sorcerers’ magic from all the way down the drive.
The house was set near the center of our two-hectare property, slightly closer to the main road at the north edge than the forested section that bordered the lake to the south. I picked up the tenor of magic from most Adepts easily — since I had to be able to feel magic in order to amplify or drain it. But distance, as well as the steel exterior of the SUV, should have dampened my range. That indicated that the uninvited visitors were powerful.
Still, if they’d come with ill intent, Christopher would have already seen it. The clairvoyant was almost impossible to block, especially since the number of Adepts who actually knew what sort of magic either of us wielded was an exceedingly short list.
I caught a glimpse of BC license plates as the SUV pulled up, parking with its driver’s-side door directly in line with the front path to the house. I stepped back from the window, grabbing my light-gray cardigan from the arm of the chair as I crossed into the front hall.
I shoved my disconcertion away as I tugged the lightly felted cashmere sleeves over my arms, then secured the top two buttons. I was more than a match for two sorcerers, even with my blades tucked away upstairs under my bed.
I paused, tugging my cotton socks off as I caught sight of the driver through the windowed front door. He’d paused to scan the property as he exited the SUV. The socks would be slippery on the varnished fir flooring if I had to move swiftly. I’d given in to the weather and opted for leggings under my calf-length dress. This far from the fire that Christopher kept constantly stoked, the wood floor was cool under my bare feet.
The first sorcerer looked achingly familiar, even in profile. Dark-navy suit, white dress shirt, no tie. Dark hair, medium-brown skin, just shy of six feet tall.
I tossed my rolled socks into the empty umbrella stand that Christopher had liberated from the attic and set in the corner by the front door, just in case we had any visitors during the rainy season. There hadn’t been any snow all winter so far, and according to the locals at the diner, the skiff we’d received the previous night was considered late in the season. And more was on its way.
Weather was a big deal in Canada, or at least in this tiny section of it. Christopher had taken the new cows we’d been free-ranging since the fall — an adult and two of her calves — over to the Wilsons’ farm so they could be indoors if the predicted snowstorm hit. Thankfully Paisley, who considered the cows her property, was preoccupied with the chicks that would be hatching imminently, so her protest over this temporary arrangement was short-lived.
I brushed away the feeling that I knew the sorcerer as I caught sight of his companion. Her long dark hair caught in a breeze that also stirred the winter-bare rose bushes lining the driveway. Her layered navy silk dress flared around her, revealing long legs and deeply golden-tanned skin.
She shivered, rubbing her arms and casting a disdainful gaze over the house. She wore dozens of multicolored bangles on each arm, and several different lengths and thicknesses of necklaces. Though I wasn’t sensitive to such magic, I didn’t doubt that the precious metal and gems of her jewelry thrummed with stored power.
The male sorcerer turned his attention to the front patio. I waited, tucked far enough down the hall that he wouldn’t catch sight of me until he climbed the stairs. Though I had no idea of his own magical sensitivity, of course. And my magic wasn’t something easily hidden away in pretty trinkets.
The female sorcerer said something to the driver, and he shook his head sharply. I couldn’t immediately catch the words through the single-paned glass. Then I realized they weren’t speaking English. Arabic, maybe?
The female’s tone turned argumentative but the male ignored her, climbing the stairs to the front patio.
I stepped up to the door. The sorcerer on the other side of the glass paused, hand raised to knock, locking his dark eyes to me through the window. His expression shifted, becoming speculative. Then he smiled tightly.
Though his skin was a shade or two darker, nose narrower, jaw slightly rounder, and his eyes were brown instead of blue — he looked like an older version of Aiden. A sorcerer of the Azar line was on my doorstep. Literally.
Which could have meant anything. Including that he was an emissary of the Collective.
The woman stepped up behind him, halting just out of arm’s reach. She narrowed her dark-brown eyes at me, then curled her lip into a sneer. Add her high cheekbones and slim figure together with her silky hair and long legs, and it seemed likely she would have been considered striking. Beautiful.
But I didn’t like the tenor of her sorcerer magic. Even through the wood and glass that stood between us. There was something off about it, discordant. Standing next to the Azar sorcerer, the distinction between her power and his was obvious. His magic, similar to Aiden’s, was a deep, cool well of energy. Her magic was edged with a chaotic hum that instantly irritated me.
The sorcerer dropped his hand instead of knocking.
I opened the door. It wasn’t locked.
Both of their gazes flicked to the hallway behind me, instantly assessing every section of the house that they could see. Then they both turned their eyes on me. She sniffed and slouched a little, as if bored and annoyed at the same time. His dark eyes lingered on my bare toes. Then, smiling tightly again, he met my gaze.
“Isa Azar,” he said, holding out his hand. “Scion of the Azar cabal.”
He pronounced his first name ‘Ee-saa.’ His vaguely European accent was smooth, cultured, lyrical. And by the title, he was likely Kader Azar’s firstborn son. Aiden’s eldest brother.
I didn’t shake his hand. “Cabal?”
His smile broadened, revealing the edge of his straight white teeth. He waved a hand dismissively. “Family, if you will. Western media has certainly … colored the connotation.”
“The connotation of a secret society?”
His brow creased as he frowned slightly. Then he smoothed his expression, gesturing formally toward the female sorcerer. “Ruwa. Sorcerer of the Azar … cabal.”
I shifted my gaze to the woman, noting that Isa Azar didn’t deem her surname important enough to add it to his introduction. I had no idea if that was usual for sorcerers or not, but witches placed a high value on their family names.
Ruwa settled her bored gaze on me expectantly. She was taller than me in her weather-inappropriate heeled sandals. The silence stretched between us. Then she laughed haughtily, gesturing toward me. “Please. She doesn’t even know to introduce herself.” Her accent was blurred, layered as if she’d learned English while living in France.
Paris, perhaps? Where Aiden maintained a residence. Oddly, my stomach soured at that thought. So I ignored it.
The woman sniffed. “And living here … in this farm … house … how could you even think that your brother would lower —”
“Enough,” Isa Azar said without heat, and without looking at her.
She flinched, her dark eyes snapping to the other sorcerer. A red sheen flared across her pupils, but was gone the moment I spotted it. The crimson hue must have been the product of a shift in the angle of the light. Perhaps the low sunlight reflecting off the snow that currently skim-coated the patio and yard. But the image still sent goosebumps prickling up my forearms.
“We’re the ones trespassing without an invitation.” Isa Azar smiled at me, though he was addressing Ruwa. “I’m looking for my brother Aiden, and my quest has led me to your doorstep.”
“However inexplicable that might be,” Ruwa muttered, more than loud enough for me to hear even if I hadn’t possessed heightened auditory perception.
Isa’s shoulders stiffened, but he continued to ignore his sullen companion. “Might I ask if Aiden is here? And if not, when it was that you last heard from him?”
Ruwa huffed. “I can tell you Aiden isn’t here. I know the tenor of his magic … intimately.” She voiced the last word in a purr filled with malice. But I wasn’t certain whether it was intended for me or for her companion.
She was correct, though. Aiden wasn’t at the house. I had received a letter from him the previous day and had been about to sit down with a cup of tea to write a reply. But I wasn’t interested in answering any questions about Aiden from anyone. Not even his own brother.
I did, however, have a few of my own to ask.
And since I wasn’t a telepath, I was going to have to play somewhat nice to get the answers I needed — the kind of answers that would let me know whether or not Isa Azar would be leaving the property alive.
“Emma Johnson,” I said, not offering my hand. “We’re letting cold air into the house.”
Isa Azar’s smile grew. “Indeed we are.”
“I was just going to put on the kettle. Would you like to join me for tea?”
“That would be most welcome. Thank you.”
Ruwa snorted derisively.
Isa glanced at her briefly. She lifted her chin, but her gaze was cast away from him in a way that seemed oddly posed. As if she expected to be admired, perhaps. “You may wait in the car.”
“Excuse me?” Ruwa’s pose crumbled under a flash of anger.
“Wait in the car.” Isa’s tone was edged with magic. But it might have been emotionally triggered rather than intentionally voiced.
Ruwa jerked, taking a sideways step as if moving against her will. Then she pivoted, walking stiffly down the stairs, through the snow, and back to the SUV. The many layers of her navy silk dress billowed behind her — though the direction of the natural breeze was coming east to west, not from the north.
She moved as if bound to Isa Azar’s will.
I settled my gaze on Aiden’s brother, allowing a slow smile to spread across my face. I now knew almost everything I needed to know about the sorcerer standing on my threshold.
His gaze didn’t waver from me, but his expression became hooded, shuttered.
“Are you the brother that Aiden tried to kill?” I asked, still smiling.
Isa Azar stiffened. But then he visibly relaxed his shoulders. His keen gaze softened, becoming thoughtful as he swept his dark eyes over me once more, lighter shards of brown flecking the deep brown of his irises.
He scanned me, head to bare toes and back up again. Then he chuckled quietly, pleased by his visual assessment. His smooth, cultured tone warmed. “I see.”
I stiffened, bothered by the sorcerer’s reaction. I wasn’t interested in amusing him.
“It’s temporary,” he said pleasantly.
“What? Murder? Not in my experience.”
A frown flitted across his face, quickly drowned under a widening of his smile. “The binding on Ruwa. It upset you.”
I laughed involuntarily. “It told me who you were.”
“A brother that Aiden would deem weak enough to try to usurp.”
“No,” I said coolly, lying. “I knew you were magically outclassed by your brother the moment you set foot on the property.”
His easy smile tightened, taking on a nasty edge.
Finally.
It usually didn’t take me quite so long to irritate someone.
Then he shook his head, laughing quietly again. “Perhaps your senses aren’t as refined as you think, amplifier.”
Amplifier. So the sorcerer could sense magic, no matter how tightly bound I kept my power. Or he’d known who I was before showing up at my door. “I’m not yours to test, sorcerer Azar.”
He sobered, then simply looked at me.
I stood still under his gaze, not even remotely interested in being goaded into the magical display he seemed keen to provoke.
“Yes,” he finally said. “Aiden did try to usurp my place within the Azar cabal. He was unsuccessful because he refused to kill me after rendering me unconscious.”
I must have betrayed some surprise, because Isa’s grin returned. He held his hands out slightly to the sides. “I could argue that I was blindsided. Attacked at a moment of … intimacy. Betrayed, and possibly drugged, by a lover I was unaware I shared with my youngest brother.” His smile broadened. “For some reason, women seem to find beauty more beguiling than position.” He settled back on his heels, making a show of looking off toward the garden at the east side of the house. “But those are just excuses. And also the reason that Ruwa is temporarily bound to me.”
“You’re worried about her betraying you?”
“Her presence here was intended to be a gesture of good faith between brothers. It’s time for Aiden to return to the Azar cabal. Ruwa’s presence will make him more receptive to that idea.”
“Because she’s the lover you once shared? Does he think her dead? Killed because she helped him?”
Isa Azar stared at me, visibly shocked. Then he wet his lips and whispered, “Tell me that you just put that together now. That you have the mind that matches the …” He shook his head as if struggling to articulate his thoughts. But it felt like a false gesture, similar to Ruwa’s carefully crafted poses. “Your beauty … your power …”
“Aiden mentioned it,” I said, lying.
The sorcerer hummed in the back of his throat doubtfully. “Yes. Ruwa is the lover we once shared. A child of one of my father’s … wives, but not blood related. To either of us.”
“Bound to you for her transgression.”
“Would you rather I’d killed her? After she’d already been abandoned by my brother?”
“Maybe she’d rather be dead.”
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Would you?”
I didn’t answer.
“This is a strange conversation to have on a front patio in the snow, amplifier.”
“It is.”
“Invite me to sit by the fire. I swear I will be a model guest, neither inflicting or allowing harm to befall you and yours as long as I’m welcomed in your home.”
Magic shifted between us. I brushed it away, making a show of doing so even though I didn’t actually need to move to deny the power backing Isa’s words, his vow. “You don’t want to be bound to me. Ties like that, you take to your grave.”
He chuckled. “Am I dying of old age in this scenario or …?”
I turned my back to him, crossing down the hall toward the kitchen. “As I said before, it’s teatime.”
Isa Azar stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind him.
Idiot.
Without accepting his vow, nothing stopped me from inflicting harm on him either — bodily or otherwise. Except for the laws of hospitality, of course. But I really wasn’t the kind of Adept that followed traditions blindly.
Most of the time, I didn’t even know such niceties existed. I had played the warrior far more often than I had the host.
Isa Azar meandered through the house behind me, taking long enough that I had the kettle on the stove and the loose-leaf tea measured into the strainer before he stepped into the kitchen. He paused as the fir flooring gave way to white porcelain tile, casting his gaze around. The kitchen, with its glassed upper cabinets, speckled quartz counters, stainless steel appliances, and large kitchen island, didn’t match the rest of the house.
Isa was holding one of the leather-bound spellbooks that I’d had out on the coffee table in the front sitting room. Typical sorcerer. Touching things that didn’t belong to him.
I was using the spellbook as a reference in my attempt to decipher the final few runes of a grimoire I’d been working on translating for just over a year. A text concerning the construction and casting of magical transference and binding spells. An area of study that I’d been focused on for the previous two years. Though the power of amplification was embedded into my DNA, I couldn’t cast the spells contained within the grimoire, not even after I translated them.
I could, however, try to thwart others from using such spells against me.
I moved around the kitchen, pulling out stoneware mugs and matching side plates from the upper cabinets, as well as a slightly larger plate for cookies. I arranged the dishes next to the teapot on the far end of the kitchen island.
Isa Azar crossed through to the French-paned doors that looked out at the back of the property, one hand shoved deeply in the pocket of his pants, bunching up the side of his suit jacket. He held the pilfered spellbook loosely at his other side. “Will the two others I can feel on the property be joining us for tea?”
“One of them, perhaps.” I wasn’t surprised that a sorcerer of the Azar line could feel Christopher’s and Paisley’s magic even though neither of them was in the house. “The snow, this cold snap, is late for this region, and my brother is concerned about the eggs he’s incubating.”
“Ah … I didn’t think you were the gardener.” He turned from the view, wandering over to stand at the end of the island.
I neatly arranged eight ginger snaps, perfectly spaced on the larger plate. Then, just so the sorcerer wouldn’t read anything into that action, I haphazardly added three more on top.
“Shall we sit by the fire?” he asked, watching my hands. “I added a couple of logs.”
“If you like.” I retrieved a teak tray that I’d purchased from Hannah Stewart’s thrift shop, setting the tea fixings on it.
He held up the spellbook. “This translation is inferior.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I have a copy I’ll have sent to you. The original was written by my grandfather on my mother’s side. I had thought my father had gathered all known copies, but here you have one.”
“My lawyer sourced it for me, upon request.”
He laughed quietly. “A witch, I presume?”
“Most Adept lawyers are of the witch persuasion.”
“That they are. And certainly not at all intimidated by a sorcerer’s demand for the return of a magical text from their collection.” He casually flipped through the hand-inked book, revealing page after page of cramped writing, English intermingled with runes. “The law firm likely inherited it from an unclaimed estate. Though technically there is no time-sensitive legal transference of ownership when it comes to Adepts. The line between life and death isn’t always clearly defined when magic is involved.”
I wasn’t sure why the ownership of an inferior spellbook mattered to the sorcerer. But I also wasn’t interested in continuing the inane conversation. “It’s on loan, not a gift.”
Isa set the book down on the counter.
The kettle boiled. I removed it from the burner, turned off the gas, and poured the steaming water through the strainer set into the teapot.
He leaned across the island, inhaling deeply. “A darjeeling?”
He was close enough that I could have touched him with little effort, without him even seeing me move. The sorcerer was testing me, perhaps even daring me. Though that would have implied that he knew I was more than simply an amplifier, and I wasn’t certain he had access to that information yet. “Castleton,” I said. “First flush.”
“I’m delighted you would share it with me.”
“It seemed appropriate. It was a gift from your brother.”
I placed the lid on the teapot and set the timer on the stove for three minutes. The delicate leaves — the first harvest of a season — shouldn’t be oversteeped, though the tea could be steeped multiple times. I met the sorcerer’s intense gaze.
“You’re interested in binding spells?” he asked casually, touching the leather-bound spellbook on the counter lightly.
“They intersect with something that interests me.”
He hummed in the back of his throat. Again. “A conversation to take to Ruwa, perhaps.”
“Binding spells are her area of mastery?”
He laughed quietly. “Well, you had already sorted that out for yourself.”
I hadn’t. Not definitively. But he was clearly inferring that Ruwa had not only accepted being bound to him, but had also cast the binding herself. “The sorcerer who authored that spellbook, your maternal grandfather, is also Ruwa’s grandfather?”
His smile widened. “Don’t worry. Her mother was adopted. It’s all written down so no Azar sorcerer accidentally procreates with a near-blood relation.”
I frowned. The Azar genetic lineage was none of my concern, and I had no idea why Isa would think it should be.
“I am no longer surprised that Aiden somehow found his way to you, amplifier,” the sorcerer said. “Despite the incongruity of the remote location and the proximity of the witch coven in Vancouver. You are more than just your magic.”
“You weren’t surprised in the first place, Isa Azar.”
He laughed involuntarily. But he was still oddly pleased in a way that made me distinctly uncomfortable, as if I were missing a veiled context underlying our seemingly neutral topic of conversation.
Silence stretched between us until the timer went off. I took the tea strainer out of the teapot, placing the pot on the tray along with the mugs, plates, and cookies. The sorcerer set the book next to it, picked the tray up, and crossed back through the house toward the front sitting area.
Magic shifted across one of the four blood tattoos on my upper spine — the T3 vertebra to be specific — where Christopher’s magic was bound to me, tied to my magic. The blood tattoos were just one of the reasons I was studying magical transference and binding spells. But not to try to remove the connection. Even the mere idea of cutting Christopher’s magic from my skin, from my nervous system, made me feel as though I were contemplating suicide.
I was many things, including an amplifier and a killer. But ultimately, I was selfish. Self-centered. I would never voluntarily sacrifice the existence I’d forged through so much bloodshed. No matter how tattered my soul was.
I took three linen napkins from the drawer, the ones with the blue lace that Hannah Stewart had sold me, then glanced up as Christopher stepped through the door to the laundry room. A mudroom, the real estate agent had called it when she’d shown me the house, and it was still fulfilling that function as well, as the place we stored all our inclement-weather gear. Christopher was barefoot as always, though the drop in temperature and the snow that followed had finally forced the clairvoyant into the rubber boots I’d bought him for gardening, with the addition of wool liners.
He was in the process of tugging on a charcoal knit sweater that he’d grabbed from the drying rack, pinning light-gray eyes rimmed with his magic to me once he got it over his white-blond head. “The sorcerer?” he asked, sounding amused. Though whether he was reacting to the present or to the near future playing out in his mind, I had no idea.
“In the front sitting room.”
He cast a gaze across the empty counter of the kitchen island. “You let him abscond with your tea?”
“Paisley?”
“Stalking the sorcerer waiting in the car.”
“Did you say hello?”
He shook his head, grimacing. “She’s something pretty to look at. But her magic is …”
“Chaotic?”
“Tainted.”
That was interesting. Perhaps the clairvoyant was picking up the bond that Isa Azar held over Ruwa? Or perhaps the forced combination of their magic created the discord I’d felt when in her presence? Magical bonds usually worked the other way, though — uniting, creating a flow between wielders. As did the blood tattoos that tied together the Five. In fact, the more research I did, the more I was becoming convinced that the Five were so tightly bound that the death of one of us might possibly mean the death of all of us.
I headed into the dining room, which exited into the sitting room at the front of the house. I let my gaze linger on the single teacup that sat in the china cabinet — the only piece of furniture in the room, inherited from the house’s previous owners. The teal china teacup with its black rose pattern, also sourced from Hannah Stewart’s shop, had been a birthday gift from Christopher last fall. I had never spoken out loud of my unusual desire to own the piece of Royal Albert china, but maintaining any sort of secrets when living with a clairvoyant was near impossible. Especially for someone blood-tied to his sight.
Christopher closed the space between us, lightly brushing his shoulder against mine. The magic of the tattoo that tied us together shifted.
I slowed my pace, glancing at the clairvoyant. A brighter flare of white momentarily obscured his already-pale eyes, then dispersed.
He shook his head, indicating that whatever his magic was showing him of my immediate future, it wasn’t anything I needed to know about ahead of time. So it was unlikely that Isa Azar was going to try to murder me in the next ten to thirty minutes.
That was disappointing.
Being Emma Johnson was much more peaceful than being Amp5 — though sometimes maybe it was just a little too peaceful. I brushed away the irrational and ill-conceived notion, likely born out of boredom. Emma Johnson murdered far fewer people, and got far fewer friends hurt, than Amp5 ever had. Emma Johnson actually had friends. Burgeoning friendships, at least. And one relationship that might possibly be more than simply friendly. So not murdering Aiden’s brother was a good idea for a multitude of reasons.
Christopher laughed quietly, as if he could read my thoughts. He couldn’t. Not without Bee, aka Tel5, to connect us telepathically. But he knew me, better than anyone.
Of course, it was always possible that the clairvoyant would allow whatever he had glimpsed of the future to play out just because it would amuse him. So all I really knew for certain was that if the sorcerers had come to harm me or Christopher or Paisley, they wouldn’t be successful.
And I didn’t need confirmation from the clairvoyant to know that Isa Azar would be attempting to manipulate me in some other fashion. I had known that from the moment he stepped onto the property, heavily resembling the man I was in the process of building a relationship with. Resembling his father as well, Kader Azar — a sorcerer who had founded the Collective and been instrumental in the plan to breed me, manipulating my genetics and turning me into a magically honed killer. A sociopath, really. On the days I didn’t fight that tendency.
Isa Azar was standing near the fire but gazing out through the front window, hand thrust deeply in his pants pocket again. His head was tilted just enough that his dark hair fell across his brow. Posed. Waiting to be seen.
But he was simply a shadow of the man I wanted standing in my front sitting room. And that rendered him powerless, no matter what game he was playing. Though it was becoming fairly clear that Aiden was his target, not me.
“Sorcerer,” Christopher said, crossing around the couch toward the coffee table and the teapot.
Isa Azar turned, already smiling and raising his hand toward the clairvoyant. But he faltered as he laid eyes on Christopher, leaving his arm hanging awkwardly in midair.
Christopher grinned, ignoring the stifled attempt to shake hands as he stooped down and snagged a ginger snap from the plate next to the teapot. “Shall I pour?”
“Yes, please.” I settled down on the far side of the couch facing the windows, away from the fire.
Isa Azar dropped his hand and rearranged his expression, smoothing it and leaving a smile in place — though that smile no longer crinkled the edges of his eyes. I was having a hard time reading him. I wasn’t particularly skilled at parsing human behavior in general, but the sorcerer’s intentions seemed to shift from moment to moment. It was obvious that even though he’d picked up Christopher’s magic from afar, Isa hadn’t known he was a clairvoyant.
“Isa Azar,” the sorcerer said. “Aiden’s brother.”
“Kader Azar’s eldest son.” Christopher knelt to pour the tea into the mugs.
The sorcerer glanced over at me, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully.
“But you aren’t here to discuss your father.” The clairvoyant tipped a splash of milk into the first mug, then handed it to me.
“No,” Isa Azar said. “I’m not. I wasn’t even aware that you’d met him.”
“I haven’t,” Christopher said, pouring a second mug. “Milk? Sugar?”
The clairvoyant hadn’t been on the rooftop in Los Angeles when we had rescued the sorcerer Azar from a pack of rogue shapeshifters. Shapeshifters who’d been aligned with the black witch, Silver Pine. So technically, he hadn’t met that one architect of the Collective, of the Five.
“Normally both.” Isa glanced at me again. “But with a first-flush Darjeeling? Perhaps just a splash a milk?”
Christopher nodded, laughing quietly — presumably at something only he could see in his mind’s eye. He added the milk, passing the mug of tea to the sorcerer.
Isa Azar leaned forward, careful to touch only the stoneware mug as he took the tea from the clairvoyant. Interestingly, Aiden had never avoided contact with either of us. Isa’s determination to do so might just have been polite. Or the sorcerer could have been hiding something.
I caught sight of a thick platinum necklace at the edge of Isa’s unbuttoned shirt collar as he straightened. It was strung through with rings of various metals. I glanced at the sorcerer’s hands as he turned the mug so the handle faced left. He already wore rune-carved rings on each of his fingers.
The bands strung on the chain could have been extras. Replacements, in case the rings he currently wore were drained and he didn’t have the time to renew their spells.
Or they weren’t his.
Silver Pine had stripped Aiden of any and all magic he carried before dumping him on the side of the highway leading into town. He’d had tan lines on all eight of his fingers. The witch had returned one of those rune-marked bands, taunting Aiden with it.
I laughed quietly, knowing with that simple glimpse, that simple assessment, why Isa Azar had knocked on my door looking for his brother. I had no doubt that the seven rings currently hanging around his neck belonged to Aiden. A gift from Silver Pine.
Christopher settled his gaze on me, his own grin widening, becoming edged with anticipation. His magic had settled into a thin, bright ring around each iris. He’d already seen what was about to happen, which was why he’d mentioned Kader Azar. Though I would have likely made the connection anyway.
I waited until Isa placed two of the ginger snaps on a plate and settled on the couch across from me, with the mug of tea in one hand and the plate balanced on his knee. Christopher moved a chair into place between me and the entertainment center that held the TV and all his video games. He dropped his gaze to the mug of heavily sugared tea in his hands.
“Does your father know?” I asked, taking a sip of my tea. It was still slightly too hot for me to thoroughly enjoy.
Isa Azar tilted his head. “That I’m here? No. I saw no reason to inform him of my intentions. If Aiden chooses to make peace with me, I will mediate his return to the cabal with my father.”
Christopher chuckled.
Isa darted his gaze to the clairvoyant, then looked back at me resolutely.
“No,” I said. “Does your father know that you’re the reason I had to rescue him in Los Angeles seven … almost eight years ago?”
The sorcerer stilled. Then, never dropping his gaze from me, he gently set his mug and the untouched plate of ginger snaps on the coffee table.
It would be easier for him to throw magic with his hands unencumbered.
I took another sip of my tea, deliberately keeping both of my hands wrapped around my mug. Christopher mimicked my movement. Blatantly telegraphing that neither of us was remotely concerned about the pending confrontation.
Footsteps sounded from the front patio, quiet enough that the sorcerer might have missed them. I picked up a slight hum of shapeshifter magic, and Christopher tilted his head, indicating he’d sensed it as well.
But Jenni Raymond, the only shifter who regularly wandered onto our property, didn’t knock on the front door. She also didn’t leave. It was an easy guess that she had taken up a sentry position on the patio, fixing the sorcerer waiting in the SUV with a dour stare.
I stifled an involuntary smile. The shifter was growing on me. Like a helpless puppy might. But other than with Paisley, I really wasn’t the rescuing type. And the demon dog was an asset in many ways, as well as a companion. The shifter wasn’t either of those things.
Isa Azar leaned back, allowing one arm to drape across the top of the couch and the other to rest on his knee. The runed rings on each of his fingers were all thick platinum bands, but he didn’t trigger whatever magic he had stored within them. “Los Angeles, eight years ago … so you were the one that rescued him from the rogues,” the sorcerer said.
I shrugged, then deliberately reached forward and took a cookie from the plate. Isa tracked my every move. “One of a team.”
The sorcerer nodded. “I heard of the incident, of course. But you don’t seem like the mercenary type.”
I assumed that his supposition was based on interactions with all the other amplifiers he’d ever met. Though such magic was rare among the Adept, most amplifiers lacked offensive or defensive magic. I didn’t.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I said conversationally. “Since we turned Silver Pine’s greater demon against her last September. About how she’d managed to lure your father away from his power base. It was obvious even in the snippet of conversation I overheard between them that he didn’t trust her at all. But she didn’t act alone, did she?”
“Silver Pine?” Isa asked archly, reaching for his tea and taking a sip. “A witch lured my father for the rogue shifters? I highly doubt it.”
“So did I. Yet here you are, wearing Aiden’s missing rings around your neck. So that solves one mystery. Does Aiden know? Is that why he tried to kill you?”
Isa Azar tensed. His magic finally stirred, running through the rings on each of his fingers. Then he visibly relaxed, chuckling. He slowly raised his hand from his knee, lightly tapping on the necklace tucked under his white dress shirt. “Aiden’s rings were gifted to me … anonymously.”
He was lying. He had to be. Otherwise, there were too many coincidences clicking into place. And when magic was involved, coincidences had a way of twisting together into elaborate plans.
Christopher glanced over at me. “Difficult to rile up.”
“I gather it’s an Azar trait,” I said wryly.
The clairvoyant turned his attention to the sorcerer, obviously bored with the slow pace of the conversation. “Do you represent the Collective?”
“No.” Isa’s tone was steady, firm. “I know of the organization, of course. Nothing more than whispers through the years. An idea, really. Of a powerful group of Adepts banding together to stand against the established powers within our society. Foolhardy. And, in my opinion, unnecessary. Sorcerers police themselves. As do witches and shifters. I’m simply here to reconnect with my brother.” He leaned forward. “Why would you ask? Was Silver Pine a member of the so-called Collective?”
“How did you know Aiden was here?” I asked, not bothering to address his questions. “If you didn’t know Silver Pine?”
Isa Azar grinned easily, settling back on the couch again. “Aiden has sent a few packages to this address, routed through third parties, of course. Through those, I’ve tracked him to Paris, to Hong Kong, and finally to India. Each time, he had departed before I arrived. So I decided to come here instead. The common denominator.”
Aiden had been regularly sending us packages, gifts, from multiple places for the past five months. “Silver Pine?” I asked again, bitingly. “She took the rings from Aiden. Why would she have sent them to you? Anonymously or otherwise?”
“Well … I never said I didn’t know her.”
He was playing word games with me. I loathed word games. Banter, half-truths. I wanted to lunge across the coffee table, grab his wrist, and interrogate him properly — thereby giving the sorcerer the power display that he had seemingly been pushing me toward earlier.
Christopher abruptly stood, stepping between me and Isa. His magic danced across the back of my neck and down my spine. “We’ll let Aiden know that you’d like to make contact.”
Isa’s eyes widened in confusion. He opened his mouth to speak, but Christopher cut him off.
“Your companion must be getting cold, and the late-afternoon forecast is calling for snow. A lot of snow.”
The sorcerer frowned, as confused as I was by the interruption, the dismissal. But he stood, smoothing his hands down his suit jacket, then bowing slightly in my direction. “Thank you for your hospitality. We’re staying at the Lake Cowichan Lodge for a few days. Perhaps we can all have dinner together tomorrow evening?”
A room at the Lake Cowichan Lodge most likely meant that Isa and Ruwa had checked into the first hotel they’d seen after pulling off the highway. So they’d been planning to stay before they’d even set foot on the property, or known whether Aiden was actually in town.
Neither Christopher or I responded to the dinner invitation. I wasn’t certain what glimpse of the future the clairvoyant was trying to thwart, but his attention, by the tenor of his magic, was shifting back and forth between the present and our immediate future.
Another tense moment passed before Christopher nodded to the sorcerer, then gestured formally toward the front hall.
I stood, setting my mug down on the coffee table.
Isa Azar crossed through the open doorway into the front hall.
A few steps behind him, the clairvoyant deliberately kept his shoulder angled between me and the sorcerer. I hadn’t actually been preparing to attack Aiden’s brother, so I was somewhat intrigued by whatever future conflict the clairvoyant had seen and decided to quell. Christopher usually enjoyed a good fight.
The sorcerer rested his hand on the doorknob, sweeping his brown-eyed gaze over Christopher, then looking at me. He nodded stiffly. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Emma.”
That was the first time he’d used my name. It seemed pointed, deliberate. But with what intent, I didn’t know. I also didn’t respond.
Isa frowned, perhaps still unsettled by the abrupt interruption of our verbal sparring session. But Christopher rarely intervened, and I wasn’t stupid enough to question his choice to do so in front of the sorcerer.
Isa Azar opened the door, stepping through onto the patio, tugging at the sleeves of his suit jacket as the chill buffeted him. Even in the short time we’d been inside the house, it felt as though the temperature had dropped a few degrees. The sorcerer jogged down the three wooden stairs, swiftly crossing toward the SUV without even bothering to glance at the brown-haired, ski-jacket-and-fleece-swathed shapeshifter who was leaning against the house to the left of the door.
Typical sorcerer, believing that a shapeshifter was beneath his notice. Though perhaps he’d based his assumption on the muted tenor of the out-of-uniform RCMP officer’s magic. And he would have been correct in that assessment.
Ruwa, seated in the passenger seat and reading something on a tablet, didn’t bother looking up. She appeared to have wrapped her neck and shoulders in multiple layers of fabric. Shawls, perhaps. Or more silk dresses.
The sorcerer paused abruptly with his front foot hovering over a large clawed paw print in the thin layer of snow. A series of these prints ringed the SUV, as if a creature had paced around the vehicle in concentric circles. Isa glanced around, likely looking for — and not finding — whatever path the creature had taken to and from the vehicle.
The prints were Paisley’s, in one of her larger forms. But the demon dog was nowhere in sight.
The sorcerer shook off his hesitation, quickly traversing the last couple of steps to the SUV. As he slipped into the driver’s seat, he glanced back at Christopher, Jenni, and me on the front patio. His gaze momentarily lingered on the shifter, who was currently wearing hiking boots. It was an easy guess that Isa Azar was wondering if she’d left the tracks in her beast form. And based on the size of those tracks, he was likely intrigued as to what that form might be.
Ruwa barked something in Arabic. Isa muted her — from my hearing, at least — by firmly shutting the door behind him.
“More sorcerers,” Jenni spat.
Isa started the SUV, backing it up toward the barn so he could turn up the driveway. Ruwa was gesturing emphatically, magic glinting from the gem-crusted bangles that ringed her wrists and lower forearms.
As far as I could see, Isa didn’t answer the peeved sorcerer. He actually didn’t take his gaze from me, not until he was forced to do so in order to drive away.
We watched them go in silence.
“Did we avoid an incident?” I asked after they had driven through the gate and turned east to head into town.
Christopher glanced at me. The white of his magic had faded from his eyes. Then he cut his gaze toward Jenni Raymond.
The shifter stiffened, straightening away from the house, then dropping her eyes to somewhere around the vicinity of Christopher’s shoulder.
The two of them had slept together five months before. Before Jenni had known that Christopher was clairvoyant — though, honestly, that was just willful stupidity on her part. And before I’d amplified her magic, forcing her to reveal her coyote form to all of us. In the immediate aftermath of that, I had assumed that Christopher had chosen to keep the shapeshifter at arm’s length. He wasn’t one for long-term relationships, other than with the Five. None of us were, as far as I knew.
But more recently, I had begun to get the sense that it was the shifter who hadn’t wanted to repeat their sexual encounter. And for some reason, her rejection of Christopher — no matter that it was the appropriate choice — bothered me.
“You would have been upset,” the clairvoyant said, speaking to me and obviously lying. Or telling a half-truth, at least. “And Aiden isn’t here to fix the broken pottery.”
He reached up, brushing his fingers lightly against my upper spine, directly over the blood tattoo that tied him to me. Then he stepped away without offering further clarification. Barefoot in the skiff of snow, he crossed toward the barn. His magic lingered, ebbing and flowing across my blood tattoo.
Jenni watched the clairvoyant go, but for a completely different reason than I did. Sadly, maybe? But resolute.
“The tea should still be warm,” I said.
The shifter nodded once, then ducked inside the house without waiting for the invitation to be repeated. I had a note to send by magical means, but I didn’t want a pot of rare tea to go to waste.
Plus, the shifter’s visits were infrequent enough that there was likely a reason she’d shown up. And if that reason had anything to do with Isa Azar and Ruwa, Aiden’s former lover, I was definitely interested.
Possibly to my own detriment. But honestly, it was one thing to wish for a quiet life, and completely another to experience five uneventful months. In a row.
After casting a final gaze toward the main road — the sorcerers’ SUV was nowhere in sight — I stepped back inside.
By the time I wandered into the kitchen, Jenni Raymond had cleared the tray and the discarded mugs from the front sitting room, as well as put the kettle back on the stove. I settled on one of the stools by the island, watching her and trying to be patient.
After amplifying her five months ago, I had expected the coyote shifter to either sulk or demand that I give her more power. She hadn’t done either. That hadn’t made our conversations any less stilted, but the shifter only inflicted her presence on me when she deemed it necessary. I both appreciated that, and was oddly saddened by it. I ignored the irrational part of my reaction, though.
Jenni plugged the sink, turned on the hot water, added liquid soap, and proceeded to wash the stoneware mugs. I reached over and took one of the ginger snaps from the plate, still set on the tray with the teapot.
“I thought it was Aiden.” The shifter kept her gaze on the soapy water. She’d removed her boots at the front door, and her puffy ski jacket was hanging over one of the kitchen chairs.
“In town?” I asked. “Or once you got to the property?”
Her shoulders stiffened. She carefully rinsed a mug, placing it into the stainless steel dish rack set over the second sink to drip-dry. “In town. I scented them.”
I nodded, though the shifter couldn’t see me. Jenni still didn’t like using her magic, and she really didn’t enjoy talking about it. But amplifying her last September had come with ramifications — including an increase in, and access to, the abilities that came with her genetics. As I’d known it would. The shifter, who had always preferred to suppress and ignore her magic, wasn’t entirely amenable to the changes.
“They’re half-brothers,” I said.
“And the woman?” She sniffed loudly. “There’s something off about her. Besides the layer of weird sooty perfume. She left that stink through the whole town.”
“She wasn’t wearing any perfume,” I said, keeping my tone light, casual. “But there’s definitely something odd about her magic. It might be the spell that binds her to Aiden’s brother.”
Jenni sighed. Bowing her head, she thrust her hands into the soapy water and just held them there for a moment. She had washed all three mugs and set each in the drying rack. “I didn’t want to come here,” she finally said, still not looking at me. “Like always. I actually … I paced the length of the gate, over and over.”
“It will wear off,” I said, not unkindly.
“You’ve been saying that for months! I’m not your fucking lapdog.”
“I know.”
“Yeah.” She laughed harshly, throwing her head back. “Except I come running whenever I think you might need me. And even now I want … I want to kneel beside you …” She cut off whatever else she wanted to say with a short growl.
The kettle started whistling.
“I’ll get it.” I slid off the stool, crossing around the counter. Then I proceeded to resteep the used loose tea still in the strainer.
Jenni dried the three mugs and set them down beside the teapot. Then she leaned against the counter beside me with her head bowed. “Do you think … has this happened to you before? When you’ve amplified someone … like me?”
I set the timer on the oven, then leaned against the counter, standing opposite Jenni but slightly to the side. “I’ve never amplified someone like you.”
She looked up, frowning. “You’ve never amplified a shapeshifter?”
“Not one who denies her magic.”
She clenched her fists. “I don’t … I …” She growled again at herself, at her reactions. “It’s an … inconvenience. Like your fucking period. You know?”
“You feel like it controls you. The need to change forms. But if you embraced the magic, then you could change at will, mold it, harness it —”
“So you keep saying.”
“And I’m not a fan of repeating myself.”
She looked at me grimly. “But you’re stuck with me now.”
I sighed. “Do you want tea or not?”
“I do.”
I stepped forward, putting two of the ginger snaps on a small plate and handing it to Jenni.
She took the plate, carefully not touching me as she mumbled, “Thank you.”
Jenni hadn’t been at all forthcoming about her background when we’d first met. But then, neither had I. It seemed highly unlikely that she understood the significance of food — of having others cook for and serve you — for pack shapeshifters. Still, we were all molded by our DNA, so perhaps that understanding was something she carried in her blood. Either way, though, she was so repressed that it seemed unlikely she would ever acknowledge it — or even acknowledge why coming to the property and sharing food with me settled her.
But as she’d said, she was my responsibility. At least until the aftereffects of being amplified eased further.
The timer pinged. Jenni turned it off. I poured the tea, heavily dosing the shifter’s mug with milk and sugar.
“Tell me about the sorcerers. Where did you track them from? How long did they linger in town? Who did they talk to?”
“Are they going to be a problem?”
“Most likely.” I smiled involuntarily, taking a sip of my steaming tea and deliberately singeing my tongue. Then I added more milk to cool it quickly.
Jenni snorted, shaking her head. She took a bite of a ginger snap and asked, faking a casual tone, “Did Christopher see them coming?”
“If he did, he didn’t mention it.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.”
“You never give me a straight answer.”
“No. I always give you a straight answer, but you just don’t like it.”
She stuffed the rest of the cookie in her mouth, presumably to stop herself from saying whatever she wanted to say.
“Christopher isn’t obligated to share what magic shows him. Just as you aren’t obligated to share personal details about yourself.” I waited to see if Jenni Raymond would finally take the opening to accuse me of amplifying her magic without permission. But yet again, she didn’t. She also hadn’t asked me to amplify her a second time. And even against my own inclinations, I admired her for both those decisions. Jenni had stepped up when she saw Becca Jackson trapped in a witch’s circle, a victim of Silver Pine’s plan to force the Five into her service. And she hadn’t once complained about the consequences.
“You talk about magic as if it’s … real …”
“It is real.”
“You know what I mean. As if it’s like an actual thing.”
“It is an actual thing.”
She snarled. “Like it’s a person or an entity.”
I shrugged. “I talk about it like that when I’m talking about Christopher, because that’s what he feels, how he interacts with his magic.”
“Seeing the future …” Jenni murmured, speaking into the depths of her mug more than to me.
“Your future. My future,” I said. “Not his own.”
Her head shot up. “He can’t see his own future?”
“He can make guesses, based on what he sees of mine or … another Adept’s. But unless I, or someone else, helps him focus that sight, he can’t really control what he sees. The oracle cards help, though.”
“So … sometimes he’s just as blind as we are?”
I didn’t actually have an answer to that, so I didn’t bother continuing the conversation.
Jenni huffed out a sigh. “The sorcerers didn’t linger in town long. A big black Mercedes stands out, of course, so it caught my attention when they pulled into the gas station off the highway. Then I picked up the scent of their magic. They asked for directions to your place from the owner, Donnie, and he wasn’t forthcoming.” She laughed. “Pissed them off. But no one is going to give directions to any strangers around here. To a business or hotel, sure, but not private property.”
Something warmed in my chest — a flush of quiet joy, maybe. I smothered the reaction with another sip of tea.
“They climbed back into the SUV and drove out to Riverside Resort, but it’s closed. Jake noticed them pulled over at the top of the drive during his patrol. Then they came back into town and checked into the lodge. From there, the woman, like, wandered around a bit, past the diner and Hannah’s shop. Then they climbed back into the SUV and slowly drove here.”
“Slowly? Like stopping every now and then?”
“Yeah. The woman would step out, then back in. Tracking you?”
I nodded. “Maybe.”
“But not by scent? Not like I can.”
“No. Most likely picking up residual magic. But it’s interesting that it was Ruwa who was more receptive. I assumed Isa was magically sensitive, but then he didn’t seem to pick up that Christopher was a clairvoyant until he was in the same room as him.”
“Ruwa is the woman? And Isa is Aiden’s brother?”
“Half-brother. Yes.”
“Her getup was interesting … the silk dress. When there’s snow on the ground. She has spells, then? That keep her warm?”
“A rune, maybe. Since she’s a sorcerer.”
Jenni nodded. “Right. Are they coming back?”
“Isa said something about dinner tomorrow.”
“Here?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” She smiled at me, lips twisted as if she might have been teasing.
So I offered her a smile back. “Think they’d be scared to eat with me?”
“Hell, yeah. And with Christopher. They’d be idiots not to be.”
“They walked right up to my front door. Isa sat on my couch, sipped my tea. Touched my books.”
“He touched your smelly books?”
I gave Jenni a look.
She grinned unabashedly. So the food and the companionship was easing the tension she’d brought with her into the house. It was an interesting reaction. I’d been glib earlier when she asked about my amplifying shapeshifters before her — but her reaction to my magic had been unusual.
Jenni placed her plate and mug in the dishwasher. “I’m going to see if I can pick up their trail. I’ll report back.” She snagged another cookie and grabbed her jacket, moving a bit faster than was normal for her. Still human-slow by shapeshifter standards, though.
“Be careful,” I said as she crossed through the kitchen.
Her step hitched, and she glanced back at me. Surprised. She had a cookie clamped between her teeth as she shrugged on her jacket. She nodded, then took the cookie from her mouth. “I’m beneath their notice, right? Like with the black witch?”
“Not anymore, Jenni,” I said quietly. “Cross paths with them and they will notice. Especially because they’ve seen you on the property.”
She grimaced, then she lifted her chin. “Yeah, well … shapeshifters are naturally resistant to magic.” She hesitated for a moment. “Right?”
“Right.”
Jenni nodded, crossing through the hall toward the front door. I let her go. The shifter was many things, but ultimately she wasn’t an idiot about exposing herself to other Adepts. She had avoided Christopher and me for over three months when we’d first moved into town. Deliberately, it seemed.
I quickly tidied the rest of the tea, taking another cookie with me as I went upstairs to write Aiden a note.