Chapter 1

Michaela Chui lifted the lid to her white and blue glazed teapot and poured in the water with deliberate care. Morning tea was a ritual she’d observed for as long as she could remember and it never failed to fill her with a sense of calm.

Sometimes, though, the calm was illusory and she knew it. For the last six months, Michaela had lived with an ever-increasing sense of doom. No surprise considering what was happening. The masquerada were in the final stages of mopping up what had been a nasty insurrection of chauvinists and bigots led by Frank Iverson. It was a big job and the Hierarch, Eric Kelton, had asked her to oversee it.

The death threats had been irritating but expected.

She glanced at her watch. Soon she’d need to leave for a meeting with her mentor, the vampire Madden. More secrets. But while being a shape-shifting masquerada in a human world was a secret she shared with many, including her closest friends, her role on the Pharos Council could be shared with no one. Charged with keeping the arcane world hidden from that of the humans, the Pharos walked unknown among their compatriots and ensured all followed the Law.

The tea was perfect now and she stood at the window to enjoy it, relishing the familiar action. Her friend Caro Yeats, Eric’s consort, nagged her about her painful lack of spontaneity, but Caro was young. The thought wasn’t catty or malicious; Michaela admired Caro and her strength. However, she knew that living in the moment wasn’t a trait she herself had. Centuries of watching the world’s many casual cruelties had formed her into a woman with little give or softness.

It was how she stayed safe.

Time to go. Her route took her south through the downtown core, a cold jungle of bank headquarters and fast food restaurants, to a small heritage building that had been partially incorporated into a skyscraper. Even in temporary headquarters, Pharos members demanded elegant and old-fashioned surroundings.

Michaela locked the car door and was checking the handle when a soft, low voice came from behind her.

“Councilor. You’re here early.”

She steeled herself to face Cormac Redoak, exiled fey and special ambassador to the Pharos Council. “Councilor,” she said briskly, heaving her bag over her shoulder.

“May I take that for you?”

“No.” She walked towards the door. Cormac had little to offer her and in the years they had known each other through the Council, she’d decided she disliked him. Not because of the wild rumors that surrounded his exile from the fey court or because she’d been on the receiving end of more than one of his inquisitions. He was too erratic for her. Wild. Unstable. Even his eyes refused to stay a single color. Right now they were a light jade but could easily change to grey or brown depending on his mood.

This criticism was grossly hypocritical coming from a masquerada and she knew it. Her eyes, liked the rest of her, could be transformed in a breath to become any masque she chose. That was the point, though. While Cormac was at the mercy of his emotions, she needed to keep perfect control over her masques. Failure would result in a breach of the Law if her masque slipped and humans witnessed a shift. Worse, she could lose her natural self in a sea of other personalities.

Cormac said what he wanted, did what he wanted, and damned the consequences. The ambassador was not a man she could predict. It made her wary and she generally avoided him.

No such luck today. “I wanted to speak with you about the discussion the other day,” he said.

She didn’t bother to look at him. “By ‘discussion’ you mean when you tried to humiliate me in front of half the Council?”

He made an airy details, details gesture. “I asked for a simple clarification.”

“About a subject with which you had no business and at a meeting to which you were not invited.” She reached out to pull the door open but he moved in front of her with the fluid grace typical of the fey. For a moment she breathed in his unique pine scent – the one thing she enjoyed about him.

Then she brushed by him with a nod of thanks and no words, hoping he’d get the hint and leave her alone. She had about ten minutes before she was due to meet Madden, enough time to send a few emails.

“I assumed my invitation was lost. Luckily Hiro told me about it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Which he also had no business doing.”

He paused when they reached her office door. “Look, Michaela, my point remains valid.”

“And as I said before—” Michaela opened the door and her voice broke off when she flicked on the light. “Good God.”

Cormac peered in beside her, then moved in front of her. “You don’t want to see this.”

Did the man not remember she was the Pharos security chief? She shoved him aside. “That’s Hiro. In my office.”

Cormac stood beside her, his cool skin brushing her hand. “It was Hiro,” he corrected. “It’s not anymore.”

* * * *

Cormac knew Michaela was not the type to scream and faint at the sight of blood, but this was a truly monumental amount. The thick copper smell rolled out of the open doorway. It would give most people pause. Probably send vampires into a frenzy.

Michaela, however, was not most people. Her eyes darted around the room, taking in details and assessing the situation.

“Don’t go in,” she said crisply as he took a step forward.

“I want to check that he’s dead.” The response was automatic.

She shot him a glance with those gorgeous black eyes. “Seriously?”He looked again at the gore of the murder scene. “Right.”

She pulled her cell phone out and called Anjali, her deputy, giving a summary with military conciseness. It gave him time to absorb what he was seeing, and more importantly, what it meant for him.

Hiro Murkami was dead.

That a human was dead was no surprise. In Cormac’s eyes, humans died with astonishing frequency and he often watched with wonder as so many of them squandered their short years on silly pastimes and petty vengeances. But a Pharos Councilor who had been basically gutted in a colleague’s office? That was unusual. And extremely inconvenient.

He considered this new kink in his plans. Unlike many of his kind, he had nothing against humans. They were like willful and destructive children but no worse than the bloodsuckers or other arcana. Hiro had been different. Many had disliked him, but Cormac had found Hiro a pleasant adversary. Cormac wouldn’t call him a friend—he had no friends—but he didn't mind the human.

Michaela had her laptop out and was balancing it open in one arm as she took notes.

“Aren’t you going in?” he asked. Was she afraid of getting bloody? She didn’t seem like the sort to be squeamish.

She shook her head and kept typing. “Don’t want to contaminate anything.”

Of course she would have a rational answer. He wasn’t even sure she felt emotion – she certainly wasn’t displaying any now. Time to ask the second most obvious question. “Why was Hiro in your office?”

Now her fingers paused. “I’d like to know as well.”

Well, at least Hiro had the good sense to be killed in Michaela’s office. If anyone on the Pharos Council could find an answer, it would be her. Michaela had been its security chief for as long as he could remember and was both formidable and shockingly effective. She was a masquerada but always appeared in what he assumed was her natural self – although one could never know with those shape shifters. Like many arcana, it made him uncomfortable to know that Michaela could as easily become Michael, or a child walking down the street. Other arcana could change their appearance temporarily, but none could do it as expertly or broadly as the masquerada. It was said that they could take on the same masque for years if they wished, or rotate through an endless parade of disguises. It struck him as unnatural. Sinister. Completely shady.

That being said, he had zero complaints about Michaela’s preferred masque, be it her natural self or not. The security chief was lovely in a severe way that roused the same admiration he felt for an exquisite sculpture. Michaela was art, in a way. She had the usual aggravating masquerada haughtiness in spades, and her every glance, word, and movement was as choreographed as a dance. She would have done well in the fey court, he mused, a court where every single thing was judged and assessed.

He had not.

A paper rustled in his pocked as he moved and distracted him from the murder scene. It was easy enough to read between the lines of his sister’s latest note. Queen Tismelda wanted the Redoak forest for her new favorite, a fawning bounder who was as gorgeous as the day. Luckily, by fey law the forest had to be offered by free will, so the bitch Queen couldn’t reach out and take it. The question was how long poor Isindle could hold out against her. Cormac feared not much longer. His sister was gentle, a sweet meadow singing under a warm spring sun. His Queen could be more accurately described as a winter forest, dark lakes frozen with black ice that reflected the sharp bare branches of the desolate trees above. Thanks to his exile, the Redoaks also had few allies to count on. Isindle was alone.

“You can go,” Michaela said. “Anjali will come by your office to ask questions.”

“No, thank you,” he said pleasantly. “I’m going to stay.”

“I don’t want you in my way.”

He took a tiny step back. “Not a problem.”

He leaned against the wall and watched Michaela bite her lip as she sketched blood splatter. He’d been about to finish a deal with Hiro that would have given the Queen matchless forest in northern Japan, a place she had coveted for centuries. He’d been so close.

He glanced down at the tiny green leaf that lay in the crystal pendant around his neck. The edges were beginning to redden.

Hiro’s forest would have saved his family.

Who had known of his plans? Had someone killed Hiro to thwart him?

He had to know. He looked back at Michaela, now deliberately ignoring him and creating a spreadsheet. He would find out, even if it meant working with a masquerada. Or around her.