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KADE SINCLAIR WAS LOST in thought as he carried a package towards a mansion in the Fae District. He’d gained a lot of power after he’d formed a triumvirate with Sebastian and Raum, yet he had to pretend that he hadn’t changed. He’d come up with a spell that hid his strength from others a few nights ago. For now, he had to continue with the ruse that he was just a low-level lacky of the Magic Guild.
A wry smile touched his face as he neared his destination. He heard a low laugh coming from somewhere nearby, as if someone had read his thoughts and agreed with him. His head turned and he scanned the street. A woman was standing in front of a hedge across the road. Her face was hidden by her hood, but her posture was fearful. She flickered strangely and he realized she was hiding behind a camouflage spell. He’d always had the ability to see through glamor, but hers was pretty good. It looked like she didn’t want to be noticed, so he pretended he couldn’t see her and walked down the path to the house.
Kade knocked on the door and a servant opened it. “Good, you’re finally here,” the young fairy said with a scowl. She was so weak in power that her wings had vanished sometime after the Energy Tax had been introduced. “Come in,” she snapped in annoyance, treating him like he was even lower on the fae hierarchy than she was.
“I’m just supposed to drop off this package,” Kade said, but he entered the house as he’d been directed.
“My mistress wants you to take a parcel back to the Magic Guildhall,” the servant said and pointed at him. “Stay there and don’t move!” She took the package from him and hurried towards the staircase.
Kade looked around at the grand house and compared it to his mansion. His house was larger and more opulent, which befitted his new status, or so Nox had decided. It had been a shock to find the City of Night had chosen a new place for him to live. It seemed not all of the magic that fueled the city was being hoarded by the Immortal Triumvirate. There was still enough left for Kade and his new allies to utilize for their own means.
A tea party was being held on the floor above him. He heard the tinkling of laughter and voices coming from the top of the stairs. There was a lull in the conversation when the servant reached them, then it started up again. Kade cautiously sent his magic out, questing for someone powerful enough to become his potential partner. The mistress of the house was strong, but nowhere near powerful enough to suit his needs.
He sensed her leaving the room and followed her progress as she moved towards the front of the house. The warlock withdrew his magic before anyone could sense it, then waited for the servant to bring him the package.
A couple of seconds later, he felt a spike of strangely familiar magic, then a piercing scream came from upstairs. He raced up the stairs to see what had happened. The party guests spilled out from a sitting room and he followed them to a small den. A fairy Kade assumed was the mistress of the house was lying on the floor next to a window. A hole had been burned through the window and through her head. It was so precise that it had killed her instantly.
“Someone killed her with black magic!” one of the guests exclaimed in horror as the deceased’s family wailed in grief.
Kade knew it wasn’t black magic that had murdered the fairy, but he wasn’t sure exactly what it had been. He crossed to the window and peered down to see the woman dressed in white staring up at him. She must have heard the scream and was wondering what was going on.
His eyesight was far better than his hearing. The warlock saw she was wearing a glamor spell of a fairly ordinary person as well as the camouflage spell. He saw beneath the enchantment to her stunning face. Her skin had a gold tinge to it and her eyes were a beautiful silver-gray. Her body was slender and just as gorgeous as her face.
A carriage rumbled between them, blocking her from his curious gaze. When it moved out of the way, she was gone. He figured the screams had scared her into running down an alley between two houses. He scanned the house across the street, trying to figure out where the assassin had struck from. All the windows were shut and he couldn’t see any faces pressed up against the glass. The killer must have been on the roof when he’d assassinated his victim. It was highly likely that the culprit was long gone by now.
“We have to inform Guild Master Onvier about this!” one of the grieving fairies said. “You!” she exclaimed, pointing at the lowly courier. “Go to the guildhall and advise our Guild Master of this murder at once!”
“Yes, my lady,” Kade said obediently. She could have sent Guild Master Onvier letter, but she clearly didn’t want to use her reserves of magic to do it.
“Take this,” the servant said and pressed the package her mistress had wanted him to deliver to the guildhall into his hands. “Give it to whoever is working at the reception desk.”
He nodded, then took the package. On his way past the deceased fairy, he gazed at the wound on her forehead and frowned. He was far from an expert on injuries, but something about it seemed wrong. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.
Kade left the house and closed the door behind him. He felt bad for the poor family who had just lost someone they’d loved. He’d lost his mother during his childbirth and his adoptive parents from old age. He didn’t even know who his father was, or if he was still alive.
Snow was falling faster now, but his dark red cloak and hood sheltered him from the weather. He figured he would have a long walk back to the Magic Guildhall, but he found he was in luck when a carriage pulled up. That had been happening more and more often since he’d formed a triumvirate. His standing had become greatly enhanced. The city itself deemed him to be important enough for the undead chauffeurs to stop for him.
The skeleton’s bones creaked as it turned to look down at him. “I need to go to the Magic Guildhall,” Kade told it. It nodded and he opened the door and climbed in. The black carriages were identical. They had plush black seats and dimly lit lanterns on either side to light the way. The creature’s Night Cursed tattoo was branded on the back of its skull. All skeletons wore their mark in that spot.
Kade found himself studying his driver during the journey. He wondered how the Immortal Triumvirate had pulled off the hex that had affected millions of civilians. Sebastian believed Lord Dallinar, Lord Kreaton and Lord Graham had been behind the deaths of their own families. He thought it had given the trio the power to create the curse and Nox to house them in.
“Maybe he’s right,” the warlock murmured. He could feel the strange magic that linked the cursed to their creators. It had black magic and demonic magic mixed in with it. Raum hadn’t admitted that he’d helped the trio craft their hex, but Kade was pretty sure the Demon Guild Master had been involved in it.
He let out a small sigh that he’d become linked to two evil creatures. Sebastian didn’t seem so bad, especially now that he was bonded to Eden. The succubus had boosted the master vampire’s powers and she’d changed him in the process. While Sebastian didn’t have a soul of his own, he was now sharing hers. It had given him back a trace of the humanity that he’d lost when he’d been turned over a thousand years ago.
It was unlikely that the same thing would happen to Raum. The demon lord was evil through and through. While he seemed pleasant enough on the surface, Kade had sensed what he was really like. It would take a woman with incredible fortitude and determination to stand up to a creature as ruthless as his demonic ally.
His musings ended when the carriage reached the City Square and the driver pulled up in front of the Magic Guildhall. Kade climbed out and nodded his thanks, then the skeleton set the vehicle into motion again. The warlock paused to glance around the square. The fountain that depicted their rulers hadn’t changed since the night they’d stolen the energy from the Night Cursed population. It had been the first sign that things had changed drastically for the City of Night. Their actions had resulted in the ruination of everyone, except for the wealthy and privileged. Everyone else was weak, starving and increasingly stricken by poverty.
Everything would change once Kade and his allies gained enough power to challenge the current rulers of Nox. Once he and Raum found their matches, they intended to destroy the Immortal Triumvirate. What none of their small number of allies knew was that the city itself would most likely cease to exist once its creators fell.
Guilt followed in Kade’s footsteps as he took the stairs and passed between the gigantic stone statues. The robed figures seemed to frown down at him in disapproval as he opened the door and stepped inside. Kade had no intention of speaking to Onvier himself. He approached the wizard who was manning the reception desk and handed the package to him. “I was asked to pass on a message to Guild Master Onvier,” he said after the wizard took the parcel.
“What’s the message, then?” the wizard asked impatiently.
“Another fairy was murdered by magic in the Fae District tonight,” Kade said and gave him the address. “I’d better get going,” he added as the wizard gaped at him. Dawn was only a couple of hours away now and his colleague assumed he’d have to walk home. Kade was glad he was classed as the lowest of the low. He wasn’t important enough for their Guild Master to want to question him personally about the latest murder.
When he was a few blocks away from the City Square, the warlock stepped into an alley and teleported home. He should have been thinking about the victim of the assassin, but his thoughts kept returning to the beautiful blonde woman. “Who is she?” he murmured as he took a seat on a couch in one of his living rooms. He’d never seen her at the guildhall. He would have remembered someone as gorgeous as she was.
