Excerpt: Magical Midlife Rescue

Chapter 1

Tristan

“No, you’re being too subtle,” Jessie told Aurora, Alpha Austin Steele’s niece.

They all sat in the front room of Ivy House, empty coffee cups in hand, having a conversation about Edgar’s new attack flowers. The vampire was on version four or five or— Tristan had lost count after flower versions Y and T. No one was quite sure if Edgar realized the alphabet and number systems were different, or if he knew the alphabet at all.

Aurora angled her head a bit more, her meaning plain. I just don’t get it.

Jessie’s face scrunched up, and everything tensed. What the hell is she trying to tell me???

Tristan hid a grin. Well, the meaning was plain to him.

Aurora was in charge of helping Jessie learn body language in anticipation of meeting shifter packs, headed up by stoic alphas that took every subtle body tic as a complete sentence. Being Austin’s mate and the co-leader of this territory, Jessie would need to sit in on the meetings and help bring these new packs into the convocation, a merging of various species and groups of magical people that could hopefully push back against the corrupt Mages Guild and their biggest ally, Momar.

These alphas wouldn’t be as lenient with Jessie as Alpha Steele was, or as patient as Alpha Kingsley Baraza, Austin’s brother. Many likely wouldn’t be as reasonable as the alpha they’d met in Los Angeles, either. These would be shifters at the top of the power scale who wouldn’t want their rule and command overshadowed by a new, made-up faction, regardless of the aid they’d provided Kingsley. Or so the alpha rumor mill claimed.

Jessie would have to show that even though she was a past Jane—a non-magical person—and now a gargoyle, she still understood and respected shifter culture. Which wouldn’t usually be hard for her…except for the body language aspect. That was…tough going, it seemed.

A smile budded on Aurora’s lips. It’s funny when you get annoyed.

Jessie’s brow crumpled. Smiling isn’t allowed.

“You’re still advertising your every thought,” Aurora told her patiently. “Literally, every single one. Even if you don’t know what I’m saying with my body, you need to keep your thoughts and emotions buttoned up. It’s like poker. Remember when you taught me poker?”

Jessie sighed and leaned back. Defeated. “I do, yes. As I recall, you took all my money.”

Aurora laughed, very free and expressive with Jessie—for a shifter, at least. She never showed this side of herself to anyone else, not even her uncle. Jessie had a way of thawing even the hardest, most severely trained people.

Not for the first time, Tristan wondered if Jessie shouldn’t just stay a free spirit. Respecting shifter culture was one thing, but she shouldn’t have to bow to it. She was looser than even a gargoyle cairn leader with her crew, and that worked. She managed a lot of power with a distinct style of leadership. Changing who she was…minimized how well her style worked. Conformity wasn’t her strong suit—in Tristan’s opinion, anyway.

Then again, shifters were a rule-based, prickly breed. This was Alpha Steele’s show. He’d know what might work best to get other packs on his side.

“I think the answer is Xanax,” Jessie said, and leaned forward to put her mug on the coffee table. She paused when she didn’t see a coaster.

“Here.” Tristan dug into his jeans pocket and pulled out a scrunched, oblong doily. Edgar had grown worlds better at making flowers but somehow worse at the doilies. He really needed to find a new hobby for the quiet hours of the night. “Use this,” he said, and tossed it onto the coffee table in front of her.

She hesitated as she stared down at the craft item, her gaze tracing the large hole in the design and the loose strands of fabric making up the other side. Bewildered. Resigned.

Aurora started laughing again.

“When Mr. Tom berates me for this”—she set her mug on top of it and glanced at Tristan—”I’m blaming you.”

“Blame Niamh,” he replied, leaning away and throwing an arm over the back of the couch. He made sure to bend his elbow to keep his hand from resting behind Jessie’s person. If he didn’t, in shifter culture it would hint at a claim, despite how far apart they were sitting. He was practicing shifter rules as well, and a faux pas like that wouldn’t be easily forgiven.

Aurora looked over at him with a delicately curved eyebrow. Questioning.

He still wasn’t great at nuances. Brochan, Austin’s shifter beta, probably would’ve read a novel within her posture.

“Right, why do you have Edgar’s doilies in your pocket?” Jessie asked.

“Yay!” Aurora clapped at her. “You got it!”

“I mean…you were being pretty obvious about it,” Jessie replied, back to sagging against the couch.

Tristan moved his hand a little further away from Jessie. “Not all that obvious.”

“Not at all obvious,” Aurora said supportively. She might have Alpha Steele’s wild streak and fire, but she had her dad’s patient and levelheaded way when in a teaching role. She’d be one hell of an alpha someday, especially since she watched everything Alpha Steele and Brochan did. She was eager to learn and quick to apply. “I’m now challenging Tristan’s grasp of body mechanics. I’m just as expressive with him as I am with most shifters.”

Tristan preened, shaking his shoulders and ruffling the ends of his wings where they draped over the edge of the couch.

A tiny crease at the corners of Aurora’s mouth and a slight relaxing of her shoulders were the only indications she gave of thinking that was cute or funny. And then she shook her head and bent to put her mug down as well.

He threw out another doily.

“If Mr. Tom doesn’t want doilies around the house, he shouldn’t keep moving the coasters,” she mused before sitting back and looking Tristan’s way. Her eyes kindled with cunning intelligence as she tried to piece something together. She did that a lot with gargoyles, trying as she was to learn his culture as they tried to learn hers. “Would you preen with anyone, or just because it’s Jessie and her family?”

A soft glow of warmth radiated from Jessie to accentuate her pleased smile. She loved the addition of Alpha’s Steele’s family into her circle. It was clearly an extension of the incredible love she had for the man himself.

The same glow immediately infused Aurora. She seemed to feel the same, cherishing her uncle being back in her life after a difficult separation and loving Jessie like a sister. It was very cute, the two of them.

Actually, Tristan mused, the whole dynamic of this house and its inhabitants was cute—but with bonds as strong as the roots of an oak, and just as deep. The residents would die for each other, and they’d proven it. Their odd little family was a better core of an army than he’d ever seen. If they could continue to grow the convocation, the corrupt mages wouldn’t stand a chance.

If.

Aurora quirked her eyebrow at him in a different way. I asked you a question…

She might as well have been tapping her foot.

“Oh, sorry, I was waiting for the family love-fest to subside,” Tristan said with a grin. “I’d show pride—”

“You preened,” she interrupted. “You basically flicked your hair and batted your eyelashes.”

He laughed. “I’d show pride with most people, and preen with other gargoyles and certain ladies…”

“I’m one of those ladies?” Her eyes shuttered, and her body tightened with unease. He didn’t miss her slight flush, though. The unease wasn’t because of his notice, but because of her response to his notice.

Aurora was a lady who needed to get out more. Who needed to sow her wild oats and break a few hearts.

He made a mental note to talk with Jasper and Ulric about it. They’d help her carve out more time for play. She worked too much.

“…and gentlemen,” he finished with a smirk. “And yes, you are one of those ladies. As is Jessie. As is Niamh. It’s not in any way sexual. It’s not flirting, it’s just…” He struggled for how to explain it. “It’s adding a little silliness when showing pride. I was paying you respect by being tickled that you should praise me. Like a dog wagging its tail.”

Her stare was utterly expressionless. “Your confidence, even when essentially calling yourself a happy dog, is inspiring. Why only some people?”

“Most ladies enjoy when a man acts silly. Guys are a harder sell, especially shifters. They’re too wrapped up in being”—he did bunny ears with his fingers—”macho. A lot of gargoyles aren’t worried about that, though. We’re expressive. We enjoy using our bodies.” His eyes darkened. “In all things…”

Her flush increased, and she looked away. He laughed as Jessie rolled her eyes.

“Don’t mind him.” Jessie waved him away. “He doesn’t have Nessa here to tease all the time, so he’s spreading it around to everyone else.”

Tristan tried to stop his thoughts from skittering away to Nessa—that beautiful deathwatch angel mage—and his worry over her mental well-being. His worry at what she was resigning herself to do without help. She’d cut them all off and disappeared into the shadows, always a step ahead of him and Niamh. For the past month, he hadn’t been able to track her down. His growing concern that there was a problem was haunting his dreams.

Aurora’s gaze found him again, her eyes piercing and direct. Reading him.

He let her. He had many things to hide, but his affection for that broken, radiant, intelligent woman wasn’t one of them. She might never give in to him, but if she could be safe and secure, happy, he’d consider it a win. She deserved that. At least that.

Aurora switched gears, for which he was grateful. He needed the distraction.

“So, you wouldn’t preen with most shifters, then?” she said. “Because of the cultural differences?”

Jessie leaned forward, eyes narrowed, watching them both closely. She was still trying to read the cues.

“Most gargoyles would preen,” he said, “because they don’t care about the cultural differences. That’s why there has been such a problem acclimating the two groups within this territory. Lots of aggression and challenges. But me in particular…” He shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

Aurora’s huff was barely noticeable. He was frustrating her.

“There’s no point in trying to hide your smile—you’re showing it in your body,” Jessie told Tristan, smirking.

“Pretty obviously, yes,” Aurora grumbled.

He laughed, checking his watch. “Basically, if it would incite a challenge, I wouldn’t do it unless I could dominate the other party.”

“So, you wouldn’t preen with Uncle Auzzie?”

He hesitated. “Okay, yes, in certain situations when he’s relaxed, I would. He’d find it funny. He understands and enjoys gargoyle culture better than any other shifter I’ve met—even you, with all your questions.”

Her slightly narrowed eyes made his grin spread. As an alpha’s daughter, she wasn’t used to teasing.

“What about Brochan, then?” she asked.

Tristan pulled his lips to the side in thought. “Not ever, I don’t think. He wouldn’t challenge me, for many reasons, but he wouldn’t appreciate the expressiveness. It would make him uncomfortable, and that guy is far too uncomfortable with his life as it is. I try to stay respectful with him as much as possible and adhere to the rules he understands.”

Jessie smiled and reached up to rub his forearm, pleased. She liked when people showed kindness to each other and rewarded it with unspoken praise. It was effective and welcomed, but the touch went against shifter protocol. Too buttoned up, that culture. They were missing the finer things in life.

He casually altered his position so that he wasn’t within reaching distance. Practice.

Aurora’s slight inclination of her head said she respected his move. Or maybe his answer? It was hard to tell.

“How did Uncle Auzzie manage to learn gargoyle culture in such a short time?” she asked as Naomi, her great-grandma, strode in. Shifters, like gargoyles, had longer life spans than their non-magical or mage counterparts.

“Ah, Jessie, there you are.” Naomi stopped a short distance away. Her posture was perfect, her movements brusque and no-nonsense, and no emotion was on display. Talk about buttoned up. She had no intention of relaxing, ever. “I came across a purchase order, we’ll call it, that isn’t mine.”

The last word was clipped as her gaze darted to first one doily, then the other. Her disapproval was plain.

“It was Niamh,” Jessie said automatically, her eyes slightly rounded and her eyebrows raised. She looked like a kid who’d gotten her hand stuck in a cookie jar.

Naomi’s eyes flickered to Tristan, the glance barely noticeable. She handed a slip of paper to Jessie, then pointed at the document. “For that salary, he’d need to work miracles.”

Jessie’s brow furrowed as she looked at the paper. “What is this? Or…who is this, I guess.”

Tristan leaned closer to see. What appeared to be half a résumé was copied onto a page with some sort of police report. At the bottom of the mishmash was a yellow sticky note with a very large dollar amount.

“A…computer expert?” Tristan asked, unable to see the details.

“A hacker, I think,” Naomi said. “With a criminal record. Well, I’ll just let you—”

“Oh, my, no. No! What—” Mr. Tom bustled into the room, tsking as he did so. He’d spied the doilies. “Miss, now, I’m surprised at you. What on earth could’ve possessed you to put such a crafting monstrosity under that stylish coffee cup Naomi painstakingly curated for your enjoyment? No. Who brought those god-awful things in here?”

“Niamh did it,” Jessie blurted, her face turning red. She was really bad at lying.

“That horrible woman has no appreciation for the fine work done to this house.” Mr. Tom grabbed two coasters from another table and switched them out for the doilies. “I swear, if Edgar knew what a practical joke was, I’d think he were playing one on us. Would you like another cup of coffee? We haven’t reached the critical hour where it will keep you awake at bedtime. After your efforts with Austin Steele last night, you’ll certainly need to catch up on sleep tonight.”

Jessie’s face turned redder. “No, I’m fine.”

“Fantastic. Aurora?” He paused with Jessie’s empty cup in hand. “Ah, yes, how wonderful. The infamous blank stare. It’s quite rude in mixed company, if you ask me, but of course, no one ever does. Alas, you will actually have to use your words this time. I don’t have an inclination to read into the many nuances of an eye twitch.”

“The twitch means you’ve overstayed your welcome in any given conversation,” Naomi murmured as she headed for the door.

Mr. Tom pretended not to hear.

“No, thank you,” Aurora answered.

“There. You see? Words. The way of the world.” Mr. Tom took up her mug as well. “Tristan? I sure hope you won’t let me down. It’s been a while since you were able to stump me.”

Tristan thought for a moment. “How about a mocha Frappuccino, decaf—so that I won’t stay up too late—with oat milk, double blended, extra whipped cream, one pump of white mocha, one pump of hazelnut syrup, and topped with cookie crumbles and a light dusting of cinnamon powder.”

Mr. Tom studied him, his gaze going far away. “Oat milk…hmm. I’m not sure I have that. And why would I? Regular milk will do you just fine.”

He spun on his heel and bustled away.

“Is fussiness another trait of gargoyles?” Aurora asked with a straight face.

Tristan felt his smile grow. “Careful there, Madam Alpha’s Daughter. People might catch on that you have a sense of humor hidden away in that straitlaced personality.”

Her lips quirked, and she looked away. Maybe she didn’t mind teasing after all.

But Jessie hadn’t been paying attention to their banter. “Who’s trying to hire this person?” she asked on a release of breath, studying the paper Naomi had delivered. “If given half the chance, he’d rob Ivy House blind…”

 

 

Chapter 2

Niamh

Her Christmas present from Nessa and Sebastian, a basket of rocks the perfect size and shape for throwing at people, sat on Niamh’s lap. She slowly rocked, sitting on her porch and enjoying the day. With fewer Dicks and Janes living in the area now, and it being winter, the street was blessedly free of gawking tourists intent on getting a gander at Niamh’s neighbor, the hulking form of Ivy House.

Unfortunately, that cursed golem trapped in Betty’s basement down the street was making an awful racket. Let the poor wee bugger out once in a while, why didn’t she? It could use the Ivy House wood to run around in, chasing or being chased by the basajaunak. Give that animated clay some exercise.

The door to Ivy House opened, and a large shape filled the frame—Tristan, taking a break from shadowing Jessie. That great lummox wasn’t filling the late Nathanial’s old role at all. When Tristan predicted she’d tilt left, she went right. He had one helluva flight plan, and he was an exceptional leader for those stubborn-arse gargoyles, but he just couldn’t anticipate Jessie. On a regular basis, she blew his organization all to hell. It was funny to watch him try to control his frustration with himself.

Niamh had to hand it to him, though—he hadn’t given up, and he hadn’t slacked off. He continually tried to evolve, to change himself to fit what Jessie needed. It was commendable. Niamh hadn’t thought he had it in him to try.

Oh, aye, he’d say it was because he was too stubborn to give up, or he hated to fail, or he didn’t want to prove Niamh right that he was too narcissistic for the post, but she’d got his number at this stage. She knew how he ticked. All of those things certainly played a role, but his underlying desire to succeed was because he wanted to help Jessie, plain and simple. He loved her like they all did. He wanted to be an asset to her, to protect her, and to help her achieve greatness. Because of her rarity and her past, she was a misfit in gargoyle culture, as was he. He saw himself in her struggles. He saw her as family, and with each passing day, he was thawing in his mistrust of people in general. He was starting to let Jessie in, and by extension, all of them. That oul gargoyle-monster had a heart cloaked in shadows, and it was beating in time to the Ivy House team. As well it should.

It was time he got a wee shove in the right direction, so it was. He’d proven himself. There definitely wasn’t anyone as strong and cunning in the air, and it was time for him to finally find his place on their team.

Tristan’s gaze zipped directly to her, as though she were his target. He carried a to-go coffee cup as he crossed the grass, heading in her direction. He wasn’t a guy who cared about the etiquette of taking the walkway and saving the lawn. Not that she blamed him.

Based on his speed and direct gait, he meant business.

She didn’t slow in her rocking as she slipped her hand into the basket. Great throwing rocks, these. Sebastian and Nessa had got it right. After she threw them, she often went and collected them anew. It was better than scouting for others. Work smarter, not harder.

Tristan stepped off the curb and kept coming. She waited until he closed the distance before she gripped a rock, turned in her chair, and let it fly. Her aim was true, but the power of the throw wasn’t great. Standing would’ve helped, but surprise would win the day.

He flinched when the rock was nearly to him, and his hand darted up, but he was too late. It hit him square on the chest, nearly at his throat. He jerked backward before catching himself and stopped.

Most people would’ve rubbed the offending spot, but Niamh knew he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. He stared at her menacingly, his arms flared, his wings fluttering dangerously.

She started chuckling while reaching for another rock, an idle threat. He’d react too quickly for her to hit him a second time, and then she’d have to retrieve another rock. Best to bluff this time around.

He picked up the offending rock while taking something out of his jeans pocket. He kept it concealed in his big hand, disappearing the rock into his fist as well. His free hand dipped into the inside of his stylish bomber jacket and grabbed something out of a pocket. After he started walking again, he fiddled with whatever he’d retrieved before lobbing the whole lot back to her.

“What in the…” She snatched it out of the air.

One of Edgar’s worst doily efforts was wrapped around her rock and secured with tape.

“Ye’ve lost the plot now, boy,” she said as Tristan walked into her yard and stalled at the bottom step of her porch. “It’s bad enough that Edgar makes these things, but now ye walk around with them?”

He smirked. “I figured handing these out as gifts would darken everyone’s day.”

“Is this ye crying out for help, then?” She held up the concoction. “Ye haven’t got to lead battles or torture mages, so ye go around with these horrible excuses for arts and crafts?”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Or maybe I’m a giving sort of person.”

“Giving sort of person, me arse,” she grumbled. “C’mere, what of yer latest efforts to find the mages?”

That knocked him down a peg. He sighed and leaned against the banister, looking out at the bright street in the crisp late morning. “I’m still coming up empty. I enjoy playing in the shadows—”

“Clearly,” she muttered, unwrapping the rock and slipping it back into her basket.

“—but I can’t hold a candle to Natasha’s technology prowess.”

“Same as that. What about the essences or energy or yer cosmic connection or whatever la-la ye’re always on about?”

His eyes took on a distant look. “I can’t properly get in tune with that if I don’t have contact. Everything is echoes. Sometimes, I can connect through dreams if the other party reaches halfway. She isn’t reaching, though. She doesn’t know how—or even of the possibility, probably. I have more books to send her, but I can’t find her to send them. I’m reaching from my side, and the dreams…” One of his hands balled into a fist. “They’re dark. Full of turmoil. It feels like she’s hurting worse than ever. They’re both hurting. Emotionally, I mean. Internally.” He shook his head. “But honestly…I can’t tell if that’s her, or if it’s my anxiety about her well-being. The emotions feel too…enormous, somehow. I can’t get an accurate reading. I need contact with her to sort it all out.”

“Jaysus. Forget the doilies—ye need to be givin’ out crystals and salt lamps.”

“I tried that. People seemed too happy about it. I had to stack them all in weird designs in the graveyard to freak them out again.”

She huffed out a laugh. “No wonder ye’ve taken such an interest in those doilies. Ye’re following that vampire around the bend. Ye’ve gone pure fruit loops.”

“Yeah. Edgar stole all my marbles.”

“Janey Mack,” she breathed, grinning. Niamh could get under most people’s skin, and she’d made a lifelong art of manipulation, but this gargoyle-monster seemed impervious to her “charms.” He purposely muddled the banter so that she couldn’t get a toehold to control it. He definitely needed to be at Jessie’s side. Jessie was much too gullible. She needed people who couldn’t be manipulated to help steer her.

“But seriously, I don’t know how she’s doing,” Tristan said. “How either of them are. I catch traces of acts they might have done, or rumors of where they might be, but nothing comes of it. I thought I was good with technology, but she’s far better. And smarter.”

Niamh resumed her rocking, feeling the breeze ruffle her hair. Letting her mind drift as it had been. “Aye. She is both of those things.” Not even that computer clown they’d hired downtown could keep up with her. Niamh needed someone better.

“The deeds they’ve claimed—the deaths and whatever—have gotten the right people nervous, did you see that?” he asked. “She’s good at working the underbelly, and Sebastian is good at knowing the right pressure points to push at any given time. They’re a damn good team.”

Niamh didn’t slow in rocking. Didn’t focus her vision. Did shake her head.

“She is great, I’ll give her that. But he’s a child in that role. He hasn’t been at that job—or even on this earth—long enough to properly understand motivations. He understands the human condition to a point, but only as it concerns mages. He’s blind to most of the magical world and all of the Dick world. Ye can’t get a clear picture unless ye’re looking at the whole landscape. He’s barely fit to be an apprentice; don’t even talk to me about being a master. And subtlety? He hasn’t a hope of understanding that one! Subtlety is nothing but a tool in the toolbox. Ye need to know when to use it, o’course ye do.” She held up a finger. “More importantly, ye need to know when not to.”

His head swung around, and his eyes glowed brightly. He surveyed her for a long moment before pushing forward up the stairs, and then he sat in the seldom-used second chair. He didn’t speak, perhaps having realized he should listen.

“He’s implicated us in another one,” she said. “Another murder.”

Finding out they’d been framed for that first murder had been somewhat of a shock, Niamh had to admit. They’d all known Nessa and Sebastian were trying to play the puppet masters in the mage community, and that they’d do some off-color deeds, but dragging in the convocation like that? Without their knowledge or consent? Jessie had reacted as though slapped. Austin Steele had vibrated with anger. But the bonds of friendship were strong. The services Nessa and Sebastian had rendered the convocation in Kingsley’s territory were too great to lose faith in the mages so quickly. It had been left to Niamh to analyze the situation and find a reason the mages might’ve set them up.

And analyze she had.

The cobwebs from many decades of inactivity were well and truly dusted away. She did understand motivations and excelled in viewing the whole landscape before drilling down to each minute detail. She enjoyed finding the one precise straw that would crack the camel’s back and made an art of throwing it on. A body couldn’t deal in the sort of shady behavior a puca usually got up to without extreme knowledge and appreciation for manipulation, and she was one of the very best. It was why she was still alive after all this time. Most of her family had been caught during one underhanded affair or other and killed in short order.

Nessa and Sebastian were playing a game, and they didn’t trust Jessie and Austin Steele’s team to be adequate participants. The mages were trying to maneuver on Ivy House’s behalf.

Well. That would never do, especially since they weren’t doing it right.

“Still no clue why they’re framing us?” Tristan asked.

“Don’t be daft. I know exactly why they’re trying to frame us. Two semi-powerful mages, in prominent roles in the Guild, who were instrumental in planning the attack on Kingsley’s?”

She dropped the rock she held into the basket and took out another. Information flashed through her mind. Thank you, Ivy House, for once again making me sharp between the ears. Memory was a blessed thing.

She’d thought she’d waved goodbye to memory at about two hundred years old. Well, three hundred had rolled around, and she’d found herself in the kitchen, no idea why, wondering if she’d brushed her teeth earlier. Four hundred? Feck off. If she didn’t write a thought down, it was gone for good. She’d had a million things put away in “safe places” with no idea where those places were. But with Ivy House’s magic, she was back to her prime—thinking-wise, at least. All systems were firing.

“They’re showing off our power to the Guild while simultaneously saying we hold a grudge against Momar,” said Niamh. “We didn’t just thwart Momar and that was that. No, no. We’re hunting those who wronged us. It has some people nervous—those we wouldn’t want to ally with Jessie anyway—and the right people curious. There’s a great many powerful people in the Guild that weren’t asked to play on Momar’s team. They’re on the outside. That used to put them on the losing team, but now, with Jessie, they have a chance to be on the winning team. That’s a powerful motivator. Sebastian and Nessa are making it so the left-out mages will want to connect with us.”

Tristan rocked slowly. “Which is good news. It sets us up nicely, even if they did make us look like messy animals.”

Niamh chuckled softly. “Don’t like that, do ya? Looking like a messy animal?”

His jaw clenched slightly. He was too distracted by the mages’ activities to hide the tell. Whoopsie. He’d just given her a button to push.

She filed that away.

“It’s good they did,” she went on. “Perfect, in fact. That is Austin Steele’s play: look like what they expect. Act like what they expect. Keep the mages in the dark about what we really are. It’ll give us an edge for a while. The problem is, Sebastian and Nessa extracted the information like a powerful mage would. Like Elliot Graves and the Captain.”

Tristan’s head whipped around.

“Did ye see the pictures?” she asked.

His eyes glowed as he thought back. He grunted in acknowledgment.

She nodded. “Claw marks around the house, things knocked over…and a meticulous murder scene. Are ye jokin’?”

“The Guild hasn’t mentioned that in any of the reports, unless it’s in the files we couldn’t access.”

“It probably isn’t. They don’t seem overly bright, the Guild. Anyone with reasonable intelligence who wants an organization to work in has moved on to Momar. Even before that, the Guild as a whole seemed mostly ineffective. It’s no wonder Elliot Graves found it so easy to come out on top. Momar, however…” Her thumb stroked the rock slowly, and her thoughts continued to drift. “Momar is very intelligent,” she murmured. “Cunning, calculated, a great planner…”

“Do you think he’ll catch on?”

“I don’t know. I know next to nothing about him, his people, or his organization. Their systems are shut down tight. Their lips are sealed. They seem to have loyalty, and I don’t know if that’s induced by fear or something else. I’d guess fear, but I don’t like guessing. Guessing gets people dead. I need to get deeper into all this, and for that, I need tech.”

“Your proposed applicant ended up in Naomi’s pile.”

“Of course it did, ya donkey. What do ye think, I’m going to go right out and ask Jessie to hire a criminal? As a past Jane, she’ll have thoughts about doing that. No, ye gotta massage the situation a bit. Let her ask Mr. Tom about it. Let her ask Naomi. Austin Steele. All people who won’t give a fiddler’s fart if this Dick got into a bit of Dick trouble. Did he kill anyone? No. Did he torture someone for information? No. Compared to the lot of us, he’s clean, like. Jessie needs time to see that. I’ll go bug her in a day or so.”

Tristan shook his head. “Don’t you find all this manipulation exhausting? You never strike me as a person with a lot of patience.”

“I don’t have patience for eejits. But massaging a situation just right to get what ye want? Now, that’s a game. That’s fun.” She dropped her rock into the basket. “Look up my magical breed, boyo. This is what we do. We’re good on the battlefield, oh, aye, but our true talent is the art of manipulation.”

He nodded slowly as he rocked, taking that in. He really had no idea. Back in the day, she could bribe a king’s royal staff, then travel from tavern to brothel, from bard to kitchen maid, collecting information. Each little scrap was pieced into the whole until she had the complete picture—or near enough. She could always follow the informational trail, albeit literally, as she went from place to place and physically heard things from mouths or read them in print.

Now? Ones and zeroes. Numbers and code. Cloud storage, firewalls, aliases, and anonymous message forums. It was a nightmare, like. Even if she did go on the road to meet with people—and she did need to get Jessie invited to a whole lot of mage dinners to do just that—she didn’t know where to find the buggers, and equally didn’t know how or even where to send them a secret message to arrange it all.

Ivy House might’ve made her sharp between the ears, but this new technology made her feel every year of her age.

When in doubt, hire out.

In the meantime, she had enough to keep her busy and things swimming along.

“Sebastian has done right by us so far, even with his slips,” Niamh mused, jiggling her rocks around. “The slips are a problem for him, but as far as our outfit is concerned, we’re in good shape. They’re making a bollocks of their own situation, though. Given their situation eventually needs to merge with ours, he’s making bags of things.”

“How do you mean?” asked Tristan. “The message boards are all lit up with fear and speculation about where he might strike next. They think he’s climbing back to the top.”

She shook her head and picked up another rock. Her mind went to the random threads waving at her to notice, needing her to connect them. People, jobs, and those caught up in the middle of things, forced to bow to authorities they wanted no part of. Some of those people would make great allies. Some of those would have to be killed. Others would need to be exploited.

That was what he should be focusing on. She said as much.

“He’s being showy with deaths that no one really cares about,” she said. “He’s playing in the shadow depths when Momar has brought dirty deeds into the mainstream. He’s waging battle the way we need to be waging battle instead of the way a person with his clout and social standing should. He’s stuck in yesteryear. And sure, maybe he’d eventually get somewhere. He’s smart. But he’s moving too slowly.”

“What do you propose?”

She grinned and dropped her rock into the basket, then set the basket on the ground. “War. They framed us, and now we’ll frame them. Time for the two of us to do a little traveling.”

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