I took my plate into the kitchen.
He followed me. “You like to screw with me, is that it? Saiman, that Russian mage, that merc . . .”
“What merc?”
“Bob.”
I racked my brain. I’d barely said two words to Bob. “He stopped by our table to ask me which way I’d vote in the Guild elections. They still haven’t figured out who is in charge, and I’m technically on the roster.”
“Yeah. Did he have to lean over you while he was talking?”
“He was trying to let Mark think that he and I were buddies.”
“And you are not.”
I threw a bread roll at him. Curran snapped it out of the air.
“Would you like me to carry a foot-long stick? I can just poke people with it when they get too close.”
“That’s a good idea.” He held his arm out. “If you can extend your arm and touch them with the stick, they are too close.”
“You’re insane.”
“If I’m insane, what does it make you?”
“A terrible judge of character.”
I went back to the couch. I could’ve fallen for someone steady. Dependable. Well-grounded. But nooo, I had to lose my head over this idiot.
Curran pounced. It was an excellent pounce, executed with preternatural speed. He pinned me to the couch. “Tell me where Saiman is.”
“Or what?”
“Or I will be displeased.”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s worried himself into paranoia, Curran. When Jim and I were dealing with the rakshasas during the Midnight Games, Saiman went into the Pit to plant a tracker into a rakshasa opponent. He was so terrified, he could barely move. The rakshasa cut him, and Saiman snapped. He bashed the rakshasa to death and kept beating his body for about five minutes. When he finally calmed down, there was only mush left. I know you can take him. I can take him, too. The question is why. Why make an enemy of him? You have to either kill him now or stop screwing with him, and if you’re going to kill him, I really
Curran growled and moved to sit next to me.
“He wants the pressure to go away. He’s prepared to soothe your ego. He gave us everything he knew about Kamen and the device for this precise reason, and he fully expects you to ask for more.”
“My ego doesn’t need soothing,” Curran said. “I don’t want him soothing anything of mine, including you.”
“Jim has him stashed away at one of the safe houses. Do as you will.”
I stared at him.
“What?” he growled.
“Waiting to see if you’re going to run out on me on the night before the Apocalypse to go beat his ass.”
Curran reached for me. “He’ll keep. There is no rush.”
“Keep your hands to yourself. You said you didn’t need any more soothing.”
“I changed my mind. Besides, I’m the hot male lead. Actors get all the chicks.” He kissed me. “You’re still going through with this?”
“Yes,” I told him honestly.
“Don’t,” he said.
I slumped forward. “I have to at least try. Are you going to try to stop me?”
“No. You made a decision, and you’re following through with it. I don’t like it, but I’ll help you with it, because you’re my mate and I would expect the same from you.” Curran grimaced. “It would be worse if you sat on your hands and moaned about not knowing what to do. I couldn’t deal with that.”
The Beast Lord way: often wrong but never in doubt.
“As long as we’re on the subject,” Curran said. “ ‘The man thrust it back into the wound and spoke the words that bound the wolf to obey him forever.’ If you do this, Julie will never be able to disobey a direct order from you. You will be making a slave.”
I glanced at him. “I thought about that. I don’t know if it’s even necessary for the ritual, but I can’t take that chance. I’ll have to do it exactly the way Roland did.”
“She can never know,” Curran said. “Look, I’ve been in charge of people for a long time. Trust me on this, you can’t take Julie’s free will away from her. If you do this, that’s your secret and you have to live with that. You have to be strong enough to keep that from her, and that means you’ll have to think twice before any instructions to her come out of your mouth.”
I rubbed my face. He was right. If Julie got as much as a hint that she had no choice about obeying me, I’d lose her. The most natural things like, “No, you can’t go out to the woods with Maddie in the middle of the night” now would have to become, “I would strongly prefer that you stayed home.” I had a hard enough time steering her as it was.
“I’ll deal with it,” I said. “As long as she’s alive. Everything else we’ll figure out along the way.”
The magic rolled over us like a suffocating blanket.
The countdown had begun. We had ten hours and fifty-nine minutes.
Someone knocked. Curran went to the door. From where I lay, I could see his face in profile. His mouth curved. He came back, chuckling to himself.
“Yes?”
“The witches have sent you a gift.”
MY PRESENT SAT BEHIND THE TABLE IN THE SMALLER conference room. It hid in the folds of a dark cloak. Only the hand was visible, a small feminine hand with manicured nails that gripped a spoon, stirring the tea in a blue cup. Jezebel leaned against the opposite wall, glaring at the cloaked woman as if she were a fire-spitting dragon. Barabas waited by the door. He saw me and smiled. It was a sharp, nasty smile, like a cat that had finally caught the mouse and was about to torture it to death.
What now?
I pulled my hair up into a bun and headed for the door. Barabas handed me a note in Evdokia’s curvy Russian script. It read:
Beware of gifts from Baba Yaga—they came with strings attached, and sometimes if you took them, you ended up in the oven as dinner.
“Did she come alone?”
“No, Evdokia’s daughters brought her.” Barabas’s grin got wider. “I checked into it and she and Grigorii have five children. They’re their own private Russian mafia.”
I stepped through the door and took a seat at the table. The woman pulled her hood back, exposing a wealth of glossy red hair. Rowena.
If she had pulled off her hood and turned out to be Medusa with her head full of vipers, I would’ve been less surprised.
We looked at each other. A red feverish flush colored her cheeks. Bloodshot eyes, puffy nose. Slightly smeared eyeliner. Rowena had been crying. That was a first. Rowena kept her composure no matter what. The roof could cave in and she’d smile against the backdrop of falling rocks and ask you to do her the favor of moving toward the exit.
“Okay,” I said. “I want an explanation. Now. What are you doing here?”
Rowena swallowed. “Bozydar, the journeyman who killed himself today, was my nephew. I’m banned from navigation pending an investigation. I will be cleared of all charges and they will reinstate me.”
“You seem very sure of that.”
Rowena sniffed. “Ghastek is ambitious. Nataraja won’t last much longer; something happened, and he mostly hides in his quarters now. Ghastek and Mulradin are running things, and each one of them wants to be at the top. They are scrambling to form alliances. I’m ranked third in finesse and fourth in power, and I support Ghastek. He
