Lies & Omens

Zoe touched her arm. “Hey. Sylvie. It really is okay. I know a lot of healing spells. And with this? Val can’t object to me practicing them. She might even teach me some offensive spells. Mostly, she’s just showed me defensive ones. I had to make it up as I went along.”

Sylvie shuddered. “Thank you for not telling me that before we took on the Society. I would have died of worry.” Demalion reached over, twined his fingers with her good ones, squeezed.

“Hey, I’m badass even on defense. Shielding and magical pitfalls and illusions and mind reading. You can do a whole hell of a lot with those.”

Marah interrupted them. “You shouldn’t play defense, Zoe. Not with Cain’s mark on your hand. You’re a killer. It’s a waste of your talents.”

Zoe shrugged. “Whatever.”

Sylvie had never been so glad to hear that annoying word out of her sister’s mouth.

Before she could tell Marah off for trying to—what? Recruit her sister?—Demalion said. “Airport next, Marah?”

“Yeah. I think it’s safe enough. So, four tickets to Miami?”

“Four?” Sylvie said. “Where are you going?”

“So eternally untrusting,” Marah said. “If you must know, DC. There’s a job opening at the head of the ISI. It’s got my name all over it.” She smiled. Smug. More than that. Happy. Accomplished.

“That’s what you want? That’s your plan? To take over the ISI?”

Marah let her smile widen. “Oh yeah. It’s been a long time coming.”

“You’re a lunatic,” Sylvie said.

“Related to you,” Marah said. “Seriously, why wouldn’t I? Power, prestige, loads of excitement, and things to kill. I’m an ideal candidate. Magic resistance and everything. There’s going to be more money than ever being shunted our way once people really sit down and come to grips with their shiny new memories of monsters and magic.”

“You, too?” Demalion asked.

Zoe and Lupe traded left-out, puzzled glances.

“Three out of five,” Sylvie said. “Odds don’t look good for the rest of the world.”

“Positive thinking, Sylvie. Positive thinking.”

“See, I like that,” Marah said. “You coming to DC with me, Demalion? There’s definitely a place for you in my ISI if you want it.”

Sylvie stiffened, but Demalion’s answer was quick and certain. “No.”

“Not even if I offer you a top position?”

“You’re quick to assume no one will object to your taking over,” Sylvie said.

Marah smiled. “I’ve got it locked. Don’t you worry about that. I have persuasive and powerful friends. I even have you to back me as director of the ISI. That’ll be something to show them. That I have Shadows on my side.”

“You do?”

“Absolutely,” Marah said. “After all I’ve done for you, do you really feel you can say no?”

Sylvie sighed. There might be worse things, she thought, than having Marah in charge of the ISI.

Not much, her little dark voice said. An assassin in charge of a secret government organization.

Probably not going to be secret that much longer, not if the Magicus Mundi wasn’t secret. People were going to want to know that there was a plan—Sylvie studied Marah’s smile and felt suspicion. Somehow, this was all working to Marah’s benefit. Every step of it. The attacks that killed the ISI heads, the unmasking of the Society, Marah’s easy capture by Yvette’s people, even Sylvie’s owing her debts. But she hadn’t known about the Society. Until Sylvie told her. Right?

Just a clever mercenary. Seizing the moment.

Seizing it right now.

“So, you never answered me, Demalion? If I made you a division head? Rejoin the ISI? Excitement. Molding the world. Saving people?”

Zoe stiffened at Sylvie’s side, all youthful indignation. Sylvie, older, wiser, thought he might say yes. He could do a lot of good as a division head. He had always believed in the ISI goals.

“No,” Demalion said again. “I’m sticking with Sylvie this time. I think I’ll get enough excitement and saving people working with her. And hey, we unmasked the Mundi. She’s going to need another partner.”

“Can we just go home?” Lupe interrupted. Tears slicked her face, looking painful as they squeezed past her swollen eyes. “I don’t care who goes to DC as long as I get to go home.”

“Seconded,” Zoe said. Her shoulders sagged; her hands shook. Her bravery and adrenaline were wearing off. Sylvie wanted the inevitable crash to be somewhere other than an ISI clinic. She wanted them to think of her as strong, not to be messed with. Not the teenager she actually was. A tear smudged Zoe’s face, trickled crookedly through the burn salve.

Sylvie herself wanted to get someplace familiar. Safe. There was a certain sensation in the air, a feeling that all the bad luck they’d dodged was just out there, waiting. Biding its time.

The world, Sylvie thought, was holding its breath. Waiting to see who flinched first. The human world or the Magicus Mundi.

* * *

MARAH PUT THEM IN FIRST-CLASS SEATING, WHICH LEFT SYLVIE feeling irritably grateful since there were fewer people to gape at them in the curtained-off area. She curled up next to Zoe, Demalion reaching across the aisle to brush his hand against hers every time she jerked awake. Lupe traveled in complete silence, not sleeping. Not talking. Sylvie didn’t think it was just because she was caught between Demalion—who she didn’t know at all —and the window. Sylvie thought about changing seats, thought about trying to piece together whatever made Lupe look like she was dying inside, but the painkillers swept her back under, and she didn’t wake until they landed.

She staggered out, leaning heavily on Demalion’s shoulder, bumping into him when he hesitated.

The security at the airport seemed … tense. Sylvie found herself wondering how many of the guards were reeling beneath returned memories that pointed out that there were far more exotic dangers than terrorists. Three out of five, she thought. Again, she found herself grateful to Marah for getting them back home with such speed. She had a feeling flights were about to get complicated.

“Let’s get out of here,” she murmured to Demalion. “We’re not unnoticeable. And they’re jumpy.”

As they moved through the concourse, she heard whispers, watched heads turn toward the news stations playing every few hundred feet. Same two words on every lips. Key Biscayne. The news stations showed the Rickenbacker Causeway blocked off with police vehicles.

Shit.

Erinya was still throwing her weight around. Now there was no memory sink to hide it.

She quickened her pace though it made her hand ache, made Demalion hiss as the change pulled his stitches. Zoe adjusted her stride smoothly, kept her head down, her burned hair and cheek hidden in the shadow of Sylvie’s body.

They lost Lupe; Sylvie turned and found her staring at the raised television screen, watching the flashing police lights, the line of text running beneath: INEXPLICABLE ECOLOGICAL CHANGES ON KEY BISCAYNE.

“Take me there,” Lupe said, when Sylvie touched her shoulder. She twitched away from the touch.

“It’s crawling with cops.”

Lupe shot her a scornful glance. “You expect me to believe you’re afraid of the cops? After what I’ve seen? No.” She shook her head. Determination flared in her voice, brought life and fire to it. “Take me there.”

Sylvie breathed out. “You’re the client.”

* * *

DEMALION GOT THEM ONTO THE CAUSEWAY AND PAST THE FIRST OF the police barricades by rolling down the window and fishing out his federal credentials. Sylvie had to smile, though it felt tight on her lips. All of the shit he’d gone through in the past week, and he still had his ID to hand? The man was born to be a Fed.