Ritual Magic

A quick, impatient huff loud enough for Lily to hear. Her left wrist was starting to hurt. She tried to huddle in closer to the ladder so that hand wouldn’t have as much weight to support. “That limited sort of thinking is why Benedict is in charge instead of you. Well, put the trapdoor back and lock it up and—”

“There’s no lock on this end.” The rug rustled as if it had been moved. The trapdoor lifted a fraction—and dropped snugly into place.

Pete had done what Miriam told him to do. Exactly what she told him to do, and not one bit more. Lily realized she’d been holding her breath and exhaled, trying to do so quietly.

Miriam’s voice was more muffled now. Lily missed some words. “That’s hardly . . . leaving this unlocked. What was Benedict thinking?”

Pete was still beside the trapdoor. She heard him clearly. “The other ends of the tunnel are warded. Seaborne’s created the wards. He wouldn’t have had trouble getting in, but others would.”

He’d phrased that so carefully—did he suspect she was down here? Yes. Suspect or hope or pray—he wanted someone to be down here. Someone who could actually do something . . .

“Well, at least one . . . unlocked now. You’d . . . put something heavy on top . . . That bookcase should do. It’s heavy enough . . .” The rest was indistinct, but then she said in a different, sharper tone, “What is it?”

“Fighting.” Pete’s voice was tight. “Out back.”

“Our company’s arrived!” Miriam laughed, all breezy and glad. “I need to get out there and—no, no, get the . . . then come with me.”

Lily heard Pete grunt with effort. Two seconds later there was a loud thud right over her head.

Slowly Lily holstered her gun. Her heart pounded and pounded as she climbed higher. She pushed at the bottom of the trapdoor with her right hand. Maybe Pete had managed somehow not to block it . . . no. She hadn’t a chance of budging it. Miriam had been explicit that time, and Pete had followed orders.

There was fighting out back. Miriam had laughed when Pete said that.

Tears of frustration burned her eyes. Rule had charged the house right on schedule, but Cullen was a prisoner and she was trapped in a tunnel as dark as Jonah’s sitting room. Rule would do his damnedest, but he only had six men with him . . . and Miriam had sounded so pleased. What did she have planned?

Lily sucked in breath and told herself to think, dammit. She wasn’t really trapped. There were three exits. She could head for the closest one, but then what? She’d be spotted as soon as she came out from the trees. Unless every guard under Miriam’s control had been sent out back to fight Rule . . . could Miriam be dumb enough to do that?

Probably not, but Lily didn’t see what else to do. She climbed back down the ladder in a darkness so profound she might as well have been blind. Not a sliver of light, no shades of gray here at all. She cursed herself for an idiot for not bringing her purse, or at least the flashlight that was in it. There hadn’t seemed any point when Cullen could make mage lights so easily, and . . . and she was still being stupid. She had her phone.

Lily pulled it out, hit the power button, and the screen lit. Not much light, but enough to get her moving— walking fast at first, then running, because Rule was fighting for his life right now and she wasn’t there, wasn’t with him, and when she got to the exit by the trees what the hell was she going to do? Try to shoot her way into Isen’s house?

Maybe it was the inadequate light or the uneven surface, or maybe it was the way tears suddenly blurred her vision. Whatever the cause, she tripped and fell, dropping her phone and landing on her sprained wrist.

The sharp pain startled a cry out of her. She choked it off, but too late, too late . . . had someone heard? There was a lot of dirt between her and the rest of the world, but lupi ears were keen. If one of them was nearby . . .

What would happen if a Nokolai lupus heard her in the tunnel?

She sat in the dirt cradling her throbbing wrist and at last her mind began working. Furiously.

Assumptions, she thought a moment later. Everyone makes them. Miriam did. She kept assuming that because people had to do what she said, they’d do what she wanted. The two weren’t the same, were they? Lily grabbed her phone off the dirt floor. Miriam didn’t always get her orders right. She’d told one person simply that he wanted to do everything he could to help her. And it worked; he still wanted to help her.

“Help” was such a fluid word.

Lily touched the screen of her phone. She and Rule kept their phones synced, so if he had Cory’s number, she should have it, too . . . not that she knew Cory’s last name, but she could do a search on the first name and . . . nothing with that spelling. She tried again, this time looking for Gene’s number. Bingo.

“Gene. It’s Lily. I need to talk to Cory.”

FORTY-ONE

THERE was no sound of fighting at Isen’s house anymore.

It had taken too long to put her plan into action. Lily was horribly aware that it had all taken way too long, and besides, this was insane. What had made her think this would work? No doubt she stank of fear to the lupi around her.

The guard who’d stopped them was named Rick. Rick was over sixty and had one grown son, two lupus grandsons, and a young daughter. A rich man, as lupi counted wealth. “He just came marching up with her, sir,” Rick said to Pete. “Says he wanted to help Miriam.”

Surely this hadn’t been her idea. That damn half-dead god must’ve put it into her head. He must be laughing his head off right now. But she’d follow through anyway. She’d stand here stinking of fear with her arms pinned behind her back and follow through. Cory wasn’t holding her arms tightly enough to hurt, but she had no chance of getting free.

Pete had come from the back of the house when Rick called. The floodlights were on, so she had no trouble seeing him. He was cradling his right arm with his left and his face lacked all expression. Normally Pete had one of those mobile faces that shows everything, but tonight he was as stone-faced as Benedict. “Cory. Why aren’t you at the gate? What the hell are you up to?”

“Someone called and when we were chatting she said Lily had gone to the store,” Cory said earnestly. “I knew Miriam wanted to see her, and I wanted to help Miriam, so I checked and sure enough, Lily was there.”

“You and Gene were told to call me if Lily showed up.”

“Yes, sir, if she came to the gate, but she didn’t. She was at the store.”

Pete’s gaze flicked to Lily without meeting her eyes. “And she just came along with you?”

“Well . . . not exactly.” Cory did a good job of sounding abashed. “And I had to take her gun. I didn’t hurt her, though. I was careful. I mean, it’s Lily.”

Pete sighed. “Better give me her weapon.”

Cory shifted his grip on her arms so he could free one hand. He gave Pete her Glock. “I hope I did the right thing.”

A longish pause. “I expect you did what you were told to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

And that was true, as was everything else Cory had said. When Lily coached him, she’d emphasized that he had to tell the truth. If Miriam were to ask him about his story directly, he’d have no choice but to answer, so they’d come up with a story that was, word by word, true . . . just not all of the truth.

Someone had called him to say Lily was at the general store. She had, when she arranged to meet him there. Cory had taken Lily’s weapon without hurting her—easy enough to do, since she’d given it to him. He did know that Miriam wanted Lily. And he wanted to—had to—help Miriam.

But what would really help a woman who’d been taken over by a god willing to destroy an entire realm in order to be fully alive again? That was what she’d asked Cory to think about. She’d let him work through it himself, come up with his own answer. He had to believe it or this wouldn’t work. He couldn’t not help Miriam, Lily had said to him, but, she added, “That dead god has taken away her free will, so she wants what her god wants. Should you help her get what she wants? Or would something else help her more?”

Cory had thought it over for a painfully long time, but once he decided, he’d spoken with real certainty: “She