“Reykon intercepted the caravan and told everyone that we’d died,” Dag explained. “He set us up here and promised that nobody would find us.”
“That sounds like something he would do.”
“It’s a sort of witness protection program,” Willow added.
A wry smile tugged at Robin’s lips. “You mean a ‘witch’ ness protection program?”
Willow’s laugh sent butterflies through her, and Robin laughed along with the beautiful, bell-like sound.
“So you’ve been here for how long?”
“Five years now.”
“And you said witches don’t like naturalists? I thought you were witches.”
“There are two kinds of casters, or witches: elementalists and naturalists. We’re seen as the lesser type, because we don’t have as much power as the others. We draw our magic from plants, and life, and we can’t… well, we have to be careful about how much we draw, because it could kill the creature. Our kind was enslaved a long time ago, and it’s been that way ever since. Sometimes, the witches lend us out to their vampire allies, as pets or trinkets, so we were headed to House Mantell, along with several humans and a few wolf prisoners. Reykon was sent by Magnus to derail the mission, so that Mantell couldn’t amass casters when the great houses were starting a movement to push magic all the way out.”
“Oh,” Robin said, pretending to fully grasp it. She’d learned so much about the houses and the alliances that it was all blending together in a stream of mumbo jumbo.
“Why are you with Reykon?” Dag asked, stirring his tea.
Robin studied the contents of her mug. “It’s… well, complicated.”
“Would you like to talk about it?” Willow asked.
Yes. These two seemed to be trustworthy, and they’d helped her and Reykon. She saw no reason to keep anything from them.
“Reykon is supposed to deliver me to Magnus.”
Willow’s expression darkened. “I see.”
“We were attacked, on the way. I have a connection to a strongblood named Lucidia Draxos, and-”
“The Lucidia Draxos? From Xander?”
Robin raised an eyebrow. “I, uh, guess. She’s my half-sister.”
Dag quirked his head to the side. “I thought…”
“She was supposed to kill me at birth, but she didn’t, and somehow, Magnus found out about me, and, I don’t know, claimed me or something. Reykon was bringing me there, but Lucidia sabotaged the mission by telling Darian that I was still alive. Now, everybody from Xander is hunting us down. We were attacked by a crew, just outside of Lubbock.”
Willow’s eyes widened. “The explosions – was that him?”
A blush crept up, onto her cheeks. “That was me, actually.”
“They’re calling it an act of terrorism,” Dag said with a wide smile. “Impressive.”
“He did most of the fighting. It’s how he got hurt.” She snuck another glance at him. He looked peaceful, just like he was sleeping.
“And you’re traveling with him now?” Willow asked. “To Magnus?”
“I don’t have much of a choice,” Robin admitted. “Everybody is looking for me.”
Dag leaned forward. “You do have a choice.”
“What?”
“Reykon used an underground network of freed supernatural creatures to set us up here. We have friends everywhere. If you wanted, we could help you.”
Her eyes widened. “Where would I go?”
“You’d lay low for a year or so, and we’d find a way to make it look like you died. Then, you’d be set up with a new identity and a new home. It’s what happened for us.”
Robin’s heart pounded with the idea of freedom. This whole experience had been so jarring, so traumatic; she felt like she was playing monkey in the middle. Except that she was the ball.
Free. Not an object. Not property. A person, again.
“And… Reykon?” she asked.
“He won’t know. We’ll tell him you ran off.”
Robin thought about it, of running, of being rushed to some group of benevolent strangers. She wouldn’t get to say goodbye. If all went as planned, she wouldn’t ever see him again. He would go back to Magnus and…
A horrible thought crossed her mind, and she remembered Magnus’s anger and determination to have her by Friday.
“What would Magnus do to him?” Robin asked softly.
Willow folded her hands in front of her. “He’s never been a forgiving vampire, and I doubt he would take Reykon’s failure lightly. But it’s up to you, Robin. It’s your life.”
In other words, Magnus would kill Reykon. This was too important a job to tolerate failure; Reykon knew the stakes, and he knew this when he embarked on it.
If she ran, he would die.
Something in her broke a little at the thought of him being executed in front of the vampires, everybody watching, everybody yelling that he’d broken laws or disobeyed orders. He’d be subjected to Lucidia’s fate.
She wanted so badly to flee, to escape Magnus’s seemingly all-powerful clutches, and this horrible underbelly of a world that dealt in human capital and slavery.
But by ensuring herself a new life, she’d be ending Reykon’s.
She couldn’t do it to him.
She was throwing her life away, subjecting herself to slavery. But her arrival at House Demonte meant that Reykon would keep his job, his status. His life.
She couldn’t live with herself if she’d killed him, even indirectly.
“I…” she faltered. “I can’t let that happen to him.”
Willow scowled slightly but nodded. “You have feelings for him.”
“Yes,” Robin whispered.
“Magnus, you know what he will do to you?”
A tear dripped down Robin’s cheek. “Yes.”
“It’s your life,” Dag murmured. “And your choice.”
Robin let out a long breath. “My life is such a mess right now, I don’t even know what to make of it.”
They continued sipping their tea and making small talk. The cat lumbered over to them, nuzzling Robin’s leg, and she ignored the panicked, trapped feeling that was building in her chest.
Lucidia
He’d let her beat the tar out of him, let her break his jaw, and he’d done nothing, just holding both his hands up and allowing her to turn him into a pancake.
It infuriated her even more.
She wailed into him, watching her wrists glow fury-red, the symbols on them like deep cuts, reminding herself of what she was, what magic
