it against my face. There had to be a better option than a violent sporking. There had to be a way to get rid of my dad.
I was going to see Maeve Flynn tomorrow so she could start teaching me the things about magic the Authority didn’t like regular people to know about. Secret things, like there was a secret group of magic users-the Authority-who ran their own kind of justice in this city and went around deciding who would and wouldn’t be allowed to use magic. Secret things my father had been involved with-including the disks that made magic portable and nearly painless. Dad had been a part of the Authority, and he had been killed because there was some sort of magical war brewing among them.
And Zayvion, who was most definitely a part of the Authority, had lobbied to get me admitted into the group for training with Maeve. I wasn’t convinced it was the best option, but since my choice had been join or have all my memories of how to use magic taken away from me, I’d joined.
Being possessed by a dead relative sounded like something right up Maeve’s alley.
Okay, so I’d talk to her about it and see what she could do.
Now I just needed to get through my date with Zayvion Jones. I so did not want my dad in my head on my first real date with the man I was pretty sure I might love.
Maybe I should cancel.
Zayvion didn’t carry a cell, and I didn’t know his home number. That’s the problem with dating a secret magic assassin, a Closer: you don’t call them, they call you.
So, the date was on. I’d tell Zayvion I had a chaperone. Maybe he could help me figure it out.
Step one: shower. Would my dad feel me naked? Don’t think about that.
Step two: dress. Would my dad see me naked? Really don’t think about that.
And step three: go on a date with Zayvion. Would my dad know what I felt about Zayvion? Would he hear what I thought about him? Would he feel me hot and needful for him?
Probably. ’Cause I’m just lucky that way.
A knock on the door rang out so loud, I yelled and spun, fingers poised to draw a Hold spell. No one in my bathroom. The knock had come from my front door, not my bathroom door.
Magic flared through my bones, my hold on it slipping. The sensuous heat of magic pushed against my skin, stretching me, straining to get free, and I had to exhale to make room for it to move. It pressed heavy in me, a sweet pain, promising anything, everything, so long as I was willing to pay the price for it.
I felt the moth-wing flutter of my dad in my head, his curiosity at the magic inside me.
“You touch it, and I’ll use it to end you,” I said through my teeth.
The curious little moth became very, very still.
Good. At least he could tell when I was not kidding around.
I very carefully spread my fingers apart and then closed them into fists, consciously resisting the temptation to draw the Hold glyph, to cast magic. Because no matter what magic promised, every time I lost control of it, magic used me like a disposable glove at a proctology exam.
, I thought.
I took another good breath or two, and magic retreated into a more normal rhythm of flowing up from the cisterns deep beneath the city, into me, and, unused, out of me back into the ground.
The knock at the front door rapped out louder.
I fished the vase and rose out of the sink and put them on the little shelf above the towel rack. The pink rose Zayvion had given me looked a little worse for the wear, but it wasn’t dead yet. Tough flowers, roses. All that sweet beauty with the thorns to back it up. I appreciated that.
I dried my hands on my jeans and strode out of the bathroom. I wasn’t expecting company. Well, except for Zayvion. But he said he’d be back in at seven. We had dinner plans. First-date plans. Let’s-be-normal-like-other- normal-people plans.
The knock rattled out again.
There is one thing I can say about living in the city. There isn’t a Ward or Alarm spell on the market strong enough to keep someone from breaking down your door if they have the will, the way, and a strong enough shoulder.
My baseball bat was under the bed, but I always left a hammer on the bookshelf.
Hammers can do all kinds of damage if they are swung low enough.
Yes, it had been that kind of week.
And the knocking just kept coming.
I stopped in front of the door, took a breath, and held still both it and magic in me for a second. I recited my little mantra:
until the order of those words calmed my racing thoughts.
It took about five seconds. My mind, my thoughts, cleared.
Using magic wasn’t as easy as the actors made it look in the movies. It can’t be cast in states of high emotion-like anger or, say, while freaking out because your freaking dead dad is in your freaking head. Every time you use magic, it uses you back. Sure, you could magic yourself a photographic memory for that big test, for that big interview, for that big stock market job. And all it cost you was a nice case of liver failure.
Or the memory of your lover’s name.
Exhale. Good. Calm? Check. I leaned against the doorframe and sniffed. I didn’t draw magic up into my sense of smell, though I was good at that too. Smelling, tracing, tracking, Hounding the burnt lines of spells back to their casters was how I made my living. But I couldn’t smell anything over the oily tang of WD-40 I’d sprayed on the lock the other day.
I peeked through the peephole.
The woman in the hall was dressed in jeans, a knitted vest, button-down blouse, and a full-length coat. Blond, about eight inches shorter than my own six feet, she was a little wet. Portland’s good at wet. The best. But even in the unglamorous warp of the peephole, she looked like a million sunny days to me.
Nola Robbins, my best friend in all the world.
I slipped the locks, which slid smoothly-thank you, WD-40-and threw open the door.
“Oh, thank God,” she said. “I thought I heard you yell.”
“I did. I’m fine. It’s so good to see you!” I practically flew out of my apartment and into her arms.
Nola hugged me, and I caught the scent of honey and warm summer grass even though it was the middle of winter. The familiar comforting scents of her brought up memories of her nonmagical alfalfa farm and old nonmagical farmhouse. I inhaled, filling myself with the scents and memories of pleasant days. I did not want to let her go.
She patted my back, and I gave her one last squeeze.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t think so,” she hedged. “What’s up with the hammer?”
I dropped it on the little table by the door. “Just, you know. It’s the city.”
She shook her head. “You could get a dog.”
“Don’t start with me. Come on in.” I belatedly noticed she had a suitcase with her. “Let me help.”
“I got it.” She strolled into my apartment, wheeling the suitcase behind her.
Out of habit, I looked up and down the hall. No one. Not even a shadow on the wall, watching us. I hoped. I wasn’t the only Hound in the city, and Hounds knew how to be quiet when they wanted to be.
I relocked the door.
“Allie,” she said, scanning my overcrowded bookshelves and my undercrowded everything else. “Have you even unpacked since you moved?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “This is all that’s left.” Or at least it was all I could stand having. Whoever broke into my old apartment had not only tossed everything I owned; he or she had left a scent on it. The stink of iron and minerals, like old vitamins, not only kicked up half-remembered pain, but was also a bitch to scrub out of the upholstery.
