Stealth went hot. Mr. Webb was scheming against his dad.
A long bit of quiet.
“Yes, I am prepared to do just that.” Mr. Webb looked over at the wall, almost as if he could see him. But Stealth had been doing this bit of magic for too long to be scared. “I’m sure he’ll be very cooperative.”
Stealth glared right back.
Cooperative? An archnemesis? Never.
“What do you mean he’s staying here?” Scarlet demanded of Cari. “Did he seduce you so easily?”
Cari paced around the far end of the formal dining table, Umbra research in hand. She’d wanted a large surface to lay everything out and her father’s desk was already covered. Unfortunately, her family saw no reason not to bother her here, even though she was trying to work. Actually, they’d bother her anywhere if they wanted.
Zel, who was sitting on the table swinging her legs, rather than occupying a chair like an adult, laughed out loud. “Mother!”
Cari didn’t need this. She laid out the membrane integrity graphs to see if she could find any regularity in the findings. “You want me to throw him out to them?” The protesters from DolanCo now camped just outside the Dolan House wards.
Scarlet didn’t flinch. “He’s a stray.”
Stray meant his blood wasn’t good, wasn’t pure. That he had no true loyalties. That he couldn’t be trusted. That he would seize an opportunity.
Well, there had been that one time . . . Mason leaning in, his warm breath on her cheek, her heart pounding so loud she was sure he could hear it . . . but Cari wasn’t going to mention that, nor think about it too much herself. It still made her heart pound, and it had been years ago.
“Mason is my partner, and it would do no House, including ours, any good for him to be in danger, at the mercy of the hysterical masses, when wards could protect him.”
Besides the fact that he’d gotten her out of a very tight situation. Maybe her stepmother needed to see that news clip again. The stations were playing it over and over. Boom went Mason’s great big hammer. That helicopter might even still be circling the house.
At least the house was well stocked for everything they might need, should they be stuck inside the wards for a while. Her father had always thought ahead and had prepared for this very situation. Food stuffs. Supplies. Generators. In-ground well. For now, they were fine.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Zel offered suggestively. Her fingers undid the braid in her long hair and she shook it free into streams of silvery sunshine. She let the mass fall around her face and made bedroom eyes at Cari.
Scarlet rounded on her. “You will not. Need I remind you that you are betrothed to marry?”
Zel, age twenty-four, did kissy fish lips at her mother.
Cari was definitely not going to bring up the fact that Stacia wasn’t going back to school.
Scarlet, like a variety performer spinning plates, turned back to Cari. “Is this the way you honor your father?”
Which just pissed her off. “I don’t deserve that. And I don’t want to hear one more word about Mason staying here. He is. Period.” And to Zel, just in case, “You leave him alone.”
Zel pushed off the table. “That’s okay. Stacia’s called dibs anyway.”
Scarlet went white. “That’s not funny.”
Cari kinda thought it was, but she kept her expression straight as she looked at her pages. The jagged red line on the graph in question went up and down, no rhyme, no reason.
“Well, someone should bang him,” Zel said.
Silence.
Cari did a double take, surprised that Zel evidently meant her. Heat flashed over her skin, but she managed to be blithe. “I have other work to do.”
“Delegate,” Zel said.
Scarlet sputtered. “What will the Walkers think?”
Cari pointed to the door. “Out.”
Zel actually did as she was told. Shocker. Scarlet would be more difficult. Cari wasn’t going to get any work done until Scarlet had said her piece.
“Did you know he has allied with Webb?” Scarlet’s tone was smug.
Cari paused. She’d just found out about the fosterage agreement; Kaye Brand had failed to mention it when she was here. A convenient omission. But Cari wasn’t all that surprised: Brand and Webb were allied; it made sense that Mason was, too.
“I ask you, how does a stray make that kind of arrangement? Webb is an old, prestigious House.”
Cari repeated what she’d been told. “Brand says it was the bargain struck for him to investigate the mage plague.”
“A stray doesn’t have that kind of pull.”
“Brand was a stray herself once.”
Scarlet scoffed. “Not really.”
“Her House burned to the ground.”
“Word is Brand lit the match herself.”
Cari put her arm around Scarlet’s shoulders and led her to the door. “Please, Scarlet. This investigation is on behalf of all our Houses, so of course he is going to have allies we don’t share. And if those allies are powerful, then he must have earned them, which means the likelihood of our finding the source of the plague is greater.” And, to cover all of her stepmother’s objections. “I promise to guard against his formidable powers of seduction.”
He did have a cool car and had claimed to be—Cari would never forget—good with his hands.
Cari eased Scarlet out the door. Then shut it on her protest.
For the love of Shadow, her stepmother was going to drive her insane. Cari was the Dolan now, responsible for all of them, the house, the company, but she didn’t think the rest of her family recognized the distinction. She didn’t know whether to hug them or demand a little respect.
She went back to the table to concentrate on the membrane tissue again. A prototype was nested in a box. She lifted out the vial, formed out of the thinnest, most delicate of lab-grown membrane. It was shaped like a palm-sized teardrop, black with magic. DolanCo was going to call their new product Umbra. The logo was a stylized U representing the unusual vial.
It would be her father’s legacy. Her throat tightened just thinking of him.
Perhaps if she could see the Shadow and the containment more clearly, she could figure out what was wrong.
Maybe . . . ?
Why not.
Cari drew from her Shadow within, just a little, but once again, she received too much. The power submerged her in waters of possibility and promise, making her feel strong, when she knew she should be tired, and it made her feel invincible, when she’d had very recent proof that even the mightiest mage could fall.
Maeve giggled as Cari reached for power like a newborn kissing the sea for a drink of water. Maeve paced along the bank, restless and wanting.
Child, yes, take it. Draw deep. This is your inheritance.
Cari could open her lips wide and fill her belly.
Want more? Why resist? Indulge.
Dolan. Dark House. Revel House.
Royal House.
Cari Dolan, daughter of Shadow, be not afraid.
Welcome me and we will rule together.
Cari turned abruptly. “Who’s there?”
Her Shadow-logged vision swam with murky fronds of magic, a ready, ecstatic kind of feeling, like the build-up to a climax. But the alarm that zapped her system stung, and she concentrated on that.
Someone was definitely in the room. She’d just heard them. She turned again.
Nothing. Just drifting Shadow, warping her senses.
Cari felt like she was swimming in circles. Whoever was with her remained hidden behind her. She wanted a mirror to see what or who was in back of her, playing a game.