“Then I wouldn’t be able to find anything.”
But neatness would help him find what he needed. “They could take care of basic corresp—”
Cari interrupted with a strained smile. “I can’t trust them with this.” Her long, heavy, black lashes swooped up. Her gaze hit him. Hard. “Can I trust you?”
She was on to him. He must have given himself away. He stepped back.
Damn, she was smart. It had always turned him on. The rush of his blood sharpened his mind. She was the real thing. The epitome of mage royalty—too powerful for comfort, Twilight beautiful, ruthless. Cunning.
And that was just skimming the surface. He wished the man who did marry her luck. He’d need it. Cari was just getting started. Give her ten more years and she’d surpass her father.
“No,” Mason answered. “You can’t trust me.” He wished she could, but that’s not what life had in store. Fair warning.
An eyebrow arched upward. Aloof. But her mouth twisted, sardonic—revealing how she really felt. She was mocking him. “Thank you for the truth.”
“I lie when it suits me.” She had to know. He was even now trying to compartmentalize the morass on her desk to identify the information he sought.
Those lashes went up again, fringing the heart of her face. Deadly. “Noted. Again, thank you. I appreciate your candor, so I’d like to hire you.”
He took another step back. Distance to gauge her. She’d been so quick with the offer, she must have been considering it before he’d come down.
“You just suggested I get help,” she pointed out. An advance. “And I happen to have someone with an impressive reputation right here.”
Caspar would be proud. The way she maneuvered, even when exhausted. Keep your enemies close, and all that.
Mason preferred her relaxed and laughing, like the old days. But maybe that would be more dangerous. It was better for them both to be on their guard.
She sized him up with a scrape of her eyes. “I witnessed a brilliant performance just two days ago at DolanCo.”
He didn’t take jobs that conflicted with each other. And Webb had him already. “What’s the nature of the work?” He didn’t know why he asked. He knew his answer.
“I’m looking for information.” The book she was holding went down on her lap, a crooked finger marking her page. “On the fae. Crossing over into this world. How they do it.”
But he was not helping Webb with the fae.
“Has a fae crossed?” It was happening more and more, the most worrisome of this era’s dangers in his opinion.
“Not that I’m aware of, no.”
A dodge. Cari could lie like the best of them. She had a fae problem to go with the rest of her troubles. Plague, business, mob, her father’s death, the impending theft of her company’s membrane project. He wanted to tell her it would be okay.
But nothing was going to be okay.
He shook his head. “I can’t work for a House opposite my allies.” There. Was honor satisfied yet? He was no good at being a gentleman.
“Okay.” She took it with grace. Kept that Dolan chin up. Her eyes were hard, with sketchy Shadow in their depths.
He was actually afraid for her.
“My father built this house anticipating a siege or two.” The tone of her voice told him she was disengaging. “So there are entertainments—a media room, a gym. You’re free to use anything. My sisters won’t bug you, or not much. The rest of the family will keep their distance. You might keep an eye out for my stepmother, though.”
Mason made to draw a breath, but found he’d been holding it already.
It was only information. Lore, even. Not work. A way to pass the time.
He wouldn’t delude himself. It was a way to spend more time with her. Pretty Cari, who’d looked so hard to really see him. And him, looking back.
What was he doing?
“I’m not interested in being hired, but I do. . . .” His neck was tightening. This was a bad, bad idea. “But I need something to keep busy.” In addition to stealing her membrane concept. “I have an interest in faelore myself.”
She’d followed. He could see it in her eyes. “You’ll help. But I can’t trust you.”
He liked her so much. He nodded.
She laughed, and he actually thought her tension eased. “And I thought I had to walk a fine line. I don’t know how you do it.”
He didn’t know how either. But he knew why. Fletcher.
For Fletcher he leaned over and touched the back of the screen of Cari’s laptop. For Fletcher, he reached inside and left a stitch of his Shadow behind, so that he might access her computer from his later.
Cari didn’t seem to expect an answer. And he wasn’t about to detail how everything about his life was gray and growing darker by the day.
“Okay—” She seemed to be organizing his task in her thoughts. “I’m interested in any faelore that refers to the creation of the mage Houses, mine in particular. Specifically a fae named Maeve. You have contacts, access to resources that I don’t.”
You ask him for aid, a human, but not me?
The rabble of lesser fae behind Maeve screamed and quailed.
Daughter mine, you are a fool.
Ask me, need me, call upon me.
A chill rippled over Cari’s body, raising the hair on her arms. She’d fought the push and presence of Maeve for two days, each hour more difficult than the last, and was more tired than she had ever been in her life—but she was too stunned to smother the voice within her now.
Human?
Yesssss.
She closed her father’s journal, losing her spot—she’d find it again, the day he’d inherited Dolan House from his father—and smiled up at Mason. The expression felt too sunny, too fake, so it withered on her face.
You lie, Maeve.
Not to you.
How, then? Mason had access to so much Shadow. A reputation that had earned him connections to great Houses. She’d witnessed his magic for herself. His hammer, how it had parted the way for them to escape.
And his soul is so very pretty. Can you feel it? I want to feel it. There is nothing in any realm like a fierce soul. Burns a little at first, going down, but even that is ecstatic in its own way—human emotion, memory stirring the belly. Yessss. . . .
“You don’t mind if I go through your library?” Mason asked. “See what you have?”
Cari drew a deep breath to concentrate on him. Mason. The man that had set the bar for all others. Human. And yet, Erom had never had a chance.
He’d mentioned the library.
There was nothing there that Cari didn’t already know—her father had insisted on a thorough education and she’d been up all last night re-checking. “Please, go ahead. But I was hoping for more first-hand knowledge.”
Mason’s eyebrows went up. “You mean Khan, at Segue.”
Thanatos. Cari stifled Maeve’s groan. He’s tedious and cold. Choose heat, dove. Choose Mason. He is right here and he’s playing with you.
Cari couldn’t have Mason. She’d learned that a long time ago.
But yes, Khan. That’s exactly who she thought might have her answers. Mason had a connection to Segue; he’d even mentioned it the other day to that girl at DolanCo. And Khan was associated with that place. Khan, Shadowman, the Grim Reaper—whatever he was called—was as old as the world. He’d know who Maeve was.
Did Khan know that Mason was human? That he had a soul? Cari couldn’t see his umbra because, according to Maeve, he didn’t have one.
Like a displaced star, a rich jewel, drenched in Shadow. I could wear him.