She was going to claim Mason Stray for Dolan House.
She was sure counter claims would be set. Brand was expected—she’d valued Mason from the beginning. Webb was a lock for Mason as well—he’d already gone so far as to take on Fletcher. She’d have to fight the fosterage agreement. Were there other Houses interested? She should plan on it, and disappoint them all. Her first big coup. She’d have to offer him something big to lure him away from other offers—something more than the status of a vassal, which was what the other Houses would give him—and she had just the thing in mind.
Scarlet was going to pitch a fit, but Stacia and Zel would be okay. If they could just see her and Mason together, really together, then they’d approve.
Mason’s shoulder rose under her cheek as he drew a big breath. “Webb is trying to take the Umbra project from you, and I’ve been helping him.”
She stopped breathing. His shoulder didn’t fall, so he was holding his breath, too.
Umbra.
So that’s what it was.
She heaved her own sigh, but stayed put in the crook of his arm. She’d expected some terrible thing—he’d warned her not to trust him. His breath came out slower, waiting for her reaction.
Umbra, her father’s legacy, a commodity that would be highly prized now, and even more so as the world fell to magic.
The world has already fallen . . . to you.
She swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth, and ignored Maeve.
Mason was allied with a different faction within magekind. It was expected that either he or she would attempt to seize an advantage. Plus, Webb had his son. Mason had warned her not to trust him, yet had just proved that she could. By revealing Webb’s intentions, he’d just trusted her with his son’s life.
So she laid it out for him, truth for truth. “My House needs Umbra.”
All her father’s hard work. All the resources they’d dedicated to its development. She had so many people to take care of. Every day the world was more perilous. If predictions were correct—and recent events revealed they were dead on—then industries, including DolanCo, would collapse. Currencies would lose their value. Dolan would be able to trade for goods, services, safety, and more with Umbra. Which was probably the same reason Webb wanted it.
“Your membrane is promising,” Mason said. “Using a synthetic living tissue was brilliant, but I don’t see how it can ever work the way you want it to.”
He’d obviously been at her research as well.
“Our refinements have had very encouraging results.”
“Shadow is just playing with you.”
Ridiculous. “Shadow doesn’t think.” Results were results.
“Sure it does.” He turned his head to look down at her. “Shadow is fully aware of what you want it to do, and it is ambivalent about your success. You have to be able to tell it what to do, what to become.”
His mastery. She met his gaze. She loved his face. Those troubled eyes. Which made her glow with satisfaction. “Mason Maker,” she named him to persuade him to voice the idea turning in his head. She could guess. She’d been thinking about it herself since that terrible conversation with Khan.
Humor glinted in the black of his irises. “Yeah. I think I could do it.” He looked back out to the dense greenery of the trees. “I would do it for you.”
She was so going to claim him. Mason was hers. Webb could have the ambivalent membrane. See how that worked for him.
Some things were just meant to be. It was a human thought, since only humankind was ruled by Fate. No mage had ever had a destiny—without a soul, their lives were completely their own. But Mason was human, so maybe she was caught up in his fate.
Which was fine by her.
Really, they’d hit it off the first time they met. She even thought her father would approve, regardless of Mason’s status. Joining with Mason Stray was by far the smartest thing she could do, on every level.
She wasn’t going to spill her plans just then. She needed to work out the details, particularly pertaining to his son. She adored the kid already—any son of Mason’s would be amazing. There was some negotiating to do with Brand, if the firemage survived her bout with the plague, which Dolan would have a hand in assuring. And she’d have to address the Houses that were Dolan’s current allies.
But one thing was for certain. She tightened her hold around Mason, breathed in his scent. “I’ll make it very worth your while.”
He chuckled. “I look forward to the negotiations.”
It hadn’t occurred to Mason until he set foot on his little island that he didn’t want bloodshed here. This was supposed to be a safe place. He’d poured all he had—magic, money, sweat—into making it safe. He half expected to hear Fletcher bounding down the stairs two at a time, shouting, “Dad!”
But it was quiet. “There are some realities to face, Cari.”
“There are a lot of things that I’m worried about, but Umbra isn’t one of them. It’s going to work out.”
Not just Umbra.
The air above was suddenly bludgeoned by the sound of helicopter rotors. Monsters coming. Right on time, and still too soon. And yet even as the Sikorsky helicopter pivoted in the air to land, the trees screaming as they bent, the grasses dancing, the dark future seemed to gleam with pinpricks of possibility.
If Cari, aka the Dolan, accepted him—a House opposed to the Council and not affiliated with the Order—then maybe Webb and the other Houses would also cope with his humanity. The “Maker” angle, which before this he’d ignored, might keep magekind’s interest. And Umbra would be the perfect project to demonstrate his worth beyond taking on random and questionable work. But it wasn’t going to be easy.
Five individual, remotely controlled cages, each filled with a shrieking wraith hungry for a soul, were unloaded and camouflaged around the property. The wraiths rattled and stank with their deterioration; if not fed, they devolved further into wights, utterly mindless and unsubstantial corporeal beings, shivering in disgusting flesh.
The soldiers at Segue’s disposal did their work with swift efficiency and within an hour seemed ready to depart again and leave Mason and Cari to their trap. When the rotors started to once again beat the air, a last soldier approached Mason. He had a small brown case in his hand. “Sir. I was told to deliver this to you.”
Mason took the case from him, and the soldier ran back, crouching before the gusts of wind. Mason squinted against flecks of dirt and unlocked the case as the helicopter rose. Nestled inside the foam was a dagger with a magic black blade.
“That’s a Martin House dagger,” Cari said.
Mason nodded. He recognized the craftsmanship of the blade—it was a perfect weapon, steel infused with Shadow. The wicked edge narrowed to a deadly lick. One strike of the knife backed with the intent to kill, and Shadow took its victim, even if the blade only managed a scratch. A weapon of darkness like this was made to kill angels. And Martin House was the machinery of war that led the battle.
“How’d Adam get hold of one of these?” Segue and Martin were at war.
“No idea,” Cari said. “Martin is one of Dolan’s allies.”
“Ever been in a knife fight?”
“No. You?” She looked at him warily.
“Several.” But he flipped the blade over in his hand and offered her the hilt. She should have it. “Basically, stick them before they stick you.”
The hilt wasn’t a natural fit for her small palm. Mason covered the back of her hand with his and sent Shadow coursing through the blade. The metal moved like moonlit water and the knife reformed, longer, thinner, into a malevolent dart. Her grasp became more certain.