Cari slid her gaze over to Mason. His face was flushed, veins standing out on his forehead. His hands had migrated up to his hips in a fake gesture of calm when every line of his body had gone taut. “I’m not interested.”
“Oh, come on,” Liv said. “Not a month ago you were begging Walker to take Fletcher.”
Her words were like a blast of heat. Cari burned at the thought of Mason begging. Mages hiding behind their wards. A child exposed. Who could he have turned to? Walker. He’d appealed to the mother, no pride for himself. For his son, he’d do anything.
It was now officiaclass="underline" Walker and Dolan were no longer friends. No great loss.
“Your House can take its claim and screw itself,” Mason said. He blew out his breath and the tension in his neck and shoulders seemed to morph into a loose and ready strength.
“I’m Fletcher’s mother.”
“He has no mother.”
“He doesn’t miss me? He doesn’t want to know me? He doesn’t want to be with his true family? To know his House?”
Cari’s throat locked. Walker was Fletcher’s true family. Liv, his mother. Cari knew that under no circumstances would she be able to deny her family; she couldn’t expect Fletcher not to want his or Mason to deny his son’s place. And where Fletcher went . . .
“Fletcher has a House now,” Mason said.
Webb. Cari almost groaned aloud. It wasn’t the same thing. Not at all. Liv knew that, too, and the only reason Mason didn’t was because he hadn’t been raised in one. House was blood. House defined a mage on a visceral level—it was a mage’s hope for immortality, grounded by the ward stones.
The confidence of her position showed in Liv’s smile. “My father is petitioning the Council to dissolve the fosterage contract.”
“It was endorsed by the High Seat herself,” Mason said.
“But you have no standing in the Council,” Liv said. “You are stray, so your name on the contract means nothing, and Brand had no grounds on her own to act on Fletcher’s behalf.”
“You abandoned him.”
“I chose to live in the safety of my House. I begged my father for Fletcher to be able to come with me.”
“Your father wouldn’t even open your wards to him during the plague.”
“He could’ve been a carrier. We’d already lost family.”
“And you were a-okay with losing him, too.”
The frustration in Mason’s voice was making Cari shake with anger. How dare Liv come now? Nine years ago Liv had taken Mason away from her. And now she was trying to do the same again. This was not going to happen.
“I’ll fight you,” Mason said.
Cari flexed her hands in frustration. Then fisted them in a refusal of this new turn of events. This time—finally!—she didn’t have to watch Mason walk out of her life for the sake of his child.
“There’s no need to fight her, Mason.” Cari was surprised at the calm in her own voice. But then she was all grown up now. “Livia Walker will be very cooperative; her father will see to it. Fletcher can know his House, even bear its name, but he doesn’t have to live there. You’ll have your pick of where you want to raise him.”
Liv wouldn’t step down. “Dolan, like that Brand bitch, has nothing to do with Fletcher.”
Cari shrugged. “Well, either you’ll be petitioning Brand, or you’ll be petitioning me in that very same Seat.”
Liv’s stance changed. Her boobs weren’t so far out anymore. She was leaning into the argument with her shoulders. “You can’t take my son away from me.”
“I’m not. I’m backing Mason. Whatever he chooses.”
“You’d choose a stray over an ally? Walker will oppose Dolan House. We’ll break Dolan.”
“You think you can break my House?” Cari wanted to laugh, but saved Liv the humiliation. She was having a bad enough day.
“Cari.” Mason pulled her close to his side. He was looking around the room, lines of tension coming back into his body.
“Dolan is a royal House,” a new voice intoned. Sounded like her own.
Maeve. Shit. Liv must have ticked her off.
In the sunlight falling through the window, a gold profile appeared. Shadow swirled away from the fae face in cascades of magic. A hint of shimmer suggested her heavy gown. But it was her height that made Cari cringe inwardly. Mad Mab hulked in the space.
Liv had a clueless what? on her face.
“Livia Walker comes from a great House. She is allied with Dolan,” Cari said to Maeve, trying to save Liv.
Alien eyes, full black, found Cari. “Does she know that?”
“I’m teaching her.”
Liv scoffed. “Dolan will break—”
Dappled sunlight rushed across the room and whatever Liv had been going to say was cut off by Maeve’s hand around her throat.
The girl’s throat felt like satin under Maeve’s hand. She stroked her thumb up and down to relish the texture. Underneath the skin were the flutter pulse of a heart and the hidden crimson of lifeblood.
“Let her go,” Cari Dolan said across the room.
Maeve felt the command in a resonant echo from the Dolan stones that bound them.
“I want to see her smile first, and nicely, she who dared to mock my line.”
The girl’s face was turning purple. Weak thing. She had magic within her, but it was a middling power, a Walker’s trait. The girl lifted her mouth, but the smile wasn’t pleasing. It was ugly, and she smelled like stink flowers.
“I don’t like it,” Maeve said. The girl was grunting, swatting at Maeve’s hand.
“She is from an ally House.”
Maeve turned to Cari, holding out the girl by the neck. “You keep saying that. Ally.”
The human man had a toy in his hand—what was called a gun; people used them to kill each other—but Cari pushed it away, not wanting him to play with them.
Later, Maeve hoped.
“Ally means they serve Dolan,” Cari was saying.
Hmmm. That’s not what it meant before, but words changed sometimes. And it had been quite a long time since she’d been in the world. The girl hadn’t spoken to Cari like a servant. It didn’t matter anyway—everyone would serve Dolan.
Maeve aimed the girl’s dangling legs at the floor and set her down. Something cracked in the neck, and the head bobbled forward. The body went loose. A mistake. Oh dear.
The human male lifted the toy again. He had a fierce look on his face. She wanted to see that face, just as fierce, looking down at her, his body above hers. But no, Cari had already said she wanted him. And what Cari wanted, she would have. And one young human man was very much like another.
Maeve pushed the girl’s chin up with her thumb. Her head still lolled a bit to the side. “She’s broken.” Ally. Hmm. “Do we shed tears of happiness, or do we weep?”
Chapter Fifteen
Liv was gone. Her body now dangled from the fae queen’s large, clawed hand.
Mason squeezed the trigger. Bang!-Bang!-Bang!
It was the only thing to do. Not that he cared for Liv herself, not anymore, but she’d given him Fletcher, the meaning in his life, and he couldn’t let Fletcher’s mother go unavenged.
At the first bang, Cari tried to dive in front of him—“Mason, no!”—but his arm was already pushing her behind him. He’d die himself before that creature would hurt her.
Mad Mab gave him a smile that withered his guts. “I can’t have you.”
If the bullets had found their mark, the fae made no sign of it. The seething Shadow that came together in her form was like nothing he’d ever felt before. A sentient black hole was before him, drawing all Shadow to her, except this magic had no end and so she would only grow and grow until she swallowed everything and everyone in her wake.