Fletcher suddenly realized that he was now Bran’s Shadow puppet. The thought made his heart shake.
“Very good, Bran,” Mr. Webb said. “Your generation boggles the mind. What an age of power ahead of us. Well done, son.”
Fletcher shook with sadness. He hurt inside. His eyes hurt. And his belly. Everything hurt. His dad had given him to this terrible man. Dad, where are you?
“Now—” Webb leaned down to him, his eyes staring into Fletcher’s brain. “Tell me where you hid that thumbdrive with my computer files on it.”
Fletcher felt the Shadow hand on his mouth tighten, so that no words could come out.
“Tell me,” Webb insisted. He looked at Bran, who shrugged as if he didn’t know what was wrong.
But Fletcher knew. He was inside the story, so he knew it for sure. Bran had just told the Shadow that he couldn’t speak of anything he’d discovered in Webb House, which, duh, included the thumbdrive. Bran’s own story had messed him up.
“Fletcher, you will obey me,” Mr. Webb said.
A Shadow hand still clamped Fletcher’s mouth shut, but he had no trouble at all grinning meanly at Mr. Webb. You can’t make me.
“Please move Mason’s things to my room,” Cari said to Allison. The roar from the mob outside the wards was now audible from the front door, a quarter mile from the street. It stole her breath, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. It had grown from fifteen loitering people to fifty angry ones in days. Police officers were on site, but this required a special intervention. Something needed to be done now. Or Maeve might become interested, thinking them postulants clamoring for her favor. Quite the opposite.
Scarlet’s welcome looked a lot like anger, too. “The plague has run its course, so why is he here?”
“Lovely to see you again, Scarlet,” Mason said, the stray turned gentleman. Cari was going to kiss him for enduring her stepmother’s bite so kindly.
Here we go. “He’s here because I won’t give him up.”
Which made Stacia snort to suppress her laughter.
Scarlet was going to have to be sedated when Cari told her she planned to claim him. The thought almost made Cari giggle hysterically, right there in front of everyone.
“Is Kaye Brand here?” Cari asked instead. Business, she reminded herself sternly. Dire, terrible business to do.
Scarlet was distracted from killing Mason with her glare. “Who? No. No one has crossed the wards since you left. How could they?”
Cari didn’t tell her that Brand had a very useful vassal in Marcell Lakatos who helped her cross whatever wards she chose. “Stacia, can you check the office? And if she’s there, offer her something to eat or drink. I’m going up to change and will be down in five minutes.”
“I’ll go with your sister,” Mason said. “I want to hear about Fletcher.”
Cari nodded. “In five, then.” And she hurried up the stairs. The clothes she was wearing needed to be burned. She took a minute in a cold shower, found clean underwear, dressed in smart clothes. She glanced in the mirror to evaluate what could be done to her face in ten seconds, but the woman who looked back at her didn’t need anything. She almost didn’t recognize herself, except that, yes, those were technically her features. Just at their very best, with a little fae sheen mixed in. Even the plague scar at her neck was gone.
Maeve again.
Cari didn’t know how she felt about that, and she didn’t have time to think about it now.
She headed for the office, but Scarlet was lying in wait to intercept her at the top of the stairs.
“Darling, really,” she said. “It’s inappropriate that he’s here.”
Sigh. “I find him indispensible.”
“But to what end? It’s what your father would ask.”
Cari grinned. “The end of time, if he’ll have me.”
“Oh, Cari. This has all been so difficult for you. You’re not thinking. Do you really want him, a stray, to be the father of your children?” She was shaking her head no, just in case Cari was confused.
Cari’s grin stretched wider. “I know with absolute certainty that there is no better father than Mason Stray. I’ve got to go. The High Seat waits.”
Mason was leaning on her father’s desk and Kaye was sitting in the chair before it, both deep in conversation, when Cari entered the office. “What’d I miss?”
Kaye sat back in the chair in a smooth shift. Cari wondered how she achieved that easy sophistication. Her heels were drop-dead gorgeous. They’d be stolen in this house. Stacia was probably already plotting robbery. “I’m throwing a fancy party to celebrate your success,” Kaye said.
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Cari said. Not with the Maeve problem going on and the mob on her doorstep. DolanCo, House business. No, a party was the last thing she needed. “Thank you very much anyway.”
Mason held out a large white envelope. “Our success is only what’s going on the invitations. Which I’ve just learned have already been sent. And Webb has assured Kaye that Fletcher will be there.”
Oh. Well that was good, at least. Cari took the envelope. Heavy linen paper. Gilt hand-lettering. Rushed, obviously. Kaye had spared no expense. And how funny—the party was tomorrow night.
“We must do this now, before my opposition has time to organize. The Council is broken,” Kaye explained. “Martin House is arming for war against the Order and all of its supporters. The bad business with Segue earlier this year didn’t help.”
Mason grunted. “A couple of Adam’s people killed Martin’s heir, Mathilde.”
Cari had heard. It had raised her father’s eyebrows all the way up to his hairline. He’d told her that Dolan would stay well out of that dispute. Sorry, Father.
“That’s the beginning,” Kaye said. “Martin also cites the mob outside Dolan property as violence against magekind. I need a show of support from Dolan. Yours, like Martin’s, is a dark, pureblood House.”
Not for long, Cari hoped, thinking of Mason.
The room was quiet, and it occurred to Cari that they were waiting to see what she would say. Would she publicly support Brand House?
Kaye’s face was a mask. Mason’s eyes had gone dark. He already knew that she wouldn’t try for the High Seat, and he knew why. Cari had assured Kaye that she wouldn’t challenge her either.
But a public show of support meant something different.
“I have three conditions,” Cari said. This was the moment she’d been waiting for since Segue, and now she had the ammunition to make the demands. The first just made sense, considering Kaye’s request.
Kaye Brand, the High Seat, bowed her head. “And they are . . . ?”
“If I’m going to realign Dolan’s allegiances and effectively defect from hundreds of years of connections with purist Houses,” which was what Cari had wanted to do anyway, but Kaye didn’t need to know that, “I would require the support of all Houses that support Brand.”
“You want to switch sides,” Kaye said.
“Basically, yeah. I like yours better than I like mine.” Cari didn’t like her allies at all.
“That will take time.”
Cari didn’t answer, because it would take time.
“Agreed. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Second?”
Cari faced Kaye, but her gaze slid over to Mason. She’d meant to make a discreet inquiry, and then plot from there. But, oh well. “You need to find a way to break or transfer to Dolan the fosterage of Fletcher Stray.”
Mason’s face flushed. The vein in his forehead bulged. Cari didn’t know if his reaction was a good thing or not. Suddenly she thought she should have checked with him first. But what would’ve been the point if claiming Fletcher wasn’t possible in the first place?