Tonight, instead of skulking around in the shadows, I boldly strode down the corridor, passing one giant guard after another and nodding to them all in turn. A few eyed me with obvious curiosity, probably wondering exactly how I’d gotten this job, since at fifteen I was a bit younger than the other workers. But no one stopped or questioned me. Finally, I reached the entrance to the kitchen and showed the guard there my tray. He politely opened the door for me, and I stepped inside.
The kitchen was a madhouse. Several chefs were busy chopping, cutting, peeling, boiling, steaming, and sautéing everything from potatoes to pasta to peaches, and my nose itched from the red pepper, cinnamon, and other spices in the air. The chefs called out orders to each other and the dozens of waiters who were busy moving through the cramped aisles, grabbing trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres before scurrying back out to the party to serve up the delicacies.
“Soup’s up!” one of the chefs called out.
I handed my empty tray off to one of the dishwashers, got a clean one filled with white china bowls, and headed toward the back of the kitchen to the chef who’d spoken. The overhead lights brought out the silver threads in his walnut-colored hair, while the heat from the ovens and burners had made his cheeks even ruddier than usual.
I put the tray down on the counter next to his elbow and watched while the chef ladled a scrumptious-smelling, gourmet broccolini soup into the bowls.
“Anything interesting?” Fletcher murmured as he used some freshly grated Parmesan cheese and sourdough croutons to garnish each bowl of soup.
“Not really,” I replied. “Just Delov moving through the crowd, eating, drinking, and greeting his business associates. The usual. Although Delov looks to be in the market for a new mistress. He’s barely glanced at the woman he brought along tonight. Instead, he’s been fawning all over one of the women who came with Beauregard Benson.”
“Benson won’t like that, but I doubt it will stop Delov,” Fletcher said. “See if you can find out who she is. Might prove useful later on.”
I nodded, pleased he was trusting me with such an assignment. Fletcher often hired himself out for events like these as a way to surreptitiously study potential targets. Usually, he worked as a waiter, but tonight he’d been needed in the kitchen to cook, so the old man had brought me along to be his eyes and ears at the party, which was being held on the lawn outside. It was something he was doing more and more of these days, now that I was two years into my training with him.
Fletcher said that soon I’d be ready to start doing solo scouting jobs. Serving food and drinks to the puffed-up power players of Ashland wasn’t exactly the most thrilling way to spend my nights, but Fletcher said that blending in with a crowd and getting close to my targets was a necessary skill to learn. That it would prepare me for more violent, bloodier things later on. I wasn’t quite sure I believed that, but the old man had been right about so many things so far that I wasn’t going to argue with him. Besides, the waiter money was decent enough, and I almost always got to take home a bag or two of leftovers.
“Be careful,” Fletcher warned as he finished garnishing the last bowl of soup. “Be quiet and be invisible just like always. Don’t get yourself noticed by anyone, especially not tonight.”
The worried tone in his voice made me look at him. “Is something wrong?”
He shrugged, but his green eyes were dark and troubled. “I heard some rumors that something big might go down at the dinner—”
A scream erupted, cutting through the noise and clatter in the kitchen.
Everyone froze, wondering if we’d all just imagined the sound—but we hadn’t. More sharp screams sounded, along with a couple of loud, booming crack-crack-cracks of gunfire. But the most troubling thing was that even here in the kitchen, a hundred feet from the doors that led out to the party, I could feel the crackle of magic in the air. A blast of frigid Ice power, followed by an intense wave of Fire, both of them rubbing against my skin like invisible sandpaper.
Fletcher noticed the grimace on my face. “What is it, Gin?”
“Some elementals are using their power,” I said in a low voice. “Ice and Fire. They must be strong, really strong, for me to sense their magic all the way in here.”
He nodded. “We need to get out of here—”
But it was already too late. The kitchen doors flew open, and giants stormed into the room. Every single one of them had a gun in his hand. There was nothing Fletcher and I could do, no way we could escape without drawing attention to ourselves and making things worse, so we bowed our heads and put our hands up like everyone else did.
The giants marched the entire kitchen and waitstaff outside onto the lawn. When I’d been out here five minutes ago, the area had been pristine, and everything had gleamed, from the fine crystal and china to the elegant, blue-green tablecloths. Now, tables and chairs were overturned, platters of food had been upended, and splintered shards from the broken champagne glasses glinted like razor blades underfoot.
The dinner party guests had been herded into a tight group out on the lawn, and the giants ushered us in that direction as well. No one spoke, although several folks unsuccessfully tried to hold back frightened sobs and whimpers.
“Good,” someone purred in a low, feminine voice. “More witnesses.”
I couldn’t see exactly who was speaking through the crowd of people in front of me, but I saw the shimmer of copper-colored hair and the flash of a gold necklace around a woman’s throat. I looked at Fletcher.
“Mab Monroe,” he murmured in my ear. “I’d heard Dubois was planning to make a move against her tonight. Looked like he didn’t plan well enough. Poor bastard. He’ll pay for it now—more than he ever imagined.”
I didn’t have to ask Fletcher what he meant. The old man had told me all about Mab and her ruthless reputation.
Two giants dragged a man across the lawn, causing murmurs to ripple through the crowd. He was a handsome man with blond hair, but his once-impeccable tuxedo jacket hung in smoking tatters on his shoulders, while his white shirt was charred. The holes in his shirt showed the blistering burns on his skin. The giants stopped with him in front of a beautiful stone fountain shaped like a mermaid. Twinkling white lights had been wrapped around the mermaid’s elegant form, although they seemed to make the shadows darker, rather than lighter.
It took me a moment to gather my courage enough to drag my gaze away from the mermaid and look at the injured figure again. I knew what was going to happen now. Everyone did.
“Tie him down.” Mab’s command floated through the air.
Two of the giants moved off to the left and pulled some metal hoops out of the ground and picked up some wooden mallets. A croquet set. I’d seen it on the lawn when I’d been serving champagne earlier. That was what the giants had grabbed, although I had no idea what they planned to do with it.
I got my answer a few seconds later. Four giants held the man down spread-eagled, while two more positioned the metal hoops over his arms and legs and then pounded them into the ground.