“My parents and my brother,” I interrupted. “Not me.”
He spread his hands, offering a crooked smile that looked apologetic. “Yes, of course. But I don’t think it’d be very difficult for you to integrate yourself enough in the local fearmancer society to find out more than I’ve been able to. All you’d need to do is pretend to take off from the school and to be looking for a way to win back your parents’ favor. Tell them the new guard was treating you horribly—they’ll believe it without much questioning.”
I shifted my attention from him to Rory, the person in the room I trusted most. “You want me to go out to Portland acting like I’ve turned my back on you all so I can ask around about this ‘conspiracy’?”
She tipped her head to the side. “Essentially, but we’re not ordering. It’s a request that you can accept or refuse. No one here expects you to put yourself at risk unless you’re okay with it. If you agree to get involved, we’ll come up with a full cover story and strategy, and you’d go out there as a sort of mole. Work your way into their confidence and their plans as much as you can until you find out enough that we’ll be able to stop them.”
“Back into the lion’s den,” Jude said in the same flippant tone, but his gaze was more sober than before.
They were hoping I’d reach out to the sort of fearmancers who believed the former barons should have won, that we should be well on our way to enslaving all nonmagical people by now—the sort of mages who admired my parents and their opinions…
My chest constricted at the thought. It’d been unsettling enough enduring the hostility of all those supposed ‘loyalists’ from a distance. I could only imagine what sorts of remarks they might make to my face until they believed I was really on their side now.
If I could convince them of that. What would it take to win them over?
A deeper chill seeped through me. Rory didn’t really understand what she was asking. She hadn’t experienced much of fearmancer society outside of campus, where the headmistress kept more extreme views in line. Jude knew what I was in for.
I’d never wanted to become any kind of secret agent. I’d turned to Rory at the beginning of the conflict to avoid being placed on the front lines. But it made sense that they’d ask me. Who else was there that they’d trust enough to take on this job and who also had strong enough ties that the reapers would consider including me?
What awfulness would these people rain down on the new barons if I kept out of the situation instead? Would they lose everything they’d worked so hard to build?
I measured my words carefully, doing my best to keep all the emotions churning inside me out of my voice. “Can I take some time to think about it?”
“Of course,” Rory said without even checking with the others. Maybe they’d already figured I’d ask something like that. “I know it’s a huge request. Take all the time you need to think it over. And just so you know, you wouldn’t be out there alone. One of us would go along as a nearby contact—for whatever support you need.”
“And I’ll be there to lay the groundwork for your cover story and tell you what I can about the key players,” Emeric put in, as if I was supposed to be comforted by the presence of some guy I’d never even seen before yesterday.
I set one hand over the other in my lap, twining my fingers together. “All right. I’ll think it over and let you know when I have my answer.”
As I stood up, Malcolm set his elbows on his desk, his expression even darker than before. “Don’t take too long. The more time these assholes have to prepare, the more likely this’ll turn from a nuisance into some kind of disaster.”
Chapter Three
There weren’t many things I’d gotten from my parents that I wanted to hold onto. But it was my mother who’d introduced me to Icelandic vodka—five years before it was technically legal for me to drink it—and you could pry my taste for that beverage from my cold dead hands. Clear and crisp with just a hint of bite as it went down, it was the perfect beverage for mulling over a difficult choice… or attempting to forget you had to make a difficult choice in the first place.
Sprawled on the sofa in the otherwise empty common room with my glass beside me, I was teetering on the border between those two intentions. The alcohol had added just enough haze to my thoughts that neither the prospect of saying no to the barons or of infiltrating a conspiracy of hostile mages seemed all that horrifying. Maybe I could just stay here on the sofa forever and not have to bother with either. I took another cool sip, letting my thoughts drift away.
A knock on the dorm-room door startled me so much I would have splashed some of that precious liquid onto the floor if my glass wasn’t already close to empty. I pushed myself fully upright, gave myself a little shake to summon more alertness, and walked over to see who was calling on me without warning at eight in the evening.
I found Noah Ashgrave standing in the hall, a plastic bag dangling from one hand and his narrow eyebrows slightly raised, giving his handsome face a roguish cast. I blinked at him, stamping out the flicker of attraction as firmly as I could—and remembered.
“Oh, shit.” I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. “The tutoring session. I totally blanked on it. I’m sorry.”
He laughed. “I figured you must have been pretty distracted after the meeting with the pentacle. Do you want to talk about it? I brought éclairs.” He held up the bag, the glint in his bright eyes turning even more sly. He knew those were my favorite.
I didn’t really want to talk about the request the pentacle had made of me, especially with one of the members of that pentacle, but on the other hand, I owed him something after standing him up this afternoon. And also… éclairs. So maybe I was a bit of a sucker, but at least I’d be one with a stomach full of heavenly pastry.
“I suppose you can come in,” I said magnanimously.
Noah didn’t remark on the still-frosty bottle of vodka on the coffee table or my already-emptied glass beside it. He flopped down at the other end of the sofa as cavalierly as if this were his common room and not mine, and I went to get him a glass of his own. When I returned, he’d opened up the box of éclairs and was already devouring one. Clearly they weren’t just for my benefit.
“Not sure this’ll be the best pairing, but it’s what I’ve got,” I said, filling his glass halfway.
He eyed the clear liquid and threw back half of it in one go. His eyebrows lifted higher than before. “That’s nice.”
I couldn’t hold back a satisfied smile. “You made me a French pastry convert, and now I’ve introduced you to Icelandic vodka. My work here is done.”
I topped up my glass too and snatched an éclair for myself before he went and ate them all. For a few minutes, I didn’t have to think about anything except the creamy sweetness melting in my mouth and the careless haze creeping through my mind with a few more sips of my drink.
Then Noah had to start talking business again. “I take it you’re still trying to decide whether to accept our little mission.”
I shrugged, licking a smear of chocolate off my thumb. “It’s… not so little. Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing I should jump into without thinking everything through.”