A faint growl tickled the back of Midas’s throat. “Why does that sound like a threat?”
“You’re paranoid?” Bishop shook his head. “Goldilocks, if I wanted you dead, I would have killed you before she got invested.” His tone rang with absolute truth. “She loves you. That means my hands are tied. I couldn’t strike at you without hitting her twice as hard, and that I would never do.”
“Same,” Midas confessed. “She loves you. That means I can’t outright kill you.”
A chuckle moved through him. “Maiming still on the table?”
“I’m gwyllgi.” Midas smiled, showing teeth. “Always.”
Five
I wasn’t thrilled to lean on Linus again so soon, but I couldn’t let Bishop make another devil’s bargain with Vasco on my behalf either. At some point, I had to extend some trust, and no one was more deserving than Linus.
Sucking in a deep breath, I dialed him up, hating to do this over the phone when texts made begging for help so much easier.
“Hadley,” he answered warmly, for Linus, anyway. “How can I help?”
I flinched without meaning to, grateful he couldn’t see it. “Am I that obvious?”
“Bishop emailed me links to various live feeds from around the city for my perusal.” A keyboard clacked in the background, probably Linus flipping between tabs. “I’m watching them now.”
Crossing my fingers, I got down to it. “Any idea what those frame devices do?”
“As it happens, yes. I examined one during my time teaching at Strophalos University. The school nurses’ office kept one on hand for medical emergencies. They worked better than an X-ray machine on some species whose magic interferes with technology.”
“I joked that it was an X-ray machine.” I didn’t find it as funny in hindsight. “I was actually right?”
Too bad Abbott didn’t have one of those to use on Liz. Maybe we could attempt to recover one for him.
“As it happens, yes.”
“The nurses scanned their patients, right? Can this one scan a building?”
“I’ve been thinking on this.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Either they tweaked the original spell, switching its focus from organic to inorganic, or they’re searching for a particular energy signature.”
That all but confirmed Remy’s theory. “One of their own.”
Liz.
“That would be my guess.”
“We need the holding cells and infirmary warded yesterday,” I realized. “We have to hide Liz better.”
“That would draw a bull’s-eye on those areas,” he countered. “I recommend warding random rooms, suites, and perhaps entire floors to throw them off the scent.”
With the top floors vacant, we could afford to sacrifice a few key areas if it kept the residents alive and Liz out of the coven’s grasp until we got a bead on why they had gone to such lengths to reacquire her.
“You’re right.” I considered his angle. “We do that, and they might assume the infirmary and holding cells were always warded for the protection of the building’s occupants.” I squared my shoulders, though, again, he couldn’t see me. “Can you teach me to set wards that can block the coven from playing peeping Tom with the Faraday’s residents?”
Guilt struck me hard and fast that I had wasted so much time on sleep.
Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.
But I had to be, for my mate, my friends, and my city.
I didn’t blame Midas for taking care of me when I refused to take care of myself, but me? Yeah. It was easy for me to beat myself up for not doing better, not being better, not being enough.
The bright spot lifting me out of my shame spiral was the certainty the coven hadn’t located Liz.
Yet.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have so many watchers examining the building in methodical sweeps.
“You’ll have to lean on Ambrose,” Linus warned, yanking my focus back to him. “Are you prepared to do that?”
The shadow in question peeled away from the wall with sudden interest in our conversation.
“You don’t mean trust him to instruct me?”
“Ah, no.” Linus paused as if selecting the right words. “As earnest as I’m sure your new arrangements are, I would prefer to handle your instruction myself. However, your natural abilities aren’t enough to fuel a working of this magnitude.”
Borrowing power from Ambrose was tricky, or I thought so in the past. He maintained, in his way, that we were on the same team now. His magic could flow into me whenever I required an extra boost.
Easy-peasy, right?
Wrong.
Infusions from him had saved my bacon in times of crisis, yes, but I risked becoming more and more dependent upon his generosity.
The training regimen Linus had prescribed at the start of my apprenticeship kept me in the best shape of my life. It also made me decent with two blades, though I still sucked with only the one. I couldn’t afford to get lazy on either of those fronts if I wanted to remain self-sufficient and strong enough to accept any help Ambrose chose to give me.
And it was a matter of choice, not force, which terrified me on whole new levels.
Before it was different, when I was taking the power from him. I was forcing him to remain in balance with me. I had control over him, and therefore over myself. This? Asking him to help? To give?
Deep down, I worried this might be the first paver set on the good-intentioned path to self-destruction.
Out of habit, I muted Linus before asking Ambrose, “Are you up to this?”
The shadow drew himself taller, snapped out a crisp salute, and began high stepping down the hall.
Returning my attention to Linus, I gave him the green light. “Ambrose says all systems go.”
Altering his inflection to fit that of a teacher addressing his student, he changed his entire demeanor. “When would you like to begin?”
“The sooner the better.” I had one throwback question for him first. “Do the frames hold actual glass?”
One well-placed bullet could shatter them and buy us time while the coven made repairs.
“Glass is used for spells where the caster wishes to see beyond what their eyes show them, but it can be symbolic. Picture frames, windows, mirrors. Any item whose purpose is to draw your eye would do.” The clack of keys filled a brief pause. “They appear to have removed the glass in these to make them more portable and less breakable.”
Oh, well.
No pew pew for us.
Figures they would have to make this difficult. “Why do bad guys always have the best toys?”
“The coven wields uncharted power due to their dual heritage and how they meld two opposing forms of magic into one power source. Only beings with strong ties to both realms could create such energy.”
“Half-blooded fae and half-blooded witches are more common than full-bloods.” Most were half human, and all were born with one parent’s magic or with none, as far as I knew. “Why is this coven different?”
“The generational practice of black magic is the root cause, but I suspect they breed their females with fae males exclusively, refining the powers their children inherit with each birth. Selective breeding would also maintain a direct tie to Faerie by continuing to anchor their offspring in both worlds through a parent native to each.”