Cast in Faefire: An Urban Fantasy Romance (The Mage Craft Series Book 3) (7 page)

“How can you be sure they’re trustworthy?” Seth asked.

“They’ve changed since Genesis. Everything has changed.” She bit her bottom lip and turned her gaze to her feet as they headed up the dirt road.

Even with the reminder that Seth was one of those things that had changed, it was nice to talk old stuff with Rylie like that. People they used to know. And they were doing it in a place where they used to share a life together.

A place where Rylie didn’t need him.

“I have a class of witches at the Academy too,” Rylie said. “Graduates teach underclassmen. That’s why we’re heading there. Our coven is excellent and will be able to heal you if anyone can.” Her eyes flicked up to him. “Abel isn’t home, but he’ll be back soon if you want to see him. I know he’d like to see you.”

If Rylie really thought that Abel would want to see him, she was being optimistic.

Seth wasn’t sure he’d want to see Abel, either.

“I’ll think on it,” he said.

Rylie rewarded him with a smile like sunshine breaking through clouds.

They reached the fence protecting the Academy. Seth took a moment to admire it while Rylie keyed in a code to open the gate. When they’d talked schools back in the day, he’d imagined something like a one-room schoolhouse. This was not a one-room anything. More like a hundred-room facility. A thousand rooms. It sprawled through the forest as far as he could see, and the gardens at its rear extended beyond that. The warded fence protected another small lake, and enough fields for all of the school’s shifters to run free on the moons.

“We have over fourteen hundred students in residence. We’re building another wing so we can accommodate more.” Rylie stepped back as the gate swung open. “You can see Golden Lake over there.”

The summer camps where Rylie and Seth met had been called Golden Lake and Silver Brook. “Isn’t that an ominous name?”

“It’s acknowledging history,” Rylie said. “I had to keep a piece of that around when everything else was gone. Come on, the witches are in the south wing.”

Even though the Academy was younger than Genesis, and hardly an antique, it had been designed to look almost like an old ski lodge. It was open, warm, comfortable. Lots of low chairs and big windows. Seth took a deep breath when they entered the atrium, and the musky scent of werewolves almost overwhelmed him with nostalgia.

He also smelled something like burning oak and lavender. That smell didn’t belong with the others.

“Most kids are outside for lunch right now,” Rylie explained as she waved and smiled at students. They were scattered around the atrium, reading on tablet devices, lying underneath potted trees, playing hacky-sack. None of them looked particularly awed to see the Alpha in their midst. Apparently she wasn’t an unusual visitor.

The smell of burning oak only grew stronger as they headed toward the south wing.

“Is Nash home?” Seth asked. Nashriel was Rylie’s son-in-law, an angel who had married her oldest daughter.

“He hasn’t been for a while,” Rylie said. “Why do you ask?”

Smoky, woody smells almost always meant angels. If Seth could detect it with his non-werewolf nose, then it must have been recent. “No reason,” he started to say.

Then they passed the administrative offices and the door opened. Seth and Rylie almost tripped over the woman who emerged.

She must not have expected to see anyone in the hallway. She looked guilty. “Hello again, Rylie.” And then her eyes moved to him, and her jaw dropped. “Seth.”

“Marion,” he said. “Hi.”

M
arion’s time
recovering in bed from anemia had been long and tedious. Boredom was a challenging thing for a half-angel. She’d occupied herself with books on witchcraft and one timeless day with Konig, but it was poor replacement for the kind of adventuresome lifestyle to which she was accustomed.

Worse than bored, she’d been lonely.

Seth had vanished after the incident in Sheol and hadn’t visited while she was healing. Not once.

Now here he was, walking around the werewolf sanctuary with the Alpha herself—the woman who pretended to be like Marion’s mother, even while telling the OPA that they needed ways to kill her.

Even so, Marion forgot to hold a grudge. She was too relieved to see Seth whole and alive and passably mortal.

“Thank the gods!” She flung her arms around his neck in a tight embrace. He staggered as if surprised. It took him a moment to pat her on the back, but his weak laugh was almost as relieved as how she felt.

He still smelled like leather and gunpowder.

“Gentle,” Seth warned, though he squeezed her tightly. “I’m not back to normal yet. Whatever normal is.”

She stepped back but didn’t release him. If Marion had her way, she’d be hanging on to his arms until he swore up and down to never go missing ever again. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine for now.” He patted his chest. “I’m not healing, though.”

Marion didn’t need to see under the shirt to know that he was touching wounds inflicted by the same Hounds that had nearly killed her. They would have eaten him if she hadn’t intervened.

“What were you doing in there?” Rylie’s voice was an unpleasant reminder that she still existed.

Marion looped her arm through Seth’s and held him firmly, staring right into Rylie’s eyes. Among werewolves, that kind of eye contact was considered a play for dominance. “It’s unimportant. I was just on my way out. How lucky to have encountered you two, though. I didn’t expect to see you here, Seth.”

“Rylie’s witches are going to help fix me up,” Seth said. “Make sure that I don’t die.”

“
Her
witches? Why didn’t you come to me?”

He carefully disengaged his arm from hers. “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t want to see me. Because, you know…” He pointed at his teeth, and her neck, making the kind of expression that belonged on a Halloween vampire mask.

“That’s patently ridiculous. You should realize by now that I’d always want to see you.”

Seth jammed his hands into his pockets. “You can’t blame me for thinking that might have changed, all things considered.”

“I can and do blame you,” Marion said.

“We have places to be,” Rylie interrupted. “The witches won’t be around all day, Seth.”

Marion forced a smile. “Then let’s go see them.”

“You’re not invited,” Rylie said.

“I’m not asking for an invitation. I don’t know how you’ve vetted your witches, so they won’t work on my friend unless I review their techniques.”

“
Your
friend?” Rylie glanced between Seth and Marion, her eyebrows climbing her forehead.

“I’d appreciate having Marion’s opinion,” Seth said.

Rylie could have shut Seth down. God on Earth or not, Seth wasn’t Alpha. It wasn’t his sanctuary, his Academy, his home, or his witches. But she said, “If that’s what you want, Seth,” and there was a strange pitch to Rylie’s voice.

She didn’t
need
to defer to Seth, but she was going to.

If Marion had been a werewolf, that would have been the moment her hackles lifted.

Instead, she took Seth’s arm again, and he didn’t pull away from her.

“Excellent,” Marion said coolly. “Let’s see what sort of so-called witches the sanctuary employs.”

* * *

B
etween the Winter Court
and her home on Vancouver Island, Marion wasn’t lacking for ritual space, but she still lusted over the Academy’s altar.

It resided in a room big enough to hold all of the North American Union’s covens at once, with one wall open to the forest, a cliff, and the private lake. All of the elements were represented nearby: fire held captive in basins, earth below, sky above, water in the lake. Even the stone of the mountains and the iron curls embedded in the floor would offer different kinds of energy to feed all rituals. At night, the moon would shine through the dome of glass that the sun currently beamed from. Golden motes drifted through the air.

But the altar. The
altar
.

It was a multi-leveled thing of marble beauty. Its glass bowls cradled crystals aging through phases of the moon. The cloths were spun with silver thread that shimmered like water.

Marion was awed until the witch standing on the altar turned.

“Sinead McGrath,” Marion snarled. She recognized her from the sparse descriptions in her old journals—specifically, in the pink vitiligo patterning her otherwise tanned skin. A shock of white hair flowed over her right ear.

The witch’s eyes narrowed. “Marion Garin.”

Sinead was a stronger witch than Marion would have expected to find in Rylie’s employ—strong enough that she had felt she could rival Marion’s power. And she very nearly could.

But only nearly.

“You’re going to let
her
work on Seth?” Marion asked.

“Work on whom?” Sinead asked.

“My friend,” Rylie said. “Abel’s brother. He was made into a golem during Genesis, and he needs to be repaired.”

Marion opened her mouth to argue, but Seth nudged her. He shook his head once he had her attention.

“I’ve never seen a golem so detailed before,” Sinead said. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to help.”

“Wait here a moment,” Rylie said to Seth. “I need to hash out details with my high priestess.” The Alpha took Sinead behind the altar so they could discuss what work Seth needed performed without Marion’s intrusion. The motive was so transparent that Marion was tempted to butt in just to prove that she could.

“Golem?” Marion whispered.

“I don’t want anyone but Rylie to know who I am,” Seth whispered back. “So yeah. Golem.” His gaze flicked to Marion’s throat more than once. He must have been looking for scarring from when he had drunk her blood. “Who’s Sinead McGrath to you? Is this witch a problem?”

“Only because she’s a jerk,” Marion said. “She bleached several of my finest dresses when I attended the Academy. And then she had the nerve to lobby for student body high priestess. The slanderous campaign she ran…”

“How do you even know about that?”

“I wrote more in my journals about Sinead than I wrote about the times I saved Rylie from assassination.”

“Of course you did,” Seth said. Marion was certain that she wasn’t imagining how fond he sounded. “Sinead McGrath is a good witch, though?”

“Probably.” Marion wouldn’t have wasted time feuding with someone who wasn’t excellent at magic, especially since she could have hexed anyone else off the face of the planet for screwing with her wardrobe.

“Who won as student body high priestess?” Seth asked.

“I’m surprised you’d even have to ask. I did. I always win.”

“Not always,” he said soberly.

She traced her hands along the unbroken skin on her throat. “We survived. That’s a win.”

“But the Canope. Your memories. You shouldn’t have done that for me.”

“There was no other choice,” Marion said.

“I don’t think I can die. Not permanently, anyway. I’d just lose my body and…” He pointed to the sky and an imaginary Heaven where gods might have resided.

“Neither of us knew that at the time. We still don’t know that.”

Seth shrugged it off, like there was no point trying to argue something he believed to be fact. “When I was carrying the Canope, I picked up on some of your memories. Elise wanted you to find me. You wouldn’t do it. She emptied your mind and left nothing but my name so you’d find me.”

Unpleasant cold washed over Marion’s shoulders. “No, it couldn’t have been her.” She’d just gotten used to the idea that Elise wasn’t out to get her. Being told she was wrong—that a god did want to hurt her—made her stomach lurch. “I found one of the assassins—Geoff Samuelson. He said that some goat-woman confronted me.”

“A goat?”

“A goat-woman. Yes.” She lowered her voice. “That’s why I was in the office. I was using the OPA databases to download creature files onto my phone. If I can find her, maybe I can get answers.”

“It’s not what your memories showed me,” Seth said. “Elise was so angry that she struck you.”

Marion touched her cheek reflexively. It was like her body remembered the blow even if her mind didn’t. “But I wouldn’t do what she told me.”

“You didn’t even know me, but you stuck up for me. And the way I thanked you for it…” His gaze dropped to her throat again.

Marion’s memory of her time in the Dead Forest of Sheol was hazy. It was little more than a sensation of walking through a long corridor toward a doorway.

Seth had stood between her and that door. He hadn’t let her die.

“Do you still want to hurt me?” Marion asked.

“Not at all. I don’t understand why I did when I was in Sheol.”

“You’re clearly some kind of death god, and I was dying. You were operating on instincts that told you to finish the job. I don’t blame you.” After a moment’s hesitation, she took his hands. “You didn’t need to run from me. I wish you would let me help.”

“I might need your help yet,” Seth said. “If I wanted root access to the darknet, could you hook me up?”

Yet another mention of the darknet. It couldn’t be coincidence. “No way.”

“Yeah, I get it.” He looked abashed.

“No, it’s not about you. It’s because I don’t know where the servers are, but you’re not the first person this week to look for them. I’ve searched Niflheimr top to bottom for them, and even searched the bedroom of the former administrators, but I’ve got no clue. Pierce and Jaycee Hardwick left no clues behind.” Marion laughed shakily. “It seems like everybody wants the darknet at this point. The American Gaean Commission is searching, and Jibril thinks Leliel wants access as well.”

“Lucifer’s the one who asked me for it,” Seth said. “He’s the leader of the vampires.”

Marion knew who Lucifer was. She’d been seated next to him at the summit. “Why would he ask you, of all people?”

“Because I asked a favor of him first,” Seth said.

Rylie and Sinead returned before he could elaborate.

“The coven is on the way,” Rylie said. “Sinead is pretty certain they can slow the decay. They’ve got a healer in the group and Sinead’s good with constructs. Between the two of them, they should be able to fix your avatar.”

“Words like ‘pretty certain’ and ‘should’ don’t comfort me very much,” Marion said.

Sinead’s hatred was painted all over her face, but her tone was carefully civilized. “We’ve been studying the craft at the Academy for years and have broken new ground on gaean magic. If you think you have anything to contribute, though, don’t be afraid to jump in.”

It was a challenge.

A few months earlier, that was a challenge Marion would have happily risen to meet.

Unfortunately, since she was studying everything secondhand from the internet, Marion knew less magic than an adept at the Academy, and far less than Sinead.

It was arrogance that had driven Sinead and Marion to rivalry while at school. Marion couldn’t fix what she’d done in the past—just like Sinead couldn’t bring back Marion’s dresses—but she could swallow her pride and take the chance to learn a little more magic from someone with greater mastery of it than her.

“I’ll just watch from the sidelines, if that’s okay,” Marion said.

Surprise lifted Sinead’s eyebrows. There was a slash of white through one that corresponded with the pattern of her vitiligo. “Yeah. I think that’ll be okay.”

Seth squeezed Marion’s hand encouragingly.

“Then let’s do this,” he said.

* * *

I
t took
twenty minutes for the coven to arrive from around the school. It was more than the traditional number of twelve—more like twenty, Seth determined after a quick count. Not all of them took position within the circle of power so the extras must have been students.