Cast Into Darkness (7 page)

“That’s from…earlier.” She glanced at Brian. “I’m fine.”

Grayson pulled her close, and tension fled her as he gave her a gentle squeeze. “Welcome home, sweetheart. Sorry I missed your play.” He smelled like old books and pine trees and long nights telling stories by the fire. His black hair was streaked with gray at the temples—more than the last time she’d seen him, months ago. “Got called away last night.” He let her go. “You know how it is.”

Brian cleared his throat. “I’m starving. Lunch, anybody?”

Kate sighed. “Sure.”

“Great idea,” Grayson said. “There are sandwiches inside the Sanctum. Hayley, can you bring a tray to my office before the students finish them off?”

Hayley nodded and ran off. Grayson took Kate’s arm and they walked toward his office, around the back of the Sanctum. Brian followed.

The spacious room, lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, faced the ocean. Kate hadn’t been in Grayson’s office for years. The bookcases lining the walls still groaned under the weight of her uncle’s books, tome after tome of old, decaying paper bound in leather studded with gems so rare she wasn’t sure exactly what they were. Stacked beside those were scrolls thick with illegible writing, some so ancient they looked as though they would dissolve if she touched them.

His desk still held piles of papers and pictures of the family, a sleek wide-screen monitor replacing the old CRT. Disassembled talismans, hunks of amber, a soldering iron, and a few spare lodestones covered his old metal workbench. Stacks of magazines sat on the floor—
The Journal of Applied Thaumatology
next to
Field and Stream.

Grayson sank into his favorite leather chair while Brian dug in the refrigerator for sodas. Brian handed her one. Kate sat on the tweed sofa and let the air-conditioning blow across her overheated face. As she ran the cold can of the diet cola across her forehead, she wondered what felt so off to her about Grayson’s office. Something had changed since she’d been here last.

Then she spotted it.

“You’ve organized,” she said.

Grayson took a long drink of his soda.

Everything lay in crisp, neat stacks, from the books, to the scrolls, to the piles of silver ingots. It seemed nothing like the barely controlled chaos of the Grayson she knew and loved—books everywhere, papers mixed in with talismans, notes pinned over each other on his wall map of artifact finds, magazines scattered across the floor. Somehow, he’d always known how to find everything.

“Hayley got the ladies in to straighten up. They finished before I even knew about it.” Grayson shrugged. “Easier to keep it this way.” His smile showed a hint of strain.

Maybe the housekeepers really had rearranged. Or maybe Grayson had started worrying that people were after his stuff, and he could keep an eye on it better if he knew where everything lived. All the time.

She tried to catch Brian’s eye, but he avoided her gaze. He’d mentioned a few weeks ago that Grayson was now on risperidone—the family’s standard starter med for paranoia. Just a precaution, Brian had said, given their uncle’s age. Was that why Brian didn’t want her to talk to Grayson about the stone?

Hayley skipped in, a tray of sandwiches in her hands. “Okay, who wants tuna salad?”

Lunch passed quickly amid the crunch of potato chips, fizz of sodas, and inconsequential small talk. Hayley talked about how busy she’d be when she attended Harvard next fall. Grayson mentioned a quick trip he’d planned to Japan tomorrow for the horse festival. And Brian thought he’d take the sailboat out next weekend—did Kate want to come? But Kate found what they didn’t say more intriguing: no talk of work, of casting, or of family politics. There couldn’t be any lack of it to discuss.

Brian ignored her little hints that they talk outside. Ignored every attempt she made to get him to talk about his current mission. She tapped her foot on Grayson’s hard stone floor.

And she noticed something else. Brian avoided talking to Grayson. Oh, he answered Grayson’s questions, nodded when he spoke, but her brother didn’t really talk to their uncle. Not like he used to.

When the only things left on the tray were broken chips and bread crumbs, Brian got up to leave. Hayley followed, grabbing the tray.

Kate rose as well. Maybe now she’d get a chance to talk to her brother alone.

“Brian, stay a minute. There’s something I want to speak to you about,” Grayson said.

“Sure.” Brian glanced at Kate and Hayley. “Why don’t you two go ahead? We’ll catch up more later.”

Kate trailed out after Hayley, her eyes on Brian, jaw clenched. He’d talk to her later.
Sure
he would. He drops this
stupid
stone off with her, doesn’t care that it does
something
to her in the dressing room for a half hour, isn’t interested in hearing how that
bitch
Brooke tried to kill her over it, and won’t talk to her long enough to take it off her hands. What was he waiting for, a Delacroix assault team to blow down the front gate looking for the stone?

She huffed past Hayley, around the corner of the Sanctum, and across the lawn. Screw Brian. Maybe she should take this stupid stone and throw it in the ocean. See how he liked that.

“Kate. Kate!” Hayley jogged after her.

“What?” Kate kept storming along.

“What’s got you so worked up?”

Kate slowed down. “Oh…nothing. Just stuff with Brian. It’s nothing important.”

“Maybe I can help.” An earnest smile lit Hayley’s face.

Kate sighed. “You can’t. Don’t worry about it.” But maybe Hayley could help with something else. She stopped. “Hayley, is Grayson all right? Brian said he started on medication. And his office, it’s different. Have you noticed anything? Is he getting…”

The smile vanished. “He’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“Hayley…”

“No, really. There’s nothing wrong. The doctors did the whole exam thing. They say he’s got years. Definitely.”

Kate remembered what the doctors had said about her mother. They were never
that
certain. They always said, “they couldn’t tell,” and “maybe, with the right medications,” and “she could go quickly or she could take a long time.”

As it turned out, with her mother, the end came like a lightning bolt. One day, a little over two years ago, her mother had seemed as vibrant and sharp as ever. The next, she’d run through every room in the house, smashing all the mirrors until her hands were cut and bleeding, screaming that the ancient casters were trying to reach through and control them all. When Kate had returned from school that day, her mother had run to meet her at the door, her eyes wild, her fingers clutching at Kate’s sweater. Victor had grabbed a sobbing Kate, taken her to the family’s San Francisco house, and hadn’t let her anywhere near her mother again. No matter how much she’d begged.

A week later, her mother had taken her own life and Dad had sent Kate to boarding school. For her own good, he’d said.

“That’s great,” Kate said. “I was just worried about him—”

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Hayley snapped. “You don’t rely on him to—Sorry. I didn’t mean to… Anyway, he’s as sharp as ever. No delusions, no obsessions, nothing like that. He’s fine.”

They reached the pool area where a few of the older kids still hung out, playing cannonball. A splash of cool water hit Kate as they walked by. Hayley set the tray on a nearby table.

“Look, I didn’t want to upset you. I’m sorry.” Kate squeezed Hayley’s shoulder. “Want to go out tonight? After dinner? We could go to a club or something.” She’d have to figure out how to fit it in around her meeting with Brian, but clearly Hayley needed her.

“Um…I’d love to, but I’m going to a party with Missy. I’d invite you along but…” Hayley had the grace to look sheepish.

“Yeah, Missy doesn’t want to be seen with me. Especially not at a caster party. I get it.” Kate’s eyes drifted away from Hayley’s face. How many times had she seen Hayley, Brian, and their friends teleport off, laughing, all dressed up for a club or a party while she stayed behind to study or watch TV?

Kate opened the glass doors, and they went in the house.

“Well, I’m gonna work on my homework. See you later.” Hayley strode down the hall and pulled out her phone, typing a text message before Kate had a chance to suggest they do something else. Well, so much for spending the day with Hayley. When would she learn to keep her mouth shut and mind her own business?

She sank into one of the big club chairs in the family room. She couldn’t corral Brian and give him back the stupid stone. She couldn’t spend time with Hayley. It wasn’t as if anybody else would put up with a Null. She sighed and stroked the worn leather of the chair. She missed Kris. Once she gave Brian the stone back and had that “talk” with Dad about school, she could register for summer session online and drive back to Cornell. She and Kris could spend the summer sitting on her porch, cool iced teas in their hands, and textbooks spread out in front of them, pretending to study. That sounded about right. But who was she kidding? Her next “talk” with Dad would likely go as well as the last.

A yell sounded from the pool as one of the kids dove into the deep end. Maybe a swim and some time relaxing with a book would be nice.

Heading down the hallway, she passed the picture gallery then went up the staircase to her room. Her suitcase and her purse were sitting in the corner. Victor’s guys had made good on his promise.

Kate grabbed her purse and flung herself down on her four-poster bed, stacked high with pillows covered in a blue-and-yellow iris print. Her room looked untouched—paperbacks piled on her old wrought-iron bookcase against the wall, the scarves she’d bought last summer in Italy still draped on the hook by the closet. The picture of her and her mother from their first stay at the Montana ranch was still on her antique dresser, her mother laughing as she boosted Kate up into the saddle.

The view from the window gleamed bright and clear, from the crisp green lawn with the Sanctum looming over it, to the tall privet hedges separating the family’s estate from their neighbors, to the long stretch of sand spotted with beach grass leading down to the slate blue of the Atlantic Ocean.

If she could talk to Kris, hear his deep, reassuring voice, she’d know everything was all right. She dug in her purse for her cell, found it, and dialed his number.

It went to voice mail.
Oh right.
Hadn’t he mentioned this morning, before she’d left Cornell, that he’d be on a fishing trip with his family this weekend?

“Uh, just wanted to tell you I miss you. Catch a big one for me. Call me if you get a minute.” She hung up, cringing. What a stupid thing to say. What kind of message was “catch a big one”? He was probably out of cell phone range, somewhere off the coast of Florida, anyway. He wouldn’t even get her message until tomorrow. And forget about texting.

She tossed her phone in her purse. If she wanted to swim, she’d better get changed. Scooting to the edge of the bed, she tugged off her jeans. The stone scraped along her thigh through the fabric. The next thing she knew she had pulled it out and was holding it up to the light. She stroked it with her thumb.

It lit up from within, iridescent green stripes rising up from the core and washing over its body like a soothing wave of cool energy. She turned it over and over in her hand, letting its calming feel seep into her. Something in the core of it spoke to the core of her, whispering secrets she couldn’t quite hear. She let herself fall down into its depths, content in its promise that, soon, something would change.

Everything would change.

“Kate,” the housekeeper called from down the stairs. “Are you up there?”

She blinked. Her eyes were all blurry as she stared up at the white ceiling. She didn’t remember lying down.

The stone still lay in her hand, her jeans on the floor. The stone’s green glow seemed a little brighter.

Kate’s stomach rumbled.
Weird
. She’d had lunch only a half hour ago.

“Yeah, I’m up here.”

“It’s dinnertime, honey. Don’t be late or you know what that means. Good luck getting any roast.”

Dinnertime? Kate bolted upright. Was she joking? It couldn’t possibly be that late.

Kate glanced out the window. The sun hung low over the ocean, its rays gilding along the crests of the waves. Her furniture threw long shadows against her striped wallpaper. She looked at the stone in her hand, then at the clock on her nightstand.

6:24 p.m.

Shit. It had happened again.

The late-day sun
shone through the white pines bordering the Hamilton estate. Enough time was left in the day that a gardener going about his job wouldn’t be conspicuous. Kristof slipped from the driver’s seat of the battered, white gardener’s truck. The illusion spell he’d cast on himself duplicated the twentysomething guy who usually ran the route by the estate. He matched from the blond soul patch on his sweating chin down to the burrito stains on his gray Paumanok Grounds Department uniform. He reached into the tool rack in the back to pick up a hoe.
Never know when the sharp end of a stick might come in handy.

The truck was parked off the road that ran by the western edge of the Hamiltons’ place. Close enough to sense the security grid surrounding the many acres owned by Kate’s family, and the stone, sitting somewhere in the main house. But far enough away to avoid the trap spells that circled the grid’s perimeter and the cameras they had as backup. If he wanted to complete the mission, he’d have no choice but to wind his way through the trap spells, circumvent the Hamiltons’ security measures to get inside, get the stone, and get out.

Only one problem: no one, not Delacroix’s top casters, de la Vega’s ace combat mages, or even his own family’s best, had ever broken through the Hamilton security grid.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t.

Muttering the two-line incantation for a cloak spell, he let the shimmering purple energy settle around his body before stepping through the dense undergrowth of the old forest, his feet crushing the summer pine needles beneath him. He ignored their evergreen scent, focusing instead on the trap spells laid out around him in the forest, the amethyst tendrils of each one sparkling in his magesight like a minefield as they wove in and out of the trees. The spells wouldn’t trigger from someone raking leaves, but they would screech like the Furies if he had screwed up his cloak spell.