Magic to the Bone

Chapter Twelve

Nola made quick work not only of packing a picnic lunch, but of somehow stashing enough food in one box to hold us through winter.

“There must be something more I can do,” she said. I put the box of provisions in the backseat of Zayvion’s car and turned to her.

“I don’t think so. Well, I guess if I get arrested and things go to trial, I’d love to have you testify about my character, and what you heard Cody say about my dad’s death.”

“You are not going to get arrested,” she told me. She caught my hand. “Be careful, Allie, and don’t do anything crazy. You know how much I hate visiting people in hospitals.”

I did know. She’d stayed at John’s side for months, and afterward swore she’d never set foot in a hospital again.

“I promise I’ll stay as safe as I can. And since Zay refuses to leave me alone, I figure if things get bad, I can always shove him into the line of fire while I run like hell.” I smiled, and she shook her head.

“You do like him, Allie. Remember that.”

Remember it? It was impossible to forget.

Then she pulled me into a hug that was surprisingly fierce for a slight woman. I hugged her back. “This won’t be the last time I see you,” I said, hoping it was true.

“I know.” She released me and stepped back, still holding one of my hands. “Be careful and be safe. Come home when you can.”

She gave my hand one last squeeze and stepped back. Jupe, the big lunker, pushed his head against Nola’s hip, and she rubbed at his ears.

“See you soon,” I said. I got into the car. Without a second good-bye, Zayvion backed out of the driveway and headed down the road.

“You okay?” he asked.

I felt a little cold, even though Nola had given me an old denim-and-wool coat of John’s she’d found stored away.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” I crossed my arms and stared out the window, watching the bare limbs of trees filter the cloud-dampened sunlight. It was noon now. I figured we’d hit the city after dark. And before we got there, I wanted a plan.

“How well do you know Violet?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve been working with her for a couple years.”

“Working with her? Doing what? Did my father know? Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“My employment with her is not something I bring up in casual conversation.” He grinned at my scowl. “The things Violet works on are very security-sensitive.”

“So there’s more going on than whatever we saw Bonnie use today?”

“As far as I know, the things Violet was working on did not hold the potential for transferring mass.”

“As far as you know?”

“There are things she wouldn’t necessarily tell me. I spent a lot of time following you around when your father started signing my paycheck. And you’ve kept me pretty busy for a few days.”

“So you think Violet knows more than we do?”

“I doubt she knows someone has used her technology to do an instant transfer from one place to another—if it was her technology.”

“Good. It will give us some leverage in negotiating.”

Zay was quiet for a minute. The bridge was coming up soon, only a few more turns in the road until we were there. “You’re going to negotiate with her?”

“Hell, yes, I am.”

“About what?”

“Keeping my ass out of jail. Maybe having her pull some strings with the Hounds hunting me. She must know a few of Dad’s shadier friends.”

“Aren’t you afraid she’ll cut you out of your inheritance?”

“Oh, the hell with the money. I figure she’s named in Dad’s will, and has some sort of controlling interest in Beckstrom Enterprises. For that matter, all his other ex-wives might have a piece of the Beckstrom pie. I refuse to play a game of who gets to gnaw at the scraps of fat. Having tons of money—especially money made off of the misfortune of others—isn’t my ultimate goal in life. I want enough to cover rent, buy coffee, and maybe hitch a train out of town every once in a while. And I want to not have to live my life wondering if, when I turn the wrong corner, somebody’s going to be there waiting to kill me because I have something they want.”

“You’ve put some thought into this, haven’t you?”

“Years and years of it. There’s the bridge.”

“I see it.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel while slowing the car. Then he crept across the bridge.

Midway into the bridge I felt magic, like a curtain of static electricity, tingle and snap over my skin. Then the magic reached deeper, pouring into me through channels I did not know I had, filling me so full my skin felt tight. I’d never felt magic so keenly, so close, so intimate. I stretched my hands up over my head and pushed my legs out. Muscles lengthened, expanded, but still the magic poured in. I couldn’t stretch to make room for it all, couldn’t think it away, chant it away, push it away.

“Zayvion?” I couldn’t hold this much; no one could hold this much magic. And while it didn’t hurt, my ears were ringing, my heart was pounding, and my vision was tunneling down. “Zay?”

I was drowning. Magic filled my lungs, rose up my throat, poured out of my mouth, my ears, nose, eyes. I gasped, pulled in some air, but not enough. Not nearly enough.

I couldn’t even think clearly enough to cast a spell to use the damn stuff. This was a stupid way to die.

“Breathe, Allie.”

It was Zayvion. I thought it was Zayvion. Whoever it was, I tried to follow their advice. Breathed in, even though there was no room in me for air. Breathed out.

“Good. Again.”

Great. I didn’t know I’d have to do it again. I breathed in, and this time there was a little more room for air. I breathed out, and breathed in again without any prompting.

Each time I inhaled, there was a little more room, a little more space for air, then space for air and thoughts, then space for air and thoughts and, finally, space for air and thoughts and me.

I moaned on the next exhalation, inhaled and tasted mint in my mouth, smelled mint stinging my nose. I blinked blurry eyes that could distinguish only light and darkness. Tears slid cold tracks down my face, pooled in cold puddles in my ears.

I was lying in the front seat of a car. I thought about my little book, wondered if I’d need to check it to see who I was, where I was.

“Cold,” I said. “Cold.”

“Good.” That was Zayvion’s voice for sure. I remembered him. Remembered we were driving. I blinked again until I could see his face above me. His eyes were the most amazing gold—all gold—with only flecks of brown. Beautiful. But he looked worried. “Can you hear me, Allie?”

“Y-yes.” I cleared my throat, then ran my tongue around in my mouth. You’d think with all that magic filling me up, I’d have lots of spit left, but my mouth felt dry as a desert canyon. I tried talking again. “I’m okay.”

Zayvion didn’t look convinced. “We’re going to wait a little before I agree with you on that. Here’s some water. Can you drink?”

Oh, hells yes. I was so thirsty I could drain a river dry and still have room for a few creeks and springs.

He held a water bottle to my lips and helped me lift my head. I drank until he took the water away. The water was good. I could think much more clearly. I even knew where I was—in the car, lying back in the front seat, with Zay still in the driver’s seat but leaning over me. From this angle, I could just make out the cloudy sky through the window behind him.

“What hit me?” I asked.

“Magic.”

“I know, but I mean, why? Why so strong?”

Zay exhaled. “I’m not exactly sure, but it might have something to do with this.” He held up my hand so I could see it. The marks there, the spiderwebbing was now whorls of silver, gold, blues, rose, and greens. I looked like I’d dipped my hand in liquid fire opals, or metallic oil. The marks on my arm had turned the same metal colors as my hand, but there was more of my skin to be seen between the lines on my arm. It didn’t look like there were new lines, but rather that the same burn marks I’d had since I healed Cody had gone shades of metallic psychedelic instead of just burned-looking red.

“That’s going to be a conversation piece,” I muttered.

Zay laughed. “You had me worried.”

I looked back at him. He was still leaning over me, and even though he was smiling, the smile faded quickly. “Really worried.”

“Kiss it and make me feel better?”

Heat sparked in those tiger eyes of his and he bent his head. His lips touched mine gently, hesitant to press too hard. I opened my mouth for him, and it was all the invitation he needed. It was still a soft kiss, a careful kiss, but I didn’t want him to pull away. And he didn’t. Not for a long, slow moment.

“Do you know how dangerous it is to overload like that?” he asked me, his lips barely away from mine.

“Yes,” I said. “I didn’t mean to.” I reached up enough to catch his mouth again, and the kiss moved over into I’m-not-hurt territory. He felt good, he tasted good. Minty. Warm. Alive.

I didn’t want him to go away. I wasn’t sure if I was up for a full tussle, but a little hand play seemed like a really nice idea right now.

Zayvion pulled away. “You wanted us to take this slow.”

“I don’t remember saying that.” Actually, I did.

He raised one eyebrow and, this close, close enough that if I put my arms up around his neck I could probably get another kiss out of him, I could see that he didn’t believe me.

“Okay. Maybe this is a bad time,” I said.

“It is.”

“So why are you still lying over me?”

“I’m waiting for you to thank me properly.”

“For what?”

“Saving your life. Again. I’ve never met a woman who was so intent on dying.”

“Hey, did I ask for your opinion? I can save my own life just fine, thank you. And I don’t even know what you did. For all I know, I saved my life just now.”

“No,” he said. “It was definitely me.”

“Prove it.”

He drew one finger up my arm, and the cooling ease of mint followed it. It was like the magic in me burned with fire, and the magic in him flowed with ice. I shivered and it wasn’t from cold. He felt good. Incredibly good.

Fire and ice. Hell of a pair we made.

“What does that have to do with saving my life?”

His finger paused and the magic within me cooled and flowed out of me, back to the natural store deep beneath the earth. The pressure from holding so much magic and then being released from it spread like a warm blanket over me. I felt relaxed, content. I felt like we’d just had sex.

“I Grounded you.” He smiled. “And you liked it.”

“I don’t need you to do that, you know. I could do it for myself.”

“Just say thank you, and we can get going.”

“Is that all it will take?”

“Well, that and admitting you are very lucky I am good at Grounding. Very lucky I was here with you just now—very lucky I was with you after you Hounded that hit on Boy—very lucky I was there when you went off the deep end pulling magic to try and help Cody—”

“Heal Cody. And not try. Did.”

Zay’s smile slipped a little. “Heal? You healed him?”

“I told you that already.”

“No you didn’t. You said you thought he was hurt, but we couldn’t find any evidence of it.”

Shit. It must have been Nola who I told. I hated it when I found memory gaps in my head.

“Well, I’m telling you now. I healed him. With magic.”

“No one can heal with magic.”

“I know. I did.”

The smile was gone, the warmth and teasing were gone. In their place sat neutral Zay, calm Zay, Zen Zay. “That explains why it took so much to Ground you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Grounding, or acting as a lightning rod for another magic user while they are using magic, was not an easy thing to do. You had to be incredibly malleable, incredibly pain tolerant, and incredibly calm while you guided magic to exit another magic user, or exit a spell, and flow back down into the earth.

The way magic worked, you couldn’t Ground yourself. But having another magic user—someone who handled magic in their own unique manner—step into the exact rhythm and style of your casting and Ground you was so rare as to be generally unadvisable.

People who tried it and succeeded were highly trained specialists and usually lingered around high-powered people, serving as bodyguards. Even so, just because in theory a trained specialist could Ground a magic user, it always caused harm—a double Proxy if you will—to the bodyguard. One Offload, or price paid, for his or her own magic, and another price paid for the magic the person they were Grounding was using.

But Zayvion didn’t look like he was in pain, didn’t look like Grounding me was causing him to pay a double price.

Of course I’d heard that there were those rare combinations when the two magic users, caster and ground, were so well matched that Casting and Grounding were like dancing the tango, two bodies moving, breathing as one. Still, someone always paid a price.

Maybe Zayvion was just very, very good. Or maybe we were just very, very good together.

“Allie, I am trying to keep you alive. It would be nice to know these kinds of things.”

I tried to remember what we were talking about. Oh, yes. Healing.

“Is there anything else you haven’t told me?” he asked with a smile. “Any other abilities you’ve developed? Invisibility? Super strength? Can you crawl up walls?”

“Oh, please. Get off me, Jones.” I giggled and accidentally snorted. Sweet loves, I was getting giddy.

“Are you sure? Okay, fine. Fine.” He sat up and levered the back of his seat to a more upright position, then levered mine up too.

“You warm enough?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” I pulled Zay’s jacket off my lap, where he must have put it when I was knocked out. I wrapped it over my chest and shoulders.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

I shrugged. “There’s nothing else I haven’t told you. Just the healing thing.”

“No big deal. Just the healing thing,” he mimicked.

“What is your problem? You don’t think I should have healed the kid? Do you want me to apologize for saving his life? Forget you, Jones. I healed him. Deal with it.”

“I didn’t say you should apologize, but you could have mentioned it.”

“When?”

“Before.”

“Oh, that’s clear. Before what?”

The muscle where his jaw and ear met clenched. “Before we . . . before we went to Nola’s.”

That was not what he had meant to say. I figured he really meant to say before we slept together. Before we made love.

“I tell you what, man of a million secrets. When you tell me all the things about you and your life that I want to know, I’ll return the favor.”

Silence. Maybe we were both a little angry. Silence suited me just fine.

It started raining, and Zay flicked on the wipers, both of which squeaked. Miles went by.

Fine. I did not need to coddle man-moods. Instead, I leaned my head into the window, pillowing it with my hand, and tried to think what I should do once we got to Violet’s place.

“Where does she live?” I finally asked.

“Who?”

“Violet.”

He glanced at me, looked back at the road. “Don’t you ever read magazines? Watch TV? Read a paper? How can you not know these things?”

“The last newspaper I read told me my father was dead. And you know what? Maybe I do know this stuff, and maybe I’ve even known it for years, but maybe one of the last dozen times I’ve almost blown my brains out casting magic I lost those memories.” My voice was rising. I was angry and, sure, frightened. I’d like to see anyone else go through what I’d been through in the last few days and act like a cheerleader.

“Do you know how many birthdays I remember having as a kid? Three. I’ve seen pictures of all the other ones, but I can’t remember them. None of them. Not even the ones when my mother was still around. Don’t give me shit for the price I’ve had to pay to live my life. I didn’t get a choice about losing my mind. Magic is a heartless bitch, and she’s had me by the throat for years.”

So much for moody men. Chalk one up for the moody female.

Zayvion let the windshield wipers have their say for a while. Then, “Sorry. Violet’s been living in the condo with your father since they were married sixteen months ago. Before that, she lived at one of the other properties he owns in the city. The condo is downtown.”

“I know where the condo is,” I grumbled. Realizing just how petty I sounded, “Thanks, though. I didn’t know when they got married. I never received an invitation.”

“She didn’t wear white,” he offered. “And I think her flowers were lilacs and daffodils.”

“You pay attention to the strangest details. Most men would be scoping the crowd for single desperate drunk chicks.”

“That would be Joan, and she was a friend of the bride’s cousin. Recently dumped.”

I held up one hand. “That’s all I need to know about that.”

“I thought you wanted to know my secrets.”

“I don’t need to know who you slept with at my stepmother’s wedding.”

He grinned. “Okay. Your father looked happy, and maybe a little bewildered. He kept looking over at Violet like she was a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.”

That didn’t sound good.

“There’s not a person in this world my father couldn’t figure out,” I said.

“There’s you.”

I thought about that. He was probably right. My father never understood my motivations, my desires, my needs. He had an idea of who a daughter of his should be and expected me to fill that preassumed role in his life. I’d let him down pretty badly on that account.

But it did make me more curious about his newest wife.

“So tell me about Violet.”

“What about her?”

“Do you like her?”

“She has been good to work for. Fair. Intelligent, but demanding, as you’d expect of someone pushing the edge of the technological magic field. She has a dry sense of humor and is blunt about her opinion. Like some other women I know, she’s a little too stubborn for her own good.”

I let that comment pass. “Do you know if my dad gave her a controlling share of the company?”

Zay glanced over at me. “I thought you weren’t worried about the money.”

“I’m not. I’m just trying to figure out why she would have married my dad. I mean, money is the obvious reason, but it could also be for some of the patents for magic and tech integration he owns. I could see a woman who was involved in scientific innovations liking the package he could offer her: security, visibility, ability to take product to market, funding, and access to patented technology. Not to mention friends in low and high places.”

Zay shook his head.

“What?”

“Did it ever cross your mind that she might have married him because she loved him?”

I laughed. No snorting this time. “Right. Just like his other four money-digging wives.”

“Five. Or don’t you include your mother on that list?”

“Low, Jones.”

“I’ll take that as a no, then.”

It was the sort of comment that should have made me really angry, and when I was younger I might have even hit him in the nose for it. But I’d had time to think about why my mother married my dad. Maybe it was love in the beginning. I hope there was still love when I was conceived, but for all I know she was in it for the quickly multiplying fortune he was acquiring. I had been told she wasn’t living in the poorhouse overseas. Dad paid alimony to all his wives, and I knew my mom was, for the most part, taken care of because of the years she’d spent with him.

Not that I had heard from her since she left.

“Do you really think any woman would marry Daniel Beckstrom without thinking about how good his wealth was gonna look on her?”

Zay shrugged. “Probably not.”

“You didn’t answer me about the controlling share of Dad’s company.”

“What about it?”

“Who holds it?”

“Now that your father is gone, you.”

Oh, good loves. Just what I needed. “So I am the sole heir to the Beckstrom fortune, minus taxes and whatever the other wives get, and I have the controlling share of the company?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t know I even had shares in the company, much less enough to swing a vote. Maybe Zayvion was right—I should have read the newspaper more often. “So much for keeping a low profile.”

“Well, that, and don’t forget the fact that you’re indicated in your father’s murder.”

“I have not forgotten that.”

He looked over and gave me a small smile. “Good.”

Oh. He was trying to make sure my memories were still there. Decent of him, I supposed. It might get a little tedious to be reminded about what I had not forgotten, but it might be nice to be filled in on the things I had lost.

“It’s what, another four-hour drive to the city?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Good. I expect to spend most of that time listening to you tell me everything you know about my father, his company, my stepmom, and her inventions.”

“Really? And if I don’t feel like talking?”

“We Beckstroms are known for our knack at Influencing people.”

“Influence doesn’t work on a Grounder, Allie.”

Hells. He was right. That meant I probably couldn’t force Zay to do anything against his free will. There was something so satisfying about that, I actually chuckled.

“What?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” I said. “I suppose it bothered my father.”

“No, it was one of the reasons he hired me—I couldn’t be Influenced by anyone and he knew I wouldn’t just do what he wanted me to, but would make solid, lawful decision on my own . . . in his best interest, of course.”

And it also made sense as to why my dad had hired him to follow me. He knew I wouldn’t be able to Influence him either. Like I said, my dad was a thorough, careful man.

“So, what? You’re not going to answer my questions?”

“I said I couldn’t be Influenced. I didn’t say I couldn’t be bribed. What will you give me if I talk?”

“How about Nola’s cooking?”

“It’s a good start.”

I unbuckled my seat belt and crawled into the backseat. Nola had packed several sandwiches, home-baked cookies, some cheeses and bread, bottles of water, a container of what looked to be soup, a thermos of coffee, and other foil-wrapped things at the bottom of the box that I didn’t bother digging down for.

I pulled out the sandwiches and cookies, grabbed water and the coffee thermos, and crawled back to the front seat.

I unwrapped a sandwich, held it out for Zay. When he reached for it, I pulled it away. “Talk?”

“What do you want to know?”

I handed him the sandwich, unwrapped one for myself. “How long have you known my dad?”

“I’ve worked for him for about a year.”

I noted the slight side step of worked instead of known, but let it pass. “And my stepmom?”

“Worked for her for three years.”

“What did you do before that?”

“I agreed to tell you about your dad and stepmom, not to fill you in on my personal life.”

“True.” I ate my sandwich—chicken salad—and poured coffee for us both. I figured I had a little time. Maybe by the time we rolled into town he’d open up a little and show me a glimpse of who he really was.

The miles passed quickly, and Zay was adequately generous with the information he shared. But every time I steered the conversation to any time before he had worked for my stepmom, he neatly sidestepped the question.

“I get the feeling you would be a lousy date, Jones,” I said.

“Not at all. I’m a good date. Talkative, informed on current events. I even still open doors for women—out of respect, not condescension. But this isn’t a date. Is it?”

“Absolutely not. I’d expect more than a boxed lunch in a car.”

The afternoon light was fading into evening, and the cloud cover that had not lifted all day created an early, false dusk. The drive up the I-5 freeway had shown buildings made of wood and brick with plenty of space around them slowly change to the crowded stone, glass, and iron architecture of smaller cities. Soon those buildings traded up into high-rises and skyscrapers.

Once inside the city limits, I couldn’t stop scratching my arm. The concentration of magic here was so high I felt like a string pulled tight and buzzing in the wind.

“You okay?” Zay asked.

I stopped rubbing at my arm with my palm and nodded. “It itches.”

“Want me to try?”

I knew what he was asking. Did I want him to Ground me, to drain the magic that filled me so full? It had never been like this before. Sure, I could contain a little bit of magic, but now I felt like a circular river, magic pouring up through my feet, filling me until it poured out of me to fall back down into the ground again. And since I wasn’t actually using the magic, I wasn’t paying a price for it cycling through me. Except for the itching, that is.

“Here,” Zayvion said when I didn’t answer.

He put his hand on my left arm, and took a deep breath. The mint-cool poured out from his hand, washed across my shoulders, and cooled down my arm. I put my head back against the headrest and moaned.

“Oh, good. Really good.”

He kept his hand there for a little while longer, and when he finally let go, the cool mint lingered.

“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for the other times too.”

“You’re welcome. This would be a good time for you to duck down below the window level and try not to use magic at all. Do you think the Hounds can find you on smell alone?”

I reclined the seat until I was lying almost fully back. I was still upright enough that I could see the streetlights go by as we made our way through the edge of the city, heading downtown.

“Bonnie knows me. If any of them broke into my apartment, they probably got my scent. Except the building leaches old magic when it rains, so the stink might have covered my olfactory signature.”

“Let’s hope so. Maybe now would also be a good time for you to meditate and try to stop glowing like a neon sign.”

“I’m glowing?” I held up my hand. In the low light of false dusk, all I could see was my hand. The lines were darker than my skin, but no glowing.

“Not physically. Magically. Think you can dampen the amount of magic you’re channeling?”

“I don’t know. This isn’t exactly something I’ve had any experience with.”

“Now would be a terrific time to try.” He sounded worried, and that worried me.

I closed my eyes, felt overwhelmed by the colors and textures and tastes of the magic racing through me, and snapped my eyes open again. Too easy to get lost. I stared at the car’s overhead light, which was dark, and whispered a meditative mantra.

Think calm thoughts, I thought. Think of the magic as air, no color, no taste, invisible. It comes into me like air, unseen, it exhales with my breath, unseen.

This seemed like a really good visualization so I kept at it. Inhaling the invisible, exhaling the invisible, and carefully keeping my mind clear of any spells or glyphs. It wouldn’t do for me to turn the car into a train, or to give Zayvion a set of wings or something. Not that I could really do those things. Or could I? With this much magic at my disposal, I could probably do anything I could imagine.

So long as I was willing to pay the price for it, of course.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but it’s good, Allie,” Zay said. “Just keep doing that for a few more miles, okay?”

Oh sure. Hold the tightest concentration on nothingness that I’d ever tried before while billions of cubic miles of magic poured through my veins. No problem.

I am an “off” switch, I intoned to myself. That didn’t work quite as well as the invisible angle, so I went back to inhaling and exhaling unseen magic.

I was aware of the car slowing, then turning a couple of tight corners, pausing, and then entering what I hoped was the gated garage beneath my father’s condo.

“You can come out of that now,” Zayvion said. “The wards around this place won’t let your signature escape.”

Yeah, but I wasn’t sure the only thing I should be worried about was the Hounds and police outside of the building’s wards. No matter how much Zayvion liked Violet, I did not know the woman. It was just as possible she wanted me dead, so the corporation’s control would fall to her. But like Zayvion had reminded me, unless I wanted to go to the cops and explain where I had been during my father’s death, and that I had no alibi, and also point out that the one person who said he knew how my dad died was mentally challenged and had literally disappeared into thin air, I might want to throw my hat in with someone who had power and pull in this city.

And right now, that someone was my stepmom.

I hated trusting people. Especially people who slept with my father. I hated having no other choice—oh, I suppose I could try to get out of the country and be on the run all my life, but I was already getting pretty tired of being chased. I wanted my life back, on my terms. And if it meant being vulnerable enough to ask for a favor or two, I’d just have to suck it up and deal with it.

I let go of my meditative state and the image of invisible magic was replaced by color, texture, smell, and taste again. I hissed. My arm itched like the mother of all rashes.

Mint flowed up from my hand. “Come on,” Zay said. “It’s more heavily blocked and controlled inside the living area. You might feel better there.” He tugged on my hand until I sat up; then he got out of the car.

I got out too, and took the time to stretch. I knew there were cameras in the parking garage. I knew that whoever Violet had running security already knew we were there, and was probably halfway down the elevator to meet us. I looked over at Zay and he was leaning against the car, looking toward the elevator. He knew it too.

Well, at least his story lined up. He did know some of the details of the condo.

The elevator door slid open and a man on the tall, blond side of the spectrum, dressed in jeans and a suit jacket, stepped out.

“Mr. Jones, Ms. Beckstrom,” he said from across the parking lot, his voice echoing against the concrete structure. “If you’ll leave your things there and come with me. Mrs. Beckstrom is waiting for you.”

I snorted. It was all so very overly spy-and-intrigue, it seemed ridiculous. But Zay pushed off of the car and headed toward the elevator, pausing until I came up beside him.

“Kevin. How are the wife and kid?” Zay asked when we were close enough.

“Driving me to the poorhouse. And yourself?”

“Things are looking up.”

Kevin nodded and I felt like I’d just watched a conversation from a movie where the words didn’t really mean what they were saying but were instead some sort of secret code. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Beckstrom,” Kevin said. “Please follow me.”

He used a remote to open the elevator door, and stepped into the mirrored interior.

Elevator. Groan. I hated elevators, hated small places.

Still, I had manners and knew when to use them. I plastered on a smile and stepped into the fun house of horrors. Zay stepped in after me and I tried not to look at him in the mirrors—reflected at every angle—’cause I couldn’t believe he looked good so many different ways. His dark curls were hidden by the ski cap. The light reflected by so many mirrors made his cheekbones cut a hard edge beneath his eyes, and chiseled shadows along the line of his strong jaw. But even the sweatshirt couldn’t cover the width of his shoulders, nor the long, lean angle of his torso and hip. And while I was trying not to look at him, he was looking right at me, brown eyes soft, wide lips curved just enough that I had the feeling he was enjoying my discomfort.

Kevin, on the other hand, wasn’t my type and wasn’t even what I’d consider handsome. His eyes were too large for his face, his chin too small. He was the sort of guy you would never expect could kill you in an instant. I knew his type. I’d grown up around guys like him.

Since the two of them weren’t saying anything, I kept my mouth shut too, and split my time between trying not to freak out that I was trapped in an elevator, and trying not to look at my reflection, which showed my own dark-haired and tattooed image, trying not to freak out that I was trapped in an elevator.

Instead I stared at my eyes, really looking at what Violet was going to get for a first impression of me.

For one thing, I looked like a woman who needed to learn how to apply her makeup on eyes, cheeks, and lips instead of drawing with kiddie markers down the side of her face and arm. Maybe I should have asked Nola for some cover makeup to blend in the marks the magic had left behind, although I doubted she’d have something that would disguise the marks, now that they’d gone psychedelic on the right and ink black on the left.

Well, I could either be flinchy about Violet seeing me all marked up by magic, or I could hold my chin up and make her think I was happy with how things had turned out so far.

I went for the second option. Chin up. Breathe. The doors would open any second, any second, any second.

And they did. I pulled a rich-bitch-princess move and shoved past Kevin to get out the doors, out where there was air and space and fewer things pressing in so close that I thought I was going to be crushed.

Kevin didn’t need to lead me down the halls—I’d lived here. “In the great room?” I asked over my shoulder.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s to the right.”

I kept a pretty good pace, letting the panicked race of my heart settle with the rhythm of my stride. With any luck I’d be calm and collected once I finished off the hallway and made it to the room.

The boys behind me chatted about sports, and this time it sounded sincere. I slowed, and stepped through the high-arched doorway into the great room.

The decor had changed since I was last here—new couches, new tables, new rugs and paintings. But some things were the same—the mantel spanning a fireplace that took up nearly half a wall, and, of course, the entire wall of one-way glass that revealed the city and its lights spread out below.

The other thing that had changed was the woman standing in the center of the room. Or more precisely, the girl.

Violet looked young enough to be a classmate of mine. Her red hair was pulled back in a clip, and she had really good cheekbones. She wore plain but fashionable glasses, no jewelry that I could see except a gold band on her left ring finger. And instead of the top-of-the-line designer dresses I was used to seeing my stepmothers in, she wore a pair of black slacks and a baby blue T-shirt.

“Hello, Allie,” she said. “It’s good to meet you.”

I stood there, frozen, trying to fit her into the idea of being my father’s wife. Good loves, she couldn’t be even a year older than me. I never thought my dad would be such a playboy jerk as to marry someone who could be his own daughter. How had Zayvion managed to leave that little detail out of the wedding rundown he’d given me?

Kevin moved off to one side, where I knew the bar was, and I commended him on his insight. I so needed a drink.

Zay came up behind me. “Hello, Mrs. Beckstrom,” he said.

She smiled briefly. “Hello, Zayvion. I trust it wasn’t too much trouble for you to come here this evening?”

“There were a few complications.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Violet tipped her head to the side and looked at me as if I were a specimen that was not reacting as she had expected. “Would you like to sit down?”

“Thank you, yes,” Zayvion said. He took a step forward and purposely bumped his shoulder against my arm, breaking the frozen shock I’d been stuck in.

“Um,” I gracefully began. “Yes. Thanks.”

I got moving across the marble floor, my tennis shoes squeaking until I hit the thick rug that did a fair job of wall-to-walling the room.

Violet sat in one of the reclining chairs and tucked one leg up beneath her. I slowed by the couch farthest from her, but she spoke up. “Please come sit closer. I hate yelling across this room.”

I’d always hated that too. Which was cool. And weird. But since I didn’t feel like yelling either, I settled down on the love seat nearest her.

She studied my face and hands, a frown making only the barest of creases across her smooth forehead. This close, I could see that her youth was legitimate, and not bought off the operating table or maintained by spells.

“What are those marks?” she asked.

“Oh, I got into a fight with a tattoo artist.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Okay, let’s take care of this right now. I loved your father. I know the age difference between us is a hard thing to deal with, and if my own father had married someone my age, I’d probably be angry too. However, since I am not going to judge you for how you treated him, I expect you to do me the decency of not judging me for how I treated him either.”

Zay was right. She was a blunt little thing.

“Terrific,” I said. “Then how about you tell me how much of the corporation you get now that he’s dead.”

She blinked once and held her breath before letting it out. “About one quarter of it. You have just over half, and the rest of his ex-wives, combined, hold the remaining quarter.”

Not enough of a stake in it for her to kill my father. Unless she and my father’s other ex-girls were banding together on this.

“I could try to be tactful,” I began.

“Don’t bother.”

Kevin handed me a glass of red wine, and gave Violet a glass of white.

“Did you kill him?” I asked.

She shook her head, took a drink of wine. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“No,” I said. “I’ve been angry with him for a long time, but not enough to kill him.”

“Teresa said you were furious when you left his office.”

“Teresa?”

“His receptionist.”

“Oh. I was furious. He’d just lied to me about a hit on a little kid I’d Hounded back to him. I told him I was advising the people involved to sue his ass off.”

Violet smiled. “He said you were strong-willed. Said you took after Angela.”

Wow. I hadn’t been compared to my mother in years. And certainly not by someone who spoke her name like maybe they’d met, or maybe they were friends. And what the hells kind of friendship would that be? Violet was old enough to be my sister, not my mother’s crony. I took a gulp of wine.

Okay. I had to admit there was one thing money could buy—really good wine.

“How did . . .” I wasn’t sure quite how to bring it up. “Who found him?”

“Teresa. She was hysterical and called me first. I placed the call to the police.” She took another drink of wine. “It was horrible.” Her voice was much softer, and I could see the lines at the edge of her eyes and the circles beneath them. I got to thinking that even though she looked like a natural redhead, and I expected her to have a very fair complexion, she looked a little gray, as if maybe she really was grieving his death.

That would so not fit with my vision of one of Dad’s wives. Most of the women he’d married wanted the money and the limelight that came from being on Daniel Beckstrom’s arm. But then, why should things turn out how I thought they would? I’d been wrong about lots of things. Zay had said he thought they loved each other. I tried to picture this girl, someone who could maybe have been my friend if she wasn’t my stepmom, next to my polished, powerful, stern father, and just couldn’t make the image work in my head. Another image came unbidden into my mind—the idea of the two of them in bed together.

There were some things that should never be imagined. That was one of them. I took another swig of wine.

“Tell me what you know about his death,” Violet said, “and I’ll fill you in on what you don’t know.”

Zayvion, who had been standing over by the bar with Kevin, walked over and sat on the couch opposite me, settling against the leather cushions with a beer in his hand. Sweatshirt, blue jeans, and a beer. They all looked good on him.

“I hope you don’t mind.” He held up his beer toward Violet. “It’s been a rough couple of days.”

“No, that’s fine. I want to hear what you know too, Zayvion.”

Zay took a drink of beer and gave me a subtle, encouraging nod.

You better be right about her, I thought. He must have gotten the gist of my sentiment because he raised his eyebrows like I was a recalcitrant child.

“Okay,” I said. “I found out he died when I picked up a paper at a newsstand down on Third Street. I was on my way to get coffee. The last time I saw Dad was the previous afternoon when I accused him of illegally Offloading into the St. John’s side of town.”

“St. John’s?” She sounded surprised. “How interesting. I’ve seen the records, and the company hasn’t ever used in-city Proxy, and especially not out by St. John’s. That’s over the railroad divide. In the dead zone.”

“I was there. I Hounded the hit. It was his signature.”

“Really.” She glanced at Zayvion. What I couldn’t figure out was why she was all of a sudden so interested in St. John’s. “Who did you Hound for?”

“I won’t give names. Client confidentiality.”

“I think we both need to break a few rules here if we’re going to share information.”

“Okay, I’m all for that. You start.”

She tipped her head. “Did you know that Zayvion was hired by your father to keep an eye on you?”

“Yeah, I figured that out pretty quick.”

“And that he worked for me before that?”

“Yes. Tell me something you shouldn’t, and I’ll spill the rest of what I know.”

It was like a game of chicken. A game I was good at, mostly because I had nothing to lose. Violet didn’t seem to be a slouch at it either.

“Kevin, will you see that we are not bothered?”

Kevin walked over to the doorway and pressed a button. Even without using magic to enhance my senses, I felt him draw on the deep, rich core of magic over which the condo had been built and he deftly set a Deflection spell. There was nothing in this world I was aware of that could break a Deflection spell of that magnitude and expertise. Respect for Kevin’s worth just jumped about a million points in my book. A plain-looking, unassuming, deadly guy who cast magic like the highest-level user was a hard position to fill, but it looked like my dad, and Violet, had hit the jackpot when they found Kevin.

Violet untucked her leg from beneath her and rested both of her elbows on her knees, the glass of wine held in both hands.

“Your father and I met when he became interested in a line of study I was following at a very private institution. At first we argued. He was an intelligent man and had strong ideas about how magic should be made available to the public. I had other ideas. I thought a system with more freedom would alleviate some of the criminal elements of magic use. If we are all equally able to use magic, perhaps we would be less likely to hurt one another with it or for it.”

She took a swig of wine, draining her glass. “He agreed to invest some money so I could pursue the application of certain technologies to magic. We were not romantically involved then. That didn’t happen for several months, and it was a mutual decision, though I had to talk sense into him when he wanted to end the relationship. You may not believe this, but he was a kind man, if you could get through the business tycoon exterior.”

Okay, that just creeped me out. I looked over at Zayvion, but he was looking at Violet.

“In any case, we developed some astounding devices. Disks about the size of your palm that carry enough magic to cast a single spell.”

“Portable magic. Even off the grid,” I said. “Even in a dead zone.”

“Yes. And since the magic is in the disk, and can be more easily accessed by the user, there is very little price to pay.”

“So there is no Offload, and no need for Proxies?”

“That’s right.”

Holy shit.

“Do you realize how much this will change how magic is used?”

“Yes. And apparently, so do other people.” She glanced over at the bar where Kevin stood, and I heard the clink of glass on glass, then the sound of wine pouring.

“How do you charge the disk with magic in the first place?” I asked.

She shook her head. “That I won’t tell you. Patents are pending. The entire process will change how magic can be accessed and distributed. We both thought, with enough regulation, the disks would do more good than harm. But we were not going to release them for public use until we had laws in place. We had just begun working on the legal side of matters when he was killed.”

“Him dying didn’t do you much good at all, did it?”

She laughed, one hard, broken sob. “No. Not at all.”

I glanced over at Zayvion, who looked his thoughtful, Zen self.

“Do you know a woman named Bonnie Sherman who Hounds for a living?” I asked Violet.

She shook her head. “I don’t think I know anyone named Bonnie.”

“How about a man named Cody Hand?”

She frowned, thinking. Kevin came over with two full wineglasses and another beer for Zayvion.

“Wasn’t there something in the news a long time ago about a man named Cody the Hand who was sent to jail for corporate forgeries?”

“It might be him,” I said.

“I know of him. Why?”

“I think he forged my signature on the hit on Dad. I also think he knows who really killed him.”

Violet became very still. But it was the sort of distracted nonmotion that looked like she had left her body on neutral while her brain burned through an amazing amount of calculations.

Finally, “Where is he?”

“We think Bonnie has him.”

She curled back up in the chair, looked over at Zayvion.

“We were off the grid,” Zayvion said. “Out in the country. We had Cody with us. He’s been damaged mentally, whether at birth or later in life”—he shrugged—“but he can comprehend simple concepts, and he is aware of magic.”

“He was in a field ahead of us,” I said, “and a bolt of lightning . . .” I paused. Actually, it hadn’t looked like a bolt of lightning striking from sky to ground. Now that I thought back on it, I realized it looked like a shot of copper lightning had come up out of the ground. “Uh, a bolt of some sort of energy shot up out of the ground. It was a copper-colored flash. Then Bonnie was suddenly standing there in the middle of the field in front of him. We were a world away from nowhere, and so far off the grid, electric lights could pass for magic.”

If Violet had looked ashen before, she looked like she was going to faint now.

“What happened?” she whispered.

“She put her arms around Cody, intoned a spell, and held one hand up. Then they disappeared.”

“Impossible,” she said. But her eyes were too wide, and she had a white-knuckle grip on her wineglass. She looked at Zayvion.

“Impossible,” he agreed. “But it happened. There was residue left behind in a perfect circle on the ground. Black ash.”

“Feathers,” I cut in. Halfway through my second glass I was starting to feel the wine. I wanted to stretch out and lie back on the love seat. If someone had offered me a nice lap quilt and a pillow, I’d probably stay right where I was. But I wanted to leave this condo as quickly as was practical. There were too many memories ghosting me here.

I placed the glass on the table next to me so I wouldn’t be tempted to swig down the rest of it. I noticed Zayvion had not started on his second beer yet, either. Good. Maybe I’d be able to talk him into driving me home, or loaning me his car for the night.

“It felt more like feathers than ash,” I said. “And it melted at the slightest touch.”

“You touched it?” Violet asked.

“She tried to taste it,” Zay muttered.

“Oh, God, what were you thinking? Don’t ever do something like that! That is an untested, and possibly deadly, matter.”

“Hey,” I said with a smile, “get off my case. You’re not my mom.”

“Technically?” At that moment, I realized she and I could maybe be friends one day.

She took a deep breath. “Okay. At least we now know that the disks have been stolen, not destroyed.”

“What?” I said. “You knew there might be some of these disks out there?”

Violet nodded. “We had a fire a few months ago at one of the production labs. We thought everything had been destroyed, but there was some doubt. And other . . . things that hinted of a break-in. But the . . . investigation we implemented left us with very little to go on.”

“What did you have to go on?”

“A very slight indication that the person, or persons, who broke into the lab may have gone toward North Portland.”

“Shit,” I said. I didn’t like where this was heading. North Portland had more than its share of shady people. You could close your eyes and point anywhere along any of its streets and find a felon.

“Do you have any idea who would do this? There can’t be that many people who knew about the project or where the lab was.”

“We have ideas, but ideas are not proof,” she said, in a reasonable impersonation of my dad.

“So do you have some good reason why we shouldn’t go to the police with this?” I asked.

“I already have,” Violet said. “They hadn’t had much luck tracking the stolen items. It was one of the reasons we were hoping the disks had been destroyed in the fire.”

I rubbed at my eyes. I was tired and my head was starting to hurt. There had to be an easy way to figure out who had access to the technology. And to draw some sort of connection between that person or persons, Cody, Bonnie, and Snake man, if Snake man was real and not just some kind of imaginary friend—or worse, a pet—of Cody’s, and of course me, and maybe even the hit on Boy that pointed back to my dad and his death. What were we missing?

Nothing besides a suspect, a motive, and some hard proof.

Hells.

I needed to find Bonnie and wring her thick neck. No, I needed to get the information out of her about who she was working for and how she pulled her smoke and mirrors act. Then wring her thick neck. Which meant I needed to Hound her. But not tonight. Tonight I wanted sleep. Tomorrow I’d take on the world.

I also did not want Violet to set a bodyguard on me, or try to force me into staying safely trapped here until things sorted out. It would be easy to Influence her, to break my promise not to use people like my father had. I had used it on his secretary, so I’d already fallen off the wagon. Just one more time wouldn’t kill me.

“So it’s agreed,” I said, pouring Influence behind my words. “I’ll Hound around the city for Cody tomorrow.”

“Uh, no, it is not agreed,” Violet said. “First of all, I cannot be Influenced, so you can stop wasting your time. Second of all, we weren’t even talking about finding Cody. And even if we were, I am sure I have far more resources at my disposal than you do. The police are looking for you, Allie. If you draw on magic to so much as light a candle, they’ll know where you are and will haul you in for questioning.”

Well, hells. There was an angle I hadn’t thought of. This secret technology was probably still a secret from the law around these parts. I had not only become a new friend to Violet, I’d also become a new liability if I were caught and indiscreetly questioned.

Still, she could send her men and women off to find the kid, all she wanted. And if they found him and either brought him back here or turned him in to the police, I figured he’d be in pretty good hands until I got done wringing the truth out of Bonnie.

“Sorry,” I said. “You’re right.”

Zayvion turned and looked at me, probably surprised at my apology. I gave him an innocent glance. He wasn’t buying it, but covered his scowl by taking a swig of beer.

“Good,” Violet said. “Why don’t you stay here tonight? There is still a bed in your old room. Or the guest suite is available if you’d rather.”

Oh, hells, no.

I said good riddance to this place years ago. I had never come running home when things had gotten tough in the last seven years. I was not going to come running home now.

“Thanks, but I have somewhere else to be.”

“Where?” She took a drink of wine. She didn’t look like she believed me.

“I don’t think I’ll say. That way if you’re asked you won’t have to lie when you say you don’t know.”

“I don’t like you going off alone, Allie. You do understand you’re being hunted, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah. I have the bruises to show for it.” I stood. “Thanks for worrying, but I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine.”

Zayvion stood too.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Thought I’d see you to the door.” He put his beer on the table. “Good night, Mrs. Beckstrom.”

“Take care, Zayvion. Be careful, Allie. And if you change your mind, the door is always open.”

“Thanks,” I said. And I meant it.

Kevin walked to the doorway and released the spell with a flick of his fingers, the sort of subtle motion that looked like he was adjusting the ring on his middle finger with his thumb. Oh, this guy was good. Very good.

Kevin allowed us through the door, then followed us to the elevator. He used the remote to open the doors, and I felt my shoulders crawl up to my ears at the small, mirrored space.

“Take it easy, Zay,” he said.

“You too,” Zayvion said. “And next time the drinks are on me.”

They shook hands, and I stood there and broke into a cold sweat. How had the elevator gotten smaller? I’d just been in there. With two men. There had to be enough room for me to step in. But try as I might, and I mighted my best, I could not force my foot to lift and take me one step closer to that mirrored coffin.

Kevin turned and walked back down the wide, spacious, marble hall, toward the spacious great room.

“Allie?” Zay said.

“What?”

He didn’t answer, so I looked over at him. He put one hand on the unmarked, left side of my sweaty face and kissed me. Hard.

Oh. The prickly spikes of panic in my chest melted and a whole bunch of other pleasant feelings took their place. Oh. Yes.

I kissed him back just as hard.

“Elevators can be fun,” he murmured against my lips.

I bit at his bottom lip and pulled away. “Over my dead body,” I said.

But that kiss had broken my panic and put me in another mood entirely.

I strode into the elevator and punched the button. Zayvion stepped in too, then stood directly behind me. The door closed. In the mirror I watched his hands wrap around my waist, saw the slight smile as he pressed his body against my back, then pressed his mouth against the side of my neck.

It was too small here for this. Too small for him to be so close. And I was going crazy for him to be closer.

His hand slipped down the front of my hip, my thigh, then rubbed up beneath the heavy coat I still wore, up the side of my hip, and pressed flat against my stomach. The heat from his palm pooled at my navel and dripped lower. He bit gently at my neck.

Tingles of pleasure poured out from where he touched me. I closed my eyes, and all I felt were his fingers brushing the curve of my breast, his lips on my skin, and his body, hard and hot, pressed against me.

A soft chime rang out and I opened my eyes. Zayvion was smiling, his gaze on the camera I knew was hidden in the corner of the ceiling. Cameras. I had totally forgotten.

Great. Wouldn’t Kevin and Violet get a kick out of watching that?

The elevator door slid open, revealing the concrete parking garage.

“This is our floor,” Zayvion said.

“Uh-huh.”

He held me a moment more and neither of us moved even though we both knew the cameras were watching us. Then the idea of the doors closing on me again, closing me in, got me moving.

I pulled away from the warmth and comfort of his arms, and strode out into the cold garage. The marks up my arm and neck began to tingle, then itch, like thousands of millipedes were crawling from my temple to my fingers. I rubbed my palm up and down my arm, trying to make the itch stop. I heard Zay’s footsteps behind me, and noticed it because he was usually silent as a cat walking on marshmallows.

“So where are you going to stay tonight, and how are you going to get there?” he asked.

Ah. I’d forgotten to let him in on my little plan.

I stopped halfway to the car and clasped my hands together in front of me to keep from scratching.

“Do you mind taking me home tonight?” I asked.

Zay strolled over, his hands tucked in that ratty ski jacket he had loaned me. Nola had washed it along with my clothes, and had done a good job getting the bloodstains out of the fabric. I’d have to ask her sometime how she did it. The way my life was going, I’d probably need to do a lot more of that kind of stain removal in the future.

“That depends,” Zay said. “Your home, no. My home, yes.”

It was my turn to be surprised. “The mysterious Zayvion Jones is actually going to show me something about his personal life? Are you feeling all right? How many beers did you drink? Maybe you should give me the keys.”

“Get in the car, Beckstrom,” he said with a smile. “I’m driving.”

He had closed the distance between us, and I took a second to really look at him. He walked sober, he talked sober, he looked sober. He even smelled sober.

“How much of that beer did you really drink?” I asked.

“You saw me.”

“I saw you take maybe two drinks.”

“There you go.”

“Don’t you trust Violet?”

He shrugged. “Who says I was staying sober because of her?”

I knew that had something to do with me. I even thought it might be something nice, something thoughtful.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome.” He continued past me to the driver’s-side door, and I walked around to the passenger side of the car and got in.

Zayvion started the engine and put the car in gear. “But if I am taking you to my private residence, for privacy’s sake, I’d like you to wear a blindfold while we’re driving around the city.”

“Won’t work,” I said. “I can see through walls, you know.”

Zayvion shook his head. But he was smiling, and better yet, he was driving. I sat on my hands so I wouldn’t scratch my arm to a bloody stump and tried to breathe away the itching. I also worked hard on dimming the glow of magic Zayvion said I’d acquired.

I leaned back in the chair and watched streetlights soldier by, lights tinged with yellow, blue, or pink indicating the kind of auxiliary spells placed upon them. There were some things worth the cost of Offloads, low-level magics that created a huge amount of good for the entire city. And making sure that there was never a chance for a blackout was one of those things.

From the spacing of the streetlights, and eventually the control towers we drove past, I knew we were on the Burnside Bridge, moving across the river from my apartment and into East Portland. After wandering through a few neighborhoods, he pulled his car into a parking garage beneath what I assumed was an apartment building, and I watched the lights of the garage go by until he parked.

“So are there elevators?”

“Yes. And stairs.” He got out of the car, opened the back doors, and dug out the remaining food Nola had packed for us. “This way.” He shut the door with his heel and, once I was out of the car, he hit a remote to lock it.

This garage was big enough for maybe a dozen cars, concrete, like the one beneath my father’s—I mean Violet’s—condo, but unlike Violet’s place, where the concrete was smooth as marble, this concrete was buttressed with lead rods that webbed the walls and ceiling. Magic collectors. Which meant this was a newer building, or maybe retrofitted.

“How many apartments here?” I asked as I followed Zay over to two doors, one that had an elevator behind it, and the other that had a symbol of stairs on it.

“A few.” He paused to shift his hands around the box he carried, then pulled the door to the stairs open. “I’m on the second floor.”

The stairs were also concrete, so too the walls. There were no windows, which I found extremely comforting because, although I couldn’t see anyone out there, no one out there could see me either. I wondered if Zay had considered those sorts of security measures when he moved in here.

Four levels of stairs later we were at the door to the second floor. This door had a small window in it, just enough that you could look into the stairwell, or from the stairs could look down the long hall. Another nice feature if you were concerned about running into people.

He pulled the door open and we stepped out of the cool cold-stone smell of old concrete, and into a softly lit hall with a carpet so plush that I lost two inches in height as soon as I stepped on it. Unlike my apartment building, this place did not stink of old magic. I caught a whiff of curry and the hickory of wood burning, and the thick spice of incense covered by an antiseptic lemon detergent.

To the left of the stairs was the elevator, to the right an umbrella stand. The hall stretched between six apartment doors, and Zay walked to the end, then turned left, down a hall that I hadn’t noticed because of the false half wall that made it look like the main hall dead-ended.

Zay walked ahead of me and paused in front of his door.

I’d said before that I didn’t think there was a spell worth paying for that could keep a burglar out of your house if they were determined to break in. But I had never seen a spell so artfully cast as the one that covered Zay’s door. The great hulking ward was so good, it was hard to actually see the thing. If I weren’t trying to keep a low profile, I’d pull on magic and Hound that glyph to find out who made it, then I’d go buy one for myself. This had to be the strongest lock-ward I’d ever seen.

So Zay was more wizard than he seemed. He did the finger-wave bit—similar to Kevin’s trick—and the spell unraveled. I could sense the strands of the spell pulling in on itself, like eels backing into rock nooks, so that the way through the door was clear. Zay pulled his keys out of his pocket and unlocked what seemed to be an average lock and dead bolt.

“Come on in,” he said. The lights flicked on as soon as he crossed the threshold, and with the magical trappings outside his apartment, I was expecting maybe some superintense magic-user stuff inside the apartment. Maybe an old distillery, crystal, and glass rods people used to try to store magic in. Maybe a potted Honey Spurge, which people used to think was so sensitive to impending magic Offloads that it force-bloomed and withered away minutes before an Offload could actually reach you. Or maybe that all his lights would be glowing in the soft pastels of magic.

But like Zayvion, the apartment was unassuming in its simplicity. Modern lines of brushed metal shelves and furnishings were tempered with thick blankets and a few pillows in warm, earthen tones stacked with woven geodesic block patterns, patterns reflected in the upholstery of the couch and love seat, and the area rug in the middle of the white-carpeted living room.

There were no plants in the room, no clutter, not a thing out of place. It almost had an unused look to it.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You don’t entertain much?”

Zay shrugged and headed into the living room. “Bathroom’s to your right, opposite the bedroom. I’m going to take these into the kitchen,” he said from across the room. “Hungry?”

“I could eat,” I called over my shoulder. I took off my coat and draped it over the back of the love seat, then made my way toward the bathroom.

“What?” he yelled.

“Yes!” Then I had to smile. It had been years since I’d shared yelling space with someone, and I liked the feeling of not being the only one in the house who was making noise.

Because I am a snoopy bitch, I glanced in the bathroom—clean to the point of being sparse, very bachelor—but at least there was toilet paper on the roll. I had to pee, but decided to hold it long enough to check out his bedroom.

The door was half open, so I pushed it open the rest of the way and stepped in.

Well, well. So the boy did like some luxury in his life. The bedroom was done up in rich blues and browns, with thin lines of yellow here and there, leaving the impression of dark earth below and night skies above cradling stars or moonlight. The bed took up the lion’s share of the room, and dark wood dressers and nightstands filled the corners.

“You like?”

I turned and swung my fist, but Zayvion wasn’t dumb. He’d snuck up on me and stopped outside my swinging range. That was embarrassing.

“Damn it, Jones, make some noise, will you?” I grumped.

He had taken off his coat and shoes and was leaning, arms crossed over his chest, against one side of the doorway. He was also smiling.

“So. Do you?” he said.

“Do I what?”

“Like the room?”

“It’s fine. I was looking for the bathroom.”

He pointed over his shoulder. “That way.”

“Thanks.” He moved out of the way so I could leave the room. “And yes,” I said. “Your girlfriend pick out the colors?”

“No.”

Well, couldn’t blame a girl for trying to find out a little more about him. “Your mother?”

“No. And to answer your other question, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Oh. We were being honest.

I raised one eyebrow. “Good.” I left him wondering about that, and used the bathroom—making sure I locked the door first. That man was too quiet.

I made use of the facilities and washed my hands. While I was drying them on a remarkably clean-looking towel, I realized my hand and arm did not itch. The black bands on my left hand remained the same, but they never itched much anyway. I examined my right hand in the bright lights of the bathroom and saw no change. I looked at my bare arm in the mirror, and saw no change there either. Other than the fact that it did not itch, it still had bright metallic ribbons maypoling from nail bed to temple. Pretty, really. And when I traced one line of color along my forearm, I could feel magic stir within me. Much more magic than I’d ever held before.

“What did you do to me, Cody?” I muttered. “What did I do to myself?”

Zayvion knocked on the door. “Food’s ready.”

“Thanks,” I said. I finished drying my hands and walked out into the living room. Now that I was in the middle of the room I noticed that the kitchen and living room were one shared space, with an island separating them. Zay stood behind that island, setting out matching plates that were not chipped.

I strolled over and took a seat on the barstool that faced the island. “So you are either never home and everything you own has been recently unpacked from boxes, or you are a raging clean-freak.”

“Napkin?” he offered.

I took the perfectly pressed, perfectly white cloth napkin.

“Which is it, Jones? Explain your freakishly neat house.”

“I have a maid come in and dust for me once a month. I know how to pick up after myself. And I’m not home much.” He scooped out a serving of homemade lasagna for both of us. “Get the salad?” he asked.

I popped the lid on a plastic container and split the salad between our plates. “Why aren’t you home?”

“I work a lot. Late hours.” He deposited rolls by the salad. “I don’t have any butter for the rolls. You okay with that?”

“With Nola’s cooking, I don’t need butter. Why late hours?”

He wiped his hands on a towel, folded it, and tossed it over one shoulder. “You are a painfully curious woman. Anyone ever mention that to you?”

“Constantly. Do you moonlight?”

He opened the refrigerator behind him and pulled out two bottles of grape soda. “Out of beer. Soda?”

“Sure.”

He handed me a bottle and then sat across the island from me.

“Most women are impressed by how clean my house is. You? Complain.”

“I’m not complaining. It’s just . . . don’t you ever let go, relax, and have fun?”

He wiped at his mouth with his napkin. “Sure. It’s in the schedule. Monday, laundry, Tuesday, dishes, and every other Thursday afternoon between one and one fifteen, wild abandon.”

“Well, since that line of inquiry is only getting me sarcasm, I’m going to change the subject. Why doesn’t my arm itch here?”

He stopped chewing, then started up again. I kept eating and watched his body language. He was serious Zay again.

“Do you know what those marks are, Allie?”

“I know how I got them. From healing Cody.”

“Be more specific about that. Did Cody somehow assist you?”

“Yes. He was chanting a mantra. He held my hands. He . . .” I frowned, thinking. “He reached through me and um, caught up the small magic in me and pulled magic out from the network and mixed them together through me. When he had my hands, it was like I could see magic as colors, textures, and I could see how it could be woven into a kind of healing glyph that I directed over his wound and sent deeper, into muscle and bone.”

Zay shook his head, a small smile on his lips. “Small magic in you. I’d wondered. And, I’ll point out, you didn’t tell me about that either.”

I shrugged. “I’ve tried telling people that I can hold magic, that I have always had a flicker of it in me. No one believed it.” Not even my own mother, I thought to myself.

“Well, it makes sense for why you can carry magic now. And why it hasn’t killed you.”

“But why is it so strong now?”

“I think Cody synched you.”

“Synched?”

“Old magic term, back in the days before it went public.”

I had cut a chunk of lasagna and paused with it halfway to my mouth. I didn’t know magic was discovered more than thirty years ago. That wasn’t taught in any of my history classes, and certainly wasn’t a common belief. As far as I knew magic had been discovered thirty years ago.

Zay negated that fact like he expected me to know it. Expected me to believe magic had been around for a lot longer than everyone thought.

“The problem with synching,” he continued, “was that a person could become so in rhythm and tune with magic that they would either become lost to it, or become a part of it. Neither of those things are good. People who are receptive to the frequency of magic can sometimes carry magic within their bodies for short periods. On a small scale, a very small scale, there was some success with this. But anyone who tried to carry more magic than enough for a simple spell—”

“Burned themselves out,” I said. “Physically, or mentally. We studied something like that in school, but they called it ‘forbidden’ and nothing else. They refuse to teach any more about it.”

He nodded. “Too many people were harmed or killed trying it. No one’s been able to isolate which combination of genetic quirks enables a person to actually house magic.”

“You think Cody can hold magic?”

“No. But I think whatever he did to you, or through you, triggered your ability to house magic on a much larger scale. But not without a price.” He pointed at my hand.

And for the first time, I felt self-conscious of it. I curled my fingers closer around my fork, and couldn’t believe I felt bad. It was just a mark. A burn. I’d been burned before.

But never like this, never with so many colors, never so sensitive, never so . . . beautiful. Did liking a disfiguring mark make me a freak? Did being ashamed of it make me any better?

I scooped a bite of noodles and sauce into my mouth. “It burned,” I said. “But it hasn’t really hurt, just itches sometimes. Do you think it will fade like a burn?”

“I think that depends.”

“On what?”

“On if you ever use magic again.”

“Listen, I like Nola and all that stuff she stands for, but I am not going to turn magic-free just because I got a little burn.”

“Good,” he said. “You have a great ability, Allie. It would be a shame to see you give it up.”

I took a swig of grape soda. “I think I can cover the marks with makeup.”

“I suppose, but I don’t think you should.”

“Why?”

“I think it’s beautiful. Exotic. Powerful.”

I looked up into those tiger eyes and saw the fire burning behind them.

Oh.

“I like the sound of that,” I said.

“Good.” He went back to eating, but there was a palatable heat between us. I started thinking about that bed of his, starting thinking about those sheets.

“The bands on your left hand will probably stay,” he finally said.

“Okay. I give up. How do you know these things?”

I hadn’t expected him to answer. I especially hadn’t expected him to tell me what sounded like the truth.

“I’ve studied magic my entire life. My . . . my job involves . . . being aware of all the ways magic can manifest. Knowing how it is used, legally and illegally.”

“Wait. Did you just tell me you’re a cop?”

“No.”

“FBI? CIA? Is there a division of government that oversees magic use?”

“Not exactly.”

“So you’re part of what? A secret society of, oh, here let me guess, uh . . . Buddhist monks who believe it is their divine calling to run around telling people how to use magic.”

“I’m not a Buddhist.”

“Well, if you’re even half of what I just accused you of being, you are most certainly a vigilante.”

“Most certainly?”

“Seems pretty clear to me. Is there a secret handshake to get into your little fraternity?”

“Yes.”

I studied his face, calm, neutral. He’d be hella good at playing poker. “Bullshit.”

He smiled. “The lines on your right hand and arm won’t go away either,” he said.

“Okay, so let’s pretend that I believe you are a part of a secret society of magic cops.”

“Okay.”

“And let’s pretend I know that magic has been around for hundreds, thousands of years.”

“Okay.”

“Have you ever seen this before?” I held up both hands, my right hand a webwork of opalescent lines, the left banded in black at each joint.

He reached, took both my hands by the fingers, studied the backs of them, then gently turned them over to study the palms.

“This.” He traced the palm of my right hand like a fortune-teller. The gentle strokes sent heat that had nothing to do with magic rushing up my thighs. “This is where magic marked and claimed you. When you use magic, you feel it moving through these lines.”

I nodded.

“It is magic’s gift to you. This,” he said, running his fingers gently between the fingers of my left hand, his touch softly circling each joint, “is where you denied its effort to absorb you. When you use magic, you may lose feeling here first, and if you use it too much, or too quickly, that sensation will travel from your hand, to your arm, and eventually could stop your heart. It is the price you pay for the gift.”

“Positive energy.” He lifted my right hand slightly. “Negative energy.” He lifted my left hand.

“Power and restraint.” He drew my hands together. “Very sexy.”

Great. I was a battery. Well, at least he had a nice way of saying it.

“Sexy,” I mused. “Are you un-slowing down our relationship, Jones?”

“Maybe. How un-slow do you think you can handle it?”

This had to be the lamest relationship I’d ever been in.

“Ground rules,” I said. “This is just for tonight. No promises means no complications and no complications means no dumping in the morning.”

“I can live with that.”

“You still hungry?” I asked. He had not taken his hands off of mine, and still held me as if I were something he did not want to disappear.

“Not for food,” he answered.

Oh, baby, sweet-talk me all night long.

I pulled my hands out of his. “Good. I’m done too. Let’s go see if your bed’s big enough for the two of us.” I strutted off, and lifted my tank top up over my head and then off. I don’t know what it was about him, but he made me want to get naked in a hurry.

He jogged up beside me and gently drew his hand up my back before wrapping it around my waist and walking with me to the bedroom.

I figured this was going to be hot and quick, maybe a little fun, or a little rough. But Zayvion had different ideas.

He locked the door and walked to the dresser. I, standing alone, kicked off my running shoes and made my socks into little balls that I stuffed inside my shoes.

“Zay?” I asked.

“Mmm?” He opened a drawer and I heard the rattle of matches in a box, then the scritch of a match being lit. He lit the candle on the dresser.

“You want me to help with that?”

“No, I’m almost done.”

Okay, so this, maybe, was the downfall of having a perfectionist for a lover.

“You want me to make sure the sheets are smooth—maybe iron them, or think I should dust off your condoms and arrange them in alphabetical order?”

“Is there a problem with how my condoms are arranged?” His back was still toward me, but he had moved on to the other dresser in the opposite corner of the room. Same deal there, match, snick, candle, flame. Rhythmic. Ritualistic.

“Hello? Half-naked woman standing over here,” I said.

The muscles of his shoulders twitched, but he still didn’t turn to look at me. “Give me a minute,” he said. “I’ll make it worth your wait. Promise.”

“I thought we said no promises.”

“You did.” He walked past me to the corner and lit a candle there with a new match. He pointedly avoided looking at me. Okay, this was getting weird, though I suppose no weirder than him being a part of a secret society of magic cops. He walked around me, gaze averted, and lit the last candle in the last corner of the room.

“You’re really into candles, aren’t you?”

He put the matchbox down on the shelf next to the last candle he had lit. “Something like that,” he said. He turned off the overhead lamp and the room filled with a soft golden glow. This time when he turned, he was looking right at me, and the fire from the candles reflected the burning passion in his gaze.

“Are you sure there isn’t something else you’d like to do?” I asked. “Maybe burn some incense? Wash a couple of windows? Fold some laundry?”

He stalked across the room and stopped in front of me, so close I could feel the heat off his body, even though we were not touching.

“You talk too much,” he said.

“That’s a great way to get me in the mood.”

He stood there, still staring at me, and I thought about reaching out and grabbing him, but this looked an awful lot like a game of chicken and I was determined he touch me first, not the other way around.

“I see you’re still wearing a shirt,” I said.

He leaned back to make elbow room, and pulled his shirt off.

Hells, he was a fine-looking man. Muscled, not gym-worked, but hard and flat. I wanted to touch him. I wanted to lick him up.

He leaned back in again, but instead of pulling me into an embrace, he very gently pressed his fingers against the mark on my temple. “If the candlelight is too bright, tell me,” he said quietly.

He wrapped his right arm around my waist and pulled me against him, and I got my hands on his back. He drew his finger in some quick pattern against my temple. I gasped at the hot race of mint that flowed into me, warming me, warming the magic in me, making me hot, trembling, hungry.

I moaned, and opened eyes I did not know I had closed.

“There is sensual pleasure in the weight of carrying magic,” he said. “Let me show you.”

“Yes,” I breathed. He bent his head and kissed me.

My world exploded. His lips were warm, his tongue sliding into my mouth and slowly exploring the taste of me, as if I were something wonderful to savor. His fingers traced the whorls of magic on my palm, my wrist, the inside of my elbow, flicking across erogenous zones I never knew I had. His motions were sweet and almost painfully gentle. I squirmed and pulled away from his lips, unable to bear the sensation overload. I leaned my head against his chest, breathing hard as he traced up my arm, then drew heat and the sweet slide of mint across my shoulder and collarbone. His finger caught under my chin and he lifted my head. I wanted him to get out of his pants. I wanted to be out of mine. But I did not want him to stop doing exactly what he was doing. He pressed his leg between mine, and shifted so that his right hand was firmly against my back. He dipped his head and kissed the marks on my neck, sending another shiver of need through me.

I moaned.

He sucked, his tongue exploring the lines of magic that flowed up the curve of my neck.

I closed my eyes, moaned again as his tongue drew up the side of my jaw. Warmth and need spread through me, flickering like fire from my nerves, pulsing through the lines of magic.

He bit—not too hard, not hard enough—and I gasped. I wanted more. I wanted him to never let go.

His mouth drew up my cheekbone and I trembled. Though I was shaking, I ran my hands up his back, his neck. I slipped my other hand down to his belt line. I wanted to feel him. The fire building in me was too hot. He breathed across my cheek, and I could not move.

His fingers teased the lines of magic on the tip of my shoulder, tugging magic up to the surface of my skin so that I felt tight with it, tight with the need for release. He traced the pattern again, his fingers dipping down my cheek, down along the bare, soft skin of my neck. I arched back so I could feel him, feel more of him. I wanted him to release me from this hungry, joyful need.

“Let go,” he said over the pounding roar in my head. “I’ve got you.”

I opened my eyes and he kissed my temple, his tongue tracing a pattern there.

Magic welled in me, rising like a tide I could not stop. It filled me, stretched me, rising to his touch, rising to meet him, to wrap around him, drown him, consume him.

No. I struggled not to lose control of the magic. I struggled to hold it still, breathing deeply to try to clear my mind. If I lost control of the magic, Zayvion could be killed.

But his tongue teased and encouraged. He kissed his way back down my cheek, bit at the thin lines of magic that curved across my collarbone and fingered to the edge of my breast. I shuddered.

I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t hold this much magic; no one could. My body ached with the weight of the magic filling me, magic Zayvion tugged, stroked, sucked, and drew upon in rhythm with his hands and tongue.

We kissed.

“Let go,” he whispered against my lips.

I opened my eyes. I couldn’t hold on. To the magic, or the need.

I opened my mouth to beg him to give me a minute to catch my breath, or maybe to tell him I wanted this, this abandon of control more than anything in my life. But I didn’t have time. I didn’t have thought. I didn’t have breath. Just one more second and I would explode.

The candles in the room dimmed and I groaned.

Zayvion’s hands glowed with the yellow light of the candles. He mumbled a spell in a language I had never heard before. He released the spell, plunging deep into the magic I could no longer contain.

I yelled out, burning with pleasure, throbbing with the joy of him deep inside the power that coursed through me. The world was reduced to textures: soft, silk, the watery touch of air. Reduced to colors: Zayvion’s eyes burning tiger-bright, his hands lost in a glow up to his elbows that cast his dark skin in gold light and ink shadows, the room a night sky around us, the deep brown earth holding us strong. Reduced to smells and tastes: sharp garlic and the mild cheeses of our dinner, the pine-sweet musk of Zayvion’s sweat, the honey of melting candle wax.

Magic poured out of me, filling the room, and I poured out with it.

This, this was the way I wanted to die, pouring out, losing myself to the glory and power of magic, Zayvion strong and hard inside me, becoming part of the world, and then becoming all of the world.

But I was still human enough, still me enough, to want more—to want to take Zayvion on this ride with me.

I didn’t have to cast a spell, didn’t have to concentrate. I wasn’t just a woman with magic anymore. I was magic. What I desired, magic became. And I desired Zayvion to experience this joy.

I poured magic into him. Zay groaned and breathed hard, his eyes half closed. We stood, holding each other tight. We still hadn’t finished undressing, but that didn’t matter. How could the mere pleasure of flesh compare with this, with me feeling him inside my whole body?

Zay groaned again, and I knew he could feel this, feel me around him, feel magic pouring hot and fast into him.

“Come with me,” I said, or maybe I only thought it. “We can be everything.”

I kissed him, and he kissed me back, hungrily.

Zay drank me down, and I poured out magic, whipping magic around us like ribbons in the wind, spooling from my fingers, from deep within the earth, from deep within me, into him.

And still it didn’t fill him.

I pulled back enough to look in his eyes. They still burned bright, but there was something else behind that. A darkness as calm and deep and endless as the night sky. I could pour as much magic as I wanted into him. He was a lightning rod, a man who could Ground me and the magic I sent into him, and pour it back to the earth from which it came.

“Oh,” I said. This was so much more than I thought, he was so much more.

If I was the battery, he was the grounding wire. I could throw magic around all I wanted and he’d never loose his hold on me. We fit, so neatly a part of each other, magic to magic and soul to soul.

“What are you?” I whispered.

“What do you want me to be?”

This had such lovely possibilities.

I drew my hand up his butt and rocked my hips to remind him I was also a woman of flesh and desire. Still, magic poured through me, through him, to the earth.

One corner of his lips quirked upward.

“More?” I asked him.

“Think you can?” he asked.

“Try me.”

Zayvion kissed me, softly, and the magic swelled between us.

“Bed,” I said.

We made it to the bed, though I needed some help getting there and getting my pants off. I was dizzy with power, light-headed to the point of little specks dancing at the corners of my vision. But I didn’t want to let go of the clear rush of magic streaming through me. I wanted to make love to that calm, strong man, and try to break his calm, strong focus.

Once we were on the mattress and sheets—both of which were soft—the room seemed to spin a little and stopped only when Zay was above me, his eyes dark, dark windows into eternity.

He wasn’t just Grounding me, he was sucking the power through me, swallowing me down faster than I could refill, and drinking up more. I ached with the speed of the magic rushing through me. Ached with it, and loved it.

Time to fight fire with fire. I concentrated on holding the magic tightly inside my body, not letting any of it, not a taste, not a glimmer, not a thread of it escape me.

Zay jerked and moaned, and his body, which was naked now, thank heavens, responded to the sudden deprivation. He lowered against me and we kissed. I wanted to feel him inside me in every way, magic and flesh, but I made him work to get my mouth open, made him work to release my hold on the magic, and then, when he had done so, with as much patience as I could tolerate, I gave him all of me, and he gave all of himself in return.

He was hot, sweating, hard. My heartbeat thrummed, pounding in rhythm with the pulse of his mouth drawing magic from the lines against my collarbone, the hollow of my neck. Sliding waves of pleasure rolled through me, and I tangled my fingers in his thick, curled hair, pressing his head closer to my skin. He drew my hands up and above my head, lacing his fingers with mine. The heat of my right hand and chill of my left were uncomfortable so close together, but his hand cradled between my palms felt strong and solid and warm.

Magic coursed through me in waves of heat and ice, wrapping around his hand, wrapping around his body as he lowered against me and paused. I groaned. The weight of him between my thighs and against my hips and breasts, and the pressure of magic beneath my skin, begging to be released, turned every breath into an additional, aching pleasure.

He bent and gently licked my right nipple, and I luxuriated in the nerve-hot sensation.

Yes. Now.

Need shuddered through me as he licked my left nipple, then nipped, and sucked at the magic that filled me and filled me.

He was no longer Grounding me, no longer drinking the hot, fast flow of magic from me, and I was filling too full, too fast. The ache was unbearable. The pleasure immense.

I trembled, gasped for air.

“Ground me,” I begged.

Zay plunged within me, within the magic, and I cried out in joy.

I arched against him and rode the pulsing waves of hot, silken pleasure, emptying of magic, emptying of hunger, emptying of need.

We kissed, a little sloppily, a little slow, and didn’t stop until the heat of magic, the heat of our passion, pooled into a sweet warmth between us, until our heartbeats slowed, until we could breathe again.

I rested curled against him, warm and languid. The magic within me was quiescent, satisfied. And so was I. I had never felt anything like that. I now understood why some people willingly paid painfully high prices to use magic during sex.

But this had been more than a dime-store sex toy or three-step spell. Somewhere during the wild storm of magic Zay had called up within me, we had joined together, manipulating the give and take, the flow of a massive amount of magic.

And I felt absolutely no ill effects from it.

“How come I don’t hurt?” I asked.

His chin was tucked so his lips were near my ear. “What do you mean?”

“We used a lot of magic just now. A lot. And we did not set a Disbursement spell. So why aren’t we paying a price for it?”

His breathing caught, and I counted three strong beats of his heart against my chest before he spoke. “Soul Complement,” he said, as if that explained everything.

I pulled back so I could see his face. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Didn’t your father teach you anything?”

That kind of question usually made me defensive. But here, in his arms, I had no desire to put up my guard. “Other than how to balance a checkbook? No. Is it a magic term?”

Zay took a deep breath and stared at the wall behind me. I figured he was trying to decide what to tell me, or maybe how much.

“Listen,” I said. “You probably have lots of reasons to be all secretive and such. But my life has been changed by things I don’t understand. It would be fabulously decent of you to let me in on all this.”

He still didn’t say anything, so I tucked back into the warmth of him. “Would it help if I promised not to tell anyone?”

Still nothing.

“Scout’s honor?” I offered.

“Are you a scout?” he asked in the kind of voice that told me he was smiling.

“Not that I know of. But for you, I’d totally get started on that.”

He shifted, drew his hand down my hip and thigh, and I pulled back so I could see him again.

“There are terms among the Authority,” he said.

“Wow. Why don’t you start with authority? Authority of what?”

“Magic.”

“Really. Magic experts? Are there magic lectures? Magic bake sales? Magic bingo night?” I had a bad habit of making jokes when something startled me. The idea that there really was a group of secret magic worshippers scared the hell out of me.

He made an exasperated sound and rubbed his face. “Do you want to hear this or not, Scout?”

“I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

He looked back down at me. “There are terms among the . . . people who use magic. A Magic Complement is someone who can either support or aid another caster, or whose magic style and ability are similar to another caster so that complex spells, like Grounding, are possible between them.”

He could Ground me without it seeming to hurt him. “You and I are Magic Complements?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why we can manipulate so much magic without burning out?”

“Possibly. There are other ways two magic users can work together. Besides being a Magic Complement, there is also a Magic Contrast. A Contrast is someone whose magic style and ability are at an opposing stance with another caster. Contrasts can often achieve even more power or control when they work together. The conflict of magical styles can bear strange advantages. But there is always a grave price to pay for that kind of magical interaction.

“Complements can also achieve a lot through working magic together, and there is usually a smaller price paid. There are many degrees of Complement and Contrast. You and Cody are Complements on some levels.”

“That’s why he could pull magic through me?”

“Right.”

“So what is a Soul Complement?”

“The highest joining and expression of two magic users manipulating magic as one.”

I swallowed to try to find my voice. “Does that happen very often?”

“It is believed there is a Soul Complement for each person who uses magic.”

“Believed?”

His voice softened. “So few find each other. Fewer still risk death to discover if they can cast magic in perfect complement. It’s hard to prove if there is a Soul Complement for each person.” He paused, golden eyes studying me. “There have been some throughout history.”

“And there’s us,” I said.

“And there’s us.”

He didn’t look sad or excited about it. Just calm. Patient. Waiting for me to say something.

What did one say to someone who had just told you that they may be your perfect soul match? Predestined companion. Yang to your yin, and all that?

“I think this might get a little complicated after all,” I said.

“Mmm.” He reached over and gently brushed my bangs away from my face. “Want to ask me anything else?”

I laughed. “Not yet. Let me think this over, okay?” And there I was, asking him to give me time, to take it slow. He didn’t seem to mind.

“Sure.”

I rolled over and pressed my back against his warm, wide chest, and he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight.

After what felt like a long time, he said, “Allie?”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t expect this.”

“What?”

“You.”

I was quiet, thinking about that. I hadn’t expected him either. Hadn’t expected to care for him. To need him. Maybe even love him. “Are you sorry?” I asked in a small voice.

“No.”

I couldn’t help it. I sighed. “Good. Neither am I.”

I slept soundly and deeply, which was rare for me. First of all, I had a million thoughts spinning through my head. Second of all, when I’m first sharing a bed with someone, I wake up all night long, forgetting and remembering that I have someone in the bed with me. But Zay’s sheets were soft, his body warm, so warm we had to drape the sheet between us so we didn’t stick together, and his steady breathing lulled me. If he snored, I did not notice.

A beeping alarm clock, however, I did hear. Zay rolled away from me and turned it off.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Five thirty.”

I groaned. “Why would anyone want to get up at this hour?”

“Well”—Zayvion rolled toward me—“I can think of some good reasons.” He kissed my lips, even though I had severe morning breath after the lasagna. I gave him points for being brave.

“What sort of good reasons?” I asked innocently.

“It’s a good time to read the paper,” he said.

“Uh-huh.” I wrapped my leg over his hip and scooted closer to him. “What else?”

“Sometimes I get in a run before breakfast.”

“So you like to work out first thing in the morning?” I asked.

“It’s a good way to get the blood pumping.”

“Then by all means, you should work out.” We kissed, and I savored the feel of him against me. I was sleepy, warm, and sated. We took some time kissing before getting into the full swing of things. But then, I’d always been told it’s best to stretch before any strenuous activity.

It was fun sex, casual sex, the kind of sex that didn’t have anything to do with magic, Complements, Contrasts, commitments, or complications. Just warmth, togetherness, and pleasure. I thought it was a perfect way to start the day. From the look in Zay’s eyes, he thought so too.

When we finally rolled away from each other, I stretched out on my back, arms over my head, toes pointed, and moaned. “So good.”

Zay put his palm on my bare stomach and kissed my breast. “What are you making me for breakfast?”

“Ha-ha. Who’s the guest here? I expect coffee and homemade eggs Benedict to be waiting for me when I get out of the shower.”

“How about cold cereal?”

“Do you have milk?”

“No.” Zay absently ran his fingers up my stomach, then down over my hip bone. “I could see what else Nola packed.”

I grinned. “Perfect. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

I rolled out of bed, away from his teasing hands. I suffered a twinge of modesty when I realized I didn’t have a robe to cover up with. No matter. It was still dark in the room, and I liked to think I had a pretty healthy body image. Just in case, I kept my shoulders back and sucked in my stomach as I headed toward the bathroom. Good body image or not, posture could do wonders for a woman’s figure.

“Save me some hot water,” Zay called.

I crossed the hall into the bathroom. My little stroll had cooled me off and I was prickly with goose bumps. I opened the clean chrome and glass shower door, and turned the hot water on high. I opened a couple cupboards—one was apparently a medicine cabinet, as it had one bottle of aspirin and an extra bar of soap in it. Another held towels. Neatly folded. Of course.

A good, thick steam was fogging up the room, and I stepped into the shower, added a little cold water, and took my time savoring the heat.

Unfortunately, my only choice of soaps were both heavily scented with pine. Another reason why Zay always smelled like a walking forest.

Smelling like a car freshener wasn’t exactly a goal of mine, but since I didn’t have any of my own bathroom stuff, including deodorant, toothbrush, and lotion, it looked like I was going to do with or do without.

And I was so beyond the finicky-girly stage of life. I thought it might even be kind of nice to smell like him.

I washed up and thought about the meeting with Violet. The disks being stolen during a break-in and fire seemed a little hard to swallow in the light of day. More likely there was someone on the inside, maybe even someone she was trying to protect who was behind the theft.

Could it be some of the Authority that Zay had mentioned?

Secret society of magic. I couldn’t begin to count how many ways that freaked me out.

It was just as possible that Violet might be looking for some way to dodge the corporation’s claims to the disk research and development process so that she could either sell the patent or put the technology, and herself along with it, up to the highest bidder.

That kind of tech—portable magic—would go for billions. Violet could be assured whatever kind of life she most desired.

But she’d had that with my dad. Or at least she said she did. The Daniel Beckstrom I knew was not beneath marrying a woman for her mind, then dumping her as soon as he got her intellectual property signed over in his name.

Violet was a smart woman. She may have decided there were more benefits if she were the widow Beckstrom, instead of just another discarded ex-wife.

That made sense, but now that I’d met her, I had a harder time fitting her into the money-hungry, calculating, black widow category. Intelligent enough to pull off that sort of a scheme? Sure. Willing to actually kill my father? I didn’t think so.

Which left me with the break-in-and-fire story for the missing disks. And somehow Bonnie, and whoever she was working for, and Cody fit into this mess.

I dunked in the water, and rubbed at my face. I needed to find Cody. If he really was there when my father died, then he could finger the people behind it. And since I’d healed him and practically bathed in his blood, I was confident I could sniff him out of the city. Where I found Cody, I’d find Bonnie.

I finished rinsing, gargled some hot water, and rubbed my palm over my itching arm.

I turned off the shower and toweled dry. My arm felt like fire ants were swarming over it.

“Damn it.” Scrubbing with the towel only made it itch more. Maybe it was irritated by the soap. The ribbons of color seemed brighter, and my unmarked skin was pink from the heat of the shower. Cold water? I thought about turning the shower back on, but spotted a bottle of hand lotion on the sink. I pumped lotion into my palm, sniffed it. It smelled like beeswax, and didn’t have heavy perfumes. I spread the lotion over my hand and arm and shoulder and face, careful not to use my fingernails. Much.

Nope. My arm was on fire, hot to the touch. Maybe I was having an allergic reaction to the soap. Worse, maybe I was having an allergic reaction to the magic I carried. I didn’t even know if that was possible.

Peachy.

My clothes were on Zayvion’s bedroom floor, so I wrapped the towel tightly around me, tucking the corner in at the top. The towel was short and barely covered my butt. Another joy of being a tall woman.

What I needed were my clothes and some anti-itch cream. Or Zay’s fingers.

Bingo. If he could Ground me and ease the pressure of the magic trying to push out through my pores, I might even be able to think straight. Might be able to meditate, regain my control, and figure out what was making my arm itch, itch, itch.

I strode out of the bathroom, into the living room. “Zayvion?”

But it was not Zayvion who stood by the couch. It was a plain-looking man, an unhandsome man. Not Violet’s man, Kevin, but someone like him. A man you would never notice in a crowd, someone who calmly paused to decide exactly how he was going to kill me before he muttered a mantra and drew his palms toward each other, pulling magic up from the earth and from the building’s storage. Like most magic users, he did not draw it into his body, but worked a liquid silver glyph between his hands.

All this in less than a second.

“Zay!” I yelled, hoping to give him time to catch the guy after I died.

I drew on the magic in me, and whispered a mantra of safety, of shielding. The first one that came to mind was a stupid little spell—one that can be used against rain when you forgot your umbrella, or sharp rocks if you were wading through a pond. It was not strong enough to ward off a magical attack.

Like wings of fire, magic spread inside me, filled me. A trailing salve of power rushed down my arm.

The man brought the tips of his fingers together, then pulled them apart, releasing the glyph.

Magic is fast. Spells cannot be tracked while they are being cast, but can be seen after the fact, like an afterimage burned in the air. I did not see the glyph that wrapped around me, but I could taste it on the roof of my mouth—thick and sharp, like a chemical burn—and I could feel it, cold as a frozen wire squeezing my throat.

I ran my hand over my neck and magic spooled from my fingertips, burning into the cold wire. I unknotted the glyph, and it broke in a shower of blue sparks.

The man pulled a gun.

A gun.

And pointed it at me.

There were spells that could be cast to cause a temporary muscle cramp, say in a gunman’s hand. There were spells that would momentarily blind a person. There were even spells that could make a person sneeze uncontrollably.

Any one of those would do me fine right now. But I couldn’t think of one of them. I couldn’t think of a single spell. It was like the world had suddenly stopped making sense, but had slowed down so much that all I could do was stand there, frozen in shock, wondering why the world had suddenly stopped making sense, and wishing I could think of some way to save my life.

Magic cannot be cast from a state of confusion or high anxiety or emotion. I was burning with untapped power, and I couldn’t do a single thing.

So instead of fighting the emotions, I gave in. I got angry.

Death by bullet? Oh, hells no.

I charged at him.

He lowered his gun, the idiot, and took half a step back, but I was six feet of pissed-off, adrenaline-pumping woman, and if I was going to die, I was going to take him down with me.

I rammed my shoulder into his sternum. Air blasted out of his lungs, the gun exploded once, twice, so loud, so close I wanted to scream, did scream, as we careened across the room into the door, me clawing for the gun, him pulling his hand away. I breathed in the scent of him—iron and minerals—overwhelming, like old vitamin pills.

The gun rang out again, and this time I screamed in agony. The left side of my body felt like it had been blown apart. The world went white-hot. I tasted blood in my mouth.

The bastard had shot me.

Suddenly, my mind was very, very clear. I convulsed down to the floor, landed on my knees, my hands over the side of my stomach, gushing blood all over Zayvion’s perfect white carpet. I thought of a mantra, but the blood, the pain, made it hard to stay calm, hard not to just scream and scream in rage.

I recited the mantra, through the blinding pain, through the blinding fear. Recited it through tears pouring down my face, recited it even though blood made my fingers sticky and slick.

The bastard raised the gun, level with my head.

“Good-bye, Allison Beckstrom.”

I looked up into his eyes. If he was going to do it, I refused to look away.

This was not a game, not a lark, not make-believe. I was about to die. I hated that.

He jerked the gun up and pointed it past me.

It was Zay behind me. I hoped it was Zay. Then I hoped it wasn’t because whoever was behind me was about to be shot. The man’s finger tightened on the trigger.

But there was no explosion, no bullet.

Magic is fast.

You cannot see it coming.

I had focus. I had deadly concentration. I was overflowing with magic. I was also in pain and could not think of a spell.

But I wasn’t just a woman with magic. I was magic. Who needed a spell? I told the magic to make him stop, make him go away, make him not be there.

Magic poured out of me, hard, fast. A second pain, a fire on an open wound. Too much. Too hot. I screamed. But I could not make the magic stop.

Someone else was screaming, someone else was chanting. The room spun. And everything went black.