24
I SAT AT the wobbly folding card table with my head in my hands. The throbbing in my temples had returned with a vengeance at the sight of the five kids determined to “rescue me” when I had been doing my damnedest to make sure our paths never crossed. After checking to make sure that the two warlocks were still breathing, I ushered the kids back outside to a secluded location in what turned out to be the Austrian countryside before we used a teleport spell to return to their secret hideout. The crumbling, abandoned house had no electricity, no running water, and no heat. While a quick look around revealed that it was relatively clean, I knew that they couldn’t stay here, but I wasn’t sure what to do with them.
Lifting my head, I found the oldest of the group and proclaimed leader, Étienne, frowning at me. From what I could get out of him, the seventeen-year-old French teen had escaped from the Tower in Brazil with Paola and Anthony. They had hidden out in Texas for a short time before coming to Low Town, where they were later joined by the baseball-bat-wielding Alice and her brother, James, from the Tower in upstate New York.
For now, we were waiting. It was about an hour before dawn. Luckily, Fox and his cohorts had had me for only a few hours rather than days. If I planned carefully, I could still get Trixie to contact the elves about Gaia and then I could turn my attention to my brother and Reave. Yet, I first had to do something about this little band, and I needed help for that. With some reluctance, I used magic to send a message to Sofie, who was supposed to locate Gideon and send him to me. From what I could tell, neither Étienne nor Paola was fond of my plan. Anthony, or Tony, as he preferred to be called, seemed to smile and roll with it all, while Alice busied herself with tidying the small house and making me a sandwich from their meager pantry. Her younger brother, James, remained silent and close to her at all times.
He was the one who worried me the most. His thin face and large eyes held dark shadows, as if he was constantly haunted by the memories of the Towers. James needed somewhere safe to live. He didn’t need to spend every second of his life looking over his shoulder and flinching at every sound. The others seemed stronger, more pulled together, but every once in a while I’d catch a ghost float through their eyes, find a crack in their armor. No child should have to live in hiding like this.
“How did you even find me?” I demanded, dropping my hands to the slightly sticky surface of the table as I tried to turn my mind away from their future and focus more on the present.
Étienne’s lips pressed into a hard, thin line and the muscles in his jaw flexed. The kid was taller than me, but he was too thin, his T-shirt hanging on him so that he looked like a scarecrow. His handsome face was smudged with dirt and his blond hair was becoming long and shaggy, and yet he managed an almost regal bearing. I didn’t know if it was a defense mechanism or if it was a French thing. I didn’t take it personally. He took the safety of his companions very seriously and he didn’t trust me.
Tony laughed from where he stood next to Étienne. “We’d been keeping an eye on your place for the past couple of weeks, trying to figure out a way to approach you. We saw the fight. Paola was afraid they’d take you, and we wouldn’t be able to follow. James came up with the idea to hit you with a spitball, seeing as he’d be able to track his spit with a spell.” He laughed again and nudged Étienne with his elbow. The older boy tried to maintain his frown, but was struggling. There was something infectious about Tony’s laughter.
“Disgusting,” Alice muttered from across the room with her crisp British accent. She and her brother were from the United Kingdom, while Paola was from Italy. Tony sounded as if he was from somewhere in the South like Alabama or Mississippi, which added to his charm.
A part of me wanted to laugh with Tony because the trick was quite simple and ingenious. With all the chaos going on, I doubted anyone would have noticed a spitball hitting me. But I was equally sickened by the thought that these kids had witnessed the brutality and ugliness of that fight. I was going to have nightmares for years, and I was supposed to be the f*cking adult in the room.
“I appreciate you trying to rescue me, but why?” I flopped back in the folding chair and stared at Étienne. I knew the ultimate decision had come from him. He had put these kids in danger coming after me, knowing that I was being held by members of the Towers. “You know the Towers are going to be watching me and harassing me. We can’t be seen together. We can’t help each other. It’s too dangerous.”
“We will not be bullied by the Ivory Towers.” Étienne’s low voice was strong as his French accent curled around each word. He narrowed his bright blue eyes on me and leaned forward. “We have been beaten, starved, tortured, and frightened from the moment we were stolen from our homes. We escaped because we will not be treated like that. We know we cannot go home to our families, but we will not let them kill another like us. Another who has stood up against them and said no.”
I frowned, taking in his quiet fervor. Something had bothered me from the moment I saw him with the others. Listening to him, I finally knew what it was. He reminded me of myself, but worse. I left the Towers because I hated what they were and I tried to secretly protect others from the witches and the warlocks when I could. The big difference, though, was that when I was his age, I only had myself to look out for. Étienne had four kids depending on him to make good decisions. That was going to wear him down fast.
“I understand,” I said with a nod. Étienne sat back, looking confused and skeptical, so I pressed on. “I do understand and that’s why you were going to talk to me. You knew that if anyone could understand what you’re going through, I could. I’ve been in this spot before, ten years ago. I know what you’re risking and why you’re doing it. Because of that, you have to believe me when I say it’s time to stop. Things have to change.”
The young man stiffened and even the easygoing Tony was now frowning. The room had gotten extremely quiet as they all waited for Étienne’s decision.
A hard knock banged against the wooden front door. We all jumped at the sound. Wands appeared a heartbeat later, sending me surging to my feet to stop any kind of preemptive attack. I was hoping it was Gideon, and he didn’t much care for having spells slung at him. The kids needed his help and pissing him off before getting him inside wasn’t a good first step.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” I said in a harsh whisper, holding my hands up while sliding in front of the door. “We’re going for inconspicuous here. Wands down. Let’s aim for normal and then go from there.”
It was with a great deal of reluctance that the wands were lowered, but no one put their wand away. Maybe I was jealous that they had their wands on hand. Gods knew that I was dying to hold mine, but I would have to make do until I got back to my apartment.
I lifted my right hand and held it in front of the door, pulling up a spell to tell me exactly how many people stood on the other side of the door. When the spell revealed only one person, I sighed with relief. One I could handle.
“Who’s there?” I called.
“Gideon,” the cold, familiar voice snapped back. “Open the damn door.”
As I grasped the doorknob, I looked back at the kids. Alice had stepped in front of James, while the rest were spread about the room. All had matching grim expressions. They didn’t trust Gideon, and I couldn’t blame them. He was a member of the Towers to them. Opening the door, I stepped back so Gideon could enter. He didn’t get far. The warlock took one step forward, his eyes immediately landing on the kids spread about the small, dingy room.
“Shit,” he whispered, his shoulders slumping. Yeah, that was pretty much my thought. A second later, Gideon wrapped his fists in my polo shirt and threw me against the nearest wall. He held me pinned there, his lean face twisted with rage. “You promised me you weren’t talking to them! You said you would stay away!”
I opened my mouth to start shouting back at him when the point of a wand dug into Gideon’s cheek. “Release him,” Étienne said in a voice stripped of all emotion. I had little doubt that he’d remove Gideon’s head without a hint of remorse if he failed to obey. Unfortunately, I could see the anger in Gideon’s eyes being transferred from me to Étienne, which wouldn’t do the young man any good. I had spent the past several years putting up with Gideon’s abuse. I could take it. Étienne didn’t need it.
As soon as Gideon released me, I slid between him and Étienne, holding them apart. “Étienne, put your wand away,” I ordered. The teen hesitated, glaring at Gideon. “Do it! You’re not helping anyone. Gideon isn’t going to kill me.” Yet. I had a feeling that the warlock was positively itching to strangle me with his bare hands, but he’d wait for now. When Étienne grudgingly lowered his wand, Gideon took a step back, putting some space between him and his opponent.
A low meow broke the tense silence. I looked down to see Sofie slide through the open front door. She padded in, rubbing against my pants leg and then Gideon’s as her keen eyes darted about the room.
“Oh! What a lovely kitty cat!” Alice squealed. She rushed forward, scooped up the large Russian-blue cat, and held her pressed against her chest.
“Put me down, child!” the cat shouted, startling Alice, but she didn’t drop her. Instead, she looked up at Gideon, while brushing her cheeks lovingly against Sofie’s head. It was all I could do not to snicker.
“Is the cat your familiar? I was told we don’t have familiars.”
“I am not a familiar!” Sofie cried indignantly, starting to squirm. I was grateful she hadn’t started using her claws yet.
Reaching over, I pushed the door closed and locked it. “Sofie’s a witch that has been turned into a cat.”
Alice gave a little shout and dropped the cat as if it had suddenly burst into flames. The girl backed up, moving in front of her brother. In fact, everyone in the room seemed a little tenser, knowing that they were now faced with a witch and a warlock.
Looking over at Gideon, I frowned. “You had to bring Sofie with you?”
The warlock made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat. “It wasn’t about bringing her. It was more like I didn’t want to waste the time on a spell to stop her from following.”
“Gage Powell!” Sofie said shrilly, walking over to sit in front of me. “You disappear from the face of the earth for an entire day and then send a short message for me to fetch Gideon with no explanation. Did you honestly expect me to sit back and hope that everything was well? Trixie would have been furious if I had stayed behind.”
More likely, curiosity has been driving Sofie crazy, so she decided to tag along. Regardless of her usual grumpiness, Sofie’s life had become infinitely more interesting since she had come to live with Trixie, and the cat was enjoying it.
I let the comment go and turned back to Gideon, who was looking about the room. The kids were closely watching him, their wands in their hands. “To answer your earlier question, I did stay away. They found me.” When the warlock regarded me again, I gave him a brief summary of the attack at my apartment and the escape from the house in Austria. He grew paler as I spoke.
“It’s been getting worse,” he said, but then shook his head as if to push the thought away. “You should have left immediately. It’s too dangerous for you and them.”
“Look at this place! You want me to ignore this? I can’t leave them like this!” I shouted, throwing my arms out to encompass the poor living conditions. “This isn’t a home and they aren’t safe here.”
“They made the choice to leave the Towers. They have to accept their fate,” he said coldly.
“I know you’re not this much of a bastard. You can’t be.”
Gideon ground his teeth together, barely keeping his anger in check at the veiled mention of his hidden wife and child. “It is because of my situation that I am a bastard. I have to protect them first. With chaos threatening to consume the Towers, I think the kids’ problem is the least of our concerns.”
“I can take care of the Towers, but I need to try to settle things here first,” I said softly. If things didn’t go well with Reave and the council, I was afraid that the Towers weren’t going to give me a second chance to help these kids.
“You know?” His voice was so soft and haunted that I almost looked around for a ghost passing through the room. “You know the person . . .” For a second time that morning, Gideon gripped my shirt and slammed me against the wall. The air crackled with barely controlled energy, but I did nothing to defend myself. Terror held sway over Gideon’s mind. “Give me the bastard, Gage!”
“I can’t. Listen, if you or someone else turns him in, it’s not going to stop them from coming after me. They realize that I am a potential threat. I have to remove that thought from their minds, and to do that I have to be the one to take him to the council.”
Gideon released me and stepped back. “You want to make a deal?”
“I’m going to try.” My heart was pounding in my chest like a thing gone mad. Gideon was dangerous, and it wasn’t because he was a powerful warlock. It was because he knew me, knew what I was capable of. He had spent years watching over me. The only advantage I had over the other warlocks and witches I had fought was that they always underestimated me. Gideon wouldn’t make that mistake, and I wouldn’t have a chance in hell against him.
All the energy drained out of the room, as well as poured out of Gideon. The man’s large, narrow shoulders slumped and he almost seemed to sway on his feet as a look of hopelessness crossed his face. He knew I could bring the culprit before the Towers. He wasn’t expecting me to survive the encounter. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t have high hopes myself.
Taking him by the shoulders, I gently turned him around and ushered him to the chair I had vacated minutes ago. Étienne returned to his seat to watch both me and Gideon.
“A favor, Gideon?” The warlock arched one eyebrow at me, looking skeptical, and I smiled. I couldn’t blame him. He’d already done a lot of favors for me. “The kids don’t have a lot of food on hand. You mind . . .” I trailed off, giving a little wave of my hand like I was holding a wand.
“Oh,” he said, sitting up and looking around again as if taking in his surroundings. “Oh, yes, of course.” He didn’t bother to pull out his wand, but waved his hand over the table. In a second, piles of fluffy pancakes, waffles, sausages, bacon, eggs, and freshly chopped fruit appeared in platters, along with clean plates, flatware, and white linen napkins. My eyes caught on the large silver container in the center surrounded by empty mugs. Coffee. Glorious, wonderful, caffeine-filled coffee.
The kids held back, almost painful looks filling their faces as they gazed at the food. They were afraid to trust Gideon. They might have been able to create the same spell, but they were trying not to use magic for fear of being tracked. I popped a piece of bacon into my mouth before reaching for the coffee. It was like a green light at a racetrack. The kids fell on the table, piling a mountain of food on their plates in an explosion of excited chatter. Even James seemed to come alive with the promise of a warm meal.
Only Étienne held back, watching Gideon through narrowed eyes. I clapped the younger man on the back and smiled. “I know it’s hard to believe, but he is one of the good guys. Eat.” When the boy didn’t move, I turned my back on Gideon and leaned down. “He’s got his own wife and kid to protect,” I whispered for only Étienne to hear. The young man’s eyes widened as he looked up at me. He understood the risk Gideon was taking, the rules he was breaking.
“Oh, Gideon!” Sofie scoffed, jumping into the warlock’s lap. “Pancakes with sugary syrup? You should have made something healthy. These children need oatmeal.”
Gideon stared at Étienne and smiled. “Bridgette loves my chocolate chip pancakes,” he said before dropping a piece of fruit into his mouth. Étienne gave a small nod, a smile toying with the corners of his mouth as he picked up a plate and started filling it.
While the kids scattered around the room, digging into their food and getting lost in happy conversation, I leaned against the wall near Gideon and discussed both William Rosenblum’s attack and Henry Fox’s kidnapping attempt. Apparently, things were deteriorating in the Towers faster than either of us had expected. I needed to get my hands on Reave before they decided to wipe out another city in order to shake up the masses.
Gideon set his empty mug on the table and looked around the room. Kids were lounging on the floor, soft groans of fullness slipping from them as they settled into their own personal food comas. It sounded nice. I had picked a little, but my head ached and I had too much on my mind to try to put food in my stomach.
“I agree that they can’t continue to live like this,” Gideon started, sounding more than a little weary. “But I’m not sure what we can do. We can’t keep coming back here. It may attract attention and these kids need to slip away without notice.”
“They need homes. They need to go to school. They need to be around other people. Normal people with no magic,” I said, pushing off the wall to put my nearly empty mug on the table. Being around nonmagic users would teach them how to blend better. Right now every time they were startled, they grabbed their wands, which only drew attention to them.
“They can’t go home,” Gideon said firmly.
I nodded. “It’s the first place anyone would look. Their families are probably being watched already.”
“I will not endanger mia famiglia,” Paola said, lifting her chin, proving that despite the appearance of being in a carb-induced stupor, the kids were intently listening to our conversation. Others nodded at Paola’s statement, looking sad.
“I know,” I murmured, trying to smile at them before looking at Gideon again. “But I was thinking maybe a family or two that you might know could be willing to help.”
Gideon frowned at me. He knew what I was asking. I wanted him to contact other members of his little movement, see if anyone was willing to take the kids in and protect them. “I don’t think anyone I know could take all five.”
“You want to separate us? You can’t separate us!” The cry went up, followed by a dozen others as all the kids were now on their feet and decidedly against being separated.
I held up my hands and silence settled back over the room. “It’s for the best. The Towers are looking for five kids. Not one or two kids in a single household. You’ll be better protected if you’re separated.”
Just as the arguments started again, Étienne said, “He is right.”
They fell silent, but I saw Alice’s hand tighten on James’s. She hadn’t escaped with Étienne. She had gotten out of the New York Tower on her own with her brother. There was something mutinous in her stare. The warm, bubbly girl wielding the baseball bat had melted into a young woman of hardened determination. I had a feeling that she had been willing to follow Étienne because it meant there was someone else to help protect James, but she would run if someone tried to separate her from her younger brother.
I smiled at her and gave a little nod. Some of the tension eased from around her eyes. I’d talk to Gideon. James and Alice needed each other. They had escaped together, been through a similar horror.
“It’s going to take me a little while. I need to talk to some people. They may need to strengthen defenses and such,” Gideon said, seeming to talk more to himself than to me.
“I want them to continue their training,” I added.
“Are you insane?” He jerked out of his chair, standing a couple feet away from me. “They left—”
“And they’re still being hunted. They need to be able to defend themselves, as well as have excellent control—the whole reason for being taken to the Towers in the first place.” Gideon’s mouth thinned to a hard line, but he didn’t argue. He knew I was right, but I was asking a lot. The families that took them in would need increased security. Training the kids would demand even more protective spells to cloak the activity.
I shrugged at Gideon. “We could find someplace and meet once or twice a month for a few hours. Just some defensive spells.”
The warlock made a sound of disgust and shook his head as he returned to his seat. “Are you going to be the one to train them?”
My smile slipped. “You think that’s wise?”
“I don’t think any of this is wise, but it needs to be done,” he said. “I’ll get started. If you survive the next few days, I’ll get back to you when something has been decided.”
“Sounds good.” I pushed away from the wall and stood in front of Étienne, who rose from his chair. “Can you keep things under control here for a little while longer?”
He nodded stiffly. “Of course.”
I was impressed with the young man. Not once had he argued about putting the kids in families, or about me stepping in to take control. They may have been his responsibility, but he knew that the group couldn’t continue as they were indefinitely.
“If there’s an emergency, you know where to find me,” I said, a part of me hating to leave them unprotected and vulnerable.
“Yes.”
I extended my hand to him and he shook it.
Gideon shook his hand before we turned toward the door. The warlock paused and looked at me with a frown. “You are going to take care of the other little problem first?”
“Very soon. I’m waiting for some information from a very resourceful hobgoblin.”
He rolled his eyes and left the house without another word. I think Gideon had had all he could stand from me for one morning. Smiling, I turned to find Sofie curled up on Paola’s lap as the girl stroked her fur. Alice was scratching her head.
“Sof, are you staying or going with me?” I asked with a chuckle.
The cat rolled off the girl’s lap and stretched her entire body before walking over to me. Picking her up, I paused at the door and said good-bye to my would-be saviors. I didn’t know if my plan was going to work. I didn’t know if these kids were going to have something that resembled a normal life or if I was putting more people in danger. But they deserved a shot at it. We all deserved a chance at normal.