“What happened next?”
Lark shrugged. “Cobbler kept talking until Dad gave him some wine and then he went away. And then Dad said he had to go and take care of Grandpa’s house, because it was still our land. Mom said she would go with him. They rode out.”
Getting to Sene Manor by truck was impossible. They would’ve ridden out on horseback.
“And you haven’t seen them since?”
“No.”
Sene Manor was half an hour away by horse. They should’ve been back by now.
“Do you think Mom and Dad are dead?” Lark asked in a flat voice.
Oh, Gods. “No. Dad’s death with a sword, and Mom can shoot a Mire gator in the eye from a hundred feet. Something must’ve held them up.”
A muted roar rolled through the trees—the dune buggy’s engine getting a workout. Dimwits. Didn’t even have the patience to turn the engine off and roll the buggy back up to the house. Cerise rose.
“Let me deal with this, and if Mom and Dad aren’t back by the end of the hour, I’ll go and check it out.”
An old dune buggy burst out from between the pines, splashing through the mud on its way to the house. Cerise raised her hand. Two mud-splattered faces stared at her from the front seat with abject horror.
Cerise drew in a deep breath and barked. “Cramp!”
Magic pulsed from her hand. The curse clutched at the two boys, twisting the muscles in their arms. Adrian doubled over, the wheel spun left, the dune buggy careened, and the whole thing toppled onto its side in a huge splash, sliding through the sludge. The hell mobile turned, vomiting the two daredevils into the mud, spun one more time, and stopped.
Cerise turned to Lark. “Feel free to go over there and kick them while they’re down. When you’re done, tell them to clean everything up and head straight to the stables. Aunt Karen will be overjoyed to have two slaves for the next three weeks.”
Cerise took her boots and headed into the house. The vague feeling of unease matured into full-blown dread in her chest. She had to figure out what had held up her parents, and the sooner the better. For a moment she almost veered toward the stables, but riding out by herself would be just asking for trouble. She needed backup, someone steady in a fight. Better to spend an extra ten minutes gathering help now than regret it later.
This wasn’t going to end well, she just knew it.
THREE
WILLIAM leaned against the wall of his house. The two people in the yard watched him. If they found his toy army odd, they kept it to themselves.
The wild inside him snarled and growled, scraping at his insides with sharp claws. He held it in check. The images of dead children tore open an old scab, but anger would do him no good now. He’d run across the Mirror’s agents during his time in the Red Legion. Rules didn’t apply to them, and he’d learned quickly that turning his back on them wasn’t a good idea. You screwed with those guys at your own peril, knowing that your next breath might come with a knife in it.
William didn’t know what these two would do or why they came to bother him, and so he watched them the way a wolf watched an approaching bear: no hint of movement, no sign of weakness, no snarling. He wasn’t afraid, but he had no reason to provoke them. If a reason did present itself, he wouldn’t hesitate to rip out their throats.
The two people from the Mirror made no move either. Erwin stood on the left. Of the two, he seemed like the bigger threat. Most people would forget Erwin a minute after they’d met him. Of average height, average build, he had an unremarkable face and short hair, either dark blond or light brown. His voice was mild, his manner unassuming, and his scent was so saturated with magic that the whole place stank like a pastry shop the day before Thanksgiving. The way he held himself, loose, deceptively carefree, didn’t bode well either.
The woman next to Erwin was a good deal older. Short, thin, ramrod straight, with skin the color of coffee, she wore a blue gown like it was armor. The gown’s skirt split down the sides, showing gray pants and supple boots, letting the woman move fast if she needed to.
Her braided hair sat in a complex mess on her head. Her face drew the eye. She had dark eyes, black, sharp, and merciless. The eyes watched him with eerie intensity. Like being tracked by a bird of prey, cold and ready to kill. The woman’s scent filtered down to William, a layered amalgam of perfume: blackberry, vetiver, orange, rosemary, roses. An in-your-face fragrance. She was in charge and wanted people to know it.
Erwin was a heavy hitter, and the way he hovered near the woman gave him away. The man acted as a bodyguard. Since he had no visible weapons, he had to be a flasher. Anyone with magic could learn to channel their power into a flash, a concentrated stream that looked like a ribbon of lightning—and if it was bright enough, it seared like one, too.
William shifted, a light transfer of weight from one foot to the next, and hid a smile when Erwin tensed in response. As a changeling, William had no flash, but he’d spent enough years in a unit full of superb flashers. If Erwin flashed pale blue or white, he was likely a blueblood or extremely talented, like Rose. If he managed a green or a yellow, he wasn’t very high up the food chain.
The hotter Erwin’s flash, the higher up the ladder of command the woman was. No sense wasting a good flasher to guard a mid-level paper pusher.
“Can you flash?” William asked.
Erwin offered him a mild smile.
“He wants to know who he is dealing with,” the woman said. “You have my permission to demonstrate.”
Erwin inclined his head to her and looked at William. “Name the target.”
“Wasp nest, twenty feet to the left, on the oak. Second branch up.”
It would have to be a hell of shot to hit that damn thing. Declan probably could, but he’d blow half the tree away with it.