Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris (Harley Merlin, #6)

Tess held her face in her injured hands. “I do, but now I’m scared. I might be feeding intel to the National Council, hoping they’ll dismantle this whole operation, but I can’t see a way out of this place. Not a way where I get to live, anyway. The farther Katherine gets with this Child of Chaos thing, the more horrible it all seems. She killed children. Children. And she barely flinched.”

That was my mother. If something wasn’t up to par, it wasn’t necessary. She had no emotional attachment whatsoever, not even to me. While Harley was busy focusing on Tess, I tucked the jar under my arm and put my hands behind my back. I didn’t want them to see what I was doing. Not yet. I had a little trick up my sleeve, but I’d only use it if I had to.

“Even others in the cult are starting to doubt her. The vibe is bad here, seriously bad. They were promised protection and love, which, for a lot of them, was the first time they’d experienced anything like that. But now, all they’re getting is abuse and threats and terror. They’re just pawns in Katherine’s game, and she’s got no qualms about sacrificing them all if it gets her what she wants.”

“What did you expect?” I shot back, my tone sour. It sickened me. Yeah, it was hypocritical, but so what? At least I’d entered this after years of indoctrination. I hadn’t come willingly, per se. My mind had been battered into submission first. These saps had heard one proclamation of future fame and glory and given up their morals. They were greedy, and that was all there was to it.

“Not this! Not death and fear around every corner! Not being forced on missions that are getting more dangerous by the day. She’s sent a team to break into The Hague! That’s where the European Council of Magicals holds its meetings. Do you have any idea how guarded that place is? If even one member makes it back, I’ll be shocked. And she won’t care. She has Naima rounding up new magicals every day. When one falls, another takes their place. It’s endless. And they’re everywhere. She has people all over the globe, in setups like this. Secret pockets in every city. This isn’t bringing about a new world order—this is world domination. Plain and simple.”

I snorted. “Again, what else did you expect?”

Tess paused and leveled her gaze at me. “Peace.”

“Then you’re an idiot.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’ve only just arrived. You’ve got no idea what she promised us, and no idea what she’s using us for. We’re not followers, we’re an army. And her ranks are swelling by the day. I couldn’t even begin to count how many people she has working for her.”

“Does the Kool-Aid not taste so good anymore?” I smirked at her.

“What would you know?” she hissed. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. And if you’re planning to turn me in to Katherine, then it’s important that you know what you’re up against. She’s not what you think she is. She’s a murdering psychopath who doesn’t give a damn about any of us.”

Oh, I understand perfectly. I was about to retort, when two figures sprinted down the aisle. The guards were awake. They eyed Tess before looking at Harley and me. I was really starting to wish I hadn’t picked the jar up. I was standing in front of them, red-handed.

“You!” the first guard snapped, looking right at us. “Did you lock us in those cabinets? Did you strangle us?”

“None of you should be in here! You know the rules! Now, who did this to us? Which one of you was it? Start talking before we have to force it out of you!” The second guard looked at Tess, his eyes narrowing.

Tess’s face morphed into a mask of innocence. “What happened to you? I just heard a commotion inside and came to investigate,” she said. “I found Volla and Pieter in here, snooping around. They were the ones breaking the rules, not me. I was just trying to figure out what was going on.”

I grinned at her. So this is how you want to play it, huh? “Oh, she’s good.”

Harley grimaced. “I guess she’s playing hardball.”

“Probably thinks she’s got seniority over us,” I whispered. “Nobody’s going to believe the newbies over her, are they?”

“What are we going to do about this?” I heard the nerves in Harley’s voice.

“I’m thinking.”

“You haven’t answered our question. Who did that to us? Which one of you broke in here and tried to kill us in the process? I’ve already triggered the alarm, so don’t think you can get out of here without us getting to the bottom of this. One of you did this, maybe more of you, and I want to know who!” The first guard looked to us, while the door to the library flew open to reveal the arrival of more magicals, drawn by the noise and, presumably, the alarm. Vultures. I spied Shinsuke in the crowd. He was watching us intently.

“We didn’t know this place was off limits. There was nobody guarding it, and there’s no sign or anything,” Harley replied to the guard. “We found Tess in here, so we figured it was okay. We just wanted to know what she was doing, that’s all.”

Two more figures joined the crowd—Katherine and Naima had shown up to the party. Great, perfect, superb, let’s make this a public execution. Harley stiffened beside me. I wanted to tell her it was going to be okay, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know that it would be, and I wasn’t prepared to see her burst into a fountain of blood and guts. Nor me, for that matter.

I thought about just smashing the jar right then and there, after all, since we’d been caught red-handed. But Harley shot me a sudden, desperate look as I shifted it in my hands. She clearly knew what I was thinking. And the timing was all wrong. If I broke the jar now, she wouldn’t have the chance to say goodbye to her mother. Both of us knew how much was at stake. This was more than a farewell. But, I got it. I understood that desire in her, that longing to at least speak with the mother she’d never known. If I smashed this here, I was taking that away from her. And, frankly, I didn’t have the heart. You’ve lost your edge, Finch.

Instead, I lifted my hand to the St. Christopher medallion, but Harley shook her head violently. Not here, she mouthed. I guessed it wasn’t the brightest idea to call for the cavalry in a situation like this. If Isadora suddenly appeared in this room, she’d be surrounded before we could even get through her portal and back to the SDC. There were too many people to make it work. Katherine was right here. We’d all get ourselves captured. Plus, it’d be all the evidence Katherine needed to figure out who we really were. Ugh… It seemed like we were forever stuck between a rock and a really freaking hard place.

“What’s going on here?” Katherine strode toward us. “Someone had better start talking, or this library is going to get redecorated. I don’t like red for walls, but I’ll stomach it if I have to.” Her eyes fixed on Tess before moving to Harley and me. Yeah, I really could’ve done without holding this jar.

“I heard a sound coming from the library, Eris, and I was investigating.” Tess jumped on the offensive. “I found these two snooping around. I tried to stop them.”

That’s quite enough from you, Crux. With the mission on the line, it was us or her, as much as I hated to be backed into a corner like this. She could’ve been an ally, after all.

“What a load of self-serving horsecrap!” I shouted back. “You were trying to steal this, and we stopped you. You want to stop Eris from completing the third ritual. Don’t try to lie. You threatened to kill us if we didn’t hand it over.” I looked to my mother and swallowed the urge to throw her against the wall. “Tess is the snitch, Eris. She’s your mole.”





Thirty-Three





Harley





Are you out of your freaking mind?

I wanted to say it out loud, but that would have given us away as the traitors. Still, I couldn’t believe what Finch had just done.

Tess was trying to help the magical world, and we’d just signed her death warrant. Well, if Katherine believed us, that was. Granted, Tess had no idea who we really were, and she’d been about to sell us out to Katherine, but that didn’t mean we had the right to get her killed. This was so many shades of moral gray area that I had no idea what to think. Right and wrong had gotten so blurred since we came here.