“I appreciate you taking the time to visit.” I push to my feet and head for the door, intending to open it for them now that my ruse is up.
Benny’s next words freeze my hand before I can touch the knob.
“Don’t you want to know what we want in exchange for our help?”
The papers in the room rustle, the susurration cutting through the ensuing silence. No matter what we owe him, he’s in the Arcanaeum. He would do well to remember that before letting impudence burn whatever fragile bridges we’ve begun to build here.
Yet, if the Arcanaeum has rebuilt a connection to the six heirs, can Pierce utilise that bond in the same way I can? Does he know that it’s possible?
Dropping my shoulders, because I did drug them, after all, I raise a single brow as I turn back to him, glad to see that he’s no longer restraining Pierce.
“I’d like you to grant my grandson Sanctuary. In fact, if I were you, I’d offer it to all six heirs immediately.”
“Grandfather,” Pierce interrupts. “I told you?—”
“Silence.”
Cold steel enters the older man’s tone, at odds with his normally unflappable and eccentric demeanour. It’s like I’m given a glimpse of the parriarch he once was before it’s sucked back under the harmless veneer of civility he normally wears.
Perhaps it’s the potion, but Pierce doesn’t listen.
“I am perfectly capable of continuing to stay at the mansion. If I move here, then?—”
“Then your mother will have fewer opportunities to continue filling your grimoire with dark magic,” Benny finishes resolutely. “To say nothing of sparing you from any more of her wonderful parenting.”
My mind flashes back to the way Isidora slapped her son before that meeting with Mathias, dread filling me as I consider perhaps that’s not the worst her children have experienced at her hand.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, sighing out the longest breath of my life. “I am not running a boarding house for heirs!” I snap. “And Mr Carlton has already infiltrated just about every spare moment of my time that he’s capable of.”
“I assure you, I wish I’d never asked for tutoring.” Pierce glowers back. “All I’ve learned is that Winthrop and Ackland are even dumber than they look, and that all five of the other heirs are infatuated with you.”
“Well, you’re wrong on both counts,” I retort, “which saysmore about your learning potential than theirs.” Turning back to Benny, I frown harder at the smile dancing along his lips. “I can’t offer Sanctuary to the unwilling.”
Benny concedes the point with a tilt of his head. “But he may change his mind when he realises that I’ve asked this favour of you, so you have one more person here who understands the gravity of the situation. He will guard the heart with his life, if necessary.”
The last is said with a meaningful twitch of his brows that makes Pierce purse his lips. It’s blatant parental manipulation.
“And what do you expect me to say to Isidora when she asks why her son is hiding in the Arcanaeum?”
“Ah, now, you see, that’s where my second request comes in.” Benny takes a deep breath. “I’d like you to call a meeting with the parriarchs, here, in the Arcanaeum, and explain the gravity of the situation—or an edited version of events.”
I teleport behind my desk solely so I can sit down.
“Your reasoning?” I ask as my forehead drops to rest on my knuckles.
“The situation has to be carefully managed,” he begins. “To outright accuse a parriarch of necromancy will spark instant panic among the masses.”
“Not to mention, my mother will have a contingency plan in place, like she did the last time she was accused.” Pierce looks away. “That time, my father was her scapegoat. If it happens again, she’ll find someone to take the blame.”
Likely him or his sister, I guess.
“Isidora has been covering her tracks for a long time, and Mathias even longer,” Benny surmises. “Talcott is compromised, Ackland is leaderless, and Winthrop is weak enough that Georgina’s position depends on her allying herself to someone stronger until her heir takes her place. Artemius Ó Rinn will recognise his duty to oppose dark magic, but he’s aproud man, and it’ll take a lot of arguing to get him to accept he’s been deceived.”
“And you really think they’ll believe me?”
“I think that even Isidora would be forced to make concessions if you were to tell them Jasper McKinley’s memories have partially returned, and that he was the prisoner of a lich for ten years.”
“I’m not shoving Jasper into the spotlight as a distraction.”
