“Yes,” she purred, “but it wasyouwho did.”
He shrugged. “I was only fulfilling what the tea leaves predicted.”
She laughed at this. She was a good laugher, very polished. Just enough flashing teeth to be convincing, not enough to be off-putting. A throaty chuckle that made one feel warm inside, without the faintest hint of pitchiness. If one could purchase one’s laughter, this laugh was definitely obtained from the same high-end boutique as that gown and that bosom-jewel and that fascinating little hat. Expensive. But tasteful.
“It was a good thing you were able to interpret the leaves better than I had,” Calista said, leaning toward him just a little, just enough. “All I saw was a deep and passionate embrace. But it did not play out quite as I expected, did it?” Another laugh, justas expensive as the first. Then her gaze sharpened. “Or perhaps I saw something else. Perhaps the future revealed to my Sight was intended for a more distant time. A future neither one of us could have foreseen.”
Nigel blinked slowly. Was she truly trying to convince him that all those years ago, she’d seen a vision of them kissingtonight?Did she think he was that gullible? Granted, he absolutely would have been back in the day.
He found his gaze dropping almost against his will to her very red lips. So full, so gleaming, so perfectly lined and plumped. His skin crawled faintly. He vividly remembered how long it took to scrub that lipstick off his face following the lifesaving events of that fateful class period. Not an experience he cared to replicate.
He began to draw his hand away, but Calista’s fingers tightened ever-so gently. “I heard many tales about you over the years,” she said, dropping her voice so that it hummed in low harmony with the jazzy strains coming from the jukebox. “At first I couldn’t believe what they said! Sweet, shy little Nigel Grimm, with his bowties and elbow patches?” She leaned in a bit, knowing full well what the cut of her gown was doing for her. “But you made fools of us all in the end, didn’t you? You ascended to heights the rest of us scarcely dared dream of back in those old, undergrad days. The Grimshade Lord! Gods save us, such marvels you worked!”
Nigel turned away, studying his peanut shells once more. “Such disasters, you mean.”
“Yes, well, those energy transferences certainly took their toll.” Calista moved one shoulder dismissively. “But all in the pursuit of Great Mastery. And that last spell of yours? The one they call theInfinite Dynamo?Not even the Grand Mages of antiquity dreamed of such power!”
Nigel’s jaw squeezed tight. He closed his eyes, trying hard not to feel pleasure at her words. But it was there—the gratificationof his genius acknowledged. He had sought to capture Dire Matter in its rawest, purest form, and compress it down into a nodule so small, it could safely be contained within an ordraena diamond. The resulting thaumatic energy generated from that nodule could power an entire city larger than Ballycastle for centuries to come. He’d managed it once. The stability was not everything he wanted, but the theory was sound and, with time, he could . . . he might . . .
But the transferences required to delve that far into the Dire Dimensions—all while protecting himself from the wildly unpredictable forces that dwelt in the Deep Void and containing the Dire Beings trying to escape into the mortal world to wreak havoc and devour the souls of the citizenry—well, it had taken quite a lot.
He’d kept on pushing, however. Striving, battling his own fears and limitations, stretching the very limits of his soul, his mind, his powers, his will. Stripping whatever energy he needed along the way, fixated as he was on achieving his goal. After a while, he simply ceased to pay any attention to what he was doing to the landscape surrounding Nocturnus. And then the landscapes beyond that. And beyond that. And even farther still.
“I saw the remains of the Infinite Dynamo,” Calista said, her voice drawing Nigel back from places of memory. “Even in pieces as it was, I’d never imagined spellcraft like that.” She shook her head, ruby earrings flashing in the low light. “I understood then, as I had not before, why you were so favored by the Shadowbane Lady. In you, she had found at last the Great Sorcerer of the Age. Her true counterpart. A fitting consort for she who was destined to become our Dark Mistress.”
Was he mistaken or was there a note of awe in her words? Perhaps it was all part of her seduction act, but Nigel half-thought she might be sincere. Then again, that might just be his Dark Sorcerer’s pride rearing its ugly head, as it had done somany times before. He shoved it back down as hard as he could, gritting his teeth with the effort.
His tea arrived just then, plunked down in front of him by the long-suffering barkeep. Nigel grimaced down at the old beer mug in which the teabag still floated in a weak brew. Leaning over, he inhaled the steam and . . .ugh.How had he ever had the gall to evenattemptto serve this Limpty’s dreck to Luna? And he’d made it so much worse by adding that dollop of spoiled milk. It was a miracle she hadn’t run screaming from the shop that first day.
A grin tugged softly at the corner of Nigel’s mouth. Oh, what a fool he’d been! A complete and incompetent ignoramus, but Luna had wanted so desperatelynotto embarrass him. Gentle, sweet-hearted creature that she was, she’d drunk more than half that disgusting brew just to make him feel better. What didshecare if he was the Great Sorcerer of the Age? As far as Luna knew, he was simply another lost soul on the journey of life and, like all lost souls, in need of a kind word and a smile. Both of which she was more than happy to bestow. Any little thing she could do to make the lives of those she encountered better, she offered up without qualm or quibble.
Because Luna’s was a singularly magnificent soul.
“Don’t you care for your tea?” Calista asked rather dryly, swirling the remains of her Velvet Whisper.
Nigel looked up at her from under his brow. “It’s foul.”
“You haven’t even tasted it.”
At this he smiled. A sudden, brilliant, breaking of a smile, which burst from him along with a large exhale of breath that was tantamount to a sob. He felt oddly giddy. As though suddenly nothing really mattered anymore. Not the trap he had inadvertently wandered into, nor the high probability that he would not survive what was coming for him tonight. Nothing mattered. Nothing save that he must protect Luna.
And that hewoulddo. Whatever the cost.
Calista set down her glass. That laugh of his had unsettled her, and she shifted uneasily in her seat when Nigel turned to her, still smiling, and said, “Tell me, Mrs. Anguish, why are you searching for Garden?”
Calista’s eyes widened with surprise, and her red lips parted. It was the first genuine reaction Nigel had seen on her face all night, almost as genuine as the look of shocked horror he’d glimpsed that long-ago day, when she’d bit into the almond pastry and realized her deadly mistake.
She took a moment to regather herself, painting her features with a mild, heavy-lidded coyness. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Nigel rested an elbow on the counter and leaned toward her in much the same manner she had leaned at him, only with less bosom involved. “I wondered at first,” he said, “who could have constructed that detection spell today. It was quite a confusing bit of craftsmanship—worked by a sorcerer of tremendous power but very little honed skill. Like someone had excelled in all her undergrad studies, but never gone on to delve into Deep Magic beyond, perhaps, a cursory familiarity with the theory.” He raised an eyebrow. “Do your Ladies of Moral Authority Against the Uncanny know that you are still a practicing sorceress, Mrs. Anguish? Or have you found being a leadingfigure in thel’mauvaseffective cover for whatever you’ve been up to all these years?”
Calista swiped her glass from the bar and drained the remains in a quick gulp.
“Are you with the Brotherhood?” Nigel pressed, his voice dropping an octave.
She sneered. “The Brotherhood is a pack of mangy dogs, always finding some dry old bone to fight over. They none of them know how toorganize.”
Nigel swirled his disgusting tea. “Well, that’s always been the way of it with Dark Sorcerers. We’re a solitary bunch and loathe no one so much as we loathe each other.”
