“It’ll be at least an hour before we meet, won’t it?” Evylin asked.
“Probably more like three from the sounds of the colonel’s meeting,” Ethenn confirmed.
Rafferty brushed a hand through the air. “The tavern won’t even be open until this evening.”
Evylin raised her brow. “If it isn’t open, how are we going to get in?”
With a wink, Rafferty produced a small iron key. “I’d say this’ll do the trick.”
“Did you steal that?” she reprimanded.
“No.” He gave her a snide grin. “The lovely Madam Imelda gave it to me.”
“Imelda?” Thom scoffed. “She’s got to be twice your age.”
“She’s thirty-eight and a widow,” Rafferty said matter-of-factly. “Giving her a good time’s the least I can do.”
As Thom laughed and Ethenn failed to contain a smirk, Evylin blew out a perturbed breath. “I don’t like you anymore,” she lamented.
Rafferty headed for the door, grinning broadly over his shoulder. “As I’m not interested in your knickers, Eve, I don’t rightly care.”
Unable to hold her laughter at bay, Evylin followed the men out the back door to the courtyard. Rafferty led them to the tavern, key ready in hand. A soft wind blew into the open space, nipping at their noses in the late morning. The horses nickered in their stalls, and the stable boy, Coalum, waved as they passed by.
“Do you know,” Thom began as they waited for Rafferty to open the door, “this is the first time it’s just been the four of us since we made it to Loclight.”
Looking over the men, Evylin realized it was true. Since she’d left Whickam Village, these soldiers had become her brothers, her dearest friends. In only three and a half short months, she’d formed a whole new family. They each possessed qualities she loved: Thom, with his passion and tenderness, Rafferty, with hisgood humor and cunning, and Ethenn, with his level head and fierceness.
Evylin smiled, joining them in the cozy tavern. Despite everything she’d lost, somehow, she’d found even more. Deckard. These men. Even the Calders meant more to her than she’d ever expected.
Playing with her rings as Rafferty tried to coax information about his morning activities out of Ethenn, Evylin brushed her fingers along the ivy etching. Hewitt had given her this family, who understood, accepted, and loved her. How she missed him, but how grateful she was to him too. He’d always known just what she needed, and he’d always provided it to her. And with him in her memory, she promised to accept his gift without allowing a trace of fear to taint it.
CHAPTER TEN
A carriage awaited Deckard, Vayden, and a shrouded Auden outside the Crimson Clover. Fine silken flags hung by the driver’s perch, and the carriage’s body was shiny black wood. A footman held the door for them before hopping on the back. Then the carriage rumbled down the cobbled streets of Mouroc and deeper into its heart.
After passing through another gate and winding through the streets, they finally stopped before a grand townhome with a white stone façade, copper gutters, and well-maintained shrubbery. Despite being squeezed in between numerous other houses, each building on the stretch was three times as wide as Deckard’s home back in Loclight.
“I take it being a Mage is a lucrative profession,” Deckard said, taking in the intricate architecture.
“It isn’t bad,” Auden said, keeping his voice low. His edges were fuzzy, confirming Deckard’s shroud, but his invisibility didn’t keep him from being heard. “But Lord Obel is the Duke of Flamesend Crest, making him a true nobleman and wealthy by birth rather than circumstance.”
Deckard nodded as the footman opened the door. They stepped out, taking care to distract from Auden’s exit before heading up the staircase to the front door, where a butlerwaited. The foyer’s elegant design reminded Deckard too much of Renaul’s palatial mansion for comfort. Paintings in golden frames adorned the walls, and a large, marble staircase spiraled to the top of the four-story building.
The tan and black tiles echoed under their boots as the butler led them to a drawing room. The butler offered them tea while they waited for their host, then left them alone in the grand space. A massive window filled the back wall with heavy, black velvet draperies drawn back on each side. Another wall bore mahogany bookcases full to bursting with leather volumes of all shapes and sizes. A pianoforte rested along the far end, and an oversized granite fireplace heated the room with its crackling fire.
While Vayden readily sat on one of the luxurious couches and Auden waited to the side, Deckard marveled at the fifteen-foot ceilings. An ornate mural spanned the room’s length, and an opulent chandelier hung from the center. The painting on the vaulted ceiling depicted eight individuals in various poses, with variegated colors around them.
Deckard’s eyes looped around the painting, entranced by the personification of what he understood to be the resources of life. First, a woman shockingly similar in appearance to Ilain stood wrapped in ruby-red flames that licked at the world around her. Fire’s charred remains bled out toward the next image of a man who looked like pure gold, light reflecting off everything surrounding him. Day radiated a yellow pulse that shone onto the surface of a lake before rippling into the deepest sapphire blue. Another woman stood ankle-deep on the bank of the pool as streams of sparkling Water swirled around her. Shadows met the edge of the lake, turning an ominous shade of amethyst. A man shrouded in darkness stared down at Deckard with a hooded countenance he recognized from theantechamber of Renaul’s family crypt. Night’s darkness beamed with glimmering, metallic stars around him.
Deckard had to turn around to follow the shadows before they were whisked away by the soft gray streams of a gale, swathing another man in its tumultuous coils. The Wind blew away as stark white bleached an interpretation of all four seasons, an ageless woman sitting on an ivory throne, her face expressionless. Time bled into the roots of a tree, wrapping around the form of a man with the richest emerald green vines across his shoulders as a mantle. The Terrae grew lush and full around the man before being swallowed up in a void of eternal black. A woman hung suspended in the glittering nothingness of Space, palms up and face lifted to the darkness around her.
Deckard narrowed his gaze, studying the woman as a door opened at the back of the room. He jerked his eyes away from the mural, turning to see their host’s arrival. Dressed in a black and brown jacquard coat, Lord Obel held his head high and his shoulders back with a regal bearing. Jet-black hair brushed his collar, silver streaks cutting into a beard of the same darkness.
With a steady stride, Lord Obel approached, eyeing Deckard with severe green eyes. Surprisingly, his face bore the weathering of age, light wrinkles etching his pale skin, unlike every other Mage he’d met thus far. However, he still looked barely beyond his prime, whatever his years.
Vayden rose as Lord Obel came to a stop in front of Deckard. “You’re sloppy with your magic, young man,” the nobleman said, his voice as dark as his hair.
It had been so long since anyone referred to Deckard as young that it took him a second to respond. The soldier in him took over, and he snapped to attention. “I do apologize, my lord,” he said, keeping his tone respectful. “But I don’t understand.”
