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“Promise to be careful, all right?” I said wearily. “I’ll call when I get to the Brindle.”
“Good,” she said. “Just tell Tao to put his foot down.”
“Heard that, and obeying,” Tao murmured, and a second later the Jeep surged forward.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I said, and hoped like hell that I could. “Love you lots.”
“And I’ll love you forever,” she replied softly.
The ache in my heart and the fear in my gut grew worse as I hung up.
“Trouble?” Ilianna said, her expression worried as she faced me.
“Probably. But she won’t tell me what.”
“Then get Riley on it.”
“Oh, I’m about to. You’d better call your mom and warn her we’re coming in fast and could have trouble on our heels.”
“She hasn’t even said we’re welcome—”
“My mom said get there, so get there we will.”
Ilianna looked dubious, but she nevertheless dialed her mom. I called Aunt Riley.
The first words out of her mouth were, “Fuck, Risa, I’m going to kill you for scaring me like that.”
I laughed, although the sound had an edge that almost sounded like hysteria. “It’s not like I actually planned to get kidnapped or anything.”
“But going to a meeting without backup? That was stupid.”
Yeah, it was, and I’d do it again if it meant getting answers—not that I’d ever admit that to her. She’d lock me up and throw away the key. “It was my father, he had answers, and if I didn’t go alone, he wouldn’t have appeared. You would have done exactly the same thing.”
“That is not the point.”
It was the point, and we both knew it. “The name of the witch raising the soul stealers is Margaret Trilby. Her brother is one of the men behind the consortium threatening the shop owners, then buying up their property.”
“Stane got this for you?” she said, surprise in her voice. “If so, maybe he needs to work for the Directorate. They can always use a decent hacker.”
Stane snorted softly. “Yeah, like I’m ever going to work for someone like the Directorate when I’ve spent half my life hacking places like that.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Riley said, half smiling. “Where are you now? Not going after that consortium or the witch, I hope.”
“We’re running for the Brindle. It seems the safest place right now given we’re not sure if the Aedh are going to come after me again.”
“What’s the Brindle?”
I blinked. Aunt Riley always seemed to know everything, so it was a surprise that she didn’t know about the Brindle. “It’s the witch repository, and the most magically protected place in Melbourne.”
“Then running there sounds like a good plan,” she said. “It’s better to leave cleaning up this mess to Rhoan. And maybe Quinn can sort out something to help with the Aedh.”
I hoped he could, but I wasn’t about to hold my breath waiting. “Look, I’m still worried about Mom. I don’t suppose you could go visit her tonight, and keep her company until I can sort out something else?”
“Sure,” she said, “but she was pretty strong with her assurances that nothing untoward was about to happen.”
“She’s lying. She mentioned having accepted this a long time ago. That sounds ominous to me.”
“Oh,” she said. Then, “Oh!”
