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Terrance gives me permission tobring the rodeo back to his place. Our place, I guess. He’d called it my home when I asked if I could bring Nick and Oliver over, and told me that as long as I felt someone was welcome, the magic around the place wouldn’t kill them. That had given me pause, and I’d mumbled a sort of mantra that Nick and Oliver were welcome from the time we neared the wards to the time we hit the bottom of the stairs.
Oliver gawks, standing so close to me that our arms brush. I don’t begrudge him his lack of space because he looks equal parts fascinated and terrified to be here. Nick seems much more casual. He lets out a low whistle. “Nice digs.”
“I know, right?” I laugh. “And to think all of this is under the bridge.”
“Well, I’m a troll, Nora,” Terrance says, entering the main living room. “We live under bridges.”
Oliver stiffens and gulps while I laugh. “Sorry. Nursery rhymes are real. It’s going to take me some getting used to.”
Terrance shakes his head, but he can’t stop the small smile from creeping across his lips. I amuse him. “So, T-Man, I’ve got some news about Shandra.” His eyes bulge, and I quickly hold up a hand before he can spout a bunch of questions. “First of all, I’m sure she’s still alive.”
He breathes out a huge breath of relief, and his entire body seems to sag as the air leaves him. “What happened? Where is she? Is she okay?”
I hold my hand up again. “I’ll tell you everything I know, but first, let me go change. I puked big time after a nasty vision. I could use some new clothes and a toothbrush. I’ll hurry, and then we can hash out my plan to get Shandra back. Why don’t you make us all some coffee while I go clean myself up?”
Oliver gasps, and Nick makes a choking sound. I’m not sure what that’s about, but whatever. I look at Terrance, and his hint of a grin becomes a wide smile. “You got it, Trouble,” he says, holding up his fist to me.
I bump his knuckles before heading toward my room. “You’re the best, T-man. Be right back.”
As I leave, I hear Oliver mutter, “The woman just fist-bumped a troll.”
“After she ordered him around like a damn maid and lived,” Nick whispers. “Unbelievable.”
Terrance’s laughter shakes the whole place.
The coffee is in mugs when I come out of my bedroom. I follow the smell to the kitchen, where Terrance is at the counter and Nick and Oliver sit at the table. Terrance looks over his shoulder when I enter the room. “How do you like your coffee?”
“Straight black, thanks.”
“Is that how you like your men, too?” Nick asks, grinning roguishly at me. “Straight and black?”
I can’t help it; I laugh. I laugh because I can tell he’s teasing me more than hitting on me. Oh, I have no doubt he’d have a good romp in the sheets with me if I were down, but I’m not, and I can tell he knows that. He’s teasing but not pressing. “Oh, Gorgeous.” I sigh. “You do live up to your name, I’ll give you that. But the only way I like my men is as friends. I don’t date. Ever. Too much past drama for me.”
I pretend not to see the crestfallen look on Oliver’s face and sit down at the table next to Terrance. “Okay.” I blow on my coffee and take a sip. It’s not sludge. Terrance really knows his way around the kitchen. “So…here’s what I got from the vision. I think—this is an educated guess, mind you—but Ibelievethey’re going to attempt to acquire the power from all the underworlders they’ve collected. Like they’re going to siphon out the underworlders’ life forces and keep it for themselves in some sort of sacrificial ritual.” This earns me a round of gasps and growls. “Can that be done?”
After the outraged shouting and swearing from Nick and Terrance ends, Oliver answers my question. “It would be very difficult, and could only be done through dark magic. Regular magic—good magic—comes from within. That’s why only sorcerers can do magic. We are born with it inside us. We don’t have to steal it to use it. Dark magic is power stolen by killing magical beings. It’s extremely powerful, but also highly unstable, and becomes evil. It’s hard to use. In order to perform the kind of thing you’re talking about, you’d need…”
“Twelve guys?” I guess. “They said they needed twelve.”
All three men at the table groan. Nick curses again and throws his head back, staring at the ceiling. “We’re dealing with an entire coven?”
“I don’t think so.” All eyes come back to me. “I think we’re dealing with wannabes. I think they’re all humans pretending to be sorcerers. They don’t have magic of their own, they get it from their leader—a mid-level sorcerer, he said. I think they’re using his magic to perform the ritual so that they can gain underworld power. I don’t think it’s their first time, either. He said that their power is starting to fade, but that they’d do the ritual before it was all gone.”
Oliver nods as if this makes perfect sense. “Yeah, that seems more like it. No way would there ever be an entire coven dumb enough to get mixed up in dark magic. One idiot mid-level sorcerer looking to gain more power by getting humans to do his dirty work? That’s much more realistic.”
I meet his eyes and smirk. “You know, he saidmid-levellike it was the most badass thing ever.”
A ghost of a smile crosses Oliver’s face. It’s almost cocky, but not quite. “It’s not bad if he really is one,” he says with a modest shrug. “He can probably do some damage. He’ll be tough to defeat if he’s using dark magic. We’ll have to get backup when we’re ready to invade their sanctuary. Two or three sorcerers, at least.”
“Or maybe,” Nick says, tapping his chin with his finger, as if thinking very hard. “If only the Agency had someone like a high sorcerer to help them out. Dark magic or not, a mid-level sorcerer would be a walk in the park for a guy like that.”
When Oliver glares at Nick, I join him, feeling both protective and possessive all of a sudden.How dare he givemybest friend a hard time about that.“You shut up about that, Nick,” I growl. “You don’t know anything about it.”
Nick blinks at me a couple times, but when he gets over his shock, he gives me a hard smirk. “Your boy toy here is wasting his God-given talent.”
“So what? You get off his case about it.”
Nick matches my anger, leaning forward in his chair, both hands in fists on the table. His eyes lock on mine, and I stare him down right back. It’s as if we’ve both forgotten Oliver is in the room. This fight has somehow become between Nick and me. “Someone has to get on his case about it,” Nick growls. “Director West is too soft on him. He needs to step up and become the man he’s supposed to be.”
