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Gabriel shot me a grin, but his eyes stayed a little more serious for the instant before they slid away from mine. “Never worried you would, Miss Hallowell.”
I couldn’t say anything more to him with Mrs. Gainsley watching. I hurried up the steps as he ducked into the driver’s seat. “My father is here?” I said to the estate manager. “He texted me saying he was almost at the house.”
Before she could answer, Dad’s voice rang down the front hall. “There she is. Come on, Rose. I’ve got lots to show you.”
He beckoned me into the parlor he’d just emerged from.
I pasted a smile on my face and went to join him. The savory smells of a pork roast and baked apples were drifting from the kitchen. Mrs. Gainsley had the staff putting together Dad’s favorite dinner. As if the trip he’d just been on had been his victory more than for my sake.
Of course, that was actually true.
Dad had already retrieved his laptop from his office. The laptop I’d spirited off to Kyler’s apartment just last night. I glanced from him to it as I sat down on the stiff Victorian sofa next to him, but he didn’t look as if he’d noticed anything off. Ky’s password reactivation must have worked fine.
“First off,” Dad said, “Killian sent back a quick message given that he can’t arrive in person for another few days.” He brought up a video on his phone and handed it to me.
A slim guy with sleek chestnut hair smiled at me from the screen. “Rose,” he said when I started the video playing. “I’m sorry we’ll be meeting under these circumstances, but I’m very much looking forward to getting to know you and seeing how things, should we say, ‘spark’ between us.”
His light voice sounded smooth enough, but I thought I caught a desperate gleam in his eyes. What was it Celestine had written about him? He’d want to use my power to reclaim his family’s estate. From its rightful owner, presumably. I passed the phone back to Dad, my smile getting stiffer.
What promises had my father made about how Killian could use my magic once he had me like a puppet on a string?
“Killian’s actually quite a crafty sort,” Dad said eagerly, shifting his attention to his laptop. “I hadn’t realized. He makes tools by hand for witching use—wands and ceremonial bowls and daggers and the like.”
I managed not to stiffen at the word ‘dagger.’ The spell that would have bound my magic to my consort’s will involved a dagger, to invoke a stabbing pain if I tried to resist his demands. Did Dad even know that, or had he simply passed on Celestine’s notes, wherever she’d kept them, to Mrs. Gainsley for her to sort out?
He entered a password and brought up a website that displayed some of what I guessed were Killian’s goods. They were well-crafted, the etchings of the glyphs precise, the designs elegant. If I hadn’t already known what lengths Killian was apparently willing to go to for magic of his own, I might have seen that as a good sign.
“They’re lovely,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could fake.
“He’s done quite a bit of studying in the historical records and lore so he can bring that knowledge to the work,” Dad said. “So you two should have quite a bit to talk about there.”
Spark help me, when was the last time I’d had space to even think about my job digitizing historical documents? I hadn’t even written a word in my compilation of modern witching history since my confrontation with Celestine.
It was awfully hard to see much point in adding to it when there was so much I clearly hadn’t even suspected… so much that I couldn’t expose without putting everyone I loved in danger.
My heart squeezed at that thought. I looked at Dad, who was talking about some other theoretically wonderful thing about my theoretical new consort-to-be—at the light in his hazel eyes and the warmth of his smile and all those familiar things that were part of the father I’d used to love.
No, that I still loved. You couldn’t break a lifelong bond so easily. I hated what he planned to do, what he was already doing, trying to bring the scheme together… But that couldn’t totally erase all those fond childhood memories. The thought of what I meant to do to him brought a sharper ache into my chest.
That father had loved me too. Surely he had. Where had that man gone?Whywas he doing this?
“Dad,” I heard myself asking when he paused. “If you had magic, the way I—the way I will, what would you use it for?”
Dad blinked at me. A shadow darted through his gaze, so briefly I almost missed it. But it had been there. Some darker intention my question had roused.
He had an answer. And that wasmyanswer, maybe. There was something he wanted to use my magic for, something he knew he could never have simply asked of me.
“I’ve never really thought about it,” he said, lying as easily as breathing. “I’ve been more interested in seeing what you’ll do with yours when your spark is kindled.”
“Really?” I said, letting my brow knit. “You’ve never considered it at all?”
He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “That isn’t a witching man’s place, is it?”
The reply was so absurd in the context of everything I knew that it sent a flare of anger through me. I couldn’t help saying, a little pointedly, “I suppose. But you know if there was ever anything you needed, once I have my magic, you’d only have to ask.”
His eyes twitched, just slightly. A tiny hint of guilt. The twist of my gut wasn’t really triumphant.
“I appreciate the sentiment, lamb,” Dad said, glancing away. “Now why don’t you tell me all about this party you’ve been planning?”
