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I gathered all my focus onto the spell that had knocked them out before, but a fresh attack came from behind, searing hot bolts raining down on us. I cried out and swept out my arms to create a magical shield around the minivan. Damon had leapt out, pistol in hand, firing into the crowd of enforcers who were pushing past the opening gate.
More magic battered the shield. I couldn’t do anything except keep summoning more energy of my own to bolster it. If I let down my guard for an instant, it might crack. Even as it was, a sliver of a spell pierced through and struck Damon in the hand, scorching his fingers and warping the gun.
He yelped and gripped the trigger, but the pistol didn’t fire. With a muttered curse, he charged at the nearest enforcer and slammed the pistol at her head.
I cried out, too late. The enforcer fell at Damon’s blow, but he’d stepped outside my shield. Three more fell on him, sharp strands of magic tightening around him. Another huge spell battered my magical barrier. My spark pinched as I threw out more energy to hold it in place.
If I stopped working on the shield to try to break Ky and Damon free, I might lose the rest of us to the enforcers. They might not have wanted to risk killing us before, but they didn’t seem to care much now. They just wanted to stop us. Apparently I wasn’t quite as essential to the portal families’ plans as Dad had suggested.
“Halt!” a voice rang out. The battering of spells eased off. I spun around, raising my hands to launch into a new magicking.
A steel-gray-haired man in a trim suit stood in the midst of the enforcers by the gate. He shook his head at me. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Charles Frankford. A grim smile stretched across his angular face. “We have two of your consorts,” he added. “Make another move and you’ll have two fewer than you did before.”
Several other figures I recognized came up beside him. The hawkish man who’d been with the enforcers in Manhattan, who’d come to interview Aunt Ginny. Frankford’s wife, Helen, who had her arms poised as if she’d been helping with the magical attack—and maybe she had. And then other witches and their consorts from among Dad’s associates.
It wasn’t just their squad of enforcers who’d come out to stop me. The families themselves—the ones tied to that awful portal, I had to assume—had arrived to defend their secret.
“I have the files,” Gabriel said from inside the minivan. “They’re ready to send to the full list. Just give me the word.”
Frankford’s expression tightened. “If you spread even one document you’ve stolen from my home, you can watch your consorts die right now.”
One of the enforcers pinning Damon to the ground produced a bespelled baton from his belt and held it to Damon’s temple. Across the yard, an enforcer squatting over Ky formed a searing bolt of magic in her hand, aimed over Ky’s heart. My breath stopped in my chest. I held out my hand to motion for Gabriel to wait.
“If you kill them, we have no idea how that could affect me,” I said. “I thought you wanted me alive and at least somewhat functioning.”
Frankford folded his arms over his narrow but solid chest. “If you send out those files, whether we have you or not won’t matter anymore. You ruin us, and you’d better believe we will ruin you. You and every member of your family—your cousins, your aunts—and every one of your consorts as well. I might even enjoy observing what happens to a witch who loses not one but five recent consorts, one by one.”
I swallowed thickly. After seeing how brutally his people and their enforcers had attacked us this time, after witnessing the magnitude of the secret they were defending, I believed him. He would see all of us dead if he could. Spark save me, what was I supposed to do?
“Don’t worry about me,” Damon yelled, his voice muffled against the grass. “Do what you’ve got to do. Burn them all down, angel.”
If only it were that simple. The enforcer on him jabbed his head with that baton, and Damon sucked in a pained breath. I flinched.
I’d brought my consorts, my cousins, everyone into this conflict. If it’d been just my life, maybe I would have made the sacrifice to expose what Charles Frankford, my father, and the rest of them had done, but I couldn’t give up on everyone else I cared about. There had to be another way.
My thoughts tripped back to something else Damon had said, after the last time we’d faced off against this faction. Mutually assured destruction. The threat of exposure was plenty of leverage all on its own. I didn’t even know for sure if what Ky had found was enough to completely destroy Frankford’s group and what they’d been doing, but the Frankfords obviously thought it could be. That was all I needed to shift the balance.
I turned back to Charles Frankford, my chin high. “If you attack us again, my consort will send the files we found to every witching family in North America. If we expose you, you’ll kill us. We’re at a bit of a standstill, aren’t we? What if we made a deal that gets us both out of this mess?”
Frankford cocked his head, looking skeptical. “I’m listening.”
“We could make a binding oath,” I said. “We both agree to the conditions, and we both accept magical compulsion to follow them, to ensure we don’t break that contract.”
“What ‘conditions’ would you want?” Helen Frankford asked. Her pale eyes were icy.
I kept my gaze on her and her husband, but at the corner of my eye I saw Damon squirm, the enforcer jab him again, the spasm of pain running through his body. My jaw tightened. I had to think carefully, clearly—not let my emotions rush me. If this was going to work, if it was really going to protect me and my loved ones, I had to construct the terms of the binding perfectly.
“I will swear that I and my consorts will not share or speak of the files we obtained with anyone. In return, I ask that you swear to ensure that no harm comes to me, my consorts, or my family from you or any families or Assembly employees associated with you, by your hand or at your orders. We must be absolved of any criminal charges currently active against us. And I want to be named the official head of the Hallowell estate.”
“And your father?” Frankford said dryly.
I shrugged. “I don’t want to see him again, but he can stay in the Portland house if he wants. He can keep his personal account. The rest is mine.” There wasn’t any point in taking everything from him. That would only make him even more my enemy. Right now, all I wanted was peace.
Frankford looked uncertain. I didn’t want to givehimtoo much time to think.
“I’m being generous,” I said. “I could have the files sent right now, if you’re unwilling to negotiate.”
