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“It is good to see you up,” I said, not sure how else to start.
Thalia let out a sharp breath. “It’s good tobeup. I’m sorry for being such a lay-about the last few days—I didn’t even know I was that worn out until my head hit that pillow…”
“The kind of magic you’ve been doing, it took a lot out of you?” I ventured.
Her gaze held mine with a knowing expression. “Yes,” she said. “You could say that. I was hoping… You’renotentirely safe here, are you? There’ve been difficulties. If there’s anything I can do, anything I can offer, I’ll do whatever I can for you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “It’s— We’re safe here on the estate. But it has been an increasingly tense situation. People who have reason to be afraid of what I know—they’ve been attacking us in roundabout ways. Ways I can’t really prepare for. If there’s anything you can say from what you’ve been through, anywhere you can point me to that we could find proof to expose what’s going on or take them down some other way…?”
She looked down at her hands. “It’s hard,” she said. “They were afraid of what I could say too. I’m so bound up. The power they have… It’s much stronger in the source, but it still gives them something they shouldn’t.”
The demons had a strong magic that didn’t totally transfer to the men who borrowed it, I suspected she meant. But it was still power. Tainted power. We had to fear not just the witches but the witching men as well, in more ways than I was used to.
“Maybe we can get somewhere talking about the things and the people whoaren’tthe problem,” I suggested. “If I knew who I definitely didn’t have to worry about, who you can freely talk about because there’s nothing bad you could say about them, that would let me know who to turn to for more help.”
Thalia raised her head again, her face brightening. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, that could work. Do you have some paper? This might take a little while.”
Chapter Seventeen
Kyler
“Idon’t know how else to explain it,” Imogen said, twisting one of her red curls around her finger as she frowned in thought. “It was just a feeling I got. The way the guys they brought around looked at me. The way they talked more to my aunt and uncle than they did to me, as if they were deciding whether to marrythem…Nothing more obvious than that.That’s why it’s so hard to talk about it. It’s not like I can say, ‘See, of course I was scared when they said this horrible thing.’”
I looked up from my tablet where I’d been poised to take notes. The open document was blank, because Imogen hadn’t been able to offer any data that would get me anywhere. “That still sounds awful,” I said. “Regardless of why they were doing it. I might not have been part of this world for very long, but I know you deserve a consort who’s interested inyou.”
She shrugged, her mouth twisting. “We were a small enough family to begin with, and my parents weren’t around to make any kind of name for themselves. It’s not like there’s a lot to gain from marrying me.”
“I didn’t gain anything from—” My voice cut off before I could saymarrying Rose, the magical vise of the oath clamping around my vocal chords. I coughed. Imogen should be able to fill in the blanks after the amount of time she’d spent in our company. “From marrying who I married. Except for getting to be with a woman I think is amazing. That’s what marriage is supposed to be.”
“For some people. You don’t know what it’s like. Anyway, I’m sorry I can’t help more.” She paused. “You know how worried I have to be, don’t you? You know something about what my aunt and uncle are mixed up in. That’s part of what you’re not allowed to talk about.”
My tongue went heavy as lead in my mouth. What could I say to that without bumping up against the magical restrictions laid on me? Normally I was a pretty even-tempered guy, but right then, the frustration that had been growing in me over the last several days seared through my stomach. My hand clenched around the tablet.
For fuck’s sake, I should be able to tell this one girl her family had been ready to sell her into virtual slavery.
“I think you’re right to have come here,” I managed finally. “I think you’re safer away from them.”
“Yeah. That’s all Rose will say about it too.” Imogen grimaced and flopped back in the armchair.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I know it’s not your fault. If I think of anything specific, I’ll tell Rose, okay?”
I nodded, tension still churning in my gut. “Thanks.”
I got up and walked into the front hall, but then I didn’t know where to go. I’d already talked to Lesley, who hadn’t been able to give me any details I hadn’t heard the first time I’d talked to her, and Rose had related everything she’d learned from Thalia, the older witch who’d only just arrived. We had a list now of several high-ranking Assembly members who we could be decently sure had no loyalty to the Frankfords—a couple who might even be actively antagonistic to them.
We just didn’t have anything to give them that would let us take that demon-feeding faction down.
I’d been working through the files and pursuing leads for more than a month now with nothing useful to show for it. And the Frankfords were closing in. They’d almost killed my dad—they could have killed my brother. They’d burned down Jin’s home. Who would they hurt next?
Jin was working on paintings to bring to each of our parents’ houses, but that wasn’t going to do them much good when the enemy witches were attacking them in the most convoluted ways to get around the oath anyway. And there was nothing I could do to help.
I couldn’t even bring Gabriel back. I’d tried texting him and then calling him yesterday, but I’d gotten no answer and then a “not in service” recording. Where the hell had he gone?Whythe hell had he gone, and like that? I’d known he was worried about Rose, but how could he have lost faith in her that quickly? How could he have abandoned her?
It didn’t seem like him at all. Maybe the Frankfords had gotten to him in some other underhanded way, but I hadn’t been able to determine that either.
In short, I was useless all around.
