found another Prime immune to my magic the way he was, even if that Prime agreed to abandon his House—which would never happen—that Prime would not be Alessandro.
My life was over. In fifty years, I might end up just like her, alone, abandoned by everyone because of the things I had to do to keep them alive. If I somehow managed to have a child, would my grandchild stand before me fifty years from now and pass judgment on my life? Would he or she think I was horrible and didn’t understand what it meant to be young and in love?
This was the first step onto the path of my new life. There would always be hard choices, hard decisions to make, but none would be harder than this.
My future versus Alessandro’s life. Halle’s life.
I had to look my reflection in the eye at the end of the day.
“We have a deal,” I said.
“Ten years ago, another House attacked House Montgomery and murdered Augustine’s father and his younger sister.”
I knew everything there was publicly to know about House Montgomery. There was no record of that attack anywhere. Public record said Augustine’s father died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
“The attackers were killed, but the identity of their employer was never discovered. The hit was arranged through a middleman, Melvin Rider. Before the attack he disappeared. Hand me your phone.”
I unlocked my phone and passed it to her. She grimaced and showed me the crack in the screen. She typed exactly the same way my mom did, holding the phone in her left hand and pecking at the letters with her right index finger. Grandma Victoria handed the phone back to me.
“This is Melvin Rider’s new name and his current address. Make sure Augustine gives you the information first. Always make it seem like you are negotiating from a position of strength. Remember, you are my granddaughter. Chin up, shoulders back. Look them in the eye and make them cower.”
I walked back to reception. Arabella saw me and hurried over.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“You’re crying.”
I swiped at my eyes. My cheeks were wet. Weird. I hadn’t even noticed.
“I’ve got what I need,” I told her. “Let’s go.”
Montgomery International Investigations owned an entire building downtown. An asymmetric structure of blue glass and steel, it rose above its neighbors like a shark fin whose owner was about to surface.
Augustine’s office took up an entire corner of the seventeenth floor. I had walked on my own power across the lobby to the elevators and now to the office. I had fallen asleep again in the car. When I reached for my magic, I no longer felt a void. I wouldn’t be at full strength for another forty-eight hours or so, but it was coming back slowly. Sleep helped.
Augustine’s receptionist, a young woman with pale brown skin and lavender hair, saw us and picked up the phone.
“He’ll see you now, Ms. Baylor.”
“Thank you.”
I headed toward Augustine’s desk behind a wall of frosted glass. Behind me, Arabella chirped, “I love your makeup.”
“Thank you!” The receptionist’s voice warmed by at least ten degrees. “It’s the new Oksana palette.”
“The limited edition one?”
A section of the frosted glass slid aside with a soft whisper and I walked into Augustine’s office. He sat at a modern white desk in an ergonomic chair. Behind him two walls of cobalt glass met at a sharp angle, presenting a panorama of the city below.
Augustine looked up from his computer, a god in his palace of crystal and ice. The door slid shut behind me.
“Do you have anything for me?”
He knew I did. “Yes. Before we trade, I need to know if you have the information I require. The matter is urgent. A yes or no answer will be fine.”
“Please sit.”
I sat. “I need to know the location of the lab Cristal Ferrer uses to produce warped mages for Diatheke.”
Augustine’s eyebrows rose. “I have it.”
Of course he did.
“How good is your information?” he asked.
“It comes courtesy of my grandmother. She sends her regards.” I had weighed this answer very carefully. I could have taken credit for the information or left him wondering where I got it, but I couldn’t give him any reason to doubt its authenticity. Victoria’s name was an iron-clad guarantee.
He considered it. “Very well, I’ll play.”
He took a pad of paper from his desk, wrote on it, tore off a page, and slid it across the desk to me. I picked it up. An address northeast of Houston, in Williams, a small