the rest. It’s very fast. Sometimes I’m not fully aware of my intent before the item manifests.”
“So if you imagine stabbing someone, your magic produces something sharp?”
“It might. A knife, an ice pick, a shard of broken glass. Whatever is in range. It’s magic, not science. It takes a lot of training because thinking too broad or too narrow is useless.”
“What were you thinking of on the roof?”
“A really large bug swatter.”
The reek of Lawrence’s bones spread through the car, diluted by the wind but still strong enough to turn my stomach.
“Tell me about Linus Duncan,” he asked.
“I first met him at our trials and then again at Nevada’s wedding. He is charming and intelligent and very retired. Or at least so he claims.”
“Is he retired?”
“Men like Linus never truly retire. One time I asked Rogan about him, and he said Linus Duncan was the most dangerous man he knew.”
Since we became a House, Linus had been a constant presence in our lives. Sometimes he stopped in for dinner without warning. Sometimes we received an invitation to his house. His magic was off the charts. Nevada thought the world of him because he helped broker a ceasefire between us and Victoria Tremaine. Rogan respected him but treated him the way one would handle a loaded gun, aware that a single mistake could lead to tragic consequences.
With us Linus was always pleasant and charming. But no matter how likeable, a man who steered the Assembly full of bickering Primes had to be ruthless.
The image of him dancing with Victoria Tremaine popped into my head. My grandmother had cut a bloody path through the country’s magic elite. People were terrified of her. Just mentioning her name killed the conversation.
Who the hell dances with Victoria Tremaine?
He had to have done something for Diatheke to want him dead. I had no idea how he would react to me bringing this information to him. Did I want him to be aware that I knew someone had put a hit on him? How mad would he be when he found out that we knew about this?
I wish Nevada was here.
I wanted my big sister. I needed her advice. I wanted her to hug me and tell me the right thing to do.
No. At this point I knew more about all of this than she did. She was in Spain and I was here, on the ground. I had a front row seat to all of this. The responsibility for the decision was mine. If I called her, she would tell me the same thing. She would tell me to trust my instincts.
Jocelyn’s words floated up from my memory and stung me again.
“I didn’t climb over Nevada.”
“I know,” Alessandro said.
I glanced at him. I loved the way he looked right now, his profile etched against the light-studded night city. His expression had turned harsh, his eyes scanning the road in front of us. The wolf was out of the woods and on the prowl.
“How?”
“You hate being the Head of the House. Every bit of it.”
I had to work on hiding it better.
“Why did you do it?” he asked.
“There was nobody else.” I had no idea why I was even talking about this. He didn’t care about my family problems, but it felt vitally important to make him understand.
“What about Nevada?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
I sighed. “Three years ago, several powerful Texas Houses conspired to overthrow the democratic government. The plan was to destabilize the current social order and, when everything went to hell, step forward as the saviors of the state, the heroes who stood for law and safety. They had a leader they called Caesar, and their goal was to remake our republic into an imperium, the way the original Caesar and his legions remade Rome. Rogan and my sister stopped it. We never did find out who Caesar was, but the conspiracy itself died. There were arrests and trials. My own grandmother was part of it. She’s still in prison. It’s a very posh prison, but it’s a prison. It seemed so simple. Bad guys failed. Good guys won. We thought we won.”
“Nothing is simple when it comes to Houses,” Alessandro said, his voice tinted with just a hint of bitterness. He hid it well, but I still heard it.
“Yes. All those powerful Houses and Primes had friends and allies, and once the dust settled, they attacked. They couldn’t touch us because we were an emerging House, but they came after Rogan full force.