Boundary Born (Boundary Magic Book 3) - Melissa F. Olson Page 0,80

royalty. She’s from that family, though her mother moved them to America.”

I stared at her. “How do you know all this?”

“Because she runs the witches in LA, the way my mother is the witch in charge of Colorado. Only in Los Angeles all three Old World factions have equal billing.”

Cruz had said as much, but I hadn’t really expected it to be true. “Okay, I get it, she’s impressive. But can we trust her?”

Lily shrugged, but her expression was still a little rattled. “If you can trust this Cruz, I guess you can trust her. I don’t like leaving you alone with her, but . . .” She winced. “Honestly, if she wanted to drop a house on you or something, I probably couldn’t stop her. I’ve been using apex magic for six months. Kirsten Harms has probably never done anything else.”

I squeezed her arm, feigning a confidence I didn’t feel. “I’ll be fine. Why don’t you go ahead and drive the animals to Jake’s clinic? I’ll take a cab back to John’s.”

The whole time we were talking, Kirsten just waited patiently at the end of the driveway. When we walked back down to her, Lily said a cautious goodbye and headed for the Jeep.

Before I could think of anything to say, Kirsten turned to me and asked pleasantly, “Would you like to go for a walk? It’s a lovely night.”

“Um, sure.”

We started along the road near my house. It should have been pitch black out here, but the clouds from earlier in the day had finally parted, revealing a nearly full moon and a dazzling number of stars. It was almost as light as it’d been that afternoon.

“How did you get here so quickly?” I asked after we’d walked for a few minutes. Well, I walked. Kirsten’s stride was closer to a waddle.

A smile broke over her pale face. “The cardinal vampire in Los Angeles has a private plane, though it’s not exactly something he advertises. But Jesse seemed to think you needed help right away. And when he explained the circumstances, I worked out that his concern was justified.”

I checked her out of the corner of my eyes, but her expression was unreadable. “I don’t follow.”

“Jesse said you were having a problem related to boundary magic and people dying with no apparent injuries,” she said. “I went online and found articles in your newspaper about the deaths, and eventually confirmed that there have been unusual animal attacks in Boulder recently. I probably would have come out here on a commercial flight for that alone, but Jesse said you were not answering your phone. He was very worried.”

I had dropped the disposable phone in the driveway, and it had been crushed when Lily drove up to rescue me. My regular cell had buzzed in my pocket while I was sitting in Simon’s car, but I hadn’t had a spare moment to think about it, let alone check to see who’d called. “I’m sorry. I was on the phone with Cruz when I encountered . . . something. It kind of drove all other thoughts from my mind.”

Kirsten stopped walking and turned to face me. “Was that something a large man with blue-toned skin?” she asked, perfectly calm.

The bubble of uncertainty in my chest popped, replaced by a flood of relief. “You know what he is?”

“I do.” Her face and voice were suddenly sad. “And if he’s here, you’re going to need to know, too.” She paused. “I’m sorry, I got tired more quickly than I expected. Is there somewhere we could sit down?”

I eyed her belly doubtfully. “I’d invite you into my house, but he knows where I live. We only came back to get my rescue animals away from the house.”

The look she gave me was unmistakably sympathetic. “Then things are worse than I thought. But I can help with that, at least.”

“How?”

She smiled, a look full of wry amusement. “Magic.”

I hadn’t seen a whole lot of magic performed, and nearly all of it had been what I now understood to be minor charms and hexes—spells that could clean a messy room or protect a person from immediate physical harm. But Kirsten operated on another level entirely. We walked back to the front of my house, where she pulled a few small supplies out of her bag—apothecary bottles, a small piece of carved wood, some sort of herb in a baggie—and asked me to help her crouch down near the ground. I did, holding her slender arm carefully.