office?”
I swiped my hand across my mouth, which gave me the opportunity to murmur a quick casting word. A dark illusion sprang across the computer monitor so that if he came closer, it’d look as if it were still off, while covering the faint hum of the old equipment at the same time. My mind scrambled for an appropriate response.
I couldn’t pretend I was here for completely legitimate reasons. If I had to admit to wrongdoing, the best way to turn it around was to tamp down on my nervousness at being caught and put him on the defensive instead. Make it somehow his fault.
My father had been a master at that.
I lifted my head at a haughtier angle and folded my arms over my chest. “Everyone in this city—especially you—has been keeping me in the dark. I know you’re planning more than you’ve told me about. Maybe even something to do with my family.”
He sputtered. “But you—This is my private property.”
“Didn’t I already make it clear that I’m going to win my way back into their good graces, whatever it takes? If you’re not going to fill me in, obviously I had to go looking for answers on my own.”
If it was possible, he looked even more stunned now. “How did you get in here?”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “I’m a Warbury. I adjusted your spells a little—it wasn’t that hard. Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re strong enough to keep out most of the local mages just fine.”
I was insulting him to his face, but I could see the gambit working. He expected a Warbury to be superior to him and also cutthroat in our methods. And I was right that he and the other reaper families had been hiding things from me. Nothing I’d said jeopardized my cover story at all.
As long as I stayed focused on him and tuned out my uneasy awareness of the man behind him, I should be able to hold this together. The question was how I’d manage to get my hand on that keyboard and close the damning window without either of them noticing.
Wilhelm looked me up and down again, his expression torn between irritation and a certain amount of admiration he couldn’t suppress. “So ambitious,” he said. “What makes you think you’re ready for whatever else we might be considering?”
“What makes you think I’m not?” I shot back. “Isn’t the fact that I’m in here at all plenty of supporting evidence?” My gaze slid to Shane despite my best intentions, but the chill the sight of his face provoked only honed the sharpness of my tongue. “You think this guy has more to contribute than I do?”
A flicker of what looked like astonishment crossed Shane’s face. Did he really think I had any respect for him underneath the stiff politeness I’d offered at the costume party?
Wilhelm let out a faint huff. “I was speaking to Mr. Harrowfell about taking him on to tutor my granddaughter, which I don’t imagine is a pursuit you have much interest in yourself. As to however else he might have involved himself in our community, he’s been part of that community while you’ve been forming your allegiances elsewhere—let’s not forget that.”
I smiled tightly. “That’s exactly what makes me so valuable to your cause, isn’t it? Who else here has gotten as close to the new barons as I have?”
“You know, there’s a simple way to determine if she’s telling the truth,” Shane broke in, his tone cutting. Apparently he really hadn’t appreciated my disparaging remark. “Put a persuasion spell on her and ask her what she was really doing here. If her motives were pure, she should have no objections.” He glowered at me.
My body tensed, and no doubt he and Wilhelm both caught a quiver of fear. Put myself under their command, let them dictate what I answered and even what I did if they decided to? Every inch of my skin crawled at the notion.
I didn’t think they could force the spell on me, though. Wilhelm wasn’t a shoddy mage, but there was a reason he ruled over this small city and not some grand estate where he rarely had to even see Naries, let alone work with them. It’d take a lot of power to crack my internal shields when I was concentrating on them. And if I let him in as a show of trust and he pushed things in a direction that felt too dangerous, I could probably kick him