Stolen, page 16
part #4 of Coven of the Raven Series
Cops arrived with their lights flashing.
“Probably a good idea. You coming with us?” He held out his hand to her. He hoped she would, but he could see it in her eyes that she was going to say no. She had a choice to live without magic. He didn’t.
Oskar and Noah had tactfully moved a few steps away.
She dropped her gaze to the ground. “I need to sort out a few things.”
Sawyer hung his head, not wanting her to see the pain in his eyes. She was walking away from him again. This time it hurt worse and he wasn’t sure the wound would ever heal. “I’ll let you know about Anthony’s funeral.”
“I’ll transfer your fee.” She stood but stayed out of touching distance, shoving her hands into her pockets.
This wasn’t about the damn fee.
“Thank you for helping me.”
“Sure.” Sawyer shrugged. He wasn’t going to let her walk away with his heart again. But it still hurt. He’d thought this was a second chance. Maybe they were destined to cross paths but never travel the same one.
“I’m glad you found a family.” She stepped closer. “Are you safe to touch?”
“For you, yes. For them…I don’t know.”
She stepped in and hugged him. “This isn’t goodbye.”
It just felt that way.
Chapter 15
Sawyer had sold some of the stolen things, and he’d replaced the sofa, and the dining table, and anything else full of bullet holes. The walls still needed to be patched and painted, but it was nice to be home again instead of living above the coven. Not that it was home yet.
He rolled out pastry for a pecan pie. The marble rolling pin was actually useful in the kitchen. It was important to cook something the first night in a new place; while it was his apartment it was the first time he’d stayed there since the shooting, and the apartment needed to feel like home for his protection spells to work. Cooking was part of that, as had been the cleaning and rearranging.
Music played and he tapped his barefoot in time to the beat. The magic around his heart pulsed. He smiled, almost feeling at home.
Everything was kind of as it had been, only rotated just a few degrees off center.
At the agency it had been Peyton who’d risked his life to sit down with him and made sure that he was safe to touch. Sawyer was, unless he let the spell spill out, and then it was obvious by the green on his skin. It was going to take him longer to unravel the spell than he’d first thought, though. The direct flow of magic was a sperate issue. But one that could be quite useful because he could boost the other witches magic with a touch. He was a magical power pack. A nuke that could level a city if he wasn’t careful. He understood why a few hundred years he’d have been viewed as a demi-god and a threat to society.
When Mason returned, they would talk about what happened next. Where once he’d needed the coven’s help and protection, and the need to prove himself had fueled him, now he understood why he was never going to be like them magically. If he wasn’t careful, the flow of magic would consume him. All those endless exercises and repetitive spells hadn’t been Mason trying to train him to be like the others, it had been Mason’s way of teaching him the focus and control he needed to wield so much power.
The Morrigu hadn’t abandoned him. She was still there when he went to the field and would always be his Goddess. He was lucky to have Her. Mason and the Morrigu were the parents he’d never had as a kid.
He tipped the baking beads into the pie crust and put it in the oven. Tomorrow, he’d make something else to take to Noah and Rachel’s. The cake stand had survived the shooting and the cops; he figured that should bring some good luck to them both. He knew better than to give a friend an enchanted object if they weren’t expecting it. For the moment he was not messing around with that kind of magic.
The only thing missing was Cosima. She’d paid the fee and vanished. Maybe she’d left the country and taken herself on a holiday. He’d left a message on her last known number to tell her Anthony’s funeral was in two days. While Anthony had betrayed him, they had once been friends, and no one should be buried without someone to mourn. If he was the only one there so be it.
He chopped pecans and refused to dwell on the past and how things might have been different. If Sawyer hadn’t joined the coven there was a good chance, he’d have destroyed his friends and himself, and the coven would’ve been cleaning up the mess.
Rhys had also gone quiet, though he’d survived. As had his father, though he was never going to be running a business again. Sawyer didn’t feel bad about that; he was, however, worried about Rhys.
The bronze cat on the shelf hissed.
He glanced up. There was someone on the fire escape outside the spare room. He waited to see if there would be another hiss or if the person had moved on. The cat hissed again, and he swore softly. “Really?”
He kept the pin in his hand and crossed the floor to the spare room. The door was open; he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to shut it again. He paused to the side where he wouldn’t be lined in light.
The person was working open the window, and being successful, but they were swathed in darkness and wearing black, so he didn’t know who it was. The window slid open and they stepped in, shutting the window behind them. They flicked back the hood of their sweater as they turned.
He eased his grip on the rolling pin. “I thought you’d done a runner.”
Cosima jumped. “You got this place spelled again?”
“Warded. Yes.” He considered telling her it was his first night back, but she probably knew that. She always did her research. “To what do I owe the honor this time? I’m out of swords.” And if he never had to deal with another that would be fine with him, but Cosima was just as dangerous and twice as fun.
“I thought I’d drop in and say hi, so it wasn’t too awkward at the funeral.” Her voice caught.
“You could’ve called.” That wasn’t what they did…he wasn’t sure what they were doing, only that he wouldn’t never be able to kick her out; she was too deep in him. He knew that now.
She shook her head. “We were never good at calls and catching up.”
“All or nothing.” Which didn’t explain what this was.
“Yeah.” She scuffed the toe of her sneaker on the carpet. “I’m sorry I ran…again.”
“I’m kind of used to it.”
“Did you ever see stuff that scares you so much you don’t know how to deal with it? Like you just want to hide, but that won’t save you?”
“At least three times a week. It’s the job.”
Every waking minute at the moment. The tide of magic was there wanting to bleed out, but he kept that to himself not wanting her to run again.
“Well, you scared me. All I could see was the magic—I’d seen you use it, but not like that.”
“It was new for me, too. Magic isn’t my whole life.” Just most of it.
“But it’s a part of it, and I didn’t know if I was ready for that.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve been stealing magical objects for nearly a decade; you know what magic can do.”
“But I hadn’t seen it. I knew you were part of a coven, but I didn’t realize what that meant either. You don’t just turn up for a meeting once a month, you’re there every day.”
“You’ve been watching.”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay. Your eyes are still green and they’re kind of luminescent.”
“I still have the witch killing magic. I can’t give it up yet without killing myself.”
And if she couldn’t deal with that, then this conversation, this everything between them was over. They’d had good times, but he was going to have to put it all in the past instead of hoping that maybe one day…
“There was no fallout?”
“No. We clean up our messes, for obvious reasons. Nothing will kick back to you either. We even made sure Mallory got his sword back.”
“Thank you. What spell is on the rolling pin?”
“None, I was making pecan pie. Do you want to wait around until it’s done?”
She smiled. “Yeah. I need to talk to you about something that was stolen from me.”
He sighed. She was only here because she needed his help. “Sure.” He turned and walked away. “What was stolen?”
“My heart.”
He stopped unable to think as his stomach dropped into free fall. “Who took it?”
“A witch. He took it years ago. I doubt he even remembers he has it.”
“It’s kind of hard to forget something like that. Did you want it back?” He turned to face her, needing to the answer on her face not just hear it from her lips. She was only a couple of steps behind him.
She closed the gap and hugged him. “No. I think it’s safer with you.”
Excerpt: The Outcast Prince, Annwyn 1
Caspian trailed his finger along the wooden mirror frame. Was the piece an antique or a clever fake?
One touch was enough to confirm the mirror was old. Made by hand well over a century ago. As he examined the Rococo workmanship, he caught a brief movement beyond the sky reflected in the glass. If he looked closer and concentrated on the shadowy movements that normal humans didn’t see, he’d be able to glimpse the fairy world of Annwyn. Now, there was a surprise. Was the glass enchanted or fairy-made? Was it the mirror the fairies were looking for?
Caspian drew his hand back casually so as not to attract attention. The garage sale wasn’t the place to examine it further. He deliberated for a couple of heartbeats, then decided acquiring it would be worth the risk.
A blue fairy wren fluttered around him and then landed on top of the mirror, drawn by the magic.
“What can you tell me about the mirror?” he asked the seller. He tried to sound only vaguely interested. He glanced at his watch, making sure he still had time to investigate and haggle—although for a mirror like this he’d make time and be late to his meeting. Not that he liked showing up late.
The woman shrugged. “It was my mom’s. I thought she’d gotten rid of it years ago. But no, it was shoved in the back of her wardrobe, along with shoes she hadn’t worn for twenty years.”
Caspian’s eyebrows rose. “She didn’t like it?”
“Said it gave her the creeps.” The woman shooed the wren off the mirror.
He could understand that. Having a mirror that looked into the fairy world was bound to be unsettling. “I’ll give you four hundred even for the mirror and these iron sconces.” He grasped the metal, ignoring the jolt of pain the iron sent through his system. No wonder fairies hated the stuff. Given the uncertain situation in Annwyn at the moment, having a bit of extra iron around the house wouldn’t be a bad thing.
The woman gave him a closer look. “Who are you buying the mirror for?”
Caspian smiled. There was a touch of the fairy in the woman’s family even if they were trying to bury it. “My ex-wife’s birthday.”
It wasn’t her birthday, and he wasn’t buying it for her, but if the woman knew what the mirror was worth—both in human and possibly fairy terms—she wouldn’t want to sell it so cheaply.
The fairy wren returned and danced along the top of the frame, hopping and turning. Their name didn’t come from their diminutive size the way most people thought; their name came from the fact that they were drawn to all things fairy.
This time in the reflection on the mirror was a tall, thin man standing on the other side of the road. Beautiful but gaunt; fairy but not one of the Court—a Grey. Caspian blinked and glanced away. He turned a fraction, expecting to see the man still watching from over the road, but the Grey was gone.
A wren, a Grey, and a mirror with a connection to Annwyn. He should be walking away. But he’d heard of a hunt for something called the Window. According to rumor, it was a portal between the human and fairy worlds—and it was right here in Charleston. Every time he saw a mirror, Caspian checked to see if it was fairy-made. As much as he hated getting involved in fairy politics, even he knew how disastrous it could be if the Window fell into the wrong hands. A Grey’s hands.
He forced his gaze back to the woman as if he’d seen nothing to worry him. As if he’d never noticed the banished fairy. He’d learned long ago to pretend he never saw them. His gaze would drift past, but never stop. His heart, however, responded to the surge of adrenaline kicking through his system.
There was nothing more dangerous, or desperate, than a Grey. A fairy banished from Court had nothing to lose, and banishment was a slow way to die, a wasting of strength and beauty until he literally faded away. As a changeling, Caspian got to live and die like a mortal.
“Four hundred and fifty,” the woman said.
His phone beeped a reminder about his meeting. Caspian briefly considered trying to bargain her down, but he didn’t want to stand around waiting for the Grey to come back.
He nodded. “Okay.”
She smiled at her win, no doubt wishing she’d asked for more.
He hadn’t come here expecting to find anything quite so valuable, or so dangerous. Would it be ethical to sell an enchanted mirror to an unsuspecting buyer?
The skin between his shoulder blades prickled with cold despite the sunny spring day, and the little blue wren came back to dance on the furniture in the woman’s driveway. Was it heralding the return of the Grey? If so, was the Grey drawn to the woman or him or the mirror? God, he hoped it was the woman, not the mirror. He didn’t really want anything to do with a fairy, banished or otherwise. Those of the Court were just as much trouble, if not more, and infinitely more powerful. He gathered his purchases and walked back to his car, but he didn’t see the Grey again.
The drive across town was uneventful. No wrens, no Greys. Just him and the mirror and the whisper of music that came straight from the Court and made him want to pull the car over, peel back the layers of wrapping, and gaze into its surface. But the prospect of viewing the infamous Callaway House urged him on.
It was a job he’d almost turned down. After his divorce, he’d needed any extra money he could get doing valuations for insurance and estates to get back on his feet. These days, he could pick and choose. And normally he chose not to value estates because inevitably he felt like an interloper. But Callaway House was more than a bunch of antiques. With just one touch, the house would come to life again. He’d be able to see the parties, the dealmakers, and the intimate moments that went on behind closed doors in the former plantation home. Like all fairies, he had a vicious streak of curiosity that couldn’t be ignored—that was why he had a mirror connected to Annwyn in his car even though he knew better than to get mixed up in anything fairy.
The wrought-iron gates to the estate hung open, but they looked like they hadn’t closed in years. The whole house had an air of decay about it. A faded Southern belle trying to hang on to her looks and failing. It had been many decades since Callaway House had been respectable. He parked the car and took a moment to gather his thoughts and make sure that when he walked in he wasn’t immediately overwhelmed by the past.
He ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. It was time to find out what was rumor and what was truth.
Lydia walked through the house, still expecting Gran to call out or appear around the corner. But the house was silent. Not even its colorful history could bring life into the empty rooms. Her chest tightened. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t let a stranger wander round and itemize everything and assign a value. While the will had clearly stated the shares and other funds were to go to her mother, everything still had to be assessed. Damn it. In Lydia’s mind Helen didn’t deserve anything; she had denied her family long ago. But Gran had obviously felt differently about her only daughter.
Lydia swiped at a tear that trickled down her cheek. The house was all that was left of Gran, of her whole family. She stood frozen in the front room. This was where she’d found Gran sitting on the sofa, glass of wine on the coffee table, TV on, not breathing.
A knock on the front door forced her back to reality. Lydia took a moment and a breath before opening the door, then braced herself for the greedy eyes and half-hidden glee at being allowed inside Callaway House.
The man on the doorstep was nothing like she’d expected. After talking to him on the phone, she’d imagined the deep voice belonged to an old man—yet he wasn’t old. He was tall—they were eye to eye even though he was down a step, with dark hair that wasn’t quite curly or straight. His eyes were stunning, the palest of greens, yet they weren’t cold like ice.
“Caspian Mort,” he said as he offered his hand.
She blinked. He had a serious kind of beauty that made her want to see him smile. She clasped his hand. “Lydia Callaway.”
Callaway. The name that had haunted her all her life.
For an awkward moment they stood there. Then she took a step back. “Um, come in.”
“Thank you. I know letting a stranger in can’t be easy. I’ll try to make this as un-invasive and painless as possible.”
Lydia shut the front door. “You do this often?”
“When required. I prefer valuing for insurance, but…” He shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
For all his cool demeanor there was something going on behind his pale green eyes. His gaze flicked over her, then over the hallway. Was he imagining what had gone on in the house? Picturing the wild parties? Imagining what used to happen upstairs? “How about you show me around so I can get an idea of the scope of work?”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re just dying to dive in.” Lydia didn’t mean to sound brusque, but years of curiosity-seekers had eroded her patience. She’d spent most of her life trying to defend the family name against all the rumors of wild times in her family’s past. For generations, the Callaways had been prominent in the Charleston social scene and state politics. Even back in the nineteenth century, the plantation house had been known as a place where the rich and famous could come to play with no repercussions.
