“I know you were betrothed before all this.”

  “The Circle knows that.”

  “But they don’t know that you use your magic to check in on him. Alistair doesn’t even know that, does he?”

  My mouth went dry, and my skin prickled. Pint was the only person who knew, and he wouldn’t tell a soul. Oddly, this revelation didn’t put me on the defensive the way I’d expect. Something about the kindness in her eyes, the way she cocked her head to the side, took the sting out of her words. No judgement or boastfulness coated her voice.

  Pint lifted his head from where it rested on Sybil’s knee and looked at me as if we were co-conspirators. “She’s good.”

  There must be some way she had spied on me. The fae were good at such things. Or maybe she was like those Earth charlatans who picked up on little cues and made educated guesses. “How do you know that?”

  “It’s part of being the Oracle. I’m strongly tied to your emotions. I’m not spying on you, but sometimes when you have strong feelings, I get flashes of what’s causing them. I’ve also been studying you for a long time. I’ve read every report you and Alistair have ever filed. You wouldn’t tell him something like this because you don’t want him to think you’re distracted. That’s the reason you give yourself. The real reason is because you don’t want him to worry about you or pity you. For a woman in exile, you have quite a bit of pride.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” I shook my head, trying to deny it to myself more than I was to her. “I check on Julien because I’m the one who broke him. I’m the one who’s responsible for him. I just want to make sure he moves on and is happy. If you’re the Oracle, you should be able to tell me if he ever finds someone, and then I wouldn’t have to check.”

  “Oh, I have no idea.” Sybil waved her hand as if I’d asked the most ridiculous question with an obvious answer.

  “I thought the future was kind of your thing.” Apparently only when it involved screwing with my life.

  “That’s not how it works. Prophecy is meant to guide our people, not act like…what’s that chubby little angel’s name?” Sybil snapped her fingers and jumped in her seat. “Cupid! I’m not a dating service. Julien will or won’t take care of himself. It’s not your concern. You need to look to your own future.”

  “And what is that future, Sybil?” By this point, I was out of patience. I’d long ago come to terms with my life, and now she and Alistair wanted to upend everything. “More missions, more secrets, more death until my body joins the rest? You’ll excuse me if I’m not ecstatic at the prospect. I know it’s not likely I’ll ever see Julien or my home again. But I need some hope to live for, something to keep me going. It’s too fucking depressing otherwise.”

  “The prophecy could serve that purpose in your life. You have me, Deacon, and Alistair to support you.”

  Of course she had met Deacon. Everyone had known about this prophecy before I did. “I don’t see how Deacon and I can be partners with two different goals. He’s here to make sure I fail, just like you are. Am I really the only one who sees the craziness in hoping that I fail to protect our people at the feast?”

  “No one wants you to fail.”

  I scoffed. “Everything that has happened since I met Deacon has proven the contrary.”

  “You’re looking at this the wrong way.” Sybil leaned forward, petting Pint as she did so. “We don’t want you to fail; we want to help you realize your destiny.”

  “I don’t believe in destiny. And I resent working with a partner who intentionally endangers himself, me, and others in an attempt to fulfill prophecy.”

  Sybil leaned back, and Pint snuggled closer. His affinity for her made me like her a little more. Pint was an excellent judge of character. “You need to go easy on him,” she said. “This wasn’t his plan for his life either. And you’re no peach to work with.”

  “I don’t need to be nice to work with. I’m good at my job. I put the mission and the safety of my team first.” My mind flashed to the split second before Sasha died. I should have done better. “This job is hard enough as it is without having to question the motives of my partner.”

  “Then don’t question them. I can tell you, Deacon has already proven that he puts you first.”

  “He’s done nothing of the kind.” Sure he’d kept me safe out in the field, but that was because he wanted the mythical Dragon Fae to be real, nothing more.

  Sybil opened her mouth then shut it and shook her head.

  “What?” I pressed. If she had more information about him that would prove helpful, I needed it.

  “His story is not mine to tell. You’ll find out when it’s right; but know that he’s been protecting you since long before you met. There’s more to this than you know. If you succeed in stopping the Directorate, we’ll all still be here for you. We won’t stop believing in you. You might want to consider believing in us.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that. All I could do was match her stare until she looked away. Only she didn’t. She burst out laughing.

  “Enough of all this. What’s going to happen will happen. We’re all just here to enjoy the ride. I might as well keep you company while you wait until Alistair can meet.”

  If she wouldn’t tell me more about Deacon, then maybe she’d have some news from the Circle for me. “Do you know if the Circle has done anything for Christoff’s family?”

  “They were planning something. Not sure what. Alistair made it clear that protecting them was non-negotiable. We understand how important it is to you that the humans are protected.”

  Our work had enough collateral damage as it was. We had a responsibility to contain it where we could. “They’re innocents in all this.”

  “We all are.”

  “Not all.” The blood on my hands was enough to paint my apartment.

  “The good you do outweighs the bad.”

  It amazed me Sybil was willing to admit that there were bad things I did. It made me respect her. At least she didn’t pretend I was a paragon of righteousness. I hated when the Circle acted like everything we did was good simply because we were the ones doing it.

  Levity entered Sybil’s eyes, and the mood shifted. “Now, let’s watch Firefly. This whole space thing fascinates me. Why is it do you think no one in Elustria has ever explored space? These humans, with not a smidge of magic, have gone into space, and they dream of going farther. Meanwhile Elustrians have seven moons and don’t visit any of them. Seems odd.”

  “You seem odd.” I said it before I could stop myself. She could go from somber to perky at a speed that gave me whiplash.

  Sybil laughed, a high tinkling sound that matched her entire appearance, as if it were all scripted except there was no artifice about her. “I aim to surprise. Too many people want to shove me in a stuffy box labeled ‘Oracle.’ No, thanks. Do you have any wine?”

  I quirked my eyebrows in surprise. “It’s still morning.”

  “So? Why should the time of day matter? We must celebrate our new friendship.”

  “I have some whiskey.” Pint, sensing he was about to lose his comfortable position, leapt over to me.

  “Ooh, that’ll work.” She hopped up to look for it. “Do you want some?”

  “No, thanks. I don’t drink on days that I’m working.”

  “Good policy. Very ‘prophetic leader’ of you. I, on the other hand, do not do work that is impeded by alcohol. So I shall imbibe for both of us.”

  While she searched for the whiskey, Pint looked up at me. “Sounds like you had an eventful couple of days, Dragon Fae.”

  “Stop.” I playfully swatted him.

  “Sorry, but the Oracle has spoken.”

  I glared at him. “You’re only agreeing with her because she gave you treats.”

  “Maybe you’ll remember to get me steaks next time.” Pint curled up in a ball on my lap and fell asleep.

  Two episodes of Firefly accompanied by Sybil’s lengthy alcohol-fueled commentary later, my phone rang. It was Alistair.

  “Hi, Alistair!” Sybil shouted when I answered the phone.

  “Glad you two are having fun,” Alistair said. “Come meet me and Deacon at the taco place. Deacon’s already cleared it, and he can give us a heads-up if any magical beings show.”

  The taco place was Aunt Maria’s, one of my favorite spots. “What are you buttering me up for?”

  Alistair’s voice turned grim. “Bad news.”

  21

  Aunt Maria’s was a little place in the middle of nowhere. Alistair called it the taco place because that was his favorite thing on the menu, but I went there for the tamales and chile relleno. When I arrived, Alistair and Deacon were sitting at a booth in the back, both facing the front. That left me sitting with my back to the door, a vulnerable position that I habitually avoided. Deacon argued that as the sniffer of the group, he should be the one to face the door. Arguing would only look petulant, so I capitulated.

  The server took our order. Once our drinks and the chips and salsa arrived, Alistair cast a spell so we wouldn’t be overheard and to block out the lively music coming from a small stereo in the corner. When he didn’t seem inclined to start the conversation, I took the initiative.

  “So what’s the bad news?” I didn’t like false suspense. I had enough of the real thing in this job. Alistair could have told me over the phone.

  “The devices from Christoff’s have us stumped. They each emit a different magic imprint, but we can’t figure out why.”

  “That’s it? Basically a reverse cloaker?” That didn’t rise to my definition of the word problem.

  “Yep.”

  The devices may be simple, but the Directorate would have a plan for them. Puzzling out their intent would be the most difficult part. “They must be planning to frame people. It’s a smart tactic to throw us off their scent. Do the imprints match any that are on file?”

  “That’s where the problem is and why it took me so long to meet with you,” Alistair said. “We ran each of them against our database. They don’t match anyone.”

  “So that takes revenge or framing their enemies off the table,” Deacon said, clearly having initially come to the same conclusion I had and then dismissed it. The tone he used also confirmed that he knew all of this already.

  “Then is it just to confuse us?” In actuality, everything the Directorate did confused me, but this took it to a new level. It would slow us down if we chased fake imprints, but that seemed too small a purpose for Christoff to have had so many in his home.

  “That’s what we thought at first, but the devices don’t prevent or disguise the imprint of the mage carrying it. So at most this would just add a fake imprint alongside a real one. This is where Deacon came in handy. Cloakers don’t fool him, so we were able to do tests with a person carrying both a cloaker and one of these devices. Both imprints were still there. And the cloaker affects both imprints equally, so carrying a cloaker with one would defeat the purpose.”

  “We’re both hoping you had better luck with your contact,” Deacon said.

  “Define better. I got more concrete answers, but not necessarily better ones.”

  As if right on cue, the server brought us our food. Our conversation meant I hadn’t filled up on chips and salsa, so I devoured my entire chile relleno before continuing. Mexican food was the best part about being on Earth. Nothing back home came close. Peppers and cheese were all I needed in life. They made everything better.

  “Care to enlighten us before you inhale your tamales?” Alistair asked.

  I glared at him. “Don’t get snarky with me. I’m still pissed about this whole thing with the Oracle.”

  “You met Sybil?” Deacon asked, lighting up. She’d clearly worked her magic on him too.

  “Yes, I met Sybil. I can understand why I was the last to meet her. I mean, her prophecies are about me and all. It makes total sense that she’d meet everyone else first.” I laid the sarcasm on so thick it coated the air around us.

  “We thought she’d be able to help you with this transition to knowing who you are,” Alistair said. I didn’t know if “we” meant him and Deacon, Meilin, the Circle, the fae, or Sybil.

  The most frustrating part about all this was how everyone assumed they knew who I was better than I did. The entire situation aggravated me. I took a sip of horchata and pushed my feelings about the prophecy aside. I had a mission to think of and people whose lives depended on me doing my job well. That was all that mattered. It was all that ever mattered. “The non-magical items we recovered were bomb-making materials as well as a few fully constructed explosives. I disposed of them after ensuring they weren’t being tracked.” I decided to leave out the part where I used my magic sans cuff. No need to worry Alistair.

  “So they’re blatantly endangering humans now. Those bombs could have gone off at any time.” Alistair’s words may have suggested he worried about the humans, but his eyes said his worry was for me. It was the fatherly concern I’d grown accustomed to and that had formed the bedrock of our relationship. “None of this makes any sense.” He threw his napkin on the table and leaned back, thinking through the ramifications of what I’d shared. His frustration mirrored my own, but I was better at hiding it.

  I offered a possible answer. “The only thing I can think of is that they’re planning on attacking humans without revealing magic.”

  Deacon shook his head. “I don’t buy that. There are plenty of ways for them to attack humans with magic without revealing it to them. The Directorate looks down their noses at everyone. They wouldn’t think humans are smart enough to recognize magic even when it’s used to attack them. They could easily imitate a bomb without having to go through the trouble of making one.”

  I had to hand it to Deacon, that was an astute observation. He’d protected dragons from the most underhanded mages for years. While he may not have been in the field the same way I was, he knew our enemy.

  Alistair leaned forward again. “Is it possible this is Christoff going rogue? Do we have any indications as to whether this is him or the Directorate?”

  I dismissed that idea. “As unconventional as Christoff was with his double life, I don’t think he was going rogue. When I spoke to him as a Directorate operative, he was passionate about his Directorate mission. As far as his laptop, my contact hasn’t gotten back to me yet, but I’m confident these devices and bombs have to do with his mission and these Best Self seminars. Maybe they’re planning on blowing up the meetings for some reason, I don’t know, but I can’t let them kill those humans. They’re weird, but that’s no reason to die.” The happy faces from the last meeting crowded my memory. They were good people just trying to make a better life. That the Directorate would prey on them made me sick. Literally. I pushed away the rest of my tamales. “By the way, we owe my contact a bonus. He took a great risk helping us and went against his conscience in not reporting the explosives to the FBI. Pass it along.”

  “Will do.” Alistair nodded. “You’ll need to go to the Phoenix meeting, compare it to the one in Vegas. See if anything stands out or gives a hint as to what’s going on.”

  “Already planning on it. It’s tomorrow morning.” If the Directorate was planning to bomb a meeting, they chose a time that wouldn’t give them many casualties. Having a midweek morning meeting drew less people than an evening meeting would.

  “I’ll go with you,” Deacon said.

  “No need. I’ll be fine on my own.”

  “You’ll need me to see if there are any mages present. I can help you. Let me. Please.” The yearning in Deacon’s eyes to be useful pricked at my heart and brought Sybil’s admonishment to mind. None of us had a choice in this. Not really. As I’d told Alistair when Sasha died, we’re all cogs in the machine.

  “Fine.” I appreciated that Alistair didn’t force the issue. I didn’t want to say no and have him overrule me. “I’ll pick you up at eight thirty in the morning.” The thought of going to another Best Self meeting made me uncomfortable but not nearly as much as the idea of those innocent people dying. I needed to spend every moment I could figuring out the Directorate’s plan. That meant another stop at Trevor’s. He had to have something for me from the laptop.

  22

  I barely made it out the door in time the next morning. Trevor had given me a flash drive with a copy of Christoff’s laptop on it. Nothing had immediately stood out to Trevor, so he thought I might like to look through it all myself.

  The contents of Christoff’s computer fascinated me. Just as at his house, there were plenty of pictures of his family and some home movies. He had a journal that was all talk of his family, how he missed them when he traveled, documenting his son’s milestones and important moments with his wife. Any references to work were generic, annoyances and grief, and reassurances that he was doing it all for a reason and his work had meaning. Nothing specific. I’d kept searching, willing my computer to give me something useful, until I fell asleep on the keyboard. So it was no surprise that I pulled up a few minutes late to the spot where Deacon and I were to meet.

  “What’s the plan for today?” Deacon asked when he got in the car. The fact that he deferred to me did not go unnoticed. Whether he did it to keep the peace or because he thought I was better qualified to take the leadership role on this mission, I didn’t know.

  “I’d like for this to be simple reconnaissance. Keep your distance and let me know if anyone has magic. Then I’ll go in and observe the meeting like I did in Vegas. If there is a mage there, stay far enough away that they won’t detect your magic. And try to blend in this time.”

  “I can do that. What if there are no mages there?”

  “Then you should come in to the meeting with me and observe. You might pick up something I miss. We’ll pose as a couple.” That would make it simpler for Deacon. If we went in pretending to be strangers, it’d be easy for him to slip up and blow our cover. We would need to work up to that kind of continual deception.

 

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