Deacon interrupted my thoughts. “You didn’t tell him about what I did with the fire.”

  I side-eyed my partner. Nothing in his demeanor suggested that he’d been nervous about Alistair finding out. But there was a glint in his eyes, something between gratitude and admiration. “You didn’t tell him you disagree with me about going to the family first.”

  “I—”

  I turned my attention from the road to glare at him. Once he crossed that line, once he violated the trust of our partnership by lying, there’d be no going back.

  To his credit, Deacon corrected course, and his face relaxed from its defensive stance. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I don’t see the wisdom in it. I think the computer is the smarter play.”

  “So why didn’t you tell Alistair that?”

  “Because it would have damaged our partnership. You’re the one I have to be out here with. I don’t want you feeling like you can’t be open with me.”

  “Exactly, and that’s why I didn’t tell Alistair about your insane stunt back there.”

  Deacon moved his arm to the armrest, brushing his bicep against mine in the process. The touch sent a little spark through me, and I jerked my arm away from the contact. My magic reacted to his, liked the touch between us, as if it yearned for contact with someone who recognized its true nature. Until now, no one but Alistair knew my real identity. Sasha and my previous partners hadn’t known. I didn’t want my magic bonding with Deacon. In all likelihood, he’d end up dead like the rest. Professional distance must be maintained.

  If Deacon noticed my reaction to his inadvertent touch, he didn’t acknowledge it. “Why are you going to Palm Springs instead of pursuing the computer with your tech guy?”

  The honesty thing cut both ways, but I didn’t know how to answer his question. I wasn’t sure I was being honest with myself about my motivations. “I don’t think the Directorate knew about his family. Otherwise he wouldn’t have kept them hidden in his briefcase. I want to know why he was keeping them secret. Once the Directorate realizes something’s wrong, they’re going to swoop in here and start tearing apart his life. If they get to them first, we lose out forever on any intelligence his family might lead us to. The laptop isn’t going anywhere.”

  Deacon’s eyes remained on me. He could tell I held something back. My skin prickled under the constant assault of his gaze. I wanted to twitch, to move in my seat, to look at him, but I kept my attention relaxed on the road in front of me.

  Eventually, he released a heavy breath through his nose, and I imagined smoke rising from his nostrils, but he turned away and set his gaze ahead of us. I reached forward and clicked on the radio. The best of the eighties came through the speakers, and I cranked up the volume until the peppy beat drowned out any awkwardness. The security was false. Once we arrived in Palm Springs, I knew Deacon would continue his line of questioning. His relaxed face may lure someone less experienced into thinking he’d dropped it, but he was biding his time. For a new agent who’d blundered repeatedly, he had some skill in the covert arts.

  If only I could be sure he was using them for me and not against me.

  14

  Just after four o’clock, we pulled up in front of a cute stucco home with an unnaturally green lawn sprouting out of the California desert. A modest sedan sat in the driveway. I parallel parked across the street.

  When I killed the engine, Deacon asked, “What do you want to do? Go up and knock on the door?”

  I shook my head, not taking my eyes off the house. A large window looked out over the front yard and the woman from Christoff’s pictures strode in front of it carrying a hamper of laundry. “No. I want to wait and see if they go anywhere. We’ll get more information from breaking in than talking to her.” I couldn’t think of any way to get Christoff’s widow to open up to us. She probably didn’t know anything anyway. “Are you smelling any magic?”

  Through the window, Christoff’s son climbed onto a chair at the dinner table and pulled a folder out of his dinosaur backpack. His mother came up behind him and pointed something out on the paper he stared at. He nodded and picked up a pencil and got to work. The woman kissed the top of his head and walked away.

  Behind me, Deacon sniffed the air but didn’t say anything. I turned and saw him looking away and down, the corners of his eyes creasing along with his eyebrows. “What is it?” I asked.

  “The mother is definitely human, but there is a little bit of magic like I’d expect from a latent mage, but fainter.”

  I looked back at the boy. Definitely Christoff’s then. I put the top up on the car and settled in to wait. The woman came back to the table to help her son with his homework. She had no idea that she was a widow, that her husband and her son’s father would never return. Did she know what Christoff was?

  My gut said no. Christoff had obviously put some effort into keeping his personal and work life separate. Nothing good could come from telling his wife what he was. She couldn’t come to Elustria even if their son could. I couldn’t find any upside to telling her. Not many humans would be accepting of a story like Christoff’s. He had obviously loved his family, otherwise he wouldn’t have risked being found out by keeping their pictures on him. Maybe the Directorate did know about them. Maybe they were a deep cover assignment. Was there something this woman or boy could provide the Directorate? I’d keep an eye out for any indications once we got inside.

  Whether this woman knew that her husband was a mage or not, she certainly didn’t know that he was a Directorate operative. She didn’t know what he really did with his time. Soon her world would come crashing down because of the lies Christoff had told her. The official story would be that he died in a hotel fire. That was likely all she’d ever know. That was a small mercy, one she would never be aware of. It wouldn’t make her burden easier. Still, I wished Julien had gotten the same mercy.

  The woman looked up at a clock on the wall. Her brown eyes were stressed, tired. Soon enough they’d fill with a pain and sadness that was the thread tying together humanity. A universal pain that threw the sufferer into a cave of solitary suffering. But at least there wouldn’t be betrayal in her eyes. She’d mourn the man she knew without any interference from disturbing revelations as long as the Directorate didn’t get to her.

  For all Christoff and I differed in life, we both caused pain to our loved ones through duplicity. How much better was I when I had devastated the most precious person in my life? Perhaps all my work now was to atone for that.

  “What are you thinking?” Deacon’s smooth voice interrupted my thoughts seamlessly, like a hand entering a pool of water without splashing.

  “Hmm?” I said to give me time to gather myself before answering.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  No, he didn’t get that part of me. Some things were private. Some things were too painful to discuss. “Nothing important. I think they’re going to go somewhere. She’s glanced at the clock a couple of times. We just have to wait it out.”

  While I watched the house, Deacon’s gaze heated my back. He could tell I kept something from him. That was his too bad. I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of turning around.

  “Have I done something to upset you?”

  “No.” I kept my eyes on the house.

  “I get that you didn’t want another partner. After what happened with your last one—”

  “Sasha.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I finally turned to face him. Nothing more could be gleaned from the house anyway. We wouldn’t miss them leaving. “Her name was Sasha. She wasn’t just my partner. She was a sorceress serving the Circle and got killed for it.”

  “I can understand why you wouldn’t want another partner after that, especially since you try so hard not to care.” His words could have come off as patronizing, but compassion filled his green eyes.

  My senses perked, and I concentrated on controlling my body language. “That’s not true.”

  “I know it’s not. You care too much.” He said it so casually, but for a brief moment I felt naked, exposed. Deacon glanced right by it as if he hadn’t just penetrated my defenses. “But I’m not the one who asked for this assignment. I go where I’m told, just like you.”

  “Not just like me. You’re not a sorcerer. You’re not under the authority of the Circle. So why are you working for them?” I imagined the Circle had something on him. Blackmail wasn’t a foreign concept.

  “I was assigned to.”

  “By whom?”

  “Officially?” Deacon assumed a pompous tone. “His Royal Highness, Defender of the Dragonkin, Prince Drake Fafnir, the head of the Dragon Syndicate.” He returned to his normal voice. “In Elustria, I worked for the Syndicate guarding the remaining dragons.” The casual tone of his voice was too forced. He was holding something back, but since I’d just exercised the same privilege with my private life, I let it be.

  Rumor and speculation shrouded the Syndicate. They governed all dragons and dragon shifters, but with no solid information on the number of dragon shifters remaining, the Syndicate’s power was unknown. “I didn’t realize the Syndicate was still so well organized. I thought Drake Fafnir was an empty title.”

  “Rumors of our extinction are greatly exaggerated.” Deacon’s green eyes glittered as one corner of his mouth twitched upward. “The Syndicate is very much alive and well. With so few of us, we all have to work together for our survival.”

  “So the dragon prince picked you at random to work for the Circle?” It seemed like a strange assignment.

  “Not exactly. The Circle threw their weight around. I helped bring down a mage who had figured out how to steal a sorcerer’s magic, so that brought me to the attention of the Circle. They wanted a dragon shifter to work for them full time and requested me.”

  “Wait.” I held up my hand. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. “You were there when Marguerite Drothcar was defeated? I thought that was a CCS job.” The Covert Council Service was the clandestine arm of the mage government, run by the Magesterial Council.

  “Yeah, a CCS agent was lead on it. The Circle was impressed and asked for me.” He shrugged one of his shoulders as if this weren’t a big deal, but it was.

  Deacon was a genuine hero. By defeating Marguerite, he’d done more for sorcerers than I had in my entire career. She’d been the most powerful mage seen in generations. The power she wielded surpassed all except the most skilled sorcerers. It was hard to imagine that Deacon, who had fumbled multiple times on our Christoff mission, had been part of the team that defeated her. In fact, it was impossible. The realization dawned with such a blinding light of understanding that it stole my breath for a moment.

  “You’re in on it.” I kept my eyes trained on him, looking for any tell that I was right. His jaw slackened and his brow raised a fraction. Green irises darted side to side almost imperceptibly as he weighed his choices. The tells were subtle, but I had him, and he knew it. I narrowed my eyes and let him see my lips purse with my clenched jaw. The threat was obvious: a lie right now would be more dangerous than the truth. More importantly, if I was right, then a lie from him right now would ruin his plan.

  “Yes.” Deacon’s sure voice didn’t shy away from the truth.

  The pieces slid together, forming a bigger picture, a longer game than I’d first envisioned. “The Circle didn’t throw their weight around so much as the fae court did. They recruited you to make sure the prophecy of the Dragon Fae was fulfilled.”

  “Yes.”

  With each affirmation, my chest tightened a little, the walls closing in around me, confirming the truth I’d discerned. “You botched the job at the meeting on purpose so we’d have to bring Christoff in.”

  “Yes.”

  My last breath escaped me. Lives were endangered for this scheme. “Son of a bitch. This isn’t a game. You and the royal courts are going to get people killed all in a quest to perpetuate a fraud to bring false hope to people.”

  “No, I would never endanger you or anyone else.” Deacon’s eyes lit with a fire that I thought would escape his mouth if he were in his dragon form. “This isn’t a fraud, Nadiya. I believe you are the Dragon Fae.”

  Belief didn’t manipulate. It didn’t bend the truth, or at least it shouldn’t. “You colluded to make it appear as if I am. None of the prophecy would have been fulfilled if it weren’t for your meddling.”

  “That’s not true. The Oracle’s had her eye on you since you assassinated Bernhardt and were seen. That was the fulfillment of prophecy, and no one meddled in that. You have my word.”

  “As far as you know.”

  “As far as I know.”

  I’d have to go over my recollections of the Bernhardt mission when I had more time. Was it possible that even then the Circle or the fae had interfered? Had they made me an exile to serve their own political purposes? If that assassination hadn’t gone sideways, I’d still be in Elustria with Julien. “So I fucked up and that led you all to believe that I’m a prophesied hero?”

  Deacon exhaled and looked up, gathering the words he wanted to use. “How exactly do you think heroes are born?” He met my gaze, as if he expected an answer. “No one plans for it or trains for it. There is no playbook. That’s why we have the prophecies. Without them, we wouldn’t recognize the heroes.”

  I actually laughed a little. “That’s bullshit. Don’t try to rationalize. You lied to me. Alistair lied to me. Meilin lied to me.”

  “No one lied, Nadiya. I believe you’re the Dragon Fae. So does Alistair. He’s the one who convinced me. I’ve spoken with the Oracle. You think I left my home, left my guard over the few remaining dragons, for something that I didn’t wholeheartedly believe in? If so, then you are a fool.”

  The fierceness in Deacon’s face drained some of my fight. This time, my protestation came out weaker. “This is all bullshit. I don’t know how you can believe any of it.”

  “Because I need to. Because we need the Dragon Fae right now. This isn’t about you.”

  “Really? Because it sure feels like it is.” The betrayal from the meeting with Meilin rushed back, throwing my entire world off balance. How could I trust him after this?

  “My kind are almost extinct. The mages are destroying the balance in Elustria and they’re interfering on Earth without regard to who they hurt. We need hope. We need a hero. We need the Dragon Fae. This isn’t about you, it’s about all of us. We all have our roles to play. I’m here to play mine just like you. You think I want to run around a strange world protecting someone who clearly doesn’t want me here and has been a rude pain in the ass? You think this is my idea of a good time?”

  “Difference is you had a choice.”

  “And so do you. No one’s forcing you to do this.”

  Did he know about my deal with Meilin? Would he keep me from my goal? I didn’t know who I could trust. Before, I had thought Deacon was inept, but I did have a certain level of trust in him. Despite this revelation, something in me still trusted him, but that seemed foolish given his deception. Then again, knowing his motivation, he had a real interest in making sure I stayed alive. It was hollow comfort.

  The sound of a door slamming drew my attention across the street. Christoff’s widow and son climbed into the sedan. The son wore a green soccer uniform. He had no idea his dad would never come home. His life had already ripped apart and he didn’t know. The car pulled out of the driveway and turned left at the stop sign at the end of the street.

  This discussion would have to be tabled. Deacon and I had work to do. I grabbed my bag and got out of the car. Deacon had my back. For now I had to trust it would stay that way.

  15

  Pictures of Christoff with his wife and child smiled up at us from the walls, side tables, and from the top of a piano in the corner of the living room. Family vacations. A candid shot of Christoff on a beach, his son wrapped in a towel on his shoulders watching the sunset. In the master bedroom, a picture of his wife asleep in bed. The framing, lighting, everything about it said this shot was taken by someone who saw a beauty in her that she kept hidden from everyone else.

  Maybe Christoff was better than me at lying. Perhaps it came more naturally to him, but this was a level of deceit that would be nearly impossible to maintain. Christoff didn’t have another family, I was sure of it. This was it for him.

  It unsettled me. I was in the business of taking down villains. I didn’t like villains with a story. It complicated things.

  “Found something,” Deacon called from down the hall.

  Inside Christoff’s home office, Deacon pushed aside a giant wooden desk and threw back the carpet that had been under it. Once the carpet was out of the way, low-level magic radiated from the floor. There must have been tellenium lining the bottom of the rug. “What is it?”

  Deacon glanced at me and then back at the floor under the desk. “There’s a hidden doorway here. As you can probably tell, it’s enchanted.”

  “The magic on the floor is a simple concealment spell. Can you tell anything about what’s behind it?” I tried to discern as much as I could from the feel of the magic radiating toward me, but without meeting that magic with my own, I couldn’t truly know it.

  “No. It could be a simple compartment or a basement.”

  “I can get us through the door, no problem.” The simplicity of the magic concealing the door befuddled me. It didn’t have the complexity of a spell meant to keep people out. I looked around the room for any signs of a trap I might be missing. A window looked out to the unnaturally green back yard complete with pool. Man’s manipulation of water in a desert. The wall behind his desk was all bookshelves stocked with the types of books one would expect given Christoff’s cover. Self-help, business, philosophy, a few thrillers. The wall his desk faced had framed pictures as well as some crayon drawings by his son. The books defined his cover, but that’s not what he spent his time looking at in the office. The family defined the man. With that context, the simplicity of the magic made sense. “The concealment spell isn’t meant to keep us out. It’s to hide the doorway from his wife. The rug isn’t meant to fool mages or sorcerers. He wouldn’t procure tellenium and then not fortify the doorway itself. He wanted to block the magic from his son, so he wouldn’t feel it when he walked on the floor.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25