“I told you. I’m going to show you exactly how this world works. And then, when you know how it works,” he leaned in conspiratorially and whispered in her ear, “I’m going to help you take it all down.”

  Her stomach twitched.

  He didn’t move away for several seconds. When he did, he turned sharply on his foot and gestured her forward with a strong swipe of his hand.

  She hesitated, then followed.

  His promise repeated in her ears. He was going to help her tear this magical world down.

  What was the only thing that Felicity had ever wanted? Revenge. What was the only thing that had kept her alive since Damien’s death? Revenge – or at least the promise of it.

  She’d always felt that it was out of her reach with Lucifer. Why did it feel like it was closer than ever now she was with Jake?

  “It’s just around here,” Jake said as he stopped in the mouth of an alleyway.

  Now she knew where she was. At least she thought she did. She vaguely recognized some of the buildings opposite, but they also seemed slightly unfamiliar.

  “Technically, dear old dad would string me up alive if he knew I was showing you how to locate the Council. Ha,” he added. “Why did I say technically? He would string me up alive.”

  Though Felicity should’ve been watching the street, her gaze settled on the back of his neck.

  Was he faking having daddy issues?

  … Unlikely. She could feel the anger driving through him in hot, violent waves.

  Maybe it was because she had now tuned into her anger completely, or maybe Jake just let it show because he had nothing to hide from her anymore.

  Energy began to pick up through the alley. It darted out to the mouth of the street beyond. Parked cars started to shift slightly. They didn’t violently dance around the street. It was a subtle thing. It was as if they were actually just made out of paper and someone had breathed on them.

  The effect continued down into the street. It moved, but only when she was looking at it out of the corner of her eye. Whenever she looked at something directly, it remained perfectly still and unchanged.

  Force continued to pulse out in invisible waves until, with one final shudder, the street sat still.

  Across the road had been a pharmacy, a café, and a block of offices. Now there was one of the stateliest old buildings she’d ever seen.

  She didn’t stop herself from pressing her fingers against her lips and gasping.

  “There,” Jake gestured forward, “is the Magical Council for the East Coast. Though, what am I kidding? It practically runs the whole country on its own. No other Council is nearly as powerful. Because no other Council has my father, and because dear old Broadstone is located here.” He shoved his hands back into his pockets. His shoulders were rigid. Now he was out of his blazer, it was easy enough to tell how tense he was. He was in a simple gray T-shirt that looked a lot like the one she was wearing, though it was cut differently.

  “Why is Broadstone here?” she asked out of the blue. “I know it started in Central Europe. Why did it move here?”

  He shrugged. “Why does anything ever happen in the magical community?”

  “Power.”

  He clicked his fingers inside his pockets. “You get an A, and you get to go to the head of the class, Miss Smith. Because every single thing we do,” his tone changed, becoming dark and deadly, “has to do with goddamn power.”

  She continued to watch the back of his neck. The way his shoulders rose toward his ears and his back crunched forward ever so slightly made it damn obvious that this wasn’t an act.

  “Come on. We’ve only got a couple of hours to get all of this done. We have to go back to classes, right? Wouldn’t want to get done for truancy in our final year.”

  There was nothing to say to that. So Felicity just… followed.

  She wondered what Lucifer would say if he was here. He would pull her back, right? If Lucifer had any idea where she was and what had happened to her, he’d take her back to The Devil Man. And he’d… what? Try to explain everything he’d done? Would he get another one of those conflicted expressions as he told her to try to understand him?

  She didn’t want to think about that. So she followed Jake.

  They made it up to the steps that led to the Council.

  They were majestic. They were also chock full of magic.

  Sure, Broadstone was pretty darn powerful itself – though she wasn’t sure if she could believe Jake’s claim that it was somehow intelligent. But these steps spoke of power in a different way.

  She could definitely feel that this place was where some of the most important magical decisions in the entire world were made.

  If there was one emotion that summed it up better than anything else, it was assumed privilege.

  “Try not to gag,” he muttered. “I always have to remind myself of that fact while I’m here. And stick close to me, Felicity.”

  She stopped. “Should you really be using my name?”

  “Why not? It’s not like they can hear me.”

  “Even if you are powerful, this is the Magical Council.”

  “And?”

  “It will be filled with some of the most powerful practitioners in the country. It doesn’t matter that it’s one o’clock in the morning – I’m assuming there’ll still be people here. And presumably there’ll be spells—”

  “Oh, there are. And they’re some of the strongest you’ll have ever seen. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Why not? Because nothing can get past you, Jake King?”

  He turned around on the top step and looked at her. “Because nothing can get past me,” he repeated her words evenly.

  “Isn’t your father one of the strongest wizards Broadstone has ever seen? They stopped calling him a magician in his fourth year.”

  Jake laughed. It was unhinged. But it wasn’t completely broken. It didn’t warn her that he was about to snap and go loco – just that she’d hit a nerve. “Yeah, there’s no one like my father. There never has been. But he’ll still have absolutely no idea I am here.” Jake’s voice became unquestionably dark.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re here.”

  She had never forgotten the fact that Jake had used her. She was trusting him insofar as she wanted to find out information, but that was it.

  Now the fact that he’d used her multiple times in the past week rose up once more. “And what exactly are you going to use me to do?” she asked coldly.

  “Nothing. I thought we were over that fact by now, Felicity. You finally trust me.”

  She did not reply.

  He just laughed. “Fine, whatever. I’ll just have to try harder to earn your trust. I’m not going to use you – no matter what you believe. That being said, you being here will bolster my magic enough that, no matter what kind of surveillance spells are in there, they won’t be able to detect us. Now, are you coming?”

  “What if this is a trap, and you’re going to hand me over to the Magical Enforcement Unit?”

  “Then that would be one stupid elaborate trap. If I’d wanted to hand you over to the Magical Enforcement Unit, I would have done that when I found your comatose body in the cathedral. Do you know how many hours I sat with you for?”

  No. She really didn’t.

  He was gonna tell her anyway. “Three. Now wouldn’t that be a lot of time for me to call the Magical Enforcement Unit?”

  “Now hurry up and come inside. As I said, we have a lot to do tonight.”

  Jake reached the front door. He swiped his fingers to the left then right in a complicated motion. Then something shimmered over the door’s surface. It’d been a hard night, but not so hard that Felicity had forgotten a few basic rules of magic. He’d just made the door insubstantial. Sure enough, with one last look her way, he turned, his hands still in his pockets, and he walked through.

  This was where Felicity had to run the hell away. She’d have a few seconds at least until he realized that she wasn’t following him. Maybe in that time she’d be able to put enough distance between them that she’d have a chance.

  … Then what? Where would she go? Back to Lucifer…? What would happen when she did? He would continue to lie to her. And nothing would change. Nothing would ever goddamn change.

  Felicity pumped her hand into a fist and tapped it against her leg.

  She closed her eyes, and she made a decision that would likely kill her.

  She walked in through the insubstantial door.

  Jake was waiting there on the other side. He’d taken up his go-to position. He was leaning against the wall, one of his legs was pushed out, and his hands were in his pockets.

  He smiled widely at her appearance. “You know, for a second there, I actually thought that you’d run. I guess you can tell this is the only way you’re ever going to learn the truth.”

  “Let’s get this over and done with,” she snapped.

  He saluted. “Right you are. A proper tour of the Magical Council really only needs to begin with one place. Let’s go to where they make all the decisions that ruin our lives.”

  He never removed his hands from his pockets as he strode through the halls.

  When they came across a guard and Felicity freaked, he just chuckled and strode back to her. He frowned right in her face. “Really, Miss Smith? Are you that tired that you failed to recognize a good invisibility spell when you saw one?” He gestured at them both.

  The guard was a magician. He was a pretty damn good one judging by how magical he felt. But when Jake spoke two meters away from him, the guy didn’t even flinch. He kept walking with a magical torch in his hand and shining it around the corridor. When one of the torch beams sliced across Felicity but the guy didn’t stop, she twitched. “What’s going on here? Why can’t he see us?”

  “Because we make an exceptional couple, or should I say pair?” he corrected quickly.

  Felicity narrowed her eyes as she stared at his back. He continued to walk through the corridor without an apparent care in the world. Or at least, his stance was slouched and unaffected. A few times, she caught a glimpse of his expression as he walked past reflective windows. His brow was condensed with clear anger.

  There were a thousand reasons not to be here, but there was one to remain, wasn’t there?

  She wanted to find out what made Jake tick.

  The old Felicity would have assumed that was a stupid idea. Jake, for one, didn’t tick – he slowly eroded himself like acid eating flesh. All psychopaths did.

  But… something told her she just needed to find out more.

  They continued through the halls of the Magical Council.

  Though she’d been to most other magical haunts in the city, she had legitimately never been here. Sure, there were probably a lot of people in Casa City who wanted to get revenge on someone at the Magical Council, but even Lucifer didn’t have the power to send his employees here.

  So as Felicity walked with Jake, she took it all in.

  He shrugged and, every now and then, indicated different rooms. “That’s where they interrogate so-called criminals. The definition of criminal is pretty loose around here. It’s anyone who’s practicing magic they don’t agree with. Or, you know, someone who has something they want.”

  “Where’s the decision room?”

  “You always were one to cut to the chase, Felicity.”

  “You keep saying that like you know me. But I’ve only known you a week, Jake.”

  He just smiled.

  “Here we go.” He turned around a corner, and there, they faced one truly impressive door. In this section of the corridor, the ceiling was a lot higher. That made the door, which spanned the gap between the floor to the ceiling, enormous.

  If Felicity didn’t have too much to be dealing with right now, she would probably gasp.

  “I know – it’s a pretty impressive sight, isn’t it?” Jake said, easily concluding she was amazed despite the fact she gave no indication. “If you have all the money, Felicity, and power,” he brought two fingers up, paused, then brought the third up, “and absolutely no care whatsoever what happens to the people who are under your control, you can create whatever you want. Because nothing ultimately costs too much.”

  “Why do you think this way?” she asked abruptly. “You’re an elite. You’ve been fed with a silver spoon all your life.”

  He chucked his head back and laughed. “Silver spoons? You’re joking, right? We Kings were fed with platinum spoons. Because there is no family in the world quite like us. And I do mean the world.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “That privilege is literally burned into our bones and written into our blood.”

  His voice became so dark, it could’ve blocked out the sun for centuries.

  She continued to frown at him, even as he approached the door, closed his eyes, and concentrated.

  He yanked his hands out of his pockets, made several complicated moves with them, then gestured one final time at the door.

  His magic sunk into it. It wasn’t showy, but it was very, very impressive.

  She really had never met a practitioner like him, had she?

  “You’re not meant to be able to open that door unless you’re a registered member of the council. I learned pretty quickly how to open it.”

  “… How are you this powerful?” she asked, and she did nothing to hide how impressed her tone was.

  He laughed again. He tilted his head all the way back as if this was one of the funniest things he’d ever heard.

  “Because my parents gave me power,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Do you want to know where it came from?”

  A sinking feeling started to spread through her gut. “Where did it come from?”

  “Other people.” His tone was light. You’d be forgiven for thinking that at the admission that his parents had literally stolen his power from others, he didn’t give a hoot. But that would be denying the dark look in his eyes.

  It took a long time for her to open her lips. “What do you mean?”

  A smile jerked its way across his mouth. “You know precisely what I mean, Felicity. I have blood contracts. Hundreds of them.”

  Felicity didn’t move. Those words – hundreds of them – played around and around and around in her mind.

  Slowly, eventually, she shook her head.

  He really did laugh as loudly as he could now. “It’s nice that you find that impossible to believe. Maybe it means you don’t think I’m that much of a monster anymore. Or maybe it’s just because you are naïve,” he corrected quickly. “But don’t be naïve, Felicity. That’s the worst thing you can possibly be in this world. If you’re naïve, you’re so damn easy to control.”

  On the word control, she snapped out of her own reverie. This was Jake damn King. She couldn’t keep being pulled in by his sob stories.

  She hardened her jaw.

  He clicked his fingers at her. “That’s it. That’s the Felicity I want to see. The one who doesn’t trust anyone. The one who remembers,” his voice darkened again, “that the most important thing to her is her anger. Because ultimately, Felicity, that’s the only thing that’s ever going to keep you safe. Everything else and everyone else will fall by the wayside, but your anger will be there to protect you.”

  “Why do you care so much about what happens to me?”

  “You need to keep up, Felicity. I don’t have the time to keep repeating myself. I care so much about what happens to you, because without you, there’s no way I’ll be able to pull all this down.” He gestured wide, spun on the spot, and walked backward into the open room.

  She followed.

  And there, before her, was the discussion room for the Magical Council of Casa city.

  It was just as impressive as you would expect. It was massive. There was a huge table in the middle. Around that table were the kinds of chairs you might imagine would befit the Round Table of Arthurian legend.

  The place was packed with magical objects. They were arrayed on the tables and around the room on shelves.

  Jake wiped his mouth as he walked in. His fingers dragged down his lips. He left long white-pink scratch marks.

  “This,” he walked up to one of the chairs that all looked the same, save for differing magical runes that adorned them, “is my father’s chair.” He gripped it with white knuckles and shook it. “Quite a sight, isn’t it? Truly impressive.” He snapped his hand hard down on the wood. He did it with a lot of force, but it barely shook. “What do you think, Felicity? This is where all the decisions that run the magical community are made.”

  She didn’t tell him what she thought. She didn’t tell him to go to hell, either. She walked around the room. She silently stared from the chairs to the objects. She could feel the import of them all.

  It was like it was being crammed down her throat.

  “You’re not measuring your expression properly, Felicity. It looks like you’re choking on this place. Spare a thought for me. This was my childhood. And if I don’t get out, it will be the rest of my life, too.”

  Though she didn’t want to, she reacted to his shaking tone. She stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “What do you think I’m talking about?” He scratched his nose. Maybe he intended the move to be gentle, but it was anything but. His fingers dragged down his face, leaving yet more white-pink lines. If he kept doing this, he’d scratch his damn face off. “Though the head of the Magical Enforcement Unit is not technically the head of the council, it’s still by far the most important position. For it is always those who ultimately control the weapons that ultimately control the country.”

  “And what? One day you’re destined to take your father’s place?”

  He nodded evenly. “Yes, I am. Josephine probably thought that it would be her. But Josephine is very much dead now. And let’s face it, she was always going to die.”

  Felicity twitched. “You mean you were always going to—”

  “I’m gonna stop you there before you say that I was always gonna kill her. I accept that it will take a long time for you to trust me, but at least try not to accuse me of murder to my face.”

 

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