“Won’t we need disguises?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” He shoved a hand into his pocket. He played around with his fingers until it was clear he was casting some complicated spell.

  Suffice to say, Jake King did not need a wand. She imagined after you could see one or two doors at Broadstone, the requirement for a magical crutch disappeared.

  He was good at casting. She fancied that while he used his fingers, he didn’t need to and it was just for show.

  Soon enough, he pulled two small objects out of his pocket. They were miniature coats. They looked as if they belonged to peg dolls.

  She frowned. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an enchantment like that.”

  “Because you’ve never met a mind quite like mine. This one is yours.” He paused then shook his head. “No, this one’s yours. It’s kind of hard to tell the difference between miniature clothes.”

  “Why didn’t you just cast directly on me?”

  “Because I have spent a lifetime understanding how my father’s magic works. And I have spent that same lifetime,” his voice dropped, “after the death of my brother figuring out how to get around my father’s magical nets. Spells are easy to track. Spelled objects,” he emphasized objects, “are much harder to locate.”

  She took the miniature coat off him. She wasn’t surprised that when it hit her hand, it started to become larger. With a few crackles of magic that didn’t even spark brightly enough to push back the dark shadows around them, a little jacket started to grow. In half a minute, it was a long trench coat.

  Frowning at it, she put it on. Only several seconds later did she realize that it’d been given to her by Jake King. He hadn’t put his own disguise on. It could be a trap, her mind told her weakly.

  It wasn’t one. As Jake kept pointing out, if he wanted to hurt her, he could’ve done it so many times by now.

  As soon as the trench coat was on, she felt a magical field sealing around her body. It affected her entire form, from the tip of every hair strand, down to her toes.

  She brought up her hands. They looked longer, paler, and older. She pried at her face, and her fingers pushed into wrinkles. Whipping her hair over her shoulder, it was a steely gray. “This is a pretty good spell.”

  Chuckling, he finally activated his own jacket, and it soon created a long trench coat that he furled around his shoulders. She hadn’t been able to see the spell work on her, but she watched in real-time as the magic sank into Jake’s skin and changed him before her very eyes. He too became much older. He also became shorter – and that was a pretty hard enchantment to pull off. Changing someone’s skin and making them larger than they were was pretty easy. Making them smaller was a lot more difficult. You had to convince the space above the disguise’s head that there was no longer a skull there.

  Still, Jake managed it.

  He was wearing a woolen jumper, brown slacks, and old, scuffed shoes. He looked around the same age as Felicity felt.

  He grinned at her. “You know, I learned to cast one of these disguise spells when I was eight years old.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Then you know absolutely nothing about my father and the way that he taught us.”

  She stared at him, her interest obvious. “So… your father was hard on Damien, too?”

  He looked at her as if she couldn’t be more innocent. “Of course he was, Felicity. Damien carried my father’s hopes and prayers. Damien,” his voice hardened like diamond, “was meant to inherit the family business. Then he died.” Jake looked away quickly. Twisting his hand, he twiddled his thumb until he created a reflection spell. Then he checked over his disguise. When he was satisfied, he nodded and gestured onward.

  She didn’t pause. She followed.

  It was dangerous.

  Because, bit by bit, she was starting to trust him.

  It didn’t matter that she didn’t trust him all the way yet. Every single little act of trust would count, and soon they would snowball.

  She knew that, but she did nothing about it.

  Felicity didn’t know where the homeless shelters were in the city – Jake obviously did, because he took her there without pause. They wound their way through the back alleys and side streets until they stopped in front of an old brick storefront. It had a nondescript door and bars over the windows.

  “This is it.” He shrugged at it. “I’ve created us two fake identities.” He crammed a hand into his pocket, and he pulled out a scuffed leather wallet – which probably hadn’t been there a second before. Leafing through the contents, he grabbed a card. “We’re social workers. Now let’s go.”

  She followed. Once again, she engaged in another micro-moment of trust.

  Just what would happen if she continued like this? Would she soon trust Jake wholeheartedly? Could she dare do that? He hadn’t blinked an eyelid when his own girlfriend had gotten kicked out of Broadstone.

  … But Belinda wouldn’t have been his real girlfriend, right? She’d loved her position in the elites.

  If Jake wasn’t lying, then everything he did at Broadstone was to destroy the school.

  But that didn’t matter, right? Because she had a whole wealth of other evidence to conclude that Jake King was a bastard. So why did that evidence feel so flimsy right now?

  Jake got a compassionate look on his face as he pushed an intercom beside the door, explained who he was, and waited.

  Felicity’s attention was drawn to the street. There were a few parked cars, but otherwise, it was as empty and still as the dead of the night should be. Far off, she heard sirens.

  She’d never really thought that much about it, because the city was always filled with the sound of echoing sirens. She’d just assumed it was a dangerous place. The magical side was one thing, but the human side was screwed, too. How much of the mundane chaos, however, came at the hands of their secret magical overlords? If Jake was right, and people disappeared routinely just because of their blood, then she couldn’t underestimate what was happening to this town.

  They were let in. A harassed looking woman in a long polka-dot skirt asked Jake some questions, and he answered them professionally enough that it didn’t ring any alarm bells for her. She waved him through.

  They walked through a small, drab office area with a few pot plants that looked as if they hadn’t seen water in a month or two. They headed straight out into the kitchen and dining area.

  It had to be around 3 o’clock in the morning, but it was still packed with people eating.

  She didn’t bother to stare at them. Why note the details? Poverty surrounded her. It didn’t matter exactly what kind of stains were on someone’s jacket – what counted was the fact that they didn’t have the capacity to clean them.

  The people around her were some of the most vulnerable in society. And wherever you have vulnerability in the world – be it among humans or in the animal kingdom – you have predators.

  As they walked through the cafeteria area, Jake stopped and leaned in close. “Table to your left.”

  She sliced her gaze over to it. There was a guy who didn’t look that much different from the other guys around him. He was tall and lean and wore a long black woolen jacket that had holes in the elbows and wrists.

  Oh, and he was magical. She only noticed that now that Jake pointed it out. There were little telltale signs. While his face was muddy, it looked more as if someone had applied it hastily with their fingers rather than the grime you would acquire in a polluted city without the capacity to wash.

  He also had a certain kind of look in his eyes. While everyone else was staring down at their food and minding their own business, every now and then, he let his gaze methodically check over the assembled patrons.

  That was the gaze of an eagle searching the field beneath it for anything that moved and wouldn’t be missed.

  “Can you feel it? He’s magically scanning.” Jake leaned in closer.

  Felicity didn’t have to close her eyes. Now she was concentrating, she could feel it, all right. A small magical field was pushing out from him in all directions.

  Though she couldn’t grab hold of it and give it a tug to find out what it was doing, she didn’t have to to appreciate that it was searching the room for magic. It would be set to react to even the faintest hint of it.

  “What do we do?” she asked in the kind of trusting tone she’d only ever used on Lucifer before.

  “Watch and wait. You hungry?”

  The question came out of the blue.

  He nodded at the bain-marie on the opposite side of the kitchen.

  No, she wasn’t hungry. She’d seen things in the past several hours that would turn her stomach and prevent her from eating for the rest of her life.

  “At least grab a drink. It’ll make us look less conspicuous.”

  Jake went over, made two cups of tea with too much sugar, then brought one over and shoved it into her hand. She grabbed it.

  “Watch him,” Jake said. “I think he’s just found a target.”

  Felicity didn’t watch him. She watched the rest of the room. Though she didn’t have a magical field in operation right now, that didn’t matter. She used her skills to try to discern who the target could be. Her gaze sliced across the tables, and either by design or luck, Felicity detected the correct target.

  Jake’s eyes locked on where she was staring. “I think it’s that guy, too.”

  “What do we do?” Felicity hissed. Her insistence became all the more powerful as the wizard slowly got up from his meal. There was definitely a predatory feel to him.

  “What’s he doing?” Felicity hissed as she pushed close to Jake.

  Jake had a supremely watchful look in his eyes as he inclined his head toward the wizard. The way he pushed after the unsuspecting homeless man was like a cat slowly stalking through the grass to get to a blissfully unaware waiting rabbit.

  Jake didn’t even have to whisper a quick, snapped, “Come on,” in Felicity’s ear. As soon as he reached for her elbow, she let him grab it, and he pulled her quietly behind the wizard.

  This would end in a fight, Felicity realized. That understanding pushed through her, as quick and violent as an explosion blasting through her gut. It left this cold sensation spiraling through her. It was as if her body had been turned into the tail of a fleeting comet.

  It’d been a while since Felicity had felt like she’d done anything important. Yeah, so she’d fought Josephine – she’d fought Belinda and even Jake, too. But she’d been pushed into those fights. She hadn’t actively gone out and saved someone’s life before it could be snuffed out.

  Jake kept his distance. He also kept his fingers tightly locked around her elbow. If his hand weren’t there, she’d shoot out after that wizard like a cannonball.

  “We need to catch him in the act,” Jake hissed into her ear as they reached an open door that led into the back of the homeless shelter. The wizard had already pushed through it, following the unsuspecting man.

  “Why?” she hissed back, not making much effort to control the volume of her voice. Jake was casting an obstruction spell around them. Maybe if the wizard got close enough, he would detect it, but the guy was far too intent on following his victim. Every other poor soul in this homeless shelter would have absolutely no clue what was going on.

  “We’ll get him, trust me,” Jake said.

  He started to pull her through the door. The corridor was long and dingy. It hadn’t been vacuumed in a while, and the paint was scraping off the walls. It was yellowed from too much cigarette smoke and there were patches of black mold around the window lodged high in the wall.

  She noted all of these details, and yet it took her so damn long to appreciate one mind-numbing fact. Jake had just asked her to trust him, and she had.

  “Just a little longer, a little longer,” Jake said, his breath coming out in sharp, choppy hisses.

  Any fool would be able to tell that he was filled with anticipation. He was also rigid with anger and impending violence.

  There was the sound of a door creaking and opening. It closed, and half a second later, it opened again. Her heart pounded. She jerked her head around and stared at Jake, her eyes saying it all.

  Jake wouldn’t look at her. He appeared to be counting under his breath. They’d paused in the hallway near the window. Suddenly, he yanked her forward.

  It was just as it started to rain. Felicity had seen the clouds earlier when they’d left the Magical Council. Now they broke like the wall of a dam. Rain pounded down the window above her, and she saw a few droplets leak through the broken seal and tumble down the wall like errant tears.

  Then? She heard a scream. The rain got heavier, but it couldn’t possibly obscure the fear of the man’s voice.

  The scream was abruptly cut short.

  In a rush, Felicity realized she didn’t need Jake’s permission to act. Her old self rose to the fore, and she jerked forward. He wouldn’t let her hand go, but he didn’t, thankfully, try to hold her back. They rushed together until they reached the door. It led out onto a small smoker’s courtyard on the side of the building. There was a drab brick wall, a few stained metal and wood seats, and ivy creeping up the opposite side of the building from a tiny, bedraggled patch of garden.

  Pressed up against that climbing ivy was the homeless man. The wizard had him held there by his throat. The wizard was pulsing with magic. It lit up his form and made him look like a flare on a dark night.

  Even from here Felicity could see the side of the wizard’s face, and his lips were drawn back in a disgusted sneer.

  “Now,” Jake snapped. Rather than open the door in front of him, he brought his foot back, laced his boot with magic, and just kicked it out of the way. And out of the way it did fly – it smashed into the brick wall and broke into 100 pieces. Each one was quickly consumed by magic. The move left a cloud of sparks and smoke through which Jake strode.

  The wizard whipped his head around but didn’t drop the homeless man. “What the hell is happening here?” the wizard snarled.

  For a few seconds, Felicity did nothing but stand there in the doorway, panting and staring at what Jake had achieved.

  Yeah, sure, she’d destroyed a lot of things in fits of magical rage, too, but as her gaze locked on each of the last flaming bits of that door, she could tell how powerful his spell was.

  … It was much more powerful than anything she could produce, right? Even with her forbidden magic.

  “Felicity,” Jake growled, clearly trying to snap her into action. At the same time, he reached the wizard. He pushed into the man, knocked him to the side, twisted, locked him in a headlock, then smashed his head into the brick. But the wizard wasn’t about to stand around and take it on the chin. He crunched a hand into a fist and smashed a magical punch into Jake’s side. It was such a powerful blow, it sounded like lightning. It felt like it, too.

  A pounding boom shook through the courtyard floor. It powered into the wall behind both men, and several of the big bricks cracked, dust hailing down everywhere.

  “What the hell is happening here?” the homeless guy spluttered as he fell to one knee.

  Felicity lurched toward him and shoved a hand out.

  She’d dealt with unsuspecting victims in the past. Considering the targets Lucifer often went after, it wasn’t unusual to interrupt a criminal when they were attacking someone. Hell, all this mess had begun when she’d tracked down Sidney, and he’d been on the tail of a little kid.

  So she had a strategy to deal with victims. As the guy placed his hand into hers, she looked right into his eyes. “You will run. You’ll forget everything. In the morning, you’ll just think it’s a dream. Now, go,” she said, her voice hitting rock bottom and pitching through the courtyard with enough power to push even the bravest person into action.

  The guy did not need to be told twice. There was the squeak of rubber as his broken boots skidded and he plowed forward.

  The wizard who was still grappling with Jake let out a snarl. “You’ll pay for that.”

  “You’ll be surprised by who’s gonna pay for this,” Jake snarled right into the guy’s ear as he tried to flip him. But the wizard would have no part in that. Just as Jake pivoted, trying to launch from his hip, the wizard stamped his foot down hard.

  It was his turn to try to flip Jake. The guy had to be strong. You were by default if you were referred to as a wizard.

  In a further testament to the sexism of the magical community, while there was only one word to describe a magical female, there were two categories when it came to men. Magicians constituted most of the magical community. Wizards were an extra special class of seriously powerful men – usually with powerful egos to match.

  Jake was strong – there was absolutely no doubting that – but this guy was no pushover.

  As he tried to flip Jake once more, he threw his whole back into the move, crunched forward, and let magic sail over his body.

  He also roared. It was pitching and loud enough that it practically broke her eardrums.

  Just when it looked as if Jake would be flipped onto his back, he opened his hand wide, pulsed it forward, and smashed it into the wizard’s chin. Some form of insidious spell curled over his fingers and plunged into the man’s jaw. His eyes rolled into the back of his head. It wasn’t a slow move – it was quick as if someone had just struck pinballs in an arcade machine.

  But the wizard wasn’t down yet.

  With another earsplitting roar, he tried to flip Jake, and this time, it worked. Jake slammed down onto the courtyard stone with a back-shaking rattle.

  It was Jake’s turn for his eyes to roll into the back of his head. But just as with the wizard, he didn’t stay down for long. This time, he spread a hand toward Felicity. “Help,” he said. Just one word. That’s it. Just one damn word. Jake had been manipulating her since the day that she’d come to Broadstone. He’d already admitted that he had known who she was immediately. He’d been controlling her from the get-go.

  Before Felicity knew what she was doing, she jerked forward.

 

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