what her rank was. It was unimportant then, back when I believed she was a friend and mentor to me.
Bastion’s lips were still pressed together, his eyes cautiously avoiding mine and Sterling’s, his gaze glued to the floor, his ears burning crimson. Luella reached out and made a motion with her hand that looked as if she was stroking the air. She stood several feet away, but Bastion’s hair lifted up and out of his face, as if swept by an invisible hand. Ah. Maybe magical talent was genetic after all.
“I only want what’s best for you, Sebastion. And in my opinion, that does not involve a life led with the Lorica. You have no use for employment, nor for money. All your needs are paid for. Why do you put yourself in so much danger for the same faceless organization that killed your father?”
Bastion bit his lip, his hand in a loose fist. “Because they still do good, mother. They can help, even in things like this break-in.” His eyes flashed to me, then to a far corner of the mansion’s atrium.
It was a familiar sight. Moonlight streamed in through what was once a beautiful bay window. It was broken now, shards of glass strewn across the marble floor, over the plush seat in the window’s sill, scattered across the books set in the same alcove. The wind blew gently outside, but even with the window broken, the fine, gauzy drapes stayed perfectly still.
“We cast a barrier as a precaution,” Luella said, as if in answer to my unspoken question. She lifted her glass to her lips, about to take a sip, when she seemed to remember something else. “And before you ask why we don’t sustain a magical wall at all times, you try maintaining a household staff of twenty and having to lower the damn field every time a chauffeur drives in or the gardener pops out.”
Did she say twenty?
“So you’ve had a break-in as well,” Sterling said, sweeping off to inspect the broken window. He made no effort to hide that he was sniffing at the air. He was looking for the same traces of blood. I caught him patting at his jacket, as if to check that the phial of corruption he drew from Other-Dustin’s corpse was still there. “What were they after?”
Luella huffed. “Pick something. I wouldn’t have minded if they made off with something less valuable, but the thing was headed directly for the family repository downstairs, like it knew exactly where to go.” She raised her glass at me and winked. “It had your face, you know.”
A chill trickled down my spine. “Then how did you know it wasn’t me?”
“Because I took one of its hands.” She drained the last of her whiskey, then dismissed it with a wave. The glass hovered away and clinked as it settled onto the mantlepiece. “You may have seen how my son operates. Our talents are similar.” She clasped her hands together, skin flushed with alcohol, and beamed. “But he’s far more gifted. My precious baby.”
Bastion scratched the back of his head, his neck flushing. “Mother. Please.”
“So powerful. So handsome.” All hints of pride vanished from Luella’s face, and her cheeks became etched with vitriol. “And yet he squanders all his time and energy with the Lorica.”
“The hand,” Sterling piped up. I liked to think that he did it specifically to save Bastion from another tongue-lashing. I had no way to prove that, of course. Maybe he just wanted to get on with it. “Where did it go?”
“Oh,” Luella said. “That’s the best part. I caught the thing as it was escaping. Its hand fell into the bushes outside the window. Wouldn’t you know, it dissolved into the ground. Just a pile of sludge, and then nothing. The gardener says it might have salted the earth.”
Sterling and I exchanged glances. As if we didn’t already know that Other-Dustin and the thing that came to Brandt Manor were related.
“That’s why I needed to apologize,” Bastion mumbled in my general direction. “I blamed you for something you didn’t do.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time you were a jerk to me,” I said. Luella made something halfway between a chuckle and a snort. “But okay. Let’s just figure out what we can do about this.”
“Agreed,” Luella said. “Bastion wasn’t home when the burglar came. I intercepted him – it – as the thing was leaving the family vault. It might have broken into the manor, but breaking into our repository takes much more effort, that’s for certain. I chased it out through the same window it used to enter, and that’s when I severed its hand.”
Sterling craned his head, surveying the atrium slowly, his gaze finally resting on a bookcase. “There. Is that where it entered?”
“Why, yes.” Luella gave him another of her sticky grins. Bastion said nothing, but I felt the room warm just the slightest. “If you gentlemen will follow.”
I tried to hide my surprise when Luella headed directly for the bookcase in question, then kept walking, disappearing as her body moved among the books. It was a glamour. Sterling shrugged, then followed. I leaned in, curious about stepping through the illusory wall myself, when Bastion’s hand landed on my shoulder.
“Just so we’re clear,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, his eyes still on the ground. “We’re all good, right, you and me?”
I rubbed my jaw where, not hours before, his knuckles had connected with my face. Lest we’ve forgotten: my precious, beautiful face. “You totally sucker-punched me, though.”
He frowned. “You don’t seriously expect me to let you hit me back, right?”
I gave him a slow, deliberate wink, and said nothing. I stepped through the bookcase, melting into the glamour. In my pocket, my hand clenched into a fist. I absolutely wanted to get him back for that – I just wasn’t going to say how, or when. Bastion shuffled after me uncertainly, making small, confused noises.
This was going to be fun.
Chapter 11
Imagine a wine cellar, except that there are no casks in it, no bottles lining endless shelves. Imagine a basement, with walls carved out of smooth stone, like a tunnel in a pyramid, or the storm drain leading out of some abandoned research facility. Imagine a crypt.
It was cold in the repository, and dark, so much that even I had difficulty seeing clearly. The time I’d spent in the Dark Room had honed my senses just enough to let me see better in gloom, but the chamber that the Brandts kept under their sumptuous mansion was like the pit itself. Soundless, except for our footsteps, except for our breath. And cold. Exceedingly cold.