Heart in my throat, I began the spell under my breath and let everything else slide out of focus until the churning of power within me spilled from my fingertips and burned bright on the tip of my tongue. The words grew sharper, gruffer, and the illusion snapped into position with an audible click that caused Dad and Parish to pause and reassess.
Dad understood first, but he didn’t seem to care one whit.
Parish, on the other hand, went ballistic. Biting, snapping, clawing. He attacked the ward, desperate to escape my father, but there was nowhere for him to run.
When Parish turned his back on Dad, Dad shot a bolt of blue-black lightning into his spine. Parish jolted from the shock, twitching and flailing, hitting the ground with an impact that rumbled the streets. I expected Dad to finish him, but he only hovered and watched as Clay grabbed the dragon by the tail and yanked him away from the barrier. As if they had coordinated it, Dad touched down beside Clay, who kept his grip on Parish, and he dismissed his whirling shadows.
Darkness pulsed in the air around Dad as he prowled toward Parish’s great head and fisted one of his horns.
“You will tell me where to find the rest of her bones, or I will tear off your scales, one by one. I will cauterize the wounds to prevent regrowth, and you will be left defenseless against the attacks of your kind. I will shred your wings to ribbons so that you can’t outfly your challengers. I will sand your horns and spikes smooth and dull. And then I will lock you in a silver cage and ship you to your aunt and uncle, and let them decide the punishment for your crimes against your ilk.”
For that threat to carry any weight, Parish must have been turned over to Black Hat by his relatives.
And here Dad was, offering to return him to their tender embrace gift-wrapped for their pleasure.
“I would rather an ice lizard castrate me than help you.”
“If you’re interested in castration,” Clay drawled. “I have a pamphlet around here somewhere.”
Before Parish got a word in edgewise, Dad struck him with a spear of black magic.
“The great Hiram Nádasdy, brought to his knees over a white witch yet again.” Parish laughed, a wet and hacking noise. “You were the greatest of us all, and you have sunk the lowest.” He whipped his tail, but Clay caught and subdued it. “When I heard you had escaped, I knew the right bait to lure you out. All I had to do was get the director out of his own way long enough for me to do what needed to be done.”
“You expect us to believe you’re loyal to the director?” Clay took the words right out of my mouth. “You’re admitting that you’re responsible, directly or indirectly, for the attack that sent him to his own infirmary.”
“He admires strength and cunning.”
“You know what he doesn’t admire?” Clay chuckled, low and cold. “Independent thinkers.” He jerked his head toward my dad. “Ask him.” He scanned the night. “Or his daughter.”
“They are traitors to the Bureau and to the Nádasdy legacy. It’s no coincidence rogue black witches have banded together after the director’s granddaughter resurfaced. Or that her father escaped after decades of confinement in secrecy. Elspeth intends to claim her birthright. She wants to bring the director to his knees and destroy the Black Hat Bureau and all it stands for.”
Vertigo swept through me at hearing them discuss me as the Nádasdy heir so baldly.
No one knew that. No one. Yet the director had told Parish. Or had Parish figured it out for himself?
Either way, he had me confused with someone else. Say, my father. Those were his goals, not mine.
And Parish, tired of living under the Sword of Damocles since Dad escaped the compound, had gambled that recapturing Dad would redeem him in the director’s eyes. He didn’t want to be the next Mikkelsen, a victim to my grandfather’s rage, but he didn’t hide himself within his web of misdirection well enough. The gamers were all cannon fodder meant to take the fall if his plan failed to bear fruit, but he miscalculated the greater danger. His preemptive strike missed the target. By a mile. Or fifty.
And now, fresh grief tracking down his cheeks, Dad would kill him for it.
“You have no idea what my daughter’s ambitions are, or what she’s capable of,” Dad growled the threat. “She’s better than us, better than the Bureau. She doesn’t want your seat at the table. She doesn’t want any of this. She craves the same things I once did. A life. A family. Her freedom.” He blasted Parish again. “People like you don’t understand.” Again. “We were forced to live another man’s dreams.” Again. “And when we dared to dream our own, he destroyed them.”
“He can’t take much more,” Clay warned him. “Lay off unless you want barbeque for dinner.”
“He would rather die than help me.” Dad sounded past caring. “And I won’t let him live.”
The next bolt of magic struck, and it didn’t stop until Parish’s twitching body hit the pavement and the stink of charred flesh clogged my nose. A moment later, Parish quit moving, and the street fell silent.
Following protocol to the letter, Dad touched the dragon with the tip of his wand, and its hulking corpse disintegrated into ash the wind scattered across the pavement. Done with that, he rested his palm against the barrier, and it collapsed around him as if it were nothing.
“I have to go.”
Dad cast his voice to where I hunkered down with Colby, and I stepped from my hiding place.
He pressed a piece of paper into Clay’s hand, met my eyes, and rolled his shoulders.
Magic burst from either side of his spine, exploded into those same giant wings, and he flew away.