“I had a little help with Apollo.”
“—or any of it! Yet they had more support than you’ve ever been given! The only people to help you are the Senate, and they . . .” She threw up her hands. “They don’t know anything!”
“Don’t tell them that,” I said, thinking of the consul’s reaction.
“I would never tell anyone anything
you didn’t want me to,” she said, looking faintly shocked. “But you shouldn’t have to live like that. You should have support. You should have help; you should have—” She cut off abruptly.
I was about to ask why when I heard it, too. A sound. A sound like a door opening outside.
Rhea and I looked at each other, and then we scrambled for the closet entrance.
I grabbed her arm, in case I needed to shift us away, but there was a chance it was just someone in to do the housekeeping. Only I didn’t think so. Who does housekeeping at ten o’clock at night?
And then I knew it wasn’t.
Because a sliver of the living room was visible through the mostly shut bedroom door, and those didn’t look like maids.
There were maybe half a dozen, but I couldn’t be sure since my inch of visual space didn’t give me much to work with. Just the backside of some dark leather trench coats, the kind only war mages and Nazis thought of as a fashion statement. But it was a woman who spoke.
“Did you leave a light on in the bedroom?”
“No.” Another woman.
“You’re sure?” The voice sharpened.
And shit. Before even waiting for a reply, the coats were coming this way. I had a split second to see the door start to swing open, and then we were landing somewhere darker and a whole lot more cramped.
Rhea gasped, maybe because her stomach had come into contact with the side of Agnes’ desk when I shifted us into the office. But she clapped a hand over her mouth the next second, and then I jerked her down, out of line of sight. We hit the ground, staring out across the darkened living room through the legs of a sofa table, at almost the same time that a man’s voice called from the bedroom.
“Looks like someone was searching the place.”
“We searched the place!” You idiot went unsaid but implied.
“Don’t take that tone with me.” A big, dark-haired man stuck his head out of the bedroom door. “And I said searching, not searched. Someone was just in here.”
“Oh, so you’re psychic now?” the woman asked sarcastically. I adjusted my position slightly, until I could see something other than legs. Past a lamp and a Lucite spill of fake flowers, I saw a model-pretty face, long auburn hair, dark slacks, and a light-colored tank under a leather jacket.
Looked like someone else had decided the dress code was bullshit.
Acolyte? I mouthed at Rhea, who nodded grimly.
“I leave that mumbo-jumbo to you,” the man replied. “I deal in facts—”
“And what facts are those?” the acolyte asked witheringly.
“That a damned rush of magic just slapped me in the face!”
“Probably the wards,” another man piped up. “They’ve been itching me since we got here.”
“It’s not the wards. I know wards—”
“You don’t know these,” the woman cut in. “They’re not the pissant things you’re used to dealing with. The Circle’s top wardsmiths made them—”
“The Circle!” one of the other coats said contemptuously. “They’re not as good as they think they are.”
“Neither are you.”