Chapter Nineteen

NONE OF US BROUGHT up the fact that our knives were pretty much going to be useless against mages with magic.

We braced around the door, ready for the magic to hit and the door to explode when Melinda whispered, “The cave.”

Helix glanced at her. “What about it?”

“We could hide out there, wait out both the magic and the destruction. No one would be able to get through that door.”

“What’s a cave?” I asked.

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sp; Melinda rushed to the back of the room and moved aside a weapon rack to reveal a door. “It’s where I go when I need to recharge, shut out all magical interference. It’s magic proof.”

I glanced at Fin. “Like the cabin?”

He shrugged as she shoved the door open and ducked inside the low doorway. The inside was no bigger than a walk-in closet. Pillows dotted the soft carpet and a small fridge with a glass door sat in the corner filled with water bottles.

I forced myself to follow her in. What choice did we have?

I moved over to a wall and sat on a pillow, adjusting my knives to lay along the floor parallel to my legs. “I don’t know how I feel about being trapped in an even smaller space than before.”

Fin hummed his agreement, sitting behind me to pull me back into his chest. We were both sweaty but I didn’t care. It felt good to have this moment of connection.

I lay my head against his collarbones and closed my eyes. “I guess it doesn’t matter. One tiny trap is the same as any other tiny trap.”

Fin chuckled and the sound vibrated against my back. “So negative. I don’t know how I forgot you were such a pessimist.”

I snorted. “You have met me, right? Because I’ve been a pessimist all my life.”

Either way, I didn’t like our odds, especially if they’d planned this thing in waves with the goons, then the mages. Obviously, it had been a plan, which meant someone out there, and I likely knew who, had been waiting for us to make this move.

And we’d walked right into it, leading him straight to Melinda. Damn it, I hated being a pawn. Especially the pawn of an evil mastermind.

“Fuck,” I said, loud enough the word echoed around the small room.

They all looked at me.

“The bastard planned this entire thing. He knew we’d try to find a solution to the knife, likely after he took a shot at Fin, and he knew I’d go for the one person who might be able to help cut it out of the picture.”

“But if this was his plan, why didn’t he come to see it through?” Fin said.

I shrugged. “Maybe the ritual you guys performed did something to the knife, or to him, if he’d been wearing it. We can hope, right?”

Fin sighed, his breath tickling my neck. “We aren’t that lucky.”

I elbowed him in the belly. “Now who’s the pessimist?”

Settling against him again, I let my mind wander on the problem. If Esteban planned for us to hunt down Melinda for him, it meant he still needed her for something. It also explained why he’d only brought this all-powerful knife out in our last fight and not the many beforehand.

I thought back to our first fight in his mansion and how Fin and I both almost died in the under-ground cavern below Esteban’s mansion. The place which had felt tainted by all the magic he’d stolen from fae over the years. I remembered the metal ring set into the floor, the sort of siphon for the magic.

Maybe we’d damaged it somehow? If he no longer had access to unlimited magic, it would explain why he’d been so unhinged in our last fight.

I eyed Melinda who huddled into herself against the wall across the room. She didn’t want to talk about what Esteban had used her for, but it might help us understand him and his motives better if we knew.

“Melinda,” I said, keeping my tone gentle. “Can I ask you a few questions? It might help us understand Esteban and what we’re dealing with here.”

Tags: Amelia Shaw The Rover Fantasy
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