Magic Binds (Kate Daniels 9)

She gasped. “He’s coming . . . Fly higher, horse. Higher! The bridge . . . Don’t let go, Kate . . .”

The phone went silent. A flying horse. Was I riding a flying horse? I sure hoped not. Heights weren’t my favorite. There was a bridge in Mishmar . . .

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“It’s not what I did. It’s what I decided to do. Does the city burn?”

“Kate, this is a path of sacrifice . . .”

“Sienna, does the city burn?”

“It may. But it may not. You’ve made the future murky.”

I would take murky. Murky was great. “Good.”

“Kate, wait. As I’m looking into your future, so is Roland. It makes no sense that he wouldn’t. I don’t know if he does it himself or if he has someone do it for him, but either way, your father will know very shortly that things have shifted and are uncertain.”

And he will likely do his best to knock me back on the course most convenient to him. “So keep going and watch out for my father. Got it.”

“In one of the flashes I caught, I saw you die tomorrow. The head may cause a problem. Be very careful.”

The head? What head? I almost asked her and stopped myself. I’d gone down this twisted path a few times. Knowing too much about the future made things more complicated, not less.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Good luck, In-Shinar.”

She hung up. I hung up too and stared at the phone. Shinar was the name of my father’s old kingdom, the one that started it all. And I had zero clue what Sienna meant by that. Asking her would only lead to more trouble. Oracles never explained things. You asked them a question and they gave you an oddly shaped piece of a puzzle that didn’t fit anywhere and explained nothing until it was too late.

I didn’t have time to sit here and puzzle things out. I had to talk to Jim and convince him to go along with my plan. He would just love that talk.

• • •

DURING HIS TIME as Beast Lord, Curran never kept a formal office. He had a space nominally assigned to be his office, but he was never in it and avoided any attempt to enter it like the plague. When he had a backlog of paperwork to go through, he’d spread out at some table, preferably in close proximity to food. Jim kept an actual office at the end of the eighth floor. As I approached, I saw him through the wide open doors sitting at the desk, reading something from a manila folder.

A pair of guards were posted by the doors. I stopped and nodded at both of them. They used to be Curran’s and my guards.

“Let her in,” Jim called without looking up from his reading.

I walked past the guards into the office and sat in the chair in front of him. It was a nice office, spacious, with a plain wooden floor and its own private balcony. The sunlight streaming through the large windows made the severe stone feel airy. Shelves lined the walls, the books and files neatly arranged. Jim’s massive desk was organized with military precision. Unlike most people, Jim clearly didn’t have the compulsion to fill every horizontal surface with things he might one day need and papers he should throw away.

“Yes?” Jim asked.

“I need to have a private conversation.”

He glanced up. “John, Ramona, go grab something to eat.”

The two guards left without saying a word.

“Roland has Saiman.”

Jim smiled, showing me sharp white teeth. Saiman was on Jim’s kill when not needed anymore list. Saiman might have managed to secure Friend of the Pack status for himself, but the moment he did something to piss off the Pack, he’d feel Jim’s claws around his spine and Jim’s fangs on his throat.

“He’s a resident of Atlanta, so Curran and I will retrieve him.”

“You and Curran can do whatever you like. The Pack won’t get involved. There is no benefit for us. If this is what you came to talk about, this will be a short conversation.”

Ass. “No, I’m laying the groundwork. I went to see my father, as you know.”

“You pissed him off.” Jim studied me.

Yep, the scout had reported to him already.

“Yes. He refuses to return Saiman, which forces me to act. He can’t handle the fact that I’m here and I have autonomy. He’s unable to deal with another authority, especially because I’m his daughter.”

“I’m still waiting to hear how any of this concerns me.”

“The Witch Oracle has been looking into the future repeatedly, over the past month. They predict a war. It will go one of two ways. One, my father kills Curran, the Pack is slaughtered, the city burns, the witches die.”

His face betrayed no emotion.

“Two, my father kills my son. Impales him on a spear. The Pack is slaughtered, the city burns, the witches die. I saw the visions. Hell on Earth is coming.” I leaned back. “We have four weeks before the first possibility might come to pass.”

Silence lay between us, heavy like a brick.

“Do you have a plan?” he asked.

“Yes. I need my aunt’s blood and bones.”

“Why?”

“So I can take them to Mishmar.”

He stared at me. A muscle jerked in his temple. Oh no. I’ve given the Beast Lord apoplexy. That seemed to be my calling in life.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m trying to decide if I really heard what you said or if somehow my brain quit on me and I hallucinated.”