57. The Council of the Magi
57
THE COUNCIL OF THE MAGI
Your ancestors were placed there not to be lords over the people, but to settle and plant the country, and you are still among the people whom you have neither conciliated nor subdued.
Isaac Butt, “On Land Tenure”
S o much for blocking the…bond.
Jonathan’s mouth quirked to the left. He had a dimple there that only came out when I spoke to him like this, mind to mind. He liked it, I realized. Or at least found it entertaining.
Turns out Robbie was correct, he told me. Shielding a budding mating bond is like trying to hold back a tidal wave.
He was trying to be funny, but I was finding it hard to laugh at anything as the three of us followed Celine down another long corridor with the same vaulted ceilings—these only fifty feet high instead of a hundred—and ornate tapestries as the entrance hall. A whole kaleidoscope of butterflies swarmed in my stomach with every step I took toward…what?
My fate?
Or maybe the end of it?
You’ll do fine, Jonathan told me. You’re brave, intelligent, and powerful, even if you are a royal pain in my arse.
I glanced at him. This time a smile did tease the corners of my mouth. Thanks.
Then, the unfailingly serious sorcerer with more than a little OCD turned to me and did the strangest thing of all.
He winked. Anytime .
“It’s rude to have conversations out of someone’s hearing,” Celine said without bothering to turn around.
“They do that,” Robbie told her. “I can’t blame them, I must say. If my wife and I could do the same, we would.”
“I wasn’t aware anyone could tell,” I murmured.
Robbie snorted, and Celine tossed her glossy ponytail over one shoulder to send me a withering look.
Celine’s a wave worker. Jonathan told me. She manipulates them better than I work with particles . Don’t worry—she doesn’t know what you’re thinking. Only that we are communicating, which must produce some kind of signal.
That answered my question about different kinds of sorcerers. Particle sorcerer. Wave worker. I wondered what others I should be aware of.
There’s a third that can supposedly bend negative matter, but they’re very rare. I’ve never met one .
“If you please ,” Celine snapped. “The vibration is very irritating.”
“If the Council doesn’t want a powerful seer to use her abilities, then they shouldn’t summon her to a surprise inquisition where she will need confidence with her attorney,” Jonathan replied loud enough that his deep voice echoed off the walls.
Celine’s step faltered, but she snorted. “I see you’ve decided to dabble in the law again.”
“I’ll do whatever my mate needs to be safe. From you or anyone else.”
When the word “mate” left his mouth, Celine stopped. I couldn’t totally blame her. It still had the tendency to take the breath out of my lungs too.
She turned, slowly. “You bastard .”
Jonathan’s fingers tightened around mine. Don’t say a word . “Never claimed otherwise. Just take us to the Council, Celine. The rest is our business.”
Her eyes glistened—just a little—and her mouth opened. I braced myself for a spell. Jonathan emitted a sound that was pure animal, and to my surprise, Celine shuddered and turned.
“This way,” she said and walked on.
“Gods, Jon,” Robbie murmured as the doors began to open, slowly, on their own. “Did you have to bring out the beast for all of that?”
Savage, he’d once called himself. I had welcomed it then. Right now, as my heart began to speed up, I found I welcomed it more than ever.
Thank you for being here , I told him. All of you.
Those green eyes met mine, and again, his hand squeezed mine. This is where I belong .
We approached yet another set of double doors that looked as though they were made of stone. In her irritatingly melodic voice, Celine sang a spell in what I thought might be Basque.
Correct , Jonathan informed me. The access code and language changed monthly, making it nearly impossible to break in.
The doors opened into an octagonal room which, by my guess, had to be somewhere near the base of the mountain, for it even had windows through which a bit of light peeked through long velvet drapes. It was the sole bit of brightness in an otherwise cheerless space, with walls hewn from more granite and limestone.
Six fae sat behind a truly enormous stone table. Most appeared only a few years older than me with the exception of a man and a woman who both looked closer to their sixties. The entire room, however, practically heaved with power far beyond the ages written on their faces. Knowledge and experience lay in their expressions, the kind I remembered in Gran’s eyes. Wisdom has too many colors to count. I remembered wondering how her eyes could seem to hold every shade in the universe and then some. And if I’d ever have eyes like that one day too.
Agreement flitted through Jonathan’s touch. He was remembering too.
Two other chairs sat empty. One belonged to Penny, of course, and the other to Caleb Lynch. A breath I hadn’t known I was holding stole from my chest. I didn’t have to face my grandmother’s killer today.
He was still at large, of course. But perhaps these people would know what to do. His peers, if not his betters.
I could only hope.
“Cassandra Whelan?” An Asian sorcerer in saffron-colored robes striped with red rose from his seat at the center of the table.
I stopped in front of them, uncertain whether or not I should bow or curtsy.
A chuckle fluttered through my mind. Neither. This isn’t the King of England. They are no better than you.
“That’s me. I was summoned here by an agent of the Council,” I said. “Despite the short notice, we came.”
The sorcerer nodded and continued speaking in English which was only slightly accented. “Welcome. I am Se Tashi, Chancellor Mage.”
It’s sort of like their Speaker of the House, Jonathan informed me. They rotate through the Council positions every twenty-four years.
Except for Penny, I thought back.
She did her term before she left.
Too busy to answer, I nodded at the chancellor, waiting for him to continue.
“Robert.” He nodded to Robbie, who offered an awkward half-bow.
“I’m here to offer whatever assistance I can to Ms. Whelan,” he told them. “And to vouch for her character and her lineage.”
“Given that our purpose here today is to verify that she is, in fact, Cassandra Whelan, the only known kin of Penelope O’Brien and heir to the eighth seat on the Council of the Magi, that is most helpful,” Tashi told him. “However, that is all we can accept. Ms. Whelan must speak for herself.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Jonathan spoke up. He stepped forward but kept our hands locked.
Every pair of eyes across that table fell to the link. The chancellor’s lit up like beacons, while two Council members raised palms toward us, and the others’ noses lifted into the air as if they could smell the nature of our relationship.
And perhaps they could. Everyone else seemed to know immediately what Jonathan had foolishly insisted he could hide.
There really was no point in pretending. Maybe not even with myself.
Only one did nothing, but he stared at me just the same, the pressure I felt on my mind’s barrier told me he was a seer.
Don’t worry, Jonathan thought. I’ll keep him out .
“Prior to her death, Penelope O’Brien contacted me,” Jonathan said. “Through a banshee, she learned that her death was imminent, and she wanted to ensure that her last wishes were honored.”
Surprise rippled through me as he glazed over the fact of my mother’s part in all of this.
They don’t know about her , he assured me. And I won’t tell them either , but we have to give them something.
“But why didn’t she bequeath her estate and her position to her own child?” asked a woman whose accent was from somewhere in Africa. I guessed she was a shifter by the way she kept sniffing in my direction. Maybe some kind of cat like Jonathan. A lion by the color of her striking amber eyes.
“My mother didn’t manifest,” I said. “She had me at seventeen instead and left me to be raised by Penny.”
If they noted that I shouldn’t actually understand the terms of immortality at my age, they didn’t say anything about it.
“But you are also not manifested,” the woman remarked.
I shook my head. “Not yet. I turn twenty-nine in a few days.”
“Cassandra wasn’t planning to request the seat on the Council for another four years,” Robbie put in. “Mage O’Brien’s will instructed her to train with my wife in Ireland so that she could be adequately prepared for her position.”
If they had more questions about Sybil, they didn’t ask any. Instead, all six pairs of eyes trained back on me.
“Your wife is a telepath, is she not, Robbie?” asked a man with a very thick South Asian whose tingling gaze told me he was a seer.
“Caitlin is,” Robbie agreed. “A talented one.”
“Which is very good,” replied the man. “But why wouldn’t she also call in the help of other advanced seers for someone training for the Council exam? There is a very advanced prophet in London, and China has the best bard of a generation other than myself.”
He seemed to be searching me while he talked, by the way something continued to press in the back of my mind like he was looking for a trap door. A place where only my deepest memories lay.
Jonathan snarled. The pressure disappeared. “I’ll thank you to stay out of my mate’s past without her permission, Senni.”
“That term,” said a siren with an Australian accent as he held up his hand again. “Mate.”
He fluttered his fingers, and it was as if someone was stroking something inside me. He was touching my power. It felt absurdly intimate.
He dropped his hand and had the grace to look apologetic. “I’m sorry. It can be quite familiar, the stroke. But Jonathan, calling her your mate is not quite correct. You are mat ing , it is true. The bond is there, but it is still growing.”
“I can scent it too,” added the African shifter. “She has not fully consented yet—I can feel that just as strongly as your desire for her.”
“Be that as it may, Mage Mbotu,” Jonathan spoke through his teeth, studiously avoiding my faze. “While she’s a powerful seer, she’s not experienced in the art of shielding. When we are together, I can do so on her behalf.”
The seer named Senni looked genuinely baffled. “She cannot perform a basic shield? I wasn’t even inside her past. Just knocking on the door.”
I tried not to feel completely and utterly inadequate. Gods, I was already screwing up, and we hadn’t even talked to these people for five minutes.
“There is also the problem of your age,” said the chancellor. “Council positions are only available to fully manifested fae. Twenty-nine is too young to be on the Council, and your grandmother knew it. Why she wanted this to be or kept it from us is a mystery we must solve.”
“Not to mention insult,” said the other siren with a very thick Eastern European accent. “Like bringing juice instead of wine to a party.”
“I wouldn’t be here in the first place, asking to bend the rules, if my grandmother hadn’t died,” I put in, already tired of being treated like I was worthless. “If she hadn’t been murdered by one of the members of this very Council.”
The Council immediately broke into arguments, some calling for more details, others asking for an examination of my memories.
Chancellor Se hushed the members, then leaned across the table to me. “This is a very serious allegation. What proof do you have?”
I bit my lip. I couldn’t share the proof we’d gleaned from Sybil—not without betraying her location, and I wasn’t sure yet whether these were people I could trust. Especially the seer with an odd gleam in his eye. Jonathan’s thoughts also urged me to keep a few other things to myself—namely, his shifting abilities.
Everything else that had happened to me, I could share.
“The moment I arrived at my grandmother’s home, there were still lingering memories of her murder,” I said. “I picked them up immediately. Just before I left the coast, I was also attacked by the same person—a shadowed sorcerer who could change into a raven. With the help of my mate, I was able to fight him off. It wasn’t until Jonathan identified his father that I knew who it was. All of these are memories I can share.”
More talk began, though it was quickly shut down as Robbie stepped forward. “Council. We apologize for keeping the girl from you, but under the circumstances, I think we can all give Cassandra a bit of grace. She came to us in Ireland less than two months ago. We’ve been getting to know her and had yet to establish a plan of action. Given a bit more time, we’d have certainly come to the Council for guidance in the matter.”
I didn’t need Jonathan’s touch to know that Robbie was lying. He knew, as did Jonathan, that Penny had wanted me in Ireland. And had wanted me to stay a secret for four more years if at all possible.
The Council, however, didn’t seem convinced. More than one of them was scowling now, and both shifters were sniffing again like they could smell the lies.
I took a breath and stepped forward. Jonathan’s questions slipped through me, but I shook them away. I wasn’t going to let Robbie take the fall.
“It’s true that I’m too young for one of those seats,” I said. “And also that I am uneducated in the arts of fae magic. But there was a reason Penny left my education until the end, and it’s the same reason I believe she thought the Council might make an exception for my age. I didn’t know this until Caitlin Connolly tested me…but apparently, I’m a bit unusual.”
One of the members rolled their eyes and muttered, “Isn’t everyone?”
Are you sure you want to do this? Jonathan asked.
I think we have to.
Jonathan cleared his throat. “As Mage O’Brien’s executor, I can verify that she knew, as did her family from the beginning, that her granddaughter was no average seeress. Her will made that perfectly clear, as the Council will see.”
He released my hand long enough to remove a stack of papers from his briefcase and distribute one to each Council member.
Penny’s will , he informed me once he was back by my side and had retaken my hand. With some of the more sensitive information redacted.
Sybil ?
Along with addresses and any other contact information for people they don’t already know or have.
“This is a plain document,” said the other siren, somewhat irritably. “What does it show?”
“That Mage O’Brien ensured Cassandra would receive her position on the Council because she knew her granddaughter would become the most powerful seer in a generation,” Jonathan replied. “She went against our norms to be sure the Council could See what she did.”
“Oh? And why is that?” said the siren, looking bored.
“Because she’s an oracle,” Jonathan said simply. “The first in over five hundred years. And as such, the Council cannot afford to lose her. None of us can.”
Every jaw at the table dropped, and six pairs of eyes lasered straight through me. Their silence was deafening and practically echoed off the stone walls.
Then, chaos erupted.