Chapter 1 #3
And an assumed persona. If Verena’s former classmates ever met her off school grounds, they wouldn’t recognize her. Except for Arabella, none of them had any idea what his sister truly looked like.
“The principal and the senior staff were aware of who she was,” he continued. “My sister wanted it that way, and I acquiesced.”
“Arabella also attended Donovan,” Diana said.
“Yes. They are friends.”
The strangest friendship that sprouted from a bizarre crisis.
It made sense. Both children had been held back a year, both were the oldest students in their graduating class at 19, and now both were doing the transitional post-graduation program designed to pad their college applications because neither qualified for the school of their choice without it.
The old him would have never expected his sister to be held back or struggle with her academics. He would’ve expected Verena to blaze to the Valedictorian spot and have her pick of schools the way Seraphina had.
A familiar cold vise squeezed his throat.
Losing a sibling fundamentally altered his expectations for his remaining sister, brother, and the cousin he had taken in.
He was less of a brother now and more of a parent, and he went from expecting traditional success and academic excellence to celebrating minute signs that they were slowly but steadily moving past the horror that almost destroyed their family.
Diana was waiting for him to elaborate.
“They’re both enrolled in Path to College.
It is a gap year program that offers AP courses, which makes students more attractive to college admission departments.
Both Arabella and Verena are taking House Business Administration, which requires one hundred and sixty hours of an internship with a business owned by a House other than your family. ”
“You swapped,” Diana said. “The Rogans took your sister, and you took Arabella.”
He nodded. “It’s an arrangement that works for both children. I know that Connor and Nevada will not put my sister in harm’s way, and they understand that I will do the same for Arabella. Have I passed the trust test?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, how may I help you?”
“What I am about to tell you is secret,” Diana said. “And I would kill to keep it that way in the literal sense of that word.”
“Understood.”
“Are you familiar with Zeus?”
“The Greek god or your brother’s tiger?”
“The tiger.”
She took a slim tablet from her purse, flicked her fingers across it, and showed it to him.
On the screen, a massive animal stretched, vaguely feline, a distant cousin of a tiger if tigers had blue fur splattered with darker and paler rosettes and a fringe of six-inch-long tentacles around their necks.
All the magic talents in the world fit into three broad categories: elemental, mental, and arcane.
The elemental mages commanded the proverbial elements—fire, water, weather and so on.
The mental mages displayed powers of the mind, like telekinesis, illusion, and truthseeking.
Everything else, everything that was odd and unusual, fit into the category of arcane.
Of the arcane discipline, summoning was one of the least understood.
Summoners reached into the arcane realm, a place of magic outside of normal reality, called forth monstrous creatures, and hurled these biological weapons at their opponents.
Nobody knew exactly how any of it worked, and the summoners were not forthcoming with explanations.
Creatures brought over by weaker summoners vanished when their temporary masters lost focus.
Monsters conjured by upper-level mages stayed in the world permanently, but most summoned creatures had short lifespans, even with the best of care.
They withered, like repotted plants that failed to take root.
Sometimes it took days, sometimes weeks, but eventually all arcane creatures perished.
With the exception of the organisms that were planted into a human host.
Zeus had been plucked from an arcane realm by a summoner Prime, who used him to attack Nevada Baylor and Diana’s brother, Cornelius. Somehow during that confrontation, Cornelius had tamed Zeus against all odds, severing the link between the creature and the summoner.
Augustine had looked into it after the incident. No animal mage on record had even been able to bond with a summoned beast. Cornelius was the only exception, and the bond between them somehow kept Zeus alive and thriving.
“We decided to call the species Tigrionex,” Diana said.
Tigris, Latin for tiger, and nex meaning violent death. “Tiger of slaughter?”
“Yes.” Diana slid her finger across the tablet. Another image appeared, still of Zeus. Wait, no. This blue tiger was slightly different. It looked a little smaller, and its blue fur had a slight purple tint.
Augustine glanced at Diana. “You obtained a second tiger?”
She nodded. “Cornelius and I had purchased her at great expense. She had been manifested by a Prime summoner during a feud with a rival House and critically injured in that fight. They agreed to sell her to us because she was dying.”
The cost must’ve been astronomical.
“Her name is Celeste. I was able to form a pact with her.”
“Not Hera?”
“No. We didn’t want to jinx it.”
House Harrison had access to two summoned beasts, and both of them had bonded to their tamers. Clearly, there was something special about that family.
“Zeus and Celeste were allowed to mate. Before you ask, it was voluntary on their part. We would never exercise our influence over our animals to force a breeding. It was a difficult pregnancy.”
“What about cloning or surrogacy?” he asked.
“That would have meant taking the choice away from them.”
So they would risk a massive investment for the sake of maintaining the animals’ autonomy. Interesting.
“We almost lost the mother, but in the end a single cub was born.”
Another swipe of her fingers, and a new image. A shockingly adorable blue cub, all fluff, big eyes, and oversized paws. He wasn’t given to sentimentality, but even he had to admit that the cuteness was off the charts.
An arcane creature born in this world. He could think of several highly educated magic experts who would argue that this little beast couldn’t exist and would happily die on that hill.
If anyone found out about this, the Harrisons would come under massive pressure.
Some would want to study the cub, some would want to purchase it, and others would want to kill it to keep the Harrisons from rising in power.
A House who could breed and command arcane beasts.
Not summon them with an expiration date but keep them, permanently. The potential was staggering.
“What’s the cub’s name?” he asked.
“We call her Kitty.”
Augustine blinked.
“It’s a placeholder name. We were hoping that when Kitty grew a little, Matilda would form a pact with her.
My niece is very talented, and she sounds mature, but she is still a nine-year-old child.
She makes reckless decisions. Cornelius and I will do everything in our power to protect her, but we cannot be everywhere at once. ”
And Kitty would grow up to be a formidable protector.
“These animals are different. They are smarter, more aware, and the bond with them is deeper,” Diana said.
“Every species is different when it comes to forming a connection. Tigers are solitary and self-sufficient. They have to be coaxed. Lions are clingy and social. They reach out. The tigrionex are like us, Augustine, inquisitive and social. They are curious about humans. They seem to like us and seek the bond, and they are persistent about it.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“We don’t know. But rebuffing an animal that seeks to bond that intensely is difficult. It feels unnatural. Especially when you are Matilda’s age.”
From the way she made it sound, if the child and the cub came in contact, the bond process would happen almost involuntarily.
Diana shifted in her chair, sliding one leg over the other.
It wasn’t a calculated movement, but he had to make a conscious effort not to linger on the lines of her body.
The last time they’d met, it had been like that, too.
He’d dismissed it as a passing attraction then, but it was worse now, with her in his client chair.
“Because of the difficult pregnancy, we decided to wait to introduce Matilda and the cub. We want to make sure Kitty survives. If Matilda bonds with her and the cub dies, the trauma to my niece would be catastrophic. That’s why the Baylors can’t be involved in this matter.
Matilda spends most of her time at the Baylor compound.
In the two months since they bought that estate, Matilda made friends with every mouse and bird on their property.
She spies on the Baylors constantly. Nothing happens in that house that my niece doesn’t know about. ”
“Can she hear through mouse ears?” he asked.
Diana looked at him for a second. “Vikilinta recording devices are one inch long, have the width of pencil graphite, and weigh nineteen grams. They’re voice-activated and can record up to four hundred hours of audio.
A healthy adult mouse weighs between forty and forty-five grams, can carry twice her body weight, and can be convinced to wear a harness. ”
And now he felt like a fool. What in the world was he thinking? The child was a budding Prime, not a mythical Beastmaster. Something about the connection between tech and animals always short-circuited his brain.
“Of course. However, I can’t imagine the Baylors would look favorably on that kind of security breach.”
“I’ve stressed the need for privacy to her multiple times,” Diana said. “I do not believe her obsessive recording is malicious.”
“Then why is she doing it?”
Diana sighed. Her face took on a slightly worn expression. “It is my understanding that a child subjected to early trauma, such as losing a mother in a horrific way, often seeks to establish control over her environment.”
“Matilda is afraid that she will miss something vital and the people she cares about will die.”
“Yes. You see now why we’d hidden the cub.”
He understood perfectly.
“Matilda keeps the information she overhears confidential, unless something alarms her.”
Ah. That’s how Diana found out about Arabella’s internship. Matilda must’ve discovered it and shared it with her aunt.
Diana studied him for another moment and turned the tablet toward him.
On it, Kitty took shaky steps on stubby legs.
She stumbled over to her frightening mother and batted at the otherworldly beast with her small paw.
Celeste lowered her head. The cub tried to pounce, fell, and let out a frustrated noise, a tiny baby growl.
“You said something was stolen from you. They took the cub,” he guessed.
“They did.”
For a moment something vicious and cold shone through Diana’s eyes. It seemed so incompatible with her usual demeanor, he wondered if he’d imagined it.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Have you received a ransom demand?”
“No.”
“You need MII’s help to find and recover Kitty,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You’ve gone to great lengths to keep Kitty’s existence secret.
Someone discovered it against all odds, infiltrated your security, and stole the cub.
If this was a money grab, by now the kidnapper would’ve reached out.
This tells me two things: the entity behind the theft wanted the cub for a specific purpose and the culprit is likely another House. ”
She nodded. “Yes.”
They both knew what was left unsaid: a conflict like that meant House warfare. When Houses clashed, they paid the price not just in money, but in lives, and that cost could be staggering. Diana’s face told him she understood all of that.
“Do you have any suspects?”
“No.”
“If you had to guess?”
“Any animal mage would kill to possess a tigrionex,” she said. “People know we have Zeus. We’ve had multiple offers from many Houses who want to purchase him. We rejected all of them. One of the Houses attempted to break the bond between Zeus and Cornelius.”
“What happened?”
“They are no longer a House.”
To become a House, a family had to produce three Primes in two generations. To remain a House, it had to have at least one living Prime. The Harrissons had killed at least one rival animal Prime. Possibly more.
“Kitty is still nursing,” Diana said. “She requires her mother’s milk to survive. There is no substitute. No formula. Without Celeste’s milk, she will fall sick very quickly. We cannot wait.”
“A recovery like that will be costly in every sense of that word. Although our Houses are in a friendship pact, even with that discount, the fee would be significant. Do you wish to see an estimate?”
“No. Whatever it takes. We will pay it.”
“Are you sure?” The Harrisons were a House, but their talents didn’t have many lucrative applications. He would put their total net worth under forty million.
“Absolutely. This isn’t property, Prime Montgomery. This is a life.”
Diana brushed her fingers over the recording. Her eyes shone with green, a sign of her magic activating.
“We welcomed Kitty into this world, we assumed responsibility for her, and now she is scared and alone. Celeste knows that her daughter is gone. I can feel her grief even now, through our bond. She relies on me to bring her home. Whatever it takes. Kitty must nurse in the next 24 hours, or we may lose her and Celeste both.”
She looked up at him, and he glimpsed desperation in her expression.
“Will you help me, Augustine?”
He looked into her green and brown eyes, and the words came out before he realized he had spoken. “Of course, I will.”