Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
We turn off the forest track onto a narrow country road, where a cluster of sleek black vehicles waits, engines purring, faint enchantments glowing in their wheel rims and along the tarmac.
Lander climbs out, and a small team converges on him. He gives me a reassuring wave before a woman approaches and opens my door.
“Hello, I’m Jennifer. I’m a healer.”
I nod, attempting a smile that must look more like a grimace; she hesitates a fraction too long. Right. Perhaps I had better not do that again.
“May I use a diagnostic spell?”
Another nod.
I reach to remove the blanket, but she shakes her head. “No, it’s all right—you can keep it on.”
Lander stands behind her, arms folded, forearms corded, biceps solid beneath his T-shirt. I hope he did not see my attempt at a smile.
Jennifer draws her wand and a small device in her other hand, perhaps to record her findings. She murmurs an incantation, tracing precise arcs through the air. Her eyes glaze—open, yet unfocused. Impressive discipline that must have taken her years of training.
A faint tingle runs over my skin, prickling like static.
When she finishes, she addresses Lander, not me.
“She’s remarkably healthy. Perfect readings across the board. Blood pressure, mineral balance, vitals… everything.”
At least the ley line has bestowed a sound body.
They close the door and step aside, still discussing me in low voices.
“So, what’s the problem?” Lander asks.
“The problem,” Jennifer replies, “is that I’ve never seen readings this pristine. Not even professional athletes test this clean. It’s unprecedented.”
“We’ll note it,” he says, voice clipped. “Is she cleared?”
“She’s cleared. No injuries. I don’t know why she was unconscious at the crash site.”
Jennifer lowers her voice, angling her body so that only Lander can hear. She speaks animatedly, her hands sketching the contours of whatever theory she is forming.
I cannot make out her words, but I see his posture stiffen.
“Thank you, Jennifer.”
She hesitates, giggles, then lightly touches his arm. “Oh, Lander, about that coffee…” Her fingernails drag across his skin.
He stares at the contact as though a slug has crawled over him.
Jennifer’s nervous laugh falters; she withdraws her hand. “I didn’t mean that little problem with your sister and her husband.”
“Now ex-husband. You had an affair, Jennifer, and a full-scale magical fight in the Human Sector that destroyed a hotel. It wasn’t a small problem. Let us keep this professional, shall we?”
He strides back and slams the door a touch too hard. The car rocks.
I want to ask whether he is all right, but silence feels wiser. He clearly dislikes Jennifer and, shamefully, I am pleased. I blame the rude healer. It has nothing at all to do with the Magic Hunter.
“According to Jennifer, you’re extremely healthy,” Lander mutters, starting the engine, and we pull away with an abruptness that makes my stomach dip.
I do not know whether he is angry at the healer… or at me. Does he want me to be more injured? Or does ‘healthy’ mean something dangerous in his head?
I am not about to analyse him. That way lies madness. Instead, I nod politely and stare out of the window.
“So,” he says after a beat, “Jennifer picked up traces of your magic, but there’s no record of you in our system.”
Ah. She is not merely a healer. Jennifer’s wandwork was more than medical; she has already logged me. It was a stealthy identification check, most likely carried out with the device in her hand.
He does not ask a question, so I ignore him, fiddling with Fred’s jumper as the scenery changes. The forest recedes, giving way to glowing buildings. Wards shimmer across their facades, magical adverts rippling over sleek white surfaces—beautiful, alien, disorienting.
Sleek skyscrapers gleam, their glass and steel skins etched with faintly glowing runes fed by invisible currents of magic that pulse through the sector like electricity. Ivy-clad cottages nestle beside futuristic towers, their chimneys breathing enchanted smoke into the dark.
Lander keeps his eyes on the road. “What’s your name?”
Oh, good grief. A name. Of course. I had not even thought of that. What on earth should I call myself?
I can no longer be the woman I once was. Hearing that name—thinking it—tightens my chest. Being murdered tends to do that.
That was a dead name. That woman died. I was House, and now I’m not. There is grief in that. For all my resentment, I was something. Someone. Needed. Now? I do not know.
I remember Fred teasing me about names. She rattled through a list, hoping I would pick something beyond House. Laughing at my disinterest, she said, “Harper.” A name beginning with H, a nod to what I was. Fitting.
“I’m Harper,” I mumble.
It feels right.
He hums. “And where do you live, Harper?”
Rules, legalities, bureaucracy—he’s fishing.
“I, um… I am between residences,” I say, as though uncertain. Not a lie. Then I clamp my mouth shut. Let him assemble the pieces; he seems the type who needs every one.
“Between residences,” he echoes, tasting the words. He nods slowly. “And your family?”
My mind flickers to Fred, Baylor and Beryl, safe somewhere far from this car, far from Lander’s questions. If he is here with me, they are not being hauled to a black site to be tortured.
Beryl will protect Fred and Baylor. They will protect each other. And Fred’s vampire… he will not let the humans or the Ministry keep hold of her for long. They are safer away from me.
“I have no family,” I tell him. “They are dead. I have no one.”
He offers no condolences, asks nothing further, just nods, knuckles whitening on the wheel.
I continue to stare out of the window.
“Well,” he says after a beat, voice clipped, “considering you had a house drop on your head, I still have questions. You’re a witness.”
My heart thumps.
“So perhaps,” he continues, “you can stay with me while we sort this out.”
“Pardon?” I turn and stare. Did he just—?
The Magic Hunter wants me to stay with him.
Why can’t he behave like a normal person? Why can he not drop me at the nearest hotel instead of insisting I remain and answer his questions?
Soon he will ask why I was in the woods, and I still have no idea what to say. Simple is best, I suppose, yet my head pounds between my eyes and I cannot think straight.
He is the man who dragged me into this mess. The situation is spiralling out of control, and I need to escape him as soon as possible.
He glances at me briefly, then back to the road. “Don’t worry. There’s no impropriety.”
Of course he would say that: no impropriety—unless you count the fact he wants to kill me.
“My sister and her three daughters are in the same building,” he continues. “Plenty of female company. I work long hours, so I won’t be about much, but it’ll give you time to get sorted. We can look into government assistance, paperwork and so on. What sort of magic do you have?”
Oh no. He slipped that in, didn’t he, almost off-hand, as though the most important question were nothing at all.
Come on, House—no, Harper. Think.
Some mages sense another’s magic instantly; others must be told. Asking is rude, but answering wrongly is risky. For now, he does not know. He does not need to know.
I’m magically depleted—that buys time.
If I admit I am a paper mage and have failed to wipe even one record, I am finished; I may be skilled, but my magic is not foolproof. The Magic Hunter could learn who I was before—a coincidence too glaring to ignore.
A woman who is a paper mage and a destroyed sentient house, also a paper mage, appearing and disappearing at the same time? Anyone could connect those dots, and Lander is no fool.
I need to be a nobody in this life.
And if my magic returns and he is attuned—Council members usually are—then any lie I tell will turn on me.
A familiar tactic: when in trouble, say nothing.
My head is hurting. Focus. Normal people do not stay silent for so long. I must stay grounded. I no longer have filaments. No split attention, no magic to gather information, just one brain, one brand new body.
Anxiety is debilitating.
“I would rather not say,” I whisper.
His expression blanks. His jaw ticks, as though he is grinding his teeth.
“There was an explosion,” I say, throwing logic back at him like a shield. “I used the last of my magic to keep myself alive. The backlash knocked me out, and when I came to, a man I had never met was standing over me.”
I pause, breath catching. “Since then, that stranger has carried me through the woods, put me in his car, introduced me to people who discussed my health as though I were not even present, and now I’m back in that car, heading who knows where.
You claim to work for the Ministry of Magic, yet I have seen no proof. ”
My voice tightens. “Mr Kane, at the moment I have no magic to defend myself, and I am frightened. Please give me a little grace.”
I am unsure whether my speech has swayed him. He remains unmoved and simply keeps driving.
I have probably offended him—ignorance of the great Lander Kane can’t have done his ego any favours—yet he must realise how dreadful this situation is for me.
His eyes leave the road, and I meet his pale gaze, unflinching.
“If you won’t answer my question,” he says, “then tell me this: how strong a magic user are you?”
Unless you flaunt your power, no one really knows. When I was House, I could read magic like a second language. I knew what a person’s magic was and if it was weak or strong, but for most it is a guessing game.
Which means I can lie.
“Not very,” I say, and leave it there.