Chapter Twenty-Two
Silas walked into the headquarters of Niles Cabrera’s upstart coven in east LA with a heart pounding so hard he was sure Katherine would be able to hear it.
She didn’t show any signs of sensing his nerves, though.
As she excused herself to go find Niles, he walked up to the counter of the small coffee shop and ordered an Americano.
He hated coffee, but considering that his goal of seeming casual and approachable was already offset by the full suit he’d donned that morning, he’d force himself to stomach it.
He left the barista a twenty in the tip jar, then walked off and sat down at a rickety table in the corner.
Him being here was a concession. The gift he gave his parents to help them deal with his failure at Hollywood and Highland.
“If you can’t do your job, the least you can do is deal with that offshoot.”
Those hadn’t been his father’s exact words, but the tone was clear. If Silas couldn’t manage to get Aestas in line, then he would be expected to do the rest of his duties. Including the one that his parents knew he hated, the one he always tried to beg out of.
Covens with over ten members who refused to join Noctis were given three warnings.
The fourth was Noctis’ Executor showing up at their door and ripping their spellbook—and their ability to do magic—to shreds.
Silas took a sip of coffee.
Katherine walked out of the back with a tall man with salt-and-pepper brown hair, a Superman jawline, and large hands that seemed way too comfortable rubbing up and down Katherine’s shoulders.
They were laughing together with a clear familiarity, and Silas felt a spike of something that he wouldn’t let himself call jealousy. He had no reason to be jealous.
He just wished she wasn’t grinning so wide. That was all.
Both of their good moods fell away as they approached Silas’ table.
Silas stood, prepping to give his Columbia University–approved handshake, but Niles wanted no part of it.
He ignored Silas’ outstretched hand, instead pulling a chair out and sitting as far from Silas as the small table would allow. Message received.
Katherine raised her eyebrows at the clear tension. “I’ll be over there. Yell if you’re gonna wrestle, I want to record it.”
Niles glared at her, and even that made Silas bristle. They could joke together. He bet Niles made her laugh. He wondered if Katherine ever saw something Niles might find funny and texted it to him, if he replied that she knew him so well.
He was acting like a fucking twelve-year-old.
“Thank you so much for meeting with me.” Silas sat back down as he spoke, keeping his tone neutral and friendly.
“Let’s get this over with,” Niles snapped. “I saw the warnings. I know what’s supposed to happen next. And if you try to destroy our spellbook, I will throw your ass out on the street so hard you’ll wind up in Santa Monica.”
Silas didn’t tell Niles that fighting was useless. It didn’t matter that Niles was probably far more skilled at magic than Silas was—with the superior resources at Silas’ fingertips, there was no way Niles would be able to stop him if he decided to go on the warpath.
But he hadn’t come here to do that. He’d come here to try to find another way to handle this. One that didn’t end with him puking his guts up out of guilt.
“Mr. Cabrera—”
“You think you can waltz out of your penthouse and tell me what the people I serve need?” Niles interrupted.
“You think this is for our own good. Because the paltry library of spells you’re willing to share with people who aren’t in the top one percent is so worth having you constantly breathing down our necks. ”
“You’re right,” Silas said. Niles’ jaw clenched. “The system is deeply flawed. I know that. You know that. But we can’t fix it without the help of radical thinkers like you and the members of your coven.”
Niles let out a wry laugh. “You’re really gonna try that strategy, huh?”
Silas gave him as innocent a look as he could, but he knew it wasn’t fooling Niles for a second. He was getting more and more desperate not to destroy this spellbook, not to put that blight on his soul once again.
“Look,” he tried. “The fact of the matter is, even with Noctis’ failings, you’re better off signing with us than remaining free. You’re doing the members of your coven a disservice. They’ll never reach their full potential without the resources to support them.”
“Are you serious?” Niles fumed. “I take care of my people by being open and honest with them. I don’t let them get caught up in pointless games or power plays.
I give them spells when they need them. And when we don’t have a spell, we all come together and try to help as much as we can.
We care about each other. I doubt Noctis can say the same. ”
Niles pushed his chair back and stood. Silas opened his mouth to speak, but Niles silenced him with a glare.
“Try to destroy my spellbook if you want. See what happens.”
Niles didn’t wait to see how Silas would respond, instead storming off to the back of the coffee shop.
Silas sat frozen.
He didn’t understand why this was so hard for him—the rules were clear, and his job was to make people follow them.
He’d learned to push down the twinge of guilt a long time ago, covering any doubt with suits and ties and handbooks.
That, he reminded himself, was the way the world worked—laws were made, and people followed them.
It shouldn’t matter that this particular law, the outsized harm it caused when compared to the importance of the rule broken, made his stomach turn.
He should just suck it up and do it. But he couldn’t.
He pushed himself to standing and walked toward Katherine’s table. She held her latte in front of her face, hiding her smile.
“That looks like it went well.”
Silas cleared his throat. She had no idea how badly this could’ve gone if he’d done what he was told.
“Have dinner with me.”
He didn’t know why he said it. He’d opened his mouth to say he was going to call an Uber, but the dinner invite popped out instead.
Maybe it was just that he was desperate to avoid another night alone in his hotel room, hating himself.
Or maybe it was that he was desperate to spend more time with her.
She put her coffee down, staring up at him with one eyebrow arched.
“Now why would I do that?”
“A business dinner. So we could have that Executor-to-Executor talk we discussed.”
As the words formed, he realized it was a good idea, aside from serving as a cover for him being a sap. Katherine, despite her animosity, was a valuable resource. If he could earn her trust, she might be able to tell him why Sylvia had been at Hollywood and Highland.
Katherine sighed, clearly sensing that he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Fine.”
He grinned. “Great. Bottega Ines. Seven o’clock.”
“I told you I didn’t want to meet with him.”
Katherine stared at Niles as he paced in his office in the back of the coffee shop. “And I told you it was unavoidable. Noctis wasn’t going to back down until they talked to you.”
Niles sighed as he sat down at his desk. “I know. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. He’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”
Katherine took another deep sip of her latte.
She’d known the meeting between Silas and Niles wouldn’t go well.
The reason Katherine liked Niles so much was that he was steadfast in what he believed, and he believed that Noctis was the devil incarnate.
Katherine didn’t disagree, but she wasn’t so sure when it came to Silas himself.
“You have no idea,” she offered noncommittally.
Niles swept her with an assessing look. “You all right?”
“Stellar. Just sick of dealing with assholes.”
“Cheers to that.”
Katherine reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, then slid it across the desk to Niles. “You know this guy?”
“Byron Chambers? Wow, you really are dealing with a lot of assholes today.”
“I think he’s the one making the altum.”
Niles had been helping Katherine with her investigation into the magical drug, providing a much-needed sounding board as she sorted through the evidence she’d gathered over the last few months. He raised an eyebrow at her naming Byron. “What makes you think that?”
Katherine shrugged. “Got a feeling. Trying to find the evidence to back up that feeling.” She neglected to mention that she had already taken the spell that would let her find that evidence.
She still wasn’t sure she’d go through the risk of actually using it, but she was hoping Niles could help buoy her suspicions and give her the courage to do what she needed to do.
“Byron is rich-rich,” Niles said. “What would he get out of it?”
“The thrill of knowing that he ruined my day.”
“Somehow, I don’t think losing his magic for good is worth that to him.”
“You underestimate how annoying he is.”
Niles clicked her phone screen off and slid it back to her. “I don’t know. I can’t see his motive. He’s from one of the most established families in the witching world. All he has to do is sit back and power comes to him.”
Katherine clenched her fist under the desk.
This was not what she wanted. She wanted Niles to tell her that yes, of course, Byron made sense, and of course she should do the spell, because it would come back positive, and then she could pin him to the wall and tell him that she knew he was responsible for Lily’s death and that she would spend the rest of her life making him absolutely fucking miserable for what he’d done.
She did not want Niles to tell her she was wrong.
Because being wrong meant that someone else had given Lily those drugs. Or it meant that Lily had just snapped.
And neither of those were an acceptable option.
“It’s him. I know it’s him.”
Niles sat back in his chair, his eyes swooping over her, his brows low with worry.
Katherine, for the first time, considered what she might look like right now.
She’d forced herself to shower that morning, but that forcing had not extended to brushing her hair or doing anything to cover the deepening dark circles under her eyes.
She’d been subsisting entirely on fast food, and the coffee she’d dumped on top of an already roiling stomach was making her jittery and anxious, her body expelling the excess energy in an all-over shiver that she couldn’t seem to stop.
“Let me ask you one more time. Is everything okay, Katherine?”
“Just having trouble sleeping.”
“That Hollywood and Highland thing was pretty scary for all of us. I mean, you never think of something like that happening in your city.”
Katherine was glad that she’d chosen to take a sip of coffee at that moment. Glad the cup could cover the sound of her choking.
“Yes,” she managed to get out. “It was … bad.”
“Sylvia didn’t make you…?”
Katherine rapped her hand on her chest, clearing out the remainder of the coffee that had gotten caught in her throat.
“We have to be careful right now, with Noctis here,” she said.
“It wasn’t a good look for that to happen during their visit.
We had to make it clear we were handling our side of everything. Go by the book.”
“Still. She should have gone herself. She shouldn’t be making you do things like that.”
Katherine clenched her jaw. Niles had never hidden his dislike of Sylvia, but after years of her shutting him down every time he brought it up, he’d at least learned to stop mentioning it. Niles might not trust Sylvia, but Katherine did. More than anyone.
“None of us should have to do things like that,” she said. “But even if she hadn’t asked me, I would have volunteered. I’d rather it be me than anyone else.”
Niles stared at her for a moment, then shook his head.
“I should go,” she said, rising.
“Of course. You’ve got an asshole to dress down.”
Katherine forced a smile. “Yep. My favorite activity.”
Niles stood, opening his arms so Katherine could step into a hug. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, and Katherine tried her best to believe him.