Chapter 59
Reagan
It must have been some human holiday, Reagan reasoned, because the town had swollen with crowds, people drifting through the wide squares and little parks and garish movie theatres.
Jane must have found Mountheim ancient when she arrived. Compared with the human towns built much later, the Hall would have seemed impossibly old.
Searching had grown harder with so many heads to sift through.
The squads lingered throughout the town, hidden in plain sight among the humans, each one hunting for the smallest sign of the Order’s leader.
Reagan still doubted Giddeon Madden would risk a step into human territory, not when the man excelled at scraping every trace of himself from the world.
But this was the only lead they had.
What chewed at him in the last day was the absence of a message.
No threat. No demand. Any abductor would have already bombarded Mountheim Hall with a list of demands in exchange for Jane.
Gold, power, land. Any prize they could ask for, knowing they had the strings to make him dance. Instead, the Hall had received nothing.
He didn’t let himself think of what that meant.
“Anything?” Reagan asked his sister.
His focus was on reining in his access enough to blend. Humans might not know who he was or what he was, but even they could feel the thrum of his ample access when it spilled loose. They would stare, and he would attract attention.
Restraining it took a considerate amount of energy, like wrestling a stronger version of himself and forcing it down. Thus far it had held. The only attention he had drawn had been due to his height, which wouldn’t count as anything unusual.
Gwin shook her head, rounding a stone bench near the inner circle of the square, drawing closer to the pale statue at its centre. Puddles glimmered in the hollows left by the earlier shower.
“Sit and pretend you are enjoying your day off work,” Gwinifer murmured, her tone light as she lounged.
“I cannot sit,” he replied. It was easier to keep his access under control when standing, easier to watch every shifting corner of their surroundings.
“You’re drawing attention from that group of women to our left.”
He didn’t look. He turned his back instead, aligning his gaze with Finnegan and Joy where they stood south from the statue, at a street corner.
Bringing Joy had been a dreadful idea for countless reasons, the least of which was that Finn’s vigilance would be divided. But Joy wouldn’t be deterred, and Reagan had let her persuade him simply because her tone had sounded like Jane’s.
His flux surged before he could brace himself, a quick hot spiral through his arm that warmed his shoulder.
“What the fuck?” Gwinifer muttered, her eyes darting through the square with a discreet sweep.
He was far less skilled than she was at blending among humans, but at least he had been quick.
“It’s fine. Nobody felt it,” he muttered.
“I just told you there were eyes on you, and you let yourself do that.”
“I do not care, Gwinifer,” he rasped lowly. “Why don’t you go to the fountain around the corner and dispatch that familiar to check the others?”
She crossed her legs and pinched her mouth. “Because I sent it two minutes ago, and if anyone spots a fin in the fountain, it will be far worse than the shit you’re pulling.”
He ground his teeth, letting his gaze roam every street that spilled into the square.
Five wide lanes, each one cluttered with humans drifting in and out of the shops.
He’d been inside the bakery at the corner, standing behind his sister as she questioned the owners about a man matching Giddeon’s description. They hadn’t recognized him.
A rise in chatter caught Reagan’s attention. Something had ruptured the steady flow of foot traffic up the street. People scattered, and a tall man with auburn hair made way through the crowd. Reagan narrowed his eyes, trying to glimpse a familiar face through the commotion.
“Scions,” Gwinifer warned, springing from the bench.
From a broad side street, the group approached at a leisurely pace. Four well-dressed men waded through the crowd, their tailored coats standing out as they cut a direct line towards them.
Gwin cursed under her breath, likely irritated that they had been spotted first, yet Reagan’s attention was on the man.
His gaze locked onto the silver-haired figure with a high nose.
He almost couldn’t believe it. It was as though Godric had answered his wish and delivered Giddeon Madden straight onto his path.
The Order head strode forward with his cluster of cronies, self-important on their sewn vests and fine jackets.
One wore suspenders over a shirt with two buttons open, the ink visible across his chest. Two of them smoked, circling wide along the edges of the square while three moved directly towards Reagan.
Finn released his familiar nearby, a spectral fox slipping into an alley to warn the other squads.
Reagan arranged all matter of thought into focus.
“Watch for anyone flinging,” he murmured to his sister.
Gwinifer nodded, eyes scanning the men approaching and the others beginning to join from adjoining streets. Not only men, Reagan realised. But there was no sign of Jane.
Finn and Joy inched closer to them.
Reagan’s attention shifted to the tall man with the temple tattoo who had stepped behind Madden.
He recognised the face but didn’t remember from where.
Perhaps from a newspaper. With short brown hair and a pale face, the man stood close, clothed in wealth that had almost certainly come from Ashenagth’s corrupt gold.
Beside him stood a bronze-skinned woman with dark curls clad in finery, watching him warily.
The last man at Madden’s flank levelled a glare at Reagan. His body was burly, his stance wide, like someone with combat training. A shield.
Reagan had made it halfway to Giddeon Madden when more Scions appeared from alleys. From the corner of his eye, he saw his squads arriving, forming a loose phalanx that reminded him of wolves closing ranks.
“You are a very difficult man to get hold of,” Reagan said.
Madden tipped his head, pretending not to understand. “Lord Reagan, what a pleasure meeting you here of all places. Were you looking for me?”
“You didn’t receive my requests for an audience?” Reagan asked dryly. “All ignored.”
“My apologies for the oversight. There have been issues with certain correspondences. I have yet to determine the cause.”
Reagan imagined his letters curling in the fire.
He stepped forward until only an arm’s length separated them. Madden’s shield shifted immediately, though the Order head lifted a quieting hand.
“I know you have her,” Reagan said low, his eyes tracking every flicker on the man’s lined face.
Giddeon Madden looked at least fifty years his senior. His long white hair spilled over a stark suit without a single rune, the kind of clothing only the profoundly self-assured would wear.
Every inch of him reeked of haughtiness. Reagan let his own power pulse a tad outward, just enough to be a warning.
“Who?” Madden asked in a mild tone.
“Perhaps you haven’t heard,” Reagan said calmly. “I’ve been looking for my wife.”
Giddeon inhaled, nostrils flaring at the human term. Whether Reagan had used it correctly didn’t matter. When Madden’s veneer faltered, he knew it had done the trick. Reagan tilted his head, fully aware the man would take it as an audacity.
“I didn’t realise you were pursuing a human union, My Lord.”
“I adopted the term,” Reagan replied with a slow click of his tongue. “I can appreciate an exchange when I see one.”
Madden stared at him as though Reagan were a sickness he meant to cure with a hex. “Well, I hope you find your chosen, My Lord.”
Reagan closed the last inches between them until they breathed the same charged air.
“Almost all who conspired against me are already in Pavilion. I saved the time weaver for last.” His voice settled into a lethal calm.
“I know what you tried to do to me, and I know you have her. I have all the proof I need. If she isn’t standing in front of me in five seconds, unharmed, I won’t consider a bargain.
” He let more of his mana spill against the Order leader.
“I imagine the followers you discarded there because they stopped being useful will be very pleased to see you again.”
Giddeon Madden stood nearly eye to eye with him, a faint tobacco scent lingering around him. His face remained too still.
“As you can see,” Madden said, extending his arms, “I don’t have her.
But if I knew where your half-breed was, so you could bind yourself to her and hand her some cursed land to rule, I would still keep that knowledge from you.
” Madden’s eyes were intent, burning like their mark.
“If she were with me, and I heard that you’d spread whatever false proof you have—that I’ve conspired against you—I can imagine certain associates would be very interested in her. For a time.”
Her voice chimed through Reagan’s mind. Self-restraint is a wise man’s trait.
He refused to drown beneath the roar of his flux. Refused to heed the beast insisting it would be so easy to tear the man open, to scorch him until his blood became steam wafting through the square.
The thought was tempting. But that would serve nothing except his own weakness, which was precisely what Madden wanted. Violence now wouldn’t bring her to him.
“You don’t want to harm her, Giddeon,” Reagan said lowly.
“Because if you do, I will devote my entire life to burying your rotting legacy. I will dismantle you, and I will end you. Malory will put you in Pavilion so fast you won’t have time to lick your wounds.
And when you’re there, I will see Ravenna McAllister isolated from the rest of the country.
I already know enough to sink her.” He bared his teeth.
“I’ll make war on that shitty estate she rules.
Send a thousand Wraiths her way, the way she’s been sending mine. ”
Madden’s jaw tightened, his chin lifting by a fraction. Reagan had the influence to back every one of those promises. And he could make life exquisitely difficult for Giddeon’s Lady.
He had him. He could almost watch the gears turn behind Madden’s eyes, the man calculating his next move.
At last, Madden’s expression settled into a decision. “It’s a pity,” he said with composed disdain, “that Sable Ilya didn’t rid Mountheim of the Reagans permanently when he sent those Wraiths for his sister.”
Reagan went still.
Giddeon’s mouth curved. “If only Mountheim were free of lords so intent on sullying their estate with half-breeds and human filth. Tell me, did you speak with your uncle after you killed your parents? Did you shake his hand when he offered his condolences? Did Nova Malory tell you who alerted her to your neglected responsibilities two years later?”
Reagan said nothing, couldn’t move.
Sable Ilya. Varian’s father and his mother’s sibling. He had commanded the ambush. Reagan had looked into his uncle at the time, ruled him out after finding him well away of the country. Either Giddeon was lying to get under his skin or telling the truth for the same purpose.
Varian’s words came back to him.
I guess we’re both doomed to be failures in our sire’s eyes.
Sable who had died peacefully at one hundred and twenty-one, cushioned by wealth and medicine, while Reagan’s mother had been granted less time because Sable had sent Wraiths to drain her. Nothing had ever traced back to him. Reagan had scoured every possibility.
But he had been fifteen and hadn’t known his uncle might have an accomplice, a man now standing in front of Reagan, one he fully intended to bury.
The outrage of ten years ago surged anew, burning through every vein. He swallowed the violence ricocheting through him, holding himself still with sheer force. Only the presence of humans kept him from unleashing the devastation that wanted to erupt.
He steeled his stance, fingers curling to restrain the mana clawing its way out.
But he failed, his mana unfurling around his hands until a soft gasp broke from a human nearby.
“Why tell me this?” Reagan asked.
“Because Sable is dead,” Madden replied, abandoning any hint of civility, “and you are not untouchable, the same as your kin were not. The hatred you feel now is precisely what you will unleash by placing a half-breed in power. So go on. Tell the court your suspicions. Something tells me your source of proof is...unavailable now.”
Madden knew. He knew what she could do.
Something molten split open inside Reagan. His flux rose like a storm breaking. He held with brutal focus, so tightly he could barely think.
It gave Madden enough time to recover. “Even if I fall, someone else will take my place. And you will lose everything. Now,” he said lightly, already turning away. “We must be on our way before you attract more attention. Goodbye, Reagan.”
Reagan’s chest heaved with the effort it took not to lunge. For one savage instant he considered it. Stopping Madden here, commanding his battle mages to seize him and exposing them before humans. If it meant finding Jane, he didn’t care. He pivoted and—
Collided with Joy Darling. Her amber-flecked eyes were wide, disorienting him as the Order leader gained distance.
“It was her,” Joy whispered, closer than she’d ever stood to him. “That was her. She lied, but I saw it.”
The Scions were slipping toward the edge of the square, nearly past the ring of his squads.
Reagan’s attention snapped between Joy and the departing group. “What? Did you see her?”
Finn and Gwinifer closed in beside them, forming a tight circle.
“Jane blinked,” Joy said. “She blinked twice. It was her.”
“She says the two of them have a signal,” Finn explained.
“When we had to lie to our father about something,” she went on, “we blinked twice. And she blinked twice. She is lying.”
“Reagan.” Gwin’s voice carried a warning. Their window was closing.
But Joy’s focus pinned him, sharpening every instinct he possessed.
“Where did you see her blinking?” he asked.
“She doesn’t look like herself, but she told me your cousin used that same trick on her.” Joy’s breath hitched, her gaze fixed beyond his shoulder with unshakable certainty. “That woman behind the leader. That was Jane.”
Reagan looked past them, to the glimpse of a brown head disappearing into the mouth of an alley. His access kicked in, brewing the storm above.