Chapter 2
TWO
It quickly became clear that the woman didn’t recognize our landlord, because she bristled and took a half step forward in response to Faris’s challenge.
A bold move, considering that my boss could best be described as a mountain with a beard. Faris was built like a grizzly bear—with broad shoulders and huge hands—and in terms of sheer destructive ability, was far more dangerous than any bear on earth.
“Are you with the police department?” she demanded. “Or management? Because I have a complaint, and I want these three arrested for reckless endangerment.”
Faris glanced over at me with one brow quirked and a question in his green eyes. They weren’t quite glowing with annoyance, but I could tell the light show wasn’t far off.
I just hoped it wasn’t me he was mad at.
“Management,” he said coolly. “And I assume you have something in the nature of proof to go along with your accusations?” His arms folded over his chest as his expression went flat and unreadable.
“Of course I do,” the woman snapped. “They were soaking wet. Obviously, they were the ones who set off the sprinkler system. And now they’re dry, which means magic.”
She somehow managed to make the word sound dirty. As if she were disgusted by its very existence.
“So you’re upset because you believe your neighbors triggered the fire alarm? Or because they’re Idrian?” Faris’s face didn’t even twitch, but I knew him well enough to be just a teeny bit afraid of whatever was about to happen.
“Not just Idrian,” my neighbor declared staunchly, while somehow making it clear that being Idrian was sufficient to earn her mistrust. “They’re up to something shady.
There’s always someone coming and going late at night.
Kids that don’t seem to belong to anybody.
People knocking on doors and asking prying questions.
There was that violent attack last week, and now they’ve nearly set us all on fire.
If you ask me, they’re probably hiding from the law. ”
This was so not going to end well.
“And what is it you expect me to do?” If anything, Faris’s voice was now even calmer than before, and his pose grew dangerously rigid.
But clearly, my neighbor’s ability to read body language was either currently offline or severely impaired.
“I want them evicted,” she insisted. “We all do.”
At that point, she looked around at her fellow complainants for support, apparently expecting a chorus of ayes. Unfortunately for her, most of them seemed to have a far better sense of self-preservation and had begun to back away.
“Let me see if I’ve heard you correctly.
” Faris bit off each syllable with harsh precision.
“You are requesting that I discriminate against your neighbor based on your supposition about her race. That I violate at least a dozen laws, including those requiring reasonable cause and advance notice for an eviction. And that I do so based not on evidence but on your personal bias and your assumption that the victim of a violent crime must necessarily be at fault.”
On a normal day, Faris preferred to communicate in grunts, or at most, short, grumpy sentences. The fact that he was starting to sound like a lawyer meant that someone was about to experience the true and terrible meaning of regret.
I kind of expected the woman to back down a bit, or perhaps moderate her approach. Instead, she picked up her metaphorical shovel and kept digging.
“None of us will feel safe as long as they’re allowed to live here,” she proclaimed belligerently.
“So if you refuse to deliver this message to your superiors, I will be sure to inform the management company and the owner that their employees are failing to meet the needs of their tenants. For the monthly rent I pay, I expect better attention to both safety concerns and customer service.”
By now, I just sort of wished I had popcorn.
“Be my guest,” Faris rumbled.
The woman whipped her phone out of the pocket of her floral bathrobe and began scrolling. “Here it is,” she muttered, before punching in a number and setting the phone on speaker, presumably so all of us could hear how devastating her takedown was going to be.
During working hours on an ordinary day, the number for emergency services would go to a separate office, where a goblin named Tim managed everything tech related for Faris’s varied properties throughout the city.
Apparently, many goblins had a strong affinity for computers, and the problem had yet to arise that Tim couldn’t solve.
But for this building in the middle of the night?
Faris held up his own phone and stared at it thoughtfully for a moment until it began to ring.
“Wonder who that could be?” he said sarcastically, before tapping to answer.
“Yes?”
The voice echoing out of my neighbor’s phone startled all of them into taking a second look at the representative of “management.”
“I… have a complaint.” The woman’s voice was starting to crack, but for some reason, once started down this road, she couldn’t seem to find the exit.
“Is it regarding the activation of the fire alarms at eight thirty-one West Sheridan at twelve fifty-seven AM?”
My neighbor stared at her phone as if it were a snake that might decide to bite, then looked back at Faris.
“I demand to speak to your supervisor,” she said boldly, and I had to smother a snort of laughter.
Faris lowered his phone and stepped forward, his eyes flaring bright emerald green.
“Speaking,” he said.
The woman let out a squawk of alarm and jerked back. “He’s one of them,” she hissed, dropping her phone in her haste to get farther away.
“Yes,” Faris agreed. “I am.” I heard the beginning rumbles of his elemental magic in the word—like boulders grinding together, or the earth stirring underfoot.
“My name is Faris Lansgrave. I am Idrian, and I am the owner of this building. As stated in our contract, all property damage from this evening’s events will be repaired and covered by insurance.
However, as also stated in our contract, this community permits no discrimination.
I rent to humans and Idrians alike. And if this distresses you to the point that you resort to threats or intimidation against any of your fellow residents, you are welcome to make your home elsewhere. ”
The woman gasped in outrage. “You can’t kick me out,” she declared. “I have rights!”
“And I have a signed contract with your name on it,” Faris growled.
“As legally recognized refugees, Idrian citizens are protected from discrimination and hate crimes based on their world of origin. But there is an added clause in your contract that states any act of hostility against another resident will result in immediate eviction. But I’m guessing you didn’t actually read it, did you? ”
My neighbor was suddenly gaping like a fish and floundering for words. And now that the worst was over, I began to feel an unmistakable surge of guilt.
She wasn’t wrong about one thing—tonight’s events were my fault.
I’d genuinely believed we would be safe with Ethan in our apartment, and that belief had proven to be wildly overconfident.
We’d been lucky this time, but it could have been so much worse.
There was too much we didn’t know about his magic. Too much we couldn’t predict.
And yet, I could never treat him the way Elayara had. Could never force him to live in isolation, forever unable to know love or family or acceptance.
But what options did we have? How could we enable Ethan to live with dignity while also protecting everyone around us from his magic?
I was still chewing on that when my phone buzzed from the pocket of my pajamas… well, more like joggers. I didn’t like sleeping in anything I couldn’t easily run away in.
Tuning out the argument for a moment, I pulled out my phone and saw I had a text.
From Callum.
The immediate effect this had on me would have been almost embarrassing if I’d thought anyone was watching. I felt a happy little jolt in my chest, had to bite my lip to keep from smiling, and honest-to-goodness tears tried to well up in the corners of my eyes.
I was absolutely ridiculous, and I did not care.
Hey, you okay?
I was not, but how had he known?
had a bit of an event
we’re all safe
fire department MIGHT have been called…
I couldn’t lie to him entirely, because he was likely to get the full story later from either Faris or Kira.
But neither was I about to confess to him how bad it could have been, nor explain my current dilemma with Ethan.
And I was definitely not going to admit how anxious I’d been over how little I’d heard from him since he left.
Neither of us was excited about being apart, especially not so soon after we’d finally admitted our feelings for each other.
But we knew this was the right thing to do.
The shapeshifters needed his leadership right now, and we wanted them to accept our relationship for the right reasons—not because he roared at them and told them they had no choice.
As fun as that would have been to watch.
So now he was at the Shapeshifter Court in New Mexico, laying the groundwork for me to safely confront his own council’s accusations against me. Ridiculous as they were.
The first was that I was in violation of the new laws against the possession of stolen magic.
In a technical legal sense, this one was probably true, even though the law itself was heinously unjust. But the second charge was the one that worried me the most, given that I had no idea who had accused me or why.
The shapeshifters seemed to believe that I’d actually colluded with the man who’d destroyed the Symposium and nearly kidnapped around fifty of the most powerful Idrians in the country back in October.