Chapter 29
“Alexis!”
The door to my office flies open, and Theo comes stumbling in. Her eyes are wide and full of panic.
“What? What happened?” My chair falls over as I hurry to my feet.
“Gods, it’s Wes. I saw him, I saw…”
Her words trail off as she realizes that we are not alone. “Shit, sorry.” She takes a deep breath and tries to pull herself together.
Amos looks between us both and shakes his head. “I-I should be going.”
I press a heavy hand to his shoulder. “No, Bernard, no need. Just give me a moment. Wait patiently and ignore our conversation.”
Theo blinks away tears as I pull her close.
“Quickly, tell me what’s happened.”
“I was in divination,” she gulps, “and the Lumina must have ignited my seer ability or something. I saw Wes; he was in a white room, and there was a child strapped to a table. Wes was involved in doing something terrible to him. How do we stop that from happening? There must be a way.”
Seer abilities, too? Helvetti minus!
“Take a breath, pulu. Foresight can be any time in the future and it’s not set in stone.” Even so, I make note never to let Theo be alone with Wes Hart.
“It’s as if Wes is evil now. But why? I don’t see the dark essence in him. How do I help him? Change him back to the sweet, loving man he really is?”
I wish I had answers for her. “Wes is with the others, yes? For now, we must make sure he’s not left unattended. That’s the best we can do immediately, but we’ll find a way to…reprogram him, or whatever he needs. I believe you when you say he’s intrinsically good.”
She calms a little. “Right, yes. OK, you’re right. One thing at a time.” Theo lets out a long breath, then squares her shoulders. “I’ll text Donovan, tell him to keep Wes close.”
She sends her message, then looks up, focusing on Amos.
“Er, what’s with him?” She gestures to the professor.
“That’s what I need help with. Do you trust me?”
“With my life,” she says.
“OK, come sit while I introduce you to Bernard Amos. I know you haven’t had him for any classes.”
Looking uncertain, but being a good girl, Theo sits next to the professor and smiles at him.
“Hi.”
“Hello?”
Amos still doesn't understand why he’s here. That’s not surprising given the amount of Elite commands I’ve forced on his brain in the last few hours.
“Theo, Professor Amos has some essential information in his head, but he has been bound, so he cannot talk of it. I thought that perhaps with your help…”
“We undo it? Yes, we must. I’m so sorry someone did that to you, Professor.”
She gives his arm a slight squeeze, and Amos looks back at her quizzically. “Er, thank you?”
“Any ideas how we are going to do this?” Theo asks me. She’s all business now; emotion has been put aside to deal with the problem in front of her.
“Yes, actually. I dug up some old texts on the matter when you’d been under Drakeward’s hold. I thought they were useless because they needed innate magic, but now…”
“You want to spell cast and I power share with you again?”
“That’s my plan.”
Theo moves to my side of the desk, standing behind me, then winding her arms around my torso. “Is this OK?”
I try to ignore the immediate interest my cock shows to the pressure of her breasts against my back. “Yah, perfect.”
Closing my eyes, I visualize the ancient spell form—a jagged construct that feels like broken glass in my mind. Moving into the first incantation, I immediately feel the snap of my flame connecting with Theo’s.
The heat building in my core is intense, spiking rapidly, but I focus on keeping the channel steady. The Lumina inside her seems a little erratic, sometimes surging so much it’s difficult to maintain the connection.
"Shit," Theo whispers, “this is like trying to ride a bucking bronco.”
I crack my eyes open. The room is filled with an ozone-scented blue mist. It coils around us, cold and hungry, like snakes in a pit. As I murmur the next invocation, the gaseous vipers writhe and gather, moving toward Bernard Amos.
"Keep a steady flow, pulu!" I yell over the sound of wind rushing in my ears.
The binding isn't just a mental lock; it's a parasite. As Theo pumps the Lumina into him, the black sigil burned into Amos's neck tightens, choking him. He thrashes, his eyes rolling back.
"It's killing him!" Theo screams, her hands burning against my chest. I can smell singed fabric.
"Push harder!" I command. "Burn it out!"
The air pressure in the room drops. The windows rattle in their frames. The heat in my chest grows and grows. Fuck, can his body withstand this?
Can mine?
With a sound like tearing metal, the black sigil explodes, dissipating into a foul vapor.
Amos collapses, completely unconscious.
Theo slumps against me, white as snow. I gather her up immediately. “Are you alright?”
“That was quite something,” she murmurs. “We make a good team, professor.” The next moment her eyes are closed. I gently lay her on the sofa, then take in the destruction of the room. The oily grease is just…evaporating away.
I grab a bottle of water, and help Theo to drink. She gives me an exhausted grin. “Do you think we did it?”
“I’d lay money that we did, but the proof will be when we can talk to him.”
“What do you think he knows?” she asks, the water seeming to energize her. “What’s so important?”
“It’s a hunch, but Professor Amos used to be at the forefront of energy transference research. Last night I learned that he did, and I quote, truly unforgivable things. It seemed like he was being blackmailed? Maybe because of his wife?”
The old man’s words echo in my head. ‘Don’t let them in, boy. Don’t let them know you care for someone. Love is a weakness, makes you do terrible things.’
I refuse to believe my love for Theo is a weakness. No, it’s a strength. “How are you feeling now?”
“Hungry?” A shaft of afternoon sunlight falls through the window, highlighting the rich mahogany lights in her dark hair. The sun makes her blink, her long lashes grazing those perfect cheekbones.
Theodora Wilson will never be my weakness. I’ll never let a situation arise where that could be so. Though I’ve known her for such a small amount of time, I already love her so fully.
Does she know?
How could she not? It seeps from my every pore. I pass her a granola bar, which she wolfs down.
“He’s waking up.” I maneuver the small man onto the saggy two-seater sofa, next to Theo, then squat down in front of him.
“Alright there, Bernard?” I ask, “You had a little spill.”
“Feniks?”
“That’s right.”
“Would you like some water?” Theo asks, and he just looks at her, puzzled. I incline my head towards a rack of plastic bottles on the floor, and she grabs one, opens it, then hands it to Amos.
“Now,” I say, squatting in front of him. “Tell us about the unforgivable things that you’ve done.”
Amos swallows a mouthful of water, the bottle trembling in his hand.
“I didn’t want to get involved, I wouldn’t have done it, but my wife, my dear Petra.
I did it for her and for little Phillip.
That was our son. He was born with both a weak spark and a weak heart.
I was working in the WMO research facilities at the time, working on theoretical energy transference. ”
He shudders.
“The Conclave approached me. Told me their researchers had made a breakthrough, but needed my expertise to complete the work.”
Of course, the Conclave is involved.
“A new energy had been discovered, and if I could harness it, find a way to make it compatible, I could save him. Save Phillip. I had to try. It was for my boy, you see, and Petra. If Phillip died, I knew she’d follow him.”
Theo takes my hand. I see the sweet compassion in her face for Amos. I’m reserving judgment because I know this story doesn’t lead anywhere good.
“I took their deal. I got the lab, the equipment… and I got the…babies. Babies from the orphanages, abandoned no spark children that no one would miss.”
“No!” Theo gasps.
He stops, dropping his face into his hands.
"You were about to tell us what your job was,” I prompt. “Continue.”
Amos looks shattered. “It was, it was, it was… i gyeafu eu gwreionen wan, yna ceio ei gud yn naws a'r egni tywyll newydd hwdd y Conclave wedi cae ael arno o rywle.”
What?
“What’s he saying?” Theo asks as I hurriedly start taking notes on the notepad, transcribing the phonetic sounds as best I can.
“I don’t know,” I mutter, frustration gnawing at me. “The cadence is Celtic, but the dialect is completely foreign to me.”
Amos looks up, his face wretched. “I know it sounds terrible, but The Conclave promised, promised… byai cartefi da i'r babaod.”
Shit. The binding might be broken, but the trauma has scrambled his speech centers. He’s reverting to a tongue I can't decode.
“Gagais dwau, ond bydai'r wreiconen a'r egni tyw yn brwyo…”
Amos raises a fist and shakes it at the ceiling.
“I couldn’t make it work,” he says. “Then it was all too late, Phillip died, and Petra…” his voice chokes, “...she couldn’t continue living after that.
I wanted to join her, but they had me, you know?
I was in their facility, a slave to their needs, until finally the research was halted.
That’s when I was given a position at Validus Vale.
My retirement gift, they said.” Amos shakes his head miserably.
“I pray every day that the Conclave keeps its side of a bargain.”
He breaks down into hysterical sobs.
“Get him to tell us in English,” Theo begs me. “What did he do? Where are the children?”
I try to compel Amos again, applying precise mental pressure. There is no response. His mind isn't just resistant; it seems fundamentally broken. So fractured that the command cannot find purchase. It's like navigating a bomb site.
Failure.
There's nothing more I can do in the present moment, so I give Amos a shot of my magical valium. He relaxes back onto the sofa and closes his eyes.
Theo rushes into my arms. “He did something terrible with those children, didn’t he? Oh, Gods, I’m scared to find out what. It’s too much, everything is too much. I could taste his pain, his fear, his regret.”
Her silver eyes are haunted. I’d die a thousand deaths to give them peace, but all I can do is hold her, absorb her shuddering weight, and try to project calm.
“I’ll find a way to translate his words. I’ll get the answers, pulu.” I will.
I have to.
“This is all tied up with the dark essence, isn’t it?” she whispers against my sweatshirt.
“I can’t believe it is not,” I tell her. “But it feels like we are stumbling around in the dark. Fuck, pulu, we desperately need actionable intelligence; everything we uncover only leads to more questions.”
I tighten my arms around her.
This ends here. No more stumbling around in the dark.
“We have to stop just reacting to their moves. We need to start planning our own.” I look down at her. “The All Hallows Ball. All the players will be there. Tyrus. The Conclave. Everyone.”
Theo nods, a hard glint entering her silver eyes.
“If they have secrets to spill, I'll hear them. Whatever it takes.”