Page 17 of Necromancers Don't Raise

I sighed heavily. “So unfair. I guess you’ll have to turn on the television then so we can watchThe Detective Warlock.”

He winced. “If that’s what you want.”

“Oh, yes. I bet the warlock takes off his shirt.”

“He does on every episode.”

“Of course. It’s so good for ratings. He’s supposed to be a real magic user in real life.”

“Oh, he is.”

I gasped and gaped at him. “Seriously? You know him from your magic circles?”

He shook his head and stood. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not doing a shirtless mage battle with Winston just so you can up your ticket prices. Stop thinking about it.” He pulled out my chair and ushered me to the couch. He also sat down very close to me, but I hardly noticed because I was still thinking about Winston the Warlock and Mercury having a battle. Shirtless. Mostly Mercury, to be honest.

“I’ll turn it on,” Bones said eagerly, grinning as he advanced on the television like it was a serious opponent.

“So, what kind of mage battle are we talking about?” I whispered.

“We aren’t.”

“But think of the tickets! Seriously, that would make incredibly good money to do magic shows with you and Winston.”

“Magic shows?” he said with a coldness that made my skin prickle.

Had I gone too far? Probably. I never talked like this with anyone other than my dad. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

He turned and studied me, his eyes intent, the force of his presence incredibly heavy, like a warm blanket draping over me on a cold day. “He’s actually a very talented magic user as well as being a brilliant strategist. That whole show started as propaganda to create good feeling towards neutral magic users like himself. He wrote the first season himself, sure to make an enormous distinction between his kind of magic and mine.”

I stared at him. He was explaining to me instead of being insulted? How refreshing. “Neutral magic isn’t inherently more good than dark magic?”

He hesitated. “If it were only a matter of the magic, then there wouldn’t be any opposition. No one would go against their conscience, and no one would decide to fight for the better good against their self-interest. Things would be very simple, but there wouldn’t be any room for somewhere like Singsong. I wouldn’t be resisting my own dark impulses.”

“Are you? Do you have a lot of dark impulses that you resist?” I wanted to know if any of them involved affairs with freshly regenerated bald girls, but of course, that was ridiculous. He was Vilus, and I was one of his regenerated rats.

He frowned at me and then turned to face the television. “At the moment, not particularly. I’m too distracted to diabolically plan anything other than finding your killer. I should be gettingthe feed from the train station later this day, if you’d like to watch me go through it.”

I stared at him, gaping again until he tapped my chin until my mouth closed. “You got the feed? How? Isn’t that illegal?”

“Illegal? Only if I get caught. Will you turn me in to the authorities for trying to find your killer?”

I sputtered for another moment because it was so incredibly irritating that all of my efforts had been nothing, and he’d come up with the answer so easily. I’d used to wave my graceful hand and everything fell in line, and now I was a nobody with nothing, completely relying on Mercury. I wanted to scream or hit something.

“Miss Nova?” he asked, sounding concerned.

How could I explain how I felt when it wasn’t rational to be upset because I wasn’t the one getting results, because I had to rely on him?

My eyes started to burn, like I was going to cry, but thankfully Bones got the tv turned on finally, and backed away, looking at the screen with a frown.

“It should be on now, but there’s only news,” he said sadly.

The news announcer’s voice came over a video of a burning building, plumes reaching the sky. “New information has come out about the death of the three gemstones. A video was sent in of the three before the fire so tragically took so many lives atThe Detective Warlockconference.”

The video changed to a shaky recording of an extremely beautiful blond girl surrounded by Callie and Bree, who were also completely stunning, if different from the central figure, who made every movement a poignant expression of grace. Cassandra Clarence. Was that really me? Did I really gesture like that, so incredibly confident that everyone was looking at me, that I had complete control over everyone and everything?

She, I mean, I, was leading the way to safety from the crackling fires, keeping everyone calm, being a beacon of hope in the chaos, but thenThe Detective Warlock’s mystical cat darted to the left, back towards the burning flames, and Cassandra Clarence turned and chased after the creature, her friends right behind her.

There was a screech of metal, an explosion of flames, and then the ceiling came down on the three girls.

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