Page 93 of Magic Forsaken

“Are you sure Heather was with you all evening? You didn’t send her on any errands at all?”

Angelica’s gaze was a mixture of puzzled and annoyed. “Well, of course I sent her on a few errands. That’s her job. But she was never gone longer than a minute or two.”

So it could have been Heather who lured me upstairs.

It could have been Heather who was the mole all along.

Shy, quiet Heather, who was terrified of dragons.

And if she didn’t smell like magic…

“Heather could have murdered those shapeshifters,” I murmured softly.

TWENTY

Angelica’s denialwas instant and emphatic. “That’s not possible. Heather cringes when Itypetoo hard.”

I could tell Callum wasn’t jumping to believe me either.

Not that I blamed them. Timid, nervous Heather? The browbeaten assistant to the assistant?

And maybe I was wrong. Maybe it reallyhadbeen a glamoured fae who lured me upstairs. And if so, the fact that Heather was now missing didn’t bode well for her safety.

It seemed I wasn’t going to be able to keep my news to myself any longer.

“I should probably also mention that the saboteur just made contact.”

Angelica turned to me with glacial slowness, a terrifying fury written on every line of her now stiff posture. Her arms crossed, her manicured nails digging into the sleeves of her suit jacket as her fingers clenched with frustration.

“Probably?” she hissed furiously.

Callum just waited, watching me with no change in his expression. He was surprised—that much I knew without him needing to say a word—but he was utterly in control of hisreactions. Not a single hint of his shock would have been visible to a casual observer.

So I decided to tell them the truth. “He wants me to consider joining his cause.”

Both Callum and Angelica absorbed this silently.

“He also said something about the Symposium not being what I think it is and that it won’t actually protect any victims in the end.” I added a dismissive shrug that was entirely for show. “Crazy, right?”

“Did you recognize him?” Callum asked, his tone almost eerily calm and even.

“It was dark,” I replied, leaving off the part where I thought I’d recognized his voice. “And before you ask, no, I didn’t smell anything. I can’t use shapeshifter senses without being in that form.”

“Did he make any specific threats?”

He hadn’t. Not to the Symposium anyway… only to me, and those indirectly. “No, but I think he was trying very hard to sound reasonable. Hoping to sway me to his side. He couldn’t exactly start with a plan to kill everyone and risk scaring me away.”

“If it was a glamoured fae who lured you upstairs, then we might well be looking for another fae.” Callum’s brow furrowed. “But Draven vetted everyone who’s a part of their delegation. Assured me they were relatively safe.”

“Don’t forget,” I reminded him, “that our attackers have been wielding incredibly diverse magic. Air, earth, and fire elementals, shapeshifters, fae, and possibly a siren.”

Hints of light glimmered in the depths of his eyes—the amber glow of a dragon who’d perceived a threat. “Can you keep him on the hook? Play him for information?”

I thought back to what the saboteur had asked me to do. “I think so,” I answered cautiously. “He only wanted me to ask some questions. To reconsider my own perspective.”

The dragon looked at me squarely. “What questions?”

I couldn’t ask him here. Not with so many others watching and listening. I wasn’t sure how to deal with the aftermath if it turned out the saboteur was right.

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