Page 69 of The Shadow Wand

My throat cinches tight.

Fallon Bane.Her Level Five brothers, Sylus and Damion, in uniform flanking her.

And she’s looking straight at me.

Fallon flashes me a wicked smile that sends ice down my spine. She points at me, her devious smile echoed by her equally devious brothers. Then all three Banes turn and head for the balcony’s doors, the brothers’ silver-striped cloaks sweeping out behind them.

“Follow me,” Sparrow breathlessly orders, her grip on my arm firming. “I know where the high-ranking military usually enter.”

We set off at a fast clip, darting around the crowd on the stairs, over the first-floor balcony’s terrace, and into the festive hall.

We’re engulfed in the crowd of dark-clad Mages, the scent of expensive perfume and rich food heavy on the air. My fear-addled mind takes in details as I follow Sparrow through a maze of hallways and packed rooms, my affinity lines lurching hard toward one type of luxurious wood after another—

Black Cherry tree trunks that form the central support of several rooms, their branches hung with black crystal leaves and small crimson lanterns.

Mountain Oak that frames countless oil paintings of former Mage Council members and Guild heads.

A Bloodwood grand piano that sits prominently in a parlor, the rare scarlet wood gleaming with varnish and ruby swirls.

I clench and unclench my wand hand, desperate to send my power through every last piece of wood we come upon, and struggle mightily to resist the powerful urge.

A young, blue-hued Urisk woman slides in front of us, blocking our way. My gaze darts around her, searching for Fallon, as the woman offers up a delicacy wrapped in baby lettuce and impaled with a coarse toothpick. I glance down at the hors d’oeuvres, and for a moment, I’m transfixed. Not hungry for the food.

Hungry for the wood.

Another tiny wand.

Sparrow tugs my arm insistently, breaking the wood’s thrall as she pulls me back into motion and we swerve around the Urisk woman.

The music dampens as we rush, just on the edge of running, through room after room, the crowds thinning as we go. We hurry down a narrow, dimly lit hall and then into the expansive Council library. Small knots of Gardnerian soldiers and military apprentices are congregating there, some bearing the markings of the highly ranked, their conversations low and dignified. Dotting the crowd are a few soldiers wearing the silver-striped cloaks of the powerful Level Five Mages.

Like Lukas.

Breathing hard, every sense on heightened alert, I search them over, desperate to locate Lukas.

“Excuse me,” I say to a white-haired Mage with lieutenant markings on the shoulder of his military tunic.

He turns to me, contempt washing over his face and the faces of the other Mage soldiers in his small grouping as they take in my face and obvious recognition lights.

I swallow back my anxiety. “Might you know if my fastmate, Lukas Grey, has arrived?”

The Mage’s gaze flicks unkindly over my scarlet dress and he huffs out a short sound of disgust. “I haven’t seen him.”

I politely excuse myself and step away from the Mages.

Sparrow leans in close as we leave the room. “There’s a balcony where we can spot new arrivals,” she tells me, her tone one of forced calm, her hand firm around my arm as she guides me forward. “We can watch for Lukas there.”

I follow her through a side door at the far end of the room and down a long, deserted hallway.

Sparrow and I duck into a smaller library, and I catch hold of my bearings as Sparrow moves to open a glass door leading to a small balcony that overlooks the front of the Council Hall. The library is as deserted as the hallway was, the orchestral music now far away, and a frisson of anxiety crawls down my spine at our sudden isolation.

Sparrow jostles the glass door’s handle, but it won’t budge. She turns to me, her voice growing taut with apprehension. “It’s locked. We’ll have to get there another way.”

Footsteps sound in the hallway, and my pulse quickens.

A saffron-hued Urisk maid strides into view and pauses just outside the door. She narrows her citrine eyes at me, then glances toward something or someone down the hall as she points insistently at us.

Fallon Bane sweeps into the room, and my legs almost give out from under me.

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