Page 44 of A Lost Light

“We got some good intel that the cult is going to try to take Darkbrier tonight.”

I just continued to stare at her. This meant nothing to me. “What's a darkbrier?”

She huffed at me and someone in the small gathering of assorted supernatural beings snorted and covered a laugh with a cough. “You really are out of touch with the workings of the magical world, aren't you?” Bella complained. “Sometimes I forget how human you've tried to be all these years.”

I shrugged. “Do you have a point? Every second we spend here it’s a massive risk that the SA or some gun for hire will come rampaging in to murder or imprison us.”

“CouncilorDarkbrier is a major powerhouse in the Magea government—and has big influence in the Planus realm as well,” she informed me dryly. “The Darkbrier family is one of the oldest and strongest witch families still alive, aside from the crazy Lovell sisters.”

Okay, now that she was yammering on, the namedidring a bell. I knew they were a powerful family. Influential. I didn't really know squat about the Magean council, besides that they had formed the SA back when some assholes—ie: my family—had tried to start thelastwar of witch supremacy. The council had also had a very strong say in… oh… well, shit.

“He's one of the ones who made sure our parents were executed, isn't he?” I said flatly, suddenly recalling why the name rang a bell.

She patted me on the shoulder as if I was a slow child who really needed all the encouragement she could get. “Now you're getting it.”

I sighed. “Whydo you want to save the beheading-happy old coot?”

People were shifting silently around us, lookouts, people double-checking weapons and spells. It ratcheted up my anxiety by about twelve-hundred percent. And so far, we were just standing around in a boring subdivision talking about history. I knew one thing for certain. I wasnotcut out to be a war mage.

“Andy…” Bella said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You're not actuallymadthat they were executed, are you?”

I nearly laughed at her tone of offended disbelief. As if the normal assumption would be that I was happy my parents and every other relative except her and I were dead. But it wasn't really funny. Because it was true.

“Fuck no,” I muttered. “Or at least, I'm not mad at the people who put them to death. I'm more pissed off that our parents couldn't just be decent fucking people in the first place.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “Fuck's sake, Andy. I thought I'd really misjudged you for a second there.Anyway, the cult has no qualms using force and fighting their way to the top, but they are biding their time. Right now, they've been trying their damnedest to bring influential people over to their side.”

I rolled my eyes. “Like Darkbrier is going to join the cult. Didn't they learnanythingfrom what happened to the Lovells?”

She looked around to make sure things were going as planned, or whatever. I had no clue what a rebel leader did, besides guilt people into doing dangerous shit in the name of the greatergood. “Andy, please try here. Don't play dumb. We don't have time. The enemy will be here any minute now.”

I rubbed my head to try to ease the slowly building ache there. I didnotwant to play these games. But she was right, I wasn't actually that dumb. “What are they planning to use to get him to comply?”

Dyre piped up from beside me, his deep voice full of darkness. “Spells? Or a hostage?”

I slid a glance his way. I guess he'd know better than most what was effective. He'd lived it.

“Both, actually,” Bella informed us, stooping and leading us around the side of the house, still keeping to the shadows. “That's his house over there,” she said, pointing at the low-keymansionthat stood among the other cookie-cutter houses. “The cult doesn't have the artifact that you stole from them, but they've been gathering other resources. And with those resources, we think they've managed to enslave another jinn. Not as old or powerful as yours,” she said, casting a smug look over her shoulder at Aahil. To my surprise, my moody little jinnwinkedat her. “But we think she's strong enough to get the job done. The cult is going to snatch Darkbrier's wife to use as leverage until they can get a firm mind-control link going. Once he submits to that, they'll have a nice little puppet on the council with massive power to influence the laws and the government reaction to the supremacists.” She scoffed. “If they were to manage that, they might not even need to fight in order to get a solid foothold in our society and start taking over, changing laws and shaping things to their liking.”

Aahil scoffed. “And if they play their cards right and their jinn is strong enough, they'll also have another very strong magic user to pull out of their pocket if it comes to a fight.”

I processed his words, and my chest constricted. He spoke so calmly. But it had beenhimon the receiving end of that kind of manipulation not long ago. And it had nearly broken him.

“Can't you just find out the identities of the cult members and kill them in their sleep or something?” I muttered.

Bella huffed as she scanned the dark street. “Says the girl who keeps refusing to use her powers to do just that.” She turned and her eyes glinted in the night as she stared me down. “You and your crew are about the only ones who could come close to pulling off that kind of assassination attempt. Are you volunteering? Because that would certainly make everyone's lives a whole hell of a lot easier.”

I stared back mutinously. I would not become the monster I knew I could be. Not even to save the world. “What do we need to do tonight?” I asked, deflecting her callous demand.

She didn't say anything about my change of subject. “Well, simply put, we just have to keep them from taking either of the Darkbriers off the property. There are a lot of people backing our cause, and we gather more every day. But we don’t have many who are powerful, brave, or reckless enough to rush into a physical fight. You know your people better than I do. You tell me what you can do to help.”

Goddess damn it. I wasn't supposed to be getting caught up in this. “Fine.”

Chapter 25

Niamh

The night was calm, the breeze barely noticeable. I relaxed into my hunter self, calling on my training and on my own keen fae nature to focus on the task at hand.

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