Page 63 of House of Mages and Raven

Pucker shrugged. “No one needs to find out.”

“How are we even going to hide the lanai?” I asked in a shrill voice, not that I didn’t like it. Sy especially loved lanai.

“Maybe you can make me a room here, mage house magic?” Pucker asked. “I’m considering moving in. Where Barbie goes, I go.”

I widened my eyes. “Then the House of Chaos will be short a guardian.”

“It’s a sham business anyway,” he said dismissively. “Magenta will still be around.” Magenta was an ancient half-fae ghost. She was fading and nearly forgotten now due to her lack of activity. “She’s mostly sleeping these days, depressed and envious that I landed a demigoddess. I feel sorry for her. If I’m ever diagnosed with depression, I can just go solid and take antidepressants.”

I eyed him in suspicion. “You sure the drugs will work on a ghost?”

“Weed works,” he said. “I get stoned every time I smoke it in my solid form.”

Now he could go solid for a couple of hours. Boosted by my energy, he could probably go on a date with some naïve dude. I shuddered and shook off the image.

I wondered if he still got a boost from Killian as well, but I didn’t ask him, as I desperately wanted to move on from the chaos prince and that short-lived romance with him, if one could even call it a romance. I’d tried my best to avoid the chaos prince. Out of sight, out of mind. But that asshole kept showing up at Jubilee Haven where I had my daily meals.

Could Sy be right about Killian not exactly letting me go?

The room kept shifting and transforming. A few minutes later, a completely different room was set forth before me. House magics were competitive too, like the heirs. The mage house magic was showing me what it could do. The end result was a room suitable for royalty. I stood upon the new Persian rug, my jaw hanging open.

“I’m definitely moving in,” Pucker declared.

“No,” I said firmly.

“C’mon, Barbie,” he said. “I miss my old crowd. Mages are usually weird and as snobbish as any other supernatural, but I used to be a mage.”

“You were a warlock with one-tenth demon blood in you,” I pointed out.

“Warlock, mage, to-may-to, to-mah-to,” he said.

“There’s a difference,” I insisted.

“No matter,” he said. “Warlocks don’t have their own house, so warlocks, witches, sorcerers, and even druids are now all in the House of Mages. I bet my murderer was a mage. Now that I have a shot at finding him, I’m not going to pass on thisopportunity. I must investigate my own brutal, untimely death and solve the century-old murder mystery. I’ll find out who was responsible and make him pay.”

“You can’t make him or her pay,” I said. “Your murderer must’ve died a long time ago, if it offers any comfort.”

Pucker had been a clairvoyant when he was alive, but he hadn’t foreseen his own death.

“It offers me no comfort,” he said bitterly. “I’d rather they were still alive, and they might be. Mages, warlocks, and witches might not be born immortals, but they can live for a long time. Some of them even achieved immortality by stealing others’ lives and magic.”

We were talking about black magic like human sacrifice here. I shuddered while rage seared through me. The druid and his cult had sacrificed those victims in the tower of Skyward. He almost sacrificed me on the altar to achieve his dream of being the most powerful druid. I’d thwarted his plan, but his ambition lived on. He’d gotten away, and none of the sentinels had gotten wind of him. I bet that he was lurking somewhere close and waiting for an opening to strike again.

Supernaturals never gave up their hunt, like my father, who wouldn’t stop until he had his evil claws in me. I shuddered again in fear.

The mage house magic took the shape of a blue wand of light, pressed against my leg, and whined, responding to my fear and fury. All magic was in tune with my mood.

Every house magic had its own distinct signature and brand. Vampires carried air magic, so the vampire house magic was most potent at creating currents, even a violent twister if the house was under attack. The shifter house had water magic that could flood the entire school. Mage magic was mostly tied to spells, though mages and witches had their own variety of innatemagic. Their house magic got a boost from every spell cast in the house.

I had yet to visit the House of Fae. I’d peeked at the pink-and-ruby building within a vast garden from afar. Fae excelled at earth magic, which they used to make their dwellings lovely, but when they went on the offensive, the fae house magic drew power from the earth to cause a major earthquake. Thorned vines would shoot out to trap, cut, or smother their enemies to death.

Chaos house magic was, well, chaotic. It must’ve missed me. Even from the mage house, I could feel its call, though not as strongly as the pull from Underhill. The magic in Mist of Cider was fading, so it tried to cling to me, drawn to my power.

I could take every magic for myself, but the magic in this realm knew that I was their protector instead of a predator as I’d once been. I hadn’t had much choice while I was under my father’s thumb, but he hadn’t known that I’d left a backdoor when I harvested magic and brought it to him. I’d always kept a drop of magic in the land and offered a drop of my power, then sent the land into hibernation, so one day, if I survived, I could revive that magic, even though on the surface, everyone saw only the blight left in my wake.

“I’ll find that motherfucker,” Pucker kept venting. “And I’ll torture him over and over. He’ll beg for death, but I won’t relent. I get what you said about his being long gone, but even if he went to Hell, he still has offspring. I’ll take them out one by one, so they can go to Hell to report to him about who erased his bloodline brutally and methodically.”

Pucker was malicious and even barbaric when it came to his century-old murder. He couldn’t get past it, so it was pointless to argue with him that children should not be responsible for their father’s sins. I was thinking of myself as well. I should not be burdened with Ruin’s sins either, though the guilt ofdraining the land and laying waste to cities throbbed deeply in the marrow of my bones.

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