Page 18 of Langiappe & Lost Legends

Kaveh paced the length of the conference room. His usual casual demeanor was replaced by focused intensity. His black boots made no sound on the marble floor. It was a djinn thing I'd never quite gotten used to. "Show me exactly what you've discovered," he asked.

Each of us pulled out our phones and pulled up photos we had taken. Phi also placed the notes she made after our visit to Marie on the table. Kaitlyn joined Kaveh and leaned over the evidence to examine it. Today Kaitlyn had opted for ripped jeansand a vintage band t-shirt that somehow made her look both professional and ready to hit a rock concert.

Kaitlyn tapped Dea’s phone. "These sigils. They're definitely corrupted versions of your wards. Someone with intimate knowledge of your security systems modified them. The magical signature is complex. They've layered corrupted magic over the original spells."

"But who would have access to that kind of information?" Cyran asked from his position near the window. The Light Fae leader's gray eyes were stormy with concern. He'd traded his usual designer wear for simple black jeans and a t-shirt, but somehow still managed to look like he'd stepped off a runway.

Kassandra adjusted her colorful muumuu as she studied the photos. The gargoyle leader's bright blue eyes narrowed as she pointed to one particularly nasty-looking sigil. "More importantly, why go through the trouble of corrupting existing protections instead of creating new spells? This took time and serious magical know-how. It would have been easier to use something else."

"Because it's personal," Talindra said. Her white-blonde hair caught the light as she moved closer to examine the evidence. The elf leader's crop top and heels seemed out of place in the serious atmosphere, but no one was about to comment on her fashion choices. "They're sending a message. This isn't just about breaking through our defenses. They want us to know they can turn our own magic against us."

Molvith, the ice demon leader, remained silent but the temperature in the room dropped several degrees. Next to him, Tanarak, the rage demon leader, practically vibrated with barely contained fury. The two of them were like a supernatural weather system. Thankfully they kept their ice and fire in check. Getting a reaction out of them was rare.

Viktor shook his head and had a disgusted look on his face. "The Lost Legends are adapting and using modern magical innovations against us. The question is whether or not they’re working alone."

I caught Lia's eye across the table. We were both thinking the same thing. A vampire had been in Marie's library, studying those journals. His tone made me think he wasn’t really wondering because he already knew. The coincidence of now having our magic used against us was about as subtle as a drunk tourist on Bourbon Street.

"We need to secure every anchor point we can find," I said, laying out the map we'd pieced together. "We need to do that from the tunnels beneath the city. The six of us have to focus on finding the Lost Legends and the relic they stole. The city is unraveling too fast for us to handle one and then the other.”

Kota leaned on the table and speared the council members with a glare. “That means we are going to need help with this.”

“Kota is right,” I agreed. “And we need to figure out who's helping these assholes before they completely destabilize the city's temporal framework. I don't know about you, but I'm getting real tired of explaining to tourists why there's a Civil War regiment doing drills in their hotel lobby."

Dani cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "We are also planning a premating celebration for a Light Fae couple in two days. We've got two hundred guests expected. That includes delegations from the Fae court. Canceling isn't an option. It would raise too many questions. We also don’t want them to be attacked while there."

I almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Here we were, trying to prevent reality from unraveling. Yet, we still had to worry about fairy lights and floating lanterns. Sometimes, I wondered if the universe just liked to see how many plates it could make us spin at once.

"The party goes on," Kaveh said firmly, placing his hands on the table. "We'll need additional security measures. Ones they haven't had a chance to study and corrupt."

"I can help with that," Kaitlyn offered as she pulled out her tablet. "I've been working on some new protection spells that combine different magical traditions. They won't be expecting that. We can layer them with some of Molvith's ice wards and Tanarak's fire barriers."

As the council members discussed strategy, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were missing something obvious. The tunnels, the corrupted wards, the vampire magic – it all connected somehow. But how? What were we missing?

"Dre?" Lia's voice pulled me from my thoughts. "You've got that look."

"What look?"

"The one you get right before something tries to eat us," Kota supplied helpfully.

I rolled my eyes but couldn't deny it. "Something about this feels off. The tunnels were too easy to find. The cultists knew exactly where we'd be. It's like..."

"Like we're being played," Phi said, cutting me off. "Like someone wanted us to find those tunnels and see our corrupted wards."

"But why?" Dani asked though I could see she was already working it out. "Unless... unless they're trying to divide us. Make us question who we can trust."

The answer was probably staring us right in the face. Knowing our luck, we'd figure it out right about the time everything went spectacularly sideways. Because that's how things worked in our lives. The moment you thought you had a handle on the situation, reality decided to throw you a curveball.

CHAPTER 7

DAHLIA

"Iswear to all that's holy, if one more mirror tries to show me the future, I'm going to start breaking them," I muttered as I glared at my reflection in Dani's vintage vanity. "Seven years of bad luck has to be better than watching myself age forward again." We’d returned home after the council meeting to get some planning done for the party.

The plantation's late afternoon light filtered through the windows of our workspace. We'd been trying to etch custom glasses for the Light Fae party for the past hour. So far, all we'd managed to do was witness increasingly disturbing visions in every reflective surface. Mack, my oldest daughter had finished the design and I loaded it into the laser engraver. All we needed to do now was etch the two hundred glasses. Well, we had finished about fifty-five.

"I've seen that woman in the Victorian dress pass by my mirror six times now," Kota said from her position near the window of the silo. "Each time, she's wearing a different color. I swear, the last time she had wings. The sixth time, she was riding what looked like a steampunk unicorn."

"That's nothing," Dre replied as she hand-painted one of the signs we had cut out. "The mirror in my bathroom showed me with green skin and tentacles. Then it switched to me riding a dinosaur down Bourbon Street. Think the Lost Legends are trying to tell me something about my fashion choices or my future career options?"

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