Page 9 of Magic Betrayed

By eleven, the bar was nearly empty, so closing up was relatively quick and easy. I helped Irene with the last of the kitchen cleanup before emerging into the dimly lit bar and ensuring that all the tables had been wiped and the floor was thoroughly mopped.

Then I waved goodbye to Emberly—Faris’s fire elemental office manager—and started my lonely trek home, to an apartment that promised to be almost as dark and cold as the January night.

Thankfully, it was a shorter trip than it had been three months ago. Our new apartment was still on Sheridan, but considerably closer to The Portal, and I spent every bit of my fifteen-minute walk thinking through changes I could make to keep Kes and the kids more secure without returning to the days when all of us lived in constant fear. Wondering how I could alert Faris to the danger without him finding out the truth about its origin.

Our apartment’s greatest vulnerability was probably the balcony with its glass door. It remained locked, barred, and alarmed, of course, and we were on the fourth floor, but I wasn’t sure what sort of enemies to expect, or what their magic might be. And alarms did little good unless help was close enough at hand.

Maybe I could find a way to ask Faris whether he had people watching the building. While sounding entirely innocent and without revealing too much about why I was asking…

As I approached our new home, it appeared that the power outage was confined to our building, a suspicion that was quickly confirmed by the electrician’s van parked on the curb outside. Hopefully that meant it would be fixed sooner rather than later.

It also meant the elevator was out, but I usually took the stairs anyway, as elevators made me feel trapped.

It was almost eerie, climbing the stairs in the dim blue glow of the emergency lights, and making my way down the silent hallway until I reached our door.

It didn’t occur to me until I arrived that a power outage meant the door lock wouldn’t be working properly either.

When it didn’t respond to me keying in the code, I knocked. Gently. I didn’t want to disturb the kids or the neighbors, but I knew Kes would still be awake.

No answer. And I couldn’t call her, for the same reason she’d texted Kira instead of me—we only had the one phone between us.

There was no way we could afford phones yet, and the one Kes used was a gift from Faris. More of a demand, actually. He’d wanted to give us two, but I was enough in his debt as it was, and had stubbornly insisted on waiting until I could pay for the second one on my own—an action I was beginning to regret.

But it had never seemed like a problem before. Thanks to my unconventional childhood—followed by ten years of captivity—I’d never owned a phone, so I didn’t feel the lack. And typically, I spent all my time with other people who had phones, like Kira, Seamus, or Faris. I left ours with Kes for emergencies, and she would text them if she needed me. But tonight, all of them were at Faris’s condo for the wedding committee, so there was no way to know if she’d tried to contact them.

Frustrated by my lack of options, I jiggled the door handle and felt my stomach drop as the door simply swung open… into a dark and silent apartment.

THREE

In the blink of an eye,I was back in the tunnels.

A prisoner in the darkness, being hunted relentlessly.

Forced to use my magic to survive.

Competing instincts froze me in place as I fought with the ingrained desire to hide my magic from my captors. To refuse to be the weapon they wanted.

But this was not a cave. It was my home. And with every breath, I was growing more certain that Shane’s warning may have come too late. This power outage may, in fact, have been deliberate, and my family might no longer be safe.

If so—if the worst of my fears proved true—I was the only one who could help them, and to do that, I needed control of my magic.

First, silence. I couldn’t use my fae magic for glamour, but I could quiet my footsteps and pass unheard, even by fae ears. Shapeshifters were another matter, but for now, I dampened my footsteps and crossed the threshold, reaching out with every one of my senses into the enshrouding darkness.

My hearing was the only sense that remained heightened even in human form, but even so, I could catch no hint of sound. No one moved, no one even breathed.

No one breathed…

I had to cross through the kitchen and into the living room to reach the bedrooms, and I felt a stab of warning as I passed the utility room door on the right. Still no sound, but… something wasn’t right.

And then I tripped over an obstacle in the dark and landed flat on my face.

Adrenaline surged, and I rolled away, then crouched against the kitchen island, trying to quiet my breathing and rein in my panic. What could have been left in the middle of the floor?

Something small… Reaching out cautiously, I felt my way forward until my fingers met canvas and rubber…

Shoes. I’d tripped over Logan’s new shoes that somehow always ended up in the middle of a walkway or under the table instead of the utility room where they belonged.

I rolled my eyes in the dark and pushed to my feet. Took hold of my fear and reached deep for the magic that blazed hot and fierce at my core. There was no need to be afraid. The power was mine now and I could not change that, so I grasped it, shaped it into a bright, crackling ball of blue, and hurled it into the heart of the darkness.

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