Page 67 of Magick and Lead
He revved his motorbike, and it gave a ground-shuddering roar. Above, a light in one of the apartments clicked on.
“Get. On. The damned. Motorcycle,” he said.
He was speaking to me like my mother would have. Which made me realize I was, in fact, being a brat. I didn’t have to like his necromancer technology, but the Earth Mother certainly wouldn’t smite me down for riding it just this once—especiallywith enemies pursuing us—enemies who might catch up to us at any moment.
“Fine,” I huffed, getting onto the saddle behind him.
We rolled forward a few feet, then he stopped.
“Wait,” he muttered, slipping out of his suit coat and handing it back to me. “It’s going to be cold when we’re moving.”
I wanted to protest. To tell him I didn’t need his clothes, didn’t want his sweet gestures. And yet, my exposed shoulders and arms were already goosebumped by the night air. The coat smelled like him and was warm with his body heat. I couldn’t resist putting it on and being enveloped by his presence. I nuzzled into it, put my arms around his waist, and held on as he kicked us into motion again.
The seat rumbled beneath me, making me aware of all the sensitive parts of my body he had so recently touched and brought to life.
That was a problem.
I was a queen. I was to remain pure. It was a grave transgression to give myself to anyone, much less a foreign enemy.
But then, I’d never been one to follow anyone else’s rules.
And my body still ached with satisfaction at the memory of his touch. As I closed my eyes and laid my head against his back, I couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of safety and belonging. I wished I could just be here like this forever. The wind in my hair, my face pressed against Charlie’s strong back, my arm clasped around his waist, feeling his body expand and contract with every breath.
You love him, Othura whispered in my mind.
Shut up and eat your rats.
I felt her smiling as she retreated from my mind. But even after she was gone, her words kept echoing through my mind. And as we sailed on that black road, under those stars—the samestars that shone above Maethalia—I couldn’t help but feel that flying through the night on the back of a motorcycle wasn’t so different from riding on the back of a dragon after all.
31
PRELATE KORTOI
The heavy, leatherbound encyclopedia sat open in Kortoi’s lap. His long fingernail traced down the line of words, and he whispered them aloud as he read—so the dead, the beasts of the void, and his brothers might hear and learn, too.
“Hmm. Did you know one barrel of crude oil produces around nineteen gallons of petrol fuel?” he asked, glancing to Larl, the Brother he’d appointed as his special attaché for this diplomatic mission, who lounged on the couch nearby. Larl shook his head. The other two Brothers who’d joined them on the trip, who stood near the door as sentries, looked bored.
Kortoi turned his attention back to the book. “Never miss an opportunity to learn something new, my brothers,” he said. “Especially when you travel. It is written in the Third Book of the Void that knowledge is—” there came a knock at the door.
“Enter.” He placed his bookmark and closed the book, rising to his feet.
In came Langford. The intelligence agent was tall, with skin pale as birch bark, hair like slicked-back corn silk, and a suit so black, its woolen fabric would have pleased the void-beasts well. He was handsome too, the planes of his face so smooth and sculpted they reminded Kortoi of a fine vase. But he wasone of the blood drinkers, a vampyre. And though Kortoi had corresponded with him for long years and they served the same masters in the under-realm, the proximity of such a predator made the hairs on the back of the prelate’s neck stand up.
I am a predator too, just of a different sort,Kortoi reminded himself. Still, his unease remained.
“Prelate Kortoi,” the blood drinker said with a nod.
“Mr. Langford. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“There’s been a new development. The one-armed princess is here.”
Kortoi blinked. Given the many hours he spent gazing into the scrying bowl, few things surprised him anymore. But he had not foreseen this.
“Essaphine? Are you sure?”
The undead man nodded, though in all other ways his body remained unnaturally still.
Kortoi scowled, rubbing two fingers thoughtfully across his lips. Surely this development presented an opportunity—for the wise, everything was an opportunity, it was written—but it troubled him, too.
