Page 95 of Magic Claimed
Her smile was a thing of pure evil. “If it exists, I’ll find it.” She stood up, crossed the room to an empty desk, and pulled a computer out of a drawer. “Heather left her laptop behind when she betrayed us the first time. She’d planted a program meant to wipe the drive when triggered remotely, but I’d already disconnected it from the network and gone through her files. Nothing incriminating there, but her social network might be a different story.”
I turned back to Callum as she went to work. “So where does this leave us? Assuming she finds the connection”—and I was certain she would—“how do all these pieces fit together?”
Callum glanced at Faris. “You want to tell her about Hector?”
My boss looked like he’d eaten something unpleasant.
“What about him?” I demanded, eyeing his expression with a growing sensation of dread.
“I released him,” Faris said, “in exchange for information. Remember when he let drop that little comment about being paid to strike back at the ones who’d shunned him? We assumed he was talking about delivering your summons, but it turns out he was also paid to attack me, by a shifter woman he’s done regular business with. One who—his words—smelled like a human.”
Blast it all anyway. Was there anything Blake didn’t have his hand in?
But how? How could Heather be in so many places in such a short time? How did Blake have this many connections, and how could he afford it?
“Where is he getting all his money?” We’d escaped the fae prison with nothing, but somehow Blake was now running a massive criminal enterprise, paying off assassins, and housing his army of magic-seeking humans.
“He’s selling magical artifacts.”
Everyone in the room turned to stare at Deverin in shock, and none of those stares were happy.
“You already knew?” Callum confronted his father, a hint of fury in his tone. “About the artifacts?”
Deverin’s pointed silence told us everything we needed to know.
“Did you also know what he can do with them?”
More silence.
“And does your human supervisor know?”
Deverin grimaced, and that was evidence enough for myheart to plummet like a lead brick. All of our efforts to hide the truth from humans, even Tairen’s willingness to sacrifice herself… useless.
“How long?” Callum growled. “How long has the Bureau been sitting on this information? I always knew they were worthless, but I also assumed it was humans running things. Now you’re saying you knew what Elayara was doing—what Blake is trying to repeat—and you didnothing?”
He shook his head incredulously. “You said you have connections in every enclave. So tell me why. Why didn’t you do anything about Elayara? Why did you allow what happened to her victims? If you knew so much, why didn’t you stop her from ruining so many lives?”
Deverin’s gaze softened, but he offered no apology, and his posture did not change. “I didn’t know about Elayara,” he amended. “Not until it was too late. Not until her remnants had already been dealt with. I knew she was a monster—everyone did—but not about the experiments. Later, we heard of a few seemingly magical objects surfacing, but I didn’t have any more information until I spoke with Tairen.
“She told me about the gem Elayara wore. About what it did. So, I went looking for answers and found listings of supposed magical artifacts. I bought some and realized they were the real thing, which was when I started down this trail—hunting for the one who was selling them.”
His eyes closed for a moment, and his lips pinched in what looked like regret. “You should also know that I have limited power to change the Bureau’s actions or policies. I have access toa lot of information, I can advise, and I’m in a position to influence, but that is all.”
And yet… It was a position he’d held for nearly forty years, and that had to be for a reason.
“If you’re helpless, why stay?” I asked quietly.
His expression smoothed over. “Does it matter?”
“It does.” If nothing else, it mattered to Callum, Ryker and Kira. Because no matter how much they shrugged it off and said this was just how things were, I knew they still wondered why he hadn’t been a part of their lives.
“I stayed,” he said roughly, “because I was the only one in a position to stand between Idrians and humans.”
We all absorbed that for a moment as we waited for him to continue.
“Decades ago, I foresaw a day when this peace between us would fracture, because it’s based on willful blindness. We Idrians aren’t treated as citizens, we’re treated as refugees. And we do nothing to change that. We huddle in our enclaves, we don’t even try to understand our human neighbors, and they return the favor. And I knew that the moment our presence cost something the humans didn’t want to pay, they would turn on us.”
He lifted his hands, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness. “I couldn’t abandon the trust I’d gained. Couldn’t take the risk that there would be no one to represent our people if the worst ever happened. No one who might know how to work towards peace. So… yes. Right or wrong, I stayed.”
