Page 51 of Saving the World and Other Bad Ideas (Grave Concerns 3)

Chapter Eleven

The Jade Room was impressive, but in a very different way from the rest of the guild I’d seen. So far, most of what I’d gone through were skyscraper-type buildings. The quarters I’d stayed in with Grant had sat at the top of a tall building with an expansive skyline. They were modern, sparce and expensive-looking.

The Jade Room was different. Instead of the modern decor of the other places, rather than a building that could have existed anywhere, in any big city in the world, I felt as if I’d been thrown backward a few hundred years.

Is this a castle?

I always thought I was different from other women, but in that moment, I became every little girl who wanted to be a princess.

Well, I wanted to be queen—the evil sort who got to run everything and who no one questioned.

Still, this sort of place would work well for it.

I was back in a pair of leather pants that werefartoo tight to be reasonable. Grant had summoned them up from whatever little hidey-hole he had, then made a comment about the sight of my ass in them when I’d asked why he couldn’t have just gotten me sweats.

A delicious ache reminded me of how I’d spent my time with Grant, of how we hadn’t stopped at just one round. It turned out that despite his age, he had a libido and recovery time that matched his youthful appearance. I didn’t mind putting those to use at all.

“Grant,” Maya said from ahead of us, pulling me from my musing. She wore a full suit this time, and appeared far more in control. I wasn’t sure if that was because she had backup close by or because she’d been able to school her features, since she expected Grant this time.

“Everyone able to move the time?” Grant asked.

“Yes, Magistrate. We have a full attendance.”

“How many is that now?”

“Forty-seven.”

Grant stopped so quickly, I ran into his back. He kept his attention on Maya, though. “Forty-seven? Why are there so many more?”

“You’ve been out of touch for a long time.”

“So? I doubt there are that many more mages.”

She shifted as though she didn’t care for his scrutiny. “No, our numbers haven’t increased.”

“So why?”

“Because without someone to cast breaking votes, many of the disagreements ended with splitting territory.”

Grant rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “You’re telling me that mages got into petty arguments and instead of working them out, they simply decided to take their toys and go home? To split up previously defined territory into even more chunks for no good reason?”

Maya nodded, swallowing hard, the whole cool-and-collected thing going right out of the window. “It seemed a better idea than war.”

Grant shook his head. “At least with a war, there’d be less bickering. How does it even work to have that many people on the council?”

“It works like it did before.”

“Except there are nowforty-sevendifferent heads of council, each with, what, thirty other mages below them, so the entire bureaucracy of it means nothing ever gets done?”

“I didn’t think you cared much about how things were run.” Jameson walked up, and Maya had the face of a woman whoknewshe’d been saved.

Then again, it didn’t seem like Maya had a whole lot of power in the scheme of things, so I was thankful Grant could take his anger out on the acting Magistrate rather than her.

“That’s because I didn’t know you all would take not having a Magistrate as a ticket to act like idiots and screw up an already bad system.”

“Is that why you returned?”

Grant snapped his mouth shut, as if he loathed the very idea of coming back into the fold. Sure, that was the story we were peddling, but it didn’t mean he had tolikeit.

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