Authors: Anise Rae
“It’s not that I don’t want to stay. It’s that I don’t want to
have
to stay.” Bronte shook her head mindlessly. He would never let her go free.
She could never trust a mage.
Her breath stuck so tightly in her throat she almost choked on the thought. She closed her eyes as the impact of her own prejudice hit her, absorbing it like a blow. Her shoulders collapsed.
Her long-held beliefs against all mages had kept her safe for years. She’d seen, though, that not all mages were like her parents. She wanted to trust Vincent, but she was so afraid. She used that fear as an excuse to run from her dreams.
The anger drained out of her.
“You won’t have to stay on the estate forever.” He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I will make this Republic safe for you one territory at a time if I have to.”
“I’m doing the planning, remember?”
He looked at her with his brow lowered. “You’re so stubborn.”
“You’re so bossy.”
Someone nodded. Bronte glanced over to see Lord Rallis’s head bobbing up and down. Helen’s too. Actually everyone was nodding.
“You’ll stay?”
“For now. But you have to stop orchestrating my life.” She looked at Lady Rallis. “And not just Vincent. You all have to stop. I decide what I will and will not do. Deal?”
Vincent gave a curt nod. “Deal.”
No one else responded, though she gave them plenty of silence to speak.
She narrowed her eyes at Vincent. “Will you respect my wishes and let me leave when it’s safe?”
He narrowed his eyes right back. “For now.”
She wasn’t fooled. “But I can’t leave now.”
“I know. We can renegotiate later.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. Gaining ground with the Rallises was like one step forward only to be gently, but firmly, pushed off the trail. No matter. She’d walk a different trail. They could follow her. As if to give credence to her determination to direct her own life, she moved away from Vincent, stepping out of the circle of Rallises. She walked behind the senator’s desk to stand by the huge windows. The senator patted her on the arm as she passed by.
She hardly recognized the person she’d become—someone who could walk around Senator Rallis’s office as freely as she would her own house, who was important enough to be the subject of a meeting held by the country’s most powerful family. She leaned against the window to face them.
Vincent rested back in his chair, his fingers a pyramid of thoughtfulness as he studied her for a long moment. Finally, with a quick glance at his parents, he spoke. “Let’s talk about the newspaper leak.”
A bit of tension left Bronte as he switched the subject, or maybe it was the warmth of the sunshine beaming through the windows. It heated her shoulders and relaxed her muscles.
“Chrissy got Bronte’s nom de plume from me.” Helen confessed immediately. The words spilled from her as if they’d been waiting on her tongue for their opportunity to be divulged. “I didn’t talk to her again last night.”
“Someone did.” The senator’s voiced boomed against his sound spell. “Bring in the compeer,” he ordered.
Edmund strode away. The doors opened before him. The sound spell remained in place as he walked out. Bronte had hoped for a respite. She tugged on her left ear.
“Do you need a break?”
Bronte cast her gaze at Vincent to find herself the subject of his intense, eagle-eyed look. She shook her head, uncomfortable to have everyone knowing the spell bothered her. “It’s only been a few minutes. I can handle it.”
“For Bronte’s sake, be efficient, family.” Helen gave the order.
Edmund led the compeer and her handler in. The door closed behind them.
Betty, the compeer, had lost her puff. Her bright pink suit matched sad splotches on her face. Her handler stood as if his joints had frozen. A slight breeze might shatter him to pieces.
Betty sniffled. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice shook with tears. “That lady reporter cornered me in the bathroom. I really had to go.” She crossed her legs and squeezed them together, as a demonstration of her past urgency. Despite the seriousness of the topic, Bronte bit her lip to stifle her smile.
“Freddy couldn’t come in with me, of course.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the man behind her. His throat bobbed with a hard swallow.
“Of course.” Edmund’s sarcasm threw the woman even further from her composure.
“Oh, I think he could have,” Vincent added with a dry tone.
The handler dropped his jaw at the improper suggestion.
Bronte didn’t blame the man. She walked back to her seat, bringing Vincent within kicking distance.
Betty scrunched up her red face. “Well, no, he couldn’t because he’s—”
“Betty.” Her handler’s whispered rebuke cut off her ramble. Silence fell.
“Continue,” the senator boomed.
Betty jumped. She looked at Bronte beseechingly. “I didn’t tell her your name. I didn’t tell her anything. She kept asking question after question.” She wrung her hands like a wet sponge, despair dripping with each twist. “Every time she asked the right question, she somehow knew the answer. I think she must have read it in my face. I’m no good at hiding things.” She sniffed again, and her face crumpled with it. “It’s why Freddy doesn’t let me go anywhere without him.”
“She asked you if Bronte was a syphon?” Vincent questioned.
Betty nodded. “She listed a whole bunch of other mage types first. She asked if she was a siren, a static. I think she listed nymph and oracle. There might have been a few more. I kept saying no, no, no. I didn’t say yes when she asked if she was a siphon, but I realized that’s what your match must be. I didn’t say anything, though.” She waved her hand in the air. “Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Betty began to sob. “It’s all my fault. And your energies are perfect together. I’ve never seen two mages match like you do.” She lifted a hand toward Bronte. “And now you’re going to be executed.”
Bronte gave Vincent a pointed look. Betty’s attitude reflected the mindset of every mage out there. There was no eraser big enough to rewrite the opinions of an entire nation of mages. Vincent could work on it until Bronte was wizened and gray, and still the world would not accept her.
He scowled at the compeer.
Bronte poked her dirty, cold toes against his shin—a warning not to lash the poor woman. She was reining in that bull. A current of warmth circled around her feet. Energy spilled into her syphon.
Vincent’s expression turned pensive. “Betty, do you think Bronte deserves to die?”
His bloodline peeked out with the question. Founding families played the politician’s game like no others, manipulating their opponents’ thoughts and words like pawns on a chessboard. Poor Betty was far outmatched in this room.
“Well, no.” Words shot out between sobs. “No one listens to me though.”
“Chrissy Harney, the reporter, listened to you,” Vincent countered. “She heard everything you said and then some. You have a powerful voice.”
Betty straightened with a sniff. “Well, yes. I am powerful. But she used my words against me.” She slumped. “Or more like my not-words.”
“That would be your silence,” Edmund offered helpfully.
“Right. My silence. And, usually, I don’t have much of that. And I never will again. It’s dangerous.” The room filled with her sobs. “Oh, Lady Rallis, I’ll waive your fee for your other son’s match. The one you originally contracted me for. I’ve narrowed down the spot where she is. It’s quite close, quite promising too.”
“It’s alright, Betty,” Edmund said. “You don’t need to find me a match. I’m in love with Bronte, too. And don’t go being silent about that. I could never take a wife now. However, I am looking for simple, short-term consolation for my broken heart. Just a night’s worth of solace. You can blab about that with your words and your not-words.”
“Oh, for the love of the light, Edmund!” Lady Rallis dropped her head into her hand.
“Alright.” Betty nodded at Edmund, and then her face fell. “Oh. I’m fired.”
“Yes. You’re fired,” Lady Rallis snapped. “Now tell us what you said to Chrissy Harney about a baby.”
“Baby? You’re going to have a baby?” Betty’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh no.”
“You didn’t tell Chrissy Harney that my son and Miss Casteel are going to have a baby?” Lady Rallis asked.
Betty shook her head a hundred eighty degrees.
“Did she ask you about a baby? Perhaps you were silent about it?”
More shaking. If Helen kept up the questions, the compeer’s head would spin in complete circles, Bronte thought. She almost laughed out loud. Goddess, she was tired.
“Truth,” the senator stated.
Someone else had leaked the false story.
Lord Rallis stood and approached the pair. “Betty Howland and Frederick Daniels, you are hereby released from your contract with the Rallis family. You are sworn to never mention any work you have done for us, nor anything you have learned about the Rallis family, or about the person who currently calls herself Bronte Casteel or B. Castle to anyone, at anytime or in any form.”
The pressure of Lord Rallis’s heavy spell crushed her ears. She clenched her hands to them, a useless protection from the force. The powerless could never block mage energy, but it didn’t stop her from pushing her index fingers into her ear canal as if she could prevent the thin membranes from exploding. She heard herself make a noise as the spell finally fell onto its targets. She relaxed a little at a time and slowly brought her hands away.
The doors opened. Betty and Frederick walked out of the room.
Vincent draped his arm around her. “Alright?”
She nodded.
“Does it bother you when Vincent casts energy?” Helen studied her, concern etched in the grim line of her mouth.
“No.” This time Bronte didn’t resist pinching her nose shut and blowing to pop her ears, though it didn’t work. “When other mages cast, it’s like my syphon is trying to absorb the power, but it doesn’t fit…like it’s too big. Vincent is the exception.”
“Okay, family,” Helen began. “Two spells at once are too many for Bronte. Let’s remember that.”
“From now on, I cast the sound spells when Bronte’s around.” Vincent sat up in his chair, arms draped over its sides, a king’s declaration.
“You’re no good at it.” Edmund shot out as he strode back.
“I’ll practice, which I can afford to do with Bronte around.”
“So who the hell is the baby leak?” Edmund demanded as he walked back to lean against the desk. “Is it right? Are you pregnant?” He pinned Bronte with a beam of his eyes.
“I’ve only been here for one night!”
“It only takes once.”
She shook her head more vigorously than the compeer. The blushing flames on her cheeks burned. “No. No.” She gave a sideways glance at Vincent, hoping for backup, but the speculation in his eyes made it all worse. She hadn’t used any birth control last night, nor had she sensed a spell that would indicate Vincent used energy for it. She probably should have thought that through before she’d seduced him. She drummed her fingers against her chin and desperately filed through her mind for knowledge on how to change the subject.
Allison saved her. “It’s my fault.” Everyone spun to the other woman at her confession. “It was an accident. I didn’t set out to do it.” Allison gestured toward Bronte with her hand. “I asked Lawry if he thought she’d have a syphon baby. He’s a doctor. I thought he might know. You were only a few feet away from me, Aunt Helen. It was right before we sat back down after intermission. That reporter was still hanging around. I think she heard me. I never mentioned anything about the Council taking it, though.” Allison sounded as if that ought to make everyone less angry with her. “I said that if she had a syphon baby, we could give it to Daddy. Then he could be here too. He could come to family meetings with the rest of us.”
Bronte’s own shock was mirrored in every Rallis face. To use a baby for its mage power was a brutal fate. She bit her lip. Though her horror outweighed it, a touch of sympathy whispered through her. Allison’s impossible yearning to belong to someone was a familiar feeling.
“Allison, what the hell is wrong with you?” Edmund did not share her sympathy. “You want to steal the future Rallis heir from its parents and give it away? You sound like the High Council justifying taking babies for their powers.”