Authors: Anise Rae
The Rallis matriarch got her way. Within minutes Bronte found herself ushered into a bedroom upstairs in the big house. As Helen bustled around the grand room and its connected bath, Bronte mulled over ways to get the damn medallion off. As if there were a real solution.
Allison stuck her head in. A nervous energy radiated around her. “Did you find the body? Do the Casteels have their medallion?”
The water came on in the bathroom, and Helen briskly stepped out.
“Shower’s ready. Bathrobe is on the back of the door.” Helen steered Bronte into the bathroom. “I’ll bring up a tray of food. You need to eat something. You barely ate a thing for lunch, and you missed dinner entirely.” She shut Bronte into the steaming room.
“Well?” Allison asked.
“Bronte has the medallion,” Helen said. Her voice carried through the door.
“Oh! It’s as good as ours then.” Allison’s giddy enthusiasm was audible behind the closed door.
“I know,” Helen’s eager tone faded away.
* * * *
She had to get rid of this thing before it killed her. She pulled her right hand from under the bed’s soft blankets and lifted it in the air. Dawn light shimmering through the cracks in the damask curtains glinted against the golden links. The weight of the medallion and its chain was strangely light, though its hard bulk was an alien presence on her wrist.
She’d wallowed in despair for most of the night. Her pillow was still damp with tears. Alas, her emotional frenzy had not repelled the medallion. Like a noose around her future, this chain strangled all her options and all her dreams. A senator could not make a living as a violinist, nor could a senator move out of the Republic. A senator stayed with her land.
As Vincent would stay with his, she thought. Her syphon power wasn’t so tuned to his energy that she’d become dependent on him. Not yet. Though he was gone, a faint thread of his energy hovered around her. It made sense that it would linger within his own home. Living in Casteel, she’d be empty without him. A fresh round of sobs threatened to bubble up. She bit them back. She faced bigger problems than a lonely heart.
A senator could not be defenseless against spells.
The Casteel medallion had to go.
It was time to get physical with this thing. She stared up at the molded ceiling and plotted possible solutions. If she coated her hand in butter, maybe it would slip off. Or if she numbed her hand in an ice bath and then wrapped hot towels around the golden chain, she could shrink her hand but expand the metal. If neither of those plans succeeded, she could cut the chain. Perhaps the gardener had a pair of metal cutters.
Short of that, she could cut off her hand. A sob jerked out of her so hard it hurt. She put her hand over her eyes, and the medallion clunked against her nose. An ache spread across her face, a painful prompt to action.
She tossed off the heavy covers and slid down from the tall bed. Helen had left her a silk robe draped across an upholstered chair. Bronte tied herself securely inside it and headed down the hall and the long stairs to the kitchen.
Dane strolled beside her. “Breakfast time, senator?”
“Yes.” It was easier than explaining.
He stepped into the cavernous room first, powered the lights, and inspected the area. “I can’t cook,” Dane stated. “Gregor can.”
“I wasn’t asking you to.” Bronte’s calm voice belied her tumultuous night. “You don’t have to stay in here.”
Dane narrowed his eyes. “Really.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m in my robe.”
He tipped his head. “You stay in the kitchen, and I’ll wait in the hall.”
She gave him a quick nod in agreement. The moment he was gone, she searched out a stick of butter from the broad depths of the gleaming refrigerator. Standing over the sink, she rubbed the yellow, fatty substance over her hand. The medallion and every link on its chain got a hefty coating as well. Maybe getting dressed first would have been wise. The robe’s wide sleeve fell around her lubricated wrist and stuck among the butter. She sniffed, residual tears leftover from the night. She should have blown her nose first, too.
With half of the stick gone, she placed the butter on the counter and analyzed every possible position of her hand to determine the smallest circumference. She pushed, pulled, and tugged so hard the skin on either side of her hands gleamed white around the golden chain. Already sore from her mother’s treatment, her hand and fingers swelled red and then blue. She forced herself to breathe through the pain and didn’t stop tugging until black spots began to grow before her eyes.
By the time she gave up, purple bruises encircled her wrist and hand. The flutter of the kitchen door coincided with her sorrowful sigh. She looked over her shoulder to see Allison, bleary-eyed and a bit green.
“Good morning, Senator Casteel.” She peered over Bronte’s shoulder. “Wow. You want some toast to go with that butter?”
The door whooshed again. “I’ll take care of that toast for you, senator.” A soft lilting voice came from the doorway. “Straight up, no potions.” The speaker was a tall, broad woman with gray hair, an apron and a generous smile. “And for you, Miss Rallis, some tea?”
Allison nodded and sat down at a bar stool while the cook busied around the kitchen.
Bronte watched, uncomfortable with having someone make her toast, but she could imagine the cook’s reaction if a senator offered to cook for herself.
In no time the cook placed it before her on a porcelain plate marked with the Rallis crest. With no appetite, Bronte pretended to nibble at the toast with a freshly clean left hand. The right one was too sore to move.
Allison stared at her. “Your new car is supposed to be delivered at three-quarters morning.”
“New car?” Bronte didn’t bother trying to calculate mage time. It had been a relief to hear everyone using standard time around here until now.
“Guess Aunt Helen thought a senator to ought drive something other than an old clunker. The new car will match the new clothes she ordered for you. I’m probably ruining the surprise, huh?” Allison took a sip of tea. “But you don’t look like you need anymore surprises. She also ordered a whole bunch of notebooks and scrolls with music staffs in them instead of regular lines. What do you call those?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “She wasn’t sure if you preferred notebooks or scrolls, so she bought both.
“She’s suiting up for a new senator to take residence here. She’s ordered the maids to clear out a room to use as your office, since Vincent’s house isn’t big enough.” Another sip of tea. “I think she’s kind of lost it really. I mean, everyone knows a senator lives in his own territory unless he is at the Rushes.” The brunette looked at her hard. “If you don’t like the clothes, give them to me. I made sure I liked them before she placed the order. So don’t return them to the designer.”
Bronte shook her head, searching through her shock for her voice. “I don’t want or need a new car.”
“Too bad. The old one is already gone as of a quarter of dawn. I heard the guy drive away. I can’t sleep at all, coming off these potions.” She sighed roughly. “Oh dark vibes, if I could have just one potion, I’d feel so much better. I even know the one I’d choose. A little
calminia
. I could sleep.” Allison sounded wistful. She sniffled. “I miss Lawry. Even if he messed up. I mess up too, you know? All the time. It’s not fair that I can’t see him anymore just because he talked to a reporter. It’s what he does! He talks to people. On television even. And he creates potions.”
Bronte interrupted her. “Where did they take my car?” This family was driving her nuts. They got rid of her car without asking?
“Junkyard probably. By the stars, Bronte, nobody would want that thing. If the metallist is smart at all, he’ll put your car at the top of his to-be-crushed list.”
Tears burned Bronte’s nose and then spilled into her eyes and down her cheeks. Her car had been a loyal ally. She blinked another tear free as the beginnings of a plan formed in her head, but it did not include rescuing her Volvo.
“Oh, Bronte, don’t cry. The new car is much better. Sleek, shiny white. They took off the standard spell to keep it clean. Aunt Helen wasn’t sure if you’d be comfortable in a car with a spell. But they can always put it back on. It has a petrol engine instead of a mage engine. Except for that, it’s a real beaut.”
“My old car was a real beaut too!”
“Right.” Allison leaned back at Bronte’s vehemence. “Sure, senator.”
“Where is the junkyard?” With its metallist, she added silently.
“Somewhere in the Drainpipe. But no one goes to that neighborhood. Who would? It’s mostly dark mages there, and nobody likes the dark. I can’t believe you had to work with a necromancer yesterday.” Allison shivered and then waved a hand in the air. “The metallist is somewhere on the other side of the Scioto. Dell might know. The gardener. He knows everything.”
Bronte hustled back upstairs, picking up Gregor along the way, thankful he’d taken over from Dane. He stayed outside her designated bedroom as she tossed on the dress and boots she’d worn the night before, not bothering to look around for any new clothes, though she suspected her fairy clothes-mother had poofed in.
She dashed out of the room and back down the stairs without a word to Gregor.
“Big plans, senator?” Gregor asked as he slid in front of her.
“Yes.” She paused at the bottom of the staircase. “Which way is the front door?”
“You leaving?” Surprise and caution pulled his voice higher.
Bronte chose to go straight ahead. It dead-ended into a hallway with three doors. Backtracking, she tried the left and strode past a portrait of a Rallis ancestor in a military uniform so decorated he must have been commander of the entire army.
“Because we should go over the ground rules if you’re starting to feel adventurous.” Gregor marched along beside her with as determined a pace as hers. “Number one, you’re not leaving. Number two, don’t go within sight of the gates. Number three, don’t go anywhere on the estate without either Dane or I.”
Success this time. The gleam of the foyer appeared ahead. She rushed down the hallway to the open space. Gregor sprinted around her.
“Number four, Dane or I go in front of you. All this would be much simpler at the colonel’s house.”
“Then you should have voiced your opinion last night.” She stepped close to his heels all the way out the front door and down the broad stone stairs. As she circled the entire house, her brisk stride kept her warm in the cool fall air, despite her lack of coat. She walked around twice before she found her target.
“Dell.” She moved one step in front of Gregor.
The gardener looked up from stacking branches into a vertical bundle. The sticks all stood on their ends. He smiled, and with a wink of his eye, the sticks fanned into the air to create an arch. It was quite a trick, though it hurt her ears. She wondered if he pulled extra energy through the tuning spirals tattooed on his temples for such a fancy maneuver.
Dell stepped beneath his arch and bowed low. “Senator Casteel.” The dark-haired man was much taller and well-muscled than she remembered. He straightened from his bow as if he were standing at attention.
She turned to Gregor, who eyed the gardener as if he were a danger.
Dell eyed him back.
“Gregor, would you mind standing over there?” She pointed at the corner of the house in front of her. “Conforming with rule number three, you will be in front of me.”
Gregor squinted at Dell for a long moment. He complied with her wishes, but he walked backward to the corner. Dell never broke eye contact until Gregor stopped moving. Even then, the gardener shifted so that his back was not to her guard.
“I hear you know everything,” Bronte stated softly.
He lifted his eyebrow, a look of cautious amusement falling over him. “To which ‘everything’ do you refer?”
“The everything that includes where the junkyard is.” At his look of confusion, she continued, “My car was taken there by mistake. I would like it back.”
“I can make sure it is returned to you, senator.” He made the offer with a half-bow.
“No, thank you. I would like to search it out myself.” She realized she had no paper or pen. “I’ll be right back. Will you be here? I forgot something to write it down with.”
Dell lifted a hand toward a pocket.
“Hey!” Gregor shouted.
Bronte jumped, startled at his furious voice.