The scent of fried eggs, spiced chicken, and herbs hung over the whole kitchen. Standing in front of the circular countertop in the middle of the room, I shoveled another forkful of the delicious omelet into my mouth before looking up at Paige. Damn, she was a good cook.
My gaze slid to Audrey, and I couldn’t help raising my eyebrows in a teasing gesture. Narrowing her eyes, she shot me a vicious glare as if saying, don’t even think about it. I let out a silent chuckle. At our mansions, both of us had had people who cooked for us and cleaned and did all the things that we had no interest in doing. When we moved into this house together, properly moved in, we should probably hire some staff too.
A plummeting sensation rippled through my stomach at that thought, and my heart did a backflip in my chest. When we moved in together. When all this was over, Audrey and I were actually going to move in here together. Start a life here. Together. Energy crackled through my body and I had to suppress the urge to inhale the rest of my food and run out the door to make that future happen faster.
It was followed by a sudden flash of embarrassment. When the hell had I become this pathetic? I was supposed to be a dark mage. But ever since I met Audrey, I had started to feel more and more like some infatuated schoolboy. It was absolutely ridiculous.
A wicked smile threatened to spread across my lips. Tonight, I was going to have to show that infuriating little poisoner exactly what she did to me, and subject her to some excruciatingly pleasurable payback.
“And what are you grinning about?” Henry’s teasing voice echoed through the kitchen, pulling me out of my thoughts.
Shaking my head, I shoved the enticing thoughts aside and stabbed into my omelet again. “Nothing.”
From across the smooth wooden counter, Audrey was watching me with glittering green eyes, as if she could see right through me.
“You said the list of names from your contact arrived last night,” Levi thankfully said before either Audrey or Henry could call me on the lie. His penetrating gaze slid to Paige. “Can we trust the intel?”
Paige paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. Raising her eyebrows, she swept her gaze over all of us and then waved the fork around, making a few pieces of omelet fly through the air and land on the counter below. “After that little dark mage obey-or-die show you all put on, yeah, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t dare to so much as sneeze unless we gave him permission.”
Villainous smiles spread across all of our faces. “Good.”
Rolling her eyes, she waved her fork around again. “By the way, didn’t I tell you that I would do the talking?”
“You did do the talking,” Audrey reasoned with an innocent shrug. “We just… backed you up.”
She shot her friend a flat stare. “Uh-huh. Anyway, yes, we have the list and we can trust that it’s accurate. So, now what?”
“We need a way to take them all at the same time,” Levi said. A knowing look passed over his features as he slid his gaze to me and Henry. “You know what prey is like when it knows that it’s being hunted. If we take one of these people, the rest will go to ground immediately.”
“Yeah,” I said while Henry grunted his agreement too.
Audrey looked over at Paige. “Wait, all of the people on the list, they’re involved in the social circles, right?”
“They’re all spouses or family of parliament members, so yeah they’re involved in some form or other,” she replied.
“I think I know how to get them all to come to the same place at the same time.” Schemes glittered in her eyes as she turned to meet my gaze. “But for that, we need some leverage.”
The midday sun shone down on the outdoor market. People talked softly while drifting through the stalls or stopping to peer at different products. The colorful awnings that provided shade for the owners of the stalls fluttered slightly as a gentle breeze whirled through the open square. I kept to the shadows as I stalked our prey through it.
A short distance away, Henry and Levi were doing the same. However, since neither of them had their face plastered on wanted posters, they didn’t have to skulk around as much as I did. Audrey and Paige had remained back at the house in order to minimize the risk of detection, but we needed at least one person who actually knew what our target looked like, which was why I had gone with Levi and Henry.
Two women came strolling down the path right towards me. Keeping my head slightly bowed, I pretended to study a table of freshly baked pies until they had passed. Then I started forward again.
Our target was still moving in areas that were far too crowded. We needed him to branch off towards the alleys on the right. I scanned the square again.
The small trees that had been planted at regular intervals on the pale cobblestones rustled their branches as another warm summer wind stroked their leaves. Everywhere, people chatted and laughed as if there wasn’t a war happening in the hills outside their precious city right at this very moment. And not a single constable to be seen.
By pulling everyone out for the war, they had left their city practically undefended. I wondered how the regular criminals in here had reacted to that.
I snuck down the path and then turned right as my prey finally began making his way towards the edge of the market. Raising my head, I met Henry’s eyes and then jerked my chin. He nodded back. Levi was with him, but I wasn’t stupid enough to give the King of Metal such an obvious order so I just hoped that he would follow Henry. Amusement played over Levi’s features, as if he saw right through me. But thankfully, he followed Henry towards another side street.
Making sure to stay a short distance behind, I casually walked towards the edge of the market too. Anticipation thrummed inside me. After the way our prey had behaved last time Audrey and I had spent time with him, I found that I was rather looking forward to this.
Bright sunlight painted his brown hair in an almost golden color, and made the crisp white dress shirt he wore look even paler in comparison to his black pants. I picked up the pace as he neared the mouth of the alley.
Once he had reached it, I silently jogged the final distance to catch up.
The buildings here were so tall that they shrouded the narrow alleyway in gloomy shadows. I blinked against the change, trying to get my eyes to adjust quickly.
My target was so close now.
All it would take was a few long strides, and then I’d be able to grab him.
As if the bastard had eyes in the back of his head, he suddenly whirled around to face me. “What’s…” He trailed off, and his brown eyes went wide as they took me in. “You.”
“Carl Dawson.” I flashed him a wolfish grin. “Long time no see.”
He slapped his palms together and threw a blast of wind at me, probably to knock me backwards. But it didn’t matter. I was faster.
Using a force shield, I shoved his attack into the pale stone wall of the building on my left. Dust and a few pieces of gravel rained down as it hit. I raised my eyebrows. Panic flashed across Carl’s face, and he shot a lightning bolt towards me.
It wasn’t even aimed that well, so all it took was a slight push with another force shield and it cracked into the wall instead.
Damn, I had almost forgotten how bad ordinary people were at battle magic. Constables were weaker than us because they had to rely on the Great Current, but they had at least gotten combat training. These normal citizens, they really had no idea how to effectively attack someone with magic.
Shaking my head, I tutted, “Oh come now, Carl. None of that.”
He seemed to realize that he would never be able to beat me, so he dropped his next water magic attack and instead whirled around and sprinted towards the other end of the alley.
I heaved a deep sigh. Letting my force shield fade out, I strode after the fleeing man.
When he had almost reached the end, two people suddenly appeared around the corner and stalked into the alley.
“Oh, thank the Current,” Carl blurted out as he skidded to a halt a couple of steps in front of them. Raising a hand, he pointed back towards me. “There’s a dark mage here and he’s trying to kill me.”
“A dark mage?” A predatory smile spread across Levi’s lips as he brushed his palms together and summoned a wicked-looking metal blade out of thin air. “You don’t say?”
I couldn’t see Carl’s expression from this angle, but he jerked back as if in fear and panic. Henry didn’t even bother to call up his magic, his physical presence was threatening enough as it was.
Stumbling backwards, Carl whipped his head back and forth, trying to keep both them and me in view. I used the opportunity when he was looking in the wrong direction to quickly close the distance between us.
A gasp tore from his throat as he turned his head and suddenly found me right in front of him.
Taking a firm grip on his impeccable white shirt, I swung him around and shoved him back first up against the wall. Air exploded from his lungs in a huff. With my hand still buried in the collar of his shirt, I held him pinned against the wall while Henry and Levi flanked me.
“P-please,” Carl managed to press out, and raised his hands in surrender. “Look, I’m sorry for telling the constables what we knew about you. But we had to cooperate. Chancellor Quill himself supervised the interviews. We had to tell them. Please.”
“Oh we’re not here about that.” I cocked my head and let a vicious smile curl my lips. “But thanks for telling me that you ratted us out too. I’ll keep that in mind for later.”
A whimper escaped his throat.
“No, we’re here about something else entirely,” I continued.
“What?”
Pulling him away from the wall, I swung an arm around his shoulders as if we were old pals. By the way he cringed, it was very obvious that we weren’t. But he was going to have to learn to pretend until we got where we were going.
“Come on, let’s take a walk.”
