Page 32

He tossed me a small object that hit my forehead and fell into my lap.

“Ouch!” Rubbing the bruise, I retrieved the stone, smaller than a pinky.

It was plain, smooth, and black, but contained one single rune, carved in gold.

Laguz. Its primary meaning was water, but I just knew that this specific one was even more obvious: it stood forL.

Lucian’s signature rune. “What is it?” I asked softly.

There was an enchantment at work beyond the rune, despite the smoothness and simplicity of the stone. It tickled my fingers, demanding to be studied, torn apart and put back together. Whatever magic was at work, it felt…perfect. No flaw to untangle.

My cousin beamed. “An emergency button, in case I get in trouble. I press it, call his name, and he’d get my location to portal in. Lucian says he’d charge me his usual rate for saving my skin—whichwouldbankrupt me. He’s a hundred gold an hour. But it’s nice he gave me a way to contact him like that, you know? I doubt he distributes these to everyone he knows.”

I was too shocked by the former declaration to focus on his point. “A hundred goldan hour?”

“Yeah, I mean, people hire him to do crazy stuff. Fighting demons, chatting with gods, I don’t know what else. And he owns several successful businesses too, so, to be worth his time?—”

“A hundred gold an hour,” I parroted.

It was my turn to feel like I could cry.

As a trainee, I madethreegolds per hour—twenty-one per day—and that wasgenerous. Three golds were about thirty dollars. Working for the Guard was one of the most prestigious careers in the Vale.

A fully qualified archivist could hope to make between thirty and a hundred a day depending on the department they were assigned to. The researchers who assessed dangerous objectsand removed, contained their curse, or morphed them to make them harmless, earned the most, but it was a highly dangerous profession, almost as hazardous as being in the field as a protector. Protectors often switched to the high archives before retirement.

That wasn’t my goal. I wanted to end up in the library, so I would never, ever, see as much money per year as that man made in a week. And that was if he took it easy, five days a week, eight hours per day max.

I didn’t really care about money as such. At my parents’ insistence, I still lived at home, so I didn’t need tons of cash. I quite liked not relying on my father’s fortune for things. In the outside world, children might live on the understanding than the previous generation’s wealth would one day end up theirs, but that wasn’t necessarily true in Highvale.

My father had the money to purchase plenty of rejuvenating elixirs—the kind of potions that actually worked, not the creams and serums sold by the cosmetics industry to the general public. They cost a fortune—close to a million per annum—but that wasn’t a problem for him. At fifty, he looked around thirty-five, by choice; he could have chosen a younger age to settle on, but he liked to be taken seriously.

By contrast, my mother loved to be underestimated. At seventy, she didn’t look a day over twenty. The Pendros didn’t need any magical aid to stop the aging process: they were immortal, which meant that their body simply stopped aging once they reached their physical peak. They weren’t eternal: they could still be harmed and killed, but time had no effect on my mother. She would live forever unless someone murdered her, and my father’s estate would pass to her when he died.

As for Dad, he might not be born immortal, but there was no reason why he’d ever stop purchasing the priceless elixirs keeping him that way. I might be their daughter and technically,heir, but that didn’t mean I would inherit anything. I had a healthy trust fund, but it would only turn over to me at thirty-five, or upon my marriage.

In short, I didn’t have much more cash than my peers. My salary was enough to cover what I wanted or needed. But a hundred an hour meant…More. Gowns that I picked myself, rather than those my mother bought for me, for the dozens of balls we had to attend yearly. Gorgeous, shiny, precious jewels. The kind I stared at in the windows of stores I didn’t even dare enter.Somany shoes. Hell, fuckingdiamonds.

How old was he? Twenty-five? Under thirty, certainly. People could look young forever here, but even from a distance, I had seen him in his teens, when I was a tween, so he couldn’t be much older than me. Twenty-something, and worth millions.Billions.

I knew he was wealthy, of course, but I never stopped to think about just how wealthy. Now I knew he was one-hundred-gold-an-hour kind of wealthy. The very concept was hard to add up.

No wonder Lucian’s mother dressed like a queen.

“He found his salary here laughable,” Gideon said with a snort. “And he earned as much as me.”

“I earn sixty per day,” Timothee cheerfully divulged. “That’s a fair bit more than when I was with the inquisitor squad. I must say, I’m rather glad to have been promoted to protector—and with the great Gideon for a partner!”

Gideon sent him a disgusted look.

My cousin was usually so nice to everyone, but Timothee was filling shoes far, far too big for him. In every sense. The poor guy was as tall as me, and about the same weight class, too. Not that it mattered: sorcerers could look weak and still be powerful enough to lift mountains without breaking a sweat. But I had to wonder how he’d survived Auntie Hilda.

I gave the rune stone back to Gideon reluctantly. I wanted to hold it a little longer. See if I could guess the spells. “I’m glad you have it. No matter the cost—if you’re in danger, use it. Please.”

“I will,” he assured me. “Little chance of that happening for the next few days. I’m handling something here.”

I blinked. “Here, in town?”

That was unusual for protectors in general, and for Gideon in particular. They handled great threats. The way our city was shielded, we didn’t tend to see anything more than petty crime—magical or otherwise.