Page 62 of Contested Crown

Then she looked up, reaching forward and grasping my hands between hers. “Are you all right? Did they do any permanent damage?”

“What?” I asked. I almost pulled back, startled, but then I realized this was going to be our best chance to get information. “They tried. Cade and I are still getting used to our bond. I’m not good at using it yet.”

“Elizabeth wants something she can’t have. She wants the position they’re offering you, Cade. She wants Summer. If you want to keep your head, you need to start fighting back.” Larissa’s voice was firm, her words clipped. This was a senior member of the house. The flighty, distracted woman we’d met so far was nothing but a front.

“Why are they trying to kill me?” I asked.

“Consorts disrupt the flow of magic in this house.” She glanced up. The steam was fading, disappearing. Her tone changed audibly, going back to the slightly absent-minded old woman we’d gotten to know. “Have you made any decisions yet, Cade?”

“Not yet. I’ve only been here a few hours. I want to make sure that this house would be a good fit for me before I agree to the plan.” Cade’s voice was flat, no emotion.

There was a soft knock at the door. Phelan opened it without waiting for Larissa to get up. He looked around the room, then walked across to the stove, shutting off the teakettle with a decisive click.

“Is everything all right, Larissa?” He didn’t even look up at the ceiling, even though the spells had come back online, Larissa’s magic fading from them, making them invisible again.

“Oh, yes.” She reached out and grabbed his hand, patting the back of it with her free one. “I was just telling Prince Bartlett what a good idea this house is. How safe it is. He’s never been outside House Bartlett, you know? Just like I was never outside of it until King Morrison rescued me from dying on the street.”

Her eyes were going teary, and she wiped at them with her fingers. Phelan squinted down at her but reached his free hand over, squeezing her shoulder. “And our house has only become stronger from your presence.”

“That’s just what I was going to say, Prince Bartlett. Before I forgot. House Morrison doesn’t believe in the old ways. They believe that we are all stronger together. That if all mages were to join forces together and not be limited by this tribalism, we could do anything.” Her eyes were shining bright. If I hadn’t seen her a few minutes prior, I never would’ve thought that she was anything other than a true believer.

“That’s what I’m learning,” Cade said neutrally. He gestured to a free seat. “Will you join us, Phelan?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Take a seat. It’s not like you have anything better to do if you’re spending your time checking on little old ladies and their tea parties.”

Phelan’s smile never reached his eyes. “That might be true, but I do have duties. Try to be careful, Larissa. It’s dangerous to leave the gas on.”

As he left, pulling the door shut behind him, Larissa blinked. “Such a nice boy. Now, tell me all of the gossip from House Bartlett. I get so little of it these days.”

Back in our room, after having to endure another hour of Larissa’s inanities, peppered with very obvious attempts to get Cade to stay at House Morrison, I said loudly, “I need to take a shower.”

“I’ll join you. I want to make sure that House Morrison didn’t damage my property.”

I jerked at Cade’s words, raising both eyebrows at him, but he significantly glanced toward the ceiling. Rolling my eyes, I said loudly, “Sure, because that’s what I am, your property. An extension of you. Not my own person.”

Cade nudged me into the bathroom, shutting the door and turning on the shower as hot as it would go. When the bathroom was filled with steam, he released his own magic, the sharp blades softening until they resembled smoke. They wrapped around the spellwork, gagging it.

“The spells are audio only,” Cade said quickly. “Based on what Larissa did with her magic, we can’t disable them, but we can temporarily mute them. Water affects them, meaning we could use the steam as an excuse. How long?—”

“Three to five minutes,” I said shortly. “Did you see the mage’s tattoos in the infirmary?”

Cade shook his head but ignored the change in topic. Instead, he grabbed my face with both hands, dragging me down into a kiss. Then he ran his fingers over me, checking my arm, dropping down to my leg. “Are you all right? Did they do any permanent damage?”

“Cade, I’m fine. We need to focus on?—”

“No,” Cade said, his voice an order. He stood, staring up at me, his blue eyes sharp enough to pierce. “They were trying tokillyou. They wanted yougone. You aremine. I should have killed them.”

“You against all those mages there?” I was trying for teasing, but I felt myself frowning. No. I was the one who put himself in front of a bullet. I was the one who didn’t matter.

“They were trying to kill you,” Cade repeated. “That spell was absorption magic. It consumes everything it touches; it would have killed you. And it was so powerful. That was more magic than I’ve seen in a person since… well, since I lost my magic.”

“On the field, one of the mages was using his own magic, but it had different colors in it,” I said quickly. “Gray mixed with pink. In the infirmary, I saw a mage that had just as much magic as you used to, only his was a rainbow of colors on his chest.”

Cade’s eyes went wide. “What? What do you mean?”

I tilted my head, listening hard. There in the hall?—

“Strip,” I ordered. Someone in the corridor was walking evenly, each step measured. We were faster.