Page 8 of The Consulate

“Nothing that comes from the Consulate is ever free.” Lara shook her head, her jaw clenched tight as she revved the Dodger to life. The truth stung. “I’ll come in for a few, but I’m not staying.”

“There’s actually room for everyone. It’s a penthouse?—”

“Stuff it, Verona.” Lara pulled into traffic without another word.

Forty-five minutes later we were in the wood-paneled office in my apartment,ourapartment, pulling up the National Gallery’s auction website on my giant monitor. The Carlyle was an all-purpose building owned by the Consulate, with offices in one sector, and residences in another.

Plenty of the city’s most dangerous parapsychs lived and worked here. I got why Lara hated it, but I had no idea what she expected from me. Where did she think I’d be living? Some shoebox downtown, probably. Crying into my Happy-Os every morning with only the rats to talk to…No thank you very much.

Lara spun around in the chair I’d picked out for her. “So you just decorated this place all on your own? With our money?”

I glared at her. “It’s not ‘our’ money, it’s the Orphium Maere’s money. It is not my fault that the four of you refused to do the job.”

This wasn’t the time to have a fight about why she hadn’t let me help her, but I’d have it if she was going to get shitty with me about spending money on this place. It wasn’t as though I’d bought crap. I’d done my best to make things ready for my cohort to return. And maybe that had been foolish, but I wasn’t the one who abandoned her family.

Now it was Lara’s turn to glare. “Just log into the website. Let’s get this over with.”

I turned back to my computer and did as she asked. It took the video of the first sword forever to load, and in my head, I justified spending the money. We were all rich as royalty after centuries on this cursed plane of existence, but the designated Maere in any city got a stipend from the Consulate to help run their outfit. Typically, that stipend was easily spent between five ancient warriors who liked new toys for running their territories.

Without my sistren, I’d struggled to spend the money. I’d even asked the Consulate to send less, but they wouldn’t, purely as a reminder of how meaningless I was to them, I assumed. So I spent it on my people, anyway. Furnishing this space, kitting it out with all the best stuff. Waiting, like some pathetic little girl for her best friends toplease come home.

How many times had I sent that exact message? In texts, emails, postcards, and at least one telegram. But no one came. And for a while, I was mad about it. Now I just wanted to stop fighting and be a family again. I needed them to come home, now more than ever. There was a good chance that these swords coming up for auction was an epic trap. That whoever stole them in the first place was playing a long game with us. We wouldn’t know til we looked, though.

The video finally played. It was Rhiannon’s sword. Lara leaned towards the screen as the camera panned down the blade and tapped the screen as a tiny nick glinted in the light. “She got that at the Vale of Lovane.”

“I remember.” I pulled up the next sword.

A choking noise came out of Lara as the hilt came into focus, still wrapped with the scarf of the mortal girl Lara had loved—and lost—when she ascended. The Maere were the only parapsychs that were not born. Not exactly, anyway. We grew up mundane, and when we reached twenty-eight, our aging slowed, just as all parapsychs did. The difference was that we gained preternatural strength, agility, and other talents… and knowledge. Everything about us sharpened as we regained all that had been lost—we called this ascending.

I closed the window and loaded the third sword in the lot, holding my breath as the camera panned down its pristine blade. Deep inside me, I felt the comfortable grip of the hilt, the way it felt to run my thumb over the scales of the snakes. My stomach turned, and I was dizzy. There was no doubt in my mind that it was my sword.

I opened the fourth and fifth videos simultaneously, desperately needing this to be over. But something was wrong. Lara stared blankly at the wall, still lost in her grief. I hit her leg with my hand. “This is wrong. They look like Max and Sera’s swords, but…”

Slowly, she dragged her eyes away from the wall to my monitor. First she frowned as the videos played, then she shook her head. “They’re good replicas, but those aren’t their swords.”

“What does this mean?” I breathed, resting my elbows on the desk. I didn’t expect an answer.

“Who’s the seller?” Lara asked, picking up the brochure. That had been the first thing and only thing I’d read, before I even left the National Gallery offices.

“It doesn’t say.”

“You need to call Rhiannon.” Lara leaned back in her chair. She crossed her arms over her chest. Before I could protest, she grinned, wicked and smug at the same time. “Better you than me.”

CHAPTER 7

ARES

We madeit halfway to the Pizza Queen before Eryx got the call. I was reading the cast off sections of his paper in the backseat when his phone rang. Av’s eyes went serious in the rearview mirror as she sensed something I couldn’t about his changing countenance. She saw the shifts in him better than almost anyone.

On St. Tanith’s grave, and not for the first time, I wished for Eryx’s sake that he and Av could find romantic love together. It would take a special person to love Eryx the way he deserved, to know him as deeply as it would take to love him, and Av already knew him that way. But alas, it was not meant to be. I worried less about Avaline. She’d told me a thousand times that romantic love was not for her. That being with us was what she wanted most in the world.

And so I had to accept that this was yet another thing I could not control. That they were happy as they were. It didn’t stop me from wishing I could wrap them both up and make them safe, though safety was not meant for those such as us. This was the best I could give them, and maybe the best any of us could hope for.

When Eryx hung up, he glanced at Av, shaking his head. “We’ve got a problem. Spirit possession on 88th and Vine. Kid murdered someone.”

“Are they registered associates?” I asked. “The family. Are they registered with the Consulate?”

It wasn’t a requirement that parapsychs register with the Consulate. But to be recommended by them, to get the benefits of all the ways the Consulate had twisted into the Authority, registration was a necessary evil. A double-edged sword that most definitely cut both ugly ways.