Page 36

LUCIAN

I was getting used to this.

I’d technically had an animal around the house for half a decade, so one would have thought that I wasn’t new to it, but Phobos actually liked me.

He sought me out, demanding scratching and attention.

On Wednesday, he found two socks bundled together from my laundry basket, and brought it to me. I was thoroughly confused.

“He wants you to throw it,” Kleos prompted. “It’s a little like a ball, isn’t it?”

I tentatively tossed the socks, watching his ears stand up to attention, and then he was running after it.

Theke wasn’t impressed. The runes kept flying at Phobos in an to attempt to deter him. He just tried to bite them in the air, delighted.

I asked Ronan to bring me a package of tennis balls, and kept one in my pocket, newly magicked to lie flat, at all times for emergency play sessions. How was that my life now?

Zazel was thoroughly disgusted by the whole affair, but didn’t seem to blame Phobos for it. He merely watched imperiously from Kleos’s lap, nails flexing, just in case I dared suggest he might want to chase balls too.

Kleos was another thing I was getting used to.

I didn’t let her out of the manor all week.

By that, I meant I plied her with promise of food, and saving time, and squeezing in an hour of research after dinner, so she wasn’t tempted to return home.

The fact that she woke me up every morning with the smell of vanilla or chocolate or apples was only one of the many reasons I was considering permanent abduction.

It was nice having her in the house.

Cassius graced us with his presence every dinner, and she didn’t seem to mind. The house subtly shifted to adjust for her presence. I could see my parlor, previously blue, slowly shifting to include a pattern of lavaliers in silver. A delicate, feminine touch I had never seen anywhere before.

When Ronan showed up with the tennis balls, staying for tea, I had the pleasure of realizing just how seamless her integration into my home had been.

Phobos was too excited about the balls upon his arrival, so I was thoroughly distracted, and Kleos asked the house for the tea set I’d left in the kitchen. It obeyed.

It must have had something to do with the fact that she used my draining pool constantly, several times a day.

I only bothered to get rid of my excess energy when I had to interact with people I might hurt, but Kleos apparently woke up with more power than the average demigod daily.

I was half curious, half concerned at the thought of what she might have been without consistently weakening herself.

Which explained why someone was attempting to control her.

With the knowledge that the last ritualistic murders had been decades prior in mind, I scratched the younger generation from my list of suspects. That left very few individuals. Her parents, aunt, and uncle.

I knew better than to believe family was above hurting or using one of their members. The main question was to what end? Reluctant to share those suspicions with her without more concrete proof, I probed.

“Won’t your family miss you this week?”

She snorted. “Dad practically lives at the Hall of Truce, or at his office. It’s election season in the new year—just three months away.

He’s never home. And we’re approaching all of the winter celebrations.

It’s nonstop after Samhain: Dionysus’s festival, then Poseidon’s on the winter solstice…

all temples are busy, and Mother’s overseeing it all. ”

I also asked what her parents thought of her career. One would think she’d end up in business or politics like her father, or serving the gods like her mother, but she picked the Guard.

“Dad doesn’t mind. Mother believes that I should be less concerned about work, and more about making a brilliant match.” She rolled her eyes.

“Didn’t she marry your father in her forties?” I checked, frowning.

“Yes, but she was married to a man approved by her family at twenty-one, like a good little Pendros. He just died after.”

All that was positively fascinating but didn’t offer up any ready answer.

By Friday, we were both tense. I had a hard time leaving her out of my sight, but I knew she was returning home tonight.

For a time. She was coming right back here after.

In your damn dungeon.

We worked again, but I barely assimilated the words I read so I wasn’t much use.

Zazel understood the assignment, never leaving Kleos’s lap.

She was going to be safe. We were going to keep her safe.

At five, I cleared my throat. We were in Theke, her on my chaise, me behind an armchair I’d dragged nearby. I’d put it off for as long as I could. “I have something for you.”

She intended to leave at six to get ready. I supposed I had to do the same.

She crooked an eyebrow, lifting her eyes from the page she’d stayed on for the last half hour. “Hm?”

I could feel my jaw tick. “You recall my mother’s dress?”

Her pretty mouth curled up. “Oh, I would remember your mother’s dress on my deathbed. All the shiny diamonds!”

That was reassuring, though my experience of her ability to accept gifts showed me I needed to be careful. She’d freaked about a shawl .

“It got me thinking. It’s no use to give you a shield meant to block magic: you can already do that yourself.

But we could use a warning if any magic interferes with you.

” I retrieved the flat box burning a hole in the inner pocket of my jacket.

I flipped it open, and her eyes widened.

Before she could protest, I went on, “The diamonds are spelled to change color—they’ll change all night, and any color of the rainbow is just fine.

Except black. If they turn to onyx, we’ll know there’s a spell, curse, ritual or potion interfering with you. ”

She was speechless, which was better than saying no.

“It’ll need an hour to get used to your own magic, so you should put it on now, since we know you’re fine.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper as her hand stretched out, hovering over the necklace. “When did you even make that?”

She went to bed around midnight most nights.

I rarely crashed before six. “I don’t sleep much.

” Not when my stomach roared every morning at ten.

“And before you ask, the number and size of the diamonds was absolutely necessary. I’ve seen you drain, Valesco: if I’d tried a set of tiny little teardrop earrings, it would have exploded. ”

In actual fact, I doubted she needed three lines of brilliant-cut diamonds set in platinum with a few pearls, but I looked into the vault, and this one stood out as the one she was least likely to freak out about.

It would suit whatever pink, demure little dress she planned on wearing tonight.

Thankfully, I’d only spelled the necklace rather than the entire parure.

The set included matching earrings, a brooch, a bracelet, and a tiara.

I grinned as I imagined what she might have said if I’d brought the tiara.

Given the fact that I’d robbed her of speech and movement, I stood, took the necklace, and circled her chaise. She needed the protection. And maybe, just maybe, I needed to see her with a Regis family heirloom around her neck.

I leaned in to clasp it, the distinctive smell of the ocean on a sunny summer day floating around her, and I had to brush some of her hair aside to see her straight, dainty neck. She had the posture of a queen.

Kleos turned to look at me, her hand slowly moving to the necklace around her throat. “I can’t keep this.”

I decided not to argue. “But you’ll wear it tonight.” That wasn’t a question. I could see it in her eyes.

She loved it. She’d wear it anytime she could. She just didn’t believe she ought to accept a gift of this magnitude.

We’ll train that out of you, love.

Just because she wasn’t mine to keep didn’t mean that she shouldn’t learn how a man ought to take care of her. She deserved diamonds and pearls and sapphires and magic.

“I don’t even know how to start thanking you.”

“Then don’t. Thanks are boring.” I shrugged. “Bake me something.”

“I’m not going to just bake you something for letting me borrow precious stones filled with beautiful, priceless, innovative magic that ought to be patented.”

I pouted, exaggerating it to look like Phobos before dinner. “That’s not worth a pie?”

“It’s worth far more than pie, and you know it.” Kleos chuckled, then her eyes focused on my hand.

Ah.

She’d seen it. I was hoping she wouldn’t.

I resisted the compulsion to hide my hand behind my back like a child caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

“You didn’t wear a signet ring before,” she noted.

“I’m aware.” She wasn’t going to drop it, was she?

I was unsurprised when she continued, “Ronan has one, right? And Cassius.”

“All members of founding families do,” I replied cautiously.

“But I’ve never seen it on you,” she insisted. “Is there a reason you’re wearing it these days?”

Curious little cat, always putting her paw right on the one thing that she shouldn’t. “Yes, there is.”

I left it at that, because, “ Well, I figured I ought to have the tools ready in case I needed to enslave you before someone else could,” wasn’t going to get me any pie.

“Let me guess.” She smiled, rolling her eyes a little. “It’s a dark family secret, and if you spill, I’ll owe you my soul.”

I smiled. “Precisely.”

Kleos kept asking all the way back to the vale, naturally. “Come on, tell me. Why is everything so secretive about the founding families?”

I smiled back. “Ask me about another secret. I’ll tell you.”

Kleos was far better at pouting than Phobos, or me for that matter. “That only makes me more curious about your rings. But fine. Is it really true you can do whatever you want? As far as the law is concerned.”

That was a lot easier to answer. “Not quite. We have the duty, and the right, to handle any matter that we consider important for the good of Highvale. There are a few rules, so it’s not completely unrestricted.

For one, we can’t take on members of the ruling council without the approval of the council. ”

“So you could kill me, but not my parents?” she checked.

I nodded. Zenya Pendros and Leander Valesco both sat on the council.

It was formed of seven elected officials and five members of the founding families—Damian represented the Regises, and my aunt, Kore’s mother, the Saltzins.

“We also can’t take on other members of founding families outside of officially sanctioned duels.

We hold them for fun every other weekend. ”

“Duels? That’s so archaic .”

“Barbaric is more accurate. We’re not actually trying to kill each other these days, so what starts in magic often end in fistfights.”

She blinked. “I’d love to see that.”

I was about to tell her she should come with me this Sunday, but I managed to bite back the offer. I needed to get used to the fact that she wasn’t actually part of my life, the sooner, the better.

Would she even want to take the weekend off? Yes, she was on an officially sanctioned Guard investigation, but the point was keeping her out of danger. I was pretty certain she’d want to continue the research.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Tomorrow felt like a million miles away. We had to keep her safe tonight.

As we’d agreed, Gideon fetched her in front of the largest column to escort her home.

“What’s with the carriage, man? Those horses are insane!”

I couldn’t help a smile. I wouldn’t say that I missed Gideon, but his character definitely had grown on me. “It’s all Ronan’s—the horses and carriage.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have your own,” Kleos joked.

I grinned, already making plans.

My family kept palominos, not Sleipnirsons. I tended to borrow Ronan’s rather than ask Father for ours, firstly because my friend lived closer, but secondly, because the gold horses and equally gold carriage, were really too much, even for me.

“See you tonight,” I said, watching them retreat.

“I’ll be the one with all the diamonds.”

“Wait, diamonds?” I heard Gideon ask as they reached the column, which opened up to take them back to the Hall of Truce.

And then I was alone.

The carriage ride took too long. The house felt empty, even with Zazel chasing Phobos. The thought of entering Theke, of taking her seat—my former place—was thoroughly distasteful.

Luckily, I knew just what to do with my time.