Page 28 of Of Flames and Crows

“I’ll bring them back,” Miles said hastily at Cortes’s thunderous expression. He disappeared after the familiars, Millie hissing disapprovingly where she coiled around his leg. The sorcerer’s excited voice reached them a moment later. “Oh! They’ve got Skittles!”

Violet beamed. “Cool. Bring me a soda too, will ya?”

“I’mreallysorry,” Vlad told Cortes.

CHAPTER12

The incubus made a disgusted face.“Oh. So you were talking about Nikolai?”

Mae’s mouth thinned. “Don’t be like that. He’s saved your ass on a few occasions now.”

“He’d better be at death’s door for you to be this worried about him,” Vlad grumbled, stabbing his canapé with a fork and shoving it in his mouth.

A fresh bout of dread churned Mae’s stomach as she recalled her conversation with Bryony that morning. The New York coven High Priestess had called to tell her there’d been an incident at the headquarters of the Council of the Moon, where Nikolai was staying. She hadn’t gone into details, only to say that something had happened during his training and that Marlena wanted Mae there.

Her fear had deepened when she hadn’t been able to reach Nikolai on his cell phone. It was only after Bryony had told her she would arrange a private jet to the Czech Republic later that afternoon and hung up that Mae had recalled Vlad mentioning that he would be traveling there that very day.

It hadn’t taken much convincing to get Violet and Miles to take her to the airport to try and chase down Vlad’s flight once she’d called his uncle’s home and figured out where he was.

Mae became aware of a guarded stare and turned her head to meet Enrique Cortes’s watchful gaze. From Vlad’s brief introduction and the presence of an armed escort, she’d gathered he was a gangster too.

“Thanks for letting us come along.”

Cortes bobbed his head, his dark gaze focused unblinkingly on her.

Mae wiped a thumb self-consciously across the corner of her mouth. “Have I got something on my face?”

She’d just inhaled three hot dogs and a can of beer.

“Forgive me,” Cortes drawled. “I never thought I would live long enough to see a myth come to life.”

“Oh.” Mae wrinkled her nose. “You know about the prophecy, huh?”

“Every child in my coven grew up learning that story.”

Vlad frowned faintly at the gangster over his glass of wine. “So, youdobelong to a coven?”

“Belonged.” Cortes waved a dismissive hand. “They kicked me out when I stopped being able to use magic. And coven is probably the wrong word. It was more like a cult.”

There was a short, tense silence.

“I’ve never seen a cracked magic core before,” Mae said reluctantly. “Granted, I’m relatively new to this stuff myself, but I kinda get the feeling it’s a miracle you survived whatever did this to you.”

“It was my aunt’s handiwork.”

Mae’s eyes widened. Vlad blinked.

Cortes smiled faintly at their shocked looks. “She felt…threatened by my abilities.”

Brimstone spoke.I can tell he would have been a powerful sorcerer. He smells of Arcane Magic.

Mae frowned faintly at the fox.Arcane Magic?

It’s a rare kind of magic that died out soon after Ran Soyun’s passing and Azazel’s banishment to Hell. It originated from the bones of the ancient gods who once walked the Earth.

Cortes’s shrewd gaze swung between Mae and Brimstone, as if he could sense their silent conversation. Despite the mobster’s nonchalant expression, Mae could tell he still harbored strong feelings about what had happened to him.

“So, how does one go from being a sorcerer to a gangster?”

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