Page 1 of Magic Betrayed

ONE

“Put. Down. The cat.”

I froze, up to my elbows in a box full of tangled string lights, a giant Halloween spider, three broken Easter baskets stuffed with faded paper grass, and a dingy, lopsided snowman.

“I’m warning you…”

I couldn’t see her from inside the tiny storage closet, but I could hear my new friend Kira’s voice shaking with some suppressed emotion. Rage? Terror? Laughter? I locked eyes with the snowman, returning its blank, dead-eyed stare as I considered whether or not to intervene.

On the one hand, Kira Everleigh was a dragon shifter, and therefore more than capable of defending herself, her bookstore, and her horrifying hairless pet.

On the other hand, the Valentine’s decor she was looking for was definitely not in this box, and the snowman looked like it was contemplating murder. Probably mine.

Pushing to my feet, I brushed a few clinging bits of fake grass off my arms and poked my head cautiously through the doorway.

Kira and the bookstore’s resident gargoyle, Hugh, were facing off across the front counter. Hugh clutched something green and fluffy to his chest, his gray face contorted in an expression of offended outrage, while Kira was very clearly trying not to laugh.

“It is humiliating,” Hugh insisted, stroking the green bundle in his arms protectively.

“It’s adorable,” Kira countered decisively. “And it’s still cold outside. He needs the extra warmth to protect him from drafts.”

“I have knitted him three comfortable and stylish sweaters,” Hugh pointed out, before holding the green thing up where I could see it more clearly. “This… This is an insult to his dignity!”

I took another look at the ball of green fluff and realized it was actually Chicken—Kira’s sphinx cat. His mouth was turned down in a perpetual expression of disapproval as he hung limp in Hugh’s grasp, and his pink, wrinkled body was almost completely hidden by a grinch-green sweater emblazoned with the words… “Cuddly as a Cactus.”

Kira promptly lost the battle with amusement and erupted in irrepressible laughter, hand clasped firmly over her mouth as Hugh and the cat looked on with baleful expressions.

“I’m sorry,” she finally managed to say, between chuckles. “It was his Christmas gift from Ryker, and I just couldn’t resist.”

Hugh let out an aggrieved sigh just as Kes appeared at the foot of the stairs, her dark hair in a low ponytail and a worried crease between her brows.

“Has anyone seen Ari? Our ride is here, I’m late to pick up Logan from lessons, and she’s disappeared again.”

It had been three months since the explosive conclusion to the Symposium. None of us were what I would call recovered—the wounds of the past were still too fresh and painful for that—but we had settled into a new routine and begun to cautiously accept the realities of our new life here. Even Kes had relaxed significantly. She still struggled with anxiety and nightmares, as we all did, but knowing that Faris and the Shadow Court were not going to abandon us had made a world of difference.

These days, she would occasionally come with me when I helped out at the bookstore or took the kids on walks through Myriad Gardens. She’d even popped in at The Portal once or twice.

I knew a part of her still feared retribution for her role in Elayara’s schemes—for what she’d been forced to do, and the ways her magic had been used. But her whole mood seemed lighter, even as she spent most of her time in our apartment in the West Village, trying to help the kids with remedial schoolwork and worrying about whether the neighbors were watching us.

To be fair, they probably were. That was pretty much Neighboring 101 among humans.

“I haven’t seen her,” Kira said apologetically. “Last I knew, she was watching cartoons upstairs.”

Last known location really didn’t mean much with Ari. Her sprite magic allowed her to teleport across increasingly large distances, and at six, she still found it hilariously funny to disappear at random times. I’d tried to explain the dangers, but I could tell she didn’t understand. And really, how could I possibly stop her?

Someday, I needed to find another sprite to ask about her powers, but that was for a future when we weren’t wanted fugitives in every court except this one.

“Hugh?” Kes turned to the gargoyle, whose face had gone strangely blank. “Have you sensed anything? Can you tell whether she’s left the house?”

Since meeting Hugh, I’d learned that gargoyles developed a symbiotic relationship with their homes, and Hugh had been living at the bookstore long enough to have a strong sense of anything magical occurring within its boundaries.

“I have not sensed the small hatchling leaving the premises,” Hugh replied stiffly. “If she were unsafe, I would have informed her caretakers at once.” Then the usually stoic gargoyle twitched violently, and my shapeshifter hearing caught the sound of a tiny giggle… coming from somewhere under the front counter.

Kira must have heard it too, because her eyes widened as they darted to meet mine.

I could only shrug. It was anyone’s guess how my capricious and irrepressible six-year-old had managed to co-opt the gargoyle’s loyalty to the point that he would cover for her. But she’d also managed to win over Angelica—icy and exacting gryphon assistant to the king of the shapeshifters—so…

… No. Absolutely not. I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to think about Callum. Which meant no thinking about Angelica either.

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