Page 111 of Magic Claimed
Wait…
There was one thing they wouldn’t know—one thing that symbolized the relationship of trust between him and his mom.
“Your password,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “Your computer password. Your mom told me… It’s her birthday.”
His eyes went wide, and I saw when he broke. His lipstrembled, and his arms fell to his sides as he took a step towards me. “Is she okay?”
“Yes,” I promised. “Last I saw her, she’s fine. Just really worried about you. But we’re going to get you home. Where is everyone else?”
Tabitha stepped out from behind Jeremiah, apparently willing to follow his lead now that we’d proven our sincerity. “You have to help them,” she pleaded. “We ran into some people while we were searching for other prisoners. They caught most of us, and now they’re beating up an old lady!”
Shane’s glamour dropped abruptly, and the poor girl let out a tiny shriek as he reappeared with eyes glowing and fangs bared.
“Where are they?” he growled.
“This way.”
Jeremiah took the lead, and we followed at a run, around the corner and through a pair of double steel doors.
They stood open—with a broken chain and padlock dangling from the handles—and on the other side, the space opened up into what looked like a warehouse or an underground bunker. It was wide and deep, though the ceilings remained low, making it more like a maze to be navigated between stacks of crates, boxes, barrels, and shelves loaded with supplies.
And the crates? Every one that I could see was stamped with the unmistakable crown and tower seal of Elayara Elduvar.
“Yep, this is it,” I murmured, feeling a wild surge of rage as I contemplated what each of these crates represented.
There were so many of them. So much magic, so much painand suffering. And Blake had been present for all of it. Had seen how much each piece of stolen magic cost—both the one it was stolen from and the one forced to do the stealing.
He’d witnessed Kes’s pain and seen only opportunity.
“We have to destroy it.” We already knew we couldn’t hide the secret forever—not when the Bureau of Idrian Affairs had already learned that humans could use stolen magic. But we could prevent this stockpile from ever being exploited, or sold to finance further oppression. “Whether Blake wins or loses, we can’t allow any of this to leave this place.”
I looked at Shane. His eyes were so bright, his rage so potent, I nearly stepped away from him, but it wasn’t meant for me. He knew what Kes had suffered, but seeing the proof…
“Never again,” he swore, the roughness in his voice both a promise and a threat. But before we could follow through on this promise, we had prisoners to rescue and a building to clear.
“Hurry,” Jeremiah said in a low voice, so we followed him down the length of the warehouse, towards the sound of voices and blows.
“Stop it!” A scared female voice rose above the rest. “She’s just an old lady. Don’t hurt her!”
We tucked ourselves behind the nearest stack of crates and peered around the corner, taking in the entire scene at a glance.
Four teens huddled to one side, guarded by a wolf and a man whose hands were wreathed in stolen fire magic. In the nearby corner of the warehouse, four more of Blake’s minions surrounded a prisoner they’d tied to an old wooden chair—her arms and legs tightly bound.
This must be the “old lady” the kids were determined todefend, but as I got a good look at her, I had to hold back a cackle of entirely inappropriate laughter.
It was Tairen-li-Corva.
She was bruised and bleeding from a gash on her head, but she was still smiling at the four people facing her. And it was possibly the most terrifying smile I had ever seen in my life. I wasn’t even her enemy, but I almost dropped to my knees right there and begged her to forgive me for anything I had ever said or done to offend her.
“You’re going to give us Deverin,” one of them said. “Sooner or later. We’re willing to make you bleed until he agrees to step down.”
“You’re as delusional as you are stupid,” Tairen retorted. “Why would a man who refused to stay with me and raise his own children bend to your demands simply because you sent him a few pictures?”
We’d been right about this too. Tairen was the key hostage—the one person who might be able to control the actions of the Bureau as well as the Idrians. They were torturing her in an attempt to blackmail Deverin into resigning, and once he was gone? There would be no one to stand between the Bureau and their plans to register and relocate the entire Idrian population.
The fact that Blake had managed to kidnap Tairen from right under Deverin’s nose did not fill me with confidence in the outcome of the battle for my city. But right here, right now, I could only tackle the task in front of me.
And between us, Shane and I had a chance. There were only six of them, and they wouldn’t want to actually hurt the kids, so…
