Page 94 of Livewire Witch

I raise an eyebrow at his wording. I guess he’s being careful with the phrasing, just in case anyone can overhear him. It’s not like we want to admit to them using telepathy.

“Be careful,” Silver says.

“We don’t know what’s going to pop off, but my instincts are screaming that something will go down tonight,” Roscoe says.

“Did you get any backup from the elders in the end?” Silver asks me and I begin to sweat as I’m forced to meet her eyes for the first time.

I shake my head. “One of them should be in attendance tonight, but it’s not like they have an army of enforcers at their fingertips. How about your Archarcan contact?”

Fabian runs a hand over his face, looking exhausted. “She had fuck all interest in listening to anything I had to say.”

Silver snorts. “No surprises there. It’d cause a lot of drama and talk if anything were to go down tonight. So they’re going to bury their heads in the sand until they’re forced not to. They onlylike to deal with problems when they can’t fight back, or can be handled without anyone knowing.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “I can’t understand why they’re all ignoring a very real potential threat.”

“Who knows how they think?” She shrugs. “Maybe the vamps are cleverer than we realize and they have something on them, like they do with Felix.”

Of course. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before.

“Then that would mean they’re willfully turning a blind eye.”

“I guess that means we’re gonna have to keep to our plan. Try to keep an eye on whatever fuckery is going to go down. Be the good guys since no one else wants to step up,” Roscoe says. “They’ll be calling us the saviors of Arcanum before the night’s over.”

We certainly are a motley crew. A vampire, a bunch of underworld mage princes who have never done a hard day’s work in their lives, and Silver’s merry band of outcasts.

Silver pulls each person into a hug, ordering them to stay safe.

I hang back at the edge of the group, unsure how I feel about being included or excluded from this little display of affection.

Then she steps close enough for me to get hit with her scent. Her arms wrap around my waist and I find myself reciprocating. I hug her back, like this might be the last time we see each other. For all we know, it is.

And then we go our separate ways. I head downstairs into the reception room to schmooze and keep a watchful gaze all around.

Although, my mind keeps drifting back to the witch currently scouring the rest of city hall.

Let’s hope things resolve by the end of the night, one way or another.

27

Zeph

I’m practically vibrating with unspent energy as I head back to the car Fabian parked a few blocks away. Roscoe, Hanna, and Rook are all in tow and all three of them are already shivering since it seems like no one has any idea how to dress for the weather.

I hop into the driver’s seat and steer the car out of a side street and head along the road that’ll bring us to the primary thoroughfare that intersects through Arcanum. We’re gonna need to swing by the docks and drop Hanna and Rook off. But traffic is a nightmare and we barely make it a quarter mile before we’re caught up in a major jam, crawling at a snail’s pace.

Seems we might end up doing at least part of our journey tonight on foot or we’ll never get anywhere.

It’s freezing cold and gridlocked. But I’d still rather spend the entire night scouting around the shitholes of the city and gambling with tetanus, than spend another minute breathing the toxic air in municipal hell.

Of course, I couldn’t have got in and out of the building without spotting the two people I’d rather never lay my eyes on again. Fantastic fucking timing that they were heading in just as we were and I caught sight of the both of them.

She—my mother—was dressed to the nines in a gold dress and heels high enough to break an ankle. She was clinging to the arm of a blank-faced statue of a man. He was all in black,striding forward with zero regard to whether she could keep up with him.

He’s going to be in that building, schmoozing and yucking it up with the rest of the fakes and ass kissers. I bet Felix will be right in the middle of them all too. He’ll probably be creaming his pants with excitement at being allowed to mix with the company of the city elites. His tongue is gonna be rammed so far up as many asses as he can get it.

Ro shivers in his seat beside me and fiddles with the heating until it’s blasting out at him on maximum heat.

“You regretting that outfit, bud?” I ask him wryly.

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