“Absolutely not. And anger—well, I won’t say that it’s never useful, but in this case it’s pointless. It won’t change anything.”
He didn’t speak. His eyes were so intent, so focused on her … He’s going to kiss me.
Arjenie’s heartbeat picked up. Longing rose in her, sweet and warm as summer rain. She forgot about the people sitting at the table a few feet away. Her lips parted.
He put one hand on her shoulder … and slowly drew that hand down her arm to reach her hand, which he clasped.
“Do you keep up with the news?” he asked.
“Oh. Um. Well.” Was her radar that badly off, or had he changed his mind? She pulled her thoughts together. “I’m a bit of a news junkie, but real news, not the TV pundits who just talk and talk. Though I’m out of touch right now, what with traveling and, um, stuff. I haven’t even checked the Times online lately.”
He nodded. “Then maybe you haven’t heard about Ruben Brooks or Lily.”
“What?” Alarm pinged through her. “Ruben? Lily? What haven’t I heard?”
“Yesterday Brooks had a heart attack. Last night Lily was shot.”
“Shot!” She grabbed his arm. “Is she—no, you wouldn’t be sitting around holding dinner parties if she … but she’s all right? And Ruben? What about Ruben?”
“Lily’s arm was damaged. We don’t know yet how fully it will heal. Brooks lived through the heart attack and is considered stable. There is some question about whether it occurred naturally or was magically induced.”
“Induced,” she whispered. “Oh, no.”
“You know something about this.”
“Not about Lily getting shot.” But about Ruben’s heart attack … maybe she was wrong. Maybe there were other ways to magically induce a coronary infarction. Vodun? It could be a vodun spell. Maybe. “I need my laptop. And my phone. I’ve got to check in.” And log in, do some research, and talk to someone, find out just how closely Ruben’s symptoms mimicked those of a heart attack.
If it wasn’t mimicry—if he’d actually had a heart attack—it wasn’t vodun.
Isen came up behind his son. “Not just yet. You need to tell us what you know or suspect.”
“I can’t.”
He shook his head. “I know we agreed you could withhold information on one subject, but there are lives at risk.”
“No,” Cullen said abruptly. “I think she’s right.” He shoved back from the table, strode up to her, and gripped her chin in one hand.
She tried to jerk away. Couldn’t. “I don’t like being grabbed.”
“Hush.” His fingers dug in enough to hold her head still.
“I don’t like being told to hush, either.”
“I’ll remember that.” But he didn’t let go as he murmured something, his other hand shifting rapidly through the air. The first symbol he sketched was the Raetic ka, which was common to lots of spells, being a rune of seeking. The rest … his hand moved too fast. She couldn’t see what they were.
And then she stopped breathing. Entirely.
It was only for a moment, but the terror was huge. She dragged in a deep breath as soon as her body would let her. “You—you—”
“I’m sorry. It was necessary.” He looked at Isen, then Benedict. “When she says she can’t talk about some things, she means it literally. There’s a binding on her.”
TWENTY-TWO
THE current crop of experts claimed that baby girls stare at faces while baby boys watch the mobile over their cribs. They extrapolated from this to conclude that women are inherently interested in people and men are inherently interested in objects.
Isen Turner supposed they might be right in a statistical sense, but numbers don’t tell the whole story. If you have one foot in boiling water and one in a tub of dry ice, on the average you’re comfortable. And maybe those experts hadn’t included any lupi in their sampling. His mother used to say he’d begun studying people the moment he figured out how to focus his eyes.
He’d kept that up for the ninety-one years since. People fascinated him. Male people, female people … lupi, human, gnome, whatever. He never tired of studying them, figuring out what they were thinking and feeling, what they wanted, what they feared, how they had changed or were changing. That fascination worked out well. There was no more important subject for a Rho to devote himself to.
That’s why it was his youngest son, not his eldest, who would become Rho one day. Benedict saw clearly when he looked, but it was a learned behavior, not innate. It was also why Isen’s middle son hadn’t been in the running. Mick had never learned to clear his eyes where others were concerned, his vision of them forever warped by his own wants and needs and obsessions. Eventually, this had killed him.
That was a grief Isen lived with daily, one that woke him some nights with his face wet. But Isen was well-acquainted with grief. It was the one opponent to whom even a Rho must submit.
Benedict understood and accepted why Isen had chosen Rule as heir. This was one of Benedict’s most remarkable gifts—a deep and fluid acceptance of both his limits and his talents. Rule didn’t understand, an odd blind spot in one who otherwise made good progress in his own study of self and others. But Isen knew his sons. Rule’s blind spot would not hamper him as Rho, for Benedict would never take advantage of Rule’s love and admiration for his big brother. He would, quite literally, die first.
On this sweet-smelling night in September, Isen didn’t need his ninety-plus years of expertise. Arjenie Fox presented no challenge. A scent-blind ten-year-old boy could have read her face. She might be able to keep a factual secret, but emotionally she was transparent.
True, she wasn’t purely human, and Isen had no real experience with the sidhe. That might be throwing him off. He didn’t think so. When Seabourne had revealed her binding, Isen was convinced she felt a single, simple emotion.
Relief.
That certainly wasn’t the emotion the others felt. Seabourne was suspicious and fascinated. Benedict remained fascinated, too, though in quite a different way, but he’d gone still, ready to counter if she suddenly attacked. As for their invisible company, why, Rule was silent at the moment. Probably typing out on his laptop what Seabourne had just said so Lily would know.
Technology was a marvel sometimes.
Rule had been listening in on their dinner table conversation via Isen’s phone, typing a rough transcript of it for Lily, whose human ears would miss most of it. Benedict and Seabourne were undoubtedly aware of this. They would have heard Rule’s occasional comments from Isen’s earbud. Benedict had probably known from the moment Isen returned to the table with an open phone line. Even for a lupus, his hearing was unusually acute.
Isen’s hearing wasn’t exceptional, but it was easy for him to hear Lily’s reaction. She wanted Isen to get away from Arjenie right now. Isen smiled. His youngest son’s Chosen was wise and wary. Good traits. He had no intention of following her directions, but he approved of her caution. She was very like Benedict in some ways. “You can see this binding?” he asked Seabourne.
“I do now. It’s a subtle thing, almost invisible unless it’s active. I thought it a natural part of her aura at first.”
Arjenie Fox looked from Benedict to Isen to Seabourne. No doubt it was clear from their faces they weren’t experiencing the relief she felt. She spoke quickly. “Did you know that one kind of binding spell doesn’t compel a person to do anything? It wouldn’t even make them lie. It would just keep them from revealing something.”