And me? I’d come here because I found the politics of the South, the constant give-and-take between Seelie, Unseelie and other inhuman groups, the lies and the games, too much to deal with. There, I would only ever be a pawn in someone’s game. Too weak, too young, too unimportant—to the Seelie lords, I was expendable.
I had no idea what had caused Queen Mabona to claim me as Her Vassal now. I’d really thought I’d run far enough that I could find somewhere where there was no quiet cold war between the fae courts. That there, in the hinterlands of inhuman society, in a city with less than two hundred supernaturals—not including Enforcers or however many vampires there were—I could stay out of the games.
But Mabona’s arrival in my life had changed everything. She had commanded, and whether I agreed or not, I had no choice but to obey. Obedience had carried me to the inner circle of fae society and power in this city—of Oberis and his two main lieutenants, one was almost a friend, and the other two appeared to hold me in some disregard, but they knew me. I knew barely a dozen fae in the city, but I knew the rulers—because of the Queen.
I had been forced into that inner circle of power, and now it seemed that, somehow, I had to save the Wizard from an assassination attempt, destroy a vampiric cabal, and prevent open supernatural war in Calgary’s shadows.
So much for staying out of politics.
RETURNING to work on Wednesday morning was a bit of a shock to the system. A day’s rest barely seemed like enough after the weekend I had, but the return to work was adorably mortal and mundane.
They had a get-well card and Trysta had baked a cake. Everyone took a few minutes out of getting ready for the day’s shipments to make sure I was okay.
I ended up repeating the lie about the minor car accident and only being a little bruised in the end a lot. It wasn’t like I could explain to them, “I got beaten to the edge of death due to politics and healed by magic over the weekend.” It sounded a little insane even to me.
Sliding back into the more mundane frame of mind of my job, after a weekend wrapped up entirely in the world of my other life, was hard. It was helped by Bill clapping his hands sharply after a few minutes of everyone clustering around me.
“Come on, people, we’re all glad Jason is okay, but can we be getting to work, please?” he told us, to general laughter. He harried us all into getting to it and loading up our trucks, and then stopped me as I was about to get into mine.
Whatever he wanted, I hoped it was quick. The weather was continuing what I was told was an unusual cold streak—everyone kept expecting another one of their “chinooks” to roll in. I was just hoping to avoid freezing to death.
“Do I want to know what really happened to you?” he said bluntly.
I swallowed, turning to face him fully. “I’m not sure what you mean,” I lied.
“‘Minor car accident,’ my ass,” he snapped. “You don’t drive outside of work, Jason, and pedestrians don’t have ‘minor’ car accidents. So, what happened?”
I sighed and stepped down from the step of the truck, leaning against it and shivering in the cold as I looked him in the eye. “You want the short version, or the one you won’t actually believe?”
“I know you’re into shit I don’t want to know about,” he told me. “I’m figuring organized crime, but as long as you don’t cause problems for me or mine and do your job, I’m going to let that slide. But I also need to know what’s going to come back on me or mine—and you’re one of mine now, got it?”
I was touched. There was no other way to put it. Bill had no idea what was really going on, and had made some assumptions that made me look a lot worse than the truth did—organized crime in this city was mostly drugs, so far as I could tell—but I worked for him, so he was willing to take my side.
“It’s not crime,” I told him quietly. “I’m not going to tell you what it is,” I continued—telling him would do him no favors right now, with a supernatural war about to explode under his nose, “but it’s not crime.
“The long and the short of it is that someone beat the shit out of me, but not as thoroughly as they thought,” I explained. “I don’t like it, but I’m not in a position to do anything about it yet, either.”
My boss eyed me over. He stood silent and apparently immune to the chill setting into my bones.
“Yet, eh?” he answered.
“Probably never,” I admitted. I didn’t see much coming along that would make it possible for me to get back at Laurie, let alone at Oberis.
“Well, don’t expect to get the day off if you get beaten up in your off hours again,” he told me gruffly. “I prefer my people not to get into fights.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that,” I promised. I knew what I could do about avoiding fights: not bloody much. If the Queen commanded, I obeyed. It wasn’t like I had a choice.
“Now get in that truck while you still have your fingers,” Bill ordered.
I obeyed.
23
FIFTEEN MINUTES out of the office, I got a text message, and the politics of the supernatural came crashing back into my life, just as I was hoping to have a quiet, mundane day.
It was from Michael, telling me to meet him at a Starbucks to pick up packages. I left it unanswered for several minutes, making two deliveries while I mulled over what to do in response. The leader of my race in Calgary had demanded that the Enforcers be dissolved. I doubted that helping them out was on Oberis’s list of things he wanted us to do.
In the end, I sent a single-word text back. NO.
It took less than a minute for my phone to ring.
“What do you mean, no?” Michael demanded. “You can’t just refuse the Enforcers.”
“Yes, I can,” I told him quietly as I maneuvered the heavy truck to the side of the road so I could talk to him.
“When you entered this city, you agreed to aid the Enforcers in any way we needed,” he reminded me. “Do you want to know what the penalty for breaking that is?”
“I know that my first oath is to the leader of the Court in this city,” I said quietly. “Oberis has laid sanction against the Magus MacDonald, under the Covenants of this city. All fae are forbidden from offering aid or succor to the Enforcers or the Wizard.”
“What?!” Michael snapped. “What bullshit is this? I haven’t heard anything like that!”
A chill rippled down my spine. It had been formally announced—hell, the witness sent back to the Wizard had been Michael’s boss.
“Notice was given to the Enforcers yesterday,” I told him, trying to stiffen my voice. “MacDonald is being sanctioned for Winters’s murder of Alpha Tarvers, and the Lord of the Joint Court has demanded the dissolution of the Enforcers. I’m sorry, but I am not allowed to help you.”
There was silence on the phone for a moment, and then a beep as my phone informed me that Michael had hung up.
I sat there in the truck for a long moment. Notice had been given to the Enforcers Monday of what Oberis had demanded, but an Enforcer of moderate seniority like Michael didn’t know a thing. I had assumed that the news would have spread quickly in such a tight organization, through the rumor mill if nothing else.
If Michael didn’t know, who else didn’t know? Had Percy told anyone? Or had Magus MacDonald ordered it kept quiet while he did damage control—Powers alone knew what damage control he could manage.
The most terrifying thought that occurred to me, just as I was putting the truck back in gear, was to wonder if Percy had told the Magus at all.