He hated being this angry, even when it was a real anger, and the anger he’d grown up with had been partially an act. He forced himself to stand still, calming down. It wasn’t very effective.
His back to the sphinx, he stood there, head bowed. He moved his glasses to wipe at his eyes.
After a few moments, Isadora asked, “Would you like more tea?”
Matthew nodded, his back still turned.
“I’ll brew up another pot. In the meantime, let’s talk about your research.”
■
Fell closed the car door. The diabolist was staggering away, gas can and emergency kit in hand. Hooded jacket, tousled blond hair, and a general look that was more Other than human. Hollowed out.
The little familiar had taken to the air, circling around a few times, while three maimed goblins with chains around their necks trudged behind, dragging bundles of halogen lights and wires. A quick glance suggested that Rose wasn’t in the mirrors here. Good.
He checked the route on his phone, then mounted it on the dash.
Fell wasted no time in leaving.
His own bloodline had fallen prey to bad circumstance. The thing in that factory was worse. Worse than a force that had altered the lives of generations.
He needed to prepare. The Lord of Toronto, if left unimpeded, aimed to summon things that should be left alone and forgotten. But they weren’t forgotten, as Blake and Rose were demonstrating, and Conquest was already demonstrating that he had no plans to leave them be.
Fell’s father had turned an analytical mind to the problem their bloodline faced. He knew that there was leeway. The shackle that bound them was not perfectly fit, and one could wiggle within the confines of the rules and stipulations. His father had demonstrated as such. When Conquest had given an order that Fell’s father hadn’t wanted to obey, the man had carried it out with such recklessness that he’d died.
The window of opportunity had passed, resources that Conquest had invested into that particular bid for power remained spent, and Conquest grew weaker.
Their family was no longer growing, and Conquest had less pawns in play as a result. This had coincided with the Lord’s waning power.
They’d win through nicks and patience, with one eye open for opportunities.
Except the Thorburn had arrived, giving Conquest a convenient way of getting the power he wanted. Inadvertent, but still a problem. Still unforgivable.
Fell had little pity for those who’d been doomed by circumstance.
The first step would be getting access to his books. Too many things simply didn’t make sense. Conquest’s decisions, the methods, the aims.
The speed limit sign said fifty kilometers an hour. Fell hit ninety.
A horn blared as he rounded a corner.
He shifted gears, reoriented, and hit a hundred on the next stretch.
Even if he died, there were others in the family.
But it would weaken Conquest, and a death colored by spite wasn’t such a bad thing.
Defeating and removing Conquest would be better still.
Tonight and the events that followed would decide things.
The GPS in his phone told him that it should take an hour to get home. He made it in thirty-nine minutes.
Powder from his pocket on the car ensured it wouldn’t get stolen or ticketed.
He reached his apartment.
“Uncle!”
He wrapped his arms around his niece as she ran up to him.
“Thank you for picking her up at the airport,” he said to his mother.
“My pleasure,” the woman said. “How is the situation?”
“We’ll talk later.” He talked to his niece. “For now, I want to hear how my niece enjoyed the last few weeks at the castle.”
“It was amazing! The very first day there, Jaclyn showed us all of the friendly others! There’s a merman in the basement, where it flooded, and a giant in the hills, and there’s…”
He only half-listened, hugging the girl close as he kicked off his boots and made his way to the kitchen to get a drink.
Her father, Fell’s older brother, had gone the way Fell’s father had. A reckless death. Suicide by Lord, simultaneously causing trouble that put Conquest on uncomfortable footing.
Making her his.
His to look after. His to doom to subservience, when the time came.
His grandfather had tried to use anger and hate to drive his father away.
His father had tried to misdirect, to game the system.
Fell only used distance.
“I didn’t do any magic,” she said, a little breathless as she finished.
“I know,” he said. “I’d know if you did.”
“They showed me so much! There’s an old shrine with a god who people used to worship. And the merman, every time you go to talk to him, he goes under the water, and he comes up with a present. Real gold, sometimes.”
“That’s amazing,” he said. He glanced at his mother.
“Emily brought me back a present,” the woman said. Showing off a necklace that had maybe suffered for decades spent underwater.
“And they let me sit there when Jaclyn met with her class. They practiced, and I sat on my hands and kept my mouth shut.”
“Perfect.”
“I really want to start doing the stuff they did.”
“Maybe one day,” he said.
She smiled. “On my next birthday?”
“We’ll see,” he said. “That depends on a lot of things. Some are important things I need to talk to your grandma about. Which means you should be getting to bed.”
“But you just came back!”
“We can talk in the morning, Emily. But you know I can’t like, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What I’m going to talk about with grandma here has something to do with whether we’ll let you learn magic. If things work out in the next day or two, we won’t have to wait.”
We won’t have to wait until Conquest forces me to indoctrinate you, like my father was forced to do with me.
Though the way that Emily was going, she’d probably ask some time after she came of age, and he’d have to obey regardless.
“Go on, honey,” Fell’s mother said. “I’ll be in to tuck you in soon.”
The little girl pouted, but she left.
Fell and his mother sat at the other end of the apartment.
“We can send her back to the castle after the school year is over.”
Fell nodded.
“I know some people. They’ll be visiting for the wedding in Jacob’s Bell. We can send her with them when they go home.”
“She’ll be well-traveled, if nothing else. Can you manipulate the connections? Enhance the attachment between them and her?”
“Not without making dangerous enemies. We’ll find one place to tie her down that’s out of reach. That reach has been getting smaller.”
“It might not stay small if things start catalyzing here. Thorburn is dealing with the abstract demon.”
“Will he succeed?”
“That’s the question. If he does… and if he doesn’t have a plan, then all hell might break loose.”
“Careful about hyperbole.”
“It’s not hyperbole.”
“Be careful all the same. Go on.”
“If Thorburn fails… something tells me that my understanding of what should happen differs from our local lord’s expectations.”