“Especially if Mr. Tom is in charge of the snacks, am I right?” She released a breath. “I almost wish I’d taken some of that chocolate. That’s how unsettled I am. I’m so off-kilter that I would eat some old chocolate Mr. Tom randomly found in his toiletry bag.”

“As long as you don’t reach for the chocolate stool softener. What could he possibly have been thinking?”

She shook with laughter in his arms. “Yeah, well… Honestly, there are no words. There just aren’t.”

“Let’s hope this week doesn’t frazzle him more, if this is the way he reacts to nerves.”

She paused for a moment, serious again. “It won’t last a week. It will only last as long as it takes for me to get a clear shot off at Elliot Graves.”

Twelve

The limo rolled up to a large tunnel in the center of the mountain. A cement arch curved over the narrow, two-lane road. Past the entrance, there was only darkness.

“This is fine,” I said into the deathly quiet limo, my heart nearly choking me. “This is okay. Ivy House is shadowy too, and it’s lovely.”

But it wasn’t lovely, Ivy House. It was a nightmare for anyone who wasn’t welcome, which was nearly everyone.

“Does it have animated dolls? That’s the question,” I said.

Austin still held my hand. He gave it a squeeze but didn’t comment. He’d put his game face on. Normally that would make me less nervous, because he would surely have my back, but in this situation there was probably very little in the world that would have eased my anxiety.

The car entered the tunnel, and that thick, choking darkness washed over us. The driver must have turned on his lights, but I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. How could he see the road?

“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, it’s happening. We’re going to be attacked.” My magic ballooned around us, and my power ripped outward, seeking out danger. It found some sort of spell promoting blindness. I tried to blast through it and took out the window instead. Glass shattered, but the limo shuddered and kept moving. I belatedly thought to try the door. Locked. “We are not in his power,” I reminded myself in a whisper as panic ate at me. “No one has power over me!”

I fired off spells as quickly as I could, no idea how to counter whatever was making me blind but figuring I could create havoc in the meantime.

“Get clear,” I yelled at Austin.

His hand ripped free of mine, and I felt him practically dive forward in the limo. I could’ve just shielded him from what I was about to do, but I was acting faster than I was thinking, and that thought was belated as well.

I slammed a spell into the door. The back tire bounced into the air, the sound and sensation jarring as it came back down. Metal squealed and twisted. More glass shattered. Finally, the door ripped off and cool air gushed in, smelling of exhaust.

Darkness still cocooned me. The limo slammed to a stop.

“Do not go out that door,” Austin growled, clearly realizing I’d blasted it off. He didn’t need to tell me twice. I was no fool.

I tried a ball of light, but the magic creating the darkness swallowed it almost immediately. I tried again, and this time I pumped all my power into it. I didn’t care if it morphed the spell into something unexpected. I needed to see!

Before I fired it out of the limo, I felt out my people through the link and put a protective spell around them, making it a little larger to encompass the shifters I knew were near them. That done, I let loose.

White cracks formed within the blackness, spiderwebbing out. They grew and spread, almost like pressure fractures in a wall or cement. My spell was battling that of Elliot Graves, power against power. We’d see if I was any match for him.

While I waited for the verdict, not able to pump more power into the spell after shooting it off, I threw magical bombs, blasting the other door off and blowing out the rest of the limo’s side windows.

“Am I magically covered?”

“Hah!” I slapped out my hand in a stupid karate chop, uselessly striking Austin’s shoulder. I hadn’t heard him crawl back toward me. “Yes, yes, yes, though some of my more adventurous spells might physically jolt you.”

He squeezed my knee and brushed past me as he exited the limo from the hole on the other side, where the door used to be. Or so I thought. I obviously couldn’t see my handiwork.

Light forced its way through the inky blackness like the roots of a great oak, undaunted by the resistance, undeterred in its goal. I blasted the area directly in front of us, behind the next limo up, and heard metal pop, followed by a heavy thud, like bouncing.

I felt my people scramble toward the right, hurrying. Austin was around the back of the limo, already heading back toward me, moving faster than a non-shifter could, relying on his other senses to show him the way.

My magic blossomed through the sky, peeling back the blackness. It showered the curved sides of the great tunnel and shone against the mangled metal around me. Glass spread across the cement outside my door, Austin stepping on it in his fine suit, his hands at his jacket edges, ready to strip if he needed to change. A moment later, my stomach dropped.

My people were all standing on a cobblestone sidewalk in front of a large entryway, their eyes wide, hands hanging at their sides as they gaped at me. Behind them, glass littered the floor. What had once been a large glass double door was now a hole. Men and women in red suits, like hotel staff, cowered in the corners of the large room beyond with their arms over their heads.

Austin let go of his jacket and smoothly stepped toward me. I could feel his utter delight through the link but had no clue why.

My spell drifted away, taking the lingering blackness with it, and I noticed the lovely ornate gas lanterns suspended by chains above the road, the magical flames purple, blue, and pink. It almost reminded me of the crystals at the core of Ivy House. More lights glowed from the sides of the tunnel, highlighting the narrow road, the yellow line down the middle easy to see.

Given a couple of the limos had made their way to the curb and the rest were in the process of doing so, I suspected only the passengers had been magically blinded. Though, given the fact that everyone had made their way to the little sidewalk in front of the destroyed doors, maybe the others hadn’t been blinded for long. They’d all known exactly where to head when they (clearly) thought I was about to blow them up.

Smoke rose from one of the limos in front. I could just see another with the trunk all twisted. Someone’s luggage had probably suffered from that one.

Absolutely no one moved in the ensuing silence.

“So…” The glass crunched under my stiletto as I stepped forward, my voice echoing around the cavernous space. The late-afternoon sunlight shone through the large tunnel entrance behind me. “That was some sort of welcome, was it? Some sort of magical…howdy-do?”

“Maybe you should’ve taken some of that chocolate Ex-Lax,” Ulric said, and the pressure released. The people in red coats slowly pulled their arms away from their heads, peering over their shoulders. Limo drivers poked their heads out from around the ruined entrance, seeing if the coast was clear. Cyra’s fire swirled around her, and everyone else gave her a lot more room than she actually needed.

“Seems to me,” Mr. Tom said to Niamh, “that you failed to tell her that mages typically give a show of their power when their guests first arrive.”

“That might’ve slipped me mind, yes,” Niamh said, dusting the glass from her shoulder. “But now we know that our Jessie has more power.”

“Shh.” Mr. Tom batted at her, then looked upward and into the corners of the door. “They might have surveillance out here.”

“She’s not telling them anything they didn’t just realize.” Hollace stepped forward and looked away from us, down the long tunnel and out the small hole on the other side. “What should we do about the basajaun?”

“Did he run?” I asked in disbelief, slipping my hand through Austin’s held-out arm. I could feel the basajaun now, walking back toward us.

Mr. Tom sniffed. “Your limo driver took off running like a coward. The basajaun went after him. Apparently he didn’t like the idea of anyone getting away. Cyra, you are making black spots on the cobblestone. For a centuries-old soul, you are horribly bad at containing your magic.”

“It’s harder to control after rebirth,” Cyra said. “Doubly hard after many rebirths in a short period of time. It usually takes me a few months to level out.”

“I never thought I’d miss the dolls,” Hollace said. “Let’s hope there’s a lot of rock in this place, which won’t catch fire, or I’m going to be sprinting out of here like the basajaun. Only I won’t be trying to catch anyone.”

“Niamh didn’t tell you about the show Elliot Graves would put on either, huh?” I asked Austin quietly as everyone set to work wrestling the luggage out of the trunks with twisted metal. Thankfully, they all (loudly) blamed it on Niamh.

“She did—” Austin cut off as he walked me through the ruined glass doors and then stopped, surprise blistering through the link.

He’d clearly expected some dark series of tunnels, small spaces carved into the rock with low ceilings, rough rock walls, and uneven ground. And if not that, something other than the luxurious setup before us.

Cream walls rose to the curved ceiling, sporting a rectangular square of muted light surrounded by thick white paneling. A large gold chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling, dripping with crystals. The metal frame curled up and supported a candle with a flickering magical flame. A design of large blue flowers with darkened violet middles was painted on the walls, their deep brown stems painted close to the ceiling so the blooms hung downward, with pops of yellow birds flying or sitting within them.

“That reminds me of the flowers you got me on our first date,” I mumbled, tracing their path along the walls. “Different flowers but similar color scheme.”

In contrast to the white paneling around the glowing patch of light, dark baseboards lined the floor and the large open doorways leading away from the front room. A couple of blue velvet chairs, the same shade as the flowers on the walls, waited in front of us, pushed up against a small table as though inviting us to sit until our accommodations were ready. There were more small seating areas beyond that, situated in front of large ornate mirrors to make the room look bigger.