Bertha’s name was one she’d chosen after the “madwoman in the attic” in Jane Eyre. It spoke a lot to her personality. She had been overlooked for inner circles because of her appearance and all-around uncouth attitude. People didn’t like that she dressed like a man and swore like a sailor. Kieran had snapped her up.

We didn’t need a willow of a woman who fit stereotypes—we needed a battle-axe who’d cleave through danger.

As I exited, she turned to the side to let me pass, her hands clasped in front of her. Parker, a short, round man with a bulldog face, waited for me by a golf cart. He motioned for Chins, a stick figure of a woman with very little of her namesake. She stepped forward and held my dress as I climbed into the seat.

“Load up,” Bertha bellowed.

I chanced a glance back at the lodge as we got underway, my guts a mess of nerves. I really didn’t want to leave the kids. Magnus had called Daisy’s hate mail a challenge. That clearly meant she was in danger, as we’d thought. I wanted to be there for backup.

Then there were Aaron’s Necromancers who might be trying to call Harding. We’d talked to Kieran about it, and worry had crept through the soul link. If they could control Harding, they’d have a potent weapon on their hands. If they couldn’t…I was terrified Harding might be pissed off that he’d been controlled. That had always been his rule when he’d worked with me—he had free will. If someone called him and tried to dominate him, I worried he’d retaliate, then maybe slip back into his old ways. No one would be safe, not even me. Maybe especially not me. If they could use Harding to get rid of me and even the playing field…

“You look lovely, Miss Alexis,” Parker said, his voice rough, like rocks grinding beneath the sole of a boot.

“Thanks,” I said, watching the pretty flowers as we lazily rolled by.

A spark of frustration came from Kieran, who’d been in the same location for the past hour. That guy would be mentally comatose by the time all this ended. The meetings were draining enough, but he also had to strategize about developing personal relationships with other leaders.

I knew the situation with Magnus was weighing on him. The dutiful father act had seemed so legit, with the pictures and the history and his feelings for my mom…except it didn’t add up when you considered all the things he’d done over the many long years he’d been in power. The guy was ruthless and brutal—everyone knew that. It was why he’d never experienced a decline like so many immortal leaders did. He was of Hades, too, and Lydia had opened Kieran’s eyes to the trickery they could pull off. Guys like him had strategies within strategies. Kieran said he saw it in the meetings. Magnus had his fingers on the very pulse of magical politics.

I sighed. A huge part of me wanted to latch on to the idea that Magnus was conflicted. That was something I could understand, because I felt that way too. I had loved spending time with him last night. He’d known exactly how to win me over. It had almost made me forget he’d once dragged my kids into the thick of a battle. But if he’d been watching me, he’d known about Daisy and Mordecai for some time. They hadn’t been strangers to him.

He’d done it anyway.

Yes, I wanted to believe he was conflicted, but logic said that it was likely an act. That he was Halloween dressed up like a Hallmark Christmas movie.

Maybe it wasn’t Aaron or Lydia I needed to worry about. If the menacing presence that had appeared in spirit yesterday hadn’t been one of them, logic suggested Magnus had summoned it. Maybe the person I needed to worry about had invited me to dinner in order to distract me from the real danger. Him.

The thought tore me in two.

“You okay, Miss Alexis?” Parker asked as we headed toward a large lodge, equal in size to Magnus’s. Zander was one of the big dogs, so he’d have one of the largest living quarters, close to the summit building.

“Yup. Just tired of politics, is all. This stuff isn’t for me.”

Parker nodded and braced his hand on his hip as he drove. “Yeah. This shit’s for the birds. I’d rather stab someone in the face than in the back. There ain’t no joy in the latter, know what I mean? Ya can’t see their face when they realize their number is up.”

“Well…with the former, you wouldn’t really see the person’s face anyway, given there’d be a knife in it. The blood would obscure your view.”

He barked out a laugh. “Right you are, Miss Alexis. I’ll have to settle for stabbing someone in the heart.”

I checked my phone and then made sure it wasn’t on vibrate. We were supposed to leave our phones outside with our staff, but I wasn’t going to. I wanted to be connected with my kids. Everyone knew to only call me in an emergency, and I didn’t want to leave it to Juri’s staff to decide if the situation was sufficiently urgent.

“A lot of these people just like to hear their own voices,” Parker said as he took a left. Up ahead, another line of golf carts pulled into the round driveway in front, the entrance here much grander than the one to our lodge. “Sometimes it’s best just to let them get on with it. They never even notice you’re not contributing.”

I nodded as a wave of frustration welled up in me—something was starting to really annoy Kieran.

“If you fall, blame someone else.” Parker slowed, and I knew he was allowing time for the party in front of us to disembark. “If you spill something on yourself, also blame someone else, but then tell her staff to fix it. They’ll know exactly what to do.”