Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Augustine let go of Quinn, walked around the desk, and pulled out a chair, glancing at her. “Please.”
He wanted her to sit. Diana willed her legs to move, walked over, and sat. He lowered himself into the other chair and threw one long leg over the other. Fabric swirled, and his expensive suit was back in place.
The three men stared at him like he was a wolf.
“I come to visit you in good faith, and you attempt to kill me,” Augustine said.
“It was a misunderstanding,” Quinn offered.
He was at least fifteen years younger than his initial disguise. His features had lost their refined lines. His narrow face with close-set eyes and a long chin was ordinary, neither ugly nor beautiful.
“Is it?”
“What do you want?” Quinn asked, his voice wary.
“House Harrison.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Augustine sighed. “We’re wasting time.”
“We don’t know anything,” Camden said.
Augustine looked at her. “I was hoping to avoid it, but it can’t be helped.”
She saw her arms reform, her suit vanishing in an instant, replaced by short white sleeves. The three men at the other end of the desk inhaled sharply. Camden’s face contorted, his eyes turning glassy with fear.
She took her phone out and pretended to check it, hoping her expression looked sufficiently calm.
Nevada Rogan’s face looked back at her through the front camera.
Oh. Wow.
“They are all yours,” Augustine said to her.
“Wait!” Quinn held up his hands. “Wait, wait, wait!”
Nevada Rogan, a truthseeker. To Diana, she was a friend. To everyone else, she was the woman whose magic could wrench your most powerful secrets out of you and leave your mind broken. Diana cleared her throat, trying to remember Nevada’s mannerisms.
“We didn’t take the job!” Words came out of Quinn in a tumbling rush. “We turned it down. We didn’t want complications. These complications.”
“Who brokered it?” Augustine asked.
“Sutton. I don’t know who the other broker was.”
Augustine rose. “Mrs. Rogan.”
She got up.
Augustine walked her to the door, held it open, and looked at the Hesters. “Next time you try to kill me will be your last.”
They left the office and walked out of the building. Nobody tried to stop them.
[ 4 ]
“Augustine?”
“Yes?”
“What the fuck was that?”
Coming from her, the expletive was so unexpected, even something as common as fuck sounding profane. He merged onto the highway and stole a glance at Diana. The calm, slightly vapid demeanor was gone. The woman in the passenger seat was focused, like a soldier in enemy territory. He couldn’t really blame her. The visit to the Hesters hadn’t gone as planned.
“Do you mean the violence or the magic?”
“Yes.”
Clearly some explanations were in order. He hesitated for a moment. There was no way to unpack what happened without revealing more about illusion magic than he was comfortable with. However, he had allowed her to come along, and that decision put her in danger, so the responsibility lay squarely on his shoulders.
“This is why I don’t normally take clients on our investigations.”
“You disarmed me by convincing me to leave Lila behind and then walked us into an ambush.”
That was fair. “I apologize.”
“I thought you said Quinn Hester couldn’t see through your illusions?”
“He can’t. Quinn is a low level Significant. Like all Hesters, he has sensitivity to smells, but it’s very slight. Quinn would’ve bargained with me. Dealing with him is relatively straightforward. Offer enough money, and he folds. But that wasn’t Quinn Hester.”
“Then who was it?”
“Dylan. Their Prime. He doesn’t typically get involved with the broker part of the business, but for whatever reason, Quinn wasn’t there today, so Dylan took his place. I realized who he was the moment we walked in. While Dylan is on the lower end of the Prime scale, his sensitivity to smells is off the charts. He didn’t see through my illusion—he sniffed me out.”
“Explain the tentacles and eyes with teeth coming out of the walls.”
He was hoping to avoid that, but of course, she wanted to know.
“I want to stress that this was an aberration. Had the Hesters been a House, or at least had more interactions with Houses, this would have gone much differently. Illusion Primes tend to be much more pragmatic in our interactions. We expect that other illusion Primes might come to visit us wearing a disguise. In that same situation, someone like Zaden Price would have chuckled and quipped something along the lines of, ‘Prime Montgomery, fancy finding you in my office.’ We would have had a much more pleasant conversation and been on our way.”
“Eyes with teeth, Augustine.”
Knocking her off course wasn’t working.
“Please be patient. I’m getting to that. At the upper level of power, illusion mages are capable of area-of-effect alterations. We project a dense magic field with multiple visual effects. Everyone within that range is affected. In this case, there were four armed guards and a Prime. It was essential that they be neutralized.”