Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
His head swung around, and his eyes glowed brightly. He surveyed her for a long moment before pushing forward up the stairs, and then he sat in the seldom-used second chair. He didn’t speak, perhaps having realized he should listen.
“He’s implicated us in another one,” she said. “Another murder.”
Finding out they’d been framed for that first murder had been somewhat of a shock, Niamh had to admit. They’d all known Nessa and Sebastian were trying to play the puppet masters in the mage community, and that they’d do some off-color deeds, but dragging in the convocation like that? Without their knowledge or consent? Jessie had reacted as though slapped. Austin Steele had vibrated with anger. But the bonds of friendship were strong. The services Nessa and Sebastian had rendered the convocation in Kingsley’s territory were too great to lose faith in the mages so quickly. It had been left to Niamh to analyze the situation and find a reason the mages might’ve set them up.
And analyze she had.
The cobwebs from many decades of inactivity were well and truly dusted away. She did understand motivations and excelled in viewing the whole landscape before drilling down to each minute detail. She enjoyed finding the one precise straw that would crack the camel’s back and made an art of throwing it on. A body couldn’t deal in the sort of shady behavior a puca usually got up to without extreme knowledge and appreciation for manipulation, and she was one of the very best. It was why she was still alive after all this time. Most of her family had been caught during one underhanded affair or other and killed in short order.
Nessa and Sebastian were playing a game, and they didn’t trust Jessie and Austin Steele’s team to be adequate participants. The mages were trying to maneuver on Ivy House’s behalf.
Well. That would never do, especially since they weren’t doing it right.
“Still no clue why they’re framing us?” Tristan asked.
“Don’t be daft. I know exactly why they’re trying to frame us. Two semi-powerful mages, in prominent roles in the Guild, who were instrumental in planning the attack on Kingsley’s?”
She dropped the rock she held into the basket and took out another. Information flashed through her mind. Thank you, Ivy House, for once again making me sharp between the ears. Memory was a blessed thing.
She’d thought she’d waved goodbye to memory at about two hundred years old. Well, three hundred had rolled around, and she’d found herself in the kitchen, no idea why, wondering if she’d brushed her teeth earlier. Four hundred? Feck off. If she didn’t write a thought down, it was gone for good. She’d had a million things put away in “safe places” with no idea where those places were. But with Ivy House’s magic, she was back to her prime—thinking-wise, at least. All systems were firing.
“They’re showing off our power to the Guild while simultaneously saying we hold a grudge against Momar,” said Niamh. “We didn’t just thwart Momar and that was that. No, no. We’re hunting those who wronged us. It has some people nervous—those we wouldn’t want to ally with Jessie anyway—and the right people curious. There’s a great many powerful people in the Guild that weren’t asked to play on Momar’s team. They’re on the outside. That used to put them on the losing team, but now, with Jessie, they have a chance to be on the winning team. That’s a powerful motivator. Sebastian and Nessa are making it so the left-out mages will want to connect with us.”
Tristan rocked slowly. “Which is good news. It sets us up nicely, even if they did make us look like messy animals.”
Niamh chuckled softly. “Don’t like that, do ya? Looking like a messy animal?”
His jaw clenched slightly. He was too distracted by the mages’ activities to hide the tell. Whoopsie. He’d just given her a button to push.
She filed that away.
“It’s good they did,” she went on. “Perfect, in fact. That is Austin Steele’s play: look like what they expect. Act like what they expect. Keep the mages in the dark about what we really are. It’ll give us an edge for a while. The problem is, Sebastian and Nessa extracted the information like a powerful mage would. Like Elliot Graves and the Captain.”
Tristan’s head whipped around.
“Did ye see the pictures?” she asked.
His eyes glowed as he thought back. He grunted in acknowledgment.
She nodded. “Claw marks around the house, things knocked over…and a meticulous murder scene. Are ye jokin’?”
“The Guild hasn’t mentioned that in any of the reports, unless it’s in the files we couldn’t access.”
“It probably isn’t. They don’t seem overly bright, the Guild. Anyone with reasonable intelligence who wants an organization to work in has moved on to Momar. Even before that, the Guild as a whole seemed mostly ineffective. It’s no wonder Elliot Graves found it so easy to come out on top. Momar, however…” Her thumb stroked the rock slowly, and her thoughts continued to drift. “Momar is very intelligent,” she murmured. “Cunning, calculated, a great planner…”