Syphon's Song (16 page)

“Edmund.” Helen’s voice pitched high as she admonished her younger son with a swat on his arm with her purse. “Do not be crude.”

“What?” he asked innocently. “You need to know the details of my order if you’re going to get it right.” He rolled his eyes as his mother stepped into the car. “Which she’s not,” he said under his breath toward Vincent.

Edmund motioned for Bronte to get into the car. She climbed in and took a seat against the wall along the driver’s side. Vincent sat next to her; Edmund sat across from them, all alone. Vincent’s father and the senator sat with Helen, facing forward. Two sentries got in the front. A chorus of slamming doors echoed as the remaining sentries piled into the other vehicles.

“Maybe you should let me handle my own wife shopping, Mother.”

“Absolutely not. Look at Vincent. Did you know he and Bronte met thirteen years ago? Thirteen years! Maybe I need to dig into your past and see who you’ve met and if anyone has any potential.”

Edmund’s eyes slid sideways. “Dig into my past and all you’ll get is an empty hole.” He smiled with tight lips and gestured to Bronte. “Let’s focus on Vincent and Bronte for now. Now there’s a match with the goddess’s blessing.”

“Wait.” Bronte took a breath and set her shoulders. “I am here for the next sixteen hours. Only. That’s it. There’s no match here. After that, I am going to be outside the Rallis Territory border, complying with my pass. I’m not staying.”

Her pronouncement rang out. Silence filled the large interior of the car. The Rallises, except Vincent, glanced around at each other. Finally Lady Rallis spoke with a placating smile. “No need to decide anything in haste, Bronte.”

“It is my decision. I hope you honor it.”

Lady Rallis just smiled.

Bronte sighed. Even if she had the official status of a mage, she’d still never win against this family. “All your Mayflower friends are going to think you’re crazy to let your son be seen with a Non, much less the whole family.”

“We’ve got tonight covered. We’ve got it all
covered.” Helen reached out to pat Bronte on the knee.

“You stay with me at all times.” Vincent’s voice filled with authority. “Please don’t have to go to the bathroom.”

“If anyone approaches us, we do the talking, Bronte. We know what to say,” Lady Rallis chimed in. “By the end of the evening, five hundred mages will have spent two hours in the company of a syphon and have no damage to complain about. Someday we’ll be riding in this car to go hear Bronte play on stage.”

Five hundred mages.

Good goddess. Five hundred mages.

The car was suddenly too small for her. “I thought you were going to act like I’m a charity case. Taking the unprivileged Non to the symphony.” Her head spun. Her heart beat too fast for her to sit still. She needed to be outside sprinting for the rest of her body to keep time with the vital organ.

Vincent took her hand. “No one is going to announce that you’re a syphon.”

Lady Rallis’s smile narrowed. The expression fit with the tough, sophisticated veneer of her fitted leather jacket topping her dark dress and lipstick.

“I would hope not. I’d like to continue living!”

“You mean living the half-life you’ve created for yourself?” Lady Rallis criticized as if she had every right. “You know that’s not good enough. Otherwise you wouldn’t have auditioned for the Rallis Symphony. Yes, I asked around after our lunch.” She raised her eyebrows at Bronte. “Half a life is what Vincent has too. That’s not good enough for him either.”

The car glided to a halt and the door opened before she was done talking. Lady Rallis tossed the last words over her shoulder as she exited the car. Her husband and the senator followed.

Cool air rushed in, bringing shivers of fear tingling through her body. “I don’t think I can do this, Vincent.” Fearful tears gathered behind Bronte’s eyes.

Edmund scooted to the edge of his seat and winked at her as he got out, leaving her and Vincent in the car.

Bronte struggled to find enough air to make her plea. “If your truck is here, then take me home. Please, Vincent.”

His face softened in sympathy. He reached out to touch her cheek, but she dashed out of the car to run to his truck.

Enough with being the good, obedient Non. She might long for mage music, but she wasn’t going to die for it.

The gleaming black truck sat against the curb across the street. She jogged around the limo and fled toward it. The wide city street was filled with limos and expensive cars. Mages in formal dress lined the sidewalk. An orderly row of mage lights floating above the street held the dark of night at bay. Flashes of blue suddenly disturbed their soft, steady glow.

Everyone halted. The blue lights flickered off the windows of the neighboring buildings as a half-dozen enforcer cruisers hurtled down the crowded street. A single siren pierced the air ensuring everyone noted their approach. The pack of cruisers skidded to a halt in front of her.

She was surrounded.

Masset jumped out of the closest car.

Bronte took a step backward, and then another. Vincent’s hand closed on her bare arm. His other arm wrapped around her shoulders and tucked her in beside him.

“Bronte Casteel, I have a warrant for your arrest.” Masset’s vicious smile gleamed in the dark night. “Approved and signed by your sponsor, Phyllis Casteel.” He unfolded the paper and held it up with a shake.

A crush of Rallis sentries pressed around them.

“Hmm.” Edmund appeared on her other side. “Let’s see that, chief.” He waited for the other man to hand it over and then scanned it. “Problem. Miss Casteel is currently sponsored by Rallis.” He reached for Bronte’s purse, and she let it go without a protest. He opened it and pulled out her new papers.

“Your warrant is invalid.” Vincent looked at the man with hard, dead eyes.

“Consider yourself yet another victim of Lord and Lady Casteel’s unethical schemes,” Edmund stated. “Though a man of your caliber should see through such tactics. You must be aware of their reputation.”

Masset glared at both brothers and jerked the papers from Edmund’s hand. “Let me see that.” He paced closer to Bronte.

She wobbled on her feet but stood her ground. Not that Vincent gave her any other option. “I’ve done nothing wrong, Chief Masset. I’ve merely followed the orders of my temporary
sponsors.” The words came out of her mouth with such steadiness she couldn’t believe she’d spoken them.

The enforcer sneered. He shifted his gaze to her papers and flipped them front and back. “Chapman! Get over here!”

Another enforcer stepped forward. His eyes were wide with trepidation. He glanced back and forth among the sentries and the Rallises.

“Yes, sir?” He stuttered.

“Read this!” Masset shoved the papers into Chapman’s hand. The pass bent with his force.

“Uh, sir, uh, I’m sure the Rallis word is truth, sir.” The young man stammered around the words.

“Check!”

The younger enforcer took the papers with a shaky hand. He closed his eyes for a quick moment. “Truth, sir. No hint of any aberration, sir.”

Bronte glanced back toward the theater. A crowd of mages stood along the stairs and gawked. Bronte felt like she was spotlighted on the floor of the Coliseum, fighting lions while Roman senators watched from the safety of their seats. Lord and Lady Rallis, as well as the senator, stood a few feet away. They studied the faces of every enforcer as if memorizing them. Masset’s men withered under their glares.

The chief yanked the papers away from Chapman and tossed them to the ground.

“Pick. It. Up.” The order came from the senator himself. His voice powered through the air.

Masset obeyed like a puppet on strings.

Bronte reached out with a shaky hand to take her pass back.

“You will pay for this,” Masset whispered to her. “You Nons are all trash. This isn’t over.” Masset stomped back to his car, threw himself in and slammed the door. Other enforcers followed suit. The cars streamed away.

Adrenaline swirled through her, leaving nausea in its wake. She’d yet to make inside the building, and already the calm veneer she always wore to protect herself had been ripped to shreds. Masset had won in that respect. She tried to mentally gather the pieces of her composure around herself.

“Well, nothing to do but brazen it out now,” Edmund said.

She was enough of a Mayflower daughter to know that.

“Too many people saw Masset’s little show.” Edmund’s words were as sharp as she’d ever heard them. “If we left, we’d look guilty or scared. For now, smile.” His voice converted back to normal. “It’s a lovely night. You’re a lovely lady. I hear you like this kind of music. I don’t, but I’ll smile anyway. Now you join in, too, for our audience.”

Bronte’s eyes lingered on Edmund’s smile. “You are all crazy.”

On the building’s grand steps, their audience had shrunk by half. Only a few mages remained outside, a small enough group to perform for, she supposed. She pulled her lips up, not sure if the action resembled a smile, but she was too stiff with fear to form a real one.

“You have to do better than that. Lesson number one: always assume there are intuiters around. Always. You can’t hide from them. So
be
the smile, Bronte. Feel it.”

There was no smile big enough to hide her fear. So she focused on her anger, whether it was rational or not. “If I live long enough, I’m going to get you all back for this.”

“That’s the spirit!” Lady Rallis called out.

* * * *

The entryway of the theater opened into a gleaming lobby, empty with the exception of a few stragglers. Ahead, the static drone of a crowd radiated from three sets of open doors. Everyone else was already seated. They were almost late.

Bronte cast her gaze upward in a silent plea to the goddess for survival. Her eye caught on the domed ceiling, gilded and etched with thousands of tuning circles—enough to channel power for every mage here to pull on. This was an old building to house so many circles. They’d gone out of style since the average mage’s power had escalated over the last few generations.

This place was probably torture for Vincent. He already carried too much energy of his own. He placed her hand, which was still shaky from the encounter with Masset, in the crook of his elbow and covered it with his. His energy flooded into her like he’d been drowning until he’d touched her.

All of a sudden, Helen turned back to them with a rigid smile on her face. A trickle of alarm vibrated through Bronte. Something was wrong again.

Edmund grabbed Bronte’s empty hand. He held out a bouquet of red roses obviously stolen from the towering arrangement next to him.

The velvety bunch of buds bloomed into full flower before her eyes. A spell’s pressure pushed at her ears.

“Bronte, you’re the first pretty girl to show up on our doorstep since you last left it. But you ended up with the wrong brother. Vincent’s a nice guy, but he’s too serious. Come over to my arm, and I’ll worship ever step you take.” Edmund’s voice was too loud to be talking to someone right next to him.

What in the universal blazes was he doing? He moved the flowers closer to her with an adoring smile.

Bronte lifted a hand to take the lush blossoms. It was the only possible response. Before she touched them, they exploded. A shower of petals rained down. Her syphon absorbed a gentle burst of energy. That meant Vincent was responsible for the eruption. Patches of red velvet continued to drift down slowly over the entire lobby. Vincent controlled their descent. Delighted gasps sounded from two women lingering by the theater doors. One reached out and caught a petal.

Helen looked over at the two women and waved. Her rigid smile softened. This performance was for those women, whoever they were. Maybe one of them was an intuiter as Edmund had mentioned earlier.

Vincent went chest to chest with Edmund. It was a little awkward since her hand was still on his arm.

“How about I worship your nose with my fists? Find your own girl to court. Quit trying to woo mine.”

“Bronte should be able to choose whoever she wants. You’re monopolizing all her time. Just because you’re the one who saw her first doesn’t mean you get to keep her.”

“Damn straight I’m keeping her.”

Bronte joined in. She’d already made it clear those were fighting words to her. She planted her feet wide between them. With a palm on each of their chests, she spoke loudly. “Boys. That’s enough.”