Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
The space was still largely open, with the tables spaced evenly, nowhere to really hide. Unless you had potions to make you invisible, of course. Which we did.
“This place is great,” Nessa said as she started dragging one table toward another. Sebastian quickly stepped forward to help.
“So what’d you think of that cairn leader, Nessa?” Niamh asked, surveying the tables they were moving around. “Handsome fella.”
“Yeah. Very.” Nessa adjusted another table and stepped to the wall. “This is my spot. And from the way Austin reacted to him, he’ll probably die very soon.”
Niamh laughed. “Ah, sure, he’ll be run out of town before Austin Steele can get at him, right twat like that.”
“If everything is too calm, and the guy is too light and easygoing, I always get this extreme paranoia that I’m going to get stabbed in the back. Anyone else feel that way?” Nessa asked, still sizing up the room.
Niamh kept laughing. Everyone else just looked at Nessa.
“What?” she asked. “It’s better if the most dangerous man in the room is the guy I’m with, because then I know he’s either got my back or he’s going to kill me. No guessing.”
“The job has done a number on ye.” Niamh shook her head, still chuckling. “Not like I can talk, mind. I once stabbed a fellow puca because he smiled at me. I thought he might’ve poisoned me or something. Turned out he’d just had gas. Sometimes ye just can’t shake the fear.”
Sebastian’s expression fell as he gazed at Nessa. “I did this to you. I’ve made your life unlivable. Yours and Jessie’s. Every connection I make, I—”
“Don’t get sentimental on us now, Sabby.” Nessa rolled her eyes with a smile, then bounded over to Sebastian and wrapped him in a big hug. “I chose my path. If anything, I forced you to end up like this. It had to be done, and I did it. I don’t regret it.”
“Well of course ye don’t,” Niamh said. “I heard about that bollocks mage who broke into yer lab. He knew what he was about, and he should’ve known he was goin’ta die. Fair play to ya. The Anal Repository will pay for what they did to Sebastian, we’ll see to that.”
She was talking about the man Nessa had killed in self-defense. Sebastian had claimed responsibility, knowing a weak mage like Nessa would be killed for the offense but he would be allowed to live, and he’d been tortured for days by the Mages’ Guild.
Neither Nessa nor Sebastian seemed to hear what Niamh was saying, though, and a shiver arrested me. Something about the way she was hugging him, and the way he curled into her, spoke of a long and deep history. This was some sort of shared trauma carving away at them. The odd thing was that I didn’t think it was because of the mage Nessa had killed. When they’d told me that story before, they’d delivered it almost as a joke. This was something darker, or maybe something earlier.
I wished I could help in some way, but I didn’t want to pry. I doubted I’d get a straight answer out of them anyway, not from the way they were hugging each other and ignoring the room.
Niamh must’ve realized it too, because she turned in that unaffected way of hers. “Right, Jessie, let’s get down to business. We need to talk about that gobshite that mocked us in the warehouse. He’s some piece of work, he is. We’re going to make him sizzle. Here’s how…”
SIXTEEN
Jessie
I stood at the wall five feet from the main table where we’d all eventually have dinner. Austin’s pack stood outside in their orderly formation, making a show of the protection detail. My people were interspersed with them.
Sebastian and Nessa stood in their positions, chosen earlier, and Niamh sat at a table in the back with a flask. She’d been given strict orders to maintain her grip on that flask at all times. The potion we’d taken would mask our sight and sound, even our smell, from onlookers, within a small aura around us. The same potion would allow us to see one another, an elusive quality Sebastian had been trying to add to his potions for years, and he’d only succeeded with our combined power.
We’d be covered, our clothes would be covered, and elements that touched us would be hazy at the edges. For Niamh to render that flask invisible, she would have to keep her hands covering most of it at all times.
Someone mentioned that it would’ve been easier just to tell her she couldn’t bring it. That guy clearly didn’t know Niamh very well.
Austin stood to one side of the entrance to the dining area, his back to the wall and his hands clasped in front of him. Broken Sue stood opposite him. Both of them had also taken the potion.