Turning away from the dark, dank tunnel, he took the winding stairs two at a time, the light of the cellar leading him back. When he crawled out of the space, he wiped his hands on his jeans and sighed. Only one place here left to look for the magical transcasting mirror: the Councilman’s body. Dismally, he wondered if there was anything left to find in the burned rubble, then set the candle aside and walked toward the corpse.
Sabelle searched yet another sumptuous bedroom, this one in muted greens and golds, trimmed in silk ribbons and large tassels, all of which had been ripped off and tossed to the floor. It was stately despite its disarray, even more so than the previous bedrooms.
She opened a huge armoire filled with electronic gadgets that Bram would salivate over, were he conscious to appreciate the display. A large fireplace, blackened from frequent use, and bamboo flooring with colorful area rugs strewn about set the mood. A robe littered the floor, just beneath a convenient hook on the back of the door.
MacKinnett had used this room. His smell lingered. His thoughts, even. He’d always been a scholar, and despite the destruction, his essence permeated the walls. The well-loved tomes on magical theory and human science that she suspected had once rested on the nightstand had been slammed to the floor, their spines split by the force. The sight filled her with an anger she could barely understand or contain.
But she couldn’t succumb to emotion now. They didn’t have time. They had to warn Camden, then she had to convince Ice to leave here. If they hadn’t found it, she had a terrible feeling the Anarki would return to search again for the mirror.
Shaking her head, she moved to his fireplace and searched beneath the mantel, inside the pit, up the chimney walls. Nothing. Wiping away the soot, she crossed the room to the armoire and checked beneath the television, game console, iPod dock, and other assorted treasures. Nothing, either inside the armoire nor out.
This was the last room, and she was running out of options. If Mathias had found MacKinnett’s secret transcasting mirror … Bram had hinted once or twice that an enemy finding such a device would be bad indeed. She thanked God again that she had seen fit to hide his mirror at olivia’s little art gallery, A Touch of Magic, after the black cloud had swallowed him. She’d feared the house’s defenses would be weak, and she’d been right.
With a weary sigh, Sabelle bent and righted the night table, retrieved the books and put them back in place. Then she opened the drawers. Virtually nothing in them. Some reading glasses. A date book from several years past. A few pens.
She shoved them back inside the open drawer. As she did, the top of her hand brushed something odd. Protruding.
Excitement bubbled as she yanked the drawer from the night table and set it on the nearby rug. Then she flattened her palm and slid it across the panel above the open cavity. There! Something raised. Her fingers traced carvings. It was octagonal, like Bram’s mirror. This had to be it.
Curling her fingers around the edges, she pulled once, twice … finally it came free.
Quickly, she extracted it. And smiled. The MacKinnett family crest seemingly carved in stone. It looked like a paperweight or something one might affix to a mantel for decoration. She knew better, for Bram’s looked nearly identical, family crest excepting.
She rubbed her hand across the top three times clockwise, one counterclockwise. Suddenly, it popped open, much like a human female’s compact. Sabelle jumped to her feet and opened her mouth to shout for Ice. She closed it. This was Council business. She was acting on her brother’s behalf. Camden didn’t know her well, but well enough to know she would never lie about MacKinnett’s death. Ice … given his reputation as an anger-fueled madman, perhaps she’d be better served to talk to Camden alone.
The mirror was fogged, not uncommon when it wasn’t in use. Around the edges appeared six other crests and one symbol at the top, which she assumed allowed one to reach all the other Councilmen simultaneously. She avoided that button, and struggled to recall the exact crest belonging to Camden’s family. But the memory wouldn’t come. What did she recall about the Council? Protocol. Yes, the Council loved that, and it saved her now.
The eldest member of the Council was Blackbourne. Accordingly, his family crest was the first etched into the glass near the top. Spencer’s would be just beneath his. O’Shea’s and MacTavish’s she recognized beneath that. Which led to Camden’s. Beneath that, MacKinnett’s symbol had gone black. Sabelle hoped, prayed, it displayed thus on all the mirrors. It would certainly lend credence to her message.
The Rion family crest was last, and the symbol had gone a dark gray. He was ill, very ill. She’d shoved aside worries about him since she’d cried at the bed-and-breakfast in Monmouth, but they always lingered, plaguing her mind like a disease. The mirror proved she was right to worry.
Shoving the thought aside, she focused on what must be done.
Touching her finger to Camden’s symbol, she waited. Within moments, he appeared, looking ready to shout. When he saw her face, he closed his mouth and sent a puzzled frown instead.
“Lady Sabelle. You have MacKinnett’s mirror. His symbol is black. Is he truly dead? Are you all right, girl?”
Thank God, she didn’t have to explain a great deal. “Yes, I have his mirror. Yes, he’s dead. My brother is unwell.” She swallowed. “I know you don’t wish to hear this. None of the Council does, but Mathias and the Anarki attacked and killed Thomas. Burned him alive.” Her voice cracked. “All his human servants dead—”
His expression closed up, his wiry gray brows knitting. “You’re prattling nonsense, girl. Mathias is in exile.”
“Was in exile. He killed Auropha and George MacKinnett and … and now he’s finished off Thomas. The entire house is in shambles. The Anarki symbol has been branded into all the women’s bodies.”
Camden hesitated, the shook his head. “No. How would Mathias possibly have gotten free?”
“I don’t know, and right now, I don’t care. I hailed you and you alone because I think Mathias may be after you next.”
“What? outrageous! That is impossible.”
She held in a grunt of frustration. “It’s not only possible, it’s likely. Look!”
Holding the glass away from her, she retrieved the candle. Using them together, she slowly scanned the annihilated bedroom, then made her way out the door, down the hall, to the bodies in the first room. She swallowed, hating to show disrespect by using them to prove her point, but she was running out of options.
Once she pointed the mirror toward one of the human female’s naked forms, complete with dried blood and the angry brand on her naked, intimate skin, she heard Camden’s indrawn breath.
“Dear God,” he breathed.
She flipped the mirror around and faced the wizard again. “He attacked my home as well. Destroyed it, I’m certain. Mathias struck Bram with a terrible spell that I cannot reverse. Please . . .”
“I—I … Mathias cannot be back. I am but an old man. How could I fight such a monster?”
“Just keep yourself safe. That’s all I ask. We believe Mathias killed MacKinnett so that he could put himself on the Council. You are the only other member without an heir.”
Camden cursed, but nodded.
Sabelle weighed her next words carefully. Secrecy had been vital to Bram’s efforts thus far … but MacKinnett’s murder and Mathias’s plans had changed everything. She only hoped honesty would reassure Camden and underscore the urgency of the situation.
“Before his illness, Bram began quietly gathering a fighting force to destroy Mathias, the Doomsday Brethren. Let them do their work. Help us by hiding well.”
He blew out a shaky breath. “Indeed. Can I do anything to help you?”
“Yes. Listen to me: if there are others on the Council whom you know without any shred of doubt would never support Mathias, would you wish to warn them?”
Camden paused for a long moment. “No. The elders above me will never believe this without proof. I would suffer what Bram has endured since he began talking about Mathias’s return, I’m sure.”
Sabelle feared he’d say that. “Right, then. Keep the information to yourself for now. We’ll deal with the rest of the Council later. I have to get Bram healed—somehow—and protect MacKinnett’s mirror.” There was the matter of keeping the Doomsday Diary safe as well, but no need to stun Camden with more huge news, in case Bram had never told him about the diary’s rediscovery.
“Yes. Yes, of course. Check in with me, girl. Keep yourself safe. You’re doing a very brave thing. I’m only sorry that . . .”
He’d basically called her brother a liar for the past month? Water under the bridge now. “Thank you. I’m sure Bram will appreciate it once he’s up and about again.”
“Yes. Well … Take care of yourself, then.”
Sabelle nodded. “Contact me periodically to let me know you’re well.”
“Of course.”
They ended the contact, and Sabelle backed out of the room piled high with corpses and tragedy, then ran down the stairs. “Ice?” Silence. She jogged down to the cellar and called his name again.
This time, he growled a skin-crawling, blood-chilling scream of pain so rife with torture, it made Sabelle’s heart stop.
“Ice!” she screamed as she flung open the cellar door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HEART POUNDING, SABELLE DARTED to the bottom of the stairs, desperate to reach Ice. She thrust her candle aside. The cellar lights revealed a nightmare: Ice slumped against the concrete wall, straining, twitching—fighting some invisible battle. Sweat popped up across his face and head, despite the cellar’s chilly air. He gripped his thighs and screamed.
“Ice!” She rushed over to him, skidding to a stop at his side. “What’s happened?”
He opened his mouth, convulsed again and gritted his teeth as he wrapped his arms around his middle, then strained with effort again. A moment later, ice flowed from his fingertips. He dug under his sweater, trying to reach bare skin. Sabelle pushed and shoved at the garment until it raised well up his muscled torso. Her hands came away warm and sticky with his blood.
Gasping in a huge breath, he applied ice-coated hands to his abdomen. The muscles rippled and tensed as the first blast of cold hit his bare skin. He roared out in pain.
Sabelle tried to tamp down panic, but it breathed hard and heavy on her. “Ice?”
“Trap.” He took shallow, uneven breaths. “Magical mine.”
Oh, dear God. Then its energy was likely still fixed on Ice. She had to get him as far away as possible, to someplace she could help him. Now. Magical mines could be deadly in minutes, and she cursed the fact she hadn’t foreseen that Mathias might lay such a trap. But she couldn’t act rashly.
“What is the source of the mine?”
Jaw clenched, he fought off pain. Tendons stuck out in the thick column of his neck. Sweat beaded on his forehead, at his temples. “The. Body.”
MacKinnett himself? Sabelle dug quickly into the pack and grabbed her wand. Then she hesitated. “I have to move you. It’s going to hurt.”
He sent her a shaky nod. “Do it.”
Biting her lip, she flicked her wrist. Ice raised a few inches from the floor and cursed. Sabelle used her wand to direct him up the stairs, away from the corpse. The farther from the mine they traveled, the better for him.
As fast as she dared, she raised Ice out of the cellar, through the house. Setting him in one of the bedrooms was closer, but all the furniture had been destroyed, every bed in shambles. So she led him through the ruined foyer and the wreckage of the kitchen, then out toward the coach house behind the manor.
The December night bombarded them with cold from all directions. The air smelled of impending snow. Ice shuddered at the icy wind over his body, then slowly, he relaxed.
The magical mine had been all but cooking his insides. He’d needed the outdoor’s chill to recover, though she found it unpleasant. Fighting the urge to rub her freezing hands together, she hesitated instead, lingering for Ice’s benefit as much as she dared. Seconds ticked by, then minutes. Sabelle watched Ice’s breath cloud the air about his face. Finally, he drew his icy fingers away from his belly and legs. He formed fists at his side.
“Inside,” he rasped through chattering teeth.
Hers had long since begun to rattle from the cold.
After an absent nod, she used her wand to urge his levitated form closer to the coach house.
“Walk,” he demanded with a cracking voice.
He wanted what? “No. You will do nothing until I discern how serious your injury is.”
“Princess—”
“That growl may intimidate others. I’m not listening. You can shout later. Now, I’m taking you to safety.”
He muttered something, then winced, grabbed his thighs as if warding off fresh pain. Foolish man wanted to walk … Stubborn pride. He had loads of it.