“You’ve loved him since college, and it’ll give me an event to plan.” I could hear the grin in his voice.

  “What if Keirn wants to plan it?”

  “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement between us. You’ll be receiving a package soon.”

  “A package? What for?”

  “If you’re going to marry him, you need the ring.”

  Our family had a ring that was passed down from generation to generation when we got married. My father never married my mother, because the ink network had used him. Butterflies formed in my stomach as I thought about giving Keirn the simple weaver-made ring. Tears threatened to spill down my cheeks. We’d made progress. We were going to get him back.

  “Thanks. I guess this means I’ll have to propose sooner rather than later,” I said with a laugh.

  “Let me know if you want me to pull any strings and get you a table at Noire.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind. Any news your side?” I asked.

  I needed to change the topic from Keirn.

  “Just the usual politics and bullshit. Francis has been trying to slander me, again. Draven offered to quietly remove him as a problem, and I was tempted for a moment. He’s just digging his own grave, though, his business is already dwindling.”

  Draven was my father’s friend, a Sidhe who moonlighted as an assassin. If I remembered correctly, Francis was a fellow weaver who had never achieved the success he felt he deserved, and he took that out on my father. I didn’t miss that world. Tattoo magicians mostly kept to themselves. I hadn’t experienced the infighting a lot of other magical communities seemed to have.

  “Company just arrived, take care, and propose to Keirn. I’ll speak to you soon, love you.”

  “Love you, too,” I said as I hung up.

  Marriage hadn’t crossed my mind, not yet. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry Keirn, but we’d only just officially gotten together. The elevator dinged before I could slip too far into my thoughts.

  A courier in black uniform handed me a small wooden box and asked me to sign four different forms before he left. I opened the dark wood box to find the Corbeaux family ring. The simple pale blue and silver band twisted two threads of weaver magic together to symbolise the union. I ran my thumb over it and fought back the wave of emotion. Keirn was going to live, and he was going to arrange a beautiful wedding with my father’s help. I lifted my chin and put the box away in a safe spot in our room. I’d propose at the earliest possible moment. Maybe I’d take my father up on the offer for a table at Noire and do it properly. My mind flitted between possibilities of places to propose. I was lost in my own mind and missed the tell-tale crackle of someone slipping through our wards.

  22

  Kyra noticed it first. She growled and pressed biting through the bond. Biting what? I headed to the living area just as Kyra launched herself at a shadow walker’s face. She sank her claws into the side of his face and her teeth into the bridge of his nose. I reached for my stiletto blade, but realised I’d left it in the bedroom. My home was supposed to be safe. The ink was in my satchel, though. I lunged for my satchel behind the main sofa, but someone strong grabbed the back of my shirt and threw me backwards. I collided with the wall and had the air knocked out of my lungs. The shadow walker was desperately trying to free his face from Kyra, who was growling and digging her claws and teeth in deeper.

  Three men and one woman closed in on me. Two were shadow walkers, their hair and eyes flickered with black shadows.

  “You said you didn’t have your fucking magic,” I growled as I pushed myself into a standing position.

  The woman tried to grab my forearm, and I slammed the heel of my hand into the bridge of her nose. Someone kicked my ribs before I could incapacitate her properly. I could see the cougars shaking their heads in disappointment at me in my mind’s eye, after all the work they’d put into teaching me to fight and defend myself. I kicked the smaller man to my left in the stomach, only to have the woman I’d broken the nose of punch me in the face. Keirn’s fox joined the fray and sank its teeth into the smaller man’s inner thigh. The man snarled and tried to wrench the fox off. It gave me a chance to punch the larger man in the sternum. They still had me trapped against the wall. I didn’t have much room to manoeuvre. The large guy side-stepped my blow, and the woman grabbed my throat from behind.

  Everything went black. I hadn’t lost consciousness, they’d wrapped me in shadow so that I couldn’t see anything. The sensation of suffocating overwhelmed me. I tried to calm myself and keep my breathing slow and steady. Kyra was close by, and I could hear the fox growling near at hand. The floor tilted beneath my feet, and it felt as though someone had plunged me into icy water. Remaining calm took everything I had.

  Suddenly, my feet hit solid ground, and my legs gave out from under me. Someone kicked me in the ribs as I hit the ground. Something warm and furry landed on my face. It was followed by a second, smaller furry thing. The fox and Kyra. My head was spinning, and my entire world hurt. Those bastards had just kidnapped me. Were they working with the Ceremonials? Had they offered them a better deal?

  I must have blacked out at some point. I came to with Keirn's fox licking my face and Kyra chewing on my ear. I much preferred the fox's methods. I suspected that Kyra was pissed I'd been paying attention to the fox, little wretch that she was. Gently pushing both away, I sat up and peered into the darkness. The air was cold and damp, which suggested I was somewhere underground. Prague had an entire underground city beneath the main city, so that didn't narrow anything down. As my vision cleared, I started to be able to make out some details of the small room I'd been dumped in. The walls were rough stone, the floor was large stone tiles of some form. Oh, and the best bit? The door was heavy metal. They'd thrown me in some cell with nothing but a hole in the floor in one corner.

  What were they thinking? We'd offered them a good deal. Surely, if they were working with the Ceremonials, they'd have handed me over to the bastards. Or had they handed me over? This could be a holding cell or some such for the Ceremonials while they prepared one of their huge rituals. I had no doubt that my magic would be able to fuel one hell of a ritual. I rubbed the back of my head and tried to deepen my breathing to remain calm. My ribs protested; at least one of them was broken. My abdomen was covered in bruises, but I could stand when I tried. Kyra and the fox began growling at the door when footsteps approached.

  "Don't attack," I told them both.

  They glared at me in response. The last thing I needed was to get into another big fight thanks to that pair. The door swung open to reveal a hedgewitch with a shadow walker just behind her. The witch appeared to be barely eighteen. I expected that she was far closer to fifty or more. She had likely burnt through at least a couple of familiars to remain quite as pristine as she was. Not all hedgewitches were like that, but I wasn't in a particularly forgiving or optimistic mood in that moment.

  Kyra and the fox remained close to my ankles, thankfully. I stared down my captors and waited for them to speak. The hedgewitch grinned at me and spread her arms wide.

  "Welcome to our home, Dacian," she purred.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  "Some welcome - the decor could use some work."

  She laughed, a harsh sound that echoed around me, mocking me. How the fuck did I get myself into these situations? I went to curse the gods and smiled as I remembered Vyx telling me that maybe if I stopped cursing them things would look up.

  "You are a guest here," the shadow walker said, her dark hair flickered and shifted in the dim light.

  "What happened to the shadow walkers not having any magic?" I demanded.

  The shadow walker narrowed her eyes at me.

  "We have a little of our magic. Petra and her sisters were kind enough to allow us the use of some of their familiars to facilitate your transport."

  So, they'd stolen some familiar magic to shadow walk me into that room.

  "That doesn't sound like it's very good for the familiars..." I said.

  I'd never come to terms with how the familiars were treated. The witches acted as though they were nothing more than batteries, objects to be used and abused. They were people, shifters, with hopes, dreams, and so on.

  The witch shrugged. "They were disposable."

  I gritted my teeth and said nothing more about it. Getting into a fight with them wouldn't be the smart move.

  "So why did you bring me here? We had arranged a deal."

  The shadow walker smiled. "We felt that we could negotiate a better deal if Fein and his people were removed from the equation."

  "The deal stands as it was," I said.

  23

  The hedgewitch lifted her chin a little and stepped aside.

  "Come with me, Mr. Corbeaux," she said.

  Kyra climbed up onto my shoulder and growled at the witch.

  "I'll put you back in your tattoo," I pushed to her.

  Kyra nuzzled against my neck as though she hadn't done anything. The fox half climbed up my leg and took my fingers in its mouth. I rolled my eyes. They were both so incredibly spoilt. I crouched down and opened my arms for the fox to hop into. It grinned at me. Upon seeing the way the witch looked at Keirn's fox, I decided that maybe it was better it was spoilt and remained in my arms. I had no doubt that the witch could find all sorts of uses for the magic within the fox, none of which would be good for it.

  The shadow walker stepped back and away, and I followed the witch down a broad hallway that was remarkably modern, given the state of the cell I had been in. Smooth off-white plaster coated the walls and clean pale pink tiles covered the floor, giving it a little warmth. It could have passed as an interior hallway in a large house. I noted a few other heavy metal doors along the stretch of wall and wondered how many other people they had locked away in there. Was this just how they did business? Delicate pale blue and soft orange lights were set into the top of the wall and down the centre of the pale ceiling. The entire thing was in complete contrast to my cell. I had no doubt that was the point - despite what they had said, I was a prisoner.

  The hallway opened out into a square room about the size of my entire flat. The floor changed to a pale wood which was well-worn with small scuff marks around the mismatched furniture. Sofas and comfortable chairs were scattered around the open space and had various beings lounging out over them. It had the feel of a college common room, with everything being well-worn and nothing quite matching. A pair of witches were engaged in a very heated debate. The larger red head threw her hands up in the air and thrust a handful of dried herbs at the blonde. The younger blonde woman scowled and said something in a language I didn't recognise. A number of familiars hung around the long table pressed against the left wall. Their intricate collars marked them as belonging to one of the witches. The shadows under their eyes and starkly prominent collarbones showed the witches didn't care for them all that well. I couldn't help but notice the pair of dead tabby cats tucked under the table as though they were nothing more than forgotten litter. I expected they were the familiars that had helped the shadow walkers come and retrieve me.

  "Remind me why you had to kidnap me, rather than speaking to me in a civilised fashion," I said as I looked around for escape routes and weapons.

  The shadow walkers clearly had some magic, but I couldn't be sure just how much. The hedgewitches' magic ran on herbs and the like, so it was difficult to tell just how many weapons they had on their person. They could be armed to the teeth, and I wouldn't have a clue until it was too late. It was better that I relaxed and tried to talk my way out of the situation.

  "Because we don't believe that having Fein involved will be a positive thing for us," the hedgewitch said.

  "And why is that?" I asked.

  She sniffed and made herself comfortable in a wide red armchair, leaving the shadow walker to hover near her side. I sat down in the grey chair opposite her and rubbed behind the fox's ears, which earned me a bite on my already sore ear from Kyra.

  I only have so many hands I pushed to her.

  She began kneading my shoulder with her claws. I focused past the wretch onto the witch.

  "Fein has proven to be a thorn in our side. He is too much like the Ceremonials in his restrictions."

  "Fein works hard to make sure that the familiars and such are well treated," I said coolly.

  She sighed. "They're batteries, tools to be used."

  "They're living, breathing people."

  I should have held my tongue, but I wasn't going to let their treatment of the familiars slide.

  The witch rolled her eyes, but we had drawn the attention of other witches in the room. An older woman with long, black curly hair that fell down her back wandered over to us. The fox tensed in my arms as it watched her pale green eyes fix on it.

  "That's a rather attractive fox - may I?" She leaned down to touch him.

  The fox snarled and pulled away from her, pressing itself against my chest.

  "No. Tell me why I'm here," I said.

  The witch smirked and ushered the original witch out of the armchair and claimed it for herself. The first witch muttered under her breath and slunk away behind me somewhere.

  "You're here because we're tired of the Ceremonials and their insistence on passing laws and legislation that impede our ability to perform our magic and live comfortable lives. For example, this, here," she gestured around the room, "is illegal. We are not allowed to gather in more than pairs. We aren't allowed more than one familiar at a time. There are many taxes and fees we must pay to maintain our gardens and trade in goods. They are trying to cripple us, one agonizing law after another."

  "And I offered to help you with that."

  She smiled. "Yes, there was a little problem. You dealt with Magda and, well, she's from a different group. Unfortunately, my kind don't play well with each other."

  There it was, the reason they'd taken me. They didn't want me helping their rivals.

  "I was of the understanding that harming the Ceremonials would help all of you," I said cautiously.

  She was after something, something I very much did not want to give her.

  "Yes, that is true. But you're going to give us something more, something that helps me and my sisters."

  I waited for her to continue. It was unlikely that I would give whatever she was angling for freely or willingly.

  "You're an ink magician. Unlike the Ceremonials, we understand that this means you can work with ink as a whole; you are not limited to mere tattoos."

  Kyra growled at the ‘mere tattoos’ part. I tensed with her. The tattoos were not a simple thing, but we'd already established their views on other living beings.

  "Continue," I said.

  A pair of familiars came over to her, each with mottled tabby-coloured hair and pale skin. They looked as though she'd almost drained them dry. Their eyes were dull, their bones clearly on show through the parts their t-shirts didn't cover. They moved to stand one on either side of her and looked at me listlessly. It would have been kinder to put them out of their misery than sit back and allow the witch to continue abusing them. Fein could possibly have found them good homes, but each familiar belonged to one witch. I had no idea how difficult it would be to find the witch they really were made for, and even then, the chances of said witch treating them well were unideal.

  "There is a spell you can cast for us."

  "I don't do spells," I said reflexively.

  Spells, or at least my understanding of them, often dealt with controlling living things in some form or fashion. It was one thing to form a protective barrier, quite another to try and take away someone's free will.

  "Let me finish. The spell will open up the bonds between us and our familiars, allowing us to get a better grasp on our potential."

  Allowing them to drain the familiars more thoroughly, she meant.

  "And why would you need me for that?" I asked.

  "Because ink magic is focused around bonds. The bond between tattoo and recipient is unlike anything else. Do this for us, and we will help you get your elf and feral back. You have our word we'll aid you."

  Fuck.

  That was not a decision I could make lightly. I looked into the dull eyes of the familiars. There was no hope there. They were nothing more than husks waiting to pass onto something more peaceful. The fox licked my hand, and I knew that I couldn't deny the witch. I couldn't get Keirn back alone.

  24

  I rubbed the fox's cheeks and rolled it around my mind for a few minutes. The decision had been made. I couldn't afford to lose the opportunity at allies to help me get Keirn back. Still, if I immediately bowed to them, there was a chance they'd push for something more. What had I become? I pushed that line of questioning aside. Sometimes good people had to do bad things for the greater good, or something like that. I'd have to drink a lot once this was all done, to block out the choices I'd made and the blood on my hands. Would Keirn forgive me for what I was about to do? I couldn't lose him, not after everything.

  "Fine. I'll do your spell."

  Petra smiled broadly. "Wonderful. What do you need?"

  I had no idea. I hadn't even thought about doing something like that before. The ink network was entirely absent, or there watching but hiding. Either way, I couldn't poke it about what I might need to pull something like this off.

  "Lots of pure ink, none of the cheap stuff with impurities in it, good quality paper stock, and good quality pens," I said.

  It was ink magic, surely there wouldn't be anything else needed. Petra gestured to a shadow walker nearby.

  "You heard him," she said.

  The shadow walker spat out a curse or three before he stalked off down the hallway away from my cell.

  "You can perform the spell later today. Until then, feel free to stretch your legs. If you go down there," she pointed to the hall the shadow walker had just walked down, "you'll find food and company."