Into Darkness

28

. He was quiet a moment, controlling himself, then he said in a low voice, “Honor. She doesn’t know you. She doesn’t know your Gifts. She doesn’t know any of us.” His burning gaze cut to Lu. A muscle in his jaw began to flex, over and over.

Expressionless, Honor sent Magnus a long, searching look. The temperature of the air dropped sharply, sending a creeping frost that bloomed white down the mossed stone walls. She looked back at Lu.

With the icy weightlessness and silence of falling snow, Honor’s voice whispered inside Lu’s head, the words meant for her alone.

I wouldn’t have hurt you, flamethrower. Obviously you can’t say the same for me.

Damn. This close, keeping Honor out of her head was proving to be nearly impossible.

They stared at one another, bristling, until Honor turned and vanished back into the shadows. The darkness engulfed her as if she’d been swallowed.

After a tense moment, Morgan said to Magnus, “She won’t like it.”

Magnus ran a hand through his hair, exhaling hard. “I’m not taking sides.”

“Really? Because that’s exactly what it looked like you were doing. At least she’ll think it was.”

“I’m just trying to keep the peace,” said Magnus between gritted teeth.

“Ha!” Morgan inspected her singed tunic sleeves. “That’s like trying to stop a volcano from erupting and a tornado from chewing up a trailer park. Where the girls are concerned, I think it’s a much safer bet to just find shelter and wait out the storm.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lu said, ashamed and unsettled by the whole encounter. “It’s just . . . the shock. Of everything. Are you all right?”

Morgan, ever aplomb as Lu was quickly finding out, waved off her concern. “Right as rain. I hated this jacket anyway. And you being a bit out of sorts is certainly understandable, pet, under the circumstances. Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you all right?” Magnus, quiet but still intense, directed this to Lu. Their eyes met, and she had to look away because she felt naked under his gaze. She knelt and picked up a broken piece of the collar. It was coldest thing she’d ever held in her hands.

“So Honor can freeze things?” Lu flipped the frosted metal from one palm to another because to keep it in one spot too long would have caused an ice burn. Hairline cracks covered the metal in webs; the silver had blackened in spots.

Morgan chuckled softly, then sobered. Lu looked up to find Morgan staring at her with that little furrow between her brows. “Just out of curiosity, pet . . . how much have you been able to explore your Gifts?”

Lu looked from Morgan to Magnus. His eyes were dark, unreadable. She stood.

“I haven’t. I couldn’t. My entire life I’ve been trying to pretend I don’t have any. I was just trying to be unnoticed. Trying to fit in. To be normal . . . like humans.”

With a small shake of his head, Magnus murmured, “Pearls before swine.”

Heat crept across Lu’s cheeks.

Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

It was a verse from that most infamous of banned books: the human Bible. The book her father so loved, and spent hours reading, the curtains drawn, his face rapt, his lips moving soundlessly over the words.

“Oh,” said Morgan, sounding more than a little mysterious, her lips curved to a Mona Lisa smile, “this is going to be so much fun.”

She and Magnus shared a look. If she didn’t already know Magnus was about as unsmiling as anyone could get, Lu would have sworn she saw a small, upward curve to his lips, there then instantly gone.

He said, “We can get started tomorrow. Right now there are a dozen Assembly members fidgeting in their chairs waiting for me.”

“Us,” Morgan corrected, but without rancor. He sent her a sidelong look. She said, “Oh, I know, they can’t start without you, but I’m sure everyone is much more interested in meeting the guest of honor today.” She waved him on. “We’re right behind.”

“Ladies first.” His tone was calm, but tension tightened his shoulders. He didn’t seem to appreciate Morgan’s breezy dismissal, but she shrugged that off, too, leaving Lu to wonder if there was anyone this formidable woman feared. Even Lu already had a healthy respect for the temper she could see, barely leashed, simmering under Magnus’s careful control.

Morgan raised her brows at Magnus. She turned to Lu. “I’m sorry, do you see any ladies present? Because all I see are a couple of badass birds who could really use a—”

“Morgan!” Magnus’s shout echoed off the stone.

Morgan sent Lu a wicked smile, then said to him, “You do make for easy pickings, ducky. You know I can’t resist.”

Along with flared nostrils and hands that had curled to fists, that muscle began to flex in Magnus’s jaw. He said slowly, “Do not. Make me tell your husband. You’re being incendiary. Again.”

Morgan pressed her lips together. Lu saw it was because she was trying to bite back a smile. “Moi?” She pointed at Lu and said innocently, “I’m not the incendiary one.” Then without waiting for an answer, she knelt, gingerly scooped up the broken remains of the collar and announced, “I’ll take this over to Beckett. See you at the Assembly in two shakes.”

And she was off.

Magnus watched her go, muttering to himself, “How the hell Xander puts up with it, I’ll never know.” He raked a hand through his hair again, something he seemed to do when disturbed—which Lu guessed meant he did it frequently. “You should be resting. I’ll bring you something to eat, clean clothes.”

“No.”