Page 28 of The Fate of Black Hearts

“My place is with you, as it will always be.Someday, I’ll find someone who understands that.”

“You will find that right someone.”

“Hey, Mom,” Roman stepped in the room. “What about the weapons? Leave them or take them?”

“Pack the modern ones, love,” Evie called out. “Every one of them.”

Roman slowly smiled. “There are a lot of them.”

“If that asshole comes near us, you and I will fill him with holes.”

“I might just shove dynamite up his ass,” Roman muttered as he left.

“Always loved that kid.” Efrem smiled.

She squeezed his hand and sat upright. “I thought of a way to make money to support ourselves. On our way here, when we stopped at that inn for a bite to eat, I saw a sign for a reward to capture a fugitive.”

“You want us to be bounty hunters?”

“Maybe to start. I think humans would be easy to track and eliminate. Perhaps we could get paid to eliminate the ones that are particularly nasty?”

“Assassinsandbounty hunters?”

“I bet it pays well.”

“Sounds dangerous.” He whistled.

“Do you have other options? We have no trade. No family wealth. I refuse to steal. I won’t peddle weapons, people, or terror. My only skill is my ability to fight and maybe put humans in a temporary thrall. Between that and our extra abilities, we could be quite good at this.”

“We could, but we must build a buffer between our home and business.”

“No one can know our real identities. You’re right. You can voice-coerce the humans intoforgetting us. Perhaps I can again. I lost the ability for so long.”

“We can dabble at it and see if we’re any good. I’m concerned Willem will come for you. Likely to kill you next time.”

“All the more reason for us to learn to be much better at killing than him.”

Chapter Nine

1902 a few hours later…

Dom stared at the parchment floating in front of him. He wondered if he’d see Dojin or if he’d been assigned a new mage to threaten him into submission. On the kitchen table rested a pair of gold scissors. The Fates had also summoned him, specifically Atropos.

He rubbed his index finger over his front teeth as he stared at both summonses. Both would want to discuss the same topic. Her.

The right thing would be to exit Evie’s life once and for all. That’s what he told her today. He meant it, right?

His palm tinged for the second time since arriving here. He held it up for inspection. Energy stirred into a glowing, concentrated globe a few millimeters above his skin. He jolted away from it so hard that he fell out of his chair. The orb disappeared.

“What the hell?”

He held out his hand palm up. The energy ball didn’t burn or freeze his skin. He didn’t detect foreign magic as if a demon or other entity was trying to possess him. It source seemed to be from inside him. Had he somehow achieved third level energy? Ninety-nine percent of living mages couldn’t do this.Sure, he’d read about this. Perhaps, he’d even tried it a time or two and failed. As most mages of his advanced age could do, before today he could manipulate all the elements by thought alone, move using the in-between, heal living beings, and even deep-read or future-read almost any being. But never gather raw magic power in his hand in a way that suggested he could direct it.

With this pure energy, he could do things often not accessible to magi their entire lives—slice water, bend light, perhaps even bend time.

He wiggled his fingers and rotated the ball of blue light energy in his hand. This seemed stable. He wondered if this meant he was on his way to becoming an archmagi. That status involved controlling inconceivable magic, changing reality. No mage alive today had achieved it. The few who had tried centuries ago to bend reality ended up having the paradox kick their ass.

At least, that’s what he’d read in his library of long-forgotten history of magic books. With little else to do in his solitude between times he hunted evils for the Fates, he exercised, meditated, and studied.