Page 19 of Consort's Glory
The idea, the preposterous suggestion, that the head of Theodore Solbourne’s staff would treat her with the deference suggested by the note was…
Well, she had no idea what to make of it.
All her life, she lived by the rules her grandmother set out: Be quiet, keep your head down, and never, ever attract the attention of an elf.
The understanding had always been that one stray glance could spell disaster for her and the parents she didn’t know, the families they had both gone on to have without her. Her very existence was a liability, and so she had to do everything in her power to mitigate the risks she took.
Margot still wasn’t sure that Theodore Solbourne wasn’t playing some elaborate trick on her. Would it not be in character for someone of his unimaginable power to reel her in with promises of security, to trap her in his gilded walls, only to wring her neck when she was lush with the feeling of safety?
I would have to become complacent to let that happen, she reminded herself. As it stood, she couldn’t imagine ever coming to trust him, or feeling a sense of safety in his home, no matter how much instinct demanded she melt under his firm touch.
The thought brought back the memory of his hot, leather-covered palm on the delicate skin of her neck. Margot shuddered, a potent mix of trepidation and lust sending electricity skating down the column of her spine.
Suddenly acutely aware of her body, Margot could no longer ignore her various aches and pains, nor the dirt and dust and dried blood caked into her usually smooth skin. For someone whose cleanliness was not only a matter of professional pride, but something on which her very life depended, her current state was utterly unacceptable.
Still, she couldn’t throw herself into the huge, glass-walled shower she glimpsed on her inspection of the suite. Not yet.
Duty first.
Turning to eye the bedside table, she momentarily shoved her discomfort to the back of her mind. The table held a modern lamp, all chrome finish and hard lines, and a cordless ball she recognized as a fancy in-home intercom system. The Solbournes were at the cutting edge of magic and tech, so it didn’t surprise her that they had the best money could buy.
The unit, cheekily named Met — a play on magically enhanced tech — was a soft blue ball with a rubbery finish. Discreet and powerful, her grandmother had an older version in every home in the coven for ease of communication and security, so Margot was passingly familiar with them.
The Met could do all sorts of things, like send messages and search the web, but it could also emit low-level spellwork to help with sleep, lay down basic perimeter wards, or do simple house chores like scrubbing the floors or making the bed. It could also, in the wrong hands, wreak havoc.
The Goodes had access to some of the best and brightest sigilworkers in the world. Ruby Goode, Margot’s second cousin, had personally upgraded, hacked, and boosted every Met in the Collective, ensuring their safety from outside sigilhackers. They were totally secure and worked on an isolated, Coven-run network, eliminating the possibility of outside surveillance.
The Met in her suite was more advanced than the ones in the Goodeland, but it was also almost certainly rigged to record anything she said or used it for. Unfortunately, Margot did not have an ounce of Ruby’s skill or know-how. Not that many did, considering Ruby was rapidly building a reputation for herself as a genius with both tech and magic.
Margot rubbed her stinging eyes with a long sigh. Healing and electrical energy were all well and good, except they were limited in their usefulness. She wouldn’t have given up her ability to heal for anything, but another minor skill in something adaptable would have been awfully nice.
Resigning herself to the fact that any call she made on the Met would be overheard, but lacking any other option now that she was fairly certain her cellphone was destroyed, Margot scooted closer to the bedside table.
“Met.”
A pulsing blue light glowed around the base of the sphere, followed by a pleasant chime. Dreading the coming conversation, Margot instructed it to call her grandmother’s private number.
It wasn’t late enough for Sophie to be in bed, but even if it was, she would have answered the call. Part of being the Matriarch was being available at all times to her family. Sophie never missed a call.
Despite the fact that the caller ID must have shown an unknown number, Margot’s grandmother picked up on the second ring.
“Sophie Goode speaking.”
Margot’s throat seized. Her grandmother’s cool, crisp voice, always tightly leashed, sent a wave of homesickness through her.
“Grandma,” she forced herself to say, her voice raw despite her best efforts to keep emotion out of it. “It’s Margot.”
“Margot?” There came the tiniest pause before Sophie’s voice hardened into brittle ice. “What’s wrong, Granddaughter?”
Everything.
Everything was wrong. She was dying, her house was blown to bits, and now she was some sort of indecipherable political prisoner. Margot couldn’t rightly imagine how things could be worse.
“I’m okay,” she forced out, very aware of listening ears, “but things have gotten complicated. Someone blew up my Healing House tonight. We don’t know who, but it’s been confirmed that there were explosives.”
There was a beat of stunned silence, then, “Where are you calling from?”
Sharp as a blade, Sophie never missed anything. She couldn’t afford to.
