Chapter 14

Lienna wasn't the by-the-book, unswerving-obedience-to-her-superiors agent she'd once been, which in my books was a change for the better—and one I took full credit for.

Instead of escorting me back to the condo, she ushered me out of the precinct and straight to the Crow and Hammer. Not that I'd had any inclination to retreat to the condo anyway, but I was delighted to have Lienna operating on my wavelength.

At the guild, I spent a few minutes assuring various concerned members that I was totally fine post-abduction. Then Darius arrived, and in short order we were locked in our secret boardroom of documents while I brought Darius up to speed on my involuntary excursion into the bodybuilding afterlife.

When I reached the part where Kade had pulled out the plastic handcuffs, however, I hesitated. Way back when, after I'd morphed Quentin's super-Psychica stick into a snake, Lienna and I had decided it was the best course of action to remain extremely hush-hush about the whole thing. People knowing I had the ability to alter the fabric of reality with nothing but imagination and stubbornness was a recipe for a slew of disasters.

But if I didn't tell Darius the entire story, I'd have to leave out potentially crucial details about the whole Kade encounter, which seemed downright unwise.

Darius had entrusted me with some of his most dangerous secrets. I could do the same.

"There's this thing," I said, scrambling for the right words. "A thing I can do. A pretty crazy thing I've only done a few times. But I happened to do that thing to escape Kade back in March, and I accidentally left evidence of the thing for Kade to find."

Holy thesaurus, Kit, what happened to your vocabulary?

Darius arched an eyebrow, silently pointing out the obvious: that had been a nonsensical explanation of nothing. Lienna also didn't comment, seeming surprised that I was willing to reveal my biggest secret to him.

I exhaled. "The thing is reality warping—that's what Lienna and I call it. On rare occasions, three total by my last count, my psycho warps have become real. Case in point: right before he tried to murder you, Kade used very real metal handcuffs to hang us both from a pipe… and I turned them into plastic so we could break free."

Darius's expression didn't change, and I found that oddly ominous.

"You turned metal into plastic with your psychic power?" he asked in a neutral tone.

"Yep."

"Was it a temporary change? Or?—"

"Permanent," I said. "Kade has the plastic ones. I also reshaped a silver wand into a snake and turned a grappling hook into an anchor."

Darius leaned back in his chair, placing me under the hefty weight of his steely gray eyes. If I hadn't known him so well by this point, I would've said he looked thoughtful—but I knew better. He was totally nonplussed.

"Before meeting you," he said, "I'd never heard of a psycho warper. Are there any records of other psycho warpers being able to warp reality?"

"No," Lienna answered for me. "I've searched high and low over the past year. Psycho warpers are only mentioned in passing and never with much detail."

"Kade called me ‘an aberration that shouldn't exist.'" I fidgeted with a loose thread on my jeans. "It makes me think he knows more about it than we do."

Darius's expression finally changed, darkening with grimness. "Then so does the Consilium."

"Which is a delightful thought." I cleared my throat. "The thing is, I've got a few more tricks up my sleeve. In the past couple days, I've also discovered I can use telepathy and telekinesis."

Darius's gaze swept over me from head to toe as though looking for signs that I was actually a well-disguised alien. "You just discovered this? How?"

"The telepathy happened first, by accident." I rubbed my jaw, feeling the stubble I hadn't had the time to shave. "My working theory is that it's a variation of reality warping. I can fake a one-sided telepathy convo easily enough—maybe I just made it real. So, when Kade had me tied up and I was out of options, I decided to give telekinesis a whirl."

"And it worked?"

I shrugged. "Enough to cut me loose."

Darius's eyes narrowed. "Do you know what I'm thinking right now?"

"That I've completely lost my marbles, and this is just a stress-induced fever dream? Because, believe me, I've considered that, but?—"

"No, Kit," he said firmly. "Can you use your new telepathy on me?"

"Oh." I adjusted my position in my chair, resting my forearms on my knees. It took me a moment to recreate the mind-magic I'd accomplished in this very room only a day earlier. I homed in on the presence of Darius's mind and focused. "You're counting up in multiples of three?"

The silver fox's eyebrows lifted no more than a millimeter, but by Darius standards, that was an expression of outright shock. He said nothing, needing a moment to process.

To fill the awkward silence, I launched back into the tale of my escape, including all of Kade's creepy remarks about my abilities changing. When I finished, Darius slowly shook his head.

"I assumed Kade was targeting you for your knowledge," he said, choosing his words carefully. "The Consilium wants to know what we've been up to over the past few months. They don't know how much I know, and that's a risk factor I'm sure they'd prefer to eliminate."

I was always impressed by Darius's ability to talk about murder without ever actually using the word "murder."

He braced his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. "However, Kade's focus on your magic suggests otherwise. Psychica is one of the least understood classes, and what you can do might not be exclusive to you alone. But there's no arguing that it's extremely rare, and the Consilium has a taste for rare, dangerous magic."

He tilted his chin toward Tino's pile of scary magic to emphasize his point.

"I'll never go to the Dark Side," I said emphatically. "They've got to know that."

"Not willingly, but even the best of us will trample our morals into the ground given enough motivation."

I opened my mouth to disagree, then glanced surreptitiously at Lienna. If the Consilium used her as a hostage against me…

Would I kill for them—or worse—to save her? The hypothetical made me nauseous.

Darius tapped his fingers on the table. "Unfortunately, we don't have much time to unravel Kade's intentions or let you rest as Aurelia wants. I got word on my way here that Trident Ltd. just received a deposit of $31,245,000."

I blinked dumbly. Darius had someone tracking Trident's bank accounts?

"As you probably recall, Floris Visser's asking price for the weapon was thirty million." He smiled grimly. "The extra one-point-two million is likely the remainder of Trident's brokerage fee."

I snapped straight in my chair. "Oh, shit."

"She's selling the weapon?" Lienna asked sharply. "Now?"

"Now," Darius echoed. "I suspect the Consilium is aware that Trident had unwelcome visitors. They may even know which files were stolen. They're trying to get the weapon before we do."

I swore again. "They're going to beat us to it. Do you know where Visser is yet?"

"The last location I've been able to confirm is Amsterdam, but that information is five weeks out of date. I'm waiting for her current location, and in the worst-case scenario, we'll get the details of the sale from Trident."

"I'm assuming you won't be asking them nicely to hand over their records."

Darius slanted a mysterious look at me. "I sent someone to keep a close eye on Jayce Tyrian."

I let out a low whistle. Holy hell, this man had connections. I knew better than to ask for details. Darius had a PhD in not sinking ships with loose lips.

"So the moment we get a location," Lienna began, "we're going to rush there to steal the artifact before Visser hands it off to the Consilium? That's a dangerously tight timeline."

Darius nodded. "Unfortunately, we don't have a better option."

I pushed off my chair, too restless to sit. My muscles were still aching, and I stifled a groan as I rolled my shoulders. Lienna and Darius began discussing what preparations we should make for a short-notice heist, but I tuned them out. I wasn't in the right headspace for logistics, tactics, and plane tickets. Pacing the length of the room, I half closed my eyes, mentally juggling all the pieces.

To kick it off, we had Kade and his affinity for abduction, which had previously been focused on Darius—with a side dish of attempted murder—but was now concentrated on yours truly. Was I easier prey? Was he after my knowledge? My powers? Both?

Then there were Commissioner Sparks and Peter Druthers, two influential men sitting at the tippy-top of the MPD power pyramid, and who were probably in the Consilium's pocket.

Finally, we had this weapon—whatever it was. We knew the Consilium wanted it, to the tune of thirty million smackeroos and twenty years of waiting. But did they actively need it, or was it another evil item to add to their magic collection of antique nightmares?

I stopped at Tino's pile of documents. The levitating man drawing was on top, where I'd last left it. I picked it up, staring moodily at the sun symbol on the illustrated man's forehead. The stolen Trident folder sat beside Tino's notes, open to the photo of the weapon.

Still holding the drawing, I spun to face my two partners in anti-crime. At my sudden movement, they both shot me questioning looks.

"We don't know what Visser's weapon does," I said, "but we know where it came from. Lienna, you figured out which Viking site the weapon was found at, right?"

"Yeah," she agreed. "It's in Denmark."

"And Denmark is a whole ocean and continent closer to Amsterdam than it is to Vancouver. If Kade is so intent on hunting me down on my home turf, why don't I get the hell out of town? Lienna and I can scope out the Viking tomb and see if we can learn anything about the weapon"—I looked at Darius—"and as soon as you have Visser's location, we can hop, skip, and jump right over to her doorstep."

Darius nodded. "I can meet you there."

"Perfect." I grinned at Lienna. "How do you feel about some Lara Croft-style tomb raiding?"

She returned my grin. "I'll book us on the next flight to Copenhagen."