A knock at the door made them both tense. Brandon rose, one hand already gathering defensive magic, until he felt his magic surge in welcome.
Muriel.
11
THE TRUTH IS TERRIFYING
MURIEL
The rideback from Armand's estate was quiet. Muriel was attempting to process everything Armand, Brandon, and Jason had revealed. To say it was overwhelming was an understatement.
Had she been back in Shenandoah, she might have inadvertently leveled an acre or two. Here, she leaned into the magic that flowed seamlessly with hers, keeping her grounded, centered, and relatively stable.
Beside her, Brandon drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the center console between them. His profile was classic and sculpted in the light of the dash, his slightly too-long hair artfully messy and falling across his forehead in silky waves. Her fingers twitched with the urge to push them back.
She looked away before he could catch her staring. Again.
A week. She'd been in Mythic and living above The Glas Tann for a full week now, and her attraction to him continued to grow. His generosity, his kindness, and his patience complemented his stunning good looks in ways she hadn’t expected. Ways that were systematically eroding her pledge to keep things impersonal—something increasingly hard to maintain with his magic so intimately connected with hers.
TheCodexsat in the satchel on her lap, humming softly and rhythmically against her thighs, almost as if it was napping. Armand's words echoed in her head.The foundational text of nature magic itself.Not just earth magic. Not just a powerful grimoire.Thesource material of elemental knowledge.
No pressure there, right? What had her mother been thinking, leaving something like this to her with no warning?
“You okay?” Brandon asked, shooting a sidelong glance her way.
“Peachy.”
His lips quirked. “So,notpeachy then.”
A flicker of something warm ghosted through their connection and she sighed. “It's shorter than saying, 'I'm processing the fact that I'm apparently the keeper of the most dangerous book in existence and, oh yeah, there are mercenaries hunting me.'”
“Fair, but you’re not alone. You’ve got me,” he saidwith a crooked smile. “And the vamps. And Jessie. And?—”
“Okay, okay,” she conceded. She didn’t tell him that while she truly appreciated their help, she worried about putting targets on their backs, too. The Magisterial Consilium and the Collectors were ruthless. They didn’t worry about things like collateral damage.
Which was why she had to learn everything she could about taking care of herself and not get sidetracked by distractions, no matter how enticing.
Silence settled again. Muriel watched the trees blur past, patches of moonlight streaming through and painting the ground in silver. Her magic stretched and curled, nestled in the contentment of theCodex, Brandon's proximity, and the constant low-level thrum of his magic purring deep within her. It was such a comforting feeling, she wondered why magic users didn’t employ resonance more often.
Then again, maybe they did. She wouldn’t know.
“Armand seemed certain,” she said finally. “About what it is.”
“He is.”
“And you agree?”
“He's spent more than a thousand years studying magical texts, so yes, I’m inclined to agree.”
Muriel's brain still couldn’t wrap her mind around that. Around any of it. Thousand-year-old vampire monk scholars? Ancient, sentient grimoires holding the origins of magic? Mercenaries who drained witches oftheir power and stole objects for their greedy employers?
Her life had gone from quiet and predictable to full-on supernatural thriller in the span of two weeks. What was next? Fire breathing dragons?
She bit her lip to keep from asking if they were real, too. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Instead, she said, “He also said that it chose me.”
“The alternative is to believe that a random sequence of unrelated events put it in your hands. Which is more believable?”