“What do you mean?” Rogan counters.
“Don’t answer my question with a question, what’s going on?”
“Lennox—”
“Don’t Lennox me, Rogan. This place is like that bunker the government built inside a mountain in Colorado,” I point out, gesturing to the house behind me. “I swear on my ancestors I will walk right in there and make this bitch impenetrable if you don’t tell me what you two are up to. And don’t even think of insulting me by saying nothing. Something else is going on here, I feel it in my fucking bones,” I snarl at the two shady witches.
They both just stare at me, silently, and I can feel my rancor rising. I spin on my heel, but Rogan reaches out and catches my arm. With a flick of my wrist, there’s a bone spike centimeters away from his throat. He bats it away like the threat means nothing, and it makes me want to scream in frustration. I can’t really do any serious damage to him without risking it affecting our magic.
“Ooh, this is fun,” Marx quips as Rogan and I stare at each other, fuming.
“Three months ago, your grandmother warned the Order that someone wanted to restore the fragmented branches of magic back to one.” Rogan stares, his eyes burrowing into mine. “She didn’t know more than that, said it came to her in a dream. She tried to dig into who and why, but she told us no matter what she did, she was blocked, that she couldn’t see more than the warning itself.”
“We, of course, took note of the cautionary message, but with no one else in the community reporting a similar vision, and with Ruby unable to dig any deeper, it was filed away and forgotten,” Marx adds.
“And then witches started disappearing,” Rogan states quietly.
I pull my arm from his grip and step back, needing distance between us as I reel from what they’re saying. “How do you know all of this?”
“I didn’t at first, not until Elon disappeared. I hit a dead end and called Marx, hoping he could help, and that’s when he told me about your grandmother and her warning.”
“Guess who was tasked with filing the report,” Marx states, pointing a thumb at himself.
Anger and bewilderment nest behind my sternum, and I try to piece together why Rogan didn’t tell me all of this from the beginning. “So what does all of this have to do with me?”
“I went to see your grandmother, hoping somehow she could shed some light on this. I thought if Elon’s disappearance had to do with her warning, maybe now she might be able to pick up on something. Hopefully give us a lead, but when I got there, I found you.”
His green eyes shoot to Marx for a millisecond before coming back to me, and my hackles go up in warning.
“When I realized that Ruby was gone, it dawned on me that maybe the reason she couldn’t see, read, or sense who might be behind her warning was because the culprit was close to her. So I—”
“You thought I was behind this?” I interrupt, gesturing to his brother’s safe haven behind me. “And what, making me your familiar…”
“Was an insurance policy,” Rogan finishes. “If you were behind it, I could put you in check. If not, no harm done.”
“No. Fucking. Harm. Done?” I seethe.
“I didn’t know you were going to tether us,” he defends, and rage overcomes me.
“Are you insinuating that this is my fault?” I shriek, and I feel the land beneath my feet and the house behind me quake slightly with my fury.
“Whoa, just calm down,” Marx inserts.
“Shove calm up your ass, Siren,” I fling back, and his answering chuckle pisses me off even more.
“My grandmother had just died, you discovered that when you walked into the shop that morning. How could I have done any of this? I didn’t have any magic before then, what would be the point of kidnapping a bunch of people more powerful than me?”
“You don’t have to be a witch to get the drop on other witches. Not having magic doesn’t rule you out as a suspect or make you powerless. You were the next in line, it was a fair assumption Kendrick made,” Marx points out in Rogan’s defense.
“I didn’t know I was the next in line,” I counter. “And I didn’t kidnap anyone. I don’t give a shit about the fragmented branches of magic. So are we good now? Can I go home and be done with all this bullshit?” I question, hating the betrayal I feel and just how badly it stings. I knew there was more to all of this, but I didn’t know I was on the suspect list.
“Why am I here?” I ask, my tone hollow. “You knew before now that I wasn’t involved.”
“I did, but I was hoping you could still help,” Rogan admits. “That maybe you could pick up on something I couldn’t.” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, a sheepish look on his face. “There was also the issue of the tether. A coven here is the only one I’ve ever heard talk about it, so I knew they could fix it.”
My eyes jump back and forth between Rogan and Marx as I place all the pieces I just learned in front of me. “If you’re the member of the Order, and the one investigating the missing witches, why didn’t you come to speak with my grandmother?” I ask Marx, not understanding that part of the puzzle. “Why would you come?” I question Rogan.
Marx’s eyes drop to the ground, and he toes some ripped up earth from where a piece of bone buried itself. “Because this isn’t an official Order investigation.”
“I don’t understand,” I confess as confusion hammers me so hard I can feel a headache coming on from it.
I need a damn nap.
“It’s not an official investigation, because we don’t want anyone in the organization to know we’re looking into things. That’s why I didn’t go to meet with your grandmother; I can’t leave my assigned district unless it’s for a case, and technically this isn’t one,” Marx supplies.
“Our theory, before we suspected your grandmother, and then subsequently you…” Rogan adds, “was that maybe someone high up in the Order was behind this. Which is why we have to be careful.”
Understanding crashes down on me like an anvil. I don’t like any of it, but I can’t pretend that it doesn’t all fit together. I just wish I knew how to feel about everything they just purged. I want to tell myself that I shouldn’t feel betrayed—I knew Rogan was playing close to the vest—but everything feels tainted with deception now, and it’s bothering the shit out of me.
I shake my head and fold my arms over my chest, as though the stance can somehow protect me from any more duplicity and hurt. “Nik Smelser,” I offer, my tone thoroughly pissed off.
“Nik Smelser,” Rogan parrots.
“I don’t know who it is or if they’re even involved, but it’s the name the bones gave me when I was scrying.”
Rogan’s head snaps to Marx, who is already writing the name down.
“Did you get anything else?” Marx asks, his dark brown eyes rising from the small magicked notepad in his hands and settling on me.
“No,” I declare, deciding to keep the flash I saw when I connected to all the bones on the property to myself. I’m not sure what it means yet, and these guys aren’t the only ones who can hold out until they know more.