The rest of us followed leisurely. For over an hour, we trailed after Aaron as his parents paraded him in front of guest after guest. He smiled, made polite small talk, and promised to consider every offer he received, from prestigious jobs to guild memberships to volunteer opportunities. I hoped to see the famous bounty hunter that Tobias had mentioned on our first day at the academy, but aside from the alumni and instructors, everyone else I spotted was some combination of stuffy, old, or way too rich to be a rogue-tagging badass.
When my stomach growled, I slipped away from my friends to check out the buffet table, and Sin followed me with a swirl of her teal gown. Keeping half an eye out for the pixie mistletoe—it did keep relocating around the room—I snagged a champagne glass off a passing waiter’s tray and almost walked into another guest.
“Oh.” I smiled at the guy’s familiar face. “Hey Brian. Got an invite, did you?”
The apprentice alchemist nodded as he tugged at his jacket. The black suit didn’t fit him well. “Valerie insisted we join them since we’re here until Sin’s exorcism.”
“I don’t see Kelvin,” I noted, glancing around. The transmutation expert/lumberjack hippie was hard to miss.
“He bowed out,” Brian muttered jealously.
“What about my last dose of the potion?” Sin asked.
“He finished it earlier and gave it to me to give to you,” he assured her as he anxiously surveyed the posh gathering. I empathized hard with his obvious discomfort.
Sin seemed to notice too, because her tone softened. “We haven’t really gotten to talk, have we? Do you specialize in transmutation like Kelvin?”
I almost snorted my champagne. She hadn’t spoken with the apprentice because she’d been too busy fangirling over his master to notice him.
Brian perked up at her question. “Yes, though I’m taking my studies in a slightly different direction. Mr. Compton’s focus has always been on tissue transmutation, but I want to expand into …”
And that was the last word I understood. Shaking my head, I muttered, “I’m getting some food,” and walked off. Sin waved distractedly as she listened to Brian’s explanation.
I wandered past the small stage where a string quartet serenaded guests with holiday melodies. Aaron, trapped between Valerie and Tobias, was speaking with a trio of old men in matching black tuxes. One of them wore an actual monocle. At the buffet table, I stopped behind two men and a woman around my age, waiting to access a platter of chocolate pastries shaped like holly leaves.
“Can you believe him?” the tall blond guy in the middle muttered to his friends. “How many guild offers do you think he’s gotten already?”
“I heard Azalea Inc. interviewed him this morning.”
“No, that was Olympus.”
“Olympus? I’d kill to join that guild.”
I rolled my eyes. Though I could’ve called them out for being gossipy losers, that might interfere with my mission to eat those chocolate pastries.
“He’s getting invites we can only dream of,” the blond guy said bitterly, “and he’ll turn them all down, just like he does every year. Considering what he’s done, he shouldn’t even be allowed back here.”
My brow furrowed. What Aaron had done?
“An academy alumni,” the woman hissed. “A Sinclair mage, slumming it at an inner city guild. Chasing pathetic bounties alongside inferior classes and second-rate mages.”
“Yamada is good,” the shorter man conceded. “But the aeromage? He wouldn’t pass the entrance exam.”
“Sinclair is sullying the academy reputation,” the blond guy declared in a fervent whisper. “He’s diminishing our opportunities by setting the worst possible example of an alumni-caliber mage’s capabilities. He—”
I slapped my hands on the two guys’ shoulders and leaned between them, baring my teeth in a humorless smile. “Hi. Did you know you three are so revoltingly full of yourselves that you’re making everyone around you nauseous?”
The guys shrugged away from me, and as they turned, I recognized them. Blondie, Pig Nose, and a woman with one side of her black hair shaved close to her scalp—the trio I’d overheard on my first day here. They’d been insulting Aaron then too.
“Oh,” the woman said coldly. “You’re Aaron’s guildmate, aren’t you?”
“Damn right.” I folded my arms and cocked a hip. “But don’t let me rain on your jealousy parade. By the way, Aaron’s getting waaay more than mere guild offers.”
Their faces twisted with heightened resentment.
I feigned surprise. “It’s almost like his choice of guild doesn’t even matter. Fancy that, huh?”
“His choice of guild,” the blond guy sneered, “hasn’t affected his reputation because his parents do everything they can to keep the mythic elite from finding out.”
“Were you dropped on your head as a child?” I retorted. “Any mythic with internet access can look that shit up. Our guilds aren’t a secret, and Aaron—”
Gold dust, sifting through the air like fine snow, interrupted me. Brow furrowing, I looked up. The pixie mistletoe hung above my head, leaves rustling as it shook glittering dust over me. The trio split, the guy on the left and the woman on the right backing rapidly away.
Which left me and Blond Bozo standing in a shower of golden sparkles.
Smirking, he let his gaze glide down and linger on the vicinity of my lace-clad hips, then arched his eyebrows expectantly.
“I don’t normally fraternize with lesser classes,” he began haughtily, “but—”
I smiled sweetly, causing him to hesitate. Lifting my hand to my lips, I kissed my fingertips and pressed them firmly to his cheek.
“Say another word,” I warned, “and that will be my fist next.”
He leaned back uncertainly. Before he could force me to follow through on my threat, I swept away from him. The pixie mistletoe fluttered on the ceiling, probably cursing me with a lifetime of bad romantic luck. Who cared? My love life was a complete and utter shit show anyway.
I slipped among the guests, grieving the chocolate pastries I hadn’t gotten to eat, and found the guys in conversation with Valerie and another woman. The petite brunette, her hair curlier than mine, was talking at high speed.
“… chance to really get your name out there, Aaron. Our magazine is the most read mythic publication in North America. One interview—four hours max, I promise—and a photoshoot, that’s it. The Sinclair family is well known already, but you can show the mythic community who you really are.”
As Aaron mumbled something noncommittal, she stepped closer, almost on his toes.
“You’ve ventured well off the beaten path for someone of your upbringing and stature. Last year, you passed on a once-in-a-lifetime offer to join the MPD’s International Crime Investigations division—the first opening in eight years! I know there’s a story there, Aaron.”
Valerie coughed delicately. “Petra, an interview would be wonderful, but perhaps more focus on Aaron’s accomplishments—”
“Yes, yes,” Petra agreed with alarming intensity. “Our readers would love to know what attracted you to an unknown Vancouver guild, Aaron. Was it the Crow and Hammer in particular that lured you away, or is there a unique appeal to small guilds? Since you joined, the guild has claimed, on average, thirteen percent more in bounties per year. What’s your role in that increase?”