Chapter 50: Chapter 50

KILLIAN

My father would consider this to be treason. I considered it crossing a line best left uncrossed.

“Two calls in two days, Your Highness. Do you miss—”

“I’m looking for a witch,” I cut Celeste off, and she instantly let out a long-suffering groan.

“If this is about the conversation we had earlier, I’m not helping you find a Dyani.”

Well… I drummed my fingers on the desk. “That isn’t all I’m going to ask for.”

“Your Highness—”

“But before we get to that… I’m looking to hire a witch.”

“I—what?!”

“This isn’t information you can sell, Celeste,” I immediately added. It would be annoying if my father found out my plan before I carried it out. “I’ll kill you if anyone finds out.”

“Oh…” she muttered, and when I didn’t say anything else, she exhaled in a rush. “I’ve seen what you do to people who cross you, Your Highness. I’m not stupid.”

“I don’t want a weak one,” I said.

The tournament was starting in three weeks, so I had three weeks to figure out how to get the pack representatives out of Eyrosa or change my father’s mind. Hell would freeze over before the latter happened, so the former it was. All of the representatives, except Lenore’s brother, couldn’t leave the city because of the spell placed on the invitations they used to come in, so I needed a witch to undo it.

“Yes, yes. You know it’s not going to be cheap, right? And I’m not talking about money,” she answered and I shrugged.

I promised Lenore the tournament wouldn’t take place, so I had to stop it. I must.

“What’s the worst they could ask for?”

“What are you plotting, Your Highness?”

“Do I have to be plotting to hire one?” I looked up as the study door opened and Aurora walked in. Aurel, who was sitting on the couch at the left end of the room, flashed her a goofy smile. “Aurel’s birthday is coming up. We need a party magician.”

He shifted his attention to me, his brow raised, while Aurora snorted as she sat next to him.

“...It’s four favors now.”

I frowned. “Two you mean. Forget the missing objects.”

“Why? Did you find them?”

“None of your concern. Now back to the witch who robbed me.” I set my mouth in a hard line and leaned back in the chair. “Let me know if you hear of any witch, especially a Dyani, using magic without restrictions.”

The last time I’d encountered a Dyani was during my exile, and he’d tried to kill me. He would never have succeeded, but the experience was unpleasant nonetheless, and I’d had no desire to deal with another ever since. Now, I'd been robbed and I strongly believed a Dyani had done it. They were the only ones capable of stepping through space itself and emerging wherever they wished. Seeing as guards had been watching the empty vault around the clock and no one had gone in or out until Fabien sensed something was off, it had to be one of them.

A massive amount of magic had been drained from the objects in the vault, which meant the thief would be using their powers without restrictions for a very long time, and although Fabien was already working on finding them—I was pretty sure my father was too—it wouldn’t hurt to have someone who regularly dined with witches looking as well.

“Your Highness knows that’s not possible.” She meant a witch using magic without restrictions. Witches had long since run out of enchanted objects to siphon from, and all remaining ones belonged to my family—more than half of which had now been stolen.

“Humor me.”

“How am I—How is anyone—” She let out an annoyed noise. “Why are you even looking for one that can do magic without…” she trailed off, and I knew it just clicked. “Wait, did they—”

“Let me know when you have something, Celeste.” I ended the call and dropped my phone on the desk.

This was a mess. Not the robbery—the tournament. I hadn’t had a plan to get the pack representatives out of the city before—Lenore had only told me she didn’t want the tournament to happen about three hours ago, after all—but then my father made this move, and the fastest solution I could think of was getting a witch’s help. I recognized that part of this was my fault. I’d antagonized him, and now he was scrambling for control. Even so, I was still irritated and I could only hope Celeste would find a witch willing to work for me soon.

I heaved a sigh and dropped my gaze to the framed picture on my desk. Mother would definitely have a better way to handle this situation. Just as I thought about going to find her, the fact that she’d asked the gods to give me a mate and I hadn’t found out what she gave them in return came to mind.

“Have you thought about getting the nobles and Agellius to oppose the tournament?” Aurel asked, snapping me out of it, and I shifted my attention to him and Aurora.

They still hadn’t forgiven me for essentially cutting them off after I was exiled, and that was the one-sided exchange Lenore and her brother had walked in on yesterday. Well, to be more specific, Aurora still hadn’t forgiven me. Aurel didn’t really give a fuck; he was just following Aurora’s lead.

“What good would that do?” I muttered.

Apart from the fact that my father rarely cared about opinions that weren’t his, three weeks wasn’t enough to achieve that. Also, the Agellius strongly disliked me. Not because of anything I’d done, of course—I was an angel after all.

“I don’t know? Pressure?”

“Yes. That should do it,” I said dryly, and he blinked at me before giving me the finger. Aurora grabbed it and bent it back, drawing a yelp from him while I grinned.

“I got nothing from the surveillance footage of Alaine’s apartment and the number that called Ravaryn,” Aurora stated, and it took me a moment to process her words. My smile dropped.

She’d taken the task—finding out who left the sun amulets in Alaine’s apartment and calling Ravaryn to go pick them up—from Fabien yesterday, and though I’d expected that to be the outcome, I was still disappointed.

“And one question,” she continued. “Should we treat the wards going down and the vault robbery as two separate incidents?”