Callie grimaced behind him. Sure sign, huh? They must say that to every trio, because she knew better. Knew it was fake. Tucker reached back to take her hand and squeeze, and she felt herself softening. He was a good man, reassuring her even after she’d been so rude. He was going to make some Magian female really happy someday. Callie would try not to hate her too vehemently.
“Here we are. Each of you are to go into one of these three doors. The Proxenos will question you separately, and then you will be questioned together before they can sanction your union officially. Good luck.”
The man disappeared as quickly as he’d come, and Tyghe raised his brow. “This is new. Separate questions? Tuck, I don’t know about you, but this feels wrong.”
Tucker nodded, and Callie silently agreed. Her senses were tingling, the tickling along her spine going crazy. Something was off. Something was a lie. She could feel it. But they had to do it. They were here for the truth, and they had to get it. She reached for her doorknob. “In for a penny…” She looked at her two men and smiled brightly. “Wish me luck.”
It looked like an ordinary office. A judge’s chamber. There was even a set of golden scales sitting on the long oak desk in front of her. But she didn’t see anyone inside. She looked around, noticing the strange scrollwork and symbols painted along the top of the wall, the glass case filled with an unusual collection of small figurines, all of blonde females, their little faces contorted in various degrees of agony. “Lovely.”
“You like my collection? I have a fondness for the artist. He knows what I like. You must be the Abbotts’s match. Callie, is it?”
Callie whirled around in surprise. An elegant, elderly woman was sitting behind the desk, as if she’d been there from the very beginning. She wore a feminine business suit, and her hair was perfectly coiffed. She’d imagined a dark cloaked figure, someone ominous, but this woman didn’t look as though she’d hurt a fly.
Still, the tickle up her spine was going crazy. “Yes, I’m Callie.”
“What makes you think you are good enough for two Abbotts, Callie? They are the most prestigious family in North America. Their lineage is made up of powerful Magians dating back since the discovery of the continent.”
Callie hesitated, and the woman shook her head. “That was unfair of me. Especially since I can see for myself that you are powerful in your own right. Your energy is strong. Was your mother as powerful as you?”
Callie shrugged, feeling she was safe enough to tell the truth. “My mother died when I was just a baby. I don’t know that much about her.”
The older woman’s eyes narrowed. “What is your compelling power? Show me. Try to use it. Now.”
Okay, this was more like it. The woman was pushing all her warning buttons. Still, she had to see this thing through. She reached inside herself, focusing her energy. “Stand up.”
The woman shifted in her seat, her hands curling on the top of the desk as she resisted the order. “Good. Again. With all your might.”
“Stand up.” She was really trying, but apart from a moment of hesitation, a moment when the woman frowned as she again looked as though she might stand up, it didn’t work.
She smiled at Callie. It wasn’t a pretty smil
e. “Don’t feel bad. I’ve spent a lot of time on this room. It is full of charms to counter compelling magic. You can never be too careful, now can you?”
This woman did not like her. Or compelling magic. “I suppose not. Is that all, ma’am?”
The woman stood and walked closer to Callie, studying her features with hawk-like intensity. “You look familiar. Don’t lie and tell me you are a distant Abbott cousin. I know every family in existence. You look very similar to a line that died out nearly twenty six years ago.”
She was twenty-six. A shiver of foreboding ran through her limbs. “Oh?”
A nod and smirk was her answer. “The Fairbanks family. The last of them, Euterpe, was the most beautiful of her generation. But like all the spoiled children of powerful families, she believed she could do whatever she wanted. Hurt whomever she wanted. She had compelling power as well. The power to make people want her, the power to make them want to die without her.” She took another step toward Callie, smiling politely, though her eyes were hard. “All the Fairbanks had the strangest tendency. They loved to name their female children after figures in Greek mythology. Especially the muses. Tell me, dear. Is Callie your true name? Or is it short for something else?”
Her mind reeling, Callie answered thoughtlessly. “Calliope. My name is Calliope.”
The woman gripped her wrist, hard, the strength surprising in one who looked so frail. “It’s you, isn’t it? There were glimmers of potential in the others, they were the right age, distantly connected to your lineage with traces of that evil power, but it is really you. Euterpe’s bastard daughter. The last of the Fairbanks’s line.”
She was the killer. There was no doubt in Callie’s mind. Now in some insane twist, she believed Callie was her true target. The child of a Magian. It was impossible. She knew it was. But she needed to play along. Needed answers. “I told you I never knew my mother. Even if I am the child of Euterpe, what could you want from me?”
“Oh you are her child, all right. You have no respect for authority either.” She dragged Callie closer to the desk, a pull she could not resist, despite her efforts. “When I first became Proxenos, it was an honor to my family. I had the wisdom to be the best, and everyone knew it. I could have no match of my own, but it was worth it. My family would benefit from my service.” The woman’s eyes glazed with memory. “Euterpe was my only failure. She loved two men from a questionable family. Two men who were not worthy to continue the Fairbanks line. To make matters worse, my brothers loved her. She had flirted with them at her first Triune, and they had sworn to me their magic reacted to her touch.” She shook Callie’s wrist, bruising it in her vehemence. “She was meant for them. But she fell for physical beauty over the magical law. My law. Came in here and demanded I give my approval, glowing from her recent whorish escapade.”
Callie listened, feeling suddenly sorry for the young Euterpe. “You denied her match.”
She nodded proudly. “I used my full authority to ensure there could be no further copulation between them. It couldn’t be true, don’t you see? She must have woven a spell to get her way. My brothers wouldn’t lie to me.” She took a breath. “It seemed to be working for a time until I realized she’d defied my edict and gone through another to join with her matches.” The woman looked indignant, astounded at the memory. “We got rid of the two men, of course, which wouldn’t have happened if she’d just accepted the truth. I knew my brothers would never be happy without her. I had to do it. When they left her house after the funeral, where I know she denied them yet again, they were convinced they had to fight a duel to the death to win her. That only one of them could have her. I couldn’t stop them. They killed each other in cold blood. I knew then. She had compelled them to do it. There was no other explanation. She had to die.”
Her grip twisted Callie’s wrist until it felt as though it would break, but she pushed with her energy, seeking more. “What makes you think there was a child?”
“When I killed her I noticed the children’s clothing folded neatly at the foot of the bed. I searched the house and found a crib, recently used, and I realized she’d had a child with her dead lovers. The only proper course was to find it and put it to death to restore balance.”
“Isn’t that a little over the top?”