Page 89 of The Diamond in the Rough

But I also knew that Ward’s magic was different. There wasn’t balance in the way that Mason talked about it. Ward talked about threads of magic, about weaving and knotting. And that made me wonder what rules my magic followed—because I knew that my family had both types of magic. According to Mason, dreamwalking was witchcraft, like death magic—but not, apparently, like necromancy. And me being a psychic was—like Ward’s medium abilities—Arcana-based.

But Violette was a warlock. She’d admitted that she didn’t practice much, mostly because our parents had desperately wanted her to and she’d made it a personal policy not to do anything they’d wanted her to. But she’d also admitted that she started to get restless if she didn’t dosomethingwith her magic.

I’d suggested she could talk to Ward about what kinds of things she could do, but she’d shaken her head.

“Nah, but thanks. I’ve got books and stuff—shit that was in Dad’s library.”

“How is that not doing what they wanted you to?”

“Oh, Dad had books on all sorts of stuff that they thought was corrupted or inferior. Just so that I would know whatnotto do. What was unworthy of me.” She grinned. “So I’m doingthatshit.”

I’d asked her what kind of shit, and she’d described mostly nature-based magics. Growing plants, using herbs for healing, things that had honestly all sounded not only benign, but even beneficial for other people.

But that wasn’t my kind of magic. At least, I didn’t think so.

I wondered if there was balance to all types of magic the way that Mason said there was for witchcraft. And I wondered how it exacted the price for what it was that people took. Mason talked about how he gave up his energy and strength to heal others—that he took on some shadow of their suffering in order to make the pain go away.

So what would magic or the universe or whatever take from me for what I’d done?

17

He was furious.Howdarethis charlatan tell him that his father wanted his inheritance,hisinheritance, distributed to some bullshit charitable organizations that didn’t need any more dribs and drabs from well-meaning fools?

He’d expected, for the amount he’d paid that blasted medium, that the man would at least have the decency to tell him what he wanted so that he could contest the will.

Butnooo. The jackass had to have some sort of goddamn moral code.

He raised the sunglasses to his face, then frowned. These weren’t his.

In the doorway, he turned and looked back, then saw his sunglasses—Ray-Bans, naturally, unlike whatever cheap piece of trash this pair was—sitting where he’d left them on the edge of the desk. He must have grabbed the other pair.

With a sigh, he walked back and reached out to put them back.

I sighed,staring down with annoyance at my sunglasses—cheap pieces of trash, apparently. My things were supposed to be safe, but people just kept touching my stuff. It was one thing when it was someone I knew, but something completely different when it was a stranger.

I knew it hadn’t been intentional, but it was still irritating.

I was packing up the rest of my things to go back home when the bell on the door drew my attention.

Hart came in, his expression worried and… guilty?

“Good afternoon, Agent Hart,” I said mildly.

“Just Hart, Rayn.”

I smiled, although I was pretty sure it didn’t go all the way to my eyes. I was tired, annoyed, and seeing Hart brought a resurgence of guilt over the fact that I’d completely messed up whatever I’d been building with Raj—whether a friendship or something more.

“Good afternoon, Hart,” I corrected.

His lips twitched a little, but he didn’t smile.

“What happened?” I asked him.

“Nothing—well…” He trailed off a little. “Not so much what happened so much as what we found… and what needs to happen.”

I felt my eyebrows rise. “What do you mean?”

Hart sighed, running a hand over his braid, tugging on the end. “I went back into the old Tranquil Brook files,” he said softly, hesitantly, almost as though he were afraid to tell me whatever it was he’d come to Beyond the Veil to tell me.