Page 95 of Mage Massacres

Palmer groaned, digging his cell phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call and warn her.”

“Are you scared of your sister?” Sloane asked, amusement making her eyes bright.

“Yes,” he stated without missing a beat. “She’s not what I would call physically aggressive, but if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to wake up covered in fire ants, ask Murph.”

I whispered across the room. “She filled Palmer’s room with bees a few years ago.”

“That’s settled then. I’ll send the dildo to Murphy,” he commented, eyes narrowing at the mention of bees.

His voice softened when his sister answered her phone. “Hey, Mills. There should be a stalker handbook on the kitchen counter.”

The pastel blue sex toy disappeared with the book. Palmer smiled as he switched the call to speakerphone, and the unmistakable shouting of the Lynch twins bounced around us.

I counted down from five, but Murphy beat me, the outrage in his voice making it nearly impossible not to laugh.

“Whose dildo did you drop in my lap? And why?” the warlock snarled.

“Just looking for humor where we can find it,” Palmer responded flippantly. “You should be able to track Annette with one of those items.”

“If you found this, then you should have found clothes or fucking shoes,” Murph raged. “I swear, I’m going to slap you with this when you get back.”

“Wash it first,” the mage advised, chuckling as his brother cursed him until the call ended.

I opened the center drawer as Palmer’s phone repeatedly vibrated with incoming messages. A small drawing was half-covered with pens and paper clips, but I knew exactly what it was from the exposed surface.

“Where is York?”

I stumbled away from the chair, clutching the paper in my hand. I’d never understood what he kept in that leather box of his, but I knew it was important to him.

Apparently, he wasn’t the only person who thought so.

The drawing was too similar, yanking on old memories. The swirling patterns I’d not seen anywhere else. A leaf on the top center that wasn’t native to Earth, the tips of the fern-like fronds curling at the end in a tight spiral.

I needed to find the druid.

We needed to hide that box.

“He was in the room across the hall,” Palmer commented, but I was moving before the sentence left his mouth.

The urgency I felt raised my voice. “York?”

“In here.”

The main room. He’d moved, wandering around the edges of the wall as he rapped his knuckles on the bricks.

“Do you hear anything behind this wall? There’s something back there. We’ve all felt it.”

I dangled the little hand-drawn image in front of his face, observing his teal and brown eyes widen in shock.

“I found it in Annette’s desk drawer,” I explained. “There wasn’t anything with it. I don’t know why she had it, but I know how much it means—”

“Stone,” he bellowed, tugging the paper from my fingers.

The demon zipped around the corner, nearly sliding across the floor at his speed. “What’s wrong?”

“Where is it?” the druid asked quietly, emotions thickening his accent.

“Safe,” Stone responded, shaking his head. “It’s at—”