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clairelutra · 9 months

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cuprous chloride (a Sapphire Blaze rewrite) (1/?)

Fandom: Hidden Legacy series - Ilona Andrews Relationships: Catalina/Alessandro, Catalina & Runa, Catalina & Leon Rating: M Chapter Length: 7.8k (7.8k cumulative) Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence, Minor Character Death, Discussed and Attempted Suicide Additional Tags: For Want of a Nail, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Casefic, Action & Romance, Friendship, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Smart Catalina Baylor Notes: CATALINA!! DESERVED!! BETTER!! MUCH MUCH MUCH BETTER THAN BOOKS THAT READ LIKE SECOND DRAFTS!!! she's MY BLORBO now. i'm breaking out of my hiatus for this because i love what ilona andrews wanted her to be so much and it physically pains me to read books where she is Distinctly Not That. my blorbo now. m i n e. 😭 Read on SquidgeWorld

My dreams had been stressed out even before I was woken up. A perfect aquamarine ocean stretched out in front of me, looking like Florida but somehow I knew I was in Italy. I bobbed along in the water, unaided as it pulled me back to sea. There were fish chasing my hair, brightly colored and curious.

I knew that I had to stay very, very still, or their little mouths would open to reveal great big teeth. I'd already been bitten once, my arm stung with the injury just above the bicep. Just stay still and they won't bite, just stay still and they won't bite, just stay still, still, still...

BOOM!

I had a brief, powerful vision of the plane with my sister and brother-in-law it pitching into the water, and woke up with a gasp.

Heart pounding frantically, I scrabbled at the sheets, pain lancing through my chest as I took in the room around me—the loft room that had once been my sister, Nevada's, but was mine now because she wasn't here anymore.

In quick succession, I remembered that she wasn't here because she moved in with her husband and therefore wasn't dead, and then that she and said husband were out of the country for a funeral, and then that I, Catalina Baylor, was Head of House Baylor because she had stormed out less than a week ago.

A second stab hit my heart as I remembered her face, a mask of chilly stoic fury as she signed the rights and responsibilities of House Head over to me, witnessed by the Keeper of Records.

That feel when you disappointed your big sister so hard she just packed her bags and left, leaving you in charge of five people who'd never once in their lives thought of you as an authority figure? Hurt like hell.

I scrubbed my hand over my face, then realized there was another person in the room with me.

Or, rather, the head of another person in the room with me.

Arabella, my younger sister, was watching me from the doorway.

Habitually, I opened my mouth to tell her to get out, then shut it as I registered her expression. She was flushed, her blonde hair sticking up at odd angles—but her honey eyes were wide and alert, irritated and worried.

"You up?" she rasped.

No. But Heads of Houses didn't get to tell their sisters to fuck off, so I blearily nodded instead. My chest still hurt.

"Augustine's here."

That woke me up in a hurry. "Augustine Montgomery?" I croaked. It was still dark outside, and I had gone to bed at one A.M. after several hours of reviewing our business records. The alarm clock on my nightstand told me it had been only an hour or so since I had crashed.

Augustine Montgomery had come up in a lot of those papers, because technically, he owned our business. He was the Head of House Montgomery, and when we sold our business to pay for our late father's experimental cancer treatments, it was Montgomery International Investigations that bought us. We had it mortgaged on a 30 year plan, and Nevada, who supported our family after Dad died, had been whittling it down as much as she could... but there was still a solid one mil on the warehouse alone.

And she had left it to me to finish.

It was my job to keep the agency in good shape so we could do that, and my job to deal with the National Assembly politics, and my job to deal with any House matters that came to our table—which would be a lot more now, since our House was officially three years old and the protections afforded us as we found our feet were officially over.

Nevada had some timing.

And, unfortunately, she had left me to deal with Augustine too.

Sometimes, I really hated my big sister.

"Yeah. He's downstairs. He said he wants to talk to you. It's an emergency."

My first thought was, what could he want with me? and my second, sinking thought was, oh, he's here for the the Head of House Baylor.

Which was me, Catalina Baylor, the new Head of House Baylor.

My chest throbbed with a dulled pain, and I gave my younger sister a distracted nod. "Gimme five."

She bounced, no doubt jiggling that enviable figure; the genes for nice tits and a cushy ass had skipped right past me. "Hurry. Mom's with him in the conference room right now and she looks ready to shoot."

Mom especially wasn't particularly fond of our leash-holder, which meant I needed to get there fast.

Arabella snapped the door shut behind her and I flailed out of bed, the very image of grace and authority.

There was no time for anything I'd have liked to do when being faced with our scary, scary not-boss, but I staggered up to my childhood vanity and flicked on the rows of bare bulbs and viewed myself.

Oversized I <3 sleep tshirt over tawny stick-thin limbs? Check. Sleep-puffed face in desperate need of cold water? Check. A horribly tangled mane of dark brown hair? Check. The pock of a purple bruise on my left bicep from my fight with the cast iron skillet last night? I poked it and winced. Check.

I snatched up my hair brush and attacked my hair, mouthing the seconds to myself. It took 53 seconds to get it to a workable state and another 17 to get it into a messy but respectable bun. My shirt was shucked, my bra snatched off the bedpost, yesterday's jeans (miraculously unstained) pulled up over my ass, and a flowy white shirt that I saved for special occasions was snapped off a hanger in my closet. I stumbled out of my room and towards the bathroom with 116, 117, 118 on my lips.

Pressing cold water to my face and taming the strands of my hair that refused to put art into their messiness took me the better part of the next hundred seconds, but it tamed the flush and made me look (and feel) more awake.

No time for real makeup, but a brush of good concealer for the slight spots present on my face made me look a little less fresh out of bed, and a smidge of extremely careful eyeliner made my blue eyes seem a whole lot less groggy.

I was counting through the 250s as I took myself in.

Grandmother Victoria would have told me that if awoken between 11 P.M. and 5 A.M., I should be tall, regal, wearing a flattering silken bathrobe, with my eyeliner on fleek and a bit of rouge on my lips to perfectly project lady of the household, annoyed by your continued existence, don't test her.

Instead, I got professional 20-something after a long workday spent imbibing too much coffee, now trapped like a deer in headlights.

It was better than lazy teenager staggering out of bed on a Saturday afternoon, so I'd have to take it.

Though I should probably do something about the deer look.

I stopped counting for a few precious seconds, taking a deep breath to find my center (I was terrible at it, but sometimes it helped), then pictured what a Head of House should be—what Victoria Tremaine's granddaughter would be—and opened my eyes to the world, one hundred percent done with everyone's shit.

Good enough, I guessed.

(Nothing felt 'good enough' after Nevada left, but I couldn't give up before I began. My family was depending on me.)

My hands still trembled as I left the bathroom, counting 281, 282, 283 under my breath. I steadied them as I walked through the rehabilitated warehouse we called home.

The warehouse was where we had moved after selling our house to pay for Dad's treatment. The original plan had been to turn the whole thing into a comfortable house on the inside, but that was expensive and we had been broke (in more ways than one), so, predictably, walls and structures had been built as they were needed, and strolling through the main area that everything had been plugged into usually felt like strolling through a picked-over section of Ikea, if Ikea sold their showcases in blocks.

I found my family in the warm glow of the media room just as 300 left me.

Everyone was there except Mom. My brawny nerd cousin, Bern; his dark and wiry younger half-brother, Leon; my birdboned grease machine grandmother Frida with her halo of platinum curls; and, of course, small, full-figured and blonde Arabella.

They all looked even groggier than I had been, and they all were watching what looked like security footage.

The back end of a car was rolling through our gates, and one guard was saying to the other, "...a Bentley?"

The other shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe it was a birthday present."

"Dumbass," Arabella growled. I noticed then that the rest of my family looked distinctly pinched.

"Who? What?" I asked—and was glad I did, because it would have been terrible if Augustine heard me croak like that. I cleared my throat. "What happened?"

"Our security sucks," Leon announced. He said it lightly, but his hackles were up, his dark eyes flinty.

Grandma Frida's lips thinned, a rare look of condemnation on her laugh-lined face. "He didn't even knock. He pretended to be you and strolled right through the gates. And they—" She gestured harshly at the guards. "—just let him in."

A chill ran down my spine. If I had been more awake, a pit would have opened below my feet.

"What?"

Bern hit rewind and showed me someone who looked exactly like me passing the retina scan and the guards not so much as glancing at the logs that would show I was already home, and the person gliding through the gates was a fake.

Our three year grace period as a new house was officially over, painting a massive target on our backs that said fresh meat, and our staff didn't even double-check to make sure we weren't being infiltrated by an illusion Prime.

Nausea churned in my gut.

They had to be removed and replacements found ASAP. It wasn't reasonable to keep them on the payroll. The point of security was to keep the bad actors out, and for all we knew, these two would invite them in for tea and biscuits.

Mom wasn't going to like that.

"Try to look a little less like you swallowed a mouse," Grandma Frida advised, "and get in the conference room. Your mother is in there with that ass and a .50 Desert Eagle, and she'll put a bullet between his eyes any second now if there's no one to stop her."

She looked a bit mouse-inflicted herself, but she was right. I took a deep breath, fighting for my unimpressed and aloof cloak, and left the room.

I had been Head of House for three days, and twenty one for just as long. This would be my first interaction with another Prime as Head of a House, and Augustine was a shark in a multi-thousand dollar suit.

I couldn't fuck this up.

You are Nevada Rogan's sister, Penelope Baylor's daughter, and Victoria Tremaine's granddaughter. You can do this.

I walked across the hall to where the light could be seen shining through the frosted glass of the conference room window, bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper, and strode into the room.

The two adults sat on opposite sides of the table; Augustine swiveled to the door to watch me ener, while my mother watched him like a coiled cobra, focused as a sniper on duty with her right hand below the table, doubtlessly fingering the Desert Eagle just out of sight.

They were a study in opposites when you looked at them like this. Augustine Montgomery always looked like a marble statue of some Greek god who thought it could Clark Kent with a pair of wire specs, and my mother was an ex-military mixed chick with a bad leg and nerves-slash-balls of steel.

Both of them could kill you faster than you could blink, and Mom looked like she was very, very close to that edge right now.

House business, House business, House business, I chanted to myself as I sidled over to Mom. As reassuring as it was to have a gun trained on the shark in a multi-thousand dollar suit, it would look horrible if my first meeting with a Prime as a Head of House ended with the other guy dead.

"Mr. Montgomery," I said. My voice didn't shake, nor did I sound half asleep. Score!

I looked at Mom and silently begged her to look at me. When she didn't, I said, "Mom, Grandma Frida was looking for you," and caught her eye as soon as she glanced at me. After a tense moment of me trying to ask her to let me handle this with my gaze alone, she nodded and withdrew, clicking the gun into her holster as she left.

Turning back to our... guest, I said, "Mr Montgomery, you know you're always welcome in our home, but it's the middle of the night."

He almost looked apologetic—or, at least, His Holiness was trying to look apologetic, which was as close as he came—and said, "It's an emergency."

I cocked my head.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out a phone, and showed me the screen. On it, there was a teenage boy with short, bright red hair and a mischevious grin—the kind of grin that seemed to lurk on Leon's face at all times, just ready to be whipped out on a moment's notice. There was something about the shape of his face that tugged hard on my memory, but I couldn't place it.

"This is Ragnar. He's fifteen. He has a dog named Tank. He likes detective books and the Sherlock Holmes show." Passingly, I wondered if he meant BBC, Elementary, or some new one I hadn't heard of yet. "He plays a Ranger in Hero Tournament. Two days ago, his mother and sister died in a fire."

My gut wrenched, even as a logical corner of my brain pointed out that all this was coming from Augustine Montgomery and there was absolutely no reason he would be showing me this unless he wanted something from me. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because right now he's standing on the roof of Memorial Hermann Hospital. He's thinking of jumping."

"Why are you telling me this?" I repeated around the lump in my throat. I couldn't look away.

"He's a Prime. Nobody can get to him. If we don't hurry, his broken body will be the leading story in the morning news."

I knew it would be broken, because I had been to Memorial Hermann Hospital all too many times myself. It was the place they told us that there was no hope left for Dad. It was far too many stories tall for little boys and girls who didn't want to be here anymore.

...If we don't hurry...

"Augustine, you know that's not what we do," I said quickly, but I knew it was too late. I was already praying I made it in time. "I've never pulled someone off a building before. We investigate insurance fraud, not..."

"But you can do it." He looked right at me. "It is within your power." When he saw my hesitation, he added, "Your sister asked me for a favor once. I'm calling it in. From one Head of House to another. He has one sister left. Right now, she's at the hospital praying he doesn't fall to his death."

It was within my power. If I walked away here and went back to bed, forget looking my reflection in the eye, I'd never sleep again.

"Okay." I straightened and wished I had something to fiddle with. "Let me grab my coat."

Augustine stood, a flicker of something that seemed terribly like genuine gratitude passing through his eyes as he stood. "Thank you."

---------

I turned the conversation over in my head as Augustine's driver took the silver Bentley through the empty streets at breakneck speeds, taking the two of us to the hospital.

Since when had Augustine Montgomery, leader of MII, CEO made of smoke and mirrors and ice, grown a conscience? Did Ragnar mean something to him? Did his sisters and-or mother? Who—or what—was worth waking him up at 2 A.M. and making a drive to a secondary agency to personally fetch a siren?

He had come to us.

There were a thousand halcyons out there. A careful poison specialist could immobilize him. A telekinetic could stick a wall in front of him. Why me? What game was he playing?

He had broken into our home, showed us our most glaring security weak points, and pulled all the pathos levers to get me to come with him. Pathos, not strength, not intimidation, not money. Just pathos. He'd called in a whole favor for it. I'd drink my favorite liquid foundation in a single shot if he'd done it out of the goodness of his heart.

God, House politics were exhausting, and I was still barely out of bed.

(What would Nevada think of all this? I wondered with a prick of pain in my chest. I wished I could ask her.)

"How do you know the family?" I asked. Might as well start with the basics.

"Ragnar's sister contacted MII in regard to her mother's and sister's deaths. She doesn't think the fire was an accident."

Which answered exactly none of my questions, and left me with several more. It didn't escape my notice that he had neatly sidestepped giving a House name—if they even were a House now. Ragnar was a Prime, and that was all I knew. Well, that, Tank, his preferred character in some video game, and his taste in fiction.

"Was it?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss the details."

So, that's a yes. And Baylor Investigative Agency was, as the name stated, an investigative agency. I'd drink the rest of my liquid foundations if he didn't plan to pawn this case off onto us.

That still didn't explain why we'd started with the suicidal teenager and not a formal meeting in his shark aquarium office.

"Did you take the case?" Do I get a say in the contract or not?

"She knows our rates."

"You turned her down." I didn't bother to keep the disgust out of my voice. As much as I appreciated being able to write my own contract, the thought of a heartbroken and desperate young woman getting the patented Augustine Montgomery treatment made my gorge rise.

"I'm not running a charity." He glanced at me in the rearview, clearly annoyed. "If I'm going to put my people in danger, I have to properly compensate them. You, of all people, should know how much is at stake when one looks into a Prime's death."

A Prime, singular. That meant it was a family of four, with at least two Primes. One dead Prime, one dead not-Prime, one living-but-suicidal Prime, one person of unknown magical strength. They were almost definitely a House. I still didn't know their last name. Or what happened to their father.

I did know that the mysterious sister was rich enough to get into Augustine's office, but not rich enough to hire him. Which meant she was likely rich enough to make our bills easier to pay and would still be on the lookout for investigators. Just $1,039,055.54 left on the mortgage.

I caught myself there and swallowed. Two people were dead and one more might be soon if we didn't get there in time, and I was thinking about the bills. God dammit.

I rubbed my forehead. "Did you at least tell his sister what to expect if I have to use my magic?"

"I told her the boy would have to be sedated."

Good enough.

The car pulled into the parking lot and a Hispanic man met us at a near sprint. He didn't bother with the front doors; he ripped mine open and subjected me to the sub-thirty temperatures. Thank god I had picked my windbreaker for this trip.

"Did he jump?" Augustine beat me in asking by a single breath.

"No, sir."

"Come on," he said, and jumped out of the car with me hot on his heels.

The gloriously warm air of the hallway beat back the icy chill of the outdoors. A group of people waited by the bank of elevators, some in scrubs and some in suits, all wearing the same panicked expression.

Apparently, they had been waiting for Augustine, because they saw us and scattered, leaving behind a single redhaired woman.

I knew that redhaired woman.

Runa Etterson.

I had met her at Nevada's wedding, when one of the many enemies of House Rogan (the House of her husband) had poisoned the cake. The only reason any of us were alive now, Augustine included, was because Runa had purged the toxins before the cake had arrived. She was a Prime Venenata, a poison mage.

Now, I could hardly recognize her. Her bombastic personality was muted; that vibrancy that could fill a room had been doused like a flame. Her pretty face was red, tearstained, and puffy. Her clear grey eyes were clouded over with fury and despair. She had grown since I'd last seen her, and shrunk again in the worst way.

Just looking at her was enough to make my chest ache so powerfully I couldn't breathe.

She looked at me like and a fire lit in her eyes. A blaze of hope.

I knew then that I would die before I let her down.

"Catalina?" she rasped.

"Catalina, there is no time," Augustine said, cutting off my reply. He strode into the open elevator, then turned and waited for me, and my feet obeyed.

The last thing I saw as the doors closed was Runa looking at me like I was the answer to all her prayers.

--------

The elevator hummed, carrying us upward, brightly lit and perfectly normal. In the mirrored wall, I could see the Heads of Houses Baylor and Montgomery standing side by side in the mirror.

At least I looked the part, even if I didn't feel like it. My bronzed complexion did me the favor of not looking too sallow, and my eyeliner made my eyes look more alert than they were. I took my thick, dark hair out of its bun and let it cascade over my shoulders—people liked that look.

Maybe it would buy me a few seconds.

Despite the older windbreaker and jeans, I could be considered a well-to-do young lady. Poorer than the painfully expensive suit beside me, but somewhat dignified. My eyeliner hadn't smudged yet.

If Nevada wasn't so pissed at me, she'd probably be proud of me.

I had a few answers now, at least. Augustine had likely rushed to get me because he had people inside the building, and a Prime Venenata completely losing it because she lost her last living family member would be more destructive than a sudden biobombing; as heartless as Heads could be, they often looked after their own with ferocious dedication. He had heard Runa out because he owed her a favor, and come to get me personally because he had a favor of his own to burn, free of charge.

Runa's little brother was going to commit suicide.

"You didn't say he was from House Etterson." If he was a Prime poison mage then that explained why that detail had been gently elided, but that didn't mean I couldn't be a little sour about it.

"Was it pertinent information?"

Yes. We owed Runa too, after all. Even more than he did. "That means he's a Prime Venenata."

"I told you he wouldn't let anybody get to him."

I could imagine. I was not looking forward to trying my luck.

"Has he killed anyone?" I asked. Distressed poison mages had been known to do that from time to time.

Augustine sighed. "He's a gentle child. He made them sick enough to turn them back, but he didn't inflict permanent damage."

I didn't show my wince. People I used my power on were not always so kind. Let's hope his nature held true.

The numbers on the digital display crawled up past the oncology floors. I had never been this high up in the building.

"When the doors open, turn left," Augustine said. "Go to the door marked 'exit', and up one flight of stairs. There will be a metal door that will give you access to the roof."

"And once I'm there?"

Augustine was too dignified to shrug, but he would if he hadn't been. "Have a talk with him, poison mage to siren."

"That's a terrible plan," I informed him sourly.

"Ragnar will hesitate to hurt you. If he does, I'll be there, and I'll help."

It wasn't me I was worried he'd hurt—or, at least, not primarily so. And Augustine being there could only make it worse. "If he sees you—"

"He won't."

Okay then.

The elevator doors opened, and I took the path at a half-run, heart in my mouth. The passage smelled overpoweringly of vomit, the stairs showing a hefty coating of chunky substance.

Okay, I could deal with a bit of unprompted food poisoning. Probably. It might make it hard to sing, though.

I took a deep breath, regretted it, and pushed through the door onto the roof.

Ragnar stood at the opposite end, a lone figure in a hoodie and jeans. The lights of Houston outlined him in their multicolored glory; he was young and small and far away.

Quietly, I took a few steps onto the gravel, then a few more. It was loud on the streets below, but not up here. Up here it was cold and dark and so very, very lonely.

The only thing worse would be to go back to the white walls and uncaring cacophony of the hospital below. To sit in that place that brought nothing but news of loss and pain.

"Hey," I said, just loud enough to carry, weaving the smallest amount of power into my voice as I could manage. The last thing I needed was for him to rocket over the edge because he felt me coming.

"You're not going to stop me either," said Ragnar. His voice was that high-low mess of puberty and terribly determined.

My heart pounded on my throat; I tasted copper. I wove a stronger thread into my voice as I said, "Why would I stop you?"

"Because people are stupid," he bit out. I took another few steps forward. "You don't understand."

"Runa—"

"Tell her I'm sorry."

I breathed through the lump in my throat and blinked my stinging eyes. I could hardly feel the wind. "That's not what you want to tell her."

Puzzle him. Make it so that if he jumps, he'll never know the answers.

Ragnar snapped around to glare at me. "What the fuck else would I say?"

"You want to tell her 'you're welcome'."

"...Excuse me?"

I shoved my hands in my pockets and gave him a wan smile. I pulled the power out of my voice again. I wanted him pissed off, not placid. "That's it, isn't it? Mom isn't here anymore. You're Runa's responsibility now. She's barely an adult herself. If you jump, she won't have to worry about you. All she'll have to worry about is herself. You know you'll be a mess, and she isn't any better off than you are; why would you want to drop that weight on her?"

It was what I thought about whenever I passed through the oncology office's waiting room. I remembered sitting there in one of those hard plastic chairs, nine years old, doing the math for how many mouths Nevada would have to feed all alone, and then subtracting myself and doing the math again. It would have been so much worse if it had only been the two of us. So, so, so much worse.

Ragnar stumbled away from the ledge, not wanting to fall by accident while he was processing that.

"No," he said, looking deeply disconcerted, "not that, I didn't mean— I didn't... wasn't..."

"My dad did chemo in this hospital," I continued. He focused on me again. "It wasn't working. My mom is disabled, and the rest of us were kids. My big sister was the only one who could take the hours needed to support us. She was seventeen."

The conversation had officially been deemed interesting enough; he took a few more steps back from the ledge and dropped into a sitting position like a discarded marionette. Thinking about Nevada hurt, but my pain wasn't for nothing.

I closed the distance, sitting a distant but companionable seven feet away, careful not to reveal how much I wanted to cry in relief. He wouldn't jump. "How much easier do you think her life would have been without me? Without us?"

"Lots." He was too raw and bitter to dress it up.

For a long time, that was what I had thought too.

"I don't think so," I said, and he shot me a flat, dubious, tearstained and empty look. I gave him another smile and a weak shrug. "You see, my sister is... responsible. She takes responsibility for things, and then she toughs it out. She would die for each of us, and she would live for us, too. I don't think she'd have kicked the bucket if she was the last one, but..."

Ragnar stayed warily silent, letting me search out the right words.

"She got married three years ago to a man she loved," I finally said. "Without us, she wouldn't have done that—definitely not this soon. With no one left to live for, she would still be fighting to get out of bed, not looking forward to her first baby." I held Ragnar's eye while blinking icy tears back from my own. "I don't know your sister that well, but I know family. If you jump, you'll save her the trouble of taking care of you. You'll take from her the will to live, survive, and thrive, too. You're the very last thing she has left."

Ragnar's mouth compressed, then stretched. He was absolutely furious with me, but too busy with his own heartbreak to do anything about it. In his heart of hearts, he knew I was right.

I had severed his way out.

I rested on the heels of my hands and dropped my head back to stare at the sky. Barely any starlight managed to prick through the pollution, but I admired what I could see. My fingers were well and thoroughly numb, and starting to burn with the chill, but I ignored that.

Healthy sobs from the lungs of a teenage boy wading through the worst night of his life came from a very mysterious source that I knew better than to seek out.

He wouldn't jump.

-----

By the time the noise had finally stopped for good, the rest of me was numb too.

I glanced down and found Ragnar a wreck, so burned out he looked like he was about to pass out.

I'd like to pass out myself, personally, but that seemed like a bad idea, especially when I couldn't feel my feet. That's what the little matchstick girl did, and look at how well that turned out for her.

With difficulty, I stood, and then I walked over to Ragnar and offered him a hand. He wiped his hands on his jeans and accepted—only to overbalance and drag me and my horrible footing down with him. Somehow, I managed to avoid kneeing him in the balls.

"Oops," he rasped into my windbreaker. Somewhere in all the pain, there were faint traces of humor. That was a good sign, probably. I hoped.

I patted his head, and together, we managed to get ourselves upright. Neither of us could stand alone, so we ended up supporting each other back to the door, and then down the stairs (they seemed to have been cleaned since I last saw them), and then into the elevator.

Augustine was waiting there, utterly impassive, to operate the elevator.

I didn't let go of Ragnar, and he didn't let go of me. With a stomach-turning bump, the elevator began its decent.

"Ms. Etterson will be thrilled to see you both in good health," Augustine said blandly.

I hummed an acknowledgement, gave Ragnar a squeeze, and waited out the rest of the trip in silence.

My eyeliner hadn't survived and now rimmed my eyes like a wannabe panda, but it felt more like a badge of honor than a failing.

When the doors opened, I caught exactly one flash of Runa's huge gray eyes and disastrous red mane, and then she was tackling her brother with a ferocity that made me ache inside.

Ragnar mumbled, "I'm sorry," and Runa started bawling, huge sobs of relief, too far gone for words.

I busied myself trying to rub some feeling back into my legs so that I could escape the elevator without falling flat on my face. Mostly I just got waves of pins and needles for my pathetic efforts.

Next to me, Augustine cleared his throat, and when I looked up, he offered a suited arm.

I grabbed onto it, and crushed back a smile when he stumbled under my sudden weight. Always nice to see an asshole taken off guard.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy in scrubs approach with a needle. I tugged at Augustine's arm pointedly. "He doesn't need it. He's fine. I didn't use my power." Or, at least, not enough to need fixing.

Augustine halted the man with a wave, then gave me the side eye from behind his wire specs. "I seem to remember bringing you here to do just that. What was that about never having pulled someone off of a roof before?"

"Well, it's not like I pulled him," I muttered, only aware of how lame that sounded when it hung in the open air. "He came back on his own."

"For you."

"Details," I replied, then remembered I was supposed to be the dignified Head of the noble House Baylor, and shut my mouth again fast.

Augustine led-slash-supported me further away, until we were at an intersection where the bustle of activity would cover anything we said.

"From one Head to another, you should have used your power," he said quietly. "It would have made all of this much neater."

"My power is temporary," I said, "and suicidal tendencies linger. If I had used it, he may well have jumped as soon as I removed it again. If anything, it would've made things much messier." He knew why he had to live now, and that would last much longer than the glow of infatuation.

"I can't decide if you are abominably stupid, or very clever," Augustine mused conversationally. He didn't look away from the throngs of medical personnel. "The state of your security leaves me inclined to the former."

I tilted my head in acknowledgement, even as my cheeks burned. There was no point in denying it.

"Now House Etterson owes you a favor they'll never forget," he continued, "and one ally is better than none. Even if their House consists of two Primes alone."

I nodded and suppressed a yawn. I didn't point out that while they may have the bare minimum number of members in their House to continue qualifying as a House, they were poison specialists, and active ones at that. The number of people who owed Runa their lives started at the hundred plus member guest list from my sister's wedding and only stretched on from there.

There was a good chance they were critically isolated now, and could use all the friends they could get. Especially if the fire that killed the other two wasn't an accident.

"The reprieve granted to your house has just expired," he said under the sound of foot traffic. "People will be coming for you and yours. You're powerful but inexperienced, and because of your sealed records, you are an unknown quantity. Unfortunately, being unknown isn't enough of a deterrent."

"Thank you for the heads up," I said, and smothered another yawn. God, it must be well past 3 A.M. now. I should've been in bed. And I still needed to hitch a ride back somehow. I didn't put it past Augustine to not just leave me here, and I didn't want to impose on the obviously grieving young duo. "Never would have guessed that the ancient and noble houses of Texas tended to be bold about offing the newcomers."

I wasn't an empath, but I could still feel Augustine's tick of annoyance. It wasn't his fault that the fatality rate of new Houses was something I was intimately familiar with.

"Have you put due consideration into the connections you'll forge?" he asked. "Your sister has been very careful to untangle your House from her husband's enemies, but little to none in building your own friendships."

This was not necessarily true, but we were too busy trying to pay the bills to wine and dine properly. All our potential allies remained at a vague 'maybe'. I dropped to massage my calves again; the pins and needles were getting really bad now. "Got suggestions for us?"

"More than that—I have an offer."

There it was.

I glanced up and over my shoulder, hands not quite pausing on my leg; his Greek statue face was as impassive as ever. I probably shouldn't let him know I knew he had made Nevada 'an offer' no less than three times before, and that she had turned him down every time. "Go on."

"I offer a strategic alliance between House Montgomery and House Baylor. Occasionally, cases which are uniquely suited to the talents of your family cross my desk. I'd like you to handle them. In return, I offer generous financial compensation, access to MII's resources within the scope of those particular investigations, and the benefits of an association with my house."

To his credit, it didn't sound overly rehearsed.

I massaged the tendon above my heel, wincing. Why couldn't teenage boys pick nice summer nights to attempt suicide? "Do those benefits include better security?"

"As needed," he said.

On the tail end of Nevada leaving me in charge of House Baylor out of nowhere, I almost wanted to agree out of spite. If she wouldn't help us, why shouldn't we run into the arms of someone who would? And we genuinely, desperately needed security.

But Nevada had had her reasons for repeatedly spitting on the offer, and they weren't all because she was a hopeless daddy's girl who poured her heart and soul into maintaining the agency Dad had left to us.

"We would make nice arm candy for MII, wouldn't we?" I mused. A secret elite taskforce, and we looked good too. With good security. I switched legs and swallowed a pained hiss. My voice came out strained when i said, "How long would this arrangement last?"

"Ten years under these terms. Future iterations will be negotiable."

Yeah, no. No way.

I nodded slowly, and continued working my leg. My whole lower half was a blaze of pain, and my arms weren't much better. It made it hard to think.

Still, I managed.

If Nevada were here, it would be the money that drew her in, and a need for independence that pushed her out. If Mom were here, it would be protection that drew her in, and her own integrity that pushed her out. If Grandmother Tremaine were here, it would be information and influence that drew her in, and obstinate pride that pushed her out.

I agreed with all of them and none of them.

"Then let me make you a counter offer," I said slowly, turning the pros and cons over in my mind. "Keep your dimes. We won't become a subsidiary. We will provide MII with one thousand billable hours of our services—with stipulations—to a maximum of twenty hours every week, free of charge. In exchange, you'll give us three months of your best security, and publicly take me, Head of House Baylor, under your wing as a protegee for one year, affording me social protection and access to your connections through you."

If Augustine had an opinion on it, he was reserving judgement. "And the stipulations?"

I stopped rubbing in order to count off my fingers. "One, if there's a conflict of interest with a preexisting client, the client comes first. This courtesy will likewise be extended to you; we won't be bought. Two, we will not break the law for you. That is final. Three, we will neither aid nor turn a blind eye to hate crimes, harm to children, human trafficking, rape, death of uninvolved civilians, or mass destruction."

My sisters, cousins, and I had spent a while hammering out what, exactly, 'being able to look your reflection in the eye at the end of the day' entailed when we were stuck in the house and bored, and I was very glad we had. We had all agreed that there were always special cases, but those six covered most of them.

Hopefully none of them would hate me too much for this.

Augustine gave me a narrow look.

I smiled innocently. "You did say you would compensate us generously." I knew he had quoted Nevada at something like a hundred thousand per month the first time, and it had only risen from there as she proved herself. "Isn't this a steal?"

"I suppose it is," he allowed. His mouth slanted in something that could be considered a smile, if only by the farsighted. "Your sister was quite concerned with separating your names from ours. You don't share her reasoning?"

I shrugged, tested the stretch of my leg, swallowed a pained whine, and kept rubbing. "She doesn't want us to get swallowed up, but we're never going to get established as a House if we don't make friends."

Some other emotion flickered across his impassive face—entertained? "Am I a friend to you, Ms. Baylor?"

I opened my mouth; 'oh hell no' and 'well, you haven't wanted us dead in a while' ran into each other and went boom. Eventually, I said, "No, but I know you, and if you screw me over, my family knows where you live."

And then I yawned for real. Dammit.

"I see," he said gravely. He pushed away from the wall and offered me a gentlemanly hand. "This seems like a good time to conclude our business. I will think on your offer and call you for the details of the contract should I find it acceptable."

I grabbed his hand, and then clung to it for dear life. The state of my legs was so much worse now that I had woken them up. So, so, so much worse.

Disappointingly, he was expecting it this time, and wound my arms around his left bicep, letting me koala on him for the short walk to the Ettersons.

"Let me give you a small piece of advice, prospective mentor to prospective protegee," Augustine breathed to me as we walked. His breath was surprisingly warm and human over my ear; somehow, I had expected him to breathe like an air conditioner. "Do not become involved in the Etterson case. I know exactly what you're up against. It is no place for a young House. Sometimes when you search the night, you'll find monsters in the dark. You are not ready."

I felt myself smile wryly even through the pain. "Message received."

He knew we were all bleeding hearts; that 'warning' was as good as thumping a stuffed file and a quote on my office desk.

Runa stood by Ragnar, the boy pale and exhausted but alive as he slumped on the sterile white bench, the young woman hovering with ghosts in her eyes.

She saw me and broke into a mask of gratitude and relief so intense it looked like it hurt. She lunged for me, barely giving me the time to let go of Augustine before she swept me into a bone-crushing hug.

"Thank you," she croaked into my hair, clutching me tight enough to make both of our skeletons creak. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you..."

I held her close and stroked her hair. It was a knotted wreck. I wondered if she had a hairbrush wherever she was staying, or if personal hygiene had fallen to the wayside in the wake of her tragedy. "I'm just glad you're both okay."

She clung to me with trembling ferocity.

"Where are you staying?" I asked her softly. "I heard your home had been burned, but not much more... Home? Friends? Hotel?"

A twitch ran through her, like I had struck a raw nerve, and she jerkily shook her head. "Hotel."

I squeezed her gently. "That's no place to try to find your bearings from." Pulling free, I grabbed her shoulders, gave her a little shake, and caught her hopeless gray eyes. "Come on. We've got a guest bedroom and hot chocolate. It's good hot chocolate, I promise."

Her face crumpled; I drew her into a much gentler hug as she broke down sobbing.

"Shh, shh, shh... It'll be okay, I promise... Shh..."

Augustine looked at me over her head, flatly unamused. I rolled my eyes—like this wasn't exactly what he had wanted us to do anyway—and rubbed my cheek on the top of Runa's head.

"C'mon... Let's sit down."

Once we were sitting on the bench with Ragnar, Runa's face still in my shoulder and the boy looking at me like he hadn't decided if I was friend or foe, I pulled out my phone to text Leon, careful to keep the screen tilted away from the two Ettersons.

How're we feeling about two grieving unstable poison mages?

depends on the poison mage

Ettersons. They need a place to stay. I offered.

dear god... you make her head for one week........ shes gone MAD WITH POWER........

Mad with the power of squaring away life debts, yeah. You gonna get fam up to receive us or not?

Leon sent me a picture of a good-natured white man with a scruffy beard pointing a finger and saying, 'You got me there!', and then yeah i gotchu, and then need 2nd drvr?

"Did you drive here?" I asked Runa quietly. When she nodded, I rubbed her upper arm and typed, Yeah. Get Bern.

on it and then, after about twenty seconds, he added, eta is 15 mins

I let out a long, slow breath, locked my phone, and leaned into Runa, grateful for lots of things, but above all, grateful for the slight abatement of the pain in my legs.

#catalina baylor #hidden legacy #ilona andrews #sapphire blaze #catalina's trilogy #my fic #hallie's hidden legacy tag #cuprous chloride

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