Burned by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #1)(54)

A frown creased the Chief Mage’s alabaster face as his eyes flicked down toward the paper, and then back up again. “I saw this headline this morning. Why are you bringing it to me now?”

I grabbed the paper – a copy of the latest issue from the Herald – and shook it in front of his face. “‘Strung-Out Shifters – The Newest Danger in Solantha,’” I recited, the headline burned into my retinas. I’d seen a copy of it fluttering from a newsstand on my way back, and had grabbed it. “Are you seriously saying that this piece of bullshit propaganda means nothing to you?”

Sighing, the Chief Mage picked up the paper, his violet eyes scanning the article. They narrowed as the seconds ticked by. “The Herald is reporting high incidence of drug use among shifters.”

I folded my arms. “Yeah, and you don’t see a problem with that?” I decided not to mention that the Herald had basically painted shifters as irresponsible druggies who were a danger to society and practically outright demanded that the mages annihilate them. The Chief Mage probably wouldn’t care.

“Of course there’s a problem.” The Chief Mage slowly set the paper down. “Shifters aren’t affected by narcotics. We bred you that way specifically so that as soldiers you wouldn’t be susceptible to the drugs and poisons normal humans would die from.”

I decided to pretend he didn’t say that last part – the last thing I needed was to get into another argument with him over the cruelty mages had inflicted upon shifters through the centuries. “Right. And all the shifter deaths in the papers that appear to be poison-related… those shouldn’t be possible either, right?”

The Chief Mage scowled. “This is not the appropriate time for this conversation, Miss Baine. My time is limited, and has been set aside so that we can work on your magical education, not on solving murders.”

“Oh yeah?” I scowled, wanting very much to plow my fist into that superior expression.

And that’s when an idea came to me.

“Why can’t we combine both?” I asked, dropping my scowl in favor of a sly grin.

Iannis looked taken aback. “What exactly are you proposing?”

I propped my hands on my hips. “I’m proposing that you teach me some kind of spell that I can use to drag your stiff ass around the city and show you what’s really going on in this town.”

I expected him to snap at me for the comment about his ass, but instead he simply pressed his lips together in thought, saying nothing as a calculating gleam shone in his violet eyes.

“You’re proposing some kind of... reconnaissance?” he finally asked. “Where we can observe without being observed ourselves?”

I arched a brow. Did he have to make everything sound so academic?

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Very well.” His lips curved into a small smile. Electricity skipped through my veins. “I will play your game. This spell is a bit beyond your current skill level, but if you master it, I will do as you ask.”

We spent the next two hours struggling through an illusion spell - or rather, I struggled while Iannis stood in front of me and showed off. He made it look easy, the way he flickered from the form of a young girl to a hulking dog to a hunched old man, while I had trouble maintaining the singular form I was trying to recreate. By the time I’d mastered it, I was sweaty, hungry, and had a hell of a headache.

“Well done,” the Chief Mage said as I stood there in my new form. I wasn’t sure if the admiration in his eyes was due to my magical prowess or because I looked like a curvy redhead. Either way, though, it was gratifying. If I could distract someone as rigid and logical as Iannis with an illusion, then I could do it to lesser-willed people too, which would come in handy as an Enforcer.

“Am I ever going to get my Enforcer’s bracelet back?” I asked grumpily, now that I’d been reminded of it.

The Chief Mage arched a brow. “In due time.” He flickered from his own form to that of a muscular human with shaggy blond hair, tight red pants and an electric blue shirt that stretched across his broad chest. “For now, I suggest we go and embark upon this adventure of yours... and perhaps get some sustenance for you as well.”

I snorted, trying not to stare. For a stuffy old mage he seemed to have a good grip on human fashion sense. “You’re going to have to lose the ‘holier than thou’ dialect if you want to blend in,” I told him. “No human looking like you is going to talk like that.”

“Alright,” he said easily. “Let’s go have some fun on the town, huh?”

I blinked. That was a lot easier for him than I’d thought it would be. “Let’s,” I agreed uncertainly, no longer sure this ‘adventure’ was going to go quite the way I thought it would.

My steambike would only make us stand out, so we took a cab to the Sycamore, a popular gastro pub in Maintown that served as the local watering hole for humans. The cab let us off on Argent Street, across from the restaurant, and I took a moment to eye the place nervously as Iannis paid the fare. The black-and-red corner building had a line snaking out the door, and every single one of those trendy men and women were one hundred percent human, not a single shifter in sight.

“Alright,” Iannis said as the cab drove off. “Let’s go.”

“Wait.”