Ruby Fever (Hidden Legacy, #6)(3)

Arabella snorted.

“He owned this place for about twelve years and built all of the auxiliary craziness. His business collapsed, and now he’s trying to unload the property to settle his debts.”

Nothing about this estate followed any kind of plan. To add insult to injury, the second owner thought he was handy and did a lot of the renovations and maintenance himself instead of hiring professionals. According to our building inspector, his handiness was very much in doubt.

“How much does he want for this place?” Arabella asked.

“Twenty million.”

“That’s out of our budget,” Mom said.

“It’s not if we get financing,” I said. We had already put in an application through a mortgage company Connor owned, and it was approved in record time.

“We can afford to put half down,” Arabella said. “But this place isn’t worth twenty mil. I mean I don’t even get a house. I get a shack . . .”

We turned the corner and the path opened, the greenery falling behind. A huge stone patio spread in front of us, cradling a giant Roman-style pool. Past the luxuriously large pool, the patio narrowed into a long stone path that ran down to the four-acre lake. Between the pool and the lake, on the right-hand side, stood another three-story tower.

Where Leon’s tower looked like something plucked from a Norman castle, this one could have fit right into the seaside of Palm Beach. Slender, white, with covered balconies on the top two levels and a sundeck on the roof, it had a clear vacation vibe. A narrow breezeway connected its third-floor balcony to the main house. Of all the places on the property, it was the newest and required the least amount of work to be habitable.

“Your shack,” I told her.

Arabella took off across the patio.

Mom and I strolled down past the pool toward the lakeshore. An exercise track circled the water, and the roofs of three other houses poked out from the greenery at random spots along its perimeter.

“The southern entrance is there.” I pointed at the other end of the lake. “We can put Grandma’s motor pool in that spot, facing the road.” We would have to get her a golf cart to get to it. Grandma Frida was spry, but well past seventy.

“Can we really afford this place?” Mom asked.

“Yes. If we put twenty-five percent down, we will have enough for a year’s worth of business expenses and have half a million left over to renovate. We’ll have to stagger the repairs and we’ll need to invest in some livestock for the agricultural exemption. The place already has solar panels, so we’ll be saving some money there, but we will need a yard crew and probably a maid service of some sort.”

Mom bristled. “I never needed maids in my life. If you’re old enough to have your own space, you’re old enough to keep it clean.”

“I agree, but the main house is huge, and we have the barracks and the offices. We are all going to be really busy. There will be an army of people to supervise, renovation decisions to make, and we still have our regular caseload and then there is the other business . . .”

My time was no longer completely my own. A chunk of it belonged to my family and the running of our House, but another, significantly larger part, belonged to the State of Texas and the complex entanglements its magic families created.

Arabella burst onto the third-floor balcony. “Do I like it? No. I love it!”

Mom grinned. “Well, you got her vote. Where would you and Alessandro stay?”

“Over there.” I pointed to the left, where a two-story house sat by the lake. “He’s probably over there right now. Do you need me to walk through the main house with you?”

Mom waved me off. “I’ve got it. Go check on him.”

I gave her a quick hug and took the stairs from the patio to the path leading to the two-story house Alessandro and I picked out for ourselves.

Hopefully he was still there. I had texted him when we were pulling up, but he hadn’t answered. He might have fallen asleep.

In our world, Primes like me packed a great deal of power. Even average magic users could unleash a lot of devastation, especially if their magic was combat grade. Nobody wanted the chaos that would happen if mages were allowed to run around unchecked. While everyone was subject to laws, when it came to mages, the civilian authorities left the enforcement of said laws to the magic community itself. The magic users of each state were governed by an assembly, which in turn answered to the National Assembly.

The National Assembly appointed a Warden to each state, a single law enforcement officer whose identity was kept confidential for obvious reasons. Wardens investigated crimes committed by the magical elite and sometimes rendered judgment. Our Warden was Linus Duncan, I served as his Deputy, and Alessandro functioned as our Sentinel. Sentinels were to Wardens what bailiffs were to judges. While Wardens investigated, Sentinels guarded them and applied force when force was required. Just like me, Alessandro was always on call, and Linus called him a lot.

To top it off, in Alessandro’s mind, he was bringing only himself and his skills to this relationship, and he had thrown himself into our family business trying to contribute. He was efficient and smart, and he had raised our income by almost thirty percent, which was in part why we were able to gather money for our down payment so quickly. Only Leon earned more.

But there were only so many hours in the day. Alessandro couldn’t cut his Sentinel hours, he didn’t want to cut his House Baylor hours, so instead he cut his rest and ended up falling asleep in random places. A week ago, after I found him asleep on the stairs with a half-eaten fajita on his plate, I told him I would lock him out of my bedroom if he didn’t stop. He swore to me he would get at least seven hours a night.