Ruby Fever (Hidden Legacy, #6)(30)

He opened the rear passenger door. Gus hopped onto the seat and lay down, panting. A moment later, Cornelius got into the front passenger seat, and we were off.

“What are you doing here?”

“Gus and I decided to follow Luciana’s scent.”

And it led them straight to her house.

“Did you learn anything from talking to the family?” Cornelius asked.

“Kaylee Cabera is not a halcyon. Alessandro and I don’t know what she is. The FBI has a magic eater, and she didn’t know what Kaylee is either.”

“Do you think she is our killer?”

“Yes. I was five feet from her, and I had to let her go, because I can’t prove it.”

“Yet,” Cornelius said.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Yet.”

“Why would the current Speaker use her daughter to try to murder the former Speaker?”

“She wasn’t trying to murder the former Speaker. She tried to murder the Warden.”

Cornelius tapped his chin, thinking. “Luciana is prudent. Was prudent. I would classify her as having been extremely risk averse. This was rash and ultimately, unsuccessful.”

“It was certainly out of character.”

“It had to be self-defense,” Cornelius said. “She must have felt Linus was a danger to her or someone she loved. She was a single parent like me. Her life revolved around her child. She might not have risked retribution from the Assembly to keep her job or stay out of prison, but she would do almost anything to protect her daughter.”

“Would you have killed Linus to protect Matilda?”

“Absolutely.”

He hadn’t even paused.

“The difference is, I wouldn’t have gotten caught.”

“How would you have done it?”

Cornelius smiled. “Poison would be the cleanest. Did you know that Linus keeps a kitchen towel on the door handle of his icemaker? A large rat or an ermine could grab that towel and use its body weight to open the icemaker. A single rat can easily carry a plastic bag in a pocket of its harness with enough cyanide or any number of other lethal substances to cause death within minutes. The hardest variable to control is making sure the poison is evenly spread over the ice.”

“Wow.”

Cornelius smiled wider.

“So, are you happy with your current position and compensation? Is there anything I can do on behalf of House Baylor to make you feel more valued?”

The smile vanished. He turned toward me. “Catalina, your family is my family. My sister and brother both feel the same. You, Arabella, and Nevada are the only older sisters Matilda will ever have. You never have to worry that I would harm any of you.”

Awww.

I pulled into Linus’ driveway. Cornelius’ electric BMW waited in front of the garage next to one of our armored Humvees. A guard stood by Linus’ front door, one of our Warden people. He held a submachine gun and was doing his best to look as conspicuous as possible. The public at large had no idea what happened to Linus and knowing Linus’ ties with the military, his neighbors wouldn’t find the presence of an armed guard alarming. But if Arkan was watching—and I was a hundred percent sure he was—we wanted to show that the house was well protected.

“By the way, Matilda told me that she felt the spider,” I said.

“Did she?” Cornelius’ eyes sparkled.

“Yes. She said the spider was a she, and she was stressed out and scared. Is it possible she is an arachnid mage?”

Cornelius smiled. “It’s not that. Animal mages have degrees of power like any other magic discipline. At the very bottom of that power ladder are those who can bond with a single species. Then we start climbing up the hierarchy of zoological classification. Those with Average abilities typically can affect an order like Rodentia or Carnivora. At Significant and Prime levels, most of us are capable of affecting the entire class, meaning there are Primes specializing in Mammals, or Birds, or Reptiles. Those with remarkable power can affect more than one of these classes.”

“So, an entire series? Like Amniotes?”

He smiled. “Yes.”

Despite Cornelius’ best attempts to downplay his power, I had seen him bond with both birds and mammals.

“But arachnids are very far removed from amniotes,” I said.

He nodded again, the same quiet smile on his lips.

We would have to go all the way up, to a group that included both mammals and arachnids. “I’m sorry, my knowledge of zoological classification is lacking.”

“I suspect Matilda is sensitive to the entire Nephrozoa Clade. Almost all bilateral animals fall into that group. Over a million species. Of course, whether or not she can bond with all of them remains to be seen, but even if she simply feels them, it is already enough. I cannot sense a spider, Catalina.”

Cornelius was a reserved man. He wouldn’t say anything else, but he didn’t have to. If parental pride had a glow, I would’ve gone blind because he would have lit up like a miniature sun.

The doors of Linus’ house opened. Runa emerged and waved me over.

“I think she wants me to talk to them.”

“Gus and I will wait for you. It would be best if we travelled home together.”

“Thank you,” I told him and got out of the car.