Whisper of Shadows (The Diamond City Magic Novels) Read Online Free

walls and ceilings. Not for the first time, I wondered just what the hell he could see with those weird eyes. I didn’t think they were X-ray vision à la Superman, but clearly they were specialized.
    “We have to get going,” he said, turning back to my dad. The outer rings of his eyes were green. I’d seen them orange, blue, and red.
    “Report,” my dad ordered.
    Dalton gave that ever-familiar impatient snarl. “It appears the FBI has come calling. Time to go.”
    The FBI? I’ll admit. I wasn’t as surprised as I could have been. I’d had a run-in not too long ago with the super special agents of the FBI. The one in charge—Sandra Arnow—was a particularly nasty bit of business. She was ambitious, cold, and ruthless. She and I shared a mutual hate-hate relationship.
    “What do you want to do?” Price asked, looking to me, but Mel answered.
    “Open the door when they make it that far. Not much else we can do. Jamie, shut down the house.”
    Jamie jogged out of the room to turn off the house spells before our intruders launched binders, which they were sure to do any second now. Binders bound all the magic within their range so nothing worked. They also played havoc with active spells, sometimes twisting them so they didn’t work again. I deactivated my trace null.
    “What are they doing out there?” I asked as thunder rolled under the floor again. But then I felt their binders spring up and suck all the active magic down. “They’ve got the binders up,” I said.
    I hadn’t been paying attention to my dad. He’d come across the room. Price stepped between us.
    “That’s far enough.”
    Dad stopped
    “I have to go,” he said. “You aren’t safe. None of you.” He turned to look at everyone else, then faced me again. “I can protect you if you come with me.”
    I didn’t have to consider. “No thanks. So far your protections have been almost lethal,” I said, tapping my forehead. “I don’t trust you to get me a glass of water. I sure as hell won’t trust you with my life.”
    He nodded, his expression unchanged. “Fair enough. I’ll see you again. Soon.”
    With that, he and Dalton walked out of the room.
    “Where are they going?” Price asked, watching them go.
    “There are dozens of routes out of here. He built most of them,” Mel said, edging aside a curtain to look out the window. “It is the FBI. They’re coming in the gates.”
    “What do they want?” Leo asked.
    “I guess we’ll find out.” I looked at Price. “You don’t have to be here.”
    Connected as he was to his brother’s Tyet organization, he was technically a criminal. For all I knew, the FBI had come to arrest him.
    He narrowed his eyes at me, a line cutting deep between his brows. “I’m not leaving you.”
    I got the message. He wasn’t going to betray me or abandon me to save his own hide. My heart swelled, and I grinned at him. My smile faded. “Our two weeks is going to get postponed, isn’t it?”
    I’d promised him that after the dinner tonight, we’d hole up alone for two weeks and spend it together, no distractions or interruptions. If my dad’s arrival hadn’t shattered that glorious plan, certainly a mass of super special agents showing up did.
    He shrugged. “I’ll still have you in my bed and sitting across from me at my breakfast table.”
    “Unless I’m going to jail.”
    “No one’s taking you to jail,” Mel inserted. She frowned at Price. “You’re going home with this man?”
    Not the way I wanted to break the news. I nodded. “We’re moving in together.”
    Mel gave me a sharp look and then examined Price again. Finally, she nodded. “Good. Better you aren’t alone right now.”
    She turned to Taylor. “You either. I want you to stay here.”
    Taylor laughed. “No thanks. Besides, Dad’s not interested in me. He’s all about Riley.”
    I could hear the pain stitching her voice. I could have pointed out that being the target of his interest had nearly killed me,