Page 26 of Stubborn as a Shadow

Morgan held my gaze for a long minute before nodding. “Fine. But no one else.”

I nodded. Gage understood how precarious the situation with Morgan was. He wouldn’t jeopardize him.

“I would never put you at risk,” I promised. He didn’t notice I hadn’t said no one else would be told. But I trusted my team.

One thing was certain. My mission parameters had changed. The job Venus had called me about was no longer my priority. If I didn’t find Rudy Tada, oh well. Shit happened.

Morgan came first. I just needed to convince him to leave. Immediately.

8

I HAVE A SIDEKICK!

MORGAN

It was probably for the best Violet hadn’t been nattering in my ear for any of that. She would be having pixies. And since she was a witch, that would be quite remarkable.

“I should talk to Violet too,” I said, holding out my hand to Nelson, which was a much better name for him than Eric. He was not an Eric. Eric was a nice name, but it didn’t suit him.

But a name like Nelson was a bit of a mystery all on its own. It could be a first name or a last name. No one really knew. A bit like Morgan.

I liked it.

And I liked him.

Violet would hate everything about this and him.

But alas, if this didn’t work out, at least I knew I’d escaped from stickier places than this. Sure, escaping from that cage still felt like a fluke, but I’d done it. I could do it again. Somehow.

Nelson frowned but handed over the earpiece.

“You should limit your use of this,” he said. “The organizers have air mages on their staff. They picked up one of your earlier conversations. That’s what drew the guards to you earlier.”

I blinked. “Oh?”

Nelson nodded. “Phones are more secure, but they aren’t infallible.”

Violet wouldn’t be happy about that. Ever since I’d found my way back to her after being kidnapped, she’d been a tad overprotective, to put it mildly. She’d opposed this mission from the start, but she understood why I had to do it. She was supportive-ish, but that didn’t stop her near constant speculation about everything that might go wrong. When I’d called her “my fretting family” a couple of weeks ago, she hadn’t been impressed. But I thought that was better than “my catastrophizing cousin”.

I turned the earbud on and stuck it in my ear. “Uh… V?”

“For fuck’s sake, Morgan. Are you okay? What happened?”

“So, I have a new sidekick,” I said quickly, trying to get as many words out as possible before she yelled at me. “He saved me from some guards. His name is Nelson. Remember the dragon I talked about? Well, he’s friends with the dragon.”

I wished I could tell her how Nelson made my chest feel like glittering starlight, but I wasn’t sure she’d find that particularly convincing. Also, Nelson would hear what I said to her. I didn’t know much about relationships, but I suspected telling someone they made you feel as giddy as a foal within an hour of meeting them might be a no-no.

“Who the fuck is Nelson?”

I frowned and tapped the thing in my ear. “Can you not hear me? I said?—”

“Oh, I heard you alright. But what the fuck, Morgan? You can’t trust him. You know that. We’ve been over this.”

“He hasn’t lied… well, except for his name. But that was just at the start. He’s undercover, like me.”

Even as Nelson typed messages into his phone, he seemed to be listening to my call too. At my description of him, he looked up at me. I smiled and flashed him a thumbs-up to let him know my conversation was going swimmingly. He groaned and wiped his free hand down his face, as if he didn’t believe me. But he didn’t know Violet. If she was truly angry, she wouldn’t be yelling, she’d be silently plotting.

“Oh, and we can’t talk too long. There might be air mages? And that might be a problem? Something like that.”