The Viin


    “Trystan!” Sage screamed, running to the edge.


    “Oh dear. He fell,” Trystan replied with zero emotion behind it.


    She pped his arm and searched the dark for the body hurtling toward the earth. “Why did you do that?”


    “I have a policy against the poaching of my employees.” He straightened his shirt and brushed out the wrinkles.


    “And the punishment is death?” she said, exasperated.


    For attempting to steal Sage? The punishment was being skinned alive, but he didn’t have a butter knife on him.


    “No, it’s shoving. It was merely unlucky for him that he brought us up to such great heights.” He’d started fiddling with the pulley, and the balloon and basket began to dip in gradual degrees.


    Still shaking off the shock, Sage stood on her tiptoes to peer over his shoulder, her breath against his neck making him tremble. “Do you know how to work this thing?”


    He muttered, “You pull this lever to release the cool air into the balloon slowly, so it moves toward the ground gradually. More heat to have it move up.”


    Evie nted a hand on her hip, the other pulling her loose curls to the side so the wind would stop pushing the strands in her face. “Where did you learn that?”


    “I read science textbooks when I have spare moments in the day.”


    Evie sighed. “Ah, of course. Nothing takes your mind off murder and viiny like physics.”


    “I often find myself saying the same!” A shout over the wind made Sage scream in surprise before hurling herself into Trystan’s chest. His hand fell protectively around her on instinct.


    Physical affection had always seemed such a pointless disy to him. Holding hands, hugging, touches offort, or anything that required two people making contact other than the violent kind.


    But the way Sage felt in his arms made him want to do all those things. She’d made him want to hold hands. And he’d never forgive her for it.


    “What. The. Deands!” Evie screeched. Trystan was irritatingly amused by her outrage, her blue eyes round as saucers as Fowler floated into the basket andnded with hardly a thud. “You— He flew! You flew!”


    Fowler grinned, his stupid pompous mustache making him look like an insolent king who was ying with them like pawns on a chessboard. “He’s seen me do it before, Ms. Sage.”


    Sage shoved out of Trystan’s arms, and his hands twitched at his sides from the loss of sensation. “You knew he’d do that?”


    Yes, he had, and he was seconds from throwing Fowler over a second time.


    “I’d hoped Lord Fowler would have the courtesy to fall to his death.” Trystan red at his associate.


    Fowler winked, and it was so irksome Trystan’s eye twitched. “Perhaps next time, Viin. For now, I am so pleased to introduce you to my new and improved flying balloon!”


    Sage followed the motion of his hand up and scrunched her eyes suspiciously. “Why in the deands would you need a flying balloon when your magic seems to do that for you?”


    Fowler put a palm to his chest before looking dramatically off into the distance. “There is nothing like flying. Soaring through the air without a care in the world. The first time I did it as a boy, when my magic awoke, I couldn’t believe that others would never feel such a sensation.” He tugged on the handle, abruptly pulling them up at a rate that knocked Sage back into Trystan’s arms.


    Fowler was safe—for now.


    “I’ve dedicated my life to inventing things that could give others the exhration I have been blessed with by the gods.”


    What a load of—


    “Oh, that’s beautiful,” Sage said, breathless, folding her hands underneath her chin.


    Never mind, the fucker is dead.


    “No. It’s not. It’s a ploy and a waste of resources from this privileged fool.”


    Sage turned and red at him. “Not everyone has such deep levels of cynicism.”


    Trystan waved an arm toward the madman. “He drugged us, if you recall! And then brought us up here for gods know what reason. Where is my sister? And Tatianna? Kingsley?”


    Fowler shrugged. “I figured if we were at a great height, you were less likely to use your frightening invisible magic on me while I ask for a favor. Although, from what my guards tell me, it’s not so invisible anymore.”


    “The answer is no.”


    The lord’s mustache twitched. “I haven’t even asked the favor yet.”


    “Doesn’t matter. The answer is still no.”


    Fowler frowned. “I’m afraid I cannot gift you the wand in my collection without a little something for myself in return.”


    “What favor, Lord Fowler?” Sage inquired, ignoring Trystanpletely.


    He’d asked for this, had promoted her, given her agency, and in truth he was damn proud of her for using it. He had no right to be angry with her for going against him. He’d practically handed her a dagger and asked her to stab him in the back with it.


    Lord Fowler turned his attention on Sage. “I have been doing business with The Viin for a considerable number of years, and in all that time, I’ve never managed to get him to one of my dinner parties.”


    Sage patted the lord’s arm sympathetically, and Trystan felt gleeful at the image of bending Fowler’s elbow back until the bone snapped. “How disappointing, and what terrible business practice. On behalf of The Viin’s offices, how can I make amends?”


    Trystan groaned. “Sage, do not—”


    “I’m so d you asked, Ms. Sage! When my guards spotted you all in the area, they were kind enough to bring you in just in time for my dinner party that begins in…” Fowler checked his timepiece. “Gods, only an hour! I must dress and prepare!” A few tugs of the ropes, and the balloon was making a quick descent back toward arge house sitting against an evenrger tree.


    Theynded on a balcony, and Sage leaped out, running toward a woman emerging from the doors. “Tatianna!” Sage threw her arms around the healer, and Tatianna returned the gesture.


    “Thank the gods you’re both okay,” Tatianna said, cing a hand on Evie’s cheek. re came out after, walking tentatively toward Trystan, vying for a friendly greeting, something the siblings were unustomed to.


    “Are you all right?” re asked, reaching out to lightly pat his hand. It was stiff and awkward, but it was the most contact his sister had initiated in years. Gods, no wonder Trystan saw no sense in physical touches to disy affection. He and his whole family were abysmal at it.


    “I’m fine.” He nodded at her and reached over, patting her hand back just as stiffly and just as awkwardly.


    “Okay, enough. This is painful to watch.” Tatianna stepped between them and examined Trystan for injury. “Good?” she asked him.


    “Good,” he answered.


    His magic was quieter; though he could still feel the stirrings of it underneath his skin, it felt like a kite whose strings had slipped away from his fingers. He could feel it floating within, but it was just out of reach.


    Fowler’s treehouse was messing with it, or the proximity to Sage, or the godsforsaken curse it had apparently been under for thest decade. Take your pick. They all make me want to yell until my lungs stop working.


    That feeling wasn’t improved when Lord Fowler called to them like they were all dear friends who’d arrived there of their own free will. “Now, everyone! We have only an hour until the dinner party, and I’ve taken the liberty of having outfits prepared for all of you!” Fowler smiled, pping Trystan on the shoulder. “It’s themed, you see.”


    “Lovely,” he seethed, taking a step toward the rogue, but Sage moved between them, wrapping her arm through Fowler’s.


    Trystan’s jaw mped closed so tightly it may have cracked a tooth.


    “Lead the way, Lord Fowler. I do so love a theme. Perhaps on the way, you might give me a tour? I’d be very interested to see the wand up close.” Her eyes met Trystan’s for the briefest of moments before she looked away.


    Fowler led her through the open library doors, and Trystan stared after them, gobsmacked and feeling out of his depth.


    An elderly man who Trystan knew to be Fowler’s tried-and-true butler stepped through the open balcony doors. “Follow me, youngdies and—” The butler paused. Having met Trystan only once, the old man clearly didn’t have a very good impression of him.


    Entirely possible, as the only time Trystan was here, he threw a chair out the window. In his defense, it had tried talking to him.


    The magic in Fowler’s residence was an ambiguity that Trystan did not and could not tolerate.


    “Lead the way, Jester. I’m hungry and desire afy chair in which to rest,” Trystan gritted out.


    The butler winced, and Trystan took morbid satisfaction in it.


    They all entered the house. To attend a fucking dinner party, with conversation and—Trystan shuddered—socializing.


    It would surely end in murder.


    The question was…whose?