Rustion crosses his arms. “Hmm. Argos, what do you believe happened? And I’d like to see the stones Tully mentioned.”
Argos’s mouth pinches, and I grin fiercely at the small win of annoying him. Old Rustion is going to give him the boot. I restrain myself from cackling with happiness. I can’t wait to have this thorn out of my side.
“Lord Mayor, my illusions didn’t alter when Tully’s spell went awry.”
The way he says my name has my heart beating too fast again. I wrinkle my nose and shake that off. He is such a bastard, blaming me.
“I have lived here for almost all of my twenty-five years,” I say. “Never once has anything like this occurred until you waddled into town.”
Rustion cranes his neck to look at Kaya’s damaged roof.
“Waddled?” Argos mouths to me. He makes a show of looking at his arse, twisting and lifting his brown eyebrows.
Laini snorts. Kaya laughs, then covers her mouth. She eyes me warily and I roll my eyes.
Argos clears his throat and puts his large hands in his pockets. He has the hands of a farmer—broad and strong-looking, but he doesn’t have any scars or dirt under his nails.
“I don’t think the problem has anything to do with me,” Argos continues. “But I’m happy to show you the source of my magic.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. He removes the rocks from his pockets and displays them to Rustion in one large palm. Runes mark the smooth surface of the rounded stones. They are so black that they seem to absorb light. Power shimmers lightly from them.
“Those are dangerous,” I say.
Chapter 5
Tully
Curiosity burns in Argos’s serious gaze. “You know what these are?”
I don’t want this asshat to know I’ve never seen anything like them so I sidestep the question. “The magic coming from them is powerful. And wavering. Terrible combination. Plus, they’re being wielded by a minotaur.”
Argos looks down at the stones and huffs a laugh. “So you don’t know what they are exactly either.”
I’m going to strangle him right here with everyone watching. It’s happening for sure.
“What do you think, Lord Mayor?” he asks Rustion.
I ball my fists and force myself not to commit murder.
“I don’t know anything about the stones,” Rustion says. “But I do know that I expect you to work together to clean up this mess and to keep it from happening again. Only Tully should use her magic for the tidying. Also, would you be willing to research these rune stones, Tully? We can make a decision on using them within town limits once we know more.”
I’m not about to argue like a youngling and complain that I don’t want to help Argos. I do have an entire library of magicaltexts. There is probably something in my books and scrolls that has information on Argos’s dark magical artifacts.
“Of course, Lord Mayor,” I say in a super pleasant tone that has Laini pursing her lips and Kaya pressing a fist against her mouth to keep from laughing.
“Consider it done,” Argos says to Rustion.
“Go on about your business, everyone,” Rustion announces to the gathered people.
They break into excited conversation and slowly go back to their usual purchasing.
Kaya angles herself toward her stall where the line is quickly growing. “I’ve got to run. Keep me posted. Nice to meet you, Argos.” She glances at me with a wince, her desire to be polite overriding her loyalty. I narrow my eyes at her and she shrugs.
“Me too,” Laini says. She gives me a quick hug while Spark flies overhead, and then she leaves me alone with Argos and the emptiness of zero customers.
“Since you’ve scared off every single buyer we both had, I don’t see any reason to wait on tidying your disaster.”
“My disaster.”
