Richelle Mead - Gameboard of the Gods

And Mae not hating you, added Magnus.

Why are you guys such buzzkills? Justin asked them.

But both were valid points, especially the former. As much as he’d enjoyed his mini-vacation, SCI’s bureaucratic delay had eaten up days he really couldn’t afford to waste. At least they’d reinstated his database access, so the time hadn’t been completely wasted. He’d been able to check current servitor records against what he remembered of cults that might have silver and moon connections, creating a list of groups worth visiting. He still wasn’t sure whether cracking the case would ensure or harm his ability to stay, but there was no use worrying about it tonight.

A server delivered several dishes to their table, all of which earned wary looks from Tessa—at least until the rice showed up. Her expression brightened at that and then almost comically plummeted again when she saw the chopsticks. Justin requested a fork for her but warned her that she needed to try everything.

“So this is what parenting’s like,” he murmured to Cynthia. Quentin had eagerly jumped in to teach Tessa how to use the chopsticks, just as he’d also volunteered to be her media guide. With his simpler explanations, Quentin actually did a pretty good job and seemed to have a crush on her to boot.

Cynthia shook her head. “You don’t know anything about parenting. Thankfully. It’s a lot harder than you think. Speaking of which…I don’t suppose you’ve told Mom you’re back?”

Justin nodded his thanks as a glass of bourbon arrived. Not the greatest complement to curry, but he felt he deserved something before returning to the grind tomorrow. “I don’t even think she realized I was gone. Besides, if she finds out about our living situation, she’ll want in on it too. Do you want to risk that?”

Cynthia answered with a grimace. No matter how different the siblings had become, there were certain things they were still of one mind on.

“Oh,” Tessa breathed with pleasure, looking up from her pad Thai.

Justin followed her gaze to a commercial showing a model in a fuchsia party dress. “Look at that,” he said. “You’re a real girl after all. You want it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how it would look.” Her Gemman wardrobe thus far had been ordered straight off the stream, consisting of everyday items in sensible colors. To everyone’s surprise, she’d taken to jeans right away, something Justin had been worried about after her lifetime of ankle-length skirts. He squinted at the address at the ad’s bottom.

“That’s right around the corner,” he said. “We can stop by after dinner.”

“No way,” said Cynthia. “I don’t want to go into that store. All those girls are half my age. It makes me feel like I’m clutching desperately at my youth.”

“Whatever you say, old lady. I’ll go with Tessa.”

“Yeah, because that’s not creepy at all.”

In the end, they decided to split up. Cynthia returned home with Quentin, and Justin took Tessa shopping. His sister wasn’t entirely off about the weirdness of being a thirtysomething guy in a teen girls’ clothing store, but it wasn’t like he was trying things on with her. He turned her over to a capable saleswoman, who was more than happy to show Tessa to the advertised dress…and many more.

Justin made himself comfortable on a purple bench near the dressing rooms. A screen on the wall flashed the day’s news stories. Cyn is wrong. Parenting’s not that hard as long as you have an open wallet, he told the ravens.

Horatio didn’t agree. Thank the gods you haven’t yet impregnated anyone.

I told you not to bring up any gods now that we’re back. I’m in enough trouble.

Not talking about something won’t make it go away, Horatio warned him.

His mental conversation was interrupted by the sight of a familiar face on the screen. His jaw nearly hit the floor. “Is that Lucian?” he asked aloud. The question was rhetorical, but a hovering saleswoman heard him.

“Lucian Darling? Of course it is.”

The volume was off, but a headline on the screen read: Consular Candidates Make Campaign Stops. Justin had to read it twice. “He’s…running for consul?”

The saleswoman, who’d seemed quite charmed by Justin when he came in, now looked at him like he was crazy. “How can you not know that?”

“Even I know that,” said Tessa, timidly stepping out in the pink dress.

“You live in front of the screen,” he said. He glanced back at the beaming senator as he shook hands with a crowd. “What the hell did he do to his hair? Are those highlights?”

“They’re hot,” said the saleswoman.

Justin didn’t dignify that with a response and instead tried to focus on Tessa and the dress. The bold color contrasted with her nervousness, but overall, the look transformed her. She looked like a typical Gemman girl.

“It’s cute,” he told her fondly. Tessa blushed with pleasure.

“Where would I wear this?” she asked.

“We’ll find a place,” he assured her. “Maybe the Feriae—the summer holidays.”

Or maybe a date, suggested Horatio slyly. Only a matter of time before boys come calling. Time to get a taste of your own medicine.

Shut up, Justin told him.

In the end, at Justin’s urging, Tessa ended up with two dresses. As the saleswoman wrapped them up, Justin asked Tessa, “Tell me about Lucian, media expert. Why is he running for consul?”

She looked startled but proved to be a diligent reporter. “Because he wants to run the country? I don’t know. But he’s on the news every day. He’s one of the most popular candidates. They make a lot of jokes about his name, and his big thing is that it’s time to progress into the next phase. He says the Age of Decline is over and that the Age of Renewal should be too, that it’s time for something bigger and greater. His campaign slogan is ‘Ushering in the New Age.’”

“Catchy. I knew that outstanding memory of yours would come in handy,” he told her.

Tessa smiled at him as she accepted the bag from the saleswoman. “His opponents give him a hard time about it not being specific enough. They call it ‘Darling’s Unknown Age’ and ‘Age of X.’ Do you know him?”

“He was my college roommate,” Justin said, still unable to believe this development. He’d always thought Lucian had gone into politics only to get wined and dined by lobbyists, a theory backed by Lucian’s having been on the most brainless senate committees available. How did one go from that to consul?

“You guys have the same smile, you know,” said Tessa after several moments of thought. “Did you guys practice with each other?”

Justin headed for the door. “He stole it from me.”

His first task for SCI actually wasn’t a visit to the murder sites or even the religious groups he’d tagged as possible culprits. He’d meant what he said to Cornelia: He had someone he was certain could crack the video. If it really was faked. The problem was, his contact was being annoyingly uncooperative. Leo Chan was the best biotech engineer Justin had ever met, one Justin had eventually used exclusively because everyone else looked like an amateur in comparison. Apparently in the last four years, though, Leo had given up his government job for the private sector and relocated to Portland. Leo had been wary when Justin called, and refused the invitation to come up to Vancouver. That meant Justin had to go to Portland, since he wasn’t allowed to send that dangerous video through the stream. It had to be delivered in person.

The morning of the trip, Justin got up early to go jogging. It had sort of become a mandatory practice after resuming his Exerzol habit. Exerzol was a hundred times better than caffeine when it came to focus and alertness, though not nearly as powerful as a similar one he’d found in Panama. Unlike that sketchy drug, however, Exerzol was much less likely to give him a heart attack. It always hit him with a jolt in the mornings, providing a burst of nervous energy that had immediately been apparent to Cynthia. “Do not hang around this house high,” she warned him the first time she’d noticed the rush. There’d been a look in her eyes he knew all too well, one that only a fool would cross.