“Sera’s alleged secret, if it even exists, is not a threat to the Council,” Kai said. “And, yes, I do have something more important to do than play paranoia. I’m supposed to meet her for dinner.”

“That there is the whole problem. Don’t you see?” Blackbrooke waved his hand around, his movement clumsy and awkward. He really was drunk. “You’re a powerful Sniffer yourself, Kai. Better than those enchanted artifacts we use as magic detectors. You can detect even a weak mage from a block away.”

Kai’s eyes narrowed. “And?”

“And your mercenary is not a weak mage. You must have known she’s powerful from the moment you met her, no matter how good she is at hiding her magic,” he said. “You knew and didn’t tell the Magic Council.”

“I was always getting distracted by her sword.”

“You were distracted all right, but not by her sword,” he snapped. “I never would have expected such egregious behavior from you, Kai. You’ve changed.”

“You sure haven’t.”

“I should think not.” Blackbrooke straightened, as though the implication of change felt like an army of fire ants crawling across his skin. “Our order is an ancient one. Your duty to the Magic Council is far more important than your latest conquest.”

“Sera is not a conquest. She’s a person,” Kai growled, his magic buzzing in the air. “I brought her here to be tested in the Magic Games. She’s done her duty. And so have I.”

“Just see to it that you do,” Blackbrooke replied with a haughty twitch of his head.

Something in that twitch got Kai’s back up. His magic went from buzzing to electrifying. “Leave her be, Duncan. There’s no need to treat her differently than any other Magic Games participant.”

“As you said, she’s special.”

The determination in his tone should have worried Sera—someone on the Magic Council had made it his own personal project to rip her mind apart until he uncovered her secret—but she couldn’t worry about that right now. The air popped with the lust and blood of hungry minds and even hungrier magic. Vampires. A whole lot of vampires. They were close.

Sera turned, scanning the area for them, but they weren’t anywhere in sight. Realization smashed into her like a wrecking ball. They weren’t inside. They were outside, cloaked by shadows.

She sprinted up the stairs into the indoor Observation Deck, ignoring Blackbrooke’s bemused expression as she passed him and Kai. Drawing her sword as she ran, she beelined for the door that led to the outdoor deck. A vampire was already there. He looked just as bemused as Blackbrooke, so she must have surprised him while he’d been lurking there. Lurking? The thing was, common vampires didn’t lurk; they attacked in a fit of bloodlust. Someone was controlling this vampire, just like someone had controlled the gang of bloodsuckers at Macy’s yesterday. There were more vampires here too. Sera could feel them outside, also lurking.

She swung her sword at the vampire. He crumpled to her feet, his head sliced right off, but another one had already taken his place. The other vampires jumped at the windows, their fists pounding like an army of synchronized hammers. The glass began to buckle and crack under the strain of their collective supernatural strength.

“Keep Blackbrooke back! Away from the windows!” she shouted to Kai. “They’ve come to finish the job!”

Her second opponent proved not quite as headless as his predecessor. He ducked the sideways slash of her sword, then kicked out, knocking her back into the room. As she touched down, the windows shattered, and a river of broken glass rained into the room. The vampires swung inside, each one landing in a crouch. There had to be a dozen of them. The wind howled at their backs, the city lights casting eerie halos around them.

Kai had pulled Blackbrooke behind him, but another batch of vampires had broken through. They were flooding into the room, their movements crisp and efficient. Before Sera could intercept, two of them had grabbed Blackbrooke. Kai was too busy fighting the others to stop them as they chomped down on the mage’s neck. She rushed in like a child on a mission to scatter some pigeons. Unfortunately, vampires weren’t pigeons. They continued to feast on Blackbrooke’s blood. Only when Sera’s sword had punctured their monstrous hearts did they finally stop drinking.

She crouched down beside Blackbrooke. “What kind of mage are you?”

He didn’t answer. His lips twitched, and panic poured out of his aura, flooding the room. The vampires paused to sniff the air. Feral smiles broke out on their lips, and they snarled in appreciation. Blackbrooke’s fear was pumping them up.

“Hey, stop that.” Sera slapped his face. “Snap out of it. We need some help.”

Blackbrooke hugged his knees, his eyes wide. He was in shock. Sera shook her head and rose to her feet.

“He’s a healer,” Kai told her, smashing the vampires with a blast of wind. One of them flew through the broken window and tumbled off the side of the building.

“In other words, not very useful in a fight.”

“Not really,” he said. “Afterwards maybe.”

So the sadistic mind behind the Magic Games—the man who tormented mages until their minds broke, then roasted their secrets on a spit—was a healer. Talk about irony. Blood dripped down Blackbrooke’s neck, but he didn’t even put up his hand to stop it. Or try to heal himself. He seemed to have forgotten he even had magic. He was the broken one now.