Biting Cold: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel (CHICAGOLAND VAMPIRES SERIES)

with a delicate teacup and saucer dotted with small pink flowers. “Would you like some tea?”
    “No, thank you,” Ethan said. We took seats on the couch, bags and swords at our feet.
    “You have a lot of books,” he said.
    “I’m an archivist,” she said. “It’s what I do.”
    “Read?” I asked.
    “Learn and catalogue,” she said. “I compile the history of what came before, and I record the history as it happens. And, frankly, I have a lot of time to read out here.”
    “This isn’t quite the frontier,” Ethan said.
    “For humans, no. But magically? It’s basically a vacuum. Isolated, both from magic makers and supernatural populations. That makes it a great place to house the Maleficium , when it’s our turn to keep it, but not much else.”
    “Is it here?” Ethan asked.
    “Safe and sound in the silo,” she said. “So, officially, welcome to the repository for the Maleficium . At least for now. When they found out Mallory escaped again, they started making arrangements for a new location.”
    “Shouldn’t they have picked it up by now?” I wondered.
    She smirked. “You’re assuming they’re eager to carry it around. That is not the case. Baumgartner’s having to call in substantial favors just to get potential transporters to consider it. Too much risk. When someone finally volunteers, it will be a blind drop to protect their identity. Or supposedly.” Paige narrowed her gaze at Ethan. “The Order wasn’t thrilled when it was taken from Cadogan House. We all expected it would be safe there.”
    “At the risk of being insensitive to your concerns,” Ethan said, “I was dead when the book was stolen. And it was stolen by one of your own, not a vampire. Who then tried to make me into her familiar.”
    She tilted her head. “You don’t much look like anyone’s familiar.”
    “I’m not, so far as we can tell. Her spell was interrupted before she finished it.”
    But not before the skies were roiling and Midway Plaisance was aflame , I thought.
    Paige scanned him with magical interest. “She got just far enough to bring you back, but not quite far enough to make you a slathering minion. Good for you. On the other hand, that really doesn’t say much for Simon.”
    “Not that I disagree with the sentiment,” I said, “but how so?”
    Paige shrugged. “She tried to create a familiar, and Simon didn’t notice. That’s complicated magic. A lot of bits and pieces. Ingredients, mechanisms, props, and, in this case, the Maleficium . Before Baumgartner told me about that part of it, I was going to give Simon the benefit of the doubt about missing what she was doing, but . . .”
    “Now not so much?” Ethan finished.
    Paige shrugged. “A little spell, a minor charm, a sorceress only has to say a few words. Those bits of magic are more akin to sleight of hand than true enchantments. They’re all but illusions, and they don’t take long—or much—to manage. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Simon had missed those. But making a familiar? That’s the real deal. Complicated, picky, and heavy-duty. There would have been signs, not just in her workspace, but on her.”
    “Working black magic chaps her hands,” I said.
    “Signs,” Paige said with a nod. “And Simon’s less of a sorcerer for failing to notice them . . . and failing to stop her.”
    “And Catcher?” Ethan wondered.
    Paige’s expression shuttered. “He’s not a member of the Order, so it’s not my place to discuss him.”
    She deferred, but the narrowing of her gaze and acerbic breeze of magic said plenty enough: It had been an all-around bad week for Chicago sorcerers. It made me feel better that vampires weren’t, for once, the ones causing the problems.
    Paige looked at me. “I understand you were friends with Mallory. Has she made any contact with you?”
    She said we “were” friends, like Mallory and I had gotten a divorce and gone our separate ways. That thought didn’t exactly sit well.
    I shook my head. “No contact. Last time I saw her, she was being taken away by the Order.”
    “And now she wants another shot at the Maleficium ,” Ethan said. “She failed to achieve her goal, and she wants to try again.”
    “She was trying to put dark and light magic back together,” I explained. “Good and evil. Her magic makes her uncomfortable—physically ill—and she thinks releasing the evil in the Maleficium will make her feel better. From what I understand, the familiar spell was her