Free Master and Apprentice by Sonya Bateman

such spell.”
    “Ah, yes. There’s the paradox.” Calvin shook his head. “I’ve been able to modify the ham’tari —”
    “Enough, snake!” Ian blanched with fury, and I wished for something big and solid to hide behind. A mountain range would be great. “Even the Bahari have been unable to manipulate the ham’tari, and they created it . I will hear no more of your lies.”
    Bad move, Calvin. I remembered hearing about that particular spell. It had been used against Ian’s father before the Morai clan leader killed him, and not in a good way. Most curses weren’t intended to benefit the recipient.
    “Believe what you will, rayan, ” Calvin said. “And do what you must. I don’t fear you as much as you’d like to think, since I know you won’t find my tether.”
    The cold smile revisited Ian’s face, and I resigned myself to running painful interference any second. “I do not require your tether to neutralize you,” he said. “I will simply remove your deceitful tongue from your mouth.”
    The exaggerated sound of a creaking door came from the laptop on the desk, followed by a pop. An instant-message chat window appeared on the screen. I couldn’t quite read what it said from across the room, but I made out the avatar the sender was using. It was a photo of a raccoon. With a pink collar.
    “Mercy,” I blurted. “Holy … cow. You’re Cal.”
    Calvin moved between me and the laptop, wearing the same I’ll-castrate-you expression Ian used whenever anyone mentioned Akila. “How do you know her?” he demanded. “If anything’s happened to her …”
    “Gifter of wards,” Ian said with a sneer. “Tell me, Khalyn.
    If you know nothing of these scions, what do you believe your Mercy needs protection from?”
    Crud. He did have a point.
    A bright and tingling ribbon of sensation wormed through my gut, raising gooseflesh and the hairs on the back of my neck. It took me a few seconds to realize it wasn’t my nerves. It was magic. “Ian,” I stage-whispered. “Does something feel different to you?”
    Calvin reacted first. His eyes widened, and he snatched for his glasses and shot to his feet. “My wards,” he said. “Someone’s taken apart the spells. Only—” His entire body shuddered. “You have to leave this place. Now. Use the mirror, but don’t travel to any place you want to stay undiscovered. Once you’ve arrived wherever you’re going, leave immediately.”
    “What’s going on?” I looked to Ian for an explanation.
    “There is another djinn approaching. And not alone.” A strange look shadowed his features—part rage, part resignation, and something else I couldn’t identify. “Khalyn is correct. We must leave. We are too weak to face them.”
    Calvin made his way to the door. “Go quickly. I can’t hold them off for long.” With that, he slipped from the room and closed us in.
    “Jesus Christ.” I let out the breath I’d been holding. “I hope you know where we’re supposed to be going, because I didn’t follow any of that.”
    “Yes.” Ian shook himself and approached the mirror, already drawing blood from a finger with his teeth. “We will return to the staging point, and travel on foot from there. We cannot go directly home. They may be able to trace the spell.”
    I decided to save my questions for later. The tingling ribbon had spread and invaded my limbs. Somehow I understood thatwhatever was out there, it was powerful. And extremely angry. “Hurry up,” I said.
    Ian had already opened the bridge. The mirror no longer reflected the study. Now it showed a shadow-drenched standard hotel bathroom, as viewed from above the sink. “Go,” he told me. “I will follow you directly.”
    “You’d better.” The brief idea that he might stay behind and try to take on the new arrivals left as soon as it came. Even Ian wasn’t that stupid.
    Or was he?
    Before I could reconsider, my feet carried me through the mirror, and I emerged shivering in the hotel