Deception of the Magician (Waldgrave Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mrs. Corbett, changing Darius’s diapers and dealing with last minute travel changes for various Council members—these were often hard to deal with, as the visas had to be planned months in advance.
    A few days later, after Howard had cleared the arrangement (though doing this was not easy), Lena found herself happier than she should have been to be crammed in the backseat of the sedan between her mother and Mrs. Ralston. Howard drove, and Master Daray gave an ongoing commentary from the front passenger seat.
    “It’s been a few years now since we’ve done this, hasn’t it Howard? I see they’ve finally finished the repairs to the road from so many winters ago. Lazy humans—can’t even patch up potholes in a decent time span. When I rebuilt Waldgrave after the fire, I used only Silenti labor, and the house was up in less than two months. Lucky the original foundations survived the fire; that did help. Of course, human-borns have always inherited the laziness and other weaknesses of their less-than-pure heritage, and I was constantly on them to get it done that quickly…”
    He trailed on from there about the details of the house and how much he hated humans, human-borns, and the general prospect of servants ever gaining the political standing they were recently asking for. Lena began to tune him out, but he noticed, and so said something she couldn’t ignore.
    “I made them sleep in tents until the house was done enough for the servants’ quarters to be livable. That was a harsh winter; I believe we lost five or ten to pneumonia and hypothermia, but in the end it was well worth it.”
    “They died?” Lena asked.
    “Hmm…from the cold. It wasn’t a huge expense, though. After the house was finished I turned all of them out. I wasn’t sure who I could trust, you see, so they all had to go. I took on a modest amount of servants the following spring, and even with the time it took them to adjust to the way I liked my household to be run, I still consider it worth it. Of course, I inevitably threw all of them out again when Thomas was murdered…lazy, sneaky, self-serving, back-stabbing rats.”
    Lena looked over at Mrs. Ralston, who was looking stoically out the window. She grabbed her hand and tried to ignore the biological relationship she shared with the man in the front passenger seat.    
    “Most of the new servants were children between the ages of eight and fourteen given as tribute from faithful supporters of our family—“
    Howard interjected. “You’re done. No more talking until we get there. And so help me, I’m not above turning this car around and giving my recommendation that you never leave the house again.”
    Howard kept his eyes on the road, but Lena could see he was clutching the steering wheel a little too tightly. Daray sighed and turned his head to look conceitedly out the window. Five minutes later Howard’s cell phone started buzzing; he unclipped it from his belt and threw it over his shoulder in Lena’s general direction.
    Lena opened the cell phone and pressed it to her ear. “You’ve reached Howard Collin’s personal number, he’s unavailable at the moment, how may I direct your call?”
    “Lena, put Howard on.” Griffin’s tone was…defeated. Maybe a little angry.
    Lena raised her eyebrows, surprised to be hearing Griffin’s voice. “He’s driving.”
    “So tell him to pull over, dammit!” The anger in his voice was rising, but after he had ignored her for so long, Lena wasn’t in the mood to bend to his wishes over a little yelling.
    “Oh, okay, calm down now! I’m not going to—“     
    An eruption of yells and expletives came out of the phone so loud that everyone in the car could hear.
    “Griffin, just take it down a notch and tell me what you want!” Lena hissed into the phone.
    There was dead silence on the line. In the rearview mirror, Howard watched Lena’s expression go from annoyed, to shocked, to devilishly amused.
    “Okay. I’ll tell