Bewitched & Betrayed Read Online Free Page B

buxom, blue-eyed, blond working girl sashayed by with a come-hither glance at Phaelan, and legwork took on a whole new meaning.
    “Speaking of treats,” he said, moving to follow her.
    I grabbed him by the arm.
    Phaelan wasn’t particularly tall, but he was dark and definitely handsome. Many of the working girls obviously had working eyes, and were doing their best to give my cousin the come-hither. Phaelan’s dark eyes were busy remembering the cream of the crop for later visits.
    Once the coach was safely on its way, Mychael came over to where we were. Vegard had been guarding me from a discreet distance. He was supposed to stick to me like glue, but he was considerate enough to occasionally give me a little breathing room.
    “I take it you received my bill?” Phaelan asked Mychael once he was close enough.
    I couldn’t believe my ears. “You billed him?”
    Phaelan looked mildly insulted. “Mid’s establishments aren’t cheap. I merely wanted reimbursement for services rendered.”
    I laughed once. “For services rendered to you .”
    My cousin waved a negligent hand. “Same thing.” He beamed with his newfound civic pride. “I believe in being thorough. And I’m only billing him for half. The Fortune has been anchored in Mid’s harbor for damned near two months. We’ve never stayed anywhere this long; my men were getting restless, so I footed the bill for half.”
    “How generous of you.”
    “I thought so. My men are happy; you bagged yourself a ghost.”
    “Specter,” I corrected him.
    “Same thing.”
    “One’s dead. The other is not.”
    “Whatever. Either way, tonight was a win-win for me and Mychael.”
    I turned to Mychael. “And you agreed to this?”
    Mychael smiled slightly. “It seemed a small price to pay. I’ve got enough problems; I didn’t want to add ‘restless’ pirates to the list. It kept the peace.”
    Phaelan grinned wickedly. “And we got a piece.”
    There was a commotion at the entrance to the Satyr’s Grove.
    “Stay here,” Mychael told me. “Phaelan, Vegard—”
    Vegard stepped up beside me. “Keeping her here, sir.”
    Mychael’s eyes met mine. “I’ll be right back.”
    Phaelan’s civic-mindedness had helped snare one Saghred escapee, but there were five more out there—and one of them was Sarad Nukpana. The others appeared to be sticking to the goblin’s plan; and worse, they were saving their collective strength, or at least they weren’t wasting it in bordellos. All that power, millennia of intelligence—and it had a purpose.
    I looked around us. At nearly two bells in the morning, the red-light district was a busy place. The entire city was busy, day or night. The Isle of Mid was home to the most prestigious college for sorcery, as well as the Conclave, the governing body for all magic users in the seven kingdoms. Thousands of students and mages, and somewhere among them were the specters of five escaped sorcerers, spirits without bodies. The one tonight had taken a body for fun; the others were stalking bodies for power. Mychael had safety measures in place for the students, though he thought that the students would be safe. The specters were after power, so a teenager sputtering through his or her first spells need not apply.
    Mychael had made sure that everyone on the island was aware of the situation. But for the vast majority of those on Mid, it was school and business as usual. Public opinion split between not believing in what they deemed ghosts or believing they were qualified to protect themselves. They practiced magic, yet they didn’t believe in ghosts.
    The public were idiots.
    There was plenty of horse and coach traffic along the cobbled and lamp- lit streets. Many of the coaches clearly cost a small fortune, and no doubt their occupants were shopping for equally expensive company. The curtains on most of the coaches were closed. Rich men or women who couldn’t afford—or couldn’t risk—a house call didn’t want to advertise