Kate Daniels 02 - Magic Burns

without ever noticing I’d done it. I needed armor that was hard to take off. Anything with Velcro was right out of the question.
    I was ready to give up on the armory, and then there it was, a single-edged blade, about twenty inches in length with a profile wider than, but strikingly similar to, Slayer. Perfectly balanced, with a distal taper, the sword was crafted from a single piece of spring steel with plain wooden panels for the grip. It was simple, unadorned, functional, not a medieval replica, but a modern age, no-nonsense weapon. It was perfect.
    I swung it a couple of times, getting used to the weight.
    â€œTwo swords,” Bran said from the doorway.
    His spasm had torn his clothes, and he had cut and rigged the remnants of his shirt and pants into a makeshift kilt, showcasing the world’s greatest chest. Too bad the kilt gave me a flashback to Greg’s killer. He had worn a kilt, too.
    â€œCan you handle two swords?”
    I pulled Slayer from the sheath, lunged at him, drawing a classic figure eight around his body with Slayer, and blocked his arm with the flat of the shorter blade when he tried to counter.
    â€œFancy. You missed,” he said.
    â€œYou want something?”
    â€œI thought since we both might die tomorrow, you’d be up for a friendly roll-in-the-hay.”
    â€œI might die. You’ll be healed.”
    He shook his head. “I’m not immortal, dove. Do enough damage fast and I’ll kick the bucket like the rest of you.”
    I disengaged and moved past him to the door.
    His kilt fell.
    â€œIt took me forever to fix this!” He grabbed it off the floor and it fell apart in his hand. I had cut it in three places.
    I walked out into the hallway and almost ran into Curran accompanied by a group of shapeshifters. Bran followed me in all his naked glory. “Hey, does this mean no sex?”
    Curran’s face went blank. I dodged him and kept walking.
    Bran chased me, weaving through the shapeshifters. “Get out of my way, don’t you see I’m trying to talk to a woman?”
    I made the mistake of looking back in time to see Curran reach for Bran’s neck as the Hound of Morrigan rushed by. With an effort of will that must have taken a year off his life, Curran curled his fingers into a fist and lowered his hand instead.
    I chuckled to myself and kept walking. The Universe had proven Curran wrong: a person who aggravated him more than me did, in fact, exist.
    Bran caught up with me on the stairs. “Where are you headed?”
    â€œTo a balcony. I want some fresh air.” And maybe to doze off a bit. Although I was no longer sleepy. The magic hummed in me, eager to be released. Is this how it would be when the tech finally fell for good? I wasn’t sure I could handle that much raw power. I had to hold myself back, as if I was riding a crazed horse at full gallop and the reins kept slipping through my fingers.
    Bran strode next to me, completely unconcerned with his lack of clothes. I stepped into the first room I saw, pulled a pair of gray sweatpants out of a chest of drawers—just about every room in the Keep had them, since people who shifted shapes found it convenient to have extra clothes present—and handed the pants to him.
    â€œCan’t control yourself?” He slipped into the sweatpants.
    â€œThat’s it,” I murmured, stole the spare blanket and pillow, and left the room.
    He followed me to the balcony, where I made a makeshift bed in the recessed doorway and curled up. The stone shielded me from the sun, but I saw it all: the sky veiled with sunshine and touched with feathery smudges of clouds, the bright greenery of the trees, rustling in the breeze, the stone walls, still smooth and warm to the touch. I smelled the honeyed flowers and the light scent of wolves on the breeze. I drank it all in.
    Bran perched on the stone rail. “A scrawny street kid. A throwaway human. Now you’ll go to war because of her.”
    â€œWars have been started for worse reasons.”
    He stared at me. “I don’t understand.”
    How do you explain humanity to someone who has no frame of reference? “It has to do with good and evil. You have to decide for yourself what they are. For me, evil is striving to an end without regard for the means.”
    He shook his head. “Better to do a small wrong to prevent a big one.”
    â€œHow do you decide what is a ‘small’