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All men are liars. All women are liars, too. I learned that fact when I was two years old and my grandmother told me that if I was a good girl and sat still, the shot the doctor was about to give me wouldn’t hurt. It was the first time my young brain connected the unsettling feeling of my magic talent detecting a lie to the actions of other people.
mkay, the prologue was in 3rd person, about Kelly and Tom and Kelly's cousin Connor 2 days after Kelly's son committed an arson. now we're in 1st person, who's talking?? when are we??
John’s wife was named Liz, and two days ago she hired me to find out if he was cheating on her.
ok, helpful. and whoever is narrating can detect lies.
Liz would pay us a thousand dollars when I brought her the proof. It was all she could get her hands on without John knowing about it. It wasn’t much, but we weren’t in a position to turn down work, and as far as jobs went, this one was simple. Once they walked out of the hotel, I’d leave through the side exit, notify Liz, and collect our fee.
I appreciate this detail.
Pyrokinetics manipulated fire, aquakinetics manipulated water, and enerkinetics manipulated raw magical energy. Nobody was quite sure what the nature of that energy was, but it was a relatively common magic. How in the world did Bern miss all this in the background check? When I got home, my cousin and I would have to have words.
who is this?!
“I thought he was a dud.” I shook my head. “Enerkinetic magic. He was a vet.” Bern’s face fell. He frowned and marched out of the room.
ok, honest mistake, I guess.
On the left side of the screen, a female news anchor with impossibly perfect hair profiled the recent arson at First National, while the right side of the screen showed a tornado of fire engulfing the building. The orange flames billowed out the windows.
ok! the prologue was about an unrelated couple! Nevada is the main character. Kelly and Tom are just the random parents of one of the arsonists! got it!
Everyone in Houston knew who Adam Pierce was. Magic users were divided into five ranks: Minor, Average, Notable, Significant, and Prime. Born with a rare pyrokinetic talent, Pierce had Stainless Steel classification. A pyrokinetic was considered Average if he could melt a cubic foot of ice under a minute. In the same amount of time, Adam Pierce could conjure a fire that would melt a cubic foot of stainless steel. That made Pierce a Prime, the highest rank of magic user. Everybody wanted him—the military, Home Defense, and the private sector.
ok.
A wealthy, established family, the Pierces owned Firebug, Inc., the leading provider of industrial forging products. Adam, handsome and magically spectacular, was the pride and joy of House Pierce. He’d grown up wrapped in tender luxury, had gone to all the right schools, had worn all the right clothes, and his future had had golden sparkles all over it. He’d been a rising star and the most eligible bachelor. Then, in his early twenties, he’d given them all the finger, declared himself a radical, and gone off to start a motorcycle gang.
ok! And I'm assuming because Kelly asked Connor to help find her son that the romantic story will be between Nevada and Connor?
“Hot!” Arabella said. “Stop it,” Mom told her. Grandma Frida walked into the room. “Ooh, here is my boy.” “Mother,” Mom growled. “What? I can’t help it. It’s the devil eyes.”
and weirdly, everyone is enamored of this pyromaniac murderer.
Grandma shrugged. “Framed. A man that pretty can’t be a murderer.” Mother stared at her. “Penelope, I’m seventy-two years old. You let me enjoy my fantasy.” “Go Grandma.” Arabella pumped her fist in the air.
what is happening?? a guy is dead because this Adam Pierce started a fire! it's Adam Pierce the love interest???
“I screwed up.” Bern leaned against the counter. His grey eyes were full of remorse. “I had a modern history exam. It’s not my strongest class, and I needed at least a B to keep the scholarship, so I had to cram. I gave it to Leon. He ran the lineage and the background check, but forgot to log in to the DOD database.” “It’s okay,” I told him. Leon was sixteen. Getting him to sit still for longer than thirty seconds was like trying to herd cats through a shower.
this is a cool family business thing. like a group of lovable orphans or something
He probably had to have protective detail when he left the building to fend off all the sculptors who wanted to immortalize him in marble.
ha!
I couldn’t believe it. “We’re a tiny family firm. Look at our records. We aren’t bounty hunters. We do small-time insurance fraud investigations and cheating spouse cases.” “It’s time to expand your repertoire. You’re showing a ninety percent success rate with your cases. You have our complete confidence.” We showed a 90 percent success rate because I didn’t take a case unless I knew we could handle it. “He’s a Prime pyrokinetic. We don’t have the manpower.”
all very sound! but he will insist!!
Do you think we have any chance at all?” “Yes.” My magic buzzed. He just lied. The realization hit me like a load of bricks dumped on my head. “That’s it, isn’t it? You know bringing Pierce in will be expensive and difficult. You’ll lose people, trained, skilled personnel in whom you’ve invested time and money, and in the end it will cost more than whatever the family is paying you. But you probably can’t turn House Pierce down, so you’re going to give this to us, and when it ends in disaster, you can show them our records. You can tell the Pierces that you assigned it to your best outfit with
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she is very sharp. but I'm sure he will still insist!!
I bet the cops had a file on Pierce that was a mile thick. That file would be an awesome place to start, except they wouldn’t let me look at it. First, I was a civilian, and second, I was in competition with the cops. In the crime novels, a PI is either an ex-cop or has some cop buddies who owed him a favor and who happily provided him with the department’s files, while carrying on about how it could cost them their job. I had no cop buddies.
another really important detail!!
She was in her late thirties, athletic, attractive, with medium brown skin and a dark wealth of curly hair, currently pulled back from her face into a knot.
how do you know she has a wealth of curls if they're pulled back in a knot?!
“Who posted his bail?” “One of his college buddies. Cornelius Maddox Harrison.”
could that be Connor??
The war was terrible. In the end, Mexico relinquished its hold on Belize, but the ripples of that invasion spread through South America. Armed conflicts flared and died down across half a dozen nations. Mad Rogan made his name in those conflicts. He was off the charts even for the Primes. Nobody knew exactly what he was capable of, but everyone knew the name. Mad Rogan. The Butcher of Merida. Huracan.
if Conner - Mad Rogan - is the same as Cornelius Maddox... then he's buddies with Adam Pierce, and they're both stupid-powerful.
Nobody wants to be Adam Pierce’s friend right this second, let alone help Gavin Waller. We might be okay.”
mmmmmm, but of course no, the prologue showed us Mad Rogan is indeed going to help find Gavin... so Nevada will go after Gavin thinking no one else is looking for him and maybe Gavin will know where to find Adam Pierce but I'm guessing she'll run right into Connor
Cornelius Maddox Harrison lived in Royal Oaks, which was slightly strange. I would’ve expected an address inside the Loop.
why are we looking for him? I thought we were looking for Gavin...
Cornelius Harrison was the second son of Rupert and Martha Harrison.
oh ok, not Connor... I guess the "Mad" is just a coincidence.
Cornelius leaned toward me slightly, his eyes serious. “He would’ve burned that man to death over a candy bar. Adam takes what he wants, and if you tell him no, he will hurt you. That’s the kind of person you’re dealing with. I won’t say good luck, but take care.”
mkay so, so far the picture that we're getting is that Connor is misunderstood and a former military personnel who is very powerful and was probably forced to do some really unsavory things in South America during the South America Wars. On the other hand, Adam just seems evil. Connor will be moody and misunderstood and Adam will be charismatic and legitimately evil.
It was all motor pool: sealed concrete floor polished to a shiny dark smoothness, tools on the walls, armored vehicles, some with small guns, some with tanklike barrels, crouching in the gloom, and the Grandma smell: gas, engine oil, and gunpowder.
I love how unexpected it is that the grandma is the grease monkey
Gustave’s Custom Cycles occupied a rectangular steel building with corrugated metal walls. It was exactly two hundred feet wide and eight hundred feet long, manufactured by Olympia Steel Buildings, delivered to the site and assembled there four years and seven months ago.
That is outrageously specific
A complicated magic circle, drawn in black and white chalk, marked the boardwalk and the wall around him. Three rings within each other, three half circles facing outward, their backs touching the middle ring. Spider-thin perfectly straight lines crossed back and forth within the circles, forming an elaborate pattern. Half circles out meant containment. He was holding in his power.
interesting?
To the right of me two women chatted on a bench. The one on the left had long silver-blond hair that fell down to her chest without any hint of a curl. She wore a peach teardrop dress that stopped midthigh and probably cost about as much as my best professional suit. Her tan was golden, her makeup bright and flawless. Her dark-haired friend had chosen a pearl-colored asymmetric top with a soft feminine ruffle and a pale grey pencil skirt. Both wore high-heeled shoes so delicate that they looked like they would break if any actual weight rested on them.
what is the point of this???
I looked into his blue eyes. The romance books I read to unwind had all sorts of ways to describe dangerous men. They compared them to wolves, lions, tigers. By that logic, this man was a dragon, regal and deadly, and he was coming for me.
okie dokie... Connor??
Mad Rogan stared at me with his blue eyes. They opened wide, like two windows into the depth of him, and magic glared back at me. Monstrous, shocking magic, a living darkness filled with flashes of intense light and power. I might as well have looked into the heart of a supernova. I forgot to breathe. My heart tried to run away without the rest of me. My hands shook.
definitely the love interest
His torso was bare too. Supple, hard muscle corded his frame. Carved biceps stood out on his arms, like living steel. His powerful chest slimmed down into flat planes of hard, ridged stomach. Pale stripes of scars crossed his bronze skin. He wasn’t just toned. He had the kind of body that was meant for combat: strong, flexible, hard, and fueled with explosive power. If Adam Pierce were present, he would perish in a fit of jealousy.
but of course
“Two-bit magician?” “Men like you enjoy being flattered.”
ha!
“You have to be very sure, darling. Once they go in, they stay in forever.” “How likely is it to kill me?” “Less than one percent of the bindings go wrong, and if Makarov installs them, you won’t have an issue. But bindings aren’t your biggest problem. It’s using those bastards. Do it wrong, and it will kill you.” “Then I’m sure.” The next time Mad Rogan came near me, he would be in for a hell of a surprise. “Let me make a call.” Grandma rose.
I hate that she's going to do this irreversible procedure just to get some shockers put in her. I don't like this.
I can’t believe I’ve been obsessing over his eyes. I can’t believe I thought he was hot when I was watching him walk toward me. I should’ve known right then he was trouble. A man like that didn’t just take a stroll through botanical gardens. I saw a tiger with glowing eyes and teeth as big as my fingers, and instead of running for my life, I sat there and admired how handsome he was while he got close enough to pounce.
we're all weak, girl
“I went to college. When I started my master’s, I realized that it would never be enough. All my life the House would expect me to climb the ladder of their expectations. Get a degree. Make money. Marry right. Produce intelligent, magically gifted children. Make more money. They had me for over twenty years. That’s all they get.”
I keep forgetting this guy is like 25 when he talks like he's 16
“Is it going to hurt?” “You bet.” Sergeant Major had a lousy bedside manner.
ha! you deserve it! this is bad idea!
“I need to talk to you,” Mad Rogan said into the phone. “Meet me for lunch.”
I absolutely love that this is the guy that kidnapped her and the guy that she just got shockers installed into her arms to defend against and he's just casually calling to meet for lunch and of course she's going to casually go meet him for lunch for plot reasons
He broke apart his pair of chopsticks, rubbed them against each other, and held one at eye level, thicker end toward the ceiling. He opened his fingers. The chopstick remained suspended above the table. Impressive. I knew this game. We all played it in elementary school to identify our magic. If you could move the chopstick off the table, you were telekinetic. If you could lift the chopstick and hold it steady, you were a high-precision telekinetic and people would come to talk to your parents and offer scholarships for the commitment to future employment. They would pay for your education,
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I guess this whole passage can be considered good background for understanding the rules of this world and I guess I can understand that precise magic like this is more elegant than just exploding buildings but... give me the Merovingian giving a woman an orgasm with a piece of cake. give me bending spoons! give me prophecy! give me multidimensional transference!! are we supposed to be impressed he probably sat in a room somewhere and practiced this for years?! it's not very imaginative!
Explain the kidnapping part.” “It’s not relevant.”
I'm sorry sir but to me it is!
“You are incredibly powerful, and you have a blatant disregard for laws and moral constraints. I’m guessing that you don’t think anything you ever do is wrong. That makes you very dangerous and a huge liability in my line of work. You will break laws and kill to get what you want, and if I manage to survive, I’ll be left with the fallout. So the answer is no.”
she is very smart. I mean, she'll still totally say yes eventually but...
I spoke and heard my own voice, inhuman and terrible. “Did you order someone to hurt my grandmother?” His will fought mine, steel-hard and unyielding, but I was too angry. He refused to bend, so I chained him in place and squeezed. He unlocked his jaws. The answer was a growl. “No.” Truth. I compelled him to answer. I had no idea how I was doing it, but I would do it some more. “Did you order someone to set this fire?” “No.” Truth. “Did you set it yourself?” “No.” Truth. My hold was slipping. He was too strong. It was like trying to twist a railway tie into a knot. “Do you know who did?” “No.”
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love this!
“Thank you for saving my grandmother,” I said. “You’re no good to me if you’re burying a relative instead of looking for Pierce. I did it for a completely selfish reason,” he said. Lie.
AWWWWW!!!
I turned around and went back to the door. The security camera was mounted about fifteen feet off the ground. It was gone. In its place was a melted mess of metal and plastic. The camera was too high for the direct flame and if the fire had burned that hot, my grandmother would be dead. No, this was done by a precise strike of a pyrokinetic. Only one pyrokinetic had come in contact with me in the past week. Adam Pierce had attacked my family. I looked around the warehouse, at the burn stain on the floor, at the melted container, and I imagined my grandmother lying here on concrete, facedown,
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she's, like, really smart. and really human too. she reminds me of a female John McLane.
This was a bad idea. Mad Rogan was violent, ruthless, and brutal. All of the things I normally avoided in my job. I had a feeling he had no brakes, and that scared me. If he went off the rails and started slaughtering people, there was very little I could do about it. I didn’t want to be responsible for any deaths. Nor did I want to be left holding the bag when the dust from his rampage cleared and cops came asking questions. He had expensive lawyers. I didn’t.
yes yes, I love that you're thinking about all this but we all know you're still going to call him so go ahead!
“Okay,” Mad Rogan said. “This is distracting you, and I need you to function, so let’s fix this. Which part of what happened is upsetting?”
this book makes me giggle!
“Maybe you should make me a list of people I can kill and ways in which they’re allowed to die,” he said. “You are not funny.” “I’m very funny. Just ask Peaches.”
🤣🤣🤣
He was focused on me, as if I was about to tell him the most intriguing thing in the world and he was prepared to absorb every word. Even his magic hovered around him, anticipating. For a few moments I had Mad Rogan’s undivided attention, and it wasn’t frightening. It was . . . flattering.
a very different man than Adam Pierce...
Swarmers were surveillance specialists. They were bound by magic to what they themselves described as swarms. Swarms had no physical manifestation. They lived somehow inside the swarmer’s psyche, letting him or her split his attention over hundreds of independent tasks, like a river splitting into narrow streams. Swarmers processed information at a superhuman speed. Most of them had the binding done in the military, and most of them didn’t live two years past that. Those who volunteered for the procedure were either terminally ill or tempted by a huge bonus payable to their families.
that's super fucked up!
“Goddamn asshole,” Mad Rogan snarled. “I know what this is.” Brilliant, white hot fireballs formed between Adam’s opened fingers, churning with red and yellow. “It’s Hellspawn,” Rogan said. “House Pierce–specific high spell.”
that's messed up that the houses can create beast modes
“If he is using Hellspawn, we might not be able to get him,” Mad Rogan said. “What?” “Hellspawn creates null space.” “In English?” “The amount of magic he’s using is so high that the boundary of the circle he’s in doesn’t exist in our physical realm.”
Thank you! that's the kind of magic I was looking for
Since the firemen left someone covering the front entrance, it was highly likely they were still on the first floor. Their team was small. If their goal was on a different floor, they wouldn’t have left anyone covering the front entrance; they would’ve all gone to that floor instead. But they left a guard, so all of them were probably on the first floor,
Objection, your honor, highly speculative... If she's right, fine, but then tell me afterwards. there's smart and then there's clairvoyant.
“There are two of us and your breathing’s elevated, so I would estimate we’d have about half an hour. If we weren’t getting the air from somewhere, we would be feeling the CO2 buildup already.” I clamped my mouth shut. “Nevada?” he asked. “I’m trying to conserve oxygen.” He chuckled into my hair. My body decided this would be a fine moment to remember that his body was wrapped around mine and his body was muscular, hard, and hot, and my butt was pressed against his groin. Cuddled up by a dragon. No, thank you. Let me off this train. “If you keep wiggling, things might get uncomfortable,” he
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I love that the life or death situation isn't enough. oh you men and your single-mindedness!
