City of Magic: The Complete Series by Helen Harper (book club recommendations TXT) 📕

were stacked neatly in a corner. The four large backpacks that Fab’s guards had carried were sitting in another corner. Forty-two. Forty-one. Forty. I jumped over to the backpacks and hastily searched through the contents. As I moved, my feet hit an old iron drain covering. It clanged loudly and I winced. Julie’s shrieks might be loud but I didn’t want to draw undue attention to myself or the tent.

‘Oh my God!’ I heard her shout from outside. ‘Look at it! It’s going to scratch my eyes out!’

I swallowed. Thirty-six. Thirty-five. I couldn’t make too much of a mess and alert either Fab or the guards to the fact that someone had been in here snooping around. But time was running out.

Underwear. Iodine tablets. A family photo. There was nothing suspicious in the slightest. I moved to the next backpack. Less than thirty seconds now. My fingers scraped against something hard and I tugged and pulled it out. A notebook. An expensive, leather-bound notebook with the initials F.B. inscribed on the front. With shaky hands, I flipped it open. There were a few diagrams which I could make nothing of. I turned the pages, leafing through it as quickly as possible. The last page was filled with various notes, neatly scribed in tiny handwriting.

Water is not a problem. Good use of available land to grow crops. Concerns over long-term supplies. Rationing is in effect. How can I bring in what they need? Contact Home Office. Then, underlined: What more can I do to help?

I stared at the words. There was nothing here. Fabian Barrett was exactly who he portrayed himself to be. In fact, he might actually be a better person than he appeared to be. I was a fool for mistrusting him.

Julie screamed again. I froze. Shit. I’d stopped counting. There had to be less than fifteen seconds left. I had to move.

I rammed the notebook back into the bag, whirled round to make sure nothing else was out of place then jumped for the first zip, closing it up. I fumbled for the second. My heart was hammering against my ribcage – this was the worst part. Getting in without being noticed was one thing but getting out was going to be far harder.

I peeked out. Their backs were still facing me but I could tell from the guards’ posture that they were beginning to lose interest. One rat, even a big one, wasn’t terrifying enough to hold their attention much longer.

I stepped out. All I had to do was return the final zip to its original closed position and … fuck. One of the guards was turning. I couldn’t close it in time. I sent out a brief prayer to whoever might be listening and twitched my fingers. Magic burst forth, the zip moved and I calmly smiled, using my body to block it from view.

The guard leapt towards me. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

I blinked rapidly. ‘What do you mean? I was about to ask you the same question.’

‘The tent is off limits!’ he barked.

I half turned my head, evincing surprise that I was so close to it. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.’ I held up my palms to indicate surrender. At the same time, my left pinky flicked, cutting the invisible magic tether that held the rat to Julie. It paused in its frantic scrabbling then sprang to the right and darted away to freedom. Julie let out one final, relieved shriek and collapsed to the ground.

‘It’s gone! Thank God! It’s gone!’ She whipped her head around. ‘Are more coming?’

Lizzy appeared from round the corner, returned to her human form and as naked as the day she was born. Clearly both guards were heterosexual. Where Monroe’s naked body had garnered nothing more than confusion from Boyce, Lizzy’s lithe, leggy frame caused both guards’ mouths to drop open.

‘I’ve dealt with them,’ she said sunnily. ‘No more rats. They’ll think twice before they dare to come near us again.’

‘Praise be,’ Julie said.

Theo turned and raised an eyebrow in my direction. He might not have been in on the plan but he’d obviously worked out what was happening. I was just glad that he’d chosen to stay quiet and play along. ‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘Praise be.’

Chapter Eighteen

Despite the good news that there was no evidence Fab was anything more than the saviour we hoped he’d be, Julian wasn’t happy. He glowered at me with darkness raging in his eyes. He could stomp around all he wanted; he’d forgotten that I lived with Monroe. If I could deal with my sexy Scot, nothing Julian said or did would intimidate me.

‘That was an incredibly risky plan,’ he snapped.

‘You knew I was heading into that tent,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand why you’re upset about it.’

‘I didn’t know you were going to waltz inside when those two guards were standing right in front of it!’

I raised my shoulders. ‘They weren’t looking.’

‘If they’d spotted you…’

‘They didn’t.’

‘But…’

He was fixated on his ‘what if?’ scenario. Theo, who’d done nothing more than look amused until this point, offered us an amiable smile. ‘No harm done,’ he said. ‘And it’s good to know that the billionaire is on the level. I’d been wondering about his true intentions.’

‘From what I’ve seen,’ I said, ‘his true intentions are simply to help us. We can trust him.’ I hesitated. ‘Or so it seems.’ I wished I felt more confident about that but I couldn’t deny that there was no real reason to mistrust Fab. The evidence I’d discovered in the tent had proven otherwise. The other evidence was circumstantial.

Regardless, Julian wasn’t appeased. ‘You know that means that it must have been your pet shadow beast who tried to kill you.’

Julie and Lizzy looked astonished. ‘Tried to kill you? What happened?’

I remained calm. ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘It was an accident.’

‘Bad luck?’ Julian asked disbelievingly.

‘An accident,’ I reiterated. ‘My suspicions were unfounded. Fabian Barrett is a good guy and all is right with the world. Or at