Itâs ironic to find out your whole life has been a lie when youâre married to a truth-teller.
If only Mary could find some humor in it. Sheâs drowning her sorrow in vodka and song when a surprise visit from her youngest sister jolts her into accepting the magical reality hidden from her for fifty years.
Maryâs epiphany canât come soon enough because her fresh start may be the only thing that can save her siblings and the world from an utter meltdown.
As the two Bant sisters grapple with faeries and the FBI in America, their brother is trapped in a high-stakes game of mage politics in Australia. Meanwhile, middle-sister Amyâs malfunctioning mage-sight forces her to seek help from the very same mages who tricked her once before.
Can Mary pull herself together in time to rescue her family from the coming war?
Mages Unbound is a 450-page fantasy novel, told from the perspective of the Bant family members. This is Book 2 in the Fifth Mage War Series, a magical epic about sirens, fae, and family ties.
Itâs ironic to find out your whole life has been a lie when youâre married to a truth-teller.
If only Mary could find some humor in it. Sheâs drowning her sorrow in vodka and song when a surprise visit from her youngest sister jolts her into accepting the magical reality hidden from her for fifty years.
Maryâs epiphany canât come soon enough because her fresh start may be the only thing that can save her siblings and the world from an utter meltdown.
As the two Bant sisters grapple with faeries and the FBI in America, their brother is trapped in a high-stakes game of mage politics in Australia. Meanwhile, middle-sister Amyâs malfunctioning mage-sight forces her to seek help from the very same mages who tricked her once before.
Can Mary pull herself together in time to rescue her family from the coming war?
Mages Unbound is a 450-page fantasy novel, told from the perspective of the Bant family members. This is Book 2 in the Fifth Mage War Series, a magical epic about sirens, fae, and family ties.
Many consider it cruel for sirens to maintain a parental relationship with their latent children. Because of Morgan le Fayâs geas, latent sirens canât comprehend what sirens are, and once latent sirens reach puberty, they are as susceptible to the siren spell as any fertile human. Breaking with your children while they are still young enough to recover is widely considered less harmful to their development than sending them away in their early teens. Transitioned siren support groups now meet in every siren city to help you deal with this and other aspects of your transition.Â
â Sirens: An Overview for the Newly-Transitioned, 3rd ed. (2015), by Mira Bant de Atlantic, p. 109.
Mary decided she didnât actually care what the neighbors thought and opened the windows of the rooftop conservatory wide. It was a hot, sunny day with barely any breeze. September in D.C. was typically warm, but today was especially humid. She might have been more comfortable keeping the room hermetically-sealed with the climate control carefully set at sixty-eight degrees, but today she needed to feel the world outside. To know that there was a real world out there.
She walked over to the file cabinet in the corner of the overly-bright space. Mary had still been performing when theyâd bought the townhouse, and so had decided to turn the rooftop conservatory into her music room. But it had been a long time since sheâd really come up here; sheâd stopped practicing a couple of years ago when she let her solo work slip completely.Â
Today though, she wanted to see the sky while she sang. She knew she had to try something other than drinking to help her come to terms with the bombshell of truth Thomas had dropped on her last week.Â
Why did Mike insist I take personal leave? Mary thought, not for the first time. Everyone needed some structure in life, and the lack of routine was making this whole situation worse. Despite what Mike thought, being busy with the choir wasnât why she refused to schedule an appointment with the therapist heâd found.Â
Mary wondered for a moment if she should call work and tell them sheâd be back tomorrow. But after taking last week off to handle her latest âfamily crisis,â she wasnât sure what sheâd say when she got back. Still, she had to do something. Today was the first day since Tuesday that sheâd even gotten fully dressed.Â
And in truth, the only reason sheâd done that was because the mage-technician was finally coming to fix the garbage disintegrator this afternoon. That small event and four Advil made all the difference.Â
âOh, youâre up there.â Mikeâs voice sounded faint against the louder sound of rush-hour traffic wafting up from the street, and Mary listened as Mike started up the stairs.
Mary felt a slight pang of guilt. He was worried about her. Sheâd told him not to hover; that didnât help. Today, she wanted to sing; singing would help.
âIâm practicing, Mike,â she called out, hoping heâd just go to work. But Mike kept coming up anyway, pausing when he reached the top of the stairs. Mary didnât look up from the open drawer, even though she could feel him staring at her, appraising her, wondering if it was safe to leave her home alone.
She paused for a moment, enjoying the uncertainty he felt. Fair penance for making her stay home till she could âsort things out.â But then immediately felt guilty: none of this was his fault, and he was trying to be helpful, as heavy-handed and awkward as it was. Mary sighed and turned around.
God, she had married a handsome man! Honey-dark hair, still, even at fifty-six. Mike had the same solid form that he had when she first met him: blue eyes, framed by heavy eyebrows that made him look Greek, with a strong jaw and broad shoulders. But today, he seemed haggard.Â
âYou havenât practiced in years,â Mike said, with the look Mary recognized as him testing the air for a lie.
But Mary wasnât lying. She wasnât going to jump out the window, and she wasnât going to drink herself into oblivion after he left for work like she had all week. The disintegrator repairman was coming this afternoon, after all. And she hadnât spent over three thousand dollars on the platinum service plan just to throw herself out the window when it came time to take advantage of her foresight.
âI feel like singing, Mike,â Mary said and turned back to the file cabinet. She wasnât being fair to him. âIâm not going to make an appointment with any doctor until Iâm ready. I need to sing â I donât need a therapist.â
Mike didnât need to be a truth-teller to taste her truth. Mary was done drinking her feelings into numbness; now she just wanted to pretend for a while that everything was still the same. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to some stranger.Â
She rifled through the hanging files, searching for the piece of music she had been hearing in her mind since she woke up with a pounding head. She wasnât usually drawn to Mozart, but last night sheâd heard a Mozart aria in her dreams: âVendetta ti chiedo, la chiede il tuo cor!â Over-the-top, of course. But thatâs what opera was. And now she was a character in her own opera.
âAre you sure youâre all right, Mary?â Mike asked, taking a few hesitant steps in her direction.
But Mary was too familiar with Mike to fall for his truth-testing gambit. She looked back over her shoulder at him. âIâm as well as I can be, Mike,â Mary said, turning back to the files. âI need to sing now.â She added a little force to her tone, and perhaps that persuaded Mike that she could safely be left alone.Â
âAll right,â he said. âBut if you need me â for anything â just call.âÂ
Mary nodded but didnât turn around. If she gave him an opening, heâd try to comfort her again, and Mary didnât want a hug. She wanted to sing angry songs. Vengeance songs. Songs of betrayal. Songs of rage. Because this morning when she woke up, Mary decided that she wasnât going to be sad, she was going to be angry.Â
The morning flew by. While she hadnât practiced like this in years, it wasnât like she hadnât sung at all â she did direct the choir after all and often sang bits with them when they rehearsed. Still, it was a relief that her voice didnât seem to have lost as much power as sheâd expected. The body was an instrument, and age took its toll on singers, especially out-of-practice singers.
Mary worked on Donna Annaâs Don Giovanni aria well into the afternoon before realizing she needed to eat. Her heels clunked loudly on the uncarpeted stairs as she tromped down to the ground floor. She was glad sheâd never been able to pick out a runner because the noise was rather satisfying.Â
Satisfaction was a much better emotion to feel than despair or even the half-hearted rage she had tried to conjure with her singing. Even if she hadnât really been able to feel any anger this morning, at least sheâd discovered how little of her operatic voice sheâd lost. Mary frowned slightly as the thought crossed her mind that her unusual stamina may be a result of her siren ancestry. She felt her stomach churn, hating the idea that she would have to think about her own self differently now that she knew her real family history.
Damn them all, Mary thought, the profanity lingering in her mind as she stomped into the kitchen. She took a glass from the cabinet and opened the freezer to see if, by some miracle, there was any vodka left. Though there was no miracle about it. Vodka wasnât her first choice, so there was at least an inch or two left in the bottle. Mary poured her drink, then paused.Â
There was no point in putting the bottle back with almost nothing left. She emptied the rest of it into her glass. At least she hadnât been reduced to drinking from the bottle. Mary started to toss the empty bottle into the disintegrator when she remembered why the technician was coming in the first place.Â
âYou canât put glass in a garbage disintegrator,â the Danjou Enterprises customer service representative had lectured.Â
âIâve done it before,â Mary countered, feeling oddly defensive. Surely dropping a little glass into the machine couldnât really cause it to smoke like that?
âWell, glass is made of silica, and putting glass into the disintegrator upsets the silica-salt balance of the machine. Readjusting that requires mage sight, so weâll have to send a mage-technician, and theyâre hard to schedule.â
âI have the platinum service planââ Mary began, but the representative cut her off.
âThe manual clearly explains that you canât throw any silica-based compounds, especially glass, into the machine, or you void your warranty. Everyone knows silica-salt canât be enchanted.â The representativeâs tone implied that she thought Mary was an idiot.Â
But Mary had never read the manual. She never read appliance manuals. They reminded her too much of her mother, typing away late at night, supposedly writing appliance manuals on a contract basis. But that, too, had been a lie.Â
Thinking about Mom had made Mary start to cry. Her mother, supposedly dead for thirty years, was alive. Mary had actually spoken to âMomâ only a few weeks ago when sheâd pretended to be the home health aide sent to help Amy.
Her mother, who had missed her Milan premiere, missed her wedding, never even met her grandchildren ⊠was alive and well in Boston, of all places.Â
This stranger could call herself, âMom,â all she wanted: real family showed up. And âMomâ hadnât shown up for her in decades. Maryâs real mother never would have abandoned her. This resurrected âMomâ no longer had any right to call herself that.
But âMomâ had shown up for Amy, and as far as Mary knew, she was still in Amyâs apartment. Worse, Thomas and Cordelia had known Mom was still alive and said nothing. Nothing! For thirty years! And so, Mary had spent the past week crying. Crying, drinking, and throwing up. But at least all her blubbering had made the customer service rep take pity on her, and sheâd adjusted the mage-technicianâs schedule so theyâd be here this afternoon.Â
It was three now, and the window was one-to-four. They had better show up. So stupid that such an expensive machine could be ruined just because you threw a glass bottle into it. Well now that Amy was a mage, sheâd probably be able to explain it to her.Â
Not that Mary cared. She finished her drink and put the glass in the dishwater. Mary didnât want to care about anything. The taste of vodka was bitter on her tongue, but Mary didnât feel it. She should have just gotten a bottle of water.Â
Sirens. Mages. Curses. âNot Momâs fault,â Thomas had claimed. No oneâs fault. It didnât matter if there was no one was to blame; Mary was sick of being sad, and the vodka wasnât helping her get to the point of blissful numbness it had before. If she had to feel something, she wanted to feel angry. Anger would be a nice change.Â
If only composers wrote angry arias for sopranos. Instead, they wrote them for tenors whoâd been tricked into believing their innocent lovers had betrayed them. But Mary didnât want tortured operatic plots. The truth was simple: her mother had abandoned her. Abandoned her and Amy to be with Thomas and Cordelia instead. The songs written for abandoned sopranos were songs of despair, not rage. And while that might be more realistic, Mary didnât want to feel like this anymore.
Her heels clicked loudly on the wood floor as she climbed back up the four flights to her conservatory. She didnât usually put on shoes when she wasnât planning to go out, but then she didnât usually practice arias like she was still performing. Getting fully dressed made her seem less depressed, though. Fake it till you make it, Mary supposed.
She puffed a little at the top of the stairs, looking out the windows before opening the bottle of water sheâd brought up. You couldnât see the whole city from here â there were lots of buildings in D.C. taller than their townhouse â but they had a corner lot, and the light was brilliant.Â
Mary didnât even feel the vodka anymore. She must have built up too much of a tolerance over the past week. Something she should perhaps worry about, but instead, she just walked over to her file cabinet of music to find a lied to fit her mood. If arias wouldnât suit, sheâd find a German song. German always sounded a little angry.
She flipped through the files rapidly, searching for something that wasnât love or madness or despair. Her hand hesitated. There was a sheet pushed in between the hanging files, quite out of order. Sheâd performed it in high school:Â Die Lorelei. Another story song, another song that didnât fit her mood. But her hand hesitated: she hated disorder. She could at least put it in the correct folder.Â
Die Lorelei. An 1820s Hesse poem about a siren indifferently combing her hair as she reaped destruction. The music didnât fit her mood. Or maybe it did â sheâd have to sing it to find out.
She sat down at the upright piano near the open window. Mary knew it was stupid to leave the window open â bad for the instrument â but she liked the connection to the outdoors. She hadnât sung this song in such a long time that she played the melody through twice before trying to sing it. The A-flat above middle C stuck a bit. Iâll need to get the piano tuner in as well, she thought before starting to sing.
Maryâs full focus was gradually drawn into the song. It had never been her favorite tune, but the melodic line was sure. She stood up, clipping the music onto the stand in front of the open window, in case a breeze miraculously arose.
âSie kĂ€mt es mit goldenem KĂ€mme / Und singt ein Lied dabei / Das hat eine wundersame / Gewaltige Melodei!â
Maryâs voice was strong, her tone more substantial than when sheâd first sung the lied at sixteen. Her song carried over the street noises below, and the few passersby not on their cellphones paused for a brief moment as they walked down the block, before moving more slowly on their way. Who was the siren singing the violent melody now? Mary thought.
Below, the blond woman in flip-flops with a bright yellow rubber bag slung across her shoulder stood at the door to Maryâs townhouse, listening.
â
That morning, Mike was torn between leaving and staying. He wanted to go because watching Mary tear herself apart had become unbearable. She wouldnât see any of the doctors heâd found for her, wouldnât talk to him, wouldnât speak to the kids. The only thing sheâd done for the past week was drink.
But today she was singing. And Mike wasnât totally sure whether her change in behavior meant that she was getting herself back together, but it had to be better than what sheâd been doing before.
Heâd listened to Maryâs half-truths, sure she didnât even consciously realize that she wasnât being completely honest, then pretended to leave, waiting for at least twenty minutes until he heard her start to practice. Just to make sure.
Mary hadnât used the conservatory for solo practice since Alicia had gone to college, and sheâd let her various performance engagements dwindle. When the kids went off to school, most people picked up hobbies or volunteer work. They filled the void of a child-free house with a dog, or started playing golf on the weekends ⊠They didnât wind stuff down. But Mary had dropped everything except her actual job with the choir.
Mike berated himself silently. Discovering the truth about her familyâs lies might have been the straw that broke the camelâs back, but Mary had been bending under some weight for a while. He should have known something was wrong when she stopped serving as the cantor at mass.
But sheâs singing again today. Thatâs got to be a good thing, Mike thought, biting his hangnail as he listened to Mary begin the aria. His heart skipped a beat at the purity of her tone. She may not have practiced in several years, but her voice could still grab him. His cell buzzed in his pocket, and he shook himself out of his reverie.Â
âHey, Christine. Whatâs up?â Mike asked as he stepped out the door. By now, his assistant was used to him skipping the preliminaries. As a truth-teller, he didnât lie and avoided social pleasantries as a general matter.
âMs. Watkins wants to see you when you get in. She had me tell Jerry to go ahead with the deposition without you,â Christine said directly in response. Sheâd worked with Mike long enough to know how much small talk grated on his ears.Â
Mikeâs heart sank. Shortly after truth-telling the Danjou elder for Major General Hayden last year, his boss had started getting requests for Mikeâs secondment. At the time, Hayden had told Mike that he wanted him on his staff permanently, but Mike never imagined the general would be this persistent.Â
Unlike General Hayden, the Department of Justice needed Mike to read truth daily: they were always interviewing witnesses and investigating the truth behind crimes. Theyâd been prepping for weeks on todayâs deposition of the key witness in their high-profile antitrust case. But Hayden hadnât given up in the face of the DOJâs opposition.Â
Mikeâs boss had already promised to make him available to Hayden upon request, but the general had been clear that the promise of a free resource wouldnât be enough. He said he wanted Mike full-time and wasnât taking no for an answer. The fact that todayâs deposition was going forward without Mike probably meant that the general had finally gotten his way.
âOkay, Christine. Iâm on my way now.â
âIâll let her know ⊠and Mike, Iâm sorry.âÂ
â
âYou wanted to see me,â Mike confirmed after his boss waved him into her office.Â
Ann Marie Watkins was wearing a yellow blouse today. The color was a bright contrast to the dim light and set off her dark skin and eyes. The U.S. Attorney was well-regarded at the DOJ, and Mike felt personally indebted to her for her willingness to battle government bureaucracy to get him transferred to her team. Sheâd won the battle with the CIA, but the look in her eyes told him sheâd lost the fight with the DoD.
âSit down.â Watkins gestured to the chair that wasnât covered in file folders. After Mike sat, she shook her head.
âIâm sorry, Mike. Thereâs nothing more I can do.â Lie.
Mike ignored the sour taste of her white lie; he wouldnât expect her to call in every favor she had just for him. Sheâd done enough already.
âI appreciate everything youâve done. Major General Hayden wants what he wants, I suppose. I just canât imagine Iâll be as useful at the Pentagon as I am here.âÂ
Mike knew heâd helped Hayden enormously last year. The Danjou elder hadnât wanted to reveal anything â especially not her enclaveâs failure to capture the Brazilian pivot. If Mike hadnât been there to read her truth, Elder Hilda wouldnât have said anything about it, and General Hayden would still be wondering what information the governmentâs mage allies were withholding. Â
Still, that meeting seemed like an anomaly to Mike. He doubted Hayden was having many discussions like that one.
âItâs not just Hayden who wants you, Mike.â Watkinsâ tone was serious. âI may have done you a disservice by explaining how valuable you were to us. Iâm afraid I stirred up things better left buried.â Truth.
âWhat do you mean?â Mike asked.
âYouâre being transferred to Major General Haydenâs staff. Which is what you expected and what we were trying to avoid, I know. But the more I resisted, the more the general started poking around, and I got a few calls from the FBI and the CIA. They want you back, Mike. Youâre quite popular.â Watkins injected her tone with some levity, but Mike was far from amused; he felt his heart rate speed up.
Major General Hayden and the Defense Department was one thing â they were bureaucrats â military bureaucrats â but bureaucrats nevertheless. The CIA and FBI teams heâd worked with had been field agents. Theyâd been on the front lines of protecting the country. By the end, his job had become too hands-on.
âIâm not going back,â Mike said stiffly.
âThatâs what I told them,â Watkins replied. Truth. âIn fact, I told them that youâd quit government service altogether before being assigned to any CIA projects and that you even have an unusual term in your DOJ contract that allows you to refuse any FBI assignment.â
Mike felt a rush of relief at the lemony taste of Ann Marieâs astringent truth. Sheâd done what she could for him.
âHayden says he needs you, and heâs got the pull to make it happen. This wonât be like it was before, Mike,â Watkins said gently.Â
The DOJ had rescued him from a dark place when heâd left the CIA. Mike hadnât told Ann Marie why he needed out, of course. That was confidential, but he thought sheâd put two-and-two together.
âI donât understand why Hayden wants me on his staff so badly.â Mike shook his head. âI mean, I know he doesnât have a ton of interviews that he wants me to sit through. Having me just wait around at the Pentagon is a waste of time and money.â
âDo you really think the military cares all that much about time and money? An efficient military is an oxymoron. Youâre a valuable asset. After that Danjou meeting, they must have realized they were going to need you again at some point. Having you work for someone else means you may not be immediately available when they call. So, theyâre willing to pay you to do nothing until they need you.â
âWhat a waste,â he said, the sour taste of his bossâ exaggeration mingling with his own disgust.
âChrist, Mike!â Ann Marie shook her head, surprised at his naivetĂ©. âNinety percent of the militaryâs job is to sit on their asses and wait for some shit to blow up somewhere. We pay a fortune in tax dollars just to make sure theyâre available when we need them. It canât be a huge shock that they want you to just sit around.â
Mike grumbled at the truth of that. âI hate sitting around.â
âCome on, you know half the depositions we have you sit in on are just to make the subject sweat. And I got Hayden to promise that if we really needed you, and you were available, we could borrow you. He owes us that, at least.â
Ann Marie was trying to make him feel better. She had always been a supporter.
âIs my contract just transferring over, or do they want to renegotiate?â Mike asked.
âYour call, but Iâd advise you to stick with the contract you have. It took a lot of wrangling to get approval for the non-standard provisions. You could try to hold out for more money, but youâre already at the max of our pay scale, and those kinds of negotiations could leave you twiddling your thumbs for a while. Remember how long it took us.â Watkins smiled.
For a moment, Mike wondered if that wouldnât be best. He could spend time with Mary while they worked out the details. But then, last week sheâd reacted so badly when he took a personal day, it might be counterproductive. Stop hovering, sheâd said with bite, then proceeded to down a quarter bottle of bourbon in all of ten minutes.Â
But today sheâd started singing again.
âSo whatâs the story? When is this all taking place?â Mike asked.
âThe contract transfer is effective immediately. You could delay it if you want to renegotiate âŠâ Watkins let her voice trail off in a question. When Mike shook his head, she continued briskly.Â
âWell, after you pack up your office and say goodbye to the team, I want to take you to lunch.â
âYou donât have to do thatââ Mike started to say, but his boss held up her hand to stop him.
âYou have a lot of friends here, and I really wish we could keep you, but âŠâ Ann Marie shrugged, then her face drew into a serious expression. âYou know you can call me, Mike. Anytime.âÂ
Mike felt a lot better about this change. If he even got a hint that this assignment was going to be a repeat of his last one with the CIA, Ann Marie Watkins would have his back. And with that assurance, Mike thought he might just be able to make the transition work.Â
By the time he was done passing by everyoneâs offices, heâd eaten through most of his Tums and was actually eager to leave. Out of the frying pan, Mike thought as he left the building.Â
â
Mike decided it was a good sign that Lieutenant Steve Allen came down to the front desk to meet him personally, instead of having one of the duty officers walk him through security.Â
âGood to see you again, Mike,â Lieutenant Allen said, shaking his hand. Steve Allen was several inches taller than Mike, with close-cropped hair and light brown eyes. The younger man managed to convey warmth despite the pristine creases of his uniform and straight posture.Â
On the way to the generalâs office, the lieutenant took the time to introduce him to various people on the âArabian Team,â which was an unexpected courtesy. When you were a contractor instead of a regular employee, the federal workers sometimes treated you like a visitor, or worse, a trained monkey. But so far, General Haydenâs staff had been relatively welcoming.
âWeâre the guys who manage the cluster-fuck that is inter-agency, inter-departmental cooperation on Arabian security, Mike,â Lieutenant Allen said as he walked him down the hall to the generalâs office. âProject Hurricane is one of the toughest assignments at the Pentagon right now. Not that Iâm biased or anything,â he added with a wry grin.
But Steve Allen was telling the truth, at least as he saw it. The crisp taste of that, along with his easy manner, gave Mike hope that this transfer might work out.
Steve nodded at the woman seated at a desk outside the Generalâs door.
âThe generalâs expecting you,â she said, before pushing a button on the phone. âMr. Arnold is here to see you, general,â she said, then looked at Mike. âGo ahead.â
The generalâs office was much larger than Ann Marieâs, with a bookcase to the right of the door and a rather threadbare green couch on the left. Mike wondered if General Hayden slept in his office; the worn edges of the armrest looked like it had taken that kind of use for years. The general was walking around his desk when Mike came in.
âMike, weâre glad to have you aboard!â Major General Haydenâs face looked warm beneath his buzz-cut silver hair. âI had to get the White House involved to get your contract transferred over, but I know you wonât disappoint.â Truth.
That was a surprise. Mike knew the general would have needed some senior pull to counteract Ann Marieâs influence, but he hadnât expected the Presidentâs staff to be involved.
âIâll do my best, sir,â Mike answered.
âAfter you helped us out last year with our Danjou allies, I knew we needed you full time.â Lie.
The burnt taste of Haydenâs partial lie didnât bother Mike as much as the oddity of it.
âYou donât consider the Danjou our allies, then, sir?â he asked.
Hayden smiled a self-satisfied grin and pointed his finger at Mike. âAnd thatâs why we need you, Mike. None of the truth-tellers in the armed services have your sensitivity. And believe me, before I went to the White House, I tried all of them out.â Haydenâs expression turned suddenly serious. âNone of them could detect that level of nuance. And as youâll soon learn, the Danjou are as much our adversaries as our allies. But come, sit down.â
General Hayden directed Mike to take one of the chairs in front of his desk while he moved around to sit behind it.
âNow, we donât stand on formality ⊠much,â the general said. âBut we do require absolute discretion. You had Top Secret clearance already, but Project Hurricane is SAP, that is to say, a Special Access Program. Less than a dozen people have access to all the information youâll be getting, and you should consider everything that goes on here at a Category One clearance level.â Truth.
Some of the terminology flew over his head, but Mike caught the gist: whatever they were working on here was super-secret. Good God, what have I gotten into now, he thought.
âBut before we can officially welcome you aboard, we have to deal with a few concerns raised by the Australia Team. I want you to know that I have absolutely no doubt that you can be trusted with the kind of sensitive information we deal with here. Iâve already spoken to Javier Rodriguez and Chris Adams â everyone agrees that your integrity is unquestionable.â Truth.
The hot cider taste of the generalâs absolute trust was warm, but Mike would have been more surprised if Hayden hadnât expressed such confidence after talking to those two. Heâd worked for the CIA and FBI for almost twenty-five years before moving to the DOJ. All his former colleagues would have ample reason to vouch for him, but Javier and Chris were especially well-regarded.
âGeneral, I promise you that your confidence is not misplaced. But if there are any concerns that others have, Iâm more than happy to go back to the DOJ,â Mike said.
âYouâre not getting rid of us that easily,â Hayden said. âNo, Iâll just need you to speak with our counterparts who focus on Australia. Theyâve brought in Captain Carol Jackson to observe.â
Mike raised an eyebrow. Carol was one of the few truth-tellers in the military. Truth-tellers were a small community in any event, and heâd known Carol ever since she moved to D.C.Â
âIâve known Captain Jackson for years, sir. I assume that personal knowledge wonât present a conflict of interest?â Mike asked.
âItâs been waived. After youâve worked for the government long enough, you realize that everyone knows everyone. Theyâre waiting for you in Room 11B. Once we get the okay from them, weâll be able to get you started. And Iâve got a lot planned for this week.â
What would you do if you thought your mother was dead, then suddenly found out she's alive and well? But your mother's not just living and breathing: she's a magical construct called a siren. And, more importantly, this personal family revelation is actually the least of your worries: there's a dangerous mage war on the horizon--and prophecy says it's getting closer.
This is the predicament of Mary, one of the four Bant siblings in Laura Engelhardt's complex and exciting second novel in the Fifth Mage War Series, Mages Unbound. Mary can't believe that's she's been lied to for so many years; meanwhile her husband, a half-fae truth-teller named Mike, has been transferred to the Department of Defense to work on an important collaborative project about Arabia. Then Cordelia, Mary's siren sister and fae-defender, arrives to soften the blow of the family's deceptions by explaining the former constricting blood-geas on sirens. During this visit, Mary unexpectedly experiences an astonishing transformation with huge implications for her family and for the world.
At the same time, neurosurgeon and new mage Amy Bant must undergo rigorous training to learn how to control her mage sight. In the aftermath of a deadly terrorist attack and an obsessive illnesses that impacts her mother Mira, Amy must go to Alantea--traveling with mages that she doesn't totally trust. Thomas, the last sibling, is in Australia with his lover, the powerful mage Kyoko, attempting to navigate the nuanced political games of the Mage Cabal. And as Mira develops a closer relationship with the Atlantic, the ocean starts to speak to her. All the groups are focused on unraveling premonitions about the upcoming Fifth Mage War: what do the oracle's words mean, and who are the essential players--or pivots--who will determine the outcome of the conflict? All of this, and more, is revealed in Mages Unbound.
Author Laura Engelhardt's masterly composed fantasy world continues to delight and surprise: there are werewolves, were-jaguars, and mysterious fae living on the banks of the Potomac River, as well as political consequences extending from Boston and DC, to Brazil and the Congo. The knotty sexual link between humans and sirens is deepened and further explored in this volume, leading to beguiling questions about coercion, passion, consent, and what constitutes love in an uneven magical partnership. While sometimes the vast intricacies of the story can be a little confusing, Engelhardt overall skillfully manages weaving back and forth between the tons of well-rounded characters and beautiful places she's created--even offering fun future insights through the chapter heading quotations. It's impossible not to get invested in these people and their plight: book three, please!