“I agree. Very well.” He leaned back. “Victoria Tremaine is despised and feared and knows it. She travels with an aegis, a cloaker, and a telepathic shielder. Her body and mind are superbly protected at all times and if she is under attack, the cloaker will make her disappear in a fraction of a second. She is an extremely difficult target. You can’t eliminate her. Your mother knows this, which is why she focused on Augustine.”

I nodded. I had gathered as much.

“Augustine is the closest thing to a friend I have among members of the Houses. He has a much younger sister and a brother. His father is dead and he is their caretaker. Don’t mistake his professional interest in you for friendship or camaraderie. If he thinks for a moment that you pose any danger, no matter how slight, to his siblings, he’ll kill you. From a Prime’s point of view, you owe him nothing.”

“Rogan, I can’t just wipe his mind.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

I sighed. “I’m not sure.”

“Yes, you are.” His gaze was merciless.

“I can.” I could break Augustine. I had been on the verge of breaking a mind before, when interrogating the mercenary and when practicing on my sisters. I knew precisely where that wall lay, and I had worked my hardest to never approach it.

“Augustine has a strong will. If I attack Augustine’s mind, let him feel it, and push it too far, he’ll cripple himself trying to fight me. It will take time, minutes, possibly an hour, so it’s not a good combat power, but it will leave his psyche shredded. I could do it. But I won’t.”

“Yet you have to protect your family.”

“Yes.”

“This is what I was trying to avoid when I urged you to not go to Baranovsky’s gala,” he said. “It happened anyway, sooner than you or I would’ve liked. I thought we might have more time. The question now isn’t what you should do. You know what you should do. The question is, what can you live with?”

“Would Augustine willingly open his mind to Victoria Tremaine?”

“He’d rather die,” Rogan said without any hesitation. “Augustine is intensely private. A man who never shows the world his real face would never allow intrusion into his inner sanctum.”

“Would he be open to the idea of protection?”

“By you? You would have to convince him that he is powerless before a truthseeker. Be very careful, Nevada. If you make that demonstration too personal, he’ll turn on you. Go after something that’s confidential but without emotional baggage. He must not feel that his deepest secrets have been violated.”

That would be a very delicate dance, and even if I could get what I wanted, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it.

“What are you planning to do?”

“I’m planning to apply the lessons Adam Pierce taught me.” I shook my head. And if I failed to pull it off, my life would collapse and Augustine could spend the rest of his life with a feeding tube, not sure where or who he was. No pressure.

“Let’s say this problem is resolved,” he said. “What then? Victoria Tremaine doesn’t give up. She won’t simply turn around and go home empty-handed. She’ll continue her pursuit. This is only a short-term solution to a large looming problem.”

I made my mouth move. “I realize that.”

“What’s the long-term strategy?”

“I don’t have one.”

He frowned. “Does your immediate family have more than one living Prime?”

He was asking about my sisters. “Yes.”

“Is that other mage a truthseeker?”

“No.”

Surprise reflected in his eyes. “But you’re sure they can qualify as Primes?”

“Yes.”

“Then your best option is to petition for the formation of your own House. It would require you and the other Prime to admit to your magic in public. The qualification process and House formation is very fast, less than forty-eight hours, once all the proper forms have been submitted and the date of the trials has been set. Should you become House Baylor, you’re granted immunity from aggression from all other Houses for a period of three years. It is a cardinal rule not even Victoria Tremaine can break. It’s put in place to protect the emergence of new magic, which is good for everyone, and is a cornerstone of our society.”

House Baylor. I would be throwing myself and my sisters into shark-infested waters.

“This is the best course of action for you.” A muscle jerked in his face, then his expression relaxed as if he’d purposefully willed himself into neutrality. “You asked for my advice. Become a House.”

Too bad there wasn’t enough time to do it now. It would’ve solved the Augustine problem. No, I needed to think about this. Becoming a House had to be the last resort.

“One more point. Once you’re formally registered as House Baylor, this . . . whatever it is between you and me has to end.”

Whatever it is? I leaned back, putting one leg over the other. “Why?”

“As the head of a fledgling House, your first responsibility is to secure the future of your family. You have to make the connections and secure alliances so when the three-year period runs out, you’re anchored and well-defended against any attack. Your best bet is to cement such an alliance through marriage. It will assure protection and the future of your House. There are services available that will map your DNA and suggest the match which would most likely result in children with Prime truthseeker talent, someone from one of the truthseeker Houses, or someone with a complementary discipline like manipulator to compensate for your lack of combat magic. You and I are not compatible. Our magic comes from entirely different realms. It is clear that despite my father’s efforts, our bloodline doesn’t mesh well with mind-domination mages. Should you and I produce offspring, they may not be Primes.”

Ah. So that’s where he was going with this. “Mhm.”

Rogan’s voice was eerily calm. “You think you won’t care about it, but you will. Think of your children and having to explain that their talents are subpar, because you have failed to secure a proper genetic match. It will matter, Nevada.”

“If you say so. Right now I’m more concerned with Augustine.”

“Don’t worry. You will persevere. Things have a way of working out.”

He said it with utter confidence. Rogan wasn’t the kind of man to leave things to chance. Unease crept over me. I might have just done something very stupid.

“Rogan, I want to be completely clear. I came only for advice. Don’t act on my behalf.”

He smiled back at me. The civilized mask tore, and I saw the dragon in all of his savage glory, teeth bared, eyes cold. He would kill Augustine if I failed.

“Don’t,” I warned him. “He’s your friend. You don’t have that many.”

He kept smiling. I had no power. Nothing to counteract the promise of murder I saw in his eyes.

“You promised.”

“I didn’t.”

Damn it. I should’ve made him promise before I said anything. “I’ll never speak to you again.”

“That would be terrible,” he said.

“I don’t want this. I don’t want Augustine’s death. You’re doing that thing again when you think you know what’s best for me and you insist on it in spite of my wishes.”

“We Primes tend to be assholes that way.”

“I’m a Prime too.”

“Yes, but I’m Mad Rogan.”

Of all the stupid, bullheaded, idiotic things . . .

“If something were to happen to Augustine, you would bear no responsibility for it,” he said.

“But you will.”

“I know what I am,” he said.

“Connor . . .”

“Rogan,” he corrected. “Mad Rogan.”

The man who told me the story about running away when he was sixteen and the Prime here and now couldn’t be the same person. “You’re scaring me.”

“Good,” he said. “You’re catching on. This is the world you’re walking into. It’s a place that requires people like me, capable of doing evil things so people they love survive.”