He approached her from behind, and she watched him clasp her shoulders in the mirror. “Turn and hold my hands. Renounce me, and let’s be done.”

Sabelle bit her lip as she faced him and grabbed his hands, fresh anger pouring through her. This is what she’d come to tell Ice last night and became tangled in his arms, lost in his kiss. And now she resented her brother all over again for forcing this cruelty on them both. “Bram insists on being present when I do. He wants Lucan to witness as well.”

So there could be no question, no dispute. Not that there should be. Ice’s magical signature would reflect the fact he’d been Renounced by her.

Ice cursed. “Determined to make this as difficult as possible, is he?”

Sabelle wished she could deny it. But the Bram who had emerged from Mathias’s evil black cloud spared no thought for her anguish or Ice’s. Likely, he would privately revel in Ice’s humiliation. She’d argued until she could find no more words, and still Bram had not budged.

“So it seems.” Her throat closed up, and she had no idea how she was going to force the next words out of her mouth. “He … also wants you to witness Lucan’s Call.”

“Bloody fucking bastard,” he muttered, his grip tightening around her fingers. “No. I can’t guarantee that I won’t kill him if I have to watch you Bind to him.”

“I understand.” If their roles were reversed, Sabelle wasn’t at all certain she could watch him pledge his life to another.

Ice sighed. “But to keep peace between you and your brother, I will try.”

Her heart swelled with love again for this big selfless wizard. “I will never know a man as good as you, Isdernus.”

“You have my heart always.” Ice closed his eyes, frowned, the pressed his forehead to hers. They shared a breath, another hidden moment in time, then he eased away. “Let’s go.”

Ice led Sabelle from his bedroom, and she followed him down a winding hall filled with closed doors. At the intersection of two paths, he stopped at the entrance to an open room, an office of sorts with a cluttered desk, a worn brown sofa, threadbare rugs. A neglected layer of dust and air of hopelessness lingered.

Inside, Bram paced like a whirling dervish, his mad steps taking him across the room in a few short movements. Lucan perched on the edge of the sofa, watching with a pensive stare. Both gazes whipped to the front of the room when they appeared.

“It’s well past dawn. You’re late,” Bram said tightly.

Ice clenched his fists at his sides. “Your sister is doing a great deal to save everyone’s skin, and she doesn’t need your harassment.”

Bram’s eyes narrowed. “Shut the door.”

With a furious kick, Ice sent it slamming into the portal. “I’ve given you the roof over my head, the hope out of my soul, and the heart out of my chest. Don’t ever ask me for anything again.”

God, this was killing Ice as much as it was destroying her. Sabelle wished for the millionth time for a way to stop this parting, her mating to Lucan. But nothing had changed.

Bram sniffed at her. “You spent the night in his bed.”

He hurled it like an accusation, and Sabelle felt her temper fry. “I spent it where I wished to, and it’s none of your business how or with whom. I don’t know what’s happened to you since you awakened from Mathias’s spell, but you’re acting like a bullying prat. Be happy I’m here at all, and stop doing your utmost to make this unpleasant and humiliating.”

Her brother rolled tense shoulders and raised a golden brow. “I seem in short supply of patience to curb my tongue or temper these days. For your sake, I will say no more. Speak the Renunciation to Rykard. Now.”

Already? Bram’s words crashed through her like a tornado, twisting away happiness and hope. She would be doing good for magickind, and that must be enough.

Hands shaking, she turned to Ice. She couldn’t not look at him, couldn’t dodge that green gaze that burned with love and regret and ultimate pain.

“You will remain a part of me, though I am . . .” No part of you. The words echoed in her head, but she could not open her mouth to speak them, to lie. Her lips parted. No part of you. The only thing that emerged was a sob. She curled her arms around herself and clutched her middle, trying to keep the pain, so much like acid, from spilling into every corner of her aching heart.

Impossible.

Ice stepped closer, brushed her hair from her face. “Deep breath, princess. You can do it.”

“I can’t!” Anger and futility raced through her. “I don’t know how to break my own heart. I can’t stand the thought that I’m breaking yours. That you’ll never look at me again the way you’re looking at me right now, as if I’m your whole world. I can’t bear thinking that I’d have no right to simply take your hand in mine.”

“Sabelle!” Bram barked. “Renounce him. Every moment you waste is a moment Mathias could be worming deeper into the Council and finding new ways to murder or enslave innocents.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” she shouted. “When have I ever failed to do my duty? I won’t fail you now, either. But I won’t ever forget your threat to disclaim me. I won’t ever forgive the glee on your face as you tear me from the man I love.”

“That’s enough!” Bram wedged between her and Ice, shoving the other wizard away from her. “Have you forgotten that your future mate sits here? The last thing he wants to hear is you profess love for another, Sabelle.”

Lucan sucked in a breath and rose from the sofa. “Stop, Bram. Just … stop. I’d wondered before how deep your sister’s attachment for Rykard is, but now . . .” He shook his head. “one of the worst things I’ve ever endured was pouring out my devotion to Anka, trying to persuade her to be with me, when her heart now seems to be with … another.” He gave a bitter laugh. “How big a fool would I be to make the same mistake with Sabelle?”

She gasped. What was he saying?

Bram whirled on him. “Nonsense! Do you think I should just give her to him? Give away one of your best political advantages?”

“No, friend. I am saying that I will not Call to her while there’s another in her heart. No matter how much I like and respect her, even desire her beauty, she and I both know that I will never love her as Ice does. And the bond of the Call aside, I will never replace him in her heart.”

Cursing, Bram raced across the floor. “This is war! Sacrifices must be made—”

“Don’t speak to me of sacrifices!” Lucan snarled. “I lost the mate of my heart fighting for this cause, and live each day with the fact that she was tortured mercilessly as a means to weaken me, us. What have you given up? From here, it looks like you’ve merely used the war to grow your power.”

Sabelle blinked, her mouth gaping open. Lucan was brutally honest with Bram, his best chum. And he’d said he would not have her. Though a surprise, his declaration made sense. Anka was, even now, sleeping in Shock’s bed. Lucan knew vast pain.

“Bloody hell! Mathias could be consolidating his power, talking to Blackbourne and Spencer or any of the others and swaying the vote. We need to name a candidate today.”

“I will agree to the nomination to fill MacKinnett’s empty seat. I only say that, perhaps, we try to sway the Council without Sabelle as my mate.”

Bram paused, tapping his toe impatiently. “Your nomination is far more likely to be rejected.”

Lucan shrugged. “Then we will find another to nominate. But I will not Call to your sister.”

Hope welling from Sabelle’s every crevice and corner. She sent Lucan a watery stare. “Thank you.”

A half smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “You could not speak the words to Renounce Ice. You certainly weren’t going to be able to Bind to me. You should thank me. I saved you a great deal of stuttering, I suspect.”

Relief and joy washed over her with all the explosive power of an emotional bomb. A hot wash of tears flooded her eyes. “I’ve no doubt.”

She flung herself against Lucan, hugged him like the friend and big brother he was to her. Absently, he rubbed her back, then set her away, watching Ice with a cautious stare.

“Think about what you’re doing,” Bram demanded, mouth agape. “If they reject your nomination, we’ll have lost precious time we don’t have. I can’t—”

“Ask them unofficially,” Sabelle suggested. “Besides, you have your vote. Tynan will assume the o’Shea seat now that his grandfather has passed to his nextlife, like his father. Surely, you can get Sterling to vote with you. At worst, you’ll have a tie. But if you’re able to find out now how, say, Spencer or Helmsley will react to a well-placed suggestion of Lucan as a candidate . . .”

“It isn’t done. Candidates are nominated, presented, then voted upon. A tie would bring about consequences … No.”

“A tie is still better than a defeat,” she pointed out.

Bram started tapping his toe again, biting his lip. Nervous energy rolled off him, and vaguely Sabelle wondered where he’d acquired such vigor, given the fact his mate was still missing.

“Do you still have MacKinnett’s mirror?”

“Duke, Marrok, and Olivia will have it with the Doomsday Diary, I expect.”

“They arrived a bit past midnight.” With a short nod, he hustled from the room.

Sabelle stood alone with Lucan and Ice, one in front of her looking on with resignation, the other behind her, his body pinging with confusion and hope. She wished she knew what to say, the right words. Lucan might have refused to Call to her, but that hardly meant Bram would welcome Ice into the family. If she Bound to him now, she would still lose her brother. And Sabelle didn’t delude herself; whatever had overcome Bram since awakening from Mathias’s ugly spell would goad him into disclaiming her, as he’d threatened. She almost didn’t care. Almost. But he was her brother, and cutting ties with the last of her family unless she had to … No. Maybe time, patience, a bit of soothing of the ways between Ice and Bram would allow her brother to accept her beloved. Someday.

“I should thank you, as well,” Ice said quietly to Lucan. “You spared me what Shock did not spare you, when it would have been so simple to use your anger and show me how truly heartbreaking losing your mate must feel.”

And Lucan’s was many times worse than anything Ice would have experienced, given that he’d spent over a century with Anka.

Lucan closed his eyes for a moment, pain awashing his features. “No man should feel that kind of black anguish. I certainly had no wish to feel it twice. Sabelle would be easy to fall in love with … and hard to forget.”

Ice had no reply. He just stuck out his hand to Lucan. “I am indebted.”

Lucan shook it, and Sabelle’s heart caught. Maybe … the first step in Bram accepting Ice in her life was encouraging a friendship between him and her brother’s best friend. At least it was another avenue to help pave the way.

Just then, Bram stormed into the office again, clutching both his mirror and MacKinnett’s. “Duke had the foresight to retrieve my mirror from Olivia’s gallery.”

Plopping down on the worn brown sofa, he lifted the lid and touched his finger to one of the crests. A moment later, a cultured voice greeted him. Kelmscott Spencer. He oozed political correctness, was always in favor of the path of least resistance. Sabelle could tolerate him—in small doses. But she never made the mistake of trusting him. The whole line was a bit shifty, in her opinion.

“You’re in one piece, chap? Heard whispers that you were under the weather.”

“Indeed. The Anarki nearly killed me. And now Black-bourne has nominated their master to the Council. What the devil is he thinking?”

Spencer cleared his throat—a subtle cue that Bram’s badgering was both heavy-handed and unwelcome. “I think, as he does, that it’s perhaps time to entertain a different point of view.”

“What? Murder and mayhem? Slaughtering of innocents? Raping and enslaving? Murdering Thomas MacKinnett and Clifden o’Shea?”

“We have only circumstantial proof that he’s involved in any of the atrocities. He’s assured us they are rogue factions of the Anarki, and he’s working to bring them under his control again and direct their efforts to matters more productive for magickind.”

“You believe him?”

Bram’s incredulity made Sabelle wince. Where was the brother who’d been able to use finesse and cajoling to win his way? This bull-in-the-china-shop approach would get him nothing but ignored and discredited.

Sabelle raced across the room and wrested the mirror from his hands, sending him a warning glance. “I’ve no idea what’s wrong with you, but if you want to make friends, you might try a kind word, dear brother.”