A review by narteest
Magic Binds by Ilona Andrews

4.0

This book was pretty great from start to finish. But it's intense.

Jim gave me a headache partway through, but thank god he has Dali and Dali has her head on straight.

So many of my favourite parts of this book are the supporting cast. Roman - awesome. Andrea - also awesome. Derek! ERRA - should I say she's the best aunt ever considering she was killing cities a while back? And all the others.

Some of my favourites parts however, involve Roman and the fact that he's so happy to officiate Kate and Curran's wedding that he goes full on out wedding planning. Honestly, he was awesome.

Roman quotes:

The door swung open, revealing Roman. He wore a T-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms, and his dark hair, shaved on the sides into a long horselike mane, stuck out on the left side of his head. He looked like he’d been sleeping.
“What’s all this?” Everything stopped. Roman squinted at me. “What are you guys doing here?”
[...]
“We had to come here because you don’t answer your damn phone.” Curran’s voice had that icy quality that said his patience was at an end.
“I didn’t answer it because I unplugged it.”
[...]
Curran walked in behind me and took in the living room. His thick eyebrows rose.
“What?” Roman asked.
“No altar?” Curran asked. “No bloody knives and frightened virgins?”
“No sacrificial pit ringed with skulls?” I asked.
“Ha. Ha.” Roman rolled his eyes. “Never heard that one before. I keep the virgins chained up in the basement. Do you want some coffee?”
I shook my head.
“Yes,” Curran said.
“Black?”
“No, put cream in it.”
“Good man. Only two kinds of people drink their coffee black: cops and serial killers. Sit, sit.”
I sat on the sofa and almost sank into it. I’d need help getting up. Curran sprawled next to me.
“This is nice,” he said.
“Mm-hm.”
“We should get one for the living room.”
“We’d get blood on it.”
Curran shrugged. “So?”
Roman appeared with two mugs, one pitch-black and the other clearly half-filled with cream. He gave the lighter mug to Curran.
“Drinking yours black, I see,” I told him.
He shrugged and sat on the couch. “Eh . . . goes with the job. So what can I do for you?”
[...]
“So did you come to invite me?” Roman asked.
“Yes,” Curran said. “We’d like you to officiate.”
“I’m sorry?”
“We’d like you to marry us,” I said.
Roman’s eyes went wide. He pointed to himself. “Me?”
“Yes,” Curran said.
“Marry you?”
“Yes.”
“You do know what I do, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “You’re Chernobog’s priest.”
Roman leaned forward, his dark eyes intense. “You sure about this?”
“Yes,” Curran said.
“Not going to change your mind?”
What was it with the twenty questions?
“Will you do it or not?”
“Of course I’ll do it.” Roman jumped off the couch. “Ha! Nobody ever asks me to marry them. They always go to Nikolai, my cousin—Vasiliy’s oldest son.”
Roman ducked behind the couch and emerged with a phone. “When some supernatural filth tries to carry off the children, call Roman so he can wade through blood and sewage to rescue them, but when it’s something nice like a wedding or a naming, oh no, we can’t have Chernobog’s volhv involved. It’s bad luck. Get Nikolai. When he finds out who I’m going to marry, he’ll have an aneurysm. His head will explode. It’s good that he’s a doctor, maybe he can treat himself.”
He plugged the phone into the outlet. It rang. Roman stared at it as if it were a viper. The phone rang again.
He unplugged it. “There.”
“It can’t be that bad,” I told him.
“Oh, it’s bad.” Roman nodded. “My dad refused to help my second sister buy a house, because he doesn’t like her boyfriend. My mother called him and it went badly. She cursed him. Every time he urinates, the stream arches up and over.”

Teddy Jo held out a leather swing on chains. “Sit.”
“You said a harness. That is not a harness. That’s a playground swing.”
“What if she falls?” Roman asked.
Teddy Jo’s eyes bulged a little. He was at the end of his patience. “If she falls, I’ll catch her.”
“That’s it.” Roman thrust the staff at me. “Hold him. I’m coming with. I’ll be needed for negotiations anyway.”
Teddy Jo rolled his eyes.
“I’m not taking chances with this wedding. She’s going to walk down the aisle, and I’m marrying her and Curran.”
Teddy Jo looked at me. “You’re having him officiate at your wedding? Do you know what he does?”
“Could you please have this discussion somewhere else?” Barabas asked.
Roman stretched his arms and popped his neck, as if about to take a swim. “Take care of my horse, please.” He planted his feet, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “I hate this part.”

“My father called me, all offended on my behalf that the wedding dinner isn’t sufficiently feastlike.”
“Umm,” Roman said.
“Curran is also now offended because my father referred to him as a pauper.”
“Umm,” Roman offered.
“And then you called over to the Keep and offended the dress designers, so they hunted me down this morning and invaded my house.”
“You do need a dress.”
“You’re not a wedding planner, you’re a menace. Stop planning my wedding.”
“I’ll stop when you start.”
“There is nothing to plan.”
Roman turned to Teddy Jo on the trail next to him. “Do you see what I have to deal with?”
“What does this wedding look like in your head?” Teddy Jo asked me. “Is it like the family gets there and then this Russian shows up and marries you?”
“Pretty much.”
“No,” Teddy Jo said.
“It’s my wedding. It’s for me.”
“No, your wedding night is for you. The wedding is for everyone else.”
“I told her,” Roman said. “Weddings require preparation. It’s a significant, hopefully once-in-a-lifetime event where you swear to love and cherish another person, not casually but through thick and thin. It’s a promise that is meant to be kept forever. Honestly, Kate, do you want to get married? It’s a serious question.”
I sighed. “I want to get married. And maybe I would like to be there to pick the flowers and choose the dress and select the menu. But war is coming. My future is on fire and I have to put it out if I hope to have any future left."

“It won’t be him,” Roman said. “It will be me on the battlefield channeling his power.” He grinned. “I will be a battle volhv. This will be my first time. I’m excited.”
“I didn’t mean to rope you into this.”
“I didn’t mean to bring you into a scary swamp. Things happen.”
“How often are Sirin’s predictions wrong, Roman?”
“Do you want the true answer or the one you can live with?”
“That often, huh?” He nodded.
The trees parted. Teddy Jo stood in the middle of the road, looking confused. The sun was to our right. We’d lost a few hours somehow.

I exhaled and looked at Roman. “What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone?”
“You have to make all the wedding decisions,” Roman said. “You have to select the cake, the colors for the ceremony, the flowers for your bouquet, and you have to stand for a second dress fitting tomorrow at eight o’clock. You also have to approve the guest list and the seating chart.”
I looked at Curran.
“I can take the chart,” he offered.
“Thank you.” I looked at Roman. “I do all this and you stop bugging me?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a deal.”
“Excellent.” He rubbed his hands, looking every inch an evil pagan priest. “I love it when everything comes together.”

Some quotes from other characters:

“You should’ve let me twist his head off,” Mahon said. “You can’t let people insult your wife, Curran. One day you’ll have to choose diplomacy or your spouse. I’m telling you now, it’s got to be your wife. Diplomacy doesn’t care if you live or die. Your wife does.”

I swung the door open a moment before Derek walked through it.
“I heard the conversation. I’m coming,” he said.
Ascanio rolled his eyes. “This will be fun.”
Derek parked himself in the doorway. “You need backup.”
“She has backup.”
“Yes, but someone will have to carry the Prince of Hyenas if he accidentally stabs his pinkie toe, and she isn’t a shapeshifter.”
“Fine.” I headed for my vehicle.
Behind me Ascanio snorted. “Idiot wolf.”
“Spoiled bouda brat.”
“Bigot.”
“Crybaby.”
“Shit for brains.”
“Momma’s boy.”
Universe, grant me patience.

“What is this?”
“It’s a wedding invitation,” Julie said.
“I didn’t order any.”
Julie grinned at me. “Roman.”
Ugh. That’s right. I waved the envelope at her. “It has flowers on it.”
“Did you want gore, swords, and severed heads?” she asked.
Smartass.

“So that’s right out,” Teddy Jo said. “You understand why? You come with her to Mishmar, neither of you might get out alive. She’s safer on her own.”
Christopher nodded. “Well, can I come with you to see the horses? I promise to be good and not scare them.”
“Sure, why not.” Teddy Jo waved his arms. “The entirety of Hades can come. We’ll have a party.”
Christopher stepped off the porch in to the backyard, spread his wings, and shot upward. The wind nearly blew me off my feet.
“Thank you,” I told Teddy Jo.
“He gives me the creeps,” Teddy Jo growled.
“You’re the nicest angel of death I know.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get in the damn swing.”

“Sugar.” I put some steel into my voice. We were going to crash. We’d smash against the stone and there would be nothing left of us but a wet spot. “Sugar!”
Teddy Jo threw himself flat. Jim leapt at Dali, knocking her down to the floor. I caught a flash of Doolittle’s face as we whizzed by, Sugar’s wings clearing his head by about four inches. He was laughing.
“You’re a mean horse!” Sugar neighed, beat her wings, and turned around.
“Control your horse!” Jim snarled. “You control your horse.”
Oh wow, now that was a clever comeback. He’d surely drop to his knees and bow before my intellectual brilliance. Sugar touched down on the stone.
“A pegasi!” Dali pushed her glasses back on her face and reached out to Sugar.
Jim grabbed her and yanked her back. “What’s wrong with you?”
She pushed out of his arms and gently patted Sugar. The pegasi lowered her head. “See? She can sense my magic.”
Dali rubbed the mare’s neck. “You are so beautiful.”
“I don’t want to dismount,” I told them. “I don’t know if she’ll let me back on.”
Teddy Jo picked up two big sacks sitting next to Doolittle, slowly approached us, and handed them to me. I hooked them up to my saddle.

“That’s not how it works.”
Help me, somebody.
Curran was looking right at me. “Kate?”
“It’s more of an advising kind of knife.”
“You should come clean,” he said. “Whatever it is, it’s done and we can handle it.”
My aunt tore into existence in the center of the room. “Hello, half-breed.”
Curran exploded into a leap. Unfortunately, Derek also exploded at exactly the same time but from the opposite direction. They collided in Erra’s translucent body with a loud thud. Derek fell back and Curran stumbled a few steps.
Erra pointed at Curran with her thumb. “You want to marry this? Is there a shortage of men?”
Curran leapt forward and swiped at her head. His hand passed through my aunt’s face. Derek jumped to his feet and circled Erra, his eyes glowing.
“I fear for my grandnephew,” Erra said. “He will be an idiot.”
The phone rang. “I’ll get it.”
It was probably for me anyway and I desperately needed to escape.

“Is that why you’re bruised and smell like blood?” Derek asked from the backseat.
“Yes. And some of it was Erra. She took some convincing.”
“But is she going to help us?” Julie asked.
“She already has,” I said.
Curran stared straight ahead. His hands gripped the wheel.
“You’re going to bend it,” I told him.
He hit me with an alpha stare and kept driving.
“Are you okay?” I asked. Are we okay, Curran?
“He’s got no room to talk,” Julie said.
“Quiet,” Derek told her.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Curran asked.
“No.” Now wasn’t the best time to bring up Adora. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“One of the rooms in the castle had a creature in it,” Curran said.
“What kind of creature?”
“A large cat,” Curran said. “It glowed.”
“What happened to the large glowing cat?” Why did I have a feeling I wouldn’t like the answer?
“I killed it,” Curran said.
“Aha.” First, I broke Mishmar, then Curran stole Saiman back and killed my father’s glowing cat. Maybe Roland’s head would explode.
“It was a saber-toothed tiger,” Julie said. “It glowed silver.”
Silver meant divine magic. There was no telling what that saber-toothed tiger was or where my dad had gotten him.
“Snitch,” Derek said.
She waved him off. “He killed it and then he ate it.”
I looked at Curran. “You killed an animal god and then you ate him?”
“Maybe,” Curran said.
“What do you mean maybe?”
“I doubt it was a god.”
“It glowed silver,” Julie said. “It was definitely worshipped.”
Oh boy.

“The future is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
They looked at me.
“We worked so hard not to provoke him and it doesn’t matter in the end,” I said. “The battle will happen. We can’t stop it.”
Curran looked at Robert. “Tell him that after he goes through with it, Roland will retaliate in force. Tell Jim he knows where we live. We’ll be here.”
“Tell him that he is endangering every person in the city limits,” I said.
“Hypothetically speaking,” Robert said, “if the attack happens, and Roland retaliates, what will you do about it?”
“She is a princess of Shinar.” My aunt burst into existence in the middle of the kitchen. “It is by the grace of her mercy you are still breathing.”
Robert stumbled back. Raphael’s hands went to his knives. Andrea bared her teeth, cradling Baby B. You could hear a pin drop.
“I have family in town for the wedding,” I said into the silence. “My aunt, Eahrratim, the Rose of Tigris.”
Curran covered his face with his hand.
“Your pathetic castle is in her domain,” Erra said. “She can level it with a thought. If your Beast Lord picks a fight with my brother, how will you survive without her to shield you?”
“We’ll fight,” Robert said, his body tense, ready to leap and tear.
“And when fire rains from the sky and the earth opens to swallow you, who will you fight then? How much damage will your claws do to a flood? Tell that to your king, half-breed.” My aunt vanished.
Andrea pivoted to me, her mouth open, and shook her finger at the spot where Erra had stood.
“Long story,” I told her.
“Tell Jim that after he has his fun, we’ll be here,” Curran said to Robert. “Tell him that help is here. All he needs to do is ask.”

“See? Serendipity.”
“You mean coincidence.”
Ascanio opened the door and Roman walked in. He saw me onstage and blinked. “Ehh . . .”
“Don’t,” I warned him.
He raised his hands. “I do not judge.”
Curran tossed me my clothes. I slipped the shirt over my head, pulled on my jeans, and took off the stupid tutu. A black woman with a head full of bright poppy-red curls followed Roman, pulling behind her a small metal cart full of plates. Roman picked up one of the plates and a spoon, carved a small piece of the cake on it, and held the spoon out to me.
“What is this?”
“Cake.”
“Why do I need cake right this second?”
“This is Mary Louise Garcia,” Roman said. “She is the head baker for Clan Heavy’s Honey Buns bakery.”
Mary smiled at me and waved her fingers.
“Mary very kindly agreed to bring over samples so you could select a wedding cake.”
“I did.” Mary nodded.
“Mary turns into a grizzly. A very large grizzly.”
“I know who Mary is,” I told him. “I met her before, at Andrea’s wedding.”
“If you don’t pick a wedding cake, Mary will sit on you and stuff all this cake into your mouth until you make a selection.”
“Mary and what army?”
Mary smiled at me. “I won’t need an army.”
“Can he select the cake?” I pointed at Curran. “This wedding involves two of us.”
“He already did,” Mary said. “These are the choices he narrowed down.”
I turned to Curran. “You narrowed it down to sixteen choices?”
“They were all very delicious,” he said.
“Were there any choices you didn’t like?”
“Yes,” he said. “I scrapped coconut and lime.”
“After you are done with the cake, we’ll discuss flower selection and colors,” Roman said.
I would strangle him. “Roman, I have to dance until Zoe can record the rest of the mystical writing on my skin, and then I have to train to work my magic. So no. Not doing it.”
Roman heaved a sigh and looked at Mary. “Do you see what I have to put up with?”
“Roman, if I don’t do this, Atlanta will be destroyed.”
“Atlanta is always getting destroyed,” Mary said. “Eat some cake. It will make you feel better.”
“Before I forget,” Roman said. “Sienna said to tell you to beware . . .” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Crocuta crocuta spelaea. Apparently it’s going to try to murder you. Don’t you want to eat some delicious cake before you die a horrible death?”
I sat on the stage and covered my face with my hands.
Curran’s hand rested on my shoulder. “Are you okay, baby?”
“No. Give me a minute.”
“That’s understandable,” Roman said. “Take your time.”
“What did you say it was that was going to murder me?”
“Crocuta crocuta spelaea.”
“Crocuta” usually referred to a hyena, but I couldn’t remember any hyena with “spelaea” attached to it.
“Cave hyena,” Ascanio said. “Also known as Ice Age spotted hyena.”
All of us looked at him.
He rolled his eyes. “I’m a member of Clan Bouda. I know our family tree.”

“How can you not have a throne room?” Erra peered at me. “Where do you receive supplicants?”
“Here, or at the office.” I walked over to the counter to pour myself another cup of coffee. Curran had left on a morning run through the woods. He said he needed to burn off some energy after last night. All I wanted to do after last night was sleep for twenty-four hours straight. Where the hell he got his energy I didn’t know, but I sure would’ve loved to have some of it. Julie sat at the table, watching my aunt with a sour expression on her face, and sipped her coffee.
“Is the office that place where you did a ridiculous dance?”
“Yes.”
“And you have no other dwelling? No palace, no fortress?”
“No.”
“You make me want to stab you.”
“I have that effect on many people.”
“How is it you’re still alive?”
“I’m hard to kill.” I drank my coffee.
“Not that hard.”
“You couldn’t do it.”
“I didn’t really try.”
I looked at her from above the brim of my cup. “You tried. I was there.”
Julie grimaced.
“What’s wrong with you this morning?”
“She doesn’t like my banner.”
Why me? Why? I counted to five in my head. Curran walked through the kitchen door.
“What’s wrong with the banner?”
“It’s blue,” Julie said.
“Why is it blue?” my aunt demanded.
“Because it’s the color of human magic,” Julie said.
“It’s the color of every human mage out there,” Erra snapped. “It’s not fit.”
I raised my hands. “I don’t care about the banner.”
My aunt reached over and smacked me upside the head. Magic exploded against my skull.
“If you do that again, I will drop your knife into a manhole for a few days.”