“I’ll be back. Going to go take a walk around as a formal citizen before I call it a night. See what might be lurking before I hit the hay.”
Helen’s gears ground before she went silent.
“Night to you too.”
I threw on my jacket, stepping out into the cold, the fifth wind tearing through the fabric like I was dressed in silk, my boots hitting the pavement with the confident thud of someone who didn’t care who heard them.
The streets were quieter than normal but sizzled with tension, as the people who were out eyed each other as if they were going to be possible combatants in the octagon. Whatever crude civilization Xest had was going to take a real beating, as the feeling of it filled these streets. The divide had already been here when I first arrived, a lost soul who didn’t know who she was, or what she was. Everything was changing. The person I’d been was a shadow of the woman I was becoming. This place, so strange and yet so rigid in its beliefs, was changing too. Into what? I didn’t know.
Where before, people from the other side of the line politely ignored each other, now you feared a knife in your back if you made the error of losing sight of them. I was getting bolder and harder myself, and it was just in the nick of time.
The line in the snow, the one everyone would have to choose a side, was now a chasm separating us. A war was coming, and I knew what side I was on. I knew I was going to have to shed any softness that might still be clinging to me. If I was going to survive, if Xest was going to survive, I’d have to become as savage as that thing I’d managed to corral for a time.
Familiar footsteps sounded behind me, but I didn’t need to look over my shoulder to see who it was. Hawk fell into step right beside me.
Hawk and I had our differences, but he had my back—when it counted and our goals aligned, anyway. Right now? They couldn’t have been any more in sync.
“Nice night for a quick patrol,” he said.
“I thought so.”
As we walked, I could feel a trace of its power all around. It hadn’t been idle in captivity. It had grown—a lot. This was what my freedom had cost.
“You know, it would’ve been smarter to let me die in that dome.” I wasn’t sure why I was saying it other than it was the truth. I didn’t like it, but Xest might’ve been better off if I’d died in that dome. Except Hawk would’ve died there with me, and I didn’t seem capable of not saving him.
“I’ve made many worse decisions than that.” He smiled.
I looked at him, wondering if he might’ve been admitting to a little regret about forcing me out.
He continued, “It’s going to get ugly here. No one would fault you for leaving if you have any doubts.”
I was laughing now. “You must be kidding. After what I went through to stay? No. This is my home.”
“I know it is. You belong here.”
Something inside me stilled at hearing him utter those words. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re waiting to hear, or need to hear, until you hear it. But him saying that seemed to cement my place as firmly as the hags had. I was no longer the Nowhere witch. I was Tippi, from Xest—the most feared man here had declared it, so how could it be anything but true?
“Are you going to tell me what you said to the hags that changed their minds? I do appreciate the help. I’m just curious how you managed to pull it off,” I said.
“Let’s just say that the timing isn’t quite right to discuss, but it had to be done if you were going to stay.”
“Feel like sharing with me what the hell you changed into the other day?”
“Again, the timing might not be quite right,” he said, smiling.
“Give me one answer, then. How did you know I was going to have a problem with immigration?”
“Considering that half of Xest doesn’t care for you, it wasn’t much of a leap. I knew about it since the morning the note was on your door, and I had some time to line a few things up.”
“Is that why…” No, there was no way he’d forced me back to the broker’s building just for my sake. I’d already given him way too much credit. I wasn’t giving him any more. Bad things happened when I put Hawk on a pedestal that high.
“What?” he asked.
“Forget it. The timing isn’t quite right,” I said.
He laughed at my use of his answer.
“Just so you know, I don’t thank people when I’m not sure what they did.” Whatever he had done, I was surely going to pay a price for it at some point in the future.
“You’re welcome,” he said, as if I’d thanked him anyway.
He wasn’t going to tell me what he did, and I wasn’t going to pursue it, because right now, I had too much on my plate, and the battle lines had been drawn with him on my side. Yeah, I trusted him, at least in keeping me here, and maybe keeping me alive. If a fight came down, he’d be the first to have my back. That he’d proven, and that was enough. In times like these, it might mean everything, because there were some dark times ahead.
The heaviness was palpable, a sizzle in the air as you waited for that first strike of lightning to commence the storm. I knew darkness. I’d grown up with darkness, and things were about to get pitch-black.
There was only one thing I didn’t know for sure, and it was the only question that mattered right now, the one that would keep me up tonight, and every night after: in the fight for Xest’s future, who would be the victor? Would the good guys win like they did in the fairytales of Rest? Or would this tale have a darker ending? As this was officially my home now, I was going to find out.
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Acknowledgments
No book would be complete without a thanks to the crew who helps me get each story over that final hurdle. Donna Z., Lisa A, Camilla J., Lori H., Tammy K., Christine J. and Ashleigh M., every one of you has added something to this story. Thank you for sticking with me!
Also by Donna Augustine
Ollie Wit
A Step into the Dark
Walking in the Dark
Kissed by the Dark
The Keepers
The Keepers
Keepers and Killers
Shattered
Redemption
Karma
Karma
Jinxed
Fated
Dead Ink
The Wilds
The Wilds
The Hunt
The Dead
The Magic
Born Wild (Wilds Spinoff)
Wild One
Savage One
Wyrd Blood
Wyrd Blood
Full Blood
Blood Binds
The Nowhere Witch (Tales of Xest Book 2) Page 22
