“I want to make this right,” he said, coming forward and taking my hands. “Please?”
“I have to find Kensey. There was a sugar-mouse note. I thought… Did you write it?”
“No. I haven’t seen any notes.”
Then someone else had sent it, which meant Day was compromised, and we were all in trouble.
Chapter 22
Day
Kensey wasn’t in the station, but my brother had left before. It didn’t necessarily mean he’d been taken, even if the note had implied as much. The day staff had seen him at the end of his last shift. Wherever he was, he couldn’t have gotten far.
“Do you think someone has taken him?” Etienne asked. He stood behind me in the music room, keeping his distance. He’d stayed close as I’d searched every corner, every hidey-hole, every secret place I knew.
The note hadn’t written itself. I still wasn’t wholly convinced Etienne hadn’t written it.
“C’mon…”
We could do no more in the day. I rarely returned to Night during daylight hours, but if someone had taken Kensey, time was not on my side. The spiral staircase returned us to the station’s Night realm. Thick timber shutters sealed the windows closed, blocking all light. Some light still leaked through, slicing the dark like razor-sharp spears. It was normally enough to keep the vampires from roaming the halls. Most guests would be safe in their rooms, sleeping or doing whatever the Dark Ones did during the day. Only a few staff remained. They acknowledged me as I hurried by.
Rafe flashed into the hallway ahead, prompting a squeak from Etienne.
“It is done,” the incubus said, his gaze reading me and my changeling shadow. I couldn’t tell him about Etienne’s origins with Etienne present, but by the way his gaze snagged on Etienne, I wondered if he knew. I’d hoped he’d have told me, but then, it seemed that lately, everyone had secrets.
I nodded and stiffly walked by him.
“Hello, lover…” Rafe purred behind me, his attention lingering on Etienne for a sexual snack.
“He’s off-limits,” I said, walking on. “Believe me, you do not want to mess with that bloodline.”
We turned a corner, and there was Jack, standing between bars of sunlight shining through the shutters, his hands atop his cane. I froze, Etienne stumbled into my shoulder, and Rafe let out a rumbling growl. He looked the picture of male elegance in his lace-lined dark suit, like we hadn’t spent a week scrabbling around in the dirt, trying to survive each other. His hair was swept back, his face stern. I hadn’t expected to see him in the day—or looking so like… Jack.
“You look well, Miss Aris.” Closing his eyes, he bowed his head.
Rafe was a blur, his wings thrown open in a blast of crackling heat.
“Don’t!”
He swung for Jack.
Light swallowed us, flooding the hallway and washing out my vision. A few seconds of furious blinking revealed Rafe pinned to the wall, Jack’s hand around his throat. With Jack’s sleeve pulled back, the station’s burning mark shone brightly on his wrist.
“Don’t make me hurt you, demon.” Jack’s fangs gleamed.
“Try it, vampire.” Rafe smiled, and it was nothing like the smiles I’d seen before, like he’d gladly sink his rows of sharp teeth into Jack’s throat and wouldn’t stop there. “We’ll see who’s left standing.”
Jack was marked by the station. Rafe was not. Rafe couldn’t win this, not inside these halls.
“Stop!” I snapped. “Jack, put him down.”
The overseer swung a glare at me that would have dropped me to my knees had I not spent a week of hell with him. It struck that vulnerable prey-like part of me, and as his charm tried to slide across my thoughts and travel deep, I held his shimmering eyes, daring him to dive deeper. “Put. Him. Down.”
Whether it was my tone or his regaining control over himself, he dropped Rafe and backed off, avoiding the shafts of light to straighten his cuffs and cover the sizzling mark on his wrist.
“I wish to speak with you,” he said. “Alone.”
A burbling growl sounded from Rafe again.
Jack had the answers to everything. “Do you know where Kensey is?”
Lifting his head, he nodded toward the nearest door.
“Take Etienne,” I told Rafe and slipped my key into the room’s lock. “I’ll be fine.”
Rafe’s predatory glare hadn’t faded, and as I opened the door, letting Jack enter first, Rafe narrowed his eyes on me. He was easy to dismiss as just an incubus, but no simple incubus served Lilith. Rafe was as dangerous as the demon he served, which I often forgot—until moments like these, when malice made his eyes burn and the veins in his wings glow with unknown power.
He hated being shut out, but I stepped into the room and closed the door on him.
The strange décor threw me. Sleek glass and steel tables, and a window where there shouldn’t be one. It overlooked a twinkling city that no longer existed because Jack and his kind had torn the old world down.
“What are you doing to my station?” I folded my arms and kept the door at my back. His only escape and mine.
The room’s startling change had thrown him too. He lost himself in admiring the new features and touched the ultra-smooth table, running his hand along the sleek chair-backs. Maybe it had hidden meaning to him. The station often provided its guests with the things they wanted most, but Jack wasn’t really a guest and never had been.
“The situation is delicate,” he finally said, turning away from the modern splendor to face me.
“I’m listening.”
“What you’re doing here… it can’t be sustained.”
“It was fine before you came along.”
“No, it wasn’t. Did you think the missing carriages went unnoticed? Did you think a sanctuary for all races on the edges of both worlds would slip by the queen?”
I swallowed to moisten my suddenly dry throat. “Where’s my brother?”
“I don’t know where Kensey is.”
I wanted to slap my brother’s name off his lips. “Liar.”
“Look…” He stepped forward, bringing him closer, but stopped as I tensed. “Lynher, you hate me, and I understand why. But there’s more happening here than you can possibly imagine. You’re a small part of a bigger plan, and I’m… I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“You’re trying to keep me alive?” I snorted a laugh. “Funny, it didn’t feel like that when you had your fangs in my throat.”
“Granted, that… that wasn’t my finest moment. I was weak, and I am what I am. It wouldn’t have happened had you left me, like I’d suggested.”
Oh, and didn’t he look convincing as the sheepish, guilt-ridden vampire, with his big human eyes and that silly lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. I couldn’t believe anything my eyes told me or the words coming off his silver tongue. “You spoke to Caine like you’d planned all this from the beginning. And Etienne… he’s…”
“A changeling. Yes, I know. And yes, I know what’s happening here.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me? We spent all those days and nights together, and you didn’t once say that Etienne was compromised.”
He looked up. “Etienne’s origins were the least of my concerns. Keeping you alive was—”
“Why, exactly? You’ve never explained that part. Why do you need me alive, Just Jack?”
He swallowed hard and tossed his gaze about the room, hoping to find his answers in living walls. “This station is an anomaly. There are no others like it anywhere in this realm or a dozen others. Gerome said…” He wet his lips. “It has great power at its heart, a power my queen seeks. She’s coming here. She was coming before I arrived—”
So it was true. His monstrous queen was coming to my station. I couldn’t fight that. I could barely fight him. All of this had begun with him, and it would end with him too.
“You are not fit to bear that mark on your wrist!” I hissed. “You are not worthy of
sanctuary. I have no idea why the station marked you, but you will never be one of us!”
“Lynher, listen…” He reached out, and I slapped his hand away. “I’m trying to stop her, to buy some time to figure it all out. I’m not working against you. The station is—was everything to me. Once. Long ago.”
The hate was so strong it blurred my vision and made my clenched fists ache. If the station meant so much to him, why was he hurting us? Why was he hurting me? “I want my brother back. Where is he?”
He reached again.
“Touch me one more time and I will break your fingers. I don’t care if the station retaliates.”
He sighed and gave up on trying to invade my personal space. “My best guess, the fae have him. They used Etienne, yes? They took from him the knowledge to use against you.”
“Why? I’ve never hurt them.”
“Because the fae will always be on the winning side, and they know what’s coming.”
“The VG is preparing the station for her arrival. Caine had the elven couple manipulate Etienne to get you out of the picture. He likely threatened them too. He knew he couldn’t kill you inside these walls… but none of that matters. Every guest logged in the guest book when she arrives will be turned over to her. And every resident too. Lilith. Whatever is in Room 3B. These walls will become bars and it will all belong to her.”
“That’s… impossible.”
He looked sorry, not angry or mean, just… sad, like it was already over. “I’d planned to have more time here to find a way to stop her, but my unexpected arrival at the farm, it drew my queen’s eye back to me. I was due to report back to her and tell her everything about my stay, everything about… you. But my…” He licked his lips. “Our escape from the farm enraged her. She knows I’m here. She doesn’t know I’m marked, but… it won’t matter. She’s coming, Lynher. She’s coming and everyone inside these walls must kneel or die.”
“Is she coming here for us or for you?” I snarled. “Her overseer who got away? That’s what your marks are… She put them on you, didn’t she? She covered you in ink to claim you, like Caine claimed me, only far, far worse. She wants you.” I prodded him hard in the chest, and he backed up a step. “This is all about you.”
His eyes widened, and he let fear filter through all that arrogance and poise. Terror. My theory was close enough to tear away his mask and reveal the scared nothing vampire inside. He wanted my help, but I wasn’t Kensey. I’d seen what Jack and his kind did to people. He didn’t deserve sanctuary, and I didn’t care if he was marked. I was the Night Station now.
“Get my brother back and maybe I’ll help you, Just Jack.” I brushed by him and opened the door.
“Lynher, wait. I have no sway over the fae—”
I closed the door behind me, shutting off his pleading, fearful tone.
* * *
The number of VG listed in the guest book had doubled since my weeklong break. More vampires was always a bad omen. Was the queen’s arrival imminent? Jack had seemed to think so, but I couldn’t trust a word he said. The only fact I was certain of, was that she wanted her overseer back. He’d admitted as much, and now he was hiding in my hallways. She was coming for Jack, I was sure of it. If I removed him, it might postpone or stop her arrival altogether. Every second he was under my roof risked the lives of my guests and my family. And nobody survived hurting my family.
Room C46 caught my eye on the register: Connaught and Aoife, the elves who had promised Etienne a life with them in exchange for imprisoning me with an overseer. His mother’s kiss had charmed him. Changelings were human until their twenty-first year, making Etienne as susceptible to the fae as the rest of us. He’d have told her anything, done anything, after that kiss, just to feel her love.
He’d told them about Kensey and probably about the notes my brother and I passed back and forth. They’d have used a note to lure Kensey into Night, suspecting my brother would go anywhere and do anything for me. The elves had played on my love. So, it was time I played on theirs.
After checking in with my staff, I resigned myself to my library. Finally alone, I tucked myself behind my desk and closed my eyes for a moment. When this was over, I’d sleep for a week. Kensey would make pancakes. Trains would come and go like the tide, and things would go back to the way they were meant to be. I just had to stop an overseer and maybe the queen of vampires…
“I could do with you here, Gerome,” I whispered and imagined him leaning against the desk, his soft smile a comfort in these dark times. He was dead because of vampires and so were hundreds of thousands of people. Countless farms kept people like cattle, and when they were done with them, they drained them, shoved them into windowless rooms, and burned them to ash. I couldn’t wait for the resistance to reach our shores. The time to fight was now.
The wall clock chimed six times, bringing me back to the present.
Night was here.
My shift had begun.
And this shift would bring an end to it all, one way or another.
* * *
Etienne was at the main desk, scanning the guest book. As I approached, he looked up and pulled a smile onto his lips. It seemed genuine, but so did the one I threw back at him.
“Etienne, tell the guests that there’s to be a Midnight Ball,” I told him. “Everyone is to attend.”
He grabbed a notebook and pencil and mumbled as he wrote. Peering over his shoulder, I noted how his handwriting differed from the sugar-mouse note. He caught me looking and doubt stuttered his smile. He knew I’d never trust him again. Through no fault of his own, the Dark Ones had ripped his life away. I just hoped their promised one matched up to his expectations.
“Inform the staff it is to be extravagant and glamorous. I’ll get the station on board, but I need everyone in attendance.”
“Everyone?” he asked.
“Everyone.”
“What of… what about… Resident Three B?” he whispered.
“Not them.” Whatever existed in 3B had never left the room anyway and would have no interest in such frivolous things. “But everyone else must be there. Even Lilith. To miss it would be to miss the station’s grandest of celebrations.” I added a flourish and wore my role well, attracting the eye of those lingering nearby. Rumors would fast spread. Few would want to miss the station’s first and likely only ball.
He scribbled furiously. “What are we celebrating, ma’am?”
“My return from the dead.”
He frowned, knowing me too well. He’d heard the threat hidden in my words. “I’ll see it done.” When I turned to leave, he called me back. “Has there been any news of our… mutual friend?”
“I’m working on it.”
The halls soon filled with Dark Ones, each tipping their hats, no doubt while sharpening their claws behind my back. I wondered if any of them had been eyeing my throne during my absence. A good thing only those station-marked could host. Jack didn’t count. The day a vampire became a host was the day I burned the station down.
Preparations had begun to dress the Grand Hall, and thankfully, the station was playing along. Brightly colored gossamer drapes hung in waves from the ceiling. Colored shades made the chandeliers twinkle, raining color across the floor and the many gathered below. The VG gathered too, pockets of black and red among a sea of color. The guests had found all manner of beautiful clothes in their closets. They all shone like precious gems, and from the gallery landing above, I watched them spin and twirl to the rise and fall of the music.
The elves arrived near twelve, the pair in matching purple and cream, hair done up in elaborate curls and pins. They looked good enough to eat and drew more than a few gazes, including mine. So beautiful. It was always the beautiful ones who had hollow hearts. Gerome had told me that. Would he approve of my actions tonight? I’d never know, but I liked to think so. No doubt he’d have had another way of saving everyone, but I wasn’t Gerome.
I spotted Rafe on the outskirts of the growing cro
wd, cradling a lit pillar candle in his hands. He knelt, placed the candle near his feet, straightened, and looked over his shoulder, up at me. The old Rafe would have winked and grinned. This one smiled, but it wasn’t entirely harmless. If it wasn’t for our deal, I wouldn’t trust him with any of this.
Lilith sashayed up the stairs and came to rest against the rail beside me, wearing the body of a stunning redheaded woman. Her silk dress, what little there was of it, was startling in its plainness. “What are you up to, my little Lynher?” she purred.
“You look good in green.”
“It’s emerald, dear. Green, indeed.” She flicked her long fingers. “You make me sound like a maid.”
Rafe’s attention slipped to Lilith and lingered. A quiet moment passed between them, then he was through the crowd largely unnoticed, which was a first for him. I hadn’t known he could do subtle.
“I see you have not restored his soul.” She gripped the banister. Was it my imagination how her knuckles whitened?
“If you’re so eager to see him restored, why not do it yourself?”
“I do not care either way. There are plenty more incubi I can call upon to serve me, but you care, and I like to watch you watching him. I admire the dance you perform around him and he around you, as though you both assume I cannot see your intentions.”
I almost laughed. “I have no intentions toward Rafe.”
“You will.” She stroked my cheek and ran the tip of her tongue along her top lip. “You have no idea, darling. Without his soul, Raphael is unrestrained, making him… as boundless as fire. He will consume you from the inside out and perhaps this station with it.”
I batted her hand away. “This is a night for celebration. I’m kindly asking you not to ruin it.”
She laughed and curled her fingers into her palm. Her gaze lingered as she backed away, and then she descended the sweeping staircase, meeting Rafe at the bottom step. He said a few words, none of which I could hear over the music, and then he leaned closer. He cupped her cheek, and for a moment, I thought they’d kiss, but his cheek brushed hers and his lips moved, spilling secrets into her ear. When he was done, Lilith looked up, straight into my gaze. Her snakelike eyes gleamed with something I dared not interpret, and then she left the room.
Twilight Seeker: Daybreaker #1 Page 19
