The Shadow Hour

by Melissa Grey

  One couldn’t easily find Pop-Tarts in England. The Pop-Tarts were irreplaceable. Jasper was not. “I’m gonna kill him,” said Echo, “with my bare hands.”

  “Just let me know in advance so I have time to fiddle with the box that pops corn with its modern magic. Entertainment is always better with popcorn. You said so yourself.”

  Oh gods, he was adorable. And he knew it. Cabin fever was making him cheeky. “It has a popcorn setting, Caius. You literally just press one button.”

  “You both know I can hear you, right?” Jasper said as he pulled on a clean black T-shirt.

  Echo ignored him. If there was ever a chance to discover any latent powers of persuasion at her disposal, now was the time. “C’mon. We’ll only go for a little while—an hour. Just one hour. We’ll peek in, see what all the fuss is about, and get it out of our system. It’s Jasper’s birthday. Did I mention that it’s Jasper’s birthday? Because it’s Jasper’s birthday.”

  Caius’s lips quirked into the faintest ghost of a smile. He was beginning to cave. He just needed a little push.

  “Oh, come on, what could possibly go wrong in a single hour?” Echo paused. Caius’s eyes narrowed in contemplation. With a grimace, she added, “Inscribe that on my tombstone if it comes back to bite me in the ass.” Echo darted in to press a chaste kiss to his cheek. He smiled fully, and for a split second, she felt the curve of his mouth against her skin.

  “Fine,” Caius mumbled, more than a little begrudgingly. “But we’re not going out. It’s too much of a risk. We’ll have our own party. Here.” Echo opened her mouth to protest, but Caius held up a hand. “Here,” he repeated, in a tone that invited no argument. “I’ll even let Jasper pick the music.”

  “Oh, thank the gods,” Jasper said. He kicked the blankets clean off his mattress, full of more energy than he’d had in months. “But whether or not His Royal Highness likes it, I am getting the hell out of here.” He raised his arms in a luxurious stretch, and Echo noticed the way Quinn devoured the sight of Jasper like a shark circling its prey. Jasper tugged his shirt over his stomach; it had ridden up while he stretched and he only just now seemed aware of Quinn’s attention. “If we’re going to have a party here, then we need snacks.”

  Caius began to object, but Jasper plowed right over him. “You said it yourself, we’re out of Pop-Tarts.” He headed for the door, light on his feet. “Can’t have a party without Pop-Tarts. And booze. And chips. Or as the locals call them…crisps.”

  “You’re not going out alone,” Ivy said. She elbowed Dorian in the side, pushing him forward. “That’s the rule, right, Dorian?”

  Ivy. Matchmaking. Bless your heart, Echo thought.

  Dorian nodded. “Yes, that is the rule.”

  “I’ll come too,” said Quinn.

  Jasper looked from one man to the other, his expression as guarded as Echo had ever seen it. When his gaze landed on Quinn, the brightness of his yellow eyes dimmed. But he covered up his reaction with a flippant shrug. “Whatever floats your boat.” He pointed to Echo and Caius. “Any requests?”

  “Food that occurs in nature,” Caius suggested.

  “Something salty,” Echo said. “And also chocolate. And cake. And—”

  Jasper cut her off. “I should have known better than to ask. Later, losers.” He snagged the pouch of shadow dust they kept in a small bowl by the door—in case of an emergency—and left, the door banging into the wall in his wake. A flabbergasted Dorian and a bemused Quinn followed.

  “Come back quickly,” Caius said. “And be careful.” Dorian nodded. And then they were gone. The loft was strangely quiet without Jasper’s complaining. Hell, even when he was quiet, he filled the room with an undeniable energy.

  Ivy plopped into one of the chairs in the kitchenette. “Do you think letting them go was a good idea?” She turned to Caius, her expression clouded with worry. “You said people might not just be looking for Echo, but for any of her ‘known associates,’ ” she said, curling her fingers into air quotes around the last two words.

  Caius sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “Aside from brute force, I don’t think we could have stopped Jasper from leaving.”

  “You are not wrong, my friend.” Echo picked up the television remote and hit the power button. She’d heard enough about volcanic eruptions and destroyed villages. Tonight, they would party. They would create a bubble of space and time in which nothing bad existed, where there were no enemies skulking in the shadows, no crushing world-saving responsibilities resting on anyone’s shoulders. “Now, what do you say we fix the place up a bit? Make it look a little less like a bunch of bums decided to squat here.”

  Echo put Caius and Ivy to work. They folded clothes and arranged them in inconspicuous piles near the wall. The mattresses were piled one on top of the other, high enough to form a makeshift couch. Once Ivy draped the colorful afghan throws unearthed from the bottom of one of Jasper’s trunks on top of the mattresses, they didn’t even look that bad. The three of them talked, not about the kuçedra or the firebird or war brewing in far-off lands, but about frivolous things. Music. Food. Caius’s hilarious aversion to modern technology. The disastrous love triangle forming among the absent members of their party. Despite the events of the past day, Echo felt a lightness in her chest. Here she was, prepping for a birthday party with her friends. If she ignored the world outside the warehouse and all the trouble it held, it almost felt like a normal night.

  Then the cell phone rang. Echo and Ivy locked eyes. The Ala was the only person who had the number, and she always let it ring once before hanging up and calling again so they knew who it was. The phone rang again. And again.

  “Don’t answer it,” Ivy whispered, as if whoever was calling would be able to hear her.

  The phone danced on the kitchen table, vibrations pushing it closer to the edge. Echo caught it before it fell. It buzzed in her hand once more before it went silent. No one spoke. The phone began to ring again. A tingle started at the base of Echo’s spine. Fear. Anticipation.

  Caius shook his head. Ivy mouthed, Do not.

  Echo tapped the screen to accept the call. The ringing ceased. She held it up to one ear, but said nothing, waiting for the caller to break the silence first.

  “Hello?” asked a voice on the other end of the line. “Is anyone there?”

  The connection was bad, and the words were distant and broken, but Echo knew that voice. She cradled the phone in both hands and met Ivy’s curious gaze from across the room. “Rowan?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Echo? Thank the gods it’s you. I wasn’t sure anyone was going to answer, but the Ala gave me this number in case of emergencies and this is definitely an emergency and—”

  “Rowan,” Echo said. Ivy and Caius drew closer. “Slow down. What happened? Is the Ala okay?”

  The connection crackled and weakened. Rowan must be somewhere without reliable service. The Nest, perhaps. It was almost impossible to get reception down there. “She’s okay. For now.”

  “What do you mean ‘for now’?” Echo said. Fear clutched at her stomach, twisting it cruelly. “I do not like the sound of ‘for now.’ ”

  “Hold on.” Rowan’s voice faded, as if he’d put a hand over the receiver. She heard muffled sounds of talking, then some indiscernible noises, then the whoosh-whoosh of denim against denim. Rowan must have slipped the phone in his pocket. After nearly a full minute, his voice returned, quiet, his breathing slightly labored. “I’m at the Nest and I don’t want anyone to know who I’m talking to. Altair had the Ala arrested.”

  “What?” The word came out as a squeak. Ivy pulled up a chair beside Echo, leaning against her knees to listen in on the conversation. Caius stood beside her, tensed, as if prepping himself for a fight. “Why?”

  Rowan spoke fast and low. “Altair confronted her when she got back about where she’d been. He knew she’d gone to see you, but she wouldn’t tell him where you were, so he’s convinced the council that she’s c
olluding with the enemy.”

  “Colluding? With the enemy? I’m the enemy now?” Of all the accusations Altair could have leveled at the Ala, that seemed to Echo to be the most unbelievable. The Ala was one of the oldest Avicen alive and she was almost universally loved. For Altair to have swayed the council meant that the Avicen were even more afraid than Echo had realized.

  “The Warhawks saw what you did in the Black Forest,” Rowan continued. “You attacked Altair. No one trusts you.”

  “In my defense, he was going to kill people I didn’t want him to kill.”

  “Yeah.” Rowan’s voice was practically a growl. “Like that dragon bastard.” Echo shot Caius a glance. That dragon bastard. “Don’t think that escaped anyone’s notice. He’s going to put the Ala on trial, and if she’s found guilty, they could kill her.”

  Echo’s head spun. She gripped the side of the table. The Ala couldn’t be killed. She couldn’t. Physically, it was possible, though difficult, but a world without the Ala was a world Echo could not envision. And to die at the hands of her own people, stirred into a frenzy of fear and malice by Altair? Unthinkable. “I’ll come back,” Echo said. “I’ll tell them everything, I’ll do whatever they want.”

  “Echo, no,” Rowan said in a rush. “Altair is only trying to—”

  His words were lost to a crash so loud Echo had to pull the phone away from her ear. “Rowan?”

  He didn’t respond. The call was still connected, and she could hear the sounds of chaos on the other end. Screams. The shriek of bending metal, the roar of something heavy collapsing.

  The ghosts inside Echo’s mind seemed to bang against the walls of her skull. Rose’s voice cut through Echo’s dawning horror. You have to go home. You have to help them. They’re dying. They’re dying, they’re dying, they’re dying.

  Echo stood, her white-knuckled grip on the phone anchoring her. “Rowan?” Her voice was strangled. Desperation, Rose’s and her own, choked her.

  The call dropped.

  She stared at the phone dumbly, as if it had betrayed her.

  “Echo?” Ivy asked in a soft voice. “What happened?”

  Echo’s voice came, distant even to her own ears. “We have to go to the Nest.” She was only vaguely aware of Caius’s hand on her shoulder, the sound of his voice asking her if she was all right.

  She was not all right.

  Rowan had called her from the Nest.

  The Nest was under attack.

  The thought spurred her to action. She thrust the phone into Ivy’s hands and dashed across the room for her backpack. From it, she retrieved everything she might need. An extra pouch of shadow dust went into her back pocket. The dagger slid into her boot. “We have to get back to the Nest,” she repeated. Her words were quick, efficient. “There are no gateways here, Caius. I can’t call the in-between by myself. I need you to get us there.”

  “Echo,” Caius said. “Echo, what happened?”

  She halted her preparations. A tremor ran through her hands that she could not stop. “They were attacked.”

  “At the Nest?” Ivy asked, her hands flitting to her mouth. “But how? The wards…”

  Echo pulled the zipper of her backpack closed with so much force she almost broke it. “I don’t know what happened, but I heard it.” She locked gazes with Caius. “And Rose felt it. Something is happening. Something bad. Take me there.”

  The mention of Rose’s name was enough to make Caius freeze. If he asked Echo how Rose knew or what it was that Rose had felt in whatever dimension of the universe she occupied when she wasn’t busy interfering in Echo’s life, she hadn’t the faintest clue what she would say. But he didn’t ask. He didn’t demand a logical explanation. He simply reached for the pouch of shadow dust squirreled away in one of the kitchenette’s cabinets and nodded. He would take her there.

  “Echo,” Ivy said, her voice breaking on the second syllable. Her fear, her uncertainty, practically vibrated off her in waves. “I don’t understand.”

  “You remember the protocol, right?” Echo asked, taking Ivy’s hands in her own. “The drills Altair made the Avicen run over and over and over?”

  “In the event of an attack,” Ivy recited, her hands holding fast to Echo’s, “rendezvous at Avalon.”

  Echo nodded and pulled her hands from Ivy’s surprisingly strong grip. Echo felt her reserves of calm dwindling. She needed to get through this. Rowan and the Ala needed her. Everyone back home did. “Jasper didn’t bring a phone. When they return, you tell them what happened. Tell them Caius and I went to the Nest. Make sure they all go to Avalon, okay?”

  Ivy nodded, but her brave expression looked like it was on the verge of crumbling.

  “Ivy.” Echo pulled her close and pressed her forehead against Ivy’s. “You got all that?”

  “Yes,” Ivy said. She repeated the words with more strength. “Tell them what happened. Bring them to Avalon.”

  “Good.” Echo turned to Caius and extended her hand. “Let’s go.”

  In an instant, they were plunged into darkness as the in-between opened up around them. Ivy, the warehouse, and London all disappeared from view. Echo realized, a split second later, that Caius couldn’t lead them to the Nest. He had never been inside it. He had no idea what to look for, and even if he did, he was Drakharin, and the wards around the main gateway would block his entry if he tried to access it directly. Echo needed to take the wheel.

  She tightened her hold on Caius’s arm and imagined the Nest’s gateway: the graceful swoop of the swans’ necks, their upraised beaks forming a perfect arch, the iron braziers burning on their backs. It was a marvel of Avicen architecture.

  But what materialized around them as the in-between faded was anything but marvelous.

  Pained moans drifted to Echo’s ears as solid ground appeared beneath her feet. She didn’t see the bodies, not at first. It was like trying to make sense of the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box. But then, slowly, details emerged. There were people trapped under slabs of stone, some attempting to move, others frightfully still. Both braziers had been lit when they fell, and smoke filled the cavern housing the gateway. Or what remained of it. A tangle of iron formed a loose circle around a field of debris, enough to still function as a gateway to the in-between. The detached metal head of a swan sat at Echo’s feet, its sightless eyes staring at the chaos around them.

  The gateway was decimated. Something had torn through the space with the ferocity of a cyclone. Wires dangled like macabre streamers, their exposed ends sparking with electricity. A shattered clockface lay atop a pile of rubble, and singed pieces of paper floated down like burnt leaves. Echo picked one up, and bile rose in her throat. It was a Metro-North schedule. The information booth at the center of Grand Central had rows of them available for passengers to take. Broken slabs of concrete littered the space, and she recognized the marble. It was the floor of the main concourse. A high-heeled shoe had fallen next to a scuffed briefcase. A man in a business suit—a human man—groaned in agony not five feet from where Echo stood. Her vision swam, and only Caius’s grip on her arm held her upright.

  The broken clock read 5:45. Evening rush hour. Something had struck the Nest—and Grand Central directly above it—at the busiest time of day, and it hadn’t cared who it hurt.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Echo operated on autopilot. She smeared dirt across Caius’s cheekbones—the area around the shattered gateway was filled with it. He needed to hide his scales or he would be blamed for all the senseless destruction.

  She didn’t realize that her ears were ringing until she saw Caius’s mouth moving, forming the shapes of words, and heard nothing but a high-pitched buzz. It must have been shock. He lifted his hand to point at something. Echo followed the line of his arm and willed herself not to scream in despair.

  One of the hallways leading farther into the Nest was blasted wide open, its arch cracked where shards of stone fell away. Echo walked to the nearest wall;
it was black as if burned or covered in soot, but when she touched it, she felt nothing but a deep dread. Her fingers came away clean, though the dread lingered, sticking to her soul like a stain. The other hallways branching off the main room were untouched—whoever did this had picked a very specific direction. This was no aimless attack.

  The bodies of the dead and dying lay on the ground, some still, some writhing in agony. Black lines crossed their exposed skin; their veins protruded slightly, as if swollen. Echo crouched down next to an Avicen woman. The woman’s chest rose and fell in stilted, short breaths; her eyes gazed at the ceiling, not seeming to see anything. One of the woman’s hands groped blindly beside her. Echo caught her hand and squeezed. It was the only comfort she could offer. The woman’s throat worked as if she was trying to say something, but only a hoarse croak escaped her chapped lips.

  Echo shook her head, helpless. “What did this?” she asked, not expecting an answer.

  The woman swallowed, once, twice, then formed a single word: “Shadows.” Her face went slack as the light fled from her eyes. Echo didn’t know if she was dead or not. She let go of the woman’s cold hand. Caius gently touched her shoulder, as if to encourage her to rise. To keep moving.

  Shadows? Memory tickled at the edges of Echo’s mind. The shadows in Samira’s dream—could they be related to this? How? Why?

  Echo rose to her feet; her body felt weighted down with a slew of emotions. Fear. Grief. The beginnings of rage. She forced herself to pass by the Avicen that had fallen in the corridors. None of them were moving. Black veins spread across their bodies, as if they’d been infected with some kind of toxin that had seeped into their bloodstreams. There was nothing she could do for them. She was too late. Too goddamn late.

  Behind her, Caius’s feet were eerily silent.

  Echo followed the path of destruction. Doors hung precariously from their hinges, and the gas lamps that lined the corridor lay shattered on the ground, creating a network of small fires that would only grow. Echo picked up her pace. As much as she wanted to scan the faces of passing Avicen for people she knew, for assurance that they were all right, she couldn’t bring herself to look too closely at the ones who lay still. Some were unconscious, but some had to be corpses. She swallowed past the bile in her throat and kept moving, deeper into the Nest, following the blackened trail.