by Melissa Grey
“Ah, yes, busy folding the same shirt over and over again?”
Jasper dropped the shirt, because that was exactly what he’d been doing.
“Look.” Quinn stepped around Jasper and shoved a pile of clothes out of his way. He plopped down on the bed, and not even sinking into the uncomfortable softness of the mattress could make him look any less elegant or composed. That, too, had been part of his appeal. “You’re right.”
He was?
“I am?” The surprise wasn’t that Jasper was right. That much was undeniable. The surprise was that Quinn would ever deign to admit it.
“I fucked up.”
This was new. Jasper said nothing. He wanted to see how far Quinn would take this.
“And I’m sorry.”
This was not just new. This was unheard of.
Quinn reached out to take Jasper’s hand, and he was stunned enough to let it happen. The remembrance of other times Quinn’s skin had come into contact with his bubbled to the surface of Jasper’s memory with the touch: the slide of arms around his waist, the feel of a palm cupping his cheek, the sting of nails scraping along his spine. The memories were a heady rush, as powerful as the shifting of tides, but Jasper would be damned if he let them pull him out to sea. He attempted to extricate his hand from Quinn’s grasp, but the warlock simply held on tighter. It was the history of their relationship in a small, pitiful nutshell. “Unhand me,” Jasper said. After a moment of deadlocked staring, he added, “Now.”
Quinn dropped Jasper’s hand.
That was easier than it should have been. It was definitely the fastest Quinn had ever acquiesced to a request. It had to be some kind of record.
“Look, Jay, I know I messed up, but—”
“First of all, stop calling me that. I’ve always hated it. Secondly, ‘messed up’ doesn’t quite begin to cover what you did to me. You toyed with my life, Quinn. You put me in so many awful situations that I can hardly count them all. Do you remember that time you used me as bait to draw out those French warlocks you wanted to steal some enchanted trinket from? Because I do.”
“That’s just it.” Quinn reached up to run a finger along Jasper’s jawline. “You were bait. I never would have let anything bad happen to you.”
Jasper slapped the offending hand away. Even Quinn’s touch was toxic. It was a sweet poison that you didn’t realize was sucking the life from you until it was too late. “And that’s where you’re wrong. You are the bad thing that happened to me. You lied. You cheated. You. Hurt. Me. I sent Caius to you because we were desperate, but don’t you dare confuse that desperation with whatever fantasy you have of me running back to you. We are so far beyond that—I am so far beyond that.”
It was astonishing to Jasper that the words in his head had actually left his mouth. When he fled Quinn the first time, he’d slipped away in the dead of night, knowing that if he were forced into a face-to-face confrontation, he would melt under that starlit gaze, just as he’d done a thousand times before, when Quinn had pleaded, with honeyed words and false promises, for him to stay.
“Fine,” Quinn said, with an air of finality. He drew in a deep breath. “You’re right. And I’m wrong, as usual. I know that I don’t deserve your forgiveness.” The stars in his eyes seemed to dim, as if hidden behind the cover of clouds. “But you have my apology all the same. And whether or not you choose to believe me, I mean it. Every word.”
Jasper knew what lies sounded like. He trafficked in them. He had learned to wield falsehoods like weaponry, but he could hear none in Quinn’s tone. That unsettled him. Badly. His voice had scuttled off to hide somewhere he couldn’t find it, not even to throw the apology back in the warlock’s unfairly symmetrical face.
The corners of Quinn’s lips curved upward. “You’re beautiful when you’re befuddled.”
It wasn’t even that charming a compliment, and yet, something in Jasper’s chest twinged at the words. But he had been down this path before. He knew where it led: nowhere good. At last, he found his voice; he dragged it, kicking and screaming, into his throat. “I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re sorry. I don’t even care if you mean it this time. I don’t want to have this conversation with you right now. Or ever.” His voice pitched half an octave lower, completely of its own volition. “Please,” he said. “Just go.”
With a sigh, Quinn stood, brushing lint that wasn’t there off his black jeans. He squared his shoulders and planted his feet, as if he could force Jasper to accept his apology, to accept this new and improved Quinn through sheer determination. “Look, I’m a warlock, okay? This isn’t news. And you know how a human becomes a warlock…through sacrifice and willful corruption, most of which is inspired by greed and lust. I am not a good person. I never have been. And I was fine with that…until I met you.”
“Are you seriously giving me the ‘you make me want to be a better man’ speech? Is that what’s happening here?”
“Maybe,” said Quinn, a wry grin pulling at his lips. “But don’t tell the other warlocks. They’d never let me hear the end of it.”
A startled laugh escaped Jasper. Quinn took it as a sign of encouragement and stepped into Jasper’s space. Slowly, he took Jasper’s hand and pulled him closer. Their chests were nearly touching. Alarm bells rang in Jasper’s head, but they were silenced easily enough. Maybe Quinn meant what he said. Maybe he had changed. It was a slim hope, but Jasper clung to it. Not because he wanted to pick up the tattered remnants of a failed relationship, but because the possibility Quinn was capable of positive change meant that maybe Jasper hadn’t been such a complete and utter fool after all.
“We were good together,” Quinn whispered, leaning close. He was taller than Jasper by only about two inches, but he’d always seemed giant. His breath rustled the fine feathers near Jasper’s ear. “You know we were. We can be again. I’ll be better, I promise.”
And there it was. That pithy, two-word phrase that Jasper had relied on so many times before. A promise was never a promise with Quinn. It was more of an unlikely potentiality. Jasper stepped away, keeping his eyes focused on his feet. He needed space. He was a tactile person, and proximity was dangerous. It made saying no that much harder.
“He’ll never love you.”
Jasper jerked his head up. “Excuse me?”
“The Drakharin,” Quinn said. When Jasper maintained his silence, he continued, “Oh, come now. I’m not blind. I see the way you look at him. And the way he looks at you. But you have to realize that soulful glances are all you’re ever going to get from that one. Whatever baggage he’s carrying around is entirely too heavy. It’s dragging him down, and I don’t want to see you get dragged down with him.”
That was rich. That was so rich, Jasper hoped Quinn choked on it. “Since when do you care so much?”
Quinn reached out, hand nearing Jasper’s face, but he curled his fingers into a loose fist before making contact. After a second, he dropped it. “I’ve always cared. I was just never very good at showing it.” He closed the gap between them, leaving a few inches of air separating their chests. A deep enough breath would erase that small distance. Jasper kept his breathing shallow. “Let me show you now,” said Quinn. “Please.”
A knock on the door saved Jasper from having to respond, which was for the best, as he could feel his resolve beginning to crumble. He stepped away from Quinn, and it felt like a comet falling out of a planet’s orbit—the warlock’s pull was broken.
“Come in,” Jasper called out before Quinn could tell the interloper to call again another time. The door swung open and a head of silvery hair poked in. Relief stole through Jasper. The pleasure he normally felt whenever he laid eyes upon Dorian’s lovely, one-eyed visage was multiplied tenfold.
“Jasper,” Dorian said as he entered, all brisk formality and military bearing. It was not lost on Jasper that Dorian deemed Quinn unworthy of a direct hello.
“Dorian, darling,” Jasper said. “What brings you to my humble abode?” Also, ple
ase stay, forever and ever, thank you.
The tips of Dorian’s ears went pink at the word “darling,” but he didn’t roll his eyes and tell Jasper to put a lid on it like he usually did. Maybe it was Quinn’s presence. Or maybe he was coming around and seeing the light. The light being Jasper’s raw animal magnetism.
Dorian cleared his throat before speaking. “I thought I left something in here.”
“Your dignity, perhaps?” Quinn’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“I’ve had just about enough of your attitude,” said Dorian. “Keep it up and there’s no magic in this world powerful enough to protect you. Are we clear?”
Jasper had never been more attracted to another person in his life.
Quinn clenched his jaw so hard, he looked to be in danger of cracking his teeth. The sky in his eyes burned with the ferocity of a thousand supernovas. “Crystal.” He approached the door, and Jasper braced for a confrontation. Dorian, however, stepped aside to let Quinn pass, as if, now that he’d made his point, he didn’t have a single care in the world. Before stepping over the threshold, Quinn shot Jasper a heated look over his shoulder. “Just remember what I told you.” With a final poisonous glance at Dorian, he left.
They both waited, perfectly still, until the sound of Quinn’s footsteps faded. Dorian stood there, arms at his sides, every bit as awkward as a fish on dry land. Now that the grand gesture was complete, he didn’t appear to have any idea what to do next. Hell, Jasper wasn’t certain what to do.
After the silence stretched from awkward to unbearable, Dorian said stiffly, “My apologies.”
“For what?” asked Jasper.
“For disturbing you.”
Oh, for gods’ sake.
It was hard for Jasper to believe that Dorian had been on this earth for more than two centuries and was still so woefully oblivious.
“You weren’t,” he said. “You couldn’t even if you tried.” He shoved a few belongings—a pocketknife with a serrated blade, an extra sweater, some healing herbs in the event of misfortune—into the backpack he’d had the foresight to grab before leaving the warehouse in London. He didn’t want to have to rely on Quinn and his magic to patch him up again. “Not that I’m complaining, but why did you come? We both know you didn’t leave anything here.”
Dorian shrugged, but his shoulders were tense, as if he couldn’t quite pull off nonchalance. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”
“That’s it?”
When Dorian spoke, he refused to meet Jasper’s eyes. “I noticed that Quinn hadn’t left, so I decided to make sure you were all right. I don’t like the way he looks at you.”
It was, perhaps, cruel to prod, but Jasper had never been one to hold back. “And how does he look at me?”
Finally meeting Jasper’s gaze, Dorian replied, “Like you’re a conquest to be made.”
“I’m afraid you’re a bit late on that front,” Jasper admitted. “Quinn and I met when I was sixteen. He came, he saw, he conquered.”
Silvery-gray brows drew together. “You aren’t some prize to be won.”
To that, Jasper had nothing to say. Instead, he shoved the final few supplies in his backpack and zipped it shut. It was sweet that Dorian thought Jasper was better than that. Sweet and silly and terribly misguided.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Echo’s room at Avalon was far more opulent than any place she’d ever called her own. A massive four-poster bed stood atop a platform raised off the floor by two steps, thick velvet drapes hiding the mattress from view. A tall bay window looked out on the garden below, an untamed riot of vibrant wildflowers and tangled weeds that had grown unchecked for decades. She’d left the window open to air out the room, which was in desperate need of a good dusting. A fireplace was set into the wall opposite the window, its embers long gone cold and lifeless. She closed the door behind her and let herself fall against it, her head thudding on the thick wood.
The fresh air in the garden that wrapped around the back of Avalon Castle was nice, but nice was not home. Home was the sugar-sweet smell of the vendor selling roasted nuts on the corner of Forty-First Street and Fifth Avenue; it was the broken-glass glitter of the sidewalk after it rained; it was the rumble of trains coming and going from Grand Central at all hours. This castle, with its battlements and drafty stone walls, would never be home. This lovely room was fit for a princess. Echo was anything but. She was a street urchin, rescued from a life of hunger and petty thievery by the Ala, who now lay in a room elsewhere in the castle, lost to the darkness that had seeped through her skin like poison. And the worst part of it all was that it was Echo’s fault. You are their destruction.
She slid down the door, the stone floor hard and cold beneath her, and wrapped her arms around her legs, tucking her chin against her knees. She hadn’t voiced the thought to Caius or Rowan. While Altair, she strongly suspected, would be only too eager to agree with her, but the others—they would perform whatever mental acrobatics they felt they must to absolve her of guilt. They cared about her, and that was what you did for people you cared about. You tried to make them feel better. You helped them lift the burdens that threatened to bury them alive. But Echo had to bear this burden by herself. The kuçedra had not randomly chosen to strike the Nest. No. It had been looking for her. Its darkness had sought out her light and it had begun by searching for her where her presence was strongest. She had only just arrived at Avalon, and so her presence had not yet seeped into its old stones, flaring up like a beacon for the kuçedra to follow. Or so she hoped. She had to leave before she turned this place into a target.
None of them were safe. Not the Ala, not Ivy, not Rowan, or Caius, or Jasper, or Dorian. So long as she and the firebird were one, so long as the kuçedra continued to hunt the firebird, the people for whom Echo cared would be brought down, one by one, until all that was left to her was solitude and despair. The weaker she became, the stronger the darkness; the blackness of her soul would feed it. She knew this as surely as she knew the sky was blue and fire was hot.
She breathed in and out, slowly, heavily, letting the weight of what she felt she had to do settle over her, letting herself grow accustomed to this new and terrible burden.
She had to save them. And she had to do it alone.
—
Packing was easy. She had so little to her name. She dumped the contents of her backpack on the bed—with the drapes pulled back, the bedspread was revealed to be a rich purple satin, so completely not Echo’s style—and surveyed the items laid out before her, some more useful than others.
There were crinkled candy bar wrappers, some lint, a few coins in British and American currency, a crumpled list of toiletries they’d needed at the warehouse hideout, a half-crushed granola bar. Echo’s chest tightened when her gaze landed on a pen with a ridiculous ball of pink fluff at the top. Ivy had found it in the library and given it to Echo for her birthday. It had been lurking in the bottom of her backpack for months. But since she doubted a creature made of darkness and pure evil would feel threatened if she waved the pen in its face, she left it in the pile of detritus that summed up her recent past.
She separated two items from the rest: the magpie dagger, removed from its sheath in her boot, and the locket Caius had given to Rose a century ago, the token of his affection that had led Echo to the Oracle, to her fate, and now, potentially to their doom. She lifted the locket and cradled it in her palm. Its surface was smooth, worn to a dull finish after decades of being hidden. The dragon on its face had a tail that curled around the bottom half of the locket and wings that arched over the top so that it looked as though the creature hoarded a priceless treasure. The chain—not the original one, for that had been lost to time—slithered through Echo’s fingers like a snake, the metallic whisper of the links loud in the silence of the room. She slipped the necklace on, the chain catching on the loose strands of her hair, and tucked the locket into the neck of her shirt. The pendant fell at just the right spot against her sternum f
or her shirt to lie flat, the presence of the necklace neatly hidden from view. No one would know that she wore the former Dragon Prince’s crest unless she wanted them to.
The dagger went back into her boot. She’d cleaned the blade as Dorian had taught her during the long and boring weeks they’d spent holed away in the London warehouse. It was sharp enough to slice through skin with ease and bright enough to reflect even the faintest scrap of light. There were times when, if Echo looked at it from the corner of one eye, she could see the crimson stain of her blood on the steel, but that was an illusion. She remembered the feel of it biting into her flesh as if the wound were still raw. Only a slight scar, the skin just a touch smoother and darker than that around it, remained to tell the tale. When she held the dagger in her hands, she could feel the weight of its years—it had belonged to Rose and now it belonged to Echo. How it would serve her against the kuçedra, she hadn’t the faintest clue, but it felt comforting to have a weapon on her, one that she had tended to herself.
—
Before she left, Echo scribbled two notes on torn halves of a scrap of paper scrounged up from the dusty recesses of the desk in her bedroom. She thought about leaving a note for Caius, but she didn’t know what to say. A connection had grown between them, that was undeniable, but she still did not trust it. How was she to know which emotions belonged to her and which originated with Rose? It was easier to push Caius out of her mind. Easier and cowardly. But she had only so much left in her to give, and she decided to give it to the people who had been with her from the beginning. Caius was not one of those people. Sorrow settled deep in her heart, and she wondered if it was hers or Rose’s or a combination of the two.
The first note was addressed to Rowan. All it said was: I’m sorry. She didn’t know what else to write. She owed him so much more than that. He deserved more. After a moment’s hesitation, she added, I love you. He deserved to hear it at least once. And despite all that had happened, it was true. He was still her friend, her first love, her family. Nothing would change that, even if both their hearts were broken.
