The Shadow Hour

by Melissa Grey

  “So it would seem.” Dorian glanced at Jasper’s profile. It was aquiline and regal, even in the darkness. “You don’t have to come, you know. You can stay here.”

  Jasper’s affronted glare was answer enough.

  “Right,” Dorian said. “Onward.”

  —

  The plan was not to deactivate the wards. Not completely. Dorian knew that simply turning them off would trigger all sorts of alarming results, none of which he had the time or the energy to entertain. The plan, as it stood, was to render a small section of the wards inert—small enough that it would evade notice, but large enough for an Ivy-sized person to get through. The ward would still be intact, but a section of it would cease to perform its designated function. They had only minutes before even that amount of tampering set off the alarms, but Dorian was hoping it would be enough. If everything went according to plan—a rarer occurrence than he would have liked—then they would be home by sunrise.

  And the entire endeavor rested in Quinn’s slimy warlock hands.

  The trio stood upon a narrow, rocky bluff in front of the opening of a drainage tunnel, just out of view from the keep’s rear turrets. The smell wasn’t fantastic, but it wasn’t as pungent as Dorian had feared a sewage runoff might be. If Ivy’s escort did his job, she would soon emerge from within the depths of that tunnel, smelling the worse for wear but ideally in one piece. A few feet to either side and they would be visible. Jasper huddled closer to Dorian than was necessary, which he didn’t particularly mind. Quinn’s shoulder brushed Dorian’s with every minor movement, and that he did mind.

  “Give me your hand,” Quinn said, looking at Dorian expectantly, a naked blade in one hand while he held out the other. “I just need a drop of your blood.”

  This was the part of the spell Dorian had been dreading most. His blood was necessary for the spell, as he had been the one to seal the wards when they were first established, but the thought of allowing Quinn near him with a sharp object was more than a little unsettling. The scar in his eye socket itched. But he was a seasoned warrior of the prince’s guard, and he wouldn’t let a warlock make him cower like a child.

  He offered up his hand and bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from wincing when Quinn sliced open his palm with gleeful ferocity. Blood poured from the cut in generous rivulets.

  “Just a drop?” Dorian asked. He wanted to press something against the wound to slow the bleeding, but giving Quinn the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurt was nowhere close to being an option.

  Quinn gave a one-shouldered shrug and knelt down to sink the knife into the dirt. “My hand slipped.”

  Dorian felt the barely there buzz of magic in the air. Beside him, Jasper shivered, as if cold. But the night air was warmer than usual for Scotland, even at the height of summer, and Dorian knew that Jasper had felt the electric hum of magic as well.

  Quinn straightened and raised one hand. He mumbled words in a language Dorian did not recognize. An area about six feet tall wavered the way air seemed to quiver in the heat. “And now, we wait.”

  “Goody,” Jasper said, tucking his hands into his armpits. The feathers on his forearms were still ruffled, sticking up from the drying mud. “This is exactly how I like spending my Friday nights.”

  “Jasper,” Dorian said, “it’s Tuesday.”

  “The point still stands.”

  The urge to count the seconds was strong. With every passing moment, their situation grew more precarious. The tunnel was pitch-black, and Dorian itched with the desire to storm the keep himself. He wanted to barge in, sling Ivy over his shoulder, and march out of there, but that would be counterproductive in that it would most likely result in the deaths of, oh, everyone.

  Under his breath, Jasper whispered, “Come on, Ivy. Come on, come on, come on.”

  Dorian shared the sentiment. He was sure that it would be some time still before Ivy would deign to call him her friend, but she was one of those people who was so kind and genuine that it was difficult not to like her. Jasper, it seemed, had likewise been charmed by her. Dorian reached out and gave Jasper’s shoulder a quick squeeze. For solidarity, of course. Nothing more.

  “There,” came Quinn’s harsh whisper.

  Dorian squinted. He could barely make out a spot of white approaching through the tunnel. The closer it got, the more it appeared that Ivy was glowing in the dark. Her feathers were whiter than snow; they were the white of starlight. It was going to take an obscene amount of mud to camouflage them. Another person walked beside her, but other than making out a shock of black hair and a dark red cloak, Dorian was too far away to see who it was.

  They were almost in the clear. Almost home.

  But since things so rarely went according to plan, that was the precise moment when they were ambushed from above.

  An arrow landed in the dirt at Dorian’s feet, and he shoved Jasper to the side without pausing to think twice. Gold metal glinted in Dorian’s peripheral vision. At least they charged him on his good side. He turned just in time to see two soldiers clad in gleaming armor leap across the rocks on the other end of the bluff.

  Firedrakes.

  Dorian crouched low and drew the dagger from his boot. A sword would have been pointless; it was likely he was about to find himself in close combat with more than one Firedrake, and there were archers firing down on them, though judging from the significant lag between volleys of arrows, there weren’t very many. Two archers, he estimated; three at most. Ivy and whoever was accompanying her wisely chose to stay in the tunnel. He prayed they would stay there until the fighting was finished.

  Quinn, snake that he was, was nowhere to be seen. But his voice carried through the still night air. “Nothing personal, Dorian, but I prefer to hitch my wagon to the winning side of this crazy train. You guys are all cute and noble, but you don’t have half of Tanith’s resources. And it doesn’t hurt when the winning side is offering a prize for cooperating.”

  A prize? Dorian shot a look at the place where Jasper should have been. He was gone. Of. Course.

  He almost wished that Quinn’s betrayal were a surprise, but he had called it from day one. Dorian might have been the youngest captain of the guard ever appointed, but he was no fool. When a situation failed to go according to plan, the best thing was to have a backup plan in place.

  Quinn emerged from the darkness, one arm slung around Jasper’s neck in a manner that managed to look both tender and threatening, while Jasper clutched his backpack with trembling hands. Dorian met Jasper’s amber eyes, and something clenched in his chest. For Jasper, the contact must have felt like poison seeping into his skin. Dorian inched out of his hiding spot, dagger in hand. He held his breath and waited for the arrows to fall from the heavens. When no such thing happened, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  A Firedrake popped up from behind a nearby boulder like the worst kind of jack-in-the-box, but before Dorian could engage him, a figure snuck up behind the Firedrake and slit his throat with nary a sound. The Firedrake’s body sagged, and the Royal Guard that had taken him down nodded tersely at Dorian over a lifeless golden shoulder. The Royal Guards might have been beholden to the Dragon Prince, but Dorian knew his own men. They were on Caius’s side, with or without the title.

  Sometimes, Dorian loved how good he was at his job.

  The sounds of struggle were muffled as Royal Guards emerged from the shadows, dispatching the half a dozen Firedrakes that had set upon Dorian. While in the woods, Quinn must have made contact with someone in the keep to strike some kind of deal. Had Tanith been in residence, Dorian doubted they would have been met with such a small party, but he was glad that his guess about her keeping to the schedule he’d set for visiting the garrison on the southern border had been correct. A single Firedrake stood against his brothers, fighting on the side of the Royal Guards. Helios, Dorian thought. He’d been the one to contact Ivy inside the keep. Good. He was a decent soldier and an even better man.

  Quinn looked less sur
e of himself as he watched one gold-armor-clad body fall after another. But he still had Jasper by the neck, and that was high on Dorian’s list of things that were utterly unacceptable.

  “Let him go,” he demanded.

  The stars faded from Quinn’s eyes, replaced by the sickly whiteness that was their true form. The blade he’d used to cut Dorian’s palm was now at Jasper’s throat. “No.” It was impressive how much petulance he could inject into a single word. “Unless you want me to slit his pretty throat, you will let me leave, unharmed. Jasper here is my reward.”

  Reward. As if Quinn hadn’t already lost.

  Dorian twirled the dagger in his hand, careful not to cut his fingers. He’d shed enough of his own blood already. “Do you know what your problem is?”

  “Enlighten me,” Quinn said.

  Dorian hoped his grin was as violent as he felt. “You always underestimated him.”

  Jasper twisted in Quinn’s arms, heedless of the blade that nicked his throat, and an iron collar clamped around Quinn’s neck before he had the chance to react. Anvil-forged iron. One of the few materials in the world that could stop a warlock from drawing on his magic, so long as the iron was pressed against their skin. Jasper had been carting the collar around in his pack for days, and Dorian had hoped they wouldn’t need it. Not because he harbored any sympathy for the warlock but because needing it meant things had gotten messy. At least this mess had a satisfying conclusion. Quinn’s hand flew to his throat, clawing at the collar as if it burned. Dorian hoped it did. Jasper’s triumphant smile made that thing in Dorian’s chest clench again.

  Dorian climbed over the rocks to reach Jasper, nodding his thanks to the guards he passed.

  Quinn’s eyes were fully white now. He no longer had the magic to disguise their hideousness. He spat at Dorian’s feet and looked up at Jasper, his expression twisted and cruel. “Can’t say I saw that coming. Looks like our little lapdog has teeth after all.”

  Jasper’s grin wilted. “You know what, Quinn? Fu—”

  The insult Jasper was about to hurl at the warlock fizzled in his throat when Dorian punched Quinn with all his might. Quinn’s ugly white eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the dirt, blissfully unconscious. Unconscious people were silent, and silence, Dorian thought, was such an underrated virtue.

  Jasper looked at Dorian with a mixture of awe and adoration. “Was that really necessary?” he asked, genuine joy in his renewed smile.

  “Yes,” Dorian said. “We kept telling him to shut up.” He waved at Ivy to signal that it was safe to emerge. “He really should have listened.”

  Just as he’d hoped, they would be home by sunrise. His fist wasn’t happy, and he was fairly certain he had split the skin on his knuckles against Quinn’s jaw, but it hardly mattered. Some small pains were worth the inconvenience.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Exiting the temple was far easier than entering it had been.

  The familiar feel of the in-between had greeted Caius the moment he walked through the door. Usually, when using the in-between to travel, one had to visualize an image of a destination and hold on to it. Intention was always an important part of magic, but it was especially critical when it came to the in-between. A wandering mind could leave a person floating in that strange and dark space for eternity.

  But when Caius entered the doorway, he’d been whisked away before he’d had enough time to fathom what was happening. The gateway must have been enchanted to deposit anyone who used it in a specific place, because he didn’t have to imagine a location to exit the darkness. In seconds, the all-consuming blackness of the in-between faded and he was standing on a patch of dry yellow grass. The mountain loomed behind him. He was in a large valley situated amid the range’s towering peaks. The ground was dry, but he could smell water and damp leaves nearby. He took the time to examine his surroundings. The gateway had left him in a small circular clearing. About a hundred yards to the west was a small lake. Bare tree trunks protruded from the water, giving the lake the appearance of a drowned forest. To the east was a modest clearing, surrounded by trees tall enough to grant some cover from the elements.

  A few minutes passed before Echo and Rowan appeared beside him, one right after the other. Caius didn’t miss the way Echo’s hand found Rowan’s, almost instinctively, it seemed, as the black tendrils of the in-between faded. Her gaze darted around the clearing before she realized they weren’t in any danger. She dropped Rowan’s hand when she met Caius’s eyes. She tried to communicate something with her gaze, but Caius looked away. His head was a mess around her. Messier than it had been when he’d known Rose. That affair had been rife with its own complexities, but at its heart, it had been two people, drawn together by curiosity first, attraction next, then, eventually, love. This…thing with Echo was anything but simple. Caius knew he was projecting his feelings for Rose onto her. He had to be. But there was something else lurking in his heart. Something meant for Echo alone. But he—they—didn’t have time to untangle that mess. He needed to distance himself. Not just for his sake, but for Echo’s.

  “There’s a clearing that way,” Caius said, pointing in the appropriate direction. His voice was cold even to his own ears, his face a mask of perfect placidity. “We’ll make camp there. There’s a lake to the west.”

  Echo nodded, her expression questioning. Caius returned her looks with a blank stare. She didn’t press him for an explanation of his behavior, and for that, he was grateful.

  “I’ll send word to Altair,” said Caius. “I have no doubt he’s keen to know what we’ve all been up to since your…departure.”

  With that, he left. He could feel Echo’s eyes on his back as he walked toward the lake. A small part of him told him to go back, to try to explain why he was acting hot one minute and cool the next. But when he thought about the way she and Rowan seemed to gravitate toward one another, a larger part overwhelmed that urge. She had a history with the Avicen she didn’t have with Caius. His history was with Rose. It was a shadow of the past, a memory of a life that would never be. Each step took him farther from Echo, in more ways than one. He had confessed to loving her. In that moment, he’d felt a clarity he hadn’t in years, but her silence spoke louder than anything she might have said. Her own heart was divided at best. At worst, it belonged to another.

  —

  Dusk in the submerged forest was a marvel to behold. Branches worn bare by water and wind thrust up from the surface like bony fingers reaching toward the sky. Fading sunlight danced across the turquoise water, broken up by the canopy of leaves surrounding the lake. Caius stood on the shore’s incline, his boots squelching in the mud. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, savoring the fresh air. It was so different from the smog that suffocated London or the faint odor of pollution that hung about New York like a stubborn perfume. Reeds rustled in the breeze. Somewhere in the distance one bird called to another. Birdsong was still a novelty to Caius, who was accustomed to the silence of the woods around Wyvern’s Keep. Birds had learned long ago not to roost there lest they be driven out by Drakharin hunting parties. He’d spent his share of summers riding through that forest, first with Tanith at his side, then, when their paths diverged, with Dorian. Once, they’d found a lone albino peacock strutting through a meadow, its white feathers dragging through the grass. It was a regal creature, but it had chosen the wrong place to rest. Caius had felled the bird with an arrow and it had been served at dinner that evening, trussed up to best display its plumage. How times had changed. How Caius had changed.

  He hadn’t gone far from their camp. It hadn’t been a lie that he needed to report to Altair that they had located Echo and were in the process of investigating the kuçedra’s origins. But he could have done all that from their camp using the communication spell he’d taught Altair and his Warhawks and the utilitarian switchblade he’d plucked from a supply closet at Avalon before chasing Echo to Scotland. He needed a moment to himself, away from the sight of Rowan and Echo.
Together. Close in a way that made Caius’s stomach hurt.

  He drew the blade tucked into his belt. He’d contact Dorian first. Make sure they were still on track. Sending Ivy in alone had been a desperate move, but desperate moves were all they had left to them. He rolled up one sleeve. It would be safer to nick the flesh of his forearm. Wounding his hands would only compromise his ability to fight should he need to. The way things had progressed in recent months, he wasn’t about to let himself be lulled into a false sense of security by the calm of the forest. One must be ready for battle at all times. It was one of the most important lessons he’d learned as a soldier. It was a shame he’d let himself forget it during his reign. If he’d been vigilant, he would have seen Tanith sneaking up behind him, one hand on her sword, the other ready to snatch his crown.

  His skin prickled in the breeze. He cut himself, scrawled a message in the Drakhar shorthand he and Dorian had devised ages ago, and passed along his message: Found E. All safe. The blade absorbed the blood and a new message appeared on its surface: two parallel lines with a diagonal line cutting across them. Short for “mission accomplished.”

  Now to contact Altair. Caius set the sharpened edge of the blade against his skin and readied to draw it down, when heat seared through his arm. The knife fell from his fingers. Blood welled on his skin, some of it dripping down to his wrist to bead on his fingers. Symbols appeared in the blood, Drakharin words written by a shaky hand, the very same words he’d used to connect with his sister days earlier. Pain brought him to his knees, the mud soaking the leather of his breeches. Not all of the blood was his.

  Caius.

  The voice in his head was unmistakable despite the agony laced through it.

  “Tanith?” he gasped into empty air. But he knew she heard him.

  Help.

  His sister never begged. Not when she’d taken an arrow to the chest during the first raid she led, on an Avicen settlement on the Continent, or when she’d broken her leg falling off a horse and had to drag herself to safety lest she be trampled underfoot during the last battle in which she and Caius fought together. He had never seen anyone grit their teeth and bear their pain without a single complaint the way Tanith did.