by Melissa Grey
But wherever she was now, she was hurt. Badly enough to call out for her brother, despite their rift, her cry defying the miles between them. There was no artifice in her voice. Only pain and fear.
Please.
Caius groped in the mud for his sword, his hand unsteady as he sheathed it, not even bothering to wipe the dirt from the steel. It was the kind of negligence that would have earned him a clout around the ears from his old swords master, but that didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered but the feeling of Tanith’s pain along the connection they shared.
Caius, please. What have I done? Oh gods, what have I done?
What had she done? He couldn’t fathom what had left his sister in such a state. The kuçedra was involved somehow, he knew it. The thought of it attacking Tanith, after what he’d seen it do to the Avicen at Grand Central, was too much to consider. He had to tell Echo and Rowan. They’d find Tanith. Wherever she was, the kuçedra was bound to be.
Help me. Help me help me help me.
Her pleas devolved into a broadcast of wordless agony, almost enough to bring Caius to his knees once more, but he fought on.
“Hold on, Tanith,” he choked out. He could taste blood in his mouth, but none of it was his. Tangled reeds and fallen logs conspired to trip him as he fought his way through the underbrush. “I’m coming.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Dorian scrunched his nose against the musty smell of the wine cellar deep within the belly of Avalon Castle. Weak candlelight fought to fill the space, though it was a losing battle. The vaulted stone ceiling was shrouded in darkness, and shadows lurked in every corner. Dust caked the rows of green glass bottles and gathered in the crevices of wine barrels.
He had come down to the cellar after receiving Caius’s message shortly after their return to Avalon. He was glad they’d found Echo and gladder still that Caius was with her. She was good for him, impetuous as she was. Dorian was surprised by his lack of jealousy. Caius was happy, and that was enough. His prince had pretended to have a heart of stone for so long, but Dorian had seen through the facade. Caius had been hurting, and now he had found a way to cope with the tangled mess of his heart. Dorian hadn’t realized how much his own happiness had been entwined with Caius’s until he felt that burden lighten.
A phrase came to mind, a stray snippet of text from one of the books he’d found in Caius’s study, written by some human named Bulgakov.
The one who loves must share the fate of the one he loves.
Dorian had shared his prince’s pain, and now, like Caius, he had a chance to alleviate his own, free from the shackles of the past, if only he was brave enough to take it.
He turned the corner, heading for the room at the far end of the hall that served as Avalon’s prison. The iron collar had neutralized Quinn’s power, and the matching iron manacles that Altair had ordered him in upon their return were mostly insult added to injury. Without magic, the warlock was as dangerous as a rabbit. A lone figure stood at the end of the hall, dim light casting a long shadow on the floor behind him.
Dorian paused, watching Jasper stand before the door that separated him from a quiet Quinn. The warlock was either still unconscious or he’d been gagged. Win-win, as far as Dorian was concerned. Jasper’s hand rose to lightly touch the iron padlock sealing the door shut. It had been joined by a series of additional locks that shone brightly even in the poor lighting. They must have been new. Dorian waited, silent, wondering.
“I know you’re there.” Jasper’s voice carried in the cavernous space, reverberating off the walls so that even though the words were softly spoken, Dorian heard them just fine. “I can hear you breathing.”
“I thought I might find you down here,” said Dorian. With measured steps, he closed the distance between them, coming to a halt a few feet from Jasper, who was still facing the door. “You were noticeably absent.”
“Let me guess—Echo and her Scooby Gang are planning further hijinks.”
Dorian didn’t know what a Scooby Gang was, but it sounded about right. “You’re usually the type for hijinks.”
Jasper snorted softly. “Not really in the mood.” He let his hand fall to his side and turned around. “I just wanted to make sure…” He looked back at the padlock, then down at his feet.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Dorian assured him. “And even if he did manage to escape, I wouldn’t let him get anywhere near you.”
Jasper’s gaze cut upward, sharp and yet somehow still vulnerable. Dorian hadn’t planned to say that quite so bluntly, but he didn’t regret the words and the promise they held. Not in the slightest. It was cool and damp in the cellar, but there was a warmth in his chest that expanded with the softening of Jasper’s face.
“Thanks,” said Jasper, voice quiet in the darkness. “I’m not used to being like this. I’m not usually the type that needs to be saved.”
“We all need saving sometimes.” It was probably the truest thing Dorian had ever said. Caius had saved him once, and Dorian had loved him for a century afterward. “There’s no shame in that.”
The hint of softness that snuck into Jasper’s expression felt like a shared secret. The candlelight brought out the golden highlights in his feathers, and Dorian wondered what they would feel like sliding between his fingers without mud in the way.
“You’re stronger than you know,” he told Jasper.
“So are you.”
With a self-deprecating laugh, Dorian said, “I’m not sure that’s true.”
“You’re here, aren’t you? Surrounded by Avicen. That can’t be easy for you.” A cocksure little grin tugged at Jasper’s mouth. “I know I’m a special exception.”
He was. Gods, he was. But Dorian wasn’t nearly as brave as Jasper gave him credit for. Admitting his desires to himself was one thing. Acting on them was another matter entirely. When in doubt, he mused, change the subject. “You should get some rest. If we’re going to go toe-to-toe with the kuçedra, we should meet our foe bright-eyed and clearheaded.”
Jasper wilted, just enough to make something deep in Dorian’s chest tighten. “Yeah. Rest. Very important.”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Dorian added. “You deserve a good night’s sleep.”
Jasper nodded, gaze darting to the oak barrels piled into pyramids. “Maybe I’ll go do that.” He didn’t so much as lean in the direction of the exit.
“Right,” Dorian said. “I’ll just—” He rocked back on his heels, unsure of himself in a way he hadn’t been in years. He felt like an awkward adolescent. It was embarrassing. “I should go,” he said while making absolutely no move to do so.
Jasper licked his lips. It was nothing more than a quick flash of his tongue, but the movement drew Dorian’s eye. “You could,” Jasper said. “Or…”
The conversation was rapidly spiraling out of control, and Dorian wasn’t sure he could stop it. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to.
Jasper reached for him, tracing the joints of Dorian’s index finger with his own. The touch was featherlight but electric. It was as though the skin on his finger were connected to every nerve ending in his body. His heart pounded so hard he was sure Quinn would be able to hear it through the thick wooden door.
“Or you could stay with me,” Jasper finished. “I’m not the only one who’s earned a good night’s sleep.”
Dorian swallowed. He couldn’t answer. They’d shared space before, slept within feet of each other. First in the warehouse in London, then again in the woods beyond Wyvern’s Keep. But this was different. There was a promise in Jasper’s words of something that Dorian wasn’t sure he could handle. The silence filled the room, punctuated only by the harsh rasp of his own breathing.
Slowly, and with great gentleness, Jasper twined his fingers with Dorian’s.
“Look,” Jasper began, “I’m not great with this slow burn we have going. I tend to fall into things with people as violently as I fall out of them.” He jerked his head toward the padlocked door. “Exhibit A is
locked up in there. But for you…I could do slow. As slow as you like. Whatever you want. Nothing you don’t.”
When Dorian failed to respond, Jasper stepped into his space, their chests brushing with each inhalation. This close, Dorian could see the individual streaks of color in Jasper’s eyebrows, a microcosm of the indigo and fuchsia feathers on his head.
Jasper’s hands trailed up Dorian’s arms and came to rest on his shoulders. Less than an inch separated them in height, but Jasper still had to stretch onto his toes to place the gentlest of kisses on Dorian’s eye patch. His lips hovered there for a moment before he lowered himself back to the ground. He kissed the scar tissue on Dorian’s cheek, then a spot on his jaw right beneath his ear that made the synapses in Dorian’s brain misfire. Jasper’s breath tickled the side of his neck.
“See?” Jasper mouthed the word against Dorian’s throat. “I can do slow. Just tell me what you want.”
And so Dorian did. The only way he knew how.
He cupped Jasper’s chin with one hand while the other pressed into the Avicen’s lower back, bringing them as close as was physically possible. He poured everything into that kiss, every ounce of frustration and fear and hope he’d felt since the day he entered Jasper’s life, half-dead and covered in his own blood. Jasper’s teeth caught on his lower lip, and Dorian barely registered the growl that started low in his chest. Jasper’s hands clutched at his biceps, fingers digging deep into the muscle. Dorian brought his hands up to card through Jasper’s feathers, and they were every bit as silky as he’d imagined. And oh, how he had imagined this, late at night, lying on a rocky forest floor, the stars the only witness to his silent yearning. Jasper matched Dorian’s ferocity, but after a few moments, he seized control of the kiss, turning it into something slow and sweet.
When they pulled back for air, Jasper smiled, bright and true, a puff of laughter on his lips. “Took you long enough,” he said.
The complexity of language was still too much to ask of Dorian’s addled brain, so he answered with a chaste kiss at the corner of Jasper’s lips, where another small smile was forming. Jasper sighed against his mouth.
“We should go,” said Jasper. He took a step back, but Dorian followed, his body acting of its own accord, as if he were a moth drawn to the flame. “I think this’ll be a lot better when my evil ex-boyfriend isn’t on the other side of the door.”
Clearing his throat, Dorian nodded. “Yes. Let’s.” The words came out thin and reedy, oxygen-starved.
He stepped away from Jasper, and the cool air of the cellar was the most wicked kind of torture against his feverish skin.
Jasper pulled a bottle of red wine off a nearby rack. He examined its label, but the text had long since worn off. Regardless, he slanted his eyes up at Dorian, a mischievous spark dancing in their amber depths. “A fine vintage, I’m sure.”
“I have no need for liquid courage,” Dorian said. And he didn’t. Not now.
Jasper’s lopsided smirk deepened. “We’ll see,” he said with a wink.
And in that moment, in that bubble of stolen time, Dorian found it hard to care that an ancient evil was looming on the horizon, or that the halls were full of Avicen, or that his prince and the firebird were probably off causing all kinds of trouble. All that mattered was this sliver of time and the warmth of Jasper’s hand in his as they climbed the stairs, leaving the ghosts of their pasts behind.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
They made camp in the small clearing Caius had indicated, though he had made himself scarce. Echo watched Rowan build a fire; it would be cold once darkness fell, and they’d need the warmth. She nibbled on one end of a granola bar unearthed from the depths of her backpack. It tasted like ash. Wisps of smoke rose from the kindling Rowan had collected. Smoke became flames as the dry twigs and grass caught fire. Pleased with his handiwork, Rowan rose and brushed the dirt from the knees of his jeans. He spared a glance in the direction Caius had gone. When it became clear that Caius was not returning right that instant, Rowan made his way to where Echo sat.
“What did you see?” he asked. He lowered himself onto the log beside her. “You know, if you feel like sharing. No pressure.”
Echo picked at the log’s bark, flicking it off with her fingernails. For someone who hadn’t gone camping a day in her life, who had no latent desire to ever go camping, she’d spent more time in the woods in the past three months than she cared to. The things she had seen clung to her still, like a film. She let out a deep breath. The air was comfortably cool compared with the sweltering humidity of summertime New York. There, it was all glass and concrete and metal, baking in the sunshine. In this land untouched by civilization—human or otherwise—the air was clean and fresh and carried the scent of wet bark and soggy leaves from the direction of the sunken forest.
It would be easy, Echo thought, to pretend the past few hours hadn’t happened, to push them so far down into the well of her memory that she’d never be able to retrieve them. They would rot down there, lost like the fragments of her previous life, too painful to recover. But forgetting was a luxury she could not afford. The mountain and its ghosts had made sure of that. Her torments had been selected with care and for a reason. There was a lesson to be mined from her time in the cave’s temple, and it didn’t take Echo a great deal of digging to unearth it.
“I saw the things I fear the most,” she said. Beside her, Rowan went still, either unsure of what to say or giving her the space to speak as much or as little as she pleased. Listening had always been a strength of his. He never pushed or cajoled. Never forced a truth the speaker wasn’t ready to relinquish. He simply waited, patient. Kind. She didn’t deserve him. No one did. He was pure in a way Echo had never been. The mountain had seen fit to remind her of that, too.
“I saw my mother,” she said quietly.
Rowan plucked a dandelion sprouting from the dry earth. A breeze caught its seeds and carried them away. He and Echo watched in silence as the puffy white down danced like wisps of cotton on the wind. After the dandelion fluff dispersed into the air, off to pollinate the next patch of soil, Rowan said, “You never talk about her.”
Echo shrugged, her shoulders tight, the muscles in her neck tense. “There’s not much to say, I guess. I ran away from that part of my life. Literally. I haven’t really felt the need to look back. It’s the past. It’s over.”
She could feel Rowan’s eyes on her, studying her profile. Hers stayed locked on the horizon, watching the sun sink between the masses of two distant peaks, a triangle of pale gold against a backdrop of dusty pinks and purples.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Rowan said. “The ghosts or the magic or whatever it was that lives in that mountain showed you what it did for a reason. Nothing’s ever really over. Maybe we stop dealing with things, but they’re still there. You wouldn’t have seen your mom if your past wasn’t still affecting you. What exactly happened in your vision? Or nightmare, or whatever we’re gonna call it, because I really don’t freaking know what the hell just happened to us.”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Call her what?”
Echo didn’t even speak the word. She didn’t want it to sit on her tongue, cancerous. A poison.
“Mom?” Rowan asked.
Echo’s nod was tight and shallow. “It’s too…familiar,” she said. “I need distance.”
“Okay,” Rowan said. “But don’t think I didn’t notice you avoiding the question.”
A small part of Echo hated him in that moment. She cast him a sidelong glance. “You’re annoying when you’re perceptive. More so than usual.”
He offered her a lazy half smile and flicked a bit of bark at her. “Sorry, not sorry.” He nudged her with his shoulder, an amicable gesture. Friendly. Platonic. A quick thrill flashed through Echo at the contact. They’d been so careful not to touch each other since her return to New York that she’d almost forgotten how natural it felt. “You know you can tell me anything,” he said. “Anything at
all.” He tapped the side of his head. “My brain is a vault. All your secrets are safe with me.”
A soft huff of laughter escaped Echo. “A leaky vault, maybe.” Maybe Rowan was right. She’d borne her secrets for so long that she’d grown accustomed to their weight, like a snail lugging around a shell. But—and just hours ago, this scenario had seemed so impossible it wasn’t even worth considering—maybe she didn’t have to carry them around with her anymore. Perhaps Pandora’s box was better left opened.
“When we were in the temple,” said Echo, “I saw her. Her face, her hair. Every detail was spot-on. I’ve done a pretty good job of not picturing her face all these years. Somewhere down the line, I convinced myself that if I forgot her face, I would forget her. That it would all seem less real if I just pretended it was nothing more than a bad dream.”
“What did she do?” Rowan asked. “When you were little?”
“She hurt me.”
He didn’t ask how. And they both knew there was no point in asking why. There was no logic involved when parents harmed their children. It contradicted the bonds of biology, violated the rules of nature. The details, Echo thought, were less important than the damage inflicted. The events of her early childhood had shaped her, for better or worse. They had provided her with the lens through which she viewed the world. They had become the material with which she’d built the stone walls around her heart. Few had ever breached those walls, and each time someone did, it was nothing short of a minor miracle.
“I was just a kid,” Echo said. The injustice of it was something she would never outgrow.
“You still are,” Rowan said.
Echo shook her head. “In years, maybe, but you don’t stay a kid for very long when you’re shown just how awful and ugly people can be.” She examined her fingernails. Brownish dust was caked around her cuticles. Her hands were in dire need of a good wash. “When I think about my childhood, I don’t remember school or birthday parties or cartoons. Do you know what I remember? The only thing that comes to mind?”
