by Jessica Gunn
Shawn’s eyes narrowed. “How?”
She glanced up at him. “Because the same tattoo artist did her father’s tattoo and a special ink was used.”
“Special?” I asked.
“It was meant as a way to find him, to protect him—sort of.” Her shoulders slumped. “Krystin’s father was a normal man. He had no magik. He wasn’t involved in this world, this war, like the rest of us. But he’d accepted me anyway. I kept pushing him to learn something to defend himself, but he’d always just said he had me and didn’t need magik or weapons. So when he got this tattoo, I convinced the artist—a close witch friend—to introduce a potion to the ink, something to track him. Something that, if he was hurt, I’d feel.”
My thoughts whirled. This entire time, her mother’s always known how to find Krystin? Did Krystin know about this ink?
Oh, god. Is that why Krystin always said her mother and Jaffrin had such a short leash on her, because she knew they’d always be able to find her and sense if she was in danger?
No wonder she trusted no one.
“But you said you couldn’t find Krystin based on her magik,” Shawn said. “Isn’t this the same thing?”
“It’s not her magik at work here,” Desiree said. “And short of cutting off the tattoo completely, she can’t turn the locator magik within the ink off. It’s not like the marks that bound your powers, Shawn. It’s deeper. Familial.”
My stomach dropped. “It’s based on blood. Your blood.” I glanced up at Desiree. “That’s what made the ink special, wasn’t it?”
She nodded in small, shame-filled motions. “I regretted that decision the day Krystin found out. She’d almost ripped the house apart with her telekinesis. But now, now it might save her life. If we can find her before the Ether Head Circle does, anyway.”
“Do it,” Shawn said.
“She’ll be angry,” Desiree said.
“Krystin’s generally pissed either way,” I said. “But she’ll be alive and that’s good enough for me.”
Desiree considered me for a long moment, and I wondered if she, too, had telepathy. If she could see past all my doubts and fears and hurt, down into the parts of me that did still, somehow, have feelings for Krystin. The same parts of me that didn’t want to see her dead. Imprisoned, maybe. But not dead.
“Please,” I said. “Find her.”
Desiree nodded and closed her eyes, tracing her fingers across the picture of her dead husband’s tattoo the day he’d gotten it. He was still in the chair, the tattoo artist sitting next to him with a smile on their face.
Desiree’s fingers shook, her eyes moving behind their lids. For long moments, all Shawn and I could do was watch, waiting to see if Desiree would be able to find Krystin after all.
She opened her eyes and frowned. “It didn’t work, but…” She looked to Shawn. “Can I see your knife?”
Shawn unhooked it from the sheath on his waist. “Sure.”
She nodded a thank you at him and then pricked the tip of her finger with the blade. She took the picture out of the album and pressed her bleeding finger against the now unprotected photo. “Find her,” she muttered. “Find my daughter.”
Desiree’s eyes slammed shut and her body went rigid, the same way Krystin’s did when she got a vision. Krystin did say visions were an inherent trait of the Blackwood witch line, didn’t she?
My heart skipped a beat. Was Desiree able to actually see where Krystin was right now?
“Oh, no,” Desiree said as her body tensed up further. She looked up to me. “She’s in a building next door to the distillery her pop used to love. She must have gone there first, but…” Her gaze jumped to Shawn. “She’s with Kinder. You must go—now. I can take you there.”
Shit. I held up my hand. “No. This is our fight. We’ve been to that area when we went after Shadow Crest.”
Shawn’s calm expression faltered. “Kinder is going to attack Lady Azar… with Krystin’s help.”
Chapter 21
KRYSTIN
The Guild was only a pit stop. If it wasn’t the team that followed me, it’d be the Fire Circle police officers, and I couldn’t afford to be caught by them. Not today.
I had to get out of the area. But first, I needed a way to stay hidden. Then I needed to take care of Kinder. And Giyano. With them out of the picture, no one should be able to find me because they were the only two who seemed capable of doing so on a daily basis.
But to do those things, I first had to regroup. So I teleported to Hunter’s Guild to grab money I’d hidden in the back room months ago. At the Guild, I lost my teleportante trail, then went up to Pop’s favorite distillery. Staying away from any street cameras, I walked along the town toward an inn that’d take cash. It was so old-fashioned, there were sure not to be any cameras or anyone staying there that wasn’t a local.
They’re going to kill me. Just like I killed those two Ether Head Circle Hunters.
I hadn’t meant to. Honest to god, it’d been an accident. I’d aimed to attack, not burn them alive. But my magik—and my emotions—had gotten away from me and now no matter what was true or not true about Giyano and the attacks on Hunters and witches in Boston, I was a murderer.
On my way to the inn, I walked by a small tourist shop that sold everything from postcards and T-shirts to gemstones and quartz crystals from a nearby cavern. Or supposedly they were from the cavern. I stepped inside and used some of the cash to buy a couple of the crystals and nothing else. Then I hurried to the inn and checked in the last open room.
I drew the curtains shut and then plunked on to the bed, crystal in hand. For one last time, I’d bind my powers for good. It’d be one less way for Shawn or another witch at the Fire Circle to try to track me. And with any luck, the Ether Head Circle wouldn’t think up another way.
I just needed time to think, space to figure out a plan that didn’t involve running to Giyano for help he couldn’t give me. And to be found there with him, if this binding didn’t work… They’d imprison me for sure. I whispered the binding spell against the crystal, working my Blackwood witch magik for the last time. The crystal glowed red and white, alternating between the colors of my elemental magik until the light went out, my magik gone.
And with it, hopefully, my ability to be tracked.
I fell back against the bed and stared up at the ceiling, tears brimming behind my eyelids. I’d never killed a non-demon before. And within the space of three months, I’d taken out fourteen Hunters, even if the first dozen hadn’t been my fault. Not entirely.
Iris and Alexander were, though. And they’d just as likely have locked me up for good before remembering that Alzan needed both Shawn and me to save them in the final conflict.
That excuse was starting to sound old, even to me. Alzan had gone thousands of years without saviors. It sure as hell didn’t need Shawn and me now. Especially if that asanak Iris had slammed him with didn’t wear off sometime soon.
“What am I going to do?”
The atmosphere in the room shifted, a subtle hum of power now vibrating at the foot of my bed. I sat up and found Kinder standing there, arms crossed at her chest. She threw her dark brown hair over her tan shoulder and held a hand out to me. “Come with me.”
“Absolutely not,” I snapped as I sat up. “You just attacked my team.”
“You don’t have a team anymore. You need me. I solved your problem.”
My eyes narrowed. “What problem in particular are you referring to?”
She lifted her hand. “Come. The magik around my lair will hide the remnants of yours. You might have bound your powers, but your aura remains. Sensitive witches and some other magik users can trace it.” She tilted her head. “Or have you forgotten?”
“Fuck you,” I said as I hopped off the bed. “You’re the reason I’m in this mess in the first place.”
“No, the Fire Circle is. All they do is foster Hunters until they’re too powerful. You would have ended up here either way, an outcast even a
mongst the people who claim to be your friends. Your team.” She spat the last word, as if the formation of it in her mouth was reason enough to make her vomit. “You need to come with me. Now. If only so you can recuperate and figure out your next steps. I know what it’s like to be in your position… on the run from the Fire Circle.”
It was the one true thing Kinder had ever said to me. I looked her in the eyes, searching for any sign of a trap. But the sad truth was I had very few options. And I sort of wanted to know what she meant by her having ‘solved my problem.’
“Fine,” I said and took her hand.
When the teleportante landed, I found myself standing beside Kinder inside a dimly lit building. Sounds of waves smacking against the shore sifted in through the walls, but they weren’t as strong as they’d be on the ocean. A stormy lake, maybe?
“Where are we?” I asked as Kinder walked away, flicking on light switches as we went. “Where did you take me?”
“Funny thing, electricity,” she said. “You all are so used to turning on lights that you forget you can see farther in the dark than you think. In your case, you and the people you call friends have been blind your whole lives.” She turned on more lights, revealing a plain space with only a chair, an empty bookshelf, and a wood stove.
And a beaten, bloody person sitting with his head bowed, a pool of blood beneath the chair.
“What in the hell?” I gasped, a hand to my mouth. “What did you do?”
Kinder stood behind the body, a hand on her hip. “I told you, I took care of your problem.” She gripped on to the body’s hair and lifted their head. “This is the person causing all of your problems lately.”
My stomach roiled as I took in the beaten, scarred face of Zanka. Giyano’s rival and Lady Azar’s newest toy. Only now he was dead… at Kinder’s hand? “I don’t understand.”
She let go of his hair and his head fell back to his chest with disgusting ease. “His interference was going to get you locked away for life. Or dead. And as we’ve previously discussed, while I don’t particularly like you or the Fire Circle, I do like power being balanced. Specifically, the power at Alzan. If you’re locked away, Ben’s son isn’t saved. And if he isn’t saved, if he’s not trained on how to keep the Power from eating him alive, my daughter wins. Alzan falls. And so does the world.”
My eyes narrowed. “And you, what, don’t get to exact your revenge? That’s so petty in comparison.”
She tsked me, a finger raised. “Now, now. I don’t think you’re in any position to be calling something petty.”
“Fuck you.” I backpedaled, looking for a door. There was one directly behind me, but when I went to open it, a shockwave of magik slammed into me, sending me careening across the room. I landed with a hard thud against the wooden floorboards.
Kinder sighed loudly. “I thought you would have thanked me for taking care of Zanka for you since the mentor you love so much was incapable of doing so.”
“Leave Giyano out of this,” I hissed.
“Why do you defend him?”
Because he’s the only one who’s never lied to me. It was the first answer that came to mind. My only answer. But I didn’t voice it. It wasn’t logical and it sure as hell wouldn’t help my situation either, even if it was Kinder I was talking to and not the Ether Head Circle.
“You and I aren’t so different,” Kinder said, staring me down. “And because of what you are, I did not want the Fire Circle doing to you what they did to me.”
“Is that why you showed it all in a vision?” It was horrible, what I’d seen. And if I didn’t know the Circles’ history with the Power and the individuals who’d had it, I didn’t know that I would have believed her. I thought only Darkness was capable of treating its citizens like that.
Kinder nodded. “My daughter is not the only individual fascinated by the power of cianzas, by what they’re capable of doing. While the Fire Circle was one of many that hunted down people with the Power, I was the only one they allowed to get close enough that, when my magik was revealed to them, they didn’t kill me. The Circles have an unfortunate desire for tipping the balance of power in this universe toward Good, but they have such little understanding of what occurred during the Split.”
“When Aloysius broke off from the Entity?” I almost asked how she knew all of this, too, but then I remembered: Kinder was one of the original Old Ones. She’d been in ancient Mesopotamia long enough to see the pyramids built.
Kinder nodded like a teacher proud of a student finally obtaining a basic understanding of something. “Yes. You see, the balance of power has always been in his favor, but only minutely. He’s always had a head start, though a small one. The Hunter Circles believe that if they simply kill enough of us demons, if they train you and other Hunters to believe the war is black and white, good and evil, that eventually the power balance will tip toward the Powers.”
“And they’re wrong?”
Kinder gazed at me, a zealous stare, intense and somber. “Cianzas are weapons, Krystin. And only those with the Power or no magik at all can hope to get close enough to use them as they’re meant to be used. But the problem is, no singular magik is inherently both good and evil at the same time. Those with the Power come close, which is why Jaffrin didn’t have Riley killed the day he was born. Or the day you returned with him from my daughter’s lair.”
My eyes narrowed. “Jaffrin had no idea Riley had the Power until I told him about it.”
Kinder laughed and walked away from Zanka’s body. “Is that what he told you?”
“Yes.”
“And since when do you or your team trust Jaffrin?”
I didn’t answer. It should have been obvious to anyone who knew me.
“Yes, Jaffrin knew. So did the Ether Head Circle. Aloysius. Lady Azar. No one with the Power has been born in hundreds of years, Krystin. It was not an event that went unnoticed.”
Ashbel. He’d had a vision of me and Shawn having Alzanian magik, so maybe he’d seen Riley, too. Maybe he was the reason Giyano knew, and if he told Lady Azar…
No. It couldn’t be that straightforward. Giyano had said he’d stayed in Shadow Crest after following her orders to take Riley because he’d wanted to keep him safe. Which meant that, if he’d known before taking him that Riley would one day have the Power, he never would have brought him to Lady Azar.
“How did everyone know?” I asked. “What are we missing here?”
Kinder stopped pacing and turned to me. “You’re missing all the shades of gray you never knew existed. Everyone knew because when Ben—”
The door to the building burst open with a crack of lightning that stood the hairs of my arms on end. Splinters of wood flew through the air, sticking into me even as I rolled out of the way. I came up short, magik-less, with my arms over my face. In charged Ben and the rest of my old team, magik at the ready. Except where Shawn’s aura should have blazed wilder than even Ben’s and Rachel’s, he no longer had any. His aura had gone dark.
Ben’s gaze found mine, hard and unforgiving. “What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s not what it looks like—”
“Enough!” he said and let loose a strike of lightning that flew directly at me.
Chapter 22
BEN
My lightning almost acted of its own accord, shooting out from my fingers directly at Krystin. Nate threw a solid block of ether headed right for Kinder. She dodged, coming up from the roll with a knife in hand that matched the one Shawn held.
Why fight us with a knife? Maybe she’d lost an ability and hadn’t had time to steal one of Krystin’s. But the fact that it was a Fire Circle knife intrigued me the most.
“Ben, don’t!” Krystin shouted, tearing me away from my thoughts. “She knows how Lady Azar knew about Riley!”
“What?” I asked. Had Krystin come here to collect more information? How’d something like that come up in conversation in the first place?
“Enough!” Rachel yelled, pul
ling water out of the sack on her back and flowing it up her arms and outward, like gigantic tentacles, the ends of which turned into ice picks. “This ends tonight.”
Rachel sent the tentacles at Kinder. She cried out as they whipped her around, slicing Kinder’s skin open where the ice connected. Kinder fought them, but every swing bounced off the surface of Rachel’s attack. A knife against water was not effective.
I turned on Krystin with Shawn right behind me. He lifted a hand and called to her. “Krystin, please. Let us help you.”
“I don’t need—you don’t understand.” Her gaze flickered between us and Kinder. “She knows everything. You can’t kill her. She knows why the Hunter Circles need us, Shawn. Beyond Alzan. It’s about cianzas—it always has been.”
“Then come with us,” I said. “And cooperate.” I had no intention of bringing her back to the Fire Circle without knowing what the hell the truth was.
That’s when I saw the dead body in the chair before Krystin. Zanka.
Krystin looked up at me and said, “Kinder killed him. He’s been working some sort of magik to impersonate me and Giyano. To kill Hunters and witches and frame the both of us, to get me put back in jail and to steal Riley away. To make it so there was no way you could try to save him from Lady Azar again.”
Kinder laughed as she traded blows with Rachel’s water tentacles. “Impersonate? No, dear Krystin. That’s not what his power was.” She flung the knife at Rachel, who didn’t see it in time. Rachel cried out as it imbedded itself into her shoulder with a sickening sound.
Nate lunged in front of Rachel, but Kinder stopped her attack. The rest of us stood, magik ready as Kinder stalked back toward Krystin. Shawn lifted his knife and fell into a ready stance. I never cared before about how well he’d fare in a demon fight, way back before he revealed his magik. But something about tonight had wrapped my stomach in knots.
“Don’t!” Nate shouted. “Stay away from her.”
