by Linsey Hall
“How did you guys get here?” I asked.
“The spell faded after a while. Though it sucked until it disappeared. Then Del and Nix tracked you. Del transported the two of us. Mathias followed with a transportation charm and brought Claire and Connor along.”
“Thanks.”
“Duh. Of course we’d come.” Nix’s voice sounded from behind me.
I turned.
She wiped her bloody hands on her jeans. “You want some pants and shoes?”
“Yeah. That would be great. This is a very undignified way to enjoy my victory.”
“I don’t mind.” Connor grinned as he approached. The short sword at his side was coated in demon blood. His bag of potion bombs was collapsed and empty.
“Shut up,” I said.
He grinned.
“Thanks for coming, though,” I said. “I know it’s not your usual thing.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t like it. Every now and again, the demons need a good beat down.”
“Yeah, yeah, brother dearest. You’re so tough.” Claire approached with a grin, her sword now sheathed over her back. Behind her, Del stood in phantom form, chatting with the ghostly ladies of the night.
Connor grabbed Claire and put her in a headlock. She squealed.
My heart lit up like the sun. This had been a hard night, but having my friends around reminded me of the good stuff.
Nix conjured a pair of jeans, socks, and boots and handed them to me. I glared at Connor. “Turn around.”
He did. But Aidan didn’t.
“You too.”
Aidan’s gaze lingered on my face before he turned. I tugged on the jeans, socks, and boots.
“All clear,” I said.
They turned to face me.
“Going commando?” Connor asked.
“Seriously, shut up, you idiot,” I said.
Claire punched him. I grinned, then swayed. I’d used every bit of power I possessed and then some. I was going to need a long nap soon. Aidan wrapped his arm around me and fit me against his side, providing enough support that I could stand.
Mathias approached in human form. Like Aidan and the Shifters, he was skilled enough to not incinerate his clothes. I really needed to practice.
“The Heartstone is gone,” I said. “I couldn’t get it, and I won’t be able to.”
“He took it?” Mathias asked.
“Yeah. Somewhere that my powers don’t follow. I can’t sense him or the stone.”
“Who was he?” Mathias asked.
For a split second, I thought of telling him about my past and the Monster who hunted me. But secrets came too naturally to me. Secrets kept me safe. So I told him as much truth as I could. “The Shifters didn’t say. Just that they were getting the Heartstone for him. And that they hate Aidan. Elenora was right. They were Dougal’s daughters. Perhaps he knew of their rage and enlisted them in some plan. Whatever it is, he wants the Heartstone for it.”
Mathias nodded and stepped closer. He glanced over his shoulder at Claire and Connor, who’d walked away to join Del and the ghosts.
“I thought they looked familiar,” he said quietly. “I’ll pass on what you’ve said to the Council. It’s best that you not return to Glencarrough. You’re lucky you escaped without anyone connecting your scent to that of the captured FireSoul. I won’t tell anyone what you are, but keep your secret close.”
“Thank you.” I believed him.
“And we’ll see to it that you’re paid in full.”
“I didn’t succeed.”
“I’d say you went above and beyond.” He eyed the collar on the ground at my feet. “And you saved Amara, the most important part of this. We’ll be able to create another Heartstone, though it will take great sacrifice. It may take time, but Glencarrough will be safe again eventually.”
I nodded my thanks just before my knees collapsed. Aidan swept me up in his arms. Exhaustion tugged at me.
“I don’t suppose anyone has a transportation charm?” I asked. After such a long journey, Del would likely be tapped out for a while.
“I used the last,” Mathias said.
Damn. It was going to be a long way home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hot water pounded down on me as I stood in the tiny shower in my apartment, washing away the grime of traveling over six thousand miles by plane, train, and automobile. We’d left the ruins in Turkey over thirty-six hours ago, but because we’d run out of transportation charms and we weren’t in Aidan’s sphere of influence, as I liked to call it, we’d had to rely on public transportation to get home.
No private jets or zipping across the ether.
How quickly I’d forgotten what normal travel was like. A month ago, it was all I’d used. Crammed into commercial flights and rural buses, trying to get to ancient sites. Only occasionally was I lucky enough to use a transportation charm, and really, since I only used those in emergencies, I wouldn’t call them lucky.
But at least I was home. I scrubbed the water out of my eyes and grabbed the can of PBR I’d set on the little shampoo shelf. I took a swig, the cold, refreshing bubbles washing down my throat.
Ah, shower beer. The best beer, second only to beer that accompanied donuts for dinner.
I rinsed the last of the shampoo from my hair and climbed out. My tiny bathroom was cramped and ancient, but it was home and I was damned glad to be there. My beer kept me company as I walked to my cluttered bedroom and grabbed jeans and a T-shirt off the chair in the corner.
I sniffed them. Clean? Maybe. Maybe not. But they were cleaner than I’d been before my shower, so I considered them good. I’d slept most of the way home, curled up in hard little seats, but I’d be hitting the hay early tonight anyway so the clothes would only have to last me a few hours.
A knock sounded at the door. Del and Nix. After arriving in Magic’s Bend, we’d all split back to our own places to clean up and lick our wounds. Because I’d been comatose most of the ride home, we’d agreed to meet up after our showers to talk about what I’d learned from the Monster.
I pulled open the door to find Nix and Del on the other side, each with a beer in hand.
“Hey,” Nix said.
Del was taking a sip of her beer, so she just did that chin lift thing guys do.
“Come on in.” I stepped back.
They entered and headed toward the couch in my postage-stamp sized living room.
“Nope,” I said. “Let’s go to my trove. I just want to relax.”
They veered toward the bedroom and I followed, going straight for the section of blank wall that contained the hidden door. The enchantment unlocked at my touch and I pushed.
The door swung open and I slipped inside, flicking on the light. Calm flowed over me as the light gleamed on the rows and racks of my treasure. Leather jackets, boots, and weapons. It was weird treasure, but it was mine. Each of us had a different idea of what constituted treasure, but our dragon souls demanded that we feed the beast, hoarding it all in our troves. This was my favorite place in the world, even though I knew it belonged on an episode of Supernatural Hoarders.
“Looks like we’ll be able to keep up the rent,” Nix said as she entered.
“Thank magic,” I said. We’d have a hard time finding a better place. Each of us had a floor of the old factory, about four thousand square feet each. Our living space took maybe a tenth of that. The rest was our trove, locked behind magic and illusion.
We settled on the floor near the door, leaning against the wall.
“You need a couch in here,” Del said.
“Eh.” I’d considered it, seeing as this was the place I always came when I needed to recharge, but hadn’t done it yet. “It’s just kinda weird, you know? Hanging out with our treasure, crouched on it like damned dragons.”
“We are damned dragons,” Del said.
“No, we’re not. We just have a bit of their soul.” I swigged my beer as I gazed at the weapons and leather jackets displayed on the wall
across from me. “Whatever that means.”
Nix and Del both shrugged. We’d speculated about it in the past, but had never figured out what it meant exactly. Was it literal? Figurative?
“But that’s why the Monster is hunting us, right?” Nix asked.
“Yeah,” I shuddered. I debated telling them about my compulsion to steal the Shifter’s power, but didn’t. I still needed to process it. What if I was as much a monster as the one who hunted us?
I thrust the thought away.
“Fates, you should have felt him,” I said. “It was gross. I can’t remember him, but I remember that power. That feeling.”
“Oh, I felt him.” Nix made a gagging noise.
“Same,” Del said. “Won’t forget that anytime soon.”
“He was going to take me somewhere.” The beer can crumpled in my hand.
“Back there?” Nix asked.
In a second, my mind was back in the cold dark of the cell from my nightmares. My breath caught, making it harder to suck in air.
Warmth settled over my shoulders. I shook my head and glanced down. Del’s arm was wrapped around me, Nix’s hand on my knee. I sighed and leaned into them.
“Maybe,” I said, then shuddered. “Fates, he might have thrown Amara in there.”
“There might be other girls in there.” Nix’s voice sounded lost.
“But why? What the hell does he want, besides the Heartstone and Amara?” Del asked.
I glanced down the hallway that led through my trove, straight back to the safe where I kept the scroll and the chalice.
“The names of more FireSouls from the Scroll of Truths,” I said, thinking back to what Aaron had told me.
“And the Chalice of Youth,” Nix said. “But that thing must do more than just make you look young, even though that’s all the records say it does.”
“I must have missed something in the research,” Del said.
“We’ll figure it out. But whatever his end game, it seems he’s trying to collect strong magic,” I said.
“He’s succeeded in getting the Heartstone. If he finds a child with the gift to control it, then he can use it. The Alpha Council will protect Amara, but we can’t let him get the scroll or the Chalice of Youth,” Del said. “It’s hidden in your trove, but the protections aren’t great.”
“We should probably spend some of that four mil on more protection spells for our troves and our shop,” I said. Though it would be hard not to immediately spend it filling up my trove. My fingertips itched with the compulsion.
“Yeah. And maybe try to beef up the concealment charms that hide us. But in the meantime, you should give the scroll and chalice to Aidan,” Nix said. “I had my doubts about him for a while, but he’s clearly on our side. I trust him to know about us if he reads the scroll. And he’s the best at protecting stuff, considering it’s his freaking job.”
I dropped my head back against the wall. Nix was right. Aidan would have to be pulling a really long, dangerous con on me if he was planning to betray me. My issues with him were more about my own fear than anything he’d done.
“Yeah, I’ll give it to him,” I said. “But that doesn’t solve our problem. The Monster is hunting us. The concealment charms we bought five years ago will keep hiding us from an active search, but I don’t trust that we won’t run into him somehow.”
“I’ll try to figure out why I can turn into a phantom and if there’s any way I can use it to help us,” Del said. “Ever since I changed for the first time a week ago, I’ve just been adjusting to it. But I haven’t tried to figure out why, besides chatting with those ghosts at the ruins.”
“I think we gotta tell Connor and Claire what’s up,” Nix said. “If our concealment charms ever fail and the Monster does find us, they could be in the crossfire. They need to know what they’re getting themselves into by being friends with us.”
Guilt streaked through me and I winced. I didn’t think they’d seen me take the Shifter’s power at the ruins, but the memory of them fighting on our behalf raced through my mind. It should have been an easy battle, but it’d thrown them right into the path of the Monster.
“Agreed,” I said. “They won’t turn us in. We’ve been friends too long for that. We need to tell them we’re going to keep our distance until this thing with the Monster blows over.” If it did.
“They might quit being our friends anyway,” Nix said.
“Which is fair,” Del said. “We’d be asking them to risk a lot. Even if we get rid of the Monster, they’d be harboring known FireSouls. That’s punishable by a stint in the Prison for Magical Miscreants.”
An image of the shackled FireSoul being led down the hallway at the Alpha Council flashed in my mind.
“Yeah. We’ll tell them tomorrow,” I said. “Give them an out.”
It had to be done, but I wasn’t looking forward to it.
Early the next morning, I ambled down the street toward Potions & Pastilles. The sun was bright and cheerful, the birds chirping, and the morning looking like it’d turn into a beautiful Oregon summer day. The slight chill in the air would be banished by the sun and cats would laze on the grass.
And I would try not to lose my friends.
P & P was empty when I pushed open the door. Factory Row didn’t get the kind of early-morning traffic that the business district got, so though Connor opened their doors at seven, customers didn’t usually show until closer to eight.
Which was what I’d been counting on.
I turned on my newly acquired wolf Shifter senses when I walked in, just to try them out, and found that it was the easiest thing in the world. Just the matter of a thought. I hardly had to reach for my magic at all. Which was a good thing, since it meant I wouldn’t give off much of a signature for a powerful supernatural to sense.
The smell of roasting coffee and baking cinnamon buns hit me about twenty times stronger than normal, thanks to my heightened senses. Nice. But I could also smell the trash and the bathroom, which wasn’t so nice.
I turned off the senses as Connor looked up from behind the counter and grinned. His black band T-shirt was spotted with puffs of white flour.
“Hey! This is a bit early for you,” he said.
“Yeah, guess it is.” I eyed him loading the glass case with pastries. I could hear Claire in the kitchen, doing an early shift as I’d expected. “Whatcha got there?”
“Cinnamon buns.” He pulled one out and showed me. The shiny white icing threatened to drip off the sides.
“Gimme.” I made grabby hands as I approached and he handed it over. I didn’t have to confess what I was until Nix and Del showed up, so I was going to take these last few minutes with my friend.
I bit into the cinnamon bun. Butter and sugar exploded over my taste buds.
“Amaything,” I said, trying to keep my mouth closed as I chewed.
“My specialty. Want a latte?”
“Double boosted. I’m still dragging from these last few days.” The boost was magic, but I didn’t know what kind. Connor’s specialty. He was as much a potion master as he was a Hearth Witch.
“So, you got plans this weekend?” I asked as he crafted my latte.
“Yeah, gonna check out the concert at the park. You want to come?”
“Might, yeah.” Except I couldn’t, because we wouldn’t be friends then.
We spent the next ten minutes chatting about the live music that would be playing at the park. When the door behind me opened and Nix’s and Del’s voices drifted in, I stiffened. This was it.
“Hey, Connor, can you go get your sister?” I asked. Might as well pull this band aid off, especially since we couldn’t do it if any other customers showed up.
“Uh, sure.”
Nix and Del joined me at the barstools on either side, filling up the small counter.
“Now or never, eh?” Del said.
“Yeah.” I gripped my mug.
Claire followed her brother out of the kitchen a moment later. She w
ore her leather fighting pants, but had pulled an apron over her black T-shirt. So she was pulling a double today—baker and mercenary.
She shoved her hair away from her face with her wrist. Her hands were still covered in flour. “Hey guys, what’s up?”
Oh, not much. Just here to drop the bomb that obliterates our friendship.
“Uh, we had something we needed to tell you,” I said instead.
“Yeah?” Connor asked.
“We’re FireSouls,” Del blurted out.
“But we’re not evil,” Nix added.
The air left the room. Any hope I’d had that they had already known and were cool with it, like Aidan had been, disappeared at the sight of their expressions.
They both looked like they’d been shot.
“FireSouls?” Claire whispered.
Connor shoved a hand through his messy hair. Then did it again. And again. “Shit.”
Goosebumps crawled over my skin, nerves chasing nerves on top of nerves.
“Maybe you should tell us more,” Claire said.
I sucked in a deep breath and started talking. The words fell off my tongue—our first memories as fifteen-year-olds, my nightmares, the Monster, his plans.
Their faces stayed the same throughout, as if they were trying to process and weren’t thrilled with what they were hearing.
Who would be?
Hey, your closest friends are wanted by the law and hunted by a madman. Sign me up, said no one ever.
“So it would be dangerous for you if we keep being friends,” Del said. “Which is why we can’t be friends anymore, as I’m sure you can see.”
Her voice sounded like shit. I felt like shit. Nix looked like shit, her jaw tense and her under-eyes baggy from exhaustion. We were the shit club.
Claire suddenly scowled. “Uh, actually I don’t see that.”
“It could just be temporary,” I said, desperate to salvage anything I could.
“The hell it could,” Connor said. “We’re your friends. We’ve been friends for five years. My sister is a badass mercenary and I’m not exactly bad with a potion bomb myself. We’re not going to just drop you when things get tough. What the hell kind of people do you think we are?”
I flinched. Connor sounded mad. But Connor didn’t get mad. He was the chill one of the two.
