“Right, another a good point.” Letting out a breath for the relief of him saying something, also trying not to overreact, I glanced instead to Isaac. “What do you think about going all the way to the coast? Are there cliffs? Like in Cornwall?”
“In many areas. But … stone circles up there…?” Frowning slightly.
“Cimbayrel,” Zar said, flat, looking off to the horizon.
“Oh…” Isaac nodded. “Speaking of seldom visited. I forgot about Cimbayrel. I’ve never even seen it. Very remote on the northern coast. I have no idea if it’s actually along the coast on a cliff, but somewhere in that area. Would you like to go there?”
“I … think so.” I looked to Zar but he wouldn’t meet my eye. Turn around. “I don’t know, but there’s the connection. Maybe these mages go there? The circle could be used for spellwork. If it’s remote it would be just the sort of place…”
“Doesn’t follow, does it?” Kage said. “North coast for their spells and they’re setting reavers loose in Cumbria and Essex?”
“Even if there is a connection with this circle, or any circle, it might not be somewhere they’re using right now. It could be a nod from the past again, unrelated to these mages at all but still connected. If we’re going that far north anyway, it’s worth a look.”
“It’s a beautiful area.” Isaac smiled, looking into my eyes as if we were alone.
“Okay.” I glanced around. It was really starting to rain now. “Want to head back? Please let me know if any of you have more ideas about finding these guys—or anything else.”
No chance to talk with Kage, much less Zar, on the walk to the Jeep and motorcycles.
Chapter 10
We returned to the outskirts of Edinburgh in a gray drizzle matching the mood. Now, besides pressing issues with my pack, I needed alone time to study my notebook and pull pieces together that should be in plain sight. Again, though, I couldn’t attend to top priorities.
First grocery shopping. This included tonight’s dinner, which we made and shared with Traigh and Isla as they returned home, then conversation since both seemed intrigued by us and eager to talk to anyone who crossed their paths—certainly not just catching up with Isaac.
I went to help clean up, only to be stuck in conversation with Isla for half an hour about food and Edinburgh and urban wildlife and … I’m not sure. Unlike Traigh’s fast speech and thick accent, I didn’t have any trouble understanding Isla. Yet I made in abysmal audience anyway, so distracted by worry and pressures of my to-do list and the crumbling of my pack, I’d never been a worse conversationalist.
Traigh was in the front room chatting with Isaac and others. Kage was in the tiny back garden, having a go at Jed about Jed’s trying to bite him that morning. Andrew and Jason cleaned the kitchen while I failed to help.
“Kage!” I called through the open door.
He stepped in, dripping and looking murderous. “He’s the one going around biting—”
“No, it’s not that.” I pointed.
Kage looked up to the inside of the water-damaged frame of the doorway. He squinted, gave me a freshly exasperated scowl, and reached up pinch a spider off the frame. He flung the mashed body outside.
“Thank you.”
Muttering about Jed getting away with anything these days, he slammed the door, leaving Jed alone in the rain. While Isla was telling me about the spiders this time of year, and how Traigh was great about eating them whenever he got his nose to one, Kage turned on Andrew.
“Why the fuck do you have to cook everything well done?” Kage’s tone suggested he was already tangled in a vicious argument with Andrew.
“He’s quick as anything.” Isla was all pride. “You should see him catch flies.”
“What?” Andrew turned from the sink. “Your steak was rare, corpse-nose.”
“It was barely bleeding—”
“Bleeding at all is not ‘well done,’ mate. They were all rare. At most a couple got medium rare. If you wanted it blue you could have eaten it out of the package.”
“Just let me cook my own next time. I didn’t know you were ruosculvoja on this trip.”
“I didn’t know you were a petty, antagonistic, self-absorbed wanker. Oh, wait—” Andrew threw up his hands. “I did already know that.”
“Bloody ironic that you’re the only one who acts like he has any verus interest in cooking and he’s gormless about it,” Kage snarled. “Next time, leave mine alone.” He stalked out.
Isla watched him go with the rest of us, besides Jason, who was looking at the floor, then returned her smile to me. “I don’t fancy them, personally. Especially if the legs are still moving and they tickle your tongue. Feels as if they’ll run right back out your throat.”
“I—” My stomach turned over and I gulped, something bubbling up that wasn’t bile, but very nearly a scream before I clamped my lips shut. “I’m sorry, Isla. You’ve been so kind to have us here. I need to get ready for tomorrow. Thank you.” I touched her arm, maybe managed a smile, and fled.
Kage had banged his way out the front door, presumably heading for the caravan.
I hurried upstairs, hoping I wasn’t moving so fast or looked so distressed that any of those in the front room would come after me.
I struggled to find crystalized ginger in my backpack, then sat on the edge of the bed with the heels of my hands against my forehead. Notebook and list, our next steps, move on, get out to the Highlands, the coast, ask or scry, find these mages: stop this. Simple.
Or just sit, and hold my head, sucking on a piece of ginger while I thought of scenes from favorite books and movies to keep from thinking of Kage and Zar and the idea of eating a living spider and feeling it still moving down my throat.
I sat there until I heard steps on the stairs, then scrambled up, ignoring my notebook and packing for the morning and everything else I’d been supposed to do, and headed back down.
Andrew was the one coming to find me, or do some packing of his own.
“You—?”
“I’m fine.”
“You smell like it.”
I pushed ginger into my cheek—as if that would hide anything—and went on past him.
“Where am I sleeping tonight?” He turned on the steps but didn’t follow me. “What about your massage?”
“I don’t know. It’ll have to wait. Sorry.”
I hurried down to the front door, grabbed my coat from the hook on the wall, tugged on shoes, then dashed out through heavy rain for the trailer.
I knocked before pulling open the door, rushing in without invitation to get out of the downpour. It was already dark out as well. Our glorious hot summer suddenly a memory.
“Enough bleeding excuses. If you don’t—” Kage spun around, saw who was here, and stopped mid-sentence. He’d apparently been pacing in the small space, now down the narrow passage by the bed at the front of the trailer.
Silence aside from rain drumming on the roof. Only a clip-on bicycle light glowed from one of the window blinds.
I stepped up to the passage, noting furry blankets piled up and damp, wolfy smell of the place. A sort of man-cave, kennel, forest vibe going on.
“If I don’t what?” I asked quietly.
Kage still only looked at me for a second. “Not you.”
“If who doesn’t what?”
He shook his head.
We just stood there, myself aware of how cold it was, how it had now been most of a full summer that we’d tried and failed, how we’d come so far, grown and changed and learned so much … I’d thought. By the time we’d returned from the States, we’d been … more. We were truly a pack. What happened between then and now?
Then again … what hadn’t?
Andrew was right that things could be worse. Still, was it any wonder we’d taken a few steps back? Add our own challenges to the personal grief and we had a pack of eight people who were not falling apart at all, but struggling to hold together. With the right support maybe we
would even succeed.
But I just stood and didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to tell Kage to please stop taking out whatever it was on everyone, ask what was going on for him, or say I was sorry he was hurting.
Kage looked away, chin down, turning his shoulder to me. It was a capitulating, apologizing gesture that I’d seen him offer to only two people: Diana and me.
He thought I was angry with him, that I’d come out here to lecture him about being a team player and controlling his temper.
With a lump in my throat, I stepped over a blanket mound and wrapped my arms around his back, leaning my head against his chest. He felt like Andrew had said I felt—like boards and nails. Kage stood motionless for several breaths before returning the embrace, then finally turning his face to breathe through my hair.
I could just hear his heart beating, the rhythm quieting my own thoughts, slowing my breaths. My arm hurt where the bite marks remained sore, yet even that seemed to soothe, allowing more focus, rather than distracting.
We must have remained statues like that for five minutes or more before I finally moved to sit on the stiff platform bed, Kage following beside me. I pulled off the wet coat, Kage lifted a bedspread around both our shoulders, and I once more leaned into him.
I drew up my knees. He turned more to face me. Again, we remained still for a long time, his arms around me, mine now down against the cocoon warmth he made for us.
“What’s going on?” I asked at last, my voice so soft I was surprised to find it almost lost in beating rain.
He let out a breath. After a swallow and false start he said, “Min polaan.”
“No … Kage, you don’t owe me an apology. But lashing out at everyone like this—”
“Not about today.”
I waited. “Then what is it you’re sorry about?”
Another pause. “That I… You and Jay… That I wasn’t there.”
“Weren’t there? In Paris? Kage, if you’d been there you’d have been locked in the dark with the others. I don’t think anything would have changed if you and Jed had been along. Maybe we’d have had a chance of overpowering them? But I doubt it very much. You’re better. And we’re free. That’s what matters.”
Kage remained silent. I finally pulled away so I could see his face.
In the dim trailer he kept his chin down, eyes shut, as if still with his nose in my hair.
“Kage? Blaming yourself for what happened to us … I’m sorry, but it doesn’t make sense.”
He opened his eyes to stare at blankets on the floor.
“The truth is, if you and Jed had been with us, if you hadn’t stayed behind, we might have been dead by now. All seven of us. Jason got us out of there but I’m not sure we could have made it without Gabriel at the end. He was a lifeline we needed, and he wouldn’t have been there without you and Jed back in England with a phone.”
I lifted both hands to his jaw, making him turn his face to me. Still he was reluctant to meet my eyes.
“This is your pack, remember? This is us. The strongest, baddest wolf? The canny princess who doesn’t need to put a spell on him because he follows her on his own? Outrunning dragons? Taking risks together? Learning magic and proving himself for top core?”
Kage rested his forehead against mine. I laced my fingers together at the back of his head.
“What happened to Jason was not your fault. There was nothing you could have done to help with those mages, even if you’d been in Paris. But you know what? You did a lot to help us by not being there. He woke up from seizures asking after you, scared you were locked downstairs. Then I would remind him you were safe and he’d calm down. He thought he was going to die in there. And he wanted me to take you messages back about how much he loved you and he was sorry because he felt he abandoned you. That was everything for him. When we had nothing else to cling to, trapped in that room, we knew you were safe in Cumbria with Madison and Jed. That was a miracle, Kage, that one glimmer of light. It was the best thing you could possibly have done for him.”
His breaths were shallow through his mouth. I pulled his head down to my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t know that was what you were upset about. Your father and Diana and—so much. I’m sorry about all of it. But you don’t need to be upset about this. I promise. You saved him from that house as surely as you saved me that night in Cumbria—in the only way you could have. You and Jed couldn’t have done any better by us if we’d planned it.”
He still didn’t say anything. Now we remained silent for several minutes, arms around each other, with only rain drumming all around.
Chapter 11
Leaving packing up until morning, I lay in bed by the lamp on the far side from the door, flipping through about eight weeks of notes and sketches.
Standing stones.
Burning cities.
Wolves and fields of blood.
Vampires and rows of crosses marking endless graves.
Dieter and faie, druids and shamans.
Jason slipped through the partly open door and pushed it back. He dropped his rucksack on the floor and, newly wearing only boxer shorts, crept into bed as if suffering from arthritis. I supposed he didn’t want to disturb me, yet it wasn’t the first time lately I’d wondered how he was feeling physically.
“Everyone settled?” I asked, still skimming.
“Nearly. Isaac and Andrew chatting with the foxes. Kage will be here in a minute.” He was in the bathroom, where Jason had just come from.
Shamanic journeys. Part of the community. You already know.
If we already knew, how could Calum and Frim be the answer? I did already know of wild mages, even if I’d thought they were confined to history. History. That connection too. So it did work. It worked if they worked. If, for example, they cast around a stone circle. If they had some greater connection than simply hired guns for the real perpetrators. Were they, though?
Why would wild mages bother about wiping out vampires and shifters and faie? But, if someone else wanted to murder shifters and enlist the help of reavers, why not hire a couple of roving wild mages to make them? That part, at least, made sense. It didn’t tell us who might be employing them, but didn’t we already have the tools to figure that out? Somehow?
Milo had said we could win their favor by buying them drinks. If they were no more than mercenaries in this deadly game, would they go to the highest bidder? Or were we only tempting fate as much as with the first lot in France? What if Calum and Frim weren’t mercenaries? What if they were behind the whole thing?
I had to prepare for lucid dreaming, meditate and seek these mages, or at least faie. Or should I just go ahead and scry? Real scries again? I was warded. Yet … that image leading us to Paris… Had it been brute skill, or something sinister getting past my ward? What would I be letting myself in for with more scries? What might we be missing without them?
With planted loops and feeds my magic had already been used against us. I couldn’t let it happen again.
Lucid dreaming was no magic at all. Any mundane could practice lucid dreaming. It wouldn’t create any magical energy which antagonistic magics could detect and attack. On the other hand, it probably wouldn’t do any good either.
I shut the notebook, counting to ten on an inhale and exhale as I pushed it away onto the jumble of books, charge ports, jewelry, and trinkets like a lava rock on the crates beside the bed. I left the lamp on, waiting for Kage as I rolled over to face Jason.
He lay on his back and, yes, it struck me that he looked uncomfortable.
I opened my mouth to ask about this, but we didn’t have many moments of alone time.
“Jay? How is he? I don’t know what else to tell him.”
Jason knew what we’d been talking about in the caravan earlier.
He shifted to face me as well, sliding down so we were nose to nose on the overly puffy pillow. “He’ll be all right. I’m glad you talked to him. He takes everything per
sonally, he’s so sensitive—and he wouldn’t listen to me. I’ve been telling him there was nothing he could have done, no matter what. He feels like he let us down and that’s the opposite of the sort of person he wants to be. Especially these days. He used to be pretty unpredictable. Since he sobered up and settled down, knowing people like Diana and Peter and me had expectations for him, he really changed course.”
He paused, but I knew at least some of what remained unsaid. Diana and Peter had both been murdered while Kage was not there with them. What ass-kicking silver could hold his head up when his family, mentors, and mates were repeatedly being taken from his reach and hunted, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered? For someone who took everything personally and saw himself as a protector, it sounded like its own form of torture.
“I’m sorry for what he’s going through,” I said softly. “For all of you. But I wish he would learn to stop redirecting his hurt with aggression the way he does.”
“I’d rather him snap at me than internalize. He’d start drinking again, or something else…”
“There are other ways to deal with stress. He has a support system. He can talk to us, and channel his feelings into forward momentum and productive work. It’s okay to be angry and scared. It’s what you do with it that matters. I can only say so much to him. I don’t want to nag.”
“Drop hints. He listens to you better than me.”
“You said you can get him to do anything.” I smiled a bit.
Jason did not return it. “I guess I was wrong. I can’t even get him to lay off about—” He stopped abruptly, dropping his gaze to my chin.
“What?”
“Cassia?” Meeting my eyes and suddenly speaking quickly. “You’ve got to tell him. It’s not right that he doesn’t know—and it would be such a boost for him.”
It took me only a second to realize what he was talking about. In the next second, everything clicked with Jason’s own disinterested reaction to knowing I was pregnant—and maybe even some of his gloom lately. He would have been happy as anyone for the news if there had been a general announcement. Instead, he was upset that he knew and Kage didn’t—and upset with me for keeping such a secret from Kage.
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