The quick exchange made Justin dizzy. They’d been jumped in an alley. Had they been set up? Had he?
He was in over his head, the undercurrents in the room sucking his strength. He felt the walls closing in, the room whirling around him.
“Justin?” Lara’s voice, sharp and worried. “Justin.”
I’m okay, he wanted to tell her.
Except his brain was on fire and his mouth wouldn’t form the words.
His eyes rolled back in his head, and the floor tilted up to receive him.
*
Miriam Kioni stripped off her latex gloves and dropped them on the procedure tray. “He’ll have a scar, of course,” she said to Simon, standing with Lara at the side of Justin’s bed. Jude Zayin, the dark-browed master of the Guardians, watched silently from his post at the infirmary room door.
“But the edges of the wound aligned nicely.”
The hot, bright medical lamp switched off.
In the sudden dimness, Lara blinked down at the shaved patch above Justin’s ear. Twenty-two stitches marched antlike across his scalp, disappearing into the gold stubble of his hair.
Something fluttered in her chest like wings. One of his eyes had swollen shut. His tanned skin had the waxy sheen of a melted candle.
She curled her nails into her palms. “Should he still be unconscious?”
“It was easier to suture his wound while he was sleeping,”
Miriam said with the calm authority of her hundred years.
The nephilim were not immortal. But the wisest and most powerful of them could enjoy the span of several human lifetimes. Miriam had been master of the Seekers and the school’s physician longer than Lara had been alive.
Lara would have to be an idiot to challenge her.
She moistened her lips. Apparently she was an idiot.
“But . . . His skull fracture . . .”
“A simple concussion,” Simon said.
Water hissed in the sink. “Probably not the first one either,”
Miriam said.
Lara’s throat worked. “What are you talking about?”
“You can’t see it on the imaging equipment, but I found an old scar from a previous injury. Maybe he played football in high school.”
“Or got beaten up,” Zayin said.
Miriam scrubbed her hands at the sink. “Either way, it would make him more susceptible to another concussion.”
“But he’ll be all right?” Lara asked.
“The CAT scan didn’t reveal any internal bleeding or elevated pressure in the brain,” Miriam said. “He should be fine with a little rest.”
“He can rest someplace else,” Zayin said. “I don’t want him here.”
Miriam turned from the sink. “He needs at least forty-eight hours to recover.”
“I don’t give a damn what he needs,” Zayin growled.
“He’s a risk.”
Lara gripped the metal guard rail on the side of Justin’s bed. “He’s a target.”
They all turned to look at her with varying degrees of surprise and impatience.
She swallowed hard and stood her ground, her heart beating like a rabbit’s. “The demons will know he helped me. Us,” she explained. “We can’t abandon him.”
“Maybe that’s what they’re counting on,” Zayin said.
Simon pursed his lips. “You think he’s one of them.”
“I know he’s not one of us,” Zayin said flatly. “I can’t read him. I don’t like it.”
“Miriam? You were in his head.”
“Only to control his pain and monitor autonomic function. I doubt I would have gotten that far if he weren’t unconscious already.” The doctor shrugged her slim shoulders. “An interesting case. His shields are very strong.”
“Yes. Interesting, as you say.” Simon’s perfect brow creased in thought. “Very well. He may stay as long as . . .
required.”
Lara exhaled in relief. “Thank you.”
Zayin’s gaze met the headmaster’s, flat black colliding with blue. “As long as we take the necessary precautions.”
Simon inclined his head.
Justin’s hand, lean and brown, twitched against the white sheet. He stank of blood and Lidocaine and something else, a male, warm, animal scent, uniquely his. Lara had a sudden image of him standing golden, free, and fearless on the mast, and her heart squeezed in pity and regret.
“I could stay with him,” she volunteered. “To watch him.
Wake him up.”
The way she had on the car ride north.
Miriam shook her head. “It’s been a long day for all of us.
You need your rest, too.”
“I don’t mind,” Lara said. “I’m not tired.”
It wasn’t strictly a lie. She was beyond tired, in that floaty state of awareness that was usually the product of training too hard or studying too long.
She saw the governors exchange glances.
She understood their concern. She was only a novice Seeker. Her small authority ended the moment their car rolled through the gates. She’d already screwed up. It was better, wiser, safer to leave Justin in their more capable hands.
Yet part of her rebelled at the thought of leaving him alone, unconscious and defenseless.
Why he needed to be defended here at Rockhaven, in the care of three nephilim masters, was something she wasn’t going to think about yet.
“I think you’ve done enough already,” Simon said.
Her throat constricted at the implied rebuke, choking off whatever protest she might have made.
Zayin stalked forward, pulling a leather cord from his pocket, a square black bead knotted in the middle. The fine hair rose on Lara’s arms as power hummed in the room.
A heth. Not a ward for protection, but a spell to bind and restrain.
Zayin slid the cord around Justin’s neck, tying it so that the black bead rested smooth and shining in the hollow of his throat.
Lara swallowed in comprehension. The heth would choke any demon that broke its limits, effectively extinguishing—killing—it.
Of course, it would kill an ordinary human, too.
“Is that really necessary?” she appealed to Simon.
After a pause, Miriam answered. “The patient shouldn’t exert himself. The best things for him now are quiet, dark, and limited physical activity.”
A binding spell would limit his activity all right.
Taking a second, shorter cord, Zayin slipped it under Justin’s ankle and then rolled back the cuff of his jeans.
Lara stiffened, staring at the black leather sheath strapped to Justin’s leg.
“Dive knife.” Zayin shot her a brief, hard look. “Still think he’s harmless?”
She didn’t say anything. They would not expect her to.
But Justin didn’t draw the knife, she remembered as Zayin unbuckled the sheath and laid it on the counter. In the bar, he’d bought a round for two sailors rather than pick a fight. He’d stuck up for her with Gideon. Saved her from the demon.
She didn’t know what he was, but she knew what he wasn’t.
He wasn’t a threat. Not to her. At least, not in the way they all believed.
Lara looked down at Justin’s gaunt face, the angry lump, the line of black stitches, the purple bruise around one eye.
After all he had done for her, he was being treated like the enemy. Tied like a prisoner. Like a dog. The unfairness of it made her knuckles turn white on the rail.
Simon regarded her with cool, blue, assessing eyes. “If you’re quite satisfied, I believe we’re done here.”
The others did not move.
Lara met his gaze, her heart banging in her chest. She was done here, he meant.
She was dismissed. Freed of responsibility, of blame, of consequences.
All she had to do was walk away.
“Good night, Lara,” Simon said gently.
She dropped her head, relieved and disappointed.
“Good night, Headmaster.”
The door closed behind her with a small, defeated click.
*
Justin dreamed he was floating, up and down, moving with the rhythm of the waves, tied to the remains of . . . a boat? A mast, splintered and heavy. Thick wet rope constricted his chest and chafed his armpits. Cold ate his flesh, seeped into his bones. He could not feel himself, his swollen hands on the mast, his frozen legs in the water, anymore. Only cold and a throbbing in his head like fire.
He was not afraid of dying. The very concept of drowning was ludicrous, unacceptable, to his dream self.
But his body would not respond the way he wanted—expected—it to. He had a memory (or was it another dream? ) of scything through the clear cold dark, his nostrils sealed, his eyes wide open, fluid and free, sleek and solid beneath the wave. In his element . . .
Voices drifted to him in the dark.
“Watch his head. ”
“Get the door.”
“We need a light.”
He was lifted up and carried along, swiftly, smoothly.
He heard gravel crunch and insects chirr, felt the air roll under him like the sea, bearing him up on its billows. The night embraced him, alive with the scents of tilled earth and worked stone, cut wood and cultivated flowers. Land smells.
Human smells. Confused, he stirred, opening his eyes.
A pattern of leaves overhead. The outline of a rooftop, silhouetted against a sky full of stars.
He floated down a path like a river, dizzy and without apparent support, flanked by tall, moving figures. A silver globe like a tiny moon hovered almost within reach. He licked cracked lips, staring at the light dancing above his head. Impossible.
A shadow swooped between him and the moon.
The rope tightened around him, dragging him back into the dream.
The pulse of the surge was his pulse, the rush of the ocean filled his empty heart, his aching head. We flow as the sea flows.
He shuddered with loss and cold, clawing the mast, clinging to consciousness. The horizon moved up and down, gray and empty as far as the eye could see. As long as he hugged the spar, he could keep his head above water.
But after long . . . Hours? Days? . . . his concentration and his arms kept slipping. His head hurt. Every time a wave rolled the mast, he went under. Every time, he had to fight harder to get on top again.
They would search for him, he was sure. She would come for him. He was almost certain.
But when he tried to picture the nameless They, their faces wavered like reflections in a pool, scattered, lost.
“Mind the step.”
The air around him changed again, became dank and still as the refrigeration of a tomb. He smelled dust and mold and old, growing things.
All motion stopped.
“Are you sure . . .” A woman’s voice. Not hers.
A rush of disappointment swallowed what came next.
When he focused again, a man was speaking. “Old storm cellar . . .”
Their voices tumbled over each other, hard and meaningless as pebbles rattling at the water’s edge.
“No idea what he is . . . what he’s capable of.”
“— risk— ”
“Can’t keep him down here like some kind of lab rat.”
“— expose our children— ”
“More than a matter of academic interest . . . Matter of survival.”
His hips, his shoulders pressed something solid. A bed, hard and narrow as a ship’s bunk. A pil ow, flat and musty.
The voices cut off. He heard a scrape, a thump, before the silvery light behind his eyelids faded away.
He lay on his back under the earth, alone in the dark, in the silence. His head throbbed.
For the first time, it occurred to him he might die after all.
*
She crouched alone in the filth, in the dark, her heart pounding so hard her body shook with it. He was coming back.
She pressed her fingers to her mouth so she wouldn’t whimper, so he wouldn’t hear and find her.
He was coming back with a present for her, he said. The thought made her curl herself tighter in her corner. “My little angel,” he called her, which made her want to throw up. If only she’d be quiet, if only she’d be good, if only she were nice to him, he wouldn’t have to hurt her, he said.
She heard a scrape, a thump from the top of the stairs.
And woke gasping, her skin clammy with sweat.
Just a dream.
Lara lay dry-mouthed and wide-eyed, staring into the darkness, willing her stomach to settle and her heartbeat to return to normal. Throwing off the tangled covers, she staggered across the room and jerked open the window.
She drew a deep, slow breath. Held it, while the clean night air blew away the sticky remnants of her dream.
The quad was empty, the students in their beds. No one was up but Lara and the moon. Even the infirmary was dark.
Lara frowned. Miriam had said Justin needed rest. But whoever was with him ought to have a light. Did the sleep spell still hold? Or was he lying awake, alone in the dark?
From experience, she knew better than to go straight back to sleep after a nightmare. Maybe she would just go check on him. No one had told her she couldn’t visit the infirmary.
Because it never occurred to them that she would try, her conscience pointed out.
She ignored her conscience and reached for her clothes.
Minutes later, she was creeping down the staircase of the sleeping dormitory. A tread creaked under her bare feet.
She froze, her heart revving about a million miles a minute.
Which was ridiculous; she was a proctor now with her own apartment, and she had every right to leave her rooms if she wanted.
She stole through the silent common room, avoiding the clustered study tables, the couches crouched like beasts around the dark TV. Moonlight poured through the casements, forming silver tiles on the floor.
She fumbled with the deadbolt on the door. She had always been the good girl in her cohort. Her roommate Bria had been the one who nudged and pushed and led them into trouble, who snuck out at night and slipped in at dawn, flushed, laughing, and defiant. Lara was in agony for her friend every time Bria was called to the headmaster’s office.
Bria had only grinned, shaking her wild mane of blond hair.
Naturally curly. Naturally blond. It wasn’t always easy, having a best friend who looked the part, like a painting of an angel from the Italian Renaissance. “What’s Axton going to do, throw me out?” Bria’s smile invited Lara in on the joke.
“Come on, Lara, God Almighty cast us out of Heaven. You think I care if a bunch of teachers expel me from their stupid school?”
They’d been opposites in so many ways: Bria, outgoing, outspoken, and outrageous; Lara, careful, committed, and responsible.
But as the only two girls in their cohort, they were inevitably paired. For eight years, they’d shared notes and secrets, skipped gym and meals together, whispered about everything and nothing across the space between their beds after lights out. Bria was Lara’s other self, her other side, secret and daring. Lara missed her more than she could ever admit, even to herself.
The school never expelled Bria. She’d been right about that. But the summer before their senior year, Bria ran away. Lara never saw her friend again.
Flyers.
The masters refused to acknowledge them. The students spoke of them in whispers. The ones who deserted the security of their own kind, the nephilim who left Rockhaven.
Lara shivered as she pulled the door shut behind her and turned her key in the lock.
She could never do that. She owed Simon everything: her home, her education, her identity.
Her life.
Wards made of glass rods chimed from the trees as she hurri
ed along the edges of the upper quad. The night was alive with the rustle of leaves and insects, the flutter of breeze and bats. She ducked her head past the dining hall, lengthened her stride toward the infirmary.
She tested the handle. Locked. Of course.
It took only seconds to open the door with her proctor’s key.
The waiting room was empty and dark.
“Hello?”
No answer. No nurse behind the desk, no guard at the door.
She took a few steps forward, her blood pounding in her ears, her senses humming. They would not have left him alone.
She had a sudden, jarring image of Justin’s white face, the heth gleaming in the hollow of his throat, and doubt coiled like a worm at her heart. Would they?
“Miriam?” she called softly into the dark.
Silence.
She reached out with her mind, straining for the whisper of his presence, trying to pick out his scent, his heartbeat.
The effort made her tired brain throb.
Or was that an echo of his pain?
“Justin? Dr. Kioni?”
Nothing.
Her feet followed her thoughts down the deserted corridor.
She threw open doors as she passed, caution melting into anxiety. “Justin.”
His room.
Empty.
She stood in the doorway, her gaze scraping the rumpled hospital bed. He was gone, the only signs he’d ever been there the wrinkled sheets and the black sheath on the table.
He was gone. A sudden chill chased over her skin.
Escaped.
She picked up the knife left lying on the table.
Zayin’s words mocked her. “Still think he’s harmless?”
The sky was pewter and pale gold, the sun just breaking through the clouds to shimmer on the surface of the western sea.
Lucy Hunter sat alone in the inner bailey of Caer Subai, listening to the splash of the fountain and the restless murmur of the ocean outside the walls. After seven years, the work of rebuilding the selkie stronghold of Sanctuary was nearly complete. The towers rose tall and strong, wreathed in mists and magic. The scent of apple blossoms blew from the hills, mingling with the wild brine of the sea and the rich perfume of her garden.
Forgotten Sea Page 4
