by Alex Rivers
And then I had another idea.
Walking back, I pulled one of the mirrors from my bag. I threw it across the hallway, and it landed on the floor just beyond Fulton’s door, clunking as it did.
I heard the sound of his chair shifting as he stood back, and I skulked back to the armory door. I pulled another mirror, staring into it until I felt that bond. Then, I frantically searched for the mirror I’d just thrown. For a moment, I could only see the hallway’s ceiling, the mirror facing up. Then it shifted, and one of Fulton’s brown eyes stared back, trying to figure out where this object had come from.
I quickly held the mirror up to the eye scanner, and the door clicked open.
My relief was short-lived. At this point, I was nearly out of time. Fulton would make some calls, maybe search every room in the hall and scan the CCTV, hunting for the mirror culprit.
I hurried to the console, pulling the magic scanner from my backpack. A USB cable dangled from the computer, and I connected it to the scanner, then looked at the monitor.
A folder with two files appeared onscreen. I double-clicked the first. It took a moment to load, and the scan details showed up in a plain white window with black text. Without reading through the analysis, I scrolled to the top and clicked print.
I opened the second file, scrolling up to click print again. Lucky for me, the printer worked nearly silently.
A muffled voice in the hallway sent my pulse racing. From here, it sounded like Fulton on the phone, his tone urgent. Then, the sound of a door slamming.
Taking a deep breath, I searched in the application’s menus until I found the option Database Crosscheck.
Bingo. A progress bar began crawling on the screen slowly, and I restrained myself from punching the computer in its face. While I waited, I dashed to the gun rack. I picked up two Uzis, shoving them into my backpack. As I did, the computer beeped and a dialogue box popped up. Match Found.
I clicked OK, and a report popped up on screen. I clicked print again.
As I was snatching the printouts, I realized I had one more task to complete here.
I moved back to the database, clicking on the search bar at the top of the application. Frowning, I typed in Alvin.
The dialogue box popped up immediately: Seven Matches Found.
A list of all seven appeared on screen. Just outside, Fulton’s voice was getting closer to the door. I selected all seven, and clicked Delete Records.
Are you sure you want to delete those records?
I clicked Yes.
The progress bar began running, but I was already diving into my backpack for a compact mirror, forming a mental bond with it. Just as the door clicked open, I felt myself fall into the cool, sweet embrace of the mirror’s reflection.
Chapter 27
Outside the embassy, I moved through the shadows, crossing past a woman who stared at the moon, her body jerking, jaw slackened. Shivering at the sight of her, I chucked the rest of my mirrors onto the pavement. I needed to go offline. The abductor could watch me and get to me at any time through reflections, and I wasn’t about to give her the chance. Not now.
Hyde Park was only a minute’s walk away, and I crossed the distance quickly, slipping through the shadows. I felt as if every window, every rain puddle was a pair of eyes staring at me. As I got to the park’s edge, I slipped into its reassuring darkness. I stayed away from the paved paths, crossing the dark stretches of grass. Once I’d moved far enough from the street, I searched around me for reflections. I didn’t find any. I was at least temporarily hidden.
I pulled the printed papers and my keychain flashlight from my bag. Clicking the flashlight on, I illuminated the reports.
The first two detailed the scans of magic imprints I’d scanned from the gruesome notes in Gabriel’s house. Quickly, I skimmed the long list of metrics and percentiles, most of which meant nothing to me.
When I turned to the third page, I found what I was looking for, and my pulse raced.
Name: Siofra (Family affiliation: unknown)
I’d seen this name before.
I’d always believed that my father had murdered my mother before killing himself, but Roan had claimed someone named Siofra was responsible for their deaths. The realization that she was real slammed into me, knocking the breath from me. At the time, he hadn’t seemed to know a thing about her, so I’d dismissed it. After all, the police had thought it was my father. My hands shook as I held the paper. Was it true? Had she murdered my parents?
Was it a long vendetta with my family? One of my parents was fae. Maybe Siofra had gone after him for some sort of vengeance, and had been following me since then, planning to kill me as well.
Name: Siofra (Family affiliation unknown)
Aether Imprint: Classification A, ID: 254093987
Known Connections: None
Known Powers: Reflection manipulation at a sophisticated level. Subject can move through reflections and change them at will.
She could do a lot more. The CIA’s knowledge wasn’t complete.
Activities:
Suspicion of involvement in the assassination of Case Officer Nelson
Suspicion of involvement in the assassination of Agent Vern, fae informant
Suspicion of involvement in the Edinburgh Massacre
Suspicion of involvement in the murder of Mr. And Mrs. Marron in Canterbury
Suspicion of involvement in the murder of Mr. And Mrs. Liddell in Arlington, Massachusetts.
I stared at the last line. The CIA had known that Siofra had killed my parents. Still, no one had told me anything, letting me believe that my father had killed my mother. They could have easily told me otherwise.
Grief washed over me, and I had to shut my eyes for a moment, to rein my roiling emotions under control. Siofra killed my parents—both of them. Not my father.
For the first time in years, I could think of my father without hatred. All those memories I’d shoved under the surface of my mind—they all came flooding back to me now. I could picture him mowing the lawn in the sun, stopping for a can of Diet Coke, the collar of his T-shirt soaked with sweat. Tinkering with his car in the garage, his arms covered in grease, tools shoved in the back pocket of his jeans. Cooking dinner in the kitchen, so distracted by the news on the radio that the catfish burned. “Oh, geez,” his gentle voice hummed in the back of my mind. “Princess, can you turn off the rice?”
I’d thought he was a murderer. All these years, I’d thought he’d murdered my mom. A dark wave of guilt washed over me, threatening to drown me, and I fought to stay above water. I couldn’t lose it now. I still had to get Scarlett back. Yet, all this time—why hadn’t I known? He had just seemed so utterly, completely human.
And maybe he was. Maybe my mom had been the fae, though she hadn’t seemed any less human than he did.
An image rose in my mind—my father sitting at the edge of my bed, after he’d read me a story about witches. Princess, monsters aren’t real.
The guilt nearly pulled me under. I’d hated my father for all these years… Hot tears spilled down my cheeks, and my fingernails pierced my palms. I couldn’t give in to the guilt, not now. What did it matter if I’d been blaming him all these years? He’d been dead. He had no idea what I’d been thinking. And the person who’d put him in the ground was still out there, torturing my best friend.
I wiped a tear away with the back of my hand, trying to force my raging emotions under the surface again, my raw grief slowly mutating into rage. With fury blazing through my veins, I could at least think more clearly. I needed to get a grip right now, even if my entire world was coming apart at the seams.
My heart thundering, I read the rest of the report.
It simply listed the times and places agents had scanned magic imprints that matched Siofra’s. The last two were the ones I’d scanned. The system had automatically added my scans to the database.
I took a shuddering breath, and shoved the report back into the bag. I’d deal with it l
ater. Right now, I wanted to find out exactly where this bitch was hiding—the woman who’d murdered my parents, who’d made me think my father was a murderer all this time.
I pulled a map of London from my bag. The scale was 1:9,700, which made it fairly detailed. I carefully spread it on the grass, then checked the coordinates of both scans. Getting a pen from my bag, I painstakingly searched for the exact locations of both scans—one near the City of London police station, the other in Gabriel’s home. I did my best to be as accurate as possible. The smallest mistake here could mean Scarlett’s death.
Then I searched the scan metrics until I found what I needed. Angle of Aether Trace. Q had said he could see the direction the aether had come from. The only thing that could describe a direction in this report was this angle. I was going out on a limb, assuming that the angle was from a vector that pointed north. I pulled out the goniometer and ruler I’d bought earlier that night. Using the goniometer, I determined the precise direction of the vector going out from the scan in Gabriel’s home. I used the ruler to draw the line, then did the same with the second scan. As I worked, tears spilled from my cheeks onto the map. I assumed that both times, the abductor had been standing close to Scarlett when she’d used magic. She wrote the notes in blood, probably Scarlett’s. To use the technical term, she was a sadistic, deranged bitch. That meant that the vectors would intersect in the place where Scarlett and Elrine were being held.
I was saving Scarlett with math.
I stared at the map, desperately hoping I’d got this right. The lines intersected on Mile End Road.
* * *
As I stood in the darkness of Hyde Park, I dried my tears on the back of my hand. Four figures were moving toward me along the path, Roan’s tall form impossible to miss. Lurking in the shadows on the grasses, I hissed at them, and one of them let out a feral growl.
It was hard to see them in the darkness, but one thing was certain. These were quite possibly the four most intimidating people I had ever met—two other males and a very creepy-looking female, their enormous bodies faintly bathed in the dim park lights.
“Cassandra.” Even in the dark, I could see his green eyes scanning my neck, looking for the tiny bruise where he’d bitten me. “Did you find the location?”
“Yeah, I did. What took you all so long?”
“Waking up Odette turned out to be… a difficult task.”
“I sleep deeply,” the woman whispered. She wore a green cloak pinned with a mourning dove pendant, and under her hood, I could see a glimpse of pearly white skin, and dark whorls of tattoos covering her cheeks. Her eyes were large, black pools. Strands of her hair escaped her cowl, flashing orange and yellow like wildfire in the darkness. I shivered.
Quickly, Roan introduced the other two. Morcant had deep brown skin and close-cropped hair. He wore jeans and a green sweatshirt. Apart from his size and the fact that he wore sunglasses in the dark, he seemed completely normal. Drustan was… well, I had no idea. For some reason I couldn’t really focus on him. I could hear movement coming from his direction, like the faint sound of heavy wings beating the air. He had a vague sense of menace about him, but something stopped me from perceiving any real details, like a mental block in my brain.
“Okay,” I said. “I have a name. The fae who abducted Elrine and Scarlett is called Siofra.”
Roan let out a low growl at the name, but the rest didn’t seem to find this name significant.
“What do you know about her?” I prodded.
“Only her name,” Roan said. “That she killed your parents. I don’t know anything else about her.”
“Right,” I said slowly. “I also have an address, but I don’t know how we should get there—”
“I have a car nearby.” Morcant’s voice was silky, calming.
“Yeah, awesome. But Siofra has reflection magic. She can see us through reflections. She’ll kill her captives before we get there—”
She won’t see us, Drustan said. Except it was more like his voice rose up within my own skull, like a thought. I will take care of that.
Shivering, I swallowed. “Good. Uh. There’s bound to be some security. I have no idea what to expect, but I know that she has several powerful fae with her.”
They all stared at me, power radiating off their bodies, and suddenly I felt like I was telling a tank squadron to watch out for the guy with the slingshot.
Morcant tilted his head. “They have harmed Elrine. Branded her like a piece of cattle, or a slave. They should be running away, if they know what’s best for them.” His voice was pure, controlled fury.
I took a deep breath. “Where’s the car?”
Wait, Drustan said. For just a moment.
As I waited, magic seemed to tingle and ripple over my skin.
Slowly, Hyde Park’s lamps seemed to dim, the moonlight darkening. In the night sky, a cloud of shadows slipped over the stars. Darkness swallowed us, and my heart thrummed in my chest. Drustan’s magic was leaving us in an endless, infinite void, all alone, where no one would hear us scream… Dread bloomed in my chest.
Roan touched my arm, his warm fingers reassuring on my skin. “Do not look straight at the shadows if you want to retain your sanity.”
Heat radiated off Roan’s body, and I moved closer to him, feeling the reassuring brush of his arm against mine. At least I could still see the other fae, as if we were in our own bubble of shadows, and the rest of the world fell away into a chasm of darkness around us. I focused on staring at the others.
It is done, Drustan’s voice rose in my mind.
Even Roan and Morcant seemed slightly unsettled. Only Odette seemed at ease, as if these ghostly shadows were her natural environment. Morcant took off his sunglasses, revealing yellow, feline eyes, like a tiger’s.
“My car used to be over there.” He pointed to the street, which was a void of blackness from here. “Before your bloody shadows swallowed it.”
The car is still there, said Drustan.
As we walked, the shadows moved with us. It felt as if the darkness had a motion of its own, swirling and tumbling around us. It unnerved me, and I stayed close to Roan’s warm body.
As we moved closer to the street, a silver Porsche stood by the curb. From my time ogling Porsches online, I knew it was a 911 Carerra 4S, that it had a top speed over two hundred miles per hour, and that it cost more than a hundred thousand dollars. And, most significantly for this particular moment, I knew it only seated four people.
“There it is,” Morcant said, relief tinging his voice. “My baby.”
Odette pulled open the passenger seat and slid inside.
Roan’s gaze slid to me as he pulled open the door. “You’ll have to sit on my lap.” He took a seat in the car, while Drustan got in the other side.
“Right.” In the tiny car, there was hardly room for me to fit on his lap, but I slid in on top of him, nestling in. His body felt hard and warm beneath mine, and as if by reflex, his powerful arms slid around me.
Crammed in the back of a sports car on the lap of a primal predator, I had to question the life choices I’ve been making lately.
Mordant glanced back at me, his yellow eyes gleaming. “Where are we headed?”
I bit my lip. “Forgive me for asking, but how do you plan to drive through the shadows? We can’t see where we’re going. And I don’t have a seatbelt.”
Roan pulled his arms tighter around me. “You won’t need a seatbelt.”
“And I have GPS,” said Mordant.
I sucked in a breath. “Right. We’re heading for the corner of Mile End Road and Cephas Avenue.”
He started the car and we pulled away, the shadows drenching the streets as we drove through them. An image of my father flickered in the hollows of my mind, hunched over a newspaper at the kitchen table, the sunlight glinting off his reading glasses. I could feel the ghost of tears pricking my eyes, and I clamped down on my guilt, thinking of Scarlett. My father’s killer was still out there, still tortur
ing Scarlett. Bile rose in my throat.
“I can feel your panic.” Roan studied me closely. “And something else. What’s the matter with you?”
He always seemed to be annoyed at my normal, human frailties. “Siofra killed my parents,” I said quietly. “You were right.”
Almost imperceptibly, his arms tightened around me, and his emerald gaze met mine. “We will slaughter her, Cassandra.”
“Right.” Fear whispered over my skin, and I didn’t manage to sound very confident.
“Cassandra,” Odette purred, her voice hardly audible above the engine’s hum. “Don’t be so scared. If you’re going to die, I’ll probably be able to give you a few minutes’ notice.”
I swallowed hard. “How reassuring.”
Chapter 28
Exhaustion hit me like a train, and for a few minutes, I nodded off in the car. Roan’s gentle hand on my arm woke me. “Cassandra. We’re here.”
I glanced out the window, but of course I couldn’t see anything—only a shadowy void.
“We’re going to need to be able to see where we’re going now,” I said. “Instead of cloaking everything in shadows, can you just cloak the reflective surfaces?”
From Drustan’s direction, I heard the sound of wings beating the air. At last, he said, I do not know where they are.
I took a deep breath. “Just every reflective surface. All the windows, any water puddle, every mirror…”
I don’t know what reflective is. I know only shadows.
“Fine.” I gritted my teeth. “We’ll have to let her see us now, and we’ll move fast.”
A whoosh of wings, the feel of feathers brushing against my cheek. Very well. I will lift the darkness.
Slowly, colors seeped back into my vision, as houses appeared around me. I nearly wept in relief when I saw the streetlights washing wide sidewalks in yellow light. The world was still there outside the Porsche after all.
Buildings lined either side of the road, some of them squat and brick, others four stories tall, with colorful storefronts in the lower levels. Just to our right stood a three-story brick mansion, enclosed by a wrought-iron fence, overgrown with vines. Intriguing, but I had no way of knowing if that was the right place.
