by April White
I looked up from my London Underground book in surprise, then opened the box. Inside was a gorgeous pair of oxblood leather boots. “They were to be my Christmas present, but she’d been questioning oxblood as a choice for me, so she’ll get me black instead.” I could almost hear the shudder in Connor’s voice.
“They’re gorgeous.”
He rolled his eyes. “They’re boots. Boots are not gorgeous. Boots are functional and, ideally, comfortable. What these also are is free from tracking devices. Mum pulled them out of the Christmas cupboard as soon as Jeeves told us what happened. I didn’t even know Mum had a Christmas cupboard here. We knew about the one at home ages ago, of course.”
I looked up from admiring the boots at his tone. “Do you miss home?”
He thought about it for a long moment. “I miss the memories of my dad at home, and I miss Mum’s kitchen. The dogs are here though, and I like working with Uncle Bob in the lab. And it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Mum laugh as much as she does since we moved into Jeeves’ flat.” He nodded at the boots. “Try them on.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
Connor made a face. “Even the name oxblood is wrong, never mind the color. Mum doesn’t need to be experimenting with my wardrobe.”
I laughed and tried them on. They fit perfectly, despite the three-year age difference between us. I looked at Connor critically. “Your feet have grown.”
He shrugged. “It happens. Now, tell me about Cole. Ringo said he was with the Crow at the fencing gym.”
I described how Raven had greeted Cole and that they’d definitely looked like they were a couple when we saw them on the street. And I told him my fears about Cole’s allegiance if he was hanging out with the Monger Head’s granddaughter.
“Maybe it’s the other way around and Raven’s luring Cole and his sister in so the Mongers can capture the two that got away.” Connor said.
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “Where are the Seers when you need them?”
“On their way over. That was another thing I was sent to tell you. Adam and Ava are coming for tea. Mrs. Arman called to say we could have them for two hours.”
I stared at him. “She didn’t actually say that.”
“No, but there is definitely a time limit on their visit. She and your mum were very short with each other on the phone, and it didn’t seem like a social call.”
I wondered if my mom had told Camille that she wouldn’t be going to the Council meeting, and if so, how Camille was feeling about my Family in general. I shoved Family politics to the far corners of my brain and just let myself be excited to see the twins – they’d been away in France with their parents for weeks.
I tucked the laces into the tops of my new boots and stood up to go. “I love these boots, and I’ll be the one buying your Christmas pair. Maybe I can find something in green or purple.”
“Because oxblood isn’t wrong enough,” he deadpanned as we left the room.
Connor’s dogs had joined the pack of the gardener’s dogs, and the swirling mass was happily greeting Adam and Ava as they stepped out of a Range Rover. The Armans’ driver nodded to Jeeves familiarly, and once Ava had scooped a dog into her arms, she waded through the rest of the pack to give me a kiss on each cheek in the French way.
“I missed you! I actually had to threaten Maman that if she didn’t let us come and see you in person, I would tell the Shifter heirs which one of them their father had chosen to Head the clans after him.”
I laughed and hugged Ava. “I missed you too. How was Paris?”
“Hot. Beautiful. The usual.” She gave me a measured look. “We traveled south for a couple of days and stayed in Château Landon. Did you know the abbey is now a rest home?”
I thought about the gorgeous abbey that looked like it had been carved into the mountain where we had met Bas, the Vampire priest. “Did you see the spiral in the painting of the Shifter tree?” I asked.
Ava shook her head. “They’ve covered it with some sort of cheap plywood that they wallpapered over. Maman believes it’s still there, though, underneath the trappings of institutional décor.”
That abbey had been such a beautiful building; I hoped none of the artistry of it had been destroyed. Granted, the last time I’d been there was in 1429, so the chances it was intact weren’t good. I wondered how Vampires like Bas and Archer could stand it when places – and people – they’d loved decayed and died.
Adam scooped me into his arms for a big hug, and then squeezed the breath out of me with another one. “That one’s from Alex. She sends her love.”
“Where is she?”
He beamed proudly. “She got into a choreography workshop at the Paris Opera School of Ballet. She’ll be there three months.”
“Oh wow! That’s fantastic. I didn’t know she was dancing seriously again.”
“She said I wasn’t the only thing she loved that she had broken up with.”
I linked my arm through his and we all entered the manor. Most of the dogs stayed outside, but Connor’s dog, Natasha, and Rocky, the little Jack Russell terrier in Ava’s arms, came upstairs with us. Ringo was there working at a table by the window. He had the little clip and magnifying glass set-up I’d seen people use with circuit boards, and he was taking the tracking device apart with tiny tweezers.
“What’s that?” Adam was hovering over his shoulder in an instant.
“Mongers stuck a tracking device to the sole of my shoe.” I spat the words out of my mouth like a bad taste.
Ava shot a look at Adam. “I told you.”
“What? What did you See?” As unnerving as their Seer abilities were, Ava and Adam were usually pretty forthcoming about things that affected their friends.
Ava sighed and dropped on the couch next to Connor. I had to move books off the chair, but since most of them were my books, I couldn’t really complain. Ava looked over at Adam for help, but he just shrugged. “They’re your visions, not mine,” he said.
“I’ve been having really strange flashes of Sight for the past couple of days.” Ava’s normally cheerful voice had an edge to it that didn’t sound like her. “The closest things I can compare them to are the visions that reflect in the Seer cuff.”
I stared at her. “You mean like all the possible futures at once?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. They seem really disjointed and at odds with each other, like they couldn’t possibly all come true.”
“Tell me what you’ve seen,” I said.
She took a deep breath. “I saw you and Ringo running on rooftops.” She included Ringo in her gaze. “I saw a white van, and I saw you both being shoved into it.”
“That last part didn’t happen.” I had trouble keeping the tremor out of my voice at the thought of the van.
“Right, but it could have,” said Connor.
I shot him a look that said, “no way,” and he shot me one right back that said “way.”
Ava inhaled again. “People. Underground, I think. Alex’s cousin Daisy is there. Her family is so worried they’ve actually come out to my parents about her being mixed. She’s Shifter and Seer, and the family put signs up all around Russell Square where she was last seen …” Ava’s voice faded.
“Ava?” I looked at her with concern. This was information we could use to find people, but Ava had gone unfocused. She shook herself, and her eyes found mine again. “Where’d you go?” I asked.
“Back there. Underground. I keep seeing a boy I don’t know. And he sees me too.”
Adam stared at his sister. “He sees you having visions about him?”
She looked confused. “I think so. He tries to talk to me, but I can’t understand what he says.”
“That’s not a Seer thing. We don’t interact with other people in our visions.” Adam was clearly shocked.
“You also didn’t think you could change things you’d Seen, so maybe you don’t actually know everything there is to know about your skills?” I could have pulled
the punch, but Adam could take it, and I wanted to get back to Ava’s vision. “What does the boy look like?” I asked.
Ava didn’t hesitate. “He’s our age, tan, like he spends time outside, and he has green hair.”
Adam snorted. His skepticism rolled off him in waves. “He’s a leprechaun.”
She gave him a dirty look. “No. He reminds me a little of Ringo, only with eyes that always laugh, even when he’s serious. And his hair’s dyed green and sticks up everywhere, but not like he uses hair gel or anything. It just does.”
“Definitely a leprechaun,” smirked Adam.
Ringo spoke quietly. “Charlie says they’re the size of small children, with a nasty laugh and razor teeth. So I don’t think Ava’s lad is a leprechaun.”
That got everyone’s attention, and Ava gave Ringo a quick, thankful smile. My chest constricted at the quietness in Ringo’s voice. He missed Charlie, the girl who would know what a leprechaun looked like because she could see creatures most people couldn’t. I knew Ringo combed history books looking for any mention of her. Valerie Grayson took Charlie back to 1554 to train her to become a lady and run a household. Not that she needed the training, but she had loved Valerie like a mother, and after Valerie’s only son, Henry died, there was room in Valerie’s heart for a surrogate daughter.
“Anyway, he Sees me, and he keeps trying to tell me something that I don’t get.” Ava screwed up her face in concentration and let her eyes unfocus, but then finally sighed. “No. It’s something out of the line of my Sight.”
Ava turned to Connor. “I’ve Seen your little brother in the same underground place, but he’s laughing, like it’s fun.”
Connor’s face drained of color, but he didn’t let his expression change. “You know for sure it’s Logan?”
Ava looked Connor squarely in the eyes and nodded. “He keeps Shifting animals. He can do that, can’t he.” It wasn’t a question, and Connor nodded silently, looking sick.
“No one knows that,” I breathed.
“People know. My mother and I have both Seen him Shift in full view of others from different Families. If they don’t know it yet, they will.”
“What else have you Seen?” Connor’s voice was tight.
“I’ve Seen dark times, where Mongers rule us all with iron fists. I’ve seen people die …” she looked directly at me. “And I’ve seen them walk in daylight.”
I couldn’t breathe, and I went to the window. The view from the east wing was of the woods, and I could almost picture myself running among the trees as hard and as fast as I could go. Great, I’d resorted to imaginary escapism, but at least I didn’t actually give in to my impulse to run. Social awkwardness aside, I needed to hear everything Ava could tell me about her visions.
“You’ve seen him die?” I said to the window as much as to Ava. I traced the line of a raindrop against the glass. The weather in England could always be counted on to add to a somber mood.
“Yes,” she answered. “And I’ve also seen him live. That’s why I said my visions seem impossible.”
She didn’t know about the cure. She didn’t know Archer might have to be hurt to the point that his body started shutting down in order to introduce the virus that could cure him.
She didn’t know that trying to live might kill him.
I kept my back to the room so I didn’t have to see Ringo’s or Connor’s faces. “What else?”
Ava hesitated so long I thought she hadn’t heard me. “Except for the van and running on the rooftops, you’re not in any of my visions, Saira.”
I tried for a scoff, but it might have come out more like a sob. “Am I ever?”
“Almost always since just before we met,” she whispered.
I turned to face her and plastered a shiny fake smile on my face. “I’ve been replaced by a leprechaun, I guess.”
Ringo’s voice was solemn as he spoke to Ava. “Ye can’t see into the past, right?”
She nodded. “Not unless I was going to be there.”
He looked at me. “Right, then. Ye’ll be goin’ back. It’s why ye’re not in ‘er visions.”
“Then why is Archer in them?”
Ava turned her eyes to me. “Because he doesn’t go with you?”
I looked desperately at each one of them in turn and said with every ounce of conviction I could muster. “He always goes with me. He promised to go where I go.”
Ava nodded. “Of course he would.” She said words meant to soothe the panic that was growing in my chest, but I knew that underneath them was the same fear that spiked in the eyes of everyone in that room – the only reason I would ever Clock anywhere without Archer was that he would die.
Adam came over and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “You’ve said it yourself, Saira. Our Sight is just about possibilities, and Ava’s visions are contradictory anyway. You definitely don’t need to be time traveling just to get out of my sister’s visions. She almost never has them about me, and we’re practically the same person.”
I took a deep, shaky breath and pulled some snark out of the region of my oxblood boots. “Except for all those things that are different.” I stepped back from his well-meaning comfort. It wasn’t helping my ability to breathe. “I totally suck as a friend right now, but I really need to go run.”
Ringo and Connor immediately stood up. “Cat or human?” Asked Connor.
“Me.”
He gave me a look full of scorn. “They’re both you.”
“Not Cat, then.” I was already headed toward the door, but Ava grabbed me as I passed her. She pulled me in for a quick hug.
“The good guys always win, remember?”
Ringo threw his head at Connor. “I’ll go. We’ll be back when she remembers she’s only ‘uman.”
Adam tried for levity, but I heard the concern in his tone. “Good luck with that.”
I gave a half-hearted smile and was already sprinting when I hit the hallway. Ringo was right behind me.
I needed pure freerunning. No talking, no thinking, no straightest-line-between-two-places parkour. I needed to push my body past what I was comfortable doing; past what was easy. The flip off the end of the banister might have given Ringo the hint, or maybe it was the shoulder roll when I hit the ground, but there was no question about my intent once we got to the woods. I was up the stone wall with one handhold, and then did a front flip off the other side to continue the sprint where there were more natural obstacles. I wasn’t usually this showy when I ran, but it made me work harder at staying whole, and I wasn’t really running to run away. I was home. Elian Manor was my home, and it was filled with my people. I ran to dull the white noise of “what if” and “maybe.” I ran to shift my brain into survival mode, where the “what ifs” had no power, and the only things that mattered were good footing and strong holds.
Ringo understood it because he took the lead and pushed me way past my comfort zone. He climbed like there were suction cups on his feet, just to double-flip back down to the ground. He caught me when I stumbled and pushed me when I faltered. He was me without fear, and when we were a mile away from the manor I finally felt the breath loosen up in my chest.
We free-climbed a big boulder and finally stopped moving when we were both on top. The view of the farm and woodland was so peaceful and beautiful in the golden light of magic hour, it gave me breath rather than stealing it away.
“I miss ‘er.” Ringo was talking to himself as much as to me. I didn’t expect him to be the first one to break the silence, but his words didn’t surprise me.
I nodded. “Me too.”
He looked at me. “I worry though. She’s findin’ ‘erself back there, and I’m learnin’ everything of this time. If we do meet again, will we even find our way back to common ground? We ‘ad it in our flat for a time – both ‘idin’ out, both from the street, both ‘avin’ survived somethin’ ‘orrific—” His voice trailed off and his gaze went back out to the view in front of us. “I already feel different than
I was when I loved ‘er. I don’t even know where or when I’ll fit, much less if I’ll fit ‘er.”
I turned to face him. “Ringo, I’ve never met anyone who can fit any time or place better than you can. You could be a Neanderthal hunter or a Renaissance nobleman, and you’d wear it as if you were born to it. And for what it’s worth, I think that knowing who you are, and having confidence in yourself is the access to finding common ground with anyone.”
He met my gaze and seemed to really consider my words. “I suppose you’re right. What she and I ‘ave is common background, a thing only a ‘andful of people in the world might ‘ave. But give a man some tools and a will, and ‘e can build a bridge to any ground and make it common.”
I linked my arm through his. “Whoever you love is absolutely lucky to be loved by you, and whether it’s Charlie or someone you can’t even imagine yet, your love will be an epic one.”
Ringo smirked a little. “An epic love. I like that.”
I shrugged. “Everyone should be the star of their own life, and some people choose big lives to star in. You’re always going to be one of those people.”
Ringo stood and helped me to my feet. “Says the pot to the kettle. Are ye done feelin’ sorry for yerself yet?”
I sighed dramatically. “I’m too lazy to dance at my pity party for long.”
“Good. Because yer goin’ to need yer wits about ye to learn what I’m goin’ to teach ye.”
I grinned at the challenge in his face. “Bring it!”
We worked on a backflip combo for an hour, and by the time the sun had set, I was exhausted, in pain, and totally happy. I tried not to feel too guilty about having basically run out on my Seer friends, but their visions were more than I had the fortitude to deal with.
It was a straight parkour run back to the manor, and by unspoken agreement we stopped at the kitchen for bowls of stew to bring with us to the library.
Archer was already there with my mom and Mr. Shaw. One look at the sweaty glow on our faces and he held a hand out to me with a smile. “Good run?”
I nodded and kissed him softly. “Necessary.”
Archer held me close and studied my face. His voice was meant for my ears only. “You look so … alive. You’re beautiful.” He kissed me again, quickly, then let me go. “Eat. We need to leave to pick up Ravi.”
