His path took him through gray afternoon clouds. A light rain began to fall.
High in the eastern sky, something black flashed against the storm. Lucan might have ignored it, but a moment later another shape joined the first. Two birds, black and broad-winged, paced him a hundred feet above.
The Jaculus felt his stomach rumble, acid working on the vole. But he was slowed by the meal and could not digest it any faster.
With a single twist and a thrust of his wings, he switched direction, turning toward a copse of trees at the edge of a field below. Lucan dove, fangs bared, toward the uppermost branches. He shot his tail beneath him like a javelin, grabbed hold of a branch, and swung around, wrapping himself around the tree limb. As he glanced up, he saw the birds descend, their talons out, enormous wings beating the air.
Strigae. They were spies for Ty’Lis as well.
“What are you doing?” the Jaculus cried.
The smaller Strigae crashed through leaves, snapped a branch, and grabbed hold of Lucan, tearing him from his perch. The Jaculus hissed and bared his fangs. He lunged once, missed, and prepared to lunge again, but then the Strigae landed, battering him against the hard ground. The other alighted beside the first and shot out a talon, holding his head down, keeping him from striking. His wings beat uselessly against the dirt.
“Where are you going in such a hurry, sky-worm?” cawed the Strigae who stood upon his head. It bent down and stared into his face, tiny black eyes like stones.
“Returning to Palenque,” Lucan muttered, the talon upon his head making it difficult to speak. “And you had best let me be on my way. I serve at the will of the sorcerer Ty’Lis, as I believe do you. I have vital information for-”
The Strigae pushed the Jaculus’s head into the dirt and put his beak closer to Lucan’s face. “What information?”
“Information I will only reveal to my master.”
The Strigae cawed angrily, and the other followed suit. The two birds were so loud that Lucan’s ears hurt. He twisted and coiled the lower part of his serpent body, but could do nothing. The vole weighed heavy in his gut.
From above came the sound of other wings, much larger, much heavier. The Strigae stopped their cawing and looked up. Lucan tried to see past them, but at first the drizzling rain spattered his eyes and the gray light that filtered through the storm made it difficult to make out the two creatures that flew down and landed heavily a few feet away.
Then Lucan blinked the rain away, and he stopped wriggling beneath his captors. There were few things in any world the Jaculus feared, but the Hunters that slunk across the dirt now, almost blending with the trees, were fear themselves.
Perytons. Their antlers glistened with the rain, wide eyes bright despite the gray storm clouds. The two Atlantean predators moved with a crawling stealth, green-feathered wings pinioned against their backs.
“Jaculus,” said one of the Strigae, as though in answer to a question, though neither of the Perytons had spoken. Lucan was not sure the Hunters ever spoke.
The other Strigae cawed and bent his head in obeisance to the Perytons. “Says he serves Ty’Lis. Says he’s got information for him.”
One of the Perytons stepped back, a grotesque motion like the scuttling of a crab, wings pinned. It slid between two trees and dipped its head as though listening to a voice.
Only then did Lucan see that there was a figure in front of one of the trees. A crone, a terrible hag. She turned and smiled at him, and even from this distance, he could see that her teeth were stone. Her skin was blue, her nose hooked and bulbous.
Jezi-Baba, he thought.
The Jaculus knew he was as good as dead if he did not speak.
The Peryton with Jezi-Baba nodded to the Strigae. The huge black birds cawed loudly. The talon on his head pressed harder.
“I will tear off your head if you do not speak the truth, and now. If there is information for Ty’Lis, it may help us to locate our quarry. If you do not share it, and so thwart us, your master will flay you alive.”
Lucan shuddered, the last trace of strength gone from him, and he told them all that he had seen.
As he spoke, the Perytons closed in around him. The Strigae withdrew, letting him up. He considered fleeing, but only for a moment. With the vole in his belly, they would surely overtake him quickly.
“You mean they saw you? The Borderkind and the Bascombe? They know that you were spying upon them?” the smaller Strigae demanded, ruffling its wings, black feathers gleaming wetly in the rain.
“It could not be helped,” the Jaculus replied, coiled upon the ground, wings aquiver. He bent his head respectfully. “I would have attacked, would have slain those I could, but my instructions were specific. Watch, only, and return with word.”
The Perytons snorted and pawed the ground with clawed, twisted, nearly human hands. They spread their wings with a sound like banners unfurling. Beneath the trees, Jezi-Baba sneered and ground her stone teeth.
“You are useless,” the larger Strigae said, black eyes like buttons. “You were seen. And now you have freely told what you swore to keep secret.”
Lucan could not breathe. “But…you compelled me. You serve Ty’Lis as well.”
The Strigae cawed loudly and looked to the Perytons. First one, then the other, turned their backs, spread their wings, and took to the air.
“No,” the Jaculus pleaded. “No, wait. I…I am loyal. I did as I was told.”
“You are weak,” a voice said, like the whisper of the leaves, and Lucan looked amongst the trees to see Jezi-Baba merging with the bark of a tall, twisted oak. Then she was gone.
The birds began to laugh.
The Jaculus screamed as they closed in around him, beating him with their wings and pecking him, beaks piercing his flesh.
Sleep. Just the thought of it had an allure that Oliver would never have imagined possible. In all his life he had never been so exhausted. His muscles ached as though he’d been pummeled by a prizefighter, arms and legs and back and abdomen all stiff and sore. His eyes burned and his head felt stuffed with cotton, like the worst hangover he’d ever had, except he hadn’t taken a drink.
But he could have used one.
It was mid-afternoon on this side of the Veil. Twillig’s Gorge had obviously not been hospitable to visitors of late, and so there were plenty of vacancies at the inn. Coyote was staying there, and had been for weeks. Apparently his idea of hiding from the Myth Hunters had been to hole up in a place they would inevitably look, but someplace they could not arrive unannounced. Very few beings could approach Twillig’s Gorge without notice. According to Kitsune, Coyote was a master of vanishing when trouble began. Such was the way with troublemakers.
Frost had a quiet conversation with Coyote while the innkeeper-a voluminously fat man with a shaved head and a thick beard-supplied the rest of them with keys. Blue Jay, Kitsune, and Oliver were given rooms next to one another on the third floor, facing north. Frost asked only that he be allowed to rest in the inn’s cold storage and the innkeeper was happy to oblige, for a fee.
At the bottom of the stairs, out of earshot of the innkeeper, Frost addressed them.
“There’s a tavern here at the inn,” he said. “Coyote tells me it’s empty this time of day. Go upstairs and wash. Rest a while. Coyote has sent for clean, dry clothes for all of you. But I’m afraid we cannot sleep yet. We must leave here in the morning, and that means that our planning must begin now. We’ll meet in the tavern in an hour, with any Borderkind in the Gorge who are willing to speak with us.”
Oliver followed Blue Jay and Kitsune up the stairs without a word. He was too tired for questions and just the thought of a bed and a shower drove him on. The inn was stone and wood on the inside as well as out, like some ancient castle. The stairs wound up through the heart of the place. As he made his way up, admiring the tapestries on the walls, he thought of his father. The old man would have loved this place. It was just his style.
But the old man was de
ad.
Blue Jay had the nearest room, right at the top of the stairs. His clothes were soaked through, and at some point he’d torn the leg of his jeans. He nodded once before disappearing into his room, looking genuinely haggard.
The second room was Oliver’s, while the third, at the end of the hall, had been given to Kitsune. As he stopped at his door, she smiled at him and wrinkled her nose.
“It appears we both could use a bath,” she said lightly, jade eyes sparkling. Her hood was thrown back.
“Do I stink that much?”
Kitsune nodded gravely. “Oh, yes. Terribly.” Then she leaned in toward him and kissed his temple. “Not to worry, Oliver. We’ll sleep well tonight in soft beds with softer pillows. We deserve one pleasant night before we head into the lion’s den.”
The smell of her, so close, was intoxicating: cinnamon and mint, and something else he could not identify.
She held his gaze and one corner of her mouth lifted in mischief, then she turned and went to the door of her room, humming something under her breath, her fur cloak swaying around her.
Oliver watched her until she went inside.
Then he turned the key, and the door swung open, not quite straight in its frame. The room was simply appointed with a wide, sturdy bed upon which lay a thick, floral comforter and a pile of goose down pillows. There was a washbasin on a bureau beside the tall window, and at first he was disappointed, thinking that would be the closest he could come to a bath. But through a narrow door on the other side of the room he found a bathroom complete with claw-foot tub. There was no showerhead, but a bath would do fine. In fact, he thought a bath was just what he needed.
When he had peeled off his damp, filthy clothes, and at last slid down into the hot water and began to run the soap over his body, he could have wept.
He thought of Kitsune’s mischievous grin and her marvelous scent, and a flash of guilt went through him. As alluring as she was, and as much as she flirted with him, he couldn’t allow himself to become entranced by Kitsune. He had begun to cherish her companionship, but-more and more-his mind turned back to Julianna.
When he had first crossed through the Veil, his thoughts had been so overwhelmed with astonishment-and later, as the dangers became clear, with anxiety-that Julianna was just one part of the jumble of thoughts and emotions and fears swirling in his head. But with each passing day his longing for her grew. He felt the distance between them more keenly than ever now, here in this bizarre, hidden village.
What would Julianna have thought of the place?
Oliver thought she would have coped perfectly well. All her life, she had been the one who could adapt to her surroundings; the one without fear of change. How could he not have fallen in love with her, trapped as he was by his inability to escape his father’s expectations?
He had no memory of their first meeting-which was really no surprise, considering they must have been toddlers at the time-but Oliver’s recollection of the first time he had ever really noticed Julianna was incredibly vivid.
Every summer, Bascombe amp; Cox held a picnic at Beacon Point Park for all of their employees. From Max Bascombe, the most senior of senior partners, to Sam Small in the mailroom, every member of the law firm’s staff would attend, with spouses and children in tow. Beacon Point Park overlooked the ocean, and several crumbling concrete staircases led down the breakwater to a private beach, where the picnickers would toss Frisbees or play volleyball, and the brave might take a brief dip in the cold northern waters.
At the end of a rocky promontory stood the lighthouse that gave the park its name. There was no prettier spot in all of Wessex County.
When not in the water, the kids would ramble across the green lawn of the park, playing soccer or Frisbee, while the grownups fired up half a dozen barbecue grills. The firm could have afforded to have the whole thing catered, but Max Bascombe liked to make a big show of the generals cooking for the troops. They ate at picnic tables under the shade trees that surrounded the open lawn. The children, in the moments when they paid any attention at all to the adults, were always greatly amused by the rare spectacle of their parents becoming pleasantly inebriated.
Oliver’s memory of these summer picnics was idyllic. He was sure there had been incidents and arguments worthy of scandal, perhaps when some lawyer got a little too drunk for his own good, but he could not remember any of them. With his father playing host and chief cook, he and Collette had been free of his usual stern regard; free to simply be children, instead of Max Bascombe’s children.
In retrospect, he knew that Julianna had always been pretty. But she had been quiet and serious, so that-even though they were in school together, and saw one another at the summer picnics, and perhaps even passed the ball to one another in those haphazard Beacon Point Park soccer games-to him she was just another girl.
In late July, the month before high school began, that changed.
In the midst of the ritual of the Bascombe amp; Cox summer picnic, Oliver and several of the other boys-many of whom he saw only once a year, as their families did not live in Kitteridge-were playing catch with a Nerf football in the ocean. They dove over waves, passing the sodden ball back and forth, salt water splashing in their faces.
Oliver had just tossed the blue-and-orange Nerf to Danny Hilliard, blinking salt from his eyes. He blinked hard and reached up to rub them, to clear his vision. A strong wave staggered him, and as he got his footing again he turned.
As he opened his eyes, he saw motion out on the jetty. Someone was out there, moving from rock to rock, out past the lighthouse. It took him a moment to recognize the long, wavy, auburn hair; to realize that it was Julianna Whitney out there on the promontory. In a purple bikini top and cutoff denim shorts, and barefoot, she leaped so lightly across the gaps in the rocks that she seemed to be dancing.
Captured by her grace, and by the aura of loneliness that seemed to encircle her, Oliver watched as the slender girl made her way all the way to the huge rock that thrust up at the end of the jetty. The waves crashed against it, sprayed up into the air, and rained down upon it.
Julianna threw her arms back as a crashing wave soaked her. The droplets of ocean water sparkled with prismatic color. Even from that distance, Oliver felt sure he could hear her laughing. For a moment he envied her, so unafraid to be out there on her own.
Then she stepped to the edge of the rock and dove in.
Oliver held his breath in fascination as the waves continued to roll in. He waited for her to come up, and when she did, pushing the damp curtain of her hair away from her eyes, he smiled to himself and started to wade out toward her. There was such abandon in this girl-the girl he’d barely noticed before-that he wanted to be a part of that.
He’d gotten three steps when the waterlogged Nerf struck him in the back of the head, then plopped into the ocean, bobbing on the waves. Laughter erupted, and Oliver turned and picked up the ball, trying to figure out which of the guys was responsible so that he could unleash watery vengeance.
He hadn’t spoken to Julianna that day, or any other day that summer.
But he had never forgotten how she had looked, there on the very tip of the jetty, in the spray of the ocean, or the way he’d held his breath when she’d dived into the waves.
Even now, he held the memory-that image of the thirteen-year-old Julianna-close in his mind. Somehow, it felt to him like a tether to home-like no matter how far he roamed, as long as he could hold on to moments like that, he could still hope to return to Julianna one day.
With every day that passed, he regretted even more the hesitation he had felt on the night before they would have been married. When his father was still alive, he would have blamed the old man for making him so discontent with his life that he doubted even what he felt for Julianna. But, as much of a bastard as Max Bascombe had been, Oliver knew the blame lay with himself. He’d never had the courage that Julianna had.
Crossing the Veil had set him free. He felt different, here:
more confident, more himself, than ever before.
But the last time he had spoken to Julianna, her voice had been filled with hurt and doubt and hesitation. His disappearance had given her reason to feel all of those things, and he longed, now, for the opportunity to make it up to her. He had to find Collette first, to get his sister back safely. And he had to convince the monarchs of the Two Kingdoms to grant him a reprieve, to let him prove himself. With every day, he was moving further away from Julianna.
But he felt closer to her than ever before.
For the first time in his life, he felt as if he might be worthy of her.
CHAPTER 4
The tavern was on the first floor. When they’d arrived, Oliver had had other things to distract him, but as he descended the stairs he was extremely conscious of the fact that the whole building hung suspended above the river. The inn was old-a century at least from the look of it, and probably more-but if it had lasted this long, he told himself, it would survive another night.
Outside the windows, in the gorge, the shadows were growing long. Evening was not far off. After a bath, and clad in the new clothes Coyote had brought by only ten minutes ago, his exhaustion had subsided to a dull heaviness. He needed sleep, but he could propel himself forward another hour or two, however long it took for this meeting, and a meal.
The shirt was a rough tan cotton, long-sleeved and open at the collar, and the pants might have been denim, but dyed black. They were a bit long, so that when he put on the new boots Coyote had brought, they dragged underfoot, but Oliver was so impressed with the fit in general that he would not have complained, even if he dared.
The best thing about his new clothes was the thick, soft cotton socks and the light undershorts, which were woven from a fabric unfamiliar to him. Putting them on was almost as soothing as his bath.
His hunger, as he entered the tavern, was a ravenous beast, growling in his belly. The smells that wafted along the corridor only made it worse. But once inside, he forgot about food for several moments.
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