Copper Veins

by Jennifer Allis Provost

  “We need to get some space between us and them,” Jerome shouted over his shoulder. “If they—”

  The world tilted, and we crashed against the roof.

  Once the dust settled, I found a soft hand in mine. Sadie’s hand. “You okay?” I croaked.

  “Never better,” she replied in her best imitation of Max. “Let’s go.”

  I mentally assessed my body—sore shoulder and hip, but nothing seemed broken. “Going. Good.”

  We found Max toward the rear of the truck, bleeding, but alive. Once we had him on his feet, the three of us extricated an unconscious Jerome from behind the wheel, then dragged him and ourselves out to the road. As we debated which way we should walk, floodlights flared to life.

  “Scatter!” Max yelled.

  I turned toward the trees, but flashlights were coming down the slope. Terrified, I tried to sprint across the road, but the floodlights blinded me. I heard Sadie screaming, but a helicopter was suddenly overhead, its propeller making so much noise I couldn’t hear my own thoughts. The wind it generated was so strong I could hardly remain standing.

  I ran, my shins aching as my feet struck the pavement, away from the noise and the wind. More Peacekeepers melted out of the trees, and suddenly the helicopter’s searchlight was on me. I swerved toward the woods, but the helicopter bore down, the wind from its propellers knocking me to the road. The last thing I remember was two sets of hands pulling me upright and a syringe piercing my neck.

  22

  I woke up in a cell.

  Again.

  This was getting old.

  This time around, the insides of my eyelids felt like they had been coated in sand, my head pounded, my left shoulder and hip were screaming with pain, and my mouth was full of cotton. I rubbed the hard lump where the needle had punctured my neck, wondering if it had been loaded with tequila.

  Groggily, painfully, I pushed myself up on my elbows. Gravity, the bitch, shoved me right back down. The floor, gritty and smelly and blessedly cool, seemed to be where I’d be staying for a while.

  I felt a hand settle between my shoulder blades. I peeked over my shoulder and felt a new wave of nausea. Jerome, the Peacekeeper of questionable intentions, was not only interred with me, but touching me.

  “Max,” I croaked. “Sadie.”

  “Max is still out,” Jerome murmured. “Sadie fell asleep a while ago.”

  I nodded, my swollen brain not appreciating the movement. A moment later, Jerome pressed something cool into my hand.

  “It’s not drugged, as far as I can tell,” Jerome explained, when I looked dubiously at the water. “It takes a long time to dissolve the dampeners. Time these guys didn’t have.”

  Huh. So maybe we really had thrown the Peacekeepers for a loop. Maybe Jerome really was on our side. Maybe my head would just explode already and get me out of this nightmare.

  I sipped the water, then pressed the plastic cup against my forehead. Why were they always chasing us, capturing us, drugging us? Were Peacekeepers really that terrified of Elemental abilities?

  Wait—Sadie had fallen asleep?

  “Sadie wasn’t drugged?” I looked around the cell and saw my brother lying on the floor against the opposite wall, Sadie slumped beside him.

  “No. Only you and Max were injected.” My eyes swiveled back to Jerome, my mind reeling. Why would Max and I be drugged, but not the Inheritor?

  I gulped the rest of the water, pleased that it was dissolving my mental fog. Jerome refilled my cup, then I dragged myself next to Max. I flicked water droplets onto his face until he sputtered awake. From the look of him, he’d gotten the killer dose.

  “You and I were drugged,” I said, while he drank the water. “Not Sadie or Jerome.”

  Max’s eyes lit up, but that was his only acknowledgement. He looked to Sadie, reassuring himself that she was safe, then he held the cup out to Jerome.

  “Fill it,” Max growled, when Jerome only stared. Jerome grabbed the cup and stalked off to what I now saw was a bucket in the corner. As if this second imprisonment wasn’t bad enough, we were drinking standing water. While I willed my stomach to be calm, Max whispered, “The deadening drugs don’t last very long. If they don’t know we’ve woken up, we’re good.”

  “Deadening?” I repeated.

  “Sleep of the dead,” Max explained.

  As creepy as the name was, it was appropriate. You see, the dead don’t dream, and that’s exactly what I needed to do now. If they were drugging us to keep us from dreaming, it meant that the cell we now occupied wasn’t warded against dreamwalking. Finally, I had a way to reach Micah.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  “You know it.” With that, Max grabbed my hand, and we fell into dreamland together.

  While Peacekeepers and other government officials strut around implying that they’re the biggest and the baddest in Pacifica, there are quite a few things they don’t know about Elementals, specifically about Dreamwalkers like Max and myself. For instance, we can put ourselves to sleep at will.

  At first blush, that doesn’t exactly sound like a super-power. I mean, everyone falls asleep, right? Even insomniacs succumb eventually. But, consider that when a Dreamwalker sleeps, they also shake off the ties that bind them to their body, and to their world.

  When a Dreamwalker sleeps, no prison can hold them.

  Moments after Max and I had closed our eyes, our dreamselves were standing over our bodies. The first thing I noticed was how incredibly beat up we both were.

  “You look like hell,” I muttered.

  “Right back at ya, sis.”

  I glared at him, but he was right. The right side of my face was a mottled blue and purple, the cut on my cheek had scabbed over until it looked like some kind of miniature monster on my face, and my hands were badly scraped up. My clothes—gods, how many days had I been wearing those jeans?—were filthy, crusted in blood and dirt and who knows what else. What I really wanted to do was drag my body into a giant pot and boil away the grime.

  “We need to get to the manor,” I said.

  “But Dad—”

  “Micah’s a Dreamwalker, Dad’s not,” I said over him. “Besides, we don’t even know where Dad is. He could be someplace warded, or shot up with dampeners or whatever else we can be drugged with, and we’d waste who knows how much time looking for him. If Jerome really is with the resistance, he’ll get us in touch with Dad.” Max nodded—he didn’t like it, but he didn’t have a better plan.

  “All right,” Max said, grabbing my hands. “Let’s go talk to the silver man.”

  In the blink of an eye, Max and I were standing in the manor’s kitchen. It was deserted, without the familiar bustle of silverkin whipping up everything from toast to three-layer cakes. I could barely breathe—finally, we would know. What did Micah and Mom do after we’d disappeared? Were they in the manor at all?

  We left the kitchen and I couldn’t have been more relieved—Micah was in the big parlor having a conversation with one of his magistrates. He hadn’t shaved in a few days and was sporting a scruffy beard that matched the shadows under his eyes. My heart leapt at the sight of him, and all I wanted to do right then was jump into his arms and cover him with kisses. Of course, being that I was my dreamself, I would have passed right through him if I’d tried that.

  After I’d stared at Micah for a few moments, I noticed the rest of the activity. The guards from the village were milling about and maps were strewn across every available surface. In the far corner I spied Ash standing next to a rack of swords and some crossbows.

  “This is like a war room,” I muttered. I watched as Micah dismissed the magistrate and strode into the dining room. The long table was covered with maps and scrolls, compasses, a telescope, and other instruments I didn’t recognize. I peeked over Micah’s shoulder and saw that one of the scrolls was a list of places in the Mundane world, beginning with Moose Lake. My heart swelled—Micah had organized a search. He was looking for us.

&n
bsp; “Don’t get all weepy on me,” Max warned. “Are you really surprised that he’s searching? I sure as hell would go after my wife.”

  I nodded and watched as Micah checked the list, made a few notes, then returned to the parlor and handed the information over to Ash. “Are we going to have to wait for him to go to sleep?” I glanced at the windows and saw bright sunlight pouring in. Micah was not known for sleeping during the day.

  “He’s your man,” Max said. “He’ll know you’re here.”

  Would he? My earlier doubts threatened to creep forward, but I squashed them. Before Dad and Jerome had invaded my happy relationship with their unsolicited opinions, I’d been certain that Micah loved me. What’s more, despite my anger and our quarrels, I was still certain that I loved him. I just needed to tap into that love to get his attention.

  I stepped closer to Micah, only freaking out a little when his physical body passed right through my dreamself. Luckily, Max’s laughter brought me back to reality pretty quickly. Then Micah paused, leaning on the mantel as he rubbed his eyes.

  “Micah,” I whispered. “Micah, I’m here.” He glanced to the side, but that was the only reaction I got. “Micah,” I said, louder. “Micah, it’s me, Sara!”

  Micah straightened, his gaze sweeping across the room. So he really could feel me. I took the last step toward him and placed my hand over his heart. Micah stared at his chest for a moment, then his physical body fell to the floor as his dreamself swept me into his arms.

  “Sara,” he murmured into my hair, “my Sara. I feared you were lost to me.”

  “We went to the lake,” I choked out, the rest of my words drowned out by sobs.

  “Don’t cry, love,” Micah murmured. “I have you.” Once I’d calmed down a bit, he continued. “Maeve and I thought you had all embarked on one of your father’s missions, but when you hadn’t returned by nightfall, we knew something had to have gone wrong. It was your mother who suggested we check the lake first. We saw signs of a struggle, but your abductors hid their tracks well.”

  Mom. By some luck, or some magic beyond that of the Otherworld, she knew. “Yeah. There was a struggle,” I croaked. I pulled back, Micah’s eyes widening when he saw my battered self.

  “Love,” he whispered, gingerly touching the cut across my cheekbone, “who did this to you?”

  “A Peacekeeper named Girard.” I flinched, and Micah’s eyes hardened.

  “I will kill him.” A statement of fact.

  “There are a couple others that need killing,” Max said. I don’t think Micah had even noticed that Max was in the room. I know I’d forgotten all about him.

  “Max, find Maeve,” Micah ordered, never taking his eyes from mine. “Find a way to explain to her what has happened and create a portal that will deliver her to where you are located. I must speak with my wife alone.”

  Now, Max normally wasn’t one to follow orders from anyone except Dad, but Micah’s tone made it clear that mouthing off wasn’t an option. I didn’t turn around, I couldn’t break Micah’s gaze—but after a moment, I sensed that Max’s dreamself was gone. I was terrified that Micah was angry—he had every right to be—but once we were alone he cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs gliding along my jaw.

  “You wanted to speak with me?” I mumbled. Silver brows knit together, Micah’s eyes flickered across my face, my neck, lingering on every bruise and cut and scrape, then he bent to kiss me. His mouth was hot on mine, flavored with despair and longing.

  He pulled away slowly, deliberately. “Every second you were gone, new versions of what could have happened to you flashed in my mind—you tortured, you dead, I…” He pressed his forehead to mine. “You are alive and that matters more to me than any anger, at you or at your father. You are alive.” He kissed me again, gently. “Tell me everything,” he said between kisses. “From the moment you left the manor to the moment you returned.” I did as best I could while Micah reacquainted himself with my mouth and neck and hands.

  “And that was when I realized that the cell we’re in now wasn’t warded,” I concluded. I’d decided to leave out the doubts I’d had about our relationship and how we’d met—it would be too much to get into now, when I could be awoken at any moment. Micah had dragged me onto the couch and was gently pressing his lips against my scraped knuckles. “I mean, why else would they inject me and Max, but not Sadie?”

  Micah tugged down the collar of my shirt and kissed the injection site. “Your father has been absent during your captivity?”

  “Yeah. He was separated from us at the beginning. Girard seemed to have a bone to pick with him.” And me, I thought, absently touching my cheek. “But we know that Dad’s escaped, since he got word to the resistance.”

  Micah nodded, thinking, then stood and pulled me to his feet. “Bring me to your body.”

  In the blink of an eye we were there. Sadie and Jerome had rolled, or possibly dragged, Max and me against the wall, and they stood between our bodies and the door. You would have thought that Micah’s attention would have been captured by the sight of his wife crumpled and bloody on the floor. Instead, he glared daggers at Jerome.

  “Why is that man here?” Micah demanded.

  “I told you, Jerome was with us when we were captured,” I said, lacing my fingers with Micah’s. “Dad sent him from the resistance. He got us out of the first prison.”

  “Only to land you in a second,” Micah said. “That man finds too many ways to make himself close to you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I began. I’d really only seen Jerome a few times, far too few for him to have any interest in me. Then Jerome crouched next to my body. He brushed my hair back from my face, pausing to stroke my cheek.

  “If Micah ever finds out you did that, he’ll rip your fingers off,” Sadie said.

  “I can’t help it,” Jerome murmured. “She’s so beautiful. Ever since your father first showed me her picture…”

  Sadie held up her hand. “Don’t. Please, whatever you were going to say, don’t. She’s married, end of story.”

  “Your father showed this man pictures of you?” Micah asked, his voice deadly calm.

  I turned to him, my mouth gaping wide. “I—I had no idea.” I remembered my chance meeting with Jerome that day on Real Estate Row, how Dad made those comments about how he’d always thought that Jerome was a good match for me, and wondered what Jerome’s motives really were. Before I could dwell on that much longer, Max’s dreamself appeared.

  “Ma’s on her way,” he announced. “And, man, she is pissed.” He got a look at Micah and me and wisely retreated into his body. As Max stirred to wakefulness, Micah grabbed my shoulders.

  “Sara, call my body to yours.”

  “What?” I looked up and down his dreamself. “Can I even do that?”

  “My physical form has never been anywhere close to this place, so I need an anchor. And,” Micah grasped my right wrist, tracing the silver mark, “part of me is always with you.”

  You know what? He was right. I slipped my arms around Micah’s waist, pressing my cheek over his heart, and tapped into the strongest desire I had, stronger than my desire to escape, stronger than my need to breathe. I wanted Micah’s physical arms around me.

  And then they were. Both Jerome and Sadie yelped as Micah materialized next to my body. I suppose having the Lord of Silver appear in a cell alongside you was somewhat startling.

  “Hey,” I said, looking into those silver eyes.

  “Hey, yourself,” he murmured. I smiled, wincing as my injured cheek protested. While I’d been dreaming, I’d managed to forget just how beat up I was. Micah kissed my lips, then my cheek, and helped me to my feet.

  Then, he grabbed Jerome by the front of his shirt and shoved him against the wall.

  “Sadie is correct,” Micah hissed. “Touch my wife again and I will break off your fingers and shove them down your miserable throat.”

  With that, Micah released him. Jerome hit the floor hard, spluttering an
d asking how Micah had even known what Sadie had said. Me, I was busy staring at my husband, who’d gone from gentle lover to psycho jealous crazy man in less than five seconds.

  “Was that necessary?” I asked.

  “Yes.” Micah said nothing further, and I didn’t press him. We had other issues to deal with.

  “If you’re done being macho,” Sadie began, eyeing Micah with the same look she’d once given to rowdy library patrons, “please explain to me why you dropped into our cell. There’s no metal here. Now we’re all trapped.”

  Micah opened his mouth and closed it with a clack. Even though we all could pretty much guess his reasoning, he didn’t want to say aloud that he’d shown up to scare Jerome away from me. Ironically, it was Max who spoke up and saved Micah’s pride.

  “Actually, we’re not trapped,” Max said. “Just give her a minute.”

  “Give who a minute?” Sadie asked.

  As if cued by a director, there was a loud bang, followed by the door disintegrating. On the other side stood Maeve Connor Corbeau, Queen of the Seelie Court. Max was right—she was pissed.

  “Come along, children,” Mom said. “It’s time to round up your bleedin’ father.”

  From the way Mom said that, I had no doubt that Dad would be bleeding at the end of all this.

  “Ma, couldn’t you have just portaled inside the cell?” Max asked. “They’re gonna check out all that noise.”

  “Let them,” Mom said as she cast the return portal. “Let them know that Maeve Corbeau will not abide her family being harassed by these weaklings. It’s time we proved who has the true strength.”

  Mom pulled a shard of glass from her sleeve, and a moment later the return portal flared to life. Mom beckoned us forward, but as we queued up to step through, Micah barred Jerome’s way.

  “No,” Micah said. “You are not welcome in my home.”

  “We can’t just leave him here,” I said. “Who knows what they’ll do to him?”

  “He’s Avatar’s son,” Max offered. “That ought to count for something.”