by Leigh Evans
“I know.”
“Brace yourself. Your asshole brother’s here.”
* * *
“Lexi’s here already?”
“Yeah, he’s here.” Trowbridge rose in a shower of mud flakes, then offered me his hand. I eyed it, thinking about my leg, then gritted my teeth and stood. My left leg held, but the right felt spongy. At least I could feel it now, though. It wasn’t completely numb.
On the other hand, my thoughts were numb with surprise. Lexi wasn’t supposed to be here. Okay, that sounds wrong. My twin was totally supposed to rendezvous with us at Daniel’s Rock—meeting here at this landmark was key to the execution of our epic quest.
But he shouldn’t be here yet.
Actually, by my reckoning, he shouldn’t be here for another day.
No matter how fucked up the time differences were between the two realms, the Old Mage had made it crystal clear how long I should wait before I crossed the fairy portal into Merenwyn. He’d been precise on that because the clock started ticking for Lexi the moment he planted a foot in this reality.
If my twin saw the three sunrises in Merenwyn, the soul-merge that bound him and the Old Mage would be irrevocable.
Hence the need to synch arrivals.
By my given timetable, I arrived in this realm a full twenty-four hours earlier than I should have. And yes, I was measuring that by Earth hours, which makes things complicated, but if I rendered it down and took away all the time difference calculations it still came down to one final point.
Trowbridge and I should be waiting for Lexi at Daniel’s Rock, not greeting Lexi at Daniel’s Rock. We were unsynched.
How many sunrises in Merenwyn has Lexi seen since he crossed back into this realm? How long has he been here?
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Inside the cave.”
There was a cave?
“The son of a bitch,” said Trowbridge, “almost got my fist through his teeth when he told me that I should wait here, and that everything was ‘all in hand.’ He didn’t give a shit that you were out there alone with a tracker following your trail. When I said I was going to take off to find you, the smirking bastard slammed this ward down around me.”
Smirking bastard.
“If I could have killed him without hurting you or me, I would have.” Trowbridge blew some air through his teeth. “Heads-up, Tink. He’s way different.”
“He’s just come out of detox; Lexi’s not going to be the life of the party.”
“Yeah, he’s weirder than that.”
The rock was, as I’d mentioned, a massive, rounded hump of either granite or some equally hard mineral. I know my trees, but I can’t tell the difference between rocks. Though Daniel’s Rock was basically round in shape, its surface was fissured. Trowbridge led me to one of the deeper slits in the face of the rock, which indeed turned out to be an entrance to a small cave.
Framed inside the narrow natural rock doorway was tall, fit blond man. A fireball blazed and bobbed in the air above his lifted hand.
“Hello, twin,” I said as happy-happy built in my gut. Lexi looked so good. He wasn’t sweating out fumes of sun potion. He wasn’t bouncing on his heels like a junkie without his drug. He was calm. He was fit.
Coolly, his gaze swiveled in my direction. Green eyes, just slightly darker than mine. A long fall of golden wheat tucked behind his right ear and a three-week stubble of hair above his left ear.
No despair behind those eyes.
No devilment or welcome either.
A niggle of ill ease made itself known.
I wet my lips and said, “You can put out the fireball now.”
“I will not extinguish my balyfire on a wolf’s command,” he said, each word a distinct bite of disdain. “Any more than I shall for yours, nalera.”
And just like that, the happy-happy sizzle in my gut dissolved.
That’s not Lexi. The evidence was staring at me, through my brother’s eyes. Obvious in the way he talked (given provocation and an audience, my twin would always opt for a provoking drawl over patrician enunciation) and in his stance—there was a perfectly good wall right by his shoulder, and he wasn’t leaning against it.
Lexi was a leaner.
That’s not my twin.
“Where’s my brother?” I asked the Old Mage.
Chapter Twelve
I’ve hit a couple of highs and lows in the space of the last year. I’d fought for my life and won, which was a definite high. Though I’d had to kill doing it. Not once, but three times—which theoretically was a low. And I’d faced stuff that I hadn’t wanted to: Threall, the consequences of my actions, and even the League of Extraordinary Bitches.
But covering that short distance to the man who wore my brother’s face was right down there on the bottom of all that is awful. It’s unbearable to see someone you love overtaken by another’s soul. The foreign tilt of the head, the unaccustomed posture …
The soft downy hair on the back of my neck rose in stiff horror.
Lexi, where are you?
“Greetings, Hedi of Creemore,” said the wily old goat who’d stolen my brother’s body.
The fireball danced perilously close to the long sweep of my twin’s golden hair. “Put your balyfire out, old man,” I told him. “You know you can’t kill Trowbridge or me without killing yourself.”
“Didn’t see that coming,” said Trowbridge.
The Old Mage lifted my brother’s eyebrow. “There was no intent to kill. What you see is a demonstration of powers that a wolf cannot hope to possess. This one”—he inclined his chin to Trowbridge—“needs to be reminded that a wizard is superior in all manners to him. It shall always be so—magic shall always defeat brute strength—and yet this particular wolf has such a difficulty accepting the realities of his position.”
“Keep talking, asshole,” said Trowbridge. “You’ll run out of gas faster.”
The wizard tilted his head to study my mate. “The teeth of my balyfire’s flame are deeper than your fangs, wolf.”
“Go ahead.” Trowbridge bared his teeth. “But when you do, I’ll bring you down and be all over you. We’ll both turn crispy. And then we’ll talk about fangs.”
I watched the wizard’s expression turn to ugly amusement.
“Does he actually believe himself to be the Son of Lukynae?” he mused. “This wolf from Creemore, with his sword and armor of dirt, thinks to destroy a civilization ages older than his? With what? No magic. No army. No peculiar gifts.” He laughed, and my belly clenched because his snide amusement bore no resemblance to my brother’s cocky grin. “A common wolf from a realm without magic thinks himself destined to defeat a civilization such as mine. Such vanity.” He made a fist, and the blazing ball flared. It disappeared with a pop, leaving scarcely a trace of smoke.
I took a step forward, but Trowbridge caught my arm and tugged me back. “Don’t get between him and me,” he growled.
“In public, ever the protective wolf,” sighed the wizard. “Such is their nature. All bluster and false charges. And yet who came to your mate’s aid last night? Who rescued her? It was not you, Son of Lukynae.”
Trowbridge slanted me a hard look. “What rescue?”
I turned to the man who’d stolen my brother’s body and said firmly, “Step back, Old Mage. Let my twin come forward.”
The old goat straightened Lexi’s sleeve cuff. “I wish to be called by my real name—Old Mage, Mage of the Royal Court.”
“There’s too many mages,” muttered Trowbridge. “We have the Old Mage, the Black Mage—”
“Helzekiel is not a true mage,” said the man wearing my brother’s face. “He is a duplicitous usurper. A weak counterfeit. A cunning—”
“Seriously, bro.” Trowbridge wore an irritating smile. “There’s too many fucking mages.” Raising his brows, he glanced my way. “I say we call this one the Old Mage just because it pisses him off so much, and the other one Helzekiel for pretty much the same reason.”
Sounded good to me.
“I refuse to talk to you,” I said to the Old Mage. “I want to speak to Lexi.”
“Your brother and I have come to an equitable arrangement—I inhabit this body during the sunlight hours, and he takes it during the night. It satisfies both of our needs.”
“I don’t give a squat about any agreement you squeezed out of my brother when he was going through a drug withdrawal inside a freakin’ portal passage. It doesn’t hold. So step back, old man. Let my brother speak.”
“We don’t require your assistance to destroy my Book of Spells,” the Old Mage said, his tone haughty and amused. “Nor do I need your assistance to dispatch my old apprentice whose lackluster natural talents are inadequate to the task of protecting the court.”
“Stop using the ‘we’ word—there is no ‘we’!” I snapped. “You’re a temporary unwelcome guest, got it? And Lexi damn well does need my help destroying the book.”
“Why? Do you know where to find the Book of Spells? Do you have extraordinary magic or skills? No. Your talents are meager. Your presence is not required, nor is it helpful. In fact, it’s a hindrance. Your twin does not need your—”
Pssst. My blood pressure skyrocketed and I drowned him out with a shout. “I’m still going to be there beside my brother—brother, not you—when the deed is done. That book’s going to be toast before the next sundown, and then I’m heading to Threall, where I’m going to personally tear your rotting cyreath from my brother’s. You made a promise to me, Old Mage, and you’re going to keep it. You’re gone. Once the book is destroyed, your soul is toast.”
He just looked at me.
I hate reading eyes. I hate understanding things that aren’t said.
I’m not leaving—that’s what I saw.
Here’s another thing I absolutely hate: being left wordless with frustration.
So, I made a fist and hit him.
* * *
Not-Lexi clutched his throat, rasping and gurgling. Hypothetically speaking, that should have been an entirely gratifying reaction, but when I’d gone to wipe that look of insufferable arrogance off his face I’d done so with a girlie fist—my thumb tucked into my palm.
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit!” I cursed, hunching over my abused digit.
The scent of faded sweet peas swirled around me as I did the two-step.
Trowbridge sniffed sharply, then exclaimed, “You’re bleeding!”
“No, I’m not! My thumb! My thumb!”
“Where are you bleeding? Are you cut? Did someone hurt you? By God—”
“I’m not bleeding! I bled! Old blood. I’m okay now!”
With a growl, he pounced on my ankle. My jeans leg was eased up and my field dressing exposed, and then things got very tense inside the very small cave.
“What happened?” my mate said so very, very quietly.
“I stepped in a trap.”
“How long?” He shot to his feet. “How long did it take you to get out of it? Is that where you were all night? Were in you in a fucking wolf trap?”
“Trowbridge, it doesn’t hurt. It hasn’t since last night.”
“Bullshit.” He pivoted on his heel, his hand already closing into a fist.
The Old Mage, having long since forgotten whatever close-combat lessons he’d once learned on his father’s knee, greeted the danger with a scholarly squawk and a hastily raised hand. A ball, hazy and bright, full of light, started to take shape—
Trowbridge’s punch was powerful and swift, a vicious uppercut to not-Lexi’s jaw. My twin’s chin snapped backward so hard, the back of his head hit the bedrock wall behind him, then rebounded forward.
I swung into action, catching Trowbridge’s arm, which was poised for another blow. “No! You’ll only hurt Lexi!”
“That’s the idea!”
Not-Lexi wove his feet for two full “Mississippis” before he dropped to his hands and knees. He hung there for a couple of moments, then tried to get up. His balance was awful, and when he put pressure on his right foot he sucked in his breath in shock.
His bleary gaze settled on me.
“Hey, Hell,” he said, his tone a touch shaky.
I froze. Stared, searching for my twin. In an instant the body language had changed. His shoulders were held less stiffly and the manner in which he held his head subtly altered. He cocked his eyebrows—it was his signature move—the right brow lifting ironically higher than the other.
Hope was a tense, breathless knot inside my chest.
“Lexi?”
“None other.” My twin wiped his mouth, frowning at the blood that subsequently streaked the back of his hand.
Trowbridge nudged me with his shoulder and asked, “Are you sure it’s him?”
I nodded, my nose burning, my throat thickening.
“You son of a bitch!” Trowbridge roared. “That was your trap!”
And it was lights-out for Lexi.
* * *
His trap, his trap, his trap. There was no echo in the cave but a terrible one inside me.
Lexi lay limp on his side. His too-pretty hair a tangle across his face. Trowbridge touched the small of my back, steadying me. I didn’t need it. I was standing, wasn’t I?
“How can you be sure it was his?” My voice was very small.
“All the traps in the Oldbrooke Woods are your brother’s.”
That’s when my knees turned to water. Trowbridge grabbed me, and before I could puddle beside my brother’s sprawled form he’d lifted me into his arms.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I said again.
Not my leg, anyhow.
He gazed down at me and his expression tightened. Then he pressed a hard kiss to my brow and carried me out of there. He walked fast. The loose end of my bandage fluttered, ghost white, as he brought me out of the dank darkness.
Outside the cave’s mouth, there was a single soft wedge of emerald green grass on which Trowbridge placed me with acute care. He touched my face. “You going to be all right if I leave you here for a moment?”
I nodded.
“Be right back.”
I looked up at the sky and reckoned it was mid-morning, or thereabouts. Mouse sat crouched on the backs of his heels, the pony’s reins looped through his hand, at the edge of the ward. The Gatekeeper glowered, her arms still tightly clamped by her hips, thanks to my oddly well-behaved magical donut.
All the traps in the Oldbrooke Woods are Lexi’s.
Trowbridge dragged my brother out by his suspenders. Once clear of the cave, my mate rolled Lexi onto his back, so that my twin, the trap setter and wolf hunter, lay faceup. Then Trowbridge turned for me, crouching by my outstretched injured leg. He gently tugged my pant leg upward to expose Mouse’s makeshift field dressing. It was dirty and covered in brownish stains.
Trowbridge sucked in a breath. “I need to see what’s happening under this.”
I found the peak of my ear and rubbed my thumb over it. “You’re not going to like what you find. What’s under the bandage is going to scar and it’s going to be ugly.”
“Do you think that makes a difference to me?”
He used to love my skin. And now it was marked. I had a bumpy, puckered piece of ugliness left on my shoulder compliments of a close encounter with a crossbow bolt, and my ankle would never be pretty again. When I crossed my leg, he’d notice the scar. When he draped my leg over his shoulder, he’d see it. I’d wear the evidence of my brother’s actions for the rest of my life. It would be a constant reminder.
“Scars will never change how I feel about you,” Trowbridge told me as he rolled up the denim. “I’ve got scars; do you hate them?”
“No, I mourn them.”
“Don’t. They’re reminders of shit I survived. That’s the whole deal, Tink—I lived to see the scar. So, I’ll take yours and I’ll be grateful for them.”
I watched his hands, noting how well he used them, even though his pinkie and ring finger were nothing more than stubs.
“Mouse has sun potion,” I said. “He used it to rinse some of the juka off.”
“Did he get all of it?”
“I don’t think so. Some of it had a chance to get into my system.”
Trowbridge’s gaze swept to the boy who held Seabiscuit’s reins. “You!” he said, switching to Merenwynian. Trowbridge and I had been speaking English, which had left Mouse in the dark, though not the Gatekeeper. She understood the language of Earth. How much could she hear from where she stood?
Mouse slowly straightened. “Yes?”
“You have more sun potion?”
“Aye,” he said warily.
“Bring it.”
Mouse tied Seabiscuit’s reins to a branch, then unhooked his sack from her pommel. From its depths he brought out one of his burlap-wrapped bottles. He unwrapped it as he walked to us, his body language a manifesto of reluctance.
Trowbridge carefully stretched out my leg. “Hurts?” he asked in English.
“No.”
“Heads-up—it will. It’s going to hurt like a bitch when I remove these dirty bindings.” He shook his head at the wrappings. “I hope your skin hasn’t grafted to this.” When Mouse approached, Trowbridge asked, “How much juice do you have?”
“I have a full bottle, Son of Lukynae,” said the boy in Merenwynian.
I raised my eyebrows meaningfully.
Mouse chewed his lip. “And two more in my sack.”
Trowbridge stopped picking at the strip of linen. After a pause, he said, “Don’t call me Alpha.”
Body braced as if he were expecting a backhand, Mouse offered the potion. Trowbridge took it from him with a gruff nod.
“I have to take it,” Mouse blurted.
My mate looked up.
“If I live with the Fae, I have to take my ration,” Mouse continued. “There’s nothing else I can do. Even if I leave the castle and take my chances by running, there’s nothing to run to. I might find a village where they need an extra pair of hands and weren’t too fussy about my blood, but I couldn’t chance meeting my wolf … I’d still have to take it. Anyone who wants to pass as Fae has to. That’s why I took it. But if I knew I had a place where I could be a wolf, then I wouldn’t take it.”
