The tiny gold band looked impossibly small balanced on the tip of his finger. A stylized wolf’s head adorned the center, and diamond chips glinted in its eyes.
“It’s beautiful.” I kept my fingers tunneled in his hair. “I’m glad you have it.”
“I don’t have anywhere to put it.” He reached for my hand. “My fingers are too thick to wear it.”
Honored at the task he’d given me, I spread my fingers. “It might fit my pinky.”
The ring slid on, chill and damp, as though the heat from Graeson’s touch failed to permeate the metal.
Twisting the ring to situate the wolf, he shook out the cushions and sheet before rising. No other treasures were discovered, and we resumed our search for Harlow. Not until I found myself spinning the slight ring around my finger did it hit me that Graeson had put it on the same side as I wore Harlow’s bracelet. I rolled my shoulder, the extra weight on that arm imagined, but I still felt tipped to that side.
I retreated to the doorway and turned my back on Graeson, keeping an eye on the hall. He deserved a moment alone in the room with the specter of his sister, so I guarded us from ambush while he grieved.
I whirled toward him when his palm landed on my shoulder and searched his carefully blank face for signs he was ready to go.
“This will be the last time we get the chance to explore this place,” he said, voice grinding like crushed boulders. “We should clear the cavern as we go.”
Nodding silent agreement, I followed him into the hall. The musty odors told my heightened senses the rooms we passed were empty and had been for a long time, but we stopped in every one to be certain we left no evidence behind. Erasure spells were Charybdis’s trademark, after all.
I swept the last room on my side before Graeson finished his and waited in the passageway. A forked tunnel loomed ahead. I inhaled in each direction, frowning at the heavy scents overlaying the hallways. Knowing Harlow was so close made my heart pound. If we rescued her physical body from Charybdis, she could detox somewhere like Edelweiss, where the staff could apply what they’d learned treating Ayer to her.
Graeson joined me and gestured ahead, leaving the choice of direction up to me. Even his sensitive nose must have trouble parsing the fresher path due to the dankness and moldy smells. I chose right, and we walked straight into a dead end.
The wall curved, like a bubble, and inside of the circular alcove, a rusty nail protruded. Hanging from the nail a wad of fabric drip, drip, dripped a rivulet that diverged around me. The pattern… It wasn’t possible.
Fat moons.
Grinning stars.
Lori.
A crack rang out when my knees buckled, and I crashed to the floor, a supplicant before my own version of a holy relic. I smelled blood, but I didn’t feel the pain. I felt…nothing. Less than numb. Anesthetized.
“Ellis.”
Hazel eyes flecked with gold filled my vision as Graeson squatted in front of me. His arms threaded under mine and held me upright until my head stopped spinning.
“What’s wrong?” He raked his gaze over me, searching for wounds. “What happened?”
Trembling lips pressed together, I shook my head and pushed him back to give me breathing room. It took a few tries before I could stand, and a few tries more than that to get my legs to swing one in front of the other. Slowly, painfully, I approached the alcove. Reading my shock, Graeson flanked me, giving me a moment to absorb what I was seeing while watching our backs.
I gathered the tattered nightgown in my fist and searched for the tag. I flipped it up with my thumb, and there they were, initials written in the strong block letters of my mother’s hand with a black permanent marker.
LGE
Lori Grace Ellis.
I crushed the gown to my chest. I was already soaked through. More water wasn’t going to hurt me. Holding this—this hurt. It was impossible. Lori was gone. Taken by the sea. Her body was never recovered. That meant this gown, the one she wore that terrible night we explored the beach, should have been as lost as she was. Yet here it was, in my arms, as my sister never would be again.
The pattern was over a decade old. The fabric should have been out of print. The gown couldn’t be an original. Was this meant to be yet another taunt? Another token that would have showed up on my steps one day? Where had Charybdis found it to give Harlow? A thrift store? Did killer fae shop on eBay? How had he known the significance? How had he copied Mom’s handwriting? How had he known to?
“My sister—” my voice broke, “—wore this the night she…” A sob attempted to break through, almost snapping my sternum in the process. Arms folded around me, I held the gown plastered to me, a hug that would never reach the tiny body that had once worn it. “This… It can’t be hers. It’s not possible.”
Understanding dawned, and his forehead wrinkled. “Are you sure it’s the same one?”
That pattern haunted me. I knew it as well as I knew the blackness coating the backs of my eyelids.
“It’s the same pattern. The initials—it’s a match for my mother’s handwriting.” I kept flipping the tag back and forth. “How does he know these things about me? About her and my family?”
“I’m not sure.” He reeled me into a tight hug and kissed my forehead. “None of this makes sense, but we’re going to get you those answers. I promise.”
Clutching the material in my fist, I gathered my nerves and pried myself out of his arms. “We should get moving.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” He searched my face. “I can go on alone if you need a minute.”
“I’m going with you.” A fierce urge to protect him simmered in my middle. “I almost lost you too. I’m not risking it again.”
Pleased warmth suffused his expression before the weight of our circumstances snuffed his masculine enjoyment. With a somber nod, he set out for the remaining hallway, and I covered the rear. He paused in the entryway of yet another bedroomlike chamber, and his nostrils flared wide. “She’s in there.”
Dread pressed down on my shoulders, all the rock and water overhead crushing me while I stood there warring with myself. I wanted to see Harlow, and I was terrified of seeing her. I wanted her back, wanted her safe, but I wasn’t sure she could come back from what Charybdis might have done to her, and she would never feel safe again.
She was my friend, my responsibility, and I took point. I entered the room with Graeson at my back and pulled up short at what I saw.
Harlow perched on the edge of a rusted metal cot. Back straight, feet planted on the ground, she kept her hands linked in her lap. Her hair was a brighter shade than I remembered, more fuchsia than cotton candy. Her clothes were a flattering cut and trendy, her makeup flawless. She stared ahead at the wall opposite her, not acknowledging our arrival. I cut across the room until I stood in front of her, heeding Graeson’s quiet warning not to get too close. She blinked glassy eyes but didn’t move or speak.
Her vacant gaze reminded me so much of Ayer’s drugged indifference it broke my heart. That couldn’t be her future. She had to snap out of this.
“Harlow.” So much hope smashed into one word. “It’s me, Cam.” Movement at my shoulder prompted me to add, “And Graeson.”
The girl didn’t respond.
“Look at this.” Graeson tapped a row of boxes flush with the wall. “This is where she kept the suckers.” He squatted and riffled through a second box then a third. “Clothes with tags still on. Makeup.” The fourth box made his shoulders tense. “You should take a look at this.” Reluctant to leave Harlow, I hesitated until he said, “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
We switched places, Graeson angling his body to keep our path out clear while keeping Harlow in his sights, and I knelt on the damp rock and dipped my hand into a box with three items remaining. A man’s hiking boot, an old jar filled with brittle yet flawless leaves, and a piece of blue raspberry-flavored rock candy. I gripped the boot and yanked the tongue out as far as it would go. Written in the same neat
hand that graced the nightgown’s tag was a new name—Derik Ellis. My father.
“These must be the items Harlow had left to pass off through Emily.” I replaced the boot and glanced up at him. “Seven items. Seven is a magical number.”
Meaning the rabbit was a ploy of Aisha’s or I was wrong about Charybdis sticking to magical theory.
Eyes on Harlow, he inclined his head toward me. “Do they have any significance to you?”
“This belongs to my father.” I tapped the shoe. “The leaves remind me of a game Lori and I played one summer.” I picked up the crinkly wrapper last. “This was our favorite flavor. Our parents bought these for us at general stores when we went up in the mountains.”
Rising to my feet, I rejoined Graeson in staring at Harlow, who hadn’t so much as fidgeted since our arrival.
“Can you hear us?” She gave no sign of listening to me, but it wasn’t her I wanted to engage. “I don’t know your true Name, but I know who you are.” I took one step closer. “You aren’t Harlow any more than you were the kelpie or Marshal Ayer.”
“How dare you address me. You who are but a child.” Harlow’s lips moved, the too-deep voice coming from her mouth, but the cadence of her speech belonging to someone else—something else. “You cannot begin to fathom who or what I am.” She turned her head toward us, and her eyes had gone black and gleaming, as empty and cruel as the kelpie’s had been. “You have cost me much, Camille Ellis, and I will have what is owed repaid.”
Graeson’s hand closed over my upper arm, and he anchored me to the spot before roiling anger blocked out my rational thoughts. “I owe you nothing.”
“You ruined an event I spent ten of your lifetimes planning. What would you call that, if not a debt?” Harlow fingered the hem of her shirt. “This girl is a start, but I will require much more compensation.” Casual malice danced in the depths of her eyes. “How is your family, by the way? Have you seen your parents lately?”
“Leave my family out of this,” I growled, magic flushing my skin.
“You are in no position to make demands. Bargain, perhaps. Think very hard and you might find something you possess of value to me.” A shudder rippled through Harlow, and she wet her lips as though deriving pleasure from the fury wafting off my skin. “You have my attention now, Camille Ellis. I grant you permission to summon me when you have made your peace.” A smile tilted her mouth. “Until we meet again.”
Blind rage at him threatening those I loved propelled me several steps forward before Graeson caught me around the middle. “He’s baiting you,” he murmured. “Attack now, and the only one you’ll be hurting is Harlow.”
Slumping in his hold, I took a long moment to tamp down all the blazing animosity Harlow didn’t deserve. Taking my outrage out on her would make me as pathetic as Bessemer, and I wasn’t about to follow in his sadistic paw prints.
Gaze fixated on Harlow, I froze at the gradual change sweeping over her. Like a reset switch had been thrown, the light vanished from her eyes, and her head turned until she faced forward once again. Abandoning the fabric of her shirt, she slid her hands back into her lap, fingers linking. The pose was the same, as if she hadn’t moved, hadn’t addressed us at all.
“This is bad,” I murmured. “She’s like a radio transmitter and receiver all rolled into one.”
Graeson’s attention never wavered off her. “What should we—?”
“We’ll talk about it later, once we get her someplace secure and warded for sound.” I tapped my ear and broke from his arms, the temptation to stay in their shelter becoming harder to resist. “He’s just proven he can drop in and listen whenever he wants. I don’t want him overhearing any plans we make.”
Crossing to Harlow, I murmured a Word I learned in marshal academy, one that bound her hands together at her lower back. I used another to muzzle her in case Charybdis turned out to be a biter. Graeson cupped her elbow and helped her stand then led her down the hall. With one final glance at the box of items meant for me, items I had no way to carry or capture since I’d left my phone behind so it wouldn’t get waterlogged, I committed each one to memory then exited the bedroom for what I hoped was the last time.
After a shorter walk than I remembered on the way in, we reached the large antechamber, and I got my first good look at it. The entrance was as elegant as the rest of the place and its decorations as peculiar due to their scavenged nature. The sconces I’d noticed earlier were discarded citronella torches. The glimmering path leading into the first room, the main living space, was paved with bottle caps. From here, the exit resembled a giant pool. And on a rock sat a familiar tin I hadn’t noticed in my haste to get inside the caves.
Harlow’s unfocused eyes brightened at the sight of it, as though the power of the memories connected to the item had peeled aside the veil Charybdis had lowered over her mind.
“The gills don’t stick.” Graeson had noticed Harlow’s fixation too. “Is it just me or are they supposed to do that?”
“That’s how they work,” she whispered on an indrawn breath. “They’re meant to dissolve…” her focus wavered, “…once you don’t need them.”
Just as before, the flicker of awareness waned all too quickly, and she zoned out as her expression slipped back into blankness.
“I wish I could make this work for you too, Ellis.” Graeson scooped up the tin and twisted it in his hand, but Harlow had checked out, and not even the lure of her gear roused her again. “I don’t know the first thing about jury-rigging magic.”
“Don’t worry about me.” I plastered on a brave smile, trembling inside at the idea of hitting the water a second time. “I’ll manage.”
“Getting out won’t be too bad. It’s not as far up as you think.” His focus shifted toward the ceiling. “It’s when we breach the surface that things will get sticky. Bessemer saw me go in. You too. He doesn’t know about the caves, as far as I’m aware, but he’ll figure it out or someone else will tell him. He’ll be waiting.” His gaze touched on Harlow. “They’ll know it’s her. They’ll see we went in and came out with another fae—one with pink hair.”
“We have to be ready for anything,” I agreed.
“You and I are a match for any of them.” Heat sparked in his gaze. “Your she-wolf is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.”
My gut pitched. “I don’t have a she-wolf.” There was no spirit animal inside me. “I don’t have a wolf period. I just get hairier now than I used to.”
“You haven’t seen her, have you?”
“No.” I didn’t trust that knowing glint. “I haven’t exactly had time to sit around admiring myself lately.”
He raised his hands, an easy surrender, but I knew I hadn’t heard the last on the topic.
The cool lap of water several feet away didn’t spike the same dread in my heart as it had only hours earlier. My world was in chaos, and my fears were greater than sucking water in my lungs now. I rubbed the fabric of Lori’s nightgown through my fingers. What did it mean that this had survived? I didn’t kid myself that somehow she had too. That kind of hope destroyed people.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone.” The pack had, mostly, done me no harm. “Do you think they’ll listen to reason?”
What I meant was him. Would they listen to their beta?
“You saw firsthand how it is when a warg gets its blood up. In a group it’s impossible for all but an alpha to control the bloodlust.” Regret flickered across his features. “They’re scared of fae, Bessemer taught them that. They’re still mourning Marie and reeling over my decision to bring a fae bride home. They don’t trust me. They think grief has warped me.”
Ignoring the fae bride comment, I focused on the bigger picture. “So we fight our way out.”
His pause stretched several heartbeats. “Yes.” He set his jaw. “Bessemer’s left us no choice.”
Ready as I would ever be, I threaded the nightgown down the inside leg of my pants in the hopes the tight fabric would hold it in place a
s I swam.
Graeson smeared goop down both sides of Harlow’s throat then doctored himself up too. “How do you want to do this?”
“You take care of Harlow. She might be able to breathe underwater, but with her hands bound, she can’t maneuver, and I don’t trust Charybdis not to pop back into her body while you’re both vulnerable.” I swung my arms to limber up before the long swim. “I’ll stick close enough I can catch you if I start struggling.”
Stalking toward me with Harlow in tow, Graeson fisted the hair at my nape and claimed my mouth with a kiss that left me breathless. “Be careful.”
“I will be,” I promised, while my brain scrambled.
With an arm looped around Harlow’s middle, Graeson hauled her into the rippling water with him, and they both vanished from sight. I stood alone in the cave of a long-gone sprite with a bitter taste rising up the back of my throat.
Gulping air, I flung myself after them before fear changed my mind. Submerged in effervescence, I squinted after Graeson and kicked toward the muted light rippling overhead, a golden halo cast by the fickle moon.
For once the familiar panic didn’t swamp my senses and send me reeling. The ghost of Lori failed to put in an appearance, perhaps held at bay by the talisman at my hip. Panic fluttered through me as my lungs pulled tight, their oxygen depleted, but it was an honest burst of fear.
I was a long way from being cured of my aquaphobia, but when my head breached the surface and I gulped lungsful of pine-scented air, an ounce or two of the fear and hatred of water I’d carried with me all this time rolled liquescent from my hair to be left behind.
Snarls greeted my emergence, and I snapped to attention. Graeson stood, flesh warping, over Harlow. She lay sprawled on her back, staring skyward, as if aid ever came to those who asked those distant celestial bodies for help. Crawling from the water, I took my place beside Graeson as her vacant gaze settled on me. A flicker of consciousness darkened her eyes as she mouthed, See you soon.
Head Above Water (Gemini: A Black Dog #2) Page 23
