by Hall, Linsey
“The hell you are. Set up this camp stove.” He pushed it toward her. “Please.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Chairman glaring at her from in front of the fire. He wanted some of whatever Warren planned to make. Truth was, so did she, even though it would just be some instant camping meal. She’d tried to leave, hadn’t she? That counted as at least trying to preserve her heart.
“Okay,” she said, trying to keep the smile out of her voice. She looked around the kitchen, which looked nothing like a modern kitchen. Long tables butted up against the walls and a huge hearth took up one side of the room. Pots and pans hung from the ceiling, but there was no sink or oven or refrigerator. As ancient as the place looked, she had a feeling it was still far more advanced than what mortals had been using at the time.
The long table under the window was probably best for the camp stove. She set it down and bent over it, fiddling until the flame burst into life. She looked up to see Warren pulling a gallon of water and a few packets of some kind of camp food out of the huge duffel bag.
“Stove’s ready,” she said.
“Thanks.” He got to work, mixing and pouring, until dehydrated beef lo mein came back to life. “So. Why’d you leave America?”
She stilled. He wanted to know more about her. No one except Ana had ever wanted to know about her. And even Ana was primarily concerned with what it was like to be a mortal on earth, not what it was like to be Esha, specifically.
Still, she didn’t want to answer. “You don’t need any more help?”
“Nay, just wanted to get you to stay.”
She grinned, then scowled, and leaned against the table.
“Come on, why’d you leave America?”
She sighed. “There was nothing there for me anymore.”
“Does that have anything to do with the fact that you ran away from school?”
She put down her drink. “What is this? An interrogation?”
“Nay.” He leaned back against his table, sighing in frustration. “I just want to get to know you.”
Her heart thumped a bit harder. She was in for it now. Telling someone about herself, her past, was as foreign to her as the Arctic, but her mouth opened all the same. “Yeah, I ran away from school. I shouldn’t have been there—I’m not a witch. But someone dropped me off when I was a child. They didn’t know what else to do with me.”
“You doona know who it was?”
“No. I heard it was a man, though. Maybe my father.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
“I was told he died shortly after. Some type of terrible curse, but they never explained who placed it on him.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “I never knew him. I’m just happy he tried to put me in the best place, even if that place wasn’t so great.”
“What was it like to grow up a Mythean?”
“Pretty normal, I suppose.” She frowned at the memories. “Until I came into my power. I was a bit like Harry Potter, except I wasn’t a hero.”
“Well, that’s no’ so bad. Everyone likes Harry Potter.”
“You need to reread the series. Harry had a tough run for a while. But comparing myself to Harry Potter probably makes me a bit full of myself, especially since I never saved the day. I just ran away.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “Being able to manifest my magic without practice and fueling it with the power of the other students didn’t make me homecoming queen. My friends and my boyfriend dropped me.” No amount of magic could make people care for you. And they’d been more than just friends. They’d been together since they were toddling around in diapers. They had been her family. Until they’d dropped her.
So she’d learned to be a hardass until it didn’t bother her anymore.
“Bastard. You couldn’t control your power collection?”
“No, never could. Still can’t. That’s one of the reasons I want to find Aurora. Maybe I can learn how. Then I can have a normal life.” She almost smacked herself. Why had she admitted that? Out loud, even. She’d resisted admitting it to herself. Admitting that she wanted more was to admit that she thought her life wasn’t all that. Forcing herself to think that everything was perfect almost worked.
If he was giving her a pitying look, she’d kill him.
When she glanced up, she saw that he’d turned back to the stove, as if he knew how much she’d hate him to see her like this.
“How about some lo mein? It’s done.” He scooped up three big bowls, put one on the floor, and brought the others to the table.
“Thanks.”
They ate in silence for the next few minutes, the Chairman’s joyful purrs as he scarfed down his bowl of lo mein the only sound punctuating the quiet. Thank gods he was magical or there’d be hell to pay after a meal like that.
The weight of all she’d revealed began to bear down upon her. Had she said too much? Probably. Sharing felt weird and reminded her that things between them were weird.
She fought the darker voice that hid in the corner of her soul. The one that said he was being nice to her because he needed her to find Aurora—whom he wanted to kill despite what it would do to Esha—and because he was totally lost in this city. That when it was all over, they’d be on opposite sides of the fence again. He could have anyone. He didn’t need an outcast like her. Getting used to his cooking, his kindness, his kisses would only make her life more barren once it was all over.
No. She wouldn’t sabotage this with dark thoughts and insecurity. She’d take him at his word, the way she wanted him to take her at hers.
But she needed to get out of here now. Just to remind herself that she was fine alone. “Thanks for dinner. I should get going.”
“Doona go yet.”
“No, really, I should get out of here. But thanks.” She used a quick burst of magic—not much, of course—to clean her bowl and the Chairman’s, then jetted for the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him rising and threw out a frantic little wave and dashed into the hall like a crazy person, a disgruntled Chairman behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Ready?” Warren asked Esha.
They stood in the foyer, the first early rays of sunlight illuminating the dim space. He hadn’t seen her since last night, though he’d heard her rustling around in the kitchen for breakfast. By the time he’d gotten down there, she’d slipped back up to her room.
“Yes. I think we should be able to see the shadows well enough if they try anything tricky.”
“Brilliant.” He opened the foyer door and yanked up the zipper of his jacket. It was cold, but the lack of snow within the city meant that they didn’t need the damn snowsuits or boots, thank gods.
Esha joined him on the doorstep. “Okay, I think we should head east. I feel the energy of four important places in this city, and I think the temple will be one of them.”
He nodded and followed her out the door and up the winding street, where gray buildings rose high on either side. The disorientation that had hit him last night returned now that he was out of the house, so he stuck close to Esha. The morning was perfectly and eerily silent, with no birds to chirp or trees to rustle in the wind.
Within a hundred yards, he became aware that soul shadows lurked behind some of the glinting glass windows. Watching them. “Esha.”
“I see them. Just keep walking.” Her posture was stiff.
They turned left onto a wider street, one built of octagonal stone slabs that seemed to be a main thoroughfare through the city. Grand buildings lined the street, much wider than the houses on the residential street where they’d set up their base camp. The architectural styles varied, from whimsical to elegant to imposing, but all built of that same gray stone. It was the strangest city he’d ever seen.
Warren glanced behind him to get a feel for the expanse of the street and caught sight of a shadow dipping behind the corner of a building ten yards back. A chill pricked at h
is skin. It was the first he’d seen outside of a building.
“There’s a soul shadow behind us,” he said.
“I know. I don’t get a feeling of evil off it, though. Or good, for that matter.”
“Right.” They’d just have to stay sharp.
They walked a few hundred yards down the expansive street until they came to a great open space that looked like a town square.
“I think that’s it.” Esha pointed to a wide building that sat on the north side of the square. A great portico with four long steps led up to enormous front doors. There were very few windows, far fewer than any other building in the city.
“Do you know what it is?”
“No. Just that it pulls at me.”
“We’ll check it out, then.” He glanced back and saw the shadow advance with them. Following them.
They walked across the too-silent square as the sun finally rose over the tops of the buildings. Bright rays of light fell onto the stone street. The Chairman slowed as he reached the portico, his confident stride replaced with wariness. Esha slowed too.
“He’s got a better sense for danger than I do. Especially of the soul variety,” she said.
Warren nodded, no longer concerned that he was taking his cues from a cat. As soon as they stepped up onto the first of the four wide steps, soul shadows appeared on the portico.
“Keep going,” Esha said. “Act like they aren’t there.”
Warren put his hand on his sword anyway. Just because he didn’t like to fight didn’t mean he wouldn’t, and the shadows were creeping forward with every step they took. When they took the last step under the portico, the shadows surged forward, an unbroken mass of black smoke.
Sickening chills broke out over Warren’s skin when the shadows touched him. The sickness that had haunted him surged, nearly buckling his knees. He drew his sword and swiped at the nearest one, but it sliced ineffectually through it. They became solid when they pressed against him, forcing him back down the stairs, but became smoke when his sword touched them.
“I think they’re trying to keep us out!” Esha yelled as she shot a blast of power from her hand that buffeted them back, but only for a moment. They surged forward harder than before, black smoke that flowed and ebbed in the barely-there form of the Mytheans they’d once been.
Warren shuddered again as the surge of shadows sent a chill and a wave of sickness through him. He swiped and thrust with his sword to no avail. “I can do nothing against them!”
Neither could Esha, whose blasts of power couldn’t clear the way long enough for them to reach the door at the top of the stairs. They didn’t seem to be bothering her as much as him, however. The majority of the shadows plowed against Warren, trying to keep him out.
When something touched his back that didn’t feel as sickening as the press of souls, Warren glanced behind him. It was another soul shadow, this one more corporeal than the rest. It was the one that had followed them from their base camp.
It waved an amorphous, shadowy arm and drifted toward the side of the building.
“Esha! The shadow that was following us is trying to lead us around the building.” He had no idea if he should trust it or not, but by then the mass of shadows had pressed them down off the stairs entirely.
Esha glanced at the shadow and her brow furrowed. “Follow it!”
The Chairman ran after the shadow, and they followed. It might be a trap, and he’d be prepared if it was, but he doubted it. The shadow led them to the edge of the stairs and around the corner of the building into a small alley. A glance behind him showed that the shadows had stayed behind on the portico, as if trapped. The illness that had tied up his guts in knots and weakened his muscles had faded as well.
“Look, it’s led us to a door.” Esha pointed to the small wooden door. The shadow hovered just in front of it.
“Let’s try it.”
The door stuck when Esha tried it, and a heave of Warren’s shoulders did nothing as well.
“Here, let me try this.” Esha stepped up and laid her hand on the handle. It glowed briefly, then popped open.
“How?”
Esha shrugged as she crept through the small door. “I’m a soulceress, and I asked it to open. I think it’s guarded against outsiders but not my kind.”
Made sense, given what had happened up on the portico. The mysterious shade, as Warren had begun to think of the shadow that had aided them, followed them into the building. The room was pitch black, a problem that he alleviated with the flashlight he pulled out of the pocket of his jacket.
“Smart thinking,” Esha said as the beam of light revealed the contents of the room. Boxes piled upon boxes, all the way to the ceiling. “I have no idea what this place is, though.”
“We’re in the basement. Let’s try those stairs.” He shone the beam on the stairs on the other side of the room. “Do you sense any of the shadows?”
“Not in here. I think they were just trying to protect the front entrance.”
“Good.”
They climbed the stairs in silence, their steps soundless on the stone beneath their feet. The door at the top swung open silently, and they stepped out into an enormous cavern-like room. Light from the few windows beamed down upon a brightly colored marble floor, and the walls were hung with tapestries stitched with explosions of color. It, like the house, was unnaturally well preserved.
“It’s a museum,” Esha said.
Only then did Warren notice the low tables scattered throughout the expansive room. The soaring ceiling dwarfed them, making one want to look up rather than down. They walked slowly through the room, glancing at the tables and stands upon which precious artifacts sat.
“This must be the oldest museum in the world,” Warren said as he glanced around for the shadows that hovered just outside of the great doors on the other side of the room. “Museums dinna exist back then, did they?”
“Among soulceresses, they did. But I don’t think this is a museum in the traditional sense, where you display artifacts for the public. I think it is a holding place of our most precious cultural objects and art.”
“This isn’t the temple, then.”
“No. But I’d like to look, all the same.” The dim light revealed the wistfulness and sorrow etched on Esha’s face. This was the last evidence of her race. Family and friends of her own kind that she’d never have.
“All right. We won’t get separated in here. I doona have the same problem navigating within the buildings that I do on the outside.”
She nodded and wandered off, her gaze intent upon the tables bearing jewelry, weapons, dishes, and other unidentifiable objects. Warren watched as she reached out now and again to brush her fingertips over shining metal and gleaming, polished wood. The Chairman stuck close to her side, as if he knew she needed the comfort.
Warren shook his head and turned away. He wandered as well, his gaze drawn especially to the weapons. One, a long dagger with an artfully decorated hilt, caught his eye. It looked sharp and deadly and reminded him that his sword hadn’t affected the soul shadows. Perhaps only a soulceress weapon would work within the city walls. Feeling slightly guilty but vowing he’d return it when this was all over, he slid the dagger into his boot and turned to find Esha.
She stood on the other side of the room, staring at a huge painting on the wall. She shook her head, then turned and walked across the room. He met her near the basement doors, his steps faltering slightly when the familiar surge of Aurora’s sickness weakened his muscles and churned his stomach. Shite. Time for more pills.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Yeah. Let’s keep working our way around the compass until we find the right building.” Her gaze wouldn’t meet his and her voice was distant. She’d been closed off all day, ever since she’d retreated last night.
They made it through the basement and out of the building without incident. He popped a pill in his mouth and swallowed it dry, hoping it would work. He couldn’t be
weakened when he faced Aurora or he’d never get his soul back. He’d have to live like this, a deteriorating mess of weakened muscles and worthless stomach. And he’d thought not having his soul was bad.
The street was silent once again as they made their way east, though the sun had moved across the sky and was on its way down over the tops of the buildings. Warren kept his gaze glued to Esha’s back.
After a while, he noticed that the mysterious shade was still following them, floating along behind. Esha kept glancing back at it as well, making sure that her eyes never fell upon him.
“The building is going to be right around this bend, I’m almost sure of it.” Esha pointed to the curve in the narrow street ahead.
When they rounded the bend, the street once again opened up onto a great square. The city was a bit like Venice, with its windy streets and open squares, but creepier and without the canals. Warren didn’t like it.
“That’s it.” Esha pointed to an ornate building that sat across the square as the museum had. This one was far grander, however, a stone monstrosity accessible by an enormous flight of stairs.
They made their way across the square, and Warren tensed as they neared the stairs, expecting more shadows. When the wave of nausea hit him, he almost stumbled.
Nay. He’d just taken a pill. This shouldn’t be happening. He swallowed hard and forced the nausea down, but it did little good as his muscles trembled.
They reached the base of the stairs and began to climb. When nothing swept out to stop them, the tension in his chest eased slightly. The souls must have been protecting the treasures and had no reason to be here. It took two of them to push open the great wooden door. Damn it, normally he’d have been able to do it alone.
“This is it,” Esha whispered.
Again, the space was huge and silent, the windows streaming beams of light onto the brightly colored marble floor. The back of his neck twitched, and he turned around.
A horde of shadows, these darker and more human shaped than the last, hurtled at them up the stairs. He spun around and pushed Esha out of the way, back behind the wall so that she was out of the path of the shadows.
