“It’s not that I’m not grateful.” Isela pointed her words at Gus before returning her attention to Dory and that lingering ache. “I don’t want to take your will, your choices. You chose Azrael.”
“My brother chose Azrael.” Dory shrugged. “I choose you. Strength and shield. The strength when you cannot strike the blow. The shield to break so that you may live.”
“Think of it like an exchange,” Dante said. “He gets your protection as well. You become a battery for him, and you will feel his pain. And the rest of the vow is yours to make.”
It would be good to have an ally, Isela. Someone loyal to us first.
“Do we have to do this?” Isela whispered to Dory. Her voice trembled.
“Don’t be afraid, Issy,” he murmured back. He placed his hand over his heart. “I owe you my life. I have my strength and my speed. That’s enough. I give my service freely.”
“How long will he serve,” Dante prompted quietly.
“As long as he wants to and not a day more,” Isela said automatically. Even Dory looked disappointed in her. Isela sighed. “Fifty years with the option to renew. Take it or leave it.”
“Done,” Dory said.
“I give you my protection. And the ability to draw on my power to fuel your gift. Deal?” She stuck out her hand.
“Jesus Cristo,” Gus muttered.
“Blood exchanges aren’t done anymore, Gus,” Dante whispered. “Archaic if you ask me. Never mind unhygienic.”
“It’s her Aegis.” Tariq shrugged, pushing his empty plate aside. “When you pick your first, you can bleed them like a goat if it pleases you.”
Dory’s hand swallowed hers to the wrist.
That was it. She couldn’t exactly name the moment, it came and passed, breaking over her like a wave as the heart that had, a beat ago, seemed like a discordant rhythm, synced with her own. The ache subsided somewhat, and she could feel the exchange of energy moving toward him. Even when released, it was there like a single thread connecting them over space and time. Dory leaned forward, and she knew his movement instinctively. She tilted to meet him, closing her eyes as their foreheads touched. He spoke again, and now the distinct musicality of the language was as familiar as her own. He gave her his lineage, his place in his bloodline, and his name and, at last, claiming her as his family. She locked it in her heart with blurry eyes as he sat back, smiling.
“Don’t cry, tuafafine,” Dory said. “I always wanted a little sister.”
Rory pushed a dishcloth to her side of the table. “Truth.”
“Yes, but…” Isela laughed shakily, wiping her face. “What the hell am I going to do with another brother?”
Dory laughed so hard he planted his elbows on his knees and braced himself. Rory shook his head, patting his brother on the shoulder. “She’s a funny one.” He gave Isela’s shoulder a squeeze. “He’s all yours now, little sister. Take care of him.”
“With everything I have,” Isela said.
“Touching,” Gus said wryly, crossing an ankle over her knee and setting a parcel down on the table. “Now that everyone’s here, this is an Allegiance weapon. Guesses?”
Even beneath the wrapping and layered in carefully applied containment wards, Isela could feel the malignancy of its power. Soul Eater. They’d cleaned it, but she could feel the psychic impression of Dory’s blood.
Isela reached out to the parcel.
“Careful, lady,” Dante said. “It is a very potent instrument.”
Isela flipped her palm over. Fading gray lines crisscrossed her palms, a few wrapping around her wrist and starting up her forearm. Tariq winced.
She studied them impassively for a moment. “These happened in the In Between, cutting Dory free from whatever spell that knife contains.”
“What happens there is reflected here,” Dante said. “It is the price we pay for journeying into a place living things don’t belong.”
She returned to the knife, using her fork to peel away the wrapping. It looked so ordinary, a finely made but simple blade, made for throwing, not display. The voices of the others faded. A rush of desert heat and the sea and a stand of temples in the rocks. She looked up, meeting Gus’s eyes, repeating her vision.
Gus didn’t smile, but satisfaction softened her glare. “Petra.”
Tariq corrected her. “Raqmu.”
“Kadijah fancies herself a god,” Dante supplied. “She made the old city her seat.”
“Reports claim she has spent much time lately in the north,” Rory said. “On the Caspian Sea.”
Tariq smiled. “The Kazar.”
“Close to Vanka’s borders,” Gus concluded. “Ito’s looking into it now.”
“Kadijah prefers to keep her hands clean.” Tariq shook his head. “She’s too close to Azrael and not powerful enough alone to risk his ire.”
“And yet.” Gus gestured to the knife.
“Where does rest of the Allegiance stand?” Tariq asked.
“The Nightfeather claims Paolo came sniffing around for an alliance,” Rory said. “Raymond was unwilling to be persuaded to breach Azrael’s vow, but undoubtedly Paolo will have tried to recruit others to his cause.”
“When did Azrael talk to Raymond?” Isela said.
Eyes slid away from her.
“Takumi has closed his borders,” Rory said of the necromancer who held the greater part of the Asian coast and islands. “And Emma was never a friend of Paolo. Oceania will not interfere.”
“Gola is a friend of Kadijah,” Tariq said.
Gola, the kindly grandmother-looking necromancer from the African subcontinent. The one who liked to let her zombies mummify a bit before reactivating them. Isela had never spoken more than a word to her, but the thought of the woman made her skin crawl.
“It appears the Lionesses no longer run together.” Rory filled in the silence. “It may be a territorial dispute, but Gola reinforced her borders. No one crosses.”
“Effectively cutting her off from land routes,” Dante said. “She needs those routes for exports. That must have been a helluva dispute.”
“Gola’s shipping and naval force is unparalleled,” Tariq drawled. “She’ll survive.”
“Still.” Rory absently nudged a discarded rind of melon around his plate with his knife. “It will be a costly break for both of them. And considering how close they’ve been for two hundred years, it’s worth curiosity. Azrael’s been gathering intelligence on the potential of Gola as an ally.”
“An ally?” Isela barked, sitting back. First Raymond, now “mama mummy”? “From the Allegiance? They showed up here—”
“Most of them bowed to pressure from Vanka,” Rory said.
“Or persuasion from Paolo,” Tariq added.
Gus sucked her teeth bitterly. “Which makes them cowards at best, and at worst opportunists.”
For once, Isela found herself agreeing with Gus.
“You must understand, Isela.” Tariq spread his palms on the table as if to indicate the expansiveness of a subject so large he didn’t know where to begin. “Our lot has always been solitary. As we grow more powerful, it can be difficult for us to be in proximity to one another, which breeds secrecy and paranoia. In olden days there were many more, but they destroyed themselves, overreaching their power—”
“Or were killed off by one another,” Gus added darkly.
“Thanks, Gus.” Tariq sighed. “With the codes and registry requirements the Allegiance put in place when it ascended, we’ve learned that there are fewer and fewer necromancers being discovered every year. And none born after the wall between gods and humans was erected.”
“Inadvertently proving the theory that necromancers are the offspring of gods and humans,” Dante said.
Isela sat back in her chair. “No gods dancing with humans. No new necromancers. And you can’t have children… the old-fashioned way.” She looked around the table. “But you’re immortal. Some of you. All of you. Are you?”
“Only the most po
werful,” Tariq said. “It was not arbitrary that there are only eight in the Allegiance. Eight capable of creating the barrier between gods and this world. Only they will survive mortality.”
“Unless they kill each other off.” Gus shrugged. “The vow Azrael made was heard around the world. They’re working against him, and they attacked his consort in his territory. It’s on now. And about damn time if you ask me.”
“A war between us serves no one,” Tariq said.
“And you guys,” Isela said, still fixated.
“Gus and Tariq likely will achieve immortality—unless, as Gus put it, they get themselves killed.” Dante tipped an imaginary cap to her.
He held up a hand when Gus would have protested, two bright spots of emotion under her eyes. His face, serene with acceptance, rose in a smile. He patted her fisted hand gently until she loosened her fingers and he could circle them with his own. He murmured something to her, and she shook her head. When he looked back at Isela, his eyes held no fear.
“I am grateful that Azrael took me on—it’s given me this much longer,” he said. “I have no regrets.”
Azrael might not have been able to father children, but he had created a family. These men and women weren’t just his servants and protégés. He’d given them titles and roles and contracts and protected them until they were able to fend for themselves. But all that only served to codify the seeds he’d planted in them. They had grown together, first as allies and later to depend on one another in that bond that many claimed blood bestowed but in reality was rarer than that. None of it could have come had they not seen it, or been given it, first.
Azrael didn’t crave dominion or power. He did what was needed to keep those he cared for safe—no matter the cost. The idea that necromancers couldn’t love at all was laughable, she realized. The choice not to might be more concrete than a human could hope to make, but love was the only thing clear as dawn in this room of murky alliances and mysterious enemies. It began with Azrael and bloomed at this table. The loyalty of brothers beyond death, the two necromancers giving comfort with a simple touch, and her own heart, thumping against her rib cage in a rhythmic call of longing for him. Isela took a deep breath to steady herself.
Now she understood the fight before he left. It still burned. They were going to have a serious conversation about withholding information.
“The greenhouse?” Tariq asked.
“Empty,” Gus grunted. “Áleifr, Chris, and I paid a visit after we got the bridge under control—”
“You took my brother?” Isela gasped.
“He was already assigned patrol with Aleifr,” Gus said sensibly. “They’re a good team.”
Isela pressed her forehead into her hands, thinking of her youngest brother facing the Alchemist—whatever she was. “How dare you.”
Gus’s cold expression didn’t budge. “Your family is better equipped to deal with this world than you are, consort. You might consider taking a lesson—”
Isela lunged, snarling, and Dory caught her arm. He lightly shook his head once.
“I’ll see you in the ring anytime you’d like, señora,” Gus promised without flinching.
Tariq eased over the arm of his chair into Isela’s space. The feel of his power, crackling in defense around him as it neared her, made her aware of how much energy was leaking off her. “Infuriating little know-it-all, isn’t she? Especially when she has a point.”
Isela’s control flexed with her next long inhale. Gus had already resumed her report and barely acknowledged the change in the room’s atmosphere, though she kept her voice and her gaze respectfully low. “Whatever she is takes power. Place is in shambles—all weeds and broken glass. The neighbors say it’s been abandoned since the war. Smart, pairing the wolves with patrols. Whatever we miss, their noses pick up. If it weren’t for the consort’s kin, we’d never have known she’d been there at all. He found this.”
She dumped the warped remains of a mobile on the table. It clattered, and bits of old plastic flaked off as it skittered toward Isela before rocking twice and remaining still.
“I didn’t pick anything up from it,” Gus said, and Tariq’s hopeful expression faded. “But Azrael’s techs identified the time of the last call as shortly after you left.”
“You think the Alchemist set us up?” Isela said.
Gus shrugged, sanguine. “If she truly is Circe, she’s not grace-blooded, so it’s impossible to know where her loyalty lies. She had to know betraying you would invoke Azrael’s vow. So whoever put her up to it must have promised her a quick exit.”
“And the phoenix was Vanka’s pet before it escaped.” Rory sat down at the table, all business now. “She’s the only one of the Allegiance that gifted in alchemy. Though I’m not convinced he wasn’t sent here. If he had destabilized in Old Town, it would have been quite a disruption to the human population.”
“Azrael knew the phoenix belonged to Vanka?” Isela said.
Silence.
“This friend of Isela’s, the ballerina,” Tariq said, “has been taken, presumably by Vanka. And the recordings of her dances were stolen. Also likely Vanka.”
Dante put down his pen. “When you lay it all out, it seems so obvious, doesn’t it?”
Tariq threw a crumpled-up napkin at him. “Make any progress with the mud men?”
Isela was more certain that the phoenix was the key to everything. She had to get to him. She rose from the table, making her movement unsteady enough that Dory reached out for her hand. She pasted on her most gracious smile.
“This is all been very… educational,” she said, adding an extra measure of hesitation to her voice. “But I’m afraid I’m not quite recovered from last night—”
Liar.
“Maybe you can continue your investigation without me,” she said, slipping her phone off the counter on her way to the stairs. “But I should go… lie down.”
Dory let her proceed when he was certain she could manage.
She turned her back on them, careful to make her step weighted with meaning. The room fell silent.
She was halfway up the stairs when Tariq’s voice called, “I’ve been told that the deception of a woman of untold beauty will end my life. I’d prefer that not be you.”
The non sequitur stopped her mid-step. She looked back to find everyone occupied with something else. Except Tariq—he stared at her, the intensity of his gaze making her struggle to resist a squirm. He broke his stare briefly to meet Rory’s eyes. At some unspoken signal, Rory rose from his chair, giving his brother’s shoulder a squeeze before hanging up his apron. The room was quiet until the door closed behind him.
“I have an addiction to fortune-tellers,” Tariq said. “It’s been the only prediction that never changes. At least among the ones who are truly gifted. So tell us how you plan to revive the phoenix without us.”
Dory took his brother’s seat, gnawing on a bit of leftover bacon.
She faced Tariq, letting the air of exhaustion fall away. “The Allegiance won’t give us peace, and the gods are restless. A war is coming. It’s time to stop being a passenger on this ride.”
“And you plan to start with a phoenix,” he said, whistling. “You certainly don’t aim low.”
“I need to find out what that phoenix knows.”
“The Alchemist said…”
“That they can’t be separated.” She nodded. “I know. She also said the difference between me and it was choice. If I can get to them—the man and the phoenix—and help them see they can make a choice, maybe I can bring them back.”
“And how and when do you plan to do this?” Tariq paused, considering.
She turned her face away, jaw locked.
Tariq sighed. “Isela, I—we—are not Azrael.”
“You’re his proxy,” Isela said, glaring around the room. “All of you. And Azrael would gild the walls to keep this place from looking like a cage.”
“He wants—”
“To protect me. I
know.”
“No.” He sighed. “You’re—”
“A weakness he can’t afford to have.”
“Look around the room.” Tariq waited patiently as she surveyed their faces. Of Azrael’s Aegis, only Dory remained and was the beginning of hers. “Who did we make our vow to in the hall?”
“You are Azrael’s progeny,” she bit out.
“And we served him in our tenure,” Dante said. “That obligation ends when we leave the nest, so to speak. We came now to see if we could assist him as he faces his enemies.”
“But we made no vow to him,” Tariq finished. “He did not ask it, and we did not offer.”
Isela stared at them, speechless. Dory chuckled and nearly knocked Tariq out of his chair with a companionable bump of his fist. “Very clever. You’re smarter than you look, Dauntless.”
“Ah thanks, you big lug.”
Isela needed a moment to let that knowledge wash over her as the pieces of her world spun into correct place. At her unspoken question, Gus shrugged—agreement, annoyance and impatience in a single expression. Isela started down the stairs again.
“I have been doing some thinking,” Dante said when she seemed to be grasping their offer. “What was done was done by a grace blood. But perhaps with the necromancers and witches united, we can untangle the spell. Your mother’s coven—”
Isela shook her head, thinking of her brother’s face and Dory’s. “If I make a mistake, no one else will pay the price. I won’t risk another of Azrael’s Aegis. Or his progeny. Or my family.”
“That is not your decision to make, Isela.” The door opened and Beryl Gilman-Vogel followed Tyler into the room.
Tyler announced, “Someone called for a coven and a pack?”
Isela smelled her brothers before she saw them—the distinctly warm, musky scent that was as familiar to her as her family home. The witches followed. Dante rose from his chair, and Ofelia slipped into it gratefully, a smile dimpling her cheeks as she cradled her belly. Isela searched the faces, and Tariq gestured with his thumb and pinkie to indicate a phone and winked at her.
Dancer's Flame (Grace Bloods Book 2) Page 20
