“What choice did I have?” Zak snarled back. “It was that or kill her.”
Aaron got in Zak’s face. “What kind of sick, twisted—”
“It was a harmless trick that allowed me to let her go.”
“Harmless?”
I stared blankly at nothing. A trick. He had tricked me.
Zak and Aaron snarled at each other, their voices spiraling around me. Weeks of fear, of guilt, of nightmares about saying the wrong thing and dying—it had all been a trick?
I pulled away from Kai and stumbled to my feet. Zak and Aaron were shouting, and as I lurched toward them, flames sparked up Aaron’s arms. Zak’s hands clenched and fae magic lit up the runes on his inner wrists.
As I reached them in a stumbling run, their heads snapped toward me, but this time, Zak wasn’t ready.
This time, my fist slammed into his jaw.
As he staggered, I pulled my arm back and flung another punch. Zak jerked out of the way, my knuckles grazing his nose. I fell forward—
Aaron grabbed me and pinned my arms to my sides. Zak’s eyes were huge with shock as he backed away, blood trickling from his split lip. Straining against Aaron’s hold, I screamed obscenities at the druid. That lying, conniving, heartless son of a—
The crash of splintering wood cut through my screeching.
Kai appeared beside me, his hand clamping over my mouth. “Tori, be quiet. Please, be quiet.”
The fear in his voice silenced me. I strained my eyes toward the other side of the room.
Ezra stood at the entryway to the dining room, his back to us. The unexpected sound had been him punching the doorframe. His fist was still buried in the wood, the frame splintered and crooked.
He didn’t move except for his heaving shoulders, his harsh breathing loud in the sudden silence.
And then I realized the room was freezing cold. The lights had dimmed to pinpricks. Our breaths puffed white in the wintry air.
Motions slow, Kai removed his hand from my mouth. Aaron drew me out of the living room and into the front landing. He turned the knob carefully, silently opened the door, and pushed me outside. The evening air felt warm compared to the temperature in the living room.
Aaron and Kai stepped out after me, followed by Zak, who noiselessly closed the door like he knew exactly what he was supposed to do.
Sitting heavily on the steps, Aaron exhaled a heartfelt curse.
“What’s wrong with Ezra?” I whispered.
Kai leaned against the porch railing and pressed a hand over his eyes. “Everyone screaming pushed him over the edge.”
“You two are playing with fire,” Zak said, but the words lacked any heat or power. He just sounded tired.
Kai lowered his hand to study the druid. “What do you plan to do about it?”
“Nothing. It’s none of my business.”
Aaron chuffed in angry disbelief, then waved at me. “Sit, Tori. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
I glanced at the front door, then sank down beside Aaron. I had to swallow twice before I could speak. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” His glare locked on a certain druid, indicating who he preferred to blame.
Zak leaned against the siding beside the door, blood dripping off his chin from his lower lip. He didn’t even have enough decency to look guilty.
“What was the whole ritual thing you did, if it wasn’t a real black-magic oath?” I demanded. “What did you make me drink?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “A vitality potion. It was good for your health.”
I stared at him. The purple “black magic” potion had been sweet—just like the purple vitality potion he’d given me two days ago. I was a dumbass.
Resting my head on Aaron’s shoulder, I closed my eyes. “I don’t ever want to see your stupid face again.”
“You’ll have to see it a few more times, but I’ll be gone for good once you’re fae-free.”
That got my eyes open. “What do you mean?”
He folded his arms. “Your mage pals will make my life hell. You really think I’d hang around?”
Fair point, but I wasn’t bound by an imaginary oath anymore, so maybe I could do something about my mage pals making his life hell.
I turned to Aaron. “I met his alleged victims. He doesn’t abduct teens. Kids who want a new life find him, and he takes them to a safe place, trains them up in their magic, and sends them off into the world with new identities. They all adore him.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I mean, he’s a huge dickhead and he’s killed some people, but they all deserved it. I think.”
Zak made a disgusted sound. “This, Tori, is why I made you swear that oath.”
I shot him a glare, then asked Aaron, “Can you please keep Zak’s secrets? He’s protecting vulnerable kids. He destroys most of the black magic he buys. He’s a shitty, immoral rogue, but he terrifies even worse rogues.”
Aaron’s gaze darted between us, then he slumped. “This is bullshit. Fine.”
“Tori,” Zak said darkly. “I don’t care what he promises. I’m not taking any chances. Besides that, Varvara has most of her minions hunting me. I have no choice but to drop off their radar.”
“If you go into hiding,” Kai remarked thoughtfully, “they’ll know you’re vulnerable. With a reputation like yours, why back down?”
Zak’s expression went even colder. “I’ll worry about my own skin.”
Shrugging, Kai pushed off the porch railing. “I’m going to check on Ezra.”
He disappeared into the house, and the rest of us waited in silence.
Kai returned a moment later. “He’s upstairs. You can come back in.”
I followed Aaron and Zak inside and collapsed onto the sofa. Fatigue rolled through me in waves, and my giddy spurt of energy had crumbled into listless depression. Zak had to go into hiding, and it was probably my fault. Ezra was alone upstairs in who knew what state, and that was probably my fault too. Could I screw things up any worse?
Zak’s scorching green eyes appeared in front of me. He’d cleaned the blood off his face and a salve gleamed on his cut lip. How long had I been sitting here feeling sorry for myself?
“Potion time, Tori.”
I took the vial he offered and tossed it back without looking at it. He handed me the purple vitality potion next, and as sugary sweetness flooded my tongue, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognized the taste.
Kai joined us with a heavy leather tome under his arm, and Zak followed him into the dining room. I slouched on the sofa, listening to the creak of leather, the rustle of pages, and the low murmur of their voices.
The cushions dipped as Aaron sat beside me. Without thinking, I skooched over and curled up against his warm side, my head pillowed on his chest.
“So, you don’t hate me,” he murmured, stroking my hair. “I was starting to wonder if I’d upset you.”
Guilt slashed me. “No, it’s nothing like that.”
“Mm.” His hand moved to my shoulder, lightly massaging tense muscles. “There’s something I really need to know.”
I stiffened anxiously. “What?”
“Now that you can talk about it, how did you lose your shoes?”
A laugh burst from me, and I quickly stifled it. The mystery of how I’d ended up at the guild barefoot following my imprisonment with the evil Ghost had been bugging Aaron for weeks.
I snuggled up to him again. “They were ruined by dragon blood. Did you know dragon blood is poisonous?”
“Had no idea. What’s the whole story? I’ve been dying to know.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it, thinking carefully. Zak’s reputation was part of what protected him. Aaron knew Zak didn’t kidnap kids, and that was enough. He didn’t need to know all the private things I’d learned about the secretive druid. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Aaron’s word, just that … it felt too personal to reveal.
“I lived with the
other teens for two weeks,” I said simply. “When Varvara took Nadine, I revealed why I was there. He made me swear the fake oath, and a dragon flew me home.”
“A dragon?”
“Echo. That’s how I know him.” I closed my eyes, enjoying the slow press of his strong fingers into the tight muscles of my shoulder. “I called Zak on Saturday after you dropped me off. Sorry I had to lie about everything.”
“You didn’t have a choice.” His hand caressed my neck and tangled in my hair. “You’ve been under a lot of stress these last few days.”
I resisted the urge to raise my head and look at the broken doorframe. At the moment, my stress levels didn’t concern me all that much.
“Will Ezra be okay?” I whispered.
“He just needs time to cool off.” Aaron sighed regretfully. “That situation was pushing all the wrong buttons for him. I should’ve sent him outside, but I was afraid we’d need him against the Ghost.”
“Zak.”
“Huh?”
“He hates being called the Ghost.” When Aaron smirked, I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t call him that just to be mean. Cut the guy a little slack.”
“Why? Why does he deserve slack?”
“Because he dropped everything to help me when he’s already up to his neck in problems of his own.”
The troublemaker gleam faded from Aaron’s gaze, replaced by a thoughtful crease between his brows.
Kai and Zak walked out of the dining room, the druid carrying the grimoire under one arm. He sat on the sofa beside me, all casual like this was his home, and flipped the book open to a page filled with circular diagrams, symbols, and miniscule handwritten text.
“This is the ritual they used,” he said without preamble, then turned several pages. “And this is a variation for transferring a fae link, which explains why Red Rum wants you. The ritual for transferring the link is significantly simpler than enslaving a fae, and I think I can alter it to dissolve the link instead. However, it will still require a fae-created relic to work.”
“So”—I sat up to get a better look at the grimoire—“we need to summon the Rat.”
“The what?” Aaron asked.
“The Rat. He’s the fae Zak asked that Mancini guy about. Llyrle—the fae lord told us about him, said he sells relics to humans and that other fae hate him.” I wrinkled my nose and asked Zak, “Can you buy the relic we need from him?”
“I’m sure I have something in my collection that will interest him. I know all the blood summoning arrays, and I can use one to call him from a distance.” Closing the book, Zak looked from Aaron to Kai. “Calling an unknown darkfae is risky. I’d have the advantage on my own land, where the local fae support me, but if I summon the Rat elsewhere, I’ll need you three to back me up.”
“If we help, where would you want to do it?” Kai asked.
“Stanley Park. It’s the fae lord’s domain. We can get the relic from the Rat, then immediately begin the ritual to separate Tori from the link.”
“Let’s do that,” Kai decided. “Will you need sorcerers for the ritual? Red Rum used four, plus their witch.”
“I am a sorcerer. I don’t need help.”
“You’re an alchemist and a druid,” I told him grumpily. “You don’t get to be a sorcerer too.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re hogging all the mythic points for yourself. Look at me! I’ve got no magic at all.” I’d meant to sound flippant, but judging by the way Aaron and Kai glanced away, it had come out painfully bitter instead.
Zak made an annoyed rasp in his throat. Not a sympathetic guy, that one.
“You have your Queen of Spades,” he said. “And the spells you stole from me.”
“Stole? You all but gave them to me.” I folded my arms. “Besides, having a few artifacts doesn’t make me a mythic.”
“Doesn’t it? Magic is a tool. Whether you inherit it, learn it, bargain for it, steal it—it’s all the same.”
I scrunched my face. “Mythics have magic.”
He shook his head, exasperated as though I’d missed his point, and pushed off the sofa. “I need to—”
“Wait.” I yanked him back down. “I want to show you something first.”
“What?”
“Uh.” Glancing around, I spotted my purse on the coffee table, where it’d been sitting since Kai and I left for the gallery. I slid it closer and dipped my hand in. My fingers found a smooth, warm sphere. Yep, it was back.
I lifted the fae orb out and offered it to him. He passed the grimoire to Kai, then took the orb in both hands and gently caressed its ridged shape. His expression softened, eyes losing focus, and he lifted it to his face, crooning softly. The closest I’d ever seen him looking this open and tender-hearted was when he’d been working with his horses.
The orb twitched, then uncoiled in one smooth motion. Suddenly, Zak’s arms were full of fae, and the silvery blue creature rubbed its cheek ecstatically against his face, its vibrant pink antennae bobbing. Its excessively long tail was piled in his lap, and its small wings flared open and closed.
Zak stroked its smooth neck, then looked at me with glazed eyes. “She’s awake.”
“I noticed,” I said dryly, boggled by the sight of the creature squirming all over him like he’d bathed in catnip. I’d heard fae were drawn to druids—like vultures to a corpse, as Kaveri had so poetically phrased it—but this was my first time seeing it. “She’s been following me.”
“Hmm.” He focused on the creature again. “The fae lord’s power woke her, but she remembers your voice and scent from before that. She’s quite fond of you.”
“You can speak to her?”
“Of course.” He tilted his head. “She doesn’t have a good grasp of human language, though, and can’t understand you very well.”
“What is she? What’s her name?”
“She’s a sylph—an air sprite. Her name … hmm, not very pronounceable. It means stars … starry night … starlight? Something like that.” He rose to his feet, and the fae slid around his shoulders. He listened for a moment. “She wants to stay with you.”
“Me?”
“She likes you.”
Uncoiling from around him, the fae weightlessly drifted down to pool in my lap, her huge pink eyes staring up at me.
“Uh.” I hesitantly touched her smooth neck. “I was okay babysitting a dormant orb thing, but I don’t know how to take care of a sylph.”
“You don’t need to take care of her. She just wants a friend.” He stretched, cracking his neck. “Now can I go? I have a lot of work to do.”
“Zak, why did you give her to me?”
He shrugged. “I suspected she needed somewhere safe and quiet to recover for a few months—somewhere away from me. You were a convenient solution.”
“Convenient,” I repeated in a mutter. Curled in my lap, the sylph blinked at me.
“What’s with that tone?” His eyebrows arched. “Are you disappointed it wasn’t a fated union?”
I snorted dismissively.
Zak turned to Kai. “Tomorrow night in Stanley Park, nine o’clock sharp.”
“We’ll be there.” Kai headed for the entryway. “I’ll help get my bike out of your truck.”
They disappeared through the door and it clunked shut. I looked down at the odd creature in my lap, a weird blend of gecko, insect, and something wholly unrecognizable. She sniffed curiously at my shirt, then tucked her head under her chest. Her entire body curled up and shrank into a tight ball again.
Zak giving me the fae had been an act of convenience, nothing more. That the sylph had awakened while I was caring for her was a coincidence, nothing more.
Everything had been a coincidence.
All this time I’d been searching for an explanation—a reason behind my involvement in this world—but it had been dumb luck from the start. Dumb luck I’d found that printout with the guild job listings. Dumb luck I’d been stubborn enough to walk through the repelling war
d on the Crow and Hammer door. And dumb luck that they’d needed a bartender so badly they’d hired a human.
Human was all I’d ever been. There wasn’t a drop of magical blood in my body. I had no mysterious heritage, no secret destiny, no hidden power. I was just a human who’d bulldozed her way into this world through sheer force of will.
I raised my eyes from the fae orb to Aaron, who stood at the window, watching Kai and Zak outside. I’d gotten this far with no magic of my own. I wasn’t a mythic, but maybe I didn’t have to be. All I needed to do was to hang on to this life with every stubborn bone in my body.
Chapter Nineteen
The most annoying sound in the world: plastic taped over a broken car window while the car is in motion. Flapping and snapping and rippling and just arg. I clamped my hands over my ears, jaw clenched.
So maybe I was irritable tonight. Just a little.
In the backseat of Aaron’s car, Kai and Ezra were silent, probably because they couldn’t think over the sound of the plastic. Was it supposed to be this noisy? Maybe Aaron had done a crappy tape job.
Signaling, Aaron pulled the car off the Stanley Park Causeway and onto the narrow road that led to the parking lot. When the car rolled out of the trees, we saw the lot wasn’t as abandoned as last time. Unfamiliar cars were scattered around, and a man and woman in running gear were guzzling water from plastic bottles.
Aaron drove to the far end of the lot and pulled in beside a huge blue truck. Its driver was leaning against the tailgate, glowering. Looked like I wasn’t the only irritable one.
We climbed out, and as Aaron opened his trunk, I strode toward the truck.
“You’re late,” Zak barked.
“Five minutes. Quit whining.” I put my hands on my hips. “Are you ready with … everything?”
“Of course. Are you?”
“The guys need to gear up.”
Across the parking lot, Mr. and Mrs. SuperFit had settled in their car. The engine rumbled, then the vehicle backed out. Once its taillights had disappeared, Aaron pulled his sword and baldric out of the trunk.
He, Kai, and Ezra had gone one step further than merely bringing weapons. They wore leather pants, similar to armored motorcycle gear, and heavy boots. Aaron’s sleeveless shirt was made from a shiny, fire-resistant fabric, while Kai wore a long-sleeved black shirt in the same style as his pants. Ezra’s t-shirt conformed to his torso, the material padded with something I assumed was armor. His long fingerless gloves that ran up to his biceps were definitely armored, the silver plates on the knuckles and elbows gleaming.
Two Witches and a Whiskey (The Guild Codex: Spellbound Book 3) Page 18
