Magic on the Hunt
Author: Devon Monk
Date: 2011-02-23 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Urban Fantasy; Fantasy; Magic; Paranormal; Romance; Fiction; Paranormal Romance; Adult; Science Fiction Fantasy
Description: In the secret lockup of the Authority, the council that decides what can and can't be done with magic, an undead magic user has possessed one of the prisoners. He wants his freedom-and then some. Now Allie Beckstrom and her lover, Zayvion, are the first line of defense against the chaos he's about to unleash on the city of Portland...
Publisher: ROC

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Teaser chapter

Praise for the Novels of Devon Monk

Magic on the Storm

“The latest Allie Beckstrom urban fantasy is a terrific entry. . . . This is a strong tale.”

—Genre Go Round Reviews

“First-rate urban fantasy entertainment.”

—Lurv a la Mode

Magic in the Shadows

“Snappy dialogue, a brisk pace, and plenty of magic keep the pages turning to the end. Allie’s relationship with Zayvion, her friend Nola, and the other Hounds adds credible depth to this gritty, original urban fantasy that packs a punch.”

—Monsters and Critics

“This is a wonderful read full of different types of magic, fascinating characters, an intriguing plot. . . . Devon Monk is an excellent storyteller. . . . This book will keep everyone turning the pages to see what happens next and salivating for more.”

—Fresh Fiction

“Monk sweeps readers up in the drama and dangers of the heroine’s life as it steadily changes and grows. Magic in the Shadows is an intriguing read with fascinating characters and new magical elements introduced to the mix.”

—Darque Reviews

“The writing moves at a fast pace with plenty of exciting action. . . . This series just gets better and better with each new book.”

—Night Owl Reviews

“Allie is developing into a character who is more able to withstand the trouble that lies ahead. I recommend the Allison Beckstrom series to urban fantasy fans who want something fresh and original with a snarky sense of humor.”

—Fantasy Literature

“If Magic in the Shadows is any indication, Devon Monk should become one of urban fantasy’s biggest names.”

—The Internet Review of Science Fiction

Magic in the Blood

“Tight, fast, and vividly drawn, Monk’s second Allison Beckstrom novel features fresh interpretations of the paranormal, strong characters dealing with their share of faults and flaws, and ghoulish plot twists. Fans of Patricia Briggs or Jim Butcher will want to check out this inventive new voice.”

—Monsters and Critics

“[A] highly creative series about magic users in a world much like our own, filled with greed and avarice. I love the character of Allie, and she is just getting better and stronger as the series continues. . . . If you love action, magic, intrigue, good-versus-evil battles, and pure entertainment, you will not want to miss this series.”

—Manic Readers

“One heck of a ride through a magical, dangerous Portland . . . imaginative, gritty, sometimes darkly humorous. . . . An un-put-downable book, Magic in the Blood is one fantastic read.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“This series uses a system of rules for magic that is original and seems very realistic. . . . The structure of the story pulled me in right away, and kept me reading. There’s action, adventure, fantasy, and even some romance.”

—CA Reviews

“Ms. Monk weaves a unique tale of dark magic that will keep readers at the edge of their seat[s]. Magic in the Blood is so thoroughly described that the creepy bits will have you thinking of magic and ghosts long after you’ve finished the story. Fast moving and gripping, it will leave you wanting more.”

—Darque Reviews

“This second installment in the exciting new Allie Beckstrom series is just as carefully woven as the first. . . . It’s gonna be a tough wait for the third installment!”

—RhiReading

Magic to the Bone

“Brilliantly and tightly written . . . will surprise, amuse, amaze, and absorb readers.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Mystery, romance, and magic cobbled together in what amounts to a solid page-turner.”

—SFFWorld

“Loved it. Fiendishly original and a stay-up-all-night read. We’re going to be hearing a lot more of Devon Monk.”

—Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of River Marked

“Highly original and compulsively readable. Don’t pick this one up before going to bed unless you want to be up all night!”

—Jenna Black, author of Glimmerglass

“Gritty setting, compelling, fully-realized characters, and a frightening system of magic-with-a-price that left me awed. Devon Monk’s writing is addictive, and the only cure is more, more, more!”

—Rachel Vincent, New York Times bestselling author of Alpha

“An exciting new addition to the urban fantasy genre. It’s got a truly fresh take on magic and Allie Beckstrom is one kick-ass protagonist!”

—Jeanne C. Stein, national bestselling author of Chosen

“The prose is gritty and urban, the characters mysterious and marvelous, and Monk creates a fantastic and original magic system that intrigues and excites. A promising beginning to a new series. I’m looking forward to more!”

—Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Thresholds

“Monk’s reimagined Portland is at once recognizable and exotic, suffused with her special take on magic, and her characters are vividly rendered. The plot pulled me in for a very enjoyable ride!”

—Lynn Flewelling, author of The White Road

Books by Devon Monk

The Allie Beckstrom Series
Magic to the Bone
Magic in the Blood
Magic in the Shadows
Magic on the Storm
Magic at the Gate
Magic on the Hunt

ROC

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, April 2011

Copyright © Devon Monk, 2011

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

eISBN : 978-1-101-51361-3

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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For my family

Acknowledgments

Without the many people who have contributed time and energy along the way, this book would not have come to fruition. I’d like to give a much-deserved thank you to my agent, Miriam Kriss, and my editor, Anne Sowards, two consummate professionals and all-around awesome people who make my job easy.

My love and endless gratitude go out to my fantastic first readers and brainstormers, Dean Woods and Dejsha Knight, whose loving support and brilliant insights not only make the story stronger, but also make me a better writer. Thank you also to my family, one and all, who have been there for me every step of the way offering unfailing encouragement and sharing in the joy. To my husband, Russ, and sons, Kameron and Konner, if I haven’t said it lately, thank you for believing in me. You are the very best part of my life. I love you.

Last, but certainly not least, thank you, dear readers, for letting me share this story, these people, and this world with you.

Chapter One

Zayvion stretched out in my bed wearing nothing but his boxers under the covers. He lay on his side, elbow propped under his head, wide, bare shoulders blocking most of the view of my door and apartment beyond. I faced him, wearing boy shorts and a tank top, the covers tucked under my free arm.

We were not touching. We were not talking. We were at war.

“Two out of three?” Never go into battle without laying basic ground rules.

“Fair,” he said.

Zay threw rock; I threw scissors. Damn.

“One,” Zay said.

I threw paper; Zay threw rock.

“Mine.” I looked into his eyes, brown and filled with that gold fire that came from using magic. And let me tell you, he’d been using it very nicely over the past three days, since we’d sealed the undead magic users in Maeve’s inn. Three days we’d spent almost entirely in bed.

We both knew our rest would be short-lived. Victor had called last night and asked me to come down so he could talk to my dead dad, who was possessing my mind. Wanted to know what my dad knew about the solid Veiled—dead magic users who used the disks my dad invented to reclaim bodies.

Yesterday, the higher members of the Authority—Victor, Maeve, Hayden, and a few others—had broken the magical lock on the inn my dad had left there. They transported the solid Veiled to the secret prison the Authority uses to deal with magic users who break the law.

Leander, who had followed me into this world through death’s gate, had not been among them.

Zay had been angry he hadn’t been asked to help. Shame, the only one of us who they requested go along, didn’t talk much about it afterward. All he’d said was: “Freaks are still alive-ish. We have no idea how to remove the disks. Victor will probably want to ask your da about that, and what he knows about Leander. But that place . . . that prison?” He’d shaken his head. “Nothing can break out of those walls.”

I was actually glad I hadn’t been a part of that. Those people had died once. As far as I was concerned, they had no right to be living again—especially when they were bent on killing me and my friends.

I didn’t want Victor or anyone else digging in my head to talk to my dad about undead magic users, but there were still disks out there that could be used to create more solid Veiled. And the longer we waited to find those disks and whoever was behind the undead using them, the better the chance we’d have more solid Veiled to deal with.

“Still with me?” Zay asked.

“Sorry. Tiebreaker?”

“Winning hand.” He gave me a quick smile, then schooled his face into that impenetrable Zen mask.

“Think that’s going to throw me?”

“What?”

“That Zen thing.”

“What Zen thing?”

“You know what I’m talking about. It won’t work. How many times do I have to tell you that you are the easiest man in the world to read, Mr. Zayvion Jones?”

One eyebrow quirked. “Bring it.”

It’s one of the most underrated survival skills in history—winning at rock, paper, scissors. Zay had thrown rock twice in a row. Would he stick with his game and throw it again? Or would he expect me to think he would and instead throw scissors to cut my paper?

I studied his eyes, his lips, his smile. Nothing.

We fist pumped one, two, three.

I threw paper.

Zayvion Jones threw rock.

“Aha!” I crowed. “I win. I’d like my eggs scrambled, toast buttered, and coffee hot.”

“You get a bowl of stale cereal.”

“Oh, no. Hot breakfast was the deal.”

“True.” He pushed the covers down a little, kicking his feet free. “What do you think about omelets?”

“I’m pro-omelet if there’s cheese involved. If not, then I’m totally on scrambled’s side.”

“Maybe I’ll make a nice, slow quiche.” He leaned over me, forcing me to roll onto my back.

I made a face. “I don’t like quiche.”

“I can make you like quiche.”

He kissed me, soft, easy. Moved down to my neck and the edge of my breast and kissed me there, his teeth catching my nipple.

“No, you can’t,” I gasped. Which was a lie. When he kissed me like that, I was pretty sure he could make me like anything.

“Tell me you want quiche.”

“I want coffee.”

“And quiche?”

“Scrambled,” I breathed.

He grinned. “Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn.” His lips pressed against mine, silencing my objections and sending a pulse of heat coiling down my spine. I squirmed to get my hands free, then wrapped my arms around his wide back, ready for more than just a kiss. His muscles bunched under my palms as I dragged fingers over his skin, silently thankful for how quickly he was recovering from the coma. I slipped my fingers up into the soft, short curls at the back of his head and shifted so our bodies fit together as one.

His mouth remained on me, soft, easy, slow. Too slow.

I wanted out of my clothes. Wanted him out of his. I caught at the waistband of his boxers and drew them down just enough that I could stroke the edge of his hip bones. Finally his tongue dragged delicious warmth across my lips. I opened my mouth and his tongue dipped deeper. A shock of need rolled beneath my skin, and I caught my breath.

Oh, baby. If he kept kissing me like that, I’d eat all the quiche he wanted to cook.

Then he pulled away, dragging all of the covers with him.

“Wait—where are you going?”

“Those omelets aren’t going to cook themselves. Deal was hot breakfast.” He mercilessly shucked the covers down to the foot of the bed and grinned.

Cold air sent goose bumps over my bare legs and arms. “Oh, you are such a sore loser. Winner gets to stay in bed—warm.” I sat up and crawled down for the covers, pulling them back over my shoulders. It was ten o’clock in the morning. I wasn’t planning to get out of bed until noon if at all possible.

“Sore loser? You do know I let you win?”

“You did not.”

“Throwing rock three times in a row? Yes, I did. You make your eggs too runny.”

“I cannot believe you are critiquing my kitchen skills in my own home.”

“Not your skills. Just your eggs.” He stood. “Since you’re awake, how about winner sets the table?”

“Winner doesn’t want a formal breakfast.”

He strode out of the room wearing nothing but his boxers and the fine skin he’d been born with, though he grabbed a T-shirt from the dresser top.

“Not feeding it to you in bed,” he called back. “Again.”

I smiled and snuggled deeper into the blankets. “Didn’t want you to.” Okay, that was a lie. Even though breakfast in bed would be a really nice way to begin the day, it was probably time to start behaving like regular people instead of honeymooners.

I took a minute to stretch out and hog the bed all to myself. Zay’s half was still warm and smelled of his cologne. I closed my eyes and savored the uncommon sensation of not hurting, not worrying, and not running for my life.

Things were good in my life. Right here, right this minute. It felt good to be happy. And I wanted it to last forever.

The sizzle of bacon hitting the pan made me smile, and then the salt and maple aromas were joined by the rich, almost chocolate scent of fresh-brewed coffee.

I knew I should get out of bed. If not to set the table, maybe to harass Zay while he cooked. But the bed felt too good to leave behind. Just five minutes more of blankets and bliss.

I woke to the sound of my front door opening.

We weren’t expecting anyone. Maybe Shame had decided to drop in. I heard voices. Two. Zay and a man I couldn’t quite place. My landlord?

I got out of bed and put my robe on over my shorts and tank. I strolled into the living room. Zay stood in the middle of the room, his back toward me, hands up and out to the side.

It was not my landlord who had walked into my apartment.

It was Dane Lanister, Sedra’s bodyguard. He was not a handsome man, his eyes too close together in his long, squared-off face, his lips too thin, but he had that thief or professional hit man way of fading into the crowd. His clothes were indistinct—slacks and a gray jacket—and even though he was a member of the Authority, he’d been absent since before we fought the Veiled. I’d last seen him during the wild-magic storm when Jingo Jingo, my ex-Death magic teacher and current Authority betrayer, had kidnapped Sedra.

The gun in his hand was new too.

He lifted the gun and aimed it at both of us.

“Don’t move, don’t cast magic, and don’t make a sound, or I will kill you both.”

Magic is fast. Bullets are faster. And neither Zay nor I was in any shape to dodge bullets.

I held very still, the thump of my own heartbeat in my ears so loud, I almost couldn’t hear Dane over the noise of it. How had he gotten in? I realized it wouldn’t have been hard. Last I knew, last Zay knew, Dane was a good guy. One of the people in the Authority who was trying to make sure magic was safe for everyone. There was no reason to suspect he would want to point a gun at us.

“We are going to do this quietly,” he said. “Very quietly.”

He stepped into the room, and two other men, one who looked like he wrestled in the heavyweight division and another, shorter man who looked like he could take him, followed behind. I didn’t know them, or at least I didn’t think I did. They shut the door, and it made no sound. Mute spells. They were using magic to make sure no one above or below us heard what was happening.

“I have business with you, Allison,” Dane said. “Something I should have finished months ago. Don’t,” he said to Zay, who had opened his mouth and inhaled, “or I will shoot her between the eyes this time.”

This time? My stomach twisted, and I wanted to vomit. I didn’t know what other time he was talking about, but I had two bullet scars I didn’t remember receiving. And even though I had no memory of him shooting me, my body—my adrenaline—made it clear he was responsible for at least one of my scars.

Zay did not move, did not twitch a muscle, did not cast magic, did not say a thing.

I tried to pick up the pieces of my brain, to think of what I could do to stop this so we didn’t wind up dead. What weapons did I have? Magic. But I’d have to move to use it, and then I’d be dead.

I knew Zayvion was going over the possibilities too. I wasn’t touching him, so I had no idea what he was thinking. We couldn’t read each other’s minds enough for this to be a coordinated effort.

The two men strode across the room, smiling and silent, straight toward Zayvion. Without breaking stride, they both flicked their fingers, releasing an Illusion they’d been holding. I could hear more people behind us, maybe two—no, three.

They’d used Illusion to give them time to spread out into the room. Illusion so well cast, I couldn’t smell the magic they were using for it. There could be an army of people in the room right now, with guns, knives, and swords at our backs.

My skin crawled. It was everything I could do not to turn and look, but Dane’s gun was unwavering. Soft footsteps scuffled across the carpet. I counted up to six intruders in the room. Two in front closing in fast on Zayvion, maybe three behind doing the same, and Dane, still just on this side of the closed door, the barrel of his gun steady, his finger on the trigger.

They hit Zayvion from behind. The Mute spell made sure I didn’t hear what they hit him with. It might have been magic. It might have been a crowbar. He grunted and crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

“Eyes on me, Beckstrom.”

I did as he said, trying to see with my peripheral vision what they were doing to Zayvion. No luck.

“What do you want?” I asked.

I heard the ratchet of handcuffs opening, and then Zay was dragged to the far corner of my living room, toward the radiator.

I chanced a look over my shoulder.

“Your attention, Allison,” Dane said calmly, far too calmly, “or I will shoot you. You don’t have to be standing for what I want out of you.”

Zay was bleeding, out cold. Five men, not four, were handcuffing, gagging, and blindfolding him. They all had guns too. I heard the meaty thump of a boot slamming into muscle. Probably ribs. I hoped it was just ribs.

I turned back to Dane. Furious. I didn’t know how, but I was going to take him down.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you even know what will happen to you when the Authority finds out about this?” Buying time, really. I didn’t care what he thought was going to happen. I needed a minute to figure out what I could do to him and his five friends without hurting Zay. In theory, I could call on enough magic to burn this place to the ground. I had enough magic at my fingertips, even without the small magic I’d sacrificed in death, to do it. But I’d have to pay just as big a price as the spell I cast, and then I’d be nothing but ashes and burnt bones.

I didn’t have any weapons—which scared the hell out of me, and that, in turn, only made me angrier.

I was good at angry.

He motioned with the gun. “Now that Zayvion is out of the way, you have two choices. Do what I tell you to do, or bleed.”

If I lifted my hand to cast magic, I’d be on the ground bleeding. And I did not want to fall to the floor with six angry, armed men in the room.

“All right,” I said. “What do you want?”

Dad? I thought. I knew he was still there, still in my mind. But he had been silent for three days. Either he was too weak to help, or he was hiding from Dane. I didn’t think Dane knew my dad was in my head.

No, he had to know. I’d been trying to convince everyone in the Authority for months now that my dad was in my head. Great.

“You are a problem,” Dane said. “And the easiest way to get rid of a problem is to kill it. Simple, efficient, gone. A gun to the back of the head, a knife through the spine, magic to boil your blood, crush your skull, stop your heart. The kind of death we gave your father, Greyson and I. The kind of death I will give you. But first, I want to know where Daniel is keeping Sedra.”

Holy crap. I knew Greyson was a part of my dad’s murder, along with James Hoskil, but I did not know who else had been involved—had no idea Dane had been involved.

“My dad’s dead,” I said, anger steadying my voice. “He’s not keeping Sedra anywhere. Jingo Jingo has her.”

“A technicality. Jingo is working for your father. Carrying out what I admit is a very comprehensive plan to hold Sedra hostage and use her as sacrifice to bring Mikhail back into power. I don’t know what Daniel intends to get out of that. And I don’t care. Tell me where she is.”

“I don’t know. Dad never told me his plans.”

“Oh, he told you. You may not remember it.” He paced toward me. “Daniel was paranoid about how much information any one person should be allowed to access. But not you. He told everything to you. You just don’t remember.”

He stopped. Not close enough for me to make a grab for his gun, but close enough that I could smell the old-vitamin stink of him. One sniff and a wash of fear rolled through me. I remembered that smell. That smell meant pain. Even though I was furious, a whimper filled my throat.

“The information, your father’s information, is in your head,” he said with a tight smile. “All I have to do is pull it out of you.”

The men behind me were moving. I couldn’t hear them, but I felt their footsteps vibrating beneath my bare feet, coming closer.

“Your father Closed you many times. Used you. He’s been taking your memories away since the accident when you were five years old.”

A high ringing started in my ears; my heartbeat thrummed behind it. I was breathing too fast. I didn’t know if I was angry, panicked, or about to be sick. I didn’t remember an accident. I didn’t remember my dad Closing me.

That didn’t mean those things hadn’t happened.

He had to be lying. He had to be trying to knock me off my footing, to break me down so he could get me to tell him where Sedra was.

I didn’t want to believe the bastard, but I knew, somehow I knew, every word was the truth.

His eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t know, did you?” He shook his head. “He never even trusted you with that much. Isn’t that sad? And now he’s in there, isn’t he? Filling up the holes in you he’s been making for himself all these years. Taking up the room he’s carved out in you.”

“I told you I don’t know where Sedra is,” I said. “We’re all looking for her. If you’d been here the past few weeks, you’d know that. Where have you been? Why haven’t you been helping us look for her?”

“I know who my allies are,” he snapped. He lifted the gun slightly, aiming at my head. Then, in a voice clipped with anger: “Tell your father I want to talk to him.”

“He doesn’t listen to me.” Still buying time. Did his men have a gun to Zay’s head? If I tried magic, would they just shoot us both? It might be worth a bullet to take Dane and his men down. But no matter how good the doctors in the Authority were, a bullet to the brain was a bad day that couldn’t be undone.

Dane knew I carried magic inside me. Dane knew I could use it. Dane might even know that I’d given away my small magic in death in trade for Zayvion’s soul.

What Dane did not know was what I’d gotten out of that deal. I had a mark of death on my hand. I carried a piece of death in my palm. That piece of death was a mark Pike said the dead were drawn to like a beacon.

Maybe it was time I used the dead to my advantage.

“I never admired your father, Allison,” Dane said. “But I appreciated his approach to problem solving. He and I are in agreement there. Use, discard, destroy. Then there are no errors, no mistakes, no tracks to cover. Once he realizes what I’m willing to do to you, to get to him, he’ll answer me.”

“He doesn’t care,” I said. “He’s never cared if I was hurt.”

He shook his head again. Smiled. “Ask him if he had a plan in place for this. For me killing you today.” He lowered the gun, level with my chest.

I held my breath, waiting for the explosion. Sweat trickled down my spine and between my breasts. Even though I was shaking cold, my mind finally went hard, crystal clear.

I was not getting out of this alive.

Fine. Then neither was he.

“Daniel. Where. Is. Sedra?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

He flicked the gun to my left. The crack of an explosion was swallowed by the Mute spell.

I screamed—my voice whisked away by the Mute spell his men were holding—and stumbled backward, catching at my arm. Ice and pain and heat coursed up my left arm, puncturing my heart with metal hooks. My arm was on fire. Blood gushed and ran hot down my skin, dripped to the floor. He’d shot me. Not my shoulder, but the outside of my biceps. I wanted to scream again, instead used my breath to inhale.

“That is to let you know I am serious about this, Daniel. Next will be her stomach. Then I’ll put a bullet through her brain and be rid of you both. If you want your daughter to survive, tell me. Where. Is. Sedra?”

Dad shifted in my mind. I pushed against him. If he got control and started swapping secrets with Dane, I’d be used, discarded, dead.

The pain throbbed with my heartbeat. My bathrobe sleeve was soggy with blood.

Allison. Dad sounded angry. Yeah, well, join the club. Let me unlock the mark in your hand.

I didn’t want an unlocking. I wanted a gun.

“Still aren’t sure?” Dane said. “Let us jog your memory.”

One of his buddies slammed a fist into my left kidney. Pain gushed across my nerves, my spine, stabbing up into my brain. I yelled, and my knees hit the floor, sending out another wave of pain.

“Enough!” Dad and I said at the same time.

I was in too much pain to know which of us was speaking. My anger and his anger formed a hot, rolling power gathering inside me. My hatred and his hatred were the same.

For perhaps the first time in my life, my dad and I were on the exact same page.

Options washed through my mind. I don’t know if I sorted them or if he did. It was instant, clear, easy.

Death magic. He wouldn’t know I had a mark, a seal, a seed of Death magic planted in my left palm.

“I’ll tell you where Sedra is,” we said.

Dane didn’t move, didn’t offer me a hand up. Smart.

I pushed myself up with my right hand, my left hanging at my side. I wavered a little on my feet, shock and pain sucking at my bones—could be loss of blood too, come to think of it, but still, I stood. I glanced at Zay. Dane’s men did not have their guns drawn.

How very stupid of them.

Can you move your left hand? Dad asked.

No.

This will hurt. It almost sounded like an apology.

I don’t give a damn.

“Jingo has her,” we said. “He hasn’t contacted me. If I hadn’t been delayed fighting the Veiled, I would have seen to him, and Sedra, by now.”

“I don’t believe you.” Dane aimed the gun at my stomach.

Dad and I said one word that made my lips sting. He, I, we, hauled magic up through the network lines around the apartment. So much, so fast, the lights dimmed.

The world became very, very slow.

Black flame covered my left hand, cool, slick, soft as silk. I threw the fire at him—holy hells, that hurt—while we drew another spell with my right hand. It was a type of Hold or Freeze, something I’d never used before, but Dad’s steel-hard confidence guided my fingers through the glyph.

We spoke another word and unleashed the spell. It wrapped around the other men in the room. I didn’t take the time to look at them but knew, as my father knew, that the men dropped unconscious to the floor, their air cut off by the spell.

Dane was our problem. Dane was our target. Dane was going to die. That made both my father and me very, very pleased.

His eyes were wide. He squeezed the trigger. I was already moving.

The bullet would hit me in the chest. I threw myself to the right, no time to cast another spell as I tucked. The bullet hit my left hip, and pain poured screaming hot through me.

Dad, however, kept his focus clear. He was already casting another spell.

Dane didn’t have a chance to get off the next shot.

The Shield he’d been tracing shattered under Dad’s Impact spell. Lightning crackled across the ceiling, burned paint and plaster, arced, and struck him in the chest.

Dane yelled. The Mute spell was gone. I figured they heard that yell three blocks down.

Son of a bitch, Dad said. He has a disk—

Light exploded. Dane and his men were gone.

Black ashes, as glossy as raven feathers, fell in a circle around me, making a mess of my carpet.

Everything snapped back to real time. I dropped my hands, the spells gone, broken. My heartbeat still hammered as I gasped for air. I hurt from head to toe and at the same time was numb and trembling. My pulse thudded hard, heavy, slow beats, while the ringing in my ears seemed to be coming from a thousand miles away.

I turned toward Zay and shuffled across the room. I wasn’t thinking very straight. I sat next to him, hissing at the pain in my hip, and stared at the handcuffs, wondering how I was going to get those off him.

I stood, which hurt, and looked for something to help.

Cell phone, Dad said.

I didn’t know how that would help with the handcuffs, but right now any idea was better than wandering around like a zombie. What was wrong with me?

My cell was by my computer, in the other corner of the room. I walked until I got there, picked up the phone, and stared at it.

Somehow my fingers hit the speed dial. Somehow my hand put the phone to my ear.

Then there was a voice on the other end. Victor’s voice.

“This is Daniel,” I said. Well, he said. “Allie’s been shot; Zayvion is unconscious. Dane Lanister was behind it. We are at her apartment and could use Dr. Fisher’s assistance.”

Not a pause, not a doubt. “We’ll be right there.”

My thumb turned the phone off, and, with Dad’s help, I sat down by Zayvion again, but mostly on my uninjured hip, and this time holding my good hand over the wound on my arm.

I have you, Dad said. Rest.

And hell, who was I to argue with the man?

I rested. I might have blacked out, but I heard the sounds of traffic outside my window and was acutely aware of Zayvion’s breathing. When my front door opened, I was very much awake.

Victor, who looked like a corporate exec who’d been interrupted in the middle of an important meeting, strode through the doorway. Behind him was Dr. Fisher, wearing her usual casual sweater, slacks, and sensible shoes, her hair in one braid down her back. Shame and Terric were there too, Shame in black from head to toe, Terric wearing a blue Seahawks T-shirt and jeans. They didn’t look happy.

I smiled. “ ’Bout time you got here.”

Victor cast a very nice cleansing spell, something to negate any lingering magic and trip any spell traps; then Dr. Fisher was across the room before I could blink.

“Handcuffs,” she said.

Shame pulled out his key chain, and then he was right next to me, unlocking the cuffs and gently pulling Zay’s hands off the radiator.

“I’m, um, sh-shot,” I stuttered. Great. That sounded tough.

Dr. Fisher smiled. “Leave you alone for a few days and you take on a gunman? Allie, what am I going to do with you?”

She tugged my robe off my shoulder to better see my arm, which hurt and made me whine.

Victor reappeared from down the hallway. Terric handed the doctor a wet towel and Shame a blanket, which he then wrapped around me. I was glad they all seemed to know what they were doing, because everything was a little fuzzy around the edges.

Shame still looked like he’d taken the three-day cruise to hell and back. But his eyes, which had once been green and then so dark they were almost black, seemed a little more normal. They were greenish around his pupils and fanned out into ebony toward the edges.

“I let you out of my sight for one lousy minute and you come back covered in bruises. What happened to us all getting a little rest?”

“Hey, this wasn’t my idea. Zay okay?” I asked. Or at least I think I did.

Shame was holding my right hand while Dr. Fisher did painful things to my left arm, then had me roll even more onto my right hip so she could inspect my left. Everything went away while I dealt with the pain.

In the distance I finally heard Shame say, “He’s not shot. You, on the other hand, are on the way to a new record. This is what, three times you’ve survived a gun pointed at you in one year? Who was it?”

“Dane,” I said, because someone needed to tell them what happened. “And five men.”

“Did you recognize the men?” Victor asked.

“No.”

“We’ll have you look through some photos later. Terric, would you come with me, please?”

Terric hesitated, looking between me and Zay. From the expression on his face, I didn’t think Zay and I were in very good shape.

“I got them,” Shame said.

Terric nodded and followed Victor, who was already out the door.

“This is going to sting a little,” Dr. Fisher said. “But it will help with the pain.”

She gave me a shot that stung like a fifty-foot wasp nailed my arm. Then the pain was gone, and even though I was a little shaky, I felt like myself again.

“Rest for a little bit, okay?” she said. “Shame, why don’t you make her some tea?”

“Do you own tea?”

“Maybe. Check under the coffee.”

I looked over at Zay. Dr. Fisher gave him a shot too and called his name. He woke up, groggy. Then angry. He pushed into a sitting position and hissed, wrapping one arm over his ribs.

“Allie?”

“Right here.”

Those brown eyes were flecked with gold. I didn’t have to touch him to know he was furious.

“No one left to kill,” I said. “Victor and Terric are looking, I think.”

“What happened?”

Well, that was a switch. Usually I was the one who couldn’t remember.

“Dane and five other men came into the house, waved around guns and crowbars and magic and stuff. Wanted to know where Sedra is. Dad didn’t say, but he did help me knock them all out. Except for Dane. He had a disk.”

“Disappeared?” Zay asked.

I nodded. “And now I have to drink tea.”

“Get to drink tea,” Dr. Fisher said, trying to help Zayvion out of his shirt so she could assess the damage.

“Yes. That.”

“Zayvion, if you don’t hold still, I will knock you back out.” Dr. Fisher had a spell caught in her left hand. I didn’t know if it really was something that would lay him low. More likely it was some sort of healing or siphon or Sight spell.

Still, she got her point across. Zay stopped trying to get up on his feet and instead did what he could to get out of his shirt, then leaned against the wall while she looked him over. Someone, probably Terric, had brought a blanket for him too, and Zay tugged it closer over his shoulders.

“Other than your ribs, anything hurt?” The doctor had already gone over his head and eyes and checked the sensation in his feet and fingers. She was quick.

“Just sore.”

“No bullets, which is what I like to see,” she said. “One of you being shot is enough.”

Zay looked over at me. I didn’t think he could get any angrier. I was wrong.

Shame strolled back into the room. “Tea. It’s black, but I didn’t see any herbal in there. Take it down a notch, mate,” he said to Zay. “You’re gonna boil paint off the walls.”

“Where’s Dane?”

“We’re looking.” He handed me the tea. “I added milk and sugar.”

I didn’t like milk or sugar in my tea. But one sip and I highly approved of his choice.

“Okay.” Dr. Fisher finished bandaging Zayvion’s ribs, pulling so tight, he grunted. She stood. “Help me get Zayvion on his feet first. Let’s get you to the couch.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Good. Let’s see it.”

Shame and the doctor helped Zay stand, supporting him without pressing too hard on his ribs. They let go of him, and he walked across the room to the couch and back.

“Tender, but I’ll live.”

I’d have believed him too, if he weren’t sweating so hard. Man was in a world of hurt.

“How bad is it?” I asked the doctor.

She gave me a smile. “Not as good as he wants to let on, but nothing fatal. He’s probably had worse from street fights. Still”—she shifted her focus to Zay again—“I want you to keep those ribs wrapped, and contact me immediately if you cough up blood or see blood in your urine. That goes for you too, Allie.”

I nodded. “Can I get some painkillers for when this shot wears off? I think I used magic without setting a Proxy.”

“Oh, for the love of breakfast, Beckstrom,” Shame said. “Why?”

“I was a little preoccupied trying to stay alive to worry about a headache.” I frowned. Come to think of it, I wasn’t hurting nearly enough. Either the medicine the doctor had given me was amazing, or using magic in tandem with my dad had unexpected side effects. Wouldn’t it be something if he paid the price for once?

“You should be on the Authority’s Proxy pool, Allie,” Dr. Fisher said. Then, to Shame, “Why haven’t we done that?”

He shrugged. “You know how things have been. Crazy. I’ll talk to Mum about it.”

I hated other people Proxying for me. I was plenty strong enough to pay my own price for the magic I used. I didn’t tell them that, though. I didn’t have the energy to argue right now.

“Your turn,” the doctor said. “Let’s get you on your feet.” Zay took a step toward me. Shame cut him off.

Dr. Fisher and Shame knelt and helped me stand. My arm hurt even though it was in a sling, and so did my hip, which was bandaged. My back hurt too. That was from the punch to the kidneys.

I wasn’t going to win any beauty awards, but I was a long way from being down for the count. I walked, my hip not hurting as badly as I expected, and sat on the couch. Lowering myself down hurt more than walking. I groaned a little.

Zay could be the tough guy and lean against the wall in his underwear with his cracked ribs and pretend he wasn’t hurting. I didn’t have pride.

“How do you feel?” Dr. Fisher asked.

I gave her the rundown, much more detailed than Zayvion because I wasn’t ashamed of my wounds. I knew I’d been lucky.

“How long for the sling?” I asked.

“Your arm is just a graze, and the bullet clipped your gluteus maximus. From the bleeding, I thought for sure you’d have a bullet buried in there, but you don’t. You are very, very lucky, Allie.” She paused so I could acknowledge that fact.

“Yay?” I said.

“So your arm will hurt if you move it too much. The hip will hurt most when you bend or sit. Both wounds are incredibly minor for the circumstances. You can take your arm out of the sling if you need to, but if there’s no reason to be using it, I want you to keep it as immobile as possible for at least the next three or four days. As for your hip, leave the bandages on—they’re waterproof, so showers are fine, but no baths—and come see me in a week, okay?”

The door clicked open again, and I’d be lying if I said the sound didn’t make my heart race.

It was Terric. He couldn’t have been gone more than a few minutes. I glanced at my clock. At least an hour had passed since I’d crawled out of bed. I was not tracking time well.

“We haven’t caught trace of him,” Terric said. “Victor’s calling a meeting. He wants all of you there if you can make it.”

“When?” Shame asked.

“Three o’clock. Victor’s place.”

Dr. Fisher made notes on a handheld she’d pulled out of her pocket. “I’ll need to move some appointments around, but I’ll be there.” She dug in her bag and pulled out a couple sample packets of pills. She handed me two packets and the same to Zay. “Take two in two hours, when the shot wears off. I’d like you to get some sleep before I see you at Victor’s.”

“So would I,” I said. But I was so rattled, I didn’t think I’d sleep for a week.

“Good.” She packed up and paused for a moment, studying the oil black ring of ash near the door. She shook her head. “I will be so glad when these disks are taken care of.” She stepped over the ashes and closed the door quietly behind her.

Terric locked it. The ward Zay had set there a few months ago was blown. I could smell the burnt-stone stink of its failure.

“How about we help clean this up?” He pointed at the floor.

“You don’t have to stay,” I said. “I can get it.”

Shame snorted. “Don’t be a ninny. Zay, want some tea? Food? Maybe less nakedness?”

Zay stood away from the wall, took a deep breath, but gave up on that about half a lung into it. He sighed, more of a growl, and gave me a look.

I held up one hand. “I’m sitting here. Drinking my tea.”

“Don’t let anyone in.” He walked off, slowly, toward our bedroom.

“No, I’ll check on him,” Shame said to Terric. Terric hadn’t asked a question. That was sort of odd, but then, those two had a connection ever since Terric used Life magic, Death magic, and Blood magic to accidentally implant a crystal into Shame’s chest. Even though Shame didn’t like it, it had probably saved his life on the battlefield. And now each knew where the other was at all times and, apparently, what the other was thinking.

Shame walked off after Zayvion, and Terric sat down in the chair by the couch. “How you really holding up?”

“Still not dealing with the horror of it all.” I took a gulp of tea. “I plan on ignoring it for as long as I can. Tea’s good, though. And I’m starving.”

“Did you have breakfast?”

I shook my head.

“Let me see what I can get you.” He left for the kitchen, and I closed my eyes, holding the tea tight against my chest, the warmth against my skin only making the hollow hole where my small magic used to be colder. I was still doing my best to ignore that too.

I couldn’t hear what Zay and Shame were talking about, just the murmur of their voices. Or, mostly Zay’s. Pretty soon I heard Zay growl and Shame laugh.

Terric must have found something to put on a plate. The microwave started up, and the smell of eggs and bacon wafted out of the kitchen. My mouth watered.

Not exactly the relaxing breakfast I’d hoped for, but I had a feeling those eggs were going to taste like heaven.

Chapter Two

Terric brought breakfast out not only for me, but also made a plate for Zay and stared him down until he accepted it. I ate every last crumb of toast. Near-death events make me hungry. No, that wasn’t entirely true. Using magic—and Dad and I had pulled on a shitload of magic—always made me hungry.

Zay, still angry, didn’t say anything as he ate, but at least he sat at the table by the window and chewed his way through the meal instead of standing or pacing.

Terric gathered our dishes after we were done and washed them, which was above and beyond. Shame did what Shame does best. Lazed around shooting off his mouth and drinking coffee.

“I never did like Dane,” Shame said. “Too quiet, didn’t cheat at poker, didn’t drink. That’s what should have tipped me off. No one’s that pure-hearted in our line of business. And he smelled like . . . I don’t know. Something musty.”

“Old vitamins,” I said.

Shame snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Which means he was a health freak too. Another thing that should have tipped me off. A man without a single visible vice always has dozens stashed behind closed doors. Probably had a puppy-skinning ring on the side.”

He took a drink of coffee and frowned. “But I didn’t think the bastard would try to kill you, Allie. Or you, Zay,” he added. “Did you do something to make him mad?” Shame shifted in his chair so he could better see Zay. “I mean other than what he says he wants, maybe he’s holding a grudge? Come on, now, you can tell your mate. What’d you do, Zay? Did you steal his puppies?”

Zay looked up from his plate and gave Shame a glare that could draw blood.

“Shame,” I said, “don’t make him hurt you. I don’t need more blood on the floor.” I plucked at my sleeve, which was still damp and sticky. Then I set my empty teacup on the coffee table and stood.

“Where are you going?” Zay asked.

“To get clean and dressed.”

“Let me help.” He pushed away from the table with a grimace.

“No,” I said, “I can get dressed on my own. I’ll be right out. Try not to murder Shame.”

I went to the bathroom first and washed all the blood off my arm and ribs and thigh. There was even blood on the side of my face. I had no idea how it’d gotten there. What I probably needed was a shower, but I didn’t want to take the time unless I could soak, and I didn’t want to deal with waterproofing the bandage on my arm.

I stripped and looked over my body to make sure there weren’t any new scars I didn’t remember getting. It was a habit, a way of dealing with the new trauma, of putting it in perspective with the other traumas in my life.

No new scars. Everything was pretty much the same. The finger burns and other cuts and bruises from fighting the Veiled were fading or gone. The black mark of death was still in the middle of my left palm, black bars at each of my knuckles, wrist, and elbow, and all the ribbony magic ran up from my right fingertips to the edge of my eye. My hair was still streaked with white from going through death—literally. I had two other bullet scars in my collection—one under my left collarbone and one under my left ribs. Other than the Blood magic scar on my upper biceps and thigh, I was pretty much how I always was.

A mess.

I took a deep breath, pushing away the tears that threatened to fall. No time for that, Beckstrom. There was work to do, people to hunt, asses to kick. Crying could wait for another day.

I wrapped up in a clean pink towel and shut the bedroom door behind me. After I’d gotten into one of my looser pairs of jeans and a red T-shirt, both my arm and hip were aching, even through the painkillers. I slipped my arm back into the sling.

I ran a brush through my hair and stuffed my feet into my running shoes. I suspected it was going to be a busy day. Feeling mostly human, I walked back out into my living room, right into a heated conversation.

“Like hell,” Shame said.

All three men shut up as soon as I stepped into the room.

“Fighting over who gets to hunt Dane?” I asked.

Shame was slouched on my couch, his feet up on the coffee table. Terric sat at the round table by the window, a cup of coffee in his hand. Zayvion was on his feet again, leaning against the wall where the bullet had buried itself. That was so coming out of my cleaning deposit.

“Do we look like we’re going out to hunt Dane?” Shame asked.

“Yes. Whose toes are we stepping on?”

“Victor’s,” Terric said. “And Carl’s and Nik’s. They’re all out already hunting.” He directed that at Zayvion. “And if we go out, we’ll only get in their way. Which is why we should coordinate with them.”

“Why wouldn’t we coordinate with them?” I asked.

“It leaves some options open,” Shame said. “Like if we ‘accidentally’ stumble across the guy and kill him before we have the chance to call Victor in on it, we’ll get in less trouble than if we’re following Victor’s rules and reporting in every fifteen minutes.”

“They aren’t Victor’s rules,” Terric said, exasperated. “They are the Authority’s rules. When a member turns against a member, neither may be involved in the containment or examination of the people in question.”

“When did you become such a Polly Playbook?” Shame asked.

“When did you decide the rules applied to everyone except yourself?”

“I think we should get the Hounds involved,” I said over the top of Shame’s answer.

“No.” That was from Zay.

“Why not?” I asked.

“It’s too dangerous.”

“For whom?”

“The Hounds.”

“Oh, please,” I said. “Hounds know how to stay alive. I say we hire a couple, ask them to look around town for Dane and report back with what they find. We don’t have to tell them what Dane did. If all we’re wanting is reconnaissance, Hounds are the way to go. Big eyes, tight lips, empty pockets.”

“Victor won’t like it,” Terric said into his coffee.

“I’m not asking Victor.”

“You will,” Zay said.

I glared at him.

“Z, you are the mother of all wet blankets, you know that?” Shame asked.

He shrugged one shoulder but answered me. “If you can convince Victor to drag more people into this, I won’t stand in the way. I’m tired of chasing shadows through this fucking town.” He pushed away from the wall and stalked off into the bedroom.

Wow. I’d rarely heard him grumble about his job. Maybe he was hurting more than I thought.

“Is he okay?” I asked Shame and Terric.

“We were going to ask you,” Terric said.

“He’s just angry,” Shame said. “He let Dane in and almost got both of you killed. Rubs the knickers a bit.”

“He didn’t know Dane was carrying a gun,” I said.

Shame shrugged. “Don’t bring logic into this. The man’s pride has been hurt. Only revenge will soothe it up again.”

Zay stormed back out of the bedroom. He’d found his beanie and shrugged into his crappy blue jacket. Work clothes. Man planned on making trouble.

“Let’s go,” he said. Apparently, the time for arguing was over. Shame and Terric headed toward the door after him.

My house phone rang. I thought about letting the answering machine get it but decided it might be important, like a call from Violet, my dad’s last wife. She was due to deliver her baby any day now, and I’d promised I’d be there for her.

“Hold on.” I answered the phone. “Beckstrom.”

“Allie, it’s Nola,” my best friend said in her sunshiny voice.

I did a quick calculation to figure how many days it had been since I called her for our “daily” check-ins. Gave up.

“Hey, girl. Good to hear from you. What’s up?”

“You’ll never guess where I am.”

I so wasn’t up for a guessing game. “Where?”

“Here. Portland.”

My stomach hit my knees. I tried to keep my voice happy while I paced. “Wow, that’s great. Alone?”

“No, I brought Cody. I have some good news I need to tell you but don’t want to do it over the phone. Do you have time for dinner tonight?”

I didn’t want to do dinner. I wanted to hunt Dane. After that I’d have to go to the meeting at three, and I had no idea how long that would last. “How about I stop by for lunch, in maybe a couple hours?” I glanced over at Zay, and he tipped his head down, waiting. “Where are you staying?”

“I got a hotel suite for the week. And no, you’re not going to talk me out of it. Your place is too small for the three of us, and Cody seems really comfortable here.”

“Where’s here?” I tried again.

“St. Johns.”

I stopped pacing, stopped breathing. Just. Stopped.

My dad dug around in my head, stirred, and stretched, suddenly very much more aware, as if every word Nola said was infinitely interesting to him.

Yes, that worried me.

“I didn’t even know you were coming,” I finally said to fill the silence that was building beneath the stares of everyone in the room. “I mean, I could have helped you find a place.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “And don’t say nothing. I can hear it in your voice. You’re worried about something. Do you need help? Do you need me to call Paul for you?”

Oh, I most definitely did not need her to call her boyfriend the cop for me.

“No, it’s not like that. I’m dealing with a lot of things. But no big worries.”

Shame snorted, and I flipped him off as I turned toward the window to pace.

“Plus, you woke me up, so I’m not thinking straight.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I forget what a night creature you are. Should I call you back later?”

“No, that’s okay. Let’s just pick a place for lunch,” I said. “I’d love to see you.”

“How about that inn you keep talking about? The one your friend Maeve Flynn runs?”

“No.”

Too short. Too sharp. “They’re doing renovations right now,” I back-filled. What I didn’t say was that Maeve hadn’t opened it back to the public yet because we’d blown the hell out of it fighting the Veiled for control of the well of magic and for the disks locked away in the vault beneath the inn.

“There’s a good family-dining place just south of you. It’s called the Turntable. How about we meet around one?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

I took a breath, stared straight into Shame’s eyes, and lied. “I promise I am fine. Really and truly.”

Shame rocked his hand back and forth, giving me a so-so rating.

“Fine. If you don’t want to talk about it now, you know I’ll drag it out of you later.” She laughed to take the sting out of her words, and for a moment I was carried back in time, to her farm, where it was always sunny, easy, safe. Fields that reached out forever beneath the cup of blue sky, and no magic for miles around. It was the home of my heart. The safest place in the world. I loved it there, and loved her for opening her home to me for all those years.

I smiled. “Won’t you be disappointed when there’s no secret to dig out of me?”

She laughed again. “We’ll see.”

“One thing,” I said. “Why St. Johns?”

Dad shifted in my head. He wanted to know the answer to that too. Now I was sorry I’d asked.

“It’s off grid. I thought it might be the best place for Cody, you know. So nothing magic hurts him.”

And that was my big-hearted friend. Keeping a young man she was fostering safe from magic. Only she had no idea coming to any part of Portland right now put him in the line of fire. And St. Johns, particularly, seemed to be getting more magical action than any other part of the city.

Well, except anyplace near me. Which was exactly where she’d be today.

Dad shifted, pressed against my skull. He wanted forward, wanted to say something, ask her something.

No way. I leaned back on him and imagined thick walls between me and him.

I heard a knock somewhere behind Nola. “I gotta go,” she said. If she had sounded happy before, she was practically giddy now. “Paul’s here. I’ll see you at one, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Have fun.” I hung up the phone. Stared at it, trying to figure out what I should do to keep her safe. Of course, if Paul was with her, she was in good hands. Detective Stotts was an excellent cop, and very good with magic. If something weird happened, he’d be able to handle it. Most of it.

I hoped.

“Any chance we can find Dane before lunch?”

Terric chuckled.

“Yes,” Shame said with wide, innocent eyes. “Yes, we can. And after that we’ll chase us down some leprechauns and squeeze them until gold comes out their ass.”

“Shut up, Shame,” I said. “Listen, if we put the Hounds on the hunt, we wouldn’t be spread so thin.”

We were out the door, and I locked it. Zay waited until I was done, then drew a ward on my door. Not just a flick-of-his-fingers kind of spell. This thing was drawn from the top of the doorjamb all the way to the floor and tapped into the networks with multiple links. Redundant systems that would not allow the ward to blow like it had this morning.

“Think you used a strong enough ward?” Terric asked.

“Christ, Z.” Shame laughed. “What do you think is going to try to get through that door? A bulldozer?”

Zay glared at Shame and started walking.

“You going to give me the secret password so I can get back into my own place?” I asked.

“You won’t need a password.” He zipped up his coat. “Anyone tries to break in, they won’t try twice.”

“Because they’ll be unconscious,” Terric said.

“Or dead,” Shame noted.

Zay didn’t say anything, so we all got busy with walking.

To my surprise, walking felt good. The three days in bed had done a lot to ease my pains. Even though I was sore from what had happened this morning, other than the arm in the sling and the ache in my hip, I didn’t feel all that much worse for wear. I definitely wasn’t paying the price for all that magic I’d thrown around, and I could only assume Dad had taken the price for it.

Or Offloaded it onto Dane.

Wouldn’t that be nice? I didn’t know if Dad could really do that, but I hoped Dane was curled up somewhere puking. It’d make it easier to find him.

“Anyone know how Dane got ahold of the disks?” I asked.

Shame started counting on his fingers as we headed down the next flight of stairs. “Five missing originally, right? We figure at least one of those is in Greyson’s neck. That leaves four. You said that the Hound working for James Hoskil back when your dad was killed, what was her name?”

“Bonnie?” I said.

“That’s the one. She had at least one she used to take Cody off Nola’s farm when you and Z were out there. So that’s two. Hell if I know where or what the other three were used for. Then the break-in at the labs let hundreds of them loose. All the ones we had locked up in the inn burned to scrap a couple days ago.”

“No one kept any of them from the wild-magic storm fight?”

We hit the landing. One flight left. “Dunno. Jingo took a hell of a lot of them when he kidnapped Sedra. We can ask Victor and Mum if they pocketed any. I was told all the disks we had were locked in the vault and your dad slagged those shucking me through space.”

“By the way,” I said, “what was that like?”

We were headed out the back now. The day was bright. Blue sky spread behind cotton white clouds. Spring was here, and the whole city could feel it.

“Hot and strange. Not really painful, just . . .” He shook his head.

“Disorienting,” Terric said. “And exhausting. Like running a marathon while standing in one place.”

Shame looked over at him, scowled. “Pretty much.”

Zay had been quiet this whole time. He stalked along just slightly ahead of me, so I saw him in profile. If he was in pain, he wasn’t showing it. The man just looked like he wanted to kill someone. Grudge much?

“So how are we doing this?” I asked.

“We haven’t asked Victor if we can hunt Dane,” Terric said. “We don’t do anything until we have his okay.”

“Give it a rest, teacher’s pet,” Shame said.

“Shame, this isn’t a joke.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Shame said. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“Yes, it will,” Terric insisted. “Keeping secrets from him is the worst idea you’ve had all day. And that’s saying something.”

“I’m calling.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed Victor’s number.

“Victor.”

“This is Allie. Have you found Dane?”

“No.”

“Do you have any problem with us taking a look around?”

He inhaled, exhaled. Weighing options. “Are Shamus and Terric with you?”

“Yes.”

“Put Terric on the phone, please.”

What the hell? I held the phone out for Terric. “He wants to talk to you.”

Terric frowned. “This is Terric.”

I could hear Victor’s voice but not what he said. Something about gates and dangerous and injured. Also something about Zay. Terric glanced up at Zay, who was standing, arms crossed over his chest, scowling toward the street. He looked like he was begging for someone to pick a fight with him. I mean, he was even giving the nice old granny pushing a baby stroller the evil eye.

“Got it. Bye.” Terric thumbed off my phone, handed it back to me.

“What’d he say?” Shame asked.

“He doesn’t want us to engage. If we find Dane, we call in for backup before confronting him. We want to get Dane alive and the disks whole.”

“Doesn’t hardly seem worth it. I was hoping for some blood.” Shame cracked his knuckles and then pulled his keys out of his pocket. “I’m driving.” He started off toward his car.

Terric stared at Zay’s back. “He told me to tell you not to take him down, Zay. Not to kill him.”

Zay took a long moment to consider that. When he turned toward us, his face was blank, unreadable, but his eyes burned gold. “Don’t need to kill him. Yet. I’ll just make him wish he were dead.”

Zay took a step, and Terric stood in front of him, blocking his way to Shame’s car.

“He told me to stop you if you got out of line.”

Zay seemed to finally notice that Terric was speaking. He tugged at his beanie and gave Terric a sideways look. “Do you really want to put yourself between me and my goals, my friend?”

“Doesn’t matter what I want. What matters is what the Authority needs. And it needs cool heads. From all of us.”

A slight smile curved Zay’s lips. “There’s a war going on, Terric. I promise you, I won’t do anything without considering the consequence.”

Terric held his gaze, then shook his head and stepped aside. “I’d hate for it to come down to us fighting it out. Again.”

Whoa. I didn’t know they’d ever fought it out before. Was that back when they used to run together? When Terric was training to be a guardian of the gate? Before Shamus nearly killed him?

They had complex history, and I hadn’t had the time to connect all the dots yet.

“You and I are on the same side,” Zay said, walking past Terric and catching my fingers with his own, urging me to walk with him. “There’s no need for us to fight.”

At the touch of his hand to mine, I could feel his anger rage through me like a hot storm. No wonder Terric was telling him to take it down a notch. Zayvion was quite possibly out of his head with fury. Yet on the outside, he just looked a bit miffed.

I didn’t bother covering my surprise and worry. When we touched, it was pretty clear to the other what we were thinking and feeling. So I set my mind on calm thoughts. If we found Dane, we’d deal with how to keep Zay from killing him. For now, we just needed to find the bastard.

My willful tranquility seemed to help a little. By the time we all piled into Shame’s car, Zay and I in the back, Terric and Shame in the front, Zayvion was maybe half a point lower on the Richter scale.

Shame pulled out into traffic. “Victor has teams out?”

“Yes,” Terric said. “St. Johns, south to Mount Tabor and north to Lake Shore.”

“Where do you think, Zay?” Shame said.

Zay narrowed his eyes, staring out the window like he could see a far distance. Shame and Terric were silent, waiting for his answer.

But what was Zay doing? Magic? It didn’t seem like it. I leaned close enough that my arm brushed his. With that brief contact, I felt like I was stretched out beneath the city, the hot points of cisterns and storage tanks of magic burning landmarks against my skin, the cool depths of the wells soothing and strong, with all the pipes and conduits and junctions mapping my nerves.

Zay had a very tactile awareness of the city. As if he carried all the streets and streams of magic on his skin like a tattoo. I’d never felt him do that before. Not even when we were trying to find Chase.

But maybe that was how he knew when gates opened in the city. Maybe this sense of the city was part of what being a guardian of the gate was really about.

Or I could be imagining things, what with the painkillers and all.

“Start on the southwest side,” Zay said. “Work our way up.”

Shame changed lanes and took the next exit to the freeway. “How far south?”

“Just the city’s edge. He’s here. Somewhere.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

He shrugged.

So not helpful.

“Can you always feel all the lines and conduits of magic in the city? ’Cause that’s news to me.” Still the silence. I touched his leg. “Zay?”

He jerked just enough that I knew he hadn’t heard a word I’d said.

“What?”

Shame threw a concerned look at me in the rearview mirror.

“Can you always feel the magic in the city? That’s what you were doing, right? Trying to get a feel for if Dane was drawing on magic anywhere?”

“No. I was just thinking.”

“Z,” Shame said, “you’re angry and unfocused. Might want to do something about one of those things.”

Zay glared at him.

“You know I’m right.”

“Fuck.” Zay took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck, then scrubbed at his face. He rested his hand on my thigh, the heat of his palm soaking into the Blood magic scar I had there.

“I’m going to close my eyes and meditate,” he said. “If I’m agitated enough Shame is telling me to pull myself together, I’m way off base.”

“Suck it, Jones,” Shame said.

Zay smiled slightly, a predator’s grin, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes. His hand was still on my thigh, and I put my hand over his. I didn’t want to interrupt his meditation, but I was worried. I’d never seen him lose control or be anything other than a calm, deadly, calculated man.

I did what I could to relax too. I mean, things could be worse. Yes, a magic-wielding, disk-using, gun-toting killer was out there, but at least we were looking for him instead of hanging around waiting for him to look for us. I liked being proactive when there were killers after me. Plus, the solid Veiled were locked up, and so were Chase and Greyson. The only known enemy out there was the shadow man from death—Leander—and Jingo Jingo. Okay, and any of the other members of the Authority who didn’t like the way Sedra had been running things.

But really, compared to some days, things were going pretty smoothly.

Terric reached across the dash and turned on the radio. He tuned in to a country music station.

“Get your mitts off my music.” Shame stabbed the radio, and metal poured through the car.

“And you think he can meditate to that crap?” Terric turned it back to country.

“He’ll just want to kill himself if you leave it on that dreck.” Shame switched it back to metal but turned the volume down a notch.

Screaming guitars and screaming vocals pounded through the car. The window next to me buzzed from the bass.

Terric reached for the radio again. Shame slapped his hand. “No means no.”

Terric slouched back. “Fine. Turn it down. It’s giving me a headache.”

Shame turned it down—not much, but some.

“Country?” I said.

“What?” Terric asked.

“You like country music?”

“Hate it. But not as much as Flynn does.”

Shame swore and drew a glyph in the air with his middle finger.

Terric laughed. “Like you could make me.”

I glanced over at Zay. Waves of peace radiated off of him, and I mean deep, blissful calm. Man knew how to meditate. I stifled a yawn and let my shoulders rest. My arm was starting to ache a little. I’d probably need to take a pill before we did anything drastic.

“Are we going on foot?” I asked.

“No time for that,” Shame said. “We’ll stay in the car and see if we can catch a whiff of the vitamin-swilling bastard. Doubt Victor would be pleased if we ran him down on foot and brought his head home on a stick.”

“It’d make me feel better,” Zay mumbled. He opened his eyes, took a breath, and let it out.

“Yeah,” Shame said. “Well, maybe if we’re good soldiers, Victor will let you get in on the interrogation of Dane. That’d be worth a little restraint, right?”

Zay gave a half nod. “Probably.”

“How are the ribs?” Terric asked.

“Feels like a tank ran over them. Otherwise, fine. Did Victor really tell you to stop me if I went too far?”

Terric twisted so he could look back at us. “Yes. What does that say?”

“Either Victor is tired and overreacting, or I’ve been in a very bad place.” He gave that grin again. The one that looked like he wanted to chew through bones.

“Or,” Shame said, “he knows you have every right to go ballistic on Dane’s ass. I can’t believe the bastard pulled a gun.”

“I didn’t expect it.” Zay was quiet for a while. “I let my guard down.”

“None of us thought Dane would go rogue,” Shame said.

“Now we know,” Zay said calmly. “And now we’ll take care of it.”

Zay could fake all the calm and cool he wanted to. I knew as soon as he got his hands on Dane, he’d kill him. Even if it meant going against Victor and the Authority to do it.

Chapter Three

The hunt did not go well. We drove around for almost two hours and didn’t do much more than keep Shame and Terric from stabbing each other over the radio channels.

Well, maybe we did some good. We knew where Dane was not, and Zay had managed to get his temper under control, although the rage lingered just below the veneer of his calm.

I’d been smart enough to bring along our painkillers, and we stopped at a drive-through coffee stand. I ordered an iced vanilla latte. Not my usual black, but I needed all the sugar I could get to deal with the headache Shame and Terric were giving me.

Filled with painkiller and caffeine, I was ready to take on the lunch with Nola.

“Hey,” I said over the top of the music—currently smooth jazz that made me want to gouge my eyes out, and with which Shame and Terric were playing chicken to see who caved and turned the channel first. “Can you drop me off at the Turntable?”

Terric switched off the radio.

Thank God.

“What?”

“I’m meeting Nola for lunch.”

“I’ll go with you,” Zay said.

I turned to tell him I didn’t need a babysitter. The flash of gold in his eyes made it pretty clear he was going whether I wanted him to or not.

“You can’t follow me everywhere. I’ll be fine with Nola.”

“I’m following you to this lunch. Dane wanted you, not me. You and your dad.”

Okay, that was true. Which I hated. I felt as though I hadn’t had a minute alone in years, and while I loved the man—really and truly did—I was hoping I’d get a chance for some girl talk.

But I could be practical. These were not normal times, not safe times. Meeting with Nola might put her in danger. It would be better for her too if he was there to look out for trouble. And Zayvion was nothing if not hyperalert right now.

“Fine,” I said. “Are you coming too, Shame?”

“No. Have a few loose ends to tie down before the meeting. How about I drop you off at Z’s car? We’ll meet up at Victor’s later.”

“That works,” Zay said.

It didn’t take long to get back to my apartment. I got out of Shame’s car and took a minute to stretch. It was warm enough that I wondered if winter was gone for good. Birds chattered in the trees lining the back lot, and the air smelled of traffic, cut grass, and beef with garlic from the gyro stand on the corner.

If I were living a normal life, I’d go for a run in the park, maybe watch the dragon boats practice for the races. Instead I watched Shame and Terric drive off, Gregorian chanting pouring so loudly from the radio, I could hear it through the closed windows.

Zay scanned the parking lot, which was empty except for us, then turned to face me. He reached out, fingers digging a little too tightly into my hips, and pulled me against him.

I wanted to slip my arm out of the sling so I could get closer to him, but that would take too long and probably involve pain. Instead, I draped my good hand around his neck and tipped my face up.

“Allie—”

I didn’t know what he was going to say. Didn’t care. I pulled his face down and kissed him. I caught his bottom lip, then nipped up, dragging my tongue into the corner of his mouth and across the edge of his upper lip until he opened for me. I made a little sound as I slid my tongue fully into his mouth, and savored the warm taste of him.

He shifted his hold, wrapping his thick arms around me, one hand catching my right hip, the other thrust up into my hair, fingers clenched. His tongue plunged into my mouth, hot, insistent, hungry, as if we hadn’t touched in years. He stroked my hip, his palm cupping the curve of my butt. Then he rumbled, almost a growl, and dragged me in so tight against the hard length of his body, I had to stretch up and arch back and back to keep kissing him. Then it was only his arms around me that kept me from losing my balance.

He was worried. Angry. Terrified he’d almost gotten me killed.

I was worried. Angry. And so damn glad he was alive and breathing.

Too hard, too desperate to begin with, the kiss slowly shifted away from fear to love. We gentled our lips, slowed each stroke of tongue until our mouths moved in languorous, pulsing rhythm. We took our time. His hand in my hair finally relaxed. He dragged fingertips down the edge of my face, tucking my hair behind my ear. Goose bumps washed over my body as he slowly straightened so I was standing, once again, on my own two feet.

I wanted more, a lot more, but we slowly inhaled together and gently pulled apart. I tucked my head against his chest, my good arm around his ribs, but not too tight. I could feel the heat of pain coming off his body, mixing a sour scent with his familiar pine. Not quite a fever, but a sure sign he wasn’t at his best right now.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said. We both wanted to say it. We both were feeling that gratitude for life, right on the heels of a very real brush with death.

“It won’t happen again,” he said. “I was stupid to trust him.”

I nodded, my cheek brushing over the nylon of his ratty ski coat. “Me too.”

I stepped back because all I really wanted to do was take him upstairs to my apartment and curl up in bed with him.

“We’d better get to lunch,” I said. “Nola’s probably there already.”

We held hands walking to the car. I got in first. It hurt, but along with the pain meds that were numbing things, I was also getting the hang of how to bend and sit without making my hip feel like someone was stabbing a dull knife into it.

Zay slid behind the steering wheel with a grunt. Those ribs weren’t doing him any favors.

“Want me to drive?”

“I got it.” He started the car and maneuvered it out of the parking lot.

“Nola said she has Cody with her,” I said.

“Mmm.”

“Will that bother you?”

He glanced at me. “Why?”

“You’ve Closed him. Twice. Does it bother you to see what’s left of his brain?”

Okay, that came out a lot harsher than I’d intended. But it was the truth. Cody was a living casualty of the Authority’s rule of taking away people’s memories and abilities to use magic if they didn’t do what the Authority wanted them to do.

“His was a special case,” Zay said. “The first time I Closed him, he was fine. I saw him afterward, checked in on him. There was no sign of any loss of mental acuity. Then . . . I don’t know. I’ve Closed a lot of people. I’ve never had anyone come out of it so damaged. He’s a savant with magic. Rare. We thought that his unusual abilities with magic, more than what I did, caused his mind to fail.

“I Closed him very carefully. Nothing I did should have damaged him.” He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing at the pain of the twist, and changed lanes. “Makes me wonder.”

“What?”

He started to shrug, thought better of it. “If someone else got to him after me.”

A few months ago I would have told him that was ridiculous. But now, with Jingo’s betrayal and Dane’s visit at gunpoint, I wasn’t so sure Zay was wrong.

“Will it bother you to have me there?” he asked.

“Not you,” I said. “It bothers me that Cody was broken.”

But Cody’s spirit, his ghost, who seemed somehow older and wiser than the childlike Cody Nola was looking after, had told me he didn’t mind being broken. He told me the living Cody was happy the way he was. It still seemed like he’d gotten a raw deal to me.

“I know there’s no changing it,” I said. “Is there?”

“Who knows?” Zay sighed. “The way things have been going lately, I don’t know if anything follows the rules anymore.” He glanced at me. “Yes. I should be able to un-Close Cody. I don’t know how much good that will do him since he’s had a mental break.”

“He’s not a bad kid,” I said.

“No. But you didn’t know him before. You think Shamus can get out of hand. Cody was hell on a bender. No sense of caution. Got in with the mob, owed money, then art, then magic, then other favors. Found a patron who pumped enough money into his sinking ship, he didn’t get gunned down in the streets.” Zay shook his head. “Anything his mother was against, he was all for. It was a mess.”

“Sedra, right? His mom?”

“Yes. She’s the one who finally decided he was too reckless with magic, too untrustworthy with the Authority’s secrets, and needed to be Closed. After Mikhail’s death . . . nothing was ever right with her.” He turned into a parking garage and took the ticket.

No wonder she was such an ice queen. Her lover dead, her son Closed, the Authority her responsibility—she hadn’t had it easy.

“She became a much harder person. Driven to rule. No one stood in her way. Not even her own son.”

He parked and didn’t make a big show of how much it hurt for him to stand out of the car. I could tell, though. I could smell the pain on him.

I wasn’t nearly as graceful. I groaned at any little jab or bump to my arm and hip. My sling got caught on the side of the door, and I had to pull my arm out of it to get free. I made a lot of noise and swore just for good measure. Good news, my arm moved pretty well. Better news, my hip wasn’t giving me nearly as much trouble.

Zay waited while I got my arms in the right arrangement; then we walked to the street. Plenty of people out today, the city waking up and coming to life after a long, rainy winter.

But all the activity made me twitchy. I jerked at every loud noise, loud engine, loud color. The day was too bright, too sunny, and I felt naked and vulnerable out in it.

I wanted my sword or, hell, a gun. I wanted more than magic to keep me safe. I wanted bullets to fight bullets.

“You okay?” Zay mumbled. He didn’t look at me but wrapped his arm around my waist.

His calm anger did a world of good to clear my head. He walked the streets like he could take on all comers with his bare hands. Untouchable. Fearless.

Didn’t act like a guy who’d almost been shot to death.

Well, if he could do that, I could try not to duck at every bike riding by.

The Turntable was in the corner of a building filled with shops and offices. Zay opened the brass and wood door, and I stepped in, my sneakers making a thick sound on the hard green tiles. The decor was mostly wood and brass, booths in dark green, tables with mismatched cloths, and flower arrangements scattered here and there. Vinyl records and covers in frames filled the walls. It should look corporate but somehow managed to hold on to its hometown roots and seemed inviting and genuine.

The sign told us to seat ourselves. Zay chose a table, not a booth, facing the front door, with a good view of the rest of the restaurant.

The waitress—a woman with skin darker than Zayvion’s, and so pretty she should have been a model—bustled over with menus. Zay told her we’d have two more people joining us. She left and returned with four glasses of water.

I’d had just enough time to decide on the club sandwich when Nola walked in.

My best friend looked how she always looked—no, she looked better than I’d ever seen her. She smiled and waved as soon as she spotted me, her long honey hair tucked behind both ears, showing the blush on her cheek and the tan that was gotten the old-fashioned way—by working outdoors. She wore a nice pair of black slacks and a pale blue cardigan over a white T-shirt.

Cody was indeed with her. It still surprised me that he was twenty-one. Thin as a rail, he’d added good muscle to his willowy frame so he at least didn’t look like he was going to blow away in the wind anymore. As a matter of fact, his shoulders and chest were a lot wider than when I’d last seen him, and he’d grown an inch at least. He was no longer a boy; the time on the farm had given Cody a man’s body. He also looked a lot less frightened or confused than other times I’d seen him.

He followed Nola and smiled when he caught sight of me.

“Allie! It’s great to see you,” Nola said. “You too, Zay. I heard you just went through a tough medical stay recently.”

He stood—man had good manners—shook her hand, and gave her a soft smile. “I do not recommend comas. All that sleep, and I still don’t feel rested.” He shook Cody’s hand too.

I stood up too. Not to be polite. I wanted a hug.

Nola reached out for a hug and embraced me very gently. “What happened to your arm?”

Oh. I hadn’t come up with a good cover for that.

“We were sparring,” Zay said, as smooth as old whiskey. “I was showing her some flips, and I twisted her arm a little too hard.”

Nola frowned. “Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yes. And Zay’s being nice. I was stubborn and put myself in harm’s way. It wasn’t his fault.” And the good thing about all that was not one thing I said was a lie.

Cody had already sat down and drank half a glass of water. He kept looking at Zay and smiling like he wasn’t sure whether he knew him, then switching that look to me and getting a wide, goofy grin. Me, he recognized.

By the time we had all settled into our seats, Cody looked like he couldn’t contain his happiness any longer.

“I saw him,” he said to me.

“Saw who?” I switched into the closest thing I had to a mom voice—patient and interested but expecting most of the conversation to be nonsense.

“I saw the monster.”

Nola sighed. “He’s been saying that since we got to town yesterday.”

“What monster?” I asked.

Zay turned his attention to the menu, even though I knew he was listening to every word Cody said.

“My monster.” He was still smiling.

“Is he a good monster?”

“Uh-huh. I like him.”

I looked over at Nola. She shrugged. “I haven’t met the monster yet. But Cody promised he’d show him to me the next time he sees him.”

Cody nodded. “He’s a good monster. Very good.”

“Let’s not talk about the monster now. What do you want for lunch?” Nola asked.

“Anything?”

“Anything the restaurant makes.” She handed him the menu. To my surprise, he read it quietly to himself.

It was hard to put Cody in a category. He was a man with a childlike mind, but he had been much more in the past. Brilliant. An artist with magic like no other. It showed in the grace of his slender fingers, now calloused and tanned from whatever work Nola had him doing out on the farm.

His spirit self, the older, wiser part of him that had broken away when Zay Closed him, was now a ghost and attached to Mama Rositto, the woman in Saint Johns who had gotten mixed up in my dad’s murder. Well, her son, James Hoskil, had been charged for it. But now I knew James wasn’t the only one behind killing my father. Greyson and Dane had been a part of it too.

Cody’s ghost seemed like an intelligent, kindhearted person, even though Zay had just said he was a real hellion. I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me that the living Cody knew how to read. I’d underestimated his abilities.

“I like linguini. Chicken. And raspberry ice tea.” Just for a moment, I could hear the Cody he might have been before.

Hell-raiser, Zay had said. Looking into those guileless eyes, it was hard to imagine Cody getting into trouble with anyone, much less the mob.

“All right,” Nola said. “Linguini. It will take a little time before we get it. I’ll order you some bread too, okay?”

“Yes.” Cody got busy running his fingers along the seam of his cloth napkin and humming quietly. Bach, I realized.

“So how are you two doing?” Nola asked.

I looked at Zay. Over the top of the menu, he flicked me a quick glance filled with heat and followed it up with a smile. “We’ve been staying busy.”

I blushed. I didn’t have to be touching him to know exactly what was going through his mind.

“Yes, we’re good.” I put my menu down. She was grinning at me. “Zay came up out of the coma a few days ago. Less than a week?”

“Four days,” he agreed.

“And he’s been staying at my house while he gets on his feet. The doctor says everything looks good for a full recovery.”

“I’m so glad to hear that,” Nola said. “What kind of accident were you in, Zay?”

“Magic.” He shrugged.

“The people you work for?”

“Yes.”

Huh. I didn’t realize Zay had told her anything about the Authority. Or maybe he hadn’t. He’d stayed out on her farm for a couple weeks while I was unconscious. I’m sure the subject of who he worked for had come up over dinner. I’d just never been smart enough to ask him what his cover story was.

“Maybe you should get out of the bodyguard business for a little while,” she said.

“I’m taking a break for the next month or so. Give me time to hit the gym. How’s the farm?”

“Oh, that’s part of why I’m in town. My big news. I’ve had an offer to sell.”

I made a little wounded sound. “No. You aren’t going to consider it, are you?”

Her smile faded, and she studied my face. “Well, I’m thinking about it, yes. I love the place, but the farm really was John’s lifework. Since we don’t have children to hand it down to, and it’s a lot for me to manage on my own, I keep wondering if I’m just holding on to it for myself or for John.”

“But what about Cody?” Okay, I was really saying, what about me? Her farm was more a home to me than the condo where I’d been raised. It felt like she was selling off a part of my past, cutting off a root that held me strong to this world.

“He’ll stay with me. He’s making great progress with his skills. I think he might be able to hold down a job, and maybe one day live on his own, with some assistance. He has an amazing touch with plants—and can nurse almost any living thing back to health. And you won’t believe the art he’s been doing. I was knitting one night, and he wanted something to do, so I pulled out my old watercolor set. He’s . . . really talented.”

Cody looked away from the window he’d been staring out and smiled. “I like paint.” He made a gesture in the air, half glyph, half mimicking a paintbrush, and I found myself wondering what that stroke would look like against canvas. Or with magic.

“Where are you thinking about moving to?” Zay asked.

“Here. Saint Johns maybe, or one of the coastal towns off the grid. Cody would still be out of the reach of magic, and I’d be closer to you, Allie, and closer to . . . to living a life that suited me better.”

“You mean closer to Paul,” I said.

“Yep. Pretty much. Do you blame me?” She smiled, and I saw a spark in her eyes I hadn’t seen since she met John in high school. “And the next time you catch a ‘flu’ ”—she did the air-quote gesture—“I’ll be here to help instead of almost four hundred miles away.”

“You really want to take up city life?” It wasn’t what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her this was a bad idea. A very bad idea. If she moved into the city, she’d be one more person I’d have to look after, I’d have to keep safe. The very reason to get Cody out of the city was because people like James Hoskil, people like other members of the Authority, wanted to use his talents for their own gain, no matter the consequences. He was amazing with magic, and I had a feeling even St. Johns wouldn’t be a safe place for him.

His ghost was currently in St. Johns with Mama, but if he, the real, living Cody, also stayed here, there would be no way he’d go beneath the notice of people wanting his ability with magic in their hands.

Dad shifted in my head, like a bag of sand pouring all its weight to one side of my brain. He was interested in Cody, interested in his ghost and him being here together, moving here.

Great. Anything that interested my dad usually made my life miserable.

“Maybe not city life,” Nola said.

The waitress showed up again, and we gave her our orders.

“But I need a change,” Nola continued. “I’m looking for a change. And since you’re my best friend”—she shrugged—“I thought you might like it if I was a little closer. Not that I’m going to take up all your time, but, you know, we could catch a movie once in a while, or go shopping.” She gave me an up and down. “You haven’t bought new clothes in the past year, have you?”

“Of course I have. Okay, no.”

“When was the last time you went to a movie?”

I took a drink of my Coke. “It’s been a while.”

She gave Zay a hard look, then glanced back at me. “You work all the time.”

“Not all the time,” Zay murmured.

She chuckled. “Fine, maybe not all the time, but a lot. You’d agree with me on that, right, Zayvion?”

He nodded. “She puts in some pretty long hours. Especially lately.”

“If I lived closer we could have some fun. We both deserve a little fun in our lives, don’t you think?”

“Sure, we deserve it,” I said, “but life doesn’t work like that.” Longing for days filled with shopping, movies, and time not working washed through me. Nola was right. I hadn’t taken time to have fun in forever.

But someone had tried to kill me today. My life didn’t have room in it for leisure. Not yet. Maybe not ever if I stayed Hounding and working for the Authority. And how would I explain my double life to her? It’d probably take her a day of living here before she started asking what I really did with my time, what I really paid the price of magic for. And those were the kinds of things she didn’t know, couldn’t know if she was going to stay safe from the secret magic users and battles going on in this city.

“What?” she asked.

I raised an eyebrow. “What what?”

“What aren’t you telling me? What happened? Are you in trouble?”

You know, for someone who made her living reading body language, I was hell at hiding my true feelings from Nola.

“I just . . .” I glanced at Zay. He was leaning back, looking like he wasn’t casing the restaurant. No help there.

“Listen.” I leaned my arms across the table. “Things have been pretty hot around here—with the Hounds, and with magic, and with all the crap my dad was mixed up in with his business. From some of the jobs I’ve done, I can tell you things are only going to get worse for a little while. I don’t want you mixed up in it. I don’t want Cody mixed up in it.”

“Cody,” Cody said.

“And I don’t want you to get hurt. If you really want to leave the farm, that’s fine. I mean, I know I don’t have any say over what you do, but I’m going to miss the hell out of that place—I love it out there. But I totally understand letting go of things that are in your past and moving on.

“Just, please, wait a little while before moving here for good.”

She adjusted the alignment of her knife and fork on the table, and then put her napkin in her lap. “What difference will waiting make? There’s never a good time for change. And dangerous things are always going to be happening in the city—dangerous things happen everywhere. I don’t use magic. At all. So it’s not going to hurt me. And I promise I am smart enough to stay out of the way of trouble. I’ve lived on my own and run a business for years. I think I can handle a suburban neighborhood and a fenced yard.

“Besides, my boyfriend is a police officer. I’m sure he would let me know if I were moving somewhere he doesn’t think is safe. I’ll be fine. Safer than you.”

I took a drink of water and tried to dig up a smile. “I’m still going to worry about you.”

She laughed. “You’re ridiculous. Worry all you want. I’d rather gossip. So, what’s really been going on lately?”

The waitress brought our lunch. Between chowing down on the club sandwich and devouring fries, I filled her in on all the Hound stuff, and some of the Zay-and-me stuff, which Zay told her I got mostly wrong. So I made him give her his side of the story about me hiring him as a trainer and our sparring sessions and unspoken agreement to move in together.

It was nice. Normal. By the end of it, we had all had a good laugh, and I, for one, was stuffed. I finished off the last fry on my plate, dragging it through ketchup and steak sauce before popping it in my mouth.

“How long are you going to be in town?” I asked.

“A week or so. Paul and I have tickets to the Cirque du Soleil on Sunday.”

“Nice. Are you going too, Cody?”

He nodded. “And my monster.”

“Maybe,” Nola said. “I have to meet your monster first before we decide if he can go.” He seemed content with that and went back to folding his napkin into the shape of a bird.

A cell phone rang. That wasn’t my ring, or Zayvion’s.

“Sorry.” Nola reached into her purse and pulled out a cell phone. Well, well. Looked like love had gone a long way to bring my magical Luddite friend into the current century.

“Hello, this is Nola. Oh, hi, Paul.” Her face lit up like a million-watt bulb. Oh, yeah. She had it bad.

And I was happy for her. I really was. But I just wished she’d fallen for a nice uncursed police officer who didn’t work on magical crimes and instead worked in a nice nonmagical town giving out parking tickets and jaywalking citations.

I looked over at Zay. Okay, I suppose I’d fallen for him despite all the risk and danger involved in both of our lives. I guessed all I could do was try to keep Nola safe if things turned bad. I wondered if I could hire Davy or one of the other Hounds to keep an eye on her for me.

Zay shifted so that his foot pressed against mine. He was restless. It was time to leave. Time to let go of this little bit of normal. Time to get back to work. Time to save the world.

“Sure, love to,” Nola said. “Say in an hour? Perfect. Bye.” She hung up, her hair swinging forward to hide her face as she tucked the phone in her purse.

“That was Paul. He got the rest of the day off. We’re going to a movie. Would you like to see a movie?” she asked Cody.

“No monsters?”

“No monsters in the movie. Something fun, I promise.”

“Okay.”

“Allie, Zay? Do you have time for a movie?”

“I can’t,” I said. “Not today. But I am so glad I got a chance to see you.” I stood, and so did she. We hugged again.

“Think we can get together again? Maybe alone so you can tell me all the really juicy details about Zay?” she asked.

“Now, now, ladies.” Zay was still leaning back in the chair, probably to keep his ribs from hurting so much, but all it did was make him look like someone should drag him off to bed. “No talking behind a brother’s back.”

“Promise I’ll only share the good stuff.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” he said. “With me it’s all good.”

I laughed. “Well, we could start with the ego problem.”

“It’s not ego if it’s the truth.” Zay got on his feet without looking like it hurt, and we all left the restaurant.

“Did you drive?” I asked Nola.

“Yep. I’m parked right up the hill. See you soon.” We hugged one last time.

Cody was staring up at the sky. No, as he and Nola walked away, I realized he was looking up at the top of the buildings.

I saw a shadow move, the slide of a wing too big to belong to a bird. Stone?

Sweet hells. I thought I knew who Cody’s monster really was.

Chapter Four

“What time is it?” I asked as I buckled my seat belt.

Zay glanced at his watch. “About fifteen to three. We should get to the meeting on time.”

“Where is Victor’s place? In town?”

“Yes.”

“Does he live over one of the wells too?”

“Yes.”

“So let me get this straight: Maeve’s inn is over the Blood magic well. Victor lives over the Faith magic well?”

He nodded.

“But the Death magic well was under a crypt in a graveyard. No one’s living there to look after it.”

“Not in the graveyard. Nearby, though. Jingo Jingo used to be a groundskeeper.”

“Jingo looked after that well, not Liddy?”

“You don’t have to be a Voice of magic to be assigned to the wells. Victor’s the Voice of Faith magic, and Maeve’s the Voice of Blood magic, but Jingo was considered the best to keep an eye on the Death magic well since he lived right across the street from it and worked there. The Life well doesn’t even have a keeper.”

“Where is it?”

“Multnomah Falls.”

“Excuse me?”

“Multnomah Falls,” he said a little slower and clearer.

“There’s a well of magic under a six-hundred-foot waterfall?”

“It’s cute how you’re surprised about these things.”

I would have smacked him for that, but he was out of my good arm’s range. Note to self: smack him later.

“Who looks after that well?”

“Sedra would check on it. And Dane. I don’t know who Victor and Maeve have checking on it now.”

We were headed west, not east, Zay making good time in the pre-rush hour traffic.

“I think I know who Cody’s monster is,” I said.

“Mmm.”

“Stone.”

“Probably.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“He made him.”

“Stone?”

“Yes. And the other statues out at the Gargoyle too. He was commissioned for them. Made a tidy sum that he gambled away.”

I just shook my head and changed the subject. “What do you think about Nola?”

“I like her.”

“Ha, ha. I mean about her moving here?”

“Makes sense for her and Stotts.”

“You aren’t worried?”

“Should I be?”

“She’s my friend. And she doesn’t even use the simplest spells to defend herself.”

“One,” he said, “she’s not a Hound or a magic user. Of course she wouldn’t use magic to defend herself. And two, that’s what we’re here for. To keep people like her safe.” He glanced over at me. “If she moves here, we’ll do everything we can to keep her out of the line of fire. We’re pretty good at it.”

I knew he was trying to comfort me, but I hadn’t stayed out of the line of fire. Of course, I had a bad habit of throwing myself into dangerous situations, and Nola wasn’t like that. She was careful and smart. Maybe that would be enough to keep her safe.

I watched the city roll past and made plans. I’d hire a Hound to keep an eye on her while she was in town. If she decided to move here, I’d take it from there.

Zay took the exit to the Japanese Gardens. The road wound up and up, ivy-covered hillsides and fir trees reaching out to give it a deeply forested, almost wild look. Then we were at the Rose Garden that shared the land with the Japanese Garden. I caught a glimpse of the postcard view of the city spilling out below the gardens with Mount Hood rising white and blue in the distance.

“Victor lives here?” I asked. “Where’s the well? Under the teahouse?”

Zay shook his head. “After all you’ve been through, the idea that the well is under a teahouse seems outrageous?”

“So it is?”

“Not exactly.”

Zay took a road that I didn’t notice until he cast a spell. The road twisted around the western edge of the grounds through dense forest and eventually led to what looked like a small parking garage. He cast another quick spell, and the garage door opened. He drove in, and the door and spell closed behind us.

It was not a small parking garage; it was a large underground parking facility that could hold maybe fifty vehicles. Zay turned off the engine.

“We’ll walk from here.”

We got out of the car and strolled across the well-lit space, which reminded me a lot of the parking garage under my dad’s condo.

“How far?” I asked.

“It’s a hoof.” We were at a door. “But not too far now. You up for this?”

“I’m good.”

He cast another spell, then pressed his right thumb onto a scanner pad. The door opened. Beyond it stretched a long hallway.

He wasn’t kidding it was a hoof. The hallway curved slightly but for the most part seemed pretty direct. We walked a block or three before reaching the closed door at the other end.

Same thing here—spell, and this time left thumb on the scanner, opened the door. More hallway with a large glass-and-lead double door worked in an Asian motif in front of us, the hall running to the right and left before disappearing at corners.

Zay walked to that door and opened it the old-fashioned way.

“What, no more secret spy stuff?”

He pushed the door open and held it there for me to walk through. “If anyone gets this far, an identification pad isn’t going to stop them.”

The space was beautiful. Large enough it could probably seat a hundred people or so, and yet didn’t feel open or empty at all. The room seemed to be carved out of one enormous piece of mahogany and followed the Asian theme, with screens, plants, and the sound of falling water filling the air. The walls were burnished soft red-black that reminded me of good, strong tea and were slightly curved to take the edges off the room. It felt like the room sprang up organically from the roots of the trees that covered the hill above us.

The furniture leaned toward earthy wood and creams, with just enough accents of sapphire, red, and gold to bring to mind the sky and sun.

Tasteful and rich without being overt about it. It reminded me of Zayvion’s apartment, but on a much grander and more luxurious scale.

Victor stepped into the room, carrying what looked like a nice, nonreleased piece of tech that was mostly screen but folded down to the size of his palm when he snapped it shut.

Next to him walked Maeve.

“Glad you are both here safely,” he said, wasting no time. “Sit. There are drinks.” He motioned toward one of the tables by a set of couches and chairs. “We’ll need to get to this in short order.”

“Have the others made it in?” Zayvion strolled toward the drinks, which looked to be water, ice tea, a pot of what might be hot tea water, and a carafe that might hold coffee. What I knew for sure was that none of it smelled alcoholic.

“Not yet,” Maeve said. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore and alive,” Zay said. He poured a cup of coffee and plucked up an ice tea, then walked over to me. “A little vengeful.” He gave me the coffee and sat on the couch, letting out an exhale when he settled into the plush leather.

Maeve took a seat in a chair, her cane resting on the arm, and sighed. “Aren’t we all?”

Victor went back to fiddling with that little tech device before choosing a chair to sit in. He pressed a button, and the wall behind the other couch went softly opaque. Then a satellite map of the Portland area that I swear looked like real time spread across the screen.

This was a little like the map Stotts had of the city, only a much bigger, much better version.

There were four glowing points on the map. One just on the Vancouver side of the river, one out east, up the gorge at Multnomah Falls, one southeast of downtown, and one west in the hills.

The wells.

There were other lines that glowed too, networks of the pipes and conduits that covered the entire city. The only place with no light was St. Johns, which looked small and neglected, nearly surrounded by the river, and cut as clean as a knife by the railroad where the network of magic ended.

But there were other dark spots like little black holes, little St. Johns, scattered across the map. Most of those were in the heart of the city.

“What are the black spots?” I asked.

“The large area is St. Johns, where there is no magic,” Victor said. “You know the lines are the networks your father worked very hard to implement. And the black spots are where gates have appeared in the last six months.”

“Is that a lot?”

He looked away from the gadget in his hand. “If you had entered the Authority even two years ago, I would have been hard-pressed to show you a dozen recent gate openings.”

I did a quick scan of the map. At least a couple hundred. More, probably, if the map were zoomed in closer.

“There has been an inordinate amount of activity between the realms of life and death, the magics of light and dark,” he said. “It’s been . . . challenging.”

“When did it start picking up?” I sat on the couch, Victor and Maeve to my right. Zay shifted and put his arm around me so I could lean on him. Nice.

“Last September.”

A lot of things happened last September. I’d been shot twice. Dad had been murdered, Mama’s youngest Boy had been hit by magic, I’d saved Cody’s life, met Zayvion, almost died in a wild-magic storm, fell into a coma. For starters.

“Why?” he asked.

I glanced over at him. Curiosity sharpened his gaze. I realized I’d zoned out long enough thinking about my personal September that the silence had become awkward.

“I was remembering September. A lot happened. To me,” I added.

“Your father died,” he said.

I nodded. “I channeled a wild storm and almost killed myself. That was also the month I was shot. I’m pretty sure Dane was one of the people who shot me.”

“He was.”

Victor’s casual agreement was exasperating. “And you never did anything to him? He shot me, and you didn’t even bother to tell me about it?”

I was so not okay with that.

“Dane is Sedra’s right hand, and in many ways equal to the Voices of the Authority,” Victor said. “If he is questioned, we are questioning her. It gets . . . politick. He insisted it was an accident. Self-defense. That you rushed him and tried to kill him and that he was carrying out Sedra’s orders.”

I didn’t remember any of it, so for all I knew, that could be true.

“Did Sedra order him to kill me?”

“She ordered him to stop anyone who was involved with the murder of your father, for inciting distrust among the Authority and agitating the war between factions.”

“Me? She thought I was fueling the wars between the factions? I didn’t even know about the Authority back then.”

“We weren’t sure of that,” he said.

“You could have asked. Hell, my dad had Zay following me around town—you could have asked Zay.”

“Why do you think he was following you?”

“Because my dad hired him.”

“That’s true. But he was also watching your father. To see what he was doing with you. To see what he was using you for.”

Right. I kept forgetting that nobody in the Authority trusted one another. Well, now that sides had been taken, and lives lost, a much clearer idea of who was on what side was emerging. “I don’t think you have all your facts straight,” I said.

“Please.” Victor spread his hands. “Enlighten me.”

“Dane was involved in the murder of my dad,” I said.

Victor was suddenly very, very still.

“He was there,” I said. “He told me he and Greyson killed Dad.”

Maeve cursed. “When did he tell you that?”

“This morning. He said he was going to kill me like he killed my dad.” Saying it made me a little light-headed. I was discussing my own death like it was a speeding ticket I’d barely avoided.

“What else did he say?” Victor asked.

“He wanted to know where Dad is keeping Sedra. He said Jingo Jingo was working for Dad, and that Dad has been telling me things and Closing me since I was five to make holes in my head so he could possess me. Dane thought I knew where Sedra was because Dad told me. He hasn’t,” I added.

I took another drink of coffee. The whole thing made me feel dirty. Used. If what Dane said was true, if my dad had been Closing me since I was five, taking my memories, my life away, I didn’t know what that made me. A toy? An experiment? How much of my life had I lost? How much of me had Dad selectively culled to shape me into what he wanted me to be?

How much of my life had I decided upon? Was I nothing but what my father planned me to be?

Maeve made a tsk sound. “Ah, Allie. You know he could be lying.”

I nodded. I didn’t tell her how much I hoped that was the case. Right now, the idea that magic randomly stole my memories was a lot easier pain to deal with than if my dad had been tearing me into little pieces all my life.

“We don’t know for sure yet.” She stood and walked toward the middle of the room to a deep walnut bureau. “But we will find out, Allie. Won’t we, Victor?”

Victor finally moved. He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth, his elbows on the chair’s arms. He was looking at the map on the wall, as focused as a sharpshooter waiting for a clean shot.

“Yes,” he said. “We will.”

Maeve opened one of the bureau doors and chose a bottle, then retrieved shot glasses from another shelf. She poured us drinks and cupped the four glasses in one hand, offering the first to Victor, who took it with a nod and shot it back in one go.

I don’t think I’d ever seen Victor drink during a meeting.

That he was drinking now was a clear sign of the state of things.

I took the glass she offered me too, the smoky oak smell rising to my nose. Whiskey. I poured it into my half cup of coffee and sipped. Hot, with that tip-of-the-tongue taste of leather. I wasn’t going to finish the cup—it’d probably just put me to sleep if I did—but the added heat in the coffee was nice.

“Are you sure your father hasn’t told you where Sedra is?” Victor asked.

I cradled the coffee in my good hand. “I don’t think so, but I don’t know. He might have. Back at the inn, before the fight, I think he Closed me.”

Victor made a frustrated sigh and scrubbed his hand over his face before dragging it back over his hair. “You think? Did you tell any of us about this?”

“I told Shame. And Hayden. But there wasn’t time to do anything else. And then we were trying to close the Death well and fighting the solid Veiled, and Dad was talking through me, to you, and . . .” I shrugged. I was doing the best I could. If that wasn’t good enough for him, I didn’t give a damn.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. There hasn’t been time. But there is time now. I think before we do anything else, we should address the situation with your father.”

Zay had been sipping his whiskey, holding it in his mouth before swallowing. He took down the last of it and set the glass on the table at his elbow.

“Have either of you seen Shame or Terric?” Victor asked.

As if on cue, Shame and Terric came walking through the door.

“Bullshit,” Terric said, ending whatever conversation they’d been having.

“Afternoon, all,” Shame said. “What are we drinking?”

“Whiskey,” Maeve said.

“Bless you, Mum. Don’t mind if I do.” He beelined for the liquor cabinet.

“Just a shot is all for you, Shamus Flynn,” she said. “We have a day yet to work.”

Terric walked around the couch on Zay’s side and rolled his eyes before taking one of the empty chairs to Zay’s left.

“Anything we need to know about?” Zay asked.

“You already know that Shame is a complete idiot, so no.”

Shame knocked back two shots and poured another one before his mom called out his name.

“Two shots won’t even warm my bones,” he complained.

“You’ll get by on cold bones, then,” Maeve said. “Did you have any luck at all?”

He turned, two full shot glasses in his hand. “Finding Dane? No. Can tell you where he isn’t. He isn’t a lot of places.”

“Did you document them?” Victor asked.

“That was Ter’s job.”

“I uploaded it,” Terric said. “You should have it.”

Victor opened his nifty little tech device and scanned the screen. “You covered some ground. Good. We’ve also checked the east side and don’t see any sign of him.”

“If he’s smart, he’s out of the city,” Zay said.

Victor nodded. “I don’t think he’ll leave. Not without finding Sedra.”

Shame handed Terric one of the shots and sat next to his mother.

“Shame,” Victor said, “I’ll need your assistance with Allie.”

“What are we doing to Allie?” he asked with a grin.

“We’re going to see if we can’t solve the problem her father has become.”

“I’m coming too,” Zay said.

“Fine.” Victor stood.

“How exactly are we going to solve the problem?” I asked.

“I’ll find him in your mind and remove him,” Victor said.

“Which means he dies, right?” I asked.

Victor tipped his head and studied me. “It may not be so. Your father always seems to have backup plans.”

“But it’s possible?”

“Yes.”

I thought about that for a minute. I didn’t want my dad in my head. Didn’t want him using me. Especially after what Dane had said about him Closing me. But at the same time, I felt a little like I was sealing his fate.

I hope you have a backup plan, I thought to him. He didn’t respond.

“Is it dangerous?” I asked.

“It is.”

“And it hurts?”

“Very much so.”

Since my options appeared to be A: pain of removal, or B: pain of keeping him around indefinitely, I chose A: pain of removal.

Sorry, Dad, but I can’t let you stay. I can’t live like this. Still no reply.

I swallowed my unexpected guilt. “Let’s do it.”

Zay was already on his feet. Terric and Maeve stayed seated. “Will you need to use Blood magic?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Victor said. “If you don’t mind staying here for when the others arrive?”

“That’s fine.” Maeve still looked exhausted. No, more than that, she looked like she was hurting. Three days wasn’t enough time to recover from what we’d been through. Hell, I could use three months of downtime right about now.

We followed the curve of the wall to a door worked in wood, glass, and iron. Victor opened it. No spells, no thumbprint, just a latch and a push.

The light automatically lit when we stepped into the room, and the soft scent of cherry blossoms filled the air.

It was about the size of one of Maeve’s sitting rooms, but the difference was this room had a door on every wall. Each door was a different kind of wood inset with glyphs worked in glass, lead, and iron, representing different elements and disciplines. Other than the doors, the room had a lush cushioned chair in each corner and square pocket shelves carved into the walls, with a different colored stone or hunk of metal centered on each shelf.

Shame, Zay, and I filed into the room, and Victor shut the door, whispering a sweet lock spell I was totally going to steal from him.

Shame walked over to the black chair ahead and to my right; Zay took the blue chair ahead and to my left.

Victor walked to the door on my right, traced a glyph there, paused, then paced to the next door and traced a different glyph. Setting wards, making it safe to do whatever we were about to do.

Zay frowned, watching Victor, fingers tapping his thigh. Impatient. Angry.

I wasn’t sure what was behind his anger—what we were about to do, or what had happened earlier today.

Victor moved on to the last door to the left and cast glyphs of Death and Earth, then finished the circuit, ending with his back against the door we had come into the room through. There he worked Life magic glyphs. He faced the middle of the room, his hands behind his back.

“Allie, stand in the center of the room,” he said.

I pushed off the wall I was leaning on and stood in the middle, turning to face Victor.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

I nodded. “Let’s get this done.” I wanted Dad out of my head. I wanted him to go quietly to death where he belonged but at the same time felt like I was throwing him to the wolves. Anger, frustration, and sorrow got mixed up in my guilt and, yes, whatever remaining shreds of love I had for the man I’d always wished he could be.

Why couldn’t you have just died the first time you were killed? I thought.

Nothing.

“Four disciplines,” Victor said, putting Influence behind his words, “one magic of light. Let us begin.”

The soft cream walls glowed with spells activating—visible to the naked eye, which was unusual. The magic flowed like a flood of fire and water, then a wash of wind and tumble of earth, spanning the walls, rising to erupt across the ceiling. Magic sank into the floor, blending into a carpet of multicolored ribbons that were linked and woven, just like the marks of magic that wrapped up my arm.

Only a circle in the center of the floor was untouched by magic. The circle where I stood.

“All who stand within this room, speak your name.” Victor looked at Shame.

“Shamus Flynn,” Shame said.

“Zayvion Jones,” Zay said.

Victor looked at me, and I felt his gaze push aside all my worries, all my thoughts. “Allison Beckstrom,” I heard myself say.

Victor waited, his gaze sinking deeper into me. I could feel the tendrils of the magic in the room seeking me out like a root questing for water, wrapping like vines, licking like fire at my ankles, and up, into my body, tasting, testing. It didn’t hurt. But I wanted to move, move away from it before it knew me, before it knew what I was, where I was. Before it forced me to speak—

“Speak,” Victor Influenced.

“Daniel Beckstrom,” I said. Only it wasn’t me. It was my father.

The tendrils of magic darted up, snake quick, and split in two, catching and surrounding me in what felt like a soft cocoon. The magic caught and surrounded my father too.

Even though I was cocooned, I didn’t feel trapped. All my worries had been placed aside, all memories, fears, trivial thoughts, put at rest, leaving me surrounded in peace. There was the “me” in my mind, and over there, at arm’s reach, was the “him” of Dad in me.

It finally felt like I had some breathing room in my own head.

“Daniel Beckstrom,” Victor said, “will you willingly leave your daughter’s mind?”

“You know I won’t, Victor,” I said—he said. Whatever. “There is no place for me to go.”

“Death,” Victor said, “is where you should rightfully be. Shamus?”

Shame strolled over, his hands low at his sides. He walked around to stand in front of me.

“Good to see you again, Mr. Beckstrom. I appreciate your not killing me with the whole disk thing a few days ago. But I’d just be lying if I said I haven’t been looking forward to this for a long time now.”

Shame pointed his finger at my chest. He didn’t touch me; he didn’t break eye contact; he didn’t speak. He slowly traced a glyph in the air. Magic rose to his hand and dragged ponderously through the glyph as if the magic were actually earth, soil, and stone. The glyph became solid, filled with that magic.

The crystal in his chest glowed through his black T-shirt, soft pink, then blue-white, then bloodred, pulsing with his heartbeat. He did not cast the spell, not yet.

It was a taunt, a slow-motion game of dare. Even from the middle of my peacefulness I could feel how furious Dad was. And worried. I wondered if he’d finally met his match.

“You are making a grave mistake, Flynn,” Dad said. “Just like your father.”

Shame’s lips quirked up. “You killed my father, Mr. Beckstrom. And now it’s time for me to return the favor.” He closed the glyph and cast the spell.

Dad stretched out in my mind, taking up more space, too much space, crushing my safe cocoon. He became a thousand hands that patted and crawled over me, digging deep and holding on.

I moaned, but that didn’t stop Shame.

I didn’t know what Victor was doing, didn’t know what Zay was doing. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea at all. I couldn’t look away from Shame’s eyes. Eyes that were no longer green, but pure, heartless black.

He spoke one word: “Die.”

Knife-hot pain slashed through me. I yelled, tipping my face up and trying to force the pain out of my chest, out of my mind, out of my head. The pain doubled, tripled. I couldn’t get away from it, couldn’t make it stop, could not endure. I wanted away from my body, my mind. Wanted away from this pain.

I was stuck. Anchored. Burning from the inside out.

I tasted mint, knew Zayvion must be touching me. I couldn’t feel him through the agony.

I begged for unconsciousness.

The pain raged, grew. Something snapped in me, then snapped again in quick succession, like spine-deep roots ripping out of me, one by one. I blacked out and came to between each blinding flash of pain.

Please, I thought, please stop. I can’t. I can’t.

The gentle fragrance of Earl Grey tea filled me, along with a soothing wash of mint. My cocoon wrapped more tightly around me, holding me, not safe from the pain but keeping some of it at bay.

I don’t know how long I endured, wrapped in Victor’s magic and Zay’s embrace while Shame ripped my mind apart. Maybe seconds. Maybe a year. Fear took hold where just a moment before pain had resided. How much of my mind would be left after Shame was done? How much of me would my father allow to be destroyed before he gave me up?

Dane’s words came back to me. “Your father Closed you many times. Used you. Filling up the holes in you he’s been making for himself all these years. Taking up the room he’s carved out in you.”

Much too late, I realized there was no way to stop Shame, to tell Victor or Zayvion what I suddenly knew. My father would let me die before he ever allowed them to remove him from my mind.

Chapter Five

“There, now. That’s a sight better, isn’t it?” Shame’s voice. Still in front of me.

I blinked. I was standing in the center of the room, breathing hard, covered in sweat, shaking. My back was pressed up against Zayvion, his arms wrapped around me, helping me stay on my feet. Pain—and I knew I had just been through a lot of it—was a foggy memory. I took a second to lean back into Zay, then worked on supporting myself.

Did okay. Zay shifted his grip so his hands rested on my hips, long fingers tucked into my front pockets.

“What happened?” I asked. I could really use a drink of water. Maybe a chair to sit in. Or a bed to pass out on.

Shame put his hand on my good arm, and I jerked away from him. Instinct told me he had hurt me. I did not want him touching me.

He took a step back and held both hands palm up, looking first at me, then over my shoulder at Zay.

“We got a good, close look at exactly how your father is possessing you,” Shame said.

“Look?” I asked. “All that pain for a look?”

“No,” Victor said. “There is more. Would you like to sit?”

“Not here. Not in here. I want out, need out.” I suddenly didn’t like this little room. This little room was too easily filled with pain.

“We can go outside, if you like,” Victor said. “There will be more people there.”

“I don’t care. How long have I been in here?” It felt like months, years.

“Five minutes,” Shame said.

The absurdity of that brought my panicking thoughts into focus. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

He shook his head. “We were able to drag him out of a few core places in your mind, but he’s still in there, hooked in tight. Five minutes was all the pain we dared let you tolerate, so we stopped.”

“You shouldn’t have. You should have just done it. I was already in pain. You should have pulled him out no matter how much it hurt.”

“It could have killed you, love,” Shame said. “Stopped your heart or stroked you out. He’s . . . entrenched.”

Victor was pacing the circle of the room again, this time clockwise, pausing at each door and working the spells until he was back where he had begun. A brief pause, a few motions, and then he opened the door.

“Still hurting?” Zay asked me quietly. His breath smelled like mint, and every place we touched was warm and tingly. He walked with me, one arm around my back, fingers slipped in my front pocket. At first I wanted to brush him off, but after a few steps I was glad he was there. Not because I was uncertain on my feet but because I was feeling strangely vulnerable, like I’d just had the worst root canal in my life.

“Not really hurting,” I said. “Just. Hell.”

A hot surge of anger flashed through Zay. Anger at Shame for hurting me. I could not deal with the heat of it.

“Easy,” I said. “He was trying to help me. Dad’s the problem.”

Then, to Victor, I said, “Tell me that was worth it.”

“It was,” Victor said from behind us. He waited until we were seated again. I belatedly noticed the Georgia sisters were in the room. I used to think they were called the Georgia sisters because that was their last name. Turned out they were each named after a city in Georgia, so the nickname stuck. They had drinks—nonalcoholic—in their hands, and one of the sisters, the youngest, Savannah, was eating a sandwich. She waved as I walked in.

I thought about gulping down my spiked coffee but let it stay where it was. I did not need to start looking for alcohol when things got shifty. Plus, my stomach couldn’t take it right now.

Victor paced over to the table and poured three glasses of water. “Your father has always been a very strong magic user. That alone makes him a challenge to deal with. And he is ruthless in achieving his goals. Which means he does not care how much pain you endure.

“He has dug into you very deeply, Allie. And won’t let go.” Victor handed me a glass of water, and I drank until it was gone.

“To remove him—which can be done—will take more than just two of us, and I will want the doctor on hand. But what we were able to do, what you paid the price of pain for, is to disconnect his control of your mind and give you a hold over him.”

“Which means?”

“He is bound to do as you say.”

“What?”

“Think of it as you now have full Influence over him. He may not like what you tell him to do, but he will be unable to refuse you.”

“Nice turnabout, eh?” Shame asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. Dad? I thought. Are you listening?

Yes. He answered. Victor was right; he didn’t sound happy about it.

Will you do anything I tell you to do?

The slightest hesitation, then, They bound me, Allie. To you, he growled. They did to you what I have been trying very hard not to do. We may be permanently joined.

Oh, forget not happy. “He’s furious,” I said.

“Too bad,” Shame said. “He doesn’t like it, he knows the way out.”

“Are you sure? He said we might be permanently joined.”

“Horseshit,” Shame said cheerfully. “He can dispossess you and die. Pretty easy, really. Most people die the right way the first time. You’d think a genius like him wouldn’t screw it up so badly.”

Dad kicked around in my head, but it didn’t hurt. It was like he was wrapped in a giant ball of cotton and couldn’t really touch me.

I loved it. Totally worth the pain.

“So what do we need to know from him?” I asked. I didn’t have a single thread of faith this would last. My dad was too good at getting out from under other people’s control. He always had a plan.

“Tell him you want him to answer my questions truthfully, and let me talk to him.” Victor was pacing, drinking his water, and watching the map on the wall slowly wash with brighter and deeper colors along the lines of magic.

The map had to be real time; you could see the spikes of magic use around the more densely populated areas, see it lighten out toward the suburbs before darkening again at the hearts of other towns, like Tigard, Forest Grove, Oregon City. Sparks of color—short-burst high magic use—sparkled across the map like stars.

Beautiful really, until you remembered every bit of that beauty was costing someone pain.

I didn’t love the idea of letting Dad talk through me again, but what the hell. Maybe this time it would be for a good reason.

You will answer Victor truthfully. You will answer all of his questions. You will not control my body, but you can speak through me until I tell you to stop. Do you understand?

Allie, there are other ways you and I could end this. Could make the world right again. You can break this binding between us.

You will do as I said, and you will do it now. I felt like a parent demanding that a kid eat his vegetables.

Weird thing? It worked. Dad took over my mouth.

“Yes, Victor, what do you want to know?” My voice sounded angry, tired, and condescending all at once. Dad was chafing raw under these restrictions, but it didn’t feel like I was shoved out of the way of my own mind. He was just using my mouth. I could take over, talk over him, if I wanted to.

Victor stopped pacing and squared off toward me. “Where is Jingo Jingo holding Sedra?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have a way of finding out?”

I could feel my dad squirm. Finally, “Yes.”

“How?”

“The cage that holds her was my technology. I can track it.”

“Are you the only one who can track it?”

Dad sighed. “Do we really have to do it this way?” he asked. “You and I both know there is so much more at stake than petty parlor tricks and binding spells that I can easily break.”

“This spell will not be easily broken, Daniel. Not even by you.”

I could tell my dad didn’t believe him. And I was pretty sure his contempt showed on my face.

Victor spoke softly, evenly. “You were not the only one experimenting with magic all these long years,” he said. “I think you forget that. You were not the only one who learned ways to augment, to sharpen the tools of magic into weapons. You are not the only one who will go to long lengths to see that magic remains in the hands of those who can best guard it.”

He took a step away, turned his back, staring at the screen. “In your day you were a great magic user. But you are dead. This world is no longer for you, Daniel. It’s an embarrassment you remain here.”

“Life,” Dad said, “and death. Neither suits me better than the other. Both have their uses for men like us.”

Victor turned back around. “That has always been your creed. Everything, everyone, categorized by how useful they are to you. Even your daughter. You loved her once. I know that. But you have been using her—”

“You will never understand what I have done,” he cut in. “What I have had to do to keep her safe. To keep magic safe, controlled.”

“Magic is not yours to control, Daniel. Neither is your daughter.”

I wasn’t liking this turn in the conversation.

“Can we,” I started, and was surprised at how easy it was to talk. Dad just got all cotton bally and distant when I spoke. “It’s me, again, Allie,” I said. “Can we get back to the important things?”

Dad kicked, and even through the cotton ball, I could feel his anger.

Yeah, well, he could suck it. I wasn’t going to let this conversation wander. I wanted to know what he knew about Sedra too. The fact that he liked to make people think he was right was nothing new.

Victor nodded. “Tell me how to find Sedra.”

I felt my mouth close, lips pressed tight in a very unlike-me, very like-Dad way.

Tell him, I said.

“There is a . . . device. With the right spell, it will immediately locate the cage. And where the cage is, Sedra is.”

“And you know Jingo is keeping her in the cage?”

“Have you found Jingo’s corpse?” Dad asked. “No? Then Sedra is still trapped.”

Huh. He had a point there. Sedra was no slouch when it came to using magic. If she weren’t caged, I bet she’d take Jingo to his knees. She was the Head of the Authority, after all.

“Where is the device?” Victor asked.

“I don’t know. Exactly.”

I nudged Dad again.

“My condo. When I last saw it, it was in my home. I don’t know if it is still there.”

“What do you know about Leander and the undead Veiled?” Victor asked.

“I know the histories of Leander and Isabelle. I know they both died. I know the undead Veiled are using my technology to make themselves solid.” He sounded annoyed by that.

“Do you know where Leander is?”

“No.”

“Do you know what he wants?”

Dad paused.

The main door opened, and I turned. Dr. Fisher wore what I’d seen her in this morning. Sunny was wearing an indie band T-shirt, ripped jeans, and her hair was stuffed into a knit hat. Hayden, who towered over the girl and looked like he could wrestle bears for a living, was there too. He took in the room and headed straight for Maeve, who smiled and held her hand out to him, which he took, as he stood behind her. The twins, Carl and La, shut the door. Victor flicked a look their way, and they crossed the room and helped themselves to the drinks.

“Leander wants what he has always wanted, Victor,” Dad said. “Men with passion do not become less of themselves once they die. They only become more of who they have always been. Death distills the soul.”

“Therefore, I can assume Leander wants power. Revenge. And all the things he was denied in life.”

“Isabelle?” Maeve asked. “He wanted Isabelle. But she’s dead. They were both dead. At peace. Together. Why come back?”

“To live. They were cheated out of life together,” Dad said. “He wants life with her, not death with her. Immortality. If I were still a part of the Authority and had a vote in these matters, I would be advising us all to stop looking at this problem on a small scale. It is not whether or not we find Sedra in time to save her from death, it is not whether Dane and his men have gone rogue, nor that Jingo has broken trust by using magic against other members of the Authority that matters. What matters is deciding what our enemy really wants, what his end goal is, and stopping that before it is too late.”

Victor folded his hands behind his back, his stance a little wider, as if to carry the weight of that comment.

“You’re confusing the problem,” Maeve said. “Is Jingo Jingo working for you?”

“No.”

“Is he working for anyone other than himself?” she asked.

Dad sighed. “You know Jingo. He has only ever worked for himself.”

At her look, he added, “Mikhail. He is working for Mikhail. Always has been. All these years.”

The silence in the room told me how much of a surprise that was to everyone. Shame swore softly and pushed up out of his chair to pace. He looked like he wanted to hit someone.

“Do you know what he is doing for Mikhail?” Maeve asked.

I felt my head shake. That was weird. “Whatever has made Jingo Jingo follow Mikhail, even though Mikhail is dead, is beyond me,” Dad said. “I have my suspicions. I think Mikhail promised Jingo something. I don’t know what, but Jingo Jingo is motivated by power and by his appetites.”

Victor frowned. “Appetites?”

“Come now, Victor, haven’t you known that Jingo Jingo finds his pleasure in children?”

Victor closed his eyes and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Do you have proof of that?”

“Only the closet full of bones Jingo has kept hidden.”

Oh hells. I knew Dad was telling the truth. Jingo Jingo always struck me as creepy. And now the ghosts of children I’d always seen surrounding him when I used Sight suddenly made sense. He’d killed them and trapped their souls.

Fucking bastard.

The mood in the room had gone grim. No one said anything. I don’t think anyone knew what to say. What could you do when you discover the enemy within your midst is a child-murdering monster?

I could tell no one knew Jingo Jingo had a closet full of bones. After the silence, the anger in the room was palpable, the betrayal almost physical. I knew the Authority had rules and trials and their own brand of justice. And I was sure that if they found those bones, Jingo Jingo was going to be a dead man. No trial needed.

The oldest Georgia sister, Augusta, got up and walked out of the room. Carl followed her.

Victor, as cold as steel, picked up the questioning again.

“I fail to see how Mikhail can give Jingo further opportunity to harm children,” he said.

“Mikhail gives Jingo the promise of power. When Mikhail rises again, Jingo Jingo’s sins will be pardoned. He will not be Closed, jailed, killed. Jingo is just working his bets to stay alive. Or so I assume.”

“And do you have a theory on how Mikhail intends to rise?” Victor asked.

“No.”

“Did Dane kill you?”

With that change of subject came a flash of anger that was not my own. “A man stood in front of me. Greyson. He cast magic. A man stood behind me; I didn’t know who that was until this morning. Dane. He held a gun to my head. A gun.” He was quiet a moment. “I am unable to remember if it was the gun or magic that killed me.”

It came out pretty calmly. Which emphasized his anger all the more.

“Not a way any of us should leave this world,” Victor said.

I felt my head nod. Dad and Victor really had been friends once. And though my dad would never acknowledge it, that token of compassion from Victor meant a lot to him.

It was confusing sharing your mind with someone else.

“I want you to help us find Sedra,” Victor said. What do you know? He hadn’t forgotten why we were there. “We will not abandon one of our own. You will show Allie where the location device is and how to use it.”

Dad did not want to do that. At all. But he said, “My pleasure.”

And then he pulled back into the cottony corner of my mind so quickly, I inhaled a sharp breath to fill up the space he had emptied.

“It’s me,” I said. “Just me now.”

Shame was done pacing and had poured another shot of whiskey, which he handed to me.

“Thought you might want to wash the taste of him out of your mouth.”

I took the whiskey. Got down half the shot. It burned and made my eyes water. I didn’t care.

“So we get the locator,” Terric said, “and then follow it to wherever Jingo Jingo is? Remind me why we’ve spent weeks combing the city for him.”

Hayden finally spoke. “We didn’t have the speaker of the dead over there giving us the inside information.”

“If someone would have believed he was in my head, which I’ve been saying for months,” I said, “we could have done this sooner.”

“What has happened,” Victor said, taking over the discussion, “is not what matters now. I do want to apologize for doubting you, Allie. You have not come to us in our brightest hour. Your father’s death, the increase in gates, the unrest, the disks, Greyson’s becoming a Necromorph—and now so much more. The storm. The betrayals. The kidnapping. Your possession.” He nodded.

“Portland has always been more active due to the four wells, but these . . . crises are unprecedented. The best we can do is follow the rules and tenets of the Authority and pray that those rules will be enough to guide us.

“And now that we have a modicum of control over your father, there is, at least, some relief for you. If what he says is true, we’ll soon be able to find Sedra and deal with Jingo Jingo.

“I want you, Zayvion, and Shame to find the locator. Call as soon as you have it, and we will meet you before setting out to find Jingo. Everyone else, I’d like a moment with you to make sure we’re all up to date on everything that’s happened today.”

“Let’s go,” Zay said to me quietly.

“Wait,” I said. “Victor, I have a suggestion.”

“Yes?”

“I think we should utilize the Hounds.”

Zay’s breath caught on the exhale, like he couldn’t believe I was bringing this up.

“Really?” Victor said, not sounding at all interested in the idea. “How?”

“To hunt. The Hounds could be looking for Dane. Could have been looking for Sedra and Jingo Jingo all this time. That’s what Hounds do. We hunt. We track. And we stay out of trouble and keep our mouths shut. I don’t trust every Hound in this city, but there’s a good handful that I believe would do the job and keep it quiet.”

“We’ll discuss it,” he said.

And that was a no in maybe clothing.

“Come on,” Zay said.

I stood and walked out with Zay, Shame behind us.

Once we were through the door, I spoke. “I do not understand the unwillingness to get the Hounds involved in this. It doesn’t make any sense to be secretive just for the sake of being secretive. Hiring the Hounds would give the Authority twice the number of hands working to keep the city safe.”

“Well, when you are the Head of the Authority,” Shame said, “you can try to convince all the long-timers that getting more civilians involved in things that are way over their heads and way too dangerous is a good idea.”

“It shouldn’t take someone being the Head of the Authority to make people see logic.”

“It’s an old business, magic,” Shame said again. “It’s all about who’s above whom.”

“Is Sedra still the Head of the Authority?” I asked.

“Right now she is,” Zay answered. “And will continue to be unless she is unable to pick up the responsibilities again.”

“What if she can’t take on the responsibilities?” I asked. “Who steps up next?”

We’d made it to the door, and Zay pressed his thumb against the pad and pushed it open. More hallway.

Zay glanced at Shame. Shame shrugged. “Maybe my mum,” Shame said. “Maybe Victor. Makes sense to be someone from this area. Since we haven’t fucked it up completely yet, no one’s wiping the board clean, as it were.”

“You mean someone can come from outside the area and take over?”

“Sure,” Shame said. “But it’s a mix of things that would make that happen. See, Mikhail used Death magic when he was Head. Then Sedra took over Head, which was good because she used Life magic and we needed a change, right? Chances are Head will next go to either Blood or Faith—Mum or Victor—or maybe Flux, though I don’t think there’s been a Head who specializes in that discipline.”

“Joe in San Fran,” Zay said.

“Huh, that’s right. Okay, so there’s one Head who uses Flux. So it’s possible, though I don’t know the top Flux user in the area.”

We were almost at the outer door. “How does the change of leadership work?” I asked. “Election or something?”

“No. One of the Watch or Ward appoints someone.”

“I know I’ve missed out on some of the history classes and gone to self-defense and fighting studies instead, but I don’t remember hearing anything about Watch and Ward. Are they spells?”

Zay took that up. “They’re titles. We’re the local Authority of Portland. Every city with a well has at least a handful of Authority members living there to keep track of the well and magic being used. One of those people will be the Head of the Authority of their area. Portland has four wells and covers Battleground to Woodburn and the Coast Range to the Cascade Range. Over the Coast Range are other wells, other Authority members. Same with the rest of Oregon, the states, and the world. Every region has two overseers, a Watch and a Ward. The Northwest’s Watch is Bartholomew Wray, and his boss is the Ward Sam Arch.

“If they decided we weren’t doing our job, not only could either one of them replace Sedra as the Head of the Authority, but they could fire us all.”

“Fire? You mean Close?”

“Play with the bigs,” Shame said, “you gotta take the hits.”

“Yes,” Zay said. “I mean Closed. Though that would be a drastic move and would take a lot of manpower.”

“Not to mention grave diggers,” Shame said.

“What?”

We were at the door. Zay pressed his thumb into it.

Shame grinned at me. “Let’s just say that the day some out-of-town magic user decides I can’t use magic anymore, there’s only going to be one of us left standing at the end of the handshake.”

“I thought those were the rules,” I said. “Agree with the Authority, or lose your memories.”

“Sure those are the rules. No rule against me fighting them.”

“Actually,” Zay said, opening the door, “there is. Not that you’d pay any attention to it.”

“Tell me you wouldn’t fight it if they told you to step down, Jones,” he said.

Zay didn’t say anything, and Shame laughed. “That’s what I love most about you, my friend. That wee bit of larceny in your heart.”

Shame stepped through the door, and I followed.

It didn’t take us long to get through the parking area. “My car,” Shame said.

“I’ll drive,” Zay said.

“Not with those ribs. I haven’t had the shit kicked out of me today.”

“And I haven’t fought Allie’s father.”

“For five minutes,” Shame said. “Barely broke a sweat. I drive.”

Zay shook his head. “Fine.” We followed Shame to his car, and Zay reached out and caught up my right hand. I could tell he hurt, but it was tolerable pain. Moving, and having a goal in mind, seemed to help. It helped me too, just so long as I didn’t bump my shoulder or do any deep knee bends. The pain of what they had done to bind my dad hadn’t done anything more than make me feel like I’d been running hard.

We got into Shame’s car. I was surprised Zay took the backseat. I sat up front with Shame.

“So do you have keys to your dad’s condo?” Shame asked.

“No. And I think Violet changed all the locks. Let me give her a call and see if she’ll let me in.”

“Or we could ask Kevin,” Zay said.

“Why not Violet?” I asked.

“It would keep her one step removed from what we are doing. You know her. She’ll ask questions. I’d rather not risk having to give her the answers.”

I thought about it. It felt like I was breaking into my friend’s house. But since it was really Dad going back to his house, or me going back to my childhood home, I wondered if it qualified as breaking in.

Yes. Yes, it really did. If I had to choose between satisfying my moral conscience and keeping Violet and the baby she carried safe, I’d throw my morals under a bus.

“Okay,” I said. “Kevin.” I dug out my phone and dialed his number.

“Cooper,” Kevin’s voice said.

“Kevin, this is Allie. I need a key to the condo.”

He paused. “Why?”

“Victor wants me to retrieve one of my father’s possessions he left there, and I don’t want to get Violet mixed up in it.”

“Is there anyone with you who can confirm that?”

Wow, talk about suspicious. I handed the phone to Shame. “He wants someone to confirm I’m telling the truth.”

Shame grinned. “Don’t take it so personally, lass. He won’t believe me either.” He took the phone. “Kevin, my man, this is Shame. Victor sent me and Zay with her to get into the place. Really and truly. A key would be nice, but we’ll pick the lock if we have to.” He paused. “Fine. Here’s Zay.”

I couldn’t hear what Kevin said. Shame handed the phone back to Zayvion.

“We need it to find Sedra,” Zay said. “Good. We’ll see you then.”

“Sweet hells. How come out of the three of us, he believes you?” I asked.

“I have a solid reputation.”

“Mr. Goodie Good back there.” Shame rolled his eyes. “Angel in dark clothing. Has the rules written on the inside of his eyelids and palms of his hands, just in case.”

I turned, glanced back at Zay.

With one arm stretched out over the back of the seat, he was watching the city go by. He had the look of a storm building in his eyes, but his lips were quirked up in a slight smile. He was used to Shame’s mouth. He radiated the extreme confidence of a man who didn’t care what other people thought about him. I’d seen the man kill. Goodie Good was one thing he was not.

“How’s Terric?” Zay said. “You two kiss and make up yet?”

Shame shut up.

Zayvion laughed. “Come on, Flynn. It’s a joke.”

“Fuck you, Jones.”

“Touchy. Something wrong I don’t know about?”

“Other than everyone thinks my Soul Complement is Terric and I have a freaking crystal stuck in my chest that makes it feel like he’s in the back of my head every damn second of the day? No, everything’s just rosy, thank you. Ass.”

“Does distance matter?” Zay asked.

“No. If I think about him, I know what he’s doing and what he’s feeling. It’s . . . wrong. That’s all.”

“Why?” Zay asked. “You’re friends. Let’s say you aren’t Soul Complements. Fine. You use magic and hunt like you’ve been doing it for years—which you have. Back before the attack—”

“Not listening,” Shame said.

“—you and he got along fine,” Zay said louder. “And now you can’t wait to be rid of him. You are missing out on an opportunity to work with someone who is a hell of a magic user and a decent person. He saved your life, Shame.”

“You weren’t there.”

“Allie was there. I know what she said is true. He saved your life. We’ve all been there, been the one to save the other. You and he and Allie saved my life; I’ve saved your life at least a dozen times—from your mother alone—and you’ve been there for Terric when he needed it. There is no score card. Let it go. Yesterday’s gone. We got today to worry about.”

“We got every damn thing to worry about,” Shame grumbled.

Zay shifted in the backseat. “That too.” He was still smiling, though. “And we aren’t going to have to worry about it for long. Kevin said he’d meet us in the parking garage under the condo.”

Shame got us there in short time, and then turned into the garage.

It had been a while since I’d been here. I knew Violet was having the place upgraded for security, both physical and magical, but the concrete garage looked just like it had always looked.

Shame parked and got out of the car to smoke. Zay and I stayed in the car. Before Shame took even two drags on his cigarette, Kevin was pulling up.

Shame held a hand up in greeting. Kevin parked. I don’t know what took him so long before getting out of the car.

“Kevin’s a good guy, right?” I asked Zay.

He glanced out the window. “Yes. Why?”

“He’s been really angry since the disks were stolen, and I just don’t want to be stupid and trust Violet’s safety with someone I shouldn’t. After Dane, and Jingo Jingo and Liddy, I’m a little jumpy.”

Zay inhaled, caught his breath when his ribs couldn’t take that much air, and exhaled. “I’ll talk to him.”

“No, you don’t—” But he was already out of the car and striding over to Kevin. He said something to Shame, who looked over at me, then back at Zay, and nodded.

Zay and Kevin walked off toward Kevin’s car, which was parked across the parkade from us.

“Good lord, Jones,” I muttered. “If you shake down every person in this town I don’t trust, you’ll be at it for years.” I got out of the car and strolled over to Shame, who stood a few feet away. “Really? Is he going to be that twitchy about what I say?”

“Dunno. What’d you say?”

“I wondered if Kevin was trustworthy.”

“Huh. Looks like we’re going to find out.” He nodded toward Zay.

Zay had a knife in his hand. He cut Kevin’s finger and his own. I smelled the sweet cherry scent of Blood magic. Truth spell.

It took a half minute. I couldn’t hear what they said through the Mute Zay cast. At the end of the conversation they shook hands.

Zay broke the Truth spell, and both he and Kevin walked back to us.

“Don’t trust me?” Kevin said.

“Should I?”

“Ask your man.” He smiled and dropped the key to the condo in my palm. “See you around, Flynn. Say hello to your mother for me.”

“You ought to come by and tell her yourself, you lazy codger. She’ll put you to work.”

“Why do you think I haven’t been by?” He walked off. “Be careful. All of you.”

“I owe you a beer, Cooper,” Zay said.

Kevin paused before getting into his car and gave Zay a grin. He looked good when he smiled. A lot less like someone who could disappear in a crowd of three. “Maybe after the storm passes.” Then he shut the door and drove away.

“Is that some kind of code?” I asked.

“What?”

“You and Kevin.”

He shrugged. “Yes. It’s code for I owe him a beer. Has anyone told you how suspicious you are?”

“Yes. What did you ask him? The Truth spell?”

“If he was betraying the Authority rules in any way.”

Shame whistled low. “Good thing you’re friends, Z.”

“Is he?” I asked.

“No.”

“I also asked him if he had Violet’s health and well-being in mind. He said yes to that too.”

“Blood don’t lie,” Shame said.

And that was true. It was impossible to lie blood-to-blood under a Truth spell. “Good.” It made me feel a hell of a lot better knowing Kevin really was looking after Violet. “Thank you.”

Zay started walking toward the elevator. “That’s what I’m here for.”

“Interrogating people?”

“Yes, but I like to think of it as keeping people safe.”

“You should have gone into law enforcement,” I teased.

“Thought about it.”

Shame, behind me, scoffed. “Thought about it—he enrolled. Was going to be a cop. Had the classes lined up, put the money aside for it. Had interdepartmental character references. Everything.”

“So why didn’t you do it?” I asked.

“I had other responsibilities.”

“The Authority?”

“Keeping the city safe in a way the police can’t.”

So, yeah, the Authority. I wondered if they’d made him choose between becoming a police officer and keeping his memories of the Authority. Or maybe between that and becoming the guardian of the gate.

I slid the key into the elevator lock, and Zayvion pressed the button. The door opened wide. “You ready for this?” he asked.

“We could take the stairs,” I hedged.

“There are no stairs.” He waited, watching me.

Me, I just stood there and broke out in a sweat. I’d been in a lot of elevators lately. I’d done a hell of a lot of things to confront my claustrophobia. But nothing made it better. Every time an elevator door opened, I just wanted to run for the hills.

“I don’t think . . . I don’t think I can.” I took a step. Go, me.

Well, except it was a step backward. Oops.

Zay stood in front of me, wrapped his arms around me, and kissed me.

No matter how long we had been together, his touch sent electricity riding my nerves. Heat washed over my skin in luscious waves, and the world melted away.

He opened my mouth with his tongue, and I shivered as he explored me. He tasted of whiskey and coffee. I scraped my teeth over his bottom lip, catching hold for a sweet moment, before I slid my tongue slowly back into his mouth, savoring the texture and taste of him. A second wave of heat uncoiled beneath my skin as his pleasure rolled through me, through us.

He stepped backward and, like a dancer, I followed, thinking of nothing more than keeping my body with his, moving with him, touching him, having him in every pleasurable way I could imagine.

Then there was a wall at his back, which was fine by me. It meant he couldn’t move away any more, and I could press against him and use my one free hand to pull that beanie of his off his head so I could rub my fingertips over the tight, silky curls of his hair.

The arm sling was uncomfortable and in my way. I leaned back a little so maybe I could ditch the thing, but his hands on my hips pulled me closer and held me against his hips, and I did not care about the sling anymore. He sank down a little, bracing against the wall so I could lean against him without having to use my injured arm for support, while he drew his palm up my butt, my back, and the back of my head, holding me as close as two people can get. With their clothes on anyway.

“Enough with the snogging,” Shame said. “We’re there. And me without a camera.”

I lifted my mouth from Zay’s, looked into his eyes. I had completely forgotten Shame was with us.

“Mmm,” he said with a slight smile. He’d forgotten Shame was there too.

“Out already,” Shame said. “Or at least wait to get naked until I make sure the security camera is rolling.”

Security camera? I pulled back a little more and realized we were in the elevator.

“Um,” I said. “Right.”

Zay tucked my hair behind my right ear, that soft, sweet gesture I was falling in love with, his lips curved in a sly smile. “So there’s that,” he said.

Neither of us was thinking about security cameras or what we’d come here for. That man undid me. And from the look in his eyes, I did him some damage too.

“Soon?”

“Better be.” He straightened. Caught up my hand and walked me out of the elevator.

“Enjoy the ride?” Shame’s eyes were twinkling.

“I did until you interrupted us,” I said. “So. Did Kevin say how to deactivate the security system?”

“Not to me,” Shame said. “Zay?”

He nodded, took about three steps down the hallway, then cast a spell with both hands. It was a Cancel, simple, but hinging on both hands completing the spell correctly.

“Is Violet going to have to use magic to undo the wards every time she walks in?” I asked.

“No.” Zay stalked off to the living room, Shame and me following. “She can pass through without triggering it. So can Kevin. The rest of us”—he glanced back at me—“especially those of us who use magic on a regular basis, have to work the wards.”

“So he’s basically blocking members of the Authority?”

“Hounds use magic every day,” he said. “Police use magic every day. Doctors, teachers.”

“Point taken. Good to know she’s safe from evil magic-using teachers.”

The hallway opened up into the living room, and I inhaled deeply. The room was huge, one entire wall a bank of windows that looked out over the city and Mount Hood in the distance. I missed that view.

“Where’s the device?” Shame wandered over to the mantle and dragged one finger along it as he walked the length. There were priceless collector’s pieces there, and I knew he knew it. He paused to pick up the most valuable pieces and tipped them to the light before replacing them carefully.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Zay squeezed my hand. “Ask your dad.”

I so didn’t want to do it. But that’s what we were here for.

Dad, I thought, where is the device that can track the cage Jingo used on Sedra?

He stirred. I knew he didn’t want to speak to me either, but whatever magical binding Victor and Shame had worked on him was still in place.

My office, he said.

“It’s in his office.” I walked back out to the hall and down a few steps to the next half level of the house, where Dad’s office was. I opened the door to his office, and the fragrance of half-caught memories surrounded me.

It was smaller than the living room, but not by much; two of the four walls were floor to vaulted ceiling with books. A stair toward the back led to a reading loft above. I used to love to sneak up there and read while he worked. That all changed when Mom left. After Mom left, his door was always locked, and if I so much as got within three feet of it, he told me to do my homework.

Zay glided in from behind me, doing a once-through the room that made him look like he cased joints for a living. Shame was noisier.

“Holy crap. It’s like a museum in here. He had a thing for antiquities, didn’t he?”

“I guess.” It looked the same as I remembered it, but I had very few and very distant memories about the place. Leather, walnut, mahogany. Brass, crystal, glass. Odds and ends from his early prototypes of the storm rods. No plants. No natural light. No art other than patent plaques on the walls.

Where is it? I asked Dad. What is it?

Look in the safe.

I don’t know where the safe is. He didn’t say anything. Sweet hells. He wasn’t going to make this easy. Show me the safe.

He stretched out enough that it felt like there was a hand in my head pointing. Behind the false wall in the loft.

“He said it’s in the loft.” I started up the stairs, my feet making no noise on the plush carpet. I flicked the light on, and a bank of lights hidden in the ceiling burned brightly.

I smiled. I had always liked it up there. The loft had changed. I remembered it being only half full of boxes and short bookshelves, a really comfy chair shoved against one wall out of sight from anyone below and situated so that the light was perfect for reading.

That chair, my chair, was gone. Boxes filled the space in neat, orderly rows, printed labels on each side. It smelled of old paper and dust.

It smelled of stale air and disuse. The graveyard of my childhood.

“So this is where old inventions go to die,” Shame said as he walked around a stack of boxes.

Which wall?

Dad pointed again, toward the wall on my right, and I made my way between boxes. The wall was smooth white paint. I didn’t see any latches or buttons or hinges.

“The safe is behind this wall,” I said.

“Tell him to open it,” Shame said.

I did not like the idea of him using my body, but it would go a lot faster if I let him. And then we could leave this place.

“Fine, but you two make sure he doesn’t do something stupid, like throw me down the stairs.”

“If he’d wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now,” Shame said.

“We’ll watch,” Zay said.

Open the safe, I said.

Dad stepped forward in my mind. He was still broody but resigned. I knew if he could turn the tables to his advantage, he would. But I could also tell he didn’t know how to make this situation fall in his favor.

That was a first.

He drew a spell with my right hand. An Unlocking. Nothing fancy. Well, except it was done in his signature.

A signature-based spell was worked so that only you, or a damn good forger, could open it. They carried a password in the glyph. And since there was no telling what word Dad worked into the glyph, after a few trials and errors, the ward would lock down and not respond to magic at all.

Clean and about as safe as magic could make it.

He finished the spell and pulled magic from somewhere within the wall itself. Very nice.

The wall didn’t look any different. But Dad ran my fingers along a seam I could not see. I felt a microbump, like a word in braille beneath my fingertip. Dad placed four fingers over the pattern of bumps and pressed.

The wall released, swinging silently open. It revealed the inside of a safe large enough that I could have walked into it if I’d wanted to.

I very much did not want to.

“Which item?” Zay said from right behind me. I hadn’t even heard him move.

But all I had to do was nudge Dad, and he reached in and pulled what looked like a cell phone off of one of the shelves.

“I guess this,” I said.

“Is there anything else in there we might want to take with us?” Shame asked, peering around from behind. “How about I give it a look-see?”

“Let’s not add petty theft to your rap sheet,” I said. But I took a second to look at what Dad had thought valuable enough to lock away. Some papers that were probably his original patent designs and a boxful of files. A couple small jewelry cases, books, and a glass tray with three keys in it. There were a dozen document tubes, but before I got a good look at what else was in there, I noticed a wooden box. About the size of a shoe box, it was made of lightly varnished pine. I knew that box.

I picked it up, pulled it off the shelf. In my dad’s blocky handwriting were the words ALLISON ANGEL BECKSTROM’S BOX OF DREAMS. There was a little golden latch with a keyhole that I don’t remember being on it before. I brushed my fingers over the lettering and tugged on the lid. It held. Locked tight.

“This is mine,” I said.

“What’s in it?” Shame asked.

“I don’t remember.” An image of colored papers and origami cranes filled my mind. “Kid stuff, I think.”

Zay looked away from the safe.

I felt strange holding the box my dad had made for me. I reached over to put it back.

“It’s yours,” Zay said. “Keep it.”

He was right. There was no reason to leave it behind. Violet probably didn’t even know about this safe, and if she did, she had even less right to have my box. I didn’t know why Dad had kept it for so long. Locked away with things he valued.

“Is that it?” Shame asked. “We aren’t going to take any of the goodies? That leather case looks nice.”

“No,” Zay said.

“You never let me have nice things,” Shame groused.

Zay closed the safe, then pressed the wall back into place. As soon as the wall caught, the spell reactivated and gave off just the slightest scent of apples.

“Let’s go,” Zay said.

They both headed toward the stairs. I took one last look around the loft.

“Allie?” Zay asked.

“I’m coming.” I tucked the box under my arm and followed Zayvion and Shame out of the room, the house, and the life that had once been mine.

Chapter Six

This time when the elevator door opened, I took a deep breath and walked in. Well, Zay had his arm around my shoulder, and he walked in, sort of pushing me, and I followed.

Shame hit the buttons, and I had no idea if he and Zay were talking. All I was doing was breathing and trying not to scream.

We made it to the garage, and I practically ran out of the elevator. If there had been a gunman waiting to kill me, I wouldn’t have stopped my undignified flight.

About halfway across the parking area, I stopped. I was fine. I could breathe. There was air, space, openness around me. I wasn’t being crushed, smothered, squeezed.

I turned around. Shame was smoking. He threw me a grin.

Zay was on the phone. He tipped his hand toward one of the dim ceiling lights, and it slicked a flash of white across the device we’d just taken.

I still had the box under my right arm. It was a little awkward, but I tucked my hair back behind my ear and walked over to them.

“Get that out of your system?” Shame held out his cigarette. “Good for what ails ya.”

I shook my head. “Who’s Zay talking to?”

“Victor. Coordinating the hunt.” He exhaled a thin stream of smoke and then shivered and ran his hand down his arm. He looked off toward the exit.

“Problem?”

“Not with me. Maybe Terric.” He threw his cigarette to the ground and rubbed his boot over it. “Don’t know.”

Zay hung up and stuck the phone in his pocket. “Victor said he’ll meet us at Stumptown Coffee on Belmont.”

“Anyone else going to be there?” Shame asked.

“We’ll find out.” Zay held open the car door for me. His manners were showing.

“Hold on,” I said. “Shame, can I put this in the trunk?”

“Sure. Just watch out for the dead body.” He popped the trunk.

I walked around to the back of the car. No dead bodies, but his trunk was far from empty. A couple baseball bats, a few long-handled cases that looked like they could hold shotguns, and probably did, and a basket of laundry filled the space. I tucked my box between the laundry and the jumper cables and shut the trunk.

Zay was already in the backseat, so I took the front. Shame started the engine and got us out onto the street.

Sunlight and blue sky were both shockingly bright and welcome as we exited that dark, closed place. I felt like we were driving up out of a tomb.

“Do you know how it works?” Shame asked.

I twisted so I could better see Zayvion. He was frowning. “I have the general gist of it, yes,” he said.

“Just like that?” I asked. “You get a secret, experimental piece of technology in your hands and you’re a master of it?”

“It’s not that experimental. Or at least not anymore.” He pressed a button. Nothing. “Probably uses a dormant spell as a power source.”

“Might want to wait until we gather the troops,” Shame said. “In case we only get one chance at it.”

“Suppose.” He handed the device to me. “Just don’t push anything.”

It was heavier than it looked. Smooth, and the length from the tip of my fingers to the heel of my palm. I’d expected it to be set up like a phone, but instead of plastic, its face was silver and carved with glyphs. I tried to think where I had seen something like this before. Plates of metal with spells worked into it.

Finally came to me. It reminded me of the plates Dr. Frank Gordon had used to try to resurrect my father. Creepy.

“What?” Zay asked.

“It just reminds me of those things Frank Gordon used.”

“What things?”

“The plates he put on Dad’s chest when he tried to raise him from the grave.”

Zay held his hand back out, and I gave him the device. He studied it, dragged a finger along the arcs and turns of one of the spells. “No dark magic. That’s good. It’s not the same spells Frank used. It’s not the same metal. Some of the conduction is similar—the links between the spells. But that could be said of most spells we use sequentially.” He glanced up. “I think this is different enough that you don’t have to worry.”

“I wasn’t worrying; I was just observing.”

“Think it will trigger easy?” Shame asked.

“Should. If not, we’ll ask Allie’s dad.”

I rolled my good shoulder. I was starting to really hate being the go-between for the powerful dead guy. But at least he was contained in one section of my head instead of running amok with my body.

Shame found parking about a block away from the coffee shop.

We all got out and started up the street without saying anything. Zay had the device tucked away in the pocket of his coat, which was fine with me. Something about that thing gave me the creeps. Enough that I didn’t want to touch it.

Victor stood next to his car, a new-model silver Jaguar sedan, which was parked a half block behind Stumptown, just past the grocery. He wore a suit and dark trench, had a coffee carrier in his hand, and was chatting with the people near him.

Hayden, in his usual jeans and boots, but a nice leather jacket, was with him. So was Terric, in jeans and peacoat, looking like he’d just walked off a ship, his pale hair falling like moonlight to catch at the stubble of his jaw.

Also with them was Sunny. Her bruises had either healed quickly, or she had a really good cover makeup. She’d braided her dark hair behind both her ears and tied the ends with bright ribbons—no, shoelaces. She had on neon green galoshes, tights, and a skirt and coat.

I didn’t see the Georgia sisters, Maeve, or the twins, Carl and La. They might be in one of the cars parked along the street, or maybe it wouldn’t take more than seven highly trained magic users to follow the magical cage locator.

“Good to see you,” Victor said as we approached. “Coffee? Shame, this one has extra milk and sugar.”

“Where do you keep your wings?” Shame asked. “You’re a godsend.” He plucked up the cup.

“Allie, black, isn’t it?” He handed me a cup.

“Thank you.”

The last cup he gave to Zay.

I wondered for just a second what we looked like to outsiders and decided maybe a group of people meeting up for business. Good enough.

“You have it?” Victor asked me.

“Zay.”

Zay handed him the device.

Victor held it like a phone, his eyes still a little bloodshot, like he was short on sleep, which he was. “Very nice.” He took a drink of his coffee. “I’ll trigger it, and I’d like you all to follow. It should get us at least within a block of the cage. I’m surprised Daniel didn’t make something more fine-tuned.”

Dad, in my head, chafed at that, and I got the very distinct impression of it being one of his earlier technologies, made even before the disks.

“Shame,” Victor asked, “where are you parked?”

“Just down the street.”

“Swing around and follow us.”

We all started off. Someone’s phone rang. I heard Victor answer. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked.

I paused, looked over at him. His body language had changed. Whoever was on the other end of the line either had bad news or was bad news. “That’s being handled currently. We should have an update today. Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll call you then.” He hung up, frowned at his phone before pocketing it.

He must have felt me watching him. He looked up.

“Problem?” I asked. I had taken only a dozen or so steps away from him, so I didn’t even have to raise my voice.

“No. No problem,” he lied. “Let’s take care of this.”

He turned and got into his car. Hayden, who was lingering on the passenger’s side, nodded to me. “Pick up the pace, Beckstrom.”

I turned. Shame and Zay were already a block away. I jogged to meet them at the car.

“What was that all about?” Shame asked.

“Victor. He got a phone call and sounded worried.”

“Huh.” Zay glanced up the street, but Victor was already in the driver’s seat.

We got into Shame’s car.

“Does Victor have a boss?” I asked.

“Why?” Shame asked.

“He sounded like he was in defensive mode. Like whoever was on the other line was giving him a job review.”

“Think it was Mum?” Shame asked.

I shook my head. “No, I’ve watched him talk to your mom. They get along fairly well. He wasn’t comfortable talking to the caller.”

“Might have been Bartholomew,” Zay said.

“The region’s Watch, right?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Why would he call?”

Shame laughed. “Oh, you’re serious? C’mon, girl, why wouldn’t he call? For starters, we’ve had betrayal, battle, and kidnapping within our group. We’ve had to lock down two wells and have had an unprecedented string of gate openings in the area. Plus, we have one of the only known living Necromorphs locked up, several solid Veiled behind bars, and have had two members die, one via murder, the other during a magical battle among our own people. Rogue magic users out here with unsanctioned magic-holding disk technology are looking to take over, and there’s been dark magic used to try to resurrect your dad.

“To put a cherry on the pie, the guardian of the gate, Zay, almost died. Most of that’s happened in the last month or so, and we’ve quite literally lost the Head of our organization in our own town, or hope she’s still in town, and can’t find her. Not exactly the way to run a railroad.”

“Does Victor take the responsibility for all that?”

Shame nodded. “He and Mum equally. Since they’re the only Voices left standing.”

“You don’t think Bartholomew would tell them to resign, do you?” I didn’t like the situation we were in, but if I were expected to follow someone else, some stranger instead of the teachers that I knew and trusted, teachers who knew and trusted me back, I wasn’t so sure I could be a part of this club.

“If I were him,” Zay said quietly, “I’d wait a little longer and see if Victor and Maeve can get things under control. We’ve had plenty of bad times, and we’ve always pulled it together. Sometimes spectacularly.”

Shame chuckled. “With you involved, Jones, it’s always damn spectacular. Don’t worry, Allie. We won’t let Mum get fired. We still have a trick or two up our sleeves.”

“Finding Sedra will do a lot of good for our credibility,” Zay added.

I glanced back at him. He looked like the king surveying his land. He might be only a few days recovered from the coma, but he was already exuding that calm and protective vibe. This wasn’t just the Authority’s city. This city belonged to Zayvion Jones.

I looked back out, watching where Victor was leading us.

I was not at all surprised when we headed up North Lombard toward St. Johns.

“Why does everything happen out here?” I muttered.

“What?” Shame said.

“St. Johns. Why does every weird magical thing happen out here?”

“It doesn’t.”

“This is where I found Cody almost dead, and he pulled magic through me. I got hit by the wild-magic storm out here. Greyson was opening gates out here, we contained the wild-magic storm in St. Johns, and when Mikhail said he would open a gate for me to get back in life that would be close enough to Zayvion’s body to get his soul there in time, it opened in St. Johns.”

“I don’t think it’s St. Johns,” Shame said. “I think it’s you.”

“It’s not me. Big magic things happen in St. Johns. Like Cody’s ghost being tied to—” A shot of pain flashed through my head. Like a migraine on speed skates.

I hissed air through my teeth and cupped my forehead with my hand.

Zay pressed his hand on my shoulder, and I felt the soft wash of mint roll through my body. The pain eased, gone as quickly as it had come, but leaving behind a ghosting ache.

“Wow,” I said. “Ow.”

“Headache?”

“I guess.”

“What were you going to say?” Zay asked.

“What? I don’t know.” I thought about it for a second. Didn’t come up with anything. “What were we talking about?”

“St. Johns and Cody’s ghost.”

Okay, I remembered what I was going to say. I was going to tell them that Cody’s spirit or ghost was tied to Mama Rositto. That she had owed my dad some kind of favor and when the wild-magic storm hit St. Johns, a part of Cody had stepped out of the gates and somehow Mama Rositto had caught him up and taken him away with her.

Why in the world would that cause me pain?

Dad?

Nothing.

“I wanted to say that Cody . . .” I paused. So far, so good. “His spirit was there. His ghost. During the wild-magic storm.”

“Ghost? Like when we were being tested as Soul Complements?” Zay asked.

“Yes. He stepped out of the gate and sort of fell into me. It was scary as hell. I can’t stand sharing brain space with one person, much less two. But then Dad helped me push him out of me, and he was like a ghost. He told me to make this right. I have no idea what he meant by that. Maybe he wanted me to go through the gate to save your soul, Zay.”

“Maybe,” Zay said. “Then what happened?”

“Mama Rositto showed up. You know her, right?”

“Very much so.”

Okay, that was a weird answer. “How do you know her?”

“She’s been on the Authority watch list for a long time. What did she do?”

“She told my dad she didn’t owe him any favors now. That this made it even between them.”

“What did your father do for Rositto?” Shame asked.

“I have no idea. She took Cody’s ghost.”

“What?” Zay and Shame said at the same time.

“I don’t know. A lot was going on, but Cody’s spirit needed someone to hold on to, to hook on to. She took him, and he followed her. He wasn’t upset about it. Said he liked her and was happy to go with her.”

“Wait,” Shame said. “You’re saying Mama Rositto not only spoke to your father in your head, but also saw Cody’s ghost and knew some kind of magic to bind him to her?”

“That’s how I remember it.”

“Not easy to bind a soul,” Zay said.

“Takes a hell of a lot more specialized skills than running your average diner,” Shame said.

“It’s magic, right?” I asked. “Has she ever been a part of the Authority?”

“No,” Zay said, “but we think she has an idea that we exist. Nothing’s been proved, and if it had, she would be Closed. Interesting that she’s had past dealings with your father.”

“She is James Hoskil’s mother,” I said. “He was Dad’s ex-business partner, Perry Hoskil’s son, back when he was developing the storm rods. I’m sure she and Dad ran into each other before Dad threw Perry under the train and forced him out of business.”

Zay nodded. “Don’t know what that has to do with her owing your father a favor.”

“True. But I figured my dad has dirt on almost everyone in town. How else would he have been able to stay at the top of the magical-technology integration field? We could always ask her about it,” I said.

Zay shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe you could. She won’t talk to me. Thinks I have a hidden agenda.” He turned his gaze to me, and gold flecked his eyes. He smiled. “Can’t imagine why.”

Yeah, with that look on his face, his agenda was far from hidden. He looked like a man who not only had power but also liked to use it.

“If I get the chance,” I said, “but she’s not really happy with me either since James got locked up for trying to kill me.”

Shame slowed, and we drove near the edge of St. Johns. Huh. So maybe we weren’t going to find Sedra in St. Johns.

Instead, Victor turned east and paralleled the river on Northeast Marine Drive. Eventually, we could see the houseboats dotting the banks. In the afternoon light, the water glittered mossy greens and gray-blue.

He followed the river, then pulled down a side street and parked the car.

“Looks like it’s game time,” Shame said. “Beautiful day for some ass kicking, don’t you think?”

He got out of the car, Zay and I right behind him. Carl and La drove up, and so did Sunny and Terric. Victor and Hayden walked around to the back of Victor’s car, and we all gathered there.

Hayden threw a very nice Illusion to keep prying eyes from catching hold of what we were doing, and Victor opened the trunk.

Zay always carried a variety of weapons in the back of his car. Usually a couple machetes, a whip, various knives and axes, and a few magical tracking tools, like the cuffs that allow a person to keep track of another person by an awareness of heartbeat and emotional state.

But Zay’s equipment looked like a collection of odds and ends compared to Victor’s stash.

Four low-profile cases filled the trunk. When Victor released the latches and pulled open the lids, the custom-carved velvet-lined cases revealed swords, knives, axes, and other sharp, deadly devices all elegantly glyphed from tip to tip, including one case that carried a tray of handguns, and, when Victor moved that aside, had two very nice rifles with scopes below.

Guns? Against magical bad guys?

Well, no. Not all the people opposed to the Authority fought with magic. Some of them just stormed into your apartment and waved a gun at your head.

Apparently, that tactic wasn’t below Victor either.

“The locator indicates the cage is on one of the houseboats within a block,” Victor said. “We’re going to spread out.” He lifted a box with several thin silver and glass chains in it, letting each of us choose a chain. “And we are going to stay in contact. No going in alone. Not for any of us.” He took an extra long time to stare at Zayvion, Shame, and me, to make sure we understood.

“When,” he continued, “any one of us finds Jingo or Sedra, we will call for backup. I don’t want any mistakes. I don’t want haste to take away our chance of ending this now. We do this carefully, cautiously, methodically.”

It was my turn to choose a chain. There were maybe ten or so left in the case. They all looked exactly the same. I pulled one out. It was about the right length for a bracelet; I put it on my left wrist just like everyone else. I connected the clasp and felt a sweet little spell snap to life.

This was a little different from the wrist cuffs; I couldn’t feel anyone’s emotions. But I knew where each of us was, and that we were alive. Helpful without being distracting. And it looked like newer tech than the wrist cuffs.

“If you haven’t brought your own weapons, arm yourself.” He stepped aside.

“I would prefer capturing Jingo Jingo alive,” he continued. “We have some questions he could answer for us. That goes for anyone else working with him. Don’t use deadly force unless necessary.”

I had the Blood dagger on me, but that was all. I ran my fingers over the edge of the gun case. Even though I liked the idea of a longer-range weapon, I could not bring myself to pick up the gun. I’d just been on the other side of a barrel, and the thought of holding a firearm in my hand made me nauseated.

Luckily, Victor had a very nice sword weighted a lot like my katana. I reached for it at the exact same time Zay did. Our fingers touched; Zay pulled his hand away.

“Nice choice,” he murmured.

He reached for a heavier sword, something between a machete and that broadsword Hayden was leaning on.

Everyone else must have brought their own weapons. Victor closed the lids and latched all the cases, then shut the trunk. “Hayden?” he said.

Hayden made a motion like cutting the Illusion in half and caught two bits of the canceled glyph in each hand, pushing one out toward our cars, to hide them, and pushing the other half out to us. I didn’t know what we looked like under Hayden’s Illusion. Maybe he made it so only one of us was visible, or maybe we looked like a gang of teens, or maybe we looked like us, only the memory of us slipped away the second we were out of sight.

“Groups of three,” Victor said. “Hayden, Sunny, with me. Terric, Carl, and La; Allie, Zayvion, and Shame. We’ll start on the west edge and work our way east. Questions?”

No one asked anything. “Let’s use our heads,” he said, giving Shame a hard look.

Shame just grinned. “That’s my favorite thing to use.”

We strolled across the street toward the stairs leading down to the docks below. Beautiful day, soft breezes, the scent of fresh, moving water mixed with the heavier odors of algae, rotten wood, and fish. In the distance, traffic hummed.

Nothing sneaky going on here, nothing much to see. Just a group of secret magic users about to go door-to-door asking if anyone had seen a kidnapped magic user stuck in a cage.

Zay, Shame, and I headed east, Terric and his crew took the gangplank to the boats directly in front of us, and Victor and Hayden and Sunny headed toward the western dozen.

Shame took the lead. No surprise. He had a fire burning in him to find Jingo Jingo. And Victor telling him to use his head and not use deadly force didn’t mean Shame wouldn’t make the man wish he were dead. Jingo should have never targeted Maeve. I didn’t think there was a single forgiving bone in Shame’s body.

“Keep it tight, Shamus,” Zay said quietly from behind me.

Shame nodded once.

It really was an odd way to hunt. Shame cast a Sight spell; Zay cast something else that let him, and me, if I were touching him, sense how many living things were inside the boat. Everything from plants, cats, fish, and people. As far as I could tell, it stopped there, since I couldn’t sense bugs or microscopic life.

As for me? I went for the tried-and-true Hounding spells. I set a Disbursement for a headache and cast a form of Sight, Smell, and Taste. If Jingo Jingo had been casting magic, and I don’t know why he wouldn’t, then I should be able to unravel his signature from the other old, fading, and lingering spells scattered about the dock and boats.

There was a higher concentration of spells than I’d expected. Maybe living on the water made a person want to put in a few extra protection spells, or alarm spells, or even things like Illusions that made the boat upkeep look flawless. I know if I lived on water, I’d have a dozen backup spells on my bilge pump and generator.

Shame strolled down the dock, looking like he wasn’t peering inside each of those ships. I sorted through spells, searching for Jingo’s signature, breathing deep in hope of catching his licorice-and-formaldehyde scent.

We went through the first three boats, then walked down the dock and along the water to the next slip. Another two boats. This time, Terric’s team was ahead of us, so we skipped forward to the next boat. There were only a few more at this dock. And Victor had said the device indicated the cage was within a block of where we parked. We were pushing the edge of that boundary now.

As soon as we came even with one of the boats, I could smell it—the licorice-and-formaldehyde stink of Jingo Jingo. I immediately broke out in a cold sweat.

“He’s down here,” I said quietly.

Shame, still ahead of us, paused. “You sure?” he asked so quietly, I almost couldn’t hear it over the lapping of water, and clatter of rope against metal.

“Yes.” I rested my gaze on each boat in turn. “Toward the end.”

No spells covering the outside of the boat. I think that’s what tipped me off. Everyone else had something cast—if not an alarm, some kind of flotation or other maintenance spell. Not the boat at the end.

“I think we should call Victor,” I said.

“Done,” Shame repocketed his phone. I hadn’t heard him talking, didn’t see or smell a Mute spell, so guessed he had an auto text message set to ping him.

Zay cast an Illusion around us, one that was so subtle, I almost couldn’t smell the extra magic. Which was good. With any luck, Jingo Jingo wouldn’t sense it either.

It took only a couple minutes and everyone was assembled on the dock. Victor and Hayden took point, Zay and Terric in the middle, and me and Shame in the back, with Carl and Sunny behind us. I don’t know why they shoved me at the back of the pack—although I could guess. I was not a Closer and not nearly as practiced a fighter as any of the rest of them. But I knew exactly why Shame was as far out of the leading edge of the attack as possible. Jingo Jingo wouldn’t come back alive if Shame got to him first.

We made our way quietly and quickly to the boat. There was no other way onto it than the gangplank, which, I could tell from the tense body language, none of us liked. We filed on, one at a time, and once on the boat, spread out around the deck. I didn’t think Jingo Jingo was the type to jump ship, but I wouldn’t put it past him to shove Sedra, cage and all, overboard.

Victor and Hayden stood on either side of the door, like some kind of cop duo, except instead of guns, they had swords and fists full of spells ready to fire. Terric, Sunny, and Carl went around the back, looking to block Jingo’s escape.

I hunched down near the railing. My thought was to stay here to block Jingo’s escape if he blasted through everyone else.

No fireworks, no bullets. Not a kick to the door. Victor cast a spell around the entire boat, making it feel like it was wrapped in a thick blanket, and Hayden tried the latch and opened the door.

They both walked into the living area. The bracelet at my wrist told me they were still alive and still on the boat. Then I heard Victor’s voice as if he were standing next to me, which he most certainly was not.

“Come in, all of you.” Okay, so it wasn’t just me who was hearing his voice. I hesitated, wondering if this was a trap, wondering if Jingo Jingo could somehow have captured Victor and was luring us in.

Shame was through the door in a shot, a spell clenched in his hand and a hard light in his eyes. Zay glanced back at me, then disappeared into the cabin.

I made it in before Sunny, with Terric in front of me.

The cabin was actually a very nice and spacious living area. I let out the breath I was holding against my claustrophobia. It was more luxurious on the inside than the outside; it felt like I’d just stepped onto a yacht. Even so, the main living space was blocked by a wall of shoulders and backs. I’m tall, but Zay, Victor, and Hayden pretty much sucked up any chance I might have to see what it was they were all looking at.

Then the smell hit me full force. Licorice and formaldehyde, blood, sweat, pain, and something that stank like burned metal.

“Don’t kill him, Shame,” Victor said. “Not yet.”

“Where is she, Jingo?” Victor asked.

I finally slid to one side, enough that I could see around Zay’s shoulder.

The mass of flesh on the floor may have once resembled Jingo Jingo. Now it looked like he’d gone through a meat grinder. Bloody, burned, bruised, and swollen. I didn’t know what it would take to do that to a man his size.

Hayden, who had somehow made it around to the other side of Jingo, glanced up at me. I caught his gaze and realized that behind him was the twisted, broken, and burned remains of the spell cage Jingo had thrown around Sedra.

“Don’t,” Jingo wheezed, “know. Dane. Lanister broke her out.”

“That’s enough for me,” Shame growled. “I don’t see how he’s of any use to us now.” He pulled back his hand to cast.

“Shame,” Victor warned.

Shame swore.

“If you won’t do as you’re told, you will leave,” he commanded.

“You aren’t going to let him live, are you?” Shame asked. “He betrayed the Authority.”

“He will receive a trial.”

“A trial?” Shame said. “He bloody well tried to kill us. Tried to kill my mother and all the rest of us on the battlefield.”

“There are laws,” Victor said, “and we will follow them. It is all that separates us from the likes of him.”

“Fuck you, Victor. How about you put me on trial for his death instead?”

“Shamus,” Zayvion said, low and calm. “You’ll have your time. Not now.”

Shame looked up at Zayvion. Feral anger in those eyes, in the clench of his teeth. The crystal in his chest burned bloodred. “I don’t need your permission.”

“Take him outside,” Victor snapped.

Terric slipped around from behind the other side of Victor, and then he was next to Shame. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Shame, but opposite, so that he looked away from Jingo, toward Victor. I don’t know what he said, but it must have surprised Shame. He looked sharply over at Terric. Then the heat, the fury, drained out of him. The anger was still there, but so was something else. Resolve. I had a feeling Terric had just offered to help him kill Jingo Jingo in his sleep later, no matter what Victor wanted.

I hoped I was wrong.

“Don’t fucking screw this up,” Shame said to Victor and Zay in equal measures. Then he stormed past us all, Terric pacing behind him and giving Zayvion and Victor a short nod.

I wanted to ask him what he’d said but didn’t have time. They were gone, and Victor and Zayvion knelt next to Jingo, pulling Sight spells to track the magic used on him.

“Should I call the doctor?” I asked Sunny, who stood next to me, looking a little sick to her stomach.

“We already did. She’s going to meet us at the hospital, where he’ll be taken care of before he’s transferred to the prison.”

Carl and La walked in with a rolling stretcher. I had no idea where they got that, but it looked just like the ones an ambulance would carry.

“Make way,” Carl said.

I realized I was just one more body in an increasingly tight space. Outside sounded really good right now. I turned to leave.

“I done what you said,” Jingo Jingo whispered. “You hear me, Daniel Beckstrom?”

Chills ran down my spine. He was talking to my father.

“I done what you said; now you owe me. Owe me.” He coughed, a wet, horrible hacking.

Victor glanced at me. “We’ll talk to your father about this soon. Step out. We’ll deal with this back at my place, where we won’t have to worry about the neighbors hearing.”

I got out of there as fast as I could.

Shame was pacing and smoking and swearing on the deck. Terric leaned against the rail, one boot propped up behind him, arms crossed over his chest, staring at the floor planks. He was talking calmly between Shame’s outbursts and also keeping a heck of a nice Mute and Diversion spell going so that people wouldn’t want to look this way, and even if they did they wouldn’t hear Shame’s tirade.

I didn’t want to get in the way of that, so I walked over the gangplank and back out onto the dock.

He wants me to testify for him, Dad said in my mind.

I don’t think your good word will do Jingo Jingo any favors.

Victor has a Truth spell binding me. He will know that I speak the truth. Jingo Jingo did not want to betray the Authority.

Really? Because he did a bang-up job of it.

He was acting on orders.

Whose?

Mikhail’s.

And you think that will prove he’s innocent? Mikhail tried to kill us. He’s not on the Good Guy list. Alive or dead.

You have to let me talk to Victor.

Not right now.

“Allie?” It was Hayden, strolling down the dock toward me. I looked around and realized I was near the stairs, wanting my feet on solid land again.

“We could use a hand back there,” he said. “Flynn’s no good to us, and I’m afraid if we jiggle Terric too hard, Flynn’s going to blow apart.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Any good at faking spells?”

“What?”

“There’s a mess back there that needs cleaning up. Clean enough a Hound won’t be able to track it back to us, or to what really happened.”

“That’s destroying evidence.”

“Oh, I suppose you can look at it that way.” He rubbed a hand over his beard. “See, my idea was to just sink the boat, but Victor thinks that’s a little heavy-handed.”

“Is it Jingo’s boat?”

He grinned. “No. It belongs to your father. Or I suppose to you now.”

Fab. Just what I needed. A magical crime on one of my father’s ex-properties. “Fine. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather take the time to actually clean the magic out of the thing.”

“Makes no never mind to me. Ask Victor. He’s the boss.”

We strode back toward the boat and moved aside so that Carl, La, and a very uninterested Sunny could maneuver Jingo Jingo and the stretcher down the way. Shame stopped pacing and glared at Jingo, then up at the shore behind us. I looked over my shoulder. Dr. Fisher was there, and behind her was an ambulance.

The Authority had an ambulance?

No, more likely the Authority had a few EMTs working for them and Dr. Fisher called the injury in. Made sense that they’d take him to the hospital. I wondered what they’d forge the records to say? Meth-lab accident? Blood magic backfire?

Now that members of the Authority had taken sides about magic, I wondered if the people in record fixing and media exposure were on our side.

A leak like this—that strange magical technology had been used to kidnap, cage, and nearly kill someone, and it had all happened below the notice of the law—would make for headline news and a lot of damage control for the Authority.

But since I hadn’t heard of any new magic crimes, I had to assume the cover-up teams were still part of the good guys.

Jingo had said Dane Lanister broke Sedra out. If that were true, I couldn’t think of why he didn’t just kill Jingo Jingo. Man had a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it. He was furious Sedra had been kidnapped.

And now that he had rescued her, he should be calling in, to Maeve or Victor, to let them know. Unless he didn’t think Victor and Maeve deserved to be Voices in the Authority.

Factions inside factions. Who knew what side Dane was on?

I stepped back into the boat and held my breath. It didn’t smell nearly as bad as before. Someone must have cast a Dispel.

Victor and Zay both held forms of Sight in their left hands and were going over the scene of the crime.

“Need a hand?” I asked.

Victor frowned. “Yes. Hound this for me, won’t you?”

I calmed my mind. Sang my little jingle so I could focus on magic and hoped I could get away with a mild headache for this one. Zay wasn’t paying attention to me. He was casting Containment spells over the broken, burned cage.

I drew magic up through my body. It poured beneath my skin with a heat that had become familiar and almost pleasant. But the hole in my chest, my missing small magic that I’d always carried, twinged like a broken bone. I still had to catch my breath when magic flowed past that hole death had carved into me, still hated it when magic poured and warmed every part of me except for that emptiness I could not fill.

The hollow hole in my chest reminded me of how much I’d paid to see that this war with the Authority ended.

I just hoped it was worth it.

The room brightened like shutters opening the day wide.

Magic was everywhere. It literally seeped out of the walls like mold spreading into oxygen. I had seen none of this, sensed none of this on the outside of the boat, and yet the place was filthy with it. So much, I didn’t know where to begin.

“Problem?” Victor asked.

“I got it. But you need to tell me what you want to know.”

“Who used magic in here?”

“For everything?”

“Freshest to oldest.”

“I take it you’ve worked with Hounds before.”

“In my day.”

“Freshest. Zay’s Containment, your Containment, your Influence, something that seems close to Impact—a crushing spell? You were trying to crush Jingo?”

“Holding him with . . . pressure,” Victor said mildly, “so that he gave us the truth.”

Magical torture. Or one step away from it. Looked like Victor didn’t always follow the rules.

“You don’t need to go over my spells,” he said, “or Zayvion’s or any of us who entered here together. Start just before that. You can track time signatures?”

“I thought you said you’d worked with Hounds before.”

“It was a long time ago, and they were specially trained.”

“Well, I’m specially trained too. Before we arrived.” I walked one circuit of the room, not wanting to step in Jingo’s blood, not wanting to touch Zay, who would blow my focus, and not wanting, most of all, to touch that cage. As I passed the cage, the hair on my arms lifted and I shivered even though the air in here was damp and still.

Hell of a lot of spells. At least three dozen standing spells. Most in the Illusion, Mute, and Ward class. Made me wonder what Dad had used this boat for. Whatever it was, it sure wasn’t legal.

“There’s Impact. Break, Crush. All Dane’s. Another signature I don’t recognize.” I inhaled, sorting scents. “One of the men who was with him this morning, I think. I’ve never seen him cast magic, so I’m not sure. And I’ve never seen the casting records of whoever did this. Is everyone in the Authority required to register their signature with the courts?”

“Not everyone,” Victor said. “Doctors, teachers, and the like always do. People who use magic in any public manner.”

“The spells are . . . brutal,” I said for lack of a better word. I licked the sweat off my lips. I’d seen a lot of nasty things people could do with magic. Saw pain and suffering they were more than happy to pay the price for to make another person miserable. But I’d never seen anyone beat someone nearly to death with magic. A baseball bat and pair of steel-toed boots was easier and probably did less damage to the attacker. Someone had tried to boil Jingo in his own fat.

“Death magic,” I said. “And . . .” I frowned. “Dark magic.” I walked over to the cage, to the puddle of blood that dragged a messy streak, like someone had used meat hooks to pull a body into the middle of the room so they could tear it apart.

“There’s an Unlocking spell here at the cage. It’s Dane’s signature. It’s worked in dark magic. There’s another spell. . . .” I paced around behind the twisted remains of the cage. “It’s Sedra’s signature. Also dark magic—no, a blend of dark and Death magic.” I did not touch but traced the outline of the spell, trying to quantify the exact spell. “It’s an exchange.”

“Death magic?” Victor asked, his voice sounding too loud in the small space.

“No. Transfer, I think. I think she might have been trying to get away from him. Like a transfer of mass. Can people do that without a disk?” I looked away from the fading spell and over at Victor.

Correction, at Victor, Zay, and Detective Stotts, who was walking through the door.

Chapter Seven

“Detective,” I said.

Victor, who hadn’t moved and was still watching me, tapped his lip with one finger before he seemed to make up his mind. “Come in, Detective Stotts. I was hoping you’d arrive.”

“Did you contact me?” Stotts asked.

“What?” He looked over at Stotts, then back down at the bloodstain. “No. Not at all. I’m curious as to how you knew there was a crime here.”

“What happened?” Stotts ignored Victor and directed that at me.

Victor answered. “We found a person we’ve been working with—someone who had recently fallen out of contact with us—injured here. By magic, we think. Allie was just Hounding it when you walked in.”

“I heard,” he said. “So what have you found, Allie?”

Okay, this was one of those who’s who things. Stotts did not know about the Authority, and Victor had already Closed him once, just a couple days ago, as a matter of fact, when he’d caught wind of some of the things that the Authority was doing—like me bringing Zay’s soul back from death.

I had no idea what to tell Stotts. I wasn’t a champion liar, and the truth would get him a coupon for one free magical lobotomy. Victor obviously already had some kind of cover story in place about how he, Sedra, and Jingo Jingo all worked together. But he’d never told me what that cover story was.

“Tell him, Allie,” Victor said. “He needs to know the truth.”

That might be doublespeak for me to lie. Too bad.

“Jingo Jingo was attacked. As far as I can tell, it was Dane Lanister. I think one or more men were with him.”

“And that?” He pointed at what was left of the cage.

I glanced at Victor, who nodded imperceptibly. Apparently, the truth was what he’d wanted me to say.

“That is a magic-tech device my father made. It’s a cage that holds people trapped by magic.”

“Who was trapped?”

“Sedra Miller,” Victor said. “She had been kidnapped by Jingo Jingo and we believed she was being held here. We came to investigate, but someone, perhaps Dane Lanister, beat us to the punch. He broke her free. I believe Sedra is with him.”

“And none of this was reported to the police?”

Victor turned away from the mess and took a breath, holding it while he stared at Detective Stotts. I wanted to tell Paul to leave, to run. I wanted to tell him Victor or, hell, my boyfriend could rummage through his head and take away any memory he owned. That they could unmake him and remake his life.

“Listen,” I said, “I’m running up a hell of a migraine here Hounding these spells. How about we take care of business first; then we argue over who’s doing it right later. And if you don’t like that, then both of you can leave. You’re messing up my crime scene.”

I turned my back on them and went back to tracing spells. “If someone wants to write this down?”

I heard a pen click—Stotts.

“Dane Lanister, at least one other person with him, and Sedra all attacked Jingo Jingo. I don’t see a single defense spell.” I dropped Sight, drew a more intricate version that had a magnification on it, looking for ashes so far gone they were nearly invisible. Nothing. “No sign of a defense spell. He either was hit by surprise or just stood here and took it.”

“Any trail of where they went?” Victor asked.

I walked the circuit of the room, paused at the door, which they would have had to use to get off the boat, leaned out to see if there were ashes outside. “Nothing magical.” I stuck my head back in, and the stink of the main cabin hit me. I wished I’d stayed out in the breeze.

“There’s no hint of magic outside the boat at all,” I said. “Whatever spells are around this place, they are the best I’ve seen at hiding magic.”

“Perfect for holding a hostage,” Victor said.

“Why did Jingo Jingo kidnap her?” Stotts asked.

Victor didn’t hesitate. “I do not know.”

“Are you sure it was a kidnapping?” Stotts asked. “She could have come here voluntarily.”

Victor shook his head. “No. I am certain she didn’t go with him willingly.”

“Why?”

“I saw him take her.”

“When?” Stotts asked.

“During the wild-magic storm.”

“This happened weeks ago?” Stotts asked.

“Yes.”

Stotts’ eyebrows rose, but he didn’t ask more. Yet. He waved one hand toward the mess. “Go on.”

“I saw her using magic during the wild-magic storm,” Victor said.

Stotts shook his head. “If you want me to believe you, you’re going to have to be a lot more specific than that. Where was she using magic? When?”

Victor held his gaze and calmly said, “She and I were channeling the magic during the storm so it didn’t blow out the networks in the city.”

It sounded like something a crazy person would say. No one can channel wild magic and survive. But Stotts had plenty of experience working with crazies.

“And how, exactly, do you channel wild magic?” he asked.

“With practice,” Victor said.

They stared at each other for a while; then Victor added, “And with the Beckstrom disks, which Jingo Jingo then used to stun Sedra and, I can only assume, also used to keep her here.”

“You stole the disks?” Stotts asked.

“No, but I know who Sedra sent to the lab to ask for the disks. Ask. I did not know he would break in and injure Mr. Cooper and Mrs. Beckstrom.”

“Who?”

“Dane Lanister, who works directly below Sedra Miller.”

Stotts nodded. All that, amazingly, lined up to what I’d told Stotts when I Hounded the break-in.

“I think we should go down to the station and finish this,” Stotts said. “I’ll need details of how, exactly, you suspected Jingo Jingo held her here, what Ms. Miller intended to use the disks for, and a few other facts I’m a little fuzzy on.”

“I’d be happy to tell you anything you want to know,” Victor said, “but I don’t have time to go to the station today.”

Stotts shook his head, his expression still that of a man trying to gauge the sanity of another. “Maybe you don’t understand the severity of the things you’ve admitted to me, Mr. Forsythe.”

“I do,” Victor said. “But what I am asking of you, Mr. Stotts, is your cooperation. To keep the citizens of this city safe, and to find Dane Lanister and Sedra Miller. In return, my services and information are at your disposal.”

“What if I say no and just haul you in?”

“You don’t want to do that,” Victor said.

“Really? I think I do want to do that.”

“I strongly,” Victor said, his voice taking on the ice of a man about to wield enough magic to make your ears ring, “advise you against that course of action, Detective.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Not at all.”

Zay, who had been silent, rolled his head to one side, snapping the bones in his neck. The tension in the room was so high, I was afraid Stotts might pull his gun if someone so much as sneezed.

Stotts’ phone rang. I jumped and squeaked, which got all three men staring at me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

Stotts glanced at the number and answered. “Stotts.”

“You need to get out to St. Johns,” a voice, I thought maybe Garnet, one of Stotts’ men, said. Hound ears were good for eavesdropping.

“Why?”

“Nola Robbins and Cody Miller were attacked.”

Chapter Eight

Stotts went dead still, and my stomach lurched. “Where? When?” he asked.

“St. Johns behind the Homestyle Cafe. About fifteen minutes ago. They’re shaken but fine. And you know that gargoyle you had me pounding bricks for? It’s standing between me and them.”

“I’ll be right there.” He hung up. “Everybody out.” He dialed another number and nodded toward the door. “I’m cordoning this off as a crime scene. Out.”

To my surprise, Victor and Zayvion did as he said.

I was more than happy to get out of there, away from the blood, the magic, and the death.

Stotts, behind me, gave orders for someone to come lock down the scene. Sounded like another member of his Magical Enforcement Response Corps—the MERCs. Which made sense—they were the secretive branch of the law that dealt with magical crimes.

“You and I will finish this later today,” he said to Victor. Then we all made our way to the shore. A police cruiser pulled up, and the mile-wide mass of Officer Makanie Love stepped out of it. He met us at the top of the stairs.

“Detective,” Makanie said with his island accent. He wore his uniform, which should have made him look fat, but instead made me realize that behind that easygoing Hawaiian manner was a man who didn’t need a Taser to knock you out cold. “What’s the situation?”

“Walk with me.” Stotts and Makanie rumbled off toward Paul’s car, and Victor and Zayvion strode in the opposite direction toward our vehicles.

I jogged off to catch up with Stotts and Makanie.

“Where are you going?” Victor called to me.

“Nola’s hurt.” I reached Stotts just as Makanie was walking away toward the docks.

“Tita, you get into more hot water than a pot of lobsters, you know that?” he said as he passed me.

“I know. Gotta go. Paul,” I called. “I’m coming with you.”

He nodded and slid into his car.

I was right behind him and ducked into the front seat and slammed the door behind me as he started driving. “What happened to Nola?”

“You heard.”

“The gargoyle won’t hurt them.”

“Can you guarantee that?”

I nodded and glanced in the side-view mirror. Zayvion was watching us drive away. He swore, then strode down the road toward Shame’s car. I hoped he wasn’t going to follow me. I could take care of Stone, and if someone didn’t stay behind to clean up the mess of magic here, and keep Detective Makanie from learning things he shouldn’t, we were screwed.

“How?” Stotts asked.

What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. Stone.

“I know the gargoyle won’t hurt them because he’s mine,” I said.

“You told me it was Shamus Flynn’s art project.”

“I lied. It’s mine, and it is one of the statues from the restaurant. I accidentally did something with magic to wake it up, and now it kind of follows me around like a dog.”

“You lied to me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“For one, I didn’t report that he followed me home when it happened,” I said. “The restaurant says he’s stolen, right?”

“If you had explained yourself and returned him, they might not have wanted to press charges.”

“I know. But I can’t return him. He has a mind of his own.”

Paul considered that. He’d been around Stone only once, but he was smart enough to realize Stone wasn’t just a magic trick. Or, actually, that he was a very unusual and very complicated magic trick.

“How did you ‘wake it up’?” he finally asked.

“I’m not exactly sure.”

“Does it have something to do with those people you’re involved with back there? Your father’s technologies and the kidnapping?”

I took in a deep breath and let it out. My arm was starting to hurt again, and so was my butt. I wasn’t sure if I had any extra pain pills in my pocket. I shifted in the seat to try to ease my hip.

“Not really,” I said honestly. “I think Stone’s just one of those weird things that can crop up when people have messed around with magic for hundreds of years.”

“Hundreds?”

“I meant thirty.”

Paul was silent. “Want to go over that answer again?”

“Not on the record.”

“All right.” He nodded. “Let’s do this off the record. What aren’t you telling me, Allie?”

I thought about it. About exposing my nice detective friend, and my best friend’s nice boyfriend, to all the crazy magic business going on. He deserved to know something. Enough to keep himself and Nola safe. Even if that meant bending the Authority’s rules a little.

“That whole business back there with my dad’s technology is kind of hard to explain,” I said. “Victor’s a good guy. He means it when he says he really wants people to be safe—really wants magic to be safe. He didn’t know, we didn’t know, what had happened to Sedra Miller until we got there.”

“Did you ever think he might be lying to you?”

“Yes. But he’s showed me the things he’s tried to do to keep magic safe. Like channeling the wild-magic storm. I was there when they did it.”

“They?”

“I’m not going to name names.”

“So why are you telling me about it now?”

“Nola’s in town. I know you can handle yourself with magic, but she doesn’t even know a basic Block spell. I want you to know I trust Victor and that I think there might be some bad magic use going on in town. Jingo Jingo was a part of why I’m worried. Dane too.”

“How deeply are you involved with these people, Allie?”

“Well, I’m dating Zay, and he looks up to Victor like a father.”

“Zayvion Jones?” He frowned. Yeah, I know, it was hard to put Zay’s street-drifter image into the idea of being a powerful magic user.

“He’s very good with magic,” I said. “Trust me.”

Stotts shook his head. “Over the years I’ve thought . . . thought there was something going on with magic I couldn’t put my thumb on. Every time I got close, the evidence fell apart. . . .”

“You were right to be suspicious.” I rubbed at my forehead, realized my hands still stunk of Jingo Jingo and old magic, and let them drop to my lap.

“Allie,” Stotts said. “Just because you haven’t seen them do anything wrong doesn’t mean they’re innocent. If they were so right in their ways, why would they hide from the law?”

“You hide from the law.”

“I am the law,” he corrected.

“Yes, but no one knows that there’s a secret division of the police force that deals with magical crime. Why don’t they know? The less they know, the safer they are, right?”

He took a breath, let it out. “They’re vigilantes, Allie.”

“No,” I said. “No more than Hounds are. They do their part to try to keep magic safe. Just like Hounds. Legal, just like you.”

“I don’t think you understand the definition of legal,” he said. He parked the car in front of the cafe and opened the door. I got out.

“Can you talk to the gargoyle?” he asked.

“He’ll listen to me.”

The white MERC van was parked down the street. Standing next to it, texting on his cell phone, was a tall, thin, older man wearing a Grateful Dead tie-dye shirt and worn-out jeans. Officer Garnet, one of Stotts’ MERC crew.

“They’re round back,” Garnet said as we neared. “Hello, Allie.”

“Hey.”

We walked around behind the building. The pavement was broken and uneven. Weeds growing through the cracks brushed against my shoes and made it a little slippery to navigate. Then I saw them.

Nola stood with her hand on Cody’s shoulder. Cody sat cross-legged on the ground, petting Stone’s back.

And Stone, that lunk of concrete, stood with his back to them both, watching the street, his fangs bared, his ears flat, looking like he was ready to tear someone to bits and eat their bones.

Which I knew he could do.

No one was bruised or bleeding or broken. Nola looked a little shell-shocked.

Stone caught wind of us coming and growled.

Stotts put his hand on his gun.

“Stone,” I said, resting my fingers briefly on Stotts’ sleeve. “What are you doing out in daylight, Stoney?”

His ears pricked up, and a few less fangs were showing. “He’s safe,” I told Nola.

“You know what that is?”

“That,” I said, “is my gargoyle. He’s made out of magic mostly. He won’t hurt you, will you, Stone?”

He cooed, and Cody laughed.

I walked over to Stone and patted his head. “What are you doing out in the daylight, you crazy brick? You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“It’s magic?” Nola said, not sounding at all sure about it.

“Yes. Not a common magical thing, but he’s magic. Are you okay? They said you were attacked.”

Paul had walked over with me, and while he kept an eye on Stone, he at least did not draw his gun, which I didn’t think would work on rock anyway.

“We were going for a walk to the park,” Nola said. “Then I couldn’t move. There was a man. . . .”

“Shadow man,” Cody said quietly.

Holy shit. The only shadow man I knew of was Leander.

“Did you get a good look at him?” Paul asked.

“No,” Nola answered. “It was like Cody said. Just a shadow. But upright as if he were solid, and shaped like a man. Maybe it was something magical? An art piece or advertisement? He said he wanted Cody.”

“Did he touch him?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think. Cody, did the shadow touch you?”

Cody looked over at Nola. “My monster. See my good monster?”

“Are you hurt, Cody?” Detective Stotts asked.

“I have a good monster.”

“Yes,” Nola said. “He is a good monster. Very nice. He chased away the shadow. Do you remember that?”

Cody nodded.

“Did the shadow touch you?” she asked again.

Cody frowned. Finally nodded.

“Where?” Nola asked.

Cody pointed at his head. “Inside my head. But monster was here.”

“In his head?” Paul asked.

“I don’t know,” Nola said. “Can we go back to our hotel room? I don’t want to be standing out here anymore, but every time we tried to take a step, that thing followed us. I might be able to get a real answer out of Cody if he has a quieter place to think.”

“You’re sure you weren’t hurt?” Paul asked.

“Shaken,” she said. “I’ve never had . . . never had to deal with magic like that before.”

The other two MERC crew—Julian, who looked like he should be trading stock, and Roberts, who looked like she could play blocker for the Rose City Rollers—were already sweeping the area, looking for magic, looking for leads. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to identify the spells Leander used, if it had been Leander. For one thing, he’d been dead for five hundred years and last I knew was still in a ghostly form. For another, he must have used dark magic, and no one, not even the MERCs, knew about dark magic.

“Let me take you home,” Stotts said.

“To the hotel?” she asked.

“No,” Stotts and I said at the same time.

He glanced at me. “It’s not safe enough there. If this was a magical attack on Cody, specifically, I’d rather have you somewhere I know you’ll be safe. I’d like you to stay with me.”

“No, I can’t put you out like that, Paul. The hotel will be fine. Maybe you could just assign us an officer to look in on us for the night?”

“Nola,” I said. “He’s right. I told you there are some strange magical things happening in the city right now, and if you’re going to be here, I’d really like you to be somewhere safe. And I’m sure Paul has safeties and wards on his place.”

“Nothing will be able to reach you there,” he agreed. “And this?” He pointed at Stone. “Thing?” He looked over at me.

“Stone. He would probably be happy to stay with Cody, if that’s okay with Nola. I think he likes him.”

Stone tipped his head side to side, nudging Cody’s hand and sniffing it like he had a treat hidden inside. Cody was rubbing his snout with first one hand, then the other, sending Stone into wriggle-gasms. It didn’t take a sharp eye to see that they were made for each other.

“I don’t know,” Nola said.

“Oh, come on,” I said, trying to make the idea sound like fun. Having a police officer look after Nola was good. Having Stone as a protector was even better. “He’s just a little bigger than Jupe. And heavier. And made out of rock. And not a dog. But otherwise, he’s a good boy.”

“Does he eat?” she asked.

“Not that I’ve seen. He does like to stack things.”

“Excuse me?”

We were walking back toward the car now. “Like blocks or cups or shoes. Likes to stack them up. You don’t have anything too breakable at your house, do you, Detective Stotts?”

“I don’t love the idea of that in my house. How intelligent is it?”

“Smarter than a dog. Tends not to like mean people who do bad things with magic.” I gave him a significant look, which he interpreted correctly. Stone would make a hell of a protector for Nola and Cody.

Stone walked along at Cody’s pace, and Cody kept his hand on Stone’s shoulder. Just like when I had walked through death, Stone unfurled his wing across Cody’s back and over his shoulder, holding on to his jacket with the prehensile tip of his wing. Cody had the most peaceful look on his face I’d ever seen.

A boy and his gargoyle. Match made in heaven.

Nola looked a little less wide-eyed than when we’d first arrived. She usually regained her footing pretty quickly when things turned strange.

“What else do I need to know about Stone?” she asked. “And about what happened today?”

“He’s a lot smarter than he looks,” I said, “has opposable thumbs—so that means he can open doors and unscrew peanut butter lids. And he makes messes.”

He gurgled like rocks moving under water.

“But mostly he just entertains himself, stacking things. He’s usually nocturnal.”

“Do you let him outside?”

“He pretty much comes and goes as he pleases. Thumbs.” I wiggled mine for emphasis.

“How long have you had him?” she asked as we reached Stotts’ car and Cody opened the door for Stone to get in the backseat. Stone did so, then turned around and stuck his big head back out the door, blocking Cody’s way to get in. Cody laughed and pushed on his head until Stone made room for him.

“Since you last visited, I guess.”

“You never told me about him,” she said.

Oh. I’d been so preoccupied trying to get used to the idea of Stone being out in the open, and telling the truth about him to Nola and Stotts, that I’d forgotten that I’d been lying to her for a while now.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am.”

Nola was the one person I told everything to. Well, I didn’t tell her about the Authority. Or about the secret disciplines of magic. Or that I’d crossed over into death to save Zayvion’s soul.

Okay, so maybe I didn’t tell Nola everything anymore. Still, she held more of my memories than any other person in the world. I trusted her to remind me of who I was when magic took away my life. And for her to do that, I had to tell her everything.

I looked over at my friend. She was waiting for me to have some kind of explanation for not telling her about Stone. I didn’t know what to say.

Her cheeks colored red, and she looked away from me.

“Nola, I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Not telling me about something dangerous won’t keep me safe. It’s not as if I can’t look after myself. I’ve been on my own for years. I’ve been looking out for you for years. Maybe we’re both done with that now.”

She pulled open the door of Paul’s car and got in.

I took a deep breath and looked back at Garnet, who was talking on his cell phone. I just couldn’t catch a break. How come Nola got to get mad at me for not telling her about all the horrible things in my life, but I couldn’t tell her how angry I was about being shot, chased, possessed, and threatened?

Cody sat in the backseat, the door still open. He was watching me.

“Are you going to come too?” he asked.

I should. I should patch it up with Nola, should make sure Stone wasn’t going to cause trouble, should talk to Stotts about keeping Nola safe, maybe even tell him a little more about Leander.

My phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket. “Beckstrom.”

“Where are you?” It was Zay.

“With Stotts.”

“Where?”

“I don’t like your tone of voice.”

“Allie?” Stotts paused before getting in the car. “Coming?”

“You can’t just run off like that,” Zay said. “We were in the middle of dealing with a real problem.”

“My friend being hurt is a real problem.”

“Stotts will take care of her. You don’t need to hold her hand.”

“Don’t lecture me.”

“Allie.”

I hung up.

I got into the backseat next to Cody, who had his arm draped over Stone’s neck.

“Problem?” Stotts asked. Nola just stared straight ahead. I couldn’t see her face from this angle, but she was stiff. Angry.

“Nothing new,” I said.

Stotts drove across town to a suburb in Beaverton. None of us said anything. Not even Cody, who seemed content to just sit there with Stone.

Stotts’ house was tucked up on a cul-de-sac neighboring nice, but not fancy, one- and two-story houses with mowed yards that lined the street.

He pulled into his driveway, which slanted upward from the street, and parked the car.

“This is it.”

“Nola,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Paul,” she said, ignoring me, “can we pick up our clothes and luggage from the hotel?”

“I can send someone over for it.”

“Thank you.” She opened the door and got out of the car.

“Hells,” I whispered.

Stotts got out too.

“It’s okay,” Cody said. “Monster loves you.” He gave me a bright smile. “You remember, right? You remember me?”

“Sure, Cody,” I said. “I remember you.”

“Pretty magic.” He held up his hand and traced a spell—something in the warmth or light category—in the air, but didn’t draw any magic into it. “Where is your pretty magic?”

“Right here,” I said. “In the ground where it should be.”

“No,” he said. “Did you lose it?” He pointed to my chest. “There.”

I held my breath, surprised. He was right. I had lost the small magic I held inside of me.

“Like me,” he said sadly. And then he touched his own chest.

“You’re sad?”

He nodded and pointed at his chest again.

Did he mean he also carried magic inside him? Did he have a small magic like me? I traced a Sight spell so I could find out.

But Stone had figured out the handle and opened the door.

“Hey!” Cody laughed. He scooted across the seat and was out the door after Stone before I could finish the spell.

I let go of the spell and got out of the car too. No need to add more pain to the headache on my horizon.

Stone stopped, rolled his head to size up Stotts’ house. He nudged Cody’s hand one last time. Then he ran.

That rock was fast. He was across the yard and along the side of the house as quick as a greyhound with wings. He caught the vinyl siding and was up on the edge of the roof, then over it, pausing next to the brick chimney to look over the neighborhood before he was gone, disappeared from view.

“Monster?” Cody asked.

“Will it come back?” Nola had frozen halfway to the door.

“He gets around on his own,” I said. And to Stotts, “He’s really good about not being seen. If you just leave a window open, he’ll let himself in if he wants to.”

“And if I don’t?” Stotts said.

“He hasn’t broken into anywhere that I know of. He might nap on your roof, though.”

Nola looked over at me. “Come on, Cody,” she said with forced cheer, “let’s go inside and see where your new bed is today.” She started off toward the house.

I watched her go, Cody following her. Sometimes my life sucked.

Stotts stayed behind. “I have some questions for you, Allie. About Victor and your dad’s tech.”

I shook my head. “Not now. I’m . . . I’m just not up for it. Can we please do it later?”

He glanced over at Nola, who let herself into the house. She had a key? When had that happened?

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“What?”

“More than the arm?”

I sighed. “A little. And I’m worried. It makes me grumpy.”

“Going to tell me what you’re worried about?”

“Everything.” I thought it over for a second. “Promise me you’ll keep a close eye on Nola.”

“I will. And I’ll call you later so we can go over my questions.”

“You never quit, do you?”

“No.” He gave me a serious nod. “Coming in?”

“I don’t think so. Nola’s angry at me. We’d just argue. I’ll give her a little time to calm down. Did she tell you she’s thinking about moving to the city?”

His eyebrows notched up. “No.”

“Oh. Sorry. Hope I didn’t ruin her surprise.”

“Why is she moving?”

“I think she’s ready for a change.” I looked over at him. He’d been watching me, not the house. “I think she’s ready to decide where she wants her life to go. And who she wants to spend it with.”

“You,” he said.

I shook my head. “Not just me.”

He nodded.

“I’ll put you in the hospital if you break her heart,” I said.

“We’ve been over that.” He paused, then added, “You and I aren’t really that close. I don’t expect you to tell me everything about your life.” He glanced at me. “In my line of work, there’s a lot of deception. I know how to deal with it. Nola, however, is your friend. Lying to her is a breach of that friendship. I don’t like it when she’s unhappy.”

“I know,” I said.

Well, at least we both knew where we stood on Nola’s well-being.

“Need a ride?” he asked. “After I make sure she’s settled, I’ll be heading out to the river again.”

“I’ll call someone, thanks.”

He glanced at the house, then back at me. I pulled out my phone. “I got it.”

“Talk to you soon, Allie.”

And then he walked off toward his front door while I paced. I could call Zay. No. Who else? Shame was angrier than me. Everyone else was busy. I thumbed my phone and dialed.

“Hey, boss,” Davy said on the other end. “What trouble you get yourself into today?”

“I need a ride.”

“Where to where?”

I glanced back at the house number and gave Davy the address. “From here to the den.” Let the big magic users cover up the mess Jingo and Dane had left in the boat. Let the big magic users deal with Stotts and the police. I was going hunting for Dane Lanister.

“You’re at Detective Stotts’ house?”

“Just his yard.”

“I’ll be right there.”

That’s what I liked about the boy. Knew when not to ask questions.

Chapter Nine

Davy showed up about twenty minutes later. I’d spent the time pacing and thinking.

He stopped the car next to me, and I got in.

“What happened to your arm?”

“Someone shot me.”

He paused for a couple seconds, taking that in, then navigated back down the cul-de-sac. “What kind of people are you Hounding for? Stotts?”

“Worse.”

He whistled low. “Worse than a cursed cop? Hope the pay’s good.”

“It’s not.” I sighed, ran my fingers through my hair. “Davy, there’s some really dangerous shit going down.”

“What’s new?”

“What’s new is I want to bring the Hounds in on it.”

“Is there money?”

“I’ll pay.”

“I like the sound of getting some of your daddy’s fortune. What’s the job?”

“Hunting down a magic user.”

“The one who shot you?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t sound so hard.”

“There’s more to it.” I stared out the window for a second, trying to decide if I should do this. If I should risk Davy and the rest of the Hounds being Closed, their memories taken away if I let them in on the Authority’s secrets.

Didn’t take me all that long to decide. I’d been thinking about it since this morning. Made up my mind a long time ago.

Shame had basically told me the Hounds had been Closed before. And me not letting them in on what was really going down in this city wouldn’t keep them from being used or Closed by the Authority again.

There was nothing safe about magic, and nothing guaranteed except pain. Hounds understood that.

“I know some people,” I said. “If they don’t like you knowing about their business, they’ll take your memory away.”

“That’s it? Just the memory?”

“Unless you really piss them off. Then they can take away your ability to use magic, your life, your past.”

“They kill over this stuff?” he asked.

“Sometimes.”

“So other than the memory thing, it’s pretty much like any other Hounding job?”

“No, they use magic in ways you’ve never seen.”

“About damn time. I’m tired of Hounding for lost kittens.”

“Davy, this is serious.”

He laughed. “I know. I’m serious too. You didn’t think I got into Hounding for the job security, did you? We’re all gonna die young. I’d rather go out doing something interesting.”

“I don’t think you understand.”

“What, that it’s dangerous? I might be permanently injured, broken, killed? I get that. That’s what I signed up for when I started Hounding instead of becoming a lawyer or something. Pike made no bullshit about how this career ends. There’s a reason there’s no retirement fund, and there’s a reason no one takes out life insurance on a Hound.

“You just worry too damn much. He made no bullshit about that either.”

“He said I worry too much?” I asked.

“He did. Said you mothering every broken thing you came across was gonna get you dead before Hounding killed you.”

“Fuck that,” I said. “He didn’t know me.”

Davy just laughed again. “Whatever you say, boss. Which Hounds are you bringing in on this deal?”

“Tell me who you trust.”

He parked the car in the lot next to the den. Turned off the engine. “You, Sid, Jamar, Bea, Jack, Theresa, and Dahlia. Pike thought well of them. I do too.”

“Get them over here, okay? Whoever shows up in the next half hour gets a piece of the pie.”

We got out of the car. Davy was already dialing. My phone rang. I looked at it. Zay. Almost didn’t answer. I did not want his opinion on what I was about to do.

“Beckstrom,” I said.

“Where are you?”

“Taking care of some business with the Hounds. I told Stotts I’d talk to him later. I think he’s heading back to the boat and might contact Victor.”

“What business?”

“I’m tying a couple things down with Davy.”

“At the den?”

“Yes. And then I’m going home to change my clothes. I stink.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“No, you won’t. You will take care of the things you need to and give me a little room. I’ll see you tonight at my place.”

“You do remember you were shot this morning?”

“Yes,” I said through my teeth. “And you do remember which one of us stayed conscious through that, right?” Silence. I could feel his anger burning down the cell line.

I was headed into the building now, Davy ahead of me and talking on his phone. “I think Leander’s out here. I think he tried to do something with Cody. Stone got there and somehow stopped him. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but Nola and Cody are staying with Stotts. I’m going to deal with some Hound business; then I’ll see you tonight at my place, unless there’s a meeting?”

“No.”

“Good. See you then.” I hung up.

I caught up with Davy, who was walking up the stairs, his voice echoing down. “Half hour or you’re out. See ya, man.”

Then he dialed the next number. “It’s Davy. Allie has a hot job. Dangerous. She’s forking out the money if you’re in on it.” A pause. “Half hour, the den. Don’t think so.” He glanced back at me. “Press involved?”

I shook my head.

“No. Police?” he asked me.

“No.”

“Got that? Right. See you.” He thumbed off his phone, and dialed. “One more.”

“It’s Davy,” he said. “Good, thanks. How you feeling?”

From the voice on the other end, I knew it was Bea.

We’d made it up the two flights, and I walked through the door to the main loft space. “Hello,” I called out.

No one answered. This was the first time I’d seen the den empty. Good. I strode over to my desk, leaving Davy in the open kitchen space, and dug around for a piece of paper. I wrote, PRIVATE MEETING. KNOCK, and taped it to the outside of the door. I’d hear Hounds walking up the stairs. I’d hear the elevator if it stopped. But I didn’t want just anyone barging in on this.

No need to cause mass amnesia.

Davy was pouring water in the coffeepot. “Got everyone. They said they’ll be here.”

“Good.” I walked over to the window thinking about how I was going to tell them about all this. I didn’t need to tell them everything. Just enough that they could hunt Dane, and just enough that they could keep themselves safe from the kinds of magic he threw around.

Gunfire I figured they all had experience with.

If things went right, Victor didn’t even have to know I had brought the Hounds into it. Once we found Dane, I’d pay the Hounds, tell them to leave, and call in Victor. Let the Authority take care of the bastard for all I cared. I just wanted him off the street.

But what tripped me up was what I should tell them about Leander. Victor and Maeve and Hayden had taken the solid Veiled to the prison for magical offenders. I wasn’t worried about the Veiled. But Leander was still in spirit form—and could use at least enough magic to touch Cody’s mind. He, not Dane, was the one who had gotten too close to Nola for my comfort.

If I was going out with a half dozen trained Hounds, I didn’t want one of them walking past him and assuming he was nothing but a shadow.

“Here.” Davy was suddenly standing right in front of me, two cups of coffee in his hands. He shoved one cup at me. “Did you even hear me say your name?”

“No.” I took the coffee and drank. Nice dark roast. Kenyan, I think.

“Want to tell me?”

I shook my head. “I only want to say this once.”

“Fair.” He walked over to the couch and slumped down. “Didn’t think this place was a good idea at first.”

“Why? Pike said he wanted better for the Hounds.”

“Yeah, but I think he was talking about better pay from the cops and state agencies and maybe renting a meeting room once a month. Not opening a fricking hotel.”

“Do I see you complaining?”

“No. Weird thing is no one complains about this shit. Don’t know what it is about you, Beckstrom, but the Hounds respect you. Enough to keep the drugs and crap off premise. That’s something.”

“Maybe they just want my money.” I sat in the overstuffed armchair. It was comfortable. I should hang out here more often.

“That. Also, your power. Political, business. If Hounds are ever going to get a fair shake in the city, it’s probably because of you. And your daddy’s fortune.”

“No. It’s because of Pike. This was his idea. I was just stupid enough to tell him I’d see it through.”

The door opened, and in walked Sid, fair-haired and built like he spent most of his time in front of a computer, and behind him, motherly Dahlia, who had dyed her hair an orange not found in nature. “Davy, Allie,” Sid said. “So what’s the big job?”

“When everyone else gets here,” I said. “There’s coffee.”

He diverted to the kitchen, and I heard him pouring a cup. By the time he’d pulled up a chair, Jack, who looked as tough as old leather, and the perpetually happy, dimpled Bea were walking through the door. I never saw them apart anymore. I think Pike’s rule of the buddy system on Hounding jobs had ended up as something more for the two of them.

“Allie!” Bea said. “It’s so cool you have a job for us. I’m getting pretty tired of lurking around the morgues waiting for someone to die a suspicious death. What’s up with your arm?”

“I’ll tell you in a sec.”

“Coffee,” Davy said.

“Got it,” Jack said to Bea.

I raised my eyebrows and gave her a look as he went into the kitchen and poured two cups.

She just shrugged and giggled. That said it all. Well, that and the swoony look in her eyes.

Bea sat on the other couch, and Jack sat next to her, handing her a coffee. We didn’t have to wait more than a minute or two before tall, dark, and intense Jamar and short, no-nonsense Theresa came through the door.

“People,” Jamar said. “What’s this job, and what’s it paying?”

Jamar looked like the kind of man who should be in a three-piece suit and working in a multinational corporation, not wearing jeans and a light jacket and working MLK Boulevard for the police.

Theresa Garcia looked how she always looked. Tough. I wondered if she was still Hounding for Nike.

“Have some coffee,” I said. “I’ll fill you in.”

“Go ahead.” Jamar headed to the kitchen. “I have ears.”

“The job’s pretty simple. I need to find a man, Dane Lanister. He tried to shoot me and Zayvion this morning, and I want him off the street.”

Sid pulled a sleek tech tablet out of his briefcase and tapped it.

“Police involved?” Jack asked.

“No. Well, Stotts. There’s more to this. There’s some shitty magic going on.”

“This the man?” Sid turned the screen so we could all see. Lanister’s face. Younger, but it was him. He was smiling, looked like he was leading a seminar or Amway meeting.

Weird to see his public face. I’d only known him as Sedra’s humorless bodyguard.

“That’s him.”

“I’ll pull his signature,” Sid said.

“I don’t want that tracked.”

He pushed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. “Please. I do this for a living.”

“The people he’s involved with don’t want you to know about them,” I said. “So much so, they will remove the memories of anyone who breeches their security.”

I looked at each of the Hounds in turn. They didn’t look worried about it. Was I the only one who had a problem with someone else messing with my memories?

“If any of you want out now, that’s fine. If we screw this up—and the people involved have connections everywhere, so the chances of us being found out are huge—we will lose our memory of what we’re doing. And may lose our ability to use magic.”

Jamar exhaled. “You sure know how to pick ’em, don’t you Beckstrom? I’m assuming this has something to do with the sorts of people your father ran with?”

“Something like that.”

“And it’s just a hunt?” Bea asked. “Just tracking the guy down, or are we going to have to do a little covering up of our own?”

Had she just told me she was willing to kill someone and cover it up? She gave me a happy smile, but that glint in her eyes told me that, yes, she’d just offered to off someone.

“No killing. No cover-ups. I don’t even want us buying anyone off for information. What I want is zero trail. We do this, we find him, you get paid. All of you. And we do not speak of this again.”

“How much?”

“Five thousand apiece.”

Nods all around. Done deal.

“Here’s his sig,” Sid handed the screen to Jack, who was on his right. He studied the screen.

“Yeah, I’ve seen it. Not on a job, though.”

He passed it to Bea, and she passed it to Davy, and so on around the circle until all the Hounds had a look at it.

Theresa handed it to me. I took it and looked, even though I didn’t have to. I knew exactly how Dane cast magic. I’d recently had it thrown at me.

“Other specifics?” Davy asked.

“Smells like old vitamins to me,” I said. “Carries a gun. Had five other armed men with him I’ve never seen before. Nothing to make them stand out in a crowd. All white, dark haired, average height and weight, somewhere between twenty and fifty.”

“So this is going to be easy is what you’re saying?” Davy said.

I gave him a look. “For five thousand, I expect to see you sweat.”

He grinned.

The excitement in the room was palpable. I’m serious. Hounds loved getting into shit. The more dangerous, the better.

“He might have a woman with him,” I added.

“There any more detail you going to give us on that?” Jamar asked.

Sid adjusted his glasses again, his fingers poised above his screen.

“Sedra Miller,” I said.

Sid tapped. Turned the screen around. “Her?”

I almost didn’t recognize her. She was laughing, her hair down. She wore jeans and a soft blue T-shirt that made her eyes look like sapphires. And it was her eyes that threw me the most. Something was different. As if the woman who looked at the camera was not at all the stern, ice-cold woman whom I’d known as the Head of the Authority. Yes, Dane looked different in his picture, but not to the same degree.

Sedra looked like a completely different person.

“No?” Sid prompted.

“No. I mean, yes. That’s her. I’ve just never seen her look that happy.”

“Interesting,” he said. He turned the screen and worked on pulling up her signature.

“Is she in danger?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know. She shouldn’t be. Not from Dane.”

Sid made a little huh sound. “She’s not registered.”

It didn’t surprise me.

“She uses?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Says here she’s one hundred percent nonuse on magic,” he said.

“Won’t be the first time the city records are wrong,” I said.

“Let me check a couple back sources.” His fingers flew over the tablet. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t help. If Sedra didn’t want people to know she used magic, people would not know.

“So how are we going to break this up?” Theresa asked. “It’s a big city to cover.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” I said.

“Carpet bomb,” Davy said.

We all looked at him. He put his coffee cup down. “We each take a compass point on the inside of the city. Throw a netted Sight spell—wide and light. Should be able to cover a mile radius. Move out to the edge of the net, cast again. We stagger it a bit, and if we use a light touch, it won’t show up on the networks, so Stotts won’t see it. We can take it all the way to the Coast Range and the mountains if we need too, or as far up into Washington or down I-5 as we want.”

“You’ve thought a lot about this, haven’t you?” I asked.

“Something Pike used to talk about.”

“Not to me.”

“You never got drunk with him.”

That was true.

“He used to do this kind of shit back in the day with some friends of his,” Davy said.

It was also true that Pike never once spoke to me about his friends. Or his back-in-the-day.

“So how do we make sure we don’t double up?” I asked.

“Won’t matter if there’s some overlap,” he said.

“I’ll keep track,” Sid said. “Hand over your cell phones.”

Not one of us did. Have I mentioned that Hounds are suspicious people?

“Why?” I asked.

“I’ll track and graph. Under the radar—don’t worry. This won’t ping, and even if we are investigated, we won’t be linked.”

My appraisal of Sid just went up several notches. “You’ve been holding out on us,” I said.

He chuckled. “I don’t think I’m the only one in the room with Hounding secrets.”

I didn’t know what he did. All it looked like was he passed each of our phones over the top of his screen, waited a second, then passed the next phone over it.

Until he got to mine.

“Where in God’s green did you get this thing?” he asked.

Everyone looked at my phone. Have I mentioned that Hounds are also curious people?

“My dad’s corporation.” That was a lie. They all knew it, could smell it on me. I didn’t care.

“Well. He knows how to cater to the paranoid.” He handed the phone back to me. “Never seen something warded that tight, but I got it. If your dad’s ‘corporation’ ever decides to sell a few of those, I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on one.”

I doubted Maeve wanted to start supplying cell phones to Hounds.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” I said. “Let’s do this.” We divvied up which section of town we were going to cover, four sets of two, because Pike said a Hound should always have a backup, and I was not about to break that golden rule.

Jack and Bea took east, Jamar and Theresa took south, Davy and I took west, and Sid and Dahlia took north.

“Anyone finds him, call me,” I said.

I took the sign off the door, crumpled it, and stuffed it in my jacket pocket. By the time I hit the stairs, everyone else had already taken either the elevator or the stairs. At the lobby, there was only one person waiting. Davy. He grinned.

“This is going to be the easiest five thousand I’ve ever made.”

“I hope so,” I said.

We headed out. My phone rang. Zay. Again.

Seriously, couldn’t the man catch a hint?

I answered. “Beckstrom.”

“Where’s everyone off to?”

I scanned the streets. Zay was standing on the corner across the street, Shamus behind him, leaning against the building, smoking.

Oh, for Pete’s sake.

“Nowhere.”

“That so? Looks like you’ve got a hunt on your hands.”

“It was a meeting.”

He started across the street. The light hadn’t changed, but somehow traffic seemed to move in rhythm to his stride, a perfect path opening up as he moved across the street toward me, not once taking his eyes off me. Man walked like a goddamned god.

“Who are they hunting? What are they hunting? What are you up to, Allison, my love?”

He was across three lanes, one more before he was in front of me. That is, if a bus didn’t hit him.

“None of your damn business,” I said sweetly into the phone.

And then he was there, in my space, so close, I could smell the pine and anger rolling off him. He was power, magic, sex, raw, brute force. A thunderstorm embodied.

I gave him a disinterested look.

The corner of his lip quirked up.

“How about I say please?” he said into his phone even though there was less than six inches separating us.

“Hound business is Hound business,” I replied.

“Don’t make me drag it out of Davy.”

“Fuck you,” Davy laughed. “I’m not your girlfriend.”

Zay put his phone down. Thumbed it off. “Who are you hunting, girlfriend?” he asked.

I saw no reason to keep it a secret. Well, besides the fact that he could Close me or Davy with the flick of his fingers. “Dane. For shooting me.”

He searched my eyes. Must have caught the hint that I didn’t give a damn what he thought about that.

“Shame and I will go with you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“More feet on the ground. That’s what you said, right?” He turned toward Davy. “How are we doing this?”

“Talk to the boss.”

He turned back to me. “Well, boss?”

“Sight spells. Light. We’re just looking for his signature. If he’s found, I’m to be contacted. No engaging.”

“And after you are contacted?”

Oh, I did not want to tell him that I had planned to follow the rules and call him and Victor. “I’ll take care of it.”

Anger flashed through his eyes, the brown gone much, much too gold.

“We got it covered, Jones,” I said airily. “Don’t really need more feet on the ground.”

He reached out, grabbed my arm. Davy pushed off from the car he’d been leaning on.

Zay pulled me in and kissed me.

Oh. My. Sweet. Heavens. A rush of heat enveloped me, and I tasted his anger—and his amusement. He was hot, turned on. He liked it when I took charge.

Before I could do more than register his need, before I could exhale the pressure and heat his touch, his kiss, planted in me, he pulled back.

“So where do you want me?” he asked.

Memories of his naked body, lowering over the top of me, flashed through my mind.

No. No way. I would not be distracted by him.

“Fine. If I can’t get rid of you, then take the southwest side of town. Sight. Mile radius. Don’t trip the grid. Think you can handle that?”

“Well, I’m no Hound,” he said, “but I’ll see what I can do.”

“If you find him—If you find anything, call me.”

He gave me a grin. “I don’t think you’re paying me to call you.”

“If you’re on this hunt, you’re on this payroll.”

“Yeah? How much?”

“I’ll buy you a beer.”

He shook his head. I started walking toward Davy’s car.

“She buying you a beer?” he asked Davy as we passed by.

“Yep. About a thousand of them.”

I didn’t look back. I knew Zay could take care of himself. I just hoped he kept his mouth shut and didn’t drag Victor into this. Victor hadn’t exactly been excited about the idea of working with the Hounds.

Yeah, and Victor hadn’t had a member of the Authority shoot him before breakfast.

I got in Davy’s car. “You think he can do it?” he asked.

“What?”

“Cast Sight in a mile radius? It takes some finesse to do it without tripping the networks.”

“He won’t get caught, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“He’s not a Hound,” Davy said.

“No.”

“Who does he work for anyway?”

“Right now? No one.” I was talking about his body-guarding jobs, which is the only thing most people knew Zay did for a living. And since I was telling the truth about that, I didn’t think Davy would sense the half lie.

“He’s a part of them, isn’t he?”

“What?”

We were well on our way across town. Looked like Davy was going to take the northwest first, then west, then southwest, and we’d work our way as we went. The good thing about doing this in twos was that one person could drive, one could throw magic around.

“If I were a group of people who didn’t want my secrets found out,” Davy said, “he’d be the kind of person I’d hire. Plus, how else would he know you’d been shot and wasn’t surprised you were going to go out hunting for the guy?”

“Has anyone told you too much thinking is bad for you health?”

“Not lately.”

I didn’t say any more. I’d rather Davy make up his own mind than tip him off to the truth by either telling the truth or having him catch me in a lie.

“You throwing?” he asked.

“I’ll start. If I get winded, I’ll drive and you can cast.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

I very carefully cleared my mind. Took me a little longer than I’d wanted it to. The memories of Zayvion kept rolling up behind my eyes every time I closed them. So instead I sang a little song, just the first few lines of a jump-rope tune.

“Anytime’s good,” Davy said quietly.

I opened my eyes, drew a glyph for Sight with my palm open, not using my fingertips to focus the spell, but letting my Sight be opened, wide, clear. I concentrated on the one-mile limit around me—something that took years to master through college, or months, if you were Hounding for your life—and pulled magic into the spell, casting it out like a weighted net on a lake.

I felt the spell stretch out, then drift down soft and light. Saw, for a brief but clear moment, all the spells being used within a one-mile radius. Did not sense Dane’s signature among them.

And that was one of the drawbacks of using Sight like this. You got only the most general impression of the magical signatures in the area. In a way, you were hoping something triggered your subconscious mind. Hoping you would luck out and be able to sort that one signature from a city full of signatures.

“Keep moving,” I said.

Davy drove. Another mile; I cast the same spell. Nothing. Another mile. Cast. Repeat.

It was like standing in the ocean, waves of magic washing past me, the watercolor hint of the Veiled, the spells and charms and wards worked for business, pleasure, and pain. Overwhelming. Exhausting. Like hearing the voices of the entire city, speaking in magic, all at once.

By the time we hit Beaverton and were on our way to Aloha, I was exhausted, and a headache was closing in. “Your turn. I’ll drive,” I said.

Davy pulled off the main street, and we switched places. The air, and the short walk around the car, did a world of good for my head. I also remembered to check my pocket and take one of those pills Dr. Fisher had given me.

I got in behind the wheel and adjusted the mirror. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

Davy tipped his head back, closed his eyes for a second, then nodded. “Go.”

I went. He threw Sight every mile I drove, sorting and sifting through thousands of signatures, millions of spells.

It wasn’t as slow as doing it on foot, but still, after another hour, and another switch, when I threw for an hour, we were done.

And no one had called to say they’d caught wind of the bastard.

Fuck it all.

“Want me to take you home?” Davy was headed back toward Portland. The sun was just starting to set, traffic thickening, headlights flickering in the deep burgundy light of sunset. I leaned my head against the window, the cool glass and engine vibration helping to keep my mind off my headache. We’d covered all the way from Glenwood to Yamhill. I was exhausted.

“Please.” I pulled out my cell phone, stared at it, willing it to ring. Nothing.

“How can he not be anywhere?” I muttered.

“If he shot you this morning, he could have driven to Canada by now.”

“True,” I said. But I knew he hadn’t. This was a local fight. And what Dane wanted—presumably to return Sedra to the control of the Authority—he’d achieve only if he stayed here and dealt with it.

And with all the nooks and crannies the Authority owned, there was every chance he was hunkered down, hidden beneath a blind we couldn’t penetrate.

“We’ll keep looking,” Davy said.

“In twos. Don’t let anyone out alone, okay? And if you find anything, any trace of him, call me.”

“Will do.”

He dropped me off at my apartment. I didn’t see Zay’s or Shamus’ car. I let myself in the back door and made my way up. Paused at my apartment door and listened for movement on the other side.

Nothing.

Good.

I stepped into my home, hung my coat on the back of the door, and pulled out my notebook. I needed to get down today’s events and did so as I wandered into the kitchen. It didn’t take long. Then I started some coffee and rummaged in the refrigerator. Not a lot in there. A couple cartons of Chinese food, two California rolls, and some juice and condiments. I needed to go shopping.

I popped one of the California rolls in my mouth and went into the living room to check my messages. Nothing.

I hadn’t had the chance to shower today and wanted a change of clothes, so I went into the bedroom, got out of everything, then took a quick shower. My hip felt like the mother of all bruises but was still moving pretty good.

Dad, who had been silent for almost the entire day, stretched out in my mind. He was still cocooned in the spell Victor and Shame had worked on him, so it was a strange feeling. Almost like a tap on the shoulder to catch my attention.

I turned my attention to him as I dried off, hoping like crazy that he couldn’t actually feel me drying my naked body.

What?

How do you think Dane defeated Jingo Jingo? Dane and Jingo were evenly matched in magical ability.

You tell me. I walked into my bedroom. A gray hand patted the window, and then Stone stuck his head down and peered into my room. He tugged on the sill, pulled the window wide, and scuttled in.

“Window,” I said. “Close it.”

He stood up on his back legs and stuck his snout into the open space, sniffing as he pulled the window down lower and lower until he had to tip his head sideways so his nose could still fit in the crack. With one last sniff of fresh air, he closed the window.

The disks, Dad said. But he would need more than just disks to take down Jingo Jingo.

How about a gun? I said. Dane seems pretty happy to use those.

Jingo wasn’t shot.

I frowned as I carefully pulled a sweatshirt over my head. I decided to go without the sling for a while and see how my arm did.

Jingo had been such a mess, I didn’t know how my dad could tell if he had been shot or not. But I hadn’t smelled gunpowder in the room. Only magic and blood.

Dane’s no slouch, I thought. Neither is Sedra. And if he had those other men with him, Jingo was outnumbered.

Dane isn’t strong enough to fight Jingo Jingo alone, Dad said. Nor to break Sedra’s cage.

How do you break the cage? I asked.

A spell. A dark magic spell.

So Dane, or one of the men with him, used dark magic? I said.

Perhaps.

There was a knock on my door. I picked up the brush on my dresser and ran it through my hair as I walked through the apartment.

I looked through the peephole.

Zay looked back at me.

I unlocked the chains, didn’t bother with the wards, since he was the one who had set them, and opened the door.

He had a pizza box in his hand and a case of beer in the other. Shame and Terric were behind him.

“Dinner?” he said.

“Starving. Hey, Shame, Terric, come on in.”

Shame had another pizza box and a small paper bag; Terric, bless him, had a liter of Coke. Beer just wasn’t my thing. Not even with pizza.

“So I hear you had an interesting day.” Terric handed me the Coke.

“I suppose. You mean the Hounding?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell Victor about it?” I asked.

“Didn’t see that it was any of my business to. Any luck?”

I shook my head. Zay was already in the living room, sitting on the couch and pulling a slice of pepperoni out of the box he had opened on the coffee table.

“We covered ground,” I said. “If he’s in the city, he either hasn’t used magic in the last day or he has some kind of trick up his sleeve I can’t figure out.” Of course, he could know Shield spells like the one around the boat that made it seem like there wasn’t any magic going on behind it.

Something niggled at the back of my brain. I’d just Hounded the entire city—and I’m assuming the other Hounds had done a thorough sweep in their areas too. Dane had recently used magic. Hadn’t he? He broke Sedra out of the cage. Fought Jingo Jingo. There should be some lingering scent of his signature somewhere.

“What’d you tell the Hounds?” Shame asked around a bite of pizza. He was sitting at the round table in front of my window, the paper bag in front of him.

“That doesn’t matter.”

Shame scoffed. “Oh, but it does matter. Have you ever heard of Zayvion Jones? He’s this big bad Closer. And if he catches wind that you’re letting the Authority secrets get loose in a few dozen Hound heads, he’s gonna have to clean up after your mess. There might be a fight; someone could die. Then there’ll be a trial, and you’ll wake up one day on a boat to Guam, wondering why your life in the convent isn’t as fulfilling as you thought it would be.”

“Convent?”

“Well, I doubt he’d send you off to become a stripper.”

Terric chuckled. “I think there are some shades of gray between nun and stripper.”

“Not with Zay,” Shame said. “When he gives someone a new identity, he’s ham-handed as they come.”

I took a piece of pizza with olives and mushrooms and settled down on the couch next to Zay.

“Nun?”

He shrugged. “Shame has a limber imagination.”

“You going to Close me?”

“Have you told the Hounds anything you shouldn’t have?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

He took a swig of his beer and dropped the subject flat. Don’t get me wrong—I was glad that he didn’t immediately morph into Mr. Righteous and Good and go dig around in the minds of the Hounds. But I was very surprised he didn’t even look like he was interested in doing such a thing.

“How often do you Close people?” I asked.

He groaned a little as he bent and reached for another slice of pizza. “It’s a last-ditch resort.”

“How often do you resort to the last ditch?”

“Maybe a half dozen times a year. Sometimes less.”

Not nearly as often as I’d thought. The Authority made it a point to remind me, it seemed like daily, that they could Close me at any time. It was good to know they didn’t do it very often. Or at least Zay didn’t.

“I told them Dane’s name,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Maybe they’ll find the fucker.” Zay drank the last of his beer, and Shame tossed him another.

Shame caught my eye, grinned. “Wee bit of larceny,” he said.

I considered Zayvion. “You take a pain pill lately?”

Zay shook his head. “Beer’s good.”

Stone, who must have been making a mess out of my bedroom all this time, trotted into the living room.

“Hey, Stone,” Shame said. “C’mere, boy. I brought you something.”

Shame picked up the paper bag and shook it.

Stone’s ears lifted into points. He cooed and tromped over to Shame.

“Look at this.” Shame pulled a box out of the bag.

I groaned. “Are you serious?”

“Sure, I am.”

“Jenga?” I said. “He won’t understand how to play it. He’s a rock.”

“Oh, now, you don’t have to hurt his feelings, do you? Stone is a smart boy.”

Shame opened the box and carefully upended it onto the table. The stack of blocks teetered for a second, then stood like a nice little tower.

Stone cooed and rumbled, his wings rubbing against his back.

Stone and blocks, like butter and bread.

“See now, here’s the trick.” Shame pushed one of the long, thin blocks out of the tower with just his pointer finger, then placed the block to the side. Stone stood entranced, like he had just seen magic for the first time.

“Push the block.” Shame said. He chose another block, pushed it out of the stack.

Stone cooed.

“You try. Push the block,” he said.

Stone scooted up closer to the table and sat on his haunches.

“He won’t do it,” Terric said.

“Bet on it?”

“What you want to lose?”

“Twenty bucks.”

“Deal, though I hate stealing from your mother.”

“I have my own money, you arse.”

“And yet, we’ve never seen it.”

“Just use one finger,” Shame said, holding up his middle finger and looking at Terric.

Stone held up one finger, mimicking him. I snorted.

“Pick a block, and push.” Shame touched his fingertip to a block, and nudged it a little.

“Did I tell you Stone showed up to help Nola and Cody?” I asked.

“Yes,” Zay said. “You didn’t say what, exactly, happened, though.” He tipped up his beer, finished that one too. Not that it showed on him yet. All I got off of him were waves of discomfort and a low-level frustration that was not quite anger.

I wondered if mixing beer with those emotions was a good idea. And decided it didn’t matter; we weren’t going out again tonight. Man deserved a couple beers before bed.

So did I. But I hated beer. Too bad there was no wine in the cupboard.

“One finger,” Shame said, this time showing his index finger.

Stone growled, stuck out one finger, touched a block, and looked at Shame.

“That’s it. Push.”

Stone pushed. The block shifted a millimeter or two.

“Little bit harder.”

“She said they were stopped by a man,” I said. “Cody called him the shadow man.”

Shame looked over at me. “What?”

Stone pushed harder on the block and kept pushing so that his entire finger filled the hole where the block had been and unbalanced the whole thing. The blocks tumbled with a loud clatter over the table.

“Hot damn,” Terric said. “Twenty bucks. Pay up.”

“Hey now. I wasn’t watching.”

“Deal was if he could do it. Not if you could see him do it.”

“I never said he’d do it on the first try.” Shame restacked the blocks into the plastic sleeve.

“You owe me money,” Terric said. “Do I have to ask your mother to settle your bets? Again?”

“Just hold on a damn minute,” Shame grumbled.

Stone gurgled and took the plastic sleeve away from him, then swiftly stacked all the blocks perfectly again into a tower.

Stone held up one finger, looked at Shame. Touched a block near the bottom.

“I don’t think I’d go for that one, mate,” Shame warned.

Stone pushed it. Careful to keep his finger out of the hole this time, he moved the block halfway through the tower, then shifted so he could reach the other side and pull the block the rest of the way out.

He clacked, and his wings opened and closed while he talked to the tower of blocks. He was one happy rock.

“That’s it! Good job.” Shame rubbed Stone’s head. Stone soaked up the praise, then pushed another block out. And another. And another. Within seconds, the tower had taken on an entirely new shape—more holes than solid lines, blocks stuck half out, completely removed, then replaced on ends, on edges.

It looked like an M.C. Escher painting, unbelievably, eye-trickingly complex.

Terric chuckled. “You’ve been out-Jenga’d by a rock.”

“A rock who just earned me twenty bucks. Hand it over, Ter.”

“It fell. You owe me.”

Shame patted his pocket. “I don’t think I have it on me. No, wait.” He pulled his middle finger out of his pocket. “Here it is.”

Terric just shook his head. “Ass.”

Stone pushed one more block. The entire thing came clattering down. He clattered back at it and stacked it up again. He used both hands to reshape it into holes and stair steps. It looked a little like the Eiffel Tower.

This time he left it standing, tipped his head a couple times, and trotted off toward his box of blocks I’d bought him a while ago.

Shame pushed back from the table and dropped down into the chair next to the couch.

“Shadow man?” he asked, reaching for the pizza.

I popped the last bite of pizza in my mouth. “That’s what he said.”

“Think it’s Leander?” Terric asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “The solid Veiled are locked up, right? Have we had any leads on where Leander is?”

“No. We’ve been looking.” He glanced at Shame, who frowned.

“We’ve tried a lot of things,” Shame said. “But he’s damned impossible to track. Did you catch a hint of him around Cody?”

I groaned. “I didn’t even think of Hounding the area. Maybe we could go back.”

“Probably too late now,” Shame said. “I’d guess any spells he used would be gone.”

He was right.

“But what I don’t get,” Shame mused, “is why he would bother Cody. Z? Ideas?”

“You know how Cody was with magic,” Zay said. “Never did anything short of amazing.” He paused and stared out the window for a minute or two. “If what Allie says is true, and part of his soul is attached to Mama Rositto, he’s a broken spirit. Maybe there’s something about that that Leander thinks he can use. I don’t think he wants Cody for his magic—he can’t use magic anymore. Sedra saw to that with the second Closing that broke him for good.”

We all fell quiet. I still didn’t know how she could have had her own child Closed. Twice. The image that Sid had shown me of her, laughing, and somehow so much more alive and loving, flashed behind my eyes again.

She used to be happy, used to have a life she loved living. Or at least that’s what I’d guess if I’d met the Sedra in that photo. But the Sedra I knew was as cold as death. Empty of laughter. Angry. Like she’d been hollowed out, and only the shadow of what she was remained.

Zay reached over and took one of the last beers.

“So why would Leander want him?” I said, echoing Shame.

Terric sighed. “Could be for a million things, if it was Leander. He is clearly out for revenge—the battle at the inn proved that. Cody’s pretty simple. There’s the possibility he saw a Veiled, a ghost, or just a shadow and called it a shadow man. You might have jumped to conclusions, thinking he saw Leander. Where did it happen?”

“St. Johns.”

He took a drink of his beer and leaned forward, rolling the bottle between his palms. “Weird shit’s been happening out there an awful lot lately, hasn’t it?”

I tossed one hand into the air. “That’s what I said.”

“Have any of the rest of you wondered if Victor’s keeping something from us?” Terric said quietly.

“What?” Zay asked.

Terric shrugged. “I don’t know. He seems worried. He keeps looking over his shoulder, and I don’t know if he’s expecting Leander to be there, or Bartholomew.”

“Maybe both.” Shame put his empty beer bottle on the coffee table. “I’ll try to wheedle it out of Mum. She should know if Victor’s been threatened by Bartholomew. As for Leander, fuck all if I know where the bastard is.” He pushed up onto his feet. “Your da happen to say anything about him?”

“No.”

“Have you asked him?” Shame asked.

I shook my head. Bad idea. That headache I’d decided I’d pay for all the Hounding tonight was kicking in.

“Want me to?” Shame offered, rubbing his hands together.

“No, times a hundred,” I said.“Any more magic tonight, and I will be barfing. It can wait until tomorrow. Unless any of you think someone’s in immediate danger?”

Shame shrugged. “Nola and Cody are with Stotts, right?”

“Yes.” Damn, that reminded me. I wanted to put a Hound on the house to let me know if anything happened around Nola.

“They’re in good hands,” Zay said.

Shame nodded. “So we pick this up tomorrow?”

“Works for me,” Zay agreed.

“Victor has shifts out looking for Sedra,” Terric said. “We’re not on until afternoon. You too, Jones.” He picked up the last beer and pointed it at Zay. “See you tomorrow. Sober.” He took the beer with him, out the door.

Zay just shook his head. “I think Terric’s getting too comfortable around here.”

Shame stood. “You’re singing my song, Z. The sooner he ships out, the better.” He absently scratched Stone behind the ears, then walked over to the door. “Night, you two. Keep it easy.”

“Night,” I said.

He shut the door, and I leaned my head against Zay’s shoulder, tucking my legs up on the couch and closing my eyes. I needed to set the locks on the door, needed to call the Hounds and see if they had any leads on Dane, and ask one of them to watch over Nola and Cody. Needed to ask my dad if he knew where Sedra was. Needed to ask him if he could find Leander or Dane.

Instead, I fell asleep.

“Allie?”

I woke. Zayvion stood above me. He was still wearing his T-shirt and jeans, but a groggy glance around the room showed me one pizza box was closed on the table, Stone was curled up in the corner with the other pizza box on his head, and the Jenga blocks now resembled the Colosseum.

I assumed at least a little time had passed.

“I’d let you sleep there, but you’re on your bad arm and hip.” He held his hand down for me, and I took it. Sat. Ouch. My bad arm, my hip, and my head hurt.

Zay didn’t say anything else. He just helped me up onto my feet and walked with me to the bedroom. I didn’t trip or whimper or swear—impressive victories, as far as I was concerned. I even managed to pull the covers back and crawl into bed all on my own.

Zay turned off the lights, checked the window, then crawled into bed next to me. He shifted and, with a groan, worked on finding a position in the bed that made his ribs comfortable—flat on his back with one arm crossed over his chest. I pressed my back up against his side, and he slipped his hand up to rest on my hip.

And then I slept again.

Chapter Ten

I am not a morning person. Never have been. But I woke sharp and early the next morning. Sunlight filtered through my curtains with the curious blue of predawn.

It wasn’t a dream that woke me. I woke because I knew why Leander wanted Cody.

I pushed the covers back. My arm still hurt, but not as bad as yesterday. My skull felt like it’d been scrubbed out with steel wool. Raw, sore, but clean. There was a reason why I took my Proxy pain fast and hard. It got it out of the way so I could work again.

Fast Band-Aid rip for me, every time, baby.

By the time I stood up out of bed, Zay was awake.

“Tell me you’re making coffee,” he mumbled.

“After I shower. I know why Leander wants Cody.”

That did it. Zay’s eyes opened, and he was very, very alert.

“Why?”

“He’s looking for a body to possess. Right? He’s just a spirit. And he can’t do anything unless he’s solid. He used the solid Veiled to do what he wanted before, but they’re locked up. You said it last night—Cody has a broken spirit. I’m guessing there’s room in his head for Leander. As a matter of fact, I think we should go make sure he didn’t get in there. Get in Cody before Stone got rid of him. Do you think Shame could tell since it’s Death magic stuff?”

Zay levered up, the tightening at the corners of his eyes and jaw the only indication that he was in pain.

“Shame should be able to tell. I’ll call him.”

I padded into the bathroom and took a five-minute shower. By the time I was done, Zay was just hanging up the phone. “Shame will be over soon. I also told Victor what we’re doing.”

“You told him we’re looking into Cody, right?” I tucked the towel tighter around me, then dug in my dresser for my bra and panties.

“Yes.”

He got up, paused halfway to standing and exhaled, then pushed until he was straight.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

He walked stiffly into the bathroom, and I got dressed. Work clothes, which meant jeans, a tank, T-shirt, and sweater. I brushed my hair and tucked it behind my ears.

I finally heard the shower water turn on and went to make coffee. Stone was still sleeping, which I could tell only because he didn’t move. I wandered into the kitchen. Looked like it was going to be cold pizza for breakfast, unless we wanted to catch something on the way out. I started the coffee.

I wondered if I should call Nola and warn her we were coming.

Probably. Otherwise, she might already be out for breakfast.

I pulled out my cell and dialed.

“Nola Robbins speaking,” she said.

“Hi, it’s Allie.”

“I’m glad you called,” she said in a rush. “I’m sorry. For how I acted yesterday. It was stupid. The whole thing was so strange, and I was really out of my depth. I’m not your mother, and you don’t need me to take care of you. Of course there are going to be things you don’t want to tell me.”

I exhaled the breath I didn’t even know I was holding. “No, it was dumb of me not to tell you everything that’s been going on lately. I mean, I was the one who begged you to help me keep my memories recorded, and then I screwed it up. Sorry.”

“Let’s buy each other coffee.”

“And dessert. Done. But not today. I need a favor.”

“Okay.”

“I need to come over and talk to Cody about that shadow you saw. Has he told you anything else about it?”

“No. He stayed up half the night looking for Stone. He’s asleep right now.”

“Is Paul there?”

“No,” she hedged. “Why?”

“Because I don’t really want to explain myself to him.”

“Are you doing something illegal?”

“No, but he’s always asking questions, and that makes me nervous.” I laughed. “Can I come over now? I’ll be with Zay and Shamus.”

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll put on some coffee.”

We hung up, and I heard a sound behind me. Zay stood in the kitchen doorway, rivulets of water tracking down his jaw and shoulder. I loved it when he didn’t wear a shirt. He always wore clothes that hid the width of his shoulders and disguised the thick muscles of his arms, chest, and tight six-pack stomach. But seeing him without his shirt on today just showed me how bruised and swollen he still was.

They had beat the crap out of him. Anger scorched through my mind. I was going to kick Dane’s ass for that.

“Little help?” Zay held up the roll of elastic bandage.

“Do you want to sit?”

“It’d be easier if I stand.”

I took the bandage and started at the top of his rib cage, my hands shaking a little. Not from nerves—from anger. “That too tight?”

“No.”

I got to the bottom, tucked the end of the wrap under the last round, and set the little hook. I rested my hands on his hips, bent, and kissed the exposed skin just above his waistband.

“Mmm.” He opened his arms, and I straightened and folded myself against him, trying not to hold him too tight, wishing he weren’t hurting. Wishing Dane had never gotten in my apartment. Wishing I knew where Dane and his men were so I could show them what I could do with a crowbar.

“Coffee’s done,” he said against my hair.

“Nola’s waiting for us.” I leaned back so I could look at him. “Please take a painkiller.”

“I did.” He reached out, tucked my hair back behind my ear. “I’m fine.”

“Liar.”

“No,” he said, tucking the hair back behind my other ear. “It’s the truth. I’m breathing, there’s a cup of coffee in my near future, and a beautiful woman in my arms. What more could a man ask for?”

“Revenge.”

He smiled, and there was an entirely different look in his eyes. “Oh, I’ll get that too.”

I stepped back. “Promise you’ll let me watch?”

“Front-row seat.” He kissed me, just one hot brush of his mouth against mine. Then he walked past me, shrugging into his T-shirt. He pulled two cups off the shelf.

“Want pizza?” I held out a slice for him.

He poured coffee into the cups, took a drink, and gave me the cup for two pieces of pizza. “Let’s take it to go.”

I grabbed a slice for myself and ate pizza and drank coffee while finding my boots, my jacket, and my blank book.

Everything accounted for, a fresh cup of coffee poured, and one more slice of pepperoni to go, and we were ready.

“Stone?” I said. “You take care, okay, boy?”

He gurgled from the corner of the room. Sleepy. I didn’t need to worry about him. If he wanted out, he’d get out.

We left the apartment and took the stairs down. Zay finished off another piece of pizza—his third, I think—and I finished my coffee.

Dawn was giving way to morning, the hush of night replaced by birds and traffic. The sky was a patchwork of blue and pink, the blush of sunlight hooked into the curve of clouds.

It wasn’t raining. It wasn’t freezing. All in all, a pretty nice start for the day.

We got in the car, and Zayvion headed off toward Stotts’ place.

“Will Detective Stotts be there?” he asked.

“No. She said he’s already gone into work. He probably has cameras on the place, though.”

“He does.”

“That was definite. You case his house?”

“Looking after the city is my job.”

“Which means?”

“Of course I’ve cased the house of the head of the secret department of the police force that deals with magical crime. I’ve been at this for a few years.”

“Wow, okay. Take it down a notch, Mr. Truth and Justice,” I teased. “Afraid I’m going to tell Victor you aren’t doing your job right?”

He gave me a look. “Victor wouldn’t believe you.”

“Sure he would. He likes me.”

Zay chuckled. “Good. You be his favorite for a while. I’ll take a vacation.”

“You can’t take a vacation.”

“Why?”

“You’d miss me.”

He took a moment to consider that. Finally, “I’d get over it.”

“Oh, please. You’d think of me day and night. You wouldn’t be able to breathe, sleep, or eat without me.”

“I’d manage,” he said dryly.

“And you’re so sure of that?”

“Yes. I already think about you day and night. It hasn’t killed me. Yet.” He maneuvered the car through traffic, putting the speed limit to shame. “I’d just be doing it on a white-sand beach somewhere. Sounds nice, actually.”

“You and I are no longer on speaking terms.”

His phone rang, and he answered. “Almost there. Five minutes. Good.”

He hung up. “Shame’s there.”

“Already?”

“I thought we weren’t talking,” he said.

“Invite me to your beach, and I’ll reconsider conversation.”

“Bring beer and I might let you on my beach,” he said.

“Might? I think you’ll not only invite me; you’ll have margaritas waiting. And if you ask nice, I’ll wear a bikini. Brazilian.”

“Topless?”

“I said Brazilian.”

He frowned and nodded. “Since you put it that way, this is me asking nice.”

“So Shame?” I said.

“He’s not invited to my beach.”

“No, I mean he’s awake already?”

“Still. I don’t think he slept last night.”

We pulled up alongside Paul’s house. Shame was sitting in his car, parked on one side of the cul-de-sac. We parked behind him and got out.

Black hoodie, black fingerless gloves, smoking. He looked like he not only hadn’t slept, but also hadn’t brushed his hair or changed his clothes.

“Rough night?” Zay asked.

“Oh, no. Glorious, thanks. Mum had me crosschecking data on the solid Veiled all damn night. Fuckin’ A, there better be a shot of whiskey at the end of this damn morning.”

“Nola said she’d have fresh coffee,” I said.

“Whiskey. I’ll say it slow: whiiiskey.”

We all walked up to the house, and Zay knocked. He glanced up at the corner of the porch roof and nodded. Camera, I assumed.

The locks turned, and then Nola opened the door. “Come on in, all of you. Coffee?”

“God, yes,” Shame said. “Strong as you can make it, with milk and sugar, thank you.”

We stepped into Stotts’ house. I have to admit I was more than a little uncomfortable here. I first and foremost thought of Stotts as a person who hired me for Hounding. And I’d always tried to keep my working relationships and personal relationships two very different things. Especially when it came to the police. Standing in the middle of Stotts’ living room made me feel like I was on stage under a spotlight.

The house was decorated with minimal furniture—couch, chair, a side table with a few magazines stacked neatly. The TV was relatively new and mounted on the wall. A fireplace commanded the opposite wall. The room was off-white, had a couple cityscape paintings and a bookshelf filled with books, all neatly stacked by size and held in place by marble bookends.

Functional, clean, nothing fussy. The home of a man who lived alone and probably didn’t stay home much.

Nola shut the door, then walked over toward me. I was struck at how much she seemed to belong here, surrounded by Stotts’ things, his life. Sunlight always followed her, and today was no different. She looked like a sunflower in the shade. As if this house, this room, and the life that filled it had been waiting for her to come along and push the cool shadows away so that things could grow again.

If I didn’t know her so well, I’d probably overlook the smudge of darkness under her eyes. But I did know her. I could tell she had not slept well last night.

She gave me a quick hug, and I knew we were right again. “Did you eat anything? I can whip up some eggs,” she said.

“I don’t think we’ll stay that long. Can we see Cody?”

“Sure. This way.” She led us back to the kitchen.

A small kitchen table was tucked up against a window that looked out onto a well-kept yard. Stotts either hired a service or knew how to keep a lawn green.

Cody sat at the table, his hair brushed but damp from a shower. He wore a navy blue sweatshirt, a pair of jeans, and no shoes. He was eating cereal and reading the back of the cereal box.

“Cody,” Nola said, “Allie’s here to visit.”

Cody looked up at me and smiled. “Hi! My monster. My good monster.”

“Yes,” I said. “Have you seen him lately?”

“He didn’t come home.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Maybe he had some monster things he needed to do. Cody, do you remember Zay?”

He smiled at Zay. “Hi.”

“And this is my friend Shamus. Shamus, I’d like you to meet Cody.”

“Hey, Cody,” Shamus sat down at the table across from him and turned the cereal box so he could read the back of it. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Cereal. Do you want some cereal?”

“Not right now. Unless there’s whiskey in it?”

Cody frowned; then a small smile curved his lips and he met Shame’s gaze. “Whiskey isn’t for breakfast.”

“It is if you’re Irish,” Shame said.

These two knew each other. They’d probably even gotten into some trouble together from the way Shame grinned at him.

“No. Cereal is for breakfast,” Cody insisted. “And rum.”

“Cody!” Nola sounded shocked; then she laughed.

Shame nodded. “Rum it is. You are a very smart man.”

Cody tipped his head as if trying to remember something else, then shrugged and took another bite of cereal. He seemed to forget any of us were in the room. He ate his cereal, humming to himself and looking out the window.

Shame, I knew, was checking in Cody’s head to see if there was anything other than Cody in there.

“Cody,” I said, “do you remember seeing a shadow man the other day?”

He looked up at the ceiling and chewed. Swallowed. “Yes.”

“Do you know where he is?”

He stopped swinging his feet and brought his gaze down to mine. “He went away. My monster made him go away. He won’t touch me anymore. Older me said so. Older me said it’s okay now and I don’t have to be afraid.”

Shame sat back a little and looked like he took a breath. “I think Older you is pretty smart too,” he said. “But don’t let him have all the rum.”

“Cereal,” Cody said with a smile.

“Cereal,” Shame agreed. “Have a good day, okay, buddy?” Shame stood, exchanged one of those looks that only Zay could interpret, then turned to Nola.

“Thanks for letting us come by,” he said. “I’m pretty sure whatever you saw really is gone and hasn’t left Cody damaged.”

“Damaged?” she said. “Is that why you came over?”

“My idea, Nola,” I said. “Shame’s good at looking at someone and knowing if they’ve been hurt by magic. I wanted to make sure Cody was okay.”

She rubbed her fingers over her eyes. “Allie, if you and I are going to live in the same city, you are going to have to stop keeping information from me. You told me you were coming over to ask me about the shadow. You did not tell me Shamus was going to do magic on Cody in Stotts’ kitchen. I don’t want people doing magic on Cody—not even if those people are your friends. I want to keep him away from as much magic as possible.”

“Nola, I—”

“Just. Allie.” She walked over to me and took my hands in hers. “Stop treating me like someone who can’t deal with the truth. I’ve been through plenty of ugliness in my life. And if it has something to do with my well-being, or Cody’s safety, just tell me. Even if magic is involved. Especially if magic is involved.”

She wasn’t angry. She was disappointed. And that made me feel even worse.

Zayvion and Shame were oblivious to the emotions in the room. They weren’t even in the room anymore. They were already walking toward the living room.

“Coming?” Shame called from the living room. “Oh, and thank you, Nola. Sorry I couldn’t stay for the rum, Cody!”

Cody laughed and drank the milk out of his bowl.

“I should go,” I said. “Sorry I’ve been an idiot.”

“It’s that bad, isn’t it?” she asked. “Whatever it is you’re not telling me?”

I took a breath to tell her no, it wasn’t as bad as I was making it sound. But she wanted the truth. “Truthfully? Things are going to hell. And I’d rather you were safe four hundred miles away instead of here. But as far as I know, there is no reason you are in danger. I might just be overreacting about that. Enough that I thought Cody might need to be looked at to make sure he’s okay—and if Shame says he is, he is. So that’s a good thing. It’s been a hard year, you know?”

“Yes, it has,” she said. “Maybe I’ll cut our visit short. Come back in a month or so.”

I smiled. “You are the best.”

“So are you. Take care.”

We hugged once more; then I was out of Stotts’ kitchen, out of his living room, leaving my best friend behind and following Zayvion and Shame to the cars.

“What’s the hurry?” I asked.

Shame got into his car and started the engine. Zay and I got into Zay’s car.

“Shame thinks he has a lead on Leander.”

“What? Where?”

“He said Leander did more than try to get in Cody’s head.” Zay started the car and pulled up close behind Shame, following him at barely legal speeds through the streets.

“And?”

“He tried to possess him, just like you said. Tried to make him draw on magic. He needs a host. Someone caught between life and death.”

“Like Cody.”

“Yes. And since he gave up on Cody, Shame thinks he might try for Greyson next.”

“Wait. Greyson’s in prison. Why would Leander want his body?”

“Shame said he left behind a sense of looking for the solid Veiled. Looking for disks.”

“But why Greyson? He’s brain damaged, right?”

“Yes, that’s what Victor’s been saying. But Leander doesn’t know that. He might know that Greyson has a disk implanted in his neck. And maybe the brain damage works for him—gives him room to infiltrate his mind.” He looked over at me. “Hopefully he’ll be desperate enough to possess him.”

“An undead very angry dark magic user possessing a half-man, half-beast Necromorph who tried to kill you is a good idea?” I asked.

“Greyson is locked up in the strongest prison on the West Coast. If Leander thinks he’s going to break out of that, he’s wrong. But if he finds a way into it, then we have one less problem to worry about.”

“And you think he’d be dumb enough to possess someone in jail?”

“No. I think he’s arrogant enough to think he could do it and break out.”

“I’ll call Victor.”

I pulled out my phone and dialed. Had to wait for several rings. Finally, “Yes, Allie?” He sounded annoyed.

“Victor, do you have Shame on the other line?”

“No. Why?”

“He just saw Cody Miller and thinks he knows where Leander might be headed.”

“Where?” No more annoyed. Now he was interested.

“To Greyson. He needs a host body, someone between life and death, someone with access to a disk.” There was something missing about that. I could buy that Leander wanted a physical body, but I still didn’t know why he wanted Greyson of all people.

“Shame put that together?” Victor asked. “Our Shamus?”

I tried not to laugh. “Yes.”

“Is he in the car with you?”

“No. He’s driving his car. We’re following.”

“Hang up. I’ll call him.”

I hung up.

“Where’s Shame headed?” I asked.

“The prison,” Zay said.

“You mean the place no one in the Authority except the Voices are supposed to know the location of?”

“Yep.”

“Can’t imagine Victor’s going to be happy about that,” I noted.

Shame’s brake lights glared red, and he swerved onto the shoulder. I don’t think he even had time to put it in park before he was out the door and throwing his cell phone back in the car. He slammed the door closed and kicked it for good measure.

“And neither is Shame,” Zay said. He rolled down the window.

Shame stormed over to us, his hands in fists.

“What’d Victor say?” Zay asked calmly.

“Not to go out to the prison, not to take you out there, or Allie. To stay out of it, to let him take care of it. To sit here on my fucking thumbs and do fucking nothing.”

“Are you that hot to get your hands on Leander?” Zay asked.

“I smell a clean shot at the jugular of this problem. I saw how he touched Cody. He’s working magic, and working it dark. He’s digging for information and didn’t find it in Cody. I have a gut feeling if we get our hands on him, we’ll be one step ahead instead of one step behind whatever it is Mikhail, Leander, Dane, Jingo Jingo, and who-the-fuck-knows else have been doing.”

“We let Victor take care of it,” Zay said.

Shame took a few steps away, looking down the road. Then paced back.

He leaned his elbows on Zay’s open window. “We’ve already been letting Victor take care of it. Ever since the magic storm, Mum’s been letting him call the shots. I think it’s time we do what needs to be done. Let’s go to the prison, see if Leander’s trying to possess Greyson, lock Greyson down so tight Leander would need a pry bar to get in his head. Then find out what the hell Leander wants with him, and maybe, just fucking maybe, where Sedra is, and how Dane and Jingo Jingo and Mikhail are mixed up in this.”

Zay just stared out the window. He did not look convinced.

“It has to go together somehow, Z,” Shame pressed. “All this happening at the same time? There has to be something or someone that strings it together. Maybe it’s Greyson. Maybe it’s the disk in his neck.”

“To break with Victor’s orders . . . ,” Zay started.

“Bartholomew Wray is coming,” Shame said.

Zay closed his eyes and shook his head. “Now?”

Shame nodded. “Victor said he’s on his way from Seattle. Should hit the airport in an hour. An hour after that, he’ll call a reckoning with Victor and Mum. And when he gets the laundry list of all the fuckups we’ve been dealing with, he is going to find someone to blame.

“We need a solution. Now. I think Greyson is part of our solution—otherwise, Leander wouldn’t have been so interested in him, enough that he clearly left the impression of him in Cody’s mind. Let Victor follow the rules. Let Bartholomew go through the procedures. And let us take care of the problem. It’s our city. If they can’t take care of it, we will.”

Zay sighed. “If things go to hell, you and I will be out of this for good.”

“Then we won’t let things go to hell,” Shame said.

“You understand what we’re doing?” Zay asked me.

“Our job?” I said.

“Not our sanctioned job, no.”

“Zay,” I said, “I’ve barely been on the right side of the law for most of my life. If we can lock down Leander and find out what the hell is going on, I’m in.”

“Where am I headed, Flynn?” he asked.

Shame hit the buttons on his keychain and locked his car, then ducked into the backseat behind Zay.

“Crown Point.”

Chapter Eleven

Zay maneuvered the car into traffic. It was a half hour drive east along the Columbia Gorge. Looked like Zay was going to do it in under twenty minutes.

Ten minutes into our drive, Zay’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the screen, and thumbed it off before setting it in his cup holder.

“Who was it?”

“Victor.”

The phone started ringing again. Zay glanced at it, looked away.

“You think he won’t know you’re ignoring him?” I asked.

“He knows. He also probably knows exactly what we’re planning to do. But if I don’t answer, he can’t be held culpable.”

His phone stopped ringing. There was a pause; then my phone rang. Victor.

I stared at it for a minute, wondering if I should just let him know that we weren’t going to do anything stupid. But since that was a lie, I just put my phone in the other cup holder and let it ring.

“If he knows, there’s nothing that would keep him from coming out after us or sending people to stop us,” I said.

“Which is why we do this faster than they can catch us at it,” Shame said. “It isn’t about finesse; it’s about speed.”

Okay. So we were breaking one of the Authority’s rules—do not act against the consent of your superiors. We were also going to the prison we were not supposed to know about, and about to confront a man who had betrayed the Authority and tried to kill us all—Greyson. Not to mention we were hunting down a dead and very powerful magic user who almost blew open the well and destroyed us all.

So, yes, I could see where this could be considered moderate-stupidity-to-high-risk-insanity on the howsafe-is-this-job scale.

“Do we have a plan?” I asked.

“Z?” Shame asked.

“You can get us in?” Zay asked.

“I think so,” Shame said. “I know where they’re holding Greyson.”

“Is there anyone guarding the place?”

“One guard. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

Zay’s phone rang again. I glanced at the screen. Terric.

Zay looked at it too. “It’s Terric.”

Shame stuck his hand between our seats. “Let me.”

Zay dropped the phone in Shame’s palm. Shame sat back, thumbed it on speaker, and answered. “Hello? Terric. Good to hear from you, buddy; what’s up?”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Terric asked.

“I’m hanging out with Z and Allie. What the hell do you think I’m doing?”

“Do not confront Leander.”

“Not planning on it.”

“Shame, you can’t lie to me. I know you’re headed out to the prison. I know you think Leander is going to possess Greyson.”

“Really? And how do you ‘know’ I’m doing those things?”

“Because you are an idiot. I don’t know how you talked Zayvion into doing this—he usually has more sense in his head—but for God’s sake, do not take this step, Shame. If you’re set on getting your own brain wiped, fine. But don’t drag Zayvion and Allie into your bullshit too.”

“Terric, I’m not going to confront Leander.”

That was a flat-out lie. And it didn’t sound a bit like a fib.

“Good,” Terric said. “Then I won’t see you in a few minutes.”

“What?”

“Victor sent me and Hayden out to make sure you aren’t going to the prison, and aren’t going to see Greyson, and aren’t going to confront Leander. If you’re telling me the truth, you won’t be there when we pull up.”

“Of course I’m telling you the truth,” he lied.

“You are such a problem, Shamus Hugh Flynn,” he said. “But I’d hate to see you kicked out of the Authority for good.”

“Don’t drag my father’s name into this. Good-bye, Terric.”

He hung up and was uncharacteristically quiet for a minute or two. “So Victor’s sent Terric and Hayden on our tail. Nice of Terric to let us know.”

Zayvion just nodded. “How far behind us?”

“I couldn’t tell. If they were at Victor’s place, we have maybe a fifteen-, twenty-minute lead.”

“That will do.” Zay cast a spell with his left hand, muttered something, and flicked it at the windshield. I don’t know what it was supposed to do, but once it settled over the car, Zay put his foot down and sped east down the twists and turns of Highway 30.

“Plan?” I repeated.

“I get us in,” Shame said. “I take us to Greyson. Z holds him while I do a nice, friendly little rummage through his brain.”

“That sounds too easy.”

“I find it’s always best to start with easy,” Shame said. “That way the complications are more of a surprise.”

We flew down the highway, twisting along the river, with only a flash of cars at our left, the hillsides on the other side of the river rising green and rocky, the river a wide expanse of blue.

I caught a glimpse of the bluff ahead and on the right where the Vista House rose. The gray sandstone observatory with green tiled roof was built about a hundred years ago, arches ringing the two-story, round, dome-topped structure in the best German art nouveau of the time.

It was perched on the flattened edge of a basalt cliff about seven hundred feet above the Columbia, and most people stopped by to get a panoramic view of the Columbia River.

Zay took the exit and didn’t slow as he maneuvered the car up the road, which wound into the evergreen-and vine-maple-covered hills. Two narrow lanes hooked hairpin corners that were tacked into the mountain with white wooden guardrails and hand-stacked stone fences put there by the job corps more than eighty years ago.

My heart raced, but Zay seemed to know this road, know his car, and know exactly what he needed to do to get us there in one piece. He was focused, spread out to feel the area, like he had been when we were looking for Dane, as if this road, these mountains and hills, river and highway, were mapped on his skin. As if he knew every curve and bank because they were a part of him.

And then we were there, nearly at the top of the hill, the road now lined by Gothic lampposts, and the Vista House like a crown jewel glinting on the edge of the world.

Zay rolled across the empty parking lot and parked in front of the building.

“Where’s the prison?” I asked, scanning the steep forested rise behind us. If we were going to have to navigate the forest, we were going to need more than fifteen minutes.

“You’re looking at it.” Shame got out of the car.

I got out too. Met Zay and him at the trunk, where they were pulling out weapons. Shame strapped on every knife in his reach, Zay took his katana and left me with another katana. I pulled it briefly from the sheath, held it, feeling the weight and heft. A little lighter than Zay’s sword, it too had glyphs worked along the blade, but there were no dark magic spells carved into it.

Which was fine with me. Zay’s sword was geared for both dark and light magic. Working dark magic while trying to swing that much steel made me feel like a whipped pup.

I retrieved Zay’s Blood dagger and draped a chain that wasn’t so much a weapon as an enhancement for magic use over my neck.

“Cuffs?” I asked.

“We’ll be in eyesight.” Zay shut the trunk, didn’t bother casting an Illusion. If Terric was behind us, he’d know to look for Zay’s signature anyway. He pressed a button on his watch.

“Let’s do it in fifteen,” he said behind Shame.

My left hand tingled, cold radiating out from my palm. My right hand burned hot and felt almost swollen. I had magic at my fingertips—literally. I walked beside Zay.

Shame stood at the door. He pressed his palms together in front of his chest, bent his head as if in prayer. Then he whispered a mantra and pulled his hands apart, until his arms stretched out to each side, palms pressing outward against a force I could not see.

Zay didn’t break pace; he walked right past Shame through the opening Shame had made in the spell that surrounded the prison.

I hurried behind Zay, Shame whispering and breathing hard. He wasn’t breaking the spell, but this did not seem to be the intended front door either.

As soon as I passed Shame, he turned on his heel, facing the car, and pushed his hands back together, thumb to thumb, fingers spread, then closed.

The wall, the spell, closed back in on itself and fell around us so hard, I could feel the weight of the impact in the stones beneath my feet.

“One,” Shame exhaled. “No time to stand and stare, Beckstrom. Go.”

I turned and caught up with Zayvion. He finished casting Cleave, which left the scent of cut grass in the air, and pushed open the door.

The interior of the observatory was cool, marble and deep polished wood interrupted only by the staircase leading up at one side and down on the other. I knew the downward stairs led to a gift shop, art gallery, and coffee shop.

Typical Oregon. If there was a stop on the highway with a view, there’d be coffee nearby.

I scanned the circumference of the room. Had no idea how they fit a prison in here. The entire thing was only about forty feet across, with arched windows reaching up two stories and evenly spaced along all sides, columns below. A staircase wound upward to those windows, where I thought there was an exterior observation deck.

There was no guard.

“Where’s the guard?” I whispered.

“Don’t know,” Shame said. “Maybe downstairs.”

A stairwell hooked up—not down—on the far side of the room. And that’s where Zayvion and Shame were headed.

I jogged up the stairs after them to the second level, which did indeed empty out onto an observation deck that ringed the building. The deck gave a dizzying view of the Columbia River, snaking flat cobalt water through the deep evergreen- and sage-colored hills of the gorge.

The breeze picked up, and I wondered if maybe Zay and Shame had taken a wrong turn. They had stopped and turned toward the building, their backs to the river, the upper-story stained-glass windows in front of them.

“Where?” I asked.

“Shh . . . ,” Shame said.

Zayvion cast a very delicate spell, spoke a word, and then hooked his pinky, as if catching a part of the spell. He continued to whisper that word, then walked to the next window and cast another spell, saying another similar word, hooking his pinky, and then walking to the next window.

Shame walked behind him. I took a step to follow, but Shame held his hand up, telling me to stay. It took only a minute or two for Zay to complete the counterclockwise circumnavigation of the building. Then he was beside me and said one final word, spreading his hands wide.

A doorway opened in front of him where the stained-glass windows had just been. Zay and Shame stepped through, and so did I.

The room should not exist. For one thing, I’d just been on the bottom floor and looked up at all the empty space above and hadn’t sensed any magical Illusions. But whatever spell Zay had used revealed this separate, hidden room. The walls were still marble, but there were no stained-glass windows, even though I knew very well the windows were there.

Or maybe the windows were the Illusion and this was the reality of the structure. But it wasn’t just the walls that caught my attention. The floor was made of dark glass, and glyphs in gold and green glowed beneath the glass. Zay and Shame both cast separate spells, and the glyphs bent to the motion of their hands like a wheat field rolls beneath the wind.

Vertigo hit me, and it felt like everything rotated a degree to the left. And then the room was not just a room anymore.

I hadn’t moved. Hadn’t taken a single step. But the room was now twice as wide and twice as tall. There were several heavy lead and glass doors that radiated magic along the wall. Illusions within Illusions. No wonder no one could break out of this place.

Shame walked to the door on the west side and stopped in front of it.

“I could break it, but I’ll make a mess of it,” he said.

Zay looked at it. “Who worked it when you came before?”

“Victor. It’s old stuff. Archaic.”

“You didn’t want to tell us you didn’t have the spell to get through the door?” I asked.

Shame bit down on a grin. “I just told you I can do it. It’s just that it will be noticeable.”

“How noticeable?”

“Someone-in-Troutdale-will-probably-call-911 noticeable,” he said. “Zay might have a softer touch. Z?”

He shook his head. “I see how it’s cast. And I can see the obvious ways to break it. And all of those end up in an explosion.”

I wondered if Dad knew how. He was pretty good with archaic. Dad? Do you know how to open it?

Yes.

I was a little surprised he answered me after being quiet for so long.

Then open it.

“Dad can do it,” I said. They both looked at me.

Shame narrowed his eyes. “Think he’ll screw us?”

“I don’t think we have time enough to care,” I said.

“That’s a sure way to get killed,” Shame said. “Brainless, reckless.” He turned to Zay. “I like her.”

“Allie—,” Zay began.

“We need fast, and Dad can do fast.” Can you? I asked.

Yes.

Just to make sure we were on the same page, I told him exactly what I was allowing him to do. Open the door; don’t set off any alarms or cause an explosion. You’re helping us all get through this door safely.

This is tedious, Allison. I know what you want. Free me from this binding and we can work together.

Just do as I said.

He shouldered forward in my mind, and I walked over to the door. It was weird having someone else move your body, move your hands. But I’d rather be present and aware of what he was doing than be shoved back in a little dark corner of my mind where I couldn’t tell what was going on.

Dad pulled magic up through the natural lines that flowed deep beneath the mountain, veins running through the stones, as smooth and confident as if he had done this before.

I have, he said.

And then he traced a glyph in the air. Instead of sending it to attach to the door, he caught it in my right hand and then laid my hand, palm flat, against the door.

Fantastic. Now my fingerprints were left behind at the scene of the crime.

I had about a half second to think about that before my hand grew warm. The door literally moved under my palm. Lead and glass flowed like tiny oiled gears were set in place, rolling through the lead and shifting like a glass stream around the stones of lead and wood.

And then the door opened.

Dad pulled back into that gauzy wrap Victor and Shame had come up with. Not a word, not a touch. He was simply gone, as if he weren’t even in my mind.

Hidden.

I wondered who, or what, he was hiding from.

A cold chill, a breeze from the long corridor that ended in steps leading down, sent goose bumps down my back.

There was something dangerous down that hall. Someone dangerous. Many someones.

And still no guard.

Zay placed his hand on my shoulder. The heat of it was shocking, and I jerked away.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll go first.” He drew his sword, and then he was past me, stalking down the hall and down the stairs, like a panther in the night.

“Go,” Shame said from behind me. “I’m going to close this thing.”

I went, not wanting to be too far behind Zay. Down the stairs. Lights set in the walls were not electric, but rather clever spells set to trigger as a magic user passed by. They poured a strange pinkish glow over the sandstone, then basalt stairs. Down a flight. Down two. Down three. We were beneath the building, beneath the stone. We entered a large chamber.

I had expected something medieval with all this stone around us and magical lights. Instead, we entered into a state-of-the-art magical holding facility.

Not that I’d ever seen a state-of-the-art magical holding facility. But if I were to design one, this was what it would look like.

The room was three times as large as the upper floor, and square instead of round. There were four hallways of doors that reached out like spokes from the center. The halls and the room were well lit by electric lights along the ceiling and walls. The air was cool and smelled of damp stones and industrial soap. The floor was concrete, and I suspected the walls were too, though they were covered in a thin layer of what looked to be a soft yellow ceramic, with spells pushed and pulled through it in subtle streaks of gray and black.

Calming spells, holding spells, trigger spells. It made me relax even though I didn’t want to. It made me want to rest. No, it made me want to lie down and sleep away a century.

“Block,” Zay said quietly.

I realized he meant I should Block the spells, which weren’t just worked into the walls but were actually emanating from the walls, casting their magic, their Influence, into the air we were breathing.

I calmed my mind, set a Disbursement—for how small a spell I was casting, I wouldn’t have to pay more than a case of the hiccups—and cast a very simple Block.

Sweet hells, that did a world of good to clear my head.

Shame was already down one door-lined hallway and paused in front of the door at the very end.

Zay touched my shoulder again as he walked by me. His hand wasn’t quite as hot.

I followed. The hall was wide enough for three people to walk side by side. The doors were solid, made of the same ceramic as the walls, but with different black and gray spells worked into them.

The scents of conflicting spells, so strong, and so near together, stung my nose like black pepper and ammonia. My eyes watered. I pressed my left hand over my nose to keep from sneezing.

“Greyson?” Zay asked once we reached Shame.

Shame nodded. “Might want to get Allie’s da in on this one.”

Zay looked over his shoulder at me. “You up for it?”

“How much time do we have left?”

He glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes.”

I turned to Dad in my mind. Open the door.

He stepped forward and once again accessed magic like it was as easy as walking through daisies. Locks on the door tumbled and clicked into place. Dad fell away again into that quiet space in my mind.

He hadn’t even bothered to argue with me this time. That wasn’t like him.

Shame stood to one side of the door, letting Zay stand in front of it. Then Shame opened it.

Zay didn’t cast the spell he held in his fist. He strode into the room.

Shame was right behind him, and I followed but paused at the doorway.

The room was large enough for a bed, a chair, and a toilet and sink. No windows, the walls were the same ceramic, but bone white, with barely darker glyphs shining through the glaze.

The room stank of Greyson, the burnt blackberry smell of the disk implanted in his throat choking the small space.

Except Greyson was not there.

The room was empty.

“Well, shit,” Shame said.

“Did he break out?” I asked.

Zay shook his head. “Everything is intact.” He stepped past me and down the hall to the main room. “He’s here. He has to be here.”

Shame walked out and shut the door. I felt the spells lock back into place. Zay strode down the opposite hallway, dragging his finger along the wall of doors, his katana unsheathed in his right hand. About halfway down the hall he stopped, put his hand on a door, and pulled it open.

Zay lifted his hand to throw the spell.

“That is not wise, Guardian. She will die.”

The voice belonged to Greyson, but the stilted rhythm to the words was not his.

“Step back.”

Zayvion took a step back. Two, three, until he was in the center of the room.

Greyson walked out into the hallway. Not half man and half beast, this was Greyson as he must have been before someone had stuck a disk in his throat and tried to make him a creature of dark magic. Dark hair, pale skin, handsome, and hard eyed. I’d seen him that way only twice before, when he was using Tomi as his hands to mess with Blood, Death, and dark magic, and when he and Chase were working that same combination of magic on the battlefield.

Greyson held his lover and Soul Complement, Chase, by the throat, his fingers dug deep into her flesh. He dragged her out of the room as she half crawled, one hand over his trying to break his hold. In his other hand, he held a gun. I was off to one side but could see the unmoving form of a man, probably the guard, lying in a pool of blood inside the room behind him. The shifting air brought me the smell of spent gunpowder and death.

I lifted my hands.

Greyson dropped Chase and threw a spell.

Holy shit.

I Blocked. Too slow.

I couldn’t move. All the air in the room had coagulated, holding me frozen in place.

I couldn’t see Shame, who was still behind me, I thought, but just as frozen as Zay and I. Zay was in my line of sight. He wasn’t moving, his left hand halfway through an Impact spell, his right in midlunge with the katana.

“This body, mine,” Greyson said. “This life, mine. This world, mine.”

“You, Guardian.” He stopped in front of Zayvion. “Have lost. All. Body, life, world.”

He raised the gun, pointed it at Zay’s head.

“Stop,” I screamed, throwing every ounce of Influence I could behind it.

Greyson paused, the gun still pointed at Zay’s head.

“No Soul Complement will be as powerful as I. You are not. That creature”—he pointed toward Chase, who gasped on the floor—“is not. Only my beloved and I. Only we will break magic to our desire. Only we will rule. Forever.”

He pulled the gun away from Zayvion’s head and unloaded three shots into Chase’s chest.

Chase screamed, spasming, her eyes wide as blood poured out from beneath her. She was breathing. I didn’t know how, but she was.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t even get enough air to speak. The bullets had magic worked into them; I could smell the bitter burn of the spell tearing Chase apart from the inside out.

No, no, no! Dad, help me.

Break the binding. I cannot fight him bound to your will.

Zayvion whispered something, a spell, I thought, and Greyson raised his gun toward Zay again.

Like hell you can’t. I grabbed my dad by his cottony scruff and dragged him out of that cocoon in my mind, hauling him to the front of my mind with me. I might have ripped the binding Victor and Shame had cast on him, but I didn’t care.

Make. Him. Stop.

“Leander,” we said. I could taste Dad’s fear mixed with my panic. He didn’t want to fight him, didn’t think he could survive a fight with him. Too damn bad.

The gun shifted, pointed at me. Fuck.

“The magician of light and darkness,” he said. “Why you choose this fight, I do not understand. But this is done for you now.”

Dad pulled on magic so fast and so hard, it felt like someone had just hit me in the face with a board. My ears were ringing, and blood poured from my nose.

Cast, Allison. Now!

I lifted my hands. Not to wipe my face. To work magic. A lot of magic. All the magic Dad had grabbed.

Light and dark. Dad guided my hands, supporting my movements when I faltered. Smooth, strong, we worked together as if we cast light and dark magic every day.

Greyson’s eyes went wide. He was not moving, the barrel of the gun still steady at my head.

The disk in his neck glowed a scorching yellow-green. Dark magic burned through it like a hot poker, leaving behind bleeding trails of glyphs. Darkness swallowed up the yellow-green until the disk burned with cold, endless blackness. Empty. Empty of magic. Empty of the magic that kept Greyson caught between life and death, and kept Leander in Greyson’s body.

Greyson raised his left hand, and I could see the effort it cost him.

Dad said one more word, and the air was just air again. I could move.

So could Zayvion. I heard Shame, behind me, swear and push up onto his feet. I hadn’t heard him fall.

The magic was still pouring out from my hand, dark magic eating away at Greyson’s life.

“Stop!” Zay yelled. He ran forward and, to my surprise, caught Greyson before he fell. He laid him next to Chase.

I could not stop. Dad would not let me. His hand, his will, pressed hard against my mind, forcing the magic through me, forcing my hand to cast, my lips to whisper. The black from the disk spread down Greyson’s neck, pumping his veins full and fat beneath his pale skin, and stretching out like slow lightning toward his heart.

“You’re killing him. You’re killing Greyson,” Zay said. “She needs him. Chase needs him to live.”

Chase was still breathing, shallow, but breathing. I didn’t know how she’d held on with the bullets and magic tearing her apart. I knew she wouldn’t last long, even with Greyson’s life to draw from.

Still, I shoved at my father, tried to break his concentration, tried to force him to stop. The binding between us wasn’t as strong as it should be.

All I met was his ruthless wall of fury.

He knew he was killing Greyson, killing the man who had murdered him. It was exactly what he wanted to do. I thought I saw a shadow pull free from Greyson. Leander?

Zay swore and straightened. He stepped up in front of me, his katana weighted in one hand, ready to strike, a spell cupped in his left hand.

“Let him go. Now.”

Dad didn’t listen. I couldn’t make him listen.

Zay raised the sword, and for a moment, half a breath, I stared into my lover’s eyes and saw my death there.

Chapter Twelve

Zay traced a variation of Bind, carving the air in front of me with his sword, so near, I felt the breeze from his blade brush over my face. His spell caught my hands like a slippery rope and forced my wrists together.

Zay said a word. My right hand went hot, my left cold, and then both went numb.

The spell Dad had been feeding, the dark magic he’d used to destroy the disk in Greyson’s neck, ended.

Dad fell back into my mind like a dead man kicked off a cliff.

I was alone in my head. And I had a headache that made me moan. I tried raising my hands to cradle my head, but my arms were numb too. “Zay?” I said, barely a whisper, but loud, too loud. We hadn’t set a Disbursement. Or at least I hadn’t. Maybe Dad had. Maybe I was paying the price for killing Greyson.

And Leander, if Leander could be killed.

The price for killing someone with magic was death. Or at least that’s what I was taught in college. But now I wondered if that were true.

“Move.” Zay shoved me to one side. I stumbled from the force of his push but managed to catch myself before I fell. I turned so I could see what new threat we were facing.

Not a new threat. Shame stood, his back against the wall of one of the cells, pinned there, back arched in pain, eyes closed tight, hands splayed as if trying to give the pain an escape from his body.

The crystal in his chest burned white-hot. The shadow of Leander pressed its way into Shame’s body, like a man shrugging into skin much too tight for him. It must have been the crystal that allowed Leander access to Shame. Maybe Shame almost dying on the battlefield and the mix of Blood and Death spells Terric had used to keep him alive made Shame an acceptable vessel for Leander.

Holy shit.

I didn’t know how Shame kept from screaming. I didn’t know why Shame wasn’t fighting him, keeping him from possessing him.

But Leander made even my dad quiver in fear. Leander was strong. Ruthless.

And it was clear Shame could not fight him off.

Shame didn’t even open his eyes. His face relaxed, and a smile that was not Shame, that was nothing at all like Shame, curved his lips.

Zay cast Hold.

Leander-Shame whispered a word, and Zay’s spell broke.

Zay cast again: Impact. Leander-Shame Blocked it, caught it in his hand, opened his eyes, and crushed the spell in his fist. . . .

“You will die.” He raised one hand at Zayvion. Zayvion cast Block, but the spell—whatever it was Leander cast—hit him so hard, he went down to one knee.

And then I knew what the spell was. Knew it because I could feel it. He was using Death magic to drink down Zayvion’s life.

I took a step forward. I didn’t know what I could do with my hands numb at my sides, but I had to do something.

A wall of magic, so solid it looked like an ocean wave, rolled through the room and slammed into Leander-Shame.

Zayvion had not cast that spell. I had not cast that spell.

Leander-Shame looked up at the stairs. So did I.

Terric strode down the stairs, magic in both hands, calm, cool, spells already falling again against Leander-Shame, breaking the Drain he had put on Zay. Hayden descended the stairs right behind Terric, shotgun over one shoulder, sword in hand.

Hayden said something, and the ropes around my wrists let up. Blood stabbed like cactus spines into my hands and fingers as my nerves came alive.

I couldn’t cast, but in a minute I might be able to.

Zay was on his feet again but didn’t use magic against Shame.

Not everyone can use magic together. I didn’t know if he and Terric could cast spells at the same target and not have those spells explode. Or kill the target.

And Terric was not backing down.

Terric strode across the floor, his hair pulled back in a band, lending a blade’s edge to his cheek and jaw, the silver flash of magic glinting in his eyes as he threw spell after spell. He burned white-hot with power.

“Leave him,” he said.

Leander-Shame was pinned against the wall by the spells Terric had thrown at him. Still, he smiled.

“Do you not remember me, Closer?” Leander said through Shame. “Do you not remember how easy it is for me to break you. Kill you?”

He said a word—negated by Zayvion’s chanting and ended by Hayden’s glyph that skittered up the wall behind him.

Terric strode up so close to Shame, I didn’t know how they couldn’t be touching.

“Get the fuck out of his head.” He traced a glyph.

“No!” Zay said.

Too late. I recognized that spell. It was Closing. I’d seen Zay use it on gates. I’d never seen it used on a person. Zay could not stop Terric in time. None of us could.

Terric’s left hand carved magic into the air. With his right hand, he caught at something, something deep inside of Shame, and dragged it out of him, his fist pulling back as if he’d just grabbed hold of a rope inside Shame’s head.

Shame yelled.

Terric did not flinch, though I knew he had to be sharing Shame’s pain. He manipulated magic with his left hand, as if he were turning dials and gears, while his right hand pulled.

He was Closing Shame’s mind. Making him forget who he was. Making him forget his life. Making him forget how to use magic.

Greyson moaned, and Hayden glanced over at him. “Goddamn, he’s alive.” He paced over to where they lay, both surrounded by Chase’s blood. He knelt, his hand on Chase.

“Terric,” I said. “You’re killing him.”

Shame slid down the wall, his mouth open in a scream he didn’t have the air to shout. But it was Leander who looked out through Shame’s eyes. And he was furious.

Terric did not blink. Did not waver. He was cold, ruthless. A man trained not to care that it was his Soul Complement he was Closing. Ending. Killing.

Shame seized, arms and legs jerking, head knocking against the wall.

There was no way out, not a flicker of mercy in Terric’s eyes.

Leander must have realized he was about to be trapped in a body that would have no capacity to use magic, a body that would most likely be thrown into one of the empty cells and put under heavy guard.

Just before Shame’s mind slammed closed, the shadow of Leander stepped out of him and pushed through Terric. Terric yelled, and Leander exited him, then passed through the wall on the other side of the room.

Hayden swore and drew his sword. He ran down the hall after Leander.

Shame crumbled to the floor. He blinked up at Terric, his fingers raised toward him, though he could not move his arm.

Terric had gone a deathly shade of white. Sweat covered his face, and he was breathing hard through his teeth. He opened the fingers of his right hand and tipped it down, as if pouring Shame back into himself. Then he retraced the spells with his left hand, in backward order, opening Shame’s mind, untying the magic he’d been using, unknotting, unbinding.

Shame’s eyes rolled back in his head. He passed out.

Terric fell to his knees. Zay caught him as he went unconscious and laid him down as gently as he could. Zay didn’t wait to see if he and Shame were okay. He was up and running, hot on Hayden’s heels, chasing Leander.

I just stood there, not sure if I should follow Zay or help Shame and Terric.

First, Shame. I knelt, pressed my hand on his neck. He was breathing. Out cold.

Next, Terric. The same. I didn’t know how to ease the effect of what they’d done, didn’t know how one soothed a Soul Complement trying to Close the other.

Contact. It was the best I could do. I put Terric’s hand on Shame’s palm.

“Allie,” Zay yelled. “Here. Now!”

And then I was running. Down the hall after him. Hayden was in the lead, in front of a door. He cast a spell, braced his stance, and moved both hands as if he were practicing tai chi, pushing the magic into the spell he needed. The building seemed to shift to the left—that vertigo slide again—and there was another row of doors stretched out before us.

This entire place was like a set of locks and cogs. Use the right magic, and all the cogs moved, bringing a new level of the prison forward.

“Here,” Zay said. “He’s here.” Zayvion broke the spell on the first door. The door blew open.

I caught a glimpse of one of the solid Veiled in the room, the 1950s woman who was no longer in her dress and heels but in prison gray. She saw Zay, and terror twisted her features. She held her hand out, begging.

Leander was behind her. He put his shadow hand through her back, fingers clamping down on her heart.

The disk in her neck dimmed from a thin glow to black.

Zay got two steps into the room before she faded away, dissolved into thin air, the disk falling from her throat and shattering like glass on the floor where she had just stood.

Where she and Leander had just stood. He was a shadow. Fast, dark. Burning through the wall to the neighboring cell.

Hayden swore and blew open the door on the next cell. He unloaded the shotgun into the room. Magic on those bullets too. I could smell it. Zay and I were right behind him.

“He’s moving,” Hayden yelled.

I caught a glimpse of another solid Veiled in the room, horror warping his face as he disappeared. Then the wind-chime rattle of another disk shattering against the floor. The shotgun and the magicked bullets had no effect on the Veiled or Leander.

“What is he doing?” I panted as we ran to the next door.

“Drinking the magic out of the disks, out of the Veiled,” Zay said.

Zay was ahead of Hayden and blasted open the next door. “Gone. Move!”

Hayden was already running. He shouldered through the next door. We saw the last Veiled—Truance with her deer-wide eyes—fade away, watched as the disk clattered to the floor, and Leander, eyes burning, body nothing but a shadow filled with an electric swarm of magic, threw his arms wide.

Hayden yelled, “Down!”

Zay tackled me. We went down, knees, elbows, hip.

I yelled out in pain.

Thunder exploded through the marble halls. A spell sliced through the room—just like the spell Leander had thrown at us at the inn. Razor sharp, fast, it was as black as the rift, sparks of magic and unspent spells flashing through it.

If we’d been standing, we’d be dead, cut in half.

I sucked in a breath and ground my teeth against another yell. Everything hurt. Zay was already pushing up into a run. Down the hall.

“Lock it down,” Zay yelled. “I’ll Close the gate.”

Gate? I didn’t know Leander could open a gate.

I was on my feet, swearing, hurting. I took three steps past Hayden, who was pushing magic in that tai chi form again, chanting, and locking down the prison.

Zay blew open another cell and strode into it.

There was so much magic being thrown around in so small a space, the air sparked with it. Random fingers of fire crawled over the walls, the floors, the ceiling, catching, then burning out, leaving behind charcoal trails of spells.

I don’t know if I felt it or tasted it, but I knew that the spell Zay wielded was Closing. The kind of Closing used on a gate.

I glanced in the cell, beyond Zay. It was empty except for a rolling black fog of a gate being Closed. Hayden’s spell hit and shook the entire building. It was a lock, a trigger for broken wards, or maybe a whole new net of wards that fell over the building and bled all the magic off while trapping everything else inside.

Hayden grunted and spit blood. “Nothing’s getting in or out now,” he said, wiping his hand over his beard. “Let’s take care of Shame and Terric.”

Zay strode out of the cell, and the door locked behind him.

“Was there a gate?” I asked, perhaps stupidly.

“Yes.”

“Anything get through?” Hayden asked.

“Nothing came through the gate,” Zay said as he stormed past me. “Don’t know if anything got out. There was no one in that cell, no disk on the floor. We’ll need to pull records and see if there was a prisoner in there.”

We made it to Shame and Terric.

Terric sat next to Shame, his back against the wall, arms draped over his bent knees. Shame was still unconscious.

“Did we win?” he asked faintly.

Hayden snorted. “Not by a long ways. Leander broke out. Drank the magic out of the solid Veiled.”

“Any good news?”

Hayden knelt next to Shame and shook his shoulder gently. “We Closed the gate and locked the place down before anything else went wrong. And you and Shame are still alive.” He looked over at Terric and gave him a short nod. “That’s a good thing.”

Shame moaned, then, “Fuck. Terric?” he whispered.

“You got hit by Leander,” Hayden said. “Terric took care of it, but that knocked you cold. Open your eyes, boy. Let’s see if you can tell me how many fingers I’m holding.”

I looked away from Shame to see where Zay had gone.

He was on his knees, oblivious to the blood he was kneeling in, one hand on Chase’s shoulder, his sword on the floor next to him.

She was not breathing. She was oddly still in the way only a corpse can be.

I walked over to Zay and glanced at Greyson.

Greyson was still a man. The disk at his throat was not only dark; it had shattered. His eyes were open, unfocused at the ceiling. His chest rose with a fraction of a breath. He was dying.

I knelt down next to him and touched his arm.

“Chase?” he whispered.

“She’s here. She’s with you,” I said.

“I can’t feel her,” he breathed. “I can’t hold her.”

I put my hand on his cheek, but his eyes did not move. “Everything’s fine,” I said. “You’re both going to be just fine. You’re together now.”

“I love,” he started. His breath caught, and his eyes went too wide. “I love . . .”—he exhaled, the pain draining from his face—“. . . her. My . . .”—less than a whisper—“. . . soul . . .” And then he was very still and said nothing more.

I pulled my hand away from his already cooling cheek and rubbed my fingers over my jeans, wanting to wipe away his death. Wanting to wipe away the unexpected sorrow I felt. I looked up at Zayvion. He had not moved, was barely breathing as he stared at Chase. I did not think he saw her.

“Zay?” I said softly.

He didn’t move.

“Zay? Are you okay?”

He finally looked away from her. Looked at me. The pain and sorrow in his eyes, raw, angry, made me want to close my eyes. Made me want to forget he could hurt that much for someone. For Chase. Who had tried to kill him. Tried to kill us.

“I’m sorry,” I said. And I was. I knew Chase and Greyson had done horrible things. But there was a time, not all that long ago, when Zayvion and Chase were lovers. He had loved her.

She had left him for Greyson. Even though Zay had accepted that, it didn’t mean he had stopped caring for her. I think he hoped she would somehow survive this, survive all she had been through, and be a strong, whole-minded person again. That somehow we’d find a way to cure Greyson. That they’d live their lives together.

There was no happily ever after for Soul Complements. Not in life. Maybe in death. Maybe Chase and Greyson would finally be happy together there.

“Time to be moving,” Hayden said quietly.

Zay didn’t move.

“We need to let them take care of this, Zayvion,” Hayden said. “We’ll only be in the way.”

I looked up and realized there were four other people in the room—people I didn’t recognize. Three women and a man, all in jeans and matching jackets. They were talking quietly among themselves, and there were two gurneys staged to one side of the room.

I glanced over at Shame and Terric. They were both on their feet, though Shame still leaned one shoulder against the wall and looked a little dazed. Yeah, I knew how he felt.

“Who—?” I started.

“Cleanup crew,” Hayden answered. “They’ll make sure all the locks are in place, check on the prisoners. Take care of them too.” He nodded toward Chase and Greyson.

“Think you can get Zayvion to move?” he asked.

“Yes.” I pressed my hands against my thighs and pushed up onto my feet. Then I walked around Zayvion, careful not to step in the blood, even though it didn’t really matter. I had their blood on my boots, heavy at the hem of my jeans, on my palm and under my fingernails. It would be a long time before I felt clean of it.

I rested my hand on Zay’s shoulder.

“We need to go, love. We need to let the others take care of her. There’s a killer out there to hunt.”

His anger, his sorrow, his guilt, brushed through me. But I was too numb to do anything more than just acknowledge it. There wasn’t anything else we could do but accept what had happened. We didn’t have time to grieve.

“Leander’s still alive,” I said. “Out there somewhere, free. I think we need to do something about that.”

My words, if not my emotions, reached him. With one last tender brush of his fingers along the edge of Chase’s jaw, Zay stood. He turned his back and closed down his emotions so completely, I looked at him to make sure he was still standing next to me.

“We’ll take care of this,” Hayden said. “We’ll find that bastard and end him. Let’s get out of here.”

Zay looked over at Terric, then Shame, as if he were surfacing from a dream and did not recognize the world he was waking up into.

“Shame?” he asked.

Shame swallowed. “Fuck of a day. Let’s go kill something.”

Zay looked at me, finally. I could not read his expression, was not touching him, so I could not read his emotions. I could only guess he was worried.

So was I.

He held his hand out for me, and I took it, Chase’s and Greyson’s blood between us. Zay was so locked down, all I felt off of him was a blank static.

We started up the stairs and did not look back. Our shoes echoed against the marble walls, bloody soles drying after only a few steps. Soon Shame’s and Terric’s paces echoed with ours.

It seemed to take a lifetime to climb to the top. I ached from the roots of my hair to the soles of my feet and could not have moved any faster if my life were on the line. The price for using so much magic—for destroying the disk in Greyson’s throat—was already gripping my body. Or at least I hoped that was the only price I was paying. I hoped Greyson’s death wouldn’t also be added to my tally. Since I wasn’t dead yet, I was pretty sure Greyson’s death had only been partially because of my, or rather Dad’s, attack. I was pretty sure breaking the disk while Leander used then discarded his body was what finally killed him.

But if I felt this bad, I could only imagine what Shame and Terric felt like, sharing each other’s pain.

Hayden lingered below, probably taking the time to talk to the cleanup crew. We finally made it to the main floor. I was breathing hard, sweating, trembling. I wanted to ask Terric if he was okay; I wanted to ask Shame; but I had no words and no air. They looked exhausted from the slog up the stairs, and both leaned on a wall near the door, eyes closed.

Finally, Hayden joined us on the main floor of the building.

“Just what Victor and Maeve needed,” he said. “Their best students to go rogue. Whose ass-backward idea was this?”

Shame held up one finger, though he did not open his eyes.

“Boy, you’ll be the death of your mother, you keep going down this road.”

Shame didn’t say anything. That showed just how tired he was.

“What now?” I asked.

“Now my job is to get you all to a doctor to make sure you’re okay. After that, I wash my hands of this mess, and you’ll explain just what the hell you thought you were doing by breaking into the goddamn prison. Zay, give me your keys.”

Zay wordlessly took his keys out of his pocket and dropped them into Hayden’s palm.

“I’ll drive,” Hayden said. No one argued. I wondered how Terric’s car was going to be returned, but since there was only one other vehicle in the parking lot—a medical transport van—I figured one of the people still inside would take care of it. Or maybe it would just get towed.

The van should be able to hold the bodies of the guard and Chase and Greyson. My chest hitched at the reality of what we had just done, what we had just been through. Leander was loose, the disks the Veiled had used empty of magic and broken beyond repair. But there were more disks out there. And more Veiled.

Chase and Greyson were dead.

Terric had almost Closed Shame’s mind to try to stop Leander from having him, from using him to get free. I didn’t know what that would do to Shame. Didn’t know what it would do to the link between them they endured.

I turned and looked back at the structure. It didn’t look like people had just lost their lives there. Didn’t look like a prison. Even without Sight, I could see the locks and wards on the building and the smooth, magic-empty space where the gate had blown open and been Closed by Zayvion’s spells.

I wondered if anyone else had gotten through it, if anyone else except Leander had escaped.

The wind picked up, dragging cold across my skin. I rubbed the chill off my arms and wished I could rub the rest of the day away too.

“Coming?” Hayden asked.

I looked back at the car. Terric and Shame had ducked into the backseat, and Zay was in the front, staring straight ahead. Hayden stood with the open door to his back, the shotgun still propped over one shoulder.

I nodded and got in, sitting next to Shame, who was already snoring quietly.

Hayden pulled out his phone and dialed. I didn’t follow his conversation very closely, but it sounded like we were meeting Dr. Fisher at her office.

As Hayden drove out of the parking lot and started down the old highway toward Portland, twisting above the river far below, I took a clue from Shame, closed my eyes, and tried to forget, if only for a moment.

Chapter Thirteen

Hayden was as good as his word. He took us to Dr. Fisher’s office, on the top floor of the high-rise at the foot of the sky tram. It didn’t take her long to cycle through us, though she spent the most time on Shame.

He ended up with a few sample pills and her recommendation to stop using magic like an idiot for a day or two.

I knew he’d use one of the two things she gave him.

Zay hadn’t said anything. Shame even sat next to him in the waiting room, while Terric took his turn with the doctor, and tried to engage him in conversation. Nothing.

He did finally stand and pace over to the windows that gave a vista of the docks on the river, the tops of other high-rises, and the long, rolling, deep green expanse of Portland to the north and east. Among the green, Beckstrom storm rods fitted to each building glinted like a haze of thin golden threads drawn through the sky.

I was too tired to use my remaining energy on standing. I stayed on the couch, letting the painkiller Dr. Fisher had given me do its best.

Finally, Terric came out, and I don’t even remember whose suggestion it was to go to my house, nor to stop and get Chinese food before we did.

Maybe two hours later, we were walking up my stairs, and, after pausing at my door, we all went inside. The men rambled into my living room and slouched down into their favorite chairs like they’d been living with me for years. I stopped off in the kitchen and brewed some coffee. I took the pot and some cups with me into the living room.

The Chinese food cartons were open on the coffee table, but from what I could see, no one had taken a bite.

Zay sat in a chair by the window and had drawn the curtains back so he could see outside.

I picked up one of the boxes—fried rice—and a set of chopsticks. Sat on the couch next to Terric and took a bite.

“Oh, God, that’s good.” I don’t know if it was my approval or that I ravenously tore into the food that got the others moving. But within a few seconds, everyone had a box and was eating.

Terric finally hauled himself up and found some napkins and plates in the kitchen, so we could share the containers’ contents more easily.

Even Zay ate, and eventually he stopped looking out at the city and looked, instead, in at us.

“Why?” he asked me.

“Why what?” I refilled my coffee cup and sat back. I’d eaten half the fried rice and a helping of everything else. I was stuffed, still hurting and paying the price of magic even through the heavy-duty painkillers, and really wanted a nap. But at least I wasn’t in overwhelming pain. Dr. Fisher was quickly headed up on my chart of people who could be my BFF.

“Why did you kill him?” Zay said.

If someone had asked me that question even a year ago, I would have had to deal with an avalanche of emotions and second-guessing. For all I’ve lived a Hound’s life—and there is a lot of danger inherent in that life—I am not a killer. I’m not built to heartlessly gun people down.

But I’d been involved with the darker side of magic for a while now. I knew what to accept as my faults and failures, and what to accept as things I cannot change. Greyson’s death was something I could not change.

“I tried to stop him from shooting you,” I said. “I forced Dad to help me. Dad wanted Leander dead. He wanted Greyson dead. When I tried to stop the magic, when I tried to force Dad not to use magic through me anymore, I couldn’t break his hold. I could not stop him.”

Zay watched me speak, his gold eyes weighing the truth of my words. Let him stare all he wanted. It was the truth.

He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and leaned back in the chair. “She couldn’t survive it,” he said quietly. “Couldn’t survive him dying.”

“I know.” What I didn’t say was that Leander had dragged her around by the throat. It was just as possible that he had crushed her windpipe before he had unloaded three magic-worked bullets into her chest. It was just as possible she was already dead before Dad and I hit Greyson with everything we had.

But that was logic, and Zayvion Jones did not look like he was interested in logic at the moment.

“Since we’re putting it all on the table,” Shame said, “what in the hell did you do to me, Terric?”

“I Closed you.”

“What?” Shame suddenly looked far less interested in his food and far more interested in the sharp sticks in his hands.

“Leander possessed you,” Terric said. “I could . . . feel him. Hear him. He was going to use you for as long as the crystal held to support him. And before the crystal ran out, he was going to kill us; I mean you. Kill you. So I Closed you.” He reached over for another carton, glanced inside, put it back, and took a second choice.

“What did you take away from me when you Closed me?” Shame asked.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. Closing means you screwed with my head and took my memories or my abilities away. What did you do to me, Terric?”

Terric chewed, swallowed. “Listen to me tell you the truth, Flynn. I Closed you, hoping to trap Leander long enough that we could remove him from you. Maybe with Victor or your mother’s help. But since you were also tied to me, I think he knew what I was doing. Or at least knew what my intentions were.

“He bailed. Just before you were Closed. I reversed what I had done and Opened you. No hits, no fouls, no harm done.” He nodded once. “No permanent harm.”

Shame was staring at Terric like he had grown a second head. “You are fucking kidding me. You can’t be that arrogant. You don’t know that you didn’t leave permanent damage in my head.”

“Yes,” Zayvion said, “he can. He’s a Closer, Shame. We’re good at this.”

“You check,” Shame said, turning to Zay. “You tell me that he didn’t leave holes in my head.”

“Now you know how I feel,” I muttered.

“Stay out of this,” Shame said without heat. “Z. Tell me he didn’t do something to me.”

“Jesus, Flynn,” Terric said. “If I didn’t know you were honestly terrified about this, I’d take offense that you just told me I suck at my job.”

Zayvion wiped the napkin over his hands, then wadded it up and threw it on the table. “Do you really want me in your head right now, Shame?” he asked. Cool and calm. But there was a fire burning behind his words.

“You, I trust.”

Zay made a little huh sound. “This might hurt,” he said.

“I doubt that.”

Zayvion set a Disbursement, then traced a delicate spell in the air. It reminded me of morning glory vines, thin, corkscrew lines with bursts of magic flowering along it. He said a word and nudged the spell so that it settled against Shame’s face, then melted inside him.

Zay was very quiet. He didn’t move, didn’t touch Shame. His gaze did not search Shame’s face. But I knew he was assessing Shame’s mind, looking for pain, looking for wounds, looking for holes.

Terric had stopped eating and took a deep breath and exhaled, not so much enduring pain as just enduring someone else digging around in a mind he was connected to.

After a minute, Zay sat back and brushed his fingers through the air, negating the spell.

Shame slumped back. “Shit, Z. You’re in a mood.”

Terric shook his head and went back to picking at the food in the box, though he looked like he’d lost his appetite.

“So?” Shame asked.

“Terric did exactly what he told you. He Closed you, but before he could lock your mind down, he reversed the spell and let you go.” He looked over at Terric. “Nice work. That’s a hard spell to reverse under those circumstances. I think I would have just Closed him, then reopened him later when I had the time.”

Terric shrugged. “And listen to him bitch for the rest of my life, once he found out what I did? Seemed better just to get it done and over with at one go.”

“Where’d you learn that?” Zay asked.

“Have a couple good teachers up in the Seattle area. You ever met Flo Hill?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Amazing Closer. I’ll introduce you someday.”

“I’m all for talking shop,” Shame said, “but how about less shop and more about me. Are you sure, Zay?”

“Shamus, this is the last time I’m going to say this to you: Terric did his job, and he did it well. That level of magic use is equal to if not better than what I would have done to you.” He paused, rethinking that comment. “Better than what I would have done. Much finer touch. Even Victor would have been impressed. Now, shut the hell up.”

That, apparently, was the vote of confidence Shame was looking for. “Fine,” he said. “You could have just told me that to begin with. And Terric? Don’t ever do that again.”

“Don’t get possessed again, and I won’t do it again.”

I yawned. Not very tactful, but damn, it had been a long day. “I’m going to bed. You can stay if you want. Couch is open. Inflatable mattress in the bottom hall cupboard, linens in the top. Don’t wake me until morning.”

I stood and wandered off to my bed. Maybe not the best hostess in the world, but they were full-grown men. They could fight for the couch and make their own beds without me.

I shut the door behind me, a little surprised Zay hadn’t followed. Maybe he needed more time with Shame and Terric. Maybe he was too angry to sleep. Maybe too angry at me. I’d try to work it out with him when I had more energy. Right now, nothing was going to get between me and my sheets.

I stripped out of my shirt, toed off my boots, and stepped out of my jeans. I wanted a shower. I smelled of magic and blood. But I didn’t think I could stay standing for much longer.

I shuffled over to the bed, pulled back the covers, and crawled in. The blankets still smelled of Zayvion’s pine cologne, my perfume, and fabric softener. I had about a half second to groan over how soft the pillow was before I was out.

I don’t know how long it was until Zay crawled into bed beside me. I hadn’t moved, and there was drool on the pillow. I sleepily wiped at my mouth as Zay pulled up tight against me, fitting his body to the curve of my back and legs, wrapping his arm around me so tight, I almost couldn’t breathe for a second, before he eased off on the pressure just a bit.

Still, I knew he was worried I’d slip away, slip through his hands, through his arms, and wind up dead like Chase. That I could sense from him.

“Not gonna happen,” I mumbled. “You’re stuck with me for a long, long time.”

I didn’t hear his answer before I fell asleep again.

I woke up once more, in the middle of the night, before dawn stirred. Zay was still tucked up tight behind me. I didn’t know what had woken me. I lay there, listening to his breathing. Realized he was not asleep. His breathing was shallow and uneven. I heard him swallow, then blink hard enough that I could hear his lashes catching on tears. He sniffed once and held his breath, steadying it through shear will.

Then he was breathing normally again, peacefully. I felt his arms grow heavy as he relaxed and fell into sleep.

I lay there for some time, listening to the wind stir the trees outside my window, listening to Shame’s soft snore from the living room, waiting for sleep to reclaim me. And while I drifted a bit, I didn’t fall into a deep sleep. When someone, probably Terric, got up to brew coffee just before dawn, I slipped out of bed too and took a shower, scrubbing the blood and stink off of me methodically, careful of my hip, my arm, and my bruises while my mind wandered.

Where would Leander go with no body? Anywhere, I guessed. Maybe to find more of the disks that had been changed by the wild-magic storm?

I was surprised Leander had broken them. Maybe Dad was right and they didn’t know how to recharge a disk. Or maybe Leander was too desperate, too hasty trying to break out of the prison to consider what he was doing. Maybe it had taken all of their magic combined just for him to open the gate and get free.

I finished showering and slipped back into the dark bedroom. Zay hadn’t moved. I dressed mostly by feel, finding a T-shirt, hoodie, and jeans. I left my bloody boots behind. Today would be a running-shoe day for sure.

I stepped out into the hall and saw Shame, who was sleeping on the inflatable mattress, the covers pulled so far up, all I could see of him was the top of his head. The blankets on the couch had already been folded neatly, one of my spare pillows perched on top.

So I was right. Terric had to be in the kitchen brewing coffee.

I walked into the kitchen. Terric was not only brewing coffee; he was making French toast.

“Morning,” he whispered. “Coffee’s fresh.”

I poured myself a cup and inhaled the nutmeg and vanilla scents of the toast on the griddle. My mouth watered, and I pulled a couple plates down for us.

“Get some sleep?” he asked.

“Yes. You?”

“Shame snores.” He rolled his eyes. “Thought I might as well make some food.”

I rested my hip against the counter and watched him cook. For all I had only met Terric a short time ago, he was someone whom I felt like I’d known for years. He had rebanded his hair back, but his silver-white bangs slid down to cover his eyes as he focused all his attention on lifting the corners of the toast so he could see how brown the slices were getting.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

He shrugged one shoulder, his mouth curving in a brief frown. “It’s been better.” He slid the spatula beneath the toast and flipped it. “And it’s been worse. Mostly, I’m worried for all of you.”

“All of us?”

“Since I’m from Seattle, the things that are happening around here aren’t really my concern.”

Oh, you could have fooled me. Out of everyone who had been called down to handle the wild-magic storm, only a few had stayed, most notably, Hayden and Terric. And even though I’d heard the others who lingered, Nik and Joshua and the Georgia sisters, talk about missing home, I’d never once heard either Hayden or Terric say they wanted to be anywhere else but here.

“If it’s not your concern, why are you still here?”

He looked up at me, smiled. “Let me rephrase. The blame won’t fall to me. Not for the breakup in the Authority. Not for the kidnapping. Not for the attacks. Not for what happened out there at the prison. I’ll take my share of responsibility, but the recent disasters the Portland branch has been going through will fall on someone else’s shoulders.”

“Zay’s?” I asked.

“Maybe. But he’s not a Voice. It’s not very often the guardian of the gate has to take all the responsibility of something going wrong. More likely it will fall to the Voices. And since your father is gone . . .”

I scoffed.

“Well, isn’t in control of his own body, and Liddy is dead, that leaves Victor, Maeve, and Sedra. Sedra is the logical one to blame. She is the one who made the plans and decided on the actions.”

“Or inactions,” I added.

“Yes. But anything that has happened since she’s been kidnapped will fall to the people acting in her place.”

“Victor and Maeve,” I said.

“A lot of hard hits to take.” He walked over to my cupboard and opened it. “Syrup?”

“I don’t think so. Jam, though. In the fridge.”

He pulled out the jar of homemade strawberry jam Nola had sent me for Christmas.

“That’s what Bartholomew is coming to deal with, right?” I asked.

He nodded. “He’ll want a recap of everything that’s happened. We will likely be called on to testify in the reckoning. After that”—he shrugged—“I can’t say. I’ve never been a part of a review. Probably won’t really be a part of this one.”

He slid two pieces of amber toast onto a plate and handed it to me, served himself the other two, then dropped four more egg-soaked slices on the griddle.

I used the jam—didn’t have any butter in the house, but didn’t need it with how sweet those berries were. I stood there; Terric did too, our backs to the counter, plates in one hand, forks cutting savory sweet bites out of the bread, scooping up ruby, spring-scented jam on our tines, and eating it all down without another word. The only time I paused was to wash my mouth with hot, richly bitter coffee.

Terric checked the griddle once, flipped toast, and went back to eating.

“So are you headed out of town soon?” I asked.

He put his plate in the sink and ran some water. “Not soon. I can’t leave . . . don’t want to leave all of you shorthanded. This used to be my home once.” He smiled, but his eyes were sad. “I never thought it’d end up like this. Chase, Greyson. Shame.” He shook his head. “We thought we were invincible. Now. Such a mess.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I said. Maybe I didn’t have any good reason to be hopeful, but hell, I’d walked into death and back for Zayvion. I figured we could weather this tough time too. At least none of us were in a coma.

“I smell pancakes,” Shame mumbled from the kitchen doorway.

Terric held my gaze a little longer, looking to see if my confidence was going to waver. Nope. I really did believe we could figure this out—find Dane, save Sedra, and send Leander back to death. So long as we worked together.

He finally looked away from me. “French toast,” he said. “No syrup, though.”

“Powdered sugar?” Shame asked hopefully. He scratched at the back of his head, messing up his already messed hair so that it stuck up like a porcupine’s quills.

“Better. Allie scored homemade jam. It’s homemade, right?”

“Nola made it. Strawberry.”

Shame yawned and shambled over for a plate and held it out for Terric to deposit the toast on. He took a plate, a cup of coffee—which he had not added milk or sugar to—and the entire jar of jam out into my living room and sat at the table.

I walked out with him.

“Zay up?” he asked me.

“I don’t think so. You won’t like that coffee. You forgot the milk and sugar.” I sat on the other chair so I could look out the window. The morning was gray and wet. It had rained last night but was clear now, the early light making the world look fresh and new.

He slurped his coffee. Made a face. “You’re right.” Then got busy eating.

Terric stayed in the kitchen, and after the first two pieces, Shame rambled off to refill his plate.

I didn’t know where Stone was. He hadn’t let himself in the house last night. That wasn’t all that unusual. With Cody in town, maybe he really had decided to sleep on Detective Stotts’ roof.

If that big rock wasn’t careful, he was going to get spotted in broad daylight, and then what would I do? Let someone put him on display at a museum? A zoo?

I wasn’t really all that worried about him. But thinking about Stone kept my mind off other things. Chase’s eyes, wide with shock and pain as the bullets and magic killed her. Greyson’s last whisper, his blood covering my hands. Leander’s eyes as he’d tried to kill me, my father in me, and Zayvion.

Zay’s anger, his pain, his sorrow, his guilt.

Sweet hells, I wished things would just go back to normal for a day or two.

I heard the shower turn on and knew Zay was awake. He came out in pretty short order, dressed in clean jeans, a black T-shirt cut so close to his body I could see the muscles beneath the fabric, and his boots.

He had the bandage in his hand again. “Do you mind?”

“No problem.” I stood, and he shrugged out of his T-shirt, painfully, I noticed. I rewrapped his ribs. He seemed less swollen than yesterday, and after I pulled the bandage tight, I held my palm out for the metal hook thingy. He dropped a safety pin in my hand.

“Hook got lost,” he said.

I nodded. I hated those things. They never worked. I attached the safety pin to hold the wrap in place; then he twisted to see how much movement he had. Pretty good. Certainly improving.

Come to think of it, my arm was feeling a little better. It was still sore when I tried to raise it above my head, but so long as I didn’t try out for the rowing club, it felt almost normal.

Zay shrugged back into his shirt with a grunt, then caught my hands. “Thank you.” He leaned forward, gave me a kiss.

“What’s for breakfast?” he asked.

“Terric made French toast,” I said.

Terric walked out of the kitchen with a plate in his hand. “This is the last of it.” He put the plate down on the table, and Zay thanked him and sat, emptying out the last of my strawberry jam over his toast.

“Has anyone checked in yet?” Shame asked, looking much more awake than he had four slices of bread ago.

“No,” Terric said. “Thought I’d call Victor. See what he has to say.”

Shame groaned. “He is going to hand us our asses.”

“You,” Terric said. “He’s going to hand you your ass. And you should have thought about that before you went out there. What I still don’t understand is how Shame talked you into it, Zay. You know better than to listen to him.”

“We had a chance to take Leander down. We took it.” Zay shoveled the last half of the toast in his mouth and chewed, washing it down with coffee.

“That’s not how Victor saw it,” Terric said. “He saw Shame—who should not have even told you where the prison was, much less how to break into it—with both of you alongside him, putting himself and each other in danger and letting the Veiled and Leander free.”

“Mum knows?” Shame asked.

“I don’t know. I got the call from Victor and headed out. But I’m guessing, yes, she knows.”

“Bloody hell,” Shame said. “Start planning the wake. I’m dead for sure.”

“I’d argue that how Victor should see it,” Zay said calmly, “is that we stopped Leander from walking out of that place with a body, a disk, and a gun.”

“And how is that worse than letting him loose in the city?”

“It’s clear he needs a body supported by a disk to possess. Not a lot of those available. It’s also clear that other than throwing the damn rift at our heads, he doesn’t cast magic in spirit form—he either needs the energy of a lot of Veiled, which explains why he was opening gates over the well in the graveyard and beneath the inn, or he needs the disks to draw energy from, which might have been why he wanted the disks at Maeve’s.

“No body, no magic. All we need to do is track him down and send him back to hell.”

Terric shook his head. “Yes. That’s all we have to do. But not without Victor’s or Maeve’s permission.”

“Oh, would you let off the by-the-rules crap?” Shame said.

“No. Breaking the rules didn’t do that much more good than bad. Sure, you kept Leander from possessing Greyson, but maybe if he’d been in that body, in that prison, we could have kept him there. Maybe Greyson wouldn’t be dead, if”—he raised one finger to stop Shame’s protest—“enough people, or the right people, had gone out there prepared.”

“You are mildly delusional, you know that, Ter?” Shame said. “He would have blown the walls off that place, and then we’d be doing nothing but running these streets trying to trash bag the prisoners who got loose, and picking up the dead they left in their wake.”

“Might still have to,” Zayvion said.

“What?” Shame asked. “Why?”

“Someone opened a gate.”

“Oh, you are shitting me. Where?”

“In the prison. When Leander was trying to escape. I Closed it. Nothing got through from the other side.”

“By other side, you mean death, right?” Shame asked.

Zay took a drink of his coffee.

“Z, don’t fuck with me. Tell me it was a gate to death and nothing came through.”

“It wasn’t a gate to death.”

That surprised me. It seemed like every gate we’d had to deal with lately had led to death. “So where?” I asked.

“Did you see?” Shame asked.

My phone rang, and I got up to answer it.

“Where did the gate open to?” Shame asked.

“Forest Park.”

“Son of a bitch,” Shame said.

“Beckstrom,” I answered.

“Allie, this is Hayden. Is Zayvion with you?”

“Yes.”

“Shame and Terric?”

“They’re here too. What’s wrong?”

“Bartholomew is calling a reckoning. That stunt you all pulled out there at Crown Point is the nail in Victor’s coffin.”

“What’s he going to do to Victor?”

“Put him on trial. Weigh the evidence against him. He’ll probably call you all in to testify. Do us a favor. Keep your phones on, stay in town, and don’t do anything as dumb as what you pulled yesterday.”

“We can do that. Anything else?”

“Let me talk to Zayvion.”

“Zay?” I held the phone out for him.

Zay got up and answered it.

I could hear Hayden through the phone.

“We’ve checked the prisoner records. There’s only three people missing.”

“Who?”

“Henry Aslund and Jakob Single. They’ve had as much memory wiped as could be managed before locking them up. We’re hoping they stumble toward the police. We already have people in place for that. The glyphs worked into their skin will keep them in the area and away from the wells.”

“What about the third person?”

“We don’t know.”

“What?”

“The records have been tampered with, or someone’s done a hell of a job Closing the memories of whoever he is—we at least know that. It’s a man. The only thing we can find on record is an off-hand notation about Prisoner X.”

“Do Victor and Maeve know about this?”

“I haven’t talked to them yet. I’m waiting for Bartholomew to get out of earshot. But if he finds out . . . I don’t need to tell you how badly this will look for everyone, do I?”

“No. I’ll take care of it. Do you have a holding place in town, or do I need to haul them back to Crown Point?”

“I had Joshua and Nick secure one of the warehouses out by the airport.”

“The old training shed?”

“That’s it. They’ll hold them and handle transport back out to the prison tonight.”

“We’ll be in touch.” Zay hung up.

“Hayden?” Terric asked.

“Yes. Bartholomew has called a reckoning.”

Terric just nodded.

“Is there anything we can do for that?” I asked. “Call a lawyer? Testify for him?”

“Not yet,” Zay said. “And he has a lawyer. Melba Maide.”

So she was a part of the Authority.

“There isn’t anything else we can do?”

“No,” Terric said. “We follow the rules.”

“We follow the rules,” Zay agreed. “First we bring in the escaped prisoners; then we hunt down Leander.”

“Tell me you didn’t just say that,” Terric said.

“You don’t have to come.” Zay gave him a steady stare.

Terric leaned forward, his arms propped across his knees, fingers clasped.

“How are you going to find Leander, Zay?” he asked conversationally. “Do you have some kind of spell that lets you hunt undead magic users? Some piece of tech that will track him? He’s a ghost, a Veiled. He’s thin air and hatred. The prisoners are going to be hard enough. But Leander? If you were thinking straight, you’d know it’s a very bad idea to try to find him right now. The guardian of the gate does not go rogue—ever. The guardian of the gate follows orders.”

“The guardian of the gate takes care of the city,” Zay said. “And hunts down anything that crosses through the gates. Leander crossed through the gate days ago. It’s within my rights to track him down.”

Shame put down his cup and scowled at it for a minute. “Terric, you’re wrong. Zay’s right on this one.”

“I’m wrong? Because it went so well the last time you hunted Leander? You blew the security on the prison. On the prison no one can break out of. That hasn’t happened for at least fifty years. You go against what the Authority is authorizing you to do now, and you risk destroying Victor’s career, your mother’s career, and everything we’ve been fighting to hold together.”

Shame smiled and walked over to Terric, then let his hand drop onto Terric’s shoulder. “One, this job is nothing but risk. Everyone knows that. You used to know that. Two, you worry too much. I say if we get some leads on Leander, it will do a shitload of good for Victor’s case. We’ll prove to Bartholomew we can handle whatever happens in this city, prove to him that he’s just seeing things in a temporarily chaotic state. I’ll get my coat.”

Terric sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “I think it’s a bad idea,” he muttered.

“We know,” Shame said. “And if you are coming along? For god’s sake, man, cork it.”

Chapter Fourteen

Zay walked off to the bedroom to get his ratty coat and beanie.

I picked up my coat from the back of the door and realized it had been a while since I’d added anything to my journal. I pulled it out of my coat pocket and turned to an empty page, adding everything I could think of that had happened.

“Staying or going?” Shame asked.

I looked up. He was standing in the doorway, holding the door open. Zay and Terric were both gone.

“Going.” I pulled on my coat and walked out past him. I locked the door. As soon as the lock clicked into place, the wards kicked in.

Shame was already headed down the stairs, and from the sound of the footsteps, Zay and Terric had a flight lead on us.

I put my journal in my pocket and zipped up my coat.

I caught up to Shame, who was moving a little slower than he usually did.

“You up to this?” I asked.

“Please. I’ve had worse hangovers. Z’s got a fire in him today, doesn’t he?”

“Do you have any idea how he’s going to do this?” I asked.

“Probably by the book. For all Terric’s bellyaching, we haven’t stepped outside the bounds. Much. Well, except the breaking-into-prison thing. I figure we’ll hit the street, Zay will tune in on the gate that opened, and we’ll see if Leander left any trails we can follow.”

It sounded reasonable. Except no one had had any success hunting Leander in the last several days. It was a fluke that he had tried to use Cody, a fluke Shame had thought he might be looking for a disked body to possess. And I was pretty sure that kind of fluke wasn’t going to happen again.

“And the prisoners?”

“They’re marked. Doesn’t mean they won’t try to Shield or Confuse, but if we work it right, they shouldn’t be too hard to find. Did you happen to overhear how many of them were out?”

I gave him a look.

“Come on, now. I know you have good ears.”

“Three. Henry Aslund, Jakob Single, and Prisoner X.”

“You shitting me? Prisoner X? Very spook and spy, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. We were out the door and into the early morning. The rain made everything feel crisp and clean, and the smell of breakfast from a nearby restaurant, along with sunlight catching gold in raindrops and puddles, gave the day a glorious, hopeful feeling.

It was a sing-out-loud-with-the-bluebirds kind of day.

And we were off to hunt magical prisoners.

For a brief, weird minute I felt like Dorothy in Oz, walking down the street with Terric the doubtful, Shame the brainless, and heartless Zay.

I took a deep breath and smiled despite myself. Lord, I needed to get more sleep.

“Two cars,” Zay said. “And we wear cuffs. Terric, go with Shame; Allie, with me.”

Well, look at who had woken up on the bossy side of the bed today.

“One car,” Terric said. “It will take the four of us to bring any one of those escapees down. Are you going to give us names?”

“Aslund, Single, and a man no one can remember,” Zay said.

“Closed from us?” Terric asked.

“I wish I knew.”

“Is this common?” I asked. For all I knew, the Authority always wiped away the memories of criminals from the victims of the crime. Maybe so others wouldn’t remember the details. Maybe so others wouldn’t be angry about how the Authority ruled the criminal be punished.

“No,” Zay said. “We lock away prisoners who are resistant to being Closed. When someone has committed a crime, but we can’t take away their memories or their ability to do magic, they end up in prison. I have never heard of the memory of a prisoner being Closed from the people who are guarding him. I’ve never heard of a prisoner being removed from the records.”

“Who could have done that?” I asked.

The three of them stopped, gave me a look. “Mum, maybe?” Shame said. “Or Victor?”

“No,” Zay said. “I don’t think they have that pull. Anything that happens at the prison has to be approved by the Head of the Authority.”

“So, Sedra?” I asked.

He nodded. “That’s the rules.”

“Why would she want someone erased out of all of your memories?” I asked. “What could someone do that was so heinous she didn’t want anyone to know about it?”

“Lord, woman,” Shame said. “Don’t ask that question. You don’t want to know the answers. Let’s get moving. My car.”

“Mine,” Zay said.

“More room in my trunk for bodies,” Shame countered.

We were walking again.

Zay didn’t stop walking, but he half turned. Shame and he pumped fists. Zay threw scissors; Shame threw rock.

“Sucker,” Shame said. “This way.” He strode off to his car, and I had to put a jog in my step to catch up to him.

Zay stopped at his own car first, opened the trunk, and withdrew his sword and the katana I’d been using. He handed me my sword, then closed the trunk. He walked over to Shame’s car and opened the front passenger’s door.

“I’ll take the back,” he said, doing so.

“Get in,” Shame said.

“What, you and Zay don’t want to sit together to do the buddy-cop routine?” I asked.

Shame laughed. “Shut up. Oh, and dig the cuffs out of the glove box, will you?”

I buckled my seat belt but didn’t touch the glove box. Last time I’d opened it, Terric had pulled out a capstone to the Death magic well. And stabbed me to use Blood magic.

Shame noticed my hesitation. “Oh, come on, now. There’s nothing in there that’ll bite you. Today.” He put the car in gear and headed into the heart of downtown.

I opened the glove box, trying to be nonchalant about it. No boxes, just papers and a leather-wrapped package. I could tell even before my fingers brushed the leather that the wrist cuffs were wrapped within.

The cuffs were fitted with slices of stones that allowed us to feel other magic users who wore the cuffs. I unwrapped the leather and handed cuffs over my shoulder to Zay and Terric.

I felt more than heard the connection as they snapped the cuffs into place. I handed one to Shame, and he snapped it on his left wrist as he drove. I put the last cuff on my left wrist too and felt the thrum of it vibrate through me, deep in my bones, like a bass drum in the distance. The scent of moss and cool, rain-drenched forest filled my mouth.

And then three heartbeats tapped at my wrist. Shame, Terric, and the strongest, Zay.

“Allie, can you cast a one-mile Sight while we drive?” Zay asked.

“Sure. What kind of glyph am I looking for?”

“Shackle.”

I shook my head and looked back at him. I’d never seen Shackle before. He traced a glyph in the air, not adding any magic to it.

“Like Hold?” I asked.

“No, more like a variation of Bind. Give me your hand.”

I offered my left hand, palm up. He put his finger on my palm, over the cold mark of death there, and quickly drew his finger away. “Other side.”

He drew the glyph again, this time on the back of my hand. Again, he put no magic into it. But magic flew easily to my fingertips. Magic rose, and it wouldn’t take anything more than a thought for Zay to pull it out of me, to use me like my father had used me.

“Stop!” I yanked my hand away from him before he finished the spell.

“Shit,” he said. “Let me see.”

“No. It’s okay. I’m okay. It didn’t set.”

“Let me see it.”

“Al,” Shame said, “let the man see it.”

“How about you drive and don’t run into anyone?” I snapped.

“Allie, give me your damn hand,” Zay said. “If there’s a Shackle there, I can cancel it.”

“Oh, for the love of—Fine. Don’t believe me.” I shoved my hand in front of him again.

He pressed the fingers of his right hand in a line from my thumb to my pinky.

“It’s not set,” he said.

“That’s what I told you.”

“Then why did you pull your hand away?” Zay asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Yes, it does.”

“I didn’t want you to touch me.” As soon as I said it, I realized how bad it sounded.

“Argue later,” Terric said. “We’re losing ground.”

Zay frowned, his nostrils flaring. “All right,” he said. “So. Do you have it?”

“Have what?” I asked.

“The spell.”

Since the trail of it was currently stinging the back of my hand, yes, I was pretty sure I’d be able to Hound it. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

I turned around and cleared my mind. Sang my songs, calmed my pounding heart. Shackle was a heavy spell. It was the sort of spell that not only did as you wanted it to, but also mimicked its namesake. My left hand ached from supporting it, even for that short while. If the other magic users had marks like that and had been carrying them for years, they’d be easy to spot. That spell was going to weigh them down.

I traced Sight with my palm, creating a wider cast zone, and set within it my intention to see around me in a mile radius.

I pulled magic from the networks beneath the street, light touch, like when I’d been out with the Hounds, and let it fill my body, then pour out into the glyph.

The spell cast up, popped open like an umbrella, then sank into the ground. Glyphs and spells washed past my eyes like tangled streams of finger paint and ink.

I recognized a lot of those signatures, recognized a lot of those spells. Nothing too illegal. But there was no heavy mark of Shackle among them.

“Can they cover it up?”

“The mark?” Zay asked.

“Yes. With Illusion or something?”

“No. Even if they tried, it would still be visible. You’ll see a trail once we get close enough.”

He cast magic; I wasn’t sure what spell, but I could feel the wash of magic through the heartbeat in the cuff. Zay was working very quietly and with incredible precision. Boy may not be a Hound, but he knew how to hunt.

I cast again. Muscle aches for today, and a wish for a hot tub before night fell and the pain kicked in.

More spells in this mile swath. A few signatures I didn’t recognize. That worried me a little. A Hound was only as good as her ability to memorize magic users in the city. Looked like I was going to be spending some time at city hall refreshing my memory on local casters and learning the new people who were using in the area. Just because I was spending my days chasing magical criminals for the Authority didn’t mean I could let my Hound skills get rusty.

“Nothing,” I said.

Shame drove; Zay cast. Terric was throwing a lot of magic around too, though you wouldn’t notice it unless you were a Hound. He used magic in a way very similar to Zay. You could tell that they’d been trained by the same man.

The three rhythms at my wrist beat even and strong. I could tell, if I thought about any one of them, that they were all unharmed and all concentrating. I think Terric was also casting some kind of Search spell, though something that dissolved a lot quicker than what I was throwing.

I knew Terric was good. I didn’t know he was that good.

Another half mile, and I threw again. This time I caught the heavy-metal taste of Shackle on the back of my throat.

“I got one. There’s a mark.” I dropped Sight and recast, narrowing the search to the street ahead of us, felt the echoing spells from Zay and Terric homing in on what I’d sensed, like hands gently brushing past mine, fingers extended. “Keep driving; we’re close.”

Shame did so, but the spell I maintained pulled to the right, and he pulled to the left. “Stop. You’re off the trail. It’s that way.” I pointed, not really seeing the city other than a blur of buildings and a street. That was the street we wanted. I was sure of it.

“This is as close as I can get,” Shame said. He parked, and we got out of the car. I still hadn’t dropped Sight, hadn’t lost my concentration. I held my breath a second and blinked so I could better see the world around me.

“That way?” Zay asked, already moving.

I strode off with him. “Yes. Down that street. I don’t know how far.”

“When we get close enough, you will.” Zayvion pulled his sword, and Terric threw a very nice little Illusion so that it looked like he was carrying a grocery bag instead of three feet of steel.

“Terric, Shame, and I will take point,” Zay said. “Allie, I want you to handle Shield and Block, but no attacks unless necessary, okay?”

“No, that is not okay. I can throw magic just as hard as any of you.”

“Listen.” He paused, touched my arm. “I need you—we need you to tip the scales. It will probably take everything the three of us can muster to take him down. But if he has a trick up his sleeve—if he has some advantage we don’t know about—I want you to hit him with everything you have. You’re our fail-safe. Understand?”

“Stand back, let you get the bruises, then ride to the rescue. Check.”

He searched my face, looking to see if I really understood.

“I got it,” I said. “I’ll do my part.” And I would too. I understood that hunting in a group meant using each member to the best advantage. And I could even handle the idea that Zay wanted me on the back lines because he was trying to protect me too.

We stalked down the street. The trail clung to the damp concrete, rolling out like a length of black chain ahead of us.

Terric cast a quick Sight of some kind and held it low in his left hand before lobbing it off his fingertips, bowling-ball style, his right hand holding the two axes he liked to fight with.

I was suddenly very glad Zay had remembered our weapons.

Terric’s spell rolled out along the chain, holding tight but not touching it, not touching the spell I was maintaining before it unraveled and sank like soft ashes into the rough concrete.

We’d made it a block, crossed an alley. The trail led down the next block and took a hard right turn.

“There,” I said quietly.

Zayvion nodded. He drew another spell and hooked it in his left hand.

I dropped Sight and set a Disbursement for Impact instead. I didn’t know what kind of trouble we were walking into, but my game plan was to smash something first before I got smashed.

I pulled my sword.

“Do we wait?” I asked.

“For what?” Zay asked.

“More backup?”

“Don’t know why we should start that now.”

Man was true to his word. Shame strode up to the door, which was held shut by a rusted chain and a padlock, and blew the chain with a spell that sparked blue light but gave off no sound or smoke.

Zay pushed the door open and strode in.

I was on his heels, Terric and Shame right behind me.

The musty brick and molded plaster smell of the building hit me in the face. It looked like it had been gutted for renovations. Cast-iron pillars ran the length of the room, brick walls—three of the four covered in graffiti—between them and floor-to-ceiling windows that were boarded up so that only the curved tops allowed daylight into the room.

An elevator shaft took the center of the room—dark wood, maybe teak or mahogany creating the elevator, the railings around it half covered in yellow tape and plywood with the word CAUTION spray painted across it.

A ladder leaned down one wall, and there were bags of mortar stacked in a heap. But there was nowhere a person could hide in this room.

Good thing, since he wasn’t hiding. He was crouched down, pulling a book out from beneath a floorboard he had pried loose, the gray light of day carving spears of light over his head.

The man looked well into his seventies, not much over five foot, white hair slicked back into a ponytail down his back. His eyes were the softest brown I’d ever seen.

That was the last thing I remember having time to think about before all hell broke loose.

“Down!” Zay yelled.

I hit the floor, rolled, came up on my knees, and made a run for the cover of the bags of mortar.

Zay did not duck. He ran across the space, throwing spell after spell. I cast Sight and watched as magic sparked up the blade he carried and flew across the room in a relentless barrage. Magic that was met by the man’s spells, one for one, exploded into fiery glyphs that burned to ashes and fell to the floor.

The man Blocked, then threw something different at Zayvion. This spell bobbed slowly, like a balloon running out of helium across the room as the two men continued to exchange fire. Zay Blocked the slow spell, but not before it popped.

It was some kind of Hold. Zay froze, midstride, as if the balloon spell had just exploded and covered him in glue.

“You must be the new guardian of the gates,” the man said in a voice as sweet as a rusted hinge. “It is too late. The Authority has failed. And now I will take my due.”

He threw one last thing at Zay’s head, and Zayvion screamed. Not that I could hear it. That glue spell around him sucked up all sound. I could see it in the tightening of his muscles and feel the echo of the agony breathe across my nerves.

Where were Shame and Terric? And how had one old guy who’d been locked up in jail for years taken Zay out that quickly?

There is a reason he was locked away.

I jerked, not expecting my dad’s voice so loud in my head.

Did you know him? I asked.

Henry Aslund. Life magic. He was jailed for blackmailing magic users working inside the church to forward his political agenda. He killed six people before he was caught.

Just a terrific history lesson, there, I said, but I’d rather know how to knock the bastard out.

“And where are you, my silent friend?”

I could only guess he meant me.

Where were Shame and Terric? They were supposed to take point with Zay.

He walked my way, his uneven footsteps sounding like one leg was harder to lift than the other.

Let me see him, Dad said.

Okay, this is where sharing a body sucked. It was usually either he or I who could run my body at any given time. But the last time I’d cast magic with him, I’d forced him to stand with me in my head, a front united and all that. And he’d used that opportunity to break the disk and effectively kill Greyson. I did not want to risk giving my body up to him just so he could take a gander at his old buddy.

For all I knew, Dad and he used to be friends. Or enemies.

You are too suspicious and you think too loudly. I never liked Aslund. He had too much influence over this town. But I don’t want to kill him.

You can look at him through my eyes with me, I said.

Dad sort of stepped forward, and I kind of pushed myself to one side of my head and let him crowd up there next to me. The whole conversation with Dad had taken about half a second.

I peeked out from behind the bags of mortar.

Hit him with this spell. Dad traced a glyph in my mind, something that looked like it sprang from an overly enthusiastic Boy Scout knot competition.

There was no way I’d get that right on the first go.

And then there was no time to worry about it.

The light shifted as two figures strode through the door behind me. Shame and Terric threw magic in perfect rhythm like they were one man and not two. God, they looked good together.

They were nearly the same height, one dark, one light, both deadly, pounding through spells like they’d been brawling together all their lives.

Aslund returned their volley, maybe not effortlessly, but he didn’t look like he was working up a sweat. Yet.

This, Dad said again. Aim it here.

I cleared my mind, set a Disbursement—a little more body ache for my future—and traced that spell.

No, Dad said. Curve, not curve back.

Oh, sweet hells. Fine, I said. You cast it. No, it wasn’t a Block or Shield. But I was pretty sure it was going to tip the scales just like Zay had hoped it would.

I took a half step back so that Dad could press forward.

And then my hands weren’t mine anymore. I could still feel them, though, which was maybe worse than not being able to feel what Dad was doing with me. I was a puppet on strings, and Dad played me like he’d been behind the curtain all my life.

My left hand lifted and traced the very complicated knotted spell. Then my right hand caught the glyph with the tip of my sword blade and twisted it. The spell practically hummed with magic. It ricocheted off the blade like a top launched from its string.

Dark, leggy, the spell crackled through the air, through the other spells Shame and Terric and Aslund were throwing, and whipped around Aslund’s head, knocking him over like a cartoon coyote.

And then it was his turn to scream as he stiffened, flat on his back on the floor.

The spell holding Zayvion shredded into silver dust that rose like fog on the columns of light streaming through the window.

Shame and Terric ran toward us, Terric checking on Zay, Shame stopping next to me.

“Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” I said, shoving my father out of the way. “Is Aslund down?”

Shame gave me a strange look. “You threw Shackle at him. At his head. With more power than I’ve ever seen that spell thrown.”

“And?”

“And yes. He’s down. For good. Where the hell did you learn that spell?”

“Dad.”

I was already walking toward Zayvion, wanting to put my hands on him and see for sure that he was okay. He was talking quietly to Terric.

No, he was cursing quietly to Terric as they both stared down at the frozen, opened-eyed, dead-looking Henry Aslund.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Zay and Terric looked at me with the same expression on their face.

“You threw Shackle,” Terric said. “At his head. With a hell of a lot of magic.”

“He was trying to kill you guys. He’d trapped Zay. What did you want me to do, challenge him to a game of dominos? I was supposed to ride to the rescue, right? I rode.”

“Yes,” Terric said. “You certainly did.” He walked off and picked up the book Aslund had dropped.

I glanced down at Aslund. “Is he dead?”

Zay spoke. “No, but he’ll wish he was when he wakes up. When did you learn to throw Proxy along with the spell?”

“What?”

“You combined Shackle with the price for using the spell. He’s enduring the pain you would have had to endure to use the spell.”

“Dad threw it. Threw the spell. Both of them,” I said. “I could probably do it again, now that I’ve seen it done. Is it bad?”

Zay shook his head, and a small smile curved his lips. “No. It’s brilliant.” He caught my hand and pulled me in for a thorough kiss.

Oh. I likey.

Shame bent next to Aslund and pulled one of his arms over his shoulder, while Terric did the same.

“You might think it’s brilliant now,” Shame grunted, “but I, for one, wouldn’t want to be dating a girl who knew how to throw dirty magic.” They heaved the old guy onto his feet. He still had his eyes open. Still hadn’t twitched. But I could see his chest rising and falling. He was alive. He was just paralyzed. Shackle kicked ass.

“A little dirty magic keeps life interesting,” Zay said. He smiled. Man had a thing for danger.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked.

“Embarrassed. I’ll get over it.”

Shame and Terric were walking Aslund across the floor, his legs stretched out behind him, dragging tracks in the heavy layer of dust.

“What happened?” I asked.

Zay shook his head and cast a very nice Neutral spell. That wasn’t a spell the common user knew. Which was good. If everyone knew how to throw magic to clean magic, I’d have no chance tracking back the ashes of old spells to their users.

“I wasn’t expecting him to throw Stick at me. Stupid error. I thought he’d go for the throat, not try to glue me to death.”

“The pain?”

We were walking toward the door. “You felt it?”

“Yes.”

“The spell had teeth. But I’m fine. Can you Hound this?” He pointed at the trail that had led us here, the trail that now followed Aslund out the door, and as I glanced that way, down the street to Shame’s car, where they were stuffing Aslund into the trunk. I hoped he wasn’t going to bleed on my box, which was still wedged between Shame’s jumper cables. I’d need to remember to get that from him. Later.

I cleared my mind, set my Disbursement, hummed a jingle, and pulled magic into my sense of sight, taste, smell. I crouched down and looked at the spell.

It still looked like a chain. But not just solid black iron; it had flecks of glyphs worked into it, like glass caught between the bars of lead. Quite literally a spelled chain.

It led to Aslund. I glanced back to where he had been. The spell was gone, cleaned from the room by Zayvion’s spell; there was nothing to see there. I looked back at the chain spell and pressed my fingertips into it.

Cool and slick, the flavor of winter rain on concrete filled my mouth. But there was something else. A smaller chain, with thinner links that snaked off, nearly invisible even with Sight, even with my sharp Hound eyes. Still, I could see the other line.

“There is a chain attached to his chain,” I said.

“Just one?”

“Yes.”

“Marks echo if you look at them right. I didn’t know if you’d be able to see it. Can you track where that line leads?”

I dropped Sight but kept hold on Taste and Smell. Then I cast Trace, a version of Sight that should allow me to see the spell broken into different layers of the light spectrum.

That did it. It was brighter, and pulsed, ever so slightly, with the heartbeat of the person it was connected to. But looking at the trail this way also revealed one very clearly cut strand that looked like someone had burned the connection.

“I see it.” I inhaled, sorting the scents of the spells until I could categorize them. “I have the scent. I can follow it.”

“Good.” Zay pulled magic and began casting the Neutral glyph.

“There’s a broken line too.” I stood and resheathed my sword.

“What do you mean?” Zay stopped casting. Just stood there, with half a spell and half-drawn magic at the ready. Took a lot of concentration not to lose a spell when you stopped midcast.

“There was another line, but it’s been cut.”

“Cut? What does it look like?”

“Like it was burned off.”

“Son of a bitch.” Zay finished the spell, and the lovely cherry-blossom smell of Neutral floated through the air. He caught my arm and marched me out of the warehouse.

Chapter Fifteen

“Ow,” I said to Zay. “Arm.”

“Sorry.” He let go of my arm, then strode past me to where Terric and Shame were shoving Henry’s feet into the trunk, and started talking to them.

What, was I suddenly not good enough to be part of this Scooby-Doo gang?

I stomped over to them.

“We won’t know who,” Zay was saying, “so keep your eyes out. Let’s get this done.”

“What did I miss?” I asked.

Shame ducked into the driver’s seat. “Z bossing us around. I’m sure he’ll give us an encore.”

He started the car, and I got in the front seat again, Zayvion behind me. Terric had his eyes closed and was breathing deeply, a calm expression on his face. Meditating. Getting ready to hunt again, or maybe dealing with the Proxy cost of doing this kind of business.

Shame merged into traffic, headed north.

“What did you tell them?” I asked Zay.

“Prisoner X is a Closer. The broken line. That’s something a Closer would do.”

“Okay. So?”

Shame snorted.

“He might be able to Close the Mark so we can’t trace him. We don’t even know who he is. He has the advantage here.”

“Not to mention, gates,” Shame murmured.

Even Terric opened his eyes. “You think?”

Shame shrugged. “Someone opened a gate at that prison, with that many Cancel, Block, and Wards? Maybe Leander had time to do it while you were chasing him and he was drinking the life out of the Veiled. Maybe he was only a distraction and someone else opened that gate. Closers are the only ones who know how to open gates. Don’t think Leander was a Closer, but he might have been looking for one.”

“Shit,” Terric exhaled. “You think that’s the reason he broke into the prison? To find a Closer?”

Shame shook his head. “I don’t think it was his original intention, but I think it quickly became his backup plan for how to get out of there.”

“We’ll know if he opens another gate, right?” I asked. “And if not us, then Victor, or whoever is keeping an eye on that stuff now, will know?”

“We’ll know if he opens another gate,” Zay said. “And so will the Authority, which means Bartholomew, which means one more strike against Maeve and Victor. We have to find him before he jumps. Allie, can you Hound that trail?”

“The Closed one?”

“No. Not yet. I want Single in the trunk with Aslund before we track the Closer.”

Terric had his head bent, his left hand open in front of him. He used one finger to trace glyphs in the air above his hand, then peered at the spell as if he were looking into a crystal ball. He closed his hand, muttered something, and traced a new glyph.

I set my Disbursement, calmed my mind, and threw another Sight spell. Up, out, floating down again. Spells drifted by the window; spells clung to every person in every car; spells crawled sinuous lines up the buildings, wrapped around the glass and lead cage-work conduits, sparked along the gold-tipped Beckstrom storm rods.

The trail was as dark and cold as steel, stretching off to our right, where it literally disappeared.

“Slippery son of a bitch,” Terric swore.

Shame slowed.

“He’s here,” I said. I dropped Sight and pulled magic into the glyph for Smell. I inhaled, sorting through the scents in the car—Shame’s clove and tobacco, Terric’s fresh leaves and old brandy cologne, Zay’s pine and mint, all of our sweat, and the stink of magic we’d been using. I cracked open the window and stuck my head out far enough to get a good noseful of air.

“In that building.” I pointed.

Terric and Zay both threw magic. “Are you sure?” Terric asked.

“Upstairs. Second or third floor and moving. What is this place? It stinks of magic.” And pain, I thought, though I didn’t say that.

“Proxy pit,” Shame said. He circled the block and found a metered parking place to park, and not pay.

Great. I’d been to a Proxy pit only once—trying to Hound a Compulsion for a woman who thought her daughter had been Influenced to serve Proxy time—and that one experience had made me want to stay as far away from pits as I could.

“You have a plan, Z?” Shame asked as we got out of the car, Terric’s Illusion once again in place to cover our weapons.

“Floor by floor, invisible, silent. If Allie says he’s on the top floor, this should be fast work.”

“Fast work to find him,” Shame said. “Don’t know how quick we’ll be able to take him down.”

We crossed the street, shoulder to shoulder, keeping a good pace.

“We can take him,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. Zay had made a rookie mistake back there, underestimating Henry Aslund.

That wasn’t like Zay. But only three days of rest after returning from death didn’t leave a lot of reserves for either of us. I worried that his bravado was just a cover for how much he was hurting and how hard it was for him to throw magic.

His heartbeat at my wrist was strong, steady. I knew if I worried too much, he’d feel it. And maybe Shame and Terric would too. So I did what I did best: cleared my head and got ready to deal with whatever came next.

Do you know what his crime was? I asked my dad. He didn’t stir, didn’t answer. I wasn’t even sure if he had regained consciousness or strength or whatever an undead person needed since we’d thrown that spell at Aslund’s head.

He was going to be no help.

“Terric, cover us,” Zay said.

Terric muttered a few words and cast another slick Illusion around us. I looked over at Zayvion. He wasn’t there. Whoa.

“Invisibility,” Zay said quietly, and as soon as he spoke, I could see his faint outline.

“Why haven’t we used this before?”

“It’s very difficult to manage.”

“Quiet, children,” Shame’s outline said. “Ter?”

I glanced over to get a read on where he was.

“I’m ready.”

We stepped through the doors.

The well-lit lobby looked like the entrance to a rich doctor’s waiting room. Comfortable couches, flat screens, plants, fountain, and even a full-wall aquarium oozed with a come-on-in-and-relax vibe.

But just beneath that icing of calm was pain. Controlled. Mostly. But a lot of it. Enough, my shoulders hitched up and I had to breathe through my mouth not to have my nose filled with the stink of it.

Zay cast a very light Search, which was a lot like letting a magical bug loose in the room, except instead of sending it bouncing around among the sofas and the half dozen people filling out forms, he sent it into the network of lead and glass that wrapped the building.

“Up,” he whispered.

The longer we stayed in the Invisibility, the more solid Zay, Shame, and Terric looked to me. It was sort of like walking out of a dark room into daylight. When you got hit by Invisibility, it took a couple minutes for your eyes to adjust.

There was an elevator down the hall. I really hoped we were headed for the stairs beyond.

Zay reached over, took my hand, and squeezed.

Shit. Elevator for sure.

The door opened, Shame tossing a quick Mute so it made no sound. Then I stepped in—well, Zayvion literally dragged me in behind him. The door closed.

I did exactly one thing: breathe. As quietly as I could, as calmly as I could, thinking the most nonscreamy thoughts that I could.

I could hear Terric exhale through his mouth, then inhale. I smelled his sweat, a peppery sting over the sweet note of his cologne.

It was taking a lot of energy and concentration for him to hold the Invisibility. I didn’t know why he was holding it in the elevator. Then I spotted the camera in the corner, and it made sense.

Second floor, third. The elevator finally stopped at the fourth floor. It took everything, everything I had not to run out into the hall.

After a pause long enough for a small ice age to come and go, Zay stepped out of the elevator. We were still holding hands, so I stepped out with him.

This floor looked more like a hospital. Long, curved halls led off in two directions; cupboards painted grayish blue against the cream walls caught light from the overheads. There were no windows.

It smelled like pain. Not just pain covered up by magic, not just pain managed by medication. Pain. But I didn’t hear anyone moaning; I didn’t hear heavy breathing other than my own.

“Here,” Zay whispered. We followed him to the right, down the hall past the cupboards that stank of medication, past the well-insulated doors that leeched agony through the cracks, past the dozens and dozens of people paying the price for others to use magic in this town.

I hated it. But most of the people here signed on of their own will. Proxying paid enormously well.

The hallway eventually ended at a double door. Beyond that was our criminal.

Terric dropped the Invisibility just as Shame cast Illusion. Zayvion pushed open the door and strode into the room, Shame and Terric on his heels, magic and weapons at the ready.

Like they’d done this a thousand times before. Which they had.

I slipped in behind them. The room was some kind of examination room, mostly stainless steel. I caught sight of restraining devices, oxygen tanks, and other medical-looking bits of equipment. Rows of gurneys and dark-faced machines on carts staged one wall. The other wall had six large square drawers carved into it.

Correction. Half examination room, half morgue.

I did not see our guy.

That did not stop him from throwing lightning at us.

The flash blinded me. Must have done the same for the others, because I heard them swear.

Then I smelled another spell, the scorch of hot pavement, and hoped it was being thrown by one of us, not at one of us.

I cast Shield and pulled it around me, just as the scorching wave of heat rolled over.

Seconds. That was all the time between the Lightning and Fire. But my eyes had adjusted.

And I saw our man.

Tall, he didn’t look to be any older than me. I’d guess his roots to be from somewhere in the Mediterranean. That’s all the look I got before he was surrounded by a wall of black.

I heard his scream, but I was pretty sure no one beyond this room had any idea what was going on in here.

Terric and Zay were taking turns throwing Mute, Illusion, Diversion, keeping the sound, sights, and smells of magic inside these walls. And they were doing a hell of a job not tapping the network for too long at a time. This wasn’t even going to blip on the building’s Proxy load.

Shame was smoking a cigarette. I have no idea where he found the time to light up. I was certain a lighted anything was bomb positive here among stacks of oxygen tanks.

He was also drawing on a hell of a lot of magic. I could feel it like cold water over my nerves. But he wasn’t pulling magic out of the networks. He was pulling it out of the man across the room.

I cast Sight so I could keep track of the spells in the room and not make something explode.

My vision opened; the world caught pastel fire. Zay threw Impact, Terric cast Hold, and Shame pulled so much living energy out of the area around the man that the floor began to darken and crack.

The man stood there, one hand extended, holding a hell of a Shield, the other hand fingers downward. With Sight, I could see the magic pouring up into his fingertips.

No, not magic. Life. Souls. He was drinking the life out of the Proxies in the building, and with all of the pain medication they were under, they probably didn’t even realize it. He was killing them. He was a mass murderer. Right in front of our eyes.

Holy shit.

And everything Zayvion and Terric threw at him, he absorbed. We were getting nowhere.

“He’s using the Proxies,” I said. “He’s drinking their lives.”

“We know that,” Shame growled.

And that’s when I realized that Shame, Terric, and Zayvion were throwing everything they had at him. Shame was pulling the life, the energy, the magic from Single and feeding it to Terric, who used it against Single.

They didn’t have any more to hit him with.

But I did.

I cleared my mind and made damn sure my Shield was strong. Then I pulled magic from my left hand, the cold bite of it like a winter night, burning across my palm and up to my elbow. I drew a glyph for Impact and threw it at him.

Black flame gouted from my hand, dark magic burning through the air, visible even to the naked eye.

It hit him square in the chest and slammed him into the wall. Shame rushed him; so did Zay.

“No!” I yelled.

Too late. Single still had magic. Still had lives at his fingertips. He opened his hand, and ghostly souls that were broken and bound by magic launched at Shame and tore into his flesh, biting, feeding. Just like the Veiled.

Zay was right behind Shame and swung his sword.

But Single was on his feet. He pointed something at Zay—not a gun; a Taser—and shot Zay in the chest. Zay went down with a yell.

Holy fuck.

Terric chanted, something that was slowing the things attacking Shame. Zay struggled to get back on his feet, but his muscles weren’t working. There was no way he’d be steady enough to cast a spell.

That left me.

And no time to fuck this up.

Single lifted a hand toward Zay and smiled as he traced a glyph filled with heart-stopping agony.

“Single!” I yelled.

He turned and threw the spell he’d been aiming at Zay, at me.

Not exactly what I’d hoped for.

I cast Block, ducked, and ran straight at him. Two steps, and my sword was out of the sheath. Three, and I was casting the glyph for Impact. Four, and Impact was caught on the edge of my blade, ready.

A spell rolled out above my head and crashed around Single like a wall of rocks. He yelled and drew his weapon—a knife.

I had him on reach and sheer anger even before I was within striking distance.

Zay was up. Somehow steady on his feet, somehow with the sword in his hand. He wasn’t casting magic yet. I could smell his blood.

I hoped no one expected us to bring this bastard in alive.

I lunged, broke his Shield with the Impact and edge of my blade. He Blocked with the knife—impressive—and threw a wad of magic, of pure hatred, at me. I cast Shield again, let go of it as soon as his spell skittered away, and swung for his exposed left.

He was sweating hard. I aimed to make him bleed instead.

He cast Death magic. I couldn’t get Shield up fast enough. The spell wrapped around my left hand, sucked up the Hold I’d been casting, clamped down like frozen hooks in my palm.

The mark in my hand burned hot, absorbing the magic and spell, drinking it down, and snapping fire back toward him, hungry for more.

That was the first time I saw fear in his eyes.

Zay was at my side. Single backed up. I could feel Terric and Shame’s heartbeats, steady, then knew they strode up behind us.

“Give up,” Zay said, “or die.”

He was shaking, terrified, angry. Desperate.

One heartbeat. Two.

He lunged at Zay with the knife.

Shame threw magic over my head. Death magic grappled around the man like a black cloud of blades, just as my katana took him through the ribs and Zay’s katana took him through the stomach.

We held him there for what felt like hours, the weight of his body dragging our swords down as he crumpled to the ground. I pulled my sword free. I think Zay did too. But I wasn’t looking at Zay. I was watching Single because he was staring at me.

The knife fell from his fingers. His left hand clawed through a spell as his eyes searched my face.

And then Shame said a word. The magic surrounding Single thickened. He exhaled a final breath, and then the magic, and Single’s life, drained away.

I stood there, just staring at him. I’d killed a man before. Killed Lon Tragger for what he did to Pike. Killed Greyson, though that was my dad’s direct action, not mine. I didn’t like it. I didn’t think I’d ever like it.

I wiped my blade across my thigh, over the Blood magic scar Tragger had carved into me, and looked up at Zayvion.

He was covered in sweat and breathing hard, his left hand pressed over his ribs.

Reality snapped back in place, and any regrets I might have had for ending Single’s life fled my mind.

“How bad are you hurt?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“You’re bleeding.” I stepped over to him, and he wiped his right hand carefully across the cut that split his cheek.

“Did he cut you?” I asked.

“The Taser. I hit something sharp on the way to the floor.”

I sheathed my sword and pressed my fingers gently on one side of his face, tipping his head toward the light so I could see how bad the cut was.

“You need stitches. At least a butterfly bandage.”

“Quickly,” Shame said.

I glanced over at him. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and it looked like it was taking all of his energy and concentration to lift his lighter up to it. The side of his face was covered in a burn that was already blistering.

He winced as the lighter snapped a flame to life but managed to keep it steady enough by using both hands to light the cigarette.

Terric was in the corner of the room retching over a sink. I don’t know if it was the Death magic, the killing, or Shame’s pain that was making him sick.

Okay. One thing at a time.

“What are we going to do with the body?” I walked over to the cupboards and started opening and closing them, looking for bandages, painkillers, and maybe something for Shame’s burns.

“We’ll take him out on a gurney,” Zay said. “Call in Nik and Joshua, who will transport Aslund to the prison and Single to the morgue.”

I wasn’t surprised the Authority had their own morgue. Or a morgue where Authority members worked and quietly took care of situations like this.

“I’ll call,” Shame said. He pulled his cell out of his pocket and dialed. “Romero? Think you can meet us behind the west Proxy pit? Van. Two. Just one, but he’s unconscious.” He paused. “On me, my friend, and more than that. Thank you.”

I finally found a cupboard with the supplies I needed. I grabbed bandages, antibiotics, painkillers, and burn cream. I didn’t see anything for nausea.

“They’re on their way. Maybe fifteen minutes,” Shame said.

“Think you’ll be up to casting by then?” Zay asked Terric.

Terric ran the water in the sink and found a towel to wipe over his face. “No problem,” he mumbled into the cloth.

I handed Shame the burn cream. “This goes on the side of your face. There’s a mirror on the inside of that cupboard.” I pointed. “These go in your mouth.” I handed him two packs of painkillers.

“Thanks, Mum.” He smiled, then thought better of it when the side of his face crinkled.

“Fix your face,” I said.

I marched over to Zay, who was still standing near Single like maybe the man was going to get up again.

I sure hoped that wasn’t the reason he was standing there.

“Let me fix your face,” I said.

“It’s fine.”

“Sure it is, tough guy.” I sprayed the cut with the antibiotic, and Zay hissed. “Hold on.” I tore the bandages out of their sterile packaging and did what I could to close the cut. “That’s going to scar if you don’t get stitches,” I said.

“It will hold until after we bring down the last prisoner.”

He finally sheathed his sword and walked over to the gurneys. Well, limped. I didn’t think the effects of the Taser had worn off yet.

“So now are we calling in some backup for this hunt?” I asked.

All three of them looked at me like I’d just bad-mouthed their mothers.

“The more people we involve in the hunt, the more people will be on the hook if we fail,” Zay said. “We keep this tight; we keep this simple.”

“Besides, no one in their right mind would do this with Bartholomew in town,” Shame said. “That’s what makes us more fun to hang out with. We know how to party.”

Terric walked over and stood next to Shame. They both looked like they had the flu.

“Whee,” Terric muttered.

“Shame,” Zay said, “get the body bag.”

“If I had a nickel for every time you’ve said that.” Shame glanced around the room and unerringly chose the cupboard that contained body bags.

I offered to help, but Zay and Shame waved me off as they expertly and quickly stuffed Single’s body into the bag while Terric filled the sink with hot water and disinfectant. He found a mop and cleaned up the blood and mess we’d made of the place.

Just for good measure, Zay also cast a Neutral spell to take care of any magic we’d left behind.

The whole thing took all of three minutes.

“Ready?” Zay asked.

Terric nodded. He took a deep breath and, as he exhaled, once again cast Illusion.

We made our way out of the room, me in the front, Shame and Zay pushing the gurney, and Terric behind.

I let them pass me to get in the elevator and literally closed my eyes and forced myself to step in. Someone else hit the button for the lobby. I kept my eyes shut and tried to think of open spaces. The only thing that filled my mind was a steady parade of cramped elevator interiors I’d been shoved into lately.

So not helpful.

The doors opened, and I stepped out into the lobby. More people milled around. I used to think that Proxy pits were filled with the homeless, maybe runaway teens, and other members at the edges of society who needed a quick buck to get by. That was only partially true. There were a few people here who looked like they split their earnings between blood donations and Proxy pits. But there were more middle-aged business people, a smattering of college-age kids, and well-dressed retired people too.

Sure, some of them might be there for community service or because their church had told them it was the good-neighbor thing to do. But I was pretty sure it was the quick money, even if it cost pain, that drew them in.

Greed had no age limit or income level.

Terric was starting to breathe hard, so we picked up the pace and got the gurney and dead body out the door, down the street, and around to Shame’s car without incident.

“I’ll take it,” Zay said.

Terric let go of the Invisibility, and Zay cast an Illusion instead so it appeared we were standing around Shame’s car with a large refrigerator box on the sidewalk. A good enough cover until Nik and Joshua showed up.

Shame smoked down another cigarette while Terric leaned against the car and closed his eyes. Zay and I stood there looking like we were waiting for a friend with a truck. Finally, Nik and Joshua showed up with a van.

“Hear anything about the trial?” Zay asked as he helped Joshua, who was dressed in simple button-down shirt and jeans and gave off that “family man” vibe, load the gurney into the back of the van.

“They’re not letting out any information,” Joshua said. “But Victor and Maeve have been in questioning for a few hours, now.”

“If you hear anything, give us a call, okay?”

Terric and Shame had popped the trunk and were wrestling the still unconscious Aslund out of the trunk.

I wondered what that looked like from the other side of the Illusion.

“Will do.” Joshua slammed the door shut and shook Zay’s hand. “Oh, there is one thing Hayden wanted us to tell you. They went over the records. They think the last prisoner was a Closer.”

“Does he know who?” Terric asked.

“No. But I’ll tell you who they can’t find any record for.”

“Who?”

“Roman Grimshaw.”

I swear all three heartbeats at my wrist skipped a beat.

“He can’t confirm it,” Joshua added. “But I thought you should know, just in case.”

“Thanks,” Zay said. “We’ll handle it.”

“Then we’ll get this taken care of. Call when you need the van.”

“Soon,” Zay agreed.

Joshua got in the van, and then he and Nik drove off.

“Well, isn’t that a piece of pie?” Shame said.

“Who’s Roman Grimshaw?” I asked as we walked toward the car.

“The last guardian of the gate before Zay,” Terric said.

“The last guardian of the gate was thrown in prison?” I asked. “What did he do?”

“You don’t want to know.” Shame got in the car.

I opened the door and watched as Zayvion got in the backseat, his face that Zen mask he put on when his emotions were raging high. But that Zen mask couldn’t cover the one thing I could feel through the cuffs, feel through our bond as Soul Complements—fear.

Chapter Sixteen

“How do we track a Closer?” I asked. No one answered me. “There has to be a way. Can I trace the Shackle? Zay, can you hunt him? Which of you knew him?”

“I vaguely remember him,” Shame said. “I was pretty young.”

“Are you sure none of you met him?” I asked. “The Authority couldn’t have functioned without a guardian of the gates. Zay, didn’t you take over right after he was locked up?”

“No.”

“No? So the Authority operated for what, ten, twenty years without anyone guarding the gates?” Seriously, whoever had been making decisions for the safety of the city got a D-minus in my book.

“Only since Mikhail walked through the gate to death.”

“Was pushed,” I said.

“By Dane,” Shame agreed.

“No, by Sedra.”

“What? You get hit in the head back there?” Shame asked.

I suddenly realized I hadn’t told anyone what my father had told me in the dream. It had been only three days since that dream. Maybe four. I hadn’t thought it was an important enough detail to bring up.

“I had a dream . . . ,” I started.

“Here we go,” Shame said.

“Shut up, Shame.” Zay leaned forward. “What dream?”

“My dad and I were talking. He told me some things. I didn’t really believe him, but I think he might have been telling the truth.”

I was, he said, frustrated.

“What things?” Zay asked. “About Sedra?”

I nodded, tried to remember the dream. “He said Sedra convinced Dane Lanister Mikhail had broken the laws of magic by experimenting with light and dark magic. But Mikhail had actually healed magic. He’d found a way to use magic, light and dark in all the disciplines together. It was contained, warded, but he put magic back together again. And didn’t go insane. And didn’t blow the networks or mess with the wells, or anything. It was a big deal.”

“It’d be a big deal today if someone other than the guardian of the gate could use dark and light magic together without going mad,” Terric said. “Did your dad have proof?”

“He said he was there. He saw it.”

“Holy shit,” Shame said. “Is there no end to how much Mum and Victor have kept from me? How have I not earned their trust?”

Terric snorted.

“Did he say anything else?” Zay asked.

I thought about it. “He said Sedra pushed Mikhail through a gate to death. Sent him, body and soul, there. And he said when he told the rest of the Authority about it, they didn’t believe him.”

Zay inhaled, exhaled. Stared out at the city sliding by. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

“In my dream, yes. Now that I’m awake, I don’t know.”

“Does your dad know where Roman Grimshaw might be? Or where he might go?” Zay asked.

Do you? I asked.

Dad stirred. He was still slow in my mind, a little lethargic. I wondered again if he was bearing Proxy for the spells we had thrown. Wondered how a soul could pay in pain.

I don’t know, he said.

But if you had to guess?

Allison. He sounded offended. I never guess.

“If he knows, he’s not telling me.”

Everyone was quiet. I leaned my head back against the headrest. I stank of sweat and magic and death. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance we have time for a shower?”

“Or a drink,” Shame mused.

“This wasn’t my idea,” Terric said.

Zay was still silent. I could feel him. Feel him stretching out his awareness. Feel him sinking deep into the city as if it were his skin, his body.

My phone rang. I jumped at the sudden racket, swore, and dug it out of my pocket.

“Beckstrom.”

“Allie, this is Jack. We found him. We found Dane.”

Chapter Seventeen

I was suddenly very awake. “Where?”

“We’re at Multnomah Falls,” Jack said. “Dane has five men with him—no! Bea!”

Three shots rang out.

“Jack? Jack! What happened? Are you hurt? Is Bea hurt?”

The connection went dead. I pulled my phone away. Redialed. Got Jack’s voice mail.

“Shit. Jack found Dane,” I said. “He’s at Multnomah Falls. We have to go there. We have to go there now.”

“No,” Zay said, “we are going to take care of Roman first.”

I turned and glared at him. “They had guns. Someone got shot. Are you listening to me? One of my Hounds got shot.”

“They’ll call 911,” Zay said. “We can’t get there fast enough to save them, but the EMTs and police in the area can.”

“They found Dane,” I said, each word louder than the last. I couldn’t believe he was being so blasé about this.

“Allie,” he said, turning the full force of his golden gaze on me. “Dane will be gone by the time we get there.”

“I don’t care. I’ve followed all your plans. I’ve followed all of the Authority’s rules. But I’ll be damned if I let you tell me I can’t go look after my Hounds. Shame, pull over.”

Shame slowed the car.

“Don’t stop this car,” Zay said.

“Make up your minds, children,” Shame said. “Dane or Grimshaw?”

“Hounds,” I said.

My phone rang again. “Hello?”

“This is Davy. Something’s wrong. I think someone’s hurt.”

“Can you tell who?”

There was a pause. I could hear the ambient noise through his phone. He was driving. “Jack. Jack, I think.”

“They’re at Multnomah Falls,” I said. “Was Bea the only one with him?”

“Last I knew. We’ve all been out. Looking for that job you put us on.”

“Has anyone else called in?”

“No.”

“Call 911. Tell them there is a possible gunshot victim at the falls. Then call me back.”

“Want me to pick you up?”

“Call. Then call me back.” I hung up.

I unbuckled my seat belt and twisted around in my seat. “You don’t need me to hunt Grimshaw. Bea and Jack need me now.” Plus, I was going to kick Dane’s ass. He might not be there when I arrived, but I sure as hell was going to hunt where he went. Recent location meant fresh trail.

Zay looked away from the window. “You’re not calling the shots on this hunt, Allie; I am.”

“I don’t give a damn who’s calling what,” I said. “My people are counting on me to help them.”

“So are mine.” He wasn’t quite shouting. “I have the entire city counting on me, the entire damn Authority. You’ll stay with this hunt until it’s done.”

“Like hell I will.”

“Like hell you won’t.”

“Easy,” Terric said.

I ignored him. “My Hounds. My people. My choice. I calls the shots about that—regardless of what the Authority or what you want, Jones. Pull over, Shame.”

“I know where he is,” Zay said.

“Pull over,” I repeated.

“Who?” Shame asked.

“Grimshaw,” Zay said. “Downtown. He’s opening a gate.”

“Jesus, hell, and high water,” Shame said. “Sorry, lass, I have to go with Z on this one.”

He made an illegal turn and headed downtown, running every stop.

My phone rang again. “Davy?”

“I called 911. They already had a report. Ambulance and police are on the way.”

“Have you heard from anyone else?”

“No. Wait. Someone’s calling in. Hold on.” He switched to the other line. I braced my arm on the dash as Shame ran a red light.

“We’d like to get there alive, Flynn,” Terric said.

“Don’t like how I drive, you know where the door is.”

“Allie?” Davy said.

“I’m here.”

“That was Bea. She’s got Jack. He was shot in the leg. She’s driving him to the hospital. I told her I called it in. She said Sid and Jamar are still there.”

“Why are they—oh shit!” I slammed both hands against the dash as Shame stomped on the brakes and took a left that rocked the car up on two wheels. My cell phone clattered to the floor. I scrambled to find it as it skittered across the floor mats, caught it before it rolled under the seat.

“—you okay? Allie?” Davy was saying.

“Fine. Bad traffic.” I fastened my seat belt and leveled a dirty look at Shame. “Tell Sid and Jamar to get out of there.”

“They said they’re sitting tight. Dane’s still there. They’re waiting for you.”

Hells. “Are the gunmen still there?”

“Bea said after Jack was shot, Dane and his men threw Hold big enough to stop everything in a block radius. It took maybe three minutes for the spell to wear off. Sid and Jamar Hounded them. They know Dane and whoever is with him went up the trail by the falls.”

“Are there a lot of people out there today?”

“I’ll let you know when I get there. No ride?”

“I’ll be there soon. Really soon. Don’t do anything stupid. No, better yet, tell Sid and Jamar to back off. We’ll track Dane at a distance.”

“And lose five thousand dollars?”

“I’ll pay them five thousand not to get shot. Tell them to back off—hear me, Silvers?”

“Got it, boss.”

I hung up. Shame parked. We were in a garage. I wasn’t sure where. Shame, Terric, and Zay were already out of the car by the time I unbuckled and opened my door.

“You have got to be shitting me,” I said. We were at my dad’s, I mean Violet’s, condo. “Roman’s here?”

“Does he have a key?” Zay asked.

I laughed, a dry little cough. This was ridiculous. “How would I know?”

Zay scowled at the elevator, then stormed off that way.

I could tackle Shame for his car keys and steal his car. It wasn’t worth the time or hassle. The fastest way I was going to get out to Multnomah Falls was to get this over with.

Hells.

“Coming?” Shame asked.

I glared at him, and he held up his hands. “Whoa, easy. You can stay down here if you want.”

“I’d rather kill someone. Let’s get this done.”

The elevator lock was blown.

Terric pressed the button, and the elevator binged open. Hopefully, the lock was the only thing broken.

Zay walked into the elevator, looking like he’d climb up the cables if that’s what it took to get upstairs.

Did I walk in after him? Yes, I did. I was angry about Jack being hurt. Angry Zay hadn’t listened to me. Angry a criminal had broken into Violet’s house. Angry Shame had taken Zay’s side and not mine.

Anger drowned out my fear. Got me in the elevator and all the way up to the living level.

None of us spoke. I didn’t know if anyone had a plan. I didn’t care. I just wanted to take this guy down.

The doors opened, and the smell of the gate hit me full in the face. Out in the open air it wasn’t as strong, but here in such an enclosed space, it smelled like hot sand and salt.

I pulled my sword as I walked out of the elevator and strode down the hall toward the living room. That would be the most open space for a gate to appear, so I assumed that’s where it would be.

Zay strode beside me, and Shame and Terric were behind us. The hallway stretched off to my dad’s office and the bedrooms, but on the right, the hall opened into the massive living space with the full view of Portland, the river, and Mount Hood.

We stormed into the room. No stealth, no fear. No fucking around.

Zay threw Hold before we’d even crossed the threshold, and I drew a Shield around all of us. Yes, I set a Disbursement. Body aches.

Terric was chanting—I’d heard Zay use that on gates before—and Shame, well, Shame used his best weapon: his mouth.

“It’s over, Roman,” Shame said. “If you want to live, you will drop all magic and hold very, very still.”

A gate was opening in the room, like someone had carved a smoky hole into the middle of the air. And next to that gate stood Roman Grimshaw.

He was tall, and his hair was ruddy brown, with streaks of gray at his temples and in his goatee and mustache. He was rawboned, eyebrows cutting straight across his face, deep lines etched into his forehead and around his eyes. His nose was broken flat at the bridge and somehow made the piercing hazel of his eyes unworldly.

No gun, no weapon. He wore a brown jacket and jeans and held so much magic in one hand, I didn’t need Sight to see the glyphs that crawled over his hands and arms.

“This is not your fight,” he said, and I was surprised by his slight accent. Scottish, maybe? “Put down your magic, and there will be no quarrel between us.”

It was funny how he thought he had the upper hand.

“Close the gate, or be Closed,” Zay said.

Grimshaw looked at Zay. Really looked at him. “Zayvion? You have become the new guardian? Then you understand that I must stop Sedra.”

He was after Sedra? For what, locking him up?

“This is not your fight,” Zay said.

He laughed. “She has destroyed my life, stripped me of years. Years. It has always been my fight.”

“You know what my orders are,” Zayvion said. “There are only two ways this ends. Your death or your imprisonment.”

“My argument isn’t with you, Zayvion. Don’t defend those who are enemies to us both.” He didn’t wait for Zay’s answer. He threw magic, twisting it as he pulled it into his hands.

Zay stepped in front of me and countered Roman’s cast. His magic and Roman’s spell struck like two torches meeting in midair. The spells consumed each other, fire burning fire to ash that fell to the floor. The explosion rattled the windows.

The gate was still opening.

Terric swore and threw Mute so strong, I had a hard time hearing my own thoughts. That might keep the neighbors from hearing the rest of the racket, but there was no way the first blast would go unnoticed.

The police or fire department was probably on its way.

Zay and Roman threw magic at each other so quickly, etching, casting, canceling, and recasting spells in a deadly dance. They were a perfect match. Both had trained for years to be guardian of the gate. Both knew how to use dark and light magic and all five disciplines. It looked like only stamina would win this fight.

Except Zayvion had something Roman didn’t. Us.

I did not want to throw magic at Roman. Adding fire to the fire would only blow off the roof. Shame chanted—Grounding and probably Proxying—for Zay. Terric chanted too, his words harmonizing with Shame’s like they had when they closed the gate in the graveyard.

Oh, so I guess we did have a plan. Zay would distract the man, Terric would close the gate, and Shame would deal with the magical overload.

The plan was working. So well I almost dropped the Shield I was holding around each of us, thinking maybe I could let them finish this without me and catch a cab out to the falls.

Then Grimshaw threw something heavy—the Shackle that bound him—at Zayvion.

Zay Blocked. The force of that spell shattered my Shield and took him to his knees.

The spell clipped Zay across the shoulder. He yelled as magic rolled over his arms and hands. I could feel the burning cold, then complete numbness, as if the spell had hit me.

If that’s what the Shackle felt like, I didn’t know how anyone bore it.

But that pain was not mine; it was Zay’s. My hands were not numb. My hands worked just fine.

Shame threw a spell that looked like a ghostly, howling beast. It struck Roman in the center of his chest and sank magical teeth into his throat.

Roman stumbled back. Shame’s spell clung tight and drained him, while Shame calmly pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

Terric almost had the gate closed.

Roman chanted and broke Shame’s spell.

I hit him with Impact; he Blocked and threw Lightning at me. I Blocked that and tasted blood in the back of my throat from the Impact. Man wasn’t screwing around. I threw Sleep.

Hey, why not? Sometimes the unexpected works the best.

His eyes widened. He Blocked it but his reflexes were slower. He drew a glyph—Illusion? And then fell to the floor.

“The gate!” Zay yelled. He was on his feet, running toward it.

And Grimshaw appeared in front of the gate.

I glanced back at where he’d fallen, just as the Illusion of him faded away.

Son of a bitch.

Grimshaw faced the gate and pulled magic through it, canceling Terric’s Closing spells.

“He’s going to jump!” Shame said.

Zay and I threw Impact. Our spells drew like magnets to iron, twisted together, became stronger—more than just one spell, more than just Impact—and arced like a bloody gout of fire across the room.

Roman lunged to the side and whispered a word that diverted our spell, sending the twisted fire of magic straight into the heart of the gate.

Zay and I both threw Cancel, but it was too late.

The gate blew open.

Roman was not opening the gate to escape. He was opening the gate to let something—no, someone—through.

“Enough!” A voice yelled from within the gate, echoing so loudly in my mind, I clamped my hand over my ears.

“I will have my revenge.”

And out of the gate, out of death, strode the one magic user I hoped I’d never see again. Mikhail, the master of death.

I traced the glyph for Impact.

But was too late. Much too late.

Mikhail threw a spell, dark magic crackling from his fingertips and catching us all in a net of magic.

I could not move. I drew upon the magic in my bones, needing to throw something, anything, at him to keep him from hurting us.

No, Allison, do not, Dad said.

I didn’t listen to him. But Mikhail, apparently, did.

“Sleep.” He pointed a hand at me. A hand that carried one of my father’s disks. And then there was nothing but darkness.

Chapter Eighteen

Someone was talking. It sounded a lot like my voice, but I knew I wasn’t talking. Which meant I was probably dreaming.

Strange, since I didn’t remember falling asleep.

“He was supposed to keep her until we opened the gate for you, but he failed in doing so,” I was saying.

“The disk is draining too quickly,” a man’s voice I did not recognize said. “How much longer do I have, Daniel?”

“I do not know. It has been through death. It is charged with both light and dark magic, but I have never tried to support a body and soul with this technology. If you are to remain here, you will need to find a living body to possess.”

“A body with your disk implanted in it?”

“We won’t have time to find the disks before the one you hold is empty.”

“You could use me,” another man with a Scottish accent said. “Implant the disk in me; then take my body.”

“No, Roman, you have done enough,” the other man said. “And there is no time.”

“I can endure.”

“Even so,” I was saying, “he will need a body with a disk to hold magic within it and tie the soul to the flesh. You are too alive, too human.”

“Find my solution, Daniel Beckstrom, or our agreement will be terminated.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“Shamus Flynn,” I said.

There was a pause. “He is Hugh and Maeve’s son,” I said.

“Where?”

“There.”

Another pause, then the sound of heavy footsteps.

“He has grown into a man,” he said with a touch of melancholy. “Has it been that many years since I was alive?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then it has been too long for her to be in this world, destroying magic, destroying lives. Wake him.”

I heard someone walking.

“How long will his body support me?” the man asked.

“An hour, a few minutes. I do not know,” I said. “He has a strong will, high pain tolerance, and an untested Soul Complement.”

I heard a sigh. “There have been too many Soul Complements in recent years,” the man said. “I have seen their deaths. I have spoken to their spirits. None have found peace.”

“It plays to our hand now, though,” I said. “Soul Complements have always been drawn to Portland. Four wells so close together seems destined to bring Complements together.”

“Wake up, Shamus,” the Scottish voice said. “No, you’re still under our Hold spell, so there’s no need to waste your energy fighting it. Mikhail needs a word with you.”

“What? What do you want?” That, I knew, was Shame. His voice was raw, strained, as if he were working hard to get each word out.

“Your body,” the man said. “Your mind. You will give them over to me.”

“Fuck off.”

“Willingly or unwillingly,” the man said, “I will take your flesh as my own.”

“Bullshit. Allie? Are you in there?”

The sound of my name drew me out of my half-conscious awareness, up into my mind, my body. I snapped into place and opened my eyes.

No, my eyes were already open. I was standing next to Mikhail, who seemed to take up all the space in the room. He was taller than me, wide shouldered, his hair short and black, his eyes an arctic blue, deep and sorrowful in skin that was so white, it was leaning toward pasty green. I did not know how he was alive, how he had walked out of death in the body he had died in.

He was staring at Shame, who sat on the couch. Terric and Zayvion, who both appeared to be sleeping, were slumped at either side of him.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Fucker wants to possess me.”

Dad was standing with me in my mind. I think, if he had wanted to, he could have kept me down, unconscious, or semiconscious, thinking this was all a dream.

Yes, he said, I could have.

I tried to pull on magic, to throw it at Mikhail. But it was like a heavy blanket draped around me, making it impossible to draw on magic, making it hard to think, much less remember a spell.

“This will take a sacrifice,” Dad said through me. I pushed at him but couldn’t make him move away.

Crap.

“I understand,” Mikhail said. “Do you understand, Shamus Flynn? To carry me, a price must be paid.”

Roman was shaking Terric awake. No, oh hells, no. They weren’t going to sacrifice Terric for Mikhail’s plans.

Even though I was in the front of my mind, I could not make my body move.

“Get your hands off of him,” I said as he shook Zay awake.

Zay’s eyes rolled in his head; then he blinked several times, as if struggling free of sedation. Terric looked the same.

Shame obviously couldn’t move. He didn’t look terrified as Grimshaw stepped away from the couch and watched them dispassionately. He just looked furious.

“There are many things that you must know,” Dad said through me. “And we have little time to explain it. Allison was correct. Mikhail found a way to heal magic, to bring light and dark magic together again. But in so doing, he caught the attention of Leander and Isabelle. In that one moment when magic was rejoined, Leander and Isabelle opened a gate into life. And Isabelle stepped through.”

“When?” Zay asked.

“Many years ago. She struck swiftly. Possessed quickly. And has been in this world ever since.”

“Who did she possess?” Zay asked.

Dad opened my mouth to answer, but it was Mikhail who spoke.

“Sedra. She tore my beloved’s soul in half and burrowed into her. All these years she has held Sedra trapped. Neither alive nor dead. While Isabelle uses her body and her power.”

“Yes,” Dad said softly. “Sedra.”

Zay’s expression went from shock to horror to anger. He had sworn to follow Sedra’s orders, to treat her word as law in the Authority’s business. How many people must he have Closed at her command? How many must he have killed?

It was not Sedra who had been running the Authority. It was Isabelle—the woman who had been dead for hundreds of years. The woman who, along with her Soul Complement, Leander, had gone insane and killed her way across the world before the Authority broke magic to break them.

When Zay looked at me, his eyes were wide, shocky. “Is this true? Allie, can you tell if he’s telling the truth?”

I nodded. Well, what did you know? Dad was letting me have a little control. “It’s true. Dad thinks it’s true.”

Shame, for perhaps the first time, was so angry, he was completely silent.

“Mikhail can find her,” Dad said. “He carries a small piece of her soul within him.”

“Then find her,” Zay said.

“It is not so easy, guardian of the gate,” Mikhail said. “This disk is nearly empty, and it is all that is keeping my body alive. I will die in this world without a body to possess. My soul will return to death, and Isabelle will go free.”

“I will carry you,” Zay said without hesitation.

Roman made a sound of appreciation. “The old training is still strong.”

“You cannot hold him,” Dad said through me. “He needs a body between life and death. One with a disk to support and connect his soul to flesh. Only magic and technology can make that happen.”

“You possess Allie without a disk,” Terric said, his voice rough, as if he were bearing a heavy load or heavy pain.

“Yes. We are father and daughter, blood of blood. It is a rare but perhaps a more organic possession. There is no blood relative who can support Mikhail here.”

“Then who?” Terric asked.

“Me,” Shame said. “And you’re sure as hell not getting my body unless I get something out of it in exchange.”

“You are in no position to negotiate, Hugh’s son,” Mikhail said. “What is your price?”

“That you fix what I did to Terric.”

“Shame,” Terric breathed.

“Shut up,” Shame said. “If you can put light and dark magic back together, then you can put him back together. Heal the scars I left on him when I tried to kill him. Make it so he can use Death and Blood magic again.”

“Do you think I want that?” Terric asked. “Don’t do this, Shame.”

Mikhail looked at Terric and cast a Sight spell much like the one I’d seen Dr. Fisher use. He peered at it for a long moment, then canceled the spell and slowly shook his head. “I am not a healer, Shamus Flynn. That destiny belongs to a soul much less dark than I. I cannot heal him, though I may be able to ease the pain of his wounds.”

“You’ll take away as much damage as you can.”

“Are you sure you understand what you ask of me? That I will do what is within my power to make it easier for Terric to use Blood and Death magic?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes.”

“No,” Terric and I said at the same time.

“Shame,” I said, “you don’t have to do this. Don’t have to let him possess you. There could be another vessel. Stone held Zay. Maybe we could get Stone to do it.”

“There is no time.” Mikhail opened his hand. I am no expert on the disks, but the disk in his hand was ashy gray and crumbling at the edges, as if simply being in contact with Mikhail’s flesh aged and eroded it.

“Shame,” Terric said. “Do not do this.”

Shame looked over at him, gave him that self-mocking smile. “Tell me you don’t want to be healed.”

“I don’t want to be healed.” Flat. Clear. He meant it.

“Too bad.” He nodded at Mikhail. “Do it.”

“Wait,” I said. Mikhail did not wait. He walked over to Shame. The weight of his footsteps vibrated through the floor as if he were eight feet tall. He was a big man, but he wasn’t a giant. No, each footstep instead seemed heavy from years of his body and soul existing in death, years he spent gathering to him the magic he would need to reenter our world, body and all.

“You said there was a price to pay,” I said. “What price? Who’s paying it?” I tried to move my hand, to think my way through a Hold spell, a Shield spell, but the heavy blanket of stupid was still draped around my mind, dampening my ability to use magic.

“A life for a life,” Roman intoned.

“A death for a life,” Mikhail said, staring into Shame’s eyes, while Shame glared right back at him. “Every moment I live will draw you closer to death. That is the price you will pay.”

What does he mean? I asked Dad. How is Shame going to pay that?

“Hush,” Dad said.

Oh, no. He had not just hushed me with my own mouth.

“Drop the Hold, Grimshaw,” Shame said. “Damned if I’ll do this sitting down.”

“Mikhail?” Roman asked.

He nodded.

Roman wiped his hand in a half circle and canceled the spell. Or at least enough of it that Shame could move.

Shame took a deep breath and stood.

“Don’t,” Terric said.

“Easiest way to take care of everything,” Shame said. “He finds Isabelle, he finds Sedra. I figure Leander will be near Isabelle, right? We deal with them, we solve Mum and Victor’s problems. We end this bloody mess now. Painful, but simple. Just the way I like it.”

Mikhail placed his hand with the disk in the center of Shame’s chest, over the crystal embedded there. “How long will the crystal support me?” he asked Dad.

I, or rather, Dad, answered. “I do not know. This has never been tested. I am unclear how I would possibly re-create this in a lab setting.”

“Will I have hours, days?”

“Perhaps an hour. Perhaps a day. Perhaps no more than five minutes. I dislike guessing when I have no hard evidence.” There was more he wasn’t saying. I could hear it in his thoughts. There was a very good chance this wouldn’t work at all. That it would not only kill Mikhail, but also kill Shame.

“We will need to move quickly,” Mikhail said.

“Yes,” Dad agreed. “The less time you spend in Mr. Flynn’s body, the better for you both.”

“I will touch your mind,” Mikhail said.

“Don’t fuck this up,” Shame said.

Mikhail raised one eyebrow. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

No, I thought to Dad. Don’t let him. Please, Dad, don’t let him kill Shame.

He ignored me.

Mikhail intoned a chant. Dark, the words were made of hard sounds and cutting edges. It made my ears and my head hurt.

He reached out and placed his fingertips in a circle in the center of Shame’s forehead.

Shame’s entire body tensed, his back arching, his eyes going wide, his mouth opening in a silent scream.

He did not scream, but Terric yelled out in pain.

“Stop,” I yelled. “Mikhail, you’ll kill him!”

But Mikhail did not stop. He chanted, short, slippery words that made me think of graves and darkness.

“Let him go!” Terric yelled. “Stop. God, please stop.”

“Death for life,” Mikail said. “Until my revenge is done.” The disk in his hand pressed against the crystal in Shame’s chest and smoked.

Shame rocked up on his toes and arched his back even farther, his arms thrown behind him as if hooks dug deep into his ribs and threatened to pull him off his feet. He inhaled, the smoke from the disk streaming up into his mouth, his nose, his eyes.

Mikhail’s knees gave way, and he slumped forward.

Roman was there, catching him and lowering him to the floor.

Shame collapsed. He fell back onto the couch in a heap. The Hold spell must have broken, because Terric and Zay were both moving again. Terric moved aside and knelt by the couch so Shame could lie down.

“Zay?” Terric looked up, lost, frightened. I think he was going into shock. How much of Shame’s pain had he also endured? How much did he still feel?

Zay was already on his feet, drawing a spell, striding to Roman, who surged up to stand guard above Mikhail’s body, Impact drawn in warning but not yet filled with magic.

Before Zay or Roman could cast, Shame opened his eyes. He pushed away from Terric and stood.

“Enough. Both of you,” he commanded.

Only that was not Shame. That was Mikhail.

Chapter Nineteen

Chills washed over my skin. It was creepy to see Shame take on Mikhail’s body language. He stood with his shoulders too square and moved with an uncomfortable stiffness, somehow looking larger and taller than he was.

Darkness radiated from him. Death radiated from him. And the crystal burned bloodred through his T-shirt.

Terric stood, the look of horror quickly replaced by the blank expression I’d seen Zay use so often.

“Mikhail,” Terric said calmly. “If you hurt him, even death won’t stop me from destroying you.”

Mikhail-Shame smiled, and it was a cold, strange thing to see on Shame. “Soul of his soul, if you are strong enough, he will survive this. You share his price. If you falter, so shall he.”

He turned to Roman. “Open the gate.”

“To where?” Zay asked.

“Isabelle,” Mikhail-Shame said.

“Where is she?” Zay had not let go of the spell in his hand. Neither had Roman. They both looked like they wanted an old-fashioned glyphs-at-thirty-paces duel.

“She is near the well of Life,” Mikhail said. “What began in death will end in life.”

“Multnomah Falls?” I asked.

No one answered. Terric walked up and stood shoulder to shoulder with Zayvion, glaring at Roman.

“Roman,” Mikhail-Shame said, “there is no time.”

Roman, still standing in protection over Mikhail’s body, dropped the spell he had been holding and turned his back on both Zay and Terric.

That took guts.

Terric knelt and placed his hand on Mikhail’s body.

I glanced down and was shocked at how decomposed his body was. Nothing but flesh hanging in stringy lumps from bones. I looked away and put my hand over my mouth and nose to block the smell. I doubted there would be a pulse there for Terric to find but was glad he checked. All we needed was reanimated flesh to deal with.

Roman was already going through the tai chi motions of opening a gate.

Terric stood, caught my look, and shook his head.

Mikhail-Shame looked down at his dead body. There was no expression, no emotion, as he raised his hand, chanted, and pulled enough magic from the networks supplying my dad’s condo that the lights dimmed. He held both hands out toward the body on the floor.

Magic poured out like black water toward the body. Even without holding Sight, I could see the spell wrap the body, obscuring every detail of what had once been Mikhail, devouring flesh and bone alike.

And then the body was gone. Consumed by the spell he’d just cast.

Holy shit.

Terric looked a little startled by that too and took a step away from where the body had been. The magic was gone, leaving behind nothing but ash.

What the hell kind of spell had that been?

An old, forbidden dark spell, Dad provided absently, like he was giving me the tour of a museum, instead of explaining what kind of magic could eat a person’s body down to dust.

“Holy shit,” I whispered.

Terric shot a look at Mikhail-Shame, but he had turned to watch Roman open the gate.

Zayvion glanced at me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded and pushed my hair back behind my ears, my hands cold and shaking. Dad was still in my head, still next to me, but he was not trying to take control. I was more me than him right now. And I planned to keep it that way.

Zay kept an eye on Roman and Mikhail-Shame, a spell caught in each of his hands.

Mikhail-Shame didn’t seem the least bit interested in the smudge of ashes he’d left on the floor where his body had been. He didn’t even look at anything but the gate. Terric couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Mikhail-Shame. I could tell Terric was hurting. His breathing was already labored, as if he were running a marathon. Sharing in the price Shame was paying. Sharing in the pain, the death.

I didn’t know how long they could survive this.

Dad shifted in my mind. It was their risk to take. Shamus took it willingly.

Yeah, well, there hadn’t been a lot of other options. I didn’t think Mikhail was going to take no for an answer.

And I couldn’t help but wonder what Dad’s angle was in all this. He had seemed almost excited for Mikhail to possess Shame. Why?

Roman finished the spell, and the smell of sand and salt filled the room. A speck of black hovered in the air and then spread and opened like shutters, revealing the lush green of the forest beyond the gate. It was a forest. I didn’t know if it was near Multnomah Falls.

Zay nodded and let go of the spells he held in check. When he turned to look at me, I could tell he was impressed at what Roman had done. Then his gaze shifted to Mikhail-Shame. “You first,” he said.

Mikhail-Shame strode through the gate without hesitation.

Terric followed as if dragged by a short leash.

“Now you, Allie,” Zay said.

“Are you coming?”

“I’ll stay to Close the gate.”

“I’ll Close it.” Roman said.

“The police are coming,” Zay said. “Do you really want to be here when they arrive?”

“I won’t be here.”

“If you run,” Zay said, “I will find you.”

“You’d try. Go.” He started tracing a new spell. Sweat glossed his face. He might be good—very good—but he was paying for the magic he had been throwing around, and fatigue showed in his motions.

Zayvion held his hand out for me. “Ready?”

I took his hand. I so didn’t want to do this. The last time I’d stepped through a gate, it had nearly killed me. At least this time, Zay was right there beside me, instead of caught half between a coma and a gargoyle. “Always.”

We held tight and stepped through the gate together.

For a second, for a single heartbeat, I couldn’t breathe. Vertigo made the world slide sideways; light, shape, and distance rushed past me so fast, I sucked in a hard breath—

—just as my foot landed on solid ground.

I stood there, panting. My legs felt like noodles. Crossing through the gate was exhausting.

Not only was it difficult to open a gate exactly where you intended it to open, but it was also exhausting to use. I now understood why it had never taken off as a form of commercial transportation.

Zay tugged on my arm, and I stepped a little farther away from the gate. We were on a trail with trees around us. From the sound and cool wash of water, we were not far from the falls.

Roman had done a hell of a job opening the gate right here on the trail but out of sight of the parking lot and gift shop below. “Wow,” I said quietly.

Zay nodded. “Very.”

Mikhail-Shame and Terric were just a short distance up the trail, waiting for us. There was no one else on the trail, no one I could see at all. It was raining, just a slight sprinkle, and evening was coming on. Both factors may be working in our favor to keep the tourists and locals away.

I took a step and stopped.

Zay hadn’t moved. He was watching the gate. Waiting, I knew, for it to Close, as Roman had said it would.

The gate wavered from the center outward, like a pool rippling beneath a dropped stone. Once the final ripple hit the outside edge, the entire thing began to contract.

And just before it fell completely in on itself, Roman shouldered through, landing in a crouch on the trail behind us, one hand on the ground, the other working the last lines of a glyph.

He looked a little singed, and milky ash clung to the shoulders and sleeves of his coat. He straightened and took in his surroundings. “What are we waiting for?”

He exchanged a look with Zay, then patted his sleeves, sending ash into the wet air. Zay, I could tell, was impressed as hell, but he didn’t let it show.

“Is Isabelle here?” Zay asked Mikhail-Shame.

Mikhail-Shame nodded toward the falls. “She is at the well.” He took a deep breath, maybe scenting her. Maybe the undead could sense the undead better than the living.

“Leander is with her,” he said.

Oh, hell. I could feel my father’s fear slide through my mind before he squelched it.

“We should call for backup,” I said. “Victor or Maeve, or how about everybody?”

Mikhail-Shame looked at me, his strange black eyes burning, his smile a rigor of hatred. I didn’t know how I missed it before, but I was pretty sure Mikhail was not sane.

“Were we to call any other magic user here, they would not arrive in time to help in any manner. This will be done now. At my hand. You will follow me, or you will leave, empty of these memories.”

Roman took a step forward, and Zay stepped in front of me.

“Touch her, you’re dead,” Zay said.

Not helping.

I stood next to Zay. “So we walk in there, open a gate to death, and just expect Isabelle to take your hand and walk back into death with you? I’d like a little more of a plan before I risk my life.” Again, I thought.

“Your daughter questions too much,” Mikhail-Shame said.

And Dad answered. Using my mouth. “One of her less endearing traits from her mother.” I forced my mouth closed.

So not funny, I thought.

“We will enter the chamber that surrounds the well of Life,” Mikhail-Shame said, already walking. “We will find Isabelle and Leander. I do not know why they seek the well, but they will not be expecting our arrival.”

“Don’t you think they’d notice the gate we just stepped through?” I asked.

“They care little for such things. They seek a single goal—to once again be one, and rule magic, all magic for all time.”

Still didn’t answer my question. I tried again.

“Why shouldn’t we wait for backup before we go in there?”

“Because,” he said, “there is no greater strength in this world than the seven of us gathered.”

I had to do a quick head count. There were only five people standing here. Wait—add in the two possessors, and it came to seven.

But we were all injured. Terric looked dazed, following Mikhail-Shame almost blindly. The cut on Zay’s face had swollen so that his eye was almost closed. Mikhail-Shame stood there smiling at me like some kind of undead Greek god come down from Olympus, but pain showed in the gloss of sweat over his face and the fever-bright burn in his eyes. He was burning up, burning out, trying to support Mikhail’s dark soul. Even the glow from the crystal in his chest seemed dimmer.

Roman was still steaming a little from his travel through the gate, and even though he was trying to hide it, I could smell the pain radiating off him. I didn’t know how much the Shackle hurt or hindered him, but I could tell he was not at his best.

I felt like crap on a cracker. The price for throwing so much magic around was starting to catch up to me. I had a neck ache and a shoulder ache, and I felt like someone had gone after my back with a baseball bat.

Even my teeth hurt.

“If we are the greatest strength,” I said, “we’re screwed. We need backup.”

He blinked as if he had not expected me to challenge his assumptions. Then frowned. “You should not underestimate the power and abilities of Soul Complements. I have spent my life . . . and my death . . . studying the power Soul Complements can achieve. Even magic bows to their rule.”

That was what I was worried about. Leander and Isabelle were Soul Complements. More than willing to break magic and make magic kill us.

Terric grunted as if he’d been kicked in the chest.

Mikhail-Shame pressed his palm over the crystal, which dimmed even more, and closed his eyes for a second, swallowing. For a moment, he looked like Shame, just Shame. And he looked like he hurt.

“Ter?” he said softly.

Then he opened his eyes, and he was all Mikhail. The crystal burned a deep ruby again. “We don’t have much time.” He strode off, but not before I saw the blood that coated his palm.

Chapter Twenty

Terric fell into step behind Mikhail-Shame, already breathing harder, even though he’d taken only a few steps.

This was ridiculous. Crazy. They were marching to their death. And for some reason, I was marching right behind them, up the wet trail, toward a wetter waterfall, on a cold, wet spring evening, with an undead egomaniac, a broken Closer, an escaped criminal, my undead father, and my injured lover.

Really, I’d turn around and walk home if it meant I could get a hot bath and a good book.

We hit a switchback in the trail, and two people stepped out of the shadows. They did not know how lucky they were not to get a fireball in the face.

“Allie,” a familiar voice said. “What are you doing out on this fine night?”

I peered at the man. Sid Westerly, the Hound. He wore a bulky jacket and had his hands in his pockets, his hood not doing a lot of good to keep his glasses dry. Jamar Legare was next to him, flannel shirt and turtleneck under a trench coat, a slouch hat and sneakers. Very Malcolm X meets the Pacific Northwest.

“Did you see what happened to Jack?” I asked.

Jamar glanced at Zay, Shame, Terric, and Roman. We were all wearing weapons. Another thing I’d explain to them later.

“They know about Dane,” I said. “They’re here to help me deal with this.” Okay, so that wasn’t all the truth. We were looking for Sedra, but last I knew Dane had helped her get away from Jingo Jingo. It was possible he was with her.

“Dane shot Jack,” Jamar said. “Leg. Bea’s taking him to the hospital. The police haven’t arrived yet.” He paused long enough to let me know he thought that was a little strange.

Hells. The Authority had probably found out about it and canceled the call. Was Bartholomew sending people out this way?

“You know where Dane went?” I asked.

“Up that trail,” Sid said. “He hasn’t come back.”

I was glad they hadn’t followed. Dane would be easy to track out here in the brush. For all that there was still a lot of magic around here and the well, which most people did not know about, open spaces, forested places, simply did not have much magic worked on them. So the magic that was used was easy to spot.

I inhaled and caught a whiff of Dane’s old-vitamin stink.

Mikhail-Shame started walking; Terric, dragging his feet, followed behind him.

“We got it.” I wiped rain off my face. My hand hurt, and my face felt stinging hot, even though it was covered in wet. Fever? Probably.

They both gave me a doubtful look. “If you follow me, I’ll take it as a breech of our contract for finding Dane. Deal was to find and not engage.”

I waited until they both nodded.

“Davy’s on his way,” I said. “Tell him not to follow. I’ll see you all back at the den tonight, okay? And call me if you hear anything about Jack.” I started off, bringing up the rear.

I didn’t look back, but after a few steps, I heard Sid and Jamar head down the trail, talking quietly. I was so glad they didn’t follow. I had seen enough bleeding, broken bodies today and didn’t want to see theirs added to the number.

The trail curved along another switchback.

“Here,” Mikhail-Shame said. His voice was a little thin, a little shaky. The walk, or the strain of the possession, or both, were wearing on him.

He had stopped in front of the hill that rose up and up above us. Didn’t look any different than any other part of the trail. Sword fern, moss, and needles covered the ground; fir and vine maple stretched up to the sky.

“Guardian?” he said.

Both Zay and Roman stepped forward.

Roman stepped back and motioned Zay toward the hill. “They’ve probably changed the locks since I last used it.”

Zay cast a spell. The hillside melted away. There was a very real, very solid door in front of us. Zay cast a second spell, something in the unlocking family, and then pressed his hand against the door for a moment before pushing it inward.

Mikhail-Shame whispered something, a hurried, hissing litany. The breeze and gathering mist in the forest lifted and wrapped around us like a damp cloak of shadows. It was a spell. Some sort of Camouflage. I inhaled, exhaled, smelled forest and stone and the strangely dry scent from beyond the open door but did not smell magic.

Mikhail-Shame strode in first, and we fell into step. I expected a hallway or a room, but instead, a set of wooden stairs led down and down. Light—plain electric with a low enough wattage, they were probably siphoning off of the gift shop and restaurant without making a blip in the meter—poured out along the stairs and in pockets of the walls. It was bright enough to show each stair and to give a general idea of the space.

The walls and ceiling were carved wood, joists and wooden columns supporting the weight of the hill above and around us. It should feel cramped and claustrophobic. But the lights were angled to soak as much warmth into the polished wood as possible and reflect it back, so that it felt like we were descending a beautifully carved and spacious stairway.

The farther down we walked, I noticed glints of light catching on bits of glass worked into the walls and shadows clinging to dark veins of lead and iron. Glyphs, spells, and protections worked into the walls grew like leaves, branches, limbs, spreading through the walls themselves and seeming to shift and sway as if a wind followed us and stirred them.

Six sets of stairs later, I, for one, was breathing hard, and we were at a double door.

Squared-off glyphs ran a line like an ancient language strung across the top of the doors.

Mikhail-Shame cast a spell, pulling the magic from even deeper beneath the ground.

I drew my sword and cleared my mind. I could tell by the heartbeats still at my wrist that everyone else was doing the same.

“Let this end now,” Mikhail-Shame said in quiet reverence, almost a prayer. He placed his hand on the door and pulled it open.

The scent of summer, of magic and flowers and cool night breezes, poured out from beyond the door.

And so did the stink of old vitamins and new blood. Dane was in here.

We walked in, shoulder to shoulder.

The room was easily as large as the ballroom beneath Maeve’s inn. But the floor was inset with dozens of different woods, all polished to a glow, flowing from the lightest white-honey, through amber, then red, and into a deep mahogany black.

I knew this room had been built long before civilization took root here. Knew this ancient place had been kept secret for thousands of years.

And I knew that the Life magic well pulsed just beneath that layer of wood.

“We have been waiting for you, Mikhail,” a woman said.

No, not a woman. Sedra. Or perhaps Isabelle.

She stood in the exact center of the room, wearing a long white gown and a ceremonial robe, covered collar to hem with blood. Behind her, on five wooden tables, were the bodies of five men with torso-sized metal disks laying upon their chests. Dane’s goons. Stabbed, bled. Used, discarded, dead.

What had they died for? What kind of magic took the lives of five men to cast?

Standing next to Sedra, gun in his bloody hand, was Dane.

Sedra was not trapped, not bound in any way. Other than the blood on her gown, I didn’t see a mark on her. She stood with her shoulders back and chin high, her hair loose around her shoulders, the white of the gown making her skin as pale as alabaster. Her blue eyes burned bright.

“Isabelle,” Mikhail-Shame said. “Your game is over now.”

“No, Lord of Death,” she said, “it is you who will be overcome this night.”

Was it really Isabelle? She sounded like Sedra, looked like Sedra. Acted like Sedra. Well, maybe a little more high-handed, but not much.

Look. Dad cast an odd little Sight spell that felt like he’d strapped a pair of goggles over my eyes and adjusted the lens. I suddenly saw Sedra for what she was.

She still looked like Sedra, but in the same space, stretching out from beneath her skin, was another woman. Dark haired, with wide-set eyes and stronger, heavier features, she moved her head slightly. Like a blur of light behind that movement, I saw another face—masculine, hard cut. Leander.

Isabelle, my father said, and Leander. One body, two souls.

Holy shit. How? How could they possess one body? How could they both be possessing Sedra?

Lives were sacrificed, Dad said, and I knew he meant the dead men on the tables.

“Our game has just begun.” Isabelle-Sedra smiled. “Now is our day. Now all magic will belong to us. And the world will fall at our feet.”

She raised her hand. Her sleeve fell away from her wrist. A disk pulsed a pus-colored yellow there, bloody, burned and raw at the edges, as if it had just been implanted in her flesh.

“You,” Isabelle-Sedra said, both a man’s and a woman’s voice somehow coming out of her mouth, “will not stop us!”

Mikhail-Shame lifted his hand and pulled on so much magic from the well, the floor burned with white light.

He threw a twisting gout of raw magic at Isabelle-Sedra.

Terric heaved a wall of magic up out of the floor in front of Mikhail-Shame just as Dane fired his gun.

The explosion of bullets was too loud in the room, but Mikhail-Shame did not fall.

The bullets hit the barrier Terric held and rattled to the ground, useless.

I was so going to make Terric show me how to cast that bulletproof wall when we got out of this. If we got out of this.

Dane traced a spell with his left hand and threw it, not at Terric, but at the walls of the room around us.

Glyphs caught pastel light, melted, shifted, re-formed, and stepped away from the walls, becoming the watercolor people. No, not just watercolor people. The Veiled. At least twelve solid Veiled formed over the top of disks placed around the room, the disks settling into their throats.

What the hell? We’d fought only seven solid Veiled before. We destroyed two. I think Leander killed three or four of them in prison. But there were twelve now—and I did not recognize any of them.

Zay chanted; so did Roman—a similar cadence, but very different spells. They both twisted at the waist and struck the Veiled with streams of magic that followed their hands like a crackling whip.

The Veiled sucked the magic down. Zay nicked his hand on his sword, and Roman sliced his hand with a knife he pulled out of his belt. Blood magic spun glyphs down the line of magic they cast, wrapping and changing the line of magic pouring into the disks at each of the Veiled’s necks into a solid rope. The two Closers stood, back to back, hauling on the magic, hand over hand, pulling the Veiled closer and closer.

I chanted my mantra, clearing my mind, pushing away my fear, fatigue, pain. I could deal with the horror of this later. Magic can’t be cast in high emotional states. And I needed magic to do exactly as I told it to do.

And I was going to tell it to kick the Veiled’s asses.

The mark of magic in my left hand burned warm. Pike had said that mark was a beacon to the dead. Good. Because I wanted their attention.

I opened my hand and held it out in front of me.

A half dozen Veiled moaned, each face turning our way, mouths open, as if craving the beacon of light that poured from my skin.

I began the glyph for Impact.

No, Dad said, Cleanse.

What?

Cleanse. Use dark magic through Cleanse and it will break their connection to the disks.

I don’t know Cleanse.

The Veiled were fast—inhumanly fast. They rushed.

Dad stretched forward in me and took over just my left hand and arm. I let him and got busy casting a Shield with my right.

The final stroke of Cleanse bit hard into my palm. Black fire poured out, striking the three Veiled nearest me.

They screamed. They burned. They fell to the floor in a rush of color and light until they were nothing but ash. The disks clattered and shattered to the floor.

“No!” Isabelle-Leander yelled.

And then there were hands around my throat, hands that pushed me down to the floor and squeezed.

The man on top of me was not a Veiled. He was Leander. Heavy, real, stinking of Blood magic and Death magic and the disks.

But he had just been possessing Sedra. What, could he come and go as he pleased?

He had a disk in his hand and pressed it hard over my throat, leaning straight-armed down on me.

“Child once dead and now alive, I will break you. I will break the magic in your bones and drink down its sweet pulp.”

I couldn’t breathe.

I felt, or heard, Zayvion yell. Heard Terric yell.

And Isabelle-Sedra laugh.

“Do you see what we can do?” Leander asked. “Do you understand? Isabelle and I are not like you. We pay no price to use magic.”

He uttered a hard word, twisting dark and light magic through the technology of the disk. If I’d had the air, I would have screamed. A spell dug into my chest, as hot as a razor, and hooked on to something deep inside me.

Leander lifted up, his hand clutching the disk that was somehow hooked into the spell that was hooked into me. Hooked into my soul.

No! Dad yelled.

Dad grabbed for me. I could feel his ghostly hands as he tried to hold me, keep me in my mind in my body. I grabbed for him too, my mental fingers slipping from his grip.

Leander only smiled. “Magic will do anything we wish. Anything we ask of it. No price. No pain. You are so little, so weak. And now, you are nothing.”

He yanked on the disk, then brought it up to his mouth and pressed his lips against it.

“Break her,” he said, not to me. To magic.

And magic listened.

I screamed. Pain stole away the world, stole away my mind, as Leander pulled me, up and up out of my flesh, out of my bones, until I broke from everything I was—body, mind, life—and stood in front of him, nothing but a naked soul attached to the disk by a thin silver line.

“Less than nothing.” He smiled and traced a glyph with his left hand.

Never finished it.

A bullet sliced through the air and hit him right between the eyes. Who had a gun?

Leander’s hand clenched around the disk just as Dad stood up, my body fully his now, light magic in my right hand, dark magic in my left, and threw a massive Hold spell at him.

The disk fell out of his hand—no, it fell through his hand—and clattered to the floor. As soon as it hit the floor, I could move again.

I was still tied to the disk by the silver string, still outside my body.

“Do. Not,” Dad said through me. “You will never have her. Not so long as I still breathe.” Yes, it was strange to hear my own voice from the outside. It was strange to glance at me and see me looking more like him than I ever have—his anger twisting my face, cloaking my eyes, squaring my shoulders. Strange to see the magic he pulled through my body and used to Refresh the Hold spell so Leander’s body—his solid, dying form—was held captive.

I tried to run back to my body. To take it for myself. But the silver string tied to the disk would not let me move.

“Allison,” my father said. “Return to me.”

I was trying. It wasn’t working.

I looked around the room for something I could use to cut the silver string.

And saw Zayvion, Dane’s gun smoking in his hand, striding over to me.

If Zay was walking over here, who was taking care of Isabelle-Sedra? I looked past him and saw Sedra, caught in the cage work of magic Mikhail-Shame was weaving around her. She broke the spells he threw almost as fast as he could throw them. The spells were steady and strong, but Shame’s body shook uncontrollably, the glow from the crystal the color of watered-down blood. He was drenched in sweat, too pale. Much too pale.

Terric stood beside him, one fist clenched on his shoulder. I could see the wide band of magic Terric fed to Shame, to Mikhail, and I could see the raw, black pain that he Proxied for Mikhail to use that magic through Shame.

Dane was slumped unconscious on the ground near Sedra.

Roman had his hands full with the remaining Veiled. The ropes he and Zay had cast were bound around the hands of the nine Veiled still standing, and Roman was chanting, his words forcing the Veiled to move as if they were underwater, but not doing enough to stop them completely.

And then Zayvion was in front of me, of my spirit, but looking at my body.

“What have you done to her?” He raised the gun and pointed at my body—at me—at my father.

“Leander tied her to the disk. Break the bond, and she will return to her body. Now, before Leander’s spirit escapes into Sedra again.”

Dad cast another Refresh spell and wove a second powerful Hold around Leander. He was using a shitload of magic. I was going to pay for that for weeks.

Zay turned, close enough to me now that I could touch him. He raised his hand to cast Sight, and I drew my fingers over his chest, then up to his face.

He closed his eyes, his body tensing at my caress. “Allie,” he breathed.

I pressed my lips against his and knew I could fall into him forever. Become one with him, just as Leander had become one with Isabelle.

“Break her free!” Dad yelled.

Zay opened his eyes and took a step back. Just far enough that I could not reach him. Then he cast End. It was an old spell. It took a lot of magic and finesse. Even exhausted and hurt, Zay had both. The disk exploded, breaking the spell and emptying the disk of magic.

I was free. I could move anywhere, be anywhere, at no more than a thought.

“Allie,” Zay said.

“Allison,” my father said, “return to me.” He pushed Influence behind his words. But I was just a spirit. His words could not bind me.

I wanted Zayvion. I wanted to be with him, to be one soul.

I ached for him. Needed him. I took a step closer. Heard his breath hitch in anticipation of my touch.

Then I heard Leander yell.

Zay’s gaze slipped past me and fixed on Leander. And I knew what I had to do. Kill Leander. To do that, I would need my body. I turned and ran, not stopping until I fell into my body.

Heat, air, cold, pain. I inhaled, which hurt, exhaled, which hurt. The Hold spell broke, Dad’s concentration broke, the moment I reentered my flesh. His control over my body was broken too. I was me. Mostly just me again.

Leander’s spirit stood up and away from the body that fell to the floor and dissolved into ash. He had been possessing a solid Veiled.

What. The. Fuck.

From across the room, Isabelle cast a spell. Leander caught it in his hands and channeled it at Zay.

“Zay, no!” I yelled.

Magic cast by Soul Complements breaks all the rules. Leander and Isabelle had just proved that.

And the spell they threw at Zayvion was Death.

No time for Disbursements, no time for thinking. I cast Shield around Zayvion and reached out to him with heart and soul.

As he did the same.

Our magic blended, joined, locking together like fingers sliding between one another, like hands clasping. Our minds, our souls, rushed together in a flash, and I moaned from the pleasure of it. I bit my lip, tasted his mouth, even though we were not physically touching, felt the stroke of his thoughts against mine, within mine, and knew he felt the same sensations, the same luxurious pleasures that I felt.

Leander’s spell exploded against our Shield. I cast Deflect, and Zayvion worked some monster version of End that shifted as it wrapped through the Deflect spell. It shot through Leander, following the magic he had been channeling, leaped and arced a burning line that pierced Isabelle-Sedra’s heart.

She screamed. Leander rushed to her side, then pressed forward until they were occupying the same space, the same body.

Zay and I strode across the room, our steps in rhythm, our breathing in rhythm, our hearts and minds as one.

Two bodies, one soul, magic at our fingertips, at our feet. Soul Complements.

We threw magic—a spell that had no name, raw, pure, channeling our desire, our intent at the remaining Veiled, vaporizing them. Disks rained to the ground.

Then we threw the same magic at Isabelle-Sedra.

Mikhail-Shame and Terric strode toward Isabelle-Sedra. Mikhail-Shame lifted a Blood blade, dripping ruby with Shame’s blood and Terric’s blood.

“You will harm her no more!” He plunged the blade into Isabelle-Sedra’s heart.

She could not withstand the magic Zay and I cast, could not withstand the Blood magic Mikhail-Shame and Terric wielded, could not withstand the knife that severed the cords of her life.

She fell, limp, empty, dead.

I looked for Leander’s and Isabelle’s souls. Surely it couldn’t be that easy.

Mikhail-Shame knelt next to Sedra. He pulled her up onto his lap, cradling her, his head bent in sorrow. Terric stood above him, his knees locked so he did not pass out.

Roman slumped against the wall and closed his eyes, exhausted.

Everything was silent, except for our ragged, rushed breaths.

Allison, Dad said, his voice coming from far away. You must return to your own body.

What did he mean? I was in my body.

Some. But you are too much in Zayvion’s body also. You must return, here.

And with that last word, he pulled. Hard.

The last word had been a spell. I fell away from Zayvion, torn back too fast, pieces of me falling free from pieces of Zay, until I was completely in my own body.

Alone.

Except for my father. Who stood in the center of my mind, blocking me from reaching back out to be with Zay. You cannot be that close to him. Insanity will follow. Just like Leander and Isabelle. When Soul Complements are too close, sanity is the price they pay.

Let go of me, I demanded.

And to my shock, he did.

I looked at Zay, who now stood in front of me, one hand with the gun on my hip, the other on the side of my face, searching my eyes as if he had lost something he wanted deep inside of me.

Allison, Dad said, Dane!

I saw the movement—fast. Dane pulling up on his feet, hands already shaping magic into a spell, eyes glowing with hatred. Isabelle and Leander’s hatred. Possessed by them. They could do that? Dane didn’t have a disk in him.

Then I didn’t have time to question. He was almost done with the spell, too fast, too late for me to cast a spell to Block.

I grabbed the gun out of Zayvion’s hand. Aimed.

Magic is fast.

Bullets are faster.

I squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit Dane in the chest. Knocked him onto his back.

Zayvion pivoted out of my arms; Roman pushed away from the wall.

I was out of bullets.

But this time, I saw Isabelle and Leander lift out of Dane’s dead body, a shadow man and woman burning bright.

Zay, Roman, and I threw everything we had left at them.

Leander and Isabelle drew magic up through the floor—twisted it and aimed it back at the well. The magic cut through the ground and blew into the well like a bomb.

An earthquake shook the room and the entire hillside.

Mikhail-Shame was on his feet, drawing spell after spell to absorb the impact. It felt like minutes, but I think it was only seconds. Then the shaking stopped and everything was quiet again.

Leander and Isabelle were gone. I was pretty sure they weren’t dead.

Fuck it all.

Dane was dead. Sedra was dead. Roman, Zay, Terric, and I were still alive, if exhausted. Mikhail-Shame let his hands drop to his sides.

“Hell of a thing,” he said hoarsely, much more Shame than Mikhail.

“Shame?” Terric reached for him.

Shame’s eyes rolled back in his head.

Terric managed to keep him from hitting his head, but he stumbled to the floor with him. It was clear he was just as exhausted as Shame.

I walked over toward them, shaky on my feet, but hey, I was moving. Zay followed, step in step.

“He can’t do this . . . can’t hold on any longer.” Terric’s voice was just as rough as Shame’s. A tear tracked the sweat down his face. “Leave him alone. Let go of him.”

He was talking to Mikhail. But I didn’t know if Mikhail would listen.

“It’s over, Mikhail,” I said, putting Influence behind it. Ow. I was going to be sick in bed for a month after this. “We’ve forced Leander and Isabelle out of Sedra, as you wanted. Leave Shame’s body. Now.”

Shame exhaled and did not inhale again.

Terric shook his head and mouthed: “No, no, no,” over and over again, even though no sound came out.

“Mikhail,” Zayvion said. “This is no longer your world. Shame cannot pay the price for your life any longer. Let him go, or I will kill you myself.”

Shame inhaled, his body arching as if it could not fill with enough air fast enough. As he exhaled, Mikhail stepped out of his body and Shame went limp.

I could see Mikhail. Even without Sight. And next to him stood the faintest outline of a woman. Of Sedra. She smiled, and even though she was only a fragment of her true soul, there was more kindness and humanity in her eyes than I’d ever seen when Isabelle had possessed her.

“There is one promise I must fulfill.” Mikhail bent and pressed his hand on Terric’s head. He looked like he was blessing him or comforting him. “I do not have the power to heal,” he said. “But this I can do.” He said a string of words, a litany, a poem. Terric stiffened; then his shoulders slumped, and all the tension drained out of his body.

Shame seemed to relax too, his breathing steadying. Mikhail removed his hand, and Terric placed his palm over the crystal in Shame’s chest and closed his eyes, a look of peace on his face. The crystal grew brighter at Terric’s touch.

“Open the gate, Guardian,” Mikhail said, his voice that of a ghost on the wind.

Zay glanced at Roman, who was already drawing a gate. His arms were bloody, his face bruised. He calmly cast the glyph for Gate and guided the magic from the well to flow into it.

The magic felt wrong—hot and strange, almost as if it were contaminated—but the sensation was gone as soon as I felt it. I had been through so much, used so much, hurt so much, my perception of magic was probably way off base.

A gate opened into death.

Mikhail, his arm around Sedra, stepped through the gate. But just before the gate closed, he said, “This war is not over, Daniel Beckstrom. Not so long as Leander and Isabelle walk in life.”

Roman spoke a word, and the gate closed in a flash of light.

I blinked to clear my eyes. Roman was gone.

“Fuck,” Zayvion said, obviously realizing the same thing.

The room was a mess. Dead people on tables, Dane and Sedra dead on the floor, their blood channeled by and soaking into the glyphs carved into the floor.

I looked over at Shame. He wasn’t moving. Terric still had his hand over his chest, blood seeping out from between his fingers.

“We need a doctor,” I said, my voice sounding a long way away. My ears were shot. Too many explosions.

Zay stuck two fingers into his pocket. It looked like the other fingers of his hand weren’t moving. He pulled out his phone.

Before he could dial, the door opened.

I spun, a spell at the ready.

“Jesus Christ,” Hayden’s voice boomed out. “What the hell happened?”

Behind Hayden were Dr. Fisher, Sunny, and two men in black suits and sunglasses whom I’d never seen before but who looked like they’d fit in with the Secret Service.

Bartholomew’s men, Dad said.

“Shame’s hurt,” I said, or I tried to say. All the magic I’d been using, all the magic Dad had been using, was starting to stack up. My ears rang.

Through a tunnel of fuzzy black, I saw Dr. Fisher rush to Shame and Terric; then Hayden was in front of me. “What the hell is going on?” He frowned. “Allie?” His voice suddenly seemed a million miles away. Then, softly, just before everything went black. “Dr. Fisher, she’s bleeding. Badly.”

Chapter Twenty-one

I remember hearing voices: Hayden, Sunny, Dr. Fisher, Zay. I remember more voices, and eventually someone asking me if I could stand. I thought I could, and I did, though someone had to help me stay on my feet by putting an arm around me.

There were stairs, and cold air, and a car. I think I slept in the car, though I was probably asleep before then.

I know I woke in my apartment. In my own bed. With Zayvion lying next to me.

He was asleep, breathing deep and evenly. From the look of the cut on his face, we’d been here for at least a day. Maybe more. I slid off the bottom of the bed, not wanting to wake him, and took a shower.

I hurt, but it was the aching pain of the early stages of recovery instead of the sharp hurt of fresh wounds. I dried off, wrapped the towel around me, and looked into the mirror.

I looked like me. A little tired, a little bruised. Dad darkened my eyes. I knew he was still with me.

Do you know what happened? I asked him as I brushed my teeth.

Members of the Authority took all of you from the well. They dealt with the bodies. You passed out after that, and I was unable to stay conscious. He sounded disappointed about that.

I spit out toothpaste, thinking it over. Wondered if Shame was okay, if Terric was okay. Wondered if Zayvion and I were okay.

At the thought of Zay, I could suddenly feel him as if he were standing behind me. No, not behind me, around me, as if we were one person, not two. He was sleeping, restless, worried. If I concentrated, I thought I could see what he dreamed.

Allison, Dad said, his words pulling me away, pulling me back to myself and centering me in my own mind. You must not go to him that way. Two bodies, two minds. If you become too much of him, that road will only bring you insanity and sorrow.

I didn’t want to listen to my dad. But I knew he was right. I’d seen Chase and Greyson die trying to be one person instead of two. I’d seen what it did to Leander and Isabelle—how their insanity had broken magic. I did not want to become the very thing I fought to protect myself and others from.

Do you know what day it is? I asked.

No, he said. And then he said no more.

I left the bathroom and got dressed in the slouchiest clothing I owned—a T-shirt, hoodie, and sweatpants. Zay slept through me getting dressed. I was pretty sure it was morning, but I couldn’t see the alarm clock from there.

I snuck out into my living room.

And stopped dead.

Sunny was sitting on my couch, dark hair tipped with hot pink and braided behind her ears, jeans, a couple layers of T-shirts, and earbuds on, looking through a magazine.

I walked over into her line of vision.

She glanced up. Nodded and turned off her music, pulling out the earbuds. “Didn’t hear you get up. You know what day it is?”

I shook my head. “Is it a day that starts with coffee?”

She smiled. “I didn’t make any. Didn’t want to intrude. It’s Tuesday.”

I walked over to my curtains and pulled them open. Nice blue-sky day out there. Definitely morning. The gold glow of the sun brimmed at the lip of rooftops but didn’t quite spill over into the shadows of the streets below yet.

“So you’re here because we were unconscious for two days?” I wanted coffee but didn’t feel like going through the trouble of brewing it. Maybe I’d find a way to go down to Get Mugged. I wished Grant delivered.

“Yeah, partly. Dr. Fisher thought you’d be awake sometime today. But I’m mostly here because Bartholomew wanted someone keeping an eye on both of you.”

“And you volunteered?”

She didn’t say anything, so I glanced over at her.

“Sure, we can go with that,” she said.

I smiled and sat in the chair by the window. “So Bartholomew’s calling the shots now?”

“He deposed Victor.”

“What?”

“The trial; do you remember there was a trial going on?” When I nodded, she continued. “He wanted Victor Closed, but Melba—she’s a lawyer—proved to Bartholomew that Victor was not the sole person responsible for what has been happening lately. And since you guys took care of two of the three prisoners and . . . well, that thing with Sedra . . .” She shook her head. “Terric said she was possessed by Isabelle. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Bartholomew used Truth on him to find out what happened. Anyway, Victor was removed as the Voice of Faith magic.”

“Was he Closed?”

“No. But I think Bartholomew is going to talk to you and Zayvion too. About everything.”

“And Maeve?”

“She’s still Voice of Blood magic. Don’t know who’s going to replace Victor, though.” Her phone rang, and she glanced at it. “So I have another thing to get to. Are you okay here? Need anything?”

“I’m good. Do you know if I need to report to Bartholomew or check in or something?”

She stood and scooped up her messenger bag off of the couch, texting on her phone as she walked to the door. “Don’t know. But they have your phone, and Zay’s. They’ll call if they want something. I’ll let them know you’re awake.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Sure. Oh, and Davy Silvers came by last night and stayed for a little bit. Said he’d check in with me tonight. About you, I mean,” she added. But her blush told me she’d gotten it right the first time. She liked Davy, and it looked like he might feel the same way.

“Sounds good,” I said without smiling.

“Your phone rang a few times. I let the machine take messages. I wrote my number and left it by your phone if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” I said again.

“No problem. See you later.” She unlocked the door and was gone.

“Everything okay?” Zay asked from the bedroom. His voice was a little hoarse. I could tell he was tired still, but hungry. I could tell he knew I was tired too and really wanted Get Mugged coffee.

Dad did that thing in my head again, anchoring me into myself. I didn’t like to admit how much it helped.

“Sunny just left,” I said. “I want scones.”

I heard the bedsprings squeak as Zay got up. He grunted, his ribs and back stiff. I tried not to focus on his pain, and it faded a little from my awareness.

“Give me a second.”

The bathroom door closed and the shower turned on. I thought about getting up and checking phone messages but didn’t want to move. So instead I stared out at the street.

It took Zayvion only a minute to shower. As soon as the water turned off, I found my shoes, a hat to put over my wet hair, and my jacket.

I felt Zay approach the living room like a fire coming near. I tried to think of other things, tried not to wish his arms were around me, tried not to want to be one with him, soul to soul.

He was doing the same. It worked. Mostly.

“Morning,” I said.

Zayvion looked a little better than the last time I’d seen him awake. His eye wasn’t swollen. The bandage on his face had been replaced with stitches and a smaller bandage. The three fingers of his right hand were taped together. I didn’t think his ribs were wrapped.

“Morning,” he said. “Scones?”

“I’m starving.”

He stepped up to me, and I wrapped my arms around him. He held me close, but we did not kiss—were both afraid to be that close, that intimate.

It was a strange, uncomfortable feeling, knowing being with the one you loved could do him harm. We let go of each other at the same time and walked to the door, no longer touching.

“Any news about Shame?” Zay asked as we headed down the stairs.

“Sunny didn’t say anything. We could call Terric.”

Zay thought about it for a half flight of stairs or so. “After coffee. I don’t want to deal with anything until I’ve had caffeine.”

He sounded like me. I tried not to let it worry me. We got in the car, and Zay started driving. I realized I hadn’t told him I wanted to go to Get Mugged.

“So where?” I asked.

“Get Mugged, right?” He flicked on the blinker and turned into traffic.

“Did you read my mind?”

He looked over at me. Must have realized I was serious. He smiled. “No. You always want to go to Get Mugged for breakfast. And you sleep talk about Grant’s scones.”

“Do not.”

“Yes,” he said, “you do. What are you so worried about?”

“Dad said . . . back there, when we were fighting Leander and Isabelle . . . when he pulled me out of my body . . . he said if I was too close to you, we’d be insane. Like Chase and Greyson. Like Leander and Isabelle.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I didn’t want to get back in my own body.”

“Why?”

I thought about it. “I wanted to be a part of you.”

“Is that a problem?”

“It is when I want it more than I want to live. More than I want to be me.” Scared the hell out of me when I said it that way. I’d spent all my life trying to be myself and not something someone wanted me to be.

He didn’t say anything. Finally, “Do you still feel that way?”

“No.” It was not quite the full truth nor yet a lie. He probably felt my indecision. But neither of us commented on it.

We pulled up to Get Mugged, and Zay parked a little way up the street. He turned off the car and twisted in the seat so he could see me.

“When you crossed into death, we joined there. Do you remember?”

I nodded. He had fallen into me, and I had not wanted to let him go.

“Do you remember what happened?”

“You pulled away. You broke our connection.” He had been furious then, angry that I stepped into death to save him, angry that I’d given up my small magic to Mikhail.

He nodded. “I broke our connection. Not because I wanted to. Because I knew we would not survive. Because I knew we needed to be ourselves, two people, not one. Back at the Life well, when you were not in your body, why didn’t you just stay with me?”

“I couldn’t.”

“You could have possessed me just as your dad possesses you, just as Leander and Isabelle possessed Sedra.”

“I knew it would destroy us.”

“And so you chose life. You reentered your own body. And we survived.”

“Yes.”

He took my hand in his, and a shock of heat and need rolled through me. His emotions and my emotions buffeted and swirled and finally drew apart.

“One of us will always be strong enough,” he said. “That is how I know we are going to be fine. We won’t turn into Greyson and Chase. We won’t turn into Leander and Isabelle. So long as we can deny that one desire, we can have everything else.” He squeezed my hand gently.

“Nothing without a price to pay,” I said.

“Yes. We can use magic together, can live and love together, and all we have to do is stay out of each other’s minds. Magic is worth that. Love is worth that. We are strong enough.”

“Don’t you think Chase thought that too?”

Sharp sorrow rolled through him. He let go of my hand, leaned his head against the driver’s door window. “Do you want to end this? End us?” Flat, calm. But I could feel how angry he was.

I looked away from him and dragged my fingers back along my temples, tucking my hair behind my ears. “I don’t want it to end.” That was the truth. And it was just as true that I knew the possibility, the probability, of us having to walk away, stay away, was very real. “Can we finish talking about this after a cup of coffee?” I asked.

He exhaled a breath he’d been holding, and I felt his tension as if it were my own.

“How about after a pot of coffee?” he said.

“And a dozen scones.” I looked at him and smiled, which kindled a smile from him too. We strolled down to Get Mugged, and I took Zayvion’s hand. Yes, because I liked touching the man, and also to prove to myself that I could touch him and not get lost in the sensation.

His left hand was warm and calloused across the palm from weapons and work. It felt right to touch him, to hold him. And I didn’t feel the immediate desire to abandon my own mind for his.

So far, so good.

Get Mugged was busy. Jula and Grant worked behind the counter, while another employee—Ryan—bused tables. There was a table open at the back corner of the shop.

“A large black, okay?” I said to Zay. “And whatever scone he has left?”

He nodded.

I walked off to claim our table. For all that it was noisy, busy, crowded, I couldn’t help but smile. I loved this place. Sitting here felt more like home than my own home.

It didn’t take Zay long to order, and he came over to the table with two large coffees and a plate piled with a half dozen baked goods.

“Oh, what did you do?” I asked, taking the coffee cup in both hands but keeping my eye on the goodies.

“You said a dozen scones. Plus, I’m hungry. There’s two omelets headed this way too. With cheese.”

I grinned. “Keep this up, and neither of us is ever going to cook breakfast again.”

“That’s pretty much my evil plan.” The table was big enough for four. He took the chair next to me so he could keep an eye on the shop and the door.

Which was probably good. The only thing I was keeping my eye on was the scones, coffee cake, and berry crumbles on that plate.

I lost a little time to baked-goods bliss and washed it all down with hot coffee. Got a refill too from Ryan, who also delivered the omelets.

I am not ashamed to admit that I ate every scrap of cheese-slathered egg on that plate. Zay finished his before I did.

I don’t know how much we’d eaten in the last few days, but I was sure we’d skipped a meal or two, and using magic always made me hungry.

I sipped the last of my coffee and finally looked around me again. The shop had emptied out a bit; a few tables had different people sitting at them. I shook my head. If someone had wanted to kill me just now, I wouldn’t have seen them coming if they had been driving a tank.

However, I did notice Terric when he walked through the doors. He paused, held the door open, and Shame walked through behind him.

Shame looked like he hurt. He wore a black beanie and a black peacoat—Terric’s, I thought—buttoned up to his chin against the mild spring morning. Black fingerless gloves, blue jeans, and black boots. Pretty standard Flynn wardrobe. But he waited for Terric to let go of the door, and walked beside him, step for step, slowly, across the room, Terric’s hand under his elbow.

Very much not standard Flynn behavior.

My concern must have showed on my face. Halfway across the room he gave me a crooked grin, and once he reached the table, he sat—carefully—in an empty chair. “Morning, loves. Save me a crumb or two?”

“Shame,” Zay said, worry thick in his voice. “Want some coffee?”

“You are a gem, my friend.”

Zay got up and walked over to the counter, exchanging a look with Terric.

Terric sat in the other chair and shifted it so he could see the majority of the shop.

“How are you?” I blurted out. “How are you both? Are you sure you should be here? I mean, shouldn’t you be taking it easy?”

“Whoa. How much coffee have you had today, Beckstrom?” Shame asked.

“We’re good,” Terric said. “Still not one hundred percent.”

“Speak for yourself,” Shame said.

“I’m speaking for both of us. Dr. Fisher had a specialist come in and look at us. Look at Shame.”

Shame sighed and drummed his fingers lightly on the table.

“He’s lucky he’s alive,” Terric said.

“Correction,” Shame said. “I am always lucky.”

Zay was back with two cups of coffee. He put both down on the table and took his seat again.

“How are you really?” Zay asked.

Shame glanced up, stared at Zay for a long moment, then looked away. “I’ve been better. Had to get away. From the doctors and tests and . . . you know how Mum can be.”

Terric exhaled and leaned back in his chair, taking his coffee cup with him.

“So you’re supposed to be in bed?” Zay asked.

He looked back at Zay. Smiled. “Maybe.”

I glanced over at Terric. “You snuck him out of his hospital bed?”

Terric shrugged. “He was going anyway. I didn’t want him to drive. We wanted to see you. Both of you. Have you heard that Victor was removed as the Voice of Faith?”

“What? No.” Zay said.

“Sunny mentioned it,” I said.

Terric leaned in a little so he could talk quieter. None of us threw a Mute spell. I don’t think all of us together could muster the energy for it.

“Melba kept him from being Closed. She also kept Maeve from being replaced. Bartholomew was going to do a clean wipe—get rid of everyone in the Authority in a place of responsibility and replace them with his men. Bringing in the prisoners and tracking down Sedra did a hell of a lot to change his mind. For now.

“He wants to see you. Both of you. He’ll want your sides of the story. He’s . . . thorough.”

Zay scowled. “The last thing we need is less experienced people in charge. Who does he think can step into Victor’s shoes?”

“I don’t know,” Terric said.

“Not just Victor.” Shame was holding his coffee between his palms but hadn’t taken a drink yet. “We’re down four out of five. Liddy, your da, and Sedra. Only Voice who hasn’t been killed or removed is Mum.”

No one said anything for a minute. With those odds, it might have been better for Maeve to step down. Before she was killed.

“But we know Isabelle was behind all that now,” I said. “Whether directly or indirectly. And we took care of her,” I said.

“No,” Shame said. “We got rid of the body and bit of soul she’d held on to all these years. No one’s come out and said it, but we’re in worse shape now than before—Leander and Isabelle have found each other and are loose, likely in the city. It’s only a matter of time before they possess another body.” Here his voice faded, and he frowned, as if bad memories rolled behind his eyes.

Terric touched his arm. The contact seemed to bring him back to himself.

“What was I saying? I swear I have holes in my head today.”

I looked over at Terric, who gave me a steady gaze. Shame was not nearly as recovered as he looked.

“You were telling us Leander and Isabelle are still out there,” Zay said. “And that we’re going to hunt them down and kill them.”

Shame grinned. “Don’t think I got that far, but yes. That’s where I was going with it.”

“Do we have any leads?” Zay asked.

Terric shook his head.

My phone rang. I had forgotten I had it on.

“Beckstrom.”

“Allie? This is Kevin. I’ve been trying to call you all night.”

“What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

“Violet is having the baby.”

“What? Now? Which hospital? Where?”

“We’re at Emanuel, maternity ward. The doctors say any minute now.”

“I’ll be right there.” I hung up, shoved my phone in my pocket, and stood. “I have to go now.”

All three men stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

“Violet’s having the baby!”

“And?” Shame asked.

“I promised I’d be there. Zay, can you drive me, or give me your keys? God, I haven’t even bought the baby a gift. Should I bring something? Can we stop off at a store? Maybe Nola knows what I should bring.”

I dug in my pocket for my phone, while Zayvion got on his feet.

Shame and Terric stayed at the table. “Good luck with that,” Shame said, nodding toward me.

“We’ll talk,” Zay said. He walked around to Shame and gently placed his hand on his shoulder. Shame tipped a slight smile up at him.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

“Damn well better not.” Zay gave him a stern look, then shifted it to Terric.

“I got him,” Terric said softly.

Shame just sighed. “I got myself, thank you.”

I was already dialing Nola’s number. Zay took my elbow, and we started walking.

“Nola?” We were already across the shop by the time she answered.

“Allie? I’ve been trying to call you. Where have you been?”

“Violet’s having the baby.”

“Now?” She sounded as excited as I was.

“I didn’t buy her anything. I was going to go get a blanket or a card or something, but I ran out of time.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll meet you there. Which hospital?”

“Emanuel.”

“See you in a few minutes.” She hung up.

Zay still had ahold of my elbow. We were out of the shop now and walking up the sidewalk to the car. “Should I stop by the apartment? Maybe I should get a change of clothes? Bring her coffee? We should have bought her scones.”

“Allie,” Zay said, opening the door of the car for me. “Get in.”

I got in the car, and then Zay was there too. He did not drive nearly fast enough, something that I pointed out to him. Repeatedly.

“Balloons,” I said. “No, flowers. I should have brought her flowers. God, Zay, I’m a horrible friend.”

“You,” he said, maneuvering the car into a parking space at the hospital. “Are hilarious. Calm down. It’s just a baby.”

“It is not just a baby. This is my sibling being born.”

Zay flashed me a quick grin. “Babies are born every day.”

“Not this baby.” I got out of the car and started off toward the door. I did not care if Zayvion followed me or not.

I crossed the lobby, found a receptionist, who directed me to an elevator. I walked to the elevator and pressed the button. It was the fastest way to get to the maternity ward. I was going to take it.

I felt Zayvion as he approached; the heat of his emotions—mostly just amusement—washed over me.

“Shut up,” I said.

“Wouldn’t dream of saying anything.”

The elevator door slid open. I stood there, staring at it.

“Going to step in?”

“Working on it.”

Zay hooked his arm around my waist and stepped in with me. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, chanting my Miss Mary Mack mantra to stay calm.

Zay grunted once. “It really is hell, isn’t it?”

“What?” I gritted.

“This . . . claustrophobia.”

“Stop breathing all the air.”

Zay pressed the button for the floor, and I didn’t open my eyes until the elevator pinged.

I was out of the elevator in a flash, almost running over an elderly man who was waiting to enter.

“Allie.” Zay pointed. “That way.”

I turned and finally took stock of my surroundings. Lots of plants huddled in corners to take the edges off of the area. The walls were a soft buttercream yellow, and the carpet was a blend of gray and blue.

Zay stood there, his hands in his pockets, watching me. No, smiling at me.

“Don’t want to hear it,” I muttered.

“I’m not saying it.”

We walked down the hall, through a set of doors, and checked with the nurses behind the station. “Has Mrs. Beckstrom been moved up here yet?” I asked.

The nurse checked her computer. “Yes. She’s just been brought up. It’s down the hall, second to last room on the right.”

Zay caught my hand and walked with me. He practically radiated calm, and by the time we made it to the end of the hall, I was feeling a lot less stress and worry.

I knocked on the door softly.

The door opened. Kevin, who looked tired but also surprisingly happy, smiled. “Come on in. They’re both here.”

I walked in.

Violet looked . . . I don’t know. Glowing. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she had her glasses on. In her arms was a little bundle of blankets.

I stood there for a dreamlike minute, wanting my feet to take me forward but unable to move.

And in my mind, my dad lifted from his silence to stand with me, to look out through my eyes as I looked. Only I was looking at my sibling.

My father was looking at his child.

“Hey,” Violet said quietly. “Come on over and meet your little brother.”

A son, my dad breathed in my mind.

I walked over to her bed. “How are you feeling?” I asked.

“A lot better now,” she said. “Tired, though. He took a while to get here. Already willful. Just like his father.”

She tipped the bundle of blankets, and I looked down at the little round face of my baby brother.

“Do you want to hold him?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to do it wrong.”

“Nonsense.” She lifted him up in her hands. “Arm under his head. Good. That’s right. You’re a natural.”

She transferred the baby into my arms. Memories of holding a child, memories that were not mine, surfaced. Dad’s memories, and along with them, an overwhelming wash of love.

I tucked the baby up close and put my other arm beneath him just in case.

He yawned, which was probably the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

“He’s beautiful,” I said. Or Dad said. We said.

“He looks just like Daniel,” Violet said.

I tried to see my father in that little face, but saw only cute.

“What are you going to name him?” I asked.

“Daniel,” she said. “I think he’d like that.”

From the wave of pride and love, I knew my dad did indeed like that.

Dad pressed against my mind. Please, Allison. Let me, just this once, hold my son.

I shouldn’t. Nothing good ever came from letting my father have his way. But I could feel his love for this baby. And even if he couldn’t love me, I knew that at this moment, before the baby could grow up and become a disappointment to him, he truly loved him.

I slowly stepped away from the front of my mind, letting him fill that space, letting him feel through my hands, see through my eyes.

“He’s amazing,” Dad said through me. “You’re amazing.” He looked up at Violet, and she smiled.

“Thank you. Do you want to stay a while?”

“Very much.” Dad held him for several minutes while Zay and Kevin and Violet talked about how long she’d be in the hospital and whether she was taking the baby back to the condo or to Kevin’s.

I didn’t know if anyone had gone to the condo to clean it up after Mikhail had stepped into the world. I wasn’t sure if Kevin knew about it.

“There might need to be some maintenance on the condo,” Dad said through me, picking up on my thoughts. He looked over at Kevin. “The elevator lock was broken. And I think someone may have broken in.”

“How do you know that?” Kevin asked.

“I went by the other day, to pick up a few of my things in storage there. I didn’t see anything missing, but you’ll want to check into it before you take Violet there.”

Kevin gave me a considering look. He could probably tell that wasn’t me talking. He might even be able to tell it was my father.

“I’ll look into it,” he said.

“Good,” Dad said. “I’m trusting you to keep Violet and her son safe, Mr. Cooper.”

Kevin blinked. Surprised. Then he nodded. “She’s in good hands,” he said.

“I know.”

I nudged my dad to move over so I could be in the front of my mind again. Wonder of wonders, he didn’t fight me but let me join him.

There was a knock at the door.

Zayvion opened the door, then stepped aside. Nola and Cody walked into the room, Nola carrying a pretty gift bag with yellow tissue paper sticking out the top, Cody carrying a big bouquet of flowers.

“I hope you don’t mind us stopping by,” Nola said.

“Not at all,” Violet said. “It’s good to see you again, Nola.”

They knew each other? Oh, right. They’d probably met when I was in the coma. I’d spent some time at the hospital before Nola had me moved out to her farmhouse.

“I understand congratulations are in order.” Nola handed Violet the bag. “This is from Allie and me.”

“You didn’t have to. How sweet.” She dug through the tissue and pulled out a tiny little shirt and hat set, and a blanket that I knew was hand knitted. “Oh, this is lovely. Thank you.”

“And flowers,” Cody said. “From me.”

“Thank you,” Violet said.

Cody put the flowers on the counter.

You need to say good-bye, I told Dad.

I could feel him hesitate. Then he lifted the baby to my lips and gave him a kiss on his forehead. “Welcome to the world, little Daniel Beckstrom,” he said. “May your life be long and filled with joy.”

And then Dad let go, and I was me again. I reached out to feel where he was in my head. Nothing. I knew he was there, but he had retreated to a far corner of my mind. I didn’t say anything to him. I didn’t know what to say to someone who had to face the things he could never have: a wife, a child, a life.

Nola, meanwhile, had sidled up to me to peer at the baby. “Aw, he’s such a cutie. Looks a little like you, Allie.”

I grinned. “I think he looks like his mama. Want to hold him?”

Nola held out her hands. “Thought you’d never ask. Is it okay, Violet?”

She nodded. “I have a feeling I’m going to need all the hands I can get with that one.”

“With this little angel?” Nola said. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

Cody stepped over to Nola to look at the baby. He had his hands behind his back, like he was in a museum where he was not allowed to touch the exhibits. He smiled. “Oh,” he said, freeing one hand to make a gesture in the air. “Pretty.”

I knew that sign. Knew it meant he could see magic. I hoped it was just the Hush spell worked into the hospital blanket, a light little thing that helped soothe the baby.

I glanced up at Zay, then walked over to stand next to him.

“You look good with a baby in your arms,” he murmured.

I took his hand, careful with his fingers that were still wrapped in tape.

“Don’t get your hopes up, Jones. I’m not the settling-down type.”

“Want to bet on that?” he asked.

“Sure.” I made a fist; so did he. We pumped three times.

I threw paper. Zayvion threw scissors.

I’d lost. Startled, I looked up at him. “Two out of three?”

Zay grinned. So did I.

Read on for an exciting excerpt from Devon Monk’s first Age of Steam novel,

DEAD IRON

Coming from Roc in July 2011

Cedar had stared straight into the killing eyes of rabid wolves, hungry bears, and charging bull elk, but Mrs. Horace Small had them all topped.

With dirt brown hair piled in a messy bun at the back of her head and a pinch of anger between her eyebrows, the storekeeper’s wife always seemed a half tick from blowing a spring.

“Two dollars,” she repeated, her fist stuck wrist-deep in the fabric at her hip, her jaw jutted out like a bass on a hook.

“Cornmeal, coffee, and a bit of cheese,” Cedar said mildly. He knew better than to let his anger show, especially this close to the full moon, in a store full of townsfolk eager to get their hands on the fresh supplies and gears from the old states. “Might be I’m missing something.” He looked back down at the receipt with Mrs. Small’s tight penmanship. “How again do they add to two dollars?”

He knew math—knew it very well. He’d spent four years back east in the universities and had plans of a teaching life. History and the gentle arts, not the wild metal and steam sciences of the devisers. He’d done his share of tinkering—had a knack for it—but not the restless drive of a true deviser, who couldn’t be left in a room with a bit of rope, metal, and a hammer without putting them all together into some kind of engine or contraption.

No, his needs had been simple: a teacher’s life filled with a wife and a daughter, and his brother, Wil. But that life had been emptied out and scraped clean. Leaving him a changed man.

Leaving him a cursed man.

“It’s written plain enough,” she said. “You do read, Mr. Hunt?”

“The part there that says ‘fee,’ ” Cedar said without looking up. “What fee is that?”

“The rail takes its due. You aren’t part of the railroad, Mr. Hunt. Not a farmer, miner, rancher, or deviser. Not a member of this good community. I’ve never seen you in church. Not one single Sunday the past three years. That fee for the rail is less than all those months’ dues you owe to God.”

“Didn’t know the collection plate took hold to my provisions,” he said with a little more irritation than he’d intended, “and I don’t recall offering my wages to the rail.”

The mood in the general store shifted. The men in the building—the three Madder brothers, dark-haired, dark-eyed, all of them short, bull-shouldered, and strong—were listening in. They’d stopped pawing and chuckling at the new metals and bits in the straw-padded crates and were waiting. Waiting for him to say the wrong thing. Waiting for a fight.

Rose, Mrs. Small’s seventeen-year-old adopted daughter, stepped down off the stool where she’d been dusting. She darted behind Cedar and out the door, silent as a mouse fleeing danger. She had good instincts. He’d always admired that in her.

Mrs. Small lowered her voice and leaned over the counter between them. “You are a dirty drifter, Mr. Hunt. Any man out this far west with no plan of settling down isn’t drifting toward something—he’s trying too hard to drift away from something. The good folk of this town want you to be moving on. You’ve brought enough bad luck down on us. First the Haney stock got drug away by wolves. Then the little Gregor boy goes missing. Trouble like you needs to be moving on your way.”

“Trouble like me?” He tipped his hat down just a bit. “No offense, ma’am, but I took care of the wolf before the Haneys lost the rest of their stock. If I recall, there wasn’t another man out tracking it. And if I’d known about the Gregor boy wandering off, I would have been looking for him too. Animals aren’t the only thing I am capable of hunting.”

This time he did look up. Met her eyes. Watched the fire of her indignation go to ash. It never took much, no more than a glimpse of the thing that lived just beneath his civilized exterior, to end a conversation.

Days like this, he liked it. Liked what his gaze could do. But it was easy to lose his grip, to go from staring a person down to waking up with them dead at his feet. He didn’t want that to happen. Not today.

Not ever again.

Cedar blinked, breaking eye contact with Mrs. Small. He pushed the bloody memories away and gave her a moment, because he knew she’d need one.

He took a moment too. He meant it when he said he’d look for the boy, would have been looking at the first sign of his getting lost. But this town wasn’t made of trusting folk. They’d seen too much hardship to think a stranger would go out of his way to do them any good.

Except for the dandy railman, Mr. Shard LeFel. Word had it that all the town held him in high esteem. Word had it, when he or his man Mr. Shunt walked by, folks fought a powerful need to bow down on their knees.

Cedar hadn’t yet met a man he’d be willing to bow to.

The Madder brothers swaggered up, caulk boots making hollow sounds on the shiplap floor. The brothers worked the silver mine. But breaking rock all day never seemed to satisfy their need to bust their way through a man’s bones every time they crawled out of the hills.

“How I see it,” Cedar said, hitching his words down low, quiet, “I’ve been some benefit to this town, me and my drifter ways. Hunted wolves, mountain lions, and nuisances for ranchers and working folk alike. I’ll be hunting for the lost boy. You can tell the Gregors that when they next stop in.”

He dug in his pocket and pulled out a silver dollar and enough copper to settle the bill. Fee included. Placed the coins on the counter, plus a penny extra. He lifted the lid off the peppermint sticks, and took a candy out of the glass jar.

The silver-filigreed bird perched on the edge of the high window sang one sweet chirp. Its head was the size of a child’s thimble. The gears and burner inside it were so tiny, it chirped once every hour and needed half a dropper of water a day to power it.

Valuable, that whimsy. He wondered where she had come by it. That delicate of a matic, a fine thing of little practical use, never survived this far west for long.

Beautiful things got crushed to dust out in these wilds.

Outside, the steam clock blew the pattern for ten o’clock. The town was mighty proud of that whistle that the blacksmith, Mr. Gregor, had fashioned. He’d put it in the place of a clock tower right over his shop at the north end of town. Not half again as nice as the steam bells back east, it was still Hallelujah’s pride and joy and could be heard clear on the other side of Powder Keg Hill.

“Is Mr. Hunt troubling you, ma’am?” asked Cadoc, the shortest and widest of the Madder brothers.

Cedar picked up the flour with the two smaller bundles stacked on top. He tucked the candy in his left hand and nodded at the brothers, who all wore overalls, tool belts, and long coats loose enough to cover whatever it was they kept stuffed in their pockets. “Just a discussion of good citizenship is all, gentlemen,” he said. “Afternoon.”

He headed out onto the stretch of porch that gave shade in the summer and the chance of shelter against rain and snow in the other seasons.

Small Mercantile and Groceries was set on the corner of Main Street—the only street with real gas lamps in town. The other buildings, thirty or so of them with pitched roofs and walls of milled or plank wood, were laid out in neat rows.

A crowd of people were on the streets this morning, come into town for the new shipment. It brought back his memories of the congested cities back east. Horses, carriages, wagons, and folk walking about added to the clatter of the place, added to the living of the place, and reminded Cedar of things long lost.

Even the ringing of the blacksmith’s hammer coming down from the north reminded him of the civilized life that was once his.

He glanced up the street, his gaze skipping the bakery, butcher shop, and mill, drawn, as it was always drawn, to the clock whistle atop a turret made of iron and wood and tin, sticking up like an iron backbone above the blacksmith’s shop. A coil of copper tubes wrapped through the structure and supported a line of twelve glass jugs, as round as pearls and as big as fisherman’s floats. Water poured downward from the top of the tower and, like sand in an hourglass, filled the glass jugs one at a time, until they spilled over into the next and turned the gears inside the tower toward the next hour.

The town needed a thing to be proud of. Needed a thing more than wool and timber and silver to keep it alive. Needed something beautiful. Needed hope.

Cedar looked past the tower to the mountains that cupped the valley, two ranges of snow and hardship, blocking Hallelujah from easier lands and from the Columbia River to the north. He knew there was enough ground between the town and the rise of the Wallowa Mountains that an airship could land and lash, but he had never once seen a ship venture over these mountain ranges—not even to deliver supplies or drop mail.

Hallelujah was in dire risk of being forgotten by a world that traveled easier roads to brighter skies.

A song piped out from near his elbow, soft and breathy. Cedar looked down.

Rose was on the porch, her back pressed tight against the shingles, one toe of her boot propped on the lower rung of the whitewashed railing. Her head was bent, amber hair catching the gold of the sunlight and falling in a loose braid over one shoulder, hiding much of her profile from him.

Around her neck was a little locket the size and shape of a robin’s egg. It looked to be made of gold and silver, though it might just be the shine of the morning sun. He rarely saw her without that locket around her neck, though he supposed there were days she kept it tucked within her dress.

On the outstretched palm and fingers of her left hand she balanced a small wooden plate that had gears set side-by-side atop it. A tiny tin top with a copper steam valve followed the spokes of the wooden gears and gave off a sour little song that changed with its speed as it followed the height and width of each cog. Rose pulled a gear off the plate and replaced it with another from her apron pocket, sweetening the song.

Clever.

He’d bet she fashioned it herself. She had the look of a young woman with a deviser’s knack—a quick mind and clever, busy fingers. She had practical smarts too, like knowing how to stay away from the back of her mama’s hand.

“Reckon I put your mama in a sour mood, asking her about the Gregor boy,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard when he got himself lost?”

Rose was a pretty thing, tan and pink-cheeked, her blue eyes soft and wide as the sea.

“Last night is all,” she said, stopping the top with her finger and slipping it into her apron pocket. “Didn’t run off, I heard.”

“Didn’t run? Think he flew out the window?”

She tipped a glance out from behind the curtain of her hair and smiled, the corners of her mouth tucking dimples into her cheeks. Those eyes were bright with intelligence, and likely a touch of madness. Folk around town had their opinions of the girl, abandoned when she was a babe. Thought she had too much of the deviser’s knack, too many wild ideas spinning through her head than was proper for a girl. But he’d never seen her be anything but kind and steady in the years he’d been here. Deviser or not, madness or not, she had a good heart; that was certain.

“No, Mr. Hunt,” she said. “I think he got took.”

“Took? That what his folks are saying?”

She shrugged.

“They saying what took him?” Cedar couldn’t think of a night predator brash enough to cross a closed door, and there wasn’t a soul foolish enough to go without a lock or brace in these parts. Maybe the boy wandered when he should have been sleeping.

“Said it was the man.”

“What man?”

“The boogeyman.”

Cedar blinked and went very still. She wasn’t lying. That was clear from the curiosity in her eyes. She’s heard someone say that, someone who meant it. He just hoped whoever had said it didn’t know what they were talking about. “A lady like you doesn’t need to fret about the boogeyman.”

“They say he came in the night,” she said, no longer smiling. “Slick as a shadow. Took Elbert from his bed. Didn’t even leave a wrinkle in the sheets. No one saw him. No one heard him. No one stopped him. Not even his daddy. It’s unnatural.” She nodded and looked him straight in the eyes. “Strange. I think that might be worth a fret or two, don’t you?”

Mr. Gregor was the blacksmith. A big man. A strong man with hair and beard as red and wild as the fire he toiled over. Probably looked like a giant to the eyes of a girl growing up in this town.

A crash from inside clattered out, and Mrs. Small’s holler drifted through the doors. Rose flinched, tucked back down into herself, her hair falling once again to cover her face. He didn’t sense fear from her. No, he sensed frustration. She took a breath and let it out like a filly settling to the chafe of bridal and cinch.

“Don’t worry yourself, Miss Rose,” Cedar said. “You’re safer here in your home than if you hid away in the blacksmith’s pocket.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m of a positive considerence not even the bravest boogeyman would dare cross the temper of your mother.”

Books by Devon Monk

The Allie Beckstrom Series
Magic to the Bone
Magic in the Blood
Magic in the Shadows
Magic on the Storm
Magic at the Gate
Magic on the Hunt

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Teaser chapter