“I would not have thought seeing her injured would be the final straw for a vestrohím,” Leandras muttered.
“Just this one.” Jessica watched Mel and Cedrick embrace. He kissed the top of her head, and they continued their own private moment before Jessica glanced up at Leandras. He was smirking at her. “Cut it out with the smug look, okay? You lied to me about her too.”
“Correction. I asked who she was, and you declined to tell me.” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “You didn’t bother to ask me if I knew.”
“I’m not arguing semantics with a fae. Not right now.” She ran a hand halfway through her hair until the drying blood at the back of her head snagged her fingers, then she gave up. “At least this part is finished, right?”
“For now.” Leandras looked her up and down, his smile growing. “I believe that’s what you told me.”
“Yeah.”
Now that the critical moment had come and gone and the magicals she’d wanted to stay alive were still alive, Jessica had a moment to fully comprehend what had just happened. Or as much as she could in the moment.
She was herself again—all the darkness and numb extension of her power included. And the bodies? The bodies around her were just more proof of what she already knew. If she’d lost control like that in any other situation, where the stakes weren’t so high and the lines weren’t nearly as clear-cut, she’d be carrying this around on her conscience too.
Maybe she would. It always took a little time to fully sink in anyway.
“You did very well,” Leandras said, brushing his fingers against her arm.
She looked down at his hand and snorted. “That’s unsolicited encouragement, but okay. So what happens now?”
“Now…” The fae straightened the lapels of his suit jacket and nodded. “Now, we return to your establishment to prepare for the rest of it.”
She blinked slowly. “I’m not giving anyone first rights.”
“That is your decision. But we do need to—”
“Jess!” Mel jogged toward them, her smile filled with relief and concern at the same time. “Are you… I mean…”
Jessica opened her mouth to reply, but Mel threw her arms around her instead and hugged her tightly.
“Whatever you did, whatever it was, you don’t have to explain,” she whispered in Jessica’s ear. “I’m just glad you’re not dead.”
Jessica puffed out a sigh. “Me too.”
She raised her arms as much as she could to hug Mel back and caught Cedrick’s gaze. He stood beside the destroyed table, his arms folded, and nodded. His frown deepened, as if he wanted her to know he understood exactly what she’d just done. For all of them.
Jessica just hoped it wouldn’t come back to haunt her like it had for so long before the only choice she’d had left was to tear herself apart.
Chapter Thirty
Though her friends definitely had a better understanding of the situation with Mickey than Leandras did, Jessica couldn’t help but wonder in that moment—as Mel hugged her and Cedrick almost seemed to be warning her from across the room—if she’d just pushed them farther away.
Mickey was dead. That didn’t mean all the strings he’d attached to them over the last six years were necessarily severed.
So whatever happened—today, tomorrow, or in the next few weeks—she had to be ready for it. They all did.
Staring back at the changeling, she returned a small nod of her own. And she still wasn’t exactly sure what to think about them. Mel and Cedrick. It was weird as shit.
Mel finally pulled away and tucked the longer side of her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t—”
“How’s your shoulder?”
“Oh. Um…” Mel glanced at her shoulder and rubbed it. “Fine, actually. I mean, it hurts like a bitch, but that’ll be better tomorrow, right?”
“Or worse.”
The other witch let out a weak chuckle. “Well, healing myself is a little hard, but Leandras—Wait. Where is he?”
They scanned the warehouse together, but the fae man was gone.
Jessica rolled her eyes. “He does that.”
“Okay…” Mel frowned and turned another slow circle, still searching for him. “So this whole thing—”
The creak and groan of stiff wood moving beneath immense weight made both women turn to see Boris approaching them. The dryad’s root-filled smile stretched wide across his arboreal face as glittering green eyes focused on Jessica. “Guardian.”
He placed a leafy hand on his chest and bowed deeply. The green shoots at the top of his head nearly brushed against Jessica’s face, and she stepped back to avoid being scratched.
“It’s Jessica.”
Boris’ body groaned again as he slowly straightened. “We’ve waited a long time for this day, Jessica.”
“He waits a long time for everything,” Reynaldo added as he shuffled toward them. “Infuriatingly patient. That’s what I’ve always said about him.”
“One might say you’re merely infuriating,” the dryad replied in his booming voice.
The gnome tittered and readjusted his comically magnifying spectacles. “Only when necessary. Guardian, if I may—”
“Jessica.” She and Boris said it at the same time, and Reynaldo stepped back, blinking furiously.
“Of course. Jessica. If I may, I should very much like to know what you intend to do with the third stage. Now that we’ve completed…this.”
“No thanks to the imbeciles who tried to stop us.” Boris growled and turned slowly, his bark-like skin creaking as he glared at the bodies littering the warehouse.
Even after all this, there was still no end to the constant questions she had no idea how to answer. And apparently, there was a third goddamn stage.
Jessica looked at Mel, who only raised her eyebrows in anticipation. “That’s…still being decided.”
“Yes, yes. Of course. Your decision. Your responsibility. I understand.” The gnome extended his hand, and when she took it, he gripped her firmly with both hands and nodded. “Whatever you need, whenever you need it, we’re all here to come to your aid. Though—ha. I daresay you’re the one who came to ours.”
“The fae knows how to contact us,” Boris added.
“The fae knows how to contact everyone.” Steve approached their little group and extended his hand toward Jessica as well. When she took it, he nodded. “I know it doesn’t mean much to say I’ve never seen anything like that, but I’m glad I was here to see it.”
“Thanks.” Jessica gave the warlock a tight smile.
She hadn’t done any of this to show off, but the way everyone acted about it now seemed an awful lot like that was what they thought she’d done.
“Whatever needs to be done here, we’ll take care of it.” Steve stepped back and glanced at the mess in the warehouse. “It’s the least we can do. And I imagine you have a lot more to get working on before the end.”
“Are you sure?” Something just didn’t feel right about leaving all these magicals here to clean up the evidence of their battle. Of what was nothing short of a slaughter and mostly by Jessica’s hand.
Boris’ booming chuckle echoed through the room and made several of the others stop what they were doing to look at him. “Get back to your bank, Guardian. We are at your disposal and will handle the rest.”
“Yes, you’re very eager for that, aren’t you?” Reynaldo smacked the back of his hand against the dryad’s bark-covered arm as they walked slowly away. “The only time you ever get greedy is when there’s fresh fertilizer involved.”
“I am but a dryad of simple pleasures, my friend.”
“Ha!”
Mel scratched behind her ear. “I haven’t actually figured out who those guys are.”
“Friends, I guess.” Jessica huffed out a small laugh. Then her full attention returned to what was waiting for her at Winthrop & Dirledge—or not waiting.
Jesus, she hoped this spell hadn’t taken longer t
han the bank could handle.
She reached into her jacket and pulled out the pendant. The blue light still rose from within, faint but there just the same.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.” Jessica stuffed it back under her clothes and paused.
The secrets had done enough damage as it was. Probably time to let a good deal more of them out in the open, after all this.
“Actually, it belongs to the bank.”
“Your bank,” Cedrick said as he approached them, still wearing that concerned frown.
“Yeah.” She bit her bottom lip and wrinkled her nose. “The one I have to get back to. So I should probably—”
“We’ll give you a ride,” Mel offered.
“No. You guys don’t have to do that.”
“Jess, you don’t have a car. And you showed up with that fae, so I’m guessing you guys got here the same way he left. Or did I miss something?”
Jessica puffed out a sigh. “No, you pretty much nailed it. But I don’t wanna get in the way of anything. I’ll just get an Uber.”
Cedrick scoffed and turned toward the hallway. “Shut up and get in the car, Jess.”
She stared after him in surprise as he strolled down the hall toward the warehouse entrance.
Mel shot her a sheepish smile and shrugged. “You did say we could…talk about everything. Afterward.”
“And you still want to?”
The pink-haired witch took a deep breath. “After all this? It kinda feels wrong not to.”
“Yeah, okay.” Jessica turned for one more sweeping glance of the warehouse and the Laenmúr members weaving their own spells to clean up the mess. “I guess we waited long enough.”
The witches entered the dark hallway, where Cedrick’s footsteps echoed back toward them.
“You know…” Mel bumped her good shoulder against Jessica’s and smirked. “You could start by explaining why you never mentioned Leandras.”
“What?”
“Come on, Jess. You showed up with him here, out of the blue, and the only thing I heard you guys say to each other sounded like a bunch of secret code. Like you’ve spent a lot of time together.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “That’s not… You know he slapped me, right?”
“And I saw you punch his lights out. Almost.” Mel laughed. “Sure, it’s not for everybody, but we both know you’re into some kinky shit—”
“Stop.” Despite herself, Jessica couldn’t help but smile when her friend nudged her again. “There’s nothing there.”
“Right.” They reached the end of the hall and the morning light spilling through the door Cedrick held open for them. “But you have spent a lot of time with him.”
“By necessity, Mel.”
“Is that what we’re calling it these days?” Cedrick asked.
Jessica punched him playfully in the shoulder, and they headed across the parking lot toward his car parked on the other side of the street. “I locked him in a closet and almost got us both killed.”
Maybe. If that force behind the Gateway had finished what it started with her in the second-floor hallway. If it even knew that Leandras had been there in the first place to intervene.
“Yep.” Cedrick chuckled as he searched the street before stepping off the sidewalk to cross it. “That sounds like you.”
The drive gave them plenty of time for Jessica to explain the major details of…pretty much everything since stepping into the bank and meeting Tabitha. Cedrick’s hands tightened around the steering wheel as Mel asked questions and Jessica answered them from the back seat.
She did, however, leave out the part about her obliterated memories that had impossibly returned and what that meant for her going forward. Mostly, it meant time was a lot shorter than she wanted to believe. The Brúkii was something she’d have to deal with later and didn’t actually apply right now.
Out of all of it, the part that seemed to horrify Mel the most was the fact that Jessica had cast the Shattering on herself in the first place. As if she couldn’t imagine why Jessica would do such a thing after carrying around the guilt and the literal blame for all of them.
“But it’s done now,” Jessica muttered.
Mel turned around in the passenger seat with tears in her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Um…I’m not sure exactly what that’s supposed to mean.”
“I just meant… Never mind.” Mel turned back around as they pulled onto Cheyenne Avenue and headed for 8th Street. “You did what you thought you had to do.”
“It wasn’t just on a whim, Mel.”
“Yeah, I know. You could’ve reached out—”
“In all the time I had before casting the spell and being carted off to MJ Pen? Not really.”
“If there’s a point to arguing about this, I don’t see it,” Cedrick grumbled. “So maybe we can just leave it where it is. Behind us.”
Jessica looked out the window at the approaching intersection of her street. “You know exactly where this place is.”
“Yeah, and you made me think you lived in that shitty apartment building three blocks down.” He shook his head. “I should’ve watched you longer.”
When he pulled up along the curb across from the bank, Jessica found herself dreading the goodbye that came next. Not that it would be forever, necessarily. Just that everything felt so unfinished.
“Well…thanks for the lift.”
“Jess, wait.” Mel turned around again and clutched the back of her seat. “Don’t wait until the last minute to ask for help. If you need it.”
“Fingers crossed I don’t, right?” Jessica patted the back of her friend’s hand and opened the door.
“Do we…get to see the inside of that place?” Cedrick asked, leaning forward to view the bank’s decrepit two-story façade. “Or is it, like, owners only?”
“It’s a bank.” Jessica grinned when he shot her a confused glance over his shoulder. “If you want to keep something safe and hidden, come on in.”
“Wait, like an actual bank?”
“Yeah, with all the extra perks. Hey, stay safe, okay? No telling what might happen now that Mickey’s… Well, he had friends.”
“Yep.” Cedrick puffed out a sigh. “Is it gonna break some kind of massive double-world secret if I tell the guys what happened?”
“And Rebecca,” Mel added.
“You know what I mean.”
Jessica sat back down on the back seat with the door partially open. “I don’t think so. Listen, I would’ve considered the fallout a little more if I knew you guys were a part of this. Which is still weird to say.”
“I’m pretty sure if you knew,” Cedrick said, shifting in his seat to get a better look at her, “you probably wouldn’t have done it. I’m glad you did.”
Mel’s eyes widened when he said that, but she didn’t comment.
“Yeah, I think I am too.” Jessica’s attempted smile was too tight, but she kept it on anyway as she stepped out of the car and shut the door behind her. Cedrick’s car rolled slowly away from the curb, and Mel turned around in her seat to stare at Jessica until they turned at the next intersection and disappeared.
Was she glad?
The immediate answer in her gut was an overwhelming yes. But the fact that part of her felt way too heavy about it—that she’d shed any tears at all for Mickey Hargraves while she sucked the life out of him to undo her own mistake—made the black-and-white more than a little hazy.
Maybe it was a good thing she’d cried for him then, at the last minute. Because now she had it out of her system. That was it.
Taking a deep breath of the cold morning air, Jessica stuck her hands in her jacket pockets and studied the front entrance of Winthrop & Dirledge. Here was the moment of truth, right? They’d kicked off the second phase, and now she was about to step inside her bank again to see whether or not it had been enough.
As soon as she stepped fully into the street to cross it, a brilliant flash of blue light strobed
behind the bay window of her bedroom. It was immediately followed by a green burst and a massive tremble that knocked the already crooked marquee another inch off-center.
“Shit.”
Jessica took off across the street, pulling her keys out of her pocket and fumbling to snatch up the right one before she even reached the door. The bank didn’t unlock itself and open up for her right then and there, which was reason enough to get seriously worried.
She finally got the key in the lock, turned it with a quick jerk, and shoved open the door. The bell jingled and clacked against the frosted glass, and Jessica stared at the inside of her lobby.
The entire roomed was encased in a sickly green glow. The floors, the ceiling, the desk, every item on every ridiculously long and stuffed shelf—all of it glowing green and letting off sporadic plumes of green smoke.
She’d just walked out of one nightmare to step into another.
“Bank?” she shouted.
‘You’re back! Holy shit, you actually didn’t die!’
“Doesn’t look like you’re doing nearly as well.”
‘Yeah, well, I’m working with what I got. Which includes you.’ The bank gasped. ‘All of you! Fuck yes! You actually did it, you beautiful, fleshy—’
A crack and growling rumble came from upstairs. “And we need to take care of that.”
‘I’ve been holding it back, Jessica. As much as I can. But now you’re here for an added boost, and what a major boost that’ll be now that you’re…you. Yes!’
“Stay focused for just a second, okay?” Jessica stepped gingerly across the floor, grimacing at the heavy static in the air and trying not to touch any curling tendrils of green smoke rising like hungry tentacles of some bottom-feeding plant. “What do I do?”
‘Oh, yeah. Good thinking. Grab the coin and get upstairs.’
The coin.
Fuck.
‘Are you kidding me right now?’
“It’s at the—”
‘I know it’s at the warehouse, and we don’t have time to get you all the way back there. Even if you had a car! Man, I thought you’d finally pulled your head out of your—’
The Secret Coin (Accessory to Magic Book 3) Page 27