by Zoe Ashwood
Carefully, I unclench my fingers and peek down at my palm. The small individual wounds are almost healed, but the scars remain an angry red color, fully visible against my skin. This is a problem, a huge godsdamned problem: the Ballendial witches now have samples of our blood, meaning they can do gods only know what to us. Not control us, hopefully, though I make a mental note to strengthen the wards on the protective charms we’re both carrying.
“Fuck,” Levi breathes, then tucks his branded hand in his pocket. “Can we leave now?”
A tremor passes through me, and I wish above all that we could. But the ceremony isn’t over yet. “We have to wait or they might notice.”
His grim expression tells me what he thinks of this entire thing. But we’re here now, so we might as well stick it out.
Another pair of witches step down from the stage, and the masked woman removes her hand from the machine. She’s been fueling magic into it all this time, but she doesn’t appear to be tired. With a flourish, she sends the silky cloth into the air and lets it rest over the machine again.
The man advances, revealing a gleaming hourglass about two feet tall. Golden sand rests in the lower half. “The Ballendial Games are now open,” he intones. “You have until the next full moon to retrieve your markers. The first to return with all three will win.”
With that, he flips the hourglass over and sets it on top of the silk-covered apparatus. Golden sand trickles down, shimmering in the candlelight.
It’s as though the spell holding us there breaks. All at once, every guest faces the massive front door and starts toward it. Levi and I press to the side of the entrance hall to let the stampede pass. We follow the last of the witches outside, and I crane my neck to figure out whether Isak Einarsson is among the crowd, but I don’t see his blond head anywhere. Huh. He must have left before the end of the ceremony.
Levi doesn’t speak as we make our way down the stone path toward the parking lot, so I keep my mouth shut as well. There’s a good chance someone is listening to us, and I don’t want to cause a scene. The full moon is rising from behind the hills, half hidden behind silvery clouds. Its energy seeps into me, calming the restless jitters that send tremors through my body.
Cars are pulling out of the parking lot, crowding each other on the road, and an impatient driver in a sleek black Porsche leans on his horn in an effort to speed up a Lexus that’s blocking his way. No one seems to notice our silver Opel still parked on the gravel.
I reach for the door handle on the passenger side, but Levi jerks me back roughly before I can touch it.
“Wait,” he barks.
He drags me well away from the car, and I nearly stumble on the gravel. Then I realize he’s in his working pose: arms up, palms facing outward, his forehead furrowed in concentration. He’s checking the car for any hexes that another witch might have left on it.
I bite my lip, ashamed that I hadn’t thought of doing that. Since this was my idea, I should really be more competent at keeping myself alive. The events of the evening have shattered my calm, sending my thoughts reeling. I long for a quiet spot to cast a magic circle and do some grounding work and meditation, but I doubt I’ll get much time to relax in the next twenty-eight days. Judging by how everyone else peeled out of the parking lot, they’re not wasting any time in starting the search for their chosen locations.
Seconds tick by as Levi mutters revealing spells under his breath, but he finally lowers his hands and opens his eyes again.
“We’re all clear,” he says. “Let’s go.”
Without a word, I follow his lead and get inside the car, shutting the door firmly behind me. Levi starts the car, and we cruise back down the country lane. The rest of the vehicles from the event are nowhere to be seen—they are likely breaking speed limits with their fancy cars and competing to see who will win the race to the Edinburgh airport.
Levi and I will need to decide which of our locations to tackle first, but right now, I have another bone to pick with him.
“Why in the gods’ names did you pick Iceland?” I demand, my voice surprisingly loud.
He glances over at me, then back at the dark road ahead of us. “You said you picked it! Egypt, Iceland, and Greece!”
“Ireland,” I pronounce clearly. “I said Ireland, and if you weren’t so damn distracted by whichever of your girlfriends sent you a text, you’d know that!”
“What?” he asks, peering at me as though I’d grown another head.
I point at his jacket. “You were looking at your phone! How could you? Now we’re going to have to go against that—that man!”
“Which man?” he repeats, confusion plain on his face.
“The blond one. Isak Einarsson. He’s an Icelandic witch, but there are no witches on Iceland, Levi!” My voice rises, and I lift my arms in a helpless gesture. “And what do we know about Iceland anyway? Their mythology is so fucked up, we could be battling trolls for all I know!”
“I’ve always wanted to see a troll,” Levi retorts and grins.
“Ugh! Why are you happy about this?” I bury my face in my hands and groan. “Why is this such a mess?”
Levi doesn’t reply, and I finally lower my hands to find him frowning at his palm.
“I’m sorry I dragged us into this,” I tell him more quietly. “Really. I thought we had it, but maybe…” I trail off with a shrug.
He pins me with a sharp look. “What happened to your blind optimism?”
“Blind optimism?” I’m not sure whether he means it as an insult or not, but I’m offended. I’m never blindly optimistic. Hopeful? Sure. Confident? Yeah, always. But I’m not naïve—at least I didn’t think I was.
He waves his hand in a circle. “You know what I mean. ‘There’s always a way,’ that sort of thing. Why are you suddenly thinking about quitting?”
I blow out a sigh. “I don’t know. All this crap was so serious. And they took our blood! What the fuck are they going to do with it? I didn’t know we’d have to seal the deal with a blood promise.”
He grimaces. “Yeah, that’s not ideal. Maybe they’ll use it to trace us if we get lost or something.”
“I wish we got some sort of contract to go with all of this,” I muse as I poke at the brand-new scars on my palm. “It would feel better to have some legal insurance. Have you figured out the code yet?”
He smiles. “They’re coordinates.”
“Oh.” It should have occurred to me, but I only ever punch in an address into my navigation app. I’ve never had to use the actual string of numbers and letters before.
In the silence that follows, Levi sighs and pulls his phone from his jacket pocket. He unlocks the screen, and it lights up the dark interior, casting his features in a harsh blue light.
“Here,” he says, offering me the phone.
Confused, I take it and look down at the screen. It’s open to a messaging app, and the last text to arrive is from Levi’s younger brother, Oscar. There’s a photo of him with a gaggle of girls in a hot tub, and the caption reads, Wish you were here, bro.
Levi had replied, Living the good life, huh?
A wave of guilt slams down on me. I accused him of texting random women during a crucial moment of our mission, but he was just messaging his brother. Damn it. I’m off my game, and it doesn’t feel good.
“I’m sorry,” I say weakly. “I assumed…”
He takes the phone back from me and switches the screen off. “It’s fine.”
But it’s not. In the darkness, I tentatively put my hand on his knee. “Levi, I shouldn’t have assumed. It was shitty of me, and I apologize.”
He’s silent for a long moment, then picks up my hand and entwines his fingers with mine. It’s an intimate gesture, and heat rushes to my cheeks at the sensation, but I stamp it down. He’s my friend, and I don’t have very many of those, not anymore, not with how we rush from job to job, from place to place, barely returning home for long enough to do laundry.
You better not fuck t
his up, Moss.
If he needs to hold my hand, I’ll hold him all the way to Edinburgh.
Four
Levi
We arrive at the Edinburgh Airport well after midnight. The trip from Ballendial Castle took us the better part of three hours, and Nora fell asleep about half an hour after she apologized for her ridiculous assumption.
I kept holding her hand as long as I could, driving one-handed through the night.
Parking the car in the rental company’s space in the parking lot, I turn off the engine. The orange glow of the streetlight illuminates Nora’s sleeping form. Her hair is mussed, a strand hanging over her forehead, so I brush it back gently and tuck it behind her ear.
“Hey,” I murmur. “Nora? We’re here. You need to wake up.”
Her beautiful brown eyes blink open sleepily, and she gazes up at me with a soft, confused expression. I resist the urge to glance at her chest—something a friend should be able to do, no problem. The dress she chose for tonight is stunning, and it’s with a colossal effort that I drag my mind out of the gutter and focus on her face instead. What happened tonight has rubbed my nerves raw, and I’m not at my best.
“We’re at the airport,” I explain to her. “We have to pick a location and get moving.”
“Egypt first. Get it over with.” She yawns, covering her mouth with her hand, and stretches like a cat. “Gods. What time is it?”
“One a.m.,” I tell her, then shrug out of my tuxedo jacket, awkward in the small space behind the wheel. “Here, put this on. It’s cold.”
Scotland is damp and windy even at the end of June. I should be glad Nora picked Egypt as one of our destinations, but I’m not. Really. It’s a fucking terrible idea, and I hope she has a good plan, because otherwise we’re toast. Egyptian witches have always been notoriously lethal, and those ancient tombs of theirs are full of traps and hexes even I’m worried about.
She takes the jacket from me, her eyes still heavy-lidded, and I swear she sniffs the fabric before putting it on. Nora is so much shorter and slighter than me, the jacket all but swallows her up, but she rolls back the sleeves and pushes her hair out of her face.
“Thanks for driving us here,” she says. “Sorry I completely zoned out. What’s our plan?”
I smile. “I thought that was my line.”
She blinks, then grimaces. “Right. Um. Okay, I need a map of Europe and some coffee.”
“What for?” I ask.
Nora sends me a shifty-eyed look. “The coffee is to wake me up.”
“And the map?” I press.
“The map will tell us where to find the man I’m searching for,” she hedges.
“Nora…” I sit back and scrub a palm over my face. Then I look her right in the eyes, letting her see how tired and worried I am. “You know I trust you. But I can’t protect either one of us if I’m flying blind. Whatever is up with you, I need to be in on it. Come on, spill.”
She draws the lapels of my jacket tighter around her body and cracks her knuckles. It’s a sure sign she’s nervous, and my worry deepens. She’s never like this—we deal with our problems head-on. We have a system in place for dumping all our issues on the table whenever we feel stuff is piling up, because we’re coworkers, roommates, and best friends. Leaving shit to fester while keeping silent isn’t how we operate.
Unless you count the really deep stuff, of course, which is too fucked up for me to share with her. There are things you can’t tell your best friend without losing them forever.
Before I get another word out, Nora grabs her clutch and phone and puts her hand on the door handle.
“Let’s get inside. I’ll tell you everything once we’re waiting for our flight.” She pauses, then adds, “I promise.”
Though a knot forms in my gut at her words, I dip my chin in a quick nod. For a moment, her expression reminds me of the one time she didn’t share her problems with me—the time when I allowed her to crash in my guest bedroom because she seemed in danger of falling apart right in front of me. That was two years ago, and I’d hoped I would never have to see that look on her face again.
We take our bags from the trunk and drop off the car keys at the rental company’s counter. The bright neon lights of the departures hall are in sharp contrast to the intimate atmosphere of the car we shared earlier. In this light, Nora’s pale skin takes on a greenish hue, her freckles standing out more than usual. I don’t comment on it, but I keep a close eye on her—and on the other passengers, though there aren’t many milling around at this hour. Wherever the witches from the ceremony disappeared to, they’re not here right now, but I can’t allow myself to relax, not while we’re out in the open.
Nora snags a map of Europe from an airline counter. It’s badly printed and cluttered with dotted lines representing the various flight destinations, but Nora hurries over to an empty check-in counter and smooths down the paper.
“Do we have any water left?” she asks with a glance at me.
Wordlessly, I dig a metal canteen from my duffle bag and hand it to her.
She offers me a smile. “Can you make sure no one is near enough to see this?”
As if she has to ask. “Sure.”
Nora uncaps the bottle and carefully tips it over the map. A drop spills onto the page, immediately seeping into the cheap paper. She holds her hand over the image, closes her eyes, and draws on her power.
It’s a small enough piece of magic—from what she’s doing, I assume it’s a locator spell—yet most witches wouldn’t be able to perform it without casting a full magic circle. Nora isn’t like most witches. She never flashes her magic around, but I’ve worked with her often enough to know she’s a supernova.
Whenever she uses her powers, her expression is always the same. It’s a mesmerizing experience. She seems to glow from within, something the humans around us wouldn’t notice, but it’s a clear sign of her strength. Her brows furrow, creating a little vertical line between them, and her full lips purse into a soft pout. Then her breathing speeds up, and a flush enters her cheeks, rosy and so fucking delicious.
I’ve seen her do this countless times, and I’m floored by it every single time.
Maybe I’m too tired or too high-strung after the experience at that medieval castle, but I suddenly can’t help but wonder what her face would look like if she was concentrating this deeply on other things. Would her lips part on a gasp? Would she blush deeper?
Nora pulls her fingers into a fist and pops her eyes open, catching me staring. The moment stretches between us, charged with the remnants of her magic and whatever inappropriate thoughts linger in my mind. I can’t look away, caught by her gaze, and time slows around us as though we’re caught in a bubble.
Then she blinks, the moment passes, and time snaps back into place like a rubber band, sound and movement rushing in. I drag in a breath and beat my senses into control.
Nora drops her gaze to the map where the splash of water has formed a tiny circle around a dot in Europe.
“Looks like we’re going to Paris,” she murmurs.
The first flight available isn’t until four a.m. Nora buys our tickets, and we shuffle through security behind several other sleepy passengers. The shops selling tartan souvenirs and shortbread are all closed, but we find a little café where a grim-faced young woman with mascara smears beneath her eyes serves us surprisingly good tea.
Nora tips her extravagantly, and the woman offers her a slightly mollified smile.
“No one should be made to work at two in the morning,” Nora says quietly after the waitress leaves, “but I’m really glad she’s here.”
We sit in silence for a minute, just sipping our hot Earl Grey. I want to pry and poke at Nora, but hell, if she doesn’t want to tell me what’s in Paris… I told her I trusted her and I do. I just wish she’d share with me. It’s not a pleasant feeling to know she’s kept something from me—something that has her frowning at her cup as though it is responsible for our current situation.
“Remember that first night I spent at your place?” she asks.
I nod, then realize she’s still staring into her tea. “Yeah.”
I’d run into her in front of my local grocery store, and she’d seemed so out of it, I’d dragged her home with me to give her some time to get herself together. An unnerved witch in a public place is a disaster waiting to happen. She’d crashed on my couch, so I carried her to the spare bedroom—and she has sort of stayed there ever since.
“Two days earlier, I found out my boyfriend was a vampire,” she says in a level voice. “And I freaked out. Completely.”
“Uh,” I say. “What?”
She finally glances up at me, her brown eyes wide and serious. “Raphaël was—is—a vampire. An honest-to-gods blood-drinking vampire. With fangs.” Nora bares her own teeth and points at her canines.
I stare at her for a moment longer to see whether she’s joking, but she’s not cracking a smile, telling me what an idiot I am for believing her even for a second. The thought of Nora with any guy has me clenching my teeth, but this…
“I—” A shiver runs down my back, a dark premonition. “I had no idea vampires still existed, Nora. Weren’t they all wiped out?”
“I know.” She picks up the empty packet of sugar she used up earlier and starts shredding it into little pieces. “But I’m absolutely sure of what I saw.”
“You don’t think it could have been…” I wave a hand through the air, searching for some other explanation. “CGI or movie props or even a really good illusion? Maybe someone was playing a trick on you?”
Nora shakes her head. “I caught him with fangs out.” She snorts suddenly, her full lips pulling into a brief smile. “That sounds terrible. But yeah. He was drinking from someone, and there was blood, and I might have screamed and freaked out.”
She peers at me as though expecting me to laugh at her.
I cover her hand with my own. “Of course you freaked out. What the fuck?” My brain is short-circuiting with this new information. “How did this guy even survive?”