by Nazri Noor
“Release him, Royce,” Carver snarled. “You will unhand my charge, or I will pull your spine out through your nostrils, so help me.”
I was still shaky and uncertain in Royce’s grasp, but I still found the bravado to back Carver up. “He’s right, you know. I wouldn’t fuck around with Carver if I were you.”
“Shut up,” Royce said. “I’m trying to help you.” He leaned in closer, the smell of cigarettes and whiskey wafting off his skin. I flinched, but he held tight, whispering in my ear. “Head to Igarashi’s apartment. You’ll be safe there.”
Safe from what, I meant to ask – but Royce clenched his fingers harder, so much that my skull felt like it was about to shatter. Then I blinked, and he was gone. So was everyone else, along with the burning house.
Wait. They hadn’t disappeared. I looked around myself, at the quiet and darkness. I was in Heinsite Park, alone. Royce had teleported me away. So many questions, and only Herald, it seemed, had the answers. I sprinted in the direction of Parkway Heights, melting into the gloom once I found my bearings, prepared to shadowstep directly into Herald’s apartment.
Safe from what?
Chapter 12
“From the Scions,” Herald said, his hands clasped together. “Royce was saving you from the Scions.”
I peered into my beer bottle, maybe hoping that I could find at least one answer to my myriad questions in there.
“What do the Scions even want with me?”
Herald pressed his lips together, casting furtive glances around his apartment, as if afraid that someone might hear. He leaned closer across the neat, polished wooden surface he called his dining table, and practically whispered.
“They want you dead, Dust. The Scions want to eliminate you.”
I stared at him with my mouth open for close to a full minute. I didn’t have to ask the obvious question, and maybe it was testament to how close Herald and I were as friends, because he started filling me in without being prompted.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed something interesting about the rifts. They’ve got one thing in common. You’re always around when they open up.”
I threw my hands up, narrowly knocking over my beer. “What does that even have to do with anything?”
Herald cleared his throat and gingerly repositioned the bottle on a coaster before continuing.
“The current theory is that you act as a sort of homing beacon for the Eldest. Your powers are tied to them, after all. They’d considered the possibility that Vanitas himself might be attracting the Eldest’s attention, but that’s been thrown out. You didn’t have him with you at the barbecue, did you?”
I shook my head. “But that still doesn’t make sense. How are the shrikes finding me, then? Why are the rifts zooming in on my location?”
Herald bent even closer across the table, then pressed one finger against my chest. “Your heart, Dust. When Thea stabbed you, when she sacrificed you? The tip of the dagger was left there. A shard of star-metal is lodged in your heart.”
I stared at his finger, too stunned to speak, to notice anything apart from the fact that his nail was trimmed at perfectly squared angles, and buffed to an inhuman sheen. He pulled his hand back, his fingers curling into a fist.
“Or at least that’s what the Lorica believes. It’s a sound enough theory. The star-metal weapons serve different purposes, after all. Vanitas was clearly human once, his soul absorbed into the sword when he died. You told me that Carver used his own star-metal dagger to offer sacrifices to the Eldest. It’s not so far-fetched to assume that Thea’s dagger had its own specific use.”
My mouth opened and closed as I searched for the right words. “So you’re saying – I’m a tether? The way entities have anchors in our reality. I’m the tether for the Eldest?”
Herald nodded. “That’s what they think.”
I narrowed my gaze. “I feel like you could have told me about this earlier.”
“I would have – and you know I would have – but this is a very recent development. Very, very recent. The Scions only truly made the decision tonight. That doesn’t happen. It looks like they’re finally acknowledging that Valero is in a state of emergency because of the rifts.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “So that’s why they want me dead.”
Herald sighed. “I’m sorry, Dust. I don’t know what else to say. All we can do is try to protect you.”
And by we, he meant our other friends at the Lorica. My escape route had been sketched out from the start. Royce had picked up hints of the plan to eliminate me from the other Scions. That was why he was trying to warn me. Who knows why he felt the need to help me after everything I’d done, but I wanted to think that despite his methods, his commitment to brutality, that Royce still believed in one of the Lorica’s most fundamental tenets: justice.
I’d already texted the boys of the Boneyard that I was safe. We had a running group chat, and Asher was relieved to hear that I was okay. Apparently I’d missed an especially epic fist fight.
Gil had used his superior senses and werewolf reflexes to dodge Royce’s surprise teleport attacks in ways that I never could. It had ended in a stalemate, shortly after Royce started explaining why he’d whisked me away – and shortly before the rest of the Lorica’s Wings started showing up, alerted to the Viridian Dawn fire.
Herald was actually in the middle of casting wards around his apartment when I shadowstepped into his kitchen. He didn’t want the Eyes finding me, clearly, plus it could have been especially risky since Parkway Heights was an entire apartment building filled almost exclusively with residents who also happened to be Lorica employees. Going straight to Herald’s was like walking into a lion’s den, but it made sense for me to hide in plain sight. The Lorica would never think to look for me there.
And just as I thought it, there came a knock on the door. I froze in place, my hand gripping around my half-empty beer. Herald smiled at me tightly, patting me on the back of the hand.
“Relax,” he said. “It’s just Prudence and the others.”
The others?
“Don’t freak out,” Herald said. He reached for my beer, the sides of the bottle coating in frost where he touched it. “Just chill. Drink this. You’ll be fine.”
I looked between him and the beer, wondering how I could possibly relax when he was being so ominous about this, and kept staring as he opened the door. I steeled myself, ready to shadowstep – but it was just Prudence and Bastion, followed closely by Romira.
Bastion lifted the plastic bags he was clutching. “Takeout,” he said. “You like Thai, don’t you, Dust?”
“Um. Sure.” I noticed that they hadn’t closed the door yet. “Why is everyone here, exactly?”
“It’s okay, Dusty,” Romira cooed, slipping into the chair next to me as she cleared the table for the food. “We’re just here to talk. We’re here to protect you.”
“Literally, in a sense,” a voice said from the doorway, one I hadn’t heard in ages.
Odessa stepped into the apartment, shutting the door behind her with pale, delicate fingers. She dressed very simply, but in a way that I still always found so stylish: a bare smock with lace accents, very sparse makeup, her hair cut in blunt bangs and falling straight past her shoulders.
Truly, she wouldn’t have looked out of place somewhere fashionable goths would hang out, say, Harajuku, or maybe a concert, wearing a style that seemed to be favored by waifish teenage girls with a taste for the dark side. Like Royce, Odessa’s dress sense acted as a smokescreen for her personality and her power, because like Royce, Odessa was also a Scion, among the Lorica’s most powerful and most fearsome mages.
After having so many run-ins with Royce – and, well, actually stabbing him in the leg – I thought that I’d already gotten over my irrational fear of Scions. But there was always something different about Odessa.
Part of it was that open secret about how she had extended her lifespan, the fact that I knew she was centuries old, but
still locked in the body of a teenage girl. None of the rumors said that she was a lich, like Carver, who had surrendered his humanity in exchange for immortality. But that brought no comfort. Not knowing what Odessa was, exactly, only made things worse.
I glanced uncertainly at the others, at Bastion as he slurped noisily from a plastic cup of Thai tea, at Prudence and Herald as they dutifully laid out the little takeout cartons in an orderly fashion. Romira was scrolling through her phone, probably on social media. I couldn’t get how they were being so blasé about Odessa. Her power and presence filled the entirety of Herald’s apartment. It almost made it hard to breathe.
“I realize that you are alarmed by my presence, Dustin,” she said, sensing my hesitation. “I won’t mince words. This is a cause for alarm. I hate to interrupt your meal before you even start, but I would very much like to speak with you alone.”
“Sure.” I stood up, fussing with my hair, beer in hand, still ice-cold from Herald’s touch. “Where do you want to talk?” I asked, waving a hand around the apartment. It wasn’t like there was anywhere we could really go without being overheard. What, the bathroom?
“This is fine,” she said, moving closer until we were face to face.
Okay. Awkward. I held my breath. I stood a full head taller than Odessa, but something about her made me feel that much smaller. She snapped her fingers, and the air around us gleamed. The ambient volume of the apartment, the hushed voices of Herald and the others faded to nothing. Odessa had erected one of her signature shields, infusing it with a zone of silence to give us a modicum of privacy.
I started to speak, to defuse the tension in our little force bubble. “It’s good to see you again – ”
“I’ll dispense with the pleasantries.” Dang. Odessa always got right down to business. She was never unkind, but had always been pretty chilly by default. “The Lorica’s inner circle wants you dead. I believe Igarashi briefed you on the prevailing theory that you have become a beacon for the Eldest. The Heart won’t stand for your existence. The Heart wants what it wants.”
There it was again, this time with a ring of reverence. I could practically hear the uppercase H. What fresh hell was this? Like I didn’t have enough to deal with.
“Wait. I’m sorry. The Heart?”
Chapter 13
“The Heart,” Odessa echoed. She breathed deeply before she spoke again, as if to emphasize the gravity of the situation. “The very core of the Lorica’s operations. The height of its leadership. Think of it as the board of directors, a conclave of all of the Scions. A great many of them believe that the solution to the problem of rifts tearing open across the city is atomizing you. Eliminating every cell of your body, to leave nothing for the Eldest to find.”
Jesus. I’d never heard of the Heart – probably another need to know element of the Lorica, like its high security Prism – but it made sense. A lorica, according to the ancient Romans, was a kind of breastplate. It was body armor, fitting for an organization dedicated to protecting both the mundane and the magical worlds. And it all fit together: the Eyes, the Hands, the Mouths, every component of a grand organism supporting the main body and working in concert to uphold the Veil.
And the Heart wanted to wipe me off the face of the planet. A little brutal for something so frequently associated with love, I’ll be honest.
“And who leads it? Who decided I was better off dead?”
“If I told you, I would have to kill you.”
“I can already tell you aren’t joking.”
Odessa pressed her lips together. “I don’t joke. It’s an unfortunate failing. I would caution you to lie low. Think of the quietest, most unobtrusive you can be. Then go lower than even that. I suggest you spend the night here at Igarashi’s. Do not return to your employer. Not yet. I can assure you, the Eyes are watching much more closely.”
“That doesn’t bode well,” I said. “It was easy enough for them to find me before this, but now you’re telling me they’re dedicating more Eyes to hunting me down?”
“They’re doubling that number, actually.”
I rubbed my hand across my face, groaning into my palm in frustration. Beyond the protection of Odessa’s force field, I could see that the others were already tucking into their takeout, all of them cautiously avoiding my gaze, mouths chewing or talking noiselessly. Only Herald was staring at me directly, his brows furrowed.
“Calm yourself,” Odessa said. “I will erect wards around Lorica headquarters to disrupt their scrying, to cloud their vision. Scramble your signature, as it were. Everything should be ready by morning. You will then go to your master – the lich – and acquire whatever arcane protections he can provide you.”
“Sounds about right,” I said. “Got it.” I would have to find that ring Carver once lent me, the one that would cloak my spiritual signature, and hide my true face with a glamour. It was somewhere in my bedroom, I was sure of it.
“Then you will leave the city of Valero.”
“But. My father. I can’t just – ”
Odessa held up one hand. “It is only temporary. You will be able to return to the city. That is, if you survive the wrath of the Heart.”
“And how do you propose I do that?”
“Run,” Odessa said. “As far as you can, as fast as you can. The Lorica will find you in time. That is inevitable. But perhaps by working with this master of yours – the man who calls himself Carver – we can indeed find ways of removing the scourge of the shrikes without having to resort to murder. Royce and I have faith that we can stop these incursions from happening.”
“About Royce.” I frowned. “How did he expect me to understand his warning? The Heart wanting what it wants and such.”
Odessa pursed her lips. “I believe he incorrectly assumed that you knew enough about the Lorica’s organizational structure to understand what he meant. Consider it an unfortunate miscommunication.”
I grunted. And he was their director of PR, no less. Still, I did shut Royce’s telepathy out. If I’d left the lines open, he could have given me the details himself. So fine. A misunderstanding, in all.
“Why are you doing all this? I’m grateful, but I don’t understand. Why are you helping?”
“I don’t think like the other Scions. As you may have noticed, neither does Royce. We believe that you may yet be the key to defeating the Eldest. Your death would not bring about peace. That would end nothing. Well. Except your existence, naturally.”
The chill of the beer in my hand was fading, the condensation dripping down its sides, sopping wet. “Thank you. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Give it time,” she said. Something twitched in the corner of her mouth, perhaps her attempt at a smile. “Your life isn’t over, Dustin. Not just yet.”
She waved her hand, and the air shimmered again as her force field lifted. The sounds of conversation returned again, mainly with Bastion clearing his throat noisily, obviously halfway through talking about me and Odessa.
“Everyone,” Odessa said, addressing the room. “I trust you will do all in your power to protect Dustin, not only as a favor to me, but to your friend as well. See that he does not leave the premises, and that none but yourselves are aware of his presence here.”
There was a murmur of assent. Herald nodded once, firmly, in silence.
“Then if there is nothing else,” Odessa continued, “I will be on my way.”
“Wait,” I said. “Won’t you stay for some food? Join us for dinner.”
“That’s very kind of you,” she said. “But I haven’t eaten since the Black Plague.”
I laughed nervously, but Romira gave me a look. Oh? Oh. Odessa wasn’t kidding.
Odessa left, and the rest of us finished off the Thai food in relative, uncomfortable silence. Maybe a smattering of conversation here and there, like gossip about the Lorica that was safe to discuss in front of me, a little talk of office politics. But Odessa’s warning hung thick in the air, lingering long after she�
�d gone.
I loved Thai food so much, too. It was what Herald and I usually ordered whenever I came over to hang out, but that night, it didn’t matter. Green beef curry, pandan chicken, even the rich, thick Thai tea I liked so much tasted like nothing. Or maybe it tasted like my last meal.
“Cheer up,” Romira told me later, when the two of us had settled on the couch. “It’s not the end of the world,” she said, squeezing my knee.
I gave her a tight smile. Herald and Prudence were clearing the dishes, their overly loud discussion about the Gallery’s newest acquisitions making it all the more obvious that they were skirting the subject of the Heart. Bastion had gone out, to scout the surroundings, he said, but I knew that he felt stifled by that night’s news, too. Lucky him, he could actually go out and breathe. Romira took my hand in hers, patting it.
“It’ll be okay. You’ll see. Odessa will set everything up nicely, and you’ll get to leave Valero safe and sound.” She tilted her head, the room practically lighting up with the brilliance of her smile. “Think of it as taking a vacation, even. Wouldn’t that be nice, Dusty?”
“Yeah, I guess.” It was weird, being so coddled like that, but Romira’s sudden affection was probably exactly what I needed in that moment. “I’m just worried, you know? My dad and everything.”
“Listen. Herald’s warded your dad’s house. Your buddies at the Boneyard will check in on him and protect him, I’m sure.” She tapped the side of her head. “And remember, I’m not just a Hand. I’m an Eye, too. I’ll keep one eye out for him. Don’t you worry.”
I grabbed onto the opportunity to change the subject. “About that, actually. How does it work that some of you guys serve dual purposes? Like Royce, being a Mouth and a Wing at the same time. And you, Hand and Eye, two in one.”
Romira shrugged, her hair gliding smoothly over her bare shoulder. “Overachieving, maybe? Or you know, sometimes, some people are just naturally talented in multiple areas. Some people are good swimmers. Some are good boxers.” She raised a finger, booping me on the end of my nose. “Some people are both.”