by Everly Frost
Slade’s voice lowers. “Why am I here, Hunter?”
“Because I need…” I stumble over the truth. “I need you to help me destroy it. My mother couldn’t do it, so it must be something very powerful. I can’t do it alone.”
“But why me? Why not Vlad? Or even Cain?”
I shake my head. “They don’t know the truth about me. I can’t show them this.”
He asks, “Who does know the truth, Hunter?”
“William, Tansy, Dean, Gareth, and Fallon. Apparently Lady Tirelli knows too.”
Slade looks surprised but not for the reason I thought. “Ridley doesn’t know?”
I shake my head. “Mom never revealed her wings to him. He doesn’t know what I am.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
“No.” The truth is awful. I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. “I’ve lost too much because of what I am. I won’t lose anything else.”
Slade is quiet. Pensive and withdrawn now. He lifts himself off the wall. I’m wary of where his line of questioning could go. I need to pull the conversation back to the feather before he asks me things I don’t want to answer… like whether Mom bonded with Ridley and when do our wings reveal themselves?
I stare at the floor, my heart pounding, speaking before he does. “Knowing what the weapon is comes with risks. If I destroy the feather, then knowledge of the weapon will exist only in your mind. You will have information that Lady Tirelli wants. She has threatened to kill everyone I care about. She will come after you, Slade. And you too, William.”
Slade pauses at the edge of the table opposite me as William takes my hands in his.
William says, “I’ve been part of this ever since your Mom walked through my door, ever since the moment I witnessed your birth.”
I’m surprised. “You were there for my birth?”
A gentle smile touches his lips. “I want to be clear that I never felt anything toward your mother other than friendship, but the moment of your birth made me wish you were mine, Hunter.”
He squeezes my hands as my eyes burn with sudden tears. Knowing he was there when I was born means more to me than I expected.
He says, “I know the danger. If I was worried, I wouldn’t have decoded the Keres Coda. I’ll be with you every step of the way. I’ll give you as much help as this old, human body can give.”
I don’t let go of his hands, appreciating the strength and comfort in them, twisting to Slade, a question on my lips: is he in?
He says, “If Lady Tirelli wants this weapon, then I’ll do everything in my power to destroy it.”
I give William’s hands a final squeeze before I leave the room to retrieve my backpack. I pull the feather and the vial of verdan sap out of it. The feather fits into the palm of my hand, smaller than it should be for the impact it had on my life.
I carry it back to the kitchen. “I cut the verdan with steel so I know the sap won’t burn through metal. William, do you have some sort of baking tray I can rest the feather on? I don’t know if the sap will damage your table.”
As soon as he places a tray in front of me, I rest the feather on it.
Slade remains quiet. His focus is on me, rather than the feather. “That casing around the feather is…?”
I swallow. “My mother’s life blood. This is the reason I came to the Legion. Gareth stole the feather from my mother when she died. I needed to get it back.”
I don’t tell him that Valkyrie blood triggers the feather to reveal the weapon—that Mom’s blood both triggered and concealed it at the same time.
I whisper, “Mom died for this.”
William places a hand on my shoulder, a steadying gesture. “You can do this, Hunter.”
I sense William holding his breath beside me as I unplug the glass bottle and tip it directly over the top of the feather. The sap drips onto the resin, changing from clear to crimson as soon as it hits the surface.
The transformation is slow at first, the resin turning into thick liquid and then… it collapses, pouring off the copper edges. The feather rises above the surface of the tray, completely clean, glowing brightly as it floats above the surface. At the same time, it projects colors and shapes upward, forming images in the air at eye level with us. It’s going to show us the weapon…
I can’t breathe. My heart is pounding.
I grip the table as the colors form shapes… or… one shape…
The object has smooth edges and delicate curves. It is soft and fragile. It is…
Not an object.
I jolt, shock slamming through me.
Slade’s eyes are wide. He whispers, “We can’t destroy this.”
My mouth turns dry.
The weapon is a baby.
A gorgeous baby girl with eyes the color of violets, purple flecks shining brightly in eyes that match her perfect, innocent face. She gurgles within the image, tiny fists shifting across a bed of golden…
I stumble backward. “No!”
A bed of copper feathers.
She has copper feathers.
My hand flies across my mouth to smother the scream rising in my throat.
The weapon is a Keres baby.
Chapter Thirteen
Slade stares at the image. He recognizes the baby’s wings from the tapestries that hang in the meeting hall. “The Keres are extinct.”
William also stares, transfixed by the image of the baby girl. His eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them.
I shake my head from side to side, trying to make sense of the image. “If this baby is the weapon, then that means it’s alive today. It must have been a baby when my mother got this feather… It’s why my mother… Oh… no…”
I sink into the nearest chair.
Slade is quick to catch on. I’m grateful because right now I’m finding it difficult to be coherent.
He says, “That’s the baby that Vlad was talking about.”
A groan wrenches out of me. “From twenty years ago… It’s the baby that Mom saved, the one that Lady Tirelli wanted… The baby and the weapon are the same thing.”
William wasn’t at the Cathedral and Vlad would not have revealed this secret to him at dinner. He casts me a worried look. “Hunter? Explain, please.”
I quickly fill him in on the story—that my mother intervened in an assassination that left a baby without a mother. She saved the child and then hid it from the world.
“It has to be this Keres baby. And this is its birth feather.” I drop my head into my hands. “What else could a birth feather lead to but the child to which it belongs? I’ve been so blind…”
William is ashen, shaken. “You mother wouldn’t let you out of her arms when she came back that night, Hunter. She was exhausted, devastated. She wouldn’t talk about what happened but she cried herself to sleep. If she witnessed a murder and had to save that baby—after becoming a new mother herself—it’s no wonder she was upset.”
My stomach twists. I feel sick. “But she saved a Keres baby. It’s the only magical being that can kill me. She saved a creature that can kill her own daughter. Why would she do that?”
William whispers, “Just because you’re born into darkness…”
It was Mom’s mantra. The words she lived by. Her final words to me.
I finish for him. “Doesn’t mean you can’t overcome it.”
Tears drip down my cheeks. I don’t care that I’m crying in front of Slade. “She said that to me when she died.”
William takes my hands. “You aren’t enemies with someone just because you’re told to be. Just because someone is born a Keres doesn’t mean they can’t be good and beautiful. Just like you control your Valkyrie power. That Keres woman came all the way from the Dominion to ask your mother for help. What if she was never your mother’s enemy? This Lady Tirelli must have been hunting her. Well… your mother hunted the hunters. It must have taken enormous faith and trust for that Keres woman to ask for your mother’s help.”
Tansy once said that
the Keres were misjudged and that the Valkyrie were the real killing machines. But Vlad had described the Valkyrie as gentle too—that we became vengeful after our ancestors were ripped apart for their feathers.
I say, “Mom got there too late.” Just like Mom was too late to save Tansy’s mother. It must have eaten her up inside to fail two children. “A Keres can only be killed by a Valkyrie. The Dominion Master who killed the mother of this baby had a Valkyrie ring. Vlad told me that tonight. That must have been how he killed her. The same way the Keres ring can kill me.”
Slade remains standing, his expression unreadable, but he flinches at the mention of the Keres ring. “We need to find that child before Lady Tirelli does.”
I say, “She’s a grown woman now. She could be anywhere. I will be able to sense her, but only if I am very close. If I had come across anyone like that in Boston, I would have known about it already.”
Slade is grim. “At least we have the clue that Lady Tirelli wants.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Clue?”
He points. “The violet flecks in her eyes. That’s very unusual. Anyone who saw her will remember her.”
A laugh wrenches out of me, but there’s no humor in it. “I’m about to go looking for the only woman who can kill me. And then what? Convince her not to be the weapon she’s destined to be? Also, that she shouldn’t kill me. Or fear me, since I’m the only creature that can kill her. Oh, along with a hundred assassins who have Valkyrie rings.” I spin to William. “You’re right. She has more to fear than I do.”
William reaches out to rub my back in the same way he calms Tansy. “She lost her mother like you did. She’s the last Keres, just like you’re the last Valkyrie. You may have been born enemies, but that doesn’t mean you have to choose that path.”
I can’t help glancing at Slade. We started off as rivals, then we became something very different, and now…
Well, I don’t know what we are now.
William says, “We have to be careful with this knowledge. What will you do with the feather now?”
I ask, “Do you have a match?”
He retrieves a box of matches and brings it to me.
I say, “Mom burned my birth feather when I was born so it couldn’t be misused.”
I strike a match and drop it onto the feather. It lights up and burns very quickly. As it curls and turns to ash, it sinks back to the tray and the baby’s image fades and disappears.
A pile of dust is all that remains.
“Now only the three of us know what the feather was hiding.” I sink to my chair, my hands shaking. I clasp them in front of myself on the table. “Mom could have burned this feather years ago. She could have saved herself…”
My voice chokes. “She needed me to see this. She needed me… to change the course of our future. The Keres and the Valkyrie. I don’t know how, but I have to find this woman. Somehow.”
Slade leans across the table toward me. His hand almost touches mine before he stops himself. “We’ll find her.”
He clears his throat, his expression closing over again, withdrawing from the solidarity he almost showed me. Before I can say anything, he steps away again, his boots thudding in the heavy silence. “I have to return to the Realm now. I won’t come back again unless there’s an emergency. I’ll communicate through Briar. It’s better if we aren’t seen together until the charity event.”
I jump up. He’s pushing me away again and I’m not letting him do it so easily this time. “Better for who?”
“For all of us.”
“Slade…” I lean against the table, my bare legs pressing into it. There are so many immovable obstacles between us. The feather is a small pile of ash in front of me. If only my heart could be as lifeless.
I want to ask him to stay, but he gives me a quick shake of his head. There’s nothing I can do to stop him leaving.
I exhale. Slowly. “Goodnight, Slade.”
“Goodnight, Hunter. William.”
I wait for his steps to fade. Then for the bookshop door to click closed again, telling me he has left the building. The spot where he stood opposite me is suddenly a yawning chasm.
I sink back into the chair. “How am I going to do this, William? How will I find her? I know she has distinctive eyes, but Mom is bound to have done something to help her hide that feature.”
“Your mother was smart, Hunter. She kept that feather so you would know the truth. She wants you to find this woman. Take some time to think. Your mother must have planted clues in your memory.”
I shake my head. “I don’t remember anything… I didn’t even remember we lived here…”
“Don’t try now, Hunter. You’re exhausted. Your strength took a massive hit today and you need to rest.”
Tears burn at the back of my eyes. Is this how William was with Mom? So caring and supportive. “I wish Mom had stayed here instead of leaving.”
“Me, too.” He pats my arm. “But she and I… had a disagreement… about something you don’t need to worry about right now. Get some rest. Tomorrow is a new day.”
Before I go to bed, I put away the Keres ring and the verdan, hiding them both at the back of my closet. The Clave is gone now and it feels like I’ve closed the door on a part of my life that caused me too much heartache.
What’s left is confusion and frustration. Despite William’s insistence that I shouldn’t try to search my memories, I toss and turn in bed, wishing I could remember every detail of everything she told me, something that might give me a clue about the Keres woman’s whereabouts. The more I seek the answer, the more it eludes me, until I fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion.
Born into darkness, born into darkness, born into…
Mom’s voice echoes in my mind. I wrench out of bed, my body heavy and sluggish as I try to escape the remnant nightmares… the memory of Mom’s death… the dirty brick wall she leaned against… her lank hair… her hands resting across her stomach, palms upward…
I double over, trying to banish the images from my mind.
The sound of knocking at my door forces me to find my feet and wobble over to it, opening it a crack. A quick backward squint at the clock on my bedside table tells me it’s only five a.m..
“William?”
He appears disheveled and caught unawares—a bit like me. His hair sticks out at all angles as if he didn’t have time to brush it. “Hunter, you need to come downstairs.”
I’m immediately alert. “What is it?”
“Get dressed. And bring your ledger.”
My ledger? I’m suddenly fully awake. I race to the bathroom to wash my face, brush my hair, and change as quickly as I can. I only slow my steps when I descend the stairs. The hum of voices reaches me, hushing when I appear.
Briar stands at the entrance to the shop right next to the door. She’s wearing the coat I gave her while her old green beanie is pulled low over her ears to keep out the cold. In front of her, two women and a man wait. William pats the corner of the counter in the same place that Mom kept her ledger. His warm gaze tells me he wants me to place mine there, too.
I put it in the exact spot he indicates and, as if they already decided who is going to approach me first, one of the women steps forward and holds out her hand for the pen.
They’re here for me. But not for Hunter Cassidy. They’re here for the assassin.
I open my ledger and hand her the pen. She startles me by writing the name of the target first. Most people write the target last so they have the chance to back out if they change their mind at the last minute.
Geno Tirelli.
I recognize that name immediately. He is the oldest son in the Tirelli family. I have yet to figure out the relationship between Lady Tirelli and the Tirelli men. I’m not convinced she is their actual mother, especially since the Tirelli Family have lived in Boston for years but Vlad said Lady Tirelli moved here recently. I suspect it’s more likely that she ingratiated herself with them, needing a pack to run with and a
base of operations. Somehow, she must have convinced them to hand over control of their business to her.
In the offered payment section, the client writes a dollar amount with more zeros than I was expecting and in the ‘why’ section she writes:
For my son.
Tears sparkle in her eyes when she looks up at me without speaking.
I sign my name without hesitation and wait for the Guardian’s response. I will have to verify the response with her in person, but I’m sure that this client is genuine. It would be very strange for Lady Tirelli to send someone to request the death of her right hand man. Not impossible though, which is why I’ll be careful.
The Guardian’s curvy script glows golden across the page within seconds.
Sanctioned.
I consider for a moment what I’ve just taken on. Geno Tirelli will be a difficult target. As the male head of the Tirelli Family, he is the businessman and surrounded by bodyguards at all times. I won’t be able to employ subterfuge like I did with my first assassination, making it look like an accident. Geno Tirelli’s death will be an obvious assassination. I’ll have to watch out for retribution from his two brothers, Vincent and Enric.
I give the woman a nod, and the next takes her place.
I hide my surprise when she writes:
Vincent Tirelli.
He’s the second Tirelli son, known for getting his hands dirty. He never bothers with bodyguards because he’s more brutal than they ever will be.
I consider the man still waiting to write in my ledger, wondering… Is he here for the third son?
Sure enough, when the man steps up, he writes the third son’s name:
Enric Tirelli.
He is the expert marksman in the family. He never misses a shot unless he intends to.
The assassinations of all three Tirelli men are sanctioned. The heart and soul of the Tirelli family. Each client has offered me a large sum of money and each has lost a family member to the Tirelli’s brutality.