by Rye Brewer
I walked her outside and hoped Fane was still out there.
The wind blew my hair back, and Philippa raised a hand to brush a thick, red strand from in front of her face just as a dark figure emerged from the shadows.
I stepped back.
She froze, eyes trained on him as he came closer.
“I don’t believe it.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Philippa.” His jaw clenched.
She shook her head. “No. This is impossible.”
2
JONAH
I waited to see what she would do. It was like waiting for an animal to make a move—would there be an attack? Would it back down?
She threw herself at him, arms closing around his neck. “Is it really you?”
“It’s me.” He hugged her gently, like he was afraid she would break.
All sorts of conflicting emotion raced across his face before he pulled her arms apart0 and stepped back. Their embrace had lasted the time it took me to blink an eye. Not nearly long enough.
I groaned quietly to myself.
Then he turned to me. “All right. She knows. Can we go now?”
She blinked. “Wait. What’s wrong? You just got here.”
“Yes, but we have something important to do now.”
I winced. Didn’t he have a clue how he sounded?
Her face worked as she processed this. “Are you serious? You’re going to do this to me right now?”
I stepped forward, wishing he was a little gentler with her. Maybe bringing him home wasn’t a good idea, after all. It was one thing to think her father was dead, but another for him to reject her with no explanation.
I put a hand on her arm, wanting to comfort her—or maybe keep her from doing anything rash. “I wanted you to see him. I didn’t want to keep it from you that he was alive.”
She glared at me like I was the one who had just broken her heart. “You choose now to tell me? You’re going to do this to me when there’s so much going on? You bring him here like it’s no big deal?” Then, she whirled on Fane. “And you! You just show up out of nowhere, after all this time? And you don’t think to come to us and tell us you’re alive? Jonah had to bring you here?”
Only she wasn’t angry with him. She was hurt and confused. I could hear it in her voice and could remember feeling that way myself at first.
He sighed. “Philippa, I can explain.”
She held up a hand, and her head hung low. “Please. This is too much at once. I just can’t understand why this is happening right now. I mean, all this time? All this time!” Her head snapped up again, and she glared at him. “How could you not even tell us you were alive? How could you let us think you were dead?”
“Please. I want to tell you everything, but you have to give me a chance—and we don’t have much time.”
“I don’t have much time, either. Holy hell!” She threw her hands up and spun around, then paced back and forth, shaking her head and cursing the entire time. “This is ridiculous. You just walk back into our lives like it’s nothing, like you just show up after all this time and I’m supposed to—what? Hug you? Cry? Tell you how happy I am that you’re alive even though I’ve spent all these years trying to get used to the idea of you being dead? Is that what you want from me? Is it?”
“I don’t want anything from you,” he said. “Anything at all. It means so much to see you like this—you look well.”
“Yeah, so do you.” She looked at me, then back at him. “So? Are you back, as in back forever? Have you decided to be part of the clan again?”
“No, that can never be. I don’t live in this world anymore.” He looked at me for help.
“Philippa… this is Fane.” I held my breath and waited.
Her face contorted in disbelief as she shook her head so hard, her hair flipped back and forth over her shoulders. “No. That can’t be true. Not our father. Fane isn’t a normal creature—I mean, he’s practically a myth. This?” She gestured to him. “This is Dommik Bourke.”
“It’s true, Philippa.” His voice was firm, sharp.
Her head snapped around to face him.
“This is who I am.”
“How? How could you do that? How?” she shrieked. “You’re somebody else now? You just stepped out of your life and decided to be someone else? Like we didn’t matter? And now you’re, what, some secretive nomad vigilante or whoever Fane is supposed to be? While we—” She clasped her hands in front of her chest when her voice cracked, then broke. “While we thought you were gone,” she whispered brokenly. Her voice was thick with tears.
He closed his eyes. “I can’t make up for this, but it wasn’t my choice. We had no choice.”
“Mother?” she whispered through tears.
He shook his head.
Her body quaked with sobs she kept silent. After a few deep breaths, she spoke again.
“Gage is missing. Things are crazy right now.”
Fane nodded. “I know.”
“You know? How could you know that?”
He smiled for the first time—a faint smile, but it was there. “I’ve been watching over things from a distance.”
“Right. Because that’s what Fane does,” she muttered.
She was starting to slide off into anger again, which was nothing but a waste of time.
I intervened. “Okay. There’s a lot we have to do, and we can’t spend all our time with accusations.”
“I agree,” Fane said. His eyes were still on her. “Tell me what you know about Gage. What have you found out?”
“I found out why he ran away,” she replied with her head high. “I have a reliable source who told me where I could find him. He was hiding at the League headquarters for a while.”
Fane’s expression hardened at the mention of the headquarters—as did mine now, since I’d learned of Lucian’s role in our family’s history.
She went on, oblivious. “I went there and talked with him in the woods.”
“Did anybody overhear you?”
“No—he insisted we go very far away. He said… he said he had a job to do. There were a lot of wild accusations.” She shook her head. “I’m still not sure if he was in his right mind, honestly. Only now, he’s gone again, and Vance has vanished, too.”
“What has Vance got to do with it?” Fane asked.
I was on guard, too, seeing as how Vance was Lucian’s son.
She looked down. “He was helping me for a little while, but my source tells me he’s gone.”
“And who is this source?”
“I can’t tell you that.” She looked up again. “I’m sorry. I owe them a lot and don’t want to get them tangled up.”
“Fine, then. I have my own contacts and can reach out to them.” He looked at me. “I want you with me on this.”
“Wait! You’re going to look for him?” Just like that, she turned into the little sister who felt left out when our father wanted to include her big brothers—but not her—in a mission. “What about me? That’s what I was going to do.”
“You stay here.” He went to her, taking her arms in his hands. “I want you as far from this as can be. You have to stay safe—not just for yourself, but for the clan. Keep things together here.”
Her shoulders slumped. “All right, I guess.” Her eyes fell on the backpack by her feet.
I felt sorry for her. She was all ready to go, and we showed up and changed her plans.
There were voices nearby, just loud enough to hear. The three of us ducked into the shadows.
“Scott,” I murmured. “Should we tell him?”
“That I’m alive?” Fane asked.
“No. Don’t do it,” Philippa whispered vehemently.
Both of us looked at her in surprise.
“How can you say that?” I asked. “How would you feel if you knew I was keeping him from you?”
“It’s not about that,” she said. “It’s about Sara.”
“What about her?”
“I don’t trust her.”
“Oh, come on.” I rolled my eyes. “This again? What do you have against her? You really have to get over this.”
“It’s not personal, even though I don’t like her,” she said hotly. “I feel like she’s hiding something. And if that’s true, she shouldn’t know about Fane.”
Fane nodded. “That’s the sort of decision a leader makes. We have to think about all the possibilities.”
My sister practically glowed at the compliment.
“Did you tell her?” she asked.
There was only one her she could mean—Anissa.
“No, I didn’t. Well, I told her I met Fane, but I didn’t say anything about him being my father.”
“Right now, Gage is our top priority,” Fane said. “He’s in danger. Scott can wait.” He looked at me. “And then we can sort out the other things, too. After Gage is taken care of.”
“What other things?” Philippa looked hurt. “What else haven’t you told me?” Her eyes darted back and forth between us.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
Neither of us said anything. I knew he wanted to protect her, and so did I.
“Great. Just great.” She stepped back, away from us. “Go off and run around the whole world together. See if I care. I’ll just be here, holding down the fort, making sure you have a clan to come back to. I’m not special enough for you to clue in. No problem.” She picked up her backpack and stormed off, back inside the penthouse.
I lunged forward, wanting to stop her, but Fane grabbed me and held me firmly.
“She’ll get over it—it’s for the best,” he said. “I don’t want her involved in what we’re going to do.”
“What are we going to do—now that you mention it?”
“You said you’d help me find Gage. First things first. We have to go now—we’ve spent too much time here already.” He cast a portal. “Come on.”
I looked back to where Philippa had gone inside. I wished I had time to tell her I was sorry about excluding her.
We needed to be on our game, all of us, if we were going to get through what was coming.
She couldn’t sulk or worse, take things in her own hands to show us how valuable she was.
Fane might have forgotten how she could be at times, but I hadn’t.
“Jonah. We need to go, now. Your brother needs us.”
Right.
My brother.
The one in actual danger.
That pressed me into a decision, and I stepped through the portal.
3
ANISSA
It was weird, being back in the human world after running around between worlds for so long.
Nothing was the same as it used to be while I walked in the city—once my city, not long ago, but yet forever ago—head down, hood up, fists jammed into the pockets of my sweatshirt.
It was as though overnight, I’d gone back to the person—the assassin—I used to be, dodging crowds of people on the street, doing my best to blend in, even as I walked with purpose.
People had no idea.
That was the funny part.
Those humans with their TV shows and lattes and little dramas. They didn’t know how much went on right under their noses or over their heads. They were oblivious to what really made the world go around—and how close they’d come to extinction if the forces all around them decided to go to war.
Better to let them go on thinking they were the masters of their world.
A light rain fell, creating a mist around me as I dashed up the wide stone stairs of one of the city’s oldest and most ornate libraries. If I was going to find Raze, it would be at the library. He never could get enough of learning about the human world, and he knew better than to keep too many of their books in his rooms at the mansion.
Marcus and his deep core of suspicion wouldn’t allow for that. I had visited the library with Raze before and seen the way the college girls looked at him over the tops and sides of their books when they knew he wasn’t looking. They’d whisper to each other about him while he sat there with his head buried, lost in another world.
Even though I never wanted him that way, I used to sneer nastily to myself, knowing how fast they’d change their minds if they knew what he really was.
The inside of the building was a giant maze full of the smell of paper and people. I looked around, wondering where he could be. He usually tried to find a quiet nook to hide out in, away from eyes and whispering voices.
I scanned the area, up and down the rows and stacks. It took me a few minutes, but eventually I spotted him, sitting alone in a leather chair, a thick book in his lap. His head was down, his eyes riveted to the page.
I couldn’t help but smile a little. How many times had I seen him sitting just like that? The library could come down around his head and he wouldn’t blink.
My assassin’s mind woke up from its sleep—it had been weeks since my last mission—and reminded me that anybody could come up and take him out if they wanted to. He wouldn’t fight back. Would he? The thought set my heart racing even though I reminded myself it was just a thought. Nobody would hurt Raze. There was no reason to.
Still, his absorption made it easy for me to sneak up behind him.
He didn’t even flinch when I leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Read any good books lately?”
He jumped out of the chair. His book fell to the floor and slammed shut with a loud clap that attracted attention from all directions.
I ducked my head and heard him murmuring his apologies as he picked up the book and set it on the table.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered.
“I thought I would look around and remember what life was like before it turned into something from a TV show,” I whispered back.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Since when do you sound so nasty with me? I thought you’d be happy to see me after all this time.”
“Yeah, all this time with no idea where you were or what you were doing. I mean, come on, Anissa. I thought we were closer than that.” He looked around to be sure we weren’t overheard.
I did the same.
“We are closer than that, but there’s just been so much. I’m sorry. I wish there was a way I could keep in touch with you while this is happening, but it’s for the best that you don’t know much about it. Trust me. You’re better off where you are now.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay. Easy for you to say. Meanwhile, I have to wonder where my friend is and if she’s alive.”
“I’m sorry. I really am.” I reached for him and was startled when he pulled away.
He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you can’t come strolling back in and act like nothing’s wrong. I mean, after you ran off with him.”
Him.
So that’s what it was all about.
I let out a soft sigh. “You mean Jonah.”
“Who else? You chose him and his clan over—over us.” He stopped himself just short, but I knew what he meant.
I chose Jonah over him. I knew it would come to that one day, that just being friends wouldn’t be enough for him after a while.
It was just inconvenient that he chose that very moment to hurl it in my face.
“It’s a long story—nothing I could get into right now. You deserve to know everything. Now just isn’t the time. I’m sorry, Raze. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t.” I leaned against the chair, suddenly very tired. “I wish I had somebody I could pour this all out to. You have no idea.”
He was quiet for a while. Then, “What’s with your face?” He reached out to touch my skin. I flinched and he pulled away.
“Sorry—it’s not you. It’s just that they’re not healed yet.” I turned my face away to hide the worst of the scarring. It would be a little more time before my skin fully healed from being exposed to sunlight.
“What happened to you?”<
br />
“Like I said, long story. I’m all right now. Just believe me, okay?”
“Right.” He folded his thick arms. “So. You can’t tell me what you’ve been doing and I’m sure you’re gonna tell me you can’t stay around. Why are you here, then? What do you want from me?”
I hoped there would come a day when he wasn’t so angry with me. I told myself there would be a time when we could talk it all out. I could tell him everything then.
“You’re right. I need your help.”
“I thought so. You can’t tell me what you’re doing, but you can ask me for help.”
“Because you’re the only one who can do this for me. Please. I need you.” I forced myself to hold eye contact even though he looked at me with so much hurt and disgust.
I hated to see him that way.
Then his shoulders slumped a little. “What do you need?”
Hope flickered in my chest. “I need you to go back to the mansion and into my rooms. There’s a wardrobe in my bedroom. Behind the clothes, there’s a hidden opening.” I told him how to access it. “There’s shelf where I store my backpack. It has everything I need in it. Please. Can you bring it to me?”
“I guess so. You want it here?”
“Yeah, if you can. I guess I’m safe enough here for a while.”
“It’ll probably take a couple of hours. I can’t just walk in, take it, and walk back out. You know how it is. I don’t want anybody following me.”
Yes, I knew how it was. Marcus would be tighter than ever when it came to security.
“Okay. I’ll be here. Please, hurry if you can.” There was so much to do.
He would never understand how desperate I was just then.
All he did was nod and turn away, book forgotten.
I decided to flip through his book in the meantime. A history of the city. He was always fascinated with history.
I skimmed the pages—my thoughts were elsewhere. The pictures of the men and women in horse-drawn carriages made me think of the early days of the clan, and my parents. I remembered the story my father told about how he met my mother, and the happy times they spent together.
Granted, they weren’t taking carriages everywhere, but they walked through the park and saw change taking place all around them through the time they were together.