by Rye Brewer
“You’re not staying here alone,” he said again. “I won’t leave you here unprotected, handling who knows what all by yourself. You are coming with us.” He pulled me closer until we were eye-to-eye. “You don’t have a choice in this, Philippa.”
My chin trembled and I cursed the way I cried whenever I felt as overwhelmed as I did just then. Crying was a sign of weakness, or I had always thought of it that way.
Only when I was as full of rage and helplessness and despair as I was just then, crying was the only thing I could do. “I can’t leave him, Dad. What if Vance comes back for the body? What then?”
His expression softened a little, but his hands didn’t release my wrists. “This is the way it has to be.”
“Wait a minute.” Jonah approached. “I think I have an idea.”
“What is it?” I dared to hope.
“What if we take the body with us? We can keep it safe somewhere nearby instead of leaving it here. This way, if Vance comes back, we’ll know.”
“Where could we leave it?” I asked.
I looked at Fane.
“Not in Duskwood,” he said.
“Oh, come on. I thought you said it was safe there. Don’t let personal issues get in the way now.”
He shook his head. “I can’t say for sure that somebody or something won’t get through when I’m not around.”
“The only option we have is to take the body back home,” Jonah decided.
“Sure. We’ll leave him in the living room, in front of the fireplace,” Gage muttered. “How about we mount him like a trophy?”
“I don’t mean there,” Jonah fired back.
“So where?”
He looked guilty all of a sudden. “I have a vault.”
My eyes widened. I looked at Gage, who was just as surprised as I was. “A vault? Since when?”
“Since always. It doesn’t matter.” He looked at Fane, who probably knew about the vault. The whole head of the clan thing. “We can leave him there. Nobody knows about it.”
“Okay. That works. As long as he’s not alone.” I never thought I would care so much about the body of an Ancient I’d never met.
Everything hinged on him.
We went to the roots, which were impossible for me to tear up earlier. But Allonic had managed to rip some of them out, and that seemed to weaken them.
We worked together to free the body, then Fane lifted it.
“He weighs next to nothing,” he murmured, slinging Valerius over his back. “Let’s go.”
We retraced our steps back through the tunnels and through the portals, all leading to the rooftop outside the penthouse.
By the time I stepped through, I was sure I had never been more exhausted in all my long life.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about Vance.
Where was he?
What would he do?
24
JONAH
Home had never looked so good.
We stumbled into the penthouse without checking first whether Scott was there. I guessed he was out somewhere, doing clan business. The place was empty, the fireplace dark and cold.
Fane lowered Valerius into an overstuffed chair, then stretched. He’d been carrying the body for hours.
“I need to get back,” he said with a grimace as he rolled his head on his neck. “I can’t stay around here. You remember what I told you.”
“What about Scott?” Gage asked. “You said you were going to meet up with him.”
“I also said I can’t let anyone see me with you.”
“Can you wait just a little while?” Philippa asked.
She looked completely worn out, physically and emotionally. There were dark circles under her eyes.
I had no idea she still cared so much about Vance. They’d been over for ages. But the way she attacked Nivia and fought Fane to stay in Sorrowswatch told a different story.
“I can’t.” Fane looked around, saw how disappointed that made us, and he melted a little. “Maybe I can come back when you have Scott with you and we can all go to Duskwood. It’s safer there. But I need to go, right now.”
“How will we know how to reach out to you?” I asked as he walked to the doors leading outside.
“Don’t worry. I’ll find you.” With that, he was gone. I looked at my brother and sister, and it was clear we were all wrung out. Seeing our mother… and the way he held her…
“I should go, too.” Anissa’s voice behind me was a surprise. For a second, I almost forgot she was there. “And I’ll take my sister with me.”
That got Philippa’s attention. She looked happier than I had seen her in a long time.
“She’s probably with Scott,” I reminded her.
“Yeah. I know. I’m sure they haven’t gone far. When I tell her our mother’s waiting, she’ll come with me.”
I left Philippa and the others to look after Valerius while I pulled Anissa aside. “Are you sure you want to go alone?”
“I won’t be alone. I’ll have Allonic with me. He proved himself back there, didn’t he?” She looked impressed, proud. Maybe a little concerned, too.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Maybe I just need a break from all the excitement, too. I mean, it’s been a lot.”
“Tell me about it.” I could still remember the sensation of turning to stone while the silver infected my blood. I still wasn’t sure what Vance did to me with that blade, but I never wanted to feel it again.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “I mean, are you feeling yourself?”
“As much as I can be, I guess. I wish I could sleep.”
“Me, too,” she smiled. “I would sleep for days. But we can rest. You should. Get your strength back, regroup. We’ll all get through this.”
She took a step back, away from me. I grabbed her hand to hold her in place. “Hey. Wait a second. I have something else to say.”
“What is it? I think your sister is in a hurry to get Valerius to the vault.” Sure enough, Philippa was pacing the floor, biting her nails. She would have to wait a minute.
“I wanted to apologize for not telling you about Fane—my father. I’m sorry. I didn’t know you would take it that way.”
“I know you didn’t,” she murmured. Emotion washed over her face, but she didn’t say anything else.
“Are you still, you know…” I trailed off because I didn’t want to say it out loud.
“Unsure about us?”
“Yeah.” It broke my heart to think it.
She nodded.
“But what about everything that happened back there, in Sorrowswatch?” I remembered being in her arms. I remembered her screaming for help when Vance stabbed me.
She didn’t sound like a girl who didn’t have feelings anymore.
“I haven’t stopped caring about you,” she whispered. “I never will. I just don’t know if you and I are what I thought we were. So much has happened. I need time to think, you know?”
I couldn’t deny how much it hurt, so I didn’t bother. “I understand.”
It was all I could say, even though it didn’t seem to scratch the surface of what I was going through. How was I supposed to be without her? It felt like couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t in my life, even when I had lived for decades before we met.
“Be careful with yourself, okay?” She reached up to touch my face.
I told myself to remember how it felt, in case she never came back. I couldn’t believe she wouldn’t, but there was always a chance she would decide we didn’t have a future.
“You, too.”
Allonic joined us. “We should go.”
She was right, he had proved himself—even though I wondered why he’d fed from Valerius. It didn’t seem to do anything to help us, and he seemed the same. Valerius’s body, on the other hand, looked almost as feeble as it had before Nivia gave him our blood.
“There’s only one thing,” he said. “I can’t go thr
ough the building to leave, but we can’t port without Sara.”
“Oh. Right.” She chewed her lip, frowning.
“I can show you a back way to leave through,” I offered.
“I still don’t think it’s safe for me to go through the high-rise—I don’t mean any offense,” Allonic said.
“None taken.”
He looked at Anissa. “I’ll find you when you have our sister. We’ll portal out then.” Then Allonic nodded to me, as though bidding me farewell.
“Take care of her,” I said.
“I will.” He went out to the roof and I just made out the light of a portal before the light went out.
He was gone, too.
She looked as resolved as ever, so even though I wished she’d change her mind, I led her out to the hall and to the back stairwell.
“It’s a lot of stairs to the ground floor, but it’s better than getting spotted alone on the elevator. Nobody takes the stairs.”
“Thanks. I’ll go look for Sara in her room… or Scott’s first.” She gave me a half-hearted smile. “See you soon.”
“I hope so.” I watched her disappear through the door and felt like I was losing part of myself. It took all my self-control to keep from following her. How could I survive not knowing whether or not she was all right?
The sound of a throat clearing, and a hand on my elbow shook me out of it, and back to reality.
I still had issues to take care of.
Philippa was standing just behind me. “We need to get to the vault. What happens if Scott comes back and finds him?”
“Right, of course.”
We went back into the penthouse. Valerius was still in the chair, sitting upright. He might as well have been dead. He barely breathed and didn’t move at all.
I lifted him with Gage’s help while Philippa kept a lookout in the hall. She gave the all-clear and we carried the body out to the elevator. Philippa inserted her key into the lock above the panel, turning it into an private elevator. It removed the chance that any curious clan members would come across us.
“Where to?” she asked.
“The sub-basement.” I hadn’t been down to the vault in a long time.
Years.
“How come you didn’t tell us you have a vault?” Gage asked.
Maybe because I never trusted you. “Dad told me not to tell anybody, not even family members.”
It was tough, working alongside Gage, but still remembering all the grief he gave me for so long over wanting to lead the clan. There was still just the slightest bit of resentment in his eyes, too. I was used to that.
“Why is there a vault in the first place?” Philippa asked.
“Just in case there’s something that needs hiding. You know. Like the body of an Ancient.” I left it there.
Fact was, I didn’t know why we had a vault. I had never used it, even though Dad had more than once. We had lived in relative peace for so long, I hadn’t worried about it.
The sub-basement was dark except for the few utility lights strung up at intervals along the hall. It was dank down there, cold, and it reminded me of the tunnels leading to Sorrowswatch.
Only I knew where we were going, and instead of running water, the buzz of generators filled the air.
The door leading to the vault looked like any of the other metal utility doors on that floor. I used my key and swung it open.
“It’s… just a room.” Philippa stepped inside what looked like a mostly empty supply closet.
I went around her and pushed in on the specific cinderblock which sprung the lock and opened the hidden door behind a set of metal shelves.
“Help me move these.”
We pushed the shelves aside, then I opened the inside door.
“Nobody would ever find this,” Gage marveled as he walked in, still holding Valerius across his arms.
“It’s perfect,” Philippa agreed.
I felt the same way.
“And now you’ll know he’s safe.”
Gage lowered Valerius into one corner. “We can always try to make him comfortable, too. Maybe bring down some pillows, blankets. Whatever you think he’d need.”
I could see why Gage was coddling our sister like he was.
She had a sort of crazy look in her eye, like she was obsessed with looking after him.
I could sort of understand why, even though I still didn’t get the whole Vance thing.
“When did the two of you…” I looked and Gage, and he shrugged.
So he didn’t have a clue how to approach Philippa, either.
I continued, “When did you get back together?”
“We didn’t,” she whispered. “I don’t know that we ever would. But that doesn’t change how I feel.”
“I’m really sorry.” I folded my arms around her, from behind her, as she stood there, watching Valerius. Watching for what? I had no idea. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“It’ll be okay. Vance will come back for the body. I know he will. He has to.” It sounded like she was trying to convince herself, not me.
“I’m sure he will.” I wasn’t sure of any such thing, but I had to say something; she needed encouragement.
“Come on,” Gage said. “We don’t want to run the risk of anybody randomly showing up down here.”
“Nobody ever comes down here,” she whispered.
“Yeah, well, there’s a first time for everything.” I let go of her. “Come on. I can’t wait to take a shower.”
Everything else would have to wait a while, even the stuff with Gage.
“And when Scott shows up later, without Sara, after Anissa finds her, we’ll have to catch him up on some of this,” Gage reminded us.
We walked out together, and I turned to wait for Philippa to come out, too.
She didn’t.
“Philippa? Come on.”
Gage and I glanced at each other.
A sneaking suspicion started growing in my chest.
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
I nearly groaned in frustration.
She was clearly determined to keep me out of the shower. All I wanted was a shower. And maybe to lock myself in my room for a year.
“What are you saying? We can talk it out upstairs. This isn’t the place for you to hang out, you know? Come on. You’ll feel better once we’re home.”
She shook her head again and didn’t turn toward us. “No. I can’t leave him. Not for anything.” She went to him and sat on the floor with her back to the wall. “I won’t leave as long as he’s here.”
“Now what?” Gage asked.
I shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
25
JONAH
The club was on fire. Not literally, but almost. I didn’t think I had ever seen it so packed, so full of energy. And why not? We had Gage back, and everybody knew it, so everybody in the clan wanted to party like they were the ones who personally rescued him and brought him home. Far be it from me to stop them.
That didn’t mean I had to join them, though.
While the rest of the clan’s members danced and thrashed around under swirling, multicolored lights, my siblings and I sat on the deck. It was cooler out there, the air fresher. And we didn’t have to scream to be heard. The conversation we were having wasn’t exactly the kind we could scream in public, so taking it to a private corner was for the best.
Philippa’s eyes sweep back and forth under lowered lashes. She thinks we don’t know how desperate she is to get away from us, but she’s wrong.
“Philippa, relax,” I murmur, touching her bare arm. She flinches like I’ve burned her, so I pull my hand away.
“That’s easy for you to say,” she mutters darkly.
“Come on. Jonah’s right.” Gage slid an arm around her shoulders, and this time she didn’t act like she was repulsed or in pain. “It’s bad enough we had to talk you into coming out, but you can’t act like this. Somebody’s going to notice and tell that something’s wrong.”<
br />
“Something is wrong,” she reminded him, then turned to me. “If I asked you to leave your precious Anissa behind—”
I held up a hand to stop her. “Don’t even go there,” I warned.
“Well? Isn’t that the truth? You would never leave her in some dark, cold vault where she couldn’t protect herself.”
“But Philippa, you know that nobody can get in there but us. Nobody even knows it exists but us, and nobody except for me and D—Fane know the access code. And now you know it, too. But that’s all. He’s as safe as he would be anyplace else. Safer, even.”
“You can’t sit in there with him forever,” Gage reminded her in a quiet voice. He always could get through to her better than I could. “You would waste away, and we won’t let that happen.”
“You don’t know how this feels,” she whispered.
“You’re right,” I said, and I tried hard to make my voice like Gage’s. “What’s happened lately—I can’t even wrap my head around half of it. And just when I think I have things under control, something else happens and I question everything I thought I knew all over again. It’s insane. I’m exhausted,” I admitted.
“Me, too,” Gage said. “But we’re all together now, and we always work better as a team. We’ll look back on this one day, and we’ll laugh about it.”
I met his eyes, and he shrugged.
Sometimes he could lay it on really thick. But it was the sort of thing Philippa needed to hear. She visibly relaxed, which helped me relax a little. But only a little.
“Shh,” she said, shaking Gage’s arm off. “He’s coming back.”
The three of us pretended to be talking about something else, anything else, as Scott returned to the round table the three of us sat at.
I hated lying to him, even lying by omission, but he didn’t know yet about Fane.
We couldn’t even use his help in getting Philippa out of the vault, where Valerius’s body still rested, because it would’ve meant going into the whole story about where we got him and what happened before and after that—eventually, all roads led to Fane.
I still had to work at it to stop thinking about him as our father.
I exchanged a look with Philippa and Gage as Scott sat down. They agreed that it was best for Fane to announce his presence personally. It just wouldn’t be the same coming from one of us, even all three of us. I hoped Fane didn’t take his time about it, was all.