by Zoe Chant
Well, that’s what being a king means, Jen thought to herself, smothering a laugh. To Nikos, “How does that change your plans?”
Since, strictly speaking, they haven’t done anything illegal, we won’t move against them by legal means. But everyone is on the alert, including the harbor patrol, as well as Grandmother Demi’s army. He then intrigued Jen by explaining Grandmother Demi and her posse of descendants, promising as they moved toward the hall that he would take Jen to meet this fascinating woman soon.
“I wish she and Godiva could meet one another,” Jen found herself saying. “What you say about Grandmother Demi—they sound a lot alike.”
Really? he responded. What little I learned of your friend Godiva, it seems she is a solitary person. Grandmother Demi is like the ancient plane trees, rooted deep into the rock of the island, along with her clan.
Jen said, “Huh. I never considered that! For someone who talks a lot, and loves to interact with people, Godiva really is kind of solitary, in that we don’t know zip about her life before she turned up in town. Well, everyone has lives, I guess—oh!”
They were so deeply melded that the sunset shift took them by surprise, right there on the castle wall between the infirmary and the hetairoi’s hall. Jen flapped up into the air as Nikos began to jog.
Guess I’m skipping dinner, Jen thought to herself. Good thing she’d had a substantial lunch after that weapons workout.
She hopped up onto the castle wall and dove off, glorying in spreading her wings and soaring out over the slope below. She decided to do a full circuit of the island everywhere except the harbor—she’d learn the shape of the shoreline, and hopefully distract herself from useless worries about Medusa, Keraunos, and everything else she couldn’t fix.
Also, sticking to the shore would distract her from the red, glowing pulse deep down at the bottom of the valley, which she knew now was not really a valley, but the thin layer over a volcano caldera. Not the place to go exploring as a brand new shifter. But the danger didn’t squash that internal pull the place exuded like some kind of magnet.
NINETEEN
JEN
The next few days passed, on the surface well-ordered, even fun, as the hetairoi bantered in typical teen and young-adult fashion over meals and workouts. But they were totally focused in their defense drills.
These were unsurprisingly organized into threat levels. What surprised her was how Nikos’s strategy was de-escalation. This island had been dedicated to healing for a couple thousand years, and that had formed their thinking. There was one plan that divided the castle from access below, by dropping a massive boulder perched above a key turn in the ancient zigzag, so that any infiltration could be dealt with one by one. She was experienced enough of a martial artist to see how the defenders would fight to leave an enemy wishing they’d never been born, but alive.
The highest threat level (one often used back in the bad old days of Aegean pirates, she learned) had the city people retreating up to the castle for safety, or to the caves below it, to be defended by the winged shifters. If an entire army attacked, Nikos’s people had some lethal defenses in place, beginning with landslides to take out invaders coming up the mountain.
Jen watched the castle drills, which involved not only the hetairoi but all the staff. She sensed tension mixed with expectation. In some, anticipation.
She finally caught up with her sleep (and got used to the different time zone), and began rising early, which meant she was ready for the shift into her phoenix before it happened. She got stronger at communication on the mythic plane each day, especially with Nikos. It was slowly becoming second nature to keep a mental door open just for him—and she sensed his own door open to her.
Sometimes it was nice just knowing that open door was always there. Other times they exchanged thoughts so fast that words blurred into sensory impressions—what they heard, saw, touched, even smelled and tasted—and the wonderful kaleidoscope of emotions they shared back and forth. With every exchange she felt the bond between them strengthening. Except for the equally intensifying longing to be with him as Nikos-the-man instead of Nikos-the-unicorn, she was happy, truly happy.
As each day ended, she felt that her quest to get to know the hetairoi was progressing. Super fast with Cleo, strong-minded Bryony, Tassos the manticore, always ready for a practical joke, and quiet Petra. Much slower with Ezios, and prickly, austere, distant Ava the eagle, and wild Rastus the cockatrice. They were a family, and they were slowly letting her in; she felt less like a visitor and more like, oh, a great-aunt.
At the end of the week, she came to breakfast while it was still dark outside, hearing the sound of laughter. It sounded like the teasing was aimed at Cleo.
“ . . .not another one!” Bryony rolled her eyes.
“What?” Cleo said, shrugging. “What do you mean, another one? There is no one like Ariadne. For one thing, she’s traveled a lot—”
“Another new best friend? How many best friends do you have?” Iliana asked.
Cleo turned bright red. “I can’t just dump one because I make a new one! Besides, Ariadne is different—she wants to settle here on the island.”
“She came off that yacht,” Bryony said, crossing her arms. A tattoo of a lotus with crossed knives below it rippled on her strong forearm. “That, right there, makes me suspicious.”
“But not all of them work for Medusa,” Cleo said. “I mean, some of them work for her, but only in the sense that they work on the yacht. They aren’t Medusa’s personal people. Ariadne’s a cook, but she said she hates living in a crowded city. And she collects Marvel comics! She loves the same superheroes I do!”
“Oh, well, this one loves the same superheroes, that’s different,” Tassos drawled, but not meanly.
“You should meet Ariadne. You’d like her, too,” Cleo exclaimed earnestly. “Since today is my free day, and the weather is supposed to be perfect, she’s making us a picnic, and we’re going scuba diving. She wants to see the coral up close.”
Mateo looked down the table at her. “Stay away from the yacht. Kyrios’s orders.”
“I know that.” It was Cleo’s turn to roll her eyes.
Bryony turned to Jen. “Ms. Jen, if you ever get tired of that jacket, I want it.”
“No, I call first dibs,” Tassos said.
Jen laughed, shaking the fringes along her sleeves, which now reminded her of her phoenix wings. “I suspect I’ll be wearing it until it falls into pieces.”
With that, breakfast ended, and those on duty went to work out.
With a flip of her hand, Cleo jumped over the wall, shifted mid-air, flickered just enough between dimensions to turn invisible to the human eye, and flew off. Jen followed the rest to the training ground.
After lunch she went down to the clinic to see if she could help—and to see Nikos. She found the place packed, and ended up being recruited to restock bandages. She never even saw Nikos, who was busy fixing up a bunch of shifters who’d apparently been in a bad knife fight.
They look more like they were worked over by an expert, but they aren’t talking, he said mind to mind, between patients.
Did Medusa’s people attack them? She thought back.
No one’s saying anything. Oh, here’s another one. And she felt his focus turn away.
As the shadows began to lengthen, she was let go so that she’d be able to eat before she shifted. She walked up toward the hall, thinking wistfully that they were getting very intimate for two people who couldn’t even kiss.
He flew up to the hall and joined her for the last stretch. “Did anyone say what happened to those shifters?” she asked.
No. Which troubles me, he answered. But at least now they are asleep in the nursing annex, and the few less badly wounded are on their way back down to the harbor.
So it ended up being a good day.
Well, as good as she could get when her nights were spent as a bird.
They parted outside the hall, Nikos waiting on
the broad terrace outside the hall as various people came up to him with messages and questions—some able to converse by mind, and others waiting till he shifted to human.
Jen went into the hall, and when Ezios and Calix made space for her at a table, happiness flooded her heart. She loved the natural way everyone had adjusted to her and Nikos eating at odd times, just to accommodate their enforced shifts.
The conversation was general during dinner. As usual, she was as ravenous as someone half her age. She’d polished off fher braised chicken and was just spooning up the last of her lemon soup when that bees-walking-over-her skin sensation warned her that she was about to become a phoenix for the night.
She pushed away from the table and stood so that her wings wouldn’t tangle in human furnishings, and there she was—a phoenix again.
Nikos’s thought came, I know you can sense the dimension shift that lets us mythic shifters go invisible to humans. Can do you it, do you think?
Jen sighed inwardly. Not yet. I tested again last night, when flying with Iliana. Still glow-in-the-dark. Not exactly subtle. Why?
An urgent message from Grandmother Demi, just now. She needs me to go down there, and I would have liked to bring you along for the long run downhill. I wish it had happened before my shift, so that I could have saved an hour by flying down, but I can’t say that to this poor kid who is ready to collapse from running up here. At least the downward trip will be easier on her.
Jen hid a smile. I take it Grandmother Demi doesn’t have a phone?
Actually, she has one, but she won’t use it except for general purposes. Nothing can convince her that phones left party lines behind decades ago. Your meeting will still have to wait.
Jen had seen on her flights the crazy-quilt warren of twisted paths, arches, tunnels, and dead ends that made the city above the harbor impossible to navigate for any but the locals. Nikos and his people knew how to go to ground when they needed to, but there was no chance she could do that as a golden phoenix radiant almost enough to read by.
Tell her we’ll meet soon, Jen said, with regret. I hope.
She felt his answering laughter, and took off for her nightly flight to the other, unpopulated side of the island, so she could fly high over that alluring red glow that she’d begun to think of as the island’s heart.
She’d made it halfway around the other side of the mountain when a sudden burst of anger from Nikos caused her to miss a wing-beat. She let out a squawk and dropped, wings in tight, to build up some speed before leveling out and flapping hard. What is it? Do you need me?
He did not respond in words, but a brief memory: a teenaged girl woman sitting on a stool next to an old, white-haired woman with a sardonic gaze that definitely reminded Jen of Godiva. This woman had to be Grandmother Demi.
Grandmother Demi said, “Kia here hired onto the yacht as a cleaning girl, the previous one being glad to vanish with our bribe in pocket. Kia couldn’t get away until dark. Kia, tell the kyrios exactly what you heard.”
“I was in the bathroom scrubbing out the shower when she came into the bedroom.” The bitter way Kia spat out the word ‘she’ made Jen suspect it could only be referring to Medusa.
“I didn’t see who she was talking to, but she said, ‘Nikos wants to play games? Fine. We can’t buy legally, we can’t buy legally. Most places, possession is ninth tenths of the law. Time to test that out, isn’t it?’ She slammed around in the closet, then she and a man went out laughing. I had to keep working all day. I hope I’m not too late.”
Jen was just taking this in when she heard a loud crack! Followed by a deep, echoing BOOM!
What was that? she sent the frantic thought.
Mateo has given the signal to close off access to the castle. I’ve got to get back up there. Damn—His thought shut off abruptly, but she knew he was frustrated because he couldn’t shift himself, though one of the bigger shifters was no doubt on the way to get him, to give him a ride.
What could Jen do? She didn’t have a defense station. Go to the infirmary in case she was needed?
Then she remembered those knife fight shifters, and sent a worried thought to Nikos—but immediately his reassuring thought came back, too swift for words: the suspicious patients had vanished somewhere, and she should stay in the aerie or above it until they were found.
Jen flew around the towers and settled onto her perch in Nikos’s room in the aerie, after letting him know where she was. She sensed his relief that she was there and safe, as well as her unspoken regret that she couldn’t be by his side. At least she could keep that mental inner door open.
Time seemed to stretch forever, but it was maybe one a.m. when Nikos himself appeared, looking tired. “Medusa tried to infiltrate. We’ve gone through the castle room by room. They’re locked up. Some fighting on the causeway to the infirmary, but Bryony’s team drove them back. They’re contained at the spring.”
Jen promptly responded, If this goes on past dawn, give me a station. I can fight if need be.
She was briefly surprised when he didn’t answer at once. She realized his gaze—his attention—was elsewhere. Sure enough, he turned to her, his mind searing with worry he didn’t try to hide. “Jen, Cleo did not report to her defense station.”
Wasn’t this her free day?
“Yes, but when the emergency call goes out, they all know to return. Neither Bryony nor I can reach her, which suggests to me that she’s either unconscious, or cut off by shiftsilver.”
“Shiftsilver?”
He gave her a rueful smile. “To borrow from Cleo’s beloved comics, think of it as shifter kryptonite. It keeps us from shifting. Or reaching out on the mythic plane. It doesn’t take much. Enough of it is toxic. I hope for her sake she’s merely asleep, after a long day underwater.” He thumbed his eye sockets tiredly. “Orelle knows most of Cleo’s harbor friends. She and Ezios are on their way to find her.”
“Kyrios!” someone called.
Nikos ran out, leaving Jen on her perch, longing to be able to help. Her phoenix wouldn’t or maybe couldn’t talk to her, to tell her if there was some new power that would help her to fight. She couldn’t turn invisible, so she was a target.
Frustrated, she forced herself into calming breathing. All right. Take stock of what she could do that she knew of. She was very good at talking to Nikos mind to mind. Yes, they were mates, but they weren’t mated yet. She didn’t understand what that meant in all ways yet, but one thing she was sure of: she had become good at hearing on the mental plane.
Therefore . . . if they weren’t mated yet, could that work with others she cared about? She hadn’t really tried, as it was only in the past few days she’d really mastered the inner door, which both protected her own thoughts and those of the other person.
She settled firmly on the perch, and closed her eyes. She knew that of her friends in California, Joey was the expert in this kind of communication. Also Mikhail. Who was a wonderful person, as true as you could get. But also kind of . . . austere. Joey was more accessible.
So she called up a vivid memory of Joey—
Jen?
She let out a squawk and almost fell off the perch. It was like he was standing next to her!
In haste she righted herself, took a deep breath, and concentrated again. Joey, I’m trying to learn how to control this kind of speech. There’s trouble here. I need to reach Cleo.
Joey’s response was immediate, friendly, and encouraging. You did right. If you know Cleo, do the same as you did with me, and you should find her.
He was gone again.
Heartened—determined—she resettled herself and called up her memories of Cleo. The most vivid one was Cleo sitting at Bird’s table, her face alight with enthusiasm as she talked about her bus ride.
Jen reached . . . and bounced, as if slapped back.
Pain panged through her head. Was she failing because she was a phoenix? No—in some ways her mental speech was clearer when she was a phoenix. It was as if all the dis
tractions that claimed her attention while she was human were gone.
She tried again, but this time, very carefully. The first time, she’d done the mental equivalent of going down a row of doors, banging and shouting. And she’d gotten a door smacked into her face.
This time she did the equivalent of drifting along, nothing to see here, la la la, mentally watching out of the corner of her eye.
And she caught . . . something. She forced herself not to leap at whatever it was. One slamdunk had been enough. Instead, she slowed even more, and this time she “watched” out of the corner of her eye and “listened” sideways.
There it was again. So brief, it was easy to miss. It was Cleo’s emotions, but distant. Not in miles. Measuring in physical miles didn’t mean anything on the mythic plane, as Jen had just learned with Joey. He was practically on the other side of the world, but he’d been as clear as if he were sitting right next to her.
No, there was something between Cleo and Jen. It felt like an infinite wall of ice, mixed with toxic waste. Acrid, almost a stench, if you could actually smell something mentally. Poisonous.
Jen made herself as small as she could, a floating dot in the air. And passed by even slower. There it was . . . Jen had to force herself instincts to stay hidden in her dot as Cleo whimpered like a bewildered, lost puppy.
Jen had been denied the chance to be a mother, but all the instincts were there.
She opened her eyes, and thought through everything Cleo had said at breakfast. Ariadne—a cook.
On Medusa’s yacht. But Cleo had promised not to go near there. If she was visiting Ariadne, that meant the cook had to be staying somewhere else.
Jen searched for Nikos, and instantly found him—he was with Mateo, searching for . . . Keraunos was in the castle?
She shivered. No way was she going back until the lightning-wolf shifter was caught or driven out. Why not go scout? Clearly Orelle and Ezios had had no luck. But they weren’t mind-speakers.
If Jen could just find Cleo, she could let Nikos know, and he could send the entire pack of hetairoi to the rescue. Yes. She would actually be helping, rather than waiting around uselessly.