by Chloe Neill
Blackwell was working hard to look stoic, but she couldn’t hide the curl of her lip.
“Second, in case you weren’t aware”—Darby leaned forward—“you’re an asshole. And I wouldn’t work with you if Containment offered me permanent AC and a lifetime supply of Abita.”
Blackwell’s pale skin mottled crimson. “You know nothing,” she said through gritted teeth.
“I know plenty. I was here during the war. I know who lived and who died. I know when force is necessary, and when kindness is a better strategy. And I know selfishness when I see it.”
Darby slid the paper back into her folder. And when she looked at Gunnar, her smile was warm and brilliant. “We’re done here, if you’re ready.”
“Fine by me,” he said, disgust dripping from the words.
But I wasn’t done. “Can I have a minute?”
They all looked at me, and none of them seemed thrilled about leaving me alone with her. Or vice versa.
“Five minutes,” Gunnar said, and went to check with the guard.
Liam squeezed my hand. “I’ll be right around the corner.”
I waited until they were gone, until the guard and I were the only ones left in the hallway. Until I could collect myself.
When I finally raised my gaze to my mother, I saw nothing there but certainty and challenge. There would be no regret or guilt from her. No remorse. Because she couldn’t conceive of the possibility that any decision she’d made hadn’t been the rational one. And that was the only thing that mattered.
No point in mincing words on my end, then.
“I wish I’d had time to prepare a big speech,” I said. “With details, and history, and five-dollar words. But I’ll just get to the point. I hope I never have to see you again. Do you have any idea how heartbreaking that is? To have to say that to your own mother? It’s the worst. But you’re toxic. Plain and simple. You’re smart, but you’ve got no morals. No code of honor. And you’ve got an agenda, which has nothing to do with New Orleans or war or making lives better. It has to do with you. With your ego and your narcissism.”
She started to speak and I held up a hand. “You had most of my life to tell me who you were, and you didn’t bother. You didn’t give me a single word. You missed your chance, and you won’t get another one from me.”
With that, I turned on a heel and walked down the hall.
CHAPTER NINE
I found everyone outside. Darby and Gunnar had walked a few feet away, giving Liam and me a bit of space.
“You okay?” he asked, putting an arm around me.
I nodded, let myself be held, until I could feel anger and guilt and grief melt away.
“I am more of my father,” I finally said. “I’d wondered, after we met the first time, if there was some of her in me.”
“Red hair, good brain,” Liam said, kissing my forehead. “And that’s it.”
I leaned back, looked up at him. “You’re so sure.”
“Who knows you better?” he asked with a smile. “Except possibly Tadji and Gunnar. You know, the more I learn about your mother, the more I like your father.”
I blinked back confusion. “What?”
“Your father and your mother agree she left you, and not the other way around. But that’s not the most important part. He let her walk away. He knew it was better for both of you if she was gone. Even if it was going to be hard, being a single dad. He let her walk away. And that’s a difference between us.”
He looked down at me, gold shimmering in the potent blue in his eyes. “I won’t ever let you walk.”
* * *
• • •
Gunnar drove us back to the store. I was quiet on the ride, trying to process my feelings, and trying to keep them contained enough so I could still function. Because we were quickly reaching that crisis point I’d been dreading.
I needed to sit and think. Lock myself upstairs on the third floor, dump all my complicated feelings about war and Blackwell and magic on the floor, and just look at them. Dive into them, dwell on them, scream and cry about them until they were resolved enough to be locked away again.
But there wasn’t time for that. So I’d have to figure out another way.
It was waiting for me outside the store.
“Y’all are fast,” Liam said, looking at the pile of plywood, bags, sand, and shovels. Essentials for a good storm-prep party.
“The storm’s moving fast,” Gunnar explained. “Better to be prepared than not.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“I’m going back to the Cabildo,” he said. “I’ll talk to the Commandant about a trip into the Beyond. Technically, you could walk through right now, assuming you made it past the line. But unless the Commandant allows it, we don’t rush to your rescue if shit goes bad.”
I held up a hand. “I would like to please be rescued if shit goes bad.”
“I figured,” he said. “You want Containment’s stamp on this. They’ve got the resources, the authority, the personnel. You’re set on going?”
“It looks like the Devil’s Snare is our best bet, so yeah. And we can’t reach the Citadel without Malachi, so I suspect either he gets his way or the weapon won’t happen.”
Gunnar nodded. “I’ll get back when I can, but probably not until dusk. I’ll also check with Darby later, see where she is on Callyth and ideas about the weapon.” He gestured to the pile of supplies. “You have plenty to do in the meantime.”
We said our good-byes and climbed out of the vehicle. As Gunnar drove off toward the Cabildo, Gavin came outside.
“Perfect timing,” Liam said, pointing to the supplies. “Let’s get to work.”
“Claire’s telekinetic,” Gavin said with a mild whine. “Can’t she just put the sand into the bags?” He looked at me hopefully.
“Then we wouldn’t get to enjoy this gorgeous and mild New Orleans weather.” He picked up two pairs of heavy-duty gloves, tossed a pair at Gavin. They hit him in the face, dropped to the ground.
Gavin’s expression went flat, but he scooped them up and put them on, grumbling all the way.
“I’m going to check in with Tadji,” I said, and let my fingers skim along Liam’s back. The contact, the connection, made me feel better. But I needed a different kind of comfort right now.
He glanced over, searched my face. “You all right?”
“I’m okay. Need some girl time.”
“Okay,” he said, and leaned down to brush his lips over mine. “Come back soon.”
“You’re saying that because you want me to help you shovel.”
“Damn right,” he said with a wink, and pulled on his own gloves.
* * *
• • •
I found Tadji inside behind the counter in leggings and a brilliant yellow Royal Mercantile T-shirt she’d turned, with some creative cutting, into a tank top. She wore a contrasting yellow tank beneath, and her hair was a halo of dark waves around her face.
“So, a literal storm is coming,” she said, looking up from the pile of papers that sat beside a calculator on the counter. “In addition to the Paranormal nonsense.”
“Yeah. Liam and Gavin are working on the supplies Containment dropped off.”
“I’m taking inventory of our own supplies. Been a while since the last storm.”
“We’ve been lucky. But I don’t think we’re going to be lucky this time.”
She tilted her head at me, frowning as if she had to figure something out. “How was Delta?”
“I just came back from seeing Laura Blackwell, and we’re probably going into the Beyond.”
She breathed in once, pushed aside her papers, and linked her hands on the counter. “Tadji’s in session. Spill it.”
* * *
• • •
She let the clerk she’d hired
run the cash box, and she gave me her undivided attention. Just one of the reasons I loved her.
I told her about Delta, the weapon, the stone. The beams of magic and the trip to see my mother. I told her what Darby had said to her, what I’d said to her, and watched Tadji’s eyes light with approval. I told her about the Beyond. And that’s when she got quiet and very, very still.
“Only two days,” I said. “We’ll be back before the storm hits.” If all goes well, I thought again. “And maybe it will veer off into the Atlantic and bother someone else.”
“I want to tell you not to go,” Tadji said. “I want to tell you to stay here, where it’s safe, because this war is Containment’s problem.”
She reached out, put her hand on mine, squeezed. “But we both know that’s not true. War is war, and this one belongs to all of us. It wasn’t won the first time without Sensitives, and it probably won’t be won again without you. We’ve talked before about who we are, about our destinies. I don’t have any doubt that you’re fulfilling yours. So if that’s the direction your destiny goes, you have to follow it. You can’t buck destiny.”
“Is destiny a euphemism for ‘ridiculous plan’?”
“It can be two things,” she said with a grin. “Kind of like how you attempted to surprise me with Burke.”
“The attempt was successful. You were surprised.”
“I was surprised. And initially furious.” She narrowed her eyes. “You know that’s not my kind of thing.”
“I know. But, Tadj, you’ve been working so hard, and he was so excited to see you, and we just thought you’d enjoy the lift. And if it was a surprise, you wouldn’t, like, anticipate it.”
Her brows lifted. “I wouldn’t ‘anticipate’ it? What does that mean?”
“You are a rational person.”
“Nothing complimentary ever followed a statement like that.”
“You think about Burke a lot, and the relationship, and the rules. We just thought—Gunnar mostly thought and I, I guess, moderately supported him—that it might be fun for you, and why are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re throwing Gunnar under the bus?”
“I mean, it appears to be a really large bus. So yes.”
She sighed. “I’m not mad. And I still don’t like shocks. But . . .”
“But?” Hope rose.
“Seeing his face, seeing him just standing there . . . That was pretty phenomenal.”
I couldn’t have held back the grin if I’d tried. Which I wasn’t going to, having been so clearly validated. “Yeah, it was. Same when Liam came back. I was working with the Sensitives and then, boom, there’s a Quinn in the park.”
“And a Gavin behind him.”
“Always,” I said. “Hug it out?”
“Hug it out,” she said, and we gave each other a squeeze.
“Now,” she said when we’d separated, and she’d put a bossy hand on her hip. “Get out there and fill some sandbags.”
* * *
• • •
Gavin and I shoveled, while Liam closed the shutters upstairs and hung plywood above the uncovered windows.
It was hot and humid, and we were drenched and sweaty in minutes. The work was repetitive, but it wasn’t as bad when we got into a rhythm, when each strike of shovel into sand was the beat of a song.
I spent the time thinking about storm planning, and not the possibility we’d be walking into the Beyond. In part because we needed to help Tadji get ready, and in part because I knew what a tropical storm looked like, how to prepare for it. How to survive it. The Beyond was a complete mystery.
We’d use up the perishables, move out whatever was left over, barricade the doors with sandbags to keep the rising water at bay. But that would only go so far. If the water rose high enough, the first floor would be inundated. That hadn’t happened during Katrina, but who knew what kind of havoc magic could wreak on a storm system? We could try to move some of the smaller antiques upstairs, but many were simply too big to haul up the narrow staircase. They’d have to survive on their own. Or else they’d make good kindling afterward. And that was a damn shame.
And we hadn’t done any prep at the gas station. We’d need even more sandbags, more plywood, more time. On the other hand, my father’s little museum had survived for seven years without any human intervention. Maybe we’d get lucky.
I wiped my damp forehead, and watched Gavin smile and tip an invisible cap when two female soldiers walked by. They gave him dubious smiles and kept on walking.
“Tough luck,” I said.
“They don’t know what they’re missing.”
“Don’t they?” I asked with a grin.
“You’re cruel,” he said. And he was right. I wasn’t giving him enough credit. As much as he got on my nerves—mostly because he specifically tried to—he was cute, smart, funny, and a generally stand-up guy. He was the irritating kid brother I’d never had.
“What about Darby?” I asked.
“What about her?”
I just kept looking at him.
“Oh. Oh. No.”
His tone, at least when he got through the repetition, was firm. But his cheeks had actually gone a little pink, and I didn’t think that was just from the sun, so I decided to push a little. For my own amusement.
“She’s smart, gorgeous, funny.”
“Man,” he muttered, and rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
This was fun.
“You don’t find her attractive?”
“Sure.” He lifted a shoulder. “She’s hot.”
“I have never known you to pass up an opportunity for hot.”
He groaned, pushed back his hair. “I’m just . . . I don’t know if I’m into scientists.”
I stared at him. I really hadn’t been sure where he was going to land. But I hadn’t expected him to land there. Gavin was many things—including vain, cocky, and snarky—but I hadn’t expected full-on shallow.
“What?” he asked. “You’re putting a lot of pressure on me right now.”
“Consider it payback for the possums.”
“I didn’t put the possums in the truck,” he insisted. “And technically it was only one possum. And several of her very wee children. You said they were adorable. I mean after you screamed about rabies.” He chewed his lip to keep from smiling.
My lip curled instinctively. “She’s single. And so are you. And she’s smart. You wouldn’t have fun with a girl who’s not bright.”
His grin was perfectly wicked. “I could have a lot of fun with any girl. It’s in my nature. But yes,” he said, holding up a hand as if to avoid further argument. “It’s not that she’s smart. It’s that . . . she’s so sciencey. It means she has rules and procedures, right? Expectations?”
Understanding dawned. “You don’t want to date a hot scientist because you think she wants a commitment.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have put it so bluntly. But . . . it’s a factor.”
He was gone a lot, spent even more time in the bayous than Liam, tracking Court units and occasionally running counter-ops. Gavin liked to come and go as he pleased, so I understood the idea of not being tied down. But that assumed a lot about Darby.
“I think presuming you know her mind is a mistake.”
He blinked. “You think she’s up for some fun?”
“Not if you put it like that.” I pointed at his shovel. “Get back to bagging.”
Obviously relieved by the dismissal, he got back to work.
Liam came toward us with bottles of water, handed one to each of us. “Are you harassing my brother?”
“I am. He deserved it.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“I think he got surlier while you were gone.”
“I can hear you.” Gavin took a drink, then tossed t
he closed bottle onto a pile of sand.
“I know,” I said with a wide smile.
“He’s always been surly. He’s just more comfortable with you now. Because of the possums.”
I pointed a finger at Liam. “You’re a traitor.”
“Maybe,” he said, and pressed a kiss to my neck, just below my ear. “But I’ll make it up to you later.”
* * *
• • •
When the sun began to fall, we went inside to refuel, rest, and await Gunnar. And the Commandant’s verdict. Moses and Malachi joined us after Malachi deposited the Inclusion Stone in Darby’s capable—and scientific—hands.
“She didn’t come with you?” I asked them.
“Frigging workaholic,” Moses said. “She’s in the lab and doesn’t want to leave.”
“How’s the work going?” Liam asked.
“She thinks she’s figured out the mechanism for limiting the weapon’s spread,” Malachi said. “She’s at a crucial stage.”
“She’s doing actual math.” Moses snorted. “Can you imagine? Frigging science.”
“Frigging science,” Liam agreed.
We were obviously trying to be upbeat. Trying to keep our energy and mood up, given what might come next. More destruction. More death. A bigger weapon. A bigger journey. But our nerves were still on edge, frayed and torn. Which was probably part of the Seelies’ goal. Not just to destroy what we loved, what was around us, but to grind us down.
When Gunnar came in with Burke just after dusk, when the candles had been lit and bland food served up, he looked exhausted.
“Tell me there’s food,” Gunnar said, pulling off his messenger bag and dropping it onto the floor as he sat down.