by Jessica Gunn
“Worth a try,” I said as I walked to Shawn’s door. “We can always dig through more tomorrow.”
He nodded, the bags under his eyes having doubled in size. “Late tomorrow. I’m sleeping in.”
I smiled. “Good idea.” But as I stepped out into the hallway, voices trailed up the stairwell. “Sounds like Ben and Rachel are still awake.”
“I don’t know that Ben actually sleeps.”
“Fair enough.” I smiled and turned back to him. “Thanks, Shawn.”
“Goodnight.” He gave me a small wave before closing the door.
I stretched, rising to my tiptoes and reaching for the ceiling. Spending two hours huddled over a small journal had not been conducive to good posture. As I stretched, still standing outside of Shawn’s door, Ben and Rachel’s words got louder.
“I don’t know what to do, Rachel.”
“You take the night off and figure it out tomorrow. You’re exhausted. Even if you found out where Riley was, going after him right away would just get you and anyone you took with you killed.”
Ben grunted, then said something unintelligible.
“Ben,” Rachel hissed.
“What?” he said, voice raising.
My cheeks warmed. I shouldn’t be listening to this. Clearly, they thought everyone else was asleep. And if they hadn’t yet made their way upstairs for the night, there was no way they’d know I’d been with Shawn.
“It’s not like any of this is our fault, Rachel. This, all of it, started when she joined the team. Giyano’s involved with all of us. This can’t be a coincidence.”
“Ben.”
“What? She’s admitted to working with demons before.”
“Because Jaffrin half-ordered her to keep tabs on the dharksa trade.”
My jaw clenched. Ben wasn’t wrong, but he was in no way right either. I bit my tongue to keep from defending myself. Why the hell was I still standing here, anyway?
“And who knows what else happened on the side. Just like with Kinder. And Giyano. None of us were there; no one was close enough to hear for sure. She went to him so many times, Rachel. Krystin went to her father’s murderer for answers and guidance instead of her own team. That’s what we’re here for. If not to be friends, then to at least be teammates. But she went and threw that in all of our faces.”
“Maybe because we didn’t exactly trust her.”
“Since when are you worried about that?”
A silence filled their conversation, long enough that I stopped breathing. Did I make a sound? Did they know I was here?
But then Rachel said, “Because of Kinder.”
“What about Kinder?”
“She wants to help Riley, right? And she was trying to help Krystin.”
“No, she was trying to use Krystin as a magik bomb to blow Cianza Boston.”
“In order to keep the Fire Circle from using her as a weapon, in Kinder’s own way.”
Another lull of silence. I crept closer. Where was this conversation going?
A door creaked opened behind me and Shawn tiptoed out.
“What?” he asked.
I put my fingers to my lips and pointed down the stairs. His eyebrows knitted together, but he listened.
“Kinder said she wanted to keep Krystin from being used as a weapon,” Rachel said. “It’s because of the Alzan power inside of her. Shawn, too.”
“And he’s an Ember witch, so basically our team is surrounded by demons,” Ben said, but I could tell he didn’t really mean it. His tone was wide, sarcastic, but his hatred of demons remained an undercurrent.
“They’re part of our team,” Rachel snapped.
Ben chuckled darkly. “Our team is me, you, and Nate. You’re the only ones I can count on right now. And if Kinder’s so worried about the Circles using Krystin and Shawn, then maybe she shouldn’t have tried to do the same thing. And maybe she should have killed Giyano and kept him from doing it, too. Because he’s back, Rachel. And he’s either going to kill all five of us or lead Lady Azar here to do it herself.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t know who I want on this team anymore,” Ben said. “But I can’t trust Krystin and Shawn. Not after everything.”
I glanced up at Shawn, fire sparking in my veins and lighting up my fingertips. “Assholes. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Black and white, Krystin,” Shawn said, grabbing my hand that’d started to flame. “Remember that they see the world that way. We don’t.”
“Fuck them.” I tore my hand out of his grip and hurried down the hall to my room. I hadn’t brought much when I’d joined the team and hadn’t gotten anything new before being imprisoned. Everything I owned remained inside a single backpack except for a shirt or two strewn on my bed.
I collected them and shoved the pack onto my shoulders before speeding past Shawn on my way down the stairs. He followed but didn’t try stopping me as I descended into the living room to where Ben and Rachel stood, eyes wide and questioning.
“Yeah, I heard it all,” I said, planting my feet where I stood. “Don’t worry; I’ll make it easy for you. Shawn, are you coming with me?”
“You—you can’t just leave,” Rachel said. “Jaffrin ordered us to stay and—”
“And what?” My voice was full of venom and I didn’t care. “Wait for him to put me back in Ether Circle Prison at Ben’s recommendation? No, thank you. I’ll fulfill my destiny on my own and be out of the Fire Circle’s territory by sunrise.”
“We can’t,” Shawn said. “We made a deal.”
“Deal?” Ben asked, looking between us. “What kind of deal?”
“Shawn here wanted to stay long enough to ensure you and the others—your real team—weren’t also imprisoned for everything, but now I sort of just don’t care.” I spun on Shawn. “Are you coming or not? I can’t fulfill the prophecy without you, but I sure as hell don’t have to stick around any longer either. We can always meet up when the final conflict starts and pray we’re in time.”
He leveled me with a look. “You’re being—”
“Don’t. Not after the last few days. I thought we were on the same page.” Maybe I just reacted differently to being shoved into a corner. “I’m done. I always knew putting me on a team was a bad idea. I was trained to hunt alone and I’ll stay a freelancer. That’s fine by me.”
I wrapped a hand around one of the backpack straps and made for the door. As soon as my fingers brushed the door knob, the door flew open, knocking me back a few feet.
The Ether Head Circle twins and a group of Fire Circle police stood on the other side.
Chapter 19
BEN
Alexander and Iris stepped forward first, their glowing hands in the air. I couldn’t tell from where I stood how many Fire Circle police officers were on the other side of the door, but for this kind of very public operation, they might have tried to clear the whole street.
“What the hell is going on?” I shouted over them.
“We’re here to take Krystin Blackwood back into custody,” Iris said, raising her glowing palms.
Krystin had backpedaled away from the door, but she now stood, frozen. No, immobile thanks to whatever Iris was doing to her. Krystin’s eyes met mine, though they reflected no panic or plea for help. She really was done with us. With the Fire Circle. With me.
I didn’t know how I felt about that.
“On what grounds?” I asked.
“Like it fucking matters,” Krystin spat. The muscles in her arms flexed as though she were trying to break free.
Shit. Whatever hold they had on her was powerful. Too powerful.
Alexander cast a disapproving look at me. “While your team was supposed to be at the house under Jaffrin’s orders, Ms. Blackwood departed and went hunting again. For other Hunters this time.”
I shot another glare at Krystin. “Tell me that’s not true.”
“Would you even believe me?” she hissed.
Shawn walked between me and the Ether Head Circle twins, placing himself as a barrier between them and Krystin. He didn’t wear a crystal around his neck like he had before we’d broken Krystin out of prison, which meant he was at full magik capacity. Would he really stop them from taking her?
“Krystin was with me,” Shawn said. “We’ve been here the whole time, as ordered.”
“I heard them talking,” Nate said. “I vouch for her too.”
Yeah, and she’d heard me talking to Rachel about how no one trusted her anymore. Shawn too, maybe. I couldn’t tell if his loyalties lay with the team and the Fire Circle or with Krystin. In the end, it might not matter. This whole situation was fucked from the very beginning.
Iris’s eyes narrowed. “Then how do you explain this?”
The brigade of Fire Circle police just beyond our door separated long enough for two of them to escort a third person past the threshold of our house and into our living room. Krystin’s gaze jumped over her shoulder and into the kitchen. Was she hoping to escape somehow?
“Holy hell,” Shawn exclaimed.
I looked back to the person the Fire Circle police had ushered in. To Krystin. Long, brown hair, blue eyes. Wicked smirk. Mark on her hand from Giyano.
The entire team turned to our Krystin, who watched the unfolding scene with wide, disbelieving eyes.
“How?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
Krystin was shaking her head, her mouth agape. “No. That’s not me. I’ve been here the entire time. With Shawn, like he said.”
Iris looked down to the person who looked like Krystin. Maybe it was her. Except instead of being bound by Iris and Alexander’s ether abilities, this Krystin had been handcuffed around each wrist and each ankle, all four chains connected by a metal belt at her waist that had been engraved with runes. Magik-zapping runes. The kind that only the Ether Head Circle used because that magik had long been forgotten.
“Tell them,” Iris said.
Their Krystin looked up at me, remorse in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Ben. I-I just… Giyano’s magik called to me. I didn’t have a choice. It’s like a siren’s call, all-encompassing. It started on the night we met, with the body down by the Prudential Center. His aura called to mine and then when he marked me…” Her eyes watered, tears filling but not spilling over. “And then Kinder pumped me full of magik, good and evil. After you healed me, after Shawn tried reaching out to our shared magik, only the dark remained.”
She shifted her wrist, but not far thanks to the handcuffs and chains. It was enough to call attention to the mark on her hand that Giyano had given her months ago, and to the dark veins than ran up one arm, all the way to her neck. The same veins she’d had when we’d fought Kinder near Cianza Boston.
The same veins that’d disappeared while the other Krystin had been in prison.
My mind spun, vision blurring. “I…”
“It’s not me, you idiot,” our Krystin snapped. Except I wasn’t sure which Krystin was which anymore, if the woman Iris had brought before me was the real deal or an elaborate hoax.
The Krystin next to me sure sounded like the one I’d grown to know.
“Ben,” Iris’s Krystin said, tears finally spilling. “Please, don’t be fooled by the demon at your side. She’s a shape-shifter Giyano hired. He wanted to trick us all. He’s got a whole flock of demons at his side, ready to take down Lady Azar and rule Shadow Crest.”
I looked over my shoulder, to the Krystin who’d been at the house the entire time. Even if she was fake, even if the Krystin by Iris’s side was the shape-shifter instead, clearly, the Fire Circle and the twins didn’t think so. Which meant Giyano was behind this either way.
Unless…
“Zanka,” I said, staring down the Krystin next to Iris. “It’s you. You’re a shape-shifter.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “Oh, crap.”
“We didn’t see his magik,” Nate said, arming himself with ether that flowed around him, bright and white as sunlight. “It’s all been him.”
“Explains why Krystin defended Giyano so much,” Rachel added, uncertainty in her tone.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I muttered.
“Fucking idiots,” Krystin hissed. “I told you. But none of you believe me—you never have.”
“Enough!” Iris bellowed. Alexander straightened beside her, reaching for the knife at his waist. “We’ve already captured Ms. Blackwood. Now we want her double to figure out why you keep attacking innocents. To find out what you hope to accomplish by attacking the Fire Circle like this.”
Krystin’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not me. I’m not involved in this.”
The shape-shifter demon cackled. “Such easy prey,” she sang. “Easy prey, easy prey.”
Alexander drew his knife. “What is your plan to take down the Fire Circle? Kinder’s aura is all over this place.” His eyes wandered from wall to wall. “She was here earlier, plotting with Krystin.”
“She was here to help me retrieve my son,” I spat at them. “To offer to train him. Which I declined because she’s a traitor and a demon.”
Krystin’s gaze settled on mine. “What? After all the shit you gave me, you let her offer that?”
“I didn’t take her up on it,” I snapped. “That’s the difference between us.”
“That you’re too stupid to take the help you need?”
The shape-shifter demon laughed again, then stood, puffing out her chest. Pulses of ether shot out of from her. Nate tossed them away with his own block of ether before the twins or Fire Circle police got there. Suddenly, Krystin was moving too, turning toward the kitchen and making a run for it.
“No!” I shouted. She couldn’t leave, not until we knew what the hell was happening. She hadn’t been responsible for whatever attack they’d come here to accuse her of, but that didn’t clear her name completely.
Rachel gathered water from around her and lassoed it around Krystin’s middle, tugging her backward to the ground. “Stay, Krystin. We don’t know that—”
Krystin glared at Rachel. “You too?” The water around Krystin’s waist started to steam, evaporating as flames appeared in Krystin’s hands. “You’re the real traitors here. You’re turning on your friends. Shawn and I haven’t done anything!”
Krystin broke free of Rachel’s hold and swung her hand out. But instead of fire, a whoosh of air knocked Rachel out of the way. Krystin’s other magik.
“Shawn, let’s go!” Krystin said.
Shawn looked between me and her, expression unsure.
Ether enveloped the whole room, turning it into a vacuum with little air. My throat seized and I blinked, watching as Iris and Alexander shot ether-cuffs out at Krystin. The shape-shifter demon rolled on the ground, laughing as her form changed from Krystin to just another faceless demon with burgundy eyes.
The Fire Circle police jumped on the demon, holding her to the ground as the twins tightened their hold on the ether that’d enveloped the entire room. Nate squinted and the space around my head and neck seemed to open up.
“Go, Ben,” Nate said.
But if Nate could barely counteract the twins’ magik, there was no way I was leaving the rest of my team to whatever punishment awaited us.
Heat swamped the room, heavier than the ether, and suddenly, a massive fireball coursed the length of the space, headed right for the Ether Circle twins. Krystin’s hands were still bound, but the firestorm raged from her entire body, a bright white flame that soared at Krystin’s will. She hadn’t even needed to direct it with her hands like Giyano or Kinder had.
And the whiteness of it… Is that temperature or the power of Alzan leaking through?
Shawn jumped, pushing the ether around him away with his own orange ether. He wrapped an orange ether shield around Krystin, holding her still. Her eyes narrowed on him, but he held fast.
“Stop,” he said to her. “Just take a minute.”
“There’s no time. If we don’t leave now—”
&nbs
p; Iris surged forward. “Asanak!” An ether whip emerged in her hand, aiming for half of my team.
“No!” Nate called, sliding a block of his ether through the room.
Lightning rammed against my fingers and arms, begging to come out, but the oppressive amount of ether in this room, the sheer amount of power, pushed against the four walls of our house, like a magik force shield was holding it all in, forcing a pressure-cooker situation that would soon hit critical mass.
Would it take the whole neighborhood with it?
Shawn twisted his way in front of Krystin, taking the brunt of the attack. He cried out as the whip landed across his chest. His orange either shield around her dropped, his magik gone. And, judging by Lady Azar still not having her magik back after three months, Shawn’s would be absent for a good long while.
“No!” Krystin cried, a wild look of fierceness and rage encompassing her face. She glared at Iris and Alexander, the flames whipping around her in a wild, bright blue haze. The hottest fire I’d ever seen her produce. “Enough of this bullshit!”
Krystin dove for the twins and Fire Circle police with her arms out, her blue flames coursing ahead of her.
“Krystin, don’t!” I shouted.
She stopped, blinking, but the blazes continued. She waved her hands around, trying to rope them in, but they flew on. Rachel summoned water, overcoming the blanket of ether rendering me useless, but her wave didn’t reach the twins in time.
Krystin’s magik wrapped around their bodies, swarming like a supernova of white and blue and orange, swallowing their cries of pain. Krystin kept motioning as if to stomp out the fire, but nothing came of it.
Shawn launched up and slapped a hand against her back. “Requirem!”
The blaze died out as soon as Shawn spoke the word-magik, the only kind he could still work. Krystin dropped to the ground, her body shaking. “I didn’t… I couldn’t stop it…”