His voice grim, Magnus said, “Correct.”
“There’s another way you could get in. One that doesn’t require a helicopter.”
This from Honor, who sat beside Lu with her trademark pissed-off expression. They’d had an epic argument about the pros and cons of her staying to guard the colony versus joining Magnus and Lu on their hunt as she’d wanted to, and eventually—after a small earthquake that dislodged quite a few of the older, larger stalactites from the cave roof—she’d relented.
Barely.
Now she glanced Lu’s way, with a small, knowing smile on her lips.
“No,” said Magnus, with enough volume that it echoed off the walls.
“Forget it,” said Lu simultaneously. The thought of flying over Europe as a dragon with Magnus straddling her back held all kinds of weird connotations.
Honor shrugged, then began inspecting her fingernails with interest. Coward.
Call me that one more time, thought Lu, reddening, and the next time we see Beckett, I’ll roast off all your clothes.
Honor inhaled a sharp breath, and glared at her.
Lu glared back. Yes. I figured out how to do it. Don’t test me.
You are such a bitch!
Call the kettle black much, pot?
Stop it!
This new, unexpected voice brought Lu up short. She looked at Magnus, who looked back at her with steel in his eyes, the first time he’d made eye contact with her since their kiss. Beside her, Honor glanced back and forth between the two of them with narrowed eyes.
What? Honor asked suspiciously, and that’s when Lu realized her sister couldn’t hear Magnus. His voice was for her, and her alone, which made her strangely satisfied. And more than a little confused.
Nothing. Lu lowered her gaze to the tabletop, gnawing the inside of her cheek.
“Jack, can you set us up with some of your people? We’ll need at least five nights’ lodging, maybe six, on our way into the city.” Magnus continued aloud, his voice controlled, his attention back on the map, as if nothing at all had happened. Lu might have wondered at his control if two of the words he’d just spoken hadn’t jumped up and seized her around the neck.
Five. Nights.
The tabletop became incredibly fascinating. She examined every minute scratch and chip and flow of the grain, willing herself not to linger on those words, or on their meaning, or on the myriad possibilities that lay therein. Beneath the convenient cover of her hair, her ears grew hot.
“You got it,” replied Jack. “And for the way out? I assume you’ll want different places?”
Magnus paused before he spoke, so long that Lu glanced up at him. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he said darkly. His gaze flicked to hers. Finding her staring back at him, he turned his head away, but not before she saw the strange resignation in his eyes. Something about it made her skin crawl.
Carefully, she raised one mental wall, and lowered another, unsure if this exercise would work.
What is it, Magnus?
His lips thinned. Beside her, Honor showed no sign she’d heard Lu’s question, so Lu kept her face carefully neutral, her gaze in the middle distance, focused on nothing.
I really wish you wouldn’t do that, came Magnus’s curt response, his face still turned away.
Lu’s ears burned hotter. Tell me what’s bothering you and I promise I won’t do it again.
Jack said, “All right. I’ll get on it. I should have names and addresses for you within a few hours.” Among murmured good-byes, she and Hawk left the Assembly room, leaving Demetrius in all his shaved-head, leather-bound, tattooed glory standing in silent contemplation of the map.
It bothers me that you can do it at all.
Lu sent Magnus a sidelong look. That’s not an answer.
If you had any respect for me, Lumina, it would be the only answer you’d need.
Both the words and the acidity of his tone floored her. Her face went bright red. Mortified, she flung up a wall between them, shutting him out.
“You’ll need clothes,” said Honor quietly, not looking at her. “You can take whatever of mine you need.” She seemed unusually subdued. Somber, even. “And we should test your Gifts, at least a little more before you go. We should practice. We don’t even know if you can—”
“There’s no time,” said Magnus. “As soon as Jack has those names for us, we’re gone. Every minute we stay here is one more minute we risk the lives of everyone in that prison. And everyone here.” His eyes cut to Lu’s. He seemed about to say more, but then he turned to Demetrius and spoke in a lowered voice. “Anything you need to tell me?”
A subtle change overtook the big male. It was nothing sudden, nothing huge, but a look crept over his strong features, an odd expression Lu recognized as the same one that had so changed Magnus’s face only moments before.
Resignation.
He shared a glance with Magnus, fleeting but indelibly dark, almost sad, and Lu’s stomach twinged with foreboding.
Demetrius straightened. Crossed his bulging arms over his chest. Stared hard at the map, as if it had personally offended him, his square chin jutted out like a dare. He muttered, “Cogs in the machine, Seeker, all of us. You know it as well as I.”
Magnus jerked his head toward Lu and Honor, his brows quirked as if he were asking a silent question, and Demetrius shook his head.
Whatever that exchange meant, it definitely held meaning for Magnus, because he closed his eyes for the briefest of moments, then nodded, as if satisfied.
Only he wasn’t smiling.
He adopted the same pose as Demetrius, arms crossed, legs spread, and Lu and Honor were treated to the sight of two big, handsome males glowering down their noses at them. “Have you told Jenna we’re coming?” asked Magnus, looking at Honor.
She tensed. Lu looked at her, sensing her sister’s worry.
“She’s not answering me. Not since yesterday.”
Lu sat up straighter. “Has that ever happened before?”
Honor shook her head, threaded a lock of her hair between her fingers, and began to nibble it. If Lu hadn’t been so filled with new anxiety about what their mother’s silence might mean, she would have smiled; she’d only stopped chewing on the ends of her hair when she began wearing it in a braid a few years ago.
She laid a hand on Honor’s arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Everything is going to be okay.
Honor nodded, but didn’t reply. She stood. “Are we done here?”
Magnus and Demetrius shared a look. It was Magnus who answered. “We leave as soon as Jack has those names, Lumina. Get a bag ready. But pack light; whatever you bring you’ll have to carry.”
Lu nodded.
“And one more thing.”
She looked up at him. Magnus was looking back at her with an expression of dispassion, his face closed off again. But beneath the shadows of his hood, his eyes were aglow, intent and unblinking.
“Your hair.”
Lu reached up and touched her head. “What about it?”
“It’s too . . . distinctive. We’ll get you another pair of contacts to replace the ones you lost when you Shifted, but you need to do something with your hair so it won’t be so noticeable. Dye it. Hide it under a hat. Something.”
Honor said, “I know what to do.”
“Oh. Okay,” said Lu, rising from her chair. She brightened. “I’ve always wanted to be a redhead.”
“Not red.” Magnus still wasn’t blinking. His gaze burned the air between them like a lit fuse. “Less distinctive, Lumina.”
Honor reached out and took Lu’s hand, gently pulling. “I said I know what to do, Seeker. You worry about getting in and out safely, and leave the beauty regimens to me.”
With that, she led Lu away, leaving Magnus and Demetrius staring after them in silen
ce.
Magnus waited until Lumina and Honor’s footsteps had faded before he spoke, and even then he kept his voice low. “I don’t want to know the details. I don’t believe a man should know how he’s going to die. No good could come of that. I only want to know one thing: Will she see it?”
He didn’t turn and look at Demetrius, because he knew how difficult this was for him. His Gift of Foresight had, more often than not, been a terrible burden for him. The knowledge came to him in dreams, but those dreams were almost always nightmares. He’d known his home colony in Rome would be invaded. He’d known his two best friends would refuse to leave with everyone else, and would die defending it. Magnus assumed Demetrius also knew the hour and method of his own death, and his wife Eliana’s. On the scale of horrible things, that was right up there with knowing you were never going to die. So he didn’t look at the hulking male who’d become as close a friend as Magnus had had in the last twenty years; he just waited.
“Yes. Lumina will be there when it happens.” Demetrius’s voice was filled with sorrow.
Magnus cursed. “But she’ll be unharmed? She’ll get her mother out of that prison? They’ll escape?”
“I’m sorry, brother. I don’t know the outcome. The Dream was . . . incomplete.”
Magnus cursed again, louder.
“There’s something else, though. I don’t know how to explain it.”
Now Magnus did look at Demetrius, because the tone in his voice changed. Gone was the sorrow, replaced by agitation, or frustration.
“What is it?”
Demetrius glanced at him. His eyes were the color of polished obsidian. His brows pulled together, and the three small silver rings in his eyebrow glinted in the low light. “She’ll be different, afterward. She won’t be the same woman she is now. In fact, she won’t be Lumina anymore at all.”
“What the hell does that mean? How could she not be herself?”
Demetrius exhaled a heavy breath, passing a hand over his face. “All I know is that Lumina won’t exist anymore, not in the way she does now.”
Magnus whirled around and faced Demetrius. “You said she would survive! You intimated it, when I asked if there was anything you needed to tell me, you shook your head no—”
“She’ll live,” Demetrius insisted, his voice growing louder to match Magnus’s. “But she won’t be Lumina. I don’t know how to better explain it, Magnus. I don’t know what the Dreams mean, I only know what they show me!”
Magnus was breathing hard, his hands clenched to fists at his side. “But she will live. You’re sure of that, at least?”
Demetrius nodded, and the steel band that had tightened around Magnus’s chest loosened a degree. “All right,” he said, mollified. “If that’s the best we’ve got, I’ll take it.” He turned to leave.
From behind him, Demetrius said quietly, “You can change it, you know.”
Magnus stopped, listening.
“The future isn’t set in stone. Every action, every decision, creates a new path. You don’t have to walk into this situation, knowing what you now know. We can find another way.”
Magnus turned slowly and looked at Demetrius. “Fate’s going to have her way with all of us, D. If I sidestep now, it’s just a delay. You’ll have another Dream another night, and find out how I die a different way. Am I right?”
Demetrius lifted his chin, his gaze steady and penetrating. He said nothing.
“I made Lumina a promise that I’d bring her parents back to her, or die trying. There’s nothing in this world that could change my mind, not even knowing that at least half of that promise is guaranteed to come true. I’m a tool, Demetrius. I’m an instrument. And every breath I’ve ever taken in my life has been leading me to this.” He paused, and for a long moment the two looked at one another. With quiet reverence, Magnus added, “Dying for her will be the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s what I’m meant for. It’s my destiny, Demetrius. And I welcome it.”
Then he turned and walked away.
NINETEEN
Honor’s room—cave, Lu kept reminding herself—was well away from the warren of others they’d passed on their way through the cool, echoing passageways that led from the Assembly chamber. The shadowed beauty of the place enthralled her; soaring ceilings and secret corners and whispers teased along stone walls, the scent of water and moss, air so deathly still it felt entombed.
It was magical. She loved it, in the way a prisoner long held under lock and key loves his first glimpse of open sky. She felt safe and secure in this enchanted underground city.
But, most of all, she felt free.
“It’s not half as wonderful as you think it is,” muttered Honor, sweeping regally into her rooms beneath a low, carved archway of stone. She’d installed thick white curtains on either side of the entrance, plush and sound dampening, so that when she released the tasseled ties that held them back, the velvet panels fell together with a swish and a billow, and the sound of flowing water from beyond was instantly muffled.
“If you’d spent your entire life sleeping in a bedroom the size of your sitting area, you might disagree,” Lu said, eyeing the sumptuous white divan flanked by a pair of fat, snowy armchairs that surrounded a low grate of glowing embers sending up feathers of orange ash into the air. The entire room was sumptuous, outfitted all in white, from the furniture to the draperies to the rugs underfoot, and Lu wondered briefly why her sister insisted on having no color in anything she owned, from her clothes to her décor.
Everything in Honor’s world was bleached as bone. Colorless. Bloodless. Even her dragon form was pallid as the full moon.
Honor sniffed, clearly disagreeing with Lu’s assessment. Moving to her bed, an elaborate, four-poster affair of downy pillows and gauzy curtains and white fur throws, she stripped off her jacket, casually tossing it atop the coverlet. Her boots followed, thrown one after another over her shoulder to land in hollow thumps against the stone floor, then she padded barefoot back to where Lu stood near the entrance.
She held out her hand. “C’mon. There’s not much time.”
Lu followed as her sister towed her past the bed, around a gnarled column of stone into an adjacent chamber. It was a bathroom of sorts, though there was no shower or bath. But there was a vanity with a mirror, lighted by small, flickering votives set into niches into the stone, and Honor pushed her down onto the small padded bench before it. She stood behind Lu, gathered her loose hair into her hands, and began to work the strands into a braid.
“Funny,” Honor said after a moment, her voice neutral, “that we’d both wear our hair this long, even though we’d never met.” Her eyes met Lu’s in the mirror, and Lu glimpsed the pain her sister tried to hide behind her bland looks and flavorless tones, her hard and frigid persona.
She reached up and grasped one of Honor’s wrists. “We’re coming back,” she said, her voice quiet but vehement. “You know that, right? We’re going to bring her back . . . and if . . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word father, so she just said, “if Leander is there, we’ll bring him back, too.”
Honor stood still for a moment, eyes downcast, her face a shade paler than bone. She worked her wrist free from Lu’s grip, and her fingers began slowly to thread through Lu’s hair.
“Honor,” Lu said, her throat constricting. “Please. Say you know we’ll come back.”
For the first time since she’d met her sister, Lu saw an emotion other than anger. Raw emotion, laid bare and unapologetic. Her face twisted, her voice shook with the force of it.
“You want me to lie to you so you’ll feel better? Well, sorry, but the answer’s no.” Her fingers tugged at Lu’s hair, jerking her head back as she wound the strands together. She kept her eyes on her work. “I don’t know that you’ll come back. I don’t know anything. And neither do you.”
Tug. Yank. Lu’s head jerked to and fro.
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“All these ‘Gifts,’ all these ‘talents,’ all this ‘power,’ and still we’re just as helpless as a pair of bunny rabbits being chased by a pack of wolves!” Honor’s voice rose in perfect counterpoint to the rising shaking in her hands, in her body. The mirror affixed to the wall skittered a few inches left, and Lu’s heartbeat jumped with it.
“But Magnus—”
“Magnus is good at what he does. He’s never failed one of his retrieval missions, but there’s a first time for everything. Did you catch that little exchange between him and Demetrius?”
“Yeah, what was that all about?”
Honor made a sound of disgust. “Demetrius dreams the future. It’s his Gift.”
Lu bolted upright. “So they already know how this plays out!”
Honor pulled her back by her shoulders, and continued braiding the long strands. “D’s Foresight isn’t an exact science. And it’s sporadic; he didn’t know Magnus would find you, for instance. But he saw something.” Her eyes met Lu’s in the mirror. “‘We’re all cogs in the machine?’ Could he be any more cryptic?”
Lu knew Magnus wouldn’t tell her what their exchange had meant, even if she begged. She also knew she couldn’t eavesdrop on his thoughts, not only because that was wrong, but also because he’d sense her and shut down. She decided she’d just have to figure something out, because she desperately wanted to know what he and Demetrius knew.
“Magnus wouldn’t let me come along if Demetrius had Dreamt I’d get hurt.”
“Like I said, his Dreams aren’t an exact science. Sometimes they’re bits and pieces, a puzzle that has to be deciphered, not a picture fully developed. And if you get hurt, you’ll heal.” Honor’s voice lowered. Gained a new, darker edge. “No. Getting hurt isn’t the worst thing that could happen.”
She tied a small elastic band around the end of Lu’s braid, and stepped back to inspect it. Lu wondered why she’d bothered to braid it when she was supposed to be doing something to make it look different, but then Honor said something that snapped her back to cold, hard reality.
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