I bit my lip and nodded to Fenris, balling my hands into fists. “All right,” I said, “I’ll do it.”
“Good decision.” Evana fished through my coat pockets until she found my phone. She held it out for me to enter my password; I did, and she stepped back to type a slew of information into it before handing it back with an aura detector. “I’ve added the address of Ignacio’s headquarters to your phone,” she said. “And enabled a tracker so we’ll know where you are.”
“And how exactly do you expect me to cross the Line without being gunned down?”
“The ice-glass will hide your aura,” Evana said. “Old Magic has an aura of its own, stronger than any order’s. Since you’ve already tainted that necklace, you might as well keep it.”
I wanted to pinch myself. This has to be a dream. But it wasn’t—it was something I’d been fearing for years, even before Cass gave me the pendant and I left for the Sentry trials. Ever since I decided that it was okay to befriend a Nixan lady, I’d known this was going to happen, somewhere in the deep dark recesses of my mind. And now, Cass and I were both going to get our just deserts.
“Fourteen days,” Fenris said. “You’d better get going.”
Two minutes later I was out of the castle, on my way to Boston.
Seventeen Months Ago: Westrey
“I can’t believe how unfair this is,” I said, crossing my arms.
Freya gave me a crooked smile. “Aw, come on, Wes. It’s not going to be a vacation.” She brushed past one of the fake trees lining the bunker’s lobby to press herself into my side. “Guarding dustie-Warden conferences is a thankless, dangerous job.”
I smirked. “Yeah, that’s why they’re giving it to someone who just took their Warden’s vows. Our sixteenth birthday was five days ago.” At least, the day the council chose for our sixteenth birthday was five days ago.
“Well, you wouldn’t want to come anyway,” Freya said. “You’d have to miss three days of school, and I know how much you’d hate that.”
“He would,” Basil confirmed, coming up behind me and throwing an arm across my shoulders. “He’d miss his piano lessons.”
“Oh, shut up,” I said, shying away from him.
“Ready, Freya?” Basil’s mother emerged from the lobby-access elevator at the head of a group of Wardens attending the conference. His father trailed behind, deep in conversation with one of his friends from the council. Cesil Kinscey was the Principal Liaison for the Warden allies in North America, so he was required to attend all the dustie, vamp and aquine conferences. He was one of Fenella’s top-ranking officers, and he absolutely hated both me and my sister.
“Yeah,” Freya called back. “I’m coming.” I could hear a bit of nervousness seeping into her voice—no matter how cool she tried to play it, this was Freya’s first real assignment as a Warden, and she was determined not to screw it up. I gave her shoulder a slight squeeze in spite of myself.
In response, she spun around and wrapped her arms around me in a too-tight hug. I stiffened. “You know how I feel about PDA.”
“I know.” She kissed me on the forehead and patted my cheek. I scowled back at her.
Freya moved on to Baz, giving him an even bigger hug that he pompously reciprocated. “Keep my brother out of trouble, okay?”
“Will do,” he replied solemnly. I rolled my eyes.
“Freya,” one of the councilmen prompted.
“Coming!” Freya blew kisses to her friends Liesel and Naira, who’d come to see her off, winked at Baz, and scampered over to the departing group. Her raven hair swayed behind her, the red and gold feathers she’d braided into it dancing between its waves. The wingtip of her secret phoenix tattoo poked out from underneath her spaghetti strap. I smiled to myself, shaking my head.
“Your sister’s gotten kind of hot, you know,” Basil whispered in my ear.
I pursed my lips. “I really don’t need to hear about it.”
“Suit yourself.” He slapped me on the back, hard enough to make me oof. “Come on; we’ve got to go cram for that psych test first period.”
I nodded and followed Baz away as Freya’s procession slipped out of the lobby and onto the streets. I gave her one small wave as she passed through the revolving doors, which she acknowledged with a nod and a peace sign, and then she was gone.
It was the last time I ever saw her.
1 October: Keira
My first four days in Warden HQ are a whole lot of nothing.
Wes doesn’t have to go to school or work thanks to me, and he doesn’t have to sign up for any Warden duties until the weekend, which means that the two of us get to sleep in every day. I meet with Fenella and the Warden council a couple of times and shirk my way through their questions about New Fauske. They know very little about the Loraveires and their province, so it’s pretty easy. I feed Fenella some useless intel about the Sylvan villages and sector boundaries and tell her a little about the duke and his family, but don’t bring up my time as Cass’s maidservant. I describe all nine of my animal shifts for the council and talk a bit about the Sentry trials, but I neglect to mention the secret Sentry mind-link that connects us. I assure the council that I know nothing about the workings of Old Magic, which is mostly true. They know vaguely that it’s channeled through ice-glass, but none of them seem to recognize the pendant hanging around my neck, so I’m not too worried. All in all, I do a pretty good job of keeping the Wardens in the dark about anything that could possibly help them out.
Since I’m probably the first Sentry ever to set foot in this bunker, I do my best to learn what I can about the place and its Nixa-hating inhabitants. I learn the layout of the headquarters piece by piece, making mental notes about the floor plans and the location of stairwells and elevators. I learn the dining hall mealtimes—breakfast at six-thirty on weekdays and eight on weekends, lunch at twelve and dinner at seven—and also learn that the Wardens prefer to get their meals aboveground, where there is much better food to be found. I learn through overheard whispers about the Sen that the Wardens shot down last month after he saw someone playing with fire on the side of the road, and about the Wardens’ recent troubles with their vamp and dustie allies.
But most of all, despite a complete lack of interest in his affairs, I learn about Westrey Dorsan. Everyone wants to meet his new pet shifter, of course, so Wes always has people around him, but I soon figure out who he likes and who he hates and who he doesn’t know at all. He has a few come-and-go friends—Sess, Keven, Blaise—but Basil’s around the most. He’s the one who meets up with Wes every day after school to give him the work he missed and catch him up on life in the Sen world.
The Wardens wear black so often that I decide it must be an unspoken rule here to piss off the Nixan goddess in any way possible. And it isn’t long before I’m expected to get in on the black craze. On my third day in the bunker, I find a new all-black outfit folded up amongst the nest of sheets that is Wes’s bed. It’s a girl’s outfit—leggings, a slim little jacket and a tank top—so I know it’s for me.
Wes studies my face as I examine the outfit, searching for a reaction. I don’t give him one. “Finally, something else to wear. Looks like my size, too.”
Disappointed, he passes me over to the first girl he can find and orders me to change. I follow the girl into the nearest bathroom and obey without a word. It is, admittedly, nice to get rid of my old clothes, which are much better suited for New Fauske temperatures than for a bunker of fire-people.
I shouldn’t feel bad about wearing black. I have to—the outfit was sent to test my loyalty to the Wardens. It doesn’t mean anything if I don’t have a choice.
And all this time the days tick by, leaving me with less and less time to get Ferignis to New Fauske. There’s an armory on the bunker’s fourth floor, guarded day and night by two Wardens, where I’m sure the sword is kept, but Wes never takes me inside. And I wouldn’t dare bring it up to him without good reason; there’s no way to ask about a room full of secret we
apons without sounding suspicious. So I let the days pass until I have only six left, not an inch closer to the jnani sword than I was when I first got here.
❄❄
I lean back against the bunker library’s grand piano, thumbing through a stack of Wes’s school books. “I don’t get it,” I say, inspecting one called 1984. “Why are you reading a book about stuff that happened thirty years ago? That doesn’t even count as history.”
Wes doesn’t look up from his piece—he’s playing something classical-sounding, something he has to practice for school. “It’s not about stuff that happened thirty years ago. It’s about stuff that someone from the forties thought would happen thirty years ago.” He rolls his eyes a little. “And someone who grew up in a medieval castle has no right to talk about what counts as history for the rest of the world.”
I sniff. “Sen school sounds weird. Why do you have to go anyway?”
“So I can get a good job one day.” He finishes his piece with a protracted low note, finally getting up from the piano. “Working for Ignacio, maybe, as a lawyer or businessman or something, or for the bunker and Fenella.” He disentangles the form chain from around his piano bench, allowing me a little bit more of a leash. “You see, unlike the Nixans, we don’t leech everything off our allies’ slave labor. We actually work for our money.”
“By pretending to be Senex.” I lean forward, resting my elbows on the edge of the piano. “Don’t they all think you’re kind of strange? I mean, you’re always dressed in black, and you all have weird Novan names, and you live in a bunker underground.”
“We wear different clothes outside,” Wes sighs. “And no one knows we live in a bunker. According to the state, my name is Weston Darcy and I live in a group home out in the suburbs.”
“So all your Sen buddies know you’re a poor orphan boy.”
“I’m not an orphan,” Wes says. “I just never knew my parents. There’s a difference.”
“Oh.” I decide not to ask, mostly because I don’t care enough to. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I never knew my parents, either. I was taken from them a week after I was born, like all shifters.”
Wes doesn’t respond, instead turning to stare vaguely through the glass wall that separates the piano room from the library at large. Unlike the rest of the bunker, which looks and occasionally smells like a hospital ward, the library is nice and cozy, with carpeted floors and fancy wooden bookshelves circling a giant cylinder of a room that goes down deep into the ground. Chairs and sofas are set out at intervals, on which Wardens lie back and read and drink coffee. And interspersed throughout the shelves are little glass-doored rooms like this one, game rooms and private study rooms and Nixa knows what else.
“My sister loved this place,” Wes murmurs, mostly to himself. “We used to come in here all the time when we were little, and run around and piss off everyone trying to get work done. And sometimes we’d sneak in late after all the lights were out and play hide-and-seek.” He refers to his sister in the past tense; he’s done that before, too. Like she isn’t still alive—or like he doesn’t know she’s still alive.
Maybe he doesn’t.
I sit up. “You know, Wes,” I say, as casually as I can, “the Nixans didn’t kill your sister.”
That certainly gets his attention. He goes stiff, turning slowly back to me with his brow creased into deep wrinkles. “What did you say?”
Wow. So he really had thought she was dead. “The Warden and dustie that were taken from the Massacre are still alive. Duke Fenris is holding them prisoner in his castle.”
The color drains from Wes’s face, faster than if he’d had a vamp sucking on him. “Seriously,” I say. “I haven’t seen them, but I know they’re okay.” It’s their information on Ferignis that got me sent here in the first place. I don’t know anything about the infidel prisoners—I’ve never been picked to go inside their holding cell. But I’m pretty sure they’re both still alive; one of them is, at least. “Fenris is still trying to squeeze information on you guys out of them.”
Wes’s hands convulse. “You’re lying,” he growls. “Freya and Quincey were taken over a year ago. The Nixans would’ve killed them by now.”
“They’re too valuable to be killed,” I say. “They’re one of the Nixans’ only links to the Wardens.”
“Stop screwing with me,” Wes says through his teeth. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m not screwing with you,” I insist. “They aren’t dead.” There’s nothing more frustrating than when you tell someone the truth and they refuse to believe you. Whatever; it’ll do no good for me to continue pissing off Wes. I’ve got more important things to worry about—stealing a sword, for instance—than not-dead twin sisters.
The meal bell rings, its shrill screech ricocheting off the walls. “It’s dinnertime already?” I feel like we just ate lunch.
“No,” Wes mutters, “it’s Thursday.”
“And that’s important because...?”
“Wardens have combat training on Thursdays.” He straightens up, forces the tremor out of his words. “We should go. I’ll get in trouble if we’re late.”
And he starts for the library door, leaving me no choice but to follow. I sigh as I feel the tightened form chain biting into my arm, and pull myself up to leave.
❄❄
The training room that Wes brings me to is on the sixth floor of the bunker, and it’s about as big as the dining hall. A cursory glance is enough to tell me that training room really means learning-how-to-kill-Sentries room. Posters lining the padded walls detail the best methods for wing clipping, and a museum-esque display in a rear corner holds inaccurate models of Sentry bows behind what I presume to be bulletproof glass. There are black-knives and torch-spears and fire-guns spread around the room, too, all just an arm’s reach away from the nearest hormonal Warden teen.
I can’t say I feel all that comfortable in here.
There are already a good fifty kids in the room, all about Wes’s age, and a muscular guy in his thirties who waits in front of them. When he sees us, he comes over with a look in his eyes that sets my nerves on edge.
“Who’s that?” I ask, jerking my chin towards him.
“Perrin,” Wes says. “One of our trainers.”
“I thought I had Basil tell you to get here five minutes early, Wes,” Perrin says, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Sorry,” Wes mutters, not sounding the least bit regretful.
“Never mind. I just wanted to see the shifter before our class today.” He examines me clinically, scratching his stubbly chin. “She will be useful,” he says. “Maybe I’ll see if you can bring her back next week to demonstrate for another class.”
“Demonstrate?” I don’t like the sound of that.
“Yes. A combat demonstration, to give my class some real experience with Sentries.” He turns back to Wes. “Unchain her,” he orders.
What? “Sir—” Wes protests. It’s strangely satisfying to hear him call someone sir.
“It’s okay. She won’t be able to get out.”
Reluctantly, Wes takes out his fire-iron key and removes my cuff.
It feels great to get that Nixa-forsaken metal off my skin. I massage my wrist, rubbed raw from constant chafing. I know the cuff will be back on before I know it, but hopefully my skin will have time to heal a little first.
“Come with me.” Perrin leads me away from Wes and over to the other end of the room, where the rest of the class waits. Wes follows after him and takes his spot next to Basil.
Great. Now I get to stand and be stared at some more. I’d like to say I’ve gotten used to it by now, but it’s not easy to accustom yourself to being treated like a zoo animal all of a sudden.
“We have a unique opportunity before us today,” Perrin says. “We have the chance to study a Nixan Sentry firsthand.” Study. I decide that I don’t like this guy, even if he did let me take off my cuff for a little while.
Perrin circles around me, s
low and deliberate like a shark checking out its next meal. “Now shift,” he directs.
I really wish I had an elephant shift in my repertoire, just for the shock value. But I don’t, so I instead opt for my wolf shift, big and black and badass.
Changing form takes only a fraction of a second. I feel the shift ripple through my bones and muscles and force me onto all fours. My ears are yanked up to the top of my head, and the colors go dull in my eyes. And just like that, I’m a wolf.
“Wow,” one of the Warden trainees breathes. I give a big yawn to show off my new set of teeth, complete with inch-long canines. A couple of the closest kids jump back onto the toes of their friends; even Wes and Basil look fazed.
“Human to animal, faster than you can blink.” Perrin’s voice is different in my ears now, louder and clearer. I can smell the ham-and-cheese sandwich he ate for lunch on his breath. “A shifter’s ability to change is one of her greatest assets in combat. But shifters also are trained to fight in their human forms.” He clasps his hands together excitedly. “Let’s see if one of you can take her on without the shifting.” Perrin motions for me to change back, and I do, getting back on my feet as gracefully as possible. “Who wants to be the first to try?”
Wes steps forward. No one looks surprised, least of all me.
“Excellent.” Perrin backs away, allowing Wes to get closer. The two of us size each other up at arm’s length. Wes looks pissed—he always looks pissed. Our talk earlier probably didn’t do anything to help with that. “This will be strictly hand-to-hand. No weapons, no shifting, and no fire, Wes. Fight until I call it off.”
I’m used to combat, though I know Wes must be too if he goes to these training classes once a week. But I have an advantage: I feel Cass’s pendant growing warm around my neck the way it always does when I’m about to fight, lending me its strength, and suddenly I feel twice as strong and twice as ready. I got this.
The Sentry Page 5