After showing Gi and Melissa to the back door so they didn’t have to face the mob again, I went up to the labs. Mitch Johnson and Grace Park were already there. We were the three surviving members of Le Confrérie de l’Aile’s experiments, the three Tom and the others were counting on to somehow save the world. Somehow being the keyword.
I was no badass warrior or magical proficient. That I was alive today was due just as much to the massive amounts of help I’d received from Lucen and others as it was due to some innate cleverness or skill on my part. And while I was learning, and eager to learn more, I was depressingly far ahead of where Mitch was. More depressing yet, Mitch was far ahead of Grace.
All the years I’d spent cursing my allegedly rogue gift were years I’d nonetheless engaged with it, used it and honed it. Mitch had tried to ignore his and used it only to assist in his work as a psychiatric nurse. Grace, on the other hand, had done her best to suppress hers altogether.
“Here’s to the hero of last night.” Mitch raised a beaker filled with some murky concoction. “I’d offer you a drink, but I don’t recommend actually downing this stuff because I’m pretty sure I messed it up.”
I set my bag down in a corner and took out my copy of the basic charm-making book I’d been given. “What’s it supposed to be?”
“Some kind of pain-relief charm, but I don’t think it was supposed to turn cloudy. Too many dragon scales or something.” Mitch flipped a page in his book. “Not sure why we’re bothering with these lessons. Last night Grace and I were getting our beauty sleep, being useless, and you were kicking ass. Seems to me that’s what the Gryphons need us for.”
“You wanted to be out there?”
“Hell, no. I’m not crazy. I was merely making a point. I don’t need any more mental or physical scars.”
As if subconsciously, Mitch rubbed his arms. With everything else going on while we escaped from the furies in Europe, neither of us had noticed at the time that he’d gotten badly cut. The scar was hard to see because of his dark skin, but I knew that particular scar was merely the physical manifestation of wounds that bothered him more. He’d been hurt worse in other ways by how the furies had used the two of us to channel magic.
I grabbed a magic-resistant smock from a hook. “Please, that’s nothing compared to what I went through last night.” I parroted what the ER doctor had told me, trying to make light of my ordeal, but Grace blanched nonetheless.
“I heard about everything that happened,” Mitch said. “Kassin made sure to give us a rundown as soon as we got here. My first impression of you, when you told me you hung out with satyrs, was that you were a crazy woman. You’re only confirming that. Crazy but tough.”
“Ouch. Coming from someone who works in a psych ward, that smarts.”
Mitch peered into his beaker dubiously. “My patients weren’t crazy. They were ill and in need of help. You are crazy. It’s an important distinction.”
Grace, who’d been slouching at the other end of the room, stopped staring at her nails and glanced over. “You hung out with satyrs? Why would you do that?”
Unlike Mitch, who appeared worse for the wear since being recruited by the Gryphons, Grace looked far better. She’d been in rehab when we found her, a result of a decade spent using alcohol and other drugs to numb her misery-sucking power. Under the supervision of Gryphon healers, her health was improving.
“They taught me a lot,” I said. “It made things easier to have someone who I could talk to about my weirdness.”
“I’ve heard you’ve become particularly close with a couple of them.” Mitch threw me a what-the-fuck sort of expression before dumping the beaker’s contents down a drain.
Damn Tom. My relationship with Lucen had, unfortunately, become common enough gossip fodder around here. But Mitch had specifically said a couple, suggesting Tom hadn’t kept quiet about discovering I had a thing with Devon too.
When I didn’t respond to Mitch’s comment, he took the hint and went back to his concoction. “Again, I ask—is there really any point to this?”
I turned my back on Grace’s scandalized stare, but I couldn’t block the taste of her disgust. “The only way to get better at sensing magical energy is to practice sensing magical energy. I’ve had to essentially pick a magical lock before, and it would have been handy if I’d been more experienced at knowing how to choose the right anti-magic. I can see that situation coming up.”
“Fair enough.” One by one, Mitch set out the ingredients so he could try the charm a second time. “Do you think you could have outed the Gryphons’ traitor sooner if you’d been more skilled?”
“Unlikely.” I grimaced because having discovered Theo’s duplicity earlier could have saved both Mitch and myself a lot of pain. Noticing that Grace hadn’t even cracked open her spell book, I turned to her. “Do you need help?”
Grace’s fingers curled around the cuffs of her long sleeves. “No. I get you’re both okay with all of this, and I want to help, but I just don’t like it. I’ve never used magic for anything before, and now I’m stuck here because of some court order, and people are drawing glyphs on my skin and giving me these magical tonics. They make me feel better, but I’d never have taken them if I didn’t have to. And I can’t ignore the way I can sense other people now either. It’s like hundreds of cats constantly scratching at my soul. I hate it.” Abruptly, she slammed her lips together and pulled even harder on her sleeves.
Despite any emotion-muting charms the Gryphons might have given her, Grace’s unhappiness and anxiety flooded my system. I felt sorry for her, but I didn’t know what to do to alleviate her fears. For her safety, she was better off here.
It wasn’t simply a matter of training her to fight. Not anymore. Since Raj had made it clear last week, and again last night, that he was interested in harvesting bits and pieces of me for spells, we had to assume he wasn’t the only fury with that idea. Likewise, I wasn’t the only “rare creature”—to use Raj’s words—that would be considered for the task. Mitch and Grace would suffice as well.
“You don’t have to take any of those healing potions they offer you,” Mitch said while I was composing my response. “They’re only trying to help.”
Grace slumped against the wall, shoving her book away. “I know, but I also know those special Brotherhood agents really want me to. I feel pressured because I can feel what they’re feeling, but I’d rather be on the other side of these walls than in here.”
“With those anti-magers?” I wrinkled my nose. “I understand not enjoying being a misery junkie, but those people are scary in their own way. The HELP Act is terrifying, and I nearly got torn apart trying to enter the building today.”
Grace stiffened her shoulders. “There are some good points to the HELP Act, and the anti-magers make some good points too. I don’t approve of the ones who are getting violent and looking for fights, but magic does cause lots of problems.”
“Cars cause lots of problems,” Mitch said. “Traffic jams and accidents. But they’re also damn useful.”
“Cars don’t turn people into addicts and ghouls. They don’t curse people.”
I bit my lip to keep from frowning. “No, but they can kill people, accidentally or on purpose. Just like magic.”
The more I listened to Grace, the more concerned I became. Since she’d arrived in Boston a couple weeks ago, I’d been struck by her fear, but I’d assumed it would lessen over time. I believed, as had Tom, that if she learned more about what she was and how to control her power, it would help her anxiety. But so far, Grace had shied away from learning, and she only endured the help the Gryphons offered. Instead of being empowered and her fear decreasing, she was withdrawing more than ever and her fear grew stronger. If it weren’t for those charms she wore, the magical hit I got off her would likely be quite potent.
“It’s not the same for you,” Grace said, jolting me back t
o the present. “None of it bothers you the same way. You don’t mind being a pred. You chose to spend time with them.”
I cringed. “I wouldn’t say I don’t mind. I mean, I did. It bothered me a lot when I first found out. But they’re not all evil. I’ve had to accept that. It’s thanks to one satyr specifically that I’m not bothered by what I am or what I can do. He helped me when he didn’t have to, many times. He taught me how to control my abilities better, supported me when I tried to use them for a good purpose. He showed me they aren’t all bad.”
I swallowed past a lump in my throat, wondering when I’d started getting all emotional while thinking about Lucen. Then I realized it was because I was living with the constant worry that each time I saw him it would be the last. One second there, one second gone. Just like Devon had been taken from me.
Mitch had heard my how-I-met-Lucen story, and he grinned. “Probably didn’t hurt that you were this cute, seemingly harmless girl in a Gryphon Academy uniform at the time you met. Probably tipped some satyr fantasy.”
I flipped him off, though I was certain Mitch was right to an extent. “It might have helped, but I’m sure it was my freakish gift that interested him the most.”
“So you admit the only reason this do-gooder satyr helped you was because he thought you were an interesting specimen or something?” Grace had given up all pretense of practicing and was playing with her phone. “It’s not because he actually cared about you.”
“Maybe not at first. But who genuinely cares deeply about anyone when they first meet? That’s the sort of thing that has to build over time. No one is friends with anyone else instantly. No one falls in love at first sight, no matter what the stories say. Those things take trust.”
If Grace was any more dubious, her eyebrows might have flown off her head. “You really trust a satyr?”
“I love him.”
Oh. Oh, shit. Had I just let the L-word slip in public? Judging from the shock emanating from Mitch, and Grace’s potent horror, it would appear I had.
Mitch scratched his scruffy black beard. “You know, when Kassin said you were friendly with a couple satyrs, I didn’t exactly take things that far. I thought, well, maybe Jess is braver than I am and she’s determined to discover if what they say about satyrs in bed is true. But even still, that’s not what I was expecting by friendly.”
My cheeks warmed, and I fought the urge to pull my hair down and cover up the visible signs of my embarrassment since it would do me no good. Besides, the end of the world was upon us. I might as well own up to everything. Right?
“We are satyrs. And we are human. Whether I’m in a relationship with a guy who can feed on my unhappiness, or whether you’re in a relationship with a human who feeds you with unhappiness, what’s the difference? You’ve seen the news—humans hunting down preds, preds draining their addicts to ghouls. We’re all predators and we’re all prey. It just depends on the situation. So if you find someone who has your back, regardless of the danger, then who cares what they are?”
Since I’d shocked the room into silence, I figured why not keep going? “Lucen has had my back for ten years. That’s more than I can say for most other people I’ve known. How can you not care about someone who does that for you? So, yeah. I love a satyr. And for the record, everything they say about them in bed is true.”
Although the taste of Mitch and Grace’s icy shock lingered in my mouth, Mitch burst out laughing. I knew I liked that guy.
Chapter Ten
Boston’s headquarters did not have a conference room large enough to hold everyone who gathered for today’s meeting. Director Lee had sacrificed the biggest room in the building—possibly on the condition that she got to attend—and we were still cramped. Though, to be fair, that was partially because each group insisted on leaving space between themselves and the other groups.
It was like being back at a middle school dance, with the boys hanging out at one of the end of the gym and the girls at the other. Of course, at a middle school dance the boys and girls were less prone to killing each other.
After Ingrid provided everyone with a recap of last night’s events, Claudius stepped to the front of the room along with Raia. Although stepped didn’t quite capture his all-domineering posture and the expression of thinly disguised disdain on his face. Sweeping his long hair over his shoulders, he eyed me lasciviously. Whether it was to provoke me or Lucen, I couldn’t tell. His magic lightly brushed my mind, caressing me with soft fingers, but despite the sensation being disturbingly pleasant, I was not amused. I was even less amused that his casual way of toying with me suggested he was unfazed by how I’d attacked him last night at the airport.
While Claudius chuckled to himself over my silent reaction, I turned my attention to Raia. She hadn’t exactly been friendly to me, but she’d been reasonable, and so far she hadn’t tried to invade my head. When it came to preds, that stuck her firmly in the inoffensive column. But then again, I set a low bar for that column when preds were involved. Not messing with my soul or otherwise trying to harm me was all it took.
Fortunately, it was Raia who addressed the group. She wasn’t haughty, as I imagined Claudius would have been, but direct. I let my mind wander while she spoke about the importance of the mixed alliance and how the satyrs’ Upper Council had agreed to share their information.
I was getting jittery from all the tension when Raia finally got to the good part. “Now that we have collected all five Vessels of Making in one place, I know the question that continues to haunt us is: what is the next step? How do we use these Vessels to close the Pit and prevent the original demons from escaping? We might be able to help with that too.”
The surprise that rippled around the room knocked me from my stupor. I glanced at Lucen then at Tom, but they both were as taken aback by Raia’s announcement as I was. Even Dezzi’s dark eyes opened wider.
But amidst the excited murmurs came the sound of voices that were less than thrilled, and a magi with the red plumage of a falcon shifter stood in the far corner. “We’ve been piecing that information together already.”
Ugh, Xander. The only other person I disliked almost as much as Claudius. The room was packed, and since I couldn’t sense magi emotions, I hadn’t noticed the small contingent of them who had staked out a spot in the back.
Not content to stay there, Xander pushed his way forward. “One of our own was quite busy researching that very information, and for his trouble, he was murdered by one of your own.”
“Not by one of our own,” Dezzi said, facing Xander. “By Raj.”
Xander’s feathers fluffed. To him, as with most magi and humans, preds were preds. Once, I’d thought the same, but I’d had the sense to learn. Xander, though much older than me, probably wasn’t interested in that. “The point is, our people are already working on gathering the necessary information. If you’d like us to compare your notes with our own, we can discuss.”
The point really was, as it became clear in the ensuing minutes, that Xander—if not all the magi—resented the idea that their contribution to the alliance might be usurped by a bunch of satyrs. The satyrs, in turn, resented being associated with the furies and having their work and intelligence discounted. The discussion degenerated predictably from there.
Dragon shit on toast, I was stuck in a room filled with wannabe heroes, each hoping to out-hero the others. With chagrin, I realized I’d been guilty of the same thing earlier when I’d been annoyed at Ingrid for overlooking my showdown with Raj. Part of me had wanted to be credited for that despite most of me still not wanting to relive the moment.
“Think Andre’s got any more of that kumbaya gas lying around?” I muttered.
“Got any what?” Mitch asked.
“Never mind.” I tried to get Tom’s attention, but he was deep in some internal discussion with Ingrid. Peachy. It wasn’t fair to expect Mitch to jump in when he didn’
t know these people as well as I did, and I hadn’t seen Grace show up at all. Therefore, it was going to have to be me taking control. Time to put my freak warrior status to use.
I stood on my chair and waved arms. “Hey, excuse me. It doesn’t matter who has the intel. If we can’t cooperate long enough to use it, we’re all dead anyway. Everyone can write their own version of history if we win.”
Could and undoubtedly would.
Xander’s golden eyes bore into me, and I could tell from his fluffing head feathers that I’d totally affronted him by interrupting. Good.
“You,” he said, and the one syllable summed up his feelings aptly.
I stepped down, crossing my arms. “Me.” You damn Hitchcockian nightmare.
Claudius, for his part, silently stared me down.
I wasn’t sure my plea for peace and harmony succeeded on its own, but Xander and Claudius apparently discovered they had one thing in common—a dislike of me. I tolerated being chastised for my rudeness because it got the conversation back on track.
Alas, once Raia and Xander got around to sharing what they’d discovered about how to use the Vessels, any fleeting hope I’d nourished for a quick end to the meeting was crushed. There were timing issues to consider and more items had to be collected or prepared for use. The ritual would be every bit as complicated—or rather more so—than what I’d seen the furies do to open the Pit.
Naturally. As Tom had pointed out not so long ago, destroying things was always easier than creating them. In this case, we weren’t creating the prison again from nothing, but we were building up magical walls the furies had torn down.
“It sounds like it would be simpler to build a new prison from scratch than rebuild the old one,” Lucen said.
One of the magi shook her head. “In some ways, yes. In others, no. We have no blueprints for how to begin. If we use what our ancestors already created, we have a guide. Making our own could take years. I think we’d all prefer to avoid that.”
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