'Ink It Over: A Touch Of Ink Novel

by Rachel Rawlings

  Lars erupted in a volcano of rage like I’d never seen. The confirmation Grim had died at the hands of the Magistrate, something we’d suspected but could never prove, was Lars’s breaking point.

  If I let him kill Aldridge, I’d never get him back.

  “Lars, stop.” I reached for him, too weak to do much more than thrust my arm out to block him.

  He swatted me away like a bothersome mosquito.

  I stumbled into his path. “Don’t kill him.”

  Lars couldn’t hear me. Or he chose not to listen to anything other than the roar of anger and grief inside him. I knew that feeling all too well. It was the same one that caused me to take so many unnecessary risks. The same one that led to us being in the abandoned Reptile House with an immobilized Footman and the Magistrate hot on our asses.

  To say I felt a little responsible for Lars’s condition was an understatement.

  Lars shoved me out of the way, knocking me to my knees. Lacking the strength to get up, I stayed on the floor but managed to grab hold of the hem of his jeans. He didn’t stop. He kept moving forward with the same determination, if not a little slower from dragging me behind him.

  “Don’t kill him,” I pleaded even as Nicholas hooked his arms under mine and pulled me back.

  “I’m with the big guy on this one.” Nicholas winced under my icy glare but managed to hold on to me and keep me away from Lars.

  “He killed Grim. He plans on killing you. He won’t stop until he kills you.” Lars gathered his magic, the same magic I’d only ever seen him use to keep me safe. “He doesn’t deserve to live.”

  “This isn’t about him, Lars. It’s about you.”

  “He broke the law. Murderers get the death penalty.” Lars raised his hand, ready to uncurl his fingers and unleash whatever lethal spell he had planned.

  “According to council law, he’s right.” Nicholas was probably trying to help. He wasn’t.

  “Not if the murder was sanctioned by the Magistrate,” I tried to shout, but I sounded more like a cranky child than anything else. “You’ll give them the reason they need to put you on the pyre right next to me.”

  Lars looked over his shoulder, his gaze meeting mine, and for a moment, he looked like the man I knew and loved before pain distorted his features again.

  I pushed onward, determined to reach him. “I can’t do this without you, Lars. You promised him. You promised him you’d look after me.”

  Lars let out a gut-wrenching roar that tore another hole in the armor I’d built around my heart, and then he let the spell go. For a moment, I thought I’d reached him, that he’d heard my pleas for mercy—not to save Aldridge but to save himself.

  But I was wrong.

  I misread his demeanor and body language. Lars wasn’t backing off. He was changing the magic he’d gathered, refocusing it into a new spell. A spell he directed at Aldridge before I had a chance to do anything about it.

  “What did you do? Lars, look at me.” Struggling to break free of Nicholas’s grip, I jerked my head back, connecting the back of my skull with his face. Based on the resounding crunch on impact, I figured I broke his nose.

  Nicholas let me go.

  I summoned enough energy to glance over my shoulder, watching as he raised his hands to his face, gingerly touching the bridge of his nose and confirming my suspicions.

  “What the hell, Adeline?” Nicholas wiped at the blood dripping from his nose, streaks of crimson covering his fingers and hand. “You broke my nose.”

  “An easy fix for someone of your caliber.” The healing spell required to mend the splintered cartilage was part of a hearth or kitchen witch’s repertoire, but it was a good assumption it was also taught to candidates. “Even I know how to do it.”

  Mending was one of the first spells Grim had taught me. I’d been so littered with cuts and bruises, bones that hadn’t set properly after fractures healed on their own, he’d felt a lesson in field triage was in order.

  “Expect residual pain and lingering bruising. A mending spell won’t fix everything, but it’s a hell of a lot better than aspirin and a Band-Aid.” Grim’s words came back to me, a small comfort when facing whatever Lars had done. I could almost feel the touch of Grim’s hand on my shoulder along with the imprint he’d left on my heart.

  I rounded on Nicholas, ready to give him a piece of my mind for coming between me and Lars, when I saw him looking at the blood on his fingers.

  “I thought we were working together, that we had common goals? You know, like staying alive?” I said.

  He was within arm’s length of me which meant I was even closer to him. I couldn’t read the expression on his face or his body language. There was nothing to indicate he was going to retaliate and use the mark against me—but there was nothing to indicate he wasn’t, either.

  My chest constricted, sweat rolling down my back at the thought of being bound against my will. Survival instincts took over. I slammed him in the chest with a Knock Back spell before he had the chance to bind me.

  With Nicholas on his ass against the far side of the atrium, I could put my attention where it belonged—on Lars and the Footman curled up in the fetal position on the floor. The whimpers were a far cry from the hateful threats Aldridge had been spewing. My stomach dropped at the implications.

  “It was just a simple Forgive and Forget.” Lars stared down at a weak and confused version of Aldridge. “Light on the forgive, heavy on the forget.”

  If Aldridge’s mumbled questions were any indication, there was nothing simple about the spell Lars had worked on the Footman.

  “That wasn’t just a Forgive and Forget.” Nicholas’s statement was more of a question. But it was one I wanted an answer to as well.

  “Lars?” I closed the distance between us and slid my hand into his.

  “How much did you take?” I was relatively sure I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from him.

  “All of it.” Lars sounded remorseful, but I wasn’t sure if it was for Aldridge or for slipping back into the person he was before I knew him.

  I’d done the same and was in no position to judge.

  “Like amnesia, all of it?” Nicholas pushed himself up off the floor, wiping the blood on his hands onto his pants as he came over to join us. “Next time you fire a spell in my direction, Adeline, don’t be surprised if it rebounds in yours.”

  “He’s not a vegetable.” Lars said. “The pathways for body function are all intact, but as for who or what he is? There’s nothing left. He’s wiped clean, like a hard drive.”

  “Holy shit.” I spared a quick glance at Nicholas who’d expressed similar bewilderment with different expletives. “Okay, so what happens now? What do we do? Are we replacing his memories with anything? We could turn him into an activist for equal rights. Make him a huge fan of warding.” Any joy I’d felt at the idea of turning Aldridge into a do-gooder withered and died when I saw Lars’s hardened expression.

  “We leave him.”

  “What?” I must have lost more blood than I thought because I was having a hard time keeping up. “You spared him just to leave him to die?”

  “He didn’t spare him. Not really.” Nicholas squatted down for a better look at Aldridge. “This is a death, in a way.”

  “Well, if he’s not Aldridge anymore, then that’s just one more reason we can’t leave him. Especially not dressed like he is. Someone will know he’s a Footman.” I looked from Lars to Nicholas, expecting one of them to agree with me.

  If the looks on their faces were any indication, they didn’t.

  “So, what do you want to do? Take his clothes and then take him where? To a hospital?” Lars sounded tired.

  I was likely wearing him down and wearing his patience thin.

  “Bad idea. If my uncle’s gone rogue, he’ll be watching the hospitals. Aldridge only needed to bring one of us back to campus alive.” Nicholas shrugged casually, like he’d just stated the obvious.

  Lars nodded in agreement.<
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  Lars and Nicholas managed to find something else they agreed on—murderous plots. Apparently, I was the odd woman out. I wasn’t a fan of their new-found comradery. In fact, I much preferred them arguing. Outvoted and magically outgunned, with two against one, I begrudgingly went along with their latest plan.

  With a few exceptions, of course.

  I agreed to leave Aldridge. I did not agree to leave him in the old Reptile House. For two reasons—one, he could die. I’d already established that was not happening. Two, I didn’t want to lose the Reptile House. If Aldridge didn’t remember it, there was no reason to ruin a perfectly good warding spot.

  “New plan. Well, revised plan. We take him somewhere close to a hospital and leave him. Without any identification or anything that ties him to the Magistrate.” I held firm. As firm as I could with low blood sugar and hemoglobin. “Someone will find him, think he’s just another cast-off, and take him to a hospital.”

  “And when Winslow or the Magistrate start looking for their missing man?” Lars was holding his ground as well. “Or when they find him?”

  We were at an impasse. It should have been familiar ground for us, seeing as how we disagreed a lot. But it felt more like unchartered territory because I wasn’t sure we’d reached an agreement.

  “Even the best mind wipe isn’t completely irreversible. They could bring Aldridge back.” Nicholas was still siding with Lars.

  “Look, we’re all on the same team, right? We want the same thing? To be rid of Aldridge?” I was running out of steam. I needed to eat, preferably something high in sugar, and caffeinated. Sleep would be better, but it seemed unlikely. Arguing with the two of them wasn’t getting me closer to food or coffee. “We can stand around here all night arguing semantics and my blood sugar can continue to drop until I pass out and you have to take me to the hospital, or we can dump the Footman in an alley with some likelihood he’ll be found and then I can get something to eat.” I crossed my arms over my chest, aiming for indignant but managing something closer to sickly.

  Either way, it worked.

  Lars took one look at me and made a decision.

  “Fuck.” Lars rubbed his head. “Fuck.”

  “That means I win.” I looked at Nicholas. “Cast a Now You See Me, Now You Don’t. Lars and I will get him in the trunk. We can dump him somewhere in the city. I’m a gracious winner, so I’ll even let you two decide where.”

  “You have gotten entirely too comfortable with putting people in your trunk.” Nicholas gave a half smile before the expression shifted into more of a grimace. “If I may make a suggestion, without risking the wrath of Del? How about you set the illusionary spell, and Lars and I do the heavy lifting?”

  “I’ll cast the spell. Nicholas and I will load him in the trunk.” Lars gave me a stern look, his voice low, tone firm. “Adeline will sit her ass in the back seat and do nothing but concentrate on staying awake.” He cut me off when I opened my mouth to speak. “You will sit in the car and do nothing. No talking, no nothing.”

  That was fine with me. I’d got what I wanted.

  “I’ll be in the car if you need me.” I walked off, giving a little wave goodbye over my shoulder, while little black dots danced across my vision like tiny goth fireflies.

  Lars’s illusionary spell fell over me as I crossed the threshold and stepped outside. A smile ghosted my lips.

  The witching hour was fast approaching, I was on the verge of passing out, we were putting a man in the trunk of the car for the second time in less than a week, and there was no telling what problems the new day would bring.

  We held to the code, but I wasn’t sure that would be victory enough.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “PIT STOP.” LARS COASTED the car into the parking lot of an all-night convenience store. “You want anything?”

  The question had been posted to Nicholas, but I couldn’t help myself. “Some scratch-offs and a fountain soda?”

  Apparently, I was the only one who appreciated my hypoglycemia-induced sense of humor because my attempt at a joke was met with silence.

  “Maybe we should make the drop first?” Nicholas skirted around using any specific words, like body or Aldridge.

  “She needs to refuel before she does permanent damage to her magical reserves or her body.” Lars turned in his seat to get a better look at me. After we left the zoo, I’d unfastened my seatbelt and sprawled out across the back seat. “I checked your bag. No snacks. That’s probably a first. I’ll be quick. In and out and then we can finish this, okay?”

  “Did you check the glove box?” I asked, my words slurring a little as my cotton mouth worsened and my tongue felt like it was stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  Nicholas rode shotgun, putting the glove box directly in front of him. I heard him shuffling through the contents, hitting the jackpot just as Lars opened the driver side door. “Half-eaten candy bar and one of those five-hour energy drinks?”

  “Feast fit for a king. Pass it back here, would you?” I held out my hand, waiting for the proffered snacks.

  I ate the leftover candy bar in two bites, washed it down with the shot-sized energy drink, and waited for a buzz that never came. The dose of sugar and vitamin B or whatever the hell was in the energy drink barely registered in my body.

  “Wow, they weren’t kidding. Those candy bars really do satisfy,” I said.

  When Lars turned to look at me again, I did my best to look reassuring and offered two thumbs up.

  “You need something more substantial than that.” Lars seemed less than convinced. My acting skills needed work.

  “We could have finished this and been at the all-night diner on Broadway by now.” I glared—well, attempted a glare. With my double vision, it was more like widening my eyeballs.

  “I could have been in and out of the store already.” Lars didn’t put the car in reverse, but he didn’t get out, either, which I took as progress and needled him a little more.

  “And popped up on the convenience store cameras in the process. You can’t go shopping wearing a Now You See Me, Now You Don’t. Look, we can sit in this lot all night like we’re parked on lover’s lane, or we can unload the car and go eat pancakes.” I lay back down across the seat and closed my eyes. “Your choice.”

  “Is she always like this?” Nicholas asked, trying to keep his voice low enough for only Lars to hear and failing.

  “You have no idea.” Lars chuckled over the sound of the car being shifted into reverse and backed out of the parking space.

  “Don’t listen to him, Nicholas. I’m a real delight to be around once you get to know me.” I rested my forearm across my eyes, trying to block the flash of light from passing streetlights that managed to seep through my closed lids. “The Curse of a Thousand Cuts just makes me grumpy.”

  “I didn’t realize a side effect of the curse was being bitchy.”

  My reply to Lars’s quip came in the form of a one-finger salute.

  Nicholas and Lars discussed possible drop spots for Aldridge. As promised, I left the decision up to them and took the time to get some rest. I managed to drift off, stirring only when the car jerked to a stop and the two of them got out. It couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes, but it felt like five hours had passed since we left the convenience store. Rubbing my eyes, I looked out the rear window, catching a glimpse of our surroundings before the trunk opened and blocked my view.

  The Warwick Train Station.

  The old building, a testament to twentieth century architecture and construction, had long since been replaced by a more modern structure named after someone the city deemed to be important but which lacked any sort of character and old-world charm you’d hope to find when riding a train. It may have been replaced, but it hadn’t been abandoned. A shanty town had popped up inside the old station a few years ago. A rare combination of Mundane and magical vagabonds living in one space. The forgotten, from both walks of life.

  Aldridge would be found. On
e of the train station residents would stumble upon him, mistake him for just another cast-off, and take him in. He would be fed, clothed, cared for—because that’s what they do in the encampment. They look out for each other because no one is looking out for them. Aldridge would become the newest member of the out-of-sight, out-of-mind club.

  At least for a little while.

  While the station gave us anonymity, it didn’t buy us much time. And when Aldridge was found, Winslow would question him. We had very little time to figure out our next step.

  Which was why Lars and Nicholas wasted no time dumping Aldridge in the station. They were in and out in less than five minutes.

  “How did it go?” A stupid question but one I had to ask.

  “About as well as dumping an amnesiac off in a homeless camp could go, I guess,” Nicholas said. “We still need to ditch the uniform and badge.”

  “They’ll take care of him, and witch fire will take care of the uniform and badge. He’ll be looked after until Winslow finds him.” Lars turned in the driver’s seat, one arm dangling over the headrest. “And he will, Adeline.” Lars was obviously not a fan of this part of the plan.

  “I know. That’s the point, remember?” The small boost from the candy bar and shot of energy drink had already begun to wear off, so I wasn’t as enthusiastic as I’d been earlier when demanding we spare Aldridge. “We’re not like them—the Magistrate. We aren’t murderers, Lars.”

  “Not yet.” Lars put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot, leaving the old train station and its residents in a cloud of dust kicked up by the tires. “But who knows what tomorrow holds.”

  “If there are no objections, I’m going to pass out now.” I had similar fears as Lars, having thought almost the exact same thing when we left the Reptile House, but I kept them to myself and let the sweet oblivion of blood loss and exhaustion take me.