“Could you not do that?” he snapped.
I physically recoiled. “Do what?”
“Come at me with your Empathy all the time. My emotions are private, Harley. Everyone’s emotions are private. You can’t just hack into us whenever you feel like it.”
“I… I can’t help it. I’m worried about you.” I felt like a naughty schoolkid who’d been caught with her hands in the teacher’s candy jar. But I also felt irritated. If he had a problem with it, why hadn’t he brought it up before, instead of yelling at me in front of Finch and Garrett?
Wade rolled his eyes and said nothing, but I could feel a sudden rush of stress pulsing through him, more or less hitting the roof. I didn’t dare glance at Finch and Garrett.
As Wade strode off in front with Garrett, I hung back. Finch did, too, and he seemed antsy to speak with me. We’d walked a couple of paces before he cast me a worried look and nudged me playfully in the shoulder. He could probably see how down I was about Wade’s behavior, and how confused it was making me. Wade had always been shy and wary of my Empathy ability, but he’d never gone off on me like that before. If he hadn’t been acting funny since we’d arrived in San Francisco, I’d have put it down to his stress, but now it was starting to feel personal. And that stung like a bitch. He was supposed to be bolstering me, not bringing me down.
“Trouble in paradise?” Finch asked.
“With Wade?”
He grinned. “Who else? You got a secret boyfriend we don’t know about? Seems like you’re having enough trouble with the one.”
I shoved my hands into the deep pockets of the jacket. “I don’t know what’s going on, to be honest. He’s been acting strange toward me for a while. He feels anxious all the time, and there’s this bubbling anger beneath the surface, too. I tried to confront him about it, but he just launched into some rant about you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, he’s not too happy with my forgiving streak. He thinks I’m being an idiot.”
“Do you think you’re being an idiot?” Finch sounded miffed.
I shrugged. “I think everyone deserves a second chance, and you’ve proven yourself to me, for the most part.” I glanced at him. “I don’t know what Katherine talked to you about in her office. I’m guessing she tried to get you back on her side, but you didn’t bend. That counts for something, in my book.”
He smiled sadly. “Do you want to know? I bet it’s been bugging you, huh?”
“Do you want to tell me?”
“She said she could bring Adley back from the dead if I joined her again,” he replied. I could hear the pain and loss in his voice. My jaw nearly fell off its hinges. I’d expected Katherine to use her wily ways, but that was beyond anything I could’ve imagined. It also brought back some unpleasant memories of the prune in the glass coffin—the botched resurrection of dear ol’ Drake Shipton. Would Adley have come back like that, if Finch had accepted Katherine’s offer?
“I’m so sorry, Finch. I had no idea.”
He chuckled bitterly. “She’d have offered me the universe if she’d thought it could persuade me. She did, in a way.” His voice caught in his throat, but he quickly cleared it. “But I couldn’t accept. I kept thinking about how your view of me would change. How much I’d disappoint you, even though I’m pretty sure you’d have understood, if I’d said yes to that. Besides, she probably wouldn’t have come back the same. I made my bed, now I’ve got to lie in it… without her.”
“Oh, Finch…”
“So, now you know. I’m in this for real.” He forced a Finchy grin onto his face, but his eyes glistened with tears. “If you ever doubt me again, just think of that. I’m not going to double-cross you, Harley. Not now, not ever.”
This was so surreal. These heart-to-hearts with Finch would take some getting used to. I always expected witty jokes and snarky comments, never genuine honesty and him sharing his raw pain with me. And, honestly, I didn’t know what to do to make him feel better. It was too sad, and I didn’t have the right words. But it made me think—what would I do, if I was given an offer like that, and Wade’s life was on the table? Could I have found the strength to say no, like Finch had done? I’d had a momentary lapse with my mom, where I’d wanted to lock her back up in that jar and keep her forever, just so I could be near her. If Katherine had offered to resurrect her, what would I have said? I didn’t have the answer to that, and it terrified me.
“Is it definitely me he’s pissed with?” Finch nodded to Wade up ahead, who hadn’t even checked to make sure we were following.
I gave a wry laugh. “I’ve got no idea what runs through that head of his. He says it’s you and your bad influence, but who knows? He had plenty of opportunities to talk to me about it before we set out on this mission, but he seemed fine before. It’s only since we got to San Francisco that he started acting odd.”
“Then stop relying on him,” Finch said. The stern big brother approach took me by surprise.
“What?”
“Stop relying on him. If he’s making this harder, just put him to the back of your mind and keep your focus on the mission,” he replied, like it was really that simple. “Meanwhile, I’ll make sure nothing stands in our way. We’ll get through this.”
I smiled. “See, those are the words I want to be hearing right now.”
“Wade needs to remember what’s at stake. It’s bigger than his dislike of me. If there’s something in that Grimoire that might save us, I’m ready to pull out all the stops. Nothing scares Katherine—you know that. But that Grimoire does. Majorly.”
“I hope you’re right.” If we were doing this for nothing, I would sink to my knees and scream until there wasn’t a scrap of air left in my lungs. I’d pinned everything on this mission, as our last-ditch attempt to prevent Katherine’s ascension.
We headed down a few side streets, following the layout of the coven and its surrounding area. After fifteen minutes of traipsing through the shadowed landscape of New York at night, we reached the gates of an old local library. It wasn’t nearly as pretty as the New York Public Library, with its fancy façade and stone lions, but it had an old-world charm to it. In fact, it almost looked like a miniature version of that famous landmark. It had the same neo-Roman pillars, with a set of pale steps leading up to the broken wooden door. Had it not been for the heavy chains on the gates and the doors, and the wooden planks covering the windows, and the graffiti scrawled across the masonry, I might’ve thought this place was somehow connected to its big sister, closer to Central Park.
“Is this it?” Garrett looked back at me. Wade kept his gaze forward, shrouded by his shades.
I took out the coven blueprints and checked them. “Yep, this is the spot.”
“Seems like a strange place for a coven entrance,” Wade observed.
“The first director created it.” Finch folded his arms across his chest, smug with insider knowledge. “No one’s been able to remove it since. It’s one of the only parts of the coven that doesn’t change regularly. Guess we’ve got that guy to thank for our only way in without getting caught.”
Garrett frowned. “We’re not out of the woods yet, Finch. There’s extra security here, by the looks of it.” He gestured to the heavy chains on the door. “Remington warned us there’d be something like this. And, since there aren’t any guards, I’m guessing he was right. This place has to have the kind of magic around it that doesn’t even need security magicals to stand watch over it. That means it’s going to be potent stuff.”
“Way to bring down my enthusiasm, Garrett.” Finch shot him a grin that said otherwise.
We clambered over the fence and dropped down into the overgrown garden. Weeds swayed around us, as tall as me, the main path seething with a mass of vines and spongy moss that had reclaimed the flagstones beneath. Since Wade wasn’t saying anything, I guessed there were no residual hexes in the garden itself. However, he paused as we reached the main entrance to the abandoned library, glancing down at the
heavy chains.
“The magic’s in the chains, not the door,” he said. “They’re covered in ancient runes. They’re pretty much glowing right now.”
I peered down at the chains, but I couldn’t see any runes. “Does anyone know how to get through this kind of thing?”
Wade touched the chains, a silvery light shivering up his arm. He snatched it away, like a lit match had gotten too close to his fingertips. His brow furrowed as he took a step back.
“Everything okay?” Finch asked.
Wade nodded. “They gave me a message.”
Finch snorted. “The chains did?”
“Yeah. The only way to get through here is to touch the chains and tell a truth that they demand—one that proves we’ve got good intentions. If we’re honest, and our hearts are open and good, we’ll be allowed in. If we lie, we’ll be killed on the spot.”
“You got all of that from a piece of metal?” Finch didn’t sound convinced.
Garrett stepped in. “I’ve heard of this kind of thing before. The same kind of magic is on some of the vaults that the National Council uses. It’s supposed to prevent criminals from getting inside.”
“That did a great job in Reykjavik,” Finch muttered.
“You’d know all about it, wouldn’t you?” Wade shot back.
Finch lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I’m a changed man.”
“So you say,” Wade whispered under his breath.
“What do you know about it?” I turned to Garrett, ignoring the bickering between Wade and Finch. I was doing what Finch had told me to—keeping focused on the mission, and nothing else.
“It’s ancient, powerful magic. Stuff that’s not used very much anymore, which is what makes it so efficient. It’s supposed to catch people out,” he replied. “And it’s our only way into the New York Coven undetected, so we better hope our hearts are good enough. Finch, you might end up having to sit this one out.”
He shook his head. “No way. I can be as open and honest as the rest of you. I’ll answer whatever I have to, and I’ll do it truthfully.”
Honestly, I was more worried about the goodness of my own heart. What if these chains didn’t like what I had to say? What if my heart wasn’t as pure as I thought it was? What if they asked me something that I couldn’t answer? If that happened, I wouldn’t be able to hide that from these chains. I almost wanted to laugh. There’d be a sick irony to all of this if I died before I’d even had the chance to get inside the New York Coven.
Twenty-Seven
Jacob
I portaled into the dragon garden. Suri gasped as she staggered out beside me. I offered her a hand to keep her steady. She took it, which brought a smile to my face. I liked having her near. And I was glad I’d been given the chance to show her this place. It was an oasis in the SDC. Pretty and secluded. The perfect setting for our first date. Not that it was actually a date. I’d just said I wanted to show her a cool part of the coven.
“How did you do that?” she gasped, patting herself down as if to make sure she was in one piece.
I smiled. “It’s Chaos.”
“Yeah, but how?” She smiled shyly. “I saw this light coming out of your hands and then bam! A massive tear, and now this.”
“It’s… It’s just Chaos. It works differently for different people. I manipulate it into making portals. Some people can read minds with it, some people can bring other people back from the dead with it. It varies.”
“Now you’re just messing with me, aren’t you? There’s no way you can bring people back from the dead.”
I chuckled. “I can’t, but I know people who can.”
“No way!”
“Yes way.”
“Man, this stuff keeps getting more and more awesome by the second. How am I supposed to go back to an ordinary human life after hearing all of this? I’ll never look at anything the same way again.”
My heart jolted. I kept forgetting she couldn’t stay here for good. In a few days, she wouldn’t remember any of this. She’d go back to her life, and I’d go back to mine. And I hated it. I hated that it had to be that way. So what if a human found out about magicals? Suri was cool. Suri wouldn’t tell anyone. Probably.
“Do you like it here?” I gestured to the garden. Anything to change the subject. I had to savor the moments I did have with her, before the others sent her back.
She walked up to the stone dragon that spewed water into a shell and ran her hands through the liquid. Even that seemed to excite her. She was like a happy bunny, bouncing all over the place. If I mentioned her leaving, I’d ruin that. So I wasn’t going to. Instead, I was going to enjoy this moment. We’d taken a break from the device, which was now a bunch of pieces on the table in the infirmary. Krieger had gone to sleep for a few hours, and Isadora had gone on a scouting mission. We needed rest. This was the next best thing. A rest for my mind.
“It’s cool. This whole place is cool,” she replied. “I wish I could be like you, with these abilities, so I could stay. Seriously, this place is like nothing else—it doesn’t even seem real. It’s like a fantasy world, and all of you get to be these amazing characters, running around and doing crazy cool stuff, making magical sparks fly and things. All I get to do is watch my dinner spin around in a microwave, listen to a load of crap on TV, and bury myself under a bunch of schoolwork. Being here makes me realize how dull my human life really is.”
“Hey, don’t say that.”
She shrugged. “Why not? It’s true.”
“Ordinary life isn’t so bad, is it?”
“Compared to this? One hundred percent!” She looked back at me with her big eyes. “What other ability did you say you had?”
“Sensate, and a weak Earth ability.” I stepped toward her and crouched low to the ground. Putting my palms over one of the flagstones, I sent my Chaos into the stone. A moment later, a small flower twisted up between the cracks. I’d tried to make a rose, but I wasn’t too good at the Elemental stuff. Still, it looked pretty—a yellow tulip. That’s cheesy, even for you. I didn’t care. I wanted to give her a gift. Even if it died in a couple of days. I plucked the tulip out of the stone and handed it to her.
“You made this?” She stared at me excitedly. “See, this is what I’m talking about. This is insane.”
I nodded. “It’s about all I can do with my Earth ability, though.”
“I love it.” She took the flower and turned it over in her hands. “It looks so real.”
“That’s because it is.”
She smiled mischievously. “You know that yellow flowers mean friendship, right?”
“Do they?” My cheeks reddened. “I didn’t know.”
“Would you have made a different one if you had?” She was teasing me.
“I like yellow. But I can make you another one, if you want.”
She chuckled. “No, I like this one. It’s vibrant. It reminds me of the sunset.”
“That’s what I was going for.”
“Isadora seems pretty cool,” Suri said, as she walked toward the wall at the far side of the garden. It looked out on Balboa Park, and it was one of the nicest views in the SDC. A starry night glittered overhead, and a crescent moon peeked out of the darkness.
I nodded. “Yeah, she is.”
“Is she related to you? I get some maternal vibes from her when she’s around you.”
I smiled. “No, we’re not related, but she’s been a mentor to me. She can do what I can, so we’re sort of bonded in a way. I learned a lot of my skills from her, where the portal stuff is concerned. The rest I’ve been figuring out as I go along.”
“That must be hard on you.”
“I manage. That’s the key trait of a foster kid—we make it work.” I went to stand beside her, my arm brushing hers.
“Did you move around a lot when you were a kid?”
I stared out at the night sky. “Yeah, I guess so. I ended up with a new foster family every year or so.”
“Did
you always know you were a magical? Like, even back then?” she asked. “Or did the abilities appear one day? How does it work?”
“I always knew there was something weird about me. Abilities get a little temperamental when you’re a kid, especially without anyone to guide you. But they were always there. We’re born that way, not created.”
She sighed. “Aww, I was hoping maybe I was just a late bloomer.”
“Sorry.” I dipped my head.
She turned back to the view. “How come none of the foster families stuck? You seem like a nice guy. I doubt you’re the type who was getting into scrapes all the time.”
The memories of that period of my life raced through my head. The arguments, the slamming doors, the nasty grins of the kids in the homes I lived in, and the million ways they tried to frame me and make me out to be a bad kid. The parents were never as bad. A few were just in it for the payouts, but the rest tried, at least, to fit me into their family. It never worked. I was too different. My abilities made me different.
“They just didn’t,” I replied. “It’s hard to fit into a family unit when it’s already established. I can only think of one place that I wanted to call home, but that didn’t work out. Nothing to do with the family—there were just weird circumstances that meant I had to leave.”
“So they were good to you?” She turned toward me, her eyes blinking.
“Yeah, they were the best. I miss them. But the people I met here are cool, too. They’ve made me feel at home. They’re probably the best family I could ask for.” I struggled to hold her gaze. “I wish you could meet Harley. I think you’d like her. She’s been like a sister to me, albeit a tough one. But I wouldn’t be here without her. Like, literally.”
Suri frowned. “How come she’s not here?”
“Long story.” I leaned closer to her. “How about you? Did you manage to get in touch with your mom okay? I know the signal can be a bit shaky around here. It’s the bubble—it affects technology sometimes. You just have to find a good spot.”
Harley Merlin 7: Harley Merlin and the Detector Fix Page 22