by C. I. Black
He pulled the wrought iron gate open and stumbled onto the street.
“She has to be gone by now.” Ivy rushed to his side but didn’t know how to help him walk without wrapping an arm across his back. “She would have gated out of the building before she even reached the top of the stairs.”
“I’m hoping not. The only reason I broke through the gatelock was sheer desperation.” He slid his gaze to hers, capturing her dragon soul like he had back at the Handmaiden’s residence. “And I’m not so proud that I can’t admit it. I thought you were going to die.” His eyes widened a fraction, as if his admission had surprised him, then he yanked his attention back to the street. “I thought we were both going to die.”
The warmth in her chest billowed. More proof of her silly attraction to him, nothing more. But that only increased her trembling. She’d almost died. She’d been useless in that fight and he’d almost died.
She shoved that thought aside. Don’t think about the danger and don’t think about the attraction. He was her ticket out of Court and she was damned well going to keep him alive long enough to be free.
They reached the ekas’s front door. “I’m guessing she exited out the kitchen door into the alley, but—”
“I can check.” She drew back from him, hissed her power word, and prayed her magic wouldn’t latch onto him again. It almost had when they’d first entered the ekas and she’d checked for Jet. It had taken everything she had to force her power into the room and not let it revel in the strength of his memories, like it had when she’d read that horrible one in the Handmaiden’s residence.
Her magic seized a weak recent memory from the street and Ivy mentally pushed more power into it. Jet appeared, standing before the ekas’s front door, but instead of leaving, she was entering. Well, hey. Finally, a little bit of luck, with landing one of the street’s memories that was close to the time she wanted. She was only five to fifteen minutes off and didn’t need to try jumping a large amount of time to see what she wanted.
Out of the corner of Ivy’s eye, Grey’s ever-present memory fire danced around him. Muted, as if his injuries were somehow keeping it suppressed, but still tempting her, luring her, he the only flame around and she a helpless moth.
Except she wasn’t helpless, and if she remembered only one thing, it had to be that. It all came down to what she was willing to do to be free. And she was willing to do almost anything.
Even if a tiny voice within her begged that it wouldn’t have to come to that.
Ivy yanked the street’s memory forward. She and Grey reached the door and entered. A bang erupted, but Jet didn’t exit.
“She wasn’t here,” Ivy said, easing back on the power she was pouring into her magic so she could pay attention to him but not fully release her hold on the memory. Perhaps the other side of the street could help. Perhaps she could take just a peek at one of Grey’s memories again. Use it to steady herself.
Jeez, no.
“We should try the alley,” Grey said.
Her gaze jumped to him, drawn of its own volition. No matter how much she wanted to avoid the temptation of his memory fire, she just couldn’t help herself.
His gaze was locked on the street, as if looking for signs of Jet. Fire danced over his skin and wisps of blue smoke curled around him, teasing her to draw it into her and watch it. Just a peek. Just—
No. She wrenched her focus from him, forcing it down the street.
“If she wasn’t in the alley, then—” He released a shuddering, agony-filled groan. “Then I don’t know what.”
Movement at the edge of the alley caught her attention. She rolled the memory back twenty seconds. A piece of newspaper and a crushed soda can tumbled out onto the street, blown by a sudden, powerful wind. She’d felt a gust like that many times that day, every time someone made a gate.
“She gated from the alley.” Which meant maybe there was a clue or something that would help them stop her.
Ivy rushed down the street, rolling the memory back to thirty seconds before the gust, and watched Jet pull her phone from her ear, shove it into the back pocket of her jeans, and summon a gate.
Grey grabbed Ivy’s arm and jerked her back. “Jeez, Ivy. She could have still been there.”
Her power surged, sucking in a hint of Grey’s memory. The reek of rotten food filled her nostrils—
Not now. She tugged free from Grey’s grip and hurried to where Jet had been standing. “She was talking with someone.”
Her magic leapt back to Grey and the alley dimmed, overlaid with another wet, gloomy alley. Malicious laughter, just a whisper, sent shivers down her spine. She— no, he couldn’t heal that fast. Not fast enough to survive—
No. She tore her magic free and slapped her palm against the wall where Jet had been standing. Jet. I need to see her. I need to see the alley’s memory from a few minutes ago.
The memory stuttered— but it wasn’t the memory. It was her power heaving between the street and Grey.
Ivy clenched her jaw and squeezed her eyes shut.
Come on. Roll back. Just a few minutes.
An explosion roared around her. She jumped and opened her eyes, her heart pounding and fear freezing her gut. But it was just a memory.
A narrow wooden door banged open a few feet away, and Jet leapt out on a whoosh of smoke and dust.
“Good fucking riddance to the two of them,” Jet said with a dark chuckle and pulled out her phone.
“What do you see?” Grey asked, his voice distant even though she could feel his memory fire sliding against her skin, threatening her hold on her magic.
Jet pulled her phone from her back pocket, hit a button, and placed it against her ear.
“What do you see?” Grey asked again, his tone more insistent.
“Let me concentrate.”
His memory fire drew closer — he had to be only a foot away. “Ivy—”
Her magic leapt onto him. The alley outside the ekas vanished and returned to his alley.
“Make it fast,” he said. Not from the memory but in real time.
“It’ll go faster if you take four steps back,” she growled.
His presence jerked away and dimmed.
She heaved her power back to the alley, refocused on Jet, and rolled the memory back to the moment the black drake had placed the phone against her ear.
“I thought you said the Handmaiden was tricky,” Jet said. “No. Knowing the tapestry is the key and seeing both sides… it’s kind of obvious.” She rolled her eyes at whatever the other person said. “Yes, you don’t want to know the details. Deniability and all that. Well, just know I’m going for the easy one first. It’ll take about seven hours, but I’ll still be ahead of schedule. You’re going to pay me double for that, by the way.” Jet flashed her teeth even though she was alone. “No, I said double.” Her teeth-flash turned into fully bared. “Because I’m throwing in getting rid of Grey and Tobias’s agent for free.” She glanced down the alley toward Ivy.
On instinct, Ivy shrank back, even though she knew Jet couldn’t see her.
“Consider them a casualty of war. Not every soul can be saved.” Jet pocketed her phone.
Ivy released the memory and turned to Grey. He leaned against the wall, his breath short sharp gasps and his expression tight.
“She’s figured out the key to finding the coin pieces for the rebirth coin, and she thinks we’re dead.”
“You got one thing right,” a gravelly voice said from the mouth of the alley. Bolo.
Grey wrenched around and faced him. Ivy’s heart skipped a beat. Grey was too injured to face the prince’s assassin. He would die, and she couldn’t let that happen.
Bolo sneered, a wicked gleam lighting his eyes. He raised both katana and wakizashi and growled low in his throat. “You will be dead.”
CHAPTER 19
Grey straightened, every inch of his body burning with agony. He had to finish this fight before it started because he wouldn’t be able to creat
e a gate with Bolo attacking him.
Bolo bared his teeth, making him look even more like a petulant hatchling.
Except being this injured, even a petulant hatchling could take Grey’s head.
This was turning into a really shitty day to top the last few weeks of shitty days.
Fine. Whatever. Just do it. A quick pounce, get past the blades, and incapacitate him. It was his only way to win.
Mother, he was going to need a whole lot of luck.
Bolo hissed, Grey tensed, ready to pounce, but Ivy jerked forward and roared. A full, ferocious dragon battle cry.
Bolo’s attention leapt to her as she yanked the gun up and fired. The bullet slammed into his chest. His eyes widened, his surprise at being shot clear. He staggered back, and Grey leapt at him, grabbed his head, and smashed it against the side of the ekas.
Bolo sagged to the ground, stunned. Ivy stared at them, the gun trained on Bolo, but her eyes were as wide as his had been, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d done.
Yeah, well. That made two of them. She’d just shot the prince’s new assassin. It didn’t matter what Tobias would want. Regis would arrest Ivy and send her to Odyne for centuries of torture.
“That’s not going to keep him down for long.” Grey took a step toward her, but his knees buckled. He grabbed the wall to keep standing. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
She gave a tight nod, her eyes still too wide, but her gun remained trained on Bolo.
Grey said his power word and a gate’s black vortex swept over the wall in front of him. He concentrated on his studio in Newgate, the old boxing gym where he’d let Capri and Ryan hide when her house had been destroyed. Grey needed a safe place to go where no drake could find him and Ivy, and where he couldn’t endanger Nero and his coteries.
Bolo groaned. Ivy sidestepped into the gate, keeping her focus on Bolo until the last minute. Grey followed, throwing himself through, unable to take a real step. Just get to his studio. That was all he needed.
Except a small voice, deep in the back of his mind, said he needed more than a safe place to heal his body. He needed to heal his mind and soul. He needed Ivy.
No, he needed the Handmaiden to use her magic, or Anaea to figure out how the Handmaiden eased his memories.
He needed to be reborn so he could finally forget. Wasn’t that what he really wanted?
But he wasn’t so certain any more. If he forgot everything, he wouldn’t be able to protect Anaea, or help Capri or Nero or those teens living in his house, those just trying to make sense of a crazy world. He wouldn’t be able to protect Ivy.
His heart skipped a beat, and panic seized him, sending white-hot agony screaming through his chest. He had to protect her. If he did nothing else, he had to make sure Regis didn’t get his hands on her. And he wasn’t sure it still mattered that he was trying to keep her from Court because she’d seen one of his memories that endangered Nero or not.
The gate’s magic stuttered, and the exit jerked away from his studio and latched onto the anchor at Court. He scrambled to yank it back, but the fear gripping him squeezed tighter and his power wrenched against his control. The pain roared into a searing inferno and his hold on his studio vanished. He hadn’t been there enough times recently. He couldn’t keep it in his mind. Mother, he could barely keep anything in mind.
But he couldn’t go to Court. Everyone he wanted to protect would be hurt. Ivy would be arrested. Nero would be in danger—
His thoughts locked on Nero’s house. He’d spent more time there and gated there more in the last two weeks than anywhere. It was safe and familiar. And yes, Ivy’s presence endangered them all, but it would be worse if she was back at Court.
He clutched onto the mental image of Nero’s living room, praying, begging, fighting through the agony, for his gate to send them there and not to Court.
His foot hit solid ground… floor… it didn’t matter which. The muscles in his legs gave out and he collapsed to his hands and knees. Frozen air swept around him, biting his cheeks and making him shiver, which sent more pain lancing through him.
“Mother of All,” someone said. It sounded like Raven.
He forced his head up. They’d arrived in the living room in Nero’s house with all the busted windows. Raven, Diablo, Ryan, Anaea, and half a dozen of the older kids were hanging bright blue tarps.
“Grey—” Anaea dropped her edge of tarp and rushed toward him.
Ivy jerked the gun up and pointed it at Anaea, making her stop.
“You don’t honestly think that’s going to stop us?” Diablo said, his tone dark.
Ivy hissed, her teeth fully bared, and yanked the gun toward him.
“They’re friends,” Grey gasped.
The muscles in Ivy’s legs tightened. Her gaze swept over the group, and Grey could only pray she wasn’t one of the few dragons who could tell the difference between a drake’s aura and that of a human mage. Although with the teens in the room, things already looked suspicious, since the Handmaiden didn’t rebirth dragon souls into human bodies that weren’t adult.
“Come on,” Diablo growled. “Shoot me.”
“I’m not sure he’s a friend,” Ivy said.
“I’ll give you that. But everyone else is.” Grey sagged forward and pressed his forehead to the cold carpet. He just needed a minute—
Okay, maybe more than a minute. It was just so hard to concentrate. But he didn’t have a minute. Nothing had changed. Jet had a head start on them and he still couldn’t let anyone get their hands on the full rebirth spell.
“I need to talk with the doyen,” Grey said.
Anaea huffed — at least it sounded like Anaea. “You need a doctor.” Yep, it had to have been Anaea who’d huffed. She was still getting used to the fact that dragons didn’t have doctors.
Diablo growled and Ivy’s feet shifted closer to Grey.
“Diablo.” Grey tipped his head enough to see the black drake. “Please.” It was the best he could get out, even though everything within him howled to get up and attack Diablo, be the bigger, stronger drake.
Jeez, that reaction had to be from too much adrenaline from the fight and the pain, since even on a good day, Diablo could probably kick his ass and Grey knew better.
“You—” Raven glared at Diablo. “Promise to play nice.”
Diablo rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“And I’ll take our guest to the kitchen.” Raven handed her tarp to Jeff and brushed her hands on her thighs.
Grey’s chest tightened. If Ivy left, he’d be in pain and unable to control his memories. He’d be useless when he really couldn’t afford to be. “No. Ivy needs to talk with the doyen, as well.”
“I’m not sure the doyen wants to talk with her,” Diablo said.
“She shot the prince’s new assassin to save me.” Grey forced himself up and sat back on his heels. Mother, that hurt! “She can’t go back to Court.”
Diablo cocked an eyebrow, his expression clear. She couldn’t go back without leverage and learning about Nero’s unsanctioned coterie would give her all the leverage she needed.
Grey matched Diablo’s stare, willing him to understand that Ivy might already know and it didn’t matter what she wanted. She was never going back to Court.
Anaea gasped and understanding flashed across her face. “Raven, call Nero.”
Diablo glared at her. Yeah, she’d used Nero’s name and now Ivy knew who the doyen was. Anaea met Diablo’s stare and the muscle in his jaw tightened as he, too, had a flash of realization.
Good. Everyone was on the same horrible page.
“Can I please get out of the cold?” Grey asked. “I’d rather just be in agony than in agony and freezing.”
“Diablo, Ryan, help Grey.” Anaea headed to the door and gestured to Ivy to follow.
Ivy glanced at Grey. With the crystal clarity of her aura brushing against his, her eyes were still too big — even if there was a ferocious dragon simmering in those dark depths —
and the pulse at her neck was too fast. He could only hope she hadn’t figured out that knowing Nero was the doyen Grey was working with meant they’d never allow her to leave.
But a bigger part of him begged that she wouldn’t want to leave.
Diablo grabbed Grey under the right armpit and helped him stand. “What the hell have you gotten into?” he hissed.
Ryan grabbed under the other arm and steadied Grey. “I want to know why you aren’t healing?”
“I am healing. Just really, really slowly.” So God-damned slowly. He took a staggering step forward, gritted his teeth, and took a few more. He didn’t want Ivy to get too far ahead of him and force him to reveal to Diablo and Ryan that he was having trouble with reality, too.
“And what about the green drake?” Diablo asked. “I don’t know if Anaea can cast a rebirth spell again.”
Ryan’s eyes flashed wide. Guess he hadn’t figured out that Ivy wasn’t leaving this house, at least not as Ivy.
“I don’t know.” But he did know. Diablo was right. Rebirthing Ivy or keeping her a prisoner was the only answer, the one Grey hadn’t wanted to admit to himself back in the Handmaiden’s residence when he’d realized she’d read a memory from his clothes.
And yet he couldn’t accept that. Locking her up or resetting her soul to its base condition wasn’t protecting her, and the voice in the back of his head, the one that had started screaming in the ekas and was growing stronger by the minute, said he had to protect her.
“If you can’t do it, I will,” Diablo said. “It’s my job. It’s not yours.”
But this was Grey’s mess and he was already indebted to Diablo and Nero and this secret coterie. He’d never shirked his responsibility before and he wasn’t about to now.