Unwinnable

by May Dawson

  Tyson stood there, his eyes wide and horrified.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said, ignoring the terror I felt as the woods seemed to come alive in response to Tyson’s magic. I looped my arm around Tyson’s waist. “We have to get back into the temple…”

  Turic’s hands broke above the greenery as he tried to tear his way out. Beyond him, answering his call, the forest seemed to shake as Ravagers answered his call.

  Suddenly, a dozen Ravagers exploded into the clearing.

  Raura was frantically notching arrows into her bows as we all closed up close together, trying to fight the Fae warriors who were still attacking us as well as the Ravagers.

  I stabbed a Ravager with my sword, but its tail lashed out at me as it whirled, knocking me hard to the ground. I stared up at the revolving blue sky, trying to get my body to respond and get back up again.

  Then Lake was there, one arm dangling uselessly, fighting back the bleeding Ravager.

  “Thanks,” I said, scrambling to my feet as the Ravager fell.

  He winked at me and turned. Raura was notching arrows into her bow and letting them fly as fast as she could find a target. Tyson was trying to summon his magic, but it seemed wild and uncertain. We were still overwhelmed.

  I looked back at the temple, but it was still wrapped in thorns. We couldn’t take refuge there.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Rafe said.

  With Raura and Tyson behind us, firing magic at the Ravagers who chased us, we ran into the woods. Turic must not be completely in control of his creatures, because from the shouting and the roaring behind us, it sounded as if the monsters had turned on the Fae.

  “We need to get to the Delphin and have you officially crowned,” Raura said. “Turic is going to keep trying to kill you—”

  “And if he can really control the monsters from the rips, he can send them after us,” Jensen said. “Just like the goblins ‘attacked’ us.”

  “He said that was Raura,” Arlen said.

  “And you believed him, you insufferable ass?” she turned on him in exasperation.

  “You shot me!”

  “It was an accident!”

  “I’ve never seen you have an accident in three years of training together. You’ve got the best bow-work in the order.”

  A slow smile spread across Raura’s face. “You never say anything nice to me.”

  “I’m not being nice!” Arlen sounded exasperated, which was more emotion than we usually saw from him. “I’m accusing you of trying to murder me.”

  “Okay first of all, I wasn’t trying to murder you, or you’d be dead. Second of all, you were wearing armor. It’s not like being struck with an arrow hurt you that much.”

  “It did hurt, Raura. Or should I call you Huntress?”

  “Do you want her to kiss it where it hurts and make it better?” Rafe asked, completely deadpan, and I couldn’t stifle the laugh that burst out of my lips.

  Raura turned over her shoulder and gave me a look, complete with a flip of her long brown curls. Apparently that move was universal.

  We backtracked through the burned forest, which healed as Tyson passed through it. If we had doubted that any of this was real, there was no doubt now.

  With Turic’s monsters camped out at the temple, it would be hard to get inside until we came back with an army. We had to reach the Delphine.

  We reached a village, and a gentle spring rain began to fall as we arrived.

  “Is he controlling the weather?” Jensen whispered to me, leaning close.

  “I think so,” I said, not that he meant to. Still, there was something tense in my stomach knowing he had so much power.

  “Just stay quiet and don’t touch anything,” Arlen said, walking ahead of us into a tavern.

  It was dimly lit inside, and all eyes turned to look at us when we walked in.

  “We need horses,” Arlen said, going up to the bar.

  “No stables here,” the barkeep said. “You can ask around.”

  I was so focused on him that I was surprised to turn around and see people sliding off their chairs to their knees.

  “It’s the heir,” someone muttered, and someone else knelt beside them.

  Tyson took a step back, looking horrified. He seemed almost limned in light, and I frowned, trying to figure out if was the sunlight coming through the windows that created a faint wash of gold across his face, haloing his hair.

  “I’ve got two horses I can offer you,” a farmer said.

  “It’s okay,” Tyson said. “We’ll go on foot.”

  I could tell he didn’t want to take anything from these people. Raura rested her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll make sure they all get their horses back. We have to get ahead of Turic.”

  Before we knew it, the villagers had amassed enough horses for us all. Tyson muttered thank-yous to them all; they looked at him with curiosity and maybe a touch of adoration. I was sure they wanted more from him, but we rode quickly out of town.

  We were riding hard, cresting a hill and almost out of sight of the village, when Rafe asked, “Do you smell that?”

  We all turned back to see that the village was on fire.

  “Their penalty for helping us,” Raura said, her voice tight. “Luckily Turic is riding after us, so he shouldn’t have time to stay there and force them to let it burn, slaughtering anyone who tries to douse the flames. That’s what he does when a village fails to pay their taxes.”

  “I should have killed him,” Tyson said.

  He still looked haunted by that moment when his magic bloomed so wild and intense that the forest did his bidding, though. Tyson wasn’t uncomfortable with the idea of killing evil folks for a mission—none of us were—but he was struggling with this kind of power.

  “We’ll fix this,” I said.

  Tyson started back toward the village, and Rafe looked as if he was going to go after him. But Tyson stopped on the side of the hill, his eyes closing.

  The soft rain that had begun to fall on the village turned into a true storm, soaking the rooftops and running down the streets, until the flames were doused.

  “Well then,” Jensen said, his eyes wide.

  “It’s scary for me too,” Tyson said. He headed for his horse. “Let’s ride.”

  With Turic and the monsters at our back, we rode for the seat of the spring court, hoping Fenig would be there to help us mass an army to fight our way back to the temple…and to kill Turic.

  When I saw the set of Tyson’s jaw, I had no doubt that was what he wanted to do.

  And I wondered if when that killing was over, if he would come home with us.

  Usually, Tyson seemed to feel my misery. Even during all those months we’d spent separated by his damned logic, there had been a sympathetic flash in his eyes whenever I ached—as if when we hurt each other, we could never really abandon our bond.

  But this time, he just rode hard. He never even looked my way.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chase

  Lex and I tried to chase down the wolves who had taken Blake and Skyla, but the trail of magic went cold.

  Wolves had taken Blake and Skyla, but witches had blocked Silas’s magic.

  By mid-morning, we had to admit we had lost them in the city somewhere. We walked up and down the city streets, trying to find some kind of lead again.

  “Where the fuck are they with that shield?” I demanded, even though I knew I was being ridiculous. The rest of the team didn’t have time to go into the Greyworld. “If we could shift, we could track their scent and find Blake and Sky.”

  “We will,” Lex promised.

  “Don’t just say that to me,” I said. “We could find their bodies. They could already be dead.”

  “They’re not.” A soft feminine voice said behind us.

  The two of us spun around to find Kit—no, Alice—behind us. She gripped a paper coffee cup in one hand, and sunglasses hid her eyes. She looked so normal, and somehow that jus
t made me want to tear her apart even more. She was made of lies.

  “I’ll kill you if you hurt them,” I warned her. Only the possibility we needed her kept me from trying to do just that now.

  I might not be able to shift into a wolf, but I had a feeling I could still tear someone’s throat out if I really, really tried hard.

  “I know that, Furball,” she said. “Relax. I don’t want to hurt any kids. I just want that Dark Collar back.”

  “Why’s that?” Lex asked. “You already destroyed our wolves.”

  “I promised it to a friend,” she said with a smile. “Anyway, it’s none of your business, really. I know you can steal it from Clearborn. Easy-peasy trade: you get your siblings back, Chase, and I get the dark collar.”

  “You think we’d betray the shifter community?”

  “The damage is already done,” she said. “Is it a betrayal when their wolves are already dead?”

  “Except we saw wolves. You sent them to the academy to do your bidding. How’d you turn them back?” I demanded.

  “Oh Chase,” she said warmly. “Your little sister just adores you, you know that? She bit me. The little wench.” She sounded amused as she touched her neck. “She’s got a lot of fight, and she’s very sure you’re going to rescue her.”

  “Don’t you dare hurt her—”

  “Don’t be tiresome. You already know I don’t want to.” She added, after a second’s deliberation, “If I do have to prove my point, I’ll start with your brother. The parts he needs less. Pinkie fingers. Maybe a middle toe. Did you know that the pinkie toes are actually extremely important to your balance? But I bet even with a missing middle toe, he might be able to play football. Probably would have to stop wearing sandals, but personally I hate the look of a man in Berks.”

  I took an involuntary step toward her, but Lex silenced me with a look. He was right. I couldn’t let her play me.

  “We’ll try,” Lex said. “How do we get in touch with you?”

  “Meet me at West City Park. Nice and public. Twenty-four hours.”

  “That’s not enough time,” I said. “We can’t be sure Clearborn will give us an opening to steal—”

  “It’s enough time for one little toe or finger,” she chided me, then said, “Make an opening.”

  She waved at us over her shoulder, but she didn’t make it more than a dozen steps before she turned back.

  “Lex,” she said, “if you think you’re going to put a tracking spell on me, you’re even stupider than you look.”

  Lex widened his eyes, but she cut him off. “Try it again, and I really will cut off a finger ASAP. One of the girl’s.”

  I stared at her, trying to control my fury as she walked away.

  The two of us headed back toward the academy, but when we were halfway back, Lex pulled off to the side of the road abruptly. I stared at him, jolted out of my own murderous thoughts.

  Lex said slowly, “What do you think about talking to Clearborn instead of stealing from him?”

  I gave him an incredulous look. “Why are you asking me? You’re the one in charge.”

  I felt pretty fucking salty about it right now, too, when it was Blake and Sky’s life on the line. I’d just been contemplating going around Lex and Clearborn, somehow. But I wasn’t sure how.

  I didn’t want Alice to have the Dark Collar. I didn’t know what she was up to, but whatever it was, the thought filled me with dread.

  “I know,” Lex said. “It’s my call. My responsibility.”

  After a second, he went on, “But Blake and Skyla are your brother and sister. And I want to make sure the plan we follow is the one you can live with.”

  “You’d betray Clearborn?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “For my family? Yeah.”

  Silence hung in the car, but I could hear the rush of blood through my ears. It hadn’t stopped since Blake and Skyla went missing, this constant sense of panic that I had to fight willfully every second.

  “But,” he added, “I think Clearborn would help us. It means losing some control over the situation, but we’d gain resources. Knowledge. People on our side. I think it’s a smarter play than doing this on our own.”

  “Every instinct I have says, just get the damn shield and give her what she wants,” I ground out. “But okay. All right.”

  The two of us went back to the academy and met Silas and Penn in the library. After calling in favors from the other packs, they’d begun frantically researching.

  Clearborn was sitting on the leather couch, alternating between sipping from a cup of tea and a sweating glass of bourbon. When he spoke, his voice was rasping and it kept turning into a whisper, then dying completely. He never even seemed to get frustrated. He’d wait, try again to speak.

  “We didn’t find them,” I said curtly when we walked in. Just being back here felt worse than moving had.

  “I checked the room,” Silas said. “There are no lingering spells. No bugs.”

  “But Alice found us.” I had to get the words out before I lost the will. Lex glanced at me, not betraying his relief but I could almost feel it. He’d wanted me to make the decision.

  I interrupted myself. “Do you guys know which packs took them? Any ideas?”

  “I didn’t see any of them as anything but wolves,” Clearborn said. “But my guards at the gate must have recognized them, because they opened the gates.”

  “Why can some of them shift?” I demanded. “Is there an expiration date on the Dark Collar’s magic?”

  If I had my wolf back, I could track down Blake and Skyla. I felt a traitorous surge of hope in my heart that I tried to suppress.

  We all turned to Clearborn, who told us, “We thought almost everyone from the Day was dead, but Alice must have survived… and she must have found a way to bring some wolves back without the shield.”

  “You think some wolves are working for Alice so they can get their wolves back?”

  “Yes,” Clearborn admitted.

  Penn filled me in on what had happened while we were gone. The Northsea pack was out hunting for any hints about where Blake and Skyla had gone, and so were several other packs.

  But which packs had aligned with the witches?

  “And why?” Lex demanded. “Obviously, they got their wolves back. But how do they think that’s going to play out in the long run?”

  “I think they believe there will be war within the packs,” Clearborn said. “And this time, aided by the witches, there will be a clear, quick winner.”

  Clearborn scrubbed his hand over his face. “There was something else about these wolves. They didn’t seem…seasoned. Mature.”

  I thought of how unpredictable the shift had first been for me, when I’d lived in Dean McCauley’s garage. I’d been terrified of myself back then. “You mean they acted feral.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  My blood ran cold. They had Blake and Skyla, but no control over the shift. Alice might not intend to hurt my siblings, but that didn’t mean that the wolves who held them would follow her orders.

  “Maybe the shifters who took Blake and Skyla didn’t get their wolves back the same way they’d been before,” Lex said. “Maybe Alice doesn’t have a cure. Maybe she was able to bring a shifter back from somewhere the spell didn’t reach, someone who could turn them all over again.”

  I blew out an impatient breath. “If we get the shield back ASAP…”

  “There’s only half the shield in the Fae world,” Clearborn said. “We can try using it to do the spell and hoping we can give some of our people back the ability to shift, but I’m not convinced it will work without the entire shield.”

  “So in the meantime,” Clearborn said, “what does Alice want?”

  I hesitated. Clearborn’s eyes were on me, his face patient. The temptation to lie was powerful, to just get Alice what she wanted and damn the consequences, but I did trust Clearborn and the rest of the team.

  “The Dark Collar,” I said, the words feel
ing torn from my mouth.

  “We need to figure out why she wants it, and how she managed to reverse the spell for those wolves,” Clearborn said. “That’s a good idea, Lex, but we need to figure out the specifics.”

  “Unless,” Lex said slowly, “she never reversed the spell at all. Maybe she was partnered with those wolves from the beginning.”

  Clearborn was quiet, taking that in. “I’ve been concerned about a few of the alphas. There have been rumblings about Maddie being responsible, and I traced the talk back to them. I’d assumed some of my guards might have seen something that day and talked. But maybe that information actually came from Alice.”

  “Where are the guards?” I asked.

  “Dead, mostly,” Penn said, his face grim. He must have suffered being here dealing with the bodies.

  “And some of them were recalled by their packs.” Clearborn said flatly. “Not all of them, of course. It depends on the pack. But enough to leave us stretched thin. I have half-a-dozen Guard who weren’t here tonight who have come back to campus.”

  “Maybe we could fabricate a fake dark collar,” Penn suggested.

  “If it doesn’t fool Alice, what happens to Blake and Skyla?” I demanded.

  That possibility seem to hang in the air. I pictured their bodies, dumped in the woods and left to decompose. I’d seen enough throats ripped out since I became a shifter to imagine their still faces above the bloody gap. I tried to breathe deeply, but there weren’t enough air in the room.

  I couldn’t expect anyone else to care as much as I did.

  “We’ll give them the Dark Collar if we can’t find them first,” Clearborn said.

  I stared at him, my heart racing, wondering if he was playing some kind of trick on me. He’d said that so easily, even though we were all scared of what the Day intended to do with the Dark Collar.

  Clearborn seemed to notice my expression. We all went to work, searching for spells we could use to track Blake and Skyla without alerting Alice.

  But when I had headed into the stacks with a list of books to find, Clearborn stepped into the end of the aisle behind me.