“I came to find Belle,” he answered simply, and my hands froze before I could even ready my strike. “There are some things about her report on your last mission I wanted to clear up. You’re boxing now?”
The thought of him and Belle interacting sent my blood pressure up. Sucking in and out a deep breath only marginally helped release the anxiety.
“Yeah, it’s good stress relief.” Which is what I needed right about now.
Rhys was much taller than me. When he stood next to me and rested his hand on the punching bag, he showed every bit of his six feet. “You’ve been working hard, huh?”
“That I have.” Pride slipped into my voice as I said it, and I didn’t know why, but the little boyish grin that followed made me glad I’d told him. “You should have seen me out there, Aidan. I’m a veritable badass these days.”
“Show me.”
“What?”
But Rhys was already taking off his jean jacket, showing the white short-sleeved undershirt he’d been wearing beneath it. His broad frame filled out the fabric almost deliciously.
“What are you doing?” I asked again, blushing as I kept my eyes on his toned arms.
Rhys scratched his eyebrows. “Take off your gloves. Let me see what you’ve got.”
There was something still so unassuming about him even though I knew how long he’d trained for, how strong he was. How dangerous. And not just to phantoms.
I stepped back, unsure of whether to stay or go, or whether I could, even if I wanted to. My hairs were standing on end, my face continued to flush with heat, and while it didn’t feel all that good, it didn’t feel all that bad, either. This was crazy. This was why I’d gone through such great lengths to avoid him. Because being in his presence meant facing this dizzying, entangled mess of contradictory emotions. Stay or don’t. Believe Natalya or don’t. My hands were twitching.
I needed to punch something.
I threw off my gloves and lifted my arms in a ready stance. Rhys raised his eyebrows, but soon his surprise turned to excitement. He waved me over. I tried one strike, hard and fast. He dodged it easily, stepping to the side, but I went after him anyway. It’s not like I wanted to hurt him. But somehow the drive of a good fight cut through the thick of emotions and, for that one moment, gave me the kind of peace I so sorely needed. I had just one thing to focus on. One goal: land a punch. Simple. Unlike my life.
But Rhys was too good. He never struck back at me, only dodged, ducking and weaving, tilting his head, tapping my arm away to tip me off balance. Fast. Precise.
Then he swiveled around me and tugged the back of my shirt almost playfully. I paused and stared at his grinning face in surprise, and before I knew it, my lips were spreading too. His smile was infectious. I launched at him again, my heart pounding, and not just from physical exertion. Despite his speed, I still noticed the way his forearm stretched and flexed as he moved, the slight strain in his long neck as he lifted his chin to avoid my strike. His body maneuvered fluidly, carefully. Gentle but powerful. It suited him.
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” I said when he let out an adorable little laugh.
“I mean, you’ve gotten better, but you’re not exactly in the badass category yet.” He caught my wrist and pulled me in to him. My breath hitched as he leaned over too close. “Unless you’re going easy on me?”
I craned my neck up to meet his gaze. A catlike gleam turned his narrowed eyes wicked as he stared down at me. I could feel his breath against my face. We were both breathing heavily, our chests rising and falling in different rhythms. It almost made me forget.
Almost.
“Well, unlike you, I haven’t trained all my life,” I said, keenly aware of how close our bodies were now.
“The key is keeping up with your training.” His hand was still on my wrist, my arm resting against his hip as he held it in place.
“Don’t know how you managed over the years.”
Rhys shrugged. “Well, I don’t have many friends I hang out with.”
“Friends . . .”
Friends.
By the way, are you interested in coming to see the dinosaur exhibit, by any chance? It’s why I’m here. I even dragged a few of my friends along.
I straightened up. The question had already formed before I could stop it, but it wasn’t until I peered up again into his quizzical face that I gave it words. “Have you . . . been to Prague?”
Rhys let go of my hand. “Prague?” He paused. “Maybe on a mission? I can’t remember.”
My arms felt heavy. “The museum,” I said carefully. “Have you been to the museum?”
What little was left of Rhys’s smile had disappeared. “Why would you ask something like that?”
“Why would you avoid a simple question?”
His unreadable expression was so fleeting, I couldn’t be sure I’d seen it at all because in the next second he gave me a half-amused, half-incredulous look. “I’m not avoiding it, Maia. It’s just a bit random is all. But if you’re that curious . . .” He furrowed his brows and thought. “Prague . . . wait . . . actually, yeah. Yeah, I did once. I saw a dinosaur exhibit or something like that. Maybe earlier this year—I can’t remember exactly when. Why?” With a teasing grin, he added, “You interested in going with me sometime?”
He’d admitted it. He’d gone to the museum. But . . . if he was trying to conceal what he’d done to Natalya, would he have admitted it so casually? Or maybe he was so casual exactly because he wanted to throw me off? I stepped back. What was I supposed to believe?
“You okay? Are you tired?” he asked, but the moment I saw his hand reach out for me, my body jerked away so violently that he withdrew it immediately, shocked. “Maia . . .”
“Sorry, I’m okay,” I lied. And we stood there staring at each other.
Did he or didn’t he kill Natalya? The truth was, I wasn’t prepared for the consequences of knowing.
9
IT WAS EARLY IN THE evening when I got a call from Cheryl, Sibyl’s mousy assistant.
“The mission starts in sixteen hours,” she said. “But before your briefing, Director Langley wants you to report to the Research and Development department. Fifth floor.”
She sounded distracted, so I wasn’t surprised to hear shuffling in the background. Probably another mountain of paperwork. She now had to deal with constant requests to set up photo shoots, radio interviews, and other frivolous marketing stuff superfluous to her actual job as an assistant. I guess when she suggested to Sibyl that we get pushed as the pretty and marketable faces of the Sect, she didn’t expect to be the one taking on the brunt of the work.
“Just me?” I wasn’t particularly feeling up to doing much of anything after what had happened this morning.
“Just you.” Cheryl sounded annoyed over the phone, but then these days she was always a little irritated with someone. “You need to get fitted for your new equipment before the mission begins.”
Effigies get equipment? I get equipment? I jumped off my bed. Hopefully, it was something badass. I always thought it kind of sucked that agents got really high-tech weapons and gizmos while we Effigies just relied on our own natural ability to control the forces of nature and summon giant weapons out of nothing—
Actually, no, that was kinda cool too.
But having actual equipment certainly wouldn’t take away from the cool; it could only enhance it. Like how you could equip Aki from the Metal Kolossos series with different armor and accessories. Hey, being an Effigy was dangerous and bloody and usually resulted in tragedy and death, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t have a little fun with it. I definitely could use a little fun right about now.
Chae Rin and Belle were off training again—separately. Not unexpected for the two in our team who were the least gung ho about being in one. My dear roommate, Lake, was still stomach-down on her bed, completely free other than anonymously writing malicious comments on pop forums about her old pop group.
“W
hat?” she said. “I’m nervous about the mission and this helps me relax.”
“Okay.” I dragged her off her bed by the legs. “Let’s get some fresh air.”
It was better to go to R & D with someone else anyway. The long trek across the grounds was twisty and confusing, the directions taking us through the stone halls and the overhead walkways overlooking the grounds.
We reported to a giant, busy laboratory on the fifth floor of the department. While some scientists bustled up and down the long aisle, others were busy at their terminals, studying the metallic-blue specs projected onto translucent LCD screens so thin and wide the figures could have been twisting in the air all by themselves. Natural light sifted in through the army of blinded windows lining the walls. But the electric lighting fixtures on the ceiling would have been more than enough to illuminate the room.
My eyes followed down the aisle all the way to the huge monitor hanging on the wall at the front of the lab. There were other computer screens, much smaller, screwed into the wall, but this one showed a map of the world against a black screen. Some areas lit up with red spheres of different sizes, its color fading as it radiated outward.
“What’s that?” I pointed at the monitor, walking ahead of Lake down the walkway.
“A map. Novel, isn’t it?”
I stopped in my tracks. Behind one of the terminals to my right, just in front of a glass case filled with Sect-grade weaponry and Sect maroon suits, stood Rhys, dressed in a blue-gray baseball jacket and a pair of faded jeans just tight enough to showcase his long legs.
“Uh, I swear I’m not stalking you,” he said, noticing my surprise.
As he started toward me, I thought back to the momentary silence that’d stretched between us in the gym and started shifting on the balls of my feet, my brain sputtering for some kind of excuse to leave.
“Those red circles represent cylithium-rich areas.” He tossed his black hair with his long, delicate fingers. “Helps them anticipate phantom attacks.”
“Right, right. Cylithium.” I took a step back. “What are you doing here?”
I asked because I couldn’t look at him without thinking of Natalya. It was difficult enough to approach the questions with a clear mind even when he wasn’t around. But when he was . . .
“I said, why are you here?” I repeated a little too sharply.
Rhys stopped dead in his tracks. It could have been disappointment softening his eyes—or hurt.
“They made some upgrades to our suits.” He pointed at the glass case. “I came to make sure everything was ready for the mission. That’s all . . . really.”
Maybe it was because of the accusatory sting in my tone that he sounded so insecure.
He started toward me again, but before I could run, he stopped at a terminal to his right by the wall, tapping someone on the shoulders. I couldn’t see what the very short woman was welding at her desk, but I could see the smoke sizzling from the little pen she gripped gingerly in her hands. She jumped a bit at Rhys’s touch, lifting up her safety glasses to glare at him, her sleeves pushed up past her elbows. But with an amused look, he pointed at me instead.
She whipped around, blinking when she caught sight of me. “Oh, you’re finally here?” Grinning wide, she waved me over. “Oh, good, good. Get over here and take off your clothes.”
“Excuse me?” Lake exclaimed behind me.
I could barely see the woman’s face before she whipped around again.
“Dot, you’re thinking of someone else.” The blonde at the terminal next to her shook her head. “These are two of the Effigies.” She nodded at me. “You’re Maia, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And I’m definitely not taking off my clothes.”
“Oh, right!” The woman named Dot smacked her own forehead. That’s when I finally took stock of her tiny face and nut-brown eyes, wide and bright like jewels against sallow, sickly skin. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Forget that, go away, I don’t need you. Oh, wait, no . . .” A pause. “Sorry, the neck-band, right. I was working on that. Come here, come here.”
Blindingly pink high heels clicked on the tiled floor as she adjusted her seat at the bench, her lab coat swishing behind her.
“Just working on a bit of tech for you. I’d explain, but I’m not quite done yet,” she said, picking up her welding pen. “You’re welcome to wait here while I work. Actually, I would have had this finished earlier, but there was a bit of a mix-up with the equipment storage down the hall. Luckily, Pete and Mellie over there were here to help me out with that.”
At the terminal next to her, two young lab techs reacted to hearing their names, and the young blond woman who’d spoken earlier rolled her eyes.
“Yeah,” Mellie said, peering up from her monitor. “You forgot your own code. Again.”
“Even though you’d just reset it. Again,” Pete said after rubbing the back of his brown neck, but he wasn’t looking at Dot. He was leaning over the desk, fiddling with some wires linking up to one of the monitors. There was something beside him—some kind of box—but his tall frame blocked it from view.
“Yes, well, that’s why you’re my assistants.” Dot rubbed her sunken cheek with a gloved hand, and it was only when I saw her cheekbones jutting out that I noticed how thin she really was. “You assist me.”
“Yeah, we assist you in remembering what day it is,” Mellie grumbled, her short blond bob bouncing as she shook her head.
“This is Dot Nguyen, by the way,” Rhys told me, and I could tell he was suppressing a laugh. “Weapons and Tech expert. We got her from the facility outside Toronto a few weeks ago. She was the one who designed that inoculation device you used against Saul.”
“Really?” Dot Nguyen. Director Chafik had mentioned her before. I certainly remembered that gadget, too. In Buenos Aires, I’d jammed the long tip into Saul’s neck to temporarily disrupt his powers. It was brilliant. It saved my life.
Dot shook her welding pen as if it were out of ink, jumping back when she nearly dropped it on her knee.
“Uh.” Rhys scratched his head. “All that matters is she’s good at the things we pay her to do.”
Dot scratched her scalp through her messy black hair. “Well, don’t just stand there. Grab a seat while you wait. Don’t mind the mess. I know my work space here is a bit . . .”
Chaotic. There were tools, design plans, beakers, and other equipment not exactly organized atop the white counter. Dot was pointing her metallic pen thing at a white chip the size of a cracker. Smoke had already begun to rise from the tips when she lowered her safety glasses.
Lake and I hesitated when Dot waved us over, but curiosity got the better of us. And Dot wasn’t the only one busy. Pete and Mellie looked to be in the middle of some kind of experiment. When Pete finally moved out of the way, I could finally see what his body had been shielding from view: two glass cases no bigger than a box of tissues. The white shard inside one was just barely visible against the clear surface, but it was the long, twisted oddity placed delicately inside the other that caught my attention.
Once the two of us reached their terminal, Lake walked up to Pete. Pete noticed. The goofy grin never left his face as he stood up from his seat.
“What is that thing?” she asked as Pete adjusted one of the wires hooked into the cases.
Pete lifted off the cover. “Half a phantom’s toe.”
“What?” Lake spat as Rhys walked up to the desk next to me. Close.
“For real?” Rhys narrowed his eyes, peering through the glass. “It looks crystallized.”
Indeed. Phantoms had the ability to harden their hides into an impenetrable shield. Saul had called it “petrification” during the battle in France, and using his ring, he’d forced the phantoms to demonstrate. I’d never forget the way their bodies cracked and crystallized in the night.
The toe looked like a curved tree branch with a sharp, hooked tip—a claw maybe.
Rhys leaned over the table for a better look, and I could feel his
arm grazing mine as he touched the glass. My body reacted before I could stop it. I pulled myself away with an awkward spasm. It was only when I caught the shocked look in his eyes that I realized how it must have looked. Lake was watching me too. I said nothing as Rhys silently backed away from me.
“What’s the other thing?” Lake asked slowly, though her quizzical eyes were still on me.
“A sample.” Pete’s silly grin came back. I figured it was probably related to the way he devoured the sight of Lake standing next to him. “Of the ring. We shaved off some of the stone. We’ve been doing different things to figure out the relationship between the stone and the phantoms, putting both through different stimuli. Particularly, we’ve been trying to figure out if both materials share certain chemical properties.”
“See,” Dot explained as Mellie stared at dark blue diagrams of the shard and toe on her monitor, “we’ve tried everything we could to figure out just what the heck the stone is. Where it came from, how it worked. If Saul were around, I’d ask him a few questions, but unfortunately for us, he’s still in the wind. So we did experiments. Many, many experiments, which, by the way, took more time than necessary, considering a handful of our agents got arrested two months ago after that whole letting-Saul-go fiasco. Days and hours and seconds and charts and graphs and computers and looking at monitors—”
“They get it,” Mellie said next to Pete.
“The stone isn’t from this world.” Dot whipped around so suddenly Rhys jumped back a bit, probably out of self-preservation. The woman jittered as if she survived on oxygen and espresso alone. “That’s the conclusion we came to. It simply doesn’t exist in the natural world—or we haven’t discovered it yet.” She ran her gloved hand through her messy black hair, yanking it out again when it got stuck in the knots. “It’s either an alien ring or there’s much more to this world we don’t understand yet.”
A world of shadows. Secrets veiled in darkness . . .
“We know that Saul used the ring to control phantoms and focus their attacks on targets of his choosing,” Pete said as Mellie continued examining all the numbers and bars littered across the touch screen of her monitor. “But there could be more to it. Bystanders reported that Saul’s phantoms petrified around that train when he attacked in France two months ago, and then unpetrified to attack you.”
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