“Moonlight stroll?” I sniff away the last of my sob-fest, and my smile turns a little more genuine. “Kind of sounds like you’re asking me on a date.”
His eyes—hidden by a deep shade of blue, now—widen just the tiniest bit. I only notice it because the wolfish, predator side of my brain is wired to notice things like that. Nervousness, fear, uncertainty—anything that might give me the advantage if I ended up needing to overpower or escape someone.
If I were a regular girl, and he were a regular boy, I would have noticed nothing except how bright those eyes suddenly look, and how confidently he smiles and says, “Maybe I am.”
I exhale a long breath, trying to breathe out all the lingering negative energy in my body with it. And then I grab my coat and follow him out the door.
Chapter Eighteen
Our hotel is relatively secluded. Off this particular exit of I-95, there’s nothing except that hotel, a gas station, and a diner that looks questionably grubby (I swear the sanitation grade hanging on the wall looks like it’s been forged). We’re so hungry that in the end we decide we don’t care about the grubbiness, and Soren grabs some to-go food while I keep watch outside the diner. Then we trek, greasy white bags in hand, down a road with a sand and shell-littered shoulder.
“Where exactly are we headed?”
“We’re closer to the ocean than I realized,” he says.
“I know. I can smell it,” I say. Actually, I could smell the salty, slightly fishy smell all the way back at our hotel. As we walk farther, individual scents become clearer—everything from the sand and the critters crawling through it to the many lovely hints of seagull poop.
“Well there’s an inlet up ahead,” he explains, “just off this road. And there are all these massive pine trees there.”
“Pine trees? You’re taking me on a date to pine trees?”
“The tallest I’ve ever seen,” he says, stretching an arm high for emphasis. He sounds like a kid who just discovered candy exists or something. It’s kind of cute, and I can’t help but laugh softly to myself. I continue to humor him, shuffling along beside him, trying to appear just as enthusiastic about pine trees and indifferent to the way my heart forgets to beat every time I accidentally think of home.
We pass no one—no cars, no people—for at least a mile. The last streetlights lighting our way are long gone, but it’s a clear night with a nearly full moon, and between that and my inhuman eyesight I can see fine. As we walk, Soren makes more light for us by picking up stones and running his fingers across them until they glow with a soft silvery hue.
“So you seem to have recovered some more strength,” I comment.
“Still a bit sore,” he says, his hand gingerly touching his chest. “But magic-wise, yes. The interesting thing about being…Well, what I am, you know…”
“A blood sorcerer?”
“Right. That.” He eyes me warily for a moment, as if expecting me to start shouting at him like I did before.
“I’m over it,” I say drily. “You remember what I myself am, right?” I hold up my arm and pull back the sleeve of my jacket to reveal my mark. “A walking curse?”
“That’s being a little harsh on yourself, isn’t it?”
It’s hard to agree with him when I can feel that curse all the time now, as long as I’m anywhere near those two keys we’ve collected. They’re currently in that bag we stole from the second guardian. Under a neutralizing spell, secured to Soren’s belt, and hidden beneath his jacket alongside a dagger similar to the one he gave me. I can’t see them. They have no real scent, oddly enough. But I can definitely still sense them as an occasional wave of power that threatens to pull me off my feet if I’m not constantly fighting against it.
I shrug. “Point is, it takes a lot of scary supernaturalness to shake me up for very long. So go on. Tell me what’s interesting about your kind.”
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Literally. Kind of like how people claim that a bone that’s broken will grow back stronger? Well, that’s not actually true for humans, but it sort of is for blood sorcerers of all the different lineages.”
“Exactly how many of these blood lineages are there?”
“Three that I know of. Orion Blackwood is the most ancient. Then you have the Graylock family tree, and the Ravenmar. None of us associate with each other anymore; it’s not like shifter packs, where you usually have at least some alliances and cooperation. We usually don’t cooperate with anyone outside of those associated with our namesake. But, of course, in the case of the Council of Cooperatives, my father saw an opportunity to use you for his gain. So he showed up at your parent’s door…”
His fist clenches, covering up the glowing rock’s light. He suddenly seems a long way from the kid who was excited about pine trees. And I want to get back to that kid, but I also can’t stop my burning curiosity—I do, however, have enough sense to not let the conversation dwell on his father.
“And all these other lineages,” I begin, “All the descendants like you…they all have this ability to grow their power through basically getting beat up in battle or whatever?”
He nods. “Something like that. That’s part of why the ones ‘Of the Blood’ are said to crave violence and pain. Because spilling blood in the name of battle— if we survive that battle— almost always leads to our magic getting stronger. It’s also another reason why the name blood sorcerer is appropriate.”
“That’s pretty hardcore.”
He snorts out a laugh at my choice of words. “That’s one way to describe it I guess.”
“And then, I assume, once you’ve been through enough battles and spilled some blood but still survived, then….”
“Then you eventually become like my parents. Like my older sister. Practically invincible. Until the day you’re not.”
I try again to redirect the conversation, this time away from memories that I’m sure are too painful for me to imagine. “You’re not exactly weak yourself,” I point out.
“I’m incredibly weak for one Of the Blood, actually,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“Oh. Well, I couldn’t tell.”
“It won’t matter soon, though.”
“Won’t matter?”
“It won’t matter that I was too weak to save my mother and sister,” he says quietly, staring straight ahead and walking with steps that suddenly seem full of ruthless determination. “Because I am going to fix it.”
I jog a bit to catch up with him. And without really thinking about it, I slip my hand into his. He slows his pace, muscles tensing a bit.
“We are going to fix it,” I correct. “Now, hurry up and show me these trees. And they better be as amazing as you claim, because we really should be saving the world right now, you know.”
For a moment I think he’s going to pull away from me. But then he slips his fingers into the spaces between mine instead, and that’s how we walk the rest of the way down that dark and sand-dusted road. It’s how we remain, too, even several moments after we’ve stopped at the edge of the grove of trees.
He was right: they’re massive. Dizzying to look at. They sway and creak a bit in the gentle ocean breeze, and when the branches part just right we catch glimpses of that almost-full moon reflected on a dark ocean. The whole scene is mesmerizing, even after the countless mesmerizing things we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks.
“Wow,” I say softly.
“Sometimes I see places like this, and it makes me want to be able to practice stronger magic just so that I can recreate it exactly in the future.”
“Sort of like an artist painting a place from memory?”
“I suppose, yes.”
“You should take your magic power from that inspiration instead of from spilling blood,” I muse. “Much less messy.”
He smiles, but for some reason, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. I guess because it’s impossible, maybe, to rewire the way his magic works. That he would even smile at the thought reminds
me of how much of an outcast he is among his own kind, same as me. He’s a pacifist among monsters, basically.
So what will happen to him when the rest of his kind find out what he’s done?
I think of the way that, back when this all started, he casually suggested that his father would likely kill him for teaming up with me. And I realize now: He hasn’t mentioned it ever since.
I have a feeling he hasn’t given that nearly enough thought. That he’s already made up his mind to do what’s right, regardless of what it costs him, and now he’s holding as tightly to that plan as he is to my hand.
And that’s when I realize I might be falling a little bit in love with him.
And I’m really glad he isn’t capable of hearing my thoughts.
I hastily drop his hand, masking the motion by putting my extra grip on the bag of food. “I’m still starving,” I say. “Picnic time?”
“Sure.”
We search out a spot that’s relatively free of pinecones and raised roots, and we eat our way through greasy fries and burgers and some sort of meat pie thing that I think contains like nine-hundred percent of the suggested daily amount of fat based on a two-thousand calorie diet. But it’s delicious, so whatever. Pretty sure I’ve burned enough calories lately, what with all the globetrotting and slaying monsters and almost dying. And I’m not done yet.
At least not with those first two things.
But I do think my stomach might explode if I don’t stretch it out or something. So I lean back in the sparse, spiny grass, and I focus on the stars twinkling above me. There are some random, slow-moving clouds moving across the otherwise clear sky, interrupting my stargazing a bit. At least until Soren lies down next to me, lifts a hand in the air, and gives it a lazy twirl. Tiny pinpricks of light drift from his fingertips and float upwards for a bit before fixing at still points, mimicking stars against the dark clouds.
“My own private star-filled sky,” I murmur. “Not bad.”
“The pine trees didn’t seem to impress you enough, so this was plan B.”
I laugh. “I’m impressed by the trees, I promise.”
He starts to reply, but I cut him off by abruptly sitting up; I hear voices in the distance, suddenly.
“Not exactly as private as it seems, apparently,” I say.
“It’s not?”
“I hear people. There’s a beach nearby, I think; I smell the concentrated sand and lots of dead crabs in it—that last scent isn’t particularly pleasant, if you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t wondering, but thanks for sharing.”
“The joys of having a wolf’s nose.”
“Maybe I can help with that?”
“Help?”
He stands and looks up through the dizzying heights of tree trunks again. “I can paint one more picture for you,” he says. “One last, more complete distraction. And then we’ll have to go. But for now…” His voice is soft with thought. Exactly how I imagine a great artist would consult with himself before embarking on an attempt at a masterpiece.
“Let’s see it then, Van Gogh,” I say, resting back on my palms and watching him work.
He moves his hands as if he’s holding a brush; swift expert strokes that spill shadows instead of paint into the air. It’s subtle, almost, the way it all melds at first with our surroundings; from a distance I imagine it would look like the clouds causing the moonlight to bend strangely around the existing trees. But I’m close enough that I can clearly see those shadows he’s conjured, the way they start to turn more solid and then to take on bark patterns and sprout pine-needles of their own.
He ‘plants’ at least dozen more trees in this way, raising them up from thin air and encircling them into our own, private grove-among-the-grove. The look incredibly real. They smell incredibly real—so much so that they do almost completely distract me from anything in the distance. I feel that familiar sense of awe and attraction to him and his power, tempered by just the slightest bit of trepidation over how easily he makes my mind forget what’s real and what’s not.
“Now we have a little more privacy, at least,” he says, and when he looks down, his eyes are back to their real, green color. It makes this space seem that much more private and only for us. “I don’t think anyone on the beach could have seen us to begin with, but now they definitely can’t.”
“You’re terrifyingly good,” I say, marveling at the way the illusion-trees even seem to dance and creak in the breeze the same way as their real counterparts. “I swear I can’t tell the difference between the real and the fake.”
“I know.” His eyes flash back to blue, and he smiles and offers me his hand. I think he’s going to pull me into a kiss. I want him to pull me into a kiss, and he almost does—but he stops just close enough for our noses to bump, and for me to get lost in the blue of those eyes for a minute. Then he kisses me softly on the lips, pulls back, and he says, “And I’m glad. But I’m also sorry about that, Little Wolf.”
His tone is all wrong.
I try to laugh it off.
“For what?” I laugh. “That stupid nickname?”
He shakes his head.
And before I can speak or move or hardly even think, his hand reaches behind his back, under his jacket, and he grabs hold of something and jerks. I remember the dagger he’s carrying, and I instinctively slam my knee up toward his groin. He’s anticipating that, though, and he lets me go and jumps back before my strike hits.
It isn’t the dagger in his hand.
It’s the bag of keys.
I stare in shock as he dumps the two of them onto the ground between us. They’re still neutralized, but the two of them combined and outside of the protective bag is enough to immediately make me want to shut my eyes to try and block out the pain that screams through my head. It’s a pain that I’m almost convinced will go away if I give into that pull I feel building inside of me, yanking my hands toward those keys and begging me to take them.
Control, I remind myself, same as I’ve been doing for most of my existence.
I manage to gain enough of that control to fall back against the ground, and to glare up at Soren and fiercely demand, “What are you doing?”
“There’s a particular energy about this place that makes me think there’s a strong connection to Canath here. So here seems like as good a place as any to use these keys and perform the necessary spell to finish what I set out to do.”
“You can’t,” I say through clenched teeth. “We need the third! You said it yourself, we can’t do it until we have them all gathered together, or things could backfire, and we—”
“Oh, Little Wolf,” he mutters, crouching down next to the neutralized keys and letting his hand hover over them. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
I want to run, but all I can do is stare in horror.
“It’s you. You’re the last key.”
Chapter Nineteen
I don’t remember falling.
But somehow I end up on the ground. My senses are dulled, every sight and smell and sound fading away until there’s only the sensation of pain. And only on my wrist at first. On my mark. It feels like someone is trying to rip the bones from my wrist out, one by one by one. Then that same ripping sensation spreads up my arm, to my shoulder, across my chest. Everything inside of me is being torn out. I would swear on it. The pain is so terrible, so excruciating, that all I can think about is death.
I want to die.
I don’t.
The pain disappears abruptly.
I know I didn’t imagine it, though, because there’s blood all over my shirt, in my lap, on my hands. My whole body is shaking. But the world seems surprisingly still as I lift my head, and my eyes manage to focus on a bright red object, shaped like a four-pointed star, resting several feet away from me.
It’s in the same shape as the mark of Canath.
The mark that has now disappeared from my skin.
“I should correct my earlier statement,” Soren s
ays, and it sounds as if he’s at the other end of a tunnel, whispering words I can barely hear. I desperately want to hear them. I desperately want to hear some sort of explanation. Something that could undo this ache in my chest and make this blood all over me disappear.
“You aren’t so much the key as the former carrier of that key,” he continues. “A sort of guardian, like the others we faced—though you’re a slightly special case, obviously. One I almost overlooked.” He kneels down in front of me and retrieves that third key. “For what it’s worth,” he adds, “I’m glad it didn’t kill you, drawing it out like that. I was afraid it might.”
What I want to ask is how could you? But I refuse to let him know how badly he’s hurt me. So instead I choose to focus on the question that started this entire expedition: “Why was it in me to begin with?”
He lines the keys up side-by-side, studying them for a moment and muttering things—parts of spells?— under his breath.
“You at least owe me an explanation.” My voice is surprisingly calm. Everything around me is still surprisingly calm. Despite my pain, despite my anguish, despite my fear—the ground isn’t shaking. The sky isn’t splitting. The world isn’t ending.
I lift my hand in front of my face to better study the wrist that once carried my mark. I still can’t believe it’s gone. That I actually feel something like stable, even after everything that’s just happened.
I should be celebrating.
But this isn’t at all how I pictured this moment going.
“Your mother was the original ‘guardian’ of this key,” Soren finally says. “My theory is that she was too powerful to be contained within it, the way the other guardians where eventually re-contained within their respective keys; so when it first manifested—after she dealt with that portal to Canath all those years ago—she alone absorbed its power. And then she unknowingly passed that power to you when you were born. But you were just a child, not nearly as strong as her. So the otherworldly essence of this key has essentially been fighting with you, making itself known through that mark on your skin. It was poison in you, making your powers unstable and unusable and skewing their development. And now I’ve done you the favor of drawing the poison out.”
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