by Jessica Gunn
SHAWN TELEPORTED the two of us into the foyer of a house. It was minimally decorated with off-white walls and wooden furniture. A deep mauve carpet led from the front door behind us down the hall into a kitchen that wasn’t totally visible. None of this looked in any way familiar.
“Where are we?” I asked as Shawn walked down the hall.
I followed, looking for any clue as to where we were. Until I saw the pictures hanging on either wall. Of Krystin. High school graduation. Prom. Graduation from Hunter Circle training. I’d forgotten how much she hadn’t wanted to become a Fire Circle Hunter. It was easy to forget since she was a damn good one.
“It’s her mother’s house,” he said as his phone began to ring. Mine too.
I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced down at the caller ID. Rachel. I swiped the call button. “We’re at Krystin’s mother’s house. We checked Hunter’s Guild and she wasn’t there.”
“The Fire Circle police are freaking the hell out.” Rachel’s words fired out of her mouth at top speed. “Jaffrin and Dacher are both on their way. Possibly the entire Command. We’re fucked, Ben. If they think we’re in on this, it’s over.”
“We’re not.”
“Who’s there?” someone asked from the kitchen. Krystin’s mother, Desiree, emerged into the doorway. “Shawn?”
“Rachel, I need to go,” I said. “Ms. Blackwood, hi.”
“No!” Rachel shouted into the phone. “You need to get back here right now. If you’re still gone when Jaffrin gets here, I can’t protect you, Ben. The twins are dead. Krystin killed them. Even if she tried to stop it once she realized she couldn’t control her magik, we all saw her start the motion. She wanted to attack them. If we lie about—”
“I’ll be there in five, Rachel. Handle it. You’re good at that.” I hung up the phone as Desiree met Shawn halfway down the hall.
Her gaze took in our tired, worn forms. “What’s happened? Where’s Krystin?”
“The Ether Head Circle has targeted her,” Shawn said. “We need your help.”
Her eyes hardened. “Where is my daughter?”
“We don’t know,” I said.
“Don’t know?”
Shawn lifted his hands, showing we meant no harm. And then he told her everything, from her meeting with Giyano, to Jaffrin having us break Krystin out of prison. He recounted the conversations he’d had with Krystin about the prophecy and about leaving the Fire Circle to make sure they’d be able to fulfill it. Something about finally hearing the full prophecy from Jaffrin, and about stones they thought they had to find to unlock their Alzanian magik.
Throughout all of it Desiree’s face remained neutral, unwavering. Unsurprised. Only when Shawn told her of the fight that’d just occurred, about Krystin attacking the Ether Head Circle twins, about Krystin running away, did her expression become worried. Terrified.
“We tried Hunter’s Guild,” Shawn said. “That’s the only place her teleportante trail led to, but of course it gets erased there. And teleports out don’t have trails. She went there to hide herself.”
“But she wasn’t inside?”
I shook my head. “No. We checked. We were hoping you could tell us where she might have gone if she wanted to stay hidden.”
Desiree touched a hand to her chest and leaned back against the closest wall. Her reaction surprised me, given that from everything Krystin had said about her mother, Desiree wasn’t supposed to have cared much about her.
“I’m not sure,” Desiree said. “We traveled a lot when she was younger. Her aunts and I tried to take her and her cousins where we could, to give them as normal a life as possible. She could be in New England, California, Colorado… anywhere. And by the time we narrowed any of those vacation spots down, any teleportante trail left behind would be gone.”
“Is there a locator spell of some sort that we could use?” Shawn asked. “Ember witches can use them, but I was never taught any.”
We knew demons used them, too, since that’s what Giyano had marked Krystin’s hand for. There had to be something Krystin’s mother could do.
Desiree squinted, thinking. “Maybe. But Krystin’s always been good with magik. She’ll have worked her own side spells to block them by now.”
“Assuming she thought we’d come to you,” I said. “Which I don’t think she would. No offense.”
“None taken. I know I wasn’t always a good mother.” Desiree shut her eyes and squeezed the hand on her chest into a fist. “All I ever wanted was to give her the tools and training she’d need to protect herself against the coming darkness. Against the demons that stole her father from us. Against the prophecy she unwillingly inherited.”
Shawn drew his Fire Circle knife and held it against the palm of his other hand. “Use my blood, my magik. It’s connected to her, inherent in both of us, even if we haven’t unlocked the Alzanian magik yet.”
Her mother shook her head. “It won’t work. But…” She looked up at the ceiling. “I have something that might. Stay here.” Desiree retreated up to the second floor of her house.
I turned to Shawn as he put away the knife. “Why wouldn’t tracking your shared magik work?”
“For the same reason she can’t use a tracking spell based on Krystin’s magik. Honestly, if Krystin’s being smart, she’ll have gotten to where she can hide for a few days and find a crystal to bind her magik. With it bound, it’ll be untraceable. That’s why my parents bound my magik. So, Alzan or not, we won’t find her.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “We won’t, but will they?” We all knew the Ether Head Circle had access to more powerful magik than we did. Oftentimes that meant ancient magik, the types of spells and word-magiks Hunters would never be taught.
Shawn shook his head. “I don’t know, Ben. I have no idea what the Ether Head Circle is capable of anymore. They clearly don’t care about the truth.”
“They value power more,” Desiree said as she descended the stairs. “If someone is more powerful than them, they will contain that individual. It’s part of the reason I was wary about giving Krystin to the Fire Circle as a Hunter. But I was hardly given a choice when it became clear she was the Daughter named in the Alzan prophecy.”
Desiree had a photo album in her hands. She waved us into the kitchen, where she placed the album on a counter and began flipping through it. “It’s a long shot. And honestly, if we hadn’t removed the Alzanian scar from her as a child, I could use your matching scar to find her, Shawn. I apologize for that.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? If you can’t trace her magik, why would a scar work?”
She looked up at him. “Locator spells aren’t just for people; they can be used to find things too. Krystin…” She shook her head, a sad smile edging her lips. “She’s always missed her father, despite barely being old enough to remember him.”
“Riley remembered who I was when we rescued him,” I said. “He was only a few weeks old when Giyano took him. I think we need to give babies more credit.”
“Maybe. Ah, here.” Desiree pointed to a picture. “When she was sixteen, she made me take her to a tattoo shop outside of the city. She wanted to get the same tattoo her father had.” She held up the picture. He’d gotten what appeared to be a snowflake made of more geometric lines than actual snow tattooed on his right shoulder blade. Numbers made up the lines on each arm of the snowflake, like geographic coordinates. “He wanted to remember the places we’d traveled to.”
I shook my head. “Krystin doesn’t have a tattoo there.” Or any, that I knew of. But she always wore long pants and shirts, except when we were sparring. If she had a tattoo on her arms or back, it was either covered or hidden most of the time. But there was no way we’d have missed a tattoo this big.
“She didn’t want it in the same spot because it’d have showed, so she had the tattoo artist tattoo it to her ankle, smaller and not made of coordinates. Just a snowflake.”
“She hates winter,” I muttered. I’d learned th
at much about her at least.
“Because her father died in winter,” Desiree said sadly. “I think the tattoo was a reminder as much as a memorial. In either case, and it’s a long shot, I might be able to track the tattoo.”
Shawn’s eyes narrowed. “How?”
She glanced up at him. “Because the same tattoo artist did her father’s tattoo and a special ink was used.”
“Special?” I asked.
“It was meant as a way to find him, to protect him—sort of.” Her shoulders slumped. “Krystin’s father was a normal man. He had no magik. He wasn’t involved in this world, this war, like the rest of us. But he’d accepted me anyway. I kept pushing him to learn something to defend himself, but he’d always just said he had me and didn’t need magik or weapons. So when he got this tattoo, I convinced the artist—a close witch friend—to introduce a potion to the ink, something to track him. Something that, if he was hurt, I’d feel.”
My thoughts whirled. This entire time, her mother’s always known how to find Krystin? Did Krystin know about this ink?
Oh, god. Is that why Krystin always said her mother and Jaffrin had such a short leash on her, because she knew they’d always be able to find her and sense if she was in danger?
No wonder she trusted no one.
“But you said you couldn’t find Krystin based on her magik,” Shawn said. “Isn’t this the same thing?”
“It’s not her magik at work here,” Desiree said. “And short of cutting off the tattoo completely, she can’t turn the locator magik within the ink off. It’s not like the marks that bound your powers, Shawn. It’s deeper. Familial.”
My stomach dropped. “It’s based on blood. Your blood.” I glanced up at Desiree. “That’s what made the ink special, wasn’t it?”
She nodded in small, shame-filled motions. “I regretted that decision the day Krystin found out. She’d almost ripped the house apart with her telekinesis. But now, now it might save her life. If we can find her before the Ether Head Circle does, anyway.”
“Do it,” Shawn said.
“She’ll be angry,” Desiree said.
“Krystin’s generally pissed either way,” I said. “But she’ll be alive and that’s good enough for me.”
Desiree considered me for a long moment, and I wondered if she, too, had telepathy. If she could see past all my doubts and fears and hurt, down into the parts of me that did still, somehow, have feelings for Krystin. The same parts of me that didn’t want to see her dead. Imprisoned, maybe. But not dead.
“Please,” I said. “Find her.”
Desiree nodded and closed her eyes, tracing her fingers across the picture of her dead husband’s tattoo the day he’d gotten it. He was still in the chair, the tattoo artist sitting next to him with a smile on their face.
Desiree’s fingers shook, her eyes moving behind their lids. For long moments, all Shawn and I could do was watch, waiting to see if Desiree would be able to find Krystin after all.
She opened her eyes and frowned. “It didn’t work, but…” She looked to Shawn. “Can I see your knife?”
Shawn unhooked it from the sheath on his waist. “Sure.”
She nodded a thank you at him and then pricked the tip of her finger with the blade. She took the picture out of the album and pressed her bleeding finger against the now unprotected photo. “Find her,” she muttered. “Find my daughter.”
Desiree’s eyes slammed shut and her body went rigid, the same way Krystin’s did when she got a vision. Krystin did say visions were an inherent trait of the Blackwood witch line, didn’t she?
My heart skipped a beat. Was Desiree able to actually see where Krystin was right now?
“Oh, no,” Desiree said as her body tensed up further. She looked up to me. “She’s in a building next door to the distillery her pop used to love. She must have gone there first, but…” Her gaze jumped to Shawn. “She’s with Kinder. You must go—now. I can take you there.”
Shit. I held up my hand. “No. This is our fight. We’ve been to that area when we went after Shadow Crest.”
Shawn’s calm expression faltered. “Kinder is going to attack Lady Azar… with Krystin’s help.”
CHAPTER 21
KRYSTIN
The Guild was only a pit stop. If it wasn’t the team that followed me, it’d be the Fire Circle police officers, and I couldn’t afford to be caught by them. Not today.
I had to get out of the area. But first, I needed a way to stay hidden. Then I needed to take care of Kinder. And Giyano. With them out of the picture, no one should be able to find me because they were the only two who seemed capable of doing so on a daily basis.
But to do those things, I first had to regroup. So I teleported to Hunter’s Guild to grab money I’d hidden in the back room months ago. At the Guild, I lost my teleportante trail, then went up to Pop’s favorite distillery. Staying away from any street cameras, I walked along the town toward an inn that’d take cash. It was so old-fashioned, there were sure not to be any cameras or anyone staying there that wasn’t a local.
They’re going to kill me. Just like I killed those two Ether Head Circle Hunters.
I hadn’t meant to. Honest to god, it’d been an accident. I’d aimed to attack, not burn them alive. But my magik—and my emotions—had gotten away from me and now no matter what was true or not true about Giyano and the attacks on Hunters and witches in Boston, I was a murderer.
On my way to the inn, I walked by a small tourist shop that sold everything from postcards and T-shirts to gemstones and quartz crystals from a nearby cavern. Or supposedly they were from the cavern. I stepped inside and used some of the cash to buy a couple of the crystals and nothing else. Then I hurried to the inn and checked in the last open room.
I drew the curtains shut and then plunked on to the bed, crystal in hand. For one last time, I’d bind my powers for good. It’d be one less way for Shawn or another witch at the Fire Circle to try to track me. And with any luck, the Ether Head Circle wouldn’t think up another way.
I just needed time to think, space to figure out a plan that didn’t involve running to Giyano for help he couldn’t give me. And to be found there with him, if this binding didn’t work… They’d imprison me for sure. I whispered the binding spell against the crystal, working my Blackwood witch magik for the last time. The crystal glowed red and white, alternating between the colors of my elemental magik until the light went out, my magik gone.
And with it, hopefully, my ability to be tracked.
I fell back against the bed and stared up at the ceiling, tears brimming behind my eyelids. I’d never killed a non-demon before. And within the space of three months, I’d taken out fourteen Hunters, even if the first dozen hadn’t been my fault. Not entirely.
Iris and Alexander were, though. And they’d just as likely have locked me up for good before remembering that Alzan needed both Shawn and me to save them in the final conflict.
That excuse was starting to sound old, even to me. Alzan had gone thousands of years without saviors. It sure as hell didn’t need Shawn and me now. Especially if that asanak Iris had slammed him with didn’t wear off sometime soon.
“What am I going to do?”
The atmosphere in the room shifted, a subtle hum of power now vibrating at the foot of my bed. I sat up and found Kinder standing there, arms crossed at her chest. She threw her dark brown hair over her tan shoulder and held a hand out to me. “Come with me.”
“Absolutely not,” I snapped as I sat up. “You just attacked my team.”
“You don’t have a team anymore. You need me. I solved your problem.”
My eyes narrowed. “What problem in particular are you referring to?”
She lifted her hand. “Come. The magik around my lair will hide the remnants of yours. You might have bound your powers, but your aura remains. Sensitive witches and some other magik users can trace it.” She tilted her head. “Or have you forgotten?”
“Fuck you,” I said as I ho
pped off the bed. “You’re the reason I’m in this mess in the first place.”
“No, the Fire Circle is. All they do is foster Hunters until they’re too powerful. You would have ended up here either way, an outcast even amongst the people who claim to be your friends. Your team.” She spat the last word, as if the formation of it in her mouth was reason enough to make her vomit. “You need to come with me. Now. If only so you can recuperate and figure out your next steps. I know what it’s like to be in your position… on the run from the Fire Circle.”
It was the one true thing Kinder had ever said to me. I looked her in the eyes, searching for any sign of a trap. But the sad truth was I had very few options. And I sort of wanted to know what she meant by her having ‘solved my problem.’
“Fine,” I said and took her hand.
WHEN THE TELEPORTANTE LANDED, I found myself standing beside Kinder inside a dimly lit building. Sounds of waves smacking against the shore sifted in through the walls, but they weren’t as strong as they’d be on the ocean. A stormy lake, maybe?
“Where are we?” I asked as Kinder walked away, flicking on light switches as we went. “Where did you take me?”
“Funny thing, electricity,” she said. “You all are so used to turning on lights that you forget you can see farther in the dark than you think. In your case, you and the people you call friends have been blind your whole lives.” She turned on more lights, revealing a plain space with only a chair, an empty bookshelf, and a wood stove.
And a beaten, bloody person sitting with his head bowed, a pool of blood beneath the chair.
“What in the hell?” I gasped, a hand to my mouth. “What did you do?”
Kinder stood behind the body, a hand on her hip. “I told you, I took care of your problem.” She gripped on to the body’s hair and lifted their head. “This is the person causing all of your problems lately.”
My stomach roiled as I took in the beaten, scarred face of Zanka. Giyano’s rival and Lady Azar’s newest toy. Only now he was dead… at Kinder’s hand? “I don’t understand.”