by Ellie Margot
Trinity smiled without joy. “Guy is like all the men I’ve ever been around. He’s bad for me.”
Riette nodded, and they started to walk back to the entrance of Keepers before she realized that wasn’t an answer, but the moment had passed. The more pressing need was to see if Guy and Cassian had killed each other in their absence.
Chapter 5
Riette and Trinity headed back inside, but Guy was the only one waiting for them. He saw them walking toward the table and stood.
“He went upstairs,” said Guy.
“That doesn’t sound like Cassian,” said Riette. She saw Trinity nod.
“He may have been persuaded to do so,” said Guy.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing illegal. I don’t fight.”
“I seem to remember that,” said Riette. Images of Guy standing off to the side when things went left with Sam came flashing to the front of her mind.
“I wasn’t finished. I don’t fight when I don’t have to, and I sure as hell don’t fight someone I’m sharing a room with.”
“So we are sharing the room?” asked Trinity.
“Well, from the little Cassian and I talked, I got the impression that we’re all in agreement about not wanting to potentially witness anything with Mekhi and Corin.”
Riette shuddered. “I’ll pass.”
“Exactly,” said Guy. “I’ll lead you up.”
Trinity followed behind him, but she shared a look with Riette to make sure she wasn’t heading up alone.
“What do you think happened while we were gone?” she whispered.
“Nothing too crazy, I’m sure. Cassian would have come to get us if it had gotten too crazy.”
Trinity nodded. “I guess you’re right.”
“Riette always thinks she’s right,” said Guy, turning around to look at them before moving forward.
“Whose side are you on?” asked Riette.
Guy paused and looked at Trinity. “That depends on who’s asking.”
“Me, dipshit,” said Riette.
“You wound me,” said Guy.
“Was he this dramatic before I was around?” asked Trinity.
Riette considered it for a second. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Knowing the answer to that would have required you to pay attention to me before,” Guy said. “You didn’t do much of that.”
“Do I detect some bitterness?” Trinity asked.
“Me?” Guy asked. “I don’t know the meaning of the word.”
“All sunshine and lollipops, huh?” Trinity asked, walking past him to the steps.
“Every day and multiple times a day if I believe in myself.”
Trinity laughed, but then she covered her mouth like she had done something wrong for doing so or had the inclination to feel guilty about it.
Riette found that to be curious but didn’t say anything. Some things were better left inside a person’s head.
They headed upstairs to the rooms, and Guy was right. They weren’t as nice as the ones Baron had.
Guy knocked twice, rapping his knuckles against the doorframe.
Cassian opened the door and immediately turned away from it, flopping on the bed and running another hand through his hair.
Riette noticed that his hair, normally unflinchingly perfect, had signs of fingers running through it even before he repeated the motion in front of them.
There were two beds in the room. One flanking either side. Trinity and Riette stood at the entrance, and Guy shut the door behind him but lingered by the door.
“Who would like to bunk with who?” asked Guy. “I have some ideas, but I’m partial and admittedly biased.”
Trinity and Riette shared a look.
Riette nodded. “We’re together.”
“And in other shocking news...” said Guy.
“What news?” asked Riette. “You have news? From who?”
“It’s just an expression, princess.”
“Don’t call me princess.”
“What’s with him and nicknames?” asked Trinity, moving to the bed she would share with Riette.
“He thinks it’s endearing,” said Riette.
“No, he knows it is,” said Guy. “It makes him everyone’s favorite.”
Cassian snorted, his first vocal contribution since they’d walked into the room.
Riette and Trinity laughed too, and some of the tension dissipated. Not enough to call any of it normal, but enough that Riette thought with some prayer, she could get some sleep and forget the power surge outside, the wreckage around her, and the plan they still needed to make to save their world.
Sleep didn’t come. Riette watched the ceiling and counted the problems in her head.
The sleeping arrangement was awkward. Guy and Cassian chose a head to toes option, while Trinity and Riette lay straight, but Trinity was inclined to stretch out when she slept. She wanted to reach out and cling to Riette, and that was never something Riette was used to.
She could count the number of times her mother had done that with her, outside of a hug, on one hand.
It wasn’t that her mother hadn’t wanted to but that she didn’t have the time. She would have if she had been able to, Riette told herself. She knew that much about her mother, didn’t she?
The night continued to grow longer, and Riette, hours into the slumber of the others, decided to get up and check on Barry and Bark.
They were in the closet at that point, still unnaturally quiet as they had trained themselves to be, but when she opened the closet door, she saw Barry, the bright blue monkey, gnawing on the treat she had hoped would take him weeks to fully destroy.
Parts of it, larger parts, were already missing.
She kneeled on the floor and touched them both. Bark was more hesitant of her touch. He was bigger now. The bag wouldn’t last much longer. The look he gave her told her that, and it wasn’t something she didn’t know, but she also didn’t want to think about the idea of not having them with her.
Even if she couldn’t play with them all day, it was comforting to know they were there. She needed that. They were her constant when nothing else could stay the same.
Bark only hesitated for a moment. He didn’t want to waste the scant time he could have with Riette while Barry was otherwise occupied. He held her close before releasing her, and Barry dropped his treat enough to do the same.
Without the bag in between them, they had the ability to show their expressions and reach out to her, and she could feel them as they held her, skin to skin.
They were clingy, but she didn’t mind it. It wasn’t like others were volunteering to be close to her these days.
But she didn’t have time to dwell on it. Thoughts about Zekariah ran through her mind too, but she knew those had to be unfounded. Hearing a name and feeling something didn’t make a connection. Sometimes, even knowing them didn’t guarantee the connection was real, and in the case of Zeke, she didn’t have even that luxury.
She worked with them in the closet and got them settled, and after they were tucked safely away, Riette re-entered the room. She saw, even in the partial light of the morning, that Cassian was awake but barely so.
He rubbed his eyes and looked toward her. Guy sensed the movement and sat up as well, but Riette couldn’t see his face from where she stood hesitantly. She wondered how much Cassian saw and if he had a guess about why she spent time in the closet.
He didn’t say anything though, and she was grateful for it. They all had bigger things to discuss.
Trinity stayed sleeping on their shared bed. Soft snoring filled the room, and Riette smiled. It was kind of cute to see Trinity so unbuttoned, in the emotional sense. She had a hardness that Riette now knew the origin story for, at least in some minor sense.
There was still something about Trinity that gave Riette pause, though she knew that was more in her DNA at that point than there would be reason for. Maybe she didn’t trust her ability to make friends when that had
always been so hard for her, Cassian and Mekhi being the exceptions.
Riette walked to the bed, cleared a small edge, and sat down.
“The letter?” Cassian asked.
Riette knew he guessed that was what she’d been looking at, although how he thought she could see it in the dim light of the closet was altogether something else.
“I know it’s what’s going to help us,” she said.
“What did it say?” Cassian asked.
“Cassian, you know.”
“I want to hear it again.”
Riette thought back to her grandmother’s words, the ideas she’d gotten so far, the scant letters that were revealed. She relayed what she remembered, what she played by heart in her head at night.
“What needs to be done is in the letter, the book,” she finished.
Cassian considered her for a minute.
Trinity blinked her eyes open. “The spells are so heavy on it, it must be protecting something of a great magnitude,” she said, her words laced with the lingering edges of sleep. “My grandmother wouldn’t have cared otherwise.”
“And Samantha is the answer?” asked Cassian. His face was in frown.
“She’s the only one who’s strong enough to help us find Zeke. He’s her people. She would know more about him than anyone else.”
“And we think she’ll help?” Trinity asked. “This Samantha person?”
“She could bind us and sell us to the highest bidder,” mumbled Cassian.
“Excuse me?” asked Trinity.
“She didn’t want to sell us,” said Riette. “She wanted to keep me as some fucked-up pet.”
“What?” Trinity shrieked.
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s probable insanity,” said Cassian.
“Samantha is deadly,” said Guy. “But she’s also hot as shit in her, ‘I may cut you while you sleep, but after, we may sleep together’ kind of way.” He looked over at Trinity. “Sorry.”
“You can’t always think with your dick, surely,” said Trinity, and she rolled her eyes.
“You can’t always pretend like I don’t have one,” said Guy, and the humor had left his voice.
Cassian and Riette shared a look. Riette didn’t know what Cassian thought of the exchange, but she was starting to wish she had pressed Trinity for more answers the night before.
The air was charged for a beat, but Riette continued.
“The letter,” said Riette. “She said something about how Dad wouldn’t have liked us doing whatever we’re going to embark on, and that Mom never would, but it needed to get done.”
“To save us?” asked Trinity.
“To save Vitan,” said Riette. “It’s bigger than us. And all of the bullshit aside, we need to make things right for everyone, and maybe that would make...” Her voice trailed off, and her face heated.
What she didn’t say—the idea that she wanted to make things right with her mother—lay unsaid between them, and she left it at that.
“Then we need to find Sam,” said Guy. “And we need to be ready for whatever way she comes to us.”
“She still wants me,” said Riette. “I know she does.”
“Okay, hotness,” said Guy.
“Shut it. You know I’m not trying to sound like a shit.”
“You’re a rare breed now, darling,” said Guy.
“She was before,” said Cassian, but he wasn’t happy about it.
That made two of them.
Chapter 6
It took the better part of the next hour to get everyone sorted and ready to head out. Mekhi and Corin joined them near the end of the hour, and they looked rumpled and worse for wear.
“What’s the plan?” asked Mekhi.
“I think we should travel by sea,” said Corin. “I didn’t get to see it much last time.”
Trinity looked at Riette for a second before saying, “I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”
“Yeah, sea equals monkeys, which equals suckage, which, carry the three, means I’m not too pleased with that plan,” said Mekhi, counting the issues on his fingers.
“Well, we need to check out of here,” said Guy. “And if we’re trying to get with Georgette and Jeffery, there’s a high chance they’re not in port.”
“We can’t go to the sea,” said Riette. “I can’t.” She looked around at the others. “I don’t trust myself.”
She watched Mekhi and Cassian share a look.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to risk going crazy, not when we need to find Samantha, let alone if I go crazy and we do find her.”
“So how do we get there?” asked Trinity.
Riette yanked her hair into place, straightening it to avoid looking at Mekhi. “We could call Mark.”
Guy laughed.
Mekhi’s face sucked in. “Or we could walk.”
“Walk where?” asked Cassian. “We don’t know where to go to find her.”
“We know she’s not at port,” said Riette. “A Mage wouldn’t travel this far, not by themselves. Not without killing or being killed.”
“Mark doesn’t work for free,” said Cassian. He stole a look at Riette. His jaw was set in hard lines.
“We can’t afford to pay him,” said Cassian, more forcefully now.
“How did you pay him before?” asked Trinity.
Guy looked at Riette. “She let him ride her power wave.”
“Can we not talk about this?” asked Riette. “It’s weird enough as it is without a discussion.”
“That’s all the more reason for us to not use him,” said Cassian.
“We can’t get across the sea without a ship, which also requires payment, or me paying Mark in a different way.”
Cassian stood and whispered something like a curse under his breath.
Riette knew she should be more concerned too, but practicality needed to prevail, right? “We could give him Mekhi instead,” said Riette.
Mekhi coughed. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, not in a magical sense,” Riette said.
“That would be a no,” said Corin.
“I know,” said Riette. “I just wanted to see Mekhi’s face. Five minutes in a closet might be worth it.”
“Blow me,” said Mekhi.
“I think that would be your job,” said Riette, laughing.
“I’m not sharing,” said Corin.
“Am I summoning him?” asked Guy. He looked just as concerned as Cassian.
“Relax, guys,” said Riette. “I’ll be fine. He probably won’t want to do a surge anyway, not with whatever is going on with me these days.”
“I wasn’t going to mention this, but your eyes are a bit more tripped out than they were yesterday,” said Guy.
“After last night,” said Trinity, touching her fingertips to her lips.
“What happened last night?” asked Cassian, stepping closer.
Riette looked toward the ceiling. “There may have been a slight power surge when I touched Trinity outside.”
“And you didn’t say anything until now?”
“We weren’t exactly having a fireside chat last night,” said Riette. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It shot a light down the street and freaked the locals,” said Trinity.
“Not helping,” said Riette.
“Sorry, just saying.”
Riette crossed the room and looked into the small mirror the inn had against the far wall. There was an extra spark in her eyes, like the light of a flickering candle.
Before everything had happened, when Riette was safe in Vitan, her eyes were a chocolate brown, not too far off of the color of her skin. After Trinity, both of her eyes were shot through with a mix of liquid honey and red, and then after last night, the lighter parts seemed warmer, more animated, as if they glowed when she turned her head slightly to see them react.
“It just means I have more to spare,” said Riette. She turned back toward the others. Her words were meant for Guy, but her e
yes found Cassian in a room where everyone was looking at her. “Call Mark. It’s the only way to find her and quickly.”
Guy stepped out, returning an hour later with news they needed a different location.
“Down by the port on the far side, there are spots where the ships don’t dock,” said Guy. “We can meet him there.”
“What did he say?” asked Riette. She liked Mark, despite their odd circumstances.
“It doesn’t work that way. Not really, but he’ll be there because you are.”
“You act like he’s addicted to me or something.”
“Did you not see his face when he took a hit?” asked Guy. “Don’t know how else to say it, but he was tripped out over it, whatever it was he got from you.”
“I thought only dark mages do that,” said Trinity.
“Angels don’t normally,” said Guy. “It’s not the same kind of transference. But Mark is a different breed anyway. It’s hard to say he fits the category.”
“The only people in my neck of the woods that could afford Angel transport were Frank,” said Trinity. Riette shuddered. “And people worse than Frank.”
“People like that might have more resources, but they don’t have a power-tricked princess,” said Mekhi. “Though for the record, my services are off of the table.”
They traveled to the far side of the port. Guy was right. Georgette’s ship was missing. Her fiery hair wasn’t aboard any of the other boats either. Riette knew that, but it didn’t stop her from looking as they passed from beside one ship to the next.
The ship itself wasn’t something she would soon be able to forget. Their time on the ship had been mired with trouble, from Sirens to monster-filled seas, but she had gotten Barry out of it, so she wasn’t going to complain.
When they reached the rendezvous spot, Mark was already waiting. He had his arms crossed and a frown etched on his face that was too traditionally striking for someone to feel comfortable around him.
“Finally,” said Mark. He had the ghost of a smile on his face at seeing Riette, but it slipped off his face when he remembered how long he had been waiting. “Were you lost?”