“What?” I finally spoke, trying to regain some sense of order through the chaos rolling around in my head. “What?” I asked again, not sure what in the hells he was getting at.
“I don’t know why that damned Djinn said what he said, but he’s a fucking liar.” He growled and stepped even closer to me, so close that he had to spread his legs wide so as not to fall on top of me.
I looked up at his roughly hewn face, at the scruff of beard covering his sharp jawline, at the bridge of his nose that was slightly too crooked to have not been broken at least once. “What are you talking about?”
“That fucking bullshit you and I both heard down there. You know it’s not true. You created a familiar, Elle. I may not know a lot of shit about magick, but I know this: you need to be pretty damned powerful to make one come to you.”
I snorted and tried to shove him off me, but instead I found my hands spread widely on his massive chest, my nails digging into his shirt almost like hooks to hold him still. “Yeah, and it doesn’t obey me. It’s a baby. It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic.” My laugh was bitter.
His growl was a hair-raising rumble of sound that vibrated so forcefully through his thick chest that I felt it against my own. “You’re new. You’re learning. But I smell that power in you. And more to the point, who gives a fuck anyway if he’s right? You don’t need magick to be a damn good detective. You weren’t swimming away from me, Elle. You were outmaneuvering me, every fucking damn step of the way. Wake up.” He snapped his fingers. “It was never your magick that made you who you are. It was this.” He tapped my temple with one of his blunt fingers that I instantly swatted away.
But not to be deterred, he pressed on. “It was always this.” Then he stepped back, leaving my hands dangling in midair before shaking his head. “I don’t have time to play this game with you, either. It’s not just your life on the line. It’s mine too. Now you be my partner in this and we get the fuck out of here with good old fashioned detectiving, or you go weep in a corner and hope that some godsdamned fairy godmother will come and save your ass for you. What’s it gonna be?”
I gaped at him. His moods were so mercurial they made my head spin. One second, I’d been sure he might have even tried to kiss me—the air between us had felt so charged with tension—and now he was looking at me like he was close to making me lunch, and not in the good way.
“Feck you,” I snapped, dropping my hands and balling them into tight fists by my sides.
He chuckled. “Good to have you back, Detective.”
I wanted to stay mad at him, but dammit, I couldn’t. Because he was right. I closed my eyes and rubbed at my temples. “You’re never easy to be around, Agent. You know that?”
“So I’ve heard, Detective. So I’ve heard. Now, you’ve seen he lives. So let’s get our asses out to that garden before the song starts without us. Shall we?”
Thinning my lips, wishing I could look down at Hook one last time, I knew again that my temporary partner was right. There was still a chance that I could prove that it wasn’t me who had caused Aquata’s death. If I could do that, then I might actually stand a chance of walking out of tribunal place in one piece.
“Fine. Let’s go.” Crowley turned, but I glanced back at the peephole one final time, feeling torn, as though I was walking away from my heart. Still, I knew following him was the only way out of here. For all of us.
“Let’s go,” I whispered to myself, more as a pep talk than anything else. It was time to blow this Popsicle stand by hook or crook. Even if I didn’t have magick, I could do it. The bastard was right. I’d done it before, countless times.
I was enough. With or without magick, I was enough.
I jogged to catch up with Crowley’s rapidly retreating form.
CHAPTER 45
ELLE
HE’D BEEN RIGHT, of course. We were the only ones in this part of the gardens. Everyone was packed like sardines into the spot where Aquata had been found, hoping to chance a glance at her spirit one last time.
It wasn’t because they cared for her or even liked her a little bit. It was mostly for sport. Death brought out the worst in people, even sirens. We liked to believe ourselves so superior to the leggers above us, but I’d seen enough of the hearts of men to know that no matter the species, deep down, we were all the same heartless, careless fecks as all the rest of them.
The sea moon was nearly at its zenith. I sniffed and rubbed my arms.
“You ready?” Crowley asked.
I stared at him. He was dressed in the ceremonial garb of the dead. In the above, black was the color of death, but in the below, it was a blue so deep that it was nearly violet.
His hair was brushed back. He looked different tonight—I couldn’t quite place how, but he looked, I don’t know, lame as it sounded, relaxed and contented. We were at a funeral, for the gods sakes, and yet Crowley seemed more at ease than usual.
“Do I even want to know why you look so happy about all of this?” I didn’t mean for my words to sound bitter.
“You think I’m happy?”
“You’re acting funny.”
He frowned and scrubbed a hand down his jaw. “Fuck me, Elle. I’m growling, and you say I have problems. I try to be on my best behavior, and you still find fault with me. How about maybe I’m trying to put whatever shit aside for the sake of your feelings right now? How ’bout that?”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t play well with others and never really had, apart from Hook, and even he had been on the wrong end of one of my legendary temper tantrums from time to time.
Even Hatter had had a rough go of it with me in the beginning. I thought of our countless spats and realized that I still gave him a hard time about a lot of things. I was raised in a world where trusting anyone was a bad idea, where court intrigue could literally get one killed. Only the strongest survived.
But he was a shifter, a wolf. Their tempers were far from tame. I’d been around packs before. Their familial dynamic could be just as screwed up as my own had been.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Gods, you fucking fish are gorgeous, but you give me damned headaches. The lot of you.” He growled as he rubbed at his temples.
Licking my front teeth, I glanced to the side. Already, I could sense the urgency in the air, the heightening of ancestral magick. One of our fallen would soon return to us.
I wasn’t good at apologies, and I wasn’t even sure that one was warranted. Maybe it was—I wasn’t sure. But I did know this: at the bare minimum, I could call a cease fire.
Crowley was my only real ally anymore, sad as that was to admit. Walking toward him, I didn’t overthink things. Instead, I grabbed his hand and slid my fingers through his.
I felt his curious glance and sensed his continued aggravation with me, but I was good at ignoring what I didn’t like. Fixing a tight smile on my face, I nodded toward the hedge and the house, which was still undisturbed, thinking that we might finally discover what lay hidden behind that tiny door. “This magick works best if we all sing,” I said by way of explanation.
Looking down at our joined hands, I watched his furrowed brows shifting and imagined countless thoughts exploding in his head. I wished I could read them and could know what he was thinking.
I doubted he wanted to sing, but he did want to solve the case—that much I knew, especially when I tried to release his hand but his suddenly squeezed my fingers, holding me tightly to him.
“You’re not my favorite person. You never were,” he said, finally looking up at me. But his words weren’t harsh or rough—they were soft. And there was a tone in there that I couldn’t quite make sense of. It felt as if he wanted to believe what he was saying, but he wasn’t sure it was true anymore and it confused the hells out of him.
Well, welcome to the club.
Sad as it was, I knew it was his way of extending an olive branch. I chuckled lightly. “Touché, Agent Crowley.” I shrugged.
“Why did you save me?” h
e asked me yet again, for what felt like the hundredth time. “Why didn’t you just let that witch have me, Elle? Why?”
I was starting to understand that when Crowley felt deeply, he stopped calling me Fish or Detective and called me Elle. He was openly being vulnerable with me. “It was the right thing to do, Crowley,” I finally whispered with a gentle shrug. If he wanted a deeper answer, I hated to disappoint him, but I didn’t have one. All I had was the truth. I hadn’t liked him, either, but that hadn’t mattered because he’d been in need, and I would have liked to believe that if the roles had been reversed, he would have done the same for me. But the way his eyes looked suddenly dark and haunted had me wondering whether he would have cut his losses and run.
I pressed my lips together, not liking the way that thought suddenly made me feel hot and jittery.
“It’s Edward,” he said so quietly it was almost nonexistent.
My ear perked and I frowned as I turned to him. “What?”
“My name, its Edward Crowley.”
I stared agape at him, realizing, maybe for the first time, that in all the years I’d known him I’d never actually known his true name. He’d always just been Agent arsehole or Crowley to me.
His nostrils flared and he gave his head a slight shake, a look of regret already started to bleed over his features. Now it was my turn to clench tight to his fingers.
“Edward,” I said it softly, tasting the vowels on my tongue and realizing that while I’d never have pegged him as an Edward, it oddly fit. It was an old name that harkened back to a different era, much like the man himself.
He licked his left canine and dipped his head.
I might have said more, but the magick had grown to its highest level, and it was time to sing.
I wasn’t sure I could access the ancient siren’s magick—I wasn’t a siren anymore. But I opened my mouth, and I sang. To my great shock, Crowley joined me just a few beats later. His voice was robust and not altogether unpleasant, at least for a legger.
The song was low and haunting. All around us, the voices joined in unison, calling the spirit to us and pulling her away from the great watery grave one last time. I could feel the chill of the water around us and sense the heightening tension of a spirit coming.
Ethereal and full of dancing lights, like a school of silvery fish flashing its scales in sunlight, it moved toward us. No one else would know yet that Aquata had come already. They believed that her soul would return to where it had been found. And eventually, it would. But my sister came to us first.
My heart lurched as I was finally confronted by the sight of her, tall and willowy, as sirens tended to be. Her hair was a radiant reddish brown, almost like polished cherrywood. Her skin was as fair as porcelain, and her eyes were a haunting electric blue that glowed like krill in the night. I shook, looking at her as she looked at me.
Spirits could not speak, and although they had some memory of who they had once been, the strong spark of the living flame was long gone from them. I thought back to the spirit who’d infected me during my first case with Hatter and how she’d been instrumental in leading us to finding her lost child. We’d saved him only because she’d inhabited my body and given me the means to finding him. So I knew there was something of the old in them, but I also knew it had to be something powerful enough to make them bother fighting through the unyielding barrier that separated us.
The song died on my tongue, but enough of us were singing that she stayed tethered. Even Crowley was still humming. I wasn’t sure if his singing helped, or if it was just the siren’s nature that drew the dead to us. But the fact that he would do it with me touched me more than I cared to admit.
I pursed my lips and drank her in, wishing I could hold her and hug her. But I knew my arms would slide right through her. I could not join Aquata where she was, not yet. Maybe someday, but not today, not just now.
“Sister,” I said softly, still scanning her form for any sign of foul play. If she’d been stabbed or had her neck broken or died by some other unnatural means, her spirit form would have had some record of it. I would be able see a bullet wound or a bloody stain upon her gown.
But she was glowing and healthy looking and so, so beautiful.
My lower lip trembled, and I fisted my hands, squeezing so tightly that the nails of my left hand dug into the back of Crowley’s hand. He didn’t even flinch, only held mine tighter.
An invisible current lifted my sister’s hair so that it undulated like a sail behind her. The robes she’d been wearing when she’d died were still on her, pristine and white. She’d always loved white, a fact I’d teased her for mercilessly—we all had. In a world where color and pomp was the norm, Aquata had always been different from the rest of us. We’d called her dull and boring, likening her to vanilla. They’d been the taunts of little children, silly and harmless in their own way, but said with an edge of malice that only a child could pull off.
I swallowed hard, telling myself that it was not the time to fall down that rabbit hole. I needed to focus and remember why we were there. I’d barely had time to think about Aquata’s death or about what it really meant that she was gone. In the very literal sense of the word, it was not a banishment that separated me from her, not any longer. It was far more permanent.
She just looked at me with a sadness upon her face that made my knees feel weak. I rubbed the fingers of my free hand across my lower stomach, feeling queasy and sick, telling myself I didn’t have the luxury to mourn her. Not now. Not yet. Definitely not here.
Crowley squeezed my fingers again, still humming in that surprisingly deep baritone voice of his. I could sense that he was silently urging me to remember what we’d come for and why we were here. I needed to get my shite together. A ghost of a smile passed over my lips—I’d almost heard his commanding growl in my head.
Glancing over my shoulder, assuring myself that we were in fact truly alone, I took a deep breath to settle my nerves. “Aquata, I love you. I will always love you, I will miss your hugs and your beautiful smiles until the day I die, but I’ve not come here to mourn with you. I…” I hiccupped then shuddered as I swallowed down the ball of heat burning the back of my throat. “I’ve come because I fear it wasn’t my returning that caused your death.”
She cocked her head, her sleek hair looking like charmed sea snakes in the way they danced in independent locks around her head.
Is it my imagination, or is she now glowing a little brighter? I frowned. My heart raced just a tiny bit harder. “I-I don’t know if you can hear any of what I’m saying. And I know this isn’t why you’ve come back. But, Sister, the council means to kill me for your death. They mean to make me jump into the endless hole because of what’s been done to you and Father. Aquata, I need you. We… need you.” I jerked my thumb toward Crowley.
Do the dead care for the living at all anymore?
Aquata had been the sweetest, softest, and kindest of us. Once, she would have cared. Once, she would have found a way to overcome her terrible fear and shyness to help me, a sister who’d never really been any good to her, simply because the bonds of family had been sacred to her.
Shame filled my soul. I’d been a selfish creature all my life.
Aquata hadn’t deserved her fate, but I had. Anahita had. All the rest of us had. I looked down at my feet, feeling as though the shame might swallow me whole. I hated myself for my selfishness and my inability to put anyone else’s needs before my own.
Father had been right when he’d called me a selfish bitch. I’d been so consumed with my love of Hook that I hadn’t cared a whit for any of the rest of them. Even those I’d claimed to love, I hadn’t loved enough to change my behavior.
I’d hurt them all, and I’d killed my baby sister for it too. Of course it had happened because of my return. The odds weren’t in my favor—there was little chance that just as the Sea Witch was released, an actual murderer was plotting the demise of both my sister and my father, the king.
&n
bsp; Father’s attempted assassination made sense, but not Aquata’s. She wouldn’t have hurt a sea flea—that’s how softhearted she was. She couldn’t have—
“Elle, look,” Crowley whispered hotly in the shell of my ear.
My pulse jumped as I looked up, and I sucked in a sharp breath as I watched my sister’s spirit drift toward the magicked house in the garden’s hedgerow.
She did not look back as she knelt. She did not say a word as her fingers reached deep into the hedges. Then I heard a loud whirring click, as if something mechanical had disengaged itself.
The door to the house had swung open, and there was a soft glow coming from it.
Dropping Crowley’s hand, I rushed toward my sister’s side and knelt right beside her. I stared at her profile, silently begging her to look up at me.
When she finally did, I was once again amazed by the look upon her face, one of determination and hope, but most of all, fierce, blazing, undeniable love. It burned through her bright-blue eyes like the hottest heat of a candle’s flame.
I planted a fist against my breast, feeling my heart beat as powerfully as a ghostly echo. There was so much burning the tip of my tongue, words I wanted to say, things I wanted to tell her, and things I wanted to apologize for, like never coming back to see her while she still lived. I’d never apologized for calling her dull and vanilla and said that she would never find a love like I’d had with Hook. I’d said she would live alone and die alone, even when all my sister had wanted to do was hold onto me and hug me tightly after Hook had been so savagely taken away from me. I’d taken my hatred of Father out on Aquata. She hadn’t deserved it, and I’d never gotten the chance to tell her how unbelievably ashamed and sorry I was for it.
But I could see the colors of my sister’s light starting to fade, and I knew that soon, she would leave me to join the circle of the other mourners drawing her to them.
So I said the only thing I could say, the only thing there was left to say. “I love you, my sister. And I am sorry. I am so, so sorry for everything. For not loving you as I should have. For not coming back to see you while you still—” A strangled cry slipped off my tongue, and I shivered, trembling furiously as the weight of how final the whole scene was suddenly impressing itself upon me. “Aquata,” I squeaked out, “my baby sister. My sister. I’m sorry. I’m sor— ”
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