“Trust me, that’s still an option. Regardless of if you believe it or not, it’s true.” Hugo pushed back from the coffee table with a shrug. “Rumor has it it’s some silly girl with no training. Aria would be livid if she knew.”
“If she is back, then there is a person we might have to deal with. And for that, they want you back in place. This isn’t something that they’ll turn their head and ignore, Jerome. This is an order from The Above.”
Marcus slid the Watcher Coin across the table and Jerome’s jaw clenched. If he took that back…
Jerome shuddered as he fingered the edges of the coin. He picked it up and felt the memory of its weight in the palm of his hand. “Not The Above,” he countered. “Seff.” He sneered as he recognized whose work this was. Not a word from the bastard for decades, and now Seff decides he needs him?
The three stood up and stretched, watching him with questions behind their eyes as Jerome pocketed the coin. Seff had left him without an option. Running was one thing, treason was another.
Jerome stood as well, frowning. “There’s no place like home, right?”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Ahn looked up from his book to see the sun peeking through the blinds, rays of light washing over the words in front of him. He glanced at the large clock on his desk and groaned as the wide stretch of the clock hands indicated an hour long past the time he’d been shooting for. He’d read through the night again, proving once again that he had no self-control.
Sliding a bookmark into his book, he closed it with one hand while fingers from the other dug into the corners of his tired eyes. His muscles complained as he rose from his seat, and a yawn snuck its way past his chapped lips as he walked to the door and eased his head out of the room.
The hallway was quiet and empty, and he smiled at his luck. He hunched over in an attempt to be as stealthy as possible, willing the old wooden boards of the floor to not creak, and tiptoed to the far end of the hallway.
“You look ridiculous.”
Ahn winced. He recognized the voice, not by its timbre and pitch, but by the scathing contempt she laced into every word.
Sighing, he straightened his wrinkled tie and fixed on the brightest smile he could manage before he slowly spun around. His gaze dropped to the petite woman with her arms crossed and her body language screaming he was dead meat. She tossed her dark hair over her shoulder and pursed her lips, which was scary, but the narrowing of her dark-gray eyes was the real flashing danger sign.
“Whatever it is I did, Baji, I swear I won’t do it again.”
Her heels—which didn’t matter, she was still a diminutive squat—clicked against the floor and her arms dropped to her sides as she approached him. He tried smiling harder and the effort cost him—because it hurt—but it looked like that made her angrier.
She sauntered toward him, smelling like perfume. “What time is it, Leader Ahn?”
He snuck a look down at his watch. Six fifty-five. Somehow he knew the correct answer was the wrong one but what was he going to do? Lie? To her face? Yeah, right.
“Morning time?” That technically wasn’t a lie. He smiled with pride and mentally patted himself on the back.
She didn’t seem to find his humor very humorous. “It is exactly”—she held up her thin wrist and glanced at the white-gold watch wrapped around it—“fourteen hours, thirty-two minutes, and don’t make me count the seconds after the arrival of Jin Amaris. She’s been here for hours, and yet you’ve been locked in your study… doing what, might I ask?”
Ahn opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off. “It doesn’t matter what you were doing. You could have been repainting the Sistine Chapel with your penis for all I care. You weren’t present when—”
“Baji!” Ahn whined, dragging out each syllable of her name. When that didn’t work, he rested his hands on her narrow shoulders, looking down at her with as much pleading as he could muster. “Why must you question everything I do?” He hunched down a few inches so they could talk eye to eye. He even tried a pout, but when her gaze narrowed further, he gave up. He dropped his hands and sighed. “I know I wasn’t present, but there are things, big, you know, things, that I needed to…” He reconsidered his words. “...that we needed to be prepared for. You know…things,” he finished meekly.
“Such as…”
“Aria Jinni? Synesthesia?”
“Oh, shut up, you old fool.”
“Hear me out before you go lopping my nuts off with bolt cutters. However rare it is, considering the amount of times she used it, more people should have witnessed it in action, right? Other than the whole puppet thing. We’ve all seen that.”
“The puppet thing,” she parroted dryly. She shook her head. “If Aria hears you calling it anything other than Soul Step, she’s going to hang you by your ankles and flay you.”
“Baji. She’s not Aria. She’s Jin.”
Bon Baji waved his explanation away in a huff. “Semantics. Anyway, what? You don’t think Synesthesia exists? Penume was present when Aria used it once, and Penume never lies.”
Ahn rolled his eyes. “Penume is the oldest thing in Caeli, save Gadriel and Sariel. I wouldn’t trust her to remember what she had for breakfast yesterday, let alone the power to recount an ability no one else can see. You do realize my point is that no one else can see it, right?”
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, Ahn. You need help.”
“I never said I didn’t believe in it, I just want to know how to—” He paused, swallowing his next words. He wanted to go into detail, to share the growing thoughts taking room up in his head. Explain the reason he’d spent the night with his nose buried in a book and not sleeping. But he wasn’t going to. “Seeing and knowing are two different things. I just wanted to be prepared. What if, I don’t know, it went berserk yesterday, huh? None of us are prepared for that.” He threw a glance at her face to see if she bought it.
“Berserk? It’s density ability, you fool.” She had.
Baji threw her hands up before pushing him in frustration. She turned away, and then paused to stare at him. “Just promise to be at the graduation tonight. They are moving them to Elysian today, and I am more than positive they are going to have questions after the ceremony. Ones I’ll need your help answering. You are the oldest.”
Ahn pulled a face at the way she said oldest. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be there.”
The sound of her footsteps disappeared as she walked away and Ahn breathed a sigh of relief. He continued down the hallway without all the pretense and walked into his own bedroom.
Painfully aware of how soft his bed looked, he ignored it and stepped into the adjacent parlor, warmed by a lit fire. He mentally thanked the attendants when he noticed the cup of steaming tea sitting on a pale birch wood table by his Louis XIV lounge chair, the one he’d borrowed from the Sun King after the monarch’s death.
Ahn eagerly took a sip, savoring it for a moment before the hot liquid seared his tongue. “God da—”
“God is not going to damn your tea because you were in a hurry.”
Ahn jumped and the tea sloshed the sides of the cup before spilling over. His hand shot out to catch the tea before it decorated his expensive carpet. Not the smartest of plans, in retrospect. He yelped when the tea splashed across his skin. Resisting the urge to throw the expensive teacup, he set it down with as much civility as he could manage. When he whipped around, he found Seff sitting on the raised hearth of the fireplace staring at him.
“Where were you yesterday?” Seff blinked in a way that seemed more curious than accusatory.
Ahn ignored the question. “Ever considered it, I don’t know, weird, that even without physical bodies we can feel physical pain? I’ve always been perplexed by that.” He crossed the room and grabbed a hand towel from his armoire. Inside the bathroom, he ran cool water over the towel before laying it on his burn.
As the cool worked against the hot, he realized what he was, where he was, and what he could
do, and threw the towel behind him with a growl. Holding his left hand over the burn, he pressed his lips together in concentration, and just like that the burning was gone.
“I mean, I enjoy the perks,” he continued, holding up his hand as he walked out of the bathroom. “Oh, look! Good as new!” he said sarcastically. “But it would save some time in other matters to just be glitter.”
“We have physical bodies, it’s just not the same physical body that a human possesses—” Seff paused in his explanation. “Why are you asking me this?”
“I wasn’t asking you. I was talking to myself and you just happened to be in my room—without permission, might I add—and overheard me. You chose to answer.”
“Well, I did ask you a question and you have yet to answer it.”
“Is this a social call, Seff?” Ahn didn’t wait for an answer. “Baji sent you didn’t she?”
Seff chuckled. “No, my dear leader, it’s not a social call, and no, Baji didn’t send me.”
Ahn resisted the temptation to roll his eyes because he knew better than anyone that “leader” was a formality. He was no more the leader of The Above than Tahir was. He shared the responsibility of The Fallen equally with Seff, Parker, and Baji, but they still liked to honor him with the title. Being oldest had its benefits.
Ahn sighed. “Just as I told that midget, I was reading.” He saw how Seff’s brows pinched together and he jumped to correct himself. “Researching. I was researching.”
Seff guided Ahn back toward the parlor and forced him into a chair. “Researching what exactly?” He picked up Ahn’s discarded teacup and took a sip.
“Synesthesia.” Ahn said. He was pleased when Seff simply nodded without asking any further questions. “But better news than that.” He waited a beat. “Jerome’s on his way back.”
Seff coughed violently, spraying the amber liquid over the carpet. Seff’s reaction gave him greater satisfaction than saving his very old, very expensive Persian carpet—another treasured steal, literally—and he cackled loudly as Seff wiped the remaining tea off his chin.
“That went better than I could have hoped for.”
Seff pretended to dust a piece of imaginary lint off of his—very ugly—pale- blue seersucker suit. He was normally good at schooling his features but he couldn’t hide his look of complete embarrassment from Ahn. “Find anything interesting?” Seff said, swiftly changing the subject. Ahn kept his laughter in check this time. He didn’t want to have to sit through another one of Seff’s sessions on devotion and loyalty.
“Yeah, it’s more of an applied science sort of explanation. But…” He walked to the opposite side of the parlor and poked a foot at the heavy rug. Squatting, he picked up the corner and flung it back, exposing the hardwood floor. He fingered the cracks in between a few of the boards, going back and forth until his thumb grazed a hidden catch. Sparing a glance at Seff, he raised the heel of his shoe and slammed it down on the crack between two floorboards.
The floorboard jumped from its position, spinning until Ahn kicked it out of the way. The hole it left behind beckoned Seff closer, but Ahn held up a hand as he reached into the space and withdrew a tachi with a black blade.
“I’m not overly alarmed by your possession of that,” Seff said, “but I am curious as to why. You stole that from the Amory, didn’t you?”
“Wrong. I sequestered it from the Amory’s museum—details, Seff, details— and it’s being used for research. Research is important.”
“To whom? It’s a sword that hasn’t been used in hundreds of years. What?” Seff laughed sarcastically. “You think if she touches it, it’ll magically grant her Aria’s power?”
“Pick your panties out of your ass, it’s not as simple as you think.” Ahn pointed the sword in Seff’s direction. “However, innovation is grosser than error it seems.”
Seff shrugged. “If you say so,” he said as he got up to leave.
“There’s adventure in wildly idiotic ideals, Seff. Not that you would know anything about that.”
“Uh-huh.” Seff opened the door. Paused. “Oh, and to answer your question, Baji didn’t send me. Parker did.”
“What? Why?”
Seff smiled and walked out.
Chapter Sixty
Jon pulled a face. “What the hell is that?”
Rooke frowned and looked up from the side mirror he was adjusting. “What do you mean ‘what is that?’ It’s a car.” He used the bottom of his shirt to swipe at the layer of dirt on the reflective surface and grimaced when none came off.
“No, that’s a piece of shit. Does it even run?”
“Of course it runs. Would I invite you to ride in it if it didn’t?” Rooke said tightly.
“It’s a fossil. A…pale, sickly, chipped up, sad, sad fossil.” Jon ran his finger across the hood. The paint was chipped and peeling, muted by years of exposure to the elements. The color could have been an orange or red once.
“It’s a classic.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s a classic piece of shit.” Jon kicked a tire with a dusty boot. “Kid, I’m not riding in this.”
“Fine. Walk.” Rooke turned his back on Jon. It was a 1978 Vauxhall Cavalier saloon to humans, but to him it was a collection of metal welded to adventure and memories. It was old, but it served its purpose. Got him from A to B and sometimes C if he was lucky, and he’d always opted to ignore the loud screech it made when he put it in reverse or the fact that the front wheels wobbled if he went over sixty.
Aiden jabbed Jon with a stiff elbow. “My dad had a car like this…it never let us down…sometimes,” Aiden said glancing at the car. “She looks…trusty. Faithful.” He grimaced. “Good? She looks good.” He did a tiny fist pump.
Rooke didn’t believe him, but he appreciated the effort. The appreciation faded as Aiden’s eyes strayed to the side, glancing at the other vehicles parked in the garage. Rooke scowled because okay, sure, he got it.
Comparatively, Rooke’s car was an antique next to the rows and rows of high-end, luxury vehicles and sports cars. His was dusty and faded; theirs glimmered with an air of splendor and wildly expensive down payments.
Key, whose attachment to worldly possessions was evident in his sleek purchase, had the flashiest of the vehicles. A slate-gray Bugatti Veyron was backed into the parking space, the teal V of the hood gleaming in the lights of the garage. The interior was all leather, because Key was leather—buttery soft in feel, but durable and tougher than he appeared.
Tahir’s choice, like Key’s, matched her temperament. A black on black Ducati Monster with her name painted on the tank was parked with precaution as an afterthought, and the back tire trespassed over the white line and into the next space.
Rooke rolled his eyes. “Come on. Get in.” Jerking on the handle, the door flew open with a loud groan that echoed off the walls of the garage. The three humans winced as the sound bounced around a few times before it quieted, and then they jumped when Rooke slammed the door shut—it was the only way it would close.
Jin chose the front seat, leaving the two agents in the back to mull over the condition of the interior. Jon fingered the window, grimacing as some grunge came off on his fingertips. Aiden slid over the cracked leather of the back seat, probably trying to find a position where the springs weren’t poking him in the legs.
Rooke smiled brilliantly as everyone buckled in, and stared intently in front of him as the car screeched into reverse, scaring Aiden into a high-pitched yelp.
They pulled out of the garage and drove down the long pebbled driveway that led off Au Courant and onto the main road. They rode in silence. The view didn’t inspire conversation. A lake. Trees. More trees. Dirt. A rabbit.
Looking out the window to the world outside, Jin had to wonder exactly how alike was this alternative realm to theirs. It looked like theirs, it even smelled like theirs. There wasn’t anything that signified they were somewhere different.
Was this world made in the image of theirs, or was their world m
ade in the image of this one? And if so, what was the true source of originality? Were they all slaves to conceived inspiration, or were there ever truly any authentic ideals in their world? The more she thought about it, she found she really didn’t care. She had other things to be over-introspective about.
“So, where are we going?” she asked.
“Caeli is more than just that old dusty mansion, so I’m taking you into the city. You guys are going to camp out at our suite in Elysian.”
Jin mouthed a meek “oh” as if Rooke’s words had explained everything.
Rooke reached across her and twisted the tarnished handle to the glove compartment. The hatch opened with a groan and Rooke blindly grappled for something. With aloud “aha,” he withdrew a square of white plastic. It was blank save for a tiny square of golden blocks in the bottom, right-hand corner.
“Usually it’s a train ride into Elysian from Au Courant, but you guys haven’t been cleared for that yet. This is better, though. Nothing beats the view from the bridge.”
As if he spoke it into existence, a massive suspension bridge came into view. Rooke drove the car around a curve and onto a straight stretch of the bridge and the city came into view. It was enough for Jin’s mouth to drop open.
The most noteworthy thing about Elysian was the size because Jin was having a hard enough time reconciling the fact that another realm could exist, let alone one this large. The city also had an ultra-modern look to it, like they’d driven into some vastly utopian version of Silicon Valley. Buildings covered with crystal-clear billboards and flashy advertisements the size of football fields stretched into the sky. The buildings shone with blue and green iridescent steel. Cars roamed the tightly structured highways and mass transit appeared to be a rail system hundreds of feet above the ground. A port jutted out into a vast bay of sparkly clear, blue water. Ships were docked along the edges and sailboats dotted the waters.
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