I will protect my friends, Karam thought. No matter what.
“Okay,” Karam said. “We keep this between us and Arjun.”
She clutched the pendant, tied tightly around her neck
This was the way for her to redeem herself for the mission gone wrong. She would respect Tavia’s wishes and do whatever it took to make sure that vision never came true.
Karam would not give their enemies any more chances.
If it came down to Tavia or Zekia, then she knew what she’d have to do.
And she wouldn’t hesitate.
28
TAVIA
Tavia twirled her knife and thought about death.
She’d lived each day knowing every one might be her last. That was the price that came with being a busker: pockets full of magic and uncertain futures. She thought she’d be prepared to die when the day came, but that was when it was a maybe or a what-if and not when it was a vision her friend had seen, clear as day.
Now that Tavia knew she was going to die, she wasn’t ready.
She didn’t want to go.
She didn’t want to leave Wesley when it seemed like they were finally on the cusp of being something.
“We have one day left until Schulze gets here. She is taking time out from defending Yejlath from being the next city to fall,” Wesley said. “And I haven’t heard a good idea yet.”
Tavia licked her dry lips and tried to push the thought of dying from her mind. They had a war to win and if she was going down, then she’d make sure everyone she cared about was safe first.
“Who knew it wouldn’t be easy coming up with a plan to defeat an army of mind-controlled killers?” she asked.
Wesley gave her the side-eye and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “In case you didn’t notice, we have an army too. And it’s not like we’ve ever actually been in a fair fight before.”
Tavia shrugged in response, because she knew Wesley had a point but she never wanted to admit it when it happened.
If Arjun were here, he would have called Wesley out on never playing fair, but what Arjun needed now wasn’t more strategy and planning. It was time to mourn before he was forced to face more death.
“Weird how all that’s standing between Dante Ashwood and success are us misfits,” Tavia said. “We’re in for a ride.”
She hadn’t meant it to be comforting, but oddly, after she said it she felt a little more ease creep into her heart. After so long with so many people intercepting their makeshift crew, coming and going and living and dying, it felt almost nostalgic to have just the four of them in a room again. Plotting like old times, readying to finish the battle they had started together.
It took Tavia back to the train journey, when they had first fled Creije and headed for Karam’s homeland of Granka. Just her, Wesley, Saxony, and Karam, interrupted rarely by odd buskers who’d count the hours for them, or look at Wesley like they wanted desperately for him to give them an order. Tell them how to piss properly or chew with their mouths closed. Just waiting for any kind of direction from a fearless leader they had learned to rely on. But despite those interruptions, it had still just been the four of them.
They had begun this journey together and now they would end it that way.
As a crew, except that they rarely agreed on anything.
As a team, except that they rarely trusted each other.
As a family, except that sometimes they hated each other.
Actually, Tavia supposed that made the family part even more accurate.
“Ashwood is in Yejlath because conquering the Halls of Government is a surefire way to cement his hold on the realm,” Saxony said. “So Schulze will want to make that a priority before anything else.”
“Ashwood will expect us to come at him in Yejlath,” Wesley said.
Saxony turned to him. “You don’t know that,” she said. “You just want to be right all the time.”
Wesley smirked. “Does that mean you’re admitting that you’re wrong all the time?”
Saxony threw her hands in the air and Tavia was half-surprised when fire didn’t erupt from them and head straight for Wesley’s face. She was showing a new restraint now that she knew Wesley was her blood. Saxony cared about him—she couldn’t help it—and Tavia understood that. Wesley had a way of making you feel for him, against all odds, in the face of all the bad he might have done. There was just something magnetic about him that made you want to keep him by your side.
Tavia had been longing for some alone time with him ever since he’d gotten back, so they could talk about the moment in the tree house when he had wiped the rain from her lips and looked at her like she was the only person he saw.
But war had a funny habit of getting in the way.
“Whatever we do, we need to have a way to take down the Loj-crazed army,” Tavia said.
“Zekia is still our best bet,” Wesley said.
Zekia. Wesley wouldn’t have had such blind faith in her if he knew what Tavia knew, or if he had seen the future Karam had seen.
Still Tavia nodded. “If she comes to our side, do you think she can cure everyone of the Loj and put an end to this?”
“I hate to break it to you,” Saxony said. “But she can’t just whip up a cure in the heat of battle and disperse it to the thousands Ashwood has enthralled.”
“And what if she does not join us?” Karam asked. “What if your sister cannot be saved?”
She emphasized your sister, as though she still couldn’t quite believe Wesley was related to Saxony and Zekia. Tavia couldn’t either, but the reminder that they were related made her think.
It almost gave her an idea.
“She’s your sister,” Tavia said, mirroring Karam’s emphasis.
They all looked to Tavia and she felt her heart begin to race as the idea sprang up in her mind, so obvious, she couldn’t believe none of them had considered it yet.
“Yes,” Wesley said, shuffling a little uncomfortably. “I appreciate the update.”
“She’s your family.”
“Yes,” he said again. “You can stop now.”
“You’re her Kin.”
“Are you on something?” Saxony asked her. “Did you break into a secret stash of Cloverye and not spread the love around?”
“You’re her blood,” Tavia said. “Both of you.”
“I think you’re right,” Wesley said to Saxony. “She’s definitely been at my stash.”
“Shut up,” Tavia said. “I’m onto something.”
She paced the length of the room, her hand fiddling with a blade to keep her thoughts steady.
“You both have immunity from the Loj elixir because Zekia does.” Tavia tapped the knife on her palm. “A Crafter can’t be enthralled by their own magic. That’s why Saxony was able to fight against it when she attacked me back in Creije.”
“And then recover so quickly,” Karam said.
“Exactly!” Tavia pointed the knife at her. “And why they couldn’t use it to turn Wesley when they kept him captive. So if the immunity is in their blood, then couldn’t the cure be in it too?”
“You think that we could create an antidote without Zekia,” Wesley said. “With our own blood.” He turned to Saxony. “Would that work?”
Saxony blew out a breath and leaned against the wall with a frown. “I’m not sure,” she said. “It would mean creating an elixir of our own, infused with our blood. Nobody has ever tried something like that before.”
“But theoretically, it’s possible,” Tavia said. “You could do it?”
Saxony shrugged. “Theoretically, we could do anything. We’re Crafters. Miracles are kind of our thing.”
“So we make our army immune by using your blood,” Tavia said. “Stop Ashwood and Zekia from trying to turn our own people against us during the fight. And then when the battle is over, if Zekia still isn’t on our side, we can use it to cure the others that aren’t with Ashwood willingly.”
“She’ll be on our side,” Wesl
ey said, a little more sternly than Tavia had expected.
Tavia bit down on her lip, harder than needed. Wesley frowned.
“She tried to kill Saxony once before,” Tavia said. “None of us are different.”
She turned away from Wesley, before he could see the look on her face, but Karam was watching her too. Tavia cleared her throat and tried to focus anywhere but on Karam’s hardened stare.
Zekia will try to kill me whether I make eye contact with Karam or not, Tavia thought.
Many Gods, she wanted more than anything to tell Wesley. Now more than ever she needed to hear him say that things would be okay, but revealing that possible future would mean him turning his back on his new family for her. Tavia knew what it meant to lose family, and she wouldn’t be the reason that Wesley threw his away.
“So now we have an idea for a cure, we just need a way into Yejlath,” Tavia said.
“That’s the easy part,” Wesley said. “Yejlath is a central city, so it’s bordered on all sides.”
“Meaning we could access it on foot through Tisvgen,” Tavia said, with a slow nod. “Or—”
“Creije,” Wesley said. “We go at it from Creije.”
He had a look of determination in his eye that Tavia knew was never a good thing.
“I don’t think that’s the best idea,” Saxony said. “Creije has been entirely conquered by Ashwood. It’ll be heavily guarded. He won’t want to lose that stronghold.”
Wesley did not budge. “That’s why we need to take it back. We can split our forces, so half go to Yejlath and the other half stay on in Creije to take the city back.”
“But Creije will be full of Ashwood’s soldiers.”
Wesley looked overly irritated by Saxony’s interruption. “Creije is our home,” he said. “So we have an advantage that Ashwood and his army will never have. I know every street in that city like the back of my hand. Every turn and nook and where every shadow falls. I could navigate my way through Creije blindfolded, with a million enemy soldiers, and still never be caught.”
Tavia didn’t doubt it and she knew in her heart of hearts that she could do the same. Creije was home to them all, in some way. Tavia’s family may not have come from there, but she was made in that city. She was shaped and she knew it just as well as it knew her.
“Okay,” Saxony said. “There’s still just one problem.”
“Of course you have a problem,” Wesley said.
Saxony turned to him, hands on her hips like a scolding parent. “You can get through Creije blindfolded. And, Many Gods, maybe the three of us could too. We could run through the shadows unseen. We could become shadows. But that’s four people, not an army.”
The three of them looked at each other in silence, their frowns a mirror, and the exasperation in the air like a wave of darkness dimming any light they saw in their plan.
Thankfully, Tavia wasn’t so easily swayed.
“Time,” she said. “We could use time to sneak everyone into the city.”
“Like bang, one moment we’re here and the next we’re in the future, on Ashwood’s doorstep?” Wesley asked.
Saxony shook her head. “Time doesn’t work that way. You can’t just skip over it like it’s not there.”
“But you can pause it.” Tavia’s smile was low. “Like we did with Wesley’s explosive barrels back on Ashwood’s hidden island.”
Saxony’s head whipped to face her and a wide grin spread across her lips.
Her grin mirrored Wesley’s so alarmingly that Tavia almost blinked. Many Gods, the similarities between them were so blinding that she felt a little ashamed not to have noticed before. How the lines of their faces curved in the same way and their eyes narrowed in equally frightening measure and when they were both at their most dastardly, their smiles set fire to the skies.
“We can pause everyone but us,” Saxony said. “Make our army immune just like we did before.”
“Do you think Schulze will go for it?” Tavia asked. “It’ll mean using Crafter magic, and we all know how much the Doyen hates that.”
“She’ll go for anything that keeps her in power,” Wesley said.
Good priorities, Tavia thought.
She’d be happy when it was over so she could keep clear of any future political battles and the arrogant little bastards who wanted to argue over who got to rule the world.
“Then the four of us can easily sneak into Creije and head for the bridge that divides the city,” Tavia said. “Detonate the time barrels from there, giving half our army the chance to cross into Yejlath unseen and the other half the upper hand when they attack Ashwood’s forces in Creije.”
“But we’d need something lighter than barrels,” Wesley said. “It’d take at least a dozen to cover the length of the city, and that’s too much for the four of us to carry.”
“The Star Egg!” Tavia said.
She knew that bastard Nolan would come in handy somehow.
“It’s a dispersion device. All we need to do is load a bunch of them up with the time magic, then set them off and watch them rain down on the entire city.”
“Freezing Creije and giving our army the chance to walk through as the rest of the city is at a standstill,” Wesley said.
Many Gods, Tavia enjoyed plotting alongside him like this.
She enjoyed a good fight every now and again—and this fight would definitely be good when she got to knock Dante Ashwood off of his pedestal—but talking tricks and planning alongside Wesley was always half the fun.
“Do you think the eggs can cover the whole city?” Karam asked.
Saxony nodded. “I can amp their range with a simple booster spell.”
Tavia twirled her knife in her hand like it was a prize. “Well then,” she said, the blade glinting with her eyes. “It looks like we finally have a plan to present to the Doyen.”
This battle had begun in Creije, on the streets that had forged them all in fire and moonlight. One way or another, they were going to end this war, and they would do it there.
Where it all started.
Home.
29
WESLEY
The estate sat on a small hill at the edge of the ivy towns, with the Onnela Sea crashing against the rocks below. Wesley looked down at the water and thought back to that window in Tisvgen.
Before he’d jumped from it, the sea had beckoned him in, and when Wesley hit the water, it didn’t hurt like he had expected. It didn’t scrape his skin or cut into his heart. He’d melded into it, the waves rolling over him like warm hands, welcoming him in. In those moments he stayed under the surface, he felt like everything might just work out.
It had all been so clear. He’d had such clarity, as he got pulled farther down and felt the water in his lungs. Wesley knew that as soon as he broke the surface he would feel new again, and once he found Tavia the realms would steady themselves and he would go back to being Wesley Thornton Walcott.
Nobody’s puppet and nobody’s fool.
So why was everyone looking at him like he was crazy?
“That is the suit you are choosing to wear to meet a Doyen?” Arjun asked.
He sat at the rounded table with the others, only two seats empty: one for Wesley and one for Schulze. Arjun would be leading the ground forces that accompanied the Doyen to Yejlath, so he needed to be present for the meeting, but he didn’t need to be criticizing Wesley’s fashion sense.
“This is a nice suit,” Wesley said, at which point Arjun snorted a laugh loud enough to sound like a sneeze.
Wesley wasn’t quite sure what the problem was and why everyone seemed to have such an aversion to bow ties and purple velvet. He thought it was rather fitting, since purple meant royalty and meeting a Doyen was as close as anyone in the new world could get. Besides, it made far more of an impression than the large four-bladed sword that Arjun had strapped around his shoulder.
“The day I take fashion advice from you is the day I really do go insane,” Wesley said.
&n
bsp; “You are already insane, underboss.”
“Says the man carrying his sword to a diplomatic meeting.”
Arjun adjusted the strap that kept the blade close to his back. “It was a gift,” he said.
And the unspoken words that hung on the end of that sentence were so clearly from Asees. Wesley could tell by the way Arjun hadn’t let the sword out of his sight since he’d returned. The warrior had always been a bit too attached to the weapon, but even Wesley had noticed the extra care he took when sharpening or polishing the blade. How he wore it day and night, no matter the occasion.
This was grief, a kind Wesley had never experienced. A kind he hoped he’d never have to.
“Just try not to decapitate Schulze before she signs over her army to us,” he said. “I think it would make a bad impression.”
“You really think she’ll go for an alliance?” Tavia asked, slouching back in her chair to kick her feet up on the table. “Your oh-so-charming bow tie aside, she’s still meeting with a bunch of buskers and Crafters. Considering all of her anti–black magic campaigning, I’d think the last thing she’d want to do was team up with people like us.”
Wesley adjusted his bow tie. Played with the newly polished cuff links on his sleeves. He hadn’t felt so anxious in a while, or so desperate to hide any doubts in his eyes.
“You’d be surprised what people agree to when their life is on the line,” he said.
“Like meeting an underboss and a busker who she would’ve thrown in jail just a few months ago,” Saxony said, with a pointed glance at Tavia.
“Or a group of Crafters, when Ashwood’s army is littered with them,” Tavia shot back.
Wesley wasn’t in the mood for more of their sniping and he definitely wasn’t in the mood to ask either of them about their problems. But Doyen Fenna Schulze had to see them as a united front, because trusting an underboss and his new Crafter friends was one thing, but trusting a fractured army who couldn’t even seem to trust each other was even riskier. It was something only somebody very stupid would do.
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