15

Aaron shook me awake. I must’ve been more tired than I thought because I’d drifted into a sleep deep enough to dream—a dream that kept repeating scenes of Emma running away, me falling forty-six stories, and the sunken corpse of Daya sneering at me with bloody lips. A glance at the clock told me that I’d only been out for twenty minutes.

The apartment was so quiet I could hear the muted sounds of Underground from beyond the brick walls. As I roused myself, Aaron went into the kitchen and began cleaning up, packing up the overflowing trash and taking care of business as silently as possible.

I stayed in the loveseat for a moment, letting the fog of my dreams clear. We needed answers. Needed to find Llyran and stop him from doing whatever the hell he was planning. But how the hell did you find a guy who could pop in and out of thin air? I grabbed my phone and texted Hank.

Where are you?

Home. Why?

I’m coming over.

I pushed off the couch and went into the bathroom. The light brought tears to my eyes, a big contrast from the darkness of the apartment. After they adjusted, I washed my hands and then pulled my hair into a ponytail, using a borrowed band and tucking one side of my bangs behind my ear. I straightened my T-shirt, a black stretchy V-neck, and adjusted the charm necklace Bryn had made for me, the small disk nestling in the center of my cleavage.

Once I returned to the living room, I secured my shoulder holster and grabbed my jacket. “I’ll be back,” I told Aaron as he stood at the sink, washing utensils. He nodded and then returned to his task. “Call me if you need to.”

It was a short ten-minute walk from Mercy Street to Helios Alley. I was tempted to stop at the bakery, but kept going instead. Helios Alley was lively, in the midst of the dinner rush, but it didn’t have any effect on me; inside I felt quiet and very much alone. After I passed the butcher shop I slowed my pace as I came to Off-world Exotic Pets and next to it, Skin Scripts, a tattoo, branding, piercing, and ceremonial marking parlor.

In the window of the pet shop, a gargoyle pup slept in a cage next to a moon snake, and I shivered despite the distance and safety—the one at Ebelwyn’s apartment had totally freaked me out.

Skin Scripts also had a glass front where passersby could watch a patron get inked or branded, but most would agree the ceremonial markings were the best ones to watch. Done with the freshly cut twig of a Throne Tree shaved to a needle-fine point, the inside of which dripped an indigo-colored substance, the mark was scratched into the skin to form intricate symbols relating to vows, religion, or anything that was binding. And once the marks were made, there was no turning back—you were forever bound. Go back on your chosen vow and the Throne Tree ink embedded in your skin turned to poison.

Today, however, the patron inside, a young human male—a college student if I had to guess—was getting pierced in the navel by a darkling fae artist.

133 Helios Alley was accessed by a tall, black door sandwiched between the pet shop and Skin Scripts, the apartment above running the length of both businesses. I pressed the buzzer. “It’s open,” Hank’s deep voice crackled through the small speaker.

With a fortifying deep breath, I opened the door and jogged up the hardwood stairs. At the landing, I paused briefly, about to knock and ready myself, but the door swung open.

Hank stood in the doorway in an untucked white dress shirt, rolled to the elbows and open at the neck, with a tumbler glass filled with amber liquid and ice in his hand. He wore jeans, with a hole just above the right knee and the ends frayed to white threads at his feet, which were bare. He stood aside, inviting me into a professionally decorated apartment that struck me as being more a showplace than an actual lived-in home.

“You cleaned,” I said. Last time I’d been here, it looked like a cyclone had hit.

“Zara had it cleaned.”

He closed the door behind me. “Just grabbing some dinner. Figured we were going out again after you took care of Bryn.”

I followed him across hardwood floors and into the kitchen with its cherry cabinets, stainless steel everywhere, and a smooth cream and black marbled countertop. He stood behind the counter where an entire array of lunch meats, condiments, and toppings had been dumped. After a long drink, he set the glass down. “You want a sandwich?”

My stomach growled. Obviously the Doritos hadn’t cut it. “Sure.” I removed my jacket and my weapons harness, setting them on the stool next to me. “Just fix me whatever you’re making. What are you drinking?”

“Yrrebé.”

I made a face. The Elysian drink made from the Yrrebé root was not a favorite of mine. Way too bitter for my tastes. “That stuff is nasty.” And strong. “How many have you had?”

“Three. You want a beer or something?”

“I wish.” Unfortunately, I didn’t have the liver function of a siren. Alcohol went through their system so quickly that Hank could drink three Yrrebé on the rocks, experience a buzz, and be fine within the hour without any ill effects. “Why do you even bother?”

He shrugged. “Because it tastes good, and it helps me relax. Here, have a soda, then.” He pulled a Mountain Dew from the fridge and handed it to me. “How’s Bryn doing?”

Hank had to possess the same kind of crazy metabolism I did because he was in the process of making the biggest sandwich I’d ever seen in my life. It didn’t seem like he had any rhyme or reason to what he was doing either. Just picking pieces of lunch meats, piling them onto giant kaiser rolls, and building higher and higher …

“She’s sleeping. Aaron is with her. I’ve been going over everything in my head and can’t make the connection between the star and Solomon’s artifacts …” I spent the next five minutes filling him in on what Aaron had told me about Ahkneri, and then the next ten trying to eat Hank’s colossal sandwich creation.

“I think our next step should be visiting that jinn storyteller,” he said, polishing off the last bite, then taking a healthy drink from his glass. “Winter solstice is approaching, and I’ll bet Llyran is laying low until then.”

“I agree.” I finished the Mountain Dew and then dumped my paper plate into the trash can.

“You have a Throne Tree?” I asked, surprised to see the large potted tree in the corner of the dining room. It was obviously pruned and trained to that size because in Charbydon they grew to be over fifty feet high with heavy corkscrew limbs and smooth bark in shades of dark grayish blues.

He flicked a glance at the tree with its thin, leafless branches, the ends of which were pointed and often razor sharp, and nodded. “It was a gift …” He dumped his plate into the trash and then began cleaning up the chaos on the counter.

I glanced around, realizing how very little I came here—unlike Hank who was at my house every week, stealing something from the fridge or just stopping by to say hi to Emma—and how very little personal information I knew about my partner.

“A gift from whom exactly?” I slid back onto my bar stool as he turned his dark, enigmatic gaze my way. When he didn’t answer right away, I continued. “Why did Llyran call you Malakim on the terrace? And why did you leave Elysia to come here? And how do you and Pen know each other?”

He took the three steps to the counter where I sat and placed both hands on the smooth, cold surface. My blood pressure rose. If there was one being with the ability to unnerve me, it was this one. I could handle egos, ranting, fighting … but this quiet allure made it difficult to read him, to anticipate his thoughts and actions, and to control my own.

“Full of questions, eh? What’s this really about, Charlie?” His voice had dropped an octave, low and confident and easy. And buzzed on Yrrebé.