Riley faced Jax, looking stricken. “It’s my choice,” Jax whispered to him. “I came here knowing this was a possibility. Keep Evangeline safe. And find Addie before they do.”

  Riley squeezed his shoulder. “This isn’t over,” he promised, tugging Evangeline toward the door. But Jax knew it probably was over. Smitty’s fix was a one-shot deal. By morning, Jax could be completely brainwashed. He shuddered at the memory of what they’d made of him last night—a creepy Bad Jax who hadn’t even known he’d been manipulated.

  If my friends are safe, he reminded himself, it doesn’t matter what happens to me.

  Evangeline, however, refused to move. “Wait a minute. Jax, let me see—”

  “Sloane.” Ganner glanced over his shoulder. “Sheila Morgan has arrived.”

  Sloane looked as if she was enjoying herself. “Let her in.”

  Like her daughter, Sheila Morgan was petite with black hair. She wore a red leather jacket over leggings and boots, and although there were no weapons visible, Jax bet she carried a few concealed. But while Deidre always seemed to be on the verge of laughter, this woman’s face looked like it might crack if she smiled. Jax doubted she’d be calling him “cutie.”

  “Good evening, Sheila,” said Sloane. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m told condolences are in order,” replied the Morgan clan leader. “It’s unfortunate when someone as young as you is catapulted into a role of such responsibility.”

  Despite his grim circumstances, Jax had to smother a smile. On the surface, her words could’ve been an expression of sorrow for Ursula’s death, but taken literally, they didn’t have to be. Sloane’s expression soured. “Thank you for your concern,” she said stiffly. “But this has all so newly happened. I’m afraid you’ve found me unprepared for condolence calls.”

  Sheila Morgan pointedly eyed all the occupants of the room. “These people aren’t here to comfort you? Then I assume they’re here on business, and my visit is justified. I’ve come to inform you that Riley Pendragon is in breach of contract with my daughter, Deidre. If you were thinking about entering into your own contract with him, my clan would consider you a party to the breach, and all previous agreements between your clan and ours would be null and void.”

  Evangeline gasped as she finally figured out Riley’s former relationship with Deidre.

  Sloane crossed her arms. “I see. You didn’t dare walk in here and accuse me of holding him captive, so you’re accusing me of trying to arrange a marriage with him instead?”

  “Well, are you?” Sheila demanded.

  “Am I holding him captive or planning to marry him?”

  “Either.”

  Jax had never realized how much Riley’s lineage made him the Transitioner equivalent of The Bachelor. For his part, Riley was looking back and forth between Sheila Morgan and Sloane Dulac as if one were a man-eating shark and the other a man-eating tiger.

  “Neither one,” Sloane said finally. “Pendragon is turning over custody of my cousin, Jax. And then you’re welcome to him.”

  “But we’re not leaving without Jax.” Evangeline glared at Riley. “Are we?”

  “Sheila,” Sloane said. “I call on you as a neutral witness. They’re abducting my clansman. Any action I take is justified.”

  “He’s not your clansman,” Evangeline replied. “He would be if he was an Ambrose, but he’s not.” She took Jax’s arm, making him hold up the wrist with the tattoo, then turned to Dorian. “Would you show me your mark?”

  Dorian’s mouth fell open. He held up his left hand.

  Aunt Marian clucked in annoyance. “Yes, we know Jax’s mark isn’t right. It was an act of vandalism, if you ask me. But he’s an Ambrose.”

  “My father told me,” Evangeline said, taking Dorian’s arm, “that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, if you alter a mark, you’ll either ruin any chance of the person developing his talent—or it’ll make no difference at all. But once in a hundred times, if the artisan is extremely talented and the change has significance, a branch-off line is created.” She held Dorian’s wrist and Jax’s next to each other and turned to Sheila Morgan. “Sloane called on you as a witness, and so do I. Jax is an Aubrey. The very first Aubrey.”

  Deidre’s mother frowned, examining the two tattoos. “Who marked you?” she asked Jax.

  “A.J. Crandall,” Jax said. He saw Riley cringe.

  Sheila’s eyebrow twitched. “The Crandalls have never struck me as particularly gifted. And the only difference between these marks is the type of bird.”

  “It’s a significant change,” Evangeline insisted. “A falcon is a hunter’s bird, trained and tethered to its master. An American bald eagle is a symbol of freedom.”

  “I resent that implication,” Uncle Finn muttered, but Dorian gasped and looked at Jax—and then drooped. Because he had a falcon.

  “He’s always been stronger than he should’ve been,” Riley put in. “That’s typical for a new bloodline, isn’t it?”

  Sheila mulled it over, and Jax wondered how much her decision was going to be influenced by how angry she was with Riley. “If the boy is the beginning of a new line, his talent will be different, too. Is it?”

  “No,” Uncle Finn said. “He’s an inquisitor, just like his father.”

  “Yes, it is,” Dorian spoke up. “Jax told me he can pull information out of the air. He doesn’t need to interrogate anyone.”

  Jax had said that, but he remembered Dorian ridiculing him for it.

  “Don’t butt into things you don’t understand, Dorian,” Aunt Marian said. “Jax’s talent is the same as yours.”

  “Can you get information without interrogating someone?” Sheila asked Jax. “That would be a significant change.”

  Jax glanced around. Uncle Finn shook his head, and Sloane crossed her arms with a smirk. The Donovans slunk closer to him, sniffing, but they only looked puzzled. Billy gave him two thumbs up, but what did he know? Riley’s face was totally blank.

  Jax fixed his eyes on Evangeline, who nodded her faith in him.

  “Yes,” he said. “I can.”

  “Prove it,” Sloane replied promptly.

  Well, he’d expected that. Jax sucked in his breath and drew out the honor blade his father had made for him, balancing it in the palm of his left hand. But its hilt was engraved with the Ambrose mark, and insecurity overwhelmed him. Maybe he couldn’t do this. Maybe he’d just imagined that his talent worked this way, and he really was an Ambrose. His memory still seemed muddled, and he didn’t feel sure of anything.

  Who am I?

  Jax closed his eyes and imagined himself back at Melinda’s duplex house, filled with children’s toys, sweet-smelling candles, and old encyclopedias. The place where he’d first pulled answers out of thin air. I need information—something I can’t possibly know through other means—something Sloane doesn’t want me to know—something impressive.

  When he opened his eyes, he was standing in front of Ursula’s safe. He sheathed his dagger and fingered the dial, feeling the ridges in the knob. There was no point pressing his ear to the safe door like Thomas; he’d never hear the tumblers clicking into place. He was going to have to depend on talent alone. Jax turned the dial until the buzzing in his brain told him to stop. Twelve. Now the other way. Seventeen. Reverse it again. Nine. Again. Four.

  Jax yanked on the handle and heard Sloane gasp as the safe door swung open. Inside were papers and CDs and some floppy disks that probably held Ursula’s old secrets. But Jax was only interested in the object lying on top of the pile. Triumphantly, he pulled it out.

  Excalibur.

  “You were going to give this back to Riley, right, Sloane?” Jax asked.

  “Of course.” Sloane crossed the room and smacked the safe closed with her hand.

  “Can you interrogate a safe, Ambrose?” Sheila asked. The stunned look on Uncle Finn’s face was answer enough. She turned to Sloane. “A branch-off line has no obligation to you. He can choose his allegiance or have none at all.” Then she raised an eyebrow at Jax. “I don’t know exactly how to classify you, boy, but you’re definitely more than an inquisitor.”

  Jax’s mouth dropped open. You’re something new. That was what the Kin woman at the Carroway house had said to him.

  “Jax.” Uncle Finn wiped sweat from his face with his good arm. “I know we didn’t get off on the right foot.”

  Jax snapped out of his shock. “Ya think?”

  “But you’re my brother’s son. I want to give you a home.” Uncle Finn indicated Riley and Evangeline. “These people aren’t your family.”

  “You used me. They came for me. There’s no contest.” Jax offered Excalibur to Riley, hilt first. “Here you go, bro. It’s just a rusted piece of junk, but I know you’re attached to it.”

  “Jax, you idiot.” Riley accepted the dagger, then wrapped his arm around Jax’s neck in something that was kind of a noogie, but mostly a hug. Jax would have appreciated it more if he hadn’t glimpsed Sloane’s face.

  She didn’t look upset. She looked smug.

  “What time is it?” Jax yelled, thrashing his way free of Riley’s embrace. Riley yanked the sleeve of his jacket up and cursed. It was one minute to midnight.

  Sloane smiled at Evangeline. “Looks like you’re going to be my guest this week.”

  Even if they ran like heck for the elevator, there was no way they could get Evangeline down from the penthouse in one minute. All this time—talking and arguing, fighting for Jax—Sloane had been stalling. Her sworn oath guaranteed Jax’s friends safe passage today. Not tomorrow. And not next week if Evangeline was trapped in this building between Grunsdays.

  Had Sloane planned this when making her oath? Even with Balin’s hand around her throat? Jax turned to Evangeline, aghast. If his and Dorian’s suspicions about the brownie tunnels were right, Sloane had absolutely no reason to keep her alive.

  “I can get her out.”

  The voice startled everyone. Aunt Marian reacted first. “Dorian, stay out of this!”

  But Dorian grabbed Evangeline’s hand. “Come with me.”

  36

  DORIAN KNEW THERE WAS still a brownie hole in the Dulac penthouse, one overlooked by Aunt Ursula in her remodeling because only Maria, the maid, ever used the pantry.

  Brownies liked pantries almost as much as garbage bins.

  As he dragged the Kin girl through the Dulac penthouse to reach the hole in time, Dorian wondered how much he was going to regret this. It was one thing to sneak around behind everyone’s back. It was another thing to betray the leader of his clan in front of her very eyes.

  In front of his father’s eyes too.

  Dad saved me. He almost died doing it.

  But when his father had needed him, Dorian had frozen. He’d stood there like a rock in the garbage room while Dad writhed on the ground in agony. It was Billy who acted in time to save him—whipping off Dad’s belt and tying it on the right pressure points, cutting open the wound and draining the poison. He’d almost passed out afterward, but he’d done it.

  Dorian had done nothing.

  But he was acting now.

  He wasn’t even sure the Emrys girl could enter the brownie hole. He only knew she and Jax had appeared from the lab between the stampede of brownies and the wyvern. Jax must have brought her in through the tunnel. Dorian also recalled his father complaining about the empty vials of Emrys blood—the ones he’d hoped would cure Lesley. Dr. Morder had claimed Addie’s blood had disappeared during the seven-day timeline, but if Morder was a traitor like Jax said, maybe he’d lied to Dad. How else would he smuggle Addie out of the building except by sending her blood through the tunnels?

  In spite of what he’d reasoned out, it was only after Dorian plunged through the brownie hole in the pantry wall, and Evangeline slipped in behind him, that he was sure.

  Phew!

  Then he looked up at her. She was a little taller than Dorian and probably pretty—to someone who liked Kin, which Dorian didn’t. Mom and Dad had taught him that the Kin were practically a different species, and although he now questioned everything they’d ever told him, Dorian still thought Evangeline was way too pale for a normal girl.

  “You’re safe,” he said, letting go of her hand. “We’re outside of time.”

  She stared at the shelves and cabinets of the penthouse pantry. “What do we do now? Can you move us backward half an hour and get me to the elevator?”

  “We’ll have to leave the penthouse too. If there’s any chance we might run into ourselves, the brownie magic won’t allow us to shift into the past. I do have a way to get you out, but you’ll have to trust me.”

  “I do.” She said it as if it should be obvious.

  Dorian frowned. She shouldn’t trust him. “Even though I’m a falcon?”

  She pushed her long silvery hair behind one ear. “You don’t have to be a falcon. You have a choice, no matter what’s on your mark. I trust you because I’m here right now, instead of facing Sloane Dulac a week from now, not knowing what happened to my friends.”

  Dorian squatted down and showed her the puckered hole in the floor. “This is the way out. It either takes us to a tunnel on another floor—or all the way down. We won’t know for sure until we try, but as long as we’re moving away from this spot, I can shift us in time and get you to a safe place before you disappear.”

  “What if we fall twenty stories?”

  “It’ll be more of a slide.” Dorian had never dropped from this height, but he didn’t see any other way to get her off this floor.

  Unexpectedly, she gave him a shy smile. “Will it be like a roller coaster?”

  “No.” He stared at her. “Not really.”

  She sat down beside him. “That’s okay. I won’t know the difference.”

  He took her hand again, and they slid into the hole. He expected her to scream when they dropped.

  Instead she laughed. All the way down.

  Dorian had no idea what time it was when they finally pushed out of the tunnel and into Central Park. It had taken three total drops and a couple of sideways tunnels to find a way to street level. He didn’t dare attempt a “hyperspeed” jump with her in tow, because when he’d tried it earlier, he’d ended up stuck in Pendragon’s cell. Taking a longer route didn’t matter as long as Dorian willed the tunnel to give Evangeline Emrys the time she needed.

  Cars were frozen in the street when they followed the park path back to the sidewalk, the street lamps blurred and dim. “Still Grunsday,” Evangeline said sadly, as if she’d been hoping he could take her to Thursday.

  “Hey! Who’s that?” One of their security men started running toward them.

  “It’s Dorian Ambrose!” he shouted back. “On orders from Sloane. This girl has safe passage on her oath!”

  The guy stopped and reached for his radio to consult his superiors. Dorian knew Sloane had given that order earlier and he hoped she hadn’t countermanded it. If it was still late on the night of the eighth day—and it must be—then Dorian hadn’t betrayed Sloane yet.

  He looked up at the building, trying to pinpoint the penthouse windows. I’m probably still up there, watching Jax open the safe. In all the times Dorian had used the tunnels to shift himself in time, he knew that—theoretically—there were two of him living through the same moment. Wouldn’t it be cool to see myself? But as he’d told both Jax and Evangeline, the brownie magic didn’t seem to allow that.

  A block down the street, a dark SUV jumped the curb and drove toward them on the sidewalk. The security guy reached for his gun, and Dorian surprised himself by jumping in front of Evangeline. But she said, “No, it’s all right. This is my ride.”

  The vehicle stopped, and the woman who’d been at Rockefeller Center with the twins threw open one of the back doors. “Get in, quick!” The girl climbed into the car.

  The security guy grabbed Dorian’s arm. “You’re sure Sloane okayed this? I can’t reach anyone. Half our radios are out of commission.”

  “Yup,” said Dorian. “Sloane said she could go.”

  “Dorian, come here!” Evangeline beckoned him over to the car. “I owe you,” she said.

  “You don’t.” He hadn’t done it to put her in his debt.

  “Then let’s say I want to do you a favor.” She smiled at him, and Dorian decided that maybe she was pretty after all. “Everyone needs a favor sometime, right?”

  Dorian considered Lesley. The lab was destroyed, Dr. Morder was dead, and there was no more Emrys blood to experiment with. That would hold up any further efforts to “fix” his sister, but if Dad persisted . . . “I might,” he admitted.

  “You have only to ask. This is my promise.” Then she kissed him on the cheek and vanished into thin air, leaving him blushing with his head stuck inside the car.

  Surrounded by three large and angry-looking Pendragon vassals.

  “Where are Riley and Jax?” growled the man who’d yelled at Dad on the video call.

  “Coming,” Dorian said, and hoped it was true.

  It was an uncomfortable wait, with the three people in the car and the one security guy on the sidewalk glaring suspiciously at each other. Dorian assured everybody that everything was just fine, even though he had no idea. The late-night traffic of Normals drove around them, ignoring the SUV parked on the sidewalk.

  Finally, a group of people spilled out the front door of the apartment building. Dorian figured they must have headed for the elevator right after he disappeared into the brownie hole with Evangeline. Pendragon was in the lead exiting the building, breaking into a run with Jax right behind him. The youngest of the vassals got out of the car to meet them.

  “A.J., do you have her?” Pendragon shouted.

  “Yes! We got her!”

  Pendragon slowed and called back over his shoulder. “Thanks for the hospitality, Dulac!” Dorian saw Sloane making long-legged strides down the sidewalk, trying to catch up to Pendragon without the indignity of running. “From the tranquilizer darts to the dungeon guest room and the wyvern—it’s been a real pleasure.”

  “This is not over,” Sloane snapped. “My people will go after the Llyrs, and anyone who gets in the way trying to rescue a little Kin girl is liable to end up dead.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24