No promises, p.19
No Promises, page 19
I fixed each of them with my gaze, one by one. “I haven’t forgotten about you. You stay with us. If anyone decides to attempt a noble rescue of Phoebe here, it’s your job to make sure they don’t succeed. Unless you want to die with her.”
The one who had reached for the doorknob dropped his hand to his side.
I nodded in approval. “Good. You can start by leaving your weapons on the floor.”
One of them laid his gun carefully down. The other followed suit. From that alone, I knew they were hadn’t been adequately trained for this job. Either of them could have incapacitated me with their weapon—if they were fast enough. A gunshot wouldn’t kill me, but it would put me out of commission long enough for them to slap a set of iron cuffs on me and drag me off to wherever they were keeping the others. But either these two didn’t know that, or they didn’t have enough faith in their ability to get in a good shot before I turned my magic on them. Either way, the fault lay with the people who had trained them and stuffed them into those uniforms, not with them. Whoever it had been, I owed them a thank-you note.
But I could fulfill my etiquette obligations later. For now, my hand was growing hotter by the second, hot enough to melt the buttons of Phoebe’s shirt against her skin. She was biting her lip as hard as she could, trying not to cry out. I didn’t think that would last for much longer. And once my magic broke free of the glass cage I had it in, her life would be measured in seconds—and we would lose our hostage. And with her, as Vicantha would say, our leverage.
I marched her to the door. She tripped over her own feet in her efforts to hurry in the direction I was steering her. I jerked my chin over my shoulder at Vicantha and Skye, and they followed.
The two security guards led the way. I watched them carefully, waiting for them to try to make a run for it or press some hidden panic button. But all they did was march stiffly forward, casting anxious glances behind them at me every couple of steps.
At the door to the stairwell, Vicantha stopped. I held the door open for her with my foot, one eye on the security guards—who were only a few steps away from leaving my field of vision—and the other on Phoebe. The smell of burning flesh had joined the smoky odor of singed fabric. Even if Skye’s presence was enough to hold my magic at bay until we made it out the door, there was only so much of this Phoebe could survive.
But Vicantha didn’t move. She looked over her shoulder, down the hallway. Down toward where that scream had come from. “The prisoners. They have to be close. We might not get a chance like this again.”
I shook my head. “We don’t have time,” I said tightly. “I can’t keep the magic under control much longer.” Even that brief break in concentration was enough to let a spark leap out from my index finger onto Phoebe’s shoulder. She let out a strangled yelp.
“Then don’t control it,” Vicantha snapped. “Burn the place to the ground. I don’t care. We’re getting them out.”
I answered her one terse word at a time, keeping my eyes locked on Skye. Reminding my magic of the reason it couldn’t burst free. “Can’t do that either. Too much iron on this level. It would keep the magic—” I broke off as my thumb went white-hot for a second, enough to sear Phoebe’s flesh with an audible sizzle. “Would keep it contained. Too limited. Don’t move!”
That last part was directed at the security guards, who had been about to turn a corner and slip out of sight. They stopped. Their guilty glances in my direction were enough to tell me I had narrowly avoided letting them raise the alarm, and costing us our only chance to get out of here.
With them frozen in place, and Phoebe’s trembling turning into shocky shivers, I turned back to Vicantha. “We’d have to get to the prisoners, keep their guards from attacking or closing us into an iron room, and get out before my magic ran dry. Too many variables. And by then, we wouldn’t have a hostage.”
Phoebe let out a whimper at that, too badly hurt to hide her emotions any longer. She knew what I meant.
But Vicantha didn’t move. She kept staring down the hallway.
“We can’t do it.” I was going to have to stop talking and start moving again, or we would lose our hostage long before we made it out of the building. “Let’s go.”
Vicantha turned back to me, accusation in her eyes. “You don’t know that. We have a chance to try, and you aren’t willing to take it. If it were the human trapped down here…” She turned those accusing eyes on Skye.
“It is her. She’s in as much danger as your people are right now. And I am *not* losing my chance to get her out.” I didn’t have the capacity to play games with Vicantha right now, to find the diplomatic response, to pretend I hadn’t come down here fully prepared to choose between Skye and the Winter Court agents. Not with my hand turning into a branding iron against Phoebe’s chest, and well on its way to becoming a blazing torch. “Stay here, or follow me. Your choice.”
I turned my back on Vicantha and jogged up the stairs, half-lifting Phoebe when her legs wouldn’t keep up. The security guards hurried ahead of me, like I was the proverbial devil on their heels. On the way down, it had felt like we were walking forever. Now the floors blurred past in flashes of smoke and heat. My eyes stung as the ashy remnants of burnt fabric—and the skin beneath the fabric—blew into my eyes. Phoebe’s breath came raggedly. She wasn’t whimpering anymore. I didn’t know whether that was a good sign or a bad one.
I risked taking my spare hand, the one not filled with burning power, off Phoebe long enough to grab Skye by the arm and pull her ahead of me. She jerked away, eyes filled with fear. “Stay there,” I ordered her, my voice so rough I barely recognized it as my own. “Ahead of me.” I needed her in my line of sight, if I was going to make it out the door without my magic escaping my precarious control.
She gave me another confused look, like when I had tossed her the watch, but she didn’t argue. As we raced forward, faster with every step, she kept pace to stay ahead of me.
I would have kept my hand on her arm, if I hadn’t known she would only pull away again. As it was, I kept my eyes fixed on her, afraid even to blink. The magic couldn’t do what it wanted. Not this time. If it did, Skye would die. Again and again, I pictured her torn to pieces like the team in my apartment. That was the only thing that kept my magic from bursting loose and doing its best to shake this place off its foundations.
And still, it wasn’t enough. As we grew closer to ground level, spears of flame shot out from my body. One hit the carpet just in front of my feet, leaving a blackened circle behind. The next struck the fake wood paneling, and added the smell of melted plastic to the cacophony of odors.
Footsteps at my back told me Vicantha had made her choice. I didn’t know why I felt relieved at that, when rescuing Skye and leaving her behind would have freed me from her and Arkanica both. Luckily, I didn’t have room to think about it, not unless I wanted to risk losing my single-pointed concentration on Skye long enough for my magic to burst free.
The guards pushed open a door. It opened onto the sunny hallway we had seen when we had first gotten here. I glanced out the nearest window, just to be sure. The scene looked right this time, aside from the sunlight that was too bright and too warm. We weren’t staring down from an impossible height anymore; we were looking out on the side road that wound lazily past the building. A car chugged along at a leisurely pace, and stopped to let a pedestrian cross.
As the stairwell door fell heavily closed behind Vicantha, my magic abruptly contracted, curling into a small, tight ball inside my core. The hand I was holding against Phoebe’s chest went cold. She let out a faint, ragged breath of relief.
I didn’t do the same, even though all of a sudden I no longer had to strain to keep the magic from breaking loose. Because I could feel what was happening—and what was about to happen. My power hadn’t given up. It was getting ready. Inside me, that tight ball was growing denser and denser, an impossible amount of force crammed into that tiny point. It was a bomb, and in another minute—two, if we were lucky—it would explode. And I was fairly certain the explosion part would be literal.
I wasn’t sure whether the security guards were still clearing the way for me, or just running for their lives. It didn’t matter. We burst through the door into the lobby. The man at the desk sleepily glanced up from his phone—then did a comic double-take as he took in the sight of us. His hand crept under the desk.
“No,” Phoebe snapped before he could hit whatever alarm he had been going for. “Let them through.”
He opened his mouth to protest. Something in her face—or in mine—made him close it again. He rested his hands on the desk palm-up, fingers splayed out, as if to show me he didn’t have anything to threaten me with.
I raced for the door, still holding Phoebe. Skye had fallen behind—which meant I couldn’t see her anymore. As I pushed open the door, I saw traffic racing by, but I couldn’t hear it. All I could hear was the roaring in my ears.
Ahead of us, people strolled down the sidewalk—a dog walker tugged along by four dogs, an elderly couple smiling and holding hands. My magic was hot in my chest, a star about to go supernova. If it escaped, everyone on the street would die. Skye included.
I spun and grabbed her. This time, I didn’t let her pull away. She still had the watch clutched between her fingers. I snatched it from her, hard enough to draw a yell of protest from her lips, and slipped it around my wrist. I fastened the clasp.
Phoebe took advantage of my distraction to wrench away from me and run back toward the building. I barely noticed. All I cared about was that bright hot star within me. I felt it fading. Dying. The pressure in my chest eased. The roaring went quiet. Spots danced in front of my eyes as the familiar ache settled into my wrist.
It was Vicantha who looked over her shoulder at the Arkanica building, just as Phoebe disappeared through the door. She was the one who understood, before I did, what it meant for us to no longer have a hostage. “Run!” she yelled.
The air in front of us shimmered as she formed an illusion around us. I didn’t waste time asking her what disguise she was using, or how long it would last. I took Skye’s hand and dragged her forward, and we ran.
Chapter 17
Someone had gone to a lot of expense converting the old mansion by the river into a bed and breakfast. Everything from the paintings on the walls to the feel of the sheets between my fingers whispered of money. I knew the difference between things that were expensive and things that were meant to look expensive; this place was the former. It had a Victorian theme, and although I didn’t know whether the heavy four-poster bed or the lacy curtains obscuring the windows were authentic, someone had invested a lot of effort and considerable funds to make them appear that way.
I had barely gotten more than a glimpse of the owner of the place, a somber-faced woman who had said as few words as possible between greeting us and handing us our key. But I already knew one thing about her, or could at least make an educated guess. And that was that the amount of money she had poured into her passion project was the greatest regret of her life.
Up until a few years ago, this place had been a genuine tourist attraction, at least according to the online reviews. It had even drawn in people from across the Canadian border. In those days, it had probably brought in enough money to justify the expense of putting the place together. I couldn’t find any indication of what had prompted its popularity—just another one of Hawthorne’s rapid swings of luck.
I also found nothing about what had made it sink into obscurity as quickly as it had risen. We were the only guests here—and from the look of the place, the only ones who had come here for quite some time. We had spent less on the room than we would have for another night in the hotel. Insects had eaten holes in the sumptuous sheets; the gold leaf was flaking off the dresser. The room smelled like dust and mothballs. If I sat still, I could hear the chittering of rodents in the walls. Every so often, something in the ceiling creaked, like the whole place was minutes away from coming down around our ears.
We had rented the room under fake names—not one of my established identities, this time. The woman hadn’t much seemed to care what name we used, or whether I had an ID to back it up, at least not once I handed over the stack of cash I had pulled from the ATM. A second, taller stack was payment in advance for her to turn away anyone who showed up asking about us. It disappeared into her rusted cashbox as quickly as the first.
Vicantha was still outside, setting up a complex web of illusions, the details of which I hadn’t bothered to ask about. I had never had formal magic training—Tristra had tried, briefly, and all it had gained us was a house fire and a better understanding of the inherent limits of human genetics—so I wouldn’t have understood her explanation if she had given me one. All I cared about was that it held Arkanica at bay. While she did her work, I stood in the center of the room, trying not to hover while Skye dabbed hydrogen peroxide over the last of her injuries.
“I don’t suppose you thought to bring your laptop?” she asked hopefully as she peeled open a plastic bandage.
“The laptop was destroyed,” I said shortly. “Along with everything else in the apartment. Which is for the best, if you were hoping to use it for what I suspect you were. You almost died breaking into Arkanica’s files the first time.”
“And I want to know what I almost died for,” said Skye calmly, as if this were a perfectly reasonable answer. “Which is why I have to keep digging.”
There was no fear in her voice, and none in her face when she looked up at me. I didn’t know what to make of that. Twice now, she had gotten an up-close demonstration of my power. I had saved her life; I knew what came after that. But so far, she hadn’t pulled away, and she hadn’t lashed out. She was treating me exactly the way she had before she had been taken.
Maybe she was so wrapped up in her rainbow-tinted delusions of the beautiful magical fae that it had blinded her to what she had actually seen. Or maybe she had been right, and she was the one human in seven hundred years who could see what I was without trying to destroy me. Regardless, I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.
For now, I shook my head, and kept on trying not to let her see how off-balance her reactions had left me. “You’re not going near Arkanica again. Or near me, for that matter, once I find a better place for you. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going to find a remote location far away from here, and hire security, and make sure there’s no paper trail that connects the two of us. Which is what I should have done the first time.”
“Relax,” said Skye. “I’ll be more careful this time. You really don’t need to explain the danger to me, you know. I’m the one who went through it.” She shuddered, and for an instant, her face went dark. “But that place… the screams…” She shook her head. “I can’t stand by and do nothing.”
“You will if you want to stay alive,” I said. “Believe me, I understand the temptation to rush off on some noble crusade. But those only ever end one way. And if you think that ending is a happy one, you’ve been reading too many fairy tales.”
Skye giggled. I glared at her.
“What, you don’t think that’s funny?” she said. “Fae? Fairies? Fairy tales?” She met my stone face with a sigh. “Fine. I don’t really feel like joking about this anyway. After everything that happened to me, the firsthand proof they just gave me of how bad they really are, I can’t believe you want me to run off to some faraway hiding place and worry about myself when there are still people locked up down there.”
“The people locked up down there are fae,” I said. “Winter Court. Do you know anything about the Winter Court?”
Skye nodded. “Of course.”
“No, you don’t. Or about Summer, either. Not if you think the fae are gentle magical beings worthy of those awestruck looks you keep giving us. Back when the fae walked among humans, they saw themselves as humanity’s natural rulers. To the Summer Court, the humans were beloved pets. Summer was more than happy to coddle them and feed them treats from their hands—as long as they were willing to sit and stay and grovel on command. When they didn’t…” I shook my head. “That’s not the point. My point is that Winter was worse. The humans weren’t pets to them. They were toys. And if they played too roughly, and those toys broke? Well, there were always more where those came from.”
The expression on Skye’s face had turned to pity, which meant she wasn’t hearing what I was trying to tell her. “I know you’ve gone through a lot—” she began.
“This isn’t about me. Read the old stories—the real ones. Listen to the tales that have been passed down from generation to generation, by people still afraid even now to speak too loudly of what their ancestors faced at the hands of the fae. Or listen to me, and trust that I have no reason to lie to you. The prisoners in that building would kill you without a thought—quickly if you’re lucky, slowly if they’re bored. You’re not sentient to them. You’re a butterfly with wings ripe for ripping off. Those are the people you’re ready to die for.”
Skye shook her head, still wearing that pitying look. “And if I walk away, and let them suffer and die down there, then what am I?”
“Alive,” I answered. “Everything else is secondary.”
“Let’s say you’re right,” said Skye, although her voice told me we weren’t done with that argument yet. “What I saw in their files, before they took me… it doesn’t make sense. I need to understand what’s going on in there. I’m not going to be able to stop thinking about it until I do. If you don’t understand human compassion, how about simple curiosity?”
Before I could remind her what curiosity had done to the cat, the door creaked open. I spun, my hand going to my watch, but it was only Vicantha. “You found information?” she asked sharply, her eyes fixed on Skye.
“Um, yeah? I told you I got into their files, didn’t I? What did you think I was doing all that time in the bedroom—cowering under the bed and looking for a teddy bear to hug? I heard what was going on out there. I knew they were coming for me. I knew I might not have long, so I wanted to get as much information as possible.”
