Chapter 4

CHAPTER4

Iharden my glare until it sings as sharp as steel. Ashen looks down at his chest and back up to my eyes before he falls to his knees. His hand closes around the handle of the dagger and grips it with waning strength.

“Ashen,” a female voice calls out with desperation. I didn’t notice her in the shadows. I didn’t hear her heartbeat or catch the scent of lilac that drifts toward me now, mixing with the scent of sizzling blood.

Davina rushes up behind Ashen and grasps his shoulders, trying to keep his body from toppling over. She doesn’t look up at us. Her gaze is trapped on the blade and the blood that drips from the wound, pooling on the floor. But Ashen’s eyes don’t leave mine, not as he pitches forward, not as his free hand splays on the stone.

I break the chain between us and turn away. Ediye and I run. We run as guards shout from the darkness and plunge toward us from hidden recesses of the grand hall. We run as I hear my name wheeze past Ashen’s lips on a ragged breath. And when we’re close enough, we jump into the cauldron, crashing into Cole’s arms as the flames erupt around us.

The fire falls away and we tumble out of the cauldron and into the Living Realm, landing in a room I’ve never seen. Cole scurries to his feet and grabs an iron lid, closing the cauldron so that no Reapers can follow us from the other side.

We heave desperate, greedy breaths, pulling air into our lungs as we stare at one another. No one seems to know where to start or what to say. It’s like there are so many questions to choose from that it’s impossible to begin.

“Thank you,” Ediye says to Cole. I nod vigorously in agreement. I can hardly believe any of this is real. I was so ready to die in that dungeon that this seems like a dream.

Cole looks at Ediye for a long moment, his gaze darting down to her blistered neck as his jaw tightens. He looks away, scanning the room. “Don’t thank me yet. We aren’t much safer here. Come on.”

Ediye takes hold of my hand and we follow Cole out of the room, into the darkness of an old, small cottage. This house is not like the other Reaper buildings I’ve seen so far. It’s quaint and warm, with sheepskin throws on worn armchairs and layered rugs on scuffed wood floors. Dried flowers and dusty vases decorate the antique furniture and lend color to the faintly yellow plaster walls. Outside the leaded windows, however, the same gray fog obscures the sun. The light that does filter in is close to the horizon, cut by the shadows of pine trees.

“Where are we going?” Ediye asks as we exit the cottage and stride toward a black sedan waiting in the mist.

“Hartington. It’s a couple hours south. We’ll make it just after nightfall, hopefully,” Cole says as he opens the rear passenger door for me and Ediye guides me in. I lie across the seats and she pulls a blanket over me. It feels like the softest thing that’s ever touched my skin. It smells like irises and springtime near the sea. Smelling something so beautiful makes me realize how fucking disgusting I am. The relief and embarrassment and frankly, probably the smell of my own grossness brings the sting of tears to my eyes.

Ediye slips into the passenger seat and twists around to survey my face. I give her a thumbs up and she returns it with a weak smile before facing Cole as he starts the car and barrels down the fog-coated driveway. “What’s in Hartington?”

Cole doesn’t answer for a breath or two. “Hope.”

We tear free of the fingers of fog that seem to chase us down the driveway like they’re unwilling to let us go. We skid onto a gravel road and speed into the light of the setting sun.

It feels like it’s been a year since the sun has touched my face. I sit up enough to feel the kiss of light on my skin. I close my eyes for a breath, but I feel Ediye watching. We observe one another in a silent conversation of worry and wariness, and I sign a question to her.

“Lu says you’re working with angels to keep the balance of the realms. She wants to know if you were once an angel too.”

Cole’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. It takes him a long moment to answer, and when he does his voice comes out thin and strained. “It feels like another lifetime ago. Maybe two. I guess it was.”

“How is that possible?”

“I gave up my wings to become human, for a chance to infiltrate the Shadow Realm.”

I tap Ediye’s seat and sign a question to her. She smirks before she turns toward the driver’s seat.

“Lu wants to know if we can call you Cole the Mole now.”

Cole’s eyes roll in the reflection of the rearview mirror. “Funny.”

“Wait… if you gave up your wings, were your wings the ones used to make the Angelwing poison that the werewolves used against-”

I kick Ediye’s seat before she can say that motherfucker’s name out loud. She turns and glares at me before facing back toward Cole.

“-against your… colleague?..”

“No. I relinquished my wings for my mission.” Cole’s eyes connect with mine again and they narrow in what looks like a grimace. “About my colleague-”

I punch the back of Cole’s seat and he grunts.

“I don’t suppose Lu killed him for good, did she?” Ediye asks. I feel her gaze land on me, but I’m too invested in glaring daggers at Cole in his mirror to look her way.

“No, she didn’t. The others I slayed with my sword will not come back though.”

Cole’s eyes soften and I think I can read his thoughts in them. It looks like an apology, for taking vengeance that was due to be mine. I’m not sure if that makes him more angelic or less. He refocuses on the road ahead and reaches a hand back toward me, grabbing the strap of a bag in the footwell behind Ediye’s seat.

“Check the main compartment. There’s blood for you in there,” he says, his voice quiet.

I unzip the bag and pull out one of two thermoses. I unscrew the cap and the scent of warm blood hits my nose and the back of my throat, flooding my mouth with venom. Cardamom. Cinnamon. It’s missing honey, but it’s close to what Mr. Hassan made for me in Cairo. My gaze shoots to the rearview mirror and I feel the sharp question in my narrowing eyes, but it’s one I don’t want to know the answer to.

“Some things might not be what they seem, Lu,” Cole says, and I know he understands. Not all questions are ready to be asked. Not all answers are ready to be heard.

I sip my drink and watch out the window as we fall into silence, all of us still reeling from the rapid escape from the Shadow Realm and, for Ediye and me, the days spent in captivity. The blood from the thermos isn’t as potent as the concoction the apothecary once gave me, but it’s warm and flavorful, and it slakes the hunger that still crushes my throat in its grip.

Ediye and Cole strike up a quiet conversation about our time locked in the dungeons but they keep it pretty technical. How many days it’s really been (twenty-six, holy fuck), how often we were fed (not nearly enough), what kinds of questions we answered (hardly any, which was payback for the lack of food).

Eventually, I finish the first thermos and lay back across the seat, clutching the blanket up to my nose. I’m too exhausted to drink the second thermos, or to follow the murmured conversation between my friend and our rescuer. With little more than a blink, I fall deep into sleep.

We’re still driving when I wake, but the sun is down. I pull my eyes open. Even my eyelids feel slick with sweat. My clothing sticks to my skin. I look at my hand where it lies in Ediye’s palm, her head bent over my fingers as she inspects them.

“This shouldn’t be,” she says, looking up at Cole across the center console of the sedan. “She had a full thermos. This at least should have healed.”

“Which one did she drink?”

Ediye turns toward me and sees me watching. She hides her worry behind the flash of a kind smile as she reaches for the empty thermos. “The red one.”

“Give her the other, the blood should be much stronger.”

Ediye nods and unscrews the cap, pouring it into the stainless-steel lid. The same cinnamon and cardamom scent wafts toward me on robust notes of a richer blood. It smells sweeter, like it’s been stirred with honeysuckle. Something pleasant, not thick and cloying.

“Sit up, babe. Drink this,” Ediye says as she passes me the cup. I bring it to my lips, taking a long draft.

One swallow is all it takes to know.

It tingles like the fizz of champagne. I feel the effervescence hum in my throat. It passes over the burn of my lost voice and slips behind the wall of my chest.

It is time and history. Power and loss, rage and longing.

I draw the cup away from my lips and hold out my hand for the thermos as though I want more. Ediye passes it to me as I grip the little mug between my knees. She watches as I unscrew the top.

I press the button for the window and empty the contents onto the road.

Ediye protests but I don’t listen, not even when tears flood my eyes and my vision turns to red. I throw the thermos onto the road and then the cup, then close the window. With a final, menacing glare at Cole, I curl back down on the seat, turning away from them.

“What the fuck?” Ediye whispers.

“It’s his blood,” Cole says, his voice quiet. Ediye blows out a long, steady breath. I press my eyes closed as I feel the weight of her hand rest on my hip.

There’s no more conversation in the car.