Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

PIPER

She found him behind the table, half buried under broken wood slats from the ceiling. She flung the rubble aside with numb, trembling fingers. She couldn’t see properly. Tears were flooding her eyes.

“No.” The word scraped her raw throat. “Please no.”

She shoved shards of wood off him and gently turned his face toward her. Blistering burns ravaged one cheek. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His face was slack and lifeless, and without a telltale scowl or smile, she didn’t know if she was looking at her father or uncle.

Footsteps crunched, the sound coming closer. Piper didn’t move. She was paralyzed, her brain locked, unable to process, unable to accept what she was seeing.

“Piper.” That soft voice—it belonged to Lyre. He was crouched beside her, reaching out to grip her upper arms with careful hands. “Come on, Piper. Let him go.”

She realized she was clutching the man’s arm. Father. Uncle. She didn’t know, and that made it so much worse. When Lyre tried to draw her away, she held on even tighter.

Ash’s dark presence slid past her. He sank to sit on his heels across from her, the body between them. He touched two fingers to the charred shirt.

“He’s alive.”

Those two words were like a lightning strike through her chest. Her whole body jerked, a different tension tightening her muscles until they felt like they might snap.

“Can you help him?” she asked, voice shaking.

His dark eyes skimmed across the injuries. “I’m not good at healing magic.”

“You have to try!”

“I am ,” he growled.

A sizzle of magic heated the air. She couldn’t see what Ash was doing, but now that she was looking for it, she could see the faint rise and fall of the man’s chest.

He was alive. The words repeated over and over in her head.

Lyre rose and moved toward another victim, checking their vitals. She waited where she was, afraid to move and distract Ash, her focus wholly consumed with watching for each tiny sign of life.

A low, rasping groan. A pained contortion. A flutter of one eyelid. His eye opened, blinked, focused—and found her face.

“Pi… per,” he rasped, scarcely making a sound.

Uncle Calder. This was Uncle Calder.

“I’m here,” she whispered, lightly squeezing his hand. “You’re—you’re going to be okay.”

Was she lying? No, he would be okay. He had to be. Tears streamed down her cheeks, blurring her vision.

“They took…” His lips moved, but only unintelligible puffs of air escaped his ravaged throat. “… Stone…”

“That doesn’t matter right now.”

His one working eye widened with emphasis. His throat rasped as he struggled to get the words out. “… can’t let them have it…”

“Okay,” she reassured him, giving zero shits about anything besides him not dying. “Just save your strength, okay?”

His eyelid fluttered, and the pained tightness in his face went slack. Her heart leaped with terror.

“Is he all right?” she demanded frantically. “What?—”

“Quiet,” Ash hissed.

She thought he wanted silence to concentrate—but then she heard the rumble of male voices and thudding footsteps drawing closer. She looked up.

A man in a black tactical vest and gray fatigues stood in the doorway. A large rifle rested in his hands, a white skull painted on the magazine. The red badge on his sleeve shone like a smear of fresh blood.

Half a dozen similarly dressed and armed men crowded in behind him, matching badges on each one. They were city prefects—and she harbored no delusions that they were here to help.

“Stand up and cross your arms over your chests,” the first man ordered. “Slowly now.”

On the other side of the overturned table, Lyre crossed his arms as instructed, pressing his palms against his opposite shoulders in a position that made it nearly impossible to cast magic without hitting himself. Piper didn’t move, her gaze swinging back to Ash.

His hand was still on Calder’s chest, his mouth tight with concentration.

“Last chance!” the man barked, hefting his weapon.

Ash finally looked up. Withdrawing his hand, he rose to his full height. The movement was more reminiscent of a cobra preparing to strike than a surrender.

Perspiration shone on the prefects’ foreheads, and they gripped their weapons, knuckles white and the barrels aimed at the draconian. Piper’s gaze caught on the nearest gun—on the fire-rate switch, which was set to “auto.”

She didn’t dare to so much as breathe.

Ash’s upper lip curled with disdain. Then he lifted his hands and pressed them to his chest as ordered.

The lead prefect smiled smugly, his rifle still aimed at Ash’s sternum, and cocked his head at the men behind him. “Arrest them.”

Sitting cross-legged on the cool grass of the Consulate’s lawn, Piper stared at the steel handcuffs locked around her wrists. Fear boiled inside her, making her limbs quiver. Beside her, Lyre sat with his shoulders hunched and his wrists cuffed as well.

Ash was last in their sad little row. Not only were his wrists locked behind his back, but a magic-suppressing collar glinted around his neck—and it was clear the draconian very much disliked being collared. His posture was neutral, but his eyes had turned pitch black.

The darker a daemon’s eyes got, the closer they were to unchecked violence—a fun little quirk called “shading.” By the time their irises hit solid black, a smart person would be as far away as possible.

Unfortunately for Piper, she couldn’t go anywhere. Four prefects surrounded them, weapons ready to fire. Their attention—and aim—was primarily directed at Ash, but she didn’t plan to test them. Their old military M4A1 assault rifles might be seventy years old, but the bullets could still kill her.

She’d practiced with handguns and hunting rifles enough to learn the basics, but consuls relied on other weapons—ones that didn’t require constant maintenance, sketchy replacement parts, or difficult-to-acquire ammunition. Plus, a nice shiny dagger wouldn’t jam at the worst possible moment.

A voice called something, pulling Piper’s attention toward the gaping hole in the side of the Consulate. Inside the decimated meeting room, half a dozen prefects moved about, their flashlights flickering. A pair of men stumped out of the wreckage, carrying a stretcher between them.

Piper lurched forward, almost rising until a guard swung his rifle toward her. She craned her neck. As the stretcher passed, she glimpsed Calder’s burnt face.

“Where are they taking him?” she demanded.

The four prefect guards ignored her.

“That’s my uncle .” Her voice rose in volume and pitch. “Tell me where they’re taking him!”

Two of the men, one with a black bandana tied over his hair and the other wearing a backward ball cap, glanced at each other.

“Medical center,” the bandana guy grunted.

She sagged toward the ground, a tiny notch of panicky tension easing in her chest. Calder was going to get medical attention. He was going to survive. But what about her father?

A trio of prefects traipsed through the hole in the wall, making a beeline for Piper, Lyre, and Ash. She recognized the leader who’d given the order to arrest them, his hair cropped short and a grenade tattooed on the side of his neck.

He stopped in front of Piper, towering over her. “So.”

“So what?” she snapped, straightening her spine again. “Uncuff me. Head Consul Griffiths is my father, and you have no right to arrest me or invade Consulate grounds.”

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t bow to her demand. “If you want to tell me where your daddy is, I might consider uncuffing you.”

Her eyes darted toward the meeting room remains.

“Don’t pretend he’s in there,” the prefect said, catching her glance. “We already checked. Two dead consuls, neither of which are Quinn Griffiths, and five dead daemons.”

Her father wasn’t among the corpses in the meeting room? But he’d been leading the meeting. Had he escaped? No, he wouldn’t have abandoned Calder like that. And why were there only five daemon bodies? There had been eight delegates.

“Six dead daemons in total,” the prefect added with a smirk. “We found the last one on our way here to investigate the explosion. He was staggering around, blood all over him, raving mindlessly about ‘thieves.’”

Cold seeped into Piper’s skin, sharper than the night breeze.

“He mentioned something interesting before he died.” The prefect’s eyes glittered in the glare of nearby flashlights. “The Sahar Stone .”

Piper opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

“Is it here?” the prefect asked, his voice thick with greed. “Or did Quinn take it? All those dead consuls and daemons, but the Head Consul is missing. Well, little girl? Where did your dad disappear to?”

She clamped her jaw tight and snuck a glance at Lyre and Ash. They made no move to speak, their faces grim.

The prefect propped his rifle on his shoulder. “If the Sahar is here, we’ll find it. And if it isn’t”—his gaze raked over Piper before dragging across Lyre and Ash—“we’ll have plenty of opportunity to find out everything you three know.”

Nauseating fear curdled in Piper’s stomach.

The prefect waved at the four men standing guard. “Take them to the van.”

As the leader and his two cronies headed back toward the Consulate, bandana guy jerked his rifle in a “get up” gesture. She really wished they would be more careful where they pointed those things.

Piper ended up taking the lead, Lyre behind her, bandana prefect behind him. The other three guards surrounded Ash—two flanking him, one behind—and kept their rifles trained on him every step of the way.

Parked haphazardly on the Consulate’s front lawn, a motley collection of vehicles waited—two jeeps, two pickup trucks, and a large van, all black or crudely painted with black and gray camo.

The prefects directed her into the back of the van. Once Lyre and Ash were inside with her, bandana guy slammed the door shut, submerging the vehicle’s interior in darkness. Footfalls crunched back toward the manor, and silence fell.

“Well,” Lyre muttered, “this is fun.”

Homing in on his voice, Piper leaned close and whispered as quietly as she could, “Do you know what the Sahar Stone looks like?”

“No clue,” Lyre replied.

Piper bit her lower lip, her nerves clanging with dread.

“The Sahar is small.” Ash’s low, husky voice took her by surprise. “About the size of a grape, silver, and heavier than it looks.”

Piper struggled to breathe normally.

“Silver?” Lyre repeated, sounding mildly curious.

“It’s supposedly made from quicksilver.”

“Interesting. I wonder how the weaver solidified it?”

As the two daemons conversed, oh-so-casual as if they weren’t both handcuffed and locked in a prefect van, Piper pressed her upper arms against her breasts to squeeze them together. Her father’s ring box dug uncomfortably into her flesh.

And inside it was a mysterious gem that could only be the Sahar Stone.