Chapter 15

The stallion's hooves beat the ground in a quick trot, the sound alternating between the dull thump of wood and the sharp crack of gravel. The horse was following a triple set of train tracks, heading east toward the sunrise. The gray water of the harbor rippled on our left, and on our right was a dirt bank with businesses and commercial buildings on its other side.

We'd left our pursuers behind—but we'd also left Aaron. There was no guild in the city less likely to seriously wound him, not when every member of the Pandora Knights knew who Aaron Sinclair was. An Elementaria guild would never risk the wrath of one the richest and most powerful mage families in North America.

But abandoning him had still torn my heart from my chest.

A guild catching Ezra was the worst-case scenario, I reminded myself, fighting my despair. Ezra using his demonic magic in front of witnesses was the second-worst scenario. Both would doom us.

The line of buildings on our right ended, replaced by a hundred yards of trees. The horse continued onward for half that distance, then swerved toward the twelve-foot bank.

I grabbed Zak around the waist as his fae steed surged up the steep incline like it was a gentle knoll. The horse cut into a thick stand of spruce trees, their heavy boughs blocking out the weak morning light, before coming to a halt.

Zak swung his leg over the stallion's neck and dropped to the ground. Turning, he reached up for me, and I let him pull me down. Ezra slid off the beast last.

Pushing his hood back, Zak swept his piercing green eyes across me.

Human eyes, I noted. His irises weren't iridescent with Lallakai's power.

Zak opened his mouth—and the stallion swung its head toward me, ears pinned. The druid grabbed a double handful of its mane and hauled back an instant before those big blocky teeth could bite down on my shoulder.

"Enough, Tilliag," he snapped, putting his shoulder into the horse's chest and pushing it back a step. "Get over it."

Tossing its head, it snorted angrily.

"Uh," I muttered. "Get over what?"

"Nothing. His grudges are his problem."

My confusion deepened as I looked from the druid to the fae stallion. Why would the creature have a grudge against me? What had I ever done to upset a horse?

Wait… that steel-gray coat with a bluish tinge was familiar. Back during the battle to save Llyrlethiad the sea fae, the enemy witch had tried to escape on a fae horse—and, channeling Llyr's power, I'd blasted the horse's legs out from under it in mid-gallop.

"Is that the same fae horse that the Red Rum witch was riding?" I asked, narrowed eyes returning to Zak.

"Tilliag was injured, and I helped him."

"You disappeared for, like, two days after that fight. You said you were busy."

"Treating Tilliag's injuries was one of the things I was busy with." He rubbed the stallion's forehead. It swished its tail, then lowered its head and nosed at the sparse winter grass.

"If you want to go, the street is that way." He canted his head to the south. "Or we could… talk."

Biting the inside of my cheek, I glanced at Ezra. It'd been a month since Zak had betrayed me, Ezra, and our entire guild so he could kill Varvara and recover his grimoire. Ezra had nearly died that night, and the memory was painfully fresh.

Ezra considered me, memories haunting his eyes too, then nodded.

Turning back to the druid, I assessed him, not sure what to make of his appearance. His hair was shaggy again, overdue for a trim, and a short beard darkened his jaw. Faint circles smudged the undersides of his eyes.

I had a hundred questions, but the most important first: "How did you find us?"

"Everyone in the city is talking about the demon mage from the Crow and Hammer." He brushed his hair off his forehead. "The Pandora Knights are the best bounty hunters in the city. I tailed them until they found you."

"Why?"

"To help you."

I pressed my lips together. "Where's Lallakai?"

"She's not here."

"I can see that much. Where, specifically, is ‘not here'?"

"I don't know." He ran a gloved hand over Tilliag's shoulder. "We… had a falling out."

My eyes widened.

He glanced at my expression, tightened his jaw, then faced the horse. "I wanted to… deal with some things. She wanted me to disappear into the wilderness where bounty hunters could never find me." He tugged his fingers through the stallion's tangled mane. "When I wouldn't do what she wanted, she… left."

"So you replaced her with Tilliag?"

The stallion's head came up, ears pinned angrily, a poisonous green eye fixed on me.

Er… "no," I was guessing.

"Tilliag owes me." Zak leaned against the stallion's side and looked between me and Ezra. "What happened?"

I drew in a deep breath. With Ezra flanking me in supportive silence, I pushed my shoulders back. "Zak, I appreciate that you got us away from the Pandora Knights, but you've made it abundantly clear that you don't do charity. Helping us—there's nothing in it for you."

He gazed at me for a long moment, and I couldn't decipher the intensity in his sharp eyes.

"You asked me if it was worth it." He exhaled roughly. "It wasn't, and I'm sorry for taking advantage of your trust, for lying to you, and for putting the lives of people you care about in danger."

It was the first time I'd ever heard Zak apologize—and it wasn't nearly enough. "You betrayed me. Being nice now doesn't change that."

"I know."

"Do you? This isn't a fae exchange. You can't just throw helpfulness dollars at me until I sell you my forgiveness."

"I know."

"Even if you save us, I'll probably go right on hating your guts."

His mouth thinned unhappily. "I can get you both out of the city—out of the country, if you need it. I know how to keep you under the radar, and I can help you start again with a new identity."

Zak was a rogue who'd lived on the wrong side of the law his whole life. He knew how to evade the MPD, how to slip through the clutches of bounty hunters, and how to escape our seemingly inevitable fates. If anyone could get us out of this, it was the Ghost.

But that wasn't the future I wanted.

I pinned him with a stare. "If you're going to help us, Zak, then you better commit. No half measures, no bailing when it gets tough, no saving your own skin first."

He frowned. "I'm here to help you, not sacrifice myself—but yes, I'll do whatever I can."

"Not good enough."

I started in surprise. Ezra had been so quiet that I hadn't expected him to speak at all.

His mismatched eyes were cold as ice. "You don't need to sacrifice yourself, but how much are you willing to risk? Time, money, inconvenience, injury? What about everything? Will you risk that? Because that's what Tori risked for you."

Zak's expression darkened. "I've already risked—and lost—plenty."

"For your own ambitions." Ezra folded his arms. "We've seen what your ‘help' looks like. It stops the moment you decide the potential gains aren't worth it anymore."

"What do you think I plan to gain from this?"

"From what I can see, nothing—which is why I'm wondering if that's what your help will be worth. When the next guild comes down on us, will you bail? Will you throw me to the hunters to save yourself?"

"If the situation were different, I'd put you down myself."

"Oh my god, Zak!" I snapped. "If that's how you feel, then—"

"He's unstable. You may not trust me, but I'm not one wrong word from flying off the handle and killing you or your allies."

My hands clenched into fists. "Ezra wouldn't—"

"He killed three of my vargs." Zak's jaw flexed. "They'd been with me for ten years."

A moment of silence.

"I'm sorry," Ezra said quietly. "You created the circumstances that caused it, but I'm sorry it happened and that I was part of their deaths."

Zak made a dismissive gesture, brushing the topic away. "I won't die on anyone's altar, especially not yours. But"—he turned to me—"I'm offering my help, whatever you think it's worth. If that's not good enough, then we're done here."

Tension vibrated between the three of us.

"I don't want your help running away," I told the druid. "What I need won't be as easy as smuggling us out of the country, but if you're still willing, then I have one question for you."

"What's that?"

I smiled—a grim, humorless smile. "Have you ever summoned a demon before?"

* * *

Zak, as it turned out, had not summoned a demon before. But he was about to learn how.

I greedily stuffed a burger in my mouth as I watched the druid. He stood at a plastic folding table pushed against a water-streaked concrete wall, its surface spread with everything from Robin's backpack—the case of demon blood, the cult grimoire, and her notes and diagrams. He pored over them, shoulders stiff with concentration.

Me, I just kept eating my burger, too exhausted to worry about anything for a few minutes.

For Ezra, Aaron, Kai, and me, finding a safe, private location for conducting illegal activities had seemed like an insurmountable challenge. For Zak, it was just a day in the life of a career criminal. In a matter of hours, he'd found a location, moved us into it, and stocked it with everything we needed, including food, water, and cots to sleep on.

The faintest spark of hope burned in my chest. We had a location for the ritual. One obstacle down.

But we still needed an Arcana mythic to prepare and perform it, and I didn't know yet if Zak could do it. And we didn't know if the ritual would even work. And if it did, we didn't know if Ezra would survive it. And if he did, we didn't know if we could convince the MPD to let him live.

And even if we somehow, impossibly, accomplished all that, we still had to survive—and destroy—an insidious cult that had its invisible tentacles snaking all throughout Vancouver.

Crumpling his burger wrapper into a ball, Ezra stuffed it into the paper bag. "I'm going to scout around a bit."

I nodded. "I'll keep an eye on Zak." As he began to stand, I caught his wrist and tugged him back toward me. "Wait. Actually… maybe you shouldn't."

The painfully fresh memory of Aaron being overwhelmed by Pandora Knights bounty hunters made my dinner churn in my stomach. Ezra had demonic magic, but he couldn't use it. He didn't even have a switch.

He smiled faintly. "I'll be fine."

Probably, but considering the way things had gone so far…

Still holding his hand, I rose to my feet and crossed the concrete floor, our footsteps echoing through the large room. A warehouse, really. Zak had rented the storage facility for us—or rather, he'd used a fake identity to pay a man to rent the facility under another fake name.

"Zak," I said as we joined him at the table. "Do you have a weapon Ezra can borrow? He's got nothing."

The druid looked up, his gaze skimming across Ezra. "I only have knives."

"That's fine," Ezra replied. "A larger blade would be closer to my usual switch, if you can spare it."

Zak flipped open a buckle that ran around his upper thigh. It came free and he held the leather belt out, a sheathed blade hanging from it.

Taking the weapon, Ezra pulled the handle. A twelve-inch blade, wickedly serrated, slid from the sheath. I wasn't sure if the serrated edge had a purpose—did it double as a utility knife?—but it certainly added to the terror factor.

With raised eyebrows, Ezra sheathed it and buckled the belt around his thigh.

"Thanks," he murmured, then touched my elbow. "I'll be back soon."

I nodded. His fingers ran down my arm and across my hand as he turned away. He headed toward the door, but I kept my attention on Zak, whose eyes had followed the trail of Ezra's touch.

He returned my silent stare as the aeromage's footsteps grew distant and the door clacked shut.

Zak faced the table and resumed studying the myriad of papers. He'd shed his long coat, and his black t-shirt was clean but wrinkled. A tangle of artifacts hung around his neck, the colorful crystals resting on his chest.

My gaze ran down his sculpted left arm, free of Lallakai's feather markings, to the tattoos on his inner forearm. Four of the five circles contained fae runes, and I craned my neck to peek at his right arm, curious to see how many more he'd replaced since his battle with Varvara.

My breath caught. I snatched his right wrist and pulled his arm up. White scars, edged in pink, raked through his druid tattoos.

"Why didn't you get that healed properly?" I demanded.

He tugged his wrist free. "I was busy."

"What's more important than permanent damage to your arm?"

"The entire city knows who I am now. There's no healer, rogue or otherwise, who wouldn't see my tattoos, realize I'm the Ghost, and betray me in an instant."

I clenched my jaw. "What about a fae healer? They have healing magic, don't they? Could they fix your arm?"

"Probably, but I can't leave the city to find one." He set a diagram down. "Without Lallakai, I'm stuck here. Powerful fae rarely enter cities. They hate all the pollution and concrete and human filth. If I still had my farm… but I don't, so I can't venture anywhere I might run into a fae I can't fight."

"But you can fight most fae, can't you?"

"I used up or lost almost all my fae magic. What I have left isn't very powerful." He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out a square of purple. "Except this, but it isn't particularly useful."

The Carapace of Valdurna. It'd saved Ezra's life a month ago, almost killing him in the process. Couldn't say I was pleased to see it.

Zak's fingers curled around the fabric, his scars pulling taut. "Lallakai will return once she decides I've had enough time to stew about how helpless I am without her."

"Shit, Zak. That's… not a healthy relationship, you know?"

He let out a surprised laugh. "Healthy? It's survival. I knew Lallakai was a darkfae from day one, and I took my chances with her anyway."

"She's actually a darkfae?"

"More or less. There are worse fae." He tucked the Carapace back in his pocket and slid another of Robin's drawings closer. "You've been busy over the last few weeks."

"Doing my best to save Ezra, yeah." I pointed at the papers. "So? Can you do it?"

"My area of expertise is alchemy, and the sorcery I've learned is nothing like this. Parts of it are written in… in demonic, I think? And even if I can construct the array, I'm not sure it'll work. Summoners have their own demon contracts. Is that because the arrays require demon blood, or is there some other connection?" He rubbed his short beard. "In other words, your guess is as good as mine."

Well, my slightly decreased anxiety levels were through the roof again. Yay. "So what, then?"

"I'll try it, and if it fails… we'll figure out what to do next." He flipped the cult grimoire open to a page written entirely in Latin. "Do you have a plan for what to do with the demon, assuming the ritual works?"

I leaned a hip on the table. "Not really, but Eterran is reasonable for a demon."

Zak's eyebrows rose. "If he seems reasonable, it's because he's in a vulnerable position. Once that's no longer the case, you can't know what he'll be like."

"Robin said he'll be stuck in the circle, so we can figure that out when it's time."

"Mm," he agreed vaguely. "Before I forget…"

My forehead crinkled as he reached for his coat, lying on the corner of the table. He fished around inside its many inner pockets, then withdrew a silver orb the size of a small melon.

I gasped. "Hoshi!"

Before he could even offer the fae to me, I'd snatched her from his hand. I cradled her against my chest, stroking her warm, ridged shape. "Where did you find her? When did you find her? Is she okay? Is she hurt? Hoshi? Hoshi, can you hear me? Is she—"

"She's dormant," he said, cutting through my babble with a frown. "One of my vargs found her near that museum where you were first attacked. I'd planned a whole lecture for you on abandoning her, but it doesn't look like you need it."

I hugged her tightly. "She disappeared. I can't see into the fae world so I couldn't find her. When will she wake up?"

"I'm not sure. I think this is how sylphs heal from injuries. She needs time to recuperate her strength. Just keep her safe until then."

"That might be difficult when I can't even keep myself safe. Good thing you're going to make this ritual work, right?"

He grunted in a way that didn't suggest confidence.

Cradling orb-Hoshi in the crook of my arm, I patted his shoulder. "You can do it. You're the best alchemist on the west coast, remember?"

He snorted. "You didn't actually believe that, did you?"

I had, but then I'd met a few more west-coast alchemists—like Kelvin Compton, the transmutation genius, and his possibly even more brilliant apprentice, who'd mutated werewolves into furry super soldiers.

"I'm a powerful druid, a good alchemist, and a mediocre sorcerer," Zak added. "I have no idea what kind of demon summoner I'll be."

I looked down at the grimoire. "We're about to find out, aren't we?"