24. Cove

Chapter 24

Cove

“He’s almost certainly here on the property,” Frost said, hitting a button on his tablet that outlined the main Dawnchaser Estate, then tapping on it to enlarge it. “The problem is that it’s hundreds of acres, and he could be anywhere in that.”

He was right, as usual. The estate had a dozen buildings that were marked on the map he had on his tablet, and I was sure there were more that weren’t shown. Admittedly, I doubted Huxley would willingly be living in a gazebo or an abandoned cabin, but it was still frustrating, not having all the information.

He’d been wearing cologne, though. Perfectly turned out, from what I’d been able to see, clothes fresh and hair flowing and untangled. That meant he was staying somewhere with a mirror, unless my son had been lowered to brushing the hair of a madman.

Huxley would have been thrilled by the idea of having a Moonstriker servant, no doubt, but Kit had always been at least as prideful as me.

Assuming there was a bathroom in the place where they were staying, it narrowed things down a bit.

The gardener had a home on the grounds, but I’d spoken to her a few days earlier and she hadn’t seemed like someone who was hiding her criminal lord from the authorities. In fact, she hadn’t been terribly interested in his fate at all, only the roses I was importing from home for Fawn. We’d had a long conversation about kinds of grandiflora roses, and how they would deal with a largely indoor life, and frankly, I’d learned more about roses than I’d ever intended to.

Nothing at all about Huxley.

That meant there were two buildings on Frost’s map, besides the main estate house and the gardener’s home, that were big enough for Huxley to be staying in them. One was marked as a guest cottage, and the other wasn’t marked with a name on the map at all but had apparently once had an address of its own, so it had clearly been incorporated into the estate at some point after being built. It seemed a sensible assumption that both would have not only the space, but the necessary amenities to be hiding Huxley and Kit.

“We should check the bigger place first, I think,” Frost said, motioning toward the spot on the tablet. “Huxley is arrogant. I think if I was that arrogant, I wouldn’t want to stay in a place called a guest cottage.”

I blinked up at him, a little shocked. “That’s...a very impressive piece of logic, Frost. I think you’re entirely right. The house is bigger than the guest cottage as well, so knowing Huxley, that would also be my guess.”

“Father definitely wouldn’t stay in the guest cottage,” Florian said from the doorway. “It only has one bathroom, and he had Kit with him. He would never stay in a place with more people than bathrooms. No one will ever make him wait for what he wants, even if it’s something as small as looking in a mirror.”

Frost’s head snapped up, eyes round, and he made a little choking noise. “We didn’t mean to bother you about it, Florian. He’s your father, so?—”

“He’s a criminal and a bad person. If I might be able to help you find him and end this limbo, ask me. I’ll do anything I can.” He came over and looked at the tablet, where Frost had circled the house we’d been discussing. “That’s the house Aunt Ivy grew up in. She sold it to Father when her father died and she inherited it, but she wanted to live near the ocean. Father would definitely stay there, and it’s close enough to here for the way he and Kit have been in the gardens.”

“It’s perfect,” Frost agreed. Then he bit his lip and looked up at Florian. “Did you want to talk to Uncle Cove? I can go.”

Florian frowned, as though he both wanted to agree and didn’t at the same time. For a moment, I had an irrational fear that he didn’t want to be alone with me. But that was silly. We’d slept in the same bed the night before. Why was I worried about that?

“No,” he finally said, ducking his head and going a little sheepish. “If you leave us alone, I’ll get distracted by”—he shot me a look beneath his lashes, smoldering and sultry—“other things. But I came here for a reason, and I should talk about that.”

Frost choked down a laugh, letting himself fall into Huxley’s ridiculously comfortable office chair. “Then I’ll just sit here and cockblock, you two proceed at will.”

I shot him a glare, but even Frost could see my heart wasn’t in it. He buried his face in his hands, barely able to hold back his laughter. “What’s going on? Everything going well with your cousins?”

Florian cocked his head, suddenly confused, and met my eye. I worried he’d somehow forgotten about their presence, but then—“It...it is. Everything is going very well with Aeryn and Poppy. They’re delightful. Poppy’s kids adore Fawn.” He hadn’t forgotten. He was confused by how painless their presence was. Uplifting, even. The way family ought to be.

“As they should,” Frost interjected, and I couldn’t keep from nodding at that. How could they not adore Fawn? She was eminently adorable.

“But there’s this...” He broke off, shaking his head, then refocused, meeting my eye. “Your family stone. Does it sit in the back of your head and just watch you? Never ever talk?”

This time it was me who couldn’t hold back a bark of laughter.

Bite me , Iri offered, and after she’d been uncharacteristically quiet for the last day, it was...nice to hear from her.

How odd.

“No. Definitely not. But every stone is different. Why?”

Florian sighed, sprawling into one of the tiny, hard, uncomfortable chairs that we’d shoved against the wall. Somehow, he made it look comfortable. He was probably used to the damn things. “There’s this...this presence. It’s been around for—well, for years now. It never talks to me, just shows up sometimes and sits in the back of my head. I thought maybe it talked to me after Father tried to kill Ivy, but I’m not...quite sure. But it turns out it’s doing the same thing to Fawn. And Aunt Ivy said that when she was a teenager, Soz used to do something like that to her. Maybe?”

I yanked one of the chairs we’d appropriated from another room over, planting it in front of Florian and dropping into it. “Just a presence? It doesn’t speak at all?”

He sighed, staring at the carpet, thinking hard. “I thought...after Father tried to kill Aunt Ivy, I thought it asked me a question. About what I’d do with the power to affect others. If I’d have killed Father, if he’d been in her place.”

“Would you?” Frost asked, insatiably curious as ever.

Florian looked up at him, shrugging. “Not like he tried to kill her. Not using a stone. That’s...it’s sort of sick, isn’t it? Stones are...they don’t get a say. They’re stuck with us after we bond, and people use them for all sorts of awful things. Like Adger trying to kill Cove. His stone knew it was wrong, and thought they were going to be punished for it. If you want to kill someone, you should kill them with your own hands. Not using a stone as though it were a tool instead of a sentient being.”

Frost blinked, staring at Florian as though he’d just unlocked the secrets of the universe. For a moment, I was afraid I was going to have to fight off my own nephew to keep the man I was developing feelings for.

In my head, Iri sighed like a lovesick schoolchild.

I like him , Haim said. We should keep him .

I completely agree , I told my oldest friend, before reaching out and taking Florian’s hand. “Iri is not quiet. But that doesn’t mean Soz can’t be. It’s entirely possible it’s Soz. Or another major stone. Probably not a small one, since you haven’t mentioned a locus, so I assume there isn’t one you could name. Which means some distance is likely involved.”

“Yes, I don’t know which stone it could be from proximity. It’s happened all over the place. All around the estate here, at Gloombringer Castle, even when I was in Moonstriker lands for college.” He bit his lip, staring into space for a moment. “If it’s Soz...they’ve been bonded to Father or Grandfather for a long time. I can’t imagine they have a very favorable view of people just now.”

And we’d heard it implied repeatedly that once, Huxley had been a better person. Perhaps Soz had bonded him with hope, only to find out later that he was just as bad as Cavan. Like getting out of one abusive relationship and finding yourself immediately in another. My heart hurt for Soz at the notion. All combined, it was something like sixty years with two of the most selfish, monstrous people I’d ever met.

And it wasn’t as though stones could simply walk away at will. They were largely stationary. What Verelle had managed, escaping Huxley after he’d killed Oberon, was completely unheard of.

His eyes finally focused back on me. “The severer this morning said that my great-grandmother could speak to all the emeralds severed. That she didn’t like ordering a severing unless the stone was better off that way.”

All the severed emeralds? That was also unheard of. Sure, I knew some people were able to bond more than one stone—I had two, for fuck’s sake. But that was different from being able to communicate with all of them.

Some people are just lucky , Iri whispered to me. The Dawnchasers were always the luckiest of all. But their power has seemed muted since Cavan took over the Dawnchaser. I guess I wasn’t imagining it .

Incredible.

Reaching out, I took Florian’s hand in mine. “It sounds to me like we need to free Soz and then let them make a decision.”

Something about that seemed to firm his resolve. He sat up, looking at me, and nodded. “That’s it. We free them. They don’t have to resonate or bond with anyone if they don’t want to. Not me, or Fawn, or any other Dawnchaser. No one has any right to a stone’s loyalty, least of all just because of their name or what family they were born into. If Dawnchaser has to go on without Soz, well, we’ve made that bed ourselves. It’s time to lie in it.”

I swallowed hard but nodded. Without Soz, I didn’t know how in the hells we could head off the impending eruption of Mount Slate. But that wasn’t a right-now problem. It was a tomorrow problem. The first thing we had to do was stop Huxley, because as long as Soz was with him, we had no chance at all of getting the help we needed.

If we freed Soz and they chose not to help...well, we’d cross that fiery disaster of a bridge when we reached it.

Right now, I had to worry about the problems in front of me. And right now, my biggest concern was the sad expression on Florian’s face, as though everything was already a foregone conclusion, and Soz would never want to sing for another Dawnchaser.

I leaned in, lifting his chin with one finger, and pressed my lips against his. “Whatever happens, I’m here to help, remember?”

His smile at that could have melted anyone’s heart.

“And now it’s definitely time for me to go,” Frost said, pushing out of his chair. “I’ll see both of you at dinner, if you make it there, and we should start talking about going out to that house. Tomorrow, I think. We’ll want to be prepared and not just go rushing into danger.”

I nodded to him, but I wasn’t really processing the words anymore. All I cared about right in that moment was Florian.