Chapter 22

TWENTY-TWO

I heard later that multiple people reported seeing a ghost haunting Myriad Gardens that night—a woman with white hair, a shimmering white dress, and bare feet, wandering the paths alone with empty eyes.

As much as I might have preferred to haunt the garden for eternity rather than make this decision, I didn’t wander long. Shortly after Blake disappeared, I made my way back to the hostel, knowing that Faris’s guards would see me, but unwilling to shift in order to avoid them. Faris would know the full truth soon enough.

Kes was waiting up for me, and the moment she saw my face and my feet, her entire body seemed to slump in disappointment and dismay.

“We’re leaving, aren’t we?” she murmured.

“I’m sorry. I wish there was another way.” But no matter which choice I made, this city could never be our home again after tomorrow.

Her eyes fluttered shut and her fingers clenched as she absorbed the news, but after a few shuddering breaths, her spine straightened and she looked at me with steely determination. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“And where are we going?”

I managed not to flinch at the piercing look from her gray eyes. “I don’t know yet.”

In all these months we’d been on the run together, she’d almost never questioned me. Buried so deeply in her own sense of culpability and shame, she’d been no more than a shell of her former self. A shadow that followed, but had no desires of her own.

But even if just for a moment, her spirit seemed to awaken as she regarded me by the light of the single, tiny lamp.

“We can’t run forever, Raine.”

I knew that. I did. But how could I explain that we were about to become wanted criminals? Even if we took Blake’s offer, we would be hunted relentlessly by the people we’d once called friends.

“And,” she added softly, “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” I lied, trying to give her the same encouraging smile I always did.

But for once, she wasn’t buying it.

“Cut the crap, Raine.”

I blinked at her, mouth open, feeling like she’d physically slapped me.

“You like it here,” she said, her tone quiet but firm. “You’ve started making friends. You enjoy your job, and I think you’re even halfway in love with your boss. So why are we running? Why settle for the half-life of hiding instead of staying and fighting for a future you actually want?”

Why indeed? Feelings of rage and futility rose in my throat, threatening to choke me unless I spoke them aloud. I needed to cry. Needed to rage, to scream, to sob, to let loose all my fury at a world that simply didn’t seem to care. That kicked us at every turn.

“Because after tomorrow, that future won’t want me ,” I whispered furiously. The truth had finally burst its chains and came pouring out of me like a flood—a caustic, burning torrent of every hurt I’d swallowed since the day my father died and I’d been taken to a shelter. The first of many. Filled with kids who had nowhere else to go. The most broken among us, the ones who needed family the most, and the ones who never seemed to find it.

“They don’t want any of us, Kes. We’re too strange. Too broken. Too scary. They don’t know what to do with us, so they make little boxes out of platitudes and laws and stick us inside so they can forget. So they don’t have to face the ugliness or the uncertainty. Don’t have to fight the complicated battles or walk the long, hard road of making space for things they don’t understand. And I’m sick of it. I’m so, so sick of having my life reduced to a set of laws instead of being treated like a real person.”

If anyone understood, it would be Kes. An outsider in her own home since the moment she was born.

But she only shrugged. “So we fix it.”

That was not at all what I’d expected her to say.

“How?” I shook my head incredulously.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I know it’s not as simple as I make it sound. And I know it may not work no matter how much we want it to. But the people who care can’t accept you fully until you let them in. Let them see you. All of you.”

I recoiled. Almost unconsciously, my arms wrapped around my torso, as if already trying to hide from the possibility of being seen. “I can’t. You know why.”

“Maybe it’s time to try.”

Cutting words hit my tongue, but I bit them back. My fears were looking for someone to hurt, and I wasn’t going to let it be Kes.

“Raine, tell me this.” She continued to hold my gaze with steady, clear gray eyes. “If it was just you, if you didn’t have anyone else depending on you, would you stay?”

What would I choose if it was just me?

Blake and his offer of family, with people who already understood what we’d been through and would never judge us for our differences? All I would have to do to earn their trust was betray those who’d chosen to trust me —those who’d given me a chance when they had no reason to.

Or would I choose to honor my commitment to Callum and his cause? I’d promised Kira I would protect him, with no idea how much that promise might end up costing me. He’d promised to protect me too, but he’d already broken his word, even if he didn’t know it.

It was a hellish decision to be forced to make, but even so, my heart knew the answer. Knew which path I would walk—the only path I could take without betraying myself. Right or wrong, my convictions were firm, and I could not throw them aside.

“In the end, I don’t know if I would stay.” That answer mattered, but it was not the biggest question I was facing. “I do know that I would fight my battles differently if it were only my own life at stake, but it doesn’t help to think that way. We’re family now, and I don’t regret that, but it means I don’t make decisions without thinking of everyone.”

“I appreciate that you’ve been thinking of us,” Kes said gently. “But now it’s time to ask us.”

My eyes stung, and a lump formed in my throat as I realized what she was saying. “Have I…” I sat down heavily on the bed. “Crap, Kes, I’m so sorry.”

She’d been so quiet—almost catatonic when we first escaped. Almost as if she were dead inside. She’d needed me to remind her to eat and to sleep. But maybe I’d gone too far, and failed to recognize when she didn’t need me directing her life anymore.

“No, that’s not what I meant.” She looked as if she knew what direction my thoughts had taken. “We would be dead without you, and no one is more grateful than me. But as much as you look out for us, we also want to look out for you. Because you’re right—we’re family, and that means we’re all here for each other. And we don’t just want to be safe… we want you to be happy.”

“I won’t accept happiness at the cost of your safety,” I said fiercely. “That’s not how it works.”

“But isn’t it worth taking a chance to see if we can have both?”

It was the chances I’d taken that had landed me here. I’d taken a chance on a grumpy, terrifying, and somehow soft-hearted dragon, believing that he might have the power to change our future.

“And what if I’m wrong? What if I fail?” How could I risk that? How could I take such an insane gamble with all our lives?

“We can’t keep making decisions out of fear,” Kes insisted. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, and neither do you. But I do know that all of us feel more alive now than we have in as long as I can remember. You actually like waking up in the morning. You smile. You tease people. Logan… it’s like he’s come back from the dead. Knowing he has someone who can help him with his power is already working miracles. And Ari? She needs the freedom to explore, surrounded by a community of people who can catch her if she falls. We won’t find those things on the road.”

I went silent for a moment, as I tried to figure out exactly what she was trying to tell me.

“You don’t want to run.”

“I don’t,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

But she had no idea what was coming. “As of tomorrow, they may be able to legally deport you to the fae court,” I informed her bluntly. “Anyone who possesses or uses stolen magic will face prison or exile—for no less than twenty years . If we stay?” I gestured to the kids asleep in their bunks. “That could be all of us. They won’t have a choice.”

And I wouldn’t want to ask them to choose. Callum’s heart beat for rules and order. That was how he kept his people safe. If I stayed, I would be forcing him into an impossible situation. One where he couldn’t both keep his promise to protect me and uphold the laws he’d worked so hard to create.

“Or,” Kes replied, still maddeningly calm, “we could be the ones to show them that their laws are incomplete. That there are victims that still need to be protected. Before it’s too late.”

She was so much braver than I was. So much stronger. But could I really do this? Could I step out and tell the truth, hoping that strangers would choose justice over fear?

“I’ll understand if you still want to go,” she said. “But I think we should ask the kids what they want. Tell them the truth and let them help decide.”

They were six and thirteen. Not really old enough to understand the consequences of this decision. But who was I to think I had the right to decide that for them? To set the course of their future when I could barely manage to keep us all alive?

“Okay,” I said hoarsely. “When they wake up, we can talk it over.”

“We’re awake.” Logan’s voice cracked as he spoke up out of the darkness. “We aren’t babies, Raine.”

They should be. They should have had the chance to be children—happy, innocent, and protected. Not running for their lives. But that wasn’t the world we lived in. Maybe, instead of reaching for an ideal that was forever out of our reach, it was time to make the best of what we did have. Take this magic and see it as a gift. Take our broken pasts and shape them into a different future.

“How much did you hear?”

“Sounds like we’re officially outlaws now. Might be cool.”

Trust a thirteen-year-old boy to spin it that way.

“And we’re on Faris’s territory,” he pointed out. “Hasn’t he been an outlaw pretty much forever?”

I swiveled to look at Logan with my mouth open. I hadn’t quite thought of Faris in those terms, but in a sense, it was true. However…

“He’s been an active part of the Symposium,” I reminded him. “Which means he plans to support whatever laws they enact.”

“Maybe.” Logan sat up in bed and shrugged—his way of expressing the enduring and inevitable teenage whatever . “But their laws don’t work on us anyway. They can’t say we possess something when it’s actually a part of us now. No one would say you ‘possess’ your own arms, would they?”

I could have laughed if the situation wasn’t so serious. “No, they probably wouldn’t. But they can get us on the ‘use’ clause.”

I’d even thought about arguing that we were technically human, so their laws didn’t apply to us at all, but I doubted they would discriminate. By human legal standards, we fit within the existing definition of Idrian citizens. That meant we enjoyed protected status as refugees, but also that we were subject to the Idrian legal system.

Logan wrapped his arms around his knees, and Ari rolled over to prop her chin on the edge of the bunk. I could see her bright eyes peering at me from under the dark mop of her hair, and felt a pang at the tenor of our conversation.

How could I be talking to a six-year-old about whether she was about to be a wanted criminal?

“I want to stay,” she pouted, tilting her head to the side and kicking her feet. “I like ramen every day. And ‘Jelica is nice to me.”

“And I need a teacher,” Logan chimed in. “I’ll go to jail if I have to, but I want to keep learning from Faris. It’s already easier to control my magic. Doesn’t feel like I’m standing in the middle of an earthquake all the time.”

I couldn’t miss the optimism shining from his eyes. He’d been fighting for so long, and this was the first time he’d felt like there was hope that this magic wouldn’t eventually tear him apart.

How could I take that from him?

“So you all want to stand and fight. To try to get these laws changed.”

Kes nodded. “We aren’t helpless, Raine. And where else but the Shadow Court would we even have a chance?”

I had to tell them. “There is another option.” I took a deep breath. “Do any of you remember Blake?”

I explained his offer. Told them how hard he’d been trying to keep this Symposium from happening. That we could have a home with others like us if we were willing to join their cause.

We discussed our options.

We voted.

In the end, we made a unanimous decision, and I knew what I was going to have to do.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” I warned them. “People may come for you here. They may try to hurt you. But no matter who it is, whether you decide to surrender or to fight, whether you win or lose, know that I will do everything in my power to come back to you. To find you.”

I looked each of them in the eye for a moment, as if I could somehow engrave my words on their memories. “No matter what happens,” I promised, “none of you will ever need to feel lost or alone again as long as I’m alive.”

My word was the only thing I could give them. I could only pray that it would somehow prove to be enough.

I didn’t stop to change. I knew if I gave myself time to think about it, I might lose my nerve, but my feet were too scraped up for the sandals, so I pulled on my boots with my dress and began the long walk back to The Assemblage.

It was a little after nine, and the banquet was scheduled to last until ten. I was counting on them all still being there—eating and drinking and congratulating themselves on their achievement.

Of course, it would be Kevin standing outside the door, which was when I remembered that I didn’t have my badge. It was sitting on my bed back at the hostel.

He took one look at me with my wild hair and glittering dress and boots and pulled out his phone. Hit a number and put it to his ear. His mustache somehow looking less fierce than usual as he waited for whoever he was calling to pick up.

“This is Security Officer Smith.” A pause, then, “She’s here.”

He hung up. “Go on in.”

“But I don’t have my badge.”

He glared. “And in about ten seconds, I’m going to notice.”

I wished I’d remembered to bring him coffee more often. “Thanks.”

He jerked his head towards the door, and I went in.

My hands were already shaking in anticipation, but the foyer was empty, and the doors to the event space were closed.

I could hear voices from within. Music, laughter, the clinking of crystal. All of those people celebrating a historic moment. They’d finally managed to find common ground, and I was about to ruin it—one way or another.

Almost involuntarily, I took a sideways step toward the stairs, but my foot never even touched them.

Callum burst through the doors like floodwaters breaching a dam. He stopped three feet from me, jaw clenched, eyes bright, and suddenly I remembered all the reasons I’d taken a chance on him in the first place.

“You disappeared.” His voice sounded raw. He looked angry, but I wasn’t afraid of him. Somehow, I still knew he wouldn’t hurt me. That whatever he’d done, it had been done in ignorance. He had no idea how badly he’d disappointed me.

I swallowed. “I told you I had to go home.”

“You never said why. You just left. I was afraid…” He didn’t finish the sentence.

“I’m sorry.” And I was. About so many things. “But there are things I need to say.”

His gaze was piercing. Thoughtful. “Have you eaten?”

I hadn’t, but my stomach was in knots and I didn’t feel hungry. “No, but can we talk first?”

He glanced back at the doors into the banquet space and then reached for my hand. Tugged me behind him as he led the way outside. “Five minutes,” he said. “I should be able to disappear that long before someone realizes I’m gone.”

Five minutes… What could I possibly say in that amount of time? How could I explain?

The night air was cold, so I wrapped my arms around myself, shut my eyes, and was almost immediately enveloped in warmth.

Callum’s coat. He’d taken it off, draped it carefully over my shoulders, and then stepped back, waiting for me to speak. Even after I’d abandoned him at the last moment, he cared about something as simple as whether or not I was cold.

I drew in a deep, shaky breath and fixed my gaze on the crowd of people spilling out of the restaurant across the street, hoping it would be easier to say what I needed to if I wasn’t looking at him. If I couldn’t see how badly my words would crush him.

And that’s when I saw her.

For a moment, I thought I must be imagining things. She’d disappeared so completely, we’d assumed she was in hiding or dead.

But no. Partially concealed in the shadows cast by the streetlights, Heather stood with her hands in her coat pockets. Watching. And when her eyes caught mine, she did not flinch or run.

She smiled. And as she smiled, her eyes lit up with hot, amber fire.

And all the pieces fell into place.

“Callum,” I murmured quietly. “Do you still trust me?”

“Yes.”

He was such a foolish dragon, but in that moment, I loved him for it.

Wait, no I didn’t.

“I’m about to ruin everything.”

He regarded me steadily. “If it’s the right thing to do, then I will support you.”

His trust in me was both terrifying and humbling. And I was going to have to break it.

“You won’t,” I said regretfully. “But it’s still the right thing to do. And also, in a few minutes, we will likely be attacked.”

His eyes went sharp and hot, glimmering with the first flickers of power. “What do you need from me?”

It was a big ask. One he had no reason to grant. “I need a few minutes to talk to the rest of the delegates.”

“Then let’s go.” He started back into the building. “Most of them will be leaving town after the banquet, so now is your only chance.”

I grabbed his arm, felt his muscles flex beneath my fingertips. “What do you mean, leaving? Aren’t you signing at ten tomorrow morning?”

“No.” He shot me an uncomfortable look that was somehow still laden with grim satisfaction. “We signed already. Right before the banquet.”

So I was already too late. My hand dropped, and my heart fell along with it, shattering to pieces on the sidewalk at my feet.

But he kept talking, oblivious to the fact that he’d just taken a sledgehammer to my fragile hopes.

“The plan was kept a secret until the last minute so it couldn’t be leaked. Since we didn’t know who the mole was, I couldn’t take the chance, especially after Heather’s disappearance. Even Angelica didn’t know.”

I should have known better than to assume he was moving forward blindly. Should have expected he would be devious enough to plan this without letting anyone else find out.

It was too late now for me. For Ari, for Logan, and for Kes. I’d lost my chance to explain. To tell him why I’d left him on the rooftop. To beg them all not to do this.

From this moment on, I would be a fugitive and yet… I was still going to act. Because no one in there knew what was coming, and I did.

Callum had been right about me after all—I was a protector at heart. And I was determined to keep my promises. My promise to Kira to keep him safe. My promise to Talia to find out what had happened to her daughter. And my promise to Callum, to help him protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. Even if those protections never applied to me, I was damn well going to make sure they protected as many people as possible.

Even if it meant saving my enemies from the ones who should have had my back.

Even if the ones I chose to save might well turn on me before the evening was over.