Chapter 19

Prohibition on Cultivation of Gardens and Floral Growth

Silver Edict #11

“In adherence to the mandate of public safety and environmental preservation, the cultivation, planting, or nurturing of gardens and floral growth within designated urban zones is hereby prohibited…”

ARCHER

Unlike Godric, I’ve never glamoured someone into killing themselves. But Gods above and below, when I saw the way Reed spoke to Tasia, I was close.

This woman deserves the world and more. How she ended up with a douche like Reed will never cease to baffle me. He royally screwed up by letting her go, but I’m damn happy he did.

Too bad I refuse to take advantage of her misplaced attraction. I refuse to be a rebound, someone she gets off with, then moves on from. I’m an all-or-nothing man, and I refuse to only have pieces of her.

One day, when I have her, it will be every ounce of her.

But I have to push that thought aside for now. Right now, I need to get her out of here. Once her ex is gone and my emotions are in check, we finish gathering up her things and head for the door.

Just as we exit the apartment, Stace grabs Tasia’s arm. I suppress a growl, stepping in close.

“It’s okay,” Tasia says with a sigh. She shakes her arm free. “What do you want, Stace?”

Their other roommate, the curly-haired girl with a permanent scowl, pops her head out of the door. Then she emerges and closes the door behind her, joining us in the stairwell and crossing her arms. She has what appears to be dried paint all over her shirt and arms—hues of green and blue. I sniff the air. Acrylic.

“No—eff this,” Tasia says, her voice hard. The absence of her usual swearing surprises me, and my brows rise. She might consider me a criminal, but I’m apparently influencing her positively. My chest swells with pride.

“It’s important,” Stace says. “Please?” She juts her lips out in a pout, and her blown-out pupils make the expression seem overexaggerated.

Tasia hesitates, glancing back and forth between her roommates.

The painter-girl sighs, uncrossing her arms. “I didn’t sleep with Reed,” she says, then narrows her dark eyes at me. “Can you go or something?”

After a few moments, Tasia jerks her chin toward me in what I interpret as a subtle “go on” movement.

I nod, shifting her duffle bag higher on my shoulder, but before I leave, I move toward Tasia’s roommates. Glancing at each of them in turn, I say, “You will not harm Tasia in any way. You will look out for her, always.”

The women go blank, blinking a few times before nodding in assent.

“Archer,” Tasia whispers, tugging my arm. “Stop being weird.” I pull back, giving her a wink.

I’ve been quite liberal with my use of glamour around Tasia. Not once have I made an effort to conceal my own abilities. In fact, she knows I can scent death before it happens. Yet she never asks questions, never acknowledges it. It’s sad that she’s stifled her own magic out of shame and fear, and it’s almost hurtful that she’s so willing to ignore mine.

Maybe one day she’ll ask, and I can give her my truth.

For now, I let her pretend with me. Pretend we are both normal, that we’re not two walking death sentences in a city full of people trained to despise us.

Her brow wrinkles in confusion, and she shakes her head. She hands me her father’s journal and shoos me away. “Go. Give me five.”

“I’ll be downstairs,” I say. Leaning in, I give her a quick kiss on the forehead. She stutters, blinking up at me.

I can’t help but smirk at the fact that I caught her off guard.

Once I’ve descended the stairs, I hide in the shadows of the stairwell, using my enhanced senses to listen to their conversation.

Even though the women are successfully glamoured and the ex-boyfriend is off the premises, I don’t feel comfortable leaving Tasia alone.

“I have somewhere to be,” Tasia says, her voice cold enough to freeze fire.

“Fine,” Alisha says. “Then go. No one is forcing you to stay.”

“Stop it!” Stace says, then sighs. “That’s not— We were worried about you, Tasia. You didn’t return my messages.”

“I’ve been busy. Don’t really have time for drama.”

“Drama?” Alisha says, scoffing. “I never hooked up with Reed, by the way.”

There’s a pause. Tasia’s heart rate picks up. I hate that such an ignorant boy could cause such a strong woman so much pain.

“I don’t care,” Tasia says. I sense an inherent honesty behind her words. She pauses, her heart rate slowing back down. “I’m with someone else now, anyway.”

“Yeah, the Crawler. We saw.”

“Alisha, stop being a bitch,” Stace hisses.

“I’m not being anything,” Alisha replies.

“Look, Tasia, you should probably lie low for a while,” Stace whispers. “There’s a reward for turning you in.”

“What?” Tasia’s breathing increases again. “What do you mean, a reward? I was on the UIS again?”

“Again?” Stace’s voice holds a hint of confusion. “There were flyers with your face on them—downtown.”

“They’re offering five thousand fucking silvers,” Alisha adds.

Shit.

I stiffen, quickly locating my cell phone. My fingers fly as I shoot off updates to Pixel and Godric, telling them to get teams on the streets—now. Sometimes flyers pop up around town with Godric and me on them, but our faces are normally unrecognizable, so we don’t worry about it…but if Tasia’s roommates recognized her on the flyers, it’s only a matter of time before someone else does.

“Why haven’t you turned me in?” Tasia whispers, confused.

I sift through the sounds of their autonomic nervous systems, checking for anything amiss, anything that might alert me to lies or fear or nervousness, but I detect nothing of the sort.

“Because you’re one of us,” Stace finally says. Fabric rustles, as if one of the women is pulling in another for a hug.

“Even if you hate us for no reason,” Alisha murmurs.

“Oh, I have reasons, but we’re not hashing them out now,” Tasia says. I bite my lip to keep from chuckling. She clears her throat. “Thanks? I mean, thanks. Really. I guess I owe you.”

“Just pay your rent until we get a new roommate and we’re even,” Alisha says.

The trio chuckles awkwardly, and the energy between them seems to lighten. I relax a bit. My abilities aren’t a foolproof way to tell if someone’s lying, but most average humans aren’t trained in regulating their body’s systems, so I assume the women’s intentions with Tasia are honest.

Five thousand silvers is enough for most people to rethink their friendships. It’s a mystery why they’ve not turned Tasia in, considering how strained their interactions seem to be, but I don’t know enough about their history to speculate.

Their apartment door whines open, and a few people spill out, talking loudly. Tasia tells her roommates goodbye.

“I’m serious,” Alisha says. “Pay your rent!”

Gripping Tasia’s bag tightly, I jog toward Godric’s SUV, open the trunk, and place everything inside.

“I sent out a message to the Crawlers. They’re posting up around the city like you asked, boss,” Godric says.

“Don’t call me that.”

He chuckles.

“Thank you. Now I need to recharge,” I tell him. “We have to stop by the greenhouse.”

“With her?” he asks.

I nod, and he meets my eyes in the rearview mirror before raising a brow and smirking. “Too much exertion, heh?”

I flip him off, and he howls with laughter before saying, “What would Sofia thi—”

I slam the trunk shut to muffle his smart comment.

When Tasia approaches, I lean against the SUV and run a hand through my hair, acting casual as if I’ve been here the whole time. After all the glamouring I’ve done tonight, I’m stretching my energy thin. Relying on my heightened senses to keep an eye on Tasia tapped into the last of my reserves.

My magic isn’t endless. Just as my body requires food for fuel, my abilities need to recharge with fuel of their own.

“Let’s go,” Tasia says, emerging from the stairwell.

I open the back door for her, and she tilts her head up, giving me a soft smile. “Thanks.”

She slides in, and I go around to the other side of the vehicle. When I enter, she gives me a questioning look. “You’re a menace, you know that?”

A laugh bursts out of me. I’m not sure what I expected her to say, but it wasn’t that.

Instead of replying, I take a risk and reach for her, palm-up. She bites her lip, looking from me to my proffered hand. Godric starts the engine and pulls out of the apartment complex. Finally, she accepts my hand, interlacing our fingers and scooting closer. The warmth of her skin radiates through my hand, sending an excited tingle through my veins.

It’s such a simple, innocent gesture, but it’s so full of meaning that it inflates me with joy.

The rest of the world melts away. It’s just me and the woman who makes me smile in a city that breeds misery.

“Hey,” Tasia says after we’ve been riding in silence for a few minutes. “Where are we going?”

We wind through the city, steel and brick buildings blocking our view on either side. Instead of going north, to Sweetcreek, we’ve gone deeper downtown.

“My place.”

I rub the back of her hand with my thumb, hoping she doesn’t choose now to press me for answers.

Exhaustion is seeping into my bones, and with the added threat to Tasia, we need to be prepared. I don’t want to risk driving all the way to Sweetcreek to recharge. Not when I have my greenhouse close by.

Tasia’s gaze burns into me, but I glance out the window.

I hope this is the right choice.

“It’s where we grew up,” Godric says, coming to my rescue.

I exhale in relief.

“You’re brothers?” Tasia asks. “You don’t really look alike.”

Godric snorts. “No. Not in blood or name, anyway.” The leather of the steering wheel creaks as he squeezes it. “Brothers in bond.”

“Trauma bond,” I mutter.

“We both lost our families young,” Godric says. “In a way.”

His father is still alive but essentially lost to him.

Tasia doesn’t respond, but she grips my hand tighter. Since her parents were taken from her, she can relate. In a way, our losses connect us all. Did her roommates choose not to turn her in because they, too, know what it’s like to be born into greed and sin, to have to battle their way daily toward a better life? Sure, I glamoured them, but that was after they chose to talk with Tasia instead of calling the Scouts.

All of us from the Packing District understand what it’s like to simply survive rather than live.

Tasia pulls out her cell phone, using it as a light to illuminate her father’s journal. She flips through the pages carefully. A few minutes later, she gasps.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she mutters. “Or—I don’t know. I think it’s nothing.” She points at a page toward the end of the book. “Here. What do you think this means?”

I read the words.

The city’s heart beats to the rhythm of forgotten songs, but the symphony lies within. Remember, all that glitters is not silver. I shall lay bear the truth in the end.

“Was your dad a musician?” I ask, scanning the lines.

She shakes her head. “No. His mother was. He named me Fantasia after her. My name means ‘musical composition’ or something like that.” She sighs, snapping the journal shut. “I just can’t help but feel like there’s a message I’m missing. Songs… Symphony… He’s trying to tell me something.” Sighing in frustration, she turns to me. “Am I going crazy?”

“Of course not, Tasia.”

“It’s probably nothing,” she mutters, then snaps a photo of the page before stuffing the journal back into her bag.

A short time later, we pull into a poorly lit alley. Further down the alley is an entrance to the Underground. Normally I can see it from here, but with my magic running low, my eyesight has been reduced to that of a regular human. It’s not a comfortable feeling—I waited too long to recharge.

“You’re safe,” I tell Tasia again, just in case she needs to hear it. “I need you to stay with Godric. He’ll take you up to my ma’s old apartment.”

She whips her head around. “You’re leaving me?”

I grit my teeth. “I need to take care of something.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“No,” I say firmly. “Go with Godric.”

“You can boss Reed and my roommates around all you want, but that shit won’t work on me, Archer Acciai.”

Godric stifles another laugh from the front seat. “For real.”

“What?” she asks, turning her scowl on Godric.

“Nothing,” he says. “Come on, let’s go, sassy. Leave your stuff. We’ll come back for it.”

She starts to protest, her lips turning down into a frown. My chest warms at the realization that she wants to be by my side. But I need to recharge, and I need to do it alone.

“I’ll be quick,” I promise. Godric turns, giving me a nod before exiting the vehicle. We’ve worked together long enough to read each other. He’s giving me the go-ahead. All is clear.

“Look, Tasia,” I say. I want to be up front with her, but I don’t have the energy to dive into details right now. “I need you to trust me.” I pull her hand to my lips, planting a kiss on her skin before releasing it. “Stay close. Stay out of sight. And don’t tell anyone where you are.”

“Someone is searching for me,” she whispers. “They’re gonna find me.”

“No they won’t.”

“I don’t know what they want from me.” She glances out the window into the darkness.

Godric opens her door, and she steps out, giving me one last long look before following him out of the alley and to the apartment building’s front door. I trust he’ll keep her safe. I own the entire building, and no one else lives here. Rarely does anyone even go into the building, since the lobby looks derelict. But even if someone did, the stairs and elevators are warded—unusable to anyone except Godric, me, or anyone of our blood. Who knows? Maybe one day Godric’s father—Remy—will take up my offer and move in.

One can hope, after all.

Taking a deep breath, I exit the SUV and head deeper into the alley. I reach out and touch the brick wall. With my weakened vision, I have to fumble around to search for the door.

A few seconds later, I finger the latch and slide it open, pushing the door and stepping inside. The stairs take me two stories down into the earth.

The Underground.

The room I emerge into is bright, humid, and filled with greenery. It’s not anything to boast about, just a moderately sized room filled with plants. I take a deep breath, inhaling the pungent, floral aroma. Beneath my feet is dark-brown, fresh-tilled soil.

Grow lights hang overhead. They’re on a self-regulating timer, to mimic the sunlight. Sprinklers are arranged in rows, keeping the plants watered and the air humid.

A variety of pothos, ivies, and monsteras crawl around the room, their vines and leaves twisting up the walls and interlacing with one another.

A sense of relaxation eases through me, drawing me deeper into the room.

It’s not enough. I need to be closer. I need more.

The quicker I can close everything out, the quicker I can replenish my stores. That’s part of the reason I didn’t want Tasia here with me—she would be a distraction. I need to be alone for this.

I shed my clothing until I’m fully nude and take a seat on the warm soil. Closing my eyes, I steady my breathing and find my inner peace. In a way, it’s sort of like meditation.

The city leaders think the iron-and-salt walls are the most efficient tool for keeping fae out, but really, it’s the lack of nature. Fae need nature to recharge.

The steel, metal, and glass buildings do enough to repel magic on their own, and most fae avoid the city by choice.

I continue inhaling and exhaling deeply. Each breath seems to bring me back to life, and my magic courses through my limbs. A pulsating tingle works itself through my body, from my head down to my fingers, then down my legs to my toes.

There’s another reason I didn’t want Tasia here with me. It’s because her magic is artificial and seems to come at no cost to her. If she were here, I don’t know how she would react. I fear she would look at me differently…that instead of seeing our similarities like she does now, she will only see our differences.