Chapter Twenty-One
Corvin left the bacon sizzling off the burner while he fixed a plate of eggs and fruit. The toast popped up, and he spun just in time to catch it, then slathered it with butter. He put the heap of bacon on its own plate, warmed up his coffee, and swept into the bedroom silently. There was no need—Audrey hadn’t stirred for over twelve hours. He wasn’t concerned though. He’d stayed in bed a day and a half after his trip through the hall. He knelt on the bed beside her and swept some of her hair aside to set the tray down in place of his pillow. He caressed the side of her face, then tickled her nose.
Not even a twitch.
He waved a piece of bacon under her nose. She groaned and began the agonizing crawl from the depths of slumber. When she blinked her eyes open, he smiled and ate the bacon while she watched. “Mmm, so good.”
She flipped him off.
“Definitely not a morning lark, are you? More bacon for me, I guess.”
She grunted and sat up, rubbing her eyes.
He handed her the coffee and rearranged the tray directly in front of her. A surge of excitement rippled off her, and he laughed—he’d never known anyone so happy to eat. But then he realized she was looking at him. When their eyes met, the buzz of excitement shifted to a languid heat, trickling down the front of his body. His heart gave a heavy thud.
Then he looked away and remembered to block himself off from reading her emotions. Still, a spark of hope had been ignited in that one glance.
She still wants me.
He cleared his throat and shifted to hide the evidence of his desire. “How is Her Highness feeling this morning?”
She answered through a mouthful of toast. “Like I spent the night getting beat up by ghosts.”
He raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t a bad analogy. “The good news is you never have to do that again.”
Audrey munched her way through a piece of bacon, looking at him but not actually there.
“Everything all right?”
“Mmm.” She bent over her plate to dig in. “S’good, thanks.”
He rubbed along her thigh. “You can go back to sleep if you want.”
She slurped coffee and then her head snapped up to attention. “I can’t. We have to go get Lilly.”
“By ‘we,’ you mean…”
“Me and you.”
“To bring her here, to the Arcanum?”
“Well, yeah. I wouldn’t just dump her on the side of the road somewhere.”
“Even though that means revealing the Legacy to her? And that she will face the same choice you have?”
“Yes.” She squinted at him. “What’s with the third degree? I thought you’d be happy to hear I changed my mind.”
He held up his hands in an innocent gesture. “I am. But we can’t just storm into a mundane hospital, spells blazing. That sort of extraction takes high-level magic—persuasion, memory wipes, Hohlwen—”
Audrey gripped his arm, her face stricken. “You said we could help her.”
He sighed, wishing he knew what she was feeling right now and how carefully he should tread. “I meant it. Which is why I explained the situation to my mother last night. I couldn’t sleep knowing that poor girl was suffering needlessly. My mother sent a flight of Hohlwen. They should have returned by sunrise. Lilly is probably resting in the healing ward as we speak.”
She let go of him and frowned at her half-eaten plate. “How could you do that?”
This had been the reaction he was afraid of, that she would see it as a violation of her trust, which he’d fought so hard to earn. “I’m sorry. I thought the ends justified the means, that you would be glad I had gotten her to safety as soon as possible.”
She scowled at him and shook her head. “You just assumed you knew what I wanted, without even consulting me?”
“You were dead to the world,” he said reasonably.
“That’s bullshit. You could have woken me up.”
“I could have,” he said, bowing his head. “But I didn’t think I needed to consult you.”
“Why the hell not?”
He stared into her eyes, letting her see the raw hope in his. “Because you said last night that you wanted me to take you home. I thought that meant you were planning on staying.”
What if you were wrong?
“I—” She snapped her mouth closed. “I did mean it that way.” She looked surprised at her own answer.
A ball of tension released from the center of his chest, and he could breathe easier. “I realized the first thing you would want to do was get Lilly out of that place.”
She nodded. “It was.”
He scooted a little closer. “And then I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I could put you at ease instantly? I wanted to be able to tell you everything was well, that you don’t have to run off into another fight. You can relax.”
Her eyes teared up. He took her hand, and she squeezed his fingers.
“So,” he tucked her hair behind her shoulder and feathered a few kisses over her cheek and ear, “finish your breakfast, take a shower, and then you can go check on her.”
Audrey wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. He’d been waiting for hours and hours to have her back in his arms, so he didn’t hesitate to oblige her.
She pulled back to whisper, “I think I’m hungry for something else.”
“Mmm, really?” He dove back in for another taste of her mouth. As she reached for the button on his jeans, he heard Smoke flying toward the tower, announcing Roderic’s arrival.
Audrey stilled and listened for a moment, then her eyes widened. “He might have news about Lilly.”
Warmth brushed over him at the thought that Audrey was beginning to understand Smoke’s calls. And then he snapped back to reality. As much as he wanted to completely lose himself in Audrey for days, their reunion would have to wait. He brushed her cheek with his thumb. “Rain check?”
She looked at him through her lashes and bit her lip, which did nothing to quell his desire. He pulled her solidly against him and dipped her back for a deep, promising kiss. When he released her, she was sporting a solid blush. His chest swelled with pride at the clear evidence that he had an equal effect on her.
“Yes,” she said, her voice raspy. “Definitely.”
He swept her off the bed and set her down on her feet, then kissed her nose. “Wash up. I’ll make some more coffee.”
Audrey smiled and disappeared into the bathroom.
He made a fresh pot and then sat in his chair and waited for Roderic while Audrey showered. Smoke flew to his shoulder and butted his head, then pecked gently behind his ear. Corvin scratched his neck and gurgled an apology under his breath. They’d barely seen each other the past few days. “Thanks for keeping watch, buddy.”
Smoke stretched his wings back in a display of pride.
“I know. You always do your job. But I’m going to need you to give me and Audrey some privacy a little longer.”
Caw-caw, he said, admonishing Corvin’s manners, and then he took to the rafters and out to his roost.
I’ll make it up to you later.
He sighed and turned to face Roderic at the top of the stairs, a grim expression on his face.
Corvin shot to his feet as a heavy stone dropped to the bottom of his stomach.
“The place that Audrey was retrieved from is no longer there. The building burned down.”
Corvin cursed under his breath.
“It gets worse.” Amber flooded Roderic’s stone-grey eyes. “The remnants reeked of sorcery.”
He rubbed his head, overwhelmed with the implications for a moment. When Audrey found out…
“Do you want to tell her, or should I?” Roderic asked.
“She’ll want to hear it from the source.”
Audrey walked into the room, brushing her wet hair. “Hear what?”
Roderic suddenly found his boots very interesting. Corvin met her in the middle of the room. He held back from pulsing any power at her and instead just wrapped his arms around her. “She wasn’t there. The hospital burned down.”
Audrey dropped the brush to the floor. Silence choked the next few seconds. Then she spoke through gritted teeth. “I don’t understand.”
Words escaped him, so he hugged her to his chest. She shoved away from him and stormed over to Roderic. “Tell me.”
“The Hohlwen we sent returned with a report that the building had been razed to the ground. Then I went myself to investigate. It was an incendiary spell. Nothing else could burn down to the foundation so cleanly. There was a concealment spell on top of it. The magic reeked of sorcerers.”
Audrey scowled and shook her head. “Sorcerers?”
Corvin came to her side. “Mundanes who have become a scourge to our kind. They have no power of their own, but they use ancient dark rituals to siphon energy from Zyne to fuel their magic.”
She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself. “Do you think they took her?”
Roderic sighed. “It is definitely possible. But the trail I found was days old. I could only track it to the parking lot.”
Tears built in Audrey’s eyes, and Corvin reached for her. She spun away from him and ran up the stairs to her tower, slamming both doors behind her.
Roderic squeezed his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“You did what you could. She blames herself,” Corvin said, debating whether he should offer comfort or give her space.
“The cure for that is to make her feel needed. Give her a reason to believe in herself again.”
He tilted his head. “Since when are you an expert on women?”
Roderic cracked a smile. “I’ve lived more than a few human lifetimes. People don’t change much.”
Corvin laughed. “I suppose that’s true. I’ll consider it.”
Roderic looked up, as if he, too, could sense Audrey’s grief from here. Maybe he could hear her sobs with his preternatural senses. “Your mother has informed the proper chain of authority. With any luck, this information may help the guardians track down the sorcerers’ lair.”
Corvin appreciated the sentiment but could hear the hollowness in Roderic’s tone. If he couldn’t pick up the trail, it was as good as gone. And if the guardians had any knowledge of where the sorcerers’ lair was, the attack would have never happened in the first place. He forced a smile. “We can hope.”
“Let me know if there is anything else I can do,” Roderic said, descending the first few steps. “And…” He glanced at the ceiling again. “I just want you to know that I’m glad to see you happy.”
“Thank you.” Corvin’s throat tightened. He was happy — happier than he’d ever been, but it was bittersweet. Just as their relationship was taking form, Audrey was suffering. And he could do nothing to take her pain away.
***
There was a hurricane inside Audrey that wanted to break loose and wreak havoc on anything and everything within a five-mile radius. This was why she did not get close to people. It always ended in disaster.
The last forty-eight hours had been the most chaotic and emotionally exhausting time of her life. She’d gone from the high of making love with Corvin to almost escaping, to almost dying, to getting a can of magical whoop-ass dumped on her head and discovering her mother hadn’t abandoned her by the side of the road as she’d always believed, to the relief and elation she’d felt this morning when Corvin had told her Lilly was safe, to the absolute rock-bottom low of realizing her stubborn shortsightedness had cost an innocent girl’s life.
She was shaking with so much dark fury, she was actually glad her powers were bound so she didn’t tear the tower to the ground. Instead, the storm of her emotions poured out her eyes in torrents as she pressed her face into the pillow and screamed until her throat was raw.
When Corvin knocked on the door and entered sometime later, she blinked out of the trance she’d been drifting in for what felt like hours. Long enough for her to be chilled to the bone. She didn’t move or acknowledge him, just tried to stay in that floating place, detached from the anguish. He sat down beside her and stroked her hair, gently coaxing her back to the present moment. She was torn between wanting to retreat deeper into her pool of self-pity and needing to feel his solid, reassuring warmth.
You don’t deserve comfort.
“This isn’t your fault,” he said, his voice gentle.
She frowned, wondering if he’d read her thoughts. “How can you even say that? I knew my first day here that this place was better than Parkview. No one here would have strapped her to a table and stuck needles into her. I should have turned her over then. But I guess…I don’t know. I thought it would be harder to escape here with her, and I didn’t entirely trust the Synod either.” She wiped her nose with her sleeve. “If it weren’t for me and my issues, Lilly would be here. Safe.” She shook her head as she tried to keep her voice from cracking. “Now she’s dead, and it is completely my fault.”
Corvin’s hand stilled on her back. “If the sorcerers have her, she’s not dead.”
Audrey sat up and scrubbed the dried tear tracks from her cheeks. “What do you mean?”
He sighed as if he regretted what he was about to tell her. “Sorcerers don’t kill witches, they enslave them. We are like a battery to them. They will keep her alive and in relatively good health. Then, at the dark of the moon, they’ll perform a ritual to place a mark on her — a magical tattoo that allows them to tap into her power.”
A jolt of electricity zinged up Audrey’s spine and she sat up straighter. “Then we can still save her.” Maybe before the sorcerers marked her. The dark of the moon was over two weeks away.
There’s still a chance to make this right.
Corvin took her hand, and she felt a subtle brush of his power, like a feather against her mental shields. “We can’t, but there’s a department of the guardians that deals specifically with exterminating sorcerers. They’ve been informed of the situation. If anyone can find Lilly at this point, they will.”
She shook her head, pulling her hand out of his grasp. “If you think that’s going to be good enough for me, then you don’t know me at all.”
“You heard Roderic. There’s no trail to follow. What else would you suggest we do?”
“Look for her!” she shouted, springing to her feet. “You have over a hundred Hohlwen here. One of them found me — they can find her.”
“We have no idea where she is.” He was using the same calm, defusing tone he did when he spoke to his mother, and it was kind of pissing her off. “And even if we did, we can’t just leave the fortress unguarded and use the Hohlwen as our personal search party. The Synod has an obligation to protect the Legacy first and foremost.”
“Right.” Fucking establishment bullshit again. She began pacing the small room, a lick of fire starting in her stomach. With each turn, it felt as if the room got smaller. Now her palms ached to feel her power flowing. She squared off with Corvin. “I thought I was a part of that Legacy.”
“You are.”
“Then so is Lilly! How can the Synod pretend they give a shit if they won’t protect their own children?” Tears sprang to her eyes again, and her chest contracted. Lilly must be so afraid.
You shouldn’t have left her there.
She would do anything to take it back, to do it differently. She would not rest until she either saved Lilly…or avenged her.
Corvin pulsed another tendril of his magic at her, wrapping her in a warm, secure blanket of peace and calm. Some of her anger ebbed, and he approached her even though she glared a warning at him. Though she did not like having her emotions manipulated, she let him take her in his arms, and she let out a deep breath as the buckles around her rib cage loosened.
“I know it hurts. I know you’re angry…and ashamed.” Sourness filled her mouth and she tried to pull away, but Corvin held her tight against him. “But punishing yourself won’t do any good. You’re going to have to accept that it is out of our hands, and trust the guardians to do their job. They have intel and training and specialized spells for combating sorcery.”
That was everything she needed. She could use their intel to track down the ones who took Lilly, and their training to get her revenge. The whirling gears in her head clicked into place. “Fine. I’ll join the guardians then.”
Corvin quickly schooled his expression to neutral. “After you’re initiated, you could.”
She pulled away and stared into his eyes, searching for any hope. “You don’t think they’ll find her.”
A crease appeared between his brows. “What?”
“I can see it on your face.”
He glanced at the floor. “I don’t think it’s likely, but there is a chance.”
She nodded and turned her back on him to stare out the window. She would join the guardians and do everything she could to find Lilly. She would not stop until she either found Lilly or exterminated every last one of them. “I’m sorry. I can’t just give up on her.”
“I would never expect you to.”
A bitter smile twisted her mouth. She knew Corvin probably had other hopes for them. Somehow, she didn’t think a mission for vengeance fit into the picture of a cottage in the woods surrounded by friendly forest animals.
Hours later, Corvin snoozed beside her on their makeshift bed beside the woodstove, but Audrey couldn’t sleep. She slid out of the covers and pulled on his plaid shirt. She stood at the kitchen sink, sipping a glass of water as she stared at the moon through the narrow window. The faint glow around it reminded her of the moonstone in her mother’s necklace and the memory she’d relived in the Hall of Echoes. She reached for it around her neck and remembered that she hadn’t put it back on yet.
Her breath caught in panic, then she recalled the bundle of her clothes sitting on her nightstand upstairs. She took the steps two at a time and burst into her room, probably waking every bird in the tower. She fumbled through the stack of clothes and finally breathed out a sigh of relief when the necklace fell to the bed.
She held it up to the moonlight, remembering how it had glowed with magic in her memory. Haunted by the look on her mother’s face as she’d passed her baby to Jack.
If she had loved her so much, why had she given Audrey away? She wished she could go back and hear what was said. She’d been terrified, desperate.
You would think learning your mother hadn’t simply thrown you away would be a good thing, but somehow it made it harder. She had convinced herself she was better off without the assholes that abandoned her by the side of the road. She had long ago buried that pain, but now it had to be exhumed and re-autopsied.
Jack had told her she’d been wearing the necklace when she was found at a rest stop. Audrey had always tried to imagine the woman who had worn it. When she was young, Audrey had fantasized that she’d walk down the street one day and some woman would stop and stare at the necklace, knowing she was looking at her daughter. She’d long since discarded those childish hopes, but it had become a talisman, a reminder that she didn’t need anyone.
Why had Jack lied to her?
Was she trying to stop her from looking for her mother? It would have made such a difference if she’d known her mother had been trying to protect her. Had powers like hers. The whole trajectory of her life might have been altered. Yet, she probably would have ended up finding the Synod one way or another. Perhaps she would have sought it out. Maybe Patricia was right, and there was such a thing as Fate. If she hadn’t been brought here, she would be one of the sorcerer’s prisoners too. She and Lilly would both be forgotten, like so many others. Instead, she was on the outside and she knew to look for Lilly.
She just didn’t know how. Where to begin.
She pulled the necklace over her head. As soon as it touched her skin, it warmed, almost to the point of burning.
Audrey hissed and pulled it away to examine it. The moonstone pulsed with a warm pink light. It had never done that before. “What the—”
Audrey. Audrey. Audrey, a faint voice hummed in a sing-song voice in her head.
Her blood turned to ice. She scanned the small room, knowing she would find nothing but shadows.
Lilly? Audrey shouted in her head.
There you are, Audrey, the voice answered.
Lilly! Can you hear me?
Audrey?
Relief surged through her. Thank god, you’re alive! Where are you?
Are you coming back for me now?
Yes, but you have to help me, Lilly. Tell me where you are.
In a room. She said you’re coming back for me and we’re going on a boat ride. Are you coming soon?
Who said? There was no answer. Lilly? Her heart started pounding. I’m coming, Lilly! Just hang on!
The necklace dimmed and cooled in her palm. Before she could put any of her thoughts in order, she was bounding down the stairs. She landed on top of Corvin, then shook him.
“Corvin, wake up. It’s Lilly! She’s still alive! She spoke to me through my necklace somehow.”
“Slow down,” he said, sitting up. “What do you mean through your necklace?”
“I don’t know! I put it on and held it up to the moonlight, and it glowed, and then I heard her.” She thrust it into his face.
Corvin gathered a blanket around his waist and took the chain, holding the pendant out in front of him. “Hmm.”
“Hmm? What does ‘hmm’ mean? Did you hear what I just said?”
He squinted at the necklace, ignoring her as he got up and moved to the window in the kitchen. She stood at his shoulder as he watched it spin slowly, a look of concentration on his face. It didn’t glow. “I heard you. There is a faint trace of magic woven into this. Very faint.”
Audrey swallowed the lump in her throat, trying not to scream at him that he was taking too long. “What kind of magic?”
He handed it back to her, and then squinted at her with a calculating expression on his face. “Interesting.”
She squeezed the stone in her palm. “What?”
“The magic flared brighter as soon as you touched it. It must be tied to you. It would have to be blood magic for it to work with your powers bound…Where did you get this?”
She pointedly ignored his question. “What kind of magic?”
“I’m not sure.” He looked at it again, not touching it this time. “It’s a complicated sigil. It looks like some sort of psychic amplifier.”
She scrunched her brows. “You mean it’s boosting her signal somehow?”
“Perhaps.”
“So, can we use that to find her?”
Her stomach clenched at the look of pity on his face, and she braced for his next words.
“The guardians may be able to. We should hand this over to them.”
She flinched and put the necklace over her head. “No fucking way. I’m not going to sit here and do nothing. She needs me!”
He sighed and reached for her. She stepped into his embrace and stared into his eyes. “Please just hear me out. If the magic in the necklace is tied to me, handing it over to the guardians is giving up our only link to Lilly. It’s the full moon tomorrow, so her powers are at their strongest, but she could still barely reach me. What happens after that?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but she kept going.
“I’ll tell you—we’ll lose her. Maybe forever. But, if the magic works like you say, then the signal should get stronger if we get closer to her, right?”
“It’s possible.”
“Right. So let’s test the theory before we do anything else. She said something about a boat, so maybe she’s on the coast. If we move west, that should bring us closer, and maybe we can figure out from there whether to go north or south.”
He gave her a doubtful look.
“Please. We have to try. It’s my fault they have her. I have to do something to help make it right.”
“Assuming your idea works, once we know to go north or south, then what?”
“Then…” She hadn’t thought it out that far. She would want to keep going until they zeroed in on Lilly. “Then, once we know the theory works, we get the guardians involved. If I can really help them find the sorcerers—provide a solid lead—they should be all over that, right?”
He nodded slightly, the wheels in his head visibly turning as he looked at her. Finally, he pulled her snugly into his chest. “Okay. I’ll take you. Just promise me that you aren’t going to run off on me again and put yourself in danger.”
She smiled into his neck. “I promise I’ll never run off on you again.” She couldn’t promise the rest, since she had a knack for getting herself into trouble, and there was that penalty-of-death deal she’d made with an immortal.
Corvin stroked her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. Audrey squeezed him tight, holding her breath.
“All right. Let’s get dressed and gas up the Rover.”