Nate sensed her coming before he heard her. He pulled himself to his feet having shrugged off the pain that had since subsided in her absence, the relief of seeing her return in one piece overriding anything else.
She stepped through the gate, her heart pounding audibly, her breathing ragged from running.
He gave her a moment to catch her breath whilst keeping a watchful eye on the darkness across his shoulder.
‘It’s something to do with fire,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing but a furnace down there. That and a load of markings on the wall. She handed him her phone. ‘Take a look.’
He swiftly skimmed through the images she had photographed. Images he hoped he could work with.
He glanced into the depths of the tunnel again then back at her. ‘Let’s get out of here. We’ve been out here long enough.’
It would have made more sense to take the car, but he didn’t want to risk it being seen parked up near the tunnel. Instead, he’d opted for them to walk it. He remained vigilant on the journey back, mindful of Ember but retaining his primary focus on any danger that might be closing in on them. It was less than a thirty-minute walk back to the loft but it felt more like two hours, not helped by the cold pang in the air that was exacerbated by the drizzle that lingered on their exposed skin.
Ember’s arms were tightly folded across her chest but she still shivered beside him, her eyes lost in thought somewhere as they marched in silence. Her mind was no doubt working overtime as much as his was.
This time she willingly entered the doorway into the loft first.
‘Why don’t you take a shower,’ he suggested. ‘And warm yourself up. Then we can talk.’
She showed no resistance to the idea. Instead she handed him the knife he had loaned her. ‘You might want this back.’
He hadn’t forgotten he’d given it to her. He hadn’t been negligent to the fact she could have tried to use it on him at any point during the return journey. As futile as she would have known it would have been, he’d had every confidence that wasn’t why she hadn’t made the attempt. Him letting her enter the tunnels without him had confirmed one thing: they were a team now. A team that had been sealed the second he’d not let her leave him without that kiss. Because he couldn’t have let her go without doing it. If that had been the last time he saw her, he needed her to know he cared more than he’d allowed himself to express to her. Before he let her disappear, he’d needed to reassure her that they were on the same side. That he had accepted, in the face of her challenge to him, that he would fight to find an alternative outcome. He owed it to her. And she’d been right: he owed it to himself. He wasn’t going to lose her because of them. They would have to rip her from his dead arms if that’s what they wanted.
He accepted the knife without a word, Ember then making her way through to the bathroom.
Hearing the shower run, he headed behind the kitchen counter to make them both a coffee. As the percolator brewed, he started a fire in the grate. Taking the two coffees over to the table, he flicked through the images on her phone again and picked up the book of symbols.
He thumbed through the worn and blotched pages of archaic paper until he got to the section he was looking for. Reigniting the screen on the phone, he searched for any similarities.
Ember emerged wrapped in a towel, her skin a healthier shade of pink. She grabbed a clean sweater from the holdall he had packed for her and pulled it down over herself one-handed, covering herself in it to mid-thigh before relinquishing her towel. She returned the latter to the bathroom before joining him. Grabbing the blanket she’d adopted, she draped it over her bare legs.
Her eyes meeting his swiftly told him she’d noticed his admiring glances, his gaze having lingered a moment longer than it should have on her exposed skin before she’d covered up.
Sat there, her hair still damp from the shower, her skin scrubbed free of make-up as per usual, she couldn’t have looked more at home. Her presence there had never made it feel more like home.
He handed her the coffee he’d made her, Ember accepting it with a small, grateful smile. ‘Any luck?’
‘Nothing beyond the obvious,’ he said, placing the phone down on the book and sliding both towards her. ‘The only symbol that matches one in here is that one. It refers to fire that can exist without oxygen, that keeps burning: everlasting fire. It’s part of whatever the magic is but how, I don’t know. Whatever the other symbols mean is a well-concealed secret.’
‘When you say “everlasting”, we can’t put it out? So that isn’t the answer?’
‘Everlasting means everlasting.’
She sighed heavily as she lifted the cup to her lips, her gaze distant and pensive. ‘What are we missing?’ she muttered to herself. ‘What questions are we not asking?’
A minute or so later, she met his gaze again.
‘Nate, if they can already do whatever it is that they’re doing, and if no one has ever told them I exist, why are they looking for me now? Why do they need me at all?’
It was the question he’d hoped she wouldn’t ask – the one thing Stirling had revealed that Nate didn’t want her to know. He shouldn’t have hesitated over telling her, the fact it was difficult to do so reinforcing that he was already in too deep.
Her eyes were laced with expectation, as if she already sensed he was holding something valuable back.
‘In order for the locator to work, the deceased blood they used had to be recent, Ember. That’s why they couldn’t have tracked you up to now, even if they had wanted to – not without sacrificing what they already had.’
Her jaw slackened. Her brow furrowed.
‘Stirling told me your brother was killed three weeks ago, Ember.’
Despite the shock and despair in her eyes, he knew it was important that he kept going – that he gave her as many facts as he could as quickly as he could so she had the whole story.
‘After the Cordell brothers failed to assassinate Antonia and Jonah, the Voys knew something underhanded was happening. They sent someone in to infiltrate the Hordas clan. They’d spent months building up to it to get a girl on the inside who could get through all the security. And once she was in, she worked it out – that their power was something to do with your brother. So she spent months more getting close to him, gaining trust to build up to the point of being alone with him. And when she finally was, she killed him.’
He gave her a moment to process it before continuing.
‘Soon after, the Hordas clan put a call out for me which is why I think the Voys tried to get to me first. It wouldn’t have taken a genius to work out I was being hired to do something about it. There was no way the Voys could know what that was, but neither were they willing to take any chances.’
Her frown deepened. ‘The spell needs to be renewed, doesn’t it? That’s why they’re trying to find me.’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s why they wanted the best on this job. Because if they don’t get their hands on me, they’re going to lose their ability.’
He didn’t need to say anything to confirm.
‘Do you know how long will it take for their ability to fade?’
‘No.’
Her gaze dropped. When she looked back at him, the wariness behind her eyes was intense. ‘But when it does fade, you can go after them. You just need to make sure they don’t find me in the meantime. That’s why you’ve been considering taking me out of the equation. You can’t keep me here because being close to me is bad news for you. I put you at risk more than they do. The way you kissed me down in that tunnel… this is more than feelings between us – you’re falling for me, aren’t you? Like I’m falling for you.’
It was another question he hoped she wouldn’t ask, but he shouldn’t have expected anything less. It was the most pertinent question of all. The most pertinent statement of all. A statement on her part that stirred a sensation he hadn’t felt in decades. That just by saying it, by recognising and accepting her own feelings even after all he had done, being able to feel anything for him at all after all he had done, was maybe the most significant absolution of all.
‘I’ve tried not to,’ he said. ‘But it’s not easy. It’s never been easy. And it has become less easy.’
Her eyes searched his. ‘Even if we find a way out of this, we can’t be together, can we? Not outside of here?’
‘If we fell for each other? Truly fell for each other? One mistake, one single touch of mutual affection outside of these walls, and I’d be dead. I wouldn’t even be able to protect you out there any more.’ He held her gaze in the silence. ‘I’m going to get you to Midtown. We’ll take the chance. But you cannot return, is that clear?’
‘But if you fail to deliver, they’ll come for you.’
‘It’s better that I only have myself to look after instead of having to look out for you too.’
‘Give me some time. I’ll think of something.’
‘Ember, an hour ago all you wanted was out of here. I’m offering you that.’
‘And leave you behind no further ahead? There is a solution to this. I know there is. We’re still missing something.’
‘Once that border closes to you, the situation worsens for us both. You’d be trapped in here for good. There would be no other alternative. We have to get you out of this district. That’s the only thing to do.’
Nate moved to stand.
Ember caught his arm in a silent request for him to stay next to her. She held his gaze as the flames danced on the side of his face. ‘If it wasn’t for any of this, would you want to be with me?’
‘That’s irrelevant, Ember.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘She made it irrelevant, Ember. I choose not to think about what might have been.’
‘There has to be a way to lift that curse on you, Nate. There has to be something we can do about that too.’
‘And I told you there’s not. You’ll leave and I’ll move on. That’s all there is. That’s all there can ever be.’
‘But you didn’t answer my question.’
‘I have spent six months gazing across a room at you. I have spent a significant amount of that time trying to keep you safe to ensure you’ll get out of this district and to make sure no one ruins that for you like I once nearly did. I brought you here to buy us some time when it would have been easier to hand you over to them and walk away, whatever the consequences.
‘But that’s the problem, Ember: I walked away from you that first night and I haven’t been able to walk away from you since. So, yes, I’m falling for you. But loving you would mean giving up my life for you only to lose you in the end anyway. I’m not that selfless. That bitch who cursed me might want me living in a constant loop of loss until I die, but I’m not giving her the satisfaction of leaving this world just yet.’
As he pulled away, Ember glanced at the flames. Like the spark that had first ignited them, she felt a warm glow of an idea inspired by Nate’s words.
‘Nate,’ she said, pulling herself to her feet. ‘I have an idea.’