Chapter Three
She was right. It was busy, especially at every stop considered popular by tourists.
The wait for the cable car had been just long enough – pushing every last one of her buttons at forty-five minutes – for Eva to consider using magic to speed it along. There were a number of things she could have done to shorten the line, all of them with the same outcome. The people in line in front of her would have left, thus allowing her group to cut to the front.
But everyone in the line deserved their ride on the cable car. Some had traveled thousands of miles. Many were hungry and tired and overheated. She was also right about the temperature being higher than it had once been, and the 77 degrees they were experiencing now was hotter than the sweater and jeans-wearers had been told to plan for. They deserved their ride. Fair and square.
That’s probably what her mother would have told her, too: “They have as much right to be here as you do, Eva,” Katrielle would have told her young daughter. “You can’t know a person’s life simply by looking at them. Their histories are very rarely written on their faces. You don’t know how much someone has suffered, or what they may be suffering even now, at this very moment. Remember that always, especially when you feel like taking matters into your own hasty hands.”
Yep. That’s what she would have said. And somehow that knowledge was like a needle gently but annoyingly pricking Eva’s conscience. Evangeline wanted to do the right thing. Even if she wasn’t sure whether that desire stemmed from her mom, or from some inherent goodness inside herself, either way, it was a means to the same end.
So she steadfastly kept her patience in check and waited it out with the rest of the fidgety, increasingly impatient schmucks in line.
Katrielle, she thought as the line moved forward a bit more and they neared the front at last. Katrielle was what Lalura Chantelle’s name had been when she’d given Evangeline life. Katrielle was the name Eva knew. It was the name she thought of as her mother’s name. Not Valeria, or Leiah, or Marianne, or Calliope, or any of the dozens of others. Not Lalura Chantelle. Chantelle was only the latest in a long line of identities her mother had taken… Katrielle was Evangeline’s mata.
This thought floated through Eva’s mind like a butterfly in a breeze, and she watched it go, because the winsome was more pleasant than the reality. The winsome was wondering where and who her mom was right now. The reality was that her father’s killer was finally boarding a cable car in front of her in a busy San Francisco street.
Mimi went next, Calidum offering her a hand up. The young dragon immediately moved right to the outside of the car again, taking a seat in the open area and placing her hand beside her to “save” the space for Eva and Cal.
Eva pointedly ignored Cal’s offered hand when he turned back to her, and was reaching for the pole to climb aboard, when the pain struck. It was so sharp and so sudden, it paralyzed her, and her fingers missed the pole. Her eyes widened as she began to topple outward. A firm hand around her wrist grasped her tightly, yanking her up onto the car and to safety.
His lips were at her ear as she tried to catch her breath, her vision spotting out with the pain. “Where is it?” the Dragon King asked.
Where is it? she wondered half-mindedly. She couldn’t focus on his question. The pain was ebbing a little from sharp to throbbing, but when she slapped her hand down over the place where there should have been a scar on her abdomen, her palm felt wetness.
The cable car jumped to grinding life and the driver began joking with the passengers. That was how they were on these cars. Big strong men worked the controls, which required raw muscle power to lock into place. Those men flirted, cracked jokes, and sometimes laid down the law of the cable car, going so far as to kick people off if they caused strife. It was a big city with a lot of people, so this wasn’t a rare thing. But for the most part, they were usually smiling.
Banter went on good-naturedly around Eva as she closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. In and out, in and out. She opened her eyes and glanced down at her hand. Blood, and not a small amount.
Fortunately she was wearing a black shirt. But it wouldn’t hide the wetness for long.
“So that’s where he did it,” the Dragon King said.
Eva looked back up. Calidum – Korridum, her spinning mind corrected – was staring down at the wet spot spreading across her shirt. He met her gaze and the fire was back in his eyes. “The Entity made his mark on you, didn’t he?” he asked softly. There was a hiss to his voice, a note of anger, but for the life of her she couldn’t tell who he was angry with. Or why he would believe he had the right to be angry with anyone – for anything.
A world of words spun in Evangeline’s mind. Too many of them, too fast. She couldn’t pluck the right ones from the tornado of letters, much less form them on her tongue and push them through her teeth. So she said nothing instead.
Mimi called out to them, pointing at something in the distance. It took a second for Eva to realize she was exuberantly attempting to draw everyone’s attention to Alcatraz, which the cable car riders could see from the top of the hill. San Francisco’s streets were often on steep slopes, affording breathtaking views of the bay and the city around it.
Eva desperately wanted to get herself together. She desperately did not want to ruin this for her young friend. She wanted everything to be normal. She wanted everything to be okay. But everything was not normal. And most definitely not okay.
She was riding a cable car with the man who’d killed her father, and she was bleeding from a strangely fresh wound that her bitter enemy and former employee had carved into her stomach. What did it mean? What the hell did she do now?
Suddenly, the Dragon King was placing his hand over her wound. It hurt, but it was more surprising than anything. “I’m guessing you can’t heal yourself,” he said as she tried to pull back, but his other arm slid around her waist, holding her fast. She forced herself not to pull away again; she didn’t want to make a scene. But emotions were ricocheting off the walls of her consciousness so hard and fast, she was getting internally bruised.
“Let me help,” he said next. He closed his gray fire eyes and warmth followed his words, sinking from his hand into her wound. That was followed by a cool blast that chased the warmth like ice. Once more, it switched to heat. Then to ice again. She was torn between the two, like a twilight teetering on the verge of night and day.
But it felt good. And somehow, she knew he was healing her.
So that’s one power down, she thought. He shared that ability with her, it would seem. But he was right; the irony of having the ability to heal often meant the one who could heal was not able to heal themselves. It was considered by some to be fate’s way of evening things out a bit. But Eva had always wondered what exactly it was trying to even out. Was it a person’s desire to help another? To do good in the world? Why exactly did they need punishment for that? Why exactly did that have to be “evened out?”
I’m mentally blabbering, she thought, snapping herself back into severe focus. The Dragon King had his hand to her stomach… and it felt good. And that was bad.
“Okay, that’s good enough,” she choked out, swallowing hard as his eyes flew open, and his fire engulfed her.
“It won’t heal completely,” he told her shortly. “He still has your blood, and as long as he does, the wound will remain.” He dropped his hand, and Eva noticed there was no blood on it. She looked down to find her shirt dried, and could even tell through the black that it was unstained, as was her hand. “You were foolish to make a deal with him.”
Eva’s head snapped back up. Her gaze narrowed. “I did what I thought was the right thing to do at the time,” she said defensively. Blood was pounding in her ears, and it was laced with more adrenaline that she’d be able to handle for long.
The Dragon King’s eyes flashed again, and this time the fire contained flickers of red. The world receded, and he leaned in, grasping the pole above her head as he came in close. “I want you to remember that you said that, Evangeline.” He waited for his words to sink in, and Eva began to feel dizzy. “Because I certainly will.”