The line went dead. The world tilted and Echo’s vision grayed around the edges. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, begging her heart to steady itself. Caius had already taken off, summoning guards and raising the alarm. Echo was still wearing his shirt. Power simmered beneath her skin, itching to be let free. Her muscles trembled with strain. It would have felt so good to let it out, to watch the furniture catch flame. To set the curtains ablaze. The need for release surged so strongly, she almost gave in. A flurry of sparks cascaded to the floor, burning holes in the carpet.
Home.
Not the isolation of Avalon Castle, hidden by its layers of warding and protective spells sealed with Echo’s blood. Not any of the places she had used as hideouts over the last few months in futile attempts to stay safe from the forces that wanted a piece of her.
Home meant only one thing to Echo: New York City. The streets on which she had raised herself. The library in which she had taken shelter. The place that called her back no matter how many times she left it for far-flung lands and exotic locales.
And Tanith was there.
Caius skidded back into the room, now fully clothed. Dorian was on his heels, buckling his sword belt around his waist.
“Echo?” Caius gave her a puzzled frown. She hadn’t budged since he’d left. Every ounce of effort had gone into restraining herself from flying into a blind rage and burning the castle down around her.
Dorian’s gaze slid down to her bare legs and hurriedly up again. He gave Caius a look. Jasper chose that moment to stroll into the room behind them, incongruously blasé. Some of the Avicen at the Icelandic camp had joined them at the keep after Caius’s declaration of a formal cease-fire and Tanith’s revelation that their secret base in Iceland had not been so secret after all. Jasper had been the first to arrive, and his presence at Dorian’s side had caused quite the stir among the Drakharin. Hair-feathers askew from slumber, Jasper followed Dorian’s line of sight. He turned to Caius and said, “Great minds.” He nudged Dorian’s shoulder in what would have been a playful gesture if not for the tightness in his eyes and the hard set of his jaw. His mask was good, but Echo knew him too well to be fooled by it. He was scared.
“Yeah,” Echo said belatedly. The fog of anger thinned as she tried to get her bearings. Pants. She needed pants. And shoes. And a machete to hack Tanith’s head off.
“We have to go,” Caius said slowly, as if he wasn’t sure Echo was entirely present in the moment. Which, she supposed, was fair enough, considering she was standing in the middle of the library on a cold autumn morning half dressed and raining monochrome sparks.
With a brisk nod, Echo pulled on her jeans, singeing them only slightly. Her boots fared slightly better, leather proving far more fire resistant than denim. Control was so distant a possibility it seemed like something she had read about in a book once. She knew it existed, but she wasn’t capable of it. Not just then.
Unconcerned with her audience, Echo pulled off Caius’s sweater and tugged her own shirt over her head. Her dagger had slid halfway across the room when she’d kicked her shoes off the night before. She retrieved it, secured it in its sheath, and tucked it into the back of her jeans. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail with a tie she scrounged up from the lint-ridden pocket of her jacket.
“Ready?” Caius asked. His green eyes were filled with worry. For Echo. For Ivy. Maybe even for his sister. Even after all Tanith had done to him, to them, he’d been harboring the hope that she could be saved, that there was enough left of his sister to salvage. Echo watched that hope die, fully and finally, in Caius’s eyes when he saw the resolution in hers. Echo was not, under any circumstances, going to attempt to save Tanith’s soul. She was going to stop her. For good.
Echo patted the hilt of the dagger to make sure it was secure. She grabbed her jacket and shoved her arms into the sleeves. And with that, the final piece of her armor slotted into place.
“Let’s see if we can make this bitch bleed.”
“Echo, wait!”
Caius grabbed Echo’s arm, stopping her in her tracks. She quite liked where her tracks had been leading her – to revenge – and was not in the mood to be stopped in them. She shot Caius her most acidic look, but the grip he had on her forearm did not loosen in the slightest.
She spun around to face him, heedless of the scene they were making. Guards were streaming down the corridor, armor in various states of disarray. It was evening in New York. Tanith couldn’t have chosen a better time to make trouble in the middle of Manhattan; the city would be abuzz with people living active, vibrant lives, blissfully unaware of the imminent peril that threatened them.
“Caius, your maniac sister has my best friend, and I can’t even begin to think about what she’s doing to her.” Echo tried to wrench her arm free, but his grip was absolute. “Let me go. I have shit to do and people to kill.”
“And that is exactly the mind-set Tanith wants you in when you face her.” Despite Echo’s continued and enthusiastic protestations, Caius managed to steer her into an alcove tucked into the corridor, getting them away from the bustle of activity overtaking the keep. Word had spread quickly, and the Drakharin were preparing to head into battle against the person they had hailed as their leader only hours earlier.
“What are you talking about?” Finally, Echo yanked her arm away from Caius, but the simmering intensity of his expression prevented her from going on her merry way to cut out his sister’s heart with her dagger.
“Pain,” Caius said. He pushed up one sleeve, exposing the scars on his left arm. The bracelet of scarring around his wrist was healing – more rapidly than it would have had he been human – but the skin was still mottled an ugly yellow-green, discolored most strongly where the manacles had bit into his flesh. “That is what she wants to inflict, and you’re playing right into her hands.”
The sight of his wounds only added fuel to the fire burning in Echo’s belly. Anyone who could do that to their family – to their own goddamn twin – needed to be stopped.
Perhaps sensing the direction of her thoughts, Caius plowed on, cupping her elbow with his other hand. “Do you remember what I told you about why Tanith had me whipped?”
Echo nodded impatiently. “Yeah. You said it made it easier for her to drain your magic so she could bust open the seals, but what does that have to —”
“What could possibly cause you more pain than targeting the people you love?” Caius interrupted. “What could possibly hurt worse than destroying the only home you’ve ever known right before your eyes?”
Oh.
It made a twisted sort of sense. “You think she wants to suck my magic dry,” Echo said. She closed her eyes, thumping her head against the wall of the alcove with a soft thud.
“Think about it, Echo.” Caius dropped his hand, the gesture oddly helpless. “She has Ivy, but we know she hasn’t harmed her. Not yet. Not severely, anyway. She wants to make you watch when she does it. It’s a solid strategy – force your enemy to play by your rules. She’s chosen the field of engagement, set up the pieces to her advantage. If you charge in there like this” – he waved a hand in front of her, as if to indicate Echo’s very being – “then you’re meeting her on her terms. I know my sister. Playing by her rules is never a good idea.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Echo spoke through gritted teeth. He wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t right, either. “That I do nothing? That I sit this one out?”
“If I asked you to, would it do any good?”
Echo replied to his question with the answer it deserved. Dead silence.
Caius ran a hand through his hair and sighed. He had his two long knives strapped to his back, their gilded pommels gleaming in the torchlight emanating from the sconces lining the corridor. Dark circles stained the skin beneath his eyes, highlighted by the fan of his lashes as he let his eyes momentarily close.
“I can’t lose you, too.”
The words were spoken so quietly, Echo thought she had misheard him. But when he opened his eyes again, revealing the raw emotion in them, she knew she hadn’t.
“I lost Rose.” His voice was choked, as if he was struggling to get the words out. “And I have lost my sister. I cannot lose you, too.” He shook his head, his hair, still messy from sleep, falling across his forehead.
“Caius —”
“This is your fight.” His eyes bored into hers. “I know it is. But I just —”
Echo brought her hand up to the back of his neck and pulled him down into a bruising kiss. Their teeth clacked together gracelessly as she swallowed his small gasp of surprise. She broke the kiss and rested her forehead against his.
“You’re not going to lose me,” she said. “I meant what I said last night. Every word. This war ends today. And after … Well, we have the rest of our lives to figure out what happens next. But one thing is certain: I won’t let her win. We end this.” She gave the back of his neck a gentle squeeze. “Together.”
He nodded, his forehead nudging hers. “Together.”
Furious Drakhar whispering sounded from the other end of the hallway. The firebird making out with the Dragon Prince was probably the most salacious bit of gossip the keep had seen in gods knew how long. Echo was about to pull away from Caius, but he stilled her with a hand on her waist. “Swear to me you’ll be careful.”
She stepped out of the alcove, straightening her jacket and securing the dagger tucked into her belt. “Careful is my middle name.”
Someone called Caius over in Drakhar. Dorian, Echo saw, was waiting at the end of the corridor with a contingent of guards. All were fully armored. Caius spared them a glance before turning back to Echo, a grim smile in place. “That is the grandest lie you’ve ever told.”
Echo shrugged and started down the hallway. She had no idea how they were going to subtly enter New York City and fight a potentially world-ending battle without alerting all of humanity to the existence of magical creatures among them, but she figured the logistics were best left to savvier minds than hers. She had bigger fish to fry. “True,” she said. “But I swear, I’ll be as careful as I always am.”
Caius snorted, adjusting the crisscrossed straps that held the daggers in place. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”