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  Emmett held up a device like a self-injecting needle used for allergy emergencies. “I rigged up a few of these. They’re portable and easy to use. One shot should bring you back from the brink. You get that thing charged up?” He pointed to the bug talisman.

  Quinn nodded. “The vestals did it for me last night.”

  “That’ll have to do, but I must warn you against using your magic on this trip. The disease is progressing faster than I thought. Mawr takes time to ramp up, like a steam train. But once it gets going, there’s no stopping it.”

  He held Quinn’s eyes with his piercing stare. “And your train has left the station.”

  Chapter Nine

  Exploration

  IT WAS A LONG AND WINDING ROAD.

  No, I couldn’t think that without hearing music.

  We drove one of the coven’s Jeeps deep into the Adirondacks. Spring foliage sprinkled the bare trees. The scenery didn’t stir any memories in me, but the only landmarks were the odd fork in the road.

  “I hope you packed an extra dilithium crystal,” I said, hanging on to my seat as Quinn rounded another bend without slowing. “You drive like we have Klingons on our tail.”

  Quinn pressed his hand to his heart. “She’s beautiful and references Star Trek. Be still my heart.”

  The banter felt good. The first two hours of the four-hour drive passed in near silence, but as the sun rose and the coffee kicked in, we slowly regained the comfort we once enjoyed together. I could almost imagine that William Fain had never been.

  Almost.

  “This is it.” Quinn turned onto an even bumpier lane. Grass grew between faint tire tracks. The Jeep lurched from side to side and the two large cups of coffee—which seemed a good idea at the time—sloshed in my stomach. The road ended at a hill bordered by hedges. We left the camping gear in the car and hiked up for a view of the site.

  “Does any of this look familiar to you?” Quinn asked.

  I shook my head. At the top of the rise, the trees cleared and we looked into a small valley. A high noon sun touched a pile of field stones on the valley’s far side—the remnants of my childhood home.

  I shivered and not from the cold. I had a bad feeling about this place even though my rational mind knew there was nothing to fear from an old heap of stones. For a moment, I heard my sister calling Bobbi. She couldn’t pronounce my real name, Barbara. The nickname was the only thing I retained from that old life. I had no memory of the fire and only vague impressions of my first family. Emmett had filled me in on the details. A man named Edward Wallis set the fire and took me. He kept me for three weeks, dodging Paragon agents who pursued us.

  It felt strange to know these things happened to me and left nothing but a black hole in my mind. What did Edward Wallis do to me in those three weeks? Had it been so traumatizing I blocked it? Or did he simply feed me grilled cheese and dump me in front of the TV, actions so mundane they made no impression on my young mind? Surely, I was distraught, crying for my mother, scared, or tired from running for weeks on end. Something blocked those memories, and pulling away the obstruction wouldn’t be pretty.

  I rubbed the side of my head.

  “I should have some kind of epiphany standing here, but I don’t.”

  Quinn squeezed my arm. I tensed and he pulled his hand away.

  Damn. Why did I keep the distance between us? Why couldn’t I let things go back to normal?

  “Let’s make camp and we’ll explore. Something is bound to come back to you.” Quinn headed down the hill. I watched his retreating back, thinking this trip had many possibilities for disaster.

  We set up the tent in the valley, as far from the ruins as possible. After a quick lunch of sandwiches and cold coffee, we began our search for the grimoire.

  “It’s probably not in the house,” Quinn said. “Paragon agents went over it after the fire, but I think we should start there.”

  I agreed. The pile of broken stones called to me, and I couldn’t do anything else until we searched it.

  We stumbled over rocks and dips in the ground until we stood beside the crumbling chimney. A blackened hearth opened like a raw wound at its base. The house’s foundation and part of one wall still stood. I studied these remains, not sure what we were looking for—an obvious clue, a sign pointing this way to treasure, or a fallen stone revealing a hiding place in the hearth. We found nothing.

  Standing by what must have been the front door, I couldn’t get over the bleakness of the place. Some stones showed charring but most were drab grey and brown, blending into the dirt. I stepped inside the foundation. Something felt off. I couldn’t sense any aether here, not even the ever-present whiff of wildlife and dormant foliage. I turned to see the rest of the foundation. A wide swath of earth circled it. No weeds grew through the stones. No vines crept up the chimney.

  “Nothing’s growing here. It’s been over twenty years. The vegetation should be covering this site.”

  “Mage fire,” Quinn said. “The house was torched with it. Nothing will grow here for several decades yet. I have the original Paragon photos from the day after the fire in my car, if you want to see them. The ground was black as coal around the house.”

  Henry taught me about mage fire, the blending of normal flame with galvanic fire, a truly dark art. A normal fireball could kill, but mage fire went beyond death. It consumed anything organic, leaving nothing behind, not even bone. The remains of my parents and sister were here, mingled with the dirt where they died.

  I felt the eerie chill of unseen eyes watching us. Maybe the spirits of Hannah and Ben Cole guarded this place.

  My legs were suddenly restless. “Let’s scout the site.”

  Quinn watched me. In the afternoon light, a scowl overshadowed his eyes. He wanted to shield me from the discomfort of poking into my sad past, but he didn’t know how. I didn’t either.

  “Are you up to this?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. I just need to move a bit.”

  We tramped around the valley, stumbling upon a small shed overgrown with vines. Quinn tried to open the door, but the rotten wood broke off in his hand. He peered inside.

  “Might be worth a closer look. I’ll need the axe from the car.”

  While I waited for him, I circled the shed. My feet sunk into the ground, still wet from spring thaw, and I stepped over a tumble of stones that might have once been a wall.

  An image flashed in my mind. Someone crouched in a garden, wearing a floppy straw hat. The face turned to me, a solid handsome face. Yes, I remembered the garden, my father’s pride and joy. I tried to imagine neat rows of vegetables growing here. Emmett said my parents set up this home away from all civilization, hoping Koro’s agents wouldn’t find us. I guessed that meant we grew much of our food.

  A large wooden cross stood at the far end of the garden, tall enough to poke through the brush grown up around it. As I stared, another memory tugged at me. The crooked man.

  “What is it?”

  I flinched at Quinn’s voice.

  “Sorry. This place makes me jumpy.”

  “Are you remembering?”

  “Bits and pieces. My father loved to garden. That is Ben Cole loved to garden.” I frowned. I had three fathers. One I barely remembered, one who raised me, and one who wanted to kill me. Lucky girl.

  “A scarecrow hung there.” I pointed to the rotting post. “We called him the crooked man.”

  “Do you think that’s what Siranda meant?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a children’s song. ‘There was a crooked man who walked a crooked mile. He found a crooked crow’s nest upon a crooked pile.’”

  He frowned. “I know the rhyme, but that’s not how it goes.”

  A heavy step in the trees beyond the clearing startled us. Branches cracked. A flash of white made me jerk backward into Quinn.

  “Just a deer.” He steadied me with a sure hand, then hoisted the camp axe over his shoulder. “I’m going to tear down the shed.”

&nb
sp; As I followed him across the soggy ground, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone watched us from the woods.

  Quinn sheared away the brambles around the shed door, pulled a board loose and handed it to me. A quick smile and he turned back for another. After a minute, he shrugged off his jacket and I took a bit of guilty pleasure watching his shoulders bunch with each strike, his movements fluid and efficient. His body was made for manual labor with long limbs and lean muscle.

  Seeing Quinn warmed by exercise, I could easily forget how sick he was. It didn’t seem possible this vibrant man could have a fatal illness. So far, Quinn hadn’t mentioned it. He pretended he was a hard-ass who didn’t need things like medicine or rest. Those were for mere mortals. But Quinn wasn’t immortal. Mawr would eventually kill him. Emmett had explained it all to me. The disease ate magic like an invisible parasite. Quinn could keep pumping himself full of aether but eventually, the disease would catch up to him, and he would waste away to nothing. Or one giant misuse of magic could push him over the edge.

  He’s endangering himself for me.

  Quinn had been holding a board out for a long minute.

  “You went somewhere far away. Was the weather nice?” He smiled tiredly.

  “Just a little worry and self-recrimination to pass the time.” I dropped the board on the pile.

  “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.” His hand rested on the cockroach talisman at his throat.

  “And you shouldn’t be working so hard.”

  “I’ll be fine. Exercise and fresh air are exactly what the doctor ordered.”

  I doubted that. I took the axe from him, and he didn’t resist. My first strike skimmed off the boards and I nearly cut off a toe. Quinn watched me with a grin. Gods, I hated feeling like some inept…girl around him.

  “It’s harder than it looks. Pull your grip back on the handle and use the leverage to maximize your strike.” I did as he suggested, and the next board cracked away from the wall.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was sweaty in the chill air, but we pulled down enough brambles and rotted wood to push inside the rickety structure. It was empty. If the shed held any secrets, they were buried under the dirt floor.

  “Should we dig it up?” I asked.

  “Maybe. But let’s get the bellwether out here first. I want to check the foundation of the house with it too.”

  Bellwethers were rare artifacts used to detect trace amounts of magic. The coven had one and only the threat of Koro had persuaded Jane and the Council of Thirteen to let us borrow it.

  He turned away, but I caught his sleeve.

  “I’m sorry.” The words erupted from me. We’d been studiously ignoring the rift between us, but the pressures of the day—the long drive, forced memories and proximity to Quinn—were all too much to handle. Something had to give.

  His eyebrow teased upward. “For what?”

  “For going AWOL last November. I didn’t mean to cut you out of my life. It wasn’t fair to you. But the longer I waited to call, the more awkward I felt when I picked up the phone.”

  “I get it.” He squeezed my fingers, his grip warming a line straight to my heart. “You were scared.”

  Wait, what?

  “No…”

  “It’s okay. You have every right to be scared.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  Quinn squeezed my hand again and turned toward camp while I struggled to find a better rejoinder. Lord and Lady, having the last word wasn’t fun when you sounded like an obstinate child.

  I loaded up with an armful of cut boards, dumped them in camp and went back for more. The exercise did nothing to burn through my agitation. Why did my thoughts freeze around him? Would we ever get back to that easy relationship we’d once enjoyed?

  A whistle startled me. Quinn stood on the low rise leading to the ruins, waving his arms. He’d found something.

  Chapter Ten

  Perception

  BOBBI LOOKED PISSED.

  Quinn could see it in the set of her shoulders and pinch of skin between her brows as she advanced across the uneven ground. Anger suited her. The flushed cheeks and slightly messed hair were damned sexy. He doubted she’d thank him for that insight. Somehow, he was responsible for her anger, but the finer points of his crime escaped him.

  “You found something?” She wouldn’t look him in the eye. That was fine. He could wait her out.

  “It’s a cellar.” He brushed aside a spill of rock debris covering a pair of metal doors with bent handles. Bobbi’s expression loosened from displeasure to uncertainty.

  “You remember something.”

  She shook her head. “Nothing concrete. Just a feeling. Has the bellwether detected anything?”

  “No.”

  The relic leaned like a walking stick against the stone foundation. Made of aether-conducting ash and topped by a silver dragon’s head, the bellwether smoked continually as it detected aether in the environment. The trick was reading the smoke, and so far it only leaked pale white threads, its baseline reaction.

  “Stay here and I’ll check it out.” He was trying to be kind, but Bobbi’s eyes hardened again.

  “No, I’m coming.”

  Somehow, he knew she’d say that.

  Rust clogged the door hinges, and they worked at it for several minutes before the left side finally swung open. Stone steps led into blackness. He grabbed the bellwether and headed down.

  The damp chill settled over him as soon as they reached the hard-packed dirt floor. Quinn could stand in the center of the small room, but the ceiling sloped to rough walls. He turned, looking for any sign of a hiding place. The bare room held only an old metal shelf unit, now empty and bent. Quinn waved the bellwether around, starting at the floor and working up the walls.

  “How does that thing work anyway?” Bobbi asked.

  “It’s a sensate compass. The smoke will change colors for different kinds of magic. And aether repels it to give a sense of direction.”

  “Doesn’t seem very precise.” Bobbi’s forehead crinkled like it did when she concentrated. “Why isn’t it reacting to our aether then?”

  “I keyed it to us in the activation spell. Otherwise, the user’s aether would taint all the readings.”

  He continued with his probing. Bobbi stood still, her eyes far away. A shiver rippled through her shoulders. Quinn wanted to ask what she was thinking, but that way lay dragons. She saw him watching and frowned.

  “I spent a lot of time down here. I can feel it. Like the damp and dark are part of my bones.”

  “Maybe you took refuge here during the fire?” He didn’t want to put her through this, but something needed to jar her memory if they were ever to find the book.

  “No, but I remember hiding down here another time. Mom told us to be quiet, but Bethany wouldn’t stop crying.” Bobbi shrugged. “That’s all I got.”

  The door slammed shut with a screech and a bang. Darkness crashed down on them.

  Quinn turned and bumped into Bobbi. He gripped her shoulders, steadying himself more than her. Slowly, his eyes adjusted, taking in the crack of light seeping through the uneven doors. He strode to the steps and pushed upward with all his strength, but the doors held.

  “Something’s blocking us in.”

  Several long minutes passed while they waited in the dark for an attack that never came. Bobbi watched the door, hugging herself against chill or fear.

  “It’ll be all right,” Quinn said.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “What?”

  “Reassure me. I don’t need your platitudes. This is bad. I can deal with it.”

  Quinn reached for his cockroach talisman.

  Lord and Lady, save me from women with something to prove. He normally found Bobbi’s feistiness alluring. But right now, they needed to work together to get out of this cellar.

  “I don’t know how I pissed you off, but let’s table it for later. You’re right. This is bad. Apart from the fact tha
t we’re trapped in here, we know we’re not alone. So are you going to help me or are you going to ride out your peeve?”

  Even in the dark, he could see Bobbi’s belligerence wilt. Crap. If anyone had earned the right to be belligerent, it was Bobbi.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound harsh. Would you believe me if I said I’m scared too?”

  Bobbi nodded, her eyes wide in the dim light.

  “Good. My aether is too depleted to be effective, but you can open the door. I’ll guide you. It’ll be good battle practice.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “It is. I know you’ve got decent ward armor. Time to go on offense.”

  Bobbi was shaking her head before he finished.

  “I can’t do it. Henry’s been trying to show me, but I can’t make it work. And last time, with the demon…”

  “You can.” He cupped her face with his hands, forcing her to meet his eyes. “An aether strike is much like a ward. You just need to redirect the power. I can show you if you let me.”

  That request wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed. Fain squashed Bobbi’s aether, violated her at her deepest core. He wasn’t sure she was ready to let someone into that sanctuary again. Maybe she never would be.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Good. Take my hand.” Her fingers slipped into his. “We don’t know what’s waiting on the other side. So be ready for anything. I’ll guide you through the spell, but you need to let me in.”

  Her hand trembled. Her eyes held his, and he felt the weight of her unspoken demand: tread lightly.

  “Pull a ward around yourself,” he said. Aether encircled her. “Do you know how to concentrate the ward on one spot?”

  “Yes.” She spoke through gritted teeth.

  “Do it. Pull the ward into a hotspot in front of you. Then push it out with all your force toward the doors.”

  Her aether swirled, hot spice tingling across his skin. He squeezed her fingers. Aether started to pool but she lashed out too soon, and the strike failed. Bobbi’s shoulders slumped.

  “It’s okay. You didn’t focus it tight enough. Try again. This time, wait for my signal before you launch it.”