went after they died in battle.
“Gods, please, no,” she whispered behind her hands. The pain was incredible, overwhelming, impossible to bear. But she didn’t wish it gone. She embraced it, wallowed in it, held it to her. And if that put her on the level of the most heartbroken patient she’d ever counseled, then it was a good level to be on, because she had finally taken the risk. She had loved. She had
“Jade.” It was Strike’s voice, oddly hushed. “Look up.”
“I know,” she said, sighing as she let her hands fall. “He’s—” She broke off on a gasp.
The firebird stood in front of her, flanked on either side by the big black dogs that guarded it. The flames that had wreathed it before had turned to soft red-gold feathers. It looked like a giant eagle with the plumage of a parrot, and it towered over her, dwarfed her as it stretched out one wing, unfurled its long flight feathers, and brushed them across her face and down her right arm. The touch tingled; it burned, but not unpleasantly . . . and in a familiar way.
Pulse suddenly hammering, she looked down at her forearm. There she wore a new glyph, a third mark. It wasn’t static, though; as she watched, it morphed from one glyph to another and back again, oscillating between the two.
The god was offering her a choice, she realized: the sun or the
She looked up at the firebird, her eyes blurring with tears. Even knowing that her choice might cost them a Godkeeper, she said without hesitation, “I choose to be his mate. Magic isn’t the answer. Love is.” And although he might already be gone, the sudden warmth that curled around her heart told her that it was the right answer for her.
“Ho-ly shit,” someone said from behind her. She didn’t know who.
The firebird dipped its head—in acknowledgment, she thought. It touched her again with its wing, and the
Jade’s heart shuddered as a white shimmer coalesced from the sky and drifted down toward him.
She told herself not to hope, but she couldn’t stop the hot, hard anticipation from forming as the vapor settled over him, sank into him.
For a moment, nothing happened. Her world contracted, started to crumble around her.
And then he began to breathe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Joy exploded through Jade. Hardly daring to hope, to believe, she lunged up and ran to Lucius, choking on her sobs. He groaned and rolled toward her, then sat partway up and reached for her. She dropped to her knees, her tears finally breaking free as his arms closed around her, strong and sure. “I love you,” she said, the words muffled against the side of his face. “Gods, I love you.” Then he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, and the world settled into a new, better shape around her.
When they parted, Lucius looked past her, and his eyes went wide. And it was his turn to say, “Ho-ly shit.”
The firebird was bowing down in front of Sasha. Michael stood at her side.
Another hot wave flashed through Jade, this time one of relief. She hadn’t cost the magi a Godkeeper, after all. “She was meant to be Godkeeper to Kinich Ahau all along,” she said softly, although she suspected that when she and Sasha had jointly fulfilled the triad prophecy, they had both become equal candidates for the honor.
Lucius seemed to follow her thoughts, because he lined up his forearm next to hers. On his inner wrist he wore a
She looked at their marks. Despite the hot, hard joy that raced through her at the sight of the
“First she’ll thank the gods that you made it home safely. Then, yeah, she might kick your ass.”
They grinned at each other. He stood, his strength returning quickly, and helped her up. As they headed toward the others, hand in hand, power flashed red-gold, there was a thunder-loud clap, and the firebird sprang aloft as Sasha and Michael embraced, leaning into each other.
Kinich Ahau gained altitude, winging into the sky. As the god rose higher and higher, flames limned the red feathers and trailed from the beat of its wings. Then, suddenly, white-hot light flashed. And the god was gone.
“We did it,” Jade said, not quite ready to believe, though Lucius’s fingers were tightly threaded through hers. But then she stared up at the sky in dismay. “I thought winning the game would send us home. Why are we still here?”
“Because it’s my job to get us home,” Lucius said. “The magic inside me originally belonged to Cizin. When its soul was torn away from mine, I somehow kept hold of that one piece of the demon’s power. You know how we’ve theorized that different
She wanted to close her eyes and lean into his touch. Instead, she poked him in the stomach. He let out a surprised “oof” as she got in his face. “You’d better consider yourself lucky you fought off Akhenaton. If you hadn’t, I would’ve had to find a way to get to the in-between myself, because, starting now, I don’t intend to live without you.”
His lips tipped up. “Yeah. I got that.” He turned to Strike. “I think this is going to take both of us.
That first night, I think I called the road magic without really specifying a destination; at first Kinich Ahau’s need drew us to Xibalba. Then I called the magic a second time to get us out of there, but I still didn’t have a real destination in mind. In the absence of Cizin’s magic, I suspect the library magic would have drawn me straight to the library. As it is”—he turned his palms up—“if we can combine your ’port targeting with my ability to form a conduit through the barrier, we may have gained more than just a new Godkeeper and two new mated pairs just now.”
Startled, Jade looked at Sasha’s wrist, where she too wore a new
“When I used the road magic previously,” Lucius said, “Jade’s and my bodies stayed safely back at Skywatch. This time we all came down here body and soul, via the hellroad. Problem is, the solstice is past and the hellroad is sealed, or close to it.”
Sven glanced at his heavy-duty diver’s watch. “Shit. He’s right.”
Lucius held out his still-bleeding palm to Strike. “You can move bodies on earth. I can move spirits between planes. You want to see if between the two of us we can get our collective asses home?”
“Fuck, yeah.”
The men linked hands as the others nicked their palms and joined up in a circle, linked by blood and magic. Jade kept hold of Lucius’s hand, with Michael on her other side, which seemed fitting somehow.
“Everyone think about Skywatch,” Lucius said. “The magic needs a destination.”
“We should”—