collapsing chair, his legs buckling as he landed on his rear with a slam. She did the same to Eli, though more gently. The bewildered expressions on their faces as they hit were so similar that Nico almost laughed.
She suppressed the urge at the last second. Laughing would ruin the moment, and she only had the nerve to do this once.
“Josef,” she said. “Your support and protection are dearer to me than you can ever know, but this time it’s not necessary. Eli wasn’t conning me. He was trying to make a point and getting carried away like he always does, but that doesn’t mean he was wrong. We are a team, now more than ever.”
She stopped. Her voice was faltering and she didn’t want to lose her courage. Breathing as she’d heard Tesset do so many times, she found her calm again. Only when she was utterly in control did she speak again.
“We are a team,” she repeated, her eyes flicking back and forth between them. “And you two are the only family I’ve ever had.” She looked at Josef. “Eli might be a con artist, but he stood by me in Osera when you were out cold and no one else thought I’d make it. His voice was the one I heard in the dark. You saved me on the mountain years ago and you’ve saved me countless times since, but so has he. He’s saved you as well, and you’ve saved him. We’re all tied together by so many life debts now we can’t begin to untangle them, but there’s no need to. I don’t need debts to help either of you. When friends are so close they’re blood, you don’t need anything but a request to walk into a sword with your head held high.” She turned back to Eli. “That’s how I feel, but I don’t need to ask to know you agree. After all, you already walked into the sword for us in Osera the night you stopped the sea.”
Eli shook his head. “That was different,” he whispered. “I’m not—”
“It wasn’t,” Nico said, drawing strength from the iron certainty in her own voice. “And you are. So go ahead. Ask me.”
Eli glanced up at her. “Ask you what?”
“Ask me to take you through the shadows to the Shaper Mountain.”
Eli took a hissing breath, glancing at Josef, but the swordsman’s face was closed, his eyes focused on Nico. “All right,” Eli said, turning back to Nico. “Take me. Please.”
“I will,” Nico answered without hesitation. “And I’m not doing it because I want to face down the demon or because I think it’s a good idea. I’m doing it because you need to get there, and because you asked.”
The look Eli gave her then was so bewildered Nico couldn’t stop the enormous smile from breaking over her face. She fell into a crouch beside him, bringing her head level with his. “Of course I’ll do it, stupid thief,” she said, punching him softly on the shoulder. “We’re a team, aren’t we?”
For three heartbeats Eli didn’t move, and then his face broke into the most beautiful, joyful expression Nico had ever seen.
“That we are, Nico,” he said. “That we are.”
“Well, I’m not going.”
Nico’s and Eli’s heads both snapped toward Josef. The swordsman was leaning back on his hands, but his face was deathly serious.
“Nico’s a free woman,” he said. “She can take you wherever she wants. But I’m not moving a step until I get a promise.”
Eli went very pale, and though his body was still, Nico could see his spirit trembling. “What kind of promise?”
“If we’re a team, you need to act like it,” Josef said flatly, looking Eli up and down. “I’ve followed you for years now, no questions asked. I’m not saying we should change that. I kept my secrets as tight as either of you, after all, and I’ll never forget that you were the first ones at my side when my past caught up with me. But this isn’t another heist. I don’t know what you’re wrapped up in, Eli, but even I can see it’s big. Bigger than us. Too big to walk into blind. So before I agree to throw my lot in with you once and for all, I want your word that, from here on out, you’re going to tell us what’s going on. No more secrecy, no more glib brush-offs when I ask you a question. I don’t care if you’re the prince of the spirit world or just a big-mouthed idiot who talked himself in over his head. From now on, you tell us what’s coming as best as you can, and when either of us asks a question, you answer it straight. Promise me that and I’ll follow you to the end of the world or wherever it is you’re headed.” Josef raised his hand, holding it in the air between them. “Deal?”
Eli glanced at the offered hand, and then he raised his own, clasping Josef’s palm. “Deal.”
Josef gave Eli’s hand a hard shake as his glare dissolved into a smug grin. “I would have come even if you hadn’t promised,” he said as he released him. “You know that, right?”
Eli’s jaw dropped, and then he kicked Josef in the shin. “You are such a jerk. You know that, right?”
“You’ve told me as much before,” Josef said as Eli’s kick bounced off him easy as a child’s. “I’m glad I got the promise, though. Despite all your other faults, you’ve always been a man of your word.”
“Gee, thanks,” Eli grumbled, glancing at the window. “Now, if you’re done being a pain, can we get going? Daylight’s burning and we’ve got a long way to go.”
Josef shrugged and stood up. He grabbed the Heart of War and slung it onto his back, fixing the strap over his other blades. Nico grabbed their bag and started to put it over her arm when Eli stopped her.
“I’ve got it,” he said, sliding the bag over his shoulder so that it rested on his hip. “You just worry about getting us there.”
Nico nodded, fighting the icy spike of fear that stabbed her stomach at the mention of leaving. But she’d made her promise, and nothing was going to stop her now. For the first time in many months, maybe the first time ever, the three of them were all on the same page, united in purpose. She was going to do her part or die trying.
“Grab on, then,” she said, steeling her voice against the fear.
Josef’s arm was around her waist before she’d finished, pulling her close. Eli latched on next, wrapping himself around her shoulders.
“Isn’t this cozy?” he said, smiling over her shoulder. “Wrapped up together like coins in a cloth.”
“Just make sure you stay that way,” Nico said, planting her feet. “And whatever happens, whatever you feel, whatever you see, do not let go.”
She waited until both men nodded, and then, with a final, deep breath, Nico stepped them backward into the shadows and vanished without a trace.
Eli gasped as the darkness ate them whole. The first thing he noticed, aside from the black shutter that had closed over his eyes, was the cold. It sank straight to his bones, as sharp as broken glass. So sharp, in fact, that he had trouble breathing. But the biting, breathless cold faded to a minor inconvenience once the fear hit him.
Pure terror gripped him like a giant’s hand. He could actually feel the weight of it pressing on his heart, stopping it cold between one beat and the next. Lungs frozen, heart stopped, Eli’s body sank, a dead weight sliding down Nico’s arm. His fingers twitched uselessly as they slipped from her coat, and he started to fall. In the parts of his brain that still worked, he cursed himself and fought to grab hold again, but it was no use. His body was a wooden doll, an empty vessel crushed by fear. Another second and he would fall into the dark entirely, and the grasping mouths that nibbled at his arms would fall on him in earnest and eat until there was nothing left.
But just before he fell away altogether, something strong and warm shot around his chest, pulling him tight. He looked up to see Nico looming over him. There was no light, but he could see her pale face clearly. Her eyes were as bright as lanterns, and her arm was wrapped around him, holding him up as they slid through the dark.
Eli didn’t know how long they traveled. It could have been minutes or days or lifetimes. The dark had no end. Nico’s arm kept the cold away, and though the fear never abated, Eli found he could manage it if he clung to Nico’s small, wiry body with his face buried in her coat like a child’s.
He couldn’t see Josef, but he could feel the swordsman’s arm wrapped around Nico’s waist. His fingers were pressed as tight as Eli’s own into her coat, and Eli took some bitter comfort that Josef felt the fear, too. The only one who didn’t seem to feel it was Nico. She stood above them, her pale face calm and determined below her glowing eyes as she stared into the dark ahead of them.
And then, just when Eli was sure he’d never see daylight again, they burst out of the blackness and into blinding light.
The three of them stumbled and fell as one, landing on something soft and sweet smelling. Eli blinked rapidly, willing his eyes to adjust, fearing they wouldn’t. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find he was blind. It
