time thing, but he believed in basic psychology, which said that Strike needed their help. The fact that Nate and Alexis were pretty united in their recommendations was a huge swing in their favor, forcing Strike to finally agree—albeit reluctantly—to having Jox set up additional surveillance in each of the storerooms. Granted, the motion detectors and infrareds couldn’t detect
’port magic—and it wasn’t yet clear whether Rabbit had added
After that, they waited to hear back from Leah, who had taken Myrinne to the kitchen for some food with a side of interrogation, or Anna, who’d taken the knife so she could translate the normal script as well as the starscript.
Leah arrived first. “Iago has had him for just over a week,” she announced without preamble, then went on to sketch out a summary of the teens’ imprisonment, and what little Myrinne knew about the Xibalban, which wasn’t anything they hadn’t already figured out.
While she was talking, Strike rose and started pacing the length of the royal suite’s sitting area. By the time she was finished, he looked like he wanted to put his fist—or a fireball—through the wall. He held himself back, but Nate almost wished he’d let fly and burn off some of the emotion before it made him do something stupid.
“Gods damn it,” the king finally said. “We should’ve fucking gone after Iago weeks ago.”
“We couldn’t find him,” Leah pointed out, “just like we couldn’t find Rabbit.”
That brought Alexis’s head up. “Can you lock onto Rabbit now?” she asked the king.
He stopped pacing for a second, then frowned and shook his head. “No. I can’t. Which means we were right; Iago knows how to make people invisible to ’port magic. He must’ve blocked Rabbit’s
’port lock right there at the museum, then let him go—I don’t know . . . so he could watch him, maybe. Wait until he got into enough trouble that he needed rescuing, and might be desperate enough, lonely enough to join Iago’s team.” His voice went ragged when he said, “Did you see the kid’s arm?
He’s wearing the goddamned hellmouth.” He stopped, facing a wall, but instead of putting his fist through it, he leaned his forehead against the painted plaster and said in a low, hollow voice, repeating what Leah had just told them, “Iago was going to sacrifice them, during the equinox. Another two days and he would’ve been dead.”
“He made it out,” Alexis started to say, but Nate waved her quiet, and she was surprised enough that she actually shut up.
Knowing he’d have to apologize for—or pay for—that one later, Nate rose and crossed to Strike.
Pitching his voice so the others couldn’t hear, he said, “With all due respect,
Strike stiffened, pulled away from the wall, and turned to glare. “Ex
Ignoring a sudden memory of being hung off the side of a warehouse roof, Nate stared him down.
“You want to be upset, do it on your own time. Right now we need you in the king zone.” He paused.
“Don’t make me quote the writs at you.” The king’s writ, which set out the priorities of the ruling Nightkeeper, was unfortunately apt under the circumstances, a reminder that the king looked to the gods and his people first, followed by mankind and the end-time war. His own desires as a husband, father, and friend were way down on the list.
Strike’s lips twitched. “Bet that’d hurt you far more than it’d hurt me.” But he inhaled a long breath and visibly centered himself. By the time he’d exhaled, he nodded to Nate. “Okay. Sorry. And thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Seriously.”
They rejoined the others, and Nate tried not to see Leah’s quiet nod or Alexis’s covert thumbs-up.
He didn’t want to be good at this advisory crap, godsdamn it.
“You guys ready for me?” a quiet voice asked from the doorway. Nate looked up to see Anna holding the Volatile’s knife balanced in her palm, crossing her sacrificial scar.
A hush took hold of the room.
“What have you got for us?” Strike asked, waving her in.
She set the knife on the coffee table and took one of the empty armchairs, leaning forward at the edge of the chair so she could point to a line of text inscribed at the base of the handle portion of the carved knife, which had been formed from a single piece of obsidian and polished to a deep black shine. “See this here? It’s a regular, nonstarscript inscription.” Tracing the fluid beauty of the Mayan glyphs, she translated, “‘The Volatile challenges the sky.’”
“Well, that’s not good news,” Alexis said, frowning. “If he’s going after the gods, then it’s a pretty good bet that he’s either one of the demons, or Xibalban. What confuses me is the apparent link with Ixchel and, by extension, with me.”
Nate shot her a look. “We’re not handing you over to Iago, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“I’m not going to argue with you on that one.” But she’d paled, nonetheless.
He leaned close and said under his breath, “The prophecies aren’t immutable. Strike and Leah proved that.” But he knew she was having trouble with the hypocrisy of believing they needed to follow the gods and prophecies, but choosing to disbelieve the one that specifically related to her.
He, on the other hand, had no such issue. If the Volatile—whoever or whatever it was—wanted Alexis, it would have to go through him to get to her.
“What about the starscript?” Strike asked.
Anna shook her head. “That’s the strange thing. There wasn’t any.”
Silence followed that pronouncement, formed of a combination of surprise and consternation.
“That’s it?” Alexis said, looking shattered. “Nothing else? Nothing about Ixchel? The inscription on the statuette said Camazotz would succeed unless the Volatile is found. Does that mean we have to find and destroy the Volatile before the equinox? I hope not, because I don’t see it happening.”
Nate cursed inwardly. “Maybe Rabbit will know something.”
“He’s out cold,” Jox said, “and not likely to be coherent enough to answer questions until sometime tomorrow. Whatever happened to the poor kid, he’s used up.”
Strike nodded. “Then that’s a wrap. We’ll reconvene tomorrow morning, unless anyone gets any brilliant ideas between now and then.”
The members of the council disbanded and went their separate ways, Jox and Anna to their adjacent quarters in the royal wing, Nate and Alexis in the direction of the residences.
When they got to the door that was the most direct route to the cottages, she paused. Normally—at least every night over the past week—they would’ve headed out to his cottage by tacit consent.
Tonight she hung back.
Because he’d been getting a slightly off vibe from her ever since the Volatile’s prophecy was read, Nate said, “No pressure, but you look like you could use the company.”
But his gut went sour when he saw the answer in her eyes a few seconds before she shook her head and looked away. “I’m pretty tired.”
They hadn’t taken a night off from each other since they’d started sleeping together again, and it was part of their unspoken agreement that they . . . well, didn’t speak about it. It seemed like the best way to have a more or less casual thing, given that they both lived in the compound and would continue to do so regardless of how things ended up between them. They were together when they wanted to be, apart when they wanted to be, and if it’d wound up that they wanted to be together more than they’d wanted to be apart, then that was another thing they were leaving unspoken. At least, they had up to that point.
Tonight, though, Nate found he didn’t want to let it go and keep it casual. The confirmation that the Volatile was an enemy of the gods had shaken him as much as it’d affected her. He was churned up, pissed off with the situation, and with the gods-awful obscurity of it all. Why couldn’t the gods just tell them what the hell they were supposed to be doing? Yeah, fine, he knew all the rhetoric about the difference between the long, tenuous skyroad and the wide-open hellmouth. But it seemed like the gods had had ample time to get their messages through, and instead kept letting the supposed saviors of mankind get their asses kicked over and over again, setting them up for an impossible battle when the end-time came.
