forgotten truths that she wasn’t sure what to think about first.
She made herself roll away from him, not letting herself feel the loss of warmth. “Wake up, big guy. We fell asleep.”
“We wh—? Huh?” He blinked awake and locked on their reflection over the bed, and his face went through the whole surprised-then-remembering sequence she’d just been through. He cleared his throat.
“Oh. Well.”
“We should get dressed,” she said too quickly, latching on to the practical details when the thought of dealing with the other, larger pieces of the puzzle made her palms sweat. “Jade and the others will be here soon.”
Taking the slippery top sheet with her, she headed for the shower, trying not to make a big deal about snagging her scattered clothes along the way.
“Patience.”
His quiet word stalled her in the bathroom doorway. Taking a deep breath, she turned back.
She lost the breath she had just taken.
He sat cross-legged in the center of the mattress, bare-chested, with the bedspread tossed casually over his lap. His hair was tousled, his eyes still carried a blur of sleep, and the mirrored reflections behind him showed the strong curve of his spine. Her body still hummed from their raw sex of the night before; the thought of it brought a clutch of desire low in her abdomen, a blush of moisture to her cleft.
But last night hadn’t been about them; it had been about the place, the magic, and the memories.
Loving him now, in the light of a new day, would be something entirely different.
He held out his hand, but she took a step back, shaking her head.
“I can’t,” she whispered, the words little more than a breath.
His expression tightened. “I just want to talk.” But he let his hand drop.
Her heart twisted. “We knew,” she said softly. “From almost the very beginning, we knew we were both Nightkeepers.”
“Yeah, we did. Until Werigo blocked the memories.”
She told herself to focus on the pieces that mattered to the next forty-eight hours. But the words slipped out. “It was such a relief to think that I wasn’t going to be alone anymore.”
“We were together after that,” he pointed out. Which was true—instead of an awkward morning-
after walk of shame, they had ordered breakfast. Three months later, they were married.
“Not the way we should have been.” As magi. Partners.
“Maybe not. But they were good times.”
It hit her then, what knowing all along would have really meant. They would’ve come clean to their
“I—” She broke off, pressing a hand to her stomach. “Oh, gods.” She was sorely tempted to take the bathroom escape route, but they owed each other better than that. She didn’t look at him, though, as she said, “If it hadn’t been for Werigo’s spell, we probably wouldn’t have had the boys. And, gods forgive me, sometimes I think it would’ve been easier if we’d come into this as strangers, or as lovers but not parents. I don’t regret having Harry and Braden, never that. I just wish . . .” She trailed off. “I wish I knew which parts have been pieces of the gods’ plan, and which have been our choices.”
“I would’ve picked you out of the crowd with or without the magic,” he said softly. “You dazzled me then, both as a man and a mage. I’m still dazzled by you now. More so, even, because you gave us Harry and Braden.”
Patience swallowed against the hard, hot lump of emotion that narrowed her throat. “But will you still feel that way back home?”
To his credit he didn’t lie. But the regret in his eyes hurt just as much as the lie would have.
The burble of her phone was almost a relief at that point. She pawed through her clothes, pulled out her cell, and checked the new text message. “Jade and the others are downstairs.”
“They’re early. You want to tell them to grab a table someplace quiet and we’ll debrief while we eat?”
She shot off the return text and fled to the bathroom, where she took a quick shower and pulled herself together.
Ten minutes later they left the room with only a messy bed and steamed-up bathroom to show that they had been there. She paused for a last look back as he held the hallway door for her. The mirrored decor wasn’t any less cheesy than it had been the night before, but she felt a pang at leaving it behind.
“We won’t forget this time,” Brandt said quietly.
“No, we won’t.” But as they headed downstairs to meet the others, she found herself wondering whether it would be enough for them to remember that first night. She felt so far removed from the person she’d been back then, so far away from the awestruck wonder of discovering the magic and fighting at her lover’s side, that she couldn’t see how the memories could help fix a damned thing.
Their teammates had snagged a private room at the back of the hotel restaurant, which was mercifully low-key on the themed-wedding kitsch, instead leaning toward a trellised indoor-garden feeling, with skylights that were wide-open to the sunny morning.
Patience hesitated slightly at the sight of not only Strike, Jade, Rabbit, and Myrinne, who she’d been expecting, but also Alexis, Nate, Sven, Lucius, and Leah. “Wow. The gang’s all here. Almost, anyway.”
It shouldn’t have made her claustrophobic to step into the room or take one of the two empty chairs and have Brandt’s arm bump hers as he did the same. But the walls closed in on her nonetheless.
“Sasha stayed with Anna, and Michael’s on Mendez duty,” Leah said. “The rest of us figured we’d tag along and boost Jade, on the theory that the cardinal-day spell concealing this doorway of yours could be tough to unravel on a noncardinal day.”
And also, Patience knew, because the Nightkeepers were one-hundred-percent adventure junkies.
Just look at how easily she and Brandt had talked each other into exploring the tunnels below El Rey.
The good news was that, in doing so, they had discovered something the Nightkeepers badly needed.
Without preamble, she said, “The doorway leads to an intersection.”
There was a short pause; then Sven whooped and the others started firing questions, the mood in the room shifting abruptly to one of “Oh, holy shit. Finally something might be going our way!” Ever since Iago had destroyed the intersection beneath Chichen Itza, the magi had been searching for another skyroad, a place where the barrier was thin enough to allow the gods to contact them directly.
Rather than trying to field the questions, Patience held up a hand. “Hold on. It’s complicated. I think we should start at the beginning.” She glanced at Brandt. “Do you want to tell it, and I’ll jump in where I’ve got a different perspective?”
He nodded. “Sounds like a plan.” He didn’t look at her, but beneath the table, he shifted, looping his foot around hers and pressing gently in an unseen half hug. “We used a mirror in our hotel room to trigger the
When he was done, there was a moment of silence that wasn’t so much stunned as it was a case of nobody knowing what to tackle first.
“Are you guys okay?” Leah said finally.
“We’re coping,” Patience said, not wanting an open forum on her and Brandt’s relationship, then or now.
Leah’s nod seemed to accept the evasion more than the answer.
“If it’s an intersection—” Strike began.
“There isn’t any question about that,” Brandt said, “at least not in my mind. It channeled both light and dark magic, and let both demons and gods reach through. Hellroad plus skyroad equals intersection.” He paused. “But there’s a problem. Given that Ix knew about the El Rey intersection, then we have to assume that Iago does
