Promises to Keep

witch.”

“He isn’t available,” Brina barked.

“With all due respect, my lady,” Jeremy said, as his last thread of patience snapped, “some of us have responsibilities beyond catering to you. The kitchen staff is preparing a meal for you, but that’s as much time as we can devote to the apparently healthy right now.”

Jay watched them without comment. What could he say? Jeremy was right. Brina was also right. Jay was one of the only people with a prayer of fixing what he had done … but all he had was a prayer, and a list of sorcerers who refused to come to the phone. Would he be more useful helping the sick?

“We left messages for everyone Paula suggested,” Jay said to Brina. “Maybe someone will call us back. In the meantime, I should try to do some good here.”

“Don’t exhaust yourself, witch,” Brina cautioned him. “You are too valuable to waste.”

“I’m not comfortable with your concept of ‘value,’ ” he replied, his mind on Midnight. He tossed his phone to Brina, who let it fall to the bed. “If any of our sorcerer friends call back, you can come get me. If we don’t hear from anyone in, let’s say an hour, we’ll try something different.”

An hour would be enough time for him to see what, if anything, he could do for the sick. It would also be more than enough time for him to think about every other option they had, which was, let’s see … nothing.

Jay had never been good at intentionally shielding against emotion and other empathic impressions. He had no idea how much he had instinctively screened out, until he walked into the gym-turned-sick-ward and felt the weight of emotion pressing on him. His stomach turned—or was that someone else’s sensation? The air was thick and cloying, rank with chemicals, sweat, and despair. Percussive coughs broke through the constant rattle of pneumonic breathing.

“Jay,” Jeremy asked, “where do you want to start? Does it make more sense to start with the sickest, or to work with those who aren’t as far gone, so they don’t reach that point, and then we can devote more medical resources to the critical cases? You know your power’s limits better than I do.”

My limits … I’m going to be sick.

Jay leaned back against the cold wall, closed his eyes, and drew his knife, seeking the thrum of ancestral magic and the comfort and focus it always brought.

He dropped the knife with a yelp as, instead of providing a peaceful pulse of soothing magic, it spiked him with a shock of raw power, as if he had put his hand in an electric outlet. The blade narrowly missed his foot, but all he could do was stare as the weight of a hundred sick and frightened minds crashed past his defenses.

—going to die here.

Never told her that—

—wonder if he will ever—

Who will take care of them when—

What did I do to deserve this?

“Jay?” What happened to him?

I need to get out of here.

Jay wasn’t sure if that last thought was his or not, but it sounded good. Blindly, he shouldered Jeremy and at least one other solicitous body out of the way as he raced toward the front door. He stumbled out into drifting snow, dry-heaving as his stomach tried to give up what little food he had eaten too long ago.

He lay in the snow, feeling it soak through his clothes as he tried to just be still and—

“Go away!” he shouted at Jeremy when that anxious mind drew near. “I can’t help you.” I can’t help anyone. I’d just screw up even more.

I told you not to go in there, Lynx chastised him from farther off in the woods. Do you need me?

I don’t know what I need.

He wasn’t the only one feeling hopeless. “It is not our responsibility to risk our lives for a fool’s errand,” a voice was saying. “We have the resources to keep our own people safe. We should be focused on that.”

Jay could hear the words but couldn’t feel the mind behind them. That should have told him who was speaking even before Xeke’s voice responded.

“That has always been the big difference between you and me, Rikai,” he said, the exasperation in his voice sufficient to make it clear that they had been arguing for a while. “I’ve never been willing to give up on the entire planet just because they’re not my people. You— Jay? Is that you?”

Well, at least I didn’t actually throw up in front of him, Jay thought. He was about to tell the vampire to go to hell anyway, because he didn’t relish the idea of being miserable in front of him, when he processed what Xeke was saying. He was trying to convince Rikai to help.

Maybe they did still have a snow angel’s chance in hell to fix this thing.

CHAPTER 21

“IT SEEMS I overestimated Xeke’s instinct for survival,” Rikai explained as she reached a hand down and unceremoniously yanked Jay to his feet. “So we’re back.”

You don’t sound bitter about that at all, Jay thought, though he held his tongue. They needed Rikai’s help, grudging or not.

“You look good,” Jay remarked, looking between the two of them. Rikai’s visible scars were gone, and the strength she had demonstrated helping him up was well beyond what she could have managed earlier. Xeke was a little flushed but clear-eyed.

“Thanks,” Xeke answered. “You look like crap.”

The vampire reached around Jay to brush snow off his back, which put him close enough to kiss—or bite, which was why Jay tensed, recalling what Rikai had said about Xeke waking up starving.

“Has Brina won you from me already?” Xeke teased, noticing the withdrawal.

“What?” Jay knew perfectly well that Xeke was a flirt by nature. He shouldn’t take it personally. So why did the vampire have this ability to tongue-tie him? “No, I just—Rikai seemed to think you were in rough shape. Are you okay?”

Xeke kissed Jay’s cheek before stepping back. “Rikai did some kind of magical rewiring,” he answered. “I don’t understand it, but I feel pretty good.”

“Whenever vampires feed, they give power to Leona,” Rikai explained. “Their current madness is the result of her needing strength for battle. Thankfully, one of Xeke’s progenitors has a bond to an earth elemental called Leshan.” Rikai shrugged, as if this were perfectly normal, and common knowledge. “I was able to partially block Xeke’s connection to Leona and tighten his bond to Leshan, which should protect him from the worst of the fallout.”

“What’s with the L names, anyway?” Xeke asked, apparently uninterested in the magical mechanics of his salvation. “Leona, Leshan, LeCoire; most of the elementals I know have L names.”

“An elemental’s true name is closely guarded,” Rikai answered. “Wise sorcerers,” she said, with a sharp glance at Jay, “may spend decades, perhaps even generations, trying to divine the true name of an elemental before ever speaking to or summoning it, since that name will give a mortal power over the immortal. The names we use are as real as an Internet messaging handle. The prefix le means ‘a power or impetus,’ in the ancient language,” Rikai answered, “which is the language used among the elementals.” Still focused on Jay, she added, “Idiot would-be sorcerers, on the other hand, meddle without any preparation or understanding of the powers with which they are playing, and cause things like this.”

Jay was still flinching from the heat in her gaze when Xeke broke in.

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard the ‘idiot would-be sorcerers’ speech a hundred times today alone. Someone who becomes a vampire hunter either has an irresistible urge to murder people or an irresistible urge to get killed protecting strangers. Blaming them for poorly planned, suicidal stunts in the line of duty is like blaming a cat for