The Enchanter Heir

She looked around, then leaned in close. “Let’s go someplace we can’t be overheard.”

“Suits me,” Jonah said, glancing over to where Jake was giving him the evil eye. “Let’s walk down to the river.” Leaving the gym, they crossed to St. Clair. They descended into the Flats and turned left on River Road, toward Settlers Landing. The park would be nearly deserted on a weekday, this early in the morning. And it was, nearly—just a few joggers who lived downtown.

They sat on the wall around the Ohio fountain, looking downriver, their view framed by the rusted and brilliantly painted steel of multiple bridges. The only traffic on the river was the crew team from St. Ignatius, rowing valiantly against the current. It was still early, the rising sun splintered by the buildings of downtown.

“So,” Jonah said. “What’s up? Where have you been? I was getting worried.”

“Jonah,” Natalie said abruptly. “I need help with a rescue.” Jonah stared at her, mystified. There was almost nothing Natalie could have said that would have surprised him more. Generally she preferred to remain at arms’ length from field operations.

“Go on,” he said.

“Gabriel sent me to help some wizards with a patient who was dying from a mysterious ailment.”

“Gabriel sent you to help wizards?” Jonah rolled his eyes. “That’s taking ‘Kumbaya’ a little too far. Did you at least poison a few while you were there?”

“Their patient wasn’t a wizard,” Natalie said, ignoring that last comment. “She’s a savant.”

“Someone from the Anchorage?” Jonah asked, mentally sorting through all the shadehunters he knew were out in the field.

Natalie shook her head. “Someone who’s new to all this.” She leaned closer. “They’re holding her captive because she is the only witness to a murder. They think she may be the break they’ve been looking for . . . that she holds the key to all the recent wizard murders.”

“You’re sure she’s a savant?” Jonah asked.

“She was at Thorn Hill, and has a savant stone.” Natalie frowned. “But I don’t really know what her gift is. And she doesn’t have the tattoo.”

Something kindled in the back of Jonah’s mind. It might have been hope. “Does she? Know something about the wizard murders, I mean?”

“Hard to say. It seems she was on the scene when a number of wizards were killed, along with her father.” Natalie’s eyes narrowed as she focused in on Jonah’s face. “Hello? Are you feeling all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Jonah’s heart thudded painfully in his chest, and he could scarcely catch his breath. Sweat pebbled his skin, chilling him as the wind off the river hit him.

“I . . . Gabriel’s changed my dose again,” Jonah lied. “It always takes a while to get used to it.”

“Huh.” Natalie didn’t believe him, of course. “Here. Put your head between your knees.” She put her hand between his shoulder blades and pushed.

“No . . . just—just . . . back to this girl. What’s her name?”

“Emma Greenwood. Why?”

Jonah gripped the top of the wall on either side so hard the stone crumbled under his fingers. A torrent of emotions raced through his mind. Emma Greenwood was alive? How was that possible? And if it was possible, how had she fallen into the hands of wizards?

Reinforcements. Reinforcements had been arriving as Jonah was leaving the house. Yet Jonah had stolen her guitar and left Emma there for them to find.

“Jonah, what the hell is the matter?” Natalie put her hands on his shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes.

“You know you can tell me anything.”

Not this, he thought. He’d killed a girl and now she’d come back to life?

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m all right. It’s not unusual for me to feel crappy. In fact, I feel crappy most of the time. I just try and ignore it. That’s what I do.” Stop it, Kinlock! You’re babbling. “About this girl. Did you figure out what was wrong with her? Is she—how is she doing now?”

“She’s doing much better,” Natalie said. “And no, I don’t know what was wrong with her. Some kind of poison or toxin or spell. Nothing I’ve seen before. She did hit her head, but that doesn’t seem serious.”

“Who are the wizards? Did you get any names?”

“DeVries. Rowan DeVries, a Burroughs and a Hackleford. DeVries’s sister was killed, apparently.”

DeVries. He’d killed Rachel DeVries that terrible night in Cleveland Heights. And Rowan DeVries had come to the Interguild Council, vowing revenge. And said nothing about a witness. Clearly, they meant to keep that information to themselves.

Jonah struggled to keep his voice polite, concerned, under control. “So they invited you in to treat this girl and then they let you go? That’s so . . . unwizard-like.”

“DeVries wiped my mind, not realizing that I’m immune to conjured magic. I sure wasn’t going to tell him. So I played along.”

“The girl. Emma. What did she say about the killings?” Jonah asked, his mouth as dry as dust. “What does she remember? Would she recognize . . . anybody who was there?”

“She remembers very little of what happened. Maybe she’ll remember more as she recovers. To be honest, there’s a chance that nobody was murdered at all. Emma asked to see the bodies, but DeVries claimed they’d been destroyed.”

Oh, somebody was murdered, all right, Jonah thought. Nine somebodies, and it could have been ten. “If she can’t help them, do you think they’ll let her go?”

“That’s what I was hoping for,” Natalie said. “I thought they might wipe her memory and send her off. But Emma seems convinced that they intend to wring everything out of her and then kill her.” Natalie put her hand on Jonah’s arm. “In the meantime, they’re torturing her, Jonah. She didn’t say anything, but there were blisters all around her neckline.”

“Tortured! They’re torturing her?” Jonah surged to his feet. “Exactly.” Natalie tilted her head, noting his reaction.

“Does that surprise you?” She scraped back the hair that the wind had pulled loose from her ponytail.

Maybe Emma would remember him, and his secret would be out. But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except seizing this chance to undo some of what he’d done.

“Where is she? Is she still at the house in Cleveland Heights?”

Natalie shook her head. “Cleveland Heights? Who said anything about the Heights? She’s in Bratenahl. Up by the lake. It’s just a house—a mansion—on the lakefront, but the property is walled in, and they have an alarm system and fulltime security.”

“No problem,” Jonah said, already building his wall of secrets. “I’ll get in. In the meantime, please don’t say anything about this to Gabriel or anyone else. And if I bring her back here, absolutely nobody can know that history about her.”

“But Gabriel will want to debrief me on what happened when I—”

“Just tell him your patient was recovering and so you came back to school.” When Natalie still looked unconvinced, Jonah resorted to begging. “Please, Nat. If you care about me. If you care about—about Emma, you won’t say a word to anyone.”

“All right, Jonah, I trust you.”

Don’t trust me, Jonah thought. I’m asking you for my sake, not hers.

“Just be careful,” Natalie said, trying to smile. “We have a gig to practice for, you know.”

Maybe I’ll be killed in the attempt, Jonah thought, showing his teeth in a smile. Then I’ll be off the hook.

Chapter Thirty-three

North Coast Blues

If help ain’t coming, you got to help yourself. That’s what Sonny Lee always said.