“Madeline may tolerate your interference in her business, but I do not have to,” Nathaniel said.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Beezle said, smirking.
I approached Nathaniel, a little embarrassed. “I should heal you.”
He put his hand on my chin, lifting my eyes to his. “Do not hide from me. You did not mean me harm.”
“But I did it anyway,” I said. Everything inside me was a tangle. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“I know who you are,” he said softly. “You are Madeline Black, as you have always been.”
I placed my hands on his neck, his lips, making the blackened, blistered flesh disappear.
I heard the sound of pounding feet, and we turned to see J.B. running down the hall between the storage spaces.
He stopped in front of us and dumped an armload of clothing on the floor. My sword clattered to the ground.
“Get dressed,” he said. “Bendith’s gone.”
15
NATHANIEL SWORE. “WHOEVER SET THE CHARGE ON the building must have known he was inside.”
He yanked a shirt and jeans from the jumble of clothes and pulled off his pajama pants. He wasn’t wearing any underwear beneath but he didn’t seem self-conscious in the least.
Beezle turned away, covering his eyes with his hands. “For the love of the Morningstar, don’t do that without warning me. I’ve seen enough naked humans for one day.”
J.B. had collected my jeans and shoes, but my underwear and shirt had burned up in the heart-of-darkness incident. I put on the jeans while he scooped a plaid flannel shirt out of the pile.
“I brought you one of mine,” he said, trying to look everywhere except my chest.
“Thanks,” I said, pulling it over my head, as it was already buttoned. I felt better once I was covered by the shirt. J.B. was a lot taller than me, so the tail hung to the middle of my thighs. “Was there any sign of a struggle outside?”
J.B. shook his head. “No. It’s like he just disappeared into thin air.”
Nathaniel finished dressing, pulling on a pair of well-worn black leather boots. “It could not have been the assassins, then. They would not have bothered to take him away.”
J.B. nodded grimly. “They would have killed him and left him there so we could see that we’d failed.”
“Somebody took him,” I said as I put on my own boots. “I don’t think he would have left of his own accord, do you?”
Nathaniel paused. “I suppose it’s possible he ran off in a fit of pique.”
“I noticed that he wasn’t too happy about my arrival,” I said.
Nathaniel directed the nightfire back toward the stairs and we all trooped in that direction. Beezle took up his usual position on my shoulder.
“No, he was not,” Nathaniel admitted. “However, I still need to find him. If Bendith is out on his own, then he is vulnerable.”
“Doesn’t he have magic of his own?” I asked. “He can’t be totally helpless. He’s Puck and Titania’s kid, after all.”
“He does have abilities,” Nathaniel said. “But they are woefully underdeveloped. It seems that Titania deliberately prevented him from nurturing his power.”
“She was afraid he might realize he was related to Puck and not Oberon if he used his magic too much,” I guessed.
“Precisely,” Nathaniel said. “I have attempted to help him access more of his magic, but it is difficult to overcome centuries of neglect.”
We spilled out into the alley, all of us braced for the possibility of attack. There was no one there. It seemed unusually silent, especially after the excitement of the explosion. I’d half expected the place to be crawling with assorted emergency personnel. But there was no one around. The scent of smoke pervaded the air, and the sky appeared to be lightening.
“Better get under a veil,” I said. “We don’t want to attract attention.”
Nathaniel dropped a veil over all of us, but somehow managed to manipulate it so we could still see one another. His power was noticeably stronger than before, and the darkness that lingered beneath my skin quickened in anticipation.
I pushed the thought away. My heart was still my own. I did not belong to Lucifer. I would not.
“Now what?” Beezle said.
“I can trace Bendith,” Nathaniel said. “We have a blood connection, so it is a simple thing for me to follow him.”
Nathaniel closed his eyes. I could feel the pulse of his magic spreading outward, searching for a trace for Bendith. J.B. raised his eyebrows at me, and I knew that he could feel it, too.
And I was as strong as Nathaniel, maybe stronger. It was a terrifying, seductive thought.
Nathaniel’s magic pulsed again, and there was something different about it, almost as if he were frustrated.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I cannot feel him,” Nathaniel said, and I could hear the strain in his voice. “I have been able to sense his presence since we met in Titania’s forest.”
“Since your eyes changed and you both realized that Puck was your father,” I said.
“Yes. I am always aware of him,” Nathaniel said. “However, now that I realize it, I lost him when you were, ah . . .”
“. . . on fire and kissing you like she wanted to devour you?” Beezle said innocently.
“I am going to make sure you never eat hot wings again if you keep this up,” I said.
Beezle mimed zipping his mouth shut.
“In any case, he must have disappeared then,” Nathaniel said. “But I did not realize it because I was distracted.”
“So there are two options,” I said. “He left this world for another, or someone is deliberately hiding him from you as you were hiding him from everyone else.”
“The list of suspects strong enough to do that is pretty short,” J.B. said. “I’m looking at two of them.”
“And obviously you can eliminate the two of us from your suspect roster,” I said.
“So that leaves Lucifer, Puck, Alerian, Daharan, Titania and maybe a few of the fallen,” Beezle said.
“I don’t think we want to go around quizzing any of them to see if they have alibis,” I said.
“What happened to Daharan, anyway?” Beezle asked. “I thought he was going to smack Sokolov around and then come back to you.”
“He didn’t have anything to do with this,” I said.
“Maddy—” J.B. began.
“No, I know he didn’t,” I said. “I don’t know how to explain it to you. I’m not more closely related to him than I am to Alerian or Puck, but I feel more connected to him. I know that he didn’t take Bendith.”
J.B. looked skeptical, but Nathaniel looked thoughtful. “I wonder why the two of you have bonded so strongly.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know why. I just felt it as soon as I looked into his eyes. It’s like he’s my guardian angel.”
Saying it made it seem true, and right. Daharan was my guardian. He was supposed to watch over me.
“I can tell you this,” I continued. “Puck got really, really angry about it.”
“That makes sense,” J.B. said. “Puck has been trying to maneuver you into his corner, away from Lucifer. He
