“I know it hurts, son, but she needs time,” Liam said, clapping me on the shoulder. I didn’t bother asking how he knew my train of thought. He always knew.
“Yeah.” I sighed tiredly and stared at the paper without actually seeing. “But time won’t heal if you hold onto the pain. She’s doing exactly what I did, Liam. That look on her face . . .”
“Which is why,” he said, taking a seat across from me and tapping the paper, “you’ll be asking her to come along on this mission.”
My eyes narrowed on the paper until shapes and symbols appeared. “Mission? Don’t you think it’s a little soon? I mean, our numbers were cut in half, our resources all but depleted. Many Fae are missing, including Flynn and Benji.” Saying the boy’s name out loud tightened my throat, and I swallowed roughly. Haven was inconsolable. If we didn’t get him back soon, I worried for her rapidly declining health. She seemed to have stopped trying. “We’ve been forced underground to live in tunnels. You lost your son, for Gaia’s sake.”
As my temper rose, so did his. He slammed a fist onto the table and I blinked. He was never angry. “And that is exactly why this mission is so important and has to happen now. When tragedy strikes, you pick yourself back up again. You do something about it. When Leilani died, I made plans to build the rebellion and Safehouse days later. Threw myself into being useful, into making a difference. If I had done nothing, I would have wasted away in my sorrow.”
His words were a blow to my heart. He had suffered as much as I had, but he’d risen above. I, on the other hand, had let the misery bury me. And watching him now with that angry spark lighting his eyes, I knew I couldn’t let him down again.
I studied the old, water-stained paper, not comprehending its contents. “What is this?”
“A map.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “You have that green, rechargeable rock of yours still?” I nodded, gut twisting every time I thought of that failed mission when we had come home empty-handed. We hadn’t collected a single crystal that night, too panicked to think straight. “Good. Because that crystal is the key to opening the veil.”
My brows furrowed as I looked up at him. “Huh?”
He chuckled, his old humor returning. “I took the liberty of exploring Mordecai’s study when you all were loading up on weapons, and hit the jackpot. Information on the Genesis Crystal and what it can do, a map leading to the land our ancestors came from, proof that we’ve been lied to all these years. We weren’t cast out or abandoned by the gods. We’ve simply been trapped, the knowledge of our freedom hidden from us. Our elders were massacred during The Shift, no doubt Mordecai’s doing so they couldn’t tell us how to tip the scales.
“But now . . .” He grinned wide. “We have the key.”
“The key to what?” I held my breath. Something told me his answer would change everything.
“The key to a land teaming with our own kind who can help us stop Mordecai. The key into Daranil, the Fae realm.”
—
She hadn’t left the city yet.
But today, that’s exactly what she was doing. Nevaeh told us about the map Reagan had found of an underground passage—coordinates that we still needed if we were to leave the city ourselves. She’d also helped Reagan scrounge together supplies so she wouldn’t be completely helpless traveling to strange new lands. And now, she was ready. Nothing holding her back. I could feel the familiar well of anger roil in my gut, but I tamped the emotion down.
She may be leaving without even a goodbye, but she was hurting. I knew all too well the conflicted emotions she was drowning in. So when she exited the rathole she’d been slumming in for the past several days, I didn’t storm over to her. Didn’t grab her and shake sense into her. Didn’t curse and yell.
No, I snuck up behind her while she was lighting a cigarette and casually leaned against the building’s graffitied wall, despite feeling anything but calm. “You’re needed on a mission.”
Reagan jumped, nearly dropping the cigarette from between her teeth. She pulled it out long enough to say, “Tarik . . . I can’t.”
And started walking.
I kept pace easily, marveling at her short stature. I had missed this. Walking beside her. Matching my stride to hers. I missed watching the wind tease strands of her blue and black hair. Missed the way she nibbled on her lip ring. “The mission will be dangerous. In uncharted territory. We need the strength and expertise of the lion shifter.”
She shook her head. “You don’t need me. You’ll be safer if I’m gone.”
I stifled a sigh. She sounded exactly as I did a month ago. The table had flipped and I wasn’t used to being on the top. “Maybe we’re safer, maybe we’re not, but that isn’t the point. We want you to come along.”
Reagan slowed. Then stopped, stamping out her cigarette before she peered up at me. “I can’t do this, Tarik. I’m sorry.”
That look in her eyes . . .
Pain. I wanted to wipe it all away. Unable to hold back a moment longer, I reached out and stroked a thumb down her cheek. “Please don’t leave.” My chest tightened. “I want to help you through this.”
“I miss you,” she admitted quietly. Her throat bobbed, eyes glistening as grief welled to the surface. “But this, all of this . . . Everything hurts.”
I dared to move closer, sliding my fingers into her hair. “I know. I know it hurts so bad that breathing is sometimes impossible. I know
