I waved to the man, and he closed the closet doors.
“Friendly guy,” I said.
“He’s not paid to be your friend. There are three more guards around the perimeter, and two more on standby.” Hagar nodded to the stairs. “Let’s get some coffee, then we can hunker down and see what happens.”
I tried to prepare our drinks, but Hagar pushed me aside.
“Let’s not break another set,” she said. “Your hands are shaking. It’s probably the adrenaline. Take a seat. I’ll make the coffee.”
“How can you be so calm?” I asked. She was right, my hands were shaking. Part of it was adrenaline, but the rest was raw fear pushing its way past my confidence. The idea that someone had been paid to kill me preyed on my thoughts. Even with guards all over the cottage, there was still a chance the Death Weaver would find her target. In the heat of combat, almost anything could happen. For that matter, in these close quarters, friendly fire was almost as much of a danger as the enemy. Even if the assassin didn’t kill me, there was a very, very good chance someone would be badly injured or killed during her attack. I didn’t know how to process the idea of other people putting their lives on the line to save mine.
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” Hagar said with a grin. “I’ve been working with the elders for years. This isn’t even close to the weirdest or most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen.”
Once again, I was reminded of how not everything I saw was what it seemed. Rachel and Rafael being related had been completely unexpected. Last year I’d considered Hagar to be one of my worst enemies. This year, she was one of the few people I could trust, and she’d had an exciting few years as an Empyreal secret agent. It was a lot to take in. I sat in silence and pondered the potential secret lives of my friends.
Eric was a member of the Resplendent Suns, a clan that still hadn’t publically denounced Grayson Bishop’s compact with the Locust Court.
Abi was a cadet in the Portal Defense Force, and he was just full of classified secrets he’d learned from that job.
And Clem...
She was Adjudicator Hark’s daughter. If any of my friends was a secret agent, it was her.
“You’re thinking too hard.” Hagar placed a mug of coffee in front of me. She fetched the cream and sugar that we’d both ignore, dropped them on the table, then retrieved her own cup from the counter. “I know this is all strange and scary, but you’ll get used to it. One day, people will know what we’ve done. When this is all over, we’ll be heroes.”
I didn’t say it, but we both knew she was sugarcoating things. We might be dead by the time the fight with the heretics was over. Their attacks were getting more dangerous. Graffiti was out of fashion, and firebombs had taken its place. And now they were hiring assassins to take out Empyreal agents.
To take me out.
“I don’t want to be a hero,” I admitted. “I thought I did, but I’m not so sure anymore.”
Hagar chuckled. “No real hero wants to be one.” She sipped her coffee and looked out the window next to the kitchen table with a wistful sigh.
“Do you even know what the heretics want?” I asked. “I know they hate the Grand Design, but that hardly seems worth all this trouble.”
“They want to tear it all down,” Hagar said. “The whole Empyreal Society. Clans, elders, the Flame, all of it.”
That idea filled me with a cold dread. The idea of maniacs who wanted to destroy everything the Empyreals had built over the millennia of their existence was horrifying. I couldn’t imagine how deranged someone would have to be to even attempt such a thing.
“But why?” I asked.
“The Grand Design is bigger than mortals can understand. It’s like this coffee.” Hagar dropped a dollop of cream into her coffee and stirred her finger through the cloud it formed on the surface. “What we see is just the shallows. If we try to dig too deep into it, we get burned. Some people don’t like that. The idea that there’s an invisible hand that keeps them on a path they didn’t pick for themselves makes them furious.”
I wanted to chase after that philosophical question, but Hagar suddenly tilted her head to one side. She pressed her fingers against her temple, and I noticed she had an eye-snapper connected.
“Stay calm,” she said. “The scouts reported an ether blip. Someone’s opened a portal here. Don’t run. Take one more drink of your coffee, put it in the sink, and then walk upstairs. Imagine you have to use the bedroom or something boring. Don’t look like that. Be normal.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked, doing my best to mask my concern over the fact that there was a stone-cold killer minutes away from her target.
Me.
“She’s not after me, Jace,” Hagar assured me. “I’ll be fine right where I am.”
I hid my displeasure behind a drink from my mug. The coffee was warm and velvety on my tongue, and I enjoyed it like it was the last drink I’d ever have.
Because it just might be.
I put the cup in the sink, rinsed it with a little water, then headed upstairs at a leisurely pace. I even faked a yawn.
But every step seemed more difficult than the last. As I climbed up the steps, I leaned on the banister for support. Someone was coming to kill me, and I was walking straight into their line of fire. That was much harder to do than anyone could imagine.
“Don’t let anything happen to me, Henry,” I whispered as I entered my bedroom. There was no answer from the closet, and I hoped that meant my temporary bodyguard was just being extra cautious not
