I grinned. “Aw, you really do want to lose the last of your teeth, don’t you?”
Nile let out a bark of laughter.
The mageri and the mercs left and Helgi and I were alone.
“Well fuck me sideways,” Helgi said. “You’ve got the patience of a whore without a snatch.”
I walked over to the box of bullets and picked one up. “I’m not feeling optimistic, Helg. Not one bit.”
“We don’t have to do this. We can leave with the mercs tomorrow, get into the Outlands, put together a team, and plot a way to get Illyrian back. We don’t need the Dreki. If we can’t get this to work, then we’re no use to them.”
“I have to get the book to Orion.”
“Fine, then we leave after that.”
I wanted to. I wanted to take control and just do it, but… “You’re right. But Illyrian would tell me to stay and try harder because the fate of our world depends on it. I can’t walk away prematurely, not if it means contributing to the implosion of our world and the death of everybody I love.”
“The Jotunn?”
I’d filled her in on it all. The real, unabridged truth. No more secrets.
“Yeah, Helgi, this is bigger than us.” My gaze fell on a bottle of solvent. It was only a quarter full. I pulled the key from my pocket and dropped it inside. “We stay and we keep trying, at least for a few more days. We can train the Skins if the Dreki don’t pick anything up. We have more chance of getting Illyrian out with Dreki assistance than alone.”
“I wish there was another way,” Helgi said bitterly. “A fast track.”
The rust began to rise, to flake off the key as we watched. It took less than a second and then the key was a gleaming silver thing.
Helgi passed me a pair of tongs, and I plucked the key out and dried it on my sleeve before holding it up so we could check out the inscription.
My mouth went bone-dry and my heart skipped several beats.
“Anya, does that say…”
“Yeah, Helgi, it says Sector 8. The fucking key is to Sector 8.”
Chapter Eleven
Helgi shucked off her weapons belt and threw it on the sofa. “Well, part two was an equally shitty disaster.”
I headed over to the window and stood with the breeze streaming through my hair. I needed to think. Plan.
Bran entered the room a moment later, bare-chested and brawny. His torso glistened with perspiration, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the green scales that covered his shoulders and skimmed down his spine. They glinted in the dying sun, shimmering like emeralds.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“You’re lucky you left when you did,” Helgi said. “It was painful to watch. Anya explained everything step by step, she even demonstrated, but they couldn’t do something as simple as loading a weapon.”
“A gun is hardly tech,” Bran said.
“It’s a machine.” I turned away from the window. “And I don’t think the problem is a comprehension one. It’s not that Dreki don’t understand technology, it’s just that they can’t understand it. I think the fact that they are inherently magical creatures hinders their ability to manipulate and operate technology and modern machinery.”
“So what do we do?” Bran asked.
There was no ignoring it. No fighting the sinking feeling in my stomach. This was Dante’s baby, his plan, his dream, and I’d have to crush it. But I wouldn’t be going in without a backup plan. A risky backup, but still…
I pulled the newly cleaned key from my pocket.
“I’m going to offer him an alternative.”
Bran stared at the key. “Is that the key? The key Barret had us locate?”
He reached for it, but I closed my fist around it. “I’m not going to lie. I found it in the arena when Dunstan was killed. I wasn’t going to tell you. This would have been a nice payday for Helgi and me.”
He tipped his head to the side speculatively. “Then why tell me now?”
I opened my hand and showed him the key. “Read the inscription.”
He peered at it. “Motherfucker.”
“Yeah. This is the key, Bran. This could be just the blow we need to slow the bastard Bloods down.”
Nile stepped out of his room, his face creased with sleep. He cracked his knuckles. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing,” Bran said, his gaze fixed on me. “We ain’t missing nothing because we’re going with them.”
“Going where?” Nile asked.
Bran locked gazes with me. He wasn’t asking permission. I nodded.
We were doing this. With or without the Dreki. Now all I needed to do was tell them.
I exited the room with a smile.
* * *
I was outside the tower when it dawned on me that I had no idea where Dante or Vesper might be. No idea where their quarters were. Azazel would have been extremely useful right now.
Thinking about him brought a longing to life in my chest that was linked directly to my heart. Almost forty-eight hours had passed since I’d heard or felt him close by. Where was he? Surely he should be here by now? I may have gone without him for years, but now that my memories were back, not knowing where he was evoked the same simmering anxiety from the past. The fear that he’d abandoned me. That he was hurt or taken from me. That he wouldn’t return.
Except he always had.
Even when I’d believed he was a dream, he’d stayed. Close by. Watching me.
I blew out a breath. Azazel could take care of himself, and if he wasn’t here, then it meant he had somewhere else important he needed to be right now.
What I needed was to find someone to point me in the right direction. Maybe Talia or Ria, the brood mothers, could help.
Ria greeted me at the arch to the nursery. “Anya, have you come to see the children?” she asked. “Talia took them into the gardens for some exercise. I can take you to them if you want?”
I wanted to
