“I’ve never run from him,” she said. Flat. Emotionless. What she didn’t say, what none of us was saying, was she still loved him. And she blamed me and my father for changing him into a monster. I was pretty sure she’d do anything to get him back, to see him be a man again.
I know I would feel that way if it were Zay in that cage.
“They wouldn’t let me see him,” she said. “Not without Jingo Jingo being there.”
Zayvion crossed his arms over his chest and strolled closer, his footsteps silent across the wet, noisy gravel. “You’re going to listen to them, aren’t you?”
“Be a good girl and do as I’m told?” She raised one eyebrow. “Have I ever done anything else?” It was a challenge.
Zayvion didn’t reach out for her, but his voice was softer. “It will work out, Chase. We’ll find a way to help him. Trust that.”
That tone got through. She swallowed and looked off over his shoulder. “Trust. Just like that.”
“You’ve been doing it for years. Don’t stop now.”
I could see how much it cost her to look back at him. Could see the emotions she was fighting back. Looked a lot like rage and grief. “No, that’s what you’ve been doing. Trusting. Trusting it will all work out. No matter how blind or stupid that makes you.”
“Trust isn’t a weakness,” Zay said.
“So says the man who begged for the chance to be the hero, the keeper of the gates, user of all magic, light and dark, no matter how much it destroys him. Do you get off on taking the fall, Jones, or are you just too stupid to know that’s what they’re using you for?”
“Are you done?” he asked, a hint of fire rising behind that ice.
She glared at him.
He ignored her. “You joined this fight for a reason. You joined this fight to make the world better for the people you cared about. Not for me, not for them, but for who you love. Who do you love, Chase? Other than yourself?”
“Fuck you.”
She took a step, but he moved, silent and swift, to stand in front of her. They weren’t touching, weren’t drawing on magic. Yet.
“That’s over. Remember?” he said. “You ended it.
Ended us. For him. For Greyson. And now you’re going to have to risk a little trust to save him. I think that’s a small price to pay, not even a price at all. Or maybe you’re just looking for an easy way out again.”
“You have no right-,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Yes, I do. Don’t turn your back on him. Don’t turn your back on the Authority. Don’t choose that ending.”
And that threat, that anyone in the Authority, even a Closer, could be Closed, got through too.
She unclenched her fists and shook her bangs out of her eyes. “I’d do anything to have him back,” she yelled. She looked down, swallowed a couple times, as if trying to get the rage down. Then she looked back up at him. “I don’t turn my back on anything I love.” She looked at me, then back at him. “But you wouldn’t understand that, would you, Jones?”
She strode off toward the inn, leaving Zayvion and me alone in the rain.
Chapter Four
I touched Zay’s arm and jerked back as if I’d been burned. The anger seething under the surface of his calm was rivaled only by the pain he felt for Chase. I’d always assumed their breakup had been bad, but now I knew it.
There are moments, emotions, that we really don’t want to share with other people. Things we shouldn’t have to share unless we want to. Unless we choose to. This was one of those moments. I shoved my hand in my pocket and tried to pretend I didn’t know how he really felt.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Do you need to go talk to someone?”
Zay licked the rain off his lips and tipped his head down so that he stared at the gravel. He inhaled, slowly, then exhaled, pushing his shoulders down from the rod-straight fighting angle, his hands relaxing out of the stiff, magic-ready spread.
Caught in the overhead lighting, he was a study of neon blue and black shadows. The rain on his ski cap glittered like tiny blue stars, and rain trickled a slick line from his temple, across the arc of his cheek, then down to the stubble along his jaw. I waited.
Finally, he seemed to notice the rain, the night, and me. “I’d be better out of the wet,” he said.
He headed for the car and so did I. I wanted out of the wet too. Exhaustion was sucking my reserves. I’d spent a couple hours sparring, then come over here to Hound the well. Even though I’d had a late lunch, and a good latte, I was hankering for a hot, strong cup of coffee.
“Home?” Zay asked.
“Home.” Because home is where the coffeepot is.
He started the car and I thought about sleeping on the way to my apartment, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw Greyson’s gaze and remembered my father pushing around in my mind.
“Greyson saw me in there,” I said. “I think he might have seen Dad in me.”
“I know.”
“You want to tell me why no one else believes me? Why don’t they believe Dad is in me and maybe in Greyson too?”
“Jingo Jingo is the expert. The Authority trusts him on these kinds of things.”
“You don’t believe him.”
“I should. I can’t think of why he would lie about it.”
“So you don’t believe me?”
“I do believe you. I just don’t know why Jingo Jingo would lie.”
Zayvion exhaled. “That could be.” We stopped at a light. “Ever since just before your father’s death, tensions in the Authority have been building. Each discipline seems to think they have a corner on how magic should be used. Each person believes their view correct.”
He glanced over his shoulder and merged into the next lane. “The heads of the Authority-all the leaders, not just Portland’s-are having a hard time responding to the problems fast enough. We had to deal with Dr. Frank Gordon, Greyson, your father’s murder.” He was quiet a moment. “We’re good at emergencies. Still, we didn’t do enough, fast enough. I don’t think anyone, especially not Sedra nor the voices within the Authority, expected things to come to this-to the war that’s brewing-nor knows what to do next.”
“I’d start with the Necromorph doing the Hannibal Lecter thing in the basement,” I said. “Fix Greyson. Make him into a man again and then put him on trial for my dad’s murder.”
“It isn’t that easy. The disk in his throat, and the spells trapping him as both man and beast, have affected his mind. Mercy,” he said quietly, “would be to end his life.”
Silence again. I thought about Chase, how she would deal with Greyson’s death. Not well.
“And even a merciful death wouldn’t be easy,” he said. “Death magic mixed with Blood magic, dark and light magic.” He frowned. “Impossible to Close, and hard to kill.”
“What about Chase?” I asked.
“She wouldn’t Close him. I don’t think she could kill him.”
“Creepy, but not what I’m asking. What happens to her if they Close Greyson, or, uh, kill him?”
“Her memories of him would be Closed.”
I rubbed at my eyes. “Is that your answer to everything? If it might cause pain or inconvenience, just take the memory away?”
