I groaned. “Feels like midnight. Home. I want to eat my scone.” I held up the wrinkled, slightly damp bag I still had in my hand. Maybe I’d get a chance at a shower too, or maybe Zayvion would crawl into bed with me for a little bit.
The void stone necklace was still in the cup holder where I’d left it. I had worried it was making me dizzy, sucking magic out of me too quickly. But right now I was feeling a little edgy, the magic in me uncomfortably hot. The whole thing with Anthony and Davy bothered me, but even worse was the problem with Violet and the disks.
As soon as I thought about her, my dad scratched at the backs of my eyes. Like I needed a constant reminder of things out of my control.
I could ask Zay to Ground me again. Could recast the Linger spell that had apparently worn off. Or I could put on the necklace.
Right now, I wanted easy.
I put on the necklace, and sighed as it settled against my skin. Magic cooled, slowed. Dad stopped scratching. I felt like I’d just taken a painkiller.
Nice.
I watched Zay drive, city lights and shadows sliding down his dark skin, highlighting his strong features. The windshield wipers kept a steady beat. Zay didn’t look happy.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Ask me after the meeting tonight.”
Right. There was another thing to worry about. “How does the Authority usually handle storms like this?”
“Not well.”
“Ha-ha. I’m serious.”
He looked over at me. His eyes sparked with gold, with magic. It was a feral look, the eyes of a killer.
“So am I. Magic doesn’t follow the rules when it’s being thrown around in a storm. If a front is big enough, and organized enough that they know it’s going to hit Portland, and if the wells are somehow being drained by it. .”
He shook his head and flicked on the turn signal, changing lanes.
“A lot of things could happen. We’ll just have to deal with things as they come.” He eased the car into the parking lot behind my apartment and parked.
“That’s it?” I asked. “But this isn’t the first wild-magic storm that’s hit the city. Every building has a storm rod to channel magic strikes. Dad knew what he was doing when he invented those.”
“They help. But if the storm is big enough, the storm rods won’t be enough.” Zay turned off the engine and twisted in his seat toward me. “We’ll handle it. It’s just different this time.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to be there.” He smiled a little, as if his own honesty surprised him. “These are the sorts of things I didn’t think through when I was lobbying to get you accepted into the Authority. But now, knowing you’ll be a part of our fight, of our struggle, against magic. . that you could get hurt-” He glanced away. “I don’t know. I know you’re a fighter, Allie. I just wish you didn’t have to be.”
Actually, that was sweet of him. “I wish you didn’t have to be too.”
He chuckled, and I liked how his eyes curved into crescents. “I’d fight even if they told me I couldn’t.”
“We’re a lot alike that way. You know I never back down from a challenge.”
He reached over, brushed my hair back, and tucked it behind my ear. “Not the safest way to go through life.”
“Maybe not. But it’s my way.”
He searched my face, his hand paused to cup the edge of my jaw. I knew he wanted to say something. I could feel his concern like a hard palm against the base of my spine.
I was suddenly aware of our connection, of our shared need for the other to be safe, and our knowledge that it was unlikely either of us would go through life safe and unscathed. It was hard to face how much we both dreaded the thought of the other in pain.
I drew away.
“You know what I’d really like right now?” I said, changing the subject, and trying to change the mood in the car. “A hot shower. Want to join me?”
He leaned his wide shoulders back against his seat and stared out the window for a second or two. He nodded. “Hot shower sounds good.”
A wave of cold prickled over my skin, a slow, biting chill. Zay rubbed at the back of his neck. He felt it too. Magic. Pulling, twisting. Magic moving as if stirred by a wind, as if unsettled by a storm coming over the horizon. Magic that we’d have to deal with soon.
Chapter Six
Time. We needed it. The Authority thought we had it. A day or two before the storm hit. Which was good. Because I really did want that shower.
Zay and I walked up the stairs and I paused in front of my apartment door-habit. Didn’t hear anyone moving around in there. I was on my way to a several-month streak of people not breaking into my apartment, and I wanted that streak to continue.
I unlocked the door and stepped in, switching on the hall light.
“Stone?” I called out.
A familiar coo, half pipe organ, half vacuum cleaner, answered me from the corner of the living room. Stone, the gargoyle I couldn’t get rid of, slipped out from beneath the fall of my curtains, stretched his big, batlike wings, and tipped his wide head to one side, his ears perked up in perfect triangles.
“Hey, boy. You ready to get up for the night?”
Stone was big as a Saint Bernard, but had a heck of a lot more teeth and muscle. He clacked, his bag-of- marbles happy sound, and trotted over to me. He was heavy enough that I felt the vibration of each footfall. He pushed his flat snout under my hand, then angled his head for a scratch.
Even though he was made out of stone and was alive via magic, he was warm to the touch and loved getting scratched. I rubbed my fingers behind his ears.
He clacked-happy-then dropped me cold for Zayvion, who knelt and gave his head the rubbing of its life.
Stone cooed.
“I see how you are,” I said. I shrugged out of my coat, hung it on the back of the door, and carried my gym bag with me into the bedroom. My answering machine wasn’t blinking-no messages waiting for me, which was a little strange. I had expected something from Stotts, since Detective Love had made a point of telling me he was looking for me.
“Want a shower?” I called back to Zay. I unzipped my bag and dug out my notebook. Tugged the cap of my pen off with my teeth and opened the book to a blank page.
It took me less than thirty seconds to note what had happened today, but I wanted to update it before I spent more time around mega magic users tonight. Magic hadn’t wiped out many of my memories lately. I didn’t know if I was just getting better at setting Disbursements, or if maybe having my dad take up residency in my brain had done something to help with that.
And with all the training I’d been doing, physically and magically, I was getting more and more nervous that magic was just. . I don’t know. . saving up to take a huge chunk of my life away.
Maeve said the void stone necklace might help block that price magic extracted from me. Or that my training was helping with the memory loss.
Whatever it was, ever since I’d started training, I’d kept my memories.
Personally, I wondered if it had something to do with being lovers with a Closer. Zayvion was good at taking people’s memories. Maybe he was good at helping them stick around too.
“Ready?” Zay said it softly, but I jumped anyway.
