Zayvion touched my arm briefly and walked toward the stairs.
I followed him.
“How badly are you hurt?” he asked.
“Nothing permanent, I don’t think.” Which was weird, really. I’d used a hell of a lot of magic, done things I’d never done before. And so far, I remembered all of it.
Maeve broke away from the group around Sedra and strode over to us. She still didn’t look happy.
“Allie, I’m proud of you. And of you, Zayvion. Though Sedra refuses to rule on it, it is clear to me you are Soul Complements.” She touched each of our shoulders. “May you live and love.” It was a blessing, a wish. Not magic, but still, I could feel it echo between us.
“Thank you,” Zayvion and I said at the same time.
Weird. But cool.
Maeve smiled. “You are welcome to stay here in one of the rooms and rest,” she said to me.
“I’d rather go home,” I said.
“Call me tomorrow, then,” she said. “Your training will begin in earnest.”
’Cause, you know, today had been such a picnic.
“Zayvion, we will need you soon.” She glanced over at the group.
I did too. Body language spoke of screaming-mad magic users.
“Not for an hour or so, I think,” she said with a sort of grim determination in her voice. “You should rest.”
Zayvion shook his head. “I’m fine. I’ll take Allie home.”
She nodded. “Be safe.” And then she strode back to the group.
I looked around the room for Shamus and Chase. Neither were to be found. Strange.
“Is Shamus all right?” I asked as we started up the stairs.
Zay shrugged one shoulder. “He left just before Sedra called us to the center of the room.”
“Why?”
“Maybe he didn’t want to see us. Soul Complements. Accepted.”
“Why not?”
Zayvion took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He had this chance once. Well, an actual Soul Complement test, not this. This wasn’t standard,” he noted.
“Shamus had this chance to see if he had a Soul Complement? With whom?” I asked.
“Someone he denied. I think he still regrets it.”
Oh. I didn’t know what to say to that.
Zayvion squeezed my hand gently, and I realized I didn’t have to say anything.
We made it up the flights of stairs, and then finally through the inn that was quiet and cozy, all the lights low. For all I knew, it must be almost midnight now. We let ourselves out and walked across the gravel parking lot to Zayvion’s car. The night was cold, the moon setting silver fire to the clouds within its reach.
The night here in the parking lot felt blessedly sane, real, normal. I glanced over at the inn that looked just like an inn, and wondered how so much magic and tragedy could happen beneath the notice of the regular world.
So much had happened today, tonight, I didn’t know how to sort it all, how to make sense of it all. My thoughts kept skipping from one thing to the next, not lingering long enough for me to really think through the ramifications.
Fatigue. I was tired. Really tired.
Zayvion held the car door open for me.
“I’m sorry about the test,” he said.
I shrugged. “What about it?”
“That I was your opponent. I didn’t know they would choose me.”
I turned so I could lean my hip against the doorframe. “Why did they? Why not send someone else to try to kill me? Chase certainly seemed willing.”
He winced at that. Maybe it wasn’t tactful, but it was the truth.
“Do all suspected Soul Complements have to fight each other?” I asked. “ ’Cause that sounds like a stupid rule to me.”
“No. But whoever is being tested must face someone equal or better than them in the use of magic.” His brown eyes searched my gaze, asking me to understand things I’d barely begun to know.
“They chose me because of what I am,” he said. “Guardian. They chose me because both light and dark magic are at my command. They chose me because they feared only I could stop you if it needed to be done. They know how powerful you are.”
My feet hurt, my back hurt, and I really needed to pee. Yeah, I was feeling really powerful.
“I think they might have overestimated my abilities,” I muttered.
“No,” he said. “They didn’t.”
We stood there a second longer and I wondered if he was going to kiss me. Or maybe trying to kill me had set our relationship back a bit. Back to trying to decide if there was enough trust left between us to build something on.
I rubbed my eye with the cool fingers of my left hand. Then looked back up at him. Waiting. Patient. Zen.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said.
He exhaled and nodded. I realized he had been really worried about my answer.
We both got in the car, and Zayvion started the engine and guided the car through the parking lot.
“Would you have?” I asked.
“What?”
“Killed me?”
“They would have wanted me to,” he said.
“And would you have?”
Zayvion looked over at me, his brown eyes just brown. Warm. Human. He put his hand on my arm. “No.”
And I knew he was telling the truth. I could feel it reverberate in him, could feel it spread between us.
I leaned my head back against the headrest. “Good.”
He drew his hand away. We were silent as Zay drove onto the access road.
“I did win, you know,” I said.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. I knocked you out.”
“Stunned me. I wasn’t unconscious.”
“Oh, please, save it for the preacher. You were out cold.”
He stopped to turn onto the main road that would lead us back to the bridge across the Columbia and into Portland. He drew a breath to argue, but movement to his left caught both our attention.
A shadow. Two shadows, running in the night. Running toward us, toward Zay’s side of the car.
Holy shit.
Zayvion tensed, then very calmly whispered a spell that I knew would tear someone apart from the inside out.
The figures broke from the shadows and moonlight bathed them in silver.
Shamus sprinted and threw open the back door, holding it for the gargoyle who ran beside him.
“Go, go, go,” Shamus said as he jumped into the backseat behind the gargoyle and slammed the door shut. “Drive, drive, drive!”
Stone caught sight of me and cooed.
“Stone!” I twisted in my seat and rubbed his warm, marbled head. “Good to see you, big guy. Are you hurt?”
He crooned again and lifted his ears. He looked happy, and had not a scratch on him.
“What the hell, Shamus?” Zayvion said, not driving. “Tell me you did not just steal that gargoyle.”
“Steal? Come on. He doesn’t belong to my mum or the Authority. Can’t steal something that didn’t belong to
