Shaedes of Gray: A Shaede Assassin Novel

“Well, Sybil . . . I checked every square inch of my body and there’s not one mark. No tattoos, no moles, scars, birthmarks. I don’t even have a pimple. So maybe you guys have your facts wrong.”

“Not wrong,” she said. “You’re the one. The Enphigmale are dark and dangerous, and you will free them from centuries of imprisonment.”

Hmm. Cheery. “How do you know I’m what they’re looking for?”

Sybil laughed and the wind gusted, increasing in force with her laughter to once again become the swirling funnel cloud. It broke apart and Sybil was gone, dissipating in the air.

Shit.

Chapter 23

“Where are you going?” Tyler asked sleepily, leaning up on an elbow.

“I need to talk to Raif,” I said, strapping the katana to my back.

I didn’t ask him if he was disappointed, or even if he cared. His opinion was not a requirement. He knew the rules and he knew my mind.

“I’ll come with you,” he offered, scooting to the edge of the bed.

“Nope. No way. No how.” I couldn’t risk the resulting friction if I showed up with him following behind. Especially if what he said about Xander was true. I cared about Ty, and I refused to bring him onto the king’s home turf. He’d be outnumbered, and we couldn’t afford another fight. My romantic life—if I had one—had to take a backseat for now. “Ty, stay here for a while. Sleep. You’ve been up with Delilah and you’ve got to be exhausted. I just need to talk to Raif and I won’t be in any danger. Okay?”

“It’s almost dawn,” Tyler argued. “What about the Lyhtans?”

“Well, that’s what this is for,” I said, brandishing the bottle of Raif’s shadow-sludge I’d finally had the good sense to arm myself with.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Lyhtan mace,” I said, beaming. I hustled toward the lift, out of earshot, before Tyler could get a word in edgewise. “I’ll call if anything comes up. Otherwise, I’ll be back soon.”

“Darian.” My name on his lips implored me to stay.

“I wish Tyler would stay in my apartment through the rest of the day,” I whispered.

Whether or not he tried to protest, I don’t know. Because I passed into shadow and left.

Though I wanted to relay the events of the prior night to Raif, I took a few detours on the way. I became corporeal before the sun rose in a glorious blue sky, casting shadows on the sidewalk where weeds pushed and strained through the cracks. Traffic zoomed by in the morning rush, and I suddenly envied the humans I’d studied like lab rats over the years. Why couldn’t I be so blissfully unaware? Then again, I might’ve been if I hadn’t spent the better part of a century dealing out death for a buck. Not exactly lying low. As I retraced my steps to The Pit, I thought again about Azriel’s visit. He’d always been one for dramatics. And his appearance was a carrot dangled in front of my nose. Meeting resistance when I pulled at the door, I looked up to find a sign that read: CLOSED FOR REPAIRS. “If by repairs, they mean ‘blood cleanup,’” I muttered. I’d been looking for Levi and a little more information, but that angle had officially become a dead end.

I whiled away the morning, dissecting the dead Sylph’s riddle and her sister’s warnings. But I didn’t know enough about myself, let alone the rest of the preternatural world, to make any headway. What the hell made me so special? Marked how? And chosen for what? As morning gave way to afternoon, I made the trek to Xander’s house, a sense of unease growing with each impatient step.

“It’s about time.” Raif met me at the door as if he’d been waiting for me all night. “Where have you been? I was just about to go out looking for you.”

Oh, hell, I thought. He had been waiting for me all night. All day too. In all the excitement, I’d overlooked the fact that I’d been AWOL for the past twenty-four hours. I’d have to work on not becoming so easily sidetracked.

He dragged me through the threshold by the elbow and kept right on dragging me through the house. Down into the bowels of the mansion we went—Raif silent and serious as ever, and me tripping on my own feet to keep up. “You should know that the Oracle left sometime after Tyler yesterday,” he said as we walked. “She slipped out when no one was watching, and we have no idea where she is.”

Wonderful. There wasn’t room for another thing on my plate. I couldn’t worry about Delilah right then. I had Azriel and my own neck to think about, and I had to assume she’d left of her own volition and on her own two feet. Maybe she’d called Tyler. Maybe she’d run far from this war that I wished I could run from as well. “I have something to tell you,” I said as I negotiated the stairs. “I killed a Sylph last night, and another came to visit me just before dawn.”

Raif grunted in response, and didn’t even turn to acknowledge me.

“She said—the one I killed, I mean—she said something to me. It was a riddle. When night becomes day and day becomes night, the nine will come to claim their right. When darkest soul meets lightest love, her blood will play creator’s role, and from stone release their souls. And then she said something about being a creator but no one’s maker. And something else about being marked and not having a mother or a father.”

Raif stopped dead in his tracks and I ran straight into his back. “What did you say?”

I repeated the Sylph’s strange prophecy, but Raif had already turned around and resumed dragging me down the long hallway to Xander’s council room with increased speed. “What do you think it means?” I asked.

“The plot thickens,” Raif said with a sarcastic edge as he stepped into the room.

Seated at Xander’s council table was a Lyhtan, and by the way it was bound, I had a distinct feeling it wasn’t an invited guest. The cords securing the creature to its chair looked strangely familiar, and I stuck a hand in my coat pocket, instinctively gripping the bottle of shadows. Black and inky, liquid in quality, the ropes marred the Lyhtan’s skin at its wrists and ankles. I had a sudden mental image of Raif blowing gently on our guest’s wrists, and shuddered. It thrashed about and spit at us as we entered, and I had to jump away to avoid being struck with a rather large gob of gooey, green spit.

After the dramatic display, the Lyhtan paused and looked me over from head to toe. It screeched and cackled wildly before saying, “You are marked! The Enphigmale will see to the end of your kind!”

Lovely. That sentence must have been the equivalent of a Lyhtan secret handshake.

“We’ve been questioning him for the last few hours,” Raif said.

I wondered how Raif knew he was a he. Maybe he lifted the tuft of fur dangling from its belly and checked.

“What has he told you?” I asked.

Raif gave me the gravest of looks before pushing me back out the door.

“You are marked, Shaede! You will free them, and you will all die!”

The door closed, effectively blocking out the seething sound of the Lyhtan’s laughter and cackling proclamation. I wish I could have blocked it from my mind just as easily.

Raif led the way to a small office down the hall and slumped in one of the high-backed chairs. He looked me dead in the eye. I wasn’t going to like what was coming.

“I checked,” I said, trying to curb the path Raif’s mind had assuredly taken. “I looked over every inch of my body. No marks. He’s wrong.”

“No,” Raif said. “He’s not.”

Panic welled up in me, threatening to bubble right out of my mouth. I swallowed against the bile in my throat and focused on keeping a calm facade. Inside, I was screaming.

“No,” I said. “No marks. I swear. Raif . . .”

“I should have made the connection sooner.”

No. No, no, no, no, no. If I could think the word enough, I could make it true.

“Xander,” Raif sighed.

“What? Xander? What does he have to do with this?”