my cheeks as I continued to laugh. My stomach ached from it. But slowly the laughter transformed into something altogether more hard and angry. It ended in a slow, building scream that sent my mentor back a pace or two.
“Out!” Raif commanded, and every soul in the room vacated the main floor in a dusting of shadow, the compression of which nearly forced the air from my chest.
I doubled over, drawing as much oxygen into my lungs as I could. Shaking with rage and fear, I stayed bent over for a long time, unable to meet Raif’s gaze. A quiet moment passed, and I focused on the sound of my breathing until Xander came rushing down the stairs.
He was geared up for a fight. His mode of dress wasn’t unlike Raif’s, though it lacked the elfin flair. With a sword on one hip and a dagger at the other, he reminded me of a medieval knight, complete with chain mail. Xander’s was a little more modern—shiny and somehow glittering in the faint artificial light. His boots looked like military issue to me. I wondered if a Shaede among us ever considered using a gun, but I assumed a bullet to the chest would not be nearly as effective as a clean cut through the spine.
“What’s going on here?” he asked his brother.
“I think she’s finally cracked,” Raif said.
I would have laughed again, but I was afraid of another hysterical fit, so I kept my amusement to myself. I straightened and stared Xander down. “None of your business—that’s what’s going on.”
“She’s agreed to give herself up in exchange for the Jinn,” Raif said. “The Lyhtans have taken him.”
“Don’t be a fool, Darian.” Xander said, as if I weren’t allowed to do anything of the sort. “Raif will send a party to retrieve your pet. There’s no reason for you to stick your neck out for him.”
“I’m going, Xander,” I said. “They’re going to kill him.”
“No,” Xander said. “You’re
“But, Xander,” I crooned, my voice dripping with honey, “don’t you want me to do my job? Don’t you want Azriel to shut up once and for all? It would be a win-win for you if I go, wouldn’t it?”
“Darian.” Raif laid a hand on my shoulder, and I shrugged him away. “We need to strategize, collect ourselves. Forming a plan will serve Tyler better than charging off like this.”
“We don’t have time, Raif.” I tried to keep my voice level, controlled. But it quavered with anger and fear. “They’ll kill him. He’s bound to me, and it will be
Xander brought his fist down on an end table near the foot of the stairs. The wood splintered and cracked, sending a vase of flowers spilling into the foyer. “This is ridiculous!” he bellowed. “You. Can. Not. Go! That is an order from your king.”
“You are not my king!” I walked right up to him, my head held high. “And I am
“Darian—” Raif tried to interject, but I ignored him, my anger focused solely on Xander.
“I’m going to go get Tyler. Then I’m going to find Azriel, and I’m going to kill the fucker. And after that . . . you can go to hell.”
Raif’s fingers grazed my shoulder as he tried to stop me, but he was too late. I had already passed into shadow.
The beveled-dome fountain at the Seattle Center looked different in the dark. A bit surreal and almost magical, it appeared to hover over the pavers. Round lights ringed the dome, illuminating it from beneath, making it look like a flying saucer. Water sprayed in a tall plume from the top of the dome, while smaller jets fanned out from the base. The Space Needle loomed in the background like a sentinel watching over the city. I wondered if it watched over me.
Staying in the shadows, I crept along the buildings, making sure to blend in with the scenery. I felt the energy of unrest all around me, my assassin’s senses alert and tuned in to the faintest sound or movement. Azriel had taught me to be stealthy, but Raif had taught me to be deadly, and I didn’t plan on going down without a fight.
The area usually swarming with people resembled a ghost town this early in the morning. Even the usual scattering of the homeless had taken their leave and found another place to haunt. The Seattle Center Monorail sat dead on its track as it waited to take the normal rush of tourists and travelers to their destinations. I missed the whooshing sound of its motion among too much silence. A strange and unwelcome stillness settled over me, and the peace did little to encourage my hopes that this would all end well. I tasted danger, smelled it as it raced to me on the blossoming wind, and felt it all the way to my bone marrow.
As the sky began to lighten, I left the cover of shadow and paced around the fountain, edging the wet pavers heel to toe, heel to toe, keeping my path confined to the dry area that marked the boundary of the water jets’ reach. Stealth would do me little good once the sun rose. The Lyhtans wouldn’t come until the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, thereby securing a weakened Shaede. Keeping myself hidden would only help so much, and if it came to a fight—which it assuredly would—I needed to be in an open enough area to properly defend myself. Sybil’s rhyme looped in my mind as my hand relaxed and clenched around the hilt of my dagger. Her words taunted me with newfound meaning and renewed confusion. Once alienated from the world, I’d been gathered into the folds of my own kind, only to be cast out and marked as something else.
I must have been on the home stretch of my fiftieth lap around the fountain when the first reddish streaks blazed a path across the sky. I stood at the ready, no longer an assassin stalking the shadows for her prey, but as a warrior, proud and facing battle head-on. Through the quiet, a sound raced to me on eager wings. The many- faceted voices of Lyhtans echoed across the empty space, many more than I’d ever heard. One by one, they emerged from behind buildings and sculptures, out of the cover of darkness and into the unforgiving gray morning. They kept their distance, wary of me while the sun still hid behind the horizon, but with every passing minute, they closed the gap.
“Where’s Tyler?” I called out to the group at large. My heart thumped so hard against my ribs, I thought it might burst right through my chest. Adrenaline coursed through my body, rushing outward toward my limbs, shaking with every movement. “You offered a trade,” I said. “So here I am. Where is he?”
As dawn burst upon the world, I feared the worst. One by one, the Lyhtans’ laugher rang out, thousands of tones surrounding me in a cacophony of assaulting sound. The morning became brighter, and with it the Lyhtans’ skin glowed and shimmered and some became less solid as they joined with the light, while others shrank to the ground as glimmering insects. I knew, though, that the ones I should fear had chosen to remain in their true forms. I looked around me, spun to guard my back, and drew my sword in one hand, my dagger in the other.
I heard the sound of a scuffle somewhere behind me, shouts that seemed friendly, though I didn’t have time to identify the voices. A heavy-handed blow came out of nowhere, and the skin above my eye split. A trickle of thick warmth ran into my eye, blurring my vision in a haze of red. I stabbed with the katana and followed through with a slicing motion of the dagger. The pained shrieks of the Lyhtan cut through the morning air, its rust-orange blood running in rivulets down the grooves in the pavers.
Shouts from my left mingled with Lyhtan screams, and I recognized the sound of battle. Leave it to Xander to always have his way. He’d had me followed, and those Shaedes were going to suffer for nothing. We were outnumbered by at least ten to one, but I didn’t have time to count my backup, as a clawed fist came whirring toward me. Another strike and I reeled backward, pain exploding behind my cheekbone. Cowardly bastards didn’t even fight fair. Something knocked me from behind, and then something to my side. A rib cracked, and my stomach heaved in retaliation. A battle cry erupted from my throat and I lashed out, thrusting, slicing, stabbing. I watched a few of the bastards drop to the ground, but for every one I injured, two more took its place. Something rammed the back of my thigh and I buckled, falling to my knees. I tried to fend off the blows, protect myself from the impact. I reached for my pocket, for the bottle that was my only defense. But before I could wrap my hand around it, something struck the back of my head and an unwelcome darkness swallowed me whole.
As I came to, visions of Henry floated through my consciousness. There’d been several times when he had knocked me out cold, and every time I woke, I felt like I was fighting my way back through a murky sludge to awareness. Soft swaying soothed me, and I almost succumbed to the darkness once again before awareness took hold. The deep, hollow sound of waves lapped against the hull of a boat, and the clean scent of water carried on the morning breeze. Bound at the wrists and ankles, I’d been rendered completely helpless, my face pressed uncomfortably into a prefabricated floor. The vinyl had been fashioned to allow for sure footing and the sandpaperlike surface scraped against my swollen cheek with every lurch of the boat.
I sensed someone or something, unlike anything I’d felt before, with me. A slow burn deep inside my chest, I
