How can I take anything you say seriously when your lipstick is always smeared? I replied.
I’d like to know too, said Teen Me.
What, you’re all in this together now?
Granny May shrugged. He’s the one who could’ve been. So… we’re interested. Plus, we know who he ends up with, romantically speaking. Which gives us even more of a stake. So to speak.
We do? Who?
She waved her finger in front of her face and gave me that tch, tch noise that makes me want to throw pil ows.
Quit changing the subject. We want answers.
I sighed. He’s like… those french fries you can only get at the county fair. You know the ones I mean? Lick-your-lips salty with some sort of addictive secret flavoring that you know isn’t good for you but you don’t care because it’s so amazing.
They al nodded. Yup. That was Cole.
“Concentrate!” Sterling said, so sharply that I jumped and nearly lost my grip of Cole’s hand. I started to watch Astral’s projections but our warlock said, “Think of private conversations with Cole. Think of him at his most honest.
His most human.”
Almost at the same moment Vayl, Bergman, and I began to laugh. Sterling raised his eyebrows. “Real y?”
“He’s pretty funny,” said Miles.
“Good. Keep that in mind.” Sterling stepped away from the bed. I should’ve guessed what was about to come when he wrapped his arm around the bars that covered the windows. Three quick movements of his wand drew a sparkling white image in the smoke that faded as soon as it appeared. But it seemed to work as a catalyst, raising a wind inside the room that swirled the smoke in a circle, shoving more of it down our throats.
My curls began to dance in the air. Vayl’s shirt flapped against his broad chest. Bergman sneezed. Cole went perfectly stil as we remembered. His you-should-hug-me-now grin. The way his eyes lit when a woman, any woman, entered the room. And the love that spil ed out like concession-stand popcorn when he talked about his family, old girlfriends, the beach, bubblegum…
And then we could see it happening. The smoke clearing as our breath wafted out, looking winter-day frosty.
The cleansed air swirling into Cole, relaxing him more and more with each breath. The edges of his eyes fading to pink and then to white before closing. He began to snore.
Sterling left the window. “Astral can stop now,” he said.
I gave the cat her order and she closed the Enkyklios down, stepping off Cole’s stomach only to curl up beside him. “Good idea,” I told her. “Keep watch and let me know as soon as he wakes.”
We stil hadn’t let him go, though. It was like, having brought ourselves so close to the part of our team that brought us the most happiness, we couldn’t walk away.
Sterling said, “You did wel . I believe he’s been completely reclaimed.”
We nodded. Vayl stepped back. So did Bergman. I squeezed Cole’s hand. Then I placed it gently on the bed and began to turn away. Wait. What did I—
“Jasmine?” asked Vayl, coming to slip his arm around my waist. “Are you al right?”
I peered at Cole’s eyes. They stayed closed. Maybe I hadn’t seen them flutter just slightly. Maybe those two slits of red I thought I’d spied peering out from beneath his lashes had just been a side effect of sniffing soul-smoke.
This is why you never did drugs, right, Jazzy? asked Granny May as she threaded her needle.
Amen. I nodded, and laying my head against Vayl’s shoulder, I let him lead me from the room.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It is nearly dawn,” Vayl said. He stood by the window to my room, looking down into the courtyard. Lights came on in a second-floor window, distracting us both.
“Is that Monique’s room?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
We watched, shameless voyeurs, as Bergman’s skinny frame crossed in front of the curtain and stopped. His shadow was joined seconds later by the curvilicious shape of Monique. They stood that way for a long time. And then the distance between them slowly closed, until to our eyes they were a single entity. Moments later the light went out.
Vayl turned to me. “I hope she is gentle.” For the first time, his smile made him look old. He stared up into the sky, and I realized how much he was going to miss the sun.
I said, “Won’t you be able to stay awake now? I mean, now that you remember what year it is and everything?” He turned to me. Shrugged like it didn’t matter as he said, “No. I have lost…” He paused, looked toward the sky, as if by force of wil he could make the sun come out while he was stil up so he could see sunshine and clouds again.
“As with the ice armor, the ability I had gained to stay awake beyond dawn and dusk has been wiped out by the curse.”
“That fucking Roldan.”
His nod barely moved air. “Just so. However, we have the Rocenz now.” He gestured to the tool sitting on my trunk, looking so innocent I might’ve guessed the maintenance man had forgotten and left it there after he fixed the air conditioner. If I hadn’t known better.
“Yeah. What do you say after we use it to carve Brude’s name into the gates of hel , we beat Roldan to death with it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Feeling violent tonight, my love?”
Though I’d closed the door behind me, I hadn’t been able to take my hand off the knob. It was like I thought this one extra step could keep Cole safe if he woke and needed me to come running and— what? Smother whatever Kyphas left in him? How would you do that without killing the rest, the best part of him now?
I dropped my hand and walked over to Vayl. Wrapped my arms around him. Breathed in his scent, closed my eyes and pretended that I was lying on a bed of pine needles with him, naked and wil ing, beside me. I said, “Umm, not as much now. I do want to know some things though.”
“Al right.”
“Back at the tannery, Sterling sent you into hel .” A sigh, so soft I nearly missed it, that told me he’d prefer never, ever to discuss those last hairy moments when neither of us knew if we’d survive to share another moment like this one. He said, “Yes. I knew I could only destroy Kyphas from the inside. But I needed help.”
“Astral?”
His arms tightened around me. “You know Bergman.
He would never outfit her with one weapon designed to defeat demon defenses when he could as easily equip her with two. Knowing he had already used one of Astral’s grenades to destroy Kyphas’s door blockade, I brought her through the door so I could direct the second grenade at both her and her… attackers.”
I waited for him to tel me what he’d seen in hel . But he wasn’t inclined to describe his version. Can’t say that I blamed him. So I asked him another question that had been nagging at me.
“What happened to Helena?”
He pul ed away long enough for me to wonder why his eyes had gone such a dark, troubled blue. And then he pul ed me in even tighter. “We moved several times after that first trip to Marrakech. Final y we settled in Northern Ireland, where she met a boy named John Litton who had brains and ambition but, alas, no money. They were married on my estate in the spring of 1783 and sailed to America with Berggia and his wife shortly after.” He paused. “I had many an entertaining letter from her for the next two years. And then a single note from John tel ing me that she had died in childbirth.”