Seeming to shake himself out of wherever he’d gone in his head, Jox said, “Wait. I’ll get some folding chairs.”
Because gods forbid the king sit on the floor, Anna thought with a kink of amusement at the thought of her little brother, who’d regularly eaten worms and bugs as a child, being unable to sit his ass on the floor.
Nate dropped the ward to let the winikin through, but when he went to reset the guard, Anna said, “Wait. Why isn’t the girl in here? Myrinne?”
“Because it’s not safe,” Nate said immediately. “We don’t know who or what she is.”
“She’s important,” Rabbit said without looking up, the hoodie falling forward to shadow his face.
Anna said, “How so?”
One shoulder lifted. “Dunno. She just is.”
She crouched down and got in the teen’s face. “Your father saved my life twice last year, which means I owe him. Since he’s not here to tell me to take my owesies and shove them, you’re going to have to do it . . . or else you’re going to have to let me help you.”
He looked at her for a second, and she saw a flash of the boy she remembered from years past, one who’d wanted to be a good kid but had always seemed to get in trouble regardless. Then that flash was gone and there was only the pale blue of his eyes, which went hard and dangerous when he said, “I’ll tell you everything, but you’ve got to promise me that she’ll be okay. I don’t care what she is, or what the witch or Iago did to her; she stays safe. She doesn’t become anyone’s bond-slave, she’s not blood-
bound, and she’s not sacrificed. You let her go free and set her up however she wants, or I’m not talking.”
“Out of the question,” Strike said. “It’s too dangerous.”
Rabbit didn’t even look at the king, kept looking at Anna. “You say you owed my old man? Then make it happen.”
“If we agree to this,” Anna said, emphasizing the “if,” “then you have to swear to mind-wipe her before she leaves—and I mean wipe, not light blocks, not something that you think you’re going to reverse when we’re not paying attention.”
The teen’s face went white, then flushed brick-red. “You knew?” Now he did raise his head. He stared at her full-on. “You knew I could mind-bend and you didn’t tell me?”
“We figured it out after you left,” Anna said. When he kept on glaring, she firmed her voice.
“Rabbit, we guessed. We didn’t know for sure until just now.” He’d confirmed it by his reaction, which was potentially good news for Lucius.
Rabbit looked up at Strike and Jox, and his voice shook when he said, “If you didn’t know about the nahwal , and you didn’t know about the mind-bending, then why didn’t you come looking for me more than that once back at the museum? Did I finally reach my last forgivable fuckup or something?”
Anna started to respond, but Strike cut her off with a sharp gesture and motioned her away from the teen. She backed off and Rabbit stood, letting his hood fall back as the king strode toward him, got in his space. The teen stuck out his chin as if he were looking for a punch.
Instead of throwing a fist or an accusation, though, Strike said, “I tried. Jesus, kid, I tried. We all did. Leah and I couldn’t pick you up, not even a trace. You were off my radar—still are; Iago blocked your ’port lock back at the museum, then let you loose to see what would happen or something. Since I couldn’t lock, we’ve had Carter turning over all the rocks he can think of. Leah’s called in favors. Jox even went to New Orleans to search.” His voice went rough when he said, “We’ve looked at John Does in half a dozen morgues, and thanked the gods each time the body wasn’t yours. We’ve been killing ourselves trying to find you.”
Rabbit hesitated, but his expression didn’t change. “And now that I’m back?”
“We’ll find a way to deal with whatever’s been done to you, and whatever you’ve done.” Strike paused. “You’re a fuckup, but you’re family. Nothing’s ever going to change that. Got it?”
The teen swallowed hard and nodded. His voice was thick when he said, “Got it.” After an awkward pause his lips twitched a little. “Please tell me we don’t have to hug now.”
“Sorry. That’s nonnegotiable.” Strike pulled Rabbit into a manly hug, with lots of backslapping and such.
Anna’s throat lumped with relief, coupled with a kick of surprise when she realized that Rabbit wasn’t that much shorter than Strike anymore. They’d always assumed the kid was small because he was a half-blood. Maybe he was just taking longer to grow into himself.
When they finally pulled apart, Rabbit said, “What about Myrinne?”
Strike grimaced. “As king, I can’t accept her running around here, never mind being set free, without some sort of assurances.” When Rabbit started to protest, he held up a hand. “As a man, though, I can’t overlook the fact that I brought Leah here under very similar circumstances.”
“With the exception that I wasn’t raised by a witch or held prisoner by the enemy for any great length of time,” Leah put in, laying it out flat. “Sorry, Rabbit, but we just can’t have her here without some sort of oversight.”
“I won’t have her blood-bound,” Rabbit said. “Not to me, and not to anyone else. If that’s your answer, then we’re out of here.” He paused, expression darkening. “And if you think you can stop me, just try it.”
Anna didn’t like the way Strike got big at Rabbit’s tone, didn’t like the idea of picking a fight she wasn’t entirely sure the Nightkeepers were going to win, so she stepped between them, turning her back on Rabbit and facing Strike squarely. She looked him in the eye and said, “I’ll take responsibility for her.”
Which was more than promising to babysit. Even without the blood-bond, if a Nightkeeper claimed a human, the mage was responsible for—and liable for—the human’s actions, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, same as with a bond-servant.
If Myrinne betrayed the Nightkeepers, Anna would be punished as a traitor; if she killed one of them, Anna would be sacrificed in return. The same was true for Lucius, but the blood-bond allowed her a degree of control over him. Without the blood-bond she would have no magical leverage over Myrinne, no recourse if the girl attempted to escape, or worse. Which meant Anna was essentially hooking her safety to the behavior of a witch’s brat she’d barely spoken to.
The world seemed to freeze for a second as her rational side screeched, What in the flying hell are you doing?
She was repaying her debt to Red-Boar by doing what was necessary to keep his son within Skywatch, within the reach of magi who could—hopefully—help him deal with whatever Iago had done to him. Whatever else that meant in terms of her own life and freedom, she’d deal. She was, whether she liked it or not, her father’s daughter, heir to the jaguar bloodline, whose members were notorious for making decisions based on emotion. Damn it.
Strike’s eyes searched hers. “Are you sure?”
She was aware of Rabbit holding his breath behind her, aware of a flash of hope coming from him.
Within that flash, that emotion, a fragment of a vision broke through, showing her Rabbit and Myrinne hand in hand, running along a beaten snow trail. The vision was from the previous night, she knew, but the Rabbit she saw in the vision was no teen, no boy. Tall, strong, and purposeful, wielding his magic out of necessity rather than anger, he was a man, a Nightkeeper protecting the woman he’d chosen as his mate, even if he didn’t fully recognize the connection yet, or believe in it.
“Yes,” she said clearly. “I’m sure.” If having Myrinne to lean on, to protect, would help Rabbit find the man the Nightkeepers needed him to be, then it was worth the risk.
Or so she told herself.
Strike glanced at Jox, then at Nate and Alexis. “Arguments?”
“Numerous,” Alexis said dryly. “But none on this particular matter. Fact is, the options are pretty much all equally risky, and this is the one that’ll keep the Nightkeepers intact.”
“Agreed,” Nate said without looking at her.
Sitting on the other side of Strike, Jox nodded. “I’ll do what I can to help,” he said to Anna.
Knowing the royal winikin as well as she did, she could tell he hated the added exposure she was piling onto herself, but knew it was the only and best option within a culture where both debt and responsibility were weighty matters.
“Then it’s settled,” she said, pushing the words past a sudden tightness in her throat. She sat back down and waited until Strike and Rabbit had done the same before she said to Rabbit, “Okay. Myrinne described her experiences to Leah pretty thoroughly, but I think it’d be good if you start from the beginning and walk us through what happened, what you learned from Iago.”
“There’s a second archive,” Rabbit said quietly, looking at his knuckles, which had gone white with fisted tension. “A library. I found out that much.”
Anna’s breath froze in her lungs, and the world seemed to contract to just the two of them as she whispered, “Iago has it?”
“No. Not as of last night, anyway. He used my powers to . . . question a woman.” Rabbit’s tone and the disgusted twist to his lips made the word “question” into a curse. “He kept asking her where her father hid the stuff.”
The connection sparked on a gasp, and Anna blurted, “Sasha!”
“Did she tell him where to find the library?” Nate asked quickly, his eyes going dark and intent.
Rabbit shook his head. “No. Her mind is super-strong.” He paused. “It was, anyway.”
Anna went still. “Why do you say that?”
“She was linked to Iago when I reversed his mind-bend and tried to fry his cortex.”
Horror gathered in Anna’s gut, alongside despair that they might’ve already lost their next-best chance at finding the library, and the woman Lucius had sought for reasons she didn’t yet understand but wasn’t willing to ignore. “Is she dead?”
“She was breathing when I left her. They both were.” He looked to Strike. “I can take you back there.”
The king nodded and stood. “Let’s go.” But they returned within twenty minutes, empty-handed.
Sasha and Iago were gone.