My heart stutters in my chest for a few impossibly long seconds. She’s dead. Oh dear goddess, they’ve bled her out, too. Killed her, too. Hysteria rises up inside me—terror and confusion and sickness all mix together in a way they didn’t when I first saw what had been done to Councilor Alride.
That’s enough. The words are snapped out, the voice deeper in pitch than Shelby’s, but still feminine in nature. Don’t kill her. We may still need her.
Strange rustling sounds, the clang of metal—like a handle hitting a bucket. And just that simply I’m pulled out of the room . . . and into Shelby.
My thigh hurts and my head hurts and I’m cold. So cold. A warm hand strokes my cheek. It feels good, though it doesn’t chase the chill away. Or the pain.
Dear goddess, it hurts.
No, I remind myself violently even as the thought forms. I’m not cold. I’m not hurt. Shelby is.
This isn’t happening to me. I repeat the thought like it’s my new mantra, determined to hold it together. I have to hold it together if we have any hope at all of finding Shelby before it’s too late.
Locking out the pain, the cold, the fear that is a ravenous monster inside me—inside Shelby—I try to focus. To see not just her, but the room around her. To see through her eyes. The room. The man hurting her. The woman who seems to control everything.
It’s the first time I’ve ever tried anything like this and I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. It’s hard, impossibly hard, because everything seems to be muffled. The woman’s voice. The eyes I use to look at her. Everything. Nothing is as it appears.
Shelby! I try to separate myself from her, from the pain that is coming in waves now. From the cold that seems to get deeper and more frigid with every second that passes. Shelby! Answer me.
I’m here, Xandra.
Can you give me something? I repeat. Can you see anything out the window? Can you see the woman’s face? Can you hear any noises? Construction? Traffic? Water?
My head hurts.
I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry.
I’m sleepy. My legs hurt. There’s a strange clicking noise that I can’t identify, until I realize that it’s her teeth. She’s shivering so much, her teeth have begun to chatter. Poor, poor baby.
I know, honey. That’s why I want to come find you. So we can get you some medicine. Your mommy will help me take care of your head and your leg. Provided the monsters who have her don’t bleed her dry before then. But I need to know where to look. Is there anything—
Shelby turns her head and I get it. A quick picture, just a glimpse, of the top of a building outside her window. And not just any building. One with tall, glass-paned, triangular turrets on the top. And a clock built in right below one of the turrets.
I’ve got it, Shelby. I’ve got it.
Okay, Xandra. Okay. Her voice is fading. I’m so tired now.
I know, sweetheart. I know. Just hang on for me. Can you do that? Can you hang on just a little longer?
She doesn’t answer. Panic rears its ugly head, but I beat it back down. She’s asleep, I tell myself as I climb out of my car. Just asleep. Not dead.
I grab my purse and cell phone, head into Beanz. As I do, I can’t help looking up at the small part of the Austin skyline I can see from where I’m standing. The Frost Bank Building, with its glass turrets and imbedded clocks facing out in all directions.
Travis hits me as soon as I make it through the door, lobbing questions at me about my bruises and cuts and whether I need him to take me to the hospital. Within seconds, my other employees—all of whom feel more like family than anything else—gather around me. Marta makes the biggest fuss, insists on helping me back to my office and bringing me a cup of tea and some oatmeal.
I let her because it makes them all feel better—I probably should have tried to put some makeup on to cover these bruises before heading out this morning—and because it suits my purposes to be alone in my office for a while. I want to call Nate, to tell him what I found out about Shelby.
Goddess knows, it isn’t much, but there aren’t that many places in Austin with a bird’s-eye view of the Frost Bank Building. Even fewer with that particular angle. Surely Nate will be able to do something with it, even if it means searching every building in the area.
But when I call, I end up getting his voice mail. Disappointed and more than a little worried—I’m not sure how much longer Shelby is going to be able to last—I leave an urgent message. Then I stare at my phone and contemplate calling Declan. He hasn’t called me this morning, but then, I am the one who flinched away from him last night. Who let him leave. Maybe that means I should be the one to call him.
But what if he doesn’t want to hear from me? After all, Declan isn’t much of a game player when it comes to this kind of stuff. If he wants to talk to me, he’ll talk to me. Maybe I should—ugh! I barely resist the urge to slam the phone, or my head, into the desk. This is why I don’t do relationships. Trying to figure out the other person’s intentions makes you bat-shit crazy.
Deciding to hell with it—if he doesn’t want to talk to me, he doesn’t have to pick up—I search through my contacts for his name. But before I can press CALL, my phone starts to ring. It’s my aunt Tsura and, while I adore her, I can’t help thinking about sending the call straight to voice mail. Because while she’s my favorite aunt, she’s also my mother’s twin sister and accomplished spy. Oh, she’ll hand me some crap about wanting me to send her some of my special French roast coffee beans—because nobody has better coffee than I do—but the truth is she’s probably on a reconnaissance mission for my mother.
But in the end, I pick it up. If I don’t, she’ll just keep calling. And soon enough, my mother will join the game, too.
“Hi, Aunt Tsura. How are you?”
“Fine, baby. How’d you know it was me? Are your powers chan—”
“Your number’s in my phone. I looked at the caller ID.”
“Oh, right. Of course.” She sounds disappointed. Not exactly a surprise. “How are you doing, Xandra? Is Austin treating you well?”
“Absolutely.” I sit gingerly in my desk chair, try to ignore the pain that swamps me with each little move that I make. “The coffeehouse is busy, but that’s how I like it.”
“Of course it’s busy! You make the best coffee around. In fact, that’s why I’m calling. I need you to send me five pounds of your French roast beans. I just can’t get coffee like that around here.”
“I’ll be happy to. Are you at home in Ipswitch or are you in New York?”
“I’m in New York right now, but I’ll be home in a few days. You can send the coffee to Ipswitch. Or better yet, you can come visit and bring it with you.”
I sigh, glance at the clock. It took her less than two minutes to get around to my mother’s dirty work. Must be a record of some sort. Usually she has a bit more finesse. “I was just home a few weeks ago for the solstice. Remember? Mom tried to poison me?”
“I’m so sorry to have missed that!”
I choke on a sip of tea. “You sound disappointed.”
“Only because I would have healed you right up, darling. Rachael is a great healer, but she’s still learning the craft. There’s a lot she doesn’t know, including different ways to treat poisoning.” She clucks her tongue. “I still can’t believe Alia tried to do that. Sometimes I wonder about why she was gifted with all that power.”