Maeve brushed her hair back again. “I thought as much.” She shook her head. “Well. What will be will be. I’ll see you both this evening.” She strolled off, her bootheels clacking across the old wooden floors.
The moth-wing flutter scraped at the backs of my eyes, pressing harder, insistent. It made me think of Greyson, of him watching me, wanting me and my dad in me. I swallowed and tasted wintergreen and leather-my dad’s scents. Great.
I suddenly really wanted fresh air, a shower, hells, to be anywhere but here right now.
My creep-out quota for the day was officially maxed.
“I need air.” I strode past Zay, not waiting to see if he followed. It wasn’t exactly tactful, but he’d watched me fight my claustrophobia before. Stayed out of my way. Boy had smarts.
Maeve had turned the opposite way down the hall, so she wasn’t in my flight path either. I took the first opening I could and walked right out into the main dining area again.
The noise was up, every table filled. The smell of food and drinks and people-perfume and soap and cigarettes-closed in on me.
Out more. I needed much more out more.
I did not run, because I am composed even in full-throttle panic mode. But I made quick work of that room-long legs had their use-and straight-armed that door open.
The evening wind hit like a sharp slap to the face, and I inhaled a huge lungful of cold, misty air.
I didn’t stop at the porch. There was too much roof on the porch, too many railings around the porch, too much building behind the porch. I clattered down the stairs, and jogged across the gravel, looking for out, for space, for air.
“Afraid of the dark?” a voice asked from one side of me.
Okay, yes, I was freaking out from claustrophobia. And yes, I was already a little freaked-out over the whole cold-magic weirdness and empty well. Add to that Greyson staring at me out of his magic-blocked and warded cage, and my dad, or maybe only half of him, shuffling around in my head-or even better, him spending time-shared brain space with Greyson-and what I really needed was just a few seconds of normal.
Instead, I got Chase.
“Chase,” I said, relatively calmly too, considering. “Did you hear about the meeting tonight?”
Zayvion’s ex-girlfriend was nearly my height. If I had seen her walking down the street, I’d think she was a model, not a Closer. Her pale skin was almost luminescent in the low light, and her eyes belonged to a cat, framed by the blunt wedge of dark brown bangs. I’d never seen her use makeup, not that she needed it. I’d never seen her dress in anything other than jeans, T-shirt, and flannel.
Tonight was no different.
“I heard about it.” She took a step toward me, her hands very obviously held with fingers spread, as if she was looking for a spell to grab hold of.
A sound behind me made her look up. She bared her teeth in a semblance of a smile. And not a very pretty one.
“Hello, Zayvion. Still babysitting all the troubled children for Mommy Maeve?”
“I do what I can,” he said. Unconcerned. Zen. “Are you done running away?”
“Running away from what?”
“Greyson.”
Chase held very still. Something moved across her eyes, a shadow, sorrow, pain. Maybe fear. Maybe hope.
“I’ve never run from him,” she said. Flat. Emotionless. What she didn’t say, what none of us was saying, was she still loved him. And she blamed me and my father for changing him into a monster. I was pretty sure she’d do anything to get him back, to see him be a man again.
I know I would feel that way if it were Zay in that cage.
“They wouldn’t let me see him,” she said. “Not without Jingo Jingo being there.”
Zayvion crossed his arms over his chest and strolled closer, his footsteps silent across the wet, noisy gravel. “You’re going to listen to them, aren’t you?”
“Be a good girl and do as I’m told?” She raised one eyebrow. “Have I ever done anything else?” It was a challenge.
Zayvion didn’t reach out for her, but his voice was softer. “It will work out, Chase. We’ll find a way to help him. Trust that.”
That tone got through. She swallowed and looked off over his shoulder. “Trust. Just like that.”
“You’ve been doing it for years. Don’t stop now.”
I could see how much it cost her to look back at him. Could see the emotions she was fighting back. Looked a lot like rage and grief. “No, that’s what you’ve been doing. Trusting. Trusting it will all work out. No matter how blind or stupid that makes you.”
“Trust isn’t a weakness,” Zay said.
“So says the man who begged for the chance to be the hero, the keeper of the gates, user of all magic, light and dark, no matter how much it destroys him. Do you get off on taking the fall, Jones, or are you just too stupid to know that’s what they’re using you for?”
“Are you done?” he asked, a hint of fire rising behind that ice.
She glared at him.
He ignored her. “You joined this fight for a reason. You joined this fight to make the world better for the people you cared about. Not for me, not for them, but for who you love. Who do you love, Chase? Other than yourself?”
“Fuck you.”
She took a step, but he moved, silent and swift, to stand in front of her. They weren’t touching, weren’t drawing on magic. Yet.
“That’s over. Remember?” he said. “You ended it.
Ended us. For him. For Greyson. And now you’re going to have to risk a little trust to save him. I think that’s a small price to pay, not even a price at all. Or maybe you’re just looking for an easy way out again.”
“You have no right-,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Yes, I do. Don’t turn your back on him. Don’t turn your back on the Authority. Don’t choose that ending.”
And that threat, that anyone in the Authority, even a Closer, could be Closed, got through too.
She unclenched her fists and shook her bangs out of her eyes. “I’d do anything to have him back,” she yelled. She looked down, swallowed a couple times, as if trying to get the rage down. Then she looked back up at him. “I don’t turn my back on anything I love.” She looked at me, then back at him. “But you wouldn’t understand that, would you, Jones?”
She strode off toward the inn, leaving Zayvion and me alone in the rain.
Chapter Four
I touched Zay’s arm and jerked back as if I’d been burned. The anger seething under the surface of his calm was rivaled only by the pain he felt for Chase. I’d always assumed their breakup had been bad, but now I knew it.
There are moments, emotions, that we really don’t want to share with other people. Things we shouldn’t have to share unless we want to. Unless we choose to. This was one of those moments. I shoved my hand in my pocket and tried to pretend I didn’t know how he really felt.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Do you need to go talk to someone?” Punch someone, I added silently.
Zay licked the rain off his lips and tipped his head down so that he stared at the gravel. He inhaled, slowly, then exhaled, pushing his shoulders down from the rod-straight fighting angle, his hands relaxing out of the stiff, magic-ready spread.
Caught in the overhead lighting, he was a study of neon blue and black shadows. The rain on his ski cap glittered like tiny blue stars, and rain trickled a slick line from his temple, across the arc of his cheek, then down to the stubble along his jaw. I waited.
Finally, he seemed to notice the rain, the night, and me. “I’d be better out of the wet,” he said.
He headed for the car and so did I. I wanted out of the wet too. Exhaustion was sucking my reserves. I’d spent a couple hours sparring, then come over here to Hound the well. Even though I’d had a late lunch, and a good latte, I was hankering for a hot, strong cup of coffee.