That had left her fuming. He’d dumped her. So why couldn’t he leave her alone?
But despite her annoyance, she kept the computer. The Net access helped her feel reconnected to the larger world without leaving the compound. The first few days, she had no desire to leave. Then, just as she was starting to get itchy to explore, Sven returned from a short assignment—bloody, battered, and drawn—to report that a couple of red-robes had jumped him just outside the gates of Skywatch.
Although a thorough search of the area had turned up nothing, the magi had to assume the Xibalbans were watching the compound, which meant that Sasha wound up under house arrest, at least until her bloodline ceremony.
It wasn’t the hardship it might have been. She studied. She cooked. And when she needed some peace, she went to the greenhouse, where Jox and Tomas made her welcome, giving her time and company when she wanted it, space when she needed it. And let her know that they would have wanted her there, even if Michael hadn’t asked them to make sure she felt at home.
In fact, she heard so many variations on the theme of “He told me, ‘Make her feel welcome, damn it!’ ” that she could almost hear the words in his too-familiar rasp. She was tempted to track him down and demand an explanation, but didn’t because he was so obviously avoiding her. And because she was determined not to chase affection. Never again. So instead she studied the magic that might soon be hers and tried to ignore the fact that it felt like Michael was courting her thirdhand while at the same time pushing her away.
That is, until one morning a few days before the full moon when she opened the door to her suite and found three file-size cardboard boxes sitting in the hallway just outside her door. Her name was written above the address for the postal drop-ship location the Nightkeepers used to maintain a layer of anonymity, and the boxes were plastered with stickers that read, FRAGILE, RUSH DELIVERY, and THIS END UP. Assuming the packages contained the new mixer and bowls she’d ordered online, she lugged them into her suite and attacked the first one, punching through the layers of tape with a kitchen knife.
Instead of commercial packing, she found wadded newspaper within. A white envelope lay on top, her name written across the front in spidery handwriting.
Familiar spidery handwriting.
“Ada?” Sasha whispered, nearly dropping to her knees when her legs went wobbly.
She reached for the envelope with trembling fingers, then hesitated, half afraid the note and boxes would disappear, proving to be a figment, a wish. Instead, the envelope crinkled beneath her touch. If this were a posthumous delivery, she had to assume Michael would have been there to break the news.
Or, more likely, sent an emissary. But this . . . this had to mean her friend was alive, that she’d survived the fire.
“Thank you, gods,” she whispered.
She opened the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper, then blinked back tears at the sight of the familiar stationary, which was watermarked at the top with Ada’s name intertwined with that of her husband, Charlie, who’d been gone nearly a decade but lived in her heart. Or so she’d always claimed. Dear Sasha, the letter read in Ada’s nearly illegible writing.
I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to know that you’re okay. I’d be terribly mad at you, but your Michael explained about the robbery and witness protection, so I know you couldn’t have clued me in before the trial, and you can’t contact me yourself now.
Sasha’s mind stuttered a little, not just on the fabricated WitSec protection, which she supposed was as good a story as any to cover her disappearance, but on the words “your Michael.” She reread them a few times, then made herself move on.
The letter continued: When I told him that I’d moved out after you disappeared, but before the fire, your friend—and dare I hope he’s more to you?—asked me if I’d brought anything of yours with me, and of course I had. You asked me to look after things, and I did, even when they said you weren’t coming back.
So here are the survivors, dearest heart, packaged with my fondest wish that your new life is a wonderful one, and you find someone special to share it with—someone who’ll challenge you, make you crazy, make you bigger than you’d be on your own. Someone like my Charlie was to me.
That is what I wish for you, dear friend. But having seen your Michael, I wonder if you haven’t already found him?
It was signed, All my love, Ada, though Sasha almost couldn’t read the signature through the blur of tears.
In a flash, she was back in Ada’s pretty kitchen, fussing with a batch of spicy shrimp while her friend “fiddled around,” as she called it, padded violin tucked beneath her chin, rosined bow sliding smoothly as she segued from Beethoven to Bach, from Mozart to others Sasha couldn’t name, some that she suspected were Ada’s own creations. “Find yourself a good man,” the widow had often said, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Someone who’ll love you like my Charlie loved me.” After Saul, when Sasha had suffered through a series of bad first dates, and a few worse second ones, she’d decided Ada had gotten one of the good ones, that there might not be a Charlie for her.
Now, her eyes locked on the name in the last paragraph. Michael. He’d found Ada for her. He’d asked her to send . . . what?
She didn’t even care that her hands shook as she broke the seal on the top box, hardly daring to hope that Ada had—Yes, she had! The clay pots were packed one against the next, the greens protected with inverted Tupperware containers duct-taped into place, with airholes perforated into the top. “Hello,” she breathed, knowing she should probably feel like an idiot for talking to her plants, and not giving a crap. “Do you remember me?”
Laughing a little, crying a little, she unpacked all three boxes, which yielded eighteen pots, all but two of which were her personal cooking herbs. Those last two were the fat, furry African violets that always made her smile. And smile she did, as she watered her green friends and arranged the pots in her kitchen window, setting the few shade lovers off to the side. She stood back and felt a tear fall as she saw that she’d arranged them almost the same as they had been back in Boston. Then she swiped at her face, and told herself to pull it together as determination firmed within her.
She was going to track down Michael and thank him, whether he liked it or not.
Michael’s blood was running hot and hard as he blasted away with both autopistols, one in each hand, running through his clips without pause, then slapping a fresh pair home and getting back into it before the targets could even reset. He was jonesing to run and roll and kick some major ass, but Skywatch’s firing range was static. No Hogan’s Alley here—it was all paper targets and a half dozen pop-ups he’d already Swiss-cheesed into submission. He could’ve gone hunting for a partner for the techware laser tag he’d instituted a few months earlier; the high-grade military equipment was pretty close to the real thing—good enough for training runs, anyway. But he wasn’t in the mood for company; he was in the mood to blow some shit away.
The dam was intact, the sluiceways shut, but that didn’t seem to matter these days. His inner caveman was alive and well, and loose within his skull. He wanted to throw his head back, beat on his chest, and howl into the strange orange sun with frustration, anger, and the shitty unfairness of Sasha’s being there, yet beyond his reach. He couldn’t touch her, didn’t dare. Not when she was the one who’d stirred up the darkness within him, calling it so close to the surface. Too close.