“Oh. Um.” I look over my shoulder at the opening to the storeroom. “Sorry, I’ll—”
Her gaze drops to the sketchbook in my hand. My map is a mess of wavy lines and lopsided trees, but it’s clear she knows exactly what it is. She looks at my drawing, then up at me, then over to where the fae disappeared, then back at my drawing.
“Son of a bitch,” she says. “Who the hell are you?”
Well, crap. The game is up. Might as well be polite.
“I’m McKenzie,” I say, holding out my hand for her to shake. She doesn’t take it.
“Who sent you?” she demands.
As if on cue, a fissure opens to my left.
“Lorn,” Sara all but snarls when he steps out of the light. “You brought her here?”
“She didn’t stumble upon you all by herself,” he says, staring at the map, not at her. “Where is this?”
Good question. I still can’t remember the name of the city.
“It’s at the northern part of the Jythia Mountains,” I say. “The big city on the coast?”
He glances up at me, then stares down at the map. “This is Eksan?”
That’s it. “Yeah. That’s where she went.”
Lorn raises an eyebrow, waiting. He’s probably memorized at least one location in Eksan, but he needs me to say the city’s name out loud to have any chance of fissuring close to where Aylen did, and I’m not about to name it. Not yet.
“My customers trust me, Lorn,” Sara cuts in. “They don’t expect to be stalked by their competition.”
Lorn laughs. “Aylen is hardly any competition for me.” He turns to me. “Now, name the city.”
“Don’t,” Sara says, her fists clenched at her sides. “My business is none of your business.”
“No one will know I tracked her from here. The city, McKenzie.”
“Tell me where Paige is first.”
His lips flatten into a thin line.
“You gave me your word,” I remind him. “And you always keep your word.”
“I promised to give you her location,” he says. “And I will. Just as soon as I learn where that location is.”
He doesn’t know. Damn it.
Sara hmmphs as if I should have known better. I did know better. I came here on a gamble that didn’t pay out, but I’d do it again. I’d do it again because I owe it to Paige.
“The deal is off,” I tell Lorn.
“The deal is not off,” he says, a warning slipping into his tone. “You have ten seconds. If you don’t name the city, I’ll leave you stranded here and your kimki stranded in Las Vegas, and you’ll never find your friend.”
“You’re not my only option,” I say.
“If I don’t want you to find her, you won’t find her. Five seconds.”
I grit my teeth. I don’t know if he can see that threat through, but I definitely don’t want to make him my enemy. “You swear you’ll try to find her?”
“I do.”
Another second passes. I curse, then finally relent. “Eksan.”
Lorn gives me a curt nod as he tugs at the cuffs of his sleeves. “I’ll let the rebels know where to find you. Have a good day, ladies.”
Shadows fill the space he occupied. I squeeze my eyes shut until my hands stop itching to draw them. When I reopen them, I’m able to focus on Sara.
She glares at me through the twisting shadows. “Get the hell out of my store.”
TEN
I’M NOT ABOUT to rely on Lorn to send a fae back to get me, so I ask a man on the street to use his cell phone. Unfortunately, Shane isn’t at the suite when I call. I leave a message telling him where I am, but I don’t know if he’ll notice the tiny red light on the hotel phone when he gets in.
At least Lorn stranded me in my world, not the Realm. I blend in here, and if my bank account weren’t at zero, I’d have the option of booking a flight back to Vegas. I suppose if worse comes to worst, I can go into my overdraft protection. I shouldn’t have to, though. Either Lorn will keep his word and send a fae for me, or I can stake out Sara’s wine store until another fae shows up. I might be able to talk whoever it is into fissuring me to Corrist on the promise that they’ll be well paid if they do.
So, I decide to spend the rest of the afternoon at the cafe two doors down. It has outside seating, and I have just enough change in my pocket to order a cup of coffee. That ends up being a mistake. It makes me jittery. I’m no closer to finding Paige, and with each passing minute, I worry more about her and about what’s happening back at the palace.
An hour passes. Then another. I flip through Naito’s sketchbook. Two more pictures of Kelia are sketched on its pages. One of them is in the corner of a shadow-reading. Naito’s ten times the artist I am, but his maps look like a child’s scribbles just like mine do. I wish I knew where this one leads to—he’s drawn an elaborate frame around the entire page, so it’s probably somewhere important—but shadow-readers can’t decipher anyone’s maps but their own.
I miss Kelia. It’s weird, admitting that. I only knew her for a few weeks, but we were close to being friends. I think she was honest with me, and I think we’d get along well if she were still alive. I could ask her about Aren. I miss him, don’t know if I’m doing the right thing with him. I don’t know him any better than I did two weeks ago. For us to work out, we need to spend time together, time where we’re not running for our lives or tracking somebody. Not for the first time, I wonder if it’s a bad idea to try to start a relationship right now.
Sara locks up the wine store. I think about following her, but a flicker of blue light in the corner of my vision catches my attention. It’s Trev. The last time I saw him was yesterday back at my apartment. Blood was gushing from a bad leg wound then. Aren or Lena must have healed him because he’s not even limping now.
He doesn’t see me until I close Naito’s sketchbook and stand. His gaze travels down to my feet, then back up. “You’re not injured?”
A couple is sitting at one of the other tables, so I just shake my head, tuck the sketchbook under my arm, and start walking.
“How did you find me?” I ask when I’m far enough away.
“The kimki,” Trev says. “He came to the palace with an anchor-stone and your name tied around his neck.”
Looks like Lorn kept part of his promise. Maybe he’ll keep the rest of it and find out where Paige is.
Trev increases his pace. I’m barely able to keep up. It’s annoying—he knows humans are slower than fae—but I don’t complain. Trev isn’t my biggest fan. He puts up with me when he has to, but he’s never exactly liked me. I helped the king hunt down his friends and family. Like most of the rebels, he has a reason to resent me. Those reasons didn’t disappear just because I joined their side of this war.
My feet are sore, but I jog to catch up with him when I fall too far behind. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
He glances my way for a whole half second. “Lena healed me.”
I frown, then realize he’s talking about the remnants’ attack at my old apartment. He almost bled to death because of me.
“No, not for that,” I say, then I grimace. “Well, yeah, for that, too. But I’m sorry for what happened before I met you. I didn’t know everything that was going on.”
“You’re forgiven, of course,” he says. His accent makes it difficult to pick up the sarcasm in his tone, but I’m certain it’s there.
I don’t jog to catch up with him when I fall behind this time. He can either slow down, or I’ll meet him at the gate. That’s where we’re heading. I’ve never been to Nashville before, but I’ve seen Atroth’s maps of the U.S., and while I haven’t memorized every single gate known to exist in this country—there are way too many to keep track of—I do remember one being on the lake to the east of the city. I’m pretty sure the highway up ahead runs to the west of it.