Bloodrose

  “You didn’t worry that Efron wouldn’t take the bait?” I asked, feeling a bit unsteady in the current of this information.

  “Logan was sure he would,” Connor said. “Something about pride being his father’s greatest weakness, Sabine as an Achilles’ heel, blah, blah, more metaphors.”

  “Fine.” I bared my fangs at Connor. “But how does Ethan feel about all of this?”

  “He only agreed if we let him go too.”

  I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. “Ethan is in Vail?”

  “Yep,” Connor said. “He insisted.”

  “But they’ll kill him.”

  “God, Connor.” Adne glared at him. “Don’t say it like that.”

  Connor grinned. “But it’s so much more fun when she looks like she’s going to throw up.”

  She ignored him, turning to me. “Calla, Ethan isn’t with the Keepers. He and Nev are with Tom Shaw.”

  “At the Burnout?” I asked.

  “He built what’s pretty much a bunker under that bar,” Connor said. “We’ve used it as a safe house from time to time. Nev and Ethan are staying there, coordinating intelligence coming in from the Guardians through Sabine and Logan. Logan’s keeping tabs on his father and the other Keepers. Sabine is lining up allies among the Banes and hopefully getting your father to do the same with the Nightshades. We’re using them to set up the final offensive on Rowan Estate.”

  I swallowed the hard lump that formed in my throat. “When is the attack?”

  “If we pick up this last piece,” Adne said quietly, “we attack at midnight.”

  “That soon?” I asked.

  “Well, considering we’ve jumped a few times zones, it’s actually already in the past.” Connor wiggled his eyebrows at me.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I’d assumed Connor had dragged me through a portal back to the Academy. But we weren’t in the Searchers’ building. It had been afternoon when we’d left the mountain meadow. Now we were outside and it was dark, but not night. The air was full of the promise of dawn. Hushed pink light crept upward into deep gray sky.

  “We’re in New Zealand,” Adne said. “Where it’s already tomorrow morning.”

  “But when we get back to Vail for the attack, it will still be midnight yesterday,” Connor said.

  “You’re giving me a headache,” I said.

  “It’s what he does best.” Adne grinned.

  “Let’s be on our way.” Anika started walking. “The others are waiting.”

  “Where are they?” I asked as my mind began to settle.

  “They’re at the boat,” Adne said.

  “Another boat?” I groaned.

  “Different sort of trip this time,” Connor said. “No swim at the end.”

  He led us into the brightening morning, pushing through a forest unlike any I’d seen. The ground beneath my feet was rough, broken rocks that seemed to be halfway to becoming sand. Trees with spiky limbs and thick leaves stretched over us, complemented by dense brush, tightly packed along the forest floor.

  When the path opened up, the trees thinning to slope down onto a wide beach, I heard two familiar voices shout at once.

  “Calla!”

  Ren and Shay were both staring at me. They were sitting back to back. And they were tied up.

  I stared at them. “What the—”

  Mason, who’d been circling the captive boys as a wolf, shifted forms.

  “Thank God!” He ran to me, catching me in a tight embrace. “It is so good to see you.”

  “You too.” I hugged him and then pointed to Ren and Shay, who were now squirming against their restraints. “What’s going on?”

  “We had to tie them up,” Adne said.

  “And I had to guard them,” Mason said. “Even after creating the most intricate knots known to mankind. I even bit Shay once.”

  “I wasn’t being that difficult,” Shay said.

  “Yes, you were.”

  “Why did you have to tie them up?” I asked, watching as Connor drew a knife and began to saw through the ropes holding Shay and Ren together.

  “You didn’t have to tie us up!” Shay shrugged the frayed ropes off.

  “Yes, we did!” Adne’s hands were on her hips. “You would have torn right through that portal to get to her. You were both acting like morons.”

  “She’s right,” Ren said. “They probably did have to tie us up.”

  Shay grinned.

  “Shut up!” Adne glared at Ren. “You’re still on my list of people I’m angry with. Don’t think you’ll get off it by agreeing with me.”

  Ren gave Connor a sidelong glance. “She keeps a list, huh?”

  “Don’t worry,” Connor said. “I’ve been on it for years.”

  “I heard that.” Adne’s voice jumped up a couple of octaves.

  “I’m sure you did, gorgeous.” Connor jumped back, having cut through the rope, as Shay and Ren both leapt up and rushed at me.

  I took a few steps back, anticipating a tackle. But they both pulled up just short, breathing hard, glancing from each other to me.

  “Hey,” I said, unsure what to do. I wished they would both just hug me, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen.

  “Hey,” Ren said, folding his arms over his chest. “Sorry we couldn’t come save you ourselves.” I could see his pulse jumping at his throat.

  Shay looked just as uncomfortable, giving Ren an uneasy smile. “Not that we didn’t want to. Hence the being tied up.” He raked a hand through his windblown hair. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “The wraith was awful. But it was over pretty quickly. At least from my perspective. After I passed out, I don’t remember much. I woke up in my room. Lumine was there.”

  “What happened?” Ren asked.

  “They asked questions I didn’t answer,” I said. “Then came the trade. I wasn’t there long.”

  “But you were back in Vail?” Shay asked.

  “Yes.” I shivered at the memory of my room, of Lumine pretending to be my mother. “I saw my dad, though. I think he could help us.”

  “That’s the point of having Ethan and Sabine working in Vail,” Connor said. “Let’s hope they can make that connection.”

  “We’ll send a dispatch to Ethan and Tom,” Anika said. “It’s good that you could speak with your father, Calla.”

  I nodded, wondering if my father really could bring the Nightshades over to our side.

  “Open a door, Adne,” Anika continued. “It’s time for me to update the Guides and set the stage for tonight.”

  “Tell them to cross their fingers and toes,” Connor said.

  Adne began to weave, the threads from her skean mirroring the light of dawn that spilled from the shoreline up into the forest where we stood. Ren stood close to his sister, entranced by her work.

  “So Pyralis is here?” I asked Connor, drawing him away from the others.

  “It’s out there.” He pointed to the silhouette of an island in the distance. “That’s Whakaari.”

  “And we’re going there now?” I glanced at my companions. Our group had shrunk. Ethan, Sabine, and Nev were in Vail. Silas was gone. “Just us? We don’t get reinforcements?”

  “We don’t know what’s out there.” Connor’s jaw clenched. “We wanted to risk as few as possible.”

  “That’s reassuring.” I tried to laugh, but it came out like my voice cracking.

  “We’ll manage.” Shay rested his fingers lightly on my arm. The gentle touch warmed my cold skin.

  “We’d better,” Connor said. “This is it. Last stop on the big ride.”

  “You know where it is on the island?” I asked.

  “We know where the entrance to the chamber is,” Connor replied. “Our best guess is that the blade is somewhere inside the volcano.”

  “Wait . . . volcano?” I could feel my eyes bulge.

  Shay nodded. “There are lots of a
ctive volcanoes in New Zealand. Look.” He pointed at the sky above the island. A plume of ash rose steadily into the clouds.

  Mason came up beside me and slid his arm around my shoulders. “I didn’t believe it when they first told me either.”

  “We’re going into a volcano,” I said, shoulders slumping. “That’s . . . that’s just fantastic.”

  There is no way in hell we’ll pull this off.

  “What’s a volcano compared to a mutant spider? Or piranha vampire bats?” Shay grinned at us. “Come on, it’s an adventure. Besides, tourists go out there all the time. The volcano can’t be that dangerous.”

  “I’m guessing the tourists aren’t trying to steal a forbidden object out from under the noses of evil witches.”

  “Not unless they’ve paid for the deluxe package,” Shay replied solemnly.

  I stared at him for a moment before I began to laugh.

  “You’re crazy, man,” Mason said, but he was laughing too.

  “What did I miss?” Adne asked as she and Ren joined us. I turned to see the portal was gone, along with Anika.

  “Only Shay’s twisted sense of humor,” Connor replied. “Let’s get to the boat.”

  Mason, Adne, Connor, and I clambered into the boat while Shay and Ren shoved it off the beach into the water. Connor gunned the motor, sending us bouncing over the waves toward Whakaari.

  “So where does Logan fit in to this plan?” I shouted over the roar of the motor and crash of waves.

  “We need Logan on the inside.” Adne shielded her eyes as the sun crested the horizon. “He’ll be pivotal when Shay gets to the Rift.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “A Keeper and only a Keeper can summon Bosque and force him to reveal his true form. Shay won’t be able to banish him unless that happens.”

  “How can a Keeper force Bosque to do anything?” I asked. “He’s the one who controls them.”

  “It has to do with the oath Keepers make in order to get their power—a test of loyalty,” she said. “Their allegiance to the Harbinger can only be sealed when he isn’t masked by a glamour. They have to commit to the real thing—and from what I understand, it isn’t pretty.”

  “Warts and all,” Connor said.

  “I think it’s a lot worse than warts,” Adne said.

  “With luck we’ll see that for ourselves,” he said.

  “Some luck,” Mason said.

  Connor threw him a thin smile. “When Logan completes the invocation, Bosque will be in his true form. It’s a means of subjugating the Keepers to the Nether, but in our case it creates the opening in the veil we need to banish the Harbinger.”

  I hated the thought that we were relying so much on someone with loyalties as slippery as Logan’s. “Do we really trust Logan to keep his end of the bargain?”

  “Of course not!” Connor laughed. “But we don’t have a choice.”

  “But what if he changes his mind?” I shouted. “Or he decides the writing on the wall actually says the Keepers are going to win?”

  “It might happen.” Connor shrugged. “Not much we can do about it.”

  “But he knows where the Academy is!”

  Adne shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. We took care of that.”

  “How?” I wiped water off my face as a wave splashed over the side of the boat.

  “Sorry!” Connor yelled. “I’ll try to find a smoother route.”

  “We put a hex on him,” Adne said. “If he so much as mentions Italy or the Academy or even tries to point it out on a map, he’ll choke to death on his own vomit.”

  “Like what happened to Mr. Selby in Big Ideas,” Shay said. “Anika said that hexes are something all witches can pull off pretty easily, whether they’re amateurs or the professionals, like these guys.”

  “Of course, the Keepers could always figure out a way to break our hex,” Connor said.

  “We don’t need your commentary, Connor.” Adne slapped him on the back. “Just drive the boat!”

  “Are you okay?” Shay was leaning over Mason, whose eyes were closed as his fingers, white-knuckled, gripped the edge of the boat.

  Mason didn’t open his eyes but grimaced when Connor hit another wave, soaking us.

  “Sorry!” Connor shouted, though he whooped as we bounced up and down.

  “Just promise me that if we win, I’ll never have to get in another boat,” Mason said. “That’s all I want. No more boats.”

  “Deal.” Shay put his arm around Mason. “No more boats.”

  Ren climbed over to sit next to me. “How are you doing?” He leaned close and slipped his hand over mine.

  “I’ll be okay,” I said, licking salt spray from my lips. “Though I think Mason’s whole ‘no more boats’ plan is a good one.”

  “Yeah.” He smiled. “Wolves and the ocean. Just not natural.”

  “No kidding,” I said.

  He bent down, murmuring in my ear. “Did they hurt you, Calla? I was worried . . . Efron . . . or my . . . Emile . . .”

  I shook my head. “Just the wraith.”

  He squeezed my fingers tight and I looked up at him. “I’m really fine, Ren. But Sabine—”

  My throat closed. No matter how good a plan it was, I hated the thought of her being at Efron’s mercy.

  Still clasping my fingers tight, he growled, staring at the island that loomed before us. “I didn’t want her to go. None of us did. We argued for a long time.”

  I nodded. At least I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t comfortable with this strategy. The price seemed too high.

  “I thought Ethan would kill someone,” Ren was saying. “He went crazy.”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  Ren smiled at me. “Kind of like Shay and I did when they took you.”

  “What happened?” I asked, blushing at the warmth in his eyes. “After the wraith attacked me.”

  “There was another wraith.” His smile vanished. “Two Keepers were waiting for us in the dive shop. Connor got Adne out onto the deck. She wove as fast as she could.”

  “But the wraith?” I shivered, hating the memory of its stench in my nostrils, burning through my lungs. The way it had felt like I was being flayed.

  “It came at us.” Ren stiffened. “I thought at least a few of us would be dead before anyone could get out.”

  His eyes moved over to Shay, who was chatting amiably with Mason. He’d managed to get the seasick wolf laughing, which was impressive.

  “Connor was shouting at everyone to stay back, but Shay jumped in front of him,” Ren said. “And he pulled out that sword.”

  I could see the hilt peeking out over Shay’s shoulder. “The sword stopped the wraith.”

  Ren nodded. “It didn’t destroy the thing, but when Shay hit the wraith, it screamed. I’ve never heard a sound like that. I thought my ears would explode. It couldn’t get past him and he held it off until Adne had the door open and we escaped.”

  He growled. “But we couldn’t do anything about you. You were gone.”

  “I’m here now,” I said, pulling my hand from his grasp.

  “I know.” He frowned, but leaned forward and kissed my cheek, swift and soft, despite my warning growl. “If we lost you . . . I can’t think about it. But you’re here and that’s all that matters.”

  I glanced over at Shay. His eyes were on us, and while he didn’t look happy, he wasn’t lunging at Ren either, which struck me as odd. He nodded once and I realized he and Ren were gazing at each other, their faces calm and mutually respectful. What the hell?

  Something had changed while I was gone. I knew I should be happy they weren’t fighting, but instead my skin prickled. What was going on with them?

  “Almost there!” Connor shouted, bringing the boat’s speed down.

  “Hallelujah!” Mason lifted his arms to the sky.

  Shay laughed. “You realize you’re cheering our arrival at an active volcano.”

  “I’ll take dry land over the sea any day,” Mason sai
d. “Even dry land that could blow up under my feet.”

  As we closed in on Whakaari, the ocean swells calmed in the shelter of the island resting on the edge of New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty. The engine purred as Connor navigated the coast, beaching us on a narrow strip of sand amid bleak volcanic rock that sprawled across the landscape. The only signs of life were the birds that swooped in the air above us. As I jumped onto the sand, I was struck by the strange mixture of colors that painted the island. Dark gray and brown stones contrasted with the slices of lime green and yellow crystals that grew among them. At intervals rivers of rust-colored rocks appeared, as if Whakaari had wounds that bled freely.

  Steam rose from crevices in the island, filling the air with noxious gas.

  “I take it back,” Mason said, covering his nose. “The water is better than this smell. Why do we keep doing things that make me want to throw up?”

  “Almost forgot.” Connor tossed gas masks to each of us. “In case the fumes get too strong.”

  “Where are we headed?” Shay asked.

  “Just east of here.” Connor climbed out of the boat and began fumbling inside his jacket for something. “It’s a little ways up the slope. Not far, though.”

  “And we don’t know what’s waiting for us?” Ren asked.

  Adne shook her head. “Anyone who’s been sent here hasn’t come back.”

  “Do you guys ever have good news?” Mason said. “Or have you heard of the power of positive thinking?”

  “I’m too honest to be positive.” Adne threw him a wicked smile.

  “What are you doing?” Shay peered at Connor, whose back was turned to us. “What is that?”

  Shay grabbed Connor’s arm, turning him around to reveal a small notebook tucked in his palm.

  “Hey!” Connor shouted. “I was in the middle of a sentence.”

  “Are you . . . taking notes?” Shay asked.

  Connor cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck uneasily. “It’s just . . . I thought that . . . you know . . . Silas.”

  Adne walked over to Connor, stretched up on her tiptoes, and placed a chaste kiss on his lips. “You’re a good man after all.”

  She smiled sadly, beginning to turn away, but Connor slid his arms around her waist, lifting her off her feet. The kiss he crushed onto her mouth was anything but chaste and lasted so long that soon we all turned away, blushing.