“Up here!” I hissed at Owen. “Hurry!”
He climbed up onto the statue, and we managed to squeeze in behind the tree. The space was small, barely big enough for one person, much less the two of us wedged in behind it. Owen had his back to the tree, while mine was pressed against the rock wall. I wasn’t completely hidden by the trunk like Owen was, and I just had to hope the giants wouldn’t notice half of my head, arm, and shoulder sticking out from behind the tree.
I shifted, trying to squirm even farther into the shadows, but the rocks snagged on my dress, and I couldn’t move without ripping the garment down the back and making even more noise.
“Here,” Owen whispered. “Let me.”
He drew me away from the rock wall and into his arms, then shifted to his left, dragging me behind the tree and sculpting his body to mine so we could better blend into the shadows together. My concern about the giants spotting us quickly melted away as I realized just what an intimate position Owen and I were in.
Our bodies pressed together, chests to hips to thighs, and all the hard and soft spots in between. His arms around me, my leg between both of his, our faces level, given the bit of rock I had climbed up on. Our breaths mixed and mingled in a hot rush of air, our lips a heartbreaking inch apart. His eyes stayed steady on mine, and we stood there in the darkness, staring at each other. Heat flashed and shimmered in Owen’s violet gaze, the same heat that was scorching through my veins. His scent washed over me, that rich, metallic aroma, and I breathed in, drawing it deep into my lungs.
Whatever our problems were, the attraction was still there, and he seemed to feel it just as much as I did. It gave me hope that we could work through the rest of our problems—if we managed to live through the next three minutes.
Owen had a gun in his hand, and I had a bloody knife in mine, but we moved even closer together in the darkness, careful with our respective weapons. Owen’s lips brushed my cheek before sliding into my hair. I pressed my cheek against his, then slowly turned my head, burying my face in his neck—
Something clicked, and light flooded the room, shattering the moment.
“Come on,” one of the giants said. “Let’s sweep this area and go on to the next room.”
They didn’t say anything else, and for several long seconds, the only sounds were Owen’s raspy breath in my ear and the staccato slap of the giants’ shoes on the floor. The steady tap-tap-taps echoed all around the room, so I couldn’t tell where the giants were. By the door, in the middle of the room, in front of the statue, guns up and ready to plug us full of bullets.
Tap-tap-tap.
Tap-tap-tap.
Tap-tap-tap.
Owen’s muscles clenched, and his body swelled with tension with every passing second. I slowly, carefully, quietly raised my hand to his and squeezed his fingers. Owen exhaled, and I felt some of the worry leave him.
“Come on,” one of the giants finally said. “They’re not in here. Let’s go.”
More tap-tap-taps sounded. Ten seconds later, the footsteps faded away, and the room was quiet once more.
Owen and I stayed where we were. Bodies flush, lips close together, eyes locked on each other.
I would have liked nothing more than to have stayed with Owen in the shadows, but after thirty more seconds had passed and I was reasonably sure the giants weren’t coming back, I made myself step out of his arms and slide away from him.
Because this wasn’t the time for such things. What was important right now was making sure that we lived to have a later—and so did our friends.
“Come on,” I whispered. “We should be able to make it outside now.”
Owen nodded.
I let myself remember the heat of his body against mine for a moment longer before I turned, hopped off the statue, and headed for the door.
I’d just started to peer out the opening when one of the giants stepped back into the room.
18
“Wait a second,” the giant called out to his buddy, looking back over his shoulder. “I left the lights on in here, and the boss lady said to turn them off when—”
There was no time to run, nowhere to hide, and no way to keep things quiet. The giant turned to face me. He gasped and stopped short in surprise, but I was already rushing toward him, slashing my knife through the air.
The giant managed to throw himself back so that my blade only sliced across his chest instead of tearing open his throat. Still, the shallow, stinging cut made him bellow with pain and surprise.
“Paul?” the other man asked, stepping into the room. “What’s wrong—” His eyes widened as he realized what was going on, and he immediately raised his walkie-talkie to his lips. “I’ve got them! I’ve got them! Near the west exit!”
The giant in front of me started to raise his gun, but I sliced my knife across his wrist, making him drop the weapon and howl with pain.
“You take the other guy!” I yelled at Owen. “Clear a path!”
Owen stepped up beside me, already drawing a bead on the second giant, who was backpedaling.
Crack! Crack!
Two bullets slammed into the doorway right next to the giant, making him curse and duck back out into the hallway. Owen hurried over to the door, stuck his arm out, and fired two more shots.
Crack! Crack!
A high-pitched yelp sounded out in the hallway.
“I winged him, but there are already more of them at the end of the hallway and heading this way!” Owen called out. “We need to go, Gin! Now!”
I shoved the injured giant out of my way and drew my own gun. I peered around the doorframe. Owen must have hit the giant in the leg, because he was hobbling into another room that branched off the hallway. But what worried me more were the four giants at the far end of the corridor. They spotted us and started shooting even as they raced in our direction. Bullets ping-ping-pinged off the walls, and the marble started to wail from this fresh assault on it.
There was only one thing left to do now: run.
I jerked my head at the exit door thirty feet to our left and handed Owen the key card to open it. “Stay behind me!” I screamed at him. “I’ll cover you!”
Owen nodded, realizing what I had in mind. I reached for my Stone magic, used it to harden my skin, and stepped out into the hallway, with Owen right behind me. While he ran for the door, I turned around, raised my gun, took aim at the giants, and pulled the trigger.
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
Crack!
My hail of gunfire slowed the giants down and made them duck for cover, but it didn’t stop them from returning my bullets with several shots of their own. One of the projectiles punched square into my chest, making me stumble back. The bullet would have bored right through my heart if I hadn’t been using my magic to protect myself. I kept backing up, heading toward the exit, and firing away until my clip was empty.
“Gin!” Owen shouted behind me, holding the door open. “Come on!”
I turned and raced toward him.
Crack!
Another shot rang out. In front of me, Owen grunted and staggered outside, leaving behind a smear of blood on the glass door.
“Owen? Owen!” I made it through the opening, let the door close behind me, and ran over to him.
He clutched his left shoulder. “I’m okay. I think they just winged me—”
Bullets slammed into the door behind us, cracking the glass and making us duck down.
I put my arm under Owen’s shoulder, and together we staggered down the stairs and headed for the shadows and sanctuary of the gardens.
* * *
I led Owen to the far western edge of the gardens, where the lush flowers gave way to the creeping briars. Despite the giants’ shouts behind us, I risked turning my flashlight on for a few seconds and swept it back and forth in front of a hedge of four-foot-tall briars. Finally, I found what looked like a small animal trail through the thorns. I clicked the flashlight off and turned to Owen.
“Can you go on a little farther?” I whispered.
He nodded, although he was still clutching his shoulder.
“Okay,” I whispered back. “Follow my lead, and just take it easy. Don’t fight the briars. Go where they let you. We don’t want to leave a trail of broken branches behind us that will tell the giants exactly where we went.”
Owen nodded. I went first, worming my way deeper and deeper into the branches. The briars clutched at my tattered dress, but I went slowly, carefully moving branches out of my way. Owen followed along behind me, his breath rasping against the back of my neck.
Ten feet in, a copse of weeping willows soared up out of the briars, and I slid into a small open space between two of the trees that was free from the thorns. Fifteen feet beyond the back side of the bramble patch, the island sheared off in a straight drop down to the Aneirin River two hundred feet below.
It was as good a spot as any to hide from the giants, so I gestured at Owen to stop. He sat down on the ground and put his back against one of the weeping willows, the long tendrils brushing against his shoulders like a masseuse’s fingers. I sank down on my knees beside him.
“Let me see your arm,” I whispered.
He nodded, and I helped him shrug out of his tuxedo jacket. I used one of my knives to slice open his white shirt. Two neat holes blackened his left bicep, blood trickling out of each one of them. It was an ugly wound, one that would hurt, ache, and burn with every move, but relief pulsed through me that it wasn’t worse.
“It looks like a through-and-through,” I said in a soft voice.
“Just help me bandage it up. It stings, but it’s not that bad.” Owen grimaced. “Not nearly as bad as what Dixon did to Phillip.”
I ripped his jacket up and used it to make a tight bandage. Owen grimaced, and sweat beaded on his forehead, but he swallowed down most of the pain.
Once that was done, I crouched down a few feet away, with my back to the river and my gaze on the faint path we’d made through the thorns. I didn’t think the giants would venture this far from the museum, but I wanted to be ready in case they did.
And then we waited.
In the distance, I could hear the giants’ shouts as they searched for us. I just hoped they would focus on this side of the island and not the front, where Bria and Xavier would be coming in any minute now. I pulled my cell phone off my belt, intending to text my sister about the new danger, but the moonlight filtering down through the trees revealed a bullet hole in the middle of the device. I bit back a curse and clipped the phone to my belt once more, even though it was useless now. Bria and Xavier were on their own—just like Owen and me.
A minute passed. Then two. Then five.
All the while, the giants swarmed through the gardens, yelling back and forth to one another.
“Where are they?”
“Do you see them?”
“Where did they go?”
Every once in a while, the bright beam of a flashlight would cut across the foliage above our heads, making Owen and me duck down further in the shadows. But the briars made the giants keep their distance, and they didn’t find us.
Eventually, the sounds of their shouts died away altogether, along with the beams of light, and I relaxed. The danger had passed us by—for now.
Finally, Owen spoke, his voice a hard, flat note against the cheery chirp of the crickets in the underbrush. “Jillian’s dead.”
“Yes,” I said. “She is.”
Still keeping watch for the giants, I told him about Clementine sidling up to me first in the rotunda and then later on in the bathroom. I also told him how she had left and Jillian had come in, although I didn’t mention that we’d talked about him.
“Jillian never had a chance,” I said. “Dixon was waiting for her as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom. I don’t know if I would have had a chance to react either.”
Owen’s gaze dropped to my dress. The designer gown was a tattered, ruined, ragged mess, stained with blood, soaked with sweat, and scorched with black bullet holes. His mouth tightened, and he rubbed his forehead. No doubt he was thinking about Jillian and the fact that she was dead because of me.
I wondered if he was still thinking about Salina and how she was also dead because of me—by my own hand, no less.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a quiet voice. “About Jillian. She didn’t deserve to die like that.”
Owen looked away from me. “Me too. She was a friend.”
I wanted to ask if that was all she had been, but I kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. I dropped my gaze from Owen, and both of us concentrated on the thorns around us instead of staring at each other. We were both silent until he finally cleared his throat.
“So now what?” he asked. “We might be out here away from the giants, but Eva, Phillip, and the others are still inside.”
“Now we see what kind of leverage we have.”
I pulled the small ebony tube out of the pouch on my utility belt. Mab’s sunburst rune glimmered in the moonlight, deadly and beautiful, just like the Fire elemental herself had been. I reached for my Stone magic, used it to harden my skin, and traced my finger over the sunburst, wondering if the rune might hold some sort of booby-trap. But the symbol didn’t flare to life or spew explosive, elemental Fire in my face.
Still, the problem was that I didn’t see a way to open the tube. Flat discs of silverstone covered both ends of the wood, but I couldn’t pry them off with either my nails or the tip of my knife. I handed the tube to Owen, who ran his fingers up and down it, but he couldn’t figure out how to get inside it either. It had to open, because there was something inside, something that rustled back and forth whenever I shook the tube. I needed to know what that something was so I could deal with Clementine accordingly.
Of course Mab wouldn’t make it easy to loot whatever was inside the tube, especially when I was under pressure and pressed for time. I imagined the Fire elemental was laughing at me even now from wherever she was in the great beyond.
“Laugh your ass off, Mab,” I muttered. “You’ve certainly earned it tonight.”
I held up the tube, wondering if there was something I was missing. Once again, my eyes focused on the sunburst rune. The wavy golden rays took on a muted silver tinge in the moonlight, while the ruby smoldered like a dull, banked ember in the middle of the design. Maybe it was the mocking way the rune seemed to wink at me, but an idea popped into my mind. I put my thumb on the ruby and pressed in on it.
A soft click sounded, and one of the silverstone discs on the end of the tube popped up.
“Here goes nothing,” I murmured.
I hinged the silverstone to one side and tipped the contents of the tube into my hand. I’d been expecting jewels, a fistful of rubies or something like that, something that would have been in keeping with Mab’s bold, flashy, fiery nature.
Instead, a single piece of rolled-up paper slid out of the hollowed-out wood.
“That’s it?” Owen asked. “That’s all that’s in there?”
I shook the wood, but nothing else came out. “Yep, that’s it. So let’s see what’s so important about it.”
I carefully unrolled the paper. It was hard to make out everything, since the print was so small and the night was so dark, despite the golden glow from the garden lights in the distance, but I managed to skim through it.
“It looks like some sort of legal document. I think . . . I think this is Mab’s will.”
Owen frowned. “Why would Clementine go to so much trouble to steal Mab’s will?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured. “But apparently, she wanted it bad enough to arrange the heist and everything else tonight. But you’re right. The question is why.”
“Well, what does it say?” he asked. “Who did Mab leave what to?”
I squinted and read a few more paragraphs. “A bunch of legal mumbo jumbo, and . . . it looks like . . . she left everything to one person. Someone whose last name i
s also Monroe—M. M. Monroe.”
* * *
I stared at the paper. It seemed innocent enough, but I couldn’t help but feel like the earth had just opened up at my feet and I was about to tumble into an abyss.
“M. M. Monroe?” Owen asked. “Did I hear you right?”
All I could do was nod.
Finn had mentioned there was a rumor that the contents of Mab’s will were going to be revealed at the gala tonight. Now that I’d read the document myself, I could easily imagine Mab arranging for things to go down like that. Like Finn had said, it would have been one last hurrah for her—an opportunity to remind everyone how powerful she had been, and a chance to announce her successor in the most dramatic way possible.
Because Mab hadn’t left anything to Jonah McAllister, her other business associates, or even charity. No, she’d given everything to this M. M. Monroe.
I wondered if this mysterious relative had the same devastating Fire magic Mab had wielded.
I wondered if this person knew about the massive fortune he or she had inherited.
I wondered if this Monroe would decide to come to Ashland to oversee Mab’s empire in person—and how much trouble he or she might cause for me if so.
My mother and Mab had been enemies for years before Mab had murdered her and my older sister. Their parents had been enemies before them, and their parents before them. At least, that’s how it had been according to Mab. So it wasn’t too much of a stretch to think that the family feud would continue on into another generation, if that’s what this was. It already had with me and Mab, really.
Once again, I’d thought that I’d taken care of everything when I’d killed the Fire elemental, that I’d finally set myself free from her, but she just kept screwing with me, even from six feet under.
“It doesn’t really matter who Mab left her fortune to,” I finally said, rolling up the paper and sliding it back into the tube. “Just that we have the will and Clementine wants it. We can use it for leverage.”
Owen shook his head. “She’s not going to let the hostages go, if that’s what you’re thinking. You know that as well as I do. Not now, when everyone’s seen her face and knows exactly who she is. She can’t afford to let any of them live.”