When she finally got the stubborn glass where it belonged, she leaned the broom against the wall and planted her hands on her hips, surveying the room. It wasn’t the familiar space it should’ve been considering it had been her bedroom less than a month ago. Now it was an empty square with chunks of drywall missing and a boarded-up window. All the furniture, broken beyond repair, had already been hauled out. Most of her belongings had gone with the rest of the garbage.
The Consulate had been abandoned for less than a week after the attack by the Gaians, but more than prefects had searched every inch of it. Countless, unknown daemons had pawed through her personal possessions, searching for clues about the Sahar’s whereabouts. They had been neither careful nor respectful. Most of the Consulate had suffered the same treatment. The only silver lining was that, with so many daemons lurking about, no humans had attempted to loot the abandoned house. Not that it mattered much since almost everything had been damaged.
Bangs and thumps downstairs told her people were still hard at work trying to make the Consulate livable again. All the nearby Consulates had sent people to help. They were eager to have Head Consulate back up and running so the Head Consul could make all those important, difficult decisions the other Consuls didn’t want to deal with.
Somewhere downstairs, Uncle Calder was fielding endless phone calls. Her uncle didn’t enjoy the mantle of authority and especially didn’t like being chained to a desk. Unfortunately, he would be spending a great deal more time doing deskwork from now on. The daemon healer had done his best, but Calder’s leg had been badly broken for days, not to mention the other abuse he’d suffered at the hands of the Gaians—and Mona. He would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. His participation in Piper’s future martial training would be limited to the sidelines.
She lifted both hands, spread her fingers wide, and studied the backs. It amazed her to see her left hand whole and unbroken. White scars ran across the back like thin, twisting veins. It was ugly, but the scars didn’t impair movement or strength. She opened and closed her fingers just to prove it. She had other scars on both arms from the harpies’ claws.
She’d been unconscious during her healing, but Calder told her afterward it had taken the combined skills of Miysis and two other daemons to repair her arm. She was glad she’d been unconscious, partly because it had saved her from the Ra daemon’s truth-sensing magic. She knew he had more questions for her but he hadn’t been able to wait around for her to wake after she’d been magically stitched back together.
So much made sense now that she knew Miysis was the Ra heir. She should have realized long before the Ra family wouldn’t sit back and wait for the Sahar to turn up. It sort of ticked her off Miysis had figured out the Gaians were the culprits three days before she, Ash, and Lyre had. At least he’d never figured out the real truth. He wouldn’t be happy with Piper if he knew her real role—and who had the Sahar now.
That Miysis had let himself be captured by Gaians so as to infiltrate their headquarters was all fine and dandy for him, but it was his overprotective bodyguards/soldiers who had started the deadly fight. Piper didn’t know how many had died that night. She hoped no one ever told her.
The Ras were still searching for the Sahar. There was no way for Piper to tell them their search was pointless without implicating herself. The Sahar would never be found. She was certain of it. Samael would not let it slip through his fingers again.
The mere thought of the head of the Hades family made fury burn through her. The two-faced bastard had never intended to go through with the agreement negotiated by the Consulates. Samael had publicly agreed to have the Sahar returned to the Ra family on the condition it was sealed away forever but he hadn’t meant a word of it. He’d simply been biding his time until he could act.
His plan had been deviously simple: steal the Sahar back without anyone ever suspecting his hand in the theft. To the world, he would have magnanimously agreed to peace. When the Sahar vanished from the Consulate, he’d get all the private time with it he wanted because no one would know he had it. So Samael had sent Ash to perform the theft.
She remembered him standing alone at the edge of the Styx rooftop, rigid with tension as he tried to decide between two potentially deadly paths. Samael had wanted the Sahar without incrimination. Since Ash had been accused of the theft, Samael had also been incriminated. Without identifying the attackers at the Consulate, Ash hadn’t had a hope of clearing his name—or Samael’s.
But Ash hadn’t had to stick with her and Lyre. Once he had the Sahar from Piper, she’d had no hold on him. No claim on his strength or protection. No reason for him to waste time and effort keeping her safe. But he’d stayed for no other reason than to help them, to try to save them along with his own skin. Maybe he felt he owed it to her after almost destroying her family by trying to swap the Sahar with a fake.
If Ash had abandoned them after that first day, she and Lyre would probably be dead. Some daemon or another would’ve caught up with them and killed them when they couldn’t hand over the Sahar. She hadn’t realized at the time that the lack of daemon attacks on them hadn’t been for a lack of willing daemons. It had been because most daemons were too frightened of Ash to even try.
Some nights she wondered if she was looking for goodness in him that wasn’t there. Other nights, she imagined a thousand ways to tell him thank you and none seemed good enough.
Her confliction over Ash, over whether she could forgive him or trust him, was with her constantly but it wasn’t her only worry. Yes, she was no longer a felon on the run. Miysis had made sure to spread the word that Piperel Griffiths had not been involved in the theft. Life was on the verge of getting back to normal. But Piper didn’t feel like she could go back to normal. Everything had changed.
Abandoning the cleaning, she stalked out of the room and down the stairs. She barely noticed the construction crew rebuilding the wall Ash had blown out while they were escaping the choronzon. There was only one person she wanted to see.
She flung the office door open without knocking. Her father looked up, his good eye narrowing. The other was hidden behind a crisp white bandage. She dropped into the chair in front of his desk and crossed her arms. Quinn gave her an impatient look as he pressed the phone against his ear. A muffled voice ranted from the speaker.
She stared back, not moving. Quinn had arrived home from the medical center hours ago. Every time she’d tried to talk to him, he’d shooed her away with dour warnings about all the work he had to catch up on. Well, she was done waiting. She was especially done being second priority for him—or fiftieth, or whatever the number actually was.
Realizing she wasn’t budging, Quinn wrapped up the conversation quickly and smacked the phone back on the cradle. “Piperel—” he began, his voice unrecognizably rough from the burns to his throat.
“We’re talking now.” She bit back a sarcastic comment about how maybe she was a teeny bit more important than soothing ruffled Consul feathers.
Quinn scowled—such a familiar expression. “What would you like to discuss?”
“Where to start? How about—why did you tell me Mom was dead?”
His shoulders tensed. He exhaled slowly, eventually meeting her glare with an impassive look. “Your mother is part of a violent group of vigilantes. At the time, it was the safest way to sever contact and protect you from her influence. You wouldn’t understand the—”
“Understand? What does it matter? You lied to me that my mother died. When I was nine. Do you have any idea how—how traumatic that was?”
He met her fury with a cool lack of emotion. “What’s done is done, Piperel. I did what was necessary to protect you.”
Her hands trembled so badly she had to clench them into fists. Tears burned her eyes at the raw pain building behind her anger. “That’s all you have to say?”
“It was not an easy decision, Piperel. Of course I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Of course,” she choked. She
squeezed her eyes shut, trying to regain composure. She’d expected a shouting match, tearful apologies, guilty excuses for bad choices, but this? This indifferent wall of superiority? She couldn’t fight that.
“The magic then. What about my magic?”
“Telling you the truth about your near death as a child would have served no purpose.”
She took a deep breath, forcing down a scream of frustration. “What about reclaiming it then? Mom said—”
“A dangerous delusion I am very sorry she had the opportunity to share with you. She began obsessing about the idea even before she left. It’s impossible.”
“How do you know that?”
“Magic feeds on magic. Releasing one half of your power would quickly erode the seal on the other half. That’s assuming anyone could successfully unseal one half without destroying the entire binding.”
“But Mom said—”
“Your mother,” he interrupted, his voice rising slightly, “is enchanted with the idea of you as a hybrid mascot. She wants you to join the Gaians and lead them in a rebellion to raze daemons off the face of the planet. She would risk your life without hesitation to see her dream become reality.”
Piper sat limply, staring in disbelief.
Quinn’s look was sharp. “Am I correct in assuming you are not interested in leading a racial genocide against daemons?”
She shook her head mutely.
“I have done everything I can to protect you from your mother, Piperel. What began as an unhealthy fascination with haemon rule grew into an obsession that drove her out of our lives. From what Consulate intelligence suggests, she is even more unbalanced now than ten years ago.”
She hadn’t seemed crazy to Piper. But then, she hadn’t been quite right either.
“I hope you will trust my judgment, Piperel, and put everything your mother said out of your mind as the false hopes of obsession.”
Her gaze dropped to her hands, twisted together in her lap. “How can I trust you,” she said softly, her voice shaking, “when you’ve told me so many lies?”
A long, burning silence.
“I did what I did to protect you, Piperel.”
With a deep breath, she raised her head again. “And the Sahar? Why did you give it to me that night?”
Quinn pulled some papers across the desk and straightened the pile. “I was being spied on, even in the Consulate. I gambled that the spies would never believe I was giving the Sahar to you. Away from me, it would be out from under their eyes.”
She blinked rapidly, refusing to hunch under the pain of another wound. Would never believe I was giving the Sahar to you. Because she was so insignificant Quinn had banked on the spies discounting her as a potential ally in protecting the Stone.
“It is unfortunate the Sahar was lost,” he added.
That time she flinched, hearing all the unspoken accusations in the simple statement. She had failed to protect it. She had let the enemy get it. Not that Quinn knew who actually had the Sahar. She’d only told him about the harpies stealing it from her, not what they’d said about their master. But in his eyes, she had failed.
“Piper!”
She jerked out of her pained hunch as Calder shouted down the hall.
“Piper, he’s here.”
She stood jerkily. Looked at her father. There wasn’t a single word she wanted to say to him. She walked out.
“Piper!”
“Coming,” she yelled to Calder. Excitement and anxiety cut through her emotional turmoil. The anxiety sharpened, dominating. Three weeks. It had been three weeks. Surely—
She rushed to the kitchen. The room had definitely seen better days. A huge chunk of granite had broken off the island. Cupboard doors were missing, as was the pantry door. The only furniture left was the scorched but intact dining table and three of the original twelve chairs.
A familiar form was slumped wearily in one of those chairs.
“Lyre,” Piper cried. She flew across the room and threw her arms around his neck.
It took him a moment to hug her back. He sighed into her hair. “Hey Piper. Sorry I took so long.”
“You’ve been gone for a week and a half.” She thumped down into a chair and studied his dirt-stained clothes and the circles under his eyes. Anxiety morphed into dread. He hadn’t come with good news. She wasn’t sure she could take any more heartache.
“Anything?” she whispered.
He pressed his lips together, staring at the table. Then he pushed his chair back a little and lifted a bundled blanket from his lap she hadn’t noticed before. He gently scooped it against his chest, then pushed aside the top layer.
A dark, reptilian nose poked out of the hole. The little dragonet sniffed halfheartedly at the air. With a forlorn mewling sound, she withdrew into the blanket bundle, hiding from the empty room.
“Zwi?” Piper choked out. “W-where . . .?”
“I found her at the edge of Raven Valley. In the Underworld.” Pain etched lines in his face. “I’m sorry, Piper. He went back to Samael.”
She pressed both hands to her mouth, unable to breathe. No. No, he wouldn’t have. Why would he do that?
Three weeks ago, at some point in the handful of hours between Piper losing consciousness and Miysis departing to continue his search for the Sahar, Ash had disappeared. No one had noticed him leave. He hadn’t said a single goodbye. He’d just left, without warning or explanation.
When Piper first found out, she’d assumed Ash was steering clear of further truth-seeking questions from Miysis. Once the Ra daemon left, she’d been sure Ash would appear out of nowhere like he always did, quietly pleased to be reunited with them.
Days passed. He hadn’t come back.
Lyre, who’d stayed with Piper, had started asking around. No one knew where he was. No one had seen him. Lyre’s daemon connections hadn’t heard anything. Some suggested Ash had gone into hiding from Samael’s assassins. Maybe he hadn’t told them anything so Samael wouldn’t bother them in his vengeful search.
After eight days of fruitless searching, Lyre had left for the Underworld. Maybe Ash had gone into hiding there. Lyre knew Ash well, had been reasonably confident he could track down the elusive draconian. Piper had sent him off with a cheerful wave, refusing to acknowledge the dark shadow of fear they both hid.
She’d never imagined Ash would do something as stupid, as suicidal, as going straight to the all-powerful daemon who wanted him dead.
“Why?” she choked. Tears threatened to spill over. “Why would he do that?”
Lyre stared at his lap as he absently caressed the bundle of blankets in which Zwi hid. “I don’t know, Piper. Maybe he thought if he explained what happened, Samael would let it slide.” His tone said he didn’t believe it. “Piper . . . Ash always . . .” He swallowed hard. “Ash always goes back to Samael. He always does. I thought, this time, after Samael tried to kill him . . .” He pressed a hand against his face. “You don’t know Ash like I do. Ash hates Samael’s guts. But he goes back, every fucking time he goes back to that bastard’s claws, and I don’t know why.”
“But Samael hurts him,” Piper whispered. “Remember what the harpies told me? That Samael hurts Ash? That that’s why Ash obeys him? Why would he go back to that? Why wouldn’t he run away or hide?”
“I don’t know, Piper,” Lyre said heavily. “Ash isn’t a coward. He isn’t a pushover by any stretch. If he went back, it’s because he had to, not because he was afraid of the consequences of disobeying Samael. That Hades bastard has his chains wrapped around Ash but I can’t for the life of me figure out what those chains are made of. Ash would never tell me. He won’t talk about Samael at all.”
“But—” She swallowed back the quaver in her voice and tried again. “But Samael wants Ash dead. What if—what if—”
“I don’t know, Piper.” Lyre blinked rapidly. His face twisted. “I couldn’t get into the territory. They wouldn’t let me. All I could find out was Ash definitely went back. No
one knew what happened then, or if he . . . if he’s still . . .” He pressed both hands to the quivering lump that was Zwi, unable to continue.
Piper pressed the heels of her hands to her temples, squeezing hard. “Is there anything we can do?” she choked. “Anything . . .?”
“We can wait,” Lyre whispered. “And hope he comes back. Either Samael will eventually send him out on another job, or . . . or he won’t.”
Because he’d killed Ash, she finished in her head. The words burned like a betrayal, like a forsaking of hope.
“I’ve been thinking,” Lyre said abruptly. Hate shone in his eyes, banishing grief. “About the choronzon. Remember what the harpies said? That Samael loaned the choronzon to the Gaians?”
She nodded slowly.
“Samael had to have known then, in advance, that the Gaians would try to steal the Sahar. Instead of stopping them, he lent them some of his lackeys, so if the Gaians managed to succeed, he was already in position to steal the Sahar from them in turn.” He clenched his teeth. “That bastard was stacking the deck in his favor. If Ash failed, he already had a backup plan in place. From his perspective, Ash must have screwed up both his plans.” He made a sound of disgust. “But what does it matter? The slimy bastard got the Sahar in the end. And we’re the only ones who know it.”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “Keep that in mind, Piper. We both need to be careful. Samael probably knows that we know. He could try to silence us.”
She nodded her agreement as she struggled to control her fear. Lyre didn’t know the half of it. He had no idea her true danger. Fighting to keep her expression blank, she drew in a shuddering breath and forced a smile. “Lyre, you must be exhausted. There are a couple bedrooms set up in the basement. Why don’t you go lie down?”
He nodded, his hateful anger subsiding into a numb blankness. After a brief hesitation, he lifted Zwi’s blanket bundle and set it in Piper’s lap. He rose to his feet, lightly touched her cheek, then walked around her chair. A moment later, the door closed softly.
Zwi poked her nose out again, dully observing Lyre’s absence. Piper lightly stroked the dragonet’s silky mane. Zwi mewled brokenly.