TWENTY-NINE
FOR A MOMENT I THOUGHT the floor had dropped out from
under me and I was falling.
“Calla?” Adne
grabbed my arms as I swayed on my feet, dizzy. “You
okay?”
I shook my head,
trying to clear away the buzzing heat that flooded my
skull.
“Did you hear what I
said?” she asked, guiding me along the hall.
I nodded. “Your
brother?”
“Yes.”
“You mean Ren?” It
was hard to say his name. “You can’t be serious. That would mean
going back to Vail!”
She put her hand
over my mouth. “Not here.”
I had to bite the
inside of my cheek to keep myself from asking more questions. Adne
pulled me down the hall, past my room and a few others, finally
unlocking a door and slipping inside.
While the layout of
the room was identical to mine, it couldn’t have looked more
different. My bedroom had the blasé décor of most guest rooms,
inoffensive but utterly devoid of character.
Adne’s room was a
riot of color: violet, black, and crimson on the walls, a crushed
velvet throw spilling over the side of her bed. She trotted over to
a radio, adding a blast of sound that made the bright walls swim
before my eyes.
“Do you like the
Raveonettes?” She turned up the volume.
I nodded, pulse
pounding in rhythm with the ethereal voices that floated around
me.
“Sorry.” She flopped
onto the bed. “I can’t afford for anyone to hear us. Not that I
don’t usually play music this loud anyway.”
“It’s
fine.”
“Have a seat,” she
said, gesturing to the bed.
I was too edgy to
sit, but I hovered at the edge of the bed, playing with the fringes
of the throw. “So Connor told you.”
She shook her head,
leaning over to reach beneath the mound of pillows at the top of
the bed. “My father told me.”
She pulled out an
envelope, drawing a letter from inside it. “Connor just delivered
the news.”
“Monroe wrote you a
letter?” I stared at the folded pages in her hands. There were
several. How much had he told her? What secrets of the past had he
spilled onto those pages?
She laughed,
blinking away tears. “Connor said my father knew I’d never let him
corner me for a touchy-feely talk. I made a habit of avoiding those
ever since Mom . . .”
Her eyes wandered to
the bed stand. Following her gaze, I saw a framed picture of a
woman. She had copper blond hair and bright amber eyes. Her arms
were around a beanpole of a girl wearing a foolish grin: a much
younger Adne.
Adne thumbed the
edge of the pages. “Apparently she brought them together. Ren’s
mom, I mean. Corrine. After she died, my dad hit rock bottom. My
mom was the one who got him through it. Then I came
along.”
I watched her, not
knowing what to say. She rolled onto her back, pressing the letter
against her chest.
“I’m the reason he
didn’t go after Ren,” she said, staring at the ceiling. “He didn’t
want to risk leaving me and Mom. He thought he’d done enough damage
to Corrine, but he never got over it. He wanted to get Ren back so
much. It’s all in here.”
She rustled the
pages.
“I’m sure he did,” I
said. “But I don’t blame him for wanting to protect you. Ren didn’t
know anything about this. He still doesn’t know the truth. He
thinks Emile is his father.”
“I know,” she said.
“That’s why we have to go back.”
“I don’t know if
he’ll even want us to come for him,” I said, remembering the way
he’d thrown me across the room. “He might want to stay. Like the
others.”
“Do you really
believe that?” she asked.
I didn’t answer; I
couldn’t. The truth was I didn’t know. I wanted to believe that Ren
could be saved, but I’d seen how the Keepers could break Guardians.
My own brother had almost killed us because he’d been manipulated
by our old masters. Could Ren believe anything other than what
they’d told him about his past?
My gut kept twisting
and untwisting.
Adne’s gaze pierced
me. “We have to try.”
I sucked in a quick
breath. “Adne, how can we? We barely made it out.”
She flipped over,
sitting up and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. “That’s
why it will work now. There’s no way they’ll expect us—and we’re
only trying to find Ren.”
“But
how—”
“We’ll locate him.
I’ll open an inside door like last time. We’ll grab him, come back.
It will be over.” The words tumbled out of her mouth. Her eyes were
shining.
“Locate him . . .
how?”
She cleared her
throat, casting her eyes down. “Um. I noticed. Well. That ring
you’re wearing.”
“My ring?” My hands
went to my chest, the fingers of my unadorned hand covering the
others.
“You were promised
to him, right?” She didn’t look up. “Did he give that to
you?”
“Yes, but . . .” I
was about to explain that rings weren’t part of a Guardian union.
That Ren had given it to me on his own because he was . . . because
he was what? Trying to tell me he loved me? Showing me he wanted
our union to mean something more than following orders? It was as
if my own thoughts threw me against a brick wall, leaving me
breathless. I couldn’t finish.
Adne didn’t notice.
“Then we can use it to find him.”
I ignored the
pounding of my own heart, trying to focus on what she was saying.
“The ring can find him?”
“If he gave it to
you, it will have a connection to him. I can use that to pinpoint
his location.”
“How is that
possible?”
“The ring will hold
a thread,” she said, looking up at me with a thin smile. “We follow
the thread through Vail until it reaches him. That’s when I’ll open
the door.”
“Does that really
work?”
“It’s how we found
Shay.”
“Oh.” My palms had
begun to sweat.
“I know it’s a big
risk, Calla,” she said. “But from what I’ve seen—and to be honest,
from how freaked out Shay gets about him—I know you care about Ren.
You can’t want to leave him there.”
I managed to get out
a cracking whisper. “I don’t.”
She stood up,
twisting her fingers through her long mahogany tresses. “He’s my
brother, but I don’t know him. This isn’t about me. It’s about my
dad.”
She took the last
page of the letter, handing it to me.
Only two words had
been inked on the ivory surface.
Save him.
My eyes were
burning. I looked up at Adne, the page shaking in my
hands.
“I have to do this,
Calla,” she said. “Will you help me?”
The trembling had
moved up my arms and into my shoulders, but I nodded.
She blew out a long
sigh, her muscles relaxing.
“Thank
God.”
“Who else?” I asked,
stretching the page toward her. I couldn’t look at it any longer,
those lonely words staring up at me, tearing a hole in my own
heart.
“No one else.” She
frowned. “It’s just you and me.”
“You think we can
pull this off?” The odds weren’t in our favor, even if we had
help.
“No one else will
let us get away with this,” Adne said. “If we mention it to anyone,
we’ll have a chaperone 24/7.”
I frowned. “Maybe
some of my pack.”
“No,” Adne said. “We
only have a little time to spare. We need to move now; we can’t
afford to have a recruiting session.”
“What do you mean
now?” The hairs on my neck were standing up.
“I mean today,” she
said. “Well, tonight, back in Vail.”
“That’s insane!” I
couldn’t stop myself from shouting.
“Things will be a
mess back there and the Keepers are probably still focused on
Denver.” Her deadly calm voice made me gape at her. “We can slip in
and out without notice, probably more easily than we could at any
other time.”
I opened my mouth
and closed it again. Okay, that was logic. Crazy logic, but
still.
“Can’t we at least
take Connor?” I asked. I’d feel better with another fighter along,
and Connor already knew about Ren, plus he seemed to back Adne up
on almost everything.
She shuddered. “No
way. He’s the last person I could ask to help us.”
Fear made me lash
out. “What the hell is up with you guys anyway?”
She took a couple
steps back. “What do you mean?”
“Half the time
you’re fighting, but then I think you’re secretly making out or
something!”
She blushed, then
went pale, finally turning her back on me. “There’s nothing going
on with Connor and me.”
I pressed on. “That
isn’t the way he acts.”
When she turned
around, her eyes were hard. “Calla, you are coming in mid-scene
here. You have to understand Connor and me to get what that’s all
about.”
“How about reviewing
the first act for me?” I asked.
She shrugged,
walking to the stereo to flip through her CDs. “I was eleven when
my mother died.”
I straightened
abruptly, unsure how to respond. I’d been goading her and now we
were talking about dead mothers.
Adne continued,
“Connor came to the Haldis team right after she died.”
I came to stand
beside her. “Adne, I’m sorry. You don’t have to
explain.”
She ignored me,
fiddling with the stereo, skipping several tracks on the album. “He
was only sixteen. Not unusually young for a first assignment as a
Striker, but he was by far the closest person to my age. He brought
me through the worst of it. He never left me alone. Teased me
constantly. I went through a terrible awkward phase the same time
we lost my mom. All arms and legs and no ability to use them
properly. Connor gave me a hard time, but I needed it. Kept me from
thinking about my mother. He didn’t give me a moment’s
peace.”
She grimaced. “And a
moment’s peace would have killed me then.”
I watched emotions
run over her face like passing shadows. She closed her eyes,
smiling.
“At night he would
sneak into my room and tell me ridiculous stories about the Roving
Academy until I fell asleep. It kept the shadows at bay. Being
alone at night would have been unbearable. He was my best friend,
all the way up until I started training here.”
“Did you have to
come back to Denver for your assignment?”
“No.” She didn’t
look at me. “But I wanted to. The Academy trained me to be a
Weaver. I never wanted to be anywhere but Denver. The Haldis team
has always been my family. I belong with them.”
She dropped her
head, her dark hair veiling her face.
A moment later she
laughed, wholly herself once more. “The first thing Connor said
when I saw him after he’d been at the outpost for a few months was,
‘I see you got breasts, congratulations. I hope you know how to use
them.’ ”
“You’re trying to
tell me that’s his way of just being friends?” I
asked.
She arched an
eyebrow at me. “Do you take his comments as a serious
come-on?”
“I guess not,” I
said. She was right, sort of, but somehow the way Connor hit on
other girls seemed different than what he said to
Adne.
“Exactly. With
Connor that sort of talk is just his MO.” She smiled at me, but her
words had a nervous edge. “Though Silas did make it
worse.”
“How’s
that?”
“I lost a bet with
him and he made me kiss Connor.” A slow flush climbed up her
cheeks. “It definitely gave Connor more ammunition to use against
me.” She reflexively squared her shoulders, as though ready for a
challenge.
I smiled at her
aggressive posture. “Why would Silas make you kiss
Connor?”
Her laugh darkened.
“Because Silas is a brilliant intellectual but not that creative.
He hates Connor and so couldn’t imagine
anything worse for himself than having to kiss Connor. So he made
me do it.”
“I see,” I said,
scrutinizing her face. “And you kissed Connor?”
“Yes.”
“And?” I couldn’t
see her expression as she turned her back on me, searching for a
particular track on the Raveonettes album. She remained silent as
the song began, swaying to the music.
“And nothing.” She
held her palm out. “Connor’s not coming. You gonna hand over that
ring?”
I ground my teeth
but pulled the ring off my finger, dropping it into her grasp. With
its weight absent, my hand felt strangely bare. I clasped my
fingers tight, trying to ignore the emptiness that made my bones
ache.
Adne drew a single
skean from her belt, resting its sharp point on the edge of the
white gold band. She closed her eyes, drawing slow, long breaths. I
stood perfectly still, not daring to take any breaths of my own.
The air around her seemed to thicken, shimmering as if someone had
flung gold dust over her.
Very slowly she
began to draw the skean away from the ring. As her hand moved, a
single, thin line pulled away with it. A tiny golden
strand.
Her eyes fluttered
open and she smiled slowly. “There it is.”
The breath I’d been
holding whooshed out of me.
She glanced at me.
“It’s okay, Calla. I know what I’m doing. A location thread weaves
a window; we can’t go through it, but we can see what’s on the
other side. Now we’ll be able to find him.”
I nodded, but my
legs were shaking. “What if he’s not alone?”
“That’s the point,”
she said, handing the ring back to me. “The thread will lead us to
him, and we’ll have enough time to decide if he’s in a place we can
get to him or if we have to wait. Okay?”
“Okay.” I was
relieved she wasn’t insisting that the two of us could take on an
entire Guardian pack.
Adne began to move
her arm in a slow circle, around and around. The golden thread grew
longer, swirling into a slender spiral in front of
her.
“You want to watch
this?”
I sidled closer,
peering over her shoulder. The spiral was shimmering, stretching
into a slender cone. In the distance I could see the other end of
the thread moving, lengthening. I began to see shapes flashing by
the spiral, blurry and unfocused. It was as if we were soaring
through the air at incredible speed, moving too quickly to make any
sense of the terrain. I squinted into the spiral, which now pulsed
with bursts of light, trying to glimpse anything familiar. I
thought I made out a tree, then a steep rock face. The outline of
buildings. All at once the spiral shuddered, the golden light
clearing, giving us a view of a pine-covered mountain slope,
wilderness interrupted by a swath of clear-cut forest.
“Do you recognize
anything?” Adne asked.
I nodded, though my
body felt like it was turning to stone.
“He’s here,” she
said, peering into the spiral. “But I don’t know if he’s alone.
Considering it’s the middle of the night in Vail, anyone who’s
there would be sleeping.”
“He’s alone,” I
murmured.
“Are you sure?” She
glanced at me, frowning. “If you are, I should open a door right
away.”
I couldn’t take my
eyes off the window Adne’s thread had created, leading us to this
place. To Ren.
“I’m
sure.”
Adne closed the door
and turned to me.
“What is this
place?”
Without the gleam of
the portal, the sliver of moon hanging above us cast only a little
light on the clearing. Half-built structures formed a semicircle
around a paved cul-de-sac with a dry fountain at its center.
Foundations had been poured, now only gaping holes in the ground,
and wooden beams rose at different heights toward the night sky.
Here was the legacy of the Haldis pack: skeletons of houses,
carcasses of lives that might have been.
My throat felt like
it had been stuffed with cotton. I had to clear it several times
before I could speak.
“This was where my
pack was supposed to live. We were going to move here after the
union.”
“Really?” She
frowned, and then her eyes went wide. “Oh.”
I bit my lip,
nodding.
“Where do you think
he is?” she asked, gazing at the silent construction
site.
I pointed at a
structure on the crest of a short rise, the only completed house on
the lot.
“There.”
“Are you
sure?”
“That was supposed
to be our house,” I said, unable to look at her.
“Oh, man.” She put
her hand on my arm. “Calla, I . . . I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay,” I said,
though I didn’t feel as confident as I tried to sound. “No one else
will be here. This place has been abandoned. The pack it was being
built for no longer exists.”
“Right,” she said.
“So how do you want to do this?”
I stared at her.
“You don’t have a plan?”
“My plan was to find
my brother. I did. The end.”
“But we have to
convince him to come back!” I couldn’t believe I was managing to
whisper, considering my rising panic.
“That’s why I
brought you along,” she said, gazing around the abandoned plots.
“And was that the right call or what?”
I bared sharp
canines at her, but I didn’t argue, turning back to gaze at the
house fifty yards away.
“If I were to
suggest a plan,” Adne said slowly, “I’d say you should go talk to
him. Howl if you get in trouble. Or scream. Whatever
works.”
“Thanks,” I said,
sparing her a dark look.
“I’d be happy to
go,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “But he doesn’t
know me. You’re the one he cares about. You’re the one who can
bring him around if he thinks the Keepers are telling the truth.
You are the only one, Calla.”
“I know.” The
reality of this scene was settling into my bones, making them ache.
This was the only chance I had to make up for leaving Ren behind.
If I ever could.
Cold winter air
covered my body like a cloak. Its chill slipped beneath my skin,
restless, already battling the tiny spark of hope crackling in my
veins. In the short time since I’d joined the Searchers, I learned
the true cost of the Witches’ War. Its casualties no longer
strangers—Lydia, Corrine, Monroe, my mother, even Ansel—the weight
of their deaths and my brother’s loss were now chained to me like
an anchor threatening to drown me in a dark ocean of fear and
regret.
This place was as
quiet as that kind of death. Choked with the skeletal remains of my
former life, casting twisted, ghoulish shadows. They posed no real
threat—only snatches of the past, painful memories that clung to me
like cobwebs.
Hope was real.
Burning brighter than the stars that hung above us in this empty
winter night. Corrine and Monroe were gone. They’d sacrificed
everything for their son. And he was here. It was too late for
them, but Ren could still be saved. And I was the only one who
could save him.
This is only about love.
He was out there.
Alone. Waiting for me in a house where only the ghosts of our past
were welcome.
Staring at the
wreckage of the life we could have had, I knew it wasn’t about love or Shay or the Searchers now. It
was about sacrifice—and redemption, loss that could have new
meaning.
Hope. A second
chance. Ren could help us win this war. Together we could make the
blood, the grief, the pain worth something. I knew I couldn’t leave
him behind again. Not now and not ever. Even if it meant I’d end up
sacrificing myself as well.