Page 29

Chapter 28

A Blue Door

“What now?” my brother asked as he joined in, surging forward and wrapping both of us in a giant bear hug like he used to when we were little, making Mara laugh through her tears.

“We need to find Mother,” I said, pulling away, “and I’m pretty sure you know where she is.”

“Yeah.” Kiran sobered as he looked at me, the brief spark of joy winking out as quickly as it had flared. “She snuck out of the dinner last night, and I followed her. I know who she met, and I’m pretty sure he’s our father.”

“What?” Mara’s gasp was loud. “Hang on, you know who your father is?”

“Sort of. I’ll fill you in on the way,” I replied, shooting her a small smile as I gently disentangled myself from my brother. “We need to talk to them both urgently. I’m not convinced Haniel can be trusted with keeping quiet right now, despite his assurances. Our narrow window just got smaller. If Mother’s plan will no longer work I may have another option, but I need more time to figure it out.”

“Spill it.” My brother narrowed his eyes on me, and I returned his glare.

“Want to fill me in first on how you taught me the same signals as a kid that the thralls secretly use to communicate?” I asked.

“Want to tell me how you can wield without sigils?” he replied as he turned away, donning his wing-commander persona like a second skin. “Or where you got that feather? Or what you’ve been looking for all over the citadel, or with whom?”

I walked right into that. “Uh…not yet.”

“Same. We’ll talk about this later. Haniel could come stomping back in at any moment. Let’s go.” He held the door open and looked both ways down the hallway outside before he waved us through.

Stalling a moment, I tried to leave the door ajar as I grabbed a few breakfast pastries to eat on the way, wanting Nier to follow, but my brother watched me too closely. I’d have to trust he could find another way.

Kiran led us through the depths of the citadel, using an orb Mara wielded to light our path. It seemed neither of them trusted the orbs littered around the upper citadel either. We wound down to reach tunnels beyond even where Adrita had taken me. These were damp, with slime on the walls and dripping water that created mysterious echoes. Reaching up, I put my hand over the shadow at my chest, dipping a finger inside my robe to stroke it lightly, needing the connection.

A faint scuffle behind us, as if a shoe had momentarily dragged along the ground when someone stumbled, made Mara jump alongside me. She was tense and uncomfortable in the dank darkness, as was my brother. It appeared I was the only one unbothered by it. My brother swung around to stare down the tunnel past me. His narrow gaze intently focused on the pitch black beyond the last rays from the light of our orb.

“What was that?” Mara hissed. “Are we being followed?”

“Nothing,” I said, stepping forward and grabbing her hand to keep us moving. “These old carved tunnels are creepy. Sound travels weirdly.”

Mara didn’t seem convinced—she kept glancing behind us but let me move her along.

Kiran remained on alert, one hand on his sword. His eyes homed in on a patch of shadow in the curve of the tunnel behind us and stayed fixed on it.

The shadow at my chest stilled too, and I sensed it was Nier he was staring at, unseen, as if he could sense him, like Nier had told me earlier. It unnerved me.

“Kiran, let’s move. We don’t have time to waste,” I reminded him, elbowing him as I pushed past, forcing him to turn and keep up with me. He remained behind us, and I inwardly cursed as every so often, he would turn and eye the darkness.

As we finally moved up and out of the dank tunnels, Mara tilted her head to the bright sky and sighed in relief before looking at the surrounding buildings. “I can’t believe these tunnels have been here the whole time and I didn’t know. I could have been visiting my family for the last five years.”

“If it had been possible, I would have shown you,” Kiran told her. His face softened as he looked at her. I didn’t think he was in love with her—or at least, not that I could tell with my limited experience of such things. There was no light or passion in his eyes. Yet he definitely had brotherly feelings toward her. It was the same kind of look he gave me.

Looking behind me, I couldn’t make out Nier anywhere as Kiran grunted while closing the concealed door to the tunnel behind us. There were long, thin shadows cast by the early morning light, but not enough to conceal us, not without Nier’s help.

“Kiran?” He knew what I was asking as he looked around. If he had done this before, it hadn’t been with two potentiates at his side.

“Keep your hoods up and your heads down. Nobody talks in this part of town.”

I didn’t want to ask how he knew that.

Luckily, both Mara and I were wearing our old acolyte robes today, and not fancy gowns. Even though they’d help hide our faces, I wasn’t sure acolytes were ever seen in this part of town, as my brother had put it. We were in the back quarter, skirting a rough neighborhood with a lot of taverns, alongside the gardening borough. Despite Kiran’s reassurance, I could feel eyes on us as we moved through the dingy, unswept streets. There weren’t a lot of people on the streets themselves, but curtains twitched at the windows of houses that were weathered and badly in need of repair, in stark contrast to the gaudy shine of the upper citadel towers.

Lumière was supposed to be a city of light, but it appeared the light didn’t filter through to everyone. Anger swelled, spilling over into my chest as it tightened.

The wary emptiness of the streets dissipated as we moved farther into the gardening borough. People here were early risers to make the most of the daylight, and there were plenty around.

When Kiran pulled up to the same blue door I had used to navigate to the shed behind it, I sensed the fates hovering. I suspected whoever was behind that door was going to be important. This house had shutters on the windows, which was uncommon but not rare for houses in this area of town. They were closed at the moment, squares of timber peeking through the greenery trailing down the walls.

Kiran knocked in a strange pattern. There were heavy footsteps, and the door swung open abruptly. A tall male stood in the patch of light, but his face fell as he took a half step back and swayed when he saw us standing outside. Our mother appeared at his side, and she sighed, resigned to her children’s lack of ability to stay out of trouble.

“Get inside, all of you. Are you mad?” she snapped as she turned before gesturing to the man at the door. “We would have come to you shortly without alerting half the town to our presence, but you may as well meet your father now if you’re so impatient. This is Fionn.”

Kiran and I had both gotten our coloring from our mother, but those eyes staring at me were all Kiran. He and Kiran shared the same body type as well: tall, wide shoulders, and immense upper body strength. It surprised me nobody had noticed, but if they’d never been seen in the same room together or even in the same social circles, that could explain it.

Fionn urged us in with a shaking hand, his gaze swinging between Kiran and me. He didn’t seem to register Mara at all. This was no joyous family reunion, though. Keeping my hood on, I avoided making eye contact, pointedly looking anywhere else but at him. Now that he was in front of me, I had no space for all the feelings it brought up, including a sharp, irrational spurt of anger.

Kiran scanned the street behind us, grimacing as he noted a few people who had been gardening across the street openly staring.

“I’ve met Fionn before, although he failed to inform me he was my father.” Kiran huffed as he strode past me into the main living space. He didn’t bother looking around. Either he was uninterested, or he was already familiar with the layout of the cottage.

“What—”

The words died on my tongue as I pulled up short on stepping into the room, causing Mara to run into me from behind.

“Nier?” All the breath left my lungs, and my pulse spiked as my brother shouted over the top of me.

“Stay back! There’s a Fallen.” A dark undercurrent of threat ran through Kiran’s tone, the sound surely carrying out into the street. He shifted onto the balls of his feet with his wings flexed, ready to defend us just inside the entryway.

“It’s okay. I can explain.” I shifted around Mara, who had frozen in place, to put my hand on my brother’s arm, trying to ease the sudden tension and get him to stand down, yet I kept my eyes on the dark-winged male standing in the middle of the sparse room. Something was off about Nier, especially the way he was looking at me with his head cocked and a cool, unreadable expression in his eyes, ignoring the danger emanating from my brother.

“You know this Fallen, Alula?” my mother asked, shock coloring her tone.

“Yes.” I nodded without looking at her either. “He’s a friend, an ally. I was just surprised to see him here.”

I tried to keep my voice calm, but my mind was racing. How did he get into the cottage before us, and how had he known where to go?

“Interesting,” was Nier’s only response, his voice cold, without a hint of the melodic tone I loved. His wings flared, and dark amber eyes surveyed me impersonally as he stepped toward me, landing on my chest at the exact spot his shadow lay. Seeing where his gaze had gone, my brother edged in front of me, despite my reassurance and my hand still on his arm. Mara stayed in my brother’s shadow.

For the first time, I looked at Nier and felt nothing—no pull, no warmth spooling in my belly, no rising light eager to reach him. Even the taunting Nier of the orchard had displayed a fierce, impassioned energy that had intrigued me. This Nier looked harder than I had ever noticed, and far more calculating. His ever-present shadows were also missing.

Was he a shade? A chaperone had warned me about shades once, telling me if I looked into a mirror too long, one would step through and kill me before taking my place in this world. I’d assumed they were a myth, or a story designed to scare children, but many people in Lumière assumed that about the Fallen too.

Nier opened his mouth to say something before he stilled and tilted his head in the other direction, a hunter sensing his prey. His amber gaze slid past me, seeking.

The door slamming open behind me preceded a rush of shadows spilling into the room and solid arms that wrapped possessively around my waist, pulling me close. I gasped as my body heated at the touch, and I caught the faint scent of apple blossoms.

“There you are,” said the Fallen before me, who I now knew wasn’t Nier. “I’ve been looking for you.”