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Thirty-Six

“Where are you?” Evan snapped in greeting.

“If you’re referring to the traitor,” Atlas replied into Robin’s phone that he held between them, the two of them standing on the end of the lake dock, slightly away from their gathered forces. “He’s in my favorite pair of silver handcuffs.”

Robin liked the sound of that—well, not the silver part—but the mention of handcuffs in Atlas’s confident, haughty tone was a welcome reprieve after twenty-four hours of nonstop apocalypse prep.

He and Atlas hadn’t even had time for an end-of-the-world fuck, and he was pretty damn sure Adam and Mac had each gotten that courtesy when it had been their turn in the shit.

“Looks like he betrayed you too,” Atlas added, and Robin tuned back in.

At his mate’s nod, he pressed Send on the pictures Cyrus had staged.

They watched as the delivery notification beneath the text bubble changed from Sending to Delivered to Read, then waited as the silence from the other end dragged on.

No words, no sound, no reply from the other warlock.

Atlas continued to needle, tsking his brother. “I thought you would’ve learned your lesson by now. First Deborah, now Robin. But I guess it wasn’t so bad this time. The dog just took your money and ran, not your whole reason for existing.”

A low menacing snarl rumbled over the line.

“I can give you a reason again,” Atlas said, tone mimicking Mac’s when he was negotiating, calm and even, offering Evan the redemption Robin had been sure he would. “There’s still work to do, brother. Last offer.”

Evan didn’t take the out. “You’re an idiot if you think I don’t have a backup plan.”

“I fully expect it,” Atlas replied, infusing his voice with equal strength, two powerful warlocks squaring off. “You won’t win this. And you won’t see our mother on the other side. You won’t keep your promise.”

Another long pause, and then, “I broke it a long time ago. She won’t be surprised,” before the line went dead.

Decision made, fate sealed.

Robin ended the call and handed Atlas the phone. “What did you all promise her?”

“That we’d join her in peace when peace also existed on this side of the veil.”

“You’d have to make all the right choices to get there.” It was a heavy ask on its own, but that wasn’t all Sybil had asked of her sons.

“It’s not been easy.” He tucked the device in his pocket, then looked up with unguarded eyes, the first time Robin had ever seen him so open. “You were the hardest one to make.”

Robin was tempted to cup his cheek, to return soft with soft, but that wasn’t the balance Atlas needed, not right now. He gripped his face instead, rough, the way he needed it, and held him firm, green clashing with gold. “Thank you for making the right one.”

He smashed their lips together, drowning in spring one last time before taking the dive into winter, hoping like hell they made it out the other side.

“Anytime now,” Icarus snarked from the lakeshore behind them, popping the bubble around the small world he and Atlas had made for themselves on the end of the dock.

Robin didn’t feel overwhelmed, though. Atlas had insisted they stage their forces here, on the lake where Robin had spent countless hours with his sister, where the range and world out there didn’t feel so big. Atlas had done it for him, when he’d needed it most.

He squeezed the warlock’s fingers, threaded through his own, as they returned to the shore.

“He said no?” Mary asked.

“Did you expect anything else?” Atlas replied.

“A deity can hope.”

“The time for hope has passed,” Adam said. “It’s time for action.”

“To end this,” Robin agreed. “Word from recon?” he asked Mac.

“Site confirmed,” he answered. “The revival field in La Purisima, like Dyami told us.”

Icarus leaned his head back on a pained groaned. “Fucking irony.”

His partner, however, was focused on logistics. “How many?” Adam pressed for details.

“So far, the flock reports a fieldful.”

“And Evan?” Atlas asked.

“Not there yet, but the altar is ready.”

For whomever he appeared there with, like he and the giant had appeared with Paris at the Stick.

All the giants were gone now, though, so who would be at Evan’s side tonight?

Who would help him channel the souls to thin the veil?

Who would be the sacrifice on the altar?

Judging by the location of the moon, they were five minutes from finding out.

“You’re sure you can get us all there?” he asked Atlas.

The warlock glared at him through narrowed green eyes. “Fuck you for even asking.”

Robin grinned; there was the Atlas he loved.

“We’re ready,” he told Adam, and the call went down the line and through the crowd to move to their designated positions in the forest. A phoenix paired with a warlock or witch at each point of the star, the pack gathered around the arc between each point, the rest of their forces inside the circle.

Adam and Icarus, Mac and Paris, and Liam, Jenn, and Abigail in a close circle around Atlas, Mary and him in the center of the giant forest pentagram.

Nature at its most powerful.

Robin barely got the “I love you” out before Mary and Paris shouted “Go,” their sense of the thinning veil keener than the rest, and Atlas dropped to his knees, digging his hands in the dirt.

Lines of green magic shot across the ground, bringing the pentagram to life, and Robin was powerless to resist the shift, same as every other shifter in the circle.

And when the phoenixes and magicians put their hands to the ground too, fire and magic racing back on either side of Atlas’s green and colliding with Mary in the center, completing the circuit, it was as if the earth fell out from under Robin’s paws.