Page 102 of Contested Crown

I moved quietly, keeping behind parked cars and anything else on the sidewalk that would prevent Jay from seeing us. We were far enough away that with the chaotic smells of the city, he probably wouldn’t be able to pick us out of the olfactory noise, but I still kept enough space that it wasn’t obvious we were trailing him.

Cade followed my lead, although his movements were jerky, his expression distant. At one point, I would have seen that distance as chilliness, complete disinterest, or even disdain. Now, I recognized how lost he felt, that his own emotions confused him.

What was he supposed to feel about seeing Jay, the consort of the man who’d betrayed him so spectacularly?

Jay turned a corner, and I grabbed Cade’s hand, darting across the street before approaching the street Jay had walked down. I glanced around the corner and saw Jay entering a building. I waited a few heartbeats before following his path.

Cade reached out, his hand gripping my arm tightly. When I looked at him, he raised his chin, his words cool. “I can’t fight Isaac.”

I blinked at him. Jay and Isaac wouldn’t be going anywhere without each other. If Isaac was there, if Isaac was behind what had happened to Cade—his magic going completely out of control, forcing Leon and Petrona to slice off most of his magic, losing his crown and his position—then Isaac was in a stronger position than we were. If we had to fight him, we would lose.

“We need to find out what’s going on,” I argued.

“I can’t fight him.” Cade bit out each word, clipped commands hidden in every syllable.

“We won’t fight him,” I said.Yet.

Jay and Isaac needed to answer for what they had done to Cade, but I hadn’t risen to my position as Declan’s second by jumping into fights I knew I was going to lose.

Cade searched my eyes, his gaze strangely blank. All my anger about what Isaac and Jay had done was nothing compared to the betrayal that Cade felt. We had talked about Leon but nothing about Isaac—the only person Cade had felt he could trust in his own house.

“We could let them go,” I said, finally. “Stick to the original plan, track down Declan, see if the new drugs have anything to do with the ley lines.”

“And what are the chances that Jay and Isaac are here just by luck?” Cade asked harshly. “That they don’t have anything to do with magic suddenly being impossible to trust.”

He stopped, whatever else he wanted to say cut off with pursed lips and a narrow gaze.

“Cade,” I said quietly. “Look at me. We didn’t know before. Now we do. We’re going to be careful. We’ll figure out what they’re up to. If they were at the building, they have to be in league with Leon and Declan.”

Only that didn’t make any sense. Why would Isaac have run if he and Leon were working together? Unless Leon had turned on him, when he outlived his usefulness. Maybe Isaac had been useful as an ally until he was more useful as a scapegoat.

“We need to find out what they’re up to,” Cade said, his voice more sure. “But I can’t fight them.”

This time, I heard theyetin his words too. The potential fight wasn’tpotentialso much as coming quickly.

“Follow my lead,” I said.

“I always do,” Cade said softly. “Even when it leads us into sleeping in drug dens and councils with gargoyles who could kill us with a single move.”

“I think we would have stood our own,” I said. “Did you see how dusty he was? By the time he got to us, he’d probably be mostly sand anyway. And it wasn’t a drug den. It was a cooperative living situation.”

“A cooperative living situation with drugs and prostitution?” Cade said doubtfully.

“With alternative revenue streams,” I said.

Cade was relaxing, inch by inch, each part of him smoothing out, warming. I could see the pieces of him that were mine.

“Jay went in the front door. We’re going to check out the building, see if there’s a different way in.” I looked at the building next to us, then the one across the street, trying to get a feel for what sort of situation we were walking into. These looked mostly like apartments, but that didn’t mean anything about what was on the ground floor.

Cade’s eyes cooled, and he nodded. “We need disguises?”

“Ones that also hide our scents.” I thought about how lucky we’d gotten so far. Tabitha had known me by smell; if we got too close, Jay would too. “Or… what was that spell you used the first time we met? The one that made you invisible? I couldn’t even see you until you wanted me to.”

Cade inhaled deeply, frowning slightly as he considered.

“That spell, it’s both transportation and invisibility. It requires a lot of magic.” He swallowed. “More than I have.”

Cade looked at me, and I felt my heart clench. There was something there, a potential, and I had to decide right now if I wanted it. We both knew how to get him the magic he needed: through me.