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TWENTY-THREE

Thorn

The imp eyed us as we moved out of the shadows into the interior of the Everymobile. “That was a fast trip.” She had the impudence to curl her lip in the slightest pout, as if she were actually put out that we hadn’t fallen into enemy hands.

That was, most of us hadn’t. My jaw clenched in the wake of yet another wave of rage and loss.

“We returned through a rift,” Omen said curtly. “Seeing as we needed to move quickly—for the same reason as we were able to make use of a rift without worrying about the Highest.”

Gisele’s gaze had already traveled over the four of us. She leapt up, the ferocity that appeared incongruous with her petite frame sparking in her eyes. “What happened to Sorsha?”

Those words brought the little dragon scuttling out of the bathroom. Pickle peered at us, his wings trembling at half-mast, and let out a snort that sounded of both consternation and anxiety.

“Tempest took her,” Snap said, his usually bright voice turned dagger-sharp. Impassioned fury had been radiating off the devourer from the moment we’d regrouped. “The sphinx was too swift—we were overwhelmed by the Company attackers—we have to get her back before they hurt her!”

I didn’t want to see what state it would bring him to if I acknowledged that the sphinx and her murderous Company had likely already harmed our mortal in some way. My hopes centered around recovering her alive .

They’d held Omen for months when they’d captured him, conducting their torturous experiments. But that had been while they were still determining the shape of their plans. Tempest had indicated she expected to see those plans through in mere days now. Had she even wanted Sorsha for some use or simply to deprive us of all our mortal offered?

My hands balled into fists of their own accord. If Tempest had been following the second reasoning, she’d have been motivated to end my lady’s life the moment she could. If she had—if she’d taken Sorsha from us in the most irrevocable possible way… I would see the pieces of that venomous being’s body torn apart bit by bit and scattered to the ends of the earth before I was through. I would rend the wings from her back and stuff them down her throat. I would?—

Our commander spoke up again. “We can’t be completely sure of where Tempest will have taken her, but from what Snap gleaned from the man in Crete, it sounds as though the sphinx intends to be near Stonehenge in the near future. If she thinks our mortal is going to play some part in her scheme, it seems most likely she’ll be in southern England.” Omen grimaced. “Which hardly narrows our search down.”

Ruse’s fingers were flying over his phone, which he’d pulled out the moment we’d emerged. “Better than scouring all of Europe. I’ve already gotten my hacker on the job, pulling more details on the suspicious activity he’s already dug up in that region. He should be able to help us get a more specific location.”

Snap shifted on his feet, the neon green of his shadowkind form whirling in his eyes. “We can’t just stay here waiting. We’ve got to start our own search as quickly as we can.”

Bow got up too. “We’ll be right there with you.” The centaur glanced at Gisele. “Do you think it’ll be safe to leave the Everymobile here for however long we’re gone?”

Mortals did have a habit of getting finicky about any vehicle sitting in the same spot for what they deemed was an inappropriate length of time, which from what I’d gathered often wasn’t very long at all.

Gisele frowned and then tossed back her hair. “Let’s not risk it. We might need a good getaway vehicle once we’re there anyway. And it’ll be nice to give Sorsha a familiar place to recover in as soon as we’ve rescued her. The Everymobile survived one trip through the shadow realm—I’m sure she can handle one more, when it’s this important.”

Omen’s lips twitched with a hint of strained amusement. “We’ll do our best to keep the trip short for minimal side effects. Perhaps all her new features will revert back to normal on the second time through.” He motioned to the driver’s seat. “Would one of you prefer to do the honors? The nearest rift isn’t far.”

Gisele hopped up behind the wheel. With a look of utter determination, she hit the gas and turned the RV in the direction he indicated.

The portal between the mortal realm and our natural home was invisible to human senses, but I assumed all of us could sense the faint vibration rippling through our bodies that heightened the nearer we came. This one lay over open waters just beyond the shore, around a peninsula from the harbor. The quiet of the night allowed us to veer down a darkened side-road and heave the vehicle out of the physical world into the shadows, all of us gripping its walls to speed the transition.

We propelled it toward the rift, the thrum of the opening pulling us in like a vacuum. We’d just shot through into the amorphous world on the other side, a thick chill condensing around my being, when a familiar voice carried through the churning darkness.

“Thorn! I was just coming in search of you.”

It was Flint’s deeply melancholy tone. We all stopped, and I turned to face my fellow warrior. His presence loomed large and weighty in the murky atmosphere.

“What is it?” I asked with a flicker of hope. Had he decided to rejoin us? Was it possible the other wingéd from Rome might aid us in this battle after all?

But as he drew nearer, my hopes were extinguished with the impression I got that he was bracing himself. He wasn’t pleased with what he was about to say.

“Our brethren wish for you to attend to them. They have great need of your attendance.”

Irritation prickled through me before I could catch it. I shouldn’t resent those who had given so much of themselves while I’d escaped our past essentially unscathed. And yet—if I accepted this delay, how scathed might my lady be by the time I reached her?

Omen made the decision for me before I had to grapple with my conflicting responsibilities. “Go. See if you can stir them into getting off their asses and pitching in before Tempest sends the whole world to hell. It’ll take us some time to find out where Sorsha’s being held anyway. You can smash your way through to her when you get back.”

Yes. I could meet both responsibilities—and perhaps turn one into part of the solution to the other. I nodded to Omen and set off in a different direction from my companions.

It would have been difficult for me to explain to a mortal how exactly we ascertained which rift led where and how we reached those rifts in our own realm. The portals floated here and there with hints of the sensations that waited on the other side. One could spring through any at random for a trip of unexpectedness or focus on the place one most wanted to experience—and somehow or other, arrive at the appropriate portal without any great passing of time.

Flint already had a clear course in mind, having just come from what was now our destination. As we barreled through the murk, I felt his attention settle on me. “Your mortal—or somewhat mortal—companion. Something untoward has happened to her?”

“She has been stolen by our greatest enemy, the one who means to end most mortal and shadowkind existence if she has her way,” I said. “It is possible that our lady’s capture may even help bring that catastrophe about. By every indication, the destruction the sphinx intends to inflict on both worlds is imminent.”

The other wingéd asked nothing more, but his presence beside me gave off a more palpable uneasiness.

“What is this urgent matter our brethren have sent you to me about?” I asked.

“I think it would be better for them to explain. They didn’t share all the details with me, only said it was your trial to bear.”

That phrasing didn’t sound particularly promising. I managed to hold in an ethereal sigh. Those who had fought valiantly deserved better than my disdain, regardless of my impatience.

We emerged over a roadway only a mile or so from the palace the mortals considered holy where my brethren had made their home. As if they wished to think of themselves as some sort of “angels.” That idea rankled me as we hustled on through the shadows that were starting to split with the brightening dawn.

The two with their mangled bodies were poised on the rooftop as if they’d been standing there awaiting my return since the moment I’d left. Both of their expressions looked even more grim than I recalled. And here I’d found Flint overwrought. With every one of my kind I encountered, I discovered new depths of dourness.

“You took so long in your rambling adventures I started to doubt you still had any sense of duty at all,” Viscera said in her wheezing voice before I could even greet them.

My hackles rose at the attack on my honor. I held my temper in check. “I had urgent matters to attend to, as we discussed. It was hardly for my enjoyment. And an even more critical matter faces us now.”

“Faces you ,” Pierce said. “Do not include us in your foolishness.”

“It isn’t foolishness. All our fates may depend on the outcome of the next few days.” I dragged in a breath and squared my shoulders. “What is it you need from me? I’ll help you however I am able.”

Viscera raised her broken chin. “We believe one of the griffins flew by here and dropped the box they stole, allowing what little of its contents remained to scatter. I can sense the fragments of my brother’s being all around. But we dare not venture into view in our physical forms to collect them. The mortals would flee in horror.”

A shudder ran through me at the thought of my former comrade’s remains abandoned in that way, but I couldn’t restrain the question that rose up. “Could not Flint?—”

“ You fought beside my brother. You will recognize the bits of his essence. The rest we can worry about later. You will go forth into the city and collect all you can of him.”

I glanced down at the courtyard below with its framing of bleached columns. “Where exactly do those fragments lie? I will gather them immediately.”

“The wind has blown them through the streets far and wide. It may take some doing, but we will bring what still exists back together.”

They expected me to hunt all across one of the largest cities in the world for the tiny particles of our long-dead comrade’s essence, all while a vicious menace of a shadowkind brought about a near-Armageddon?

I peered at my kin, suddenly wondering if any of this story were even true. To lie to a fellow wingéd would be shameful… but she’d already proven how little she thought of me. How could it be that these griffins had happened to pass by at exactly this time?

“Well, what delays you?” she demanded.

The thinning thread of loyalty that had brought me here fractured with an ache that shot straight through my chest. As I drew myself to the fullest my height could reach, the memory of Sorsha’s arms around me came back to me—her warm voice in my ears, telling me I could leave her if I truly felt that was right, if it would satisfy my conscience.

That was how devoted brethren ought to treat each other. Trusting their judgment of their own needs. Giving them room to make choices. Not scolding them like some sort of child for mistakes made centuries ago that might not even be mistakes.

“I fought as hard as I could with your brother all those ages ago,” I said. “And I left the battle for his and the rest of your sake as much as my own. There was no betrayal or shame in it, and I will claim none now. My first duty is to the beings alive who stand to suffer and die if I don’t act, and that includes both of you and so many others—and it isn’t finding scraps of one long snuffed out that will save any of you.”

Both of them were gaping at me now. Pierce tried to puff himself up in some image of righteousness that now only looked ridiculous to me. “Then you forsake all your?—”

I cut him off with a glower. “I forsake nothing . I go now to fight for so many more than died even then, and if you had any honor, you would be doing the same. It’s up to you whether you show what wingéd are meant to be or wallow here in the pain of the past. I’ve made my decision.”

I waited with a thudding of my heart in my chest. They hesitated and then shrank back into their wounded stances, and I knew it was hopeless.

They were hopeless. I could see that now. They weren’t the final bastions of our kind but a pale shade of what we used to be, what we’d always striven to be, and it had nothing to do with the ruined bits of their bodies but of the lapses they’d allowed in their souls. I intended to do better than that.

“Fine. You’ve distracted me enough with your demands.” I swiveled on my heel and caught Flint’s gaze. His stern face had blanched in shock. “Are you staying to wallow with them, or will you stand by me and the rest of our kind when it matters most?”

The other wingéd wavered too, but only for an instant. The duck of his head hid a wince of humiliation. “I should have stayed with that fight to begin with. You’re right, as you were right before. We must do what we can for all the other beings who now face so much danger. I apologize?—”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You chose what you thought was right, and then you changed your mind. It’s an asset all thinking creatures possess… even those two.”

I shot one last glance over my shoulder, but the ragged wingéd hadn’t budged. So be it. With a nod to Flint, I hurtled into the shadows.

Long ago, I hadn’t found a way to be what my companions then needed. This time, I refused to let them down—not Sorsha nor Omen, nor any of the others I meant to save.