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fifteen

Griff

Griff didn’t know what to do after Cal’s abrupt departure.

He’d debated going after him while his aura trail was still fresh but had ultimately decided to give Cal his space.

Cal would return when he was ready, and Griff trusted him to keep the void orb safe.

If he was going to betray Griff, he could’ve done so long before now.

And if he doesn’t come back?

If he vanishes into the night and you never see him again?

The thought had made Griff’s hands tighten around the edge of the kitchen table.

In that case, he’d know where things stood between them.

Cal would get his free pass, just as Griff had agreed at the beginning of all this.

And once this business with the void orb was over, their investigation complete, Griff supposed he’d resume his hunt for Blackjack.

Everything back to normal.

He was just finishing reluctantly brewing a pot of Razakethi coffee for a much-needed energy boost despite the late hour when he heard the front door opening.

He tensed as Cal’s familiar aura strode into the kitchen, unsure what to expect after the way he’d fled earlier.

Cal’s current disguise shimmered away to reveal his drawn face and dejected gaze.

“It’s gone,” he said.

His aura, dimmer than usual, gave a faint quiver.

Griff frowned and took a sip of his coffee, wincing as the too-hot liquid scalded his tongue.

He set the steaming cup aside, then leaned against the table.

“What’s gone?”

“The void orb.”

Griff froze at a sudden spike of alarm.

He barely registered Cal brushing past him and beginning to pace about the small room.

His aura’s quiver escalated into a full-on churn.

After a moment, Griff found his voice.

“Gone? How?”

Cal paused, his footsteps hesitant.

With his back to Griff, he said in a low voice.

“My old mentor. Kelsith. I ran into him during my walk, and he stole the relic out of my thief’s mark while I was distracted. I was nearly back here before I noticed it was missing.”

Surprise tore through Griff, along with a deeper sense of concern.

“I thought you said you hadn’t seen him in years. You’re still in contact with him?”

“Not really.” Cal ruffled a hand through his hair, still not looking at Griff.

“He sort of turned up after we left Bald Locke’s. He’s been…uh…following me.”

Griff didn’t like the sound of that one bit.

Nor did he like the fact that Cal had waited this long to tell him.

If this had been happening since their run-in with the Brotherhood, that meant it had been over a week.

Perhaps Cal still didn’t trust him as much as he’d assumed.

Dull disappointment thrummed through him at the thought.

For now though, he forced himself to set the matter aside.

Dealing with the missing void orb was far more pressing than his hurt feelings.

The mere memory of that brief flash of its corrupting magic he’d felt chilled him to his core.

If it was out there again, Derimay was in danger.

They needed to retrieve it before anyone got hurt.

“Show me where you lost it,” Griff said, his voice all business.

Cal met his eyes, his expression uncertain.

Then, he nodded mutely and started back toward the door.

Griff followed him outside into the night.

The wind had begun to pick up, another storm brewing.

They were common this time of year in Derimay, and it wasn’t long before the light patter of rain enveloped them.

They traveled in silence.

Cal led the way, his head bowed and aura shriveled.

It pained Griff to see the thief so out of sorts, his usual brightness so frayed.

But he didn’t know what to say right then that would make it better.

Right now, it was the void orb that most preoccupied his thoughts: the orb…

and what might happen should they fail to recover it.

Eventually, Cal slowed to a halt after scaling onto the rooftop of a closed shop.

Griff stopped beside him, huffing a little from the exertion.

He wasn’t as spry—or as young—as Cal, and climbing onto the roof had taken more out of him.

Cal made a jerking gesture with one arm.

“This is where it happened.”

Raising a hand to shield his eyes from the rain, Griff focused on his aura-sight and peered about the dim rooftop.

His pulse quickened when he spotted a violet haze hanging in the air like the cloying scent of rot.

He shuffled closer to better study it, the hairs on his arms standing on end from the pervasive sense of wrongness that seeped from it.

He circled around the spot, searching for a trail.

The one he’d followed from The Last Drop to Cal had been hard to miss, even hours later.

Yet here, he could find nothing.

It was as if it had been washed away by the rain.

He puffed out a frustrated sigh.

“I can sense the void orb’s aura from when he stole it from you. But then it just disappears. He must’ve had some means of transporting it without leaving a trace.”

This wasn’t a random theft or a spur of the moment decision—Kelsith had come prepared.

Which begged the question, what exactly did he want with the void orb?

Was he working for someone else or on his own?

Griff turned to Cal.

“Any idea how your mentor learned about the void orb or why he would want it?”

Cal shrugged, looking as miserable as his drooping aura.

“No idea. He never once mentioned it. I had no idea he even knew about it.”

Griff frowned as another thought occurred to him—one he probably should’ve considered far sooner had he not been so distracted by the void orb’s disappearance.

“If he didn’t approach you about the void orb, then what did he want?”

Cal licked his lips, avoiding Griff’s eyes.

“He, uh, wanted to team up again. To do a job together.”

Griff stared at him through the sheen of rain, incredulous.

“Is that where you’ve been for the past few hours?” When Cal hung his head, Griff couldn’t hold back his disappointment any longer.

“Seriously, Cal? We’re in the middle of a critical investigation that might implicate a member of the Pentarchy, and you left to go rob some innocent person?” He shook his head.

“I thought you were better than that.”

Cal whirled, and Griff almost stumbled on the slick rooftop at the intent fury contorting his expression.

“Am I? What makes you so sure of that? You barely know me!”

“Your aura—”

“Void take my aura!” Cal strode forward so he was right in Griff’s face.

His aura swirled with regret and anger as he jabbed a finger into Griff’s chest. “I’m not the person you want me to be, Griff. Like it or not, I’m a thief. That’s what I’ve always been…and maybe that’s what I’ll always be.”

Staring down at Cal practically pressed against him while the rain misted down around them, Griff felt some of his own anger cool.

He reached up and rested his hand on Cal’s accusing finger.

Cal’s eyes widened as he spoke.

“You’re right, Cal—that is what you were. You were Blackjack, and Lord Heneford, and who knows how many other people before that. But you don’t need to let them define who you’ll be tomorrow.”

Cal jerked back as if struck.

Tearing his hand free of Griff’s grip, he stared at him.

His aura lashed and curled in a tumultuous storm echoing the storm darkening the sky overhead.

“I…I’m sorry for losing the void relic,” he said softly, hanging his head.

“Good luck with the rest of your investigation.”

The thief spun and darted toward the edge of the rooftop.

A flare of panic raced through Griff.

He had the sudden, abrupt premonition that if he let Cal leave this time, he’d never see him again.

“Cal, wait!”

He tried to move to stop him, but his foot slipped on the wet stone, and Cal was too quick.

By the time Griff had recovered his balance, Cal was gone, vanishing into the night.

Griff stared at the edge of the rooftop amid the pattering rain.

Merciful Light, how had everything fallen apart so quickly?

Just last night, they had seemed so close to cracking the case: to unraveling this conspiracy and unmasking the mastermind behind it.

Now, the void orb was gone, along with his erstwhile partner, and he felt no closer to figuring out which member of the Pentarchy was behind this than he’d been before the gala.

His thoughts strayed back to Cal, his vision refocusing on the edge of the roof where he’d vanished.

It would be so easy to let Cal walk away like he had Amelie.

To go back to his regular life focused solely on the investigation at hand, free of any distractions or complications.

But the thought left him hollow.

He wasn’t ready to let Cal go—not yet.

Maybe not ever.

And by the Light, he wasn’t ready to give up on this case either.

Determination straightening his back, Griff strode to the edge of the roof and peered down at the street below.

Squinting his eyes, he strained his aura-sight.

Most people’s auras didn’t leave enough of an impression for him to read once they were out of sight.

But Griff had felt oddly attuned to Cal’s aura from the first moment he’d seen it.

That connection had only grown this past week as they spent more time investigating together.

He puffed out a relieved breath when he spied a faint streak of kaleidoscopic colors lingering in the air.

Following it like a thread, he descended from the roof and allowed it to guide him through Derimay’s back streets, his hand hovering near his revolver in case he encountered any trouble.

The light drizzle of rain soon turned into a torrent.

Griff ignored it, undeterred.

An entire gang of Brotherhood enforcers could’ve been sneaking up on him right then, and he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

All he had eyes for was that thin streak of bright color.

Eventually, he found himself climbing onto another narrow rooftop.

Cal sat huddled beside a short wall that extended around the edge of the roof.

Rain cascaded over him as he stared out over the city.

Though from the distant look in his eyes, Griff doubted he was really seeing it.

Griff settled in beside him, careful to leave some distance between them so that Cal didn’t get spooked.

They sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the heavy patter of rain.

“Go away,” Cal said.

Griff ignored him. He followed Cal’s gaze to stare out over the city.

Even well past midnight, a cavalcade of lights spread out through the city.

Banners whipped and lashed in the wind, making the empty streets appear alive and moving.

In the distance, dark waves rumbled against the docks, the many ships moored there bobbing in the stormy seas.

He heard Cal shift beside him, though he didn’t look over.

His experience with interrogations had left him plenty comfortable with awkward silences.

Sometimes, it was best to wait for the other person to break them.

“I came up here because I didn’t want to be found,” Cal said at last. “Leave me alone.”

“If you didn’t want to be found, then you shouldn’t have spent so much time around an investigator who can track auras,” Griff replied.

“I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me.”

More silence.

More pattering rain.

Griff let his thoughts wander as a low rumble of thunder washed over them.

His mind worked through the details of the case, trying to piece it all together.

The Brotherhood. The void orb.

The Pentarchy’s private bank account.

The precarious situation with Nalax.

It all fit together.

The only question was how.

He was startled from his musing when Cal finally spoke, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the rain.

“Kelsith didn’t only care about tonight. He wanted to recruit me again.”

“And? What did you say?” He glanced at Cal, relieved when Cal shook his head.

“I told him no. That I…that I wanted to do something more with my life.” He shuffled on the rooftop, and Griff’s pulse quickened when the movement left them closer together.

“I don’t know if I can be more than a thief. Maybe that is all I am. But…I wanted to try.”

Despite the raggedness of Cal’s aura and the uncertainty in his voice, Griff felt a burst of pride.

“All any of us can ever do is try our best.”

Cal fiddled with a broken hunk of stone in the half-wall that ran along the rooftop’s edge.

“Kelsith was only a couple years older than me when he took me under his wing. But he was the closest thing I had to a father growing up. He taught me all about thievery—how to pick a lock and disarm a ward. How to sneak around without being seen and identify potential marks. He took me on jobs, made me feel important…feel loved.”

“It sounds like he meant a lot to you.” Griff didn’t exactly approve of Kelsith’s methods, but he appreciated that at least someone was there for Cal growing up.

He hesitated, unsure if he should ask the question on his lips.

Ultimately though, curiosity got the better of him.

“So then why did you turn his offer down?”

Cal gave a hoarse chuckle.

“Because he also made me feel used. At the time, I thought he cared about me, that his constant disapproval was a form of tough love. But looking back now, I can see how he treated me like just another valuable tool. It was my power he cared about, not me.”

Cal closed his eyes and tilted his head back, letting the rain wash over his face.

“Our last mission together, we were supposed to carry out this big heist. We’d spent weeks planning it. But when we got to the merchant’s estate, everything went to the Void fast. Someone must’ve spotted us or we must’ve triggered some alarm because there were protectors swarming us almost instantly. And Kelsith…he left me there without a second thought. I’d gone in first, and he didn’t even try to rescue me. I barely made it out of there in one piece thanks to my duskflame. When I returned to our safe house, Kelsith was gone. He’d cast me aside, just like that.”

Opening his eyes, Cal stared back out over the city.

His aura seemed to strengthen as he set his jaw.

“Kelsith is my past. He gave me a purpose and made me want to be useful. But you… you make me want to be better.”

Warmth unfurled in Griff’s chest. Hesitantly, he reached out and clasped Cal’s hand.

He was relieved when Cal didn’t pull away.

“You make me want to be better, too.” Cal gave a disbelieving snort at that, and Griff squeezed his hand.

“No, I’m serious. For a long time now, the only thing that has truly mattered to me is my job. But when I’m with you, for the first time I feel like there may be something more. I…I don’t know what that means or where it leads. But I do know that I intend to fight like the Void not to let it go.”

Cal finally turned to face him, and the look of wonder on his face stole Griff’s breath.

Cal’s captivating aura flared brighter, its jagged edges smoothing away like a gentling sea at the end of a storm.

Tentatively, giving him every chance to pull away, Griff reached up and rested a hand on his cheek.

Cal closed his eyes and leaned into the touch.

They shifted closer, wrapping their arms around each other.

And there on that rooftop, with the rain pummeling them and soaking them to the bone, they shared a soft, tentative kiss full of the promise of hope.

“So,” Cal murmured, pulling back and flashing Griff an uncertain grin.

“Where does that leave us?”

Griff hesitated.

He couldn’t tell whether Cal was referring to the case or to something more, so he opted for the safer answer.

“Still on the investigation…if you want to be.”

“I do,” Cal assured him.

He grimaced. “But I lost the void orb. Kelsith could be anywhere in the city with it by now. What do we do?”

With a confidence he didn’t quite feel, Griff said, “Simple: we find a way to get it back. I doubt Kelsith will sit on it for long—it’s too dangerous, and too valuable. He’ll return it to the Brotherhood.”

Cal slowly shook his head.

“I don’t think so. Kelsith and the Brotherhood have bad blood. I doubt he’s working for them. Which means…”

“Which means he must be working directly with whoever hired them to procure the void orb,” Griff said, nodding his understanding.

He furrowed his brow as he recalled his earlier ruminating.

“But we still don’t know who that is. Even if we’re right and it is a member of the Pentarchy, that leaves five options.”

“We could always investigate them more in the morning,” Cal said.

“See if we can link any of them to Kelsith.”

Griff shook his head.

“Too risky. We have no idea what they intend to do with the void orb. We’ve already delayed their plans by over a week. If we wait until morning, it might be too late to stop them from using it. And even if they don’t, it will give them time to stash it where we might never find it again. Tonight is our best chance.”

Turbulent strands of crimson frustration seared through Cal’s aura.

“But you said it yourself: we have no Dark-cursed clue which of those Void-eaters on the Pentarchy is behind this! If we guess wrong, we’ll probably be too late to catch them in the act. How do we decide where to go?”

Griff really wished he knew how to answer that.

He narrowed his eyes at the rain-streaked city, racking his brain for a plan.

But nothing he thought of seemed remotely plausible.

No matter how he examined the problem, the conclusion remained the same: they were out of options.

“I don’t know,” he admitted with a heavy sigh.

He bowed his head beneath the continued downpour.

“Merciful Light, if only we’d gotten something concrete to go off of from the gala. But we’re no closer to answers than when you first told me a protector was involved.”

Cal tensed beside him.

“Eternal Dark…” he whispered.

Griff looked up, frowning when he saw the trembling excitement in Cal’s aura.

“What is it?”

“Tonight, when we were leaving the gala, I thought I recognized someone. I didn’t think much of it at the time—I only saw them for an instant, and I meet a lot of people under my various aliases. But there was something about the way they carried themselves that struck a chord with me, and I think I’ve just figured out what it was. I…I think it was the same protector who retrieved the void orb from Bald Locke!”

Griff’s pulse quickened.

This was exactly the sort of break they needed to deduce which councilor was most likely the culprit.

“Who was it? What did they look like?”

Cal scrunched his brow for a long moment, then puffed out a frustrated breath.

“Void take me, I’m not sure. They wore a mask during the exchange, and I barely glimpsed their face in passing at the gala. I don’t think I could describe it if I tried.” He hung his head.

“Sorry, Griff. It might be another dead-end after all. Maybe we could get a list of every guest in attendance? It wouldn’t help us find the void orb tonight, but it might still give us something to go off of.” He shook his head.

“I just wish my memory was better.”

A sudden thought slithered into Griff’s mind, and he groaned.

Merciful Light, this was just what he needed.

Cal frowned at him. “What is it?”

Griff sighed, his hold on Cal momentarily tightening.

“I think it’s time we paid Nathaniel another visit…”