“Oh, great,” I muttered. “Cue the rumors that the new girl is a headcase … now.”
Theo half smiled, then glanced at the other teachers. “She’s fine.”
I pushed my hair off my face. I’d never freaked out like that before. It was not fun. And it didn’t help. Nicholas wasn’t any less lost.
I shivered, suddenly freezing.
“Come on,” Theo said. “Let’s get you to your room.”
Chapter 24
Solange
Tuesday night, after sunset
I woke up confused.
I knew the sun had set, knew I was so thirsty I was seeing red, but I couldn’t remember where I was. I wasn’t in the family safe house. I couldn’t hear my brothers rummaging around the adjoining rooms, or my mom avoiding the guards until she’d had her morning blood. The room I was in was smaller, cramped, with water running down the cement ceiling and down a drain in the floor. There was a shelf with lit candles set in one corner and a narrow army cot under me. That was it.
And then I smelled her.
Human, warm, willing.
The hunger actually growled inside me. I wasn’t sure how the rest of my family felt it, but sometimes I felt it like thirst in the throat, sometimes like hunger in the belly. And when it was this pronounced, it was always painful; as if I were desiccated and crumbling, as if blue sparks arced from my every movement. Only one thing made it better: blood. And live blood, despite my family’s objections, worked faster and better. And it was impossible to resist when presented so agreeably just after sunset.
“Please, princess.”
It was Penelope again, kneeling by the side of my bed, extending her bare arms. Constantine stood in the shadows behind her. I wanted to ask him what was going on, but her wrist was right there, blue veins pulsing, and the hunger took over. I bit down, warm blood filling my mouth, flooding me with vitality. I drank greedily, pinning Penelope’s wrist to my mouth. The more I drank, the less my gums ached, the less I itched under my skin like it fit wrong, the less weak and confused I felt. Penelope’s head fell back, her long curly hair trailing the dirty ground. I drank until she started to sag and I started to come back into myself enough to know to stop.
Constantine stepped forward at the exact moment when I wondered how to make myself push her away. He eased Penelope’s wrist out of my grip and helped her to her feet, pressing a scrap of clean cloth to the little puncture wounds. “Go on, Penelope,” he said gently, nudging her out. “Someone’s waiting upstairs with food for you, and iron pills.”
“Thank you, princess.” She wandered away, smiling as if she were drunk. I felt the same way, only I wasn’t smiling.
I scrambled to my feet. “Why did you bring her here?”
“You need blood,” Constantine replied calmly. “She’s willing to provide it. What’s the problem here, love?” He pushed a lock of hair off my cheek.
“Live blood just makes me …” I shuddered, trying to sort through all the feelings ripping through me. Satisfaction, strength, lust. I took a step back, struggling to control myself. Constantine closed the distance between us. His violet eyes gleamed.
“You don’t have to be scared,” he said softly. “It’s natural.”
I swallowed the coppery taste of blood on my tongue. “I …”
“Don’t make yourself smaller for other people,” he added. “Be brave, Solange. Give in.”
And then he was kissing me.
It happened so quickly. He just pulled me into his chest, his hand digging into my hair and tilting my head back. His lips were clever, teasing and slow as a hot, humid summer day. His tongue stroked mine, retreated. I fell into him. The combination of a newborn’s hunger, fresh blood, and his mouth on mine made my head spin. I had to clutch his arms to stay upright. He crowded me back against the damp wall, pinning me in place.
The kiss was languid and dark. He coaxed and took and smiled against my mouth when I made a small sound I didn’t understand. I kissed him back, hungrily. His lips were cool, like ice cream, but I’d never wanted ice cream this much, even when I was human. I could have gorged myself on him, cavities and ice-cream headaches be damned. And he knew it. That smug confidence should have been off-putting, but it just added to the dangerous appeal of him.
But as the last of the blood coursed through me, everything came flooding back.
Nicholas.
I pushed away from Constantine, my lips still tingling. His hair was tousled from my fingertips.
“My brother,” I said hoarsely.
He passed a hand over his face, as if he also needed to compose himself. The seductive smile—the crooked tilt to his grin that made me feel as if I were on fire—was gone. “I checked. No word yet.”
I pushed past him, darting up the metal steps and through the open gate. The forest glittered and gleamed as if carved from diamonds and obsidian. The snow had melted and more rain had fallen during the day. As night fell and the temperature dropped, ice formed on every surface. It dripped from branches, shone between flat cedar needles like lace, and crunched underfoot. Even the tiny veins on fallen oak leaves were traced with frost. I picked my way delicately through it, afraid to make a single sound and crack the frozen world into pieces.
The Bower was even more beautiful. It was strung with crystal beads of ice and draped with shawls of frost. Candles burned, melting little pools of water under the lanterns which reflected the flickering light. Someone had built a fire in an iron cauldron, and it snapped cheerfully. I wanted to sit in a velvet chair and soak it all in.
I turned my back on the winter fairy-tale beauty. “I need to hunt for Nicholas.”
“Of course you do,” Constantine agreed. “I’ll come with you.”
“You will?”
He half smiled. “I know the Drakes are ferocious and all, love, but I’ve been doing this longer than you have.”
I nodded, feeling grateful and slightly embarrassed for kissing him. And a little guilty. Kieran and I had broken up, but I still loved him, and he’d been there for me when I needed him. I hadn’t cheated on him, but I still felt awkward, as if he could see me. I pushed it out of my head. No time for that.
Time only to find Nicholas.
There were search outposts set up between the encampment and the Bower, as well as where Nicholas had activated his GPS tag. I checked in with them and kept the family channel open on the new walkie-talkie I’d been given after I accidentally broke the last one by whipping it at that tree. There were maps with color-coded pushpins to keep track of the search pattern.
I had so many guards trailing me, both from my parents and the Bower, that when Constantine ignored me to concentrate on hunting, it felt just as good as his kisses. I stayed away from my family. It just seemed easier.
They’d narrowed down Nicholas’s whereabouts to the mountain, the only other possibility being that he’d been taken up through the trees and the scent had dispersed already. I couldn’t bear to think about that. Anyway, I couldn’t search outside of the woods, not with my triple fangs and flared eyes, like red ink in water. Bruno and his detail would take the roads and the town, and so would Lucy and her friends. I’d concentrate on the caves with some of the others.
It seemed simple on paper: find the cave where Nicholas had been taken. But there were hundreds of caves and hundreds of dead ends. Not only did we need to search each one, we needed to map and chronicle our search so we didn’t double back and waste precious time.
But even with our large family and allies, time was running out.
We didn’t even know if he’d survived the last day. He could be trapped out in full sunlight for all we knew. I couldn’t stand it. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my friend.
That voice whispered inside me again, like water closing over my head. I can help you. Let me out.
I pushed it aside.
We hunted for hours, following half trails and suggestions of scent. Half the time it led to another one of my brothers, not Ni
cholas.
And then we heard it.
A hoarse scream echoing from somewhere inside the mountain.
Chapter 25
Lucy
Friday, late afternoon
We still hadn’t seen or heard from Nicholas.
Helena refused to sit at any council table until her son was found. Once the ceremonies began, Liam, being a better negotiator than tracker, would sit in for her. They needed to maintain the illusion of control over the tribes, or the ensuing feuds and fights would make finding Nicholas even more difficult. Vampire wars could decimate the countryside and would definitely obliterate any clues. All the brothers hunted too. Solange went out on her own and though we hadn’t spoken since we’d fought in the Bower, we sent texts. One from me at night and one from her at sunrise: nothing yet. Christabel tried to help too, even though she was still a city girl and didn’t know a dogwood from a poison sumac, let alone how to read footprints and broken twigs. The rain had washed away most of the vital evidence.
Kieran was helping, and so were Hunter and I when we managed to sneak off campus. It wasn’t easy for me right now; all the teachers were keeping an extra concerned eye on me, and my parents alternated days for visits. Mom used one of the pendulums she sold at the shop, but it only pointed to the mountains, and they were huge. Even Tyson was worried and kept trying to lend me schoolbooks. Sarita didn’t say much, but she still ratted me out when I tried to sneak out at night. And after my screaming episode, there were rumors circulating about a werewolf on the roof. Also, that I was crazy. I went to see the school counselor in the morning, who assured me I wasn’t crazy, that countless hunters before me had struggled through loss and anger over senseless tragedies.
But I could see crazy from where I was standing. I barely ate, mostly surviving on protein shakes Hunter shoved at me every time she saw me. I spent all the daylight hours not in class driving around Violet Hill and the countryside around it, listening to a mixed CD Nicholas had given me. When I couldn’t see through the tears, I switched it off and kept driving.
I was determined to find him, or at the very least, clues to where he was. I found a rusted-out school bus, seven abandoned shoes, a full sixteenth-century embroidered dress with a hole in the corset over the heart, and a homeless man who threw a can at my head when I tried to give him spare change. I spent every penny of my allowance on gas for the car, and then I begged my parents for more money.
All for nothing.
I shoved the map I’d been poring over off my lap and got to my feet, too restless to sit still. The sun was setting on the other side of the window, glistening on the last of the ice. I could see Jenna running the track again, her breath puffing white over her head. A class in the backfield practiced with their crossbows. Only the older students were allowed to practice with them at night. I was safe in my warm room, sitting on my Jack Sparrow blanket. I was safe and warm and Nicholas wasn’t.
Abruptly I couldn’t stand it anymore and stalked to the door.
“Where are you going?” Sarita asked, glancing up from her homework.
“Out.”
“Where?”
I sighed, turning back. “Why?”
“Because it’s dark now and you’re not allowed off campus. Headmistress Bellwood was very clear on that when she talked to me.”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m not going off campus.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip, looking unconvinced. “Are you sure?”
I just left, slamming the door behind me. It wasn’t her fault she was stuck with a crazy roommate, but if I had to explain myself to one more person I’d punch someone. I went back up to the roof where I could be alone to watch the last of the sunset. It was my new ritual, to stand and witness the lavender and indigo light sink between the trees, to see the stars brighten, the mountains darken. And hope and pray with all my might that Nicholas was safe out there. Somehow, if I was there watching over the light fading, I could protect him.
And freeze my ass off.
I tucked my chin into my scarf just as the door to the rooftop squeaked open. I refused to look away from the woods. Sarita or Hunter or whoever it was would just have to wait.
“Hi, sweetie.” Mom’s arm came around my shoulder. She leaned down to kiss my temple.
“You’re on duty today?” I asked. Dad had come yesterday, sneaking me real ice cream and a bag of candy.
“You’re never a duty, Lucky Moon.” It was finally dark enough that the lights flicked on and I let her turn me around. She scrutinized me. “How are you today?”
“I’m okay,” I assured her, smiling wanly. “Really.”
“We miss him too, honey.”
“I know.”
She hugged me, smelling like Nag Champa. It was comforting, making me think of simple things like drinking tea in the kitchen and family movie nights. “I know he’s okay,” she said. “You’d feel it, if he wasn’t.” She sounded so sure of it that I nodded, wanting to believe that too. “Why don’t you come home?” she asked again.
I shook my head. “It’s better to be busy. And I’m busy here.”
We stood there, just watching the stars and the moon, Mom singing one of her favorite chants softly. She pressed another bag of art supplies into my hand before leaving. Between her and the counselor, I was going to have to take up art therapy as my new major.
I stayed up on the roof for a little longer, letting the cold air clear my head and sparkle through me. A strange flash of light from the woods on the edge of the field had me squinting. Just when I wondered if I’d imagined it (great, hallucinations now), it flashed again. It bobbed erratically, like the reflection off a mirror. My cell phone vibrated in my pocket.
“Hello?”
It was Logan. “Meet me in the woods.”
“Is that weird light you?”
“Yeah, it’s a mirror. I don’t want some student screaming ‘vampire,’ so get down here quick and don’t get seen. We’ll be past the willows.”
I would have scaled down the outside of the building if I’d thought it would get me there any faster. I rushed down the stairs and burst outside, my heart in my mouth. I had to force myself to slow down so no one would notice me. I skirted around the far edge of the crossbow field and ducked down into the undergrowth, not straightening until I was well hidden in the trees.
I took the path Hunter and I usually used, crossed a narrow half-frozen creek with the help of my staff and turned left at the willow trees. Logan waited there in his favorite velvet frock coat, next to Isabeau and her wolfhound Charlemagne.
“Any news?” I asked, hugging him as hard as I could.
He hugged me back, shaking his head. “Not yet. But we have an idea.”
I eased back, smiling at Isabeau and scratching Charlemagne’s head when he shoved it under my hand. “Okay. What is it?”
Logan looked exhausted, but over the layer of grief there was a spark of something else. “Isabeau found a spell.”
I blinked at them both. “I’m in.”
“Do you not want to know what the spell is?” Isabeau asked.
“Don’t care. I’m in.”
She smiled briefly. “Logan said you would say this. Come with me.”
We crossed between more willows and into a grove of spruce trees so thick and twisted you couldn’t see into the center. Isabeau pushed through, holding back the branches for Charlemagne and me. Logan was behind us, casting a last probing glance before letting the evergreen snap together like a locked door. It smelled like Christmas and winter.
A single candle burned in a bowl of water in the center of a very cramped, uneven circle. Around the candle there was a pouch made of red flannel stitched with runes, a rattle made from a painted dog bone, and a scatter of crystals. It looked like the tables my mother set up around the house for holidays where she burned incense and left offerings of milk. It might have freaked some people out, but I was instantly comfortable. The ground was bumpy with tree roots when I sat down, crossing my
legs.
“So what’s the deal?” I asked as Charlemagne wedged himself between me and peeling trunk and rested his head on my knee.
“There is a spell that might help us to locate Nicholas,” Isabeau explained, the candle light glinting off the chain mail on her dress and the pendants around her tattooed and scarred throat. With her long dark hair and green eyes, she was pretty as a doll. You know, the kind of doll that came to life at night to kill monsters. “Kala is stronger, you understand, but she will not leave the caves, and humans are not welcome.”
“And Isabeau thinks we need you for this,” Logan added quietly. “Your connection to Nicholas could make the difference.” He pulled a shirt out of a bag and handed it to me. “You need to wear this.”
I shrugged out of my coat and pulled the black T-shirt over my head. It smelled like Nicholas, like black licorice and sandalwood. I hugged myself, forcing the lump in my throat to dissolve. “What else?”
“Isabeau is going to dreamwalk,” Logan answered. “Kind of like astral traveling.”
“Right.”
“You know what this is?” She sounded surprised.
“You’ve never met my mother.” Logan and I smirked at each other. My mother made power bundles of sacred objects for each of the Drake brothers on their sixteenth birthdays, to help them through the bloodchange. And she danced naked under the full moon in our backyard all the time. A little astral travel was nothing.
Isabeau nodded once, impressed. “Bien. This will make it easier.” She jabbed more painted bones in the ground in a circle around us. One of them was wrapped in copper wire. She passed me an amulet made of garnet beads and tarnished silver. I slipped it over my head.
“Ready?”
I wiped my palms on my jeans, feeling a nervous giggle well into my throat. I was finally doing something. Something useful. I felt the jaws of panic which had been clamped around my throat for days release, just a little. I could breathe again.
“I’m ready.”
“I will take you,” Isabeau said. “All you have to do is relax and follow me.”