>What?
>>The. Hearts. Are. Missing.
>Hadley said you hid them. How were they discovered?
>>I moved them to HQ.
>Why would you do that?
>> It’s our most secure location. Less than a dozen people can find it, let alone enter it.
>You, Hadley, me, and Remy passed through tonight. No one else had access?
>>Anca and Reece have been at their computers for the last twelve hours straight. No one could have gotten in or out without being seen. Besides, no one comes to HQ aside from Hadley and me.
>You’re saying one of us is to blame.
>>What the hell else could it mean?
>>Hadley is going to Faerie.
>>Maybe she hoped to handle negotiations with Natisha on your behalf while she was there.
Spiderweb cracks spread across the surface of his phone’s screen, but his fist refused to unclench.
Take the hearts, seal the deal, and keep Natisha on the right side of Faerie. Away from him. He could see her making that call. With the chaos in Atlanta, the last thing that powder keg needed was a match, and Natisha was a flamethrower.
There was no shortage of coven members out tonight. A seventh heart was hers for the taking.
But after their promise to make time for the hard talks, he believed she would have told him her plan.
Though she might have waited until after she stood safe inside a ward ring he wasn’t strong enough to bull through first.
One more obvious choice loomed, but Midas hated to point the finger, even with their fraught past.
>Or Remy is a traitor.
>>Or that.
>We can’t send Hadley off alone with her.
>>Who else do we have to send? Know anyone else with a handy dybbuk bond who’s available?
The jab shook loose what should have been obvious, and Midas cursed himself for not seeing it sooner.
>>Midas.
>>Answer me, damn it.
>Tell Ford supplies are waiting for him in an oak tree two miles southeast of Gas ’n Go. He can track my phone to get exact coordinates. I’ll leave it here. I have no use for it where I’m going.
After he tucked the phone in a pocket as promised, he hung the packs on sturdy limbs.
Crimson magic bathed his limbs as he leaped down. He landed on all fours, shaking out his coat. The black magic stench burned his nose and pinched his lungs, but he had made his choice.
Hadley was in danger, and he wasn’t twiddling his thumbs while his mate risked her life a world away.
There were no guarantees Remy wished her ill. There was every chance she had done the exact thing Bishop feared Hadley might have considered, taking the hearts—and their obligation to Natisha—in hand.
But Bishop had reminded him he shared a connection with Hadley that just might save his soul, and he was willing to risk it. For her.
Ten
As Remy and I faded into the dark, I became aware of how little I knew about macalla in their feral state. Her spine lengthened as she abandoned her typical slouch for ruler-straight posture, and her usual clomping steps fell silent. Cunning gleamed in her eyes, and her upper teeth just overlapped her bottom lip. Her fingers extended, turned knotty with extra joints, and sprouted lime-green claws.
I might have gulped. Hard. A few times. But I could still find my friend in her questionable fashion tastes.
Apparently, Bishop wasn’t the only one sharing his deepest, darkest secrets tonight.
Shadows cocooned the warehouse a dozen yards away, but its parking lot bustled with activity.
“We need to get onto the roof.” Her voice whistled through her teeth. “Can you climb?”
“I do okay.” I checked the bag for rope, but I came up empty. “Are you sure that’s the way to go?”
“No one ever looks up. Trust me.” She flexed her odd fingers. “They won’t see us coming.”
As confident as she sounded for a woman dressed in a white bodysuit with sequins, I had to believe her.
She mimed zipping her lips, pointed toward the nearest tree, a pine with rust-colored needles and a split trunk that indicated a recent brush with lightning, and sank her nails into its flaking bark.
I raised my eyebrows to convey my doubt at her choice.
With inhuman quickness, she scurried to the charred treetop for the best view then flashed me a signal I took to mean it was my turn. How did she expect me to follow that act? I wasn’t Spider Girl. Squirrel Girl would be more accurate, given how nutty this whole operation was, but I would do my best.
The pine groaned under my weight, and the limbs I’d watched her use creaked beneath my hands and feet. The third time I fully extended my body, I heard a vital, cracking noise.
“Remy,” I whisper-screamed, but it was too late.
The ground rushed up and smacked me in the face. The air exploded from my lungs, my palms screamed at the splinters embedded in them, and when I caught my breath again, I smelled Christmas and realized I had inhaled a handful of pine needles.
“Oww.”
The dark smudge of my shadow peeled away until Ambrose sat beside me. He ran his fingertips down my spine, and chills followed the prickling of his energy, but he appeared satisfied. I must not have broken anything in the fall.
A slight rustle was all the warning I got before Remy landed beside my head.
“You’re heavier than you look.” She flipped me over to confirm I was still alive. “This just got harder.”
Voice high and airy, I wheezed, “You’re the one who chose a dead tree as a steppingstone.”
“The north side is fine. It’s the south side that got struck. It’s still alive. Recovering even. Totally safe.”
Trust a fae to intuit something like that but not grasp I weighed more than a leaf. She knew snacking was my favorite hobby. It was like her common sense had flown out the window when she…
Oh.
Huh.
This might be a problem.
There was freedom in giving one’s self over to one’s base nature. Midas and I had similar, predatory drives, but I never stopped to consider what Remy’s might be. Aside from her multiplying trick, I hadn’t witnessed her use her talents. She told us stealth was a skill she had honed, and that might be true, but for her to have lost herself so quickly, I had to wonder.
Maybe one of her selves had more affinity with nature? Or maybe this was how she got in the zone? The truth was, I had no idea, and I had no time to ask. I trusted Remy, and I had to take her method on faith.
“I’ll go high, you go low.” She returned to the burned tree. “I’ll get on the roof and create a distraction.”
“We don’t want to put them on alert,” I cautioned her. “Make it subtle.”
“Please.” She sunk in her nails, and charred bark peeled away. “Subtlety is my middle name.”
Here I thought it was ohmygoddesswe’reallgoingtodie, which is what I screamed while riding with her.
“Last one there is a rotten egg,” she called softly, and skittered up the trunk.
Ambrose tilted his head back and watched until she disappeared from view.
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” I told him. “I’m counting on you to watch my six.”
The shadow stared after Remy, his posture tense, but he shook off his mood and waved me on.