But my friends and family? I would do anything for them.
Frost knew it. She knew my weakness.
Ash helped me tip Rory over so I could run my fingers over his face, neck, chest, and belly. I paused to the left of his belly button, feeling the thinnest of puncture wounds oozing with what I first thought was pus. No, not pus, some sort of liquid that did not belong in him. “He’s been given something. An injection of some sort.”
I pulled my finger away and smelled the oozing clear liquid. “I don’t know what it is. Smells like licorice.”
Ash took my hand and wiped it across the ground. “Poison. Most likely it is one of Ruby’s concoctions, so it would be best if your help for this one arrives soon.”
A groan rippled out of Rory and I leaned close. “Hang on, help is coming.”
“Wild. Tell her . . . tell her I love her.” Blood burbled over his lips and I turned him on his side.
I thought my heart couldn’t knot up more, but I was wrong. I swallowed my own hurt, swallowed it deep and nodded while I struggled to speak around the tension in my throat. “You can tell her yourself. You aren’t dying.”
As if on cue, the screech of tires rippled through the air. Ash pinned himself to the wall behind me, blending in with the stone of the building with a burst of his blue misting magic.
I looked up to see the Sandman followed by two others. One was the director of the House of Claw, his eyes sweeping the area; the other was Mara.
Sandman reached me first, and I quickly rattled off the injuries and the needle mark. “Mara, you can save him, right?”
She crouched beside me with a wince, and the hand she pressed to her own belly reminded me she’d been stabbed not all that long ago—a few hours at most. “I think we are here just in time. The poison means I need to be careful. If you hadn’t noticed that injection, the healing I gave him would have actually set the poison off. A clever trick of the House of Shade.” Her hands replaced mine on Rory’s wounds, and I stood and stepped back to give them room.
The Sandman glanced up at me. “Where are the others?”
The House of Claw director sniffed the air. “Something else is here. House of Unmentionables, I think.”
I smiled at the Sandman, really smiled, even though I knew he was going to be pissed at me when he saw who I was with. Or maybe that was why I was smiling. Nothing was more fun than setting off the most dangerous Shade the world had ever seen. “I’m getting them back, Rufus. Take care of Rory for me. Please.” I looked down at Rory, wanting to . . . no. He wasn’t mine and I had to get that through my thick skull.
“A gargoyle, we’ve got company,” the House of Claw director growled as he began to shift.
I took a step back. The Sandman stared at me, his aviators still firmly in place, but I could feel the weight of his gaze. “Find them, then. But hurry up about it. We’ve got other problems. The sickness is spreading faster.”
I saluted him as Ash grabbed me from behind and launched into the air between the buildings on either side of us.
The cold, wet night was finally getting to me, and the shivering started in my middle and spread outward. So, I asked questions to distract myself from the cold. “Do you know him too? I mean as a teacher?”
“The Sandman? Yes, I know Rufus. He is very strait-laced. Mara gave him a reason to be soft, which has allowed him to be even stronger than before.”
“Not complicated at all,” I said as I took in the city below us. Ash was taking us east, at least, but really high up. Even if I’d been willing to break my word, I didn’t want to fall from this height. No doubt the gargoyle knew it.
“It isn’t complicated. Love makes us stronger, young Shade. Some see it as a weakness. But it is not,” he said. “Remember that.”
“You mean like how my friends are being used and hurt to control me?” I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “That’s because Frost knows I care about them. It’s my fault.”
“Of course, there is always a chance of that happening, especially in our world. People being hurt, that is.” Ash shrugged and tipped his wings so we angled downward. “But that is not the point. The point is that when bad things happen to us—and they always do, none are immune to them—love is what can see us through. Our friends are the ones who are there to help us keep our heads above the cold winds that would sweep us off course.”
I frowned as we drew closer and closer to the ground. The water was off to the side, and in front of us lay a burned-out building site. Call me crazy, but I’d bet good money that I was looking at Pier 36. The House of Shade without any of its former glory.
And right next to it? The man who had brought our whole world crumbling down. The man I’d agreed to go with peacefully when this was all done.
The Shadowkiller.
12
Wally
The prison really wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it was going to be. Not that I’d really given it much thought until the moment I realized we were going to be stuffed there. The walls were slick gray, smooth like glass or ice, and the temperature wasn’t hot or cold, just right in the middle. If I closed my eyes, I could easily imagine I was floating in a dream without anything tickling at my senses. No smells, no outside sounds—
“You think Wild will be able to get us out?” Pete asked, breaking through my thoughts. “Not that I don’t think she’s badass, but this . . .”
I knew what he meant. This was next-level, off-the-charts crazy hard. “She’ll come after she finds Rory. She can get help from others, possibly. Maybe the Sandman could help her?”
Orin sighed. “She could just go back to the school and ask them to search the penitentiary for us.”
“And who is at the school? You aren’t just a pair of dumb fangs. Use your head!” Gregory snapped as he paced the small space around the edges, trailing his hands over the slick surface. “Ethan’s father is there, and the House of Wonder is controlling this whole situation. She can’t go for help. There isn’t any. Even the directors of the other houses wouldn’t want to take on Helix.”
“Ethan won’t be of any help either,” Pete said. “I can’t . . . I can’t believe he killed Colt. Or that he just wrapped us up like Thanksgiving turkeys for them!”
“I can,” Gregory deadpanned.
I rubbed at my arms and turned away.
The three guys continued to argue, and I just stared at the far wall, numbers rattling in my head as I considered the possibilities. Like Alcatraz, this prison had never been broken into or out of. Which meant Wild’s chances were slim to none.
But were they? She’d smashed the odds before. Mostly because she hadn’t been raised in this world, so she didn’t see anything as impossible. She didn’t know the rules, so she ended up blasting through them.
But I was concerned that she’d opened the connection to us. Had she been forced to? Or had she killed the Shadowkiller so it was safe to do so?
I closed my eyes and reached for that connection between us. She was there, worried but not hurt. Not dying. And she was a little closer than before.
A hand linked with mine, and I held on to Pete, grateful for his solid warmth. “What do you think, Wally? What do we do? You know, you’re pretty much her second, right?”