I shoved the ring back into the pouch, then carefully tucked it into my bra, under my left breast. It was a little uncomfortable, but as hiding places went, it was one of the better ones. A strip search would of course find it, but a regular pat down or emptying of pockets would not.
Why instinct thought such an action might happen in my near future was something I didn’t dwell on.
I shoved my phone into my pocket, strapped on the knife belt, then grabbed Nex and Vita and left the room. The wind tugged at the tarps covering the roof in my bedroom, and the flapping echoed through the stillness. I stepped into the room and raised Nex. Her bright light pushed away the shadows, highlighting both the hole in the floor and the one above. Nothing cut through the heavy canvas, and there was no sign of magic other than the multiple spells protecting this place.
Which left only one option for an attack—the front door.
I padded down the stairs, wincing a little as the floorboards creaked. Like most of the buildings in this section of old Ainslyn, ours was a three-story, fairly narrow brick terrace. Our book and healing store took up most of the ground floor, and the first floor held the kitchen and living area as well as Mo’s bedroom.
I paused near her door and once again studied the shadows. Nothing stirred, and yet Nex’s pulsing grew stronger.
I gripped the door handle; energy immediately caressed my fingers, probing my touch but providing no threat. That Mo had implemented a locking spell suggested she might have been expecting trouble. That she hadn’t passed the suspicion on to me wasn’t really surprising, given her already stated intention of drawing their attacks away from me.
The door clicked open, and I stepped inside.
“What’s happened?” she immediately asked.
“Got a text from Max. He said we needed to leave ASAP.”
She jumped out of bed and started pulling on clothes. She was very much a De Montfort in appearance—tall and lean, with brown skin and plaited gray hair that hung down to her butt. Her eyes were a merry blue, with irises that were ringed with gold and shone with power. I was almost the total opposite. Max might have inherited the De Montfort looks, but I’d taken after my mother’s side of the family—white skin, blonde hair, and dark eyes. And lean was something I’d never be.
“I’m betting he didn’t actually say ‘we.’” Her warm, mellow voice held an edge of annoyance. “That boy has absolutely no consideration for the old woman who raised him.”
A smile twitched my lips, despite the fact it was nothing but a bitter truth. “Hey, he hasn’t exactly called his dogs off me, either.”
“Which makes me wonder why he’s giving you a warning now.” She threw on a rather colorful patchwork coat and then scooped up her purse and slung it over her shoulder. “It might well be a trap.”
“Might be.” In truth, it was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to me. I still trusted him, still believed him, despite everything. “But he said it was a faction he didn’t control, and I’m thinking he’d rather his forces get me than the opposition.”
She shot me a surprised glance. “He told you that?”
“He told me it was an opposing faction, yes.” I hesitated. “But only after I said we knew he was working alongside them.”
“Something he’d no doubt have guessed anyway.” She grimaced. “I damn well knew it was a mistake to come back here but—”
“I wasn’t up to the longer flight back to Southport.”
And for a very good reason—only forty-eight hours had passed since our battle at the dark altar, and I’d barely survived. That I had was due almost entirely to Mo’s healing abilities. But weariness still rode me, and there was a drifting “fogginess” in my brain that I rather suspected was due to my temporary incursion into the gray space—the unseen, uninhabited, energy-filled dimension between our world and Darkside.
The only way to lock or unlock the main gate into Darkside was via the gray space, using Elysian. That was why my brother had been desperate to claim the sword in the stone, and why Mo had set up what I now knew to be a multidimensional wall of magic to warn us if any attempt was made to open that gate. What we’d do if that happened sooner rather than later, I couldn’t say, especially as we’d yet to find the real sword.
“Yes, but we could have easily stayed overnight in a hotel.” Mo slipped on her boots. “Did you open Max’s window in case we need to escape?”
“I did.”
“Then let’s go lay a little trap and see what our attackers have to say for themselves.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t it be safer to just leave?”
“Undoubtedly, but I’m getting a little tired of these bastards constantly attacking us. Time to find out why.”
“We already know why—they want you dead and me captured.”
“Well, yes, but it’s also an undeniable truth that the best way to kill any hydra is to sever its heads one by one.”
I blinked. “Hydras are real?”
“They were.” A smile tugged at her lips. “Too many got their heads severed, though, and the race died out.”
I stepped back, allowing her to get past. “Could Winter have been one of those heads?”
“It’s possible he was playing both sides, but I doubt it. It’s more likely he was the inducement and errand boy.” She strode across to the old sash window that looked out onto the street below.
“From what I saw at the dark altar, he was a whole lot more than that. Errand boys don’t have the control over demons that he had.”
“Except this one was also consort to a would-be king, and that would undoubtedly give him power. But he was in the end just a half-breed. Dark elves would never have rallied around one such as he.”
I stopped beside her. The rain lashed the road below and raced along the gutters, but there was no sign of movement. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, given concealment spells were easy enough to access. I wasn’t spotting any of the usual tells of such magic, however.
“If they’re already up on the roof,” I said, “they’re not yet attempting to cut through the tarp.”
“Given their lack of success in previous attacks on us here, it’d be logical for their next attempt to be a two-pronged one.” She let the curtain drop and stepped back. “I’ll head upstairs and place a snare across the roof. You keep an eye on the front door.”
I sheathed both knives and headed for the stairs. While I felt decidedly safer with them in my hands, the growing intensity of the lightning flickering down Nex’s sides would quickly give the game away to any intruders who lurked below.
I paused at the landing and squatted close to the wall. Nothing appeared out of place below, and there were no shadowy figures to be seen, either within the store, in the section of street visible through the windows, or the inset entrance.
The heated flickers of Nex’s power, now pulsing through the leather sheath and warming my thigh, very much suggested that appearance was a lie.
I silently padded down the stairs and paused again on the bottom step, my gaze sweeping the service counter and the three lines of shelving that dominated the main shop area.