Breaker (Ondine Quartet Book 4) (28 page)

“We were inducted last month,” I answered his silent question. “The elites all made it. We’re doing what you taught us to end this war.”

He pulled away. “Forget it.”

“Come with us.” I moved beside him. “We’re tracking the Shadow down, Gabe. We’re ending this and we could use your help.”

He kept walking. I kept up beside him. Julian and Cam wisely stayed back.

“Help us get him —“

“It’s not my problem.” Gabe’s voice was harsh. “Your war is no longer my problem.”

“Then what are you doing out here hunting Aquidae?”

He turned sharply down an alley to the right. His silver Harley gleamed in the moonlight.

“Gabe. Please.”

He finally stopped beside the bike and faced me.

I almost wished he hadn’t.

The ghosts haunting his eyes, the raw pain carved into his face was almost too much to bear.

Unexpected moisture filled my eyes. I blinked.
 

“Haverleau took her from me, Kendra,” he said tightly. “Elementals and this goddamned war. She was trying to do right. She was trying to stop it. To change it.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I know. And I know she would’ve wanted you —“

“You don’t know want she wanted. No one did. All of you were so consumed with your goals and objectives and tactics and war. But I knew.”

“Gabe —“

“I knew how she hoped - dreamed - of something more. How much she wanted our baby, imagined a family free from the rules that bound her life. I knew she would do everything possible on the Council to change things for our child —“

“So come back and do that. Come back and finish what she started.”

He swung a leg over his bike. “That’s your battle now. Not mine.”

“Then why did you protect us back there?”

Gabe had always done what was right. He followed the rules, obeyed the chain of command, lived a life of discipline.

But the rules had failed him. Authority had failed him.

What happened when everything you believed in was gone?

For a moment, I thought I caught a trace of hesitation in his eyes as if something far greater warred inside him and a flicker of hope stirred.

But then he kicked the throttle and the bike purred to life.
 

His voice was a mere whisper threaded through the engine’s rumble.

“It’s not my battle anymore.”

Without so much as another glance, he veered the handle bars away from me and sped down the street.

***

By the time we arrived in San Aurelio, I was in sore need of a punching bag.

I leaped out of the car before my fist decided to find one for me.

Two doors slammed shut.

“Are you doing that thing with your Virtue on Kendra?”

Distrust and something close to distaste colored Cam’s tone.
 

I gritted my teeth and rolled my shoulders. They’d been sniping at each other for the past three hours.

Julian drew up on my left and gave a terse nod.
 

“You’re not doing it on me, though, are you? ‘Cause I don’t want —“

“Don’t worry. Magic isn’t contagious, so you won’t catch a Virtue by being around me.”

“I just —“ Cam stood to my right, his brow lowered. “Just can’t get used to it. That’s all.”

“You’ll be reassured to know you’re not the only one.” A thread of darkness wove through Julian’s light tone. “My own mother hasn’t gotten used to it and she’s had two decades to deal with it.”
 

Cam shifted, uncomfortable. “I didn’t mean —“

“Let’s get this over with.” Julian grabbed our bag of equipment and moved forward, his eyes locked sightlessly on the rows of gravestones before us.
 

Cam looked at me. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Although I wanted to kick his ass for being a prick and Julian’s ass for being so moody, both weren’t viable options right now.

We needed to work together if we wanted to get this done by sunrise.

So instead of putting him in a headlock, I followed Julian.

“You know that thing Chloe always talked about? You might want to work on tact, Martin.”

“I am tactful,” he muttered from behind.

Moonlight dripped across San Aurelio cemetery. We were on the east side of the plot, a section reserved for the homeless and others who financially weren’t able to bury a deceased.

Unlike the west side, where graves were adorned with flowers and headstones looked clean and taken care of, this side was maintained by a city worker who clearly did as minimal work as possible.

Brown patches of dirt peeked through scarce, yellowing grass. A stillness permeated the air, different from others I’d felt.

This was the stillness of death, the loud sound of absence.

I hated cemeteries in the same way I hated hospitals. There was something unnatural about permanently keeping the dead locked underground for the sake of the living.

A chill that had nothing to do with the mild spring weather ran through my veins and I shivered.
 

Julian stopped. The simple headstone still looked relatively new. A few straggly weeds grew around its base.

For a long moment, I stared at the name engraved on the stone.

Naida Durrand

Everything was fake, down to the name marking her final resting spot.

I rubbed my ribs. A slight ache had developed just below my chest.

“You sure about this?” Julian asked. “Even if Eleanor were lying, and Naida is still down there, do you really want —“

“I need to know.”

For a moment, no one moved and I wondered if my answer had gotten lost in the wind.

And then Julian gave a rough nod and dropped the duffel bag to the ground. The sound of the zipper opening cut through the night.

“Here.”

He handed over one of the three large shovels we’d picked up from a warehouse store on the way over.

I willed my icy hands to take it from him. He handed the second one over to Cam and took the last one for himself.

Julian broke the ground and Cam soon followed.

For a few minutes, I listened to their breaths as their feet and weight pushed the shovels into the hard ground. The sounds heightened the restlessness in the air.

Wind strengthened, grass and trees whispered louder, the murmurs of the dead protesting as we disturbed their gathering place.

Julian tossed the first shovel of dirt aside. It landed on the ground beside me with a soft thump and the sound snapped me into action.

I picked up my shovel and dug.

And with each dig, each sharp pulse of pain as the wooden handle scraped my skin, I thought of her.

The way she’d pushed me to hit harder, work past the pain.

My palms hurt. Blistered.

Her four rules. The endless disappointment.

Sweat dripped down my temples.
 

Get up, Kendra. Get up. Again.
 

I wasn’t going to run from her anymore.

I wanted to know.

The sound of metal against wood smashed through me and I blinked.

“Hit something.”

Cam wiped his forearm across his forehead. “That looks like it.”

Julian slowly dug around the grave, his movements meticulous and precise. He was being careful, gently removing the dirt away from the coffin without harming it.

I suddenly felt a rush of appreciation that he was there.

We dropped down and continued digging around the coffin until it lay completely exposed.
 

Julian looked up at me. “You ready?”

I nodded.

He opened the top half of the casket.

Nothing.

Some part of me detached, floated outside of myself.
 

As if from a distance, I heard my voice. “Open the lower half.”

“Kendra —“

“Please.”

Julian opened it.

I didn’t know what I expected to find. Her body, maybe even part of her body.
 

Answers.

But all I found were lies.

The life we’d shared had been a lie, a facade as fake as the cheap pseudo-satin material lining the casket, the cop who’d shown up at my door, and the name on the headstone.

My mother wasn’t here. She’d never been here.

Something else was.

Cam exhaled. “Damn.”

I immediately recognized the handle, the perfect curve of the blade. My hand glided over the smooth, leather sheath, remembering the supple feel of it beneath my fingertips.

The ivory had yellowed slightly, but the elemental brand was as clear and potent as it had been when I last saw it. Essence tingled and the matching brand on my chest pulsed in reaction.

My father’s
kouperet
.

The Shadow had beat me to my mother’s body and my father’s weapon. He’d touched this blade, soiling what had once belonged to my parents.

A neatly folded note rested beside the
kouperet
.

The back of my neck prickled.

I opened it.

An ondine, both first and last, knew
 

she’d have to see this all the way through.

In soaring turrets waited the fellow she sought,

And he asked, both serious and not,
 

La question d’être: Who are you?

The ground around the grave was hard and undisturbed. This kouperet and note had been placed inside the coffin before it’d been buried.

Two years ago, the Shadow had left this for me to find.

“What does it say?” Julian leaned in.

I passed the note to them.

“It’s like a children’s riddle,” Cam said.

“A limerick,” I said faintly.

His brow furrowed. “The first and last?”

“Me. First Virtue, last Irisavie.”

Julian took a deep breath. “He keeps referencing you. There has to be something in your life, your past.”

But what?
 

I stared at the empty casket. How could I understand what I was supposed to find if I couldn’t trust what I remembered?

“Aren’t turrets for castles?” Cam asked. “Do we even have castles in this country?”

Julian steadily watched me. “Put the last two messages together. What is he talking about?”

His calm voice grounded me.
 

 
You must use the right key to unlock them.

The solution lay in my memories. I needed to find it.

I closed my eyes and concentrated.
 

The whispers of the graveyard muted to a vibration.

Castles. Princess. Moon. Lake. Mountains. Balloons.
 

They swirled together, nuances of a different time when nothing had been more important than my father’s laugh or my mother’s embrace. The words invoked fairy tales and vibrant colors, fleeting beauty and whimsical joy.

And then…an image.

A mansion perched on a mountain range, a king overseeing his world. Turrets graced its architecture, lending a regal strength to its elegant beauty.
 

An unmistakable swath of perfect azure sparkled at its feet. A lake.

The memory arose, faded and distant, the faint wisps of a dream.
 

“Look, Kendra.” He paused before the front steps and pointed up.

Several towers spiraled into the sky, just like the fairytales he read me every night.

A pure thrill raced through me and I gripped his hand tighter. “Castle!”

“This is where we’re staying.” His smile was soft with pleasure. “So what does that make you?”

“A princess.” I looked up and saw its friendly, round face beaming through the night. “Princess of the Moon!”

His body shook with laughter. “Then while we stay in this castle, that’s what I’ll call you.”

Other snippets flashed before me. At the lake with Dad. Mom’s worried face and their quietly spoken arguments.
 

And…a party.
 

My eyes snapped open.
 

I’d asked for balloons.

“Kendra?”

He’d been there. Watching and listening. Remembering.

I shoved the note into my pocket, grabbed the
kouperet
, and hoisted myself out of the hole.

Cam and Julian carefully closed the coffin, then followed.

One scoop at a time, I dumped dirt back into the grave, burying the lies once more.

Scoop, dump.

For a few moments, Cam and Julian simply watched. Then Julian picked up a shovel and did the same.
 

“You want to let us in on what we’re doing?” Cam asked.

The movements became automatic, the rhythm matching my pulse.

Scoop, dump.

Lies, truth.

“We’re closing this up.”

Scoop, dump.

“And then we’re going to Montana.”
 

SIXTEEN

Cam swore and slapped his neck. “Vicious bastards.”

Sunlight streamed through the canopy of trees, leaving a dappled pattern of light and dark across the forest floor.

I stepped over a thick undergrowth. “They’re not bothering me.”

Julian waved his hand in front of his face. “Maybe they know you’re more bloodthirsty than them.”

“Haha.”

Another curse, another slap. “I will never understand people who think this is a vacation. Of all the places you could go in the world why would you willingly subject yourself to this?”

A rabbit darted through the brush. “They come because it’s quiet. Peaceful.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t have vampiric insects attacking you.” He slapped his arm. “It’s been five hours, Irisavie. I hit my limit four hours ago. ”

“It’s not much farther.”

“Maybe the mosquitos don’t like the smell of your shampoo,” Julian muttered.

“How do you know it’s not your cheap cologne drawing them to us?” Cam shot back.

“Actually, they know how much I want to kill you both and are doing me a favor by eating you alive.” I pushed aside a low-hanging branch. “Can’t you give it a rest?”

Silence for a full blessed minute.

We continued hiking over the uneven terrain, the slightly humid air clinging to our skin.