Breaker (Ondine Quartet Book 4) (52 page)

She shook her head. “I took exams early and passed out of all my classes. Lumiere is behind what we study at Rivelleu. No offense.”

“Well, everyone’s busy.”

“Dax left. Mom’s caught up with Council stuff and everyone else is busy preparing for finals.” She sounded like it was the end of the world. “I don’t have anything to do.”

“Boredom is a privilege,” I muttered. “We’re in the middle of a war, Helene. Find something to do.”

“I want to train.”

“Yeah, well, obviously that’s not possible now. You’ll have to do something else —”

“Like?”

I looked up at the ceiling. Nope, patience wasn’t hanging out there either.
 

“Find Aubrey. She probably has a million things you can help her with. And while you’re at it, find Holden and tell him to meet me here.”

She perked up. “Are you discussing a plan?”

“Even if I were, you wouldn’t be in on it,” I said evenly.
 

“How does finding Aubrey and Holden help the war?”

“Practice. Locating them gives you an opportunity to work on your tracking skills.”

She thought about it.

I was going to have to give her a little more. “And you can also fit in a few extra runs around the courtyard.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because it’ll keep you in shape.” I raised a brow. “You can improve your marksmanship all you want, but it’s meaningless if your body isn’t ready. Cardio is good for your heart and lungs. Besides being important in a fight, it also helps to keep you sharp and level-headed during tough situations when your adrenaline gets pumping.”
 

A speculative look crossed her face. She nodded, bounced off the lounge, and left.
 

Blissful silence settled over the library, filled only by the hushed undertone of magic vibrating off books.

I leaned back and tried to focus. But it was no use.

The words on the page blurred together. Frustrated, I closed the book. Besides a few random tidbits about my ancestors, I’d learned nothing new.

“You killed him.”

Guess the other person in the library finally wanted to talk.

Ray detached from the shadows. He’d entered the library a few minutes after me and had been lurking between the history and biography sections for the past few hours.

He settled at a table featuring an elegant chess set, pristine marble figures glittering in the waning afternoon light.

He slid a black pawn forward and waited.

What the hell. I could use a break anyway.

I took the chair across him and slid a white pawn forward.

“You killed him,” he repeated.

I sighed. “I’ve killed a lot of people, Ray. You gotta be a bit more specific.”

He studied the board. With one finger, he gingerly pushed the black rook forward.
 

“Him,” he whispered.

I countered with a move from my own rook. “Yeah, I got Scabbard.”

“How?”

The look in his eyes as he shoved his throat against my blade flashed before me.
 

“He was already dead for a long time,” I said softly. “I just finished the job.”

Ray’s gaze darted across the board, attention flickering from one figure to the next as if the answers he searched for would be there.

Suspicious paranoia no longer lingered in his eyes or the tight lines around his mouth; instead, there was only the raw pain of an unresolved past.
 

I reached over and touched him. He jerked his hand away, his eyes wide.

“He’s gone. He can’t hurt you anymore,” I said calmly. “He can’t hurt anyone.”
 

He rubbed at the spot on his wrist where I’d made contact.
 

“Went on a fishing trip to the mountains for a weekend.” His voice was flat. “On my way back, they took me. Locked me in the dark, said and did things…” He paused. “I crawled out. It took…” He blinked and shook his head. “Don’t know how long it took. But I clawed my way out of the dark.”

Ian once said Ray had been locked up in some kind of basement. I understood what it felt like to be trapped in the dark bowels of a monstrosity.
 

“You escaped.”

Knowing what that darkness was like, what Scabbard was capable of, made Ray’s actions even more extraordinary. He’d been alone, with no one or nothing to ground him, and still managed to get free.

I debated my next move and finally picked up a piece. “You got out. You survived and —“

“I killed my wife.”

I put down the bishop.

He looked at me. “I went home and I thought she was him. My mind…everything was messy. I thought I would never be free of him. I had to stop him. So I killed him, except it wasn’t him. It was her.”

“Ray—“

He abruptly stood, his hip knocking a few of his pieces over on the board, and lifted his shirt.

A network of thick burn scars covered his abdomen and chest. The wounds had faded to a pearly white sheen, but the edges were angry ridges against his pale, smooth skin.

“The rot got inside me.” His finger traced the line of a diagonal scar across his right ribs. “Made me see what it wanted me to see. I had to get it out. That cold poison don’t like heat.”

Fire.
 

At Flathead Lake, the lucidity had returned to Ian’s eyes because of the warmth from the fire.

The sour taste of nausea rose in my throat.
 

Scabbard had also injected Ray with the Shadow’s undiluted blood. Ray was the urban legend Gilroy mentioned - the sole nix who’d survived.

He’d done this to himself. He’d lit his skin on fire, following the icy pulse of the blood, until it burned away.
 

The cost of his survival was forever marked on him. Every day he took off his shirt and looked in the mirror was a reminder of what it had taken.

It’d taken us nine days after Ian’s kidnapping to reach GrandView. Another fourteen before we managed to get out.

For twenty-three days, Ian had undergone a kind of torture I would never really understand, an experience that yanked away the years I’d known him, transforming him into someone unrecognizable.

It’d taken far less time than that for me to agree to the Shadow’s demands to end Julian’s beating.
 

If pushed, I wasn’t sure what else I would’ve agreed to.

“How long did Scabbard keep you in the dark?” I asked levelly.

“Three months.”

We hadn’t been given any poison. Just words and thoughts tainting our minds and even that was enough to push us to the edge.

What would I have done? How much longer would I have lasted?

I shoved aside the fear and moved my knight forward. “It wasn’t you, Ray. What you did was because he injected you with —”

“You did the right thing with Ian.” Ray sat across from me, strange dark eyes latching on to me. “Poison was killing him.”

My throat suddenly felt raw. For the first time, I was talking to someone who really understood.

Ray knew what that blood did to your insides. He knew what Ian had gone through and what it took to end it.

“See, some people think you’re the
sondaleur
‘cause you’ll end the war. Others think you’re the
sondaleur
‘cause of your ability to kill. Maybe others think you’re it ‘cause of your magic.” He leaned in. “But I don’t think it’s any of those things.”

“Oh?”

“You’re the
sondaleur
because you came back.” He narrowed his eyes. “Shadow used you, spit you out. But you’re still here getting your hands bloody and messy and doing the things no one wants to do. You’re still here trying to protect us even though you’re scarred and banged up.”
 

“You could’ve also stayed in Alaska until all this was over.”
 

He didn’t need to be here.

He shrugged, his leg bouncing up and down. “Been hiding long enough.”

The shadow haunting his eyes reminded me of Patrice’s profile against the window. Brigette’s earnest expression.

Regret is the most horrible of monsters.

Tristan, his hands cradling my face, his eyes holding onto me with desperation.

Don’t hide. Let me in.

We didn’t just fight for our future. We also had to fight to accept our past.

“Maybe it’s time we all stopped hiding,” I said.

Ray crossed his arms and rested his chin on it. He peered at the pieces on the board. “You need to move everyone into position.”

“I’m not Governor anymore.”

He slanted me a look. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Something in the sharpness of his gaze reminded me of my grandmother.
 

You need to learn how to best utilize your resources.

Tristan once said power had nothing to with the actual strength you had, but in how you wielded it. Maybe the same thing applied to political power.

“Nothing,” I said slowly. “But I still don’t know how to finish him.”

Ray smiled. “That also doesn’t matter. As long as you position everyone on the board right, you’ll have checkmate.”
 

He slid the bishop across to stand in front of the white Queen, an extra layer of protection against the advancing black King.

“He’s right.” Holden strode into the library, flannel shirt and baggy jeans hanging off his thin frame, and a backpack strapped over one shoulder. “Helps to be armed, though.”

Ray continued moving pieces on the board, but my attention was locked on to what Holden pulled out of his pack.

Whoa.

The machete was the epitome of lethal beauty. Silver steel glinted in the sunlight. I lifted it up and moved it through the air, testing its weight.

It was immaculately constructed:
 
lightweight, with a perfect balance between the handle and blade.
 

“Nice.”
 

He nodded, pleased. “My contact in Colombia was happy to do business with us. One of Garreth’s men is taking the lot of them to the Armicant so it can infuse it with Essence.”

Last night, Aubrey informed me she’d taken Holden up on his offer and they were in the process of trying out interesting designs.

I rotated the machete, the blade slicing through the air with a whistle. It was an interesting choice of weapon. The width of the blade meant it lacked a
kouperet’s
precision, but made up for it with sheer stopping power.

Instead of piercing the Origin, we could cleave through it.

“How the hell did you get it past the Royal Gardinels?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t have to. Especially since they were made for ‘em.”

I stared. “Really?”

Holden, a nix, had designed a weapon for selkies who’d like nothing better than to try it out on him?

He shrugged, a faint flush creeping up his cheeks. “Just thought they might wanna try something new. Been using
kouperets
for so long…might be time to change it up, you know?”

“Did they like it?”

He smiled. “Already have too many orders. Had to create a waiting list.”

Good for you.
My respect inched up another notch.

I handed the machete back and Holden returned it to his bag. He glanced at Ray. “Nanette is keeping lunch warm for you.”

“What did she make?”

“Ham sandwiches. The way you like them. If you want I can tell her to bring —”

Ray left, his departure as abrupt as his arrival. He moved quick, sticking to the shadows as if afraid someone would follow.

Holden watched his back as he exited. “Strange guy.”

“You don’t know him well?”

His expression turned wary. “He was more Ian’s friend than mine.”
 

Just like everyone else here.

Ray wasn’t the only one who didn’t have to stay. Holden and the other nixes risked a lot just by staying in Haverleau.
 

Maybe Holden was done hiding, too.

“How are things going with Aubrey?”

He motioned toward the doors. “Ask her yourself.”

Aubrey’s clever eyes swept the room. She stood taller, her lithe figure both graceful and strong.
 

After Ian’s death, she changed her prosthetic. She now had a state of the art arm she’d designed herself. Attached to the same clever set of blades she’d originally created with Ian, she wore the attachment without a skin sleeve.
 

Steel fingers glittered in the afternoon light.
 

“Where’s Helene?” I asked.

“I got her working on some of the newer prototypes with Tara and Grady. We needed the help.”

Good. “How are things progressing?”

“Production has finally settled into a rhythm. We’re on track to fill the initial order within the next week.”

The Council may have shut down the ondine training program, but Jeeves had been able to secure an additional storage location next to the Justice Department’s main armory for our new weapons. Holden, Tara, and Grady worked on weapons production and development with Aubrey while Will set up the database and technical framework to manage the influx of new weapons.

“Wanted to let you know I’ve been going through some of the older documents we took from the Selkie Kingdom,” Aubrey looked at me. “Thought there might be something more specific to help you stop the Shadow.”
 

An immense rush of gratitude flooded me. “Thanks.”

“Don’t know how much it’ll help.” She gave a small smile. “So far there’s nothing but boring texts about bindings and magic. I’ll let you know if something pops up.”

After discussing a few more details about the machete orders with Holden, she left.
 

Nothing but bindings and magic
…

The words triggered a memory. “Hey, do you know anything about nix legends?”

“Which one?” Holden settled on the lounge and stretched his long legs in front of him. “There’s a ton of ‘em.”

“Something about Jourdain and the Shadow being bound together. Ian once mentioned it.”

“Oh, that one.” He shook his head. “Ain’ nothin’ but a fairy tale for young nix kids. Gives ‘em a taste of the most powerful hallucinogenic drug in the world.”