House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City) (58 page)

Not his problem, not his issue to solve. But he still asked, “Are you okay?” She didn’t look okay. She sat the way he had in his dorm bathroom the night he’d learned that Connor was dead.

The mystic only said, “He will be back soon.”

“Then I’ll wait for him.”

“He will not be pleased.”

Ithan offered her a reassuring smile. “I can pay, don’t worry.”

“You’ve caused him a great deal of inconvenience. He’ll kick you out.”

Ithan took a step closer. “Can you help me, then?”

“I can’t do anything unless I’m in the tank. And I don’t know how to use the machines to ask the others.”

“All right.”

She angled her head. “What do you want to know?”

He swallowed hard. “Was it true, what the demon prince said, about my brother being safe for now?”

She frowned, her full mouth unnaturally pale. “I could only sense the other’s terror,” she said, nodding toward the tanks. “Not what was said.”

Ithan rubbed the back of his neck. “All right. Thanks. That’s all I needed.” He had to know for sure that Connor was safe. There had to be some way to help him.

She said, “You could find a necromancer. They would know the truth.”

“Necromancers are few and far between, and highly regulated,” Ithan said. “But thanks again. And, uh … good luck.”

He turned back toward the doors. The mystic shifted slightly, and the movement sent a whisper of her scent toward him. Snow and embers and—

Ithan went rigid. Whirled to her. “You’re a wolf. What are you doing here?”

She didn’t answer.

“Your pack allowed this to happen?” Rage boiled his blood. Claws appeared at his fingertips.

“My parents had no pack,” she said hoarsely. “They roamed the tundra of Nena with me and my ten siblings. My gifts became apparent when I was three. By four, I was in there.” She pointed to the tank, and Ithan recoiled in horror.

A wolf family had
sold
their pup, and she’d gone into that tank—

“How long?” he asked, unable to stop his trembling anger. “How long have you been in here?”

She shook her head. “I … I don’t know.”

“When were you born? What year?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even remember how long it’s been since I made the Drop. He had some official come here to mark it, but … I don’t remember.”

Ithan rubbed at his chest. “Solas.” She appeared as young as him, but among the Vanir, that meant nothing. She could be hundreds of years old. Gods, how had she even made the Drop here? “What’s your name? Your family name?”

“My parents never named me, and I never learned their names beyond Mother and Father.” Her voice sharpened—a hint of temper shining through. “You should leave.”

“You can’t be in here.”

“There’s a contract that suggests otherwise.”

“You are a
wolf
,” he snarled. “You’re kept in a fucking
cage
here.” He’d go right to the Prime. Make him order the Astronomer to free this unnamed female.

“My siblings and parents are able to eat and live comfortably
because I am here. That will cease when I am gone. They will again starve.”

“Too fucking bad,” Ithan said, but he could see it—the determination in her expression that told him he wasn’t going to pry her out of here. And he could understand it, that need to give over all of herself so that her family could survive. So he amended, “My name is Ithan Holstrom. You ever want to get out of here, send word.” He had no idea how, but … maybe he’d check in on her every few months. Come up with excuses to ask her questions.

Caution flooded her eyes, but she nodded.

It occurred to him then that she was likely sitting on the cold floor because her thin legs had atrophied from being in the tank for so long. That old piece of shit had left her here like this.

Ithan scanned the space for anything resembling a blanket and found nothing. He only had his T-shirt, and as he reached for the hem, she said, “Don’t. He’ll know you were here.”

“Good.”

She shook her head. “He’s possessive. If he even thinks I’ve had contact with someone other than him, he’ll send me down to Hel with an unimportant question.” She trembled slightly. He’d done it before.

“Why?”

“Demons like to play,” she whispered.

Ithan’s throat closed up. “You sure you don’t want to leave? I can carry you right now, and we’ll figure out the other shit. The Prime will protect you.”

“You know the Prime?” Her voice filled with whispered awe. “I only heard my parents speak of him, when I was young.”

So they hadn’t been entirely shut off from the world, then. “He’ll help you. I’ll help you.”

Her face again became aloof. “You must go.”

“Fine.”

“Fine,” she echoed back, with a hint of that temper again. A bit of dominance that had the wolf in him perking up.

He met her stare. Not just a bit of dominance … that was a
glimmer of an
Alpha
’s dominance. His knees buckled slightly, his wolf instinct weighing whether to challenge or bow.

An Alpha. Here, in a tank. She would likely have been her family’s heir, then. Had they known what she was, even at age four? He suppressed a growl. Had her parents sent her here
because
she’d be a threat to their rule over the family?

But Ithan shoved the questions aside. Backed toward the doors again. “You should have a name.”

“Well, I don’t,” she shot back.

Definitely Alpha, with that tone, that glimmer of unbending backbone.

Someone the wolf in him would have liked to tangle with.

And to leave her here … It didn’t sit right. With him, with the wolf in his heart, broken and lonely as it might have been. He had to do something. Anything. But since she clearly wasn’t going to leave this place … Maybe there was someone else he could help.

Ithan eyed the small box on the worktable, and didn’t question himself as he snatched it up. She tried and failed to rise, her weakened legs betraying her. “He will
kill
you for taking them—”

Ithan strode to the doors, the box of fire sprites trapped inside their rings in hand. “If he’s got a problem with it, he can take it up with the Prime.” And explain why he was holding a wolf captive in here.

Her throat bobbed, but she said nothing more.

So Ithan stalked outside, onto the jarringly normal street beyond, and shut the heavy door behind him. But despite the distance he quickly put between himself and the mystics, his thoughts circled back to her, again and again.

The wolf with no name, trapped in the dark.

“I’m requesting an aquatic team of twenty-five for tomorrow,” Tharion said to his queen, hands clenched behind his back, tail fanning idly in the river current. The River Queen sat in her humanoid form among a bed of rocky coral beside her throne, weaving sea nettle, her dark blue gown drifting around her.

“No,” she said simply.

Tharion blinked. “We have solid intel that this shipment is coming from Pangera,
and
that Pippa Spetsos is likely already there. You want me to capture her, to interrogate her about Emile’s whereabouts, I’m going to need backup.”

“And have so many witnesses mark the Blue Court’s involvement?”

What
is
our involvement?
Tharion didn’t dare ask.
What’s your stake in this beyond wanting the kid’s power?

His queen went on, “You will go, and go alone. I take it your current cadre of … people will be with you.”

“Yes.”

“That should be enough to question her, given your companions’ powers.”

“Even five mer agents—”

“Just you, Tharion.”

He couldn’t stop himself as he said, “Some people might think you were trying to kill me off, you know.”

Slowly, so slowly, the River Queen turned from her weaving. He could have sworn a tremor went through the riverbed. But her voice was dangerously smooth as she said, “Then defend my honor against such slander and return alive.”

He clenched his jaw, but bowed his head. “Shall I say goodbye to your daughter, then? In case it is my last chance to do so?”

Her lips curled upward. “I think you’ve caused her enough distress already.”

The words struck true. She might be a monster in so many ways, but she was right about him in that regard. So Tharion swam into the clear blue, letting the current pound the anger from his head.

If there was a chance of attaining Emile’s power, the River Queen would snatch it up.

Tharion hoped he had it in himself to stop her.

The chairs had turned into velvet couches on the dream bridge.

Ruhn slid into his, surveying the endless dark surrounding him.
He peered past the fainting couch to Day’s “side.” If he were to follow her that way, would he wind up in her mind? See the things she saw? Look through her eyes and know who she was, where she was? Would he be able to read every thought in her head?

He could speak into someone’s mind, but to actually
enter
it, to read thoughts as his cousins in Avallen could … Was this how they did it? It seemed like such a gross violation. But if she invited him, if she wanted him in there, could he manage it?

Flame rippled before him, and there she was, sprawled on the couch.

“Hey,” he said, sitting back in his couch.

“Any information to report?” she said by way of greeting.

“So we’re doing the formal thing tonight.”

She sat up straighter. “This bridge is a path for information. It’s our first and greatest duty. If you’re coming here for someone to flirt with, I suggest you look elsewhere.”

He snorted. “You think I’m flirting with you?”

“Would you say
hey
in that manner to a male agent?”

“Probably, yeah.” But he conceded, “Not with the same tone, though.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, you caught me. I’m ready for my punishment.”

She laughed, a full, throaty sound that he’d never heard before. “I don’t think you could handle the sort of punishment I dole out.”

His balls tightened; he couldn’t help it. “We talking … restraints? Flogging?”

He could have sworn he got a flash of teeth biting into a lower lip. “Neither. I don’t care for any of that in bed. But what do
you
prefer?”

“It’s always the lady’s choice with me. I’m game for anything.”

She angled her head, a waterfall of flame spilling down the side of the couch, as if she draped long, lovely hair over it. “So you’re not a … dominant male.”

“Oh, I’m dominant,” he said, grinning. “I’m just not into pressuring my partners into doing anything they don’t like.”

She studied him at that. “You say
dominant
with such pride. Are you a wolf, then? Some sort of shifter?”

“Look who’s trying to figure me out now.”

“Are you?”

“No. Are
you
a wolf?”

“Do I seem like one to you?”

“No. You seem like …” Someone crafted of air and dreams and cold vengeance. “I’m guessing you’re in Sky and Breath.”

She went still. Had he struck true? “Why do you say that?”

“You remind me of the wind.” He tried to explain. “Powerful and able to cool or freeze with half a thought, shaping the world itself though no one can see you. Only your impact on things.” He added, “It seems lonely, now that I’m saying it.”

“It is,” she said, and he was stunned that she’d admitted it. “But thank you for the kind words.”

“Were they kind?”

“They were accurate. You see me. It’s more than I can say about anyone else.”

For a moment, they stared at each other. He was rewarded by a shifting of her flame, revealing large eyes that swept upward at the edges—crafted of fire, but he could still make out their shape. The clarity in them before her flame veiled her once more. He cleared his throat. “I guess I should tell you that the rebels were successful with their hit on the Spine. They’re bringing over the Asteri’s mech prototype to the Coronal Islands tomorrow night.”

She straightened. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I was told by—my informant. A rebel contingent will be there to receive the shipment. Where it goes from there, I don’t know.” Cormac wanted Athalar to examine the Asteri’s prototype—see how it differed from the humans’ that the angel had faced so often in battle.

Because Athalar was the only one among them who’d faced off against a mech-suit. Who’d apparently spent time in Pangera taking them apart and putting them back together again. Cormac, as he’d been fighting alongside the human rebels, had never battled
one—and he wanted an outside opinion on whether replicating the Asteri’s model would be beneficial.

And because Athalar was going, Bryce was going. And because Bryce was going, Ruhn was going. And Tharion would join them, as the River Queen had ordered him to.

Flynn, Dec, and Ithan would remain—too many people going would raise suspicions. But they’d been pissed to learn of it.
You’re benching poor Holstrom
, Flynn had complained. Dec had added,
Do you know what that does to a male’s ego?
Ithan had only grunted his agreement, but hadn’t argued, a distant expression on his face. Like the wolf’s mind was elsewhere.

“Who’s going to be there?”

“He angled his head. “We got word that Pippa Spetsos and her Lightfall squadron will also be present. We have some questions for her about … a missing person.”

She straightened. “Is Spetsos being given command of the Valbaran front?”

“I don’t know. But we’re hoping we can convince whoever is there from Command otherwise. We suspect that she and Lightfall have left a trail of bodies all around the countryside.”

Day was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Do you know the name of the ship that’s carrying the prototype?”

“No.”

“What island?”

“Why are you grilling me on this?”

“I want to make sure it’s not a trap.”

He grinned. “Because you’d miss me if I died?”

“Because of the information they’d squeeze from you before you did.”

“Cold, Day. Real cold.”

She laughed softly. “It’s the only way to survive.”

It was. “We’re going to Ydra. That’s all I know.”