Seven Black Diamonds (8 page)

ZEPHYR

Indifferent expression firmly in place, Zephyr walked away from the pier. He’d let his facade slip when he met Lilywhite. Finally talking to her after all these years was exhilarating. She was to be the other person at the head of the Sleepers, his assigned work-partner. For years, he’d carried the weight without her. He’d done everything he needed, and she’d been hidden away. In his mind, she’d become more than his partner.

He’d imagined their first meeting, of course, pictured their eventual conversation in his mind. He’d pondered a variety of surprises to greet her, ultimately settling on a small explosion. He’d bribed one of the secretaries to let him know when she was arriving, set charges on ships every day in hopes that she’d be unable to resist the pier. It should have been perfect. It should have been a joyous moment.

Instead, she’d pulled a knife and pushed him away. It wasn’t encouraging. If he hadn’t been so shocked by her reaction, he’d have tried to ask her knife for any details it might have gathered. Lilywhite was aligned with water, so she couldn’t ask it not to speak to him. He hadn’t thought to ask the steel for information, however. He was too caught off guard by her response to him.

Obviously, he’d built up his expectations. He’d imagined this day for so many years that Lilywhite was almost mythical to him. She had become increasingly more so the longer she stayed away. He’d imagined that she was more like those he’d met in the Hidden Lands. He’d spent thousands of dollars to collect every scrap of intel he could so as to prep for today, for their first meeting, for the moment when he wasn’t left alone with the responsibility for the others in their Sleeper cell, for the moment he met the faery he thought would one day be his mate. Despite everything he’d done, he was grievously unprepared for the reality.

“Roan,” he called out as he walked into the surf shop.

Not surprisingly, Roan was the only customer in the surf shop. He stood in front of the bulletin board with sales and trip listings. Zephyr sometimes suspected Swell stayed in business solely on the purchases made by the St. Columba’s students, most of whom weren’t back to school until tomorrow. Of those students, Roan was easily the freest with his money. No trip was too dear for him. He would live in the water if he had his way.

“Zeph.” Roan studied Zephyr with the kind of attentive
nonchalance that he excelled at. Like the seas that were his element, Roan was both calm and filled with energy simultaneously. If Roan hadn’t admitted his affinity the moment they’d met, Zephyr would’ve still known it. The surf-crazed boy had eyes that could easily be mistaken for a seal’s and his skin was dark enough that it seemed as elegant as the seal pelt he could don as comfortably as most people slipped into a winter coat. Only his unruly hair was unmatched to his water-dwelling appearance. Given a chance, Roan would let his hair form into the dreadlocks it so obviously wanted, but the future CEO of Reliance Pharmaceuticals wouldn’t wear dreads.

They all wore their human personas. It was simply part of the task they’d been given by their queen. Sleepers could only succeed at their missions by being exactly what they were thought to be.

Zephyr turned and walked out of the shop.

“Well?” Roan prompted as he exited behind Zephyr.

Zephyr tried to find the calm he usually had, but he couldn’t. Lilywhite was the last of the seven on his team, and now that she was with him, he had to report to the Unseelie Queen that all seven Black Diamonds were together. That was the protocol. What he didn’t know was how much to reveal to the queen, and facing her for the first time with incomplete answers was more terrifying than he wanted to admit, even to himself. He couldn’t let the others see how afraid he was.

The others relied on him. They had for years. He’d met
Alkamy, Creed, and Violet when he was still a kid, and he’d met Roan and Will when he started at St. Columba’s several years ago. They’d always known that he was their leader. He’d worked hard to live up to that expectation, but today had thrown him for a loop.

“Lilywhite has no idea who she is,” he told Roan finally.

“How did the handlers let
that
happen?”

“I have no idea,” Zephyr admitted. The horrible shock of it had left him quieter than usual. Lilywhite was the seventh and final member of his unit, the missing piece, the one the queen wanted to meet—and she was clueless.

Roan fell into step with him, keeping pace and then little by little slowing so as to force Zephyr to walk at a more fitting rate. That was one of the things he valued most about Roan: he was a strategist. He was also the calmest of the group, trained to be so because he was the only son of the CEO and primary shareholder of Reliance Pharmaceuticals.

Roan turned onto a less crowded street and added, “Before I forget, Vi wanted me to let you know she might not be here for another few days. Whatever film she’s in now is running behind schedule.”

“When does Will get in?”

Roan gave him an are-you-serious look. “On schedule to the minute. He’ll arrive in about eighteen hours, precisely at the stated move-in time. The mighty senator wouldn’t have
her
son ask for any special consideration.”

The senator was one of the few Native American
congress members, as well as being one of the rare single mothers who had attained and
held
a seat in the nation’s New Congress. Perhaps because she was breaking boundaries, she focused an inordinate amount of attention on keeping up overall conservative appearances.

That meant that she didn’t rage against her son’s sexual orientation; she simply denied its existence—and insisted that Roan was merely a “good friend” to her son.

Roan’s father was also strict, but in his case it was about staying away from “New Hollywood wastrels.” On breaks from St. Columba’s the unit functioned like two smaller groups. Zephyr saw Creed and Alkamy fairly regularly. Roan was able to stay in close contact with Will. Violet, of course, was able to do whatever she wanted. No one told her “no,” or if they tried, she simply ignored them. So she was a liaison between the two groups.

The one missing piece had been Lilywhite. None of them had a way to reach the daughter of the acknowledged head of the country’s most successful criminal organization. She’d been kept hidden from the media and the world.

Until now.

Until today.

Roan guided them to a pathway that cut through a small park a few blocks from the pier. After they passed the park, they’d be in a residential area, and from there they’d eventually come up to the side of campus. It would require scaling the wall to get into the grounds, but once
they did, they’d be in the gardens.

“Creed is still communing?”

“In the back corner, by the yew trees,” Roan directed.

They walked in silence for several minutes, which was precisely what Zephyr needed—no extra complications. He had enough to worry about with Alkamy’s moods, Creed’s drinking, and Violet’s temper. He’d expected that Lilywhite would share his burden, be a voice of reason in their odd little group. Instead she added to his list of problems, although it was through no fault of her own. Someone had failed in their duty to let her know who she was, what she was, who
he
was.

“Did you ever think that maybe it’s not an honor?” Roan’s voice was low enough that Zephyr had to lean closer to hear. “Being chosen, I mean.”

“No.” Silently, Zephyr added,
because if I allowed myself to think it, the queen would kill us all.

Roan looked away before almost guiltily adding, “I don’t want to die . . . or hurt anyone again.”

Zephyr
couldn’t
be afraid, not to die and not to kill. There was no questioning, not of the regents, not of their handler, not of the missions they would be assigned. Questions could lead to answers he didn’t like, to disobedience, and
that
would lead to death—and leaving his team, his friends, alone. He could die for his duty, for his friends, for their people, but he wasn’t going to die because he questioned their regents. He certainly wasn’t going to let
his
friends
die if he could prevent it.

“You need to stay here when I go to see the queen,” Zephyr told Roan.

“No argument here.” Roan shuddered.

Zephyr gripped his friend’s arm and repeated the words he’d been drilled on for years: “We owe the queen everything. She came up with a plan to save our lives, to save everyone. She’s
bled
for us, Roan.”

Roan said nothing as they reached the wall that stretched along the east side of campus.

Zephyr stroked the vines that covered the wall, asking them to part for him. The plants were meant to keep anyone from scaling the wall, but flora answered Zephyr. Once the vines shifted, Roan gripped the stone and began to climb. He reached the top of the rose-and-thorn-covered wall, and stepped over. Without seeing him, Zephyr knew the boy had landed in a graceful tumble. They’d been climbing this wall for going on four years.

He spoke to the plants again, thanking them as he climbed. Tendrils reached out, touching his skin, seeking contact with him as eagerly as he sought their touch. It was a terrifying gift in his childhood. He’d grown up in New Hollywood, where gardens were groomed meticulously. All Zephyr had to do was take a walk, and the plants rioted. They burst into bloom out of season; they snaked across paths and fountains. They tangled in his hair and shredded his clothes. Early on, his family had a fleet of gardeners and landscapers to keep their grounds from looking wild, to
protect him from accusations of fae blood, but by the time he was twelve, his parents had simply erected a high fence with a gate and told their friends that they liked the “hedonism” of an unkept garden. Zephyr still wore the key to that gate like a talisman.

The gardens at St. Columba’s didn’t respond as vigorously as those of his childhood. Over time, the plants had taught him though, filled his mind with messages of patience and wisdom. If they hadn’t, he’d still be at home, unable to be anywhere other than concrete and brick vistas. He’d wondered more than a few times if that was why Lilywhite had been hidden away all of these years.

Inside the gardens, Creed was stretched out in the sunlight. He looked listless, too limp to rise from the ground and greet them. He cracked one eye, saw that it was them, and closed it again. “No lectures, Zephyr. Kamy looks just as bad.”

“I trust you to help keep her safe, but last night, you were
both
drinking before I even got there.”

Creed flipped him off. “Alkamy doesn’t listen to anyone but you.”

“And
you
listen to no one.” Zephyr dropped to the ground a few feet away from Creed. “Lilywhite arrived, so I need to go to the Hidden Lands tonight. What am I to do if the queen asks about any of you?”

Roan and Creed looked away.

The Queen of Blood and Rage held their lives in her hands, and she had done so since before they existed. It
didn’t matter if they agreed. She
owned
them. If she didn’t find them worthy . . . He shook his head. Years ago, he’d asked his handler what would happen if they didn’t want to be Sleepers.

“She’ll have me kill you,” Clara said as easily as if she were speaking about the weather. “Maybe another in the unit would be elevated, but the queen prefers seven members in your team. We’d need to import another Sleeper or eliminate the whole cell.”

“All of us?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. There was an earlier version of the program. It wasn’t successful.” Clara met his gaze. “Do you want to be a Sleeper, Zephyr?”

“I do,” he lied.

“Do you live and die to serve the Queen of Blood and Rage?”

“I will,” he said. If it meant keeping his friends alive, he’d be the most devoted Sleeper there was.

“It’s for the best if you keep this conversation to yourself,” Clara added. “We wouldn’t want the others to get the wrong idea about you
or
about their queen.”

“I live for our queen, Clara.” He straightened his shoulders. “That’s exactly what the others will know: the truth. I live for her, and we
do
serve her will.”

And that was that. He had to be devoted to the queen, or he’d die. His friends would die.
They
had to be faithful in order to live—and he would keep them that way.

Every one of them had been raised knowing about the Sleeper Program and why it mattered. Humanity had already had their chance to be the caretakers of the world.
They’d failed. Glaciers melted. Cities were lost to the sea. The whole of one continent was evacuated. After one chemical company went unpunished for toxic disposals, other companies began stealthily exporting their waste, and soon all of what was once called Africa had become too contaminated for people. Whole species of animals were wiped out; others were critically endangered, no longer existing anywhere aside from zoological parks. Africa had become a global trash dump. Its displaced citizens were integrated into other lands—most often Ausland and the South Continent. Humanity had
failed
.

And then, as if their pollution wasn’t crime enough, they had assassinated the royal heir.

The Queen of Blood and Rage decided to strike back. At her order, the fae had bred and surrendered their young to be placed in the homes of people of influence across the globe. They’d allowed their children to be raised as humans, living in a world of disease and decay, because they
believed
. They’d sacrificed their own children because they’d believed. His real parents had believed enough to send him here, and Zephyr couldn’t let them down.

Clara had explained repeatedly that their people were counting on him and the rest of the Sleeper Program. The humans had far outnumbered the fae, and the fae who had come forward openly were slaughtered. So the queen had turned to guerrilla warfare. The Sleepers were only one facet of her master plan. He saw the results on the news. There was a small city on the southern coast that was taken
by the sea. Almost every casino in Vegas had been attacked by poison funneled into air ducts simultaneously; the death count there was high. Old Dublin had a siege of rats carrying the bubonic plague, and Chicago had been set to burn by over five hundred lightning strikes that were undoubtedly fae in origin.