Michael crouched; the ball hit his shoulder guard and deflected straight upward, when all physics said it should have ricocheted to Strike in the pass they had undoubtedly intended. Lucius didn’t slow or swerve; he barreled straight at Michael. He saw the other man’s eyes go wide, saw him brace for impact.
Only Lucius didn’t hit him—he jumped, spring-boarded off the other man’s shoulder, and went vertical.
The ball reached its apogee and descended, hurtling toward a ball court that represented imprisonment in the underworld. Lucius flew up to meet the sun ball, slammed his armored forearm into its yielding irregularity, and sent it hurtling through the heavy air. The ball shot sideways, not toward the underworld court now, but toward the sacred stone ring. Toward the future.
Gravity grabbed Lucius, yanking him earthbound as though pissed that he’d broken free for a brief and glorious moment. He slammed into the ground and rolled to lie flat, staring up, as the sun ball passed through the sacred ring without touching the sides. For a moment, the earth went still, and he imagined he could hear the cosmic swish of his sideways slam dunk.
Then the sweet note went to a scream, a brilliant red-gold flash split the air, and the world lurched around Lucius. Adrenaline slashed through him. This wasn’t his magic, whatever that was. There was no green haze, no feeling of inward pressure; this was entirely external, a greater force taking him somewhere. Then he was moving, accelerating, the world whipping sideways past him and going to a gray-green blur.
Air detonated around him, drier than the rank humidity of Skywatch. He had only a moment to register tall tree trunks covered in dry, dead moss and wilted vines before gravity yanked at him again —he could almost hear it snarl, Stay down there, will you? He landed on his feet, bent kneed and not alone. The other magi were all around him, with Jade at the edge of the group, near a thick stand of brownish vegetation. He caught an impression of a blighted rain forest, with tall tree giants forming an overhead canopy protecting wilted air plants, with their long, ropy roots. Vines hung in limp tangles, and sad-sounding parrots called desultorily from up above.
Climate change, he thought. The cloud forests are dying . But even as that clicked in his brain, he saw the brittle ferns sway with the passing of a large creature. Then another. “Jade,” he shouted as adrenaline spiked. “Behind you!”
As she spun, the greenery parted beneath paws the size of a man’s palm, and a big, black shape emerged, joined seconds later by another. The fur bristled between their shoulder blades; their hackles were raised.
The companions of Kinich Ahau had come to earth!
Michael shouted and the magi converged on the creatures. Lucius lunged in front of Jade, and lifted his hand stone. Then he hesitated, because the companions weren’t attacking. The creatures were just standing there, with their eyes locked on Jade. “Don’t move,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t even breathe.”
She touched his arm. “I think it’s okay. Remember, they defended me before.”
“Now I’m defending you.”
“I know.”
He glanced back at her, saw the decision in her eyes, and grabbed her arm before she could do something impulsive. “Oh, no, you don’t.”
“They came from Xibalba,” she pointed out. “They must have come through the hellmouth. Maybe they can lead us back there. If it’s still closed, I might be able to manipulate the magic hiding it, like I did with Vennie’s cave.”
The other magi were gathered close in support, but he saw only her, feared only for her. “Jade—” he began.
She touched his mouth, silencing him. “Shh. We’ll talk about it later,” she said. And this time, the
“later” was a promise.
Lucius knew he didn’t have a choice. She was a warrior, with or without the mark, and she needed to do what the gods intended, both for the Nightkeepers and for herself. He stepped slowly back and gestured for her to do her thing.
The moment she started forward, the dogs whirled and plunged into the undergrowth. Without looking back or hesitating, she plunged after them, with Lucius right on her heels. If anything bad wanted to get at her, it was going to have to go through him to do it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jade’s nerves revved high as she followed the companions, who were moving fast through the dying cloud forest, their heads and tails low as though they were on a mission. Which she supposed they were: Save Kinich Ahau, and get him back in the sky where he belonged.
One thing at a time, she reminded herself. First we need to find the hellmouth. As she chased after the long-legged black hellhounds, she sought the magic, called it to her, but nothing happened. Panic flickered. Don’t you dare quit on me now.
But it wasn’t that the magic had quit on her, she knew. She’d quit on it. Or rather, she was blocking the hell out of it.
Damn it, Lucius, she thought, but even as she did, she knew it wasn’t entirely his fault, or hers. They had both screwed things up the night before. She should’ve told him about her theory of the connection between their emotions and their magic, and she should’ve come clean to him that she was falling hard and fast for him despite all her best intentions. Even admitting it to her inner self brought a lick of panic. He’d turned her down, said that wasn’t what he wanted, she wasn’t what he wanted.
Granted, his behavior on the ball court and the way he’d worn her scarf as a knight’s Dark Age favor suggested he’d been doing some rethinking too, and the way he was following close behind her now had all the hallmarks of a male warrior- mage protecting his mate. But they hadn’t said the words, hadn’t had the conversation.
More talking? she asked herself, irritation spiking. Therapy might be a two-way conversation, but she was getting sick of it. She was tired of talking herself into trouble; she wanted to act, to react, to make a difference, damn it.
Up ahead, the big black creatures crossed a wide clearing and then stopped dead, standing shoulder-
to-shoulder, facing nothing in particular. Then they sat, still staring at that same nothingness. Only it wasn’t nothing, Jade knew. It was the hellmouth . . . or it would be if she could figure out the magic.
Lucius moved up beside her while the other magi fanned out, waiting for her to do her thing. None of their talents was compatible with the task—fire could level the forest but it couldn’t uncover what had been hidden; a shape-shifted hawk could fly a search pattern, but the Volatile could see only what was visible. Mind-bending wouldn’t help; Strike couldn’t ’port blind; and invisibility wasn’t their problem—visibility was.
“It’s all yours,” Lucius said, his thoughts paralleling hers. He took her hand, squeezed it. “You can do it. I have faith in you.”
That jarred against his recent behavior. “Maybe,” she said softly, “but what if I’m not strong enough?”
He looked down at her, his eyes intense. “The harvesters believed in the importance of their work; Shandi believed in the value of the harvesters. The stars believed in the prophecies, Vennie in her own brilliance. You’re a part of each of them. What do you believe in?”
She didn’t answer right away. She knew that the clock was ticking, that everyone was waiting for her. But she was stuck on Lucius’s question. What did she believe in? She believed in the magic, in the Nightkeepers and the war. She believed that she was stronger than she used to think she was, and that she and Lucius . . . what? Did she believe they could make each other happy in the long run?