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43

From the roof of a brownstone building on D Street, I watched thick smoke roll into the night sky toward the east. True to her word, Maeve’s troops had rampaged through the Weird, destroying whatever fell in their path. From Fort Point Channel to Blackhawk Terminal, the air burned an angry orange. Fire-engine lights flickered in a few spots, but not many. The city was protecting vital service locations like the power and sewer plants. It had no choice. The destruction was too widespread. The wind shifted, bringing an acrid stench with it.

The sword had shrunk back to its dagger shape. I held it flat against my palm, staring at it, wondering at the path it had taken to arrive in my possession. The faith stone encased the base of the blade, a cold light burning in the heart-shaped stone. It lit the runes inscribed on the blade, soft blue glimmers that resonated with power and memory.

Despite its beauty, it made me feel shame. The sword and the stone belonged together. Together, they were something greater than their individual parts. Together, they formed the image of the document Meryl found in the Guildhouse archives. Meryl hadn’t been trying to kill me. On some unconscious level, she had understood that the two wards needed to be joined, and Nigel’s compulsion had tried to force her to do it.

I focused my thoughts on a mote of essence in my mind. I visualized Meryl’s body signature, wrapped the sense of it around my thoughts, and pushed them out.

I didn’t understand, I sent. I colored the sending with earnestness and apology.

She answered immediately. We both screwed up. If you can forgive me for almost stabbing you in the head, I guess I can forgive you for your anger about it.

A door opened and closed behind me, a brief flash of light sweeping across the roof. Eorla came up beside me, taking in the view. “I’m surprised to see you smile while looking at this.”

“Not that. Just the way life happens,” I said.

Eorla surveyed the burning skyline. “She shows no mercy.”

“Like any true fanatic,” I said.

“Her forces are massing. They’re going after the consulate soon,” she said.

“He saved my life,” I said.

She peered at me, curious and expectant.

I held up my left hand so she could see the gold band. It was Vize’s ring—our ring. When he died in the Gap, his essence transferred into it and bound itself to my flesh. “Bergin saved my life.”

Eorla hugged herself, looking away from me. “Where is he?”

I took her elbow and made her face me. “Under the Guildhouse. He saved my life, Eorla. He said to tell you thank you for everything and that he died with hope.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “He once said to me that if he had to die for his cause, he would rather die in hope than despair.”

For the second time, I took her in my arms to comfort her over the loss of someone she loved. Vize’s death was without grief for me, yet I didn’t have the satisfaction I thought I would. He went and screwed that up for me by saving my life. He was dead, but he was part of me. I was satisfied in a detached way but not glad.

The blare of a siren startled us apart. The sky overhead had become a smear of black and gray rippling in the wind. A vague sensation draped over me, an essence of a profound nature, wild and untamed, yet constrained by a force of will. Shapes were moving in the shadows of smoky clouds, enormous beings striding across the sky. “What the hell is that?”

Eorla pointed toward the Weird, her hand trembling. “There. Over there.”

The siren blast was coming from the top of the warehouse that housed Yggy’s bar. The old civil-defense horns were going off. I didn’t think they worked anymore, but that wasn’t what made me shiver. Heydan stood beside the siren tower, his head reaching almost to the top, almost thirty feet tall. He glowed white with power, facing the city. He leaned on the tower with his right hand and held a sword in his left, pointing toward the center of the city. The figures in the sky above him gathered together and moved toward downtown.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“He calls the Old Ones to battle,” she said.

“That’s good. We can use the help,” I said.

Eorla turned toward the door. “You mistake me, Connor. It’s the end of the world.”

44

I waited in a room with no windows but two doors, both closed. I wasn’t in the mood to see outside anyway. When Eagan had ferried me across the city, I had seen the extent of the destruction. We had flown along the edge of it, dipping and diving among downtown city streets to elude our pursuers. More than once, we had flown through smoke and fire. The room stank of it because we all stank of it.

Eorla entered with a glamoured Dylan. They placed documents on the table and sorted through several vials of glow bees as reports flowed in from across the city. Dylan looked a little the worse for wear, his uniform torn and covered with dirt and soot.

Keeva arrived next. I hadn’t seen her since she let me escape the safe house. I had doubted her, but she stood with me in the end. I resisted the urge to smile as our eyes met because there was nothing to smile about after her sacrifice. She placed a brown binder envelope on the table. Stone-faced, she unwound the string holding the binder closed and removed a sheaf of documents. She pushed them toward me. “Callin won’t be coming.”

I pulled the papers toward me. “Is he all right?”

“He’s still in AvMem, but he’s weak. We didn’t want to risk his coming here.”

“Risk? What risk?” I asked.

“Look at the documents, Connor,” she said.

The top sheets were index forms, categorizing the rest of the paperwork. Reports were organized like Guild case files, but without any official markings. They referred to people whose names I didn’t recognize. My name jumped off the page on the first case. It was a record almost a decade old, an elf arrested for attempted kidnapping—my attempted kidnapping. I remembered some of the outlined events, but I had no recollection of someone’s trying to kidnap me. The next case was similar, this time an Inverni fairy charged with attempted murder—my attempted murder. Case after case showed more of the same: attempted murder or kidnapping; stalking; conspiracy to commit murder. All of them listed me as the target. The problem was, I had no idea about the history described, as if a parallel series of events occurred that I knew nothing about. They were all filed by the same Guild agent over the ten-year period.

“Who is Shadow?” I asked.

“Callin,” Keeva said.

“He’s Shadow? But he was….” Cold realization swept over me. Callin had been kicked out of the Guild for insubordination and failure to perform over a decade ago. His firing had coincided with my return to Boston and the break in our relationship. I cleared my throat. “What was his assignment?”

Joe popped into the air. He hovered over the table, holding the stone ward bowl like a host trying to decide where to put food on a crowded table. He winked, placed the bowl in front of me, and sat next to it. Essence shimmered in it, a soft swirl of blue and white that swelled in reaction to the people in the room.

Keeva frowned. “You. I was his handler. He was personally responsible for stopping seventeen assassination attempts.”

“Well, I helped on three of those,” Joe said.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

Keeva glanced at the other closed door with annoyed hesitation. “You needed protection. We provided it.”

“Protection from whom?”

Eorla and Rand had stopped talking to listen to us.

“Maeve. Donor. Anyone you ever pissed off, which is pretty much everyone,” she said.

I shook my head. “I am so lost.”

The other door opened, and Eagan entered, the Eagan of my youth, strong, healthy, and fully in command. He took a seat at the table and gestured at the binder. “You are the linchpin in a long-term strategy, Grey. The dwarf Brokke had a vision. He foresaw another war for dominance among the fey. He predicted that certain people might be able to avert the war. You are one of those people. We took it as our duty to keep you alive.”