Kandy shut the door behind Wisteria, then whirled back into the room. “It’s the key,” she hissed.
“What?”
The green-haired werewolf pointed to the artifact Warner still held. I’d stood to say goodbye to the witch, but Warner was still hunkered down over the coffee table and staring at the map thoughtfully. “Kett said we needed a key. That’s it. Like, literally.”
I really wasn’t following. The banded artifact looked nothing like a key. Plus, how the hell was a physically manifested key supposed to help us unlock a map?
Kandy squatted down next to the coffee table. “Look,” she said, pointing at the upper right-hand corner of the tattoo. “Red, orange, yellow, blue, violet. And missing green.”
“Right. I already pulled the artifact out of that part of the tattoo.”
Kandy, ignoring me, shifted her gaze to the tattoo of the intersected circle on the bottom left corner of the map. The one that had appeared as a 3D tattoo in Wisteria’s reconstruction, not a thicker line like the one I’d pulled the artifact from. “This one is red, orange, yellow, green, blue. Missing violet. Interesting.”
“Okay, I’m missing it all.”
“The color sequence of the stripes is a clue.”
“To?”
Kandy shrugged.
“To unlocking the map,” Warner said.
“Yes!” Kandy exclaimed. “Gimme, gimme.” She extended her arm, then opened and closed her hand.
“Can you be gentle?” I asked.
The green-haired werewolf growled.
I grinned as I dropped the artifact into Kandy’s open palm. The werewolf held it by the edges gingerly. I supposed she could have removed the cuffs, but if I’d received a gift at the far seer’s behest, I’d never take it off either. The concept of fate or destiny was much scarier when you actually knew someone who saw the future.
Kandy lined up the color sequence with that of the intersected circle in the top right corner. They matched perfectly — which made sense, since I’d just pulled it from there. Then she carefully placed the artifact gently down on its tattooed counterpart.
Nothing happened.
Kandy frowned. “I thought …”
“What about the one missing the violet?” Warner prompted. Suddenly someone was actually interested in treasure hunting and attempting to be helpful. Though I had to begrudgingly admit that he had also ripped a shadow demon in two earlier, so that had been plenty helpful.
As Kandy reached to remove the artifact, it occurred to me that no one but an alchemist — or Pulou himself — could have seen and then removed the object from the map in the first place.
“Wait,” I said. “Leave it for a moment.”
I knelt between Warner and Kandy, then reached across the map to touch the edges of the artifact where it sat lined up with the tattoo. I didn’t pick it up. I just let my fingers — and my magic — rest there lightly.
The magic of the map shifted. The center of the tattoo blurred, then swirled, and then solidified into something that looked a lot more like an actual map.
All three of us leaned forward, so that we smacked our heads together.
“Ow!” I cried, lifting my hand to my forehead.
Kandy snickered. Warner remained his stoic self, of course.
The magic of the map shifted back to its multilayered aspect, rendering the map unreadable once again.
“You have to hold it,” Kandy said helpfully.
“Got that, Einstein.”
“Hey! Who figured out the whole key thing being an actual key thing?”
“You.” I spoke as if pained to admit it, but I was only playing at the begrudging tone. I touched the key a second time. The magic of the map percolated, then settled.
“What does that look like?” Kandy’s voice was cast low, as if she was worried about frightening the magic of the map. I looked to where her index finger hovered just above a low point on the map.
“To me? As incomprehensible as before.”
“Think alligators, hurricanes, and white sand beaches.”
I peered at what appeared to be a pinky finger jutting into the sea. You know, if green was land and blue was water. “Florida?”
“Hell, yeah. That’s Florida.” Kandy moved her finger slightly. “But here … all the little green dots and that black square thing? That looks a hell of a lot like Bermuda.”
The ‘black square thing’ Kandy referred to glinted gold around the edges when I tilted my head to look at it.
“Green for land,” I murmured.
“Blue for water,” Kandy said. She grinned at me toothily. “I always love a reason to wear a bikini.”
“Of course you do.”
“Bikini?” Warner asked.
“Never mind,” I answered. “You don’t wear a bikini on a work trip.”
“I ain’t getting paid,” Kandy said.
“You get paid in cupcakes, chocolate, and cookies.”
“Yeah? I’m good with that.”
“The square,” Warner said. “Did you see it glow, alchemist?”
“Yeah, weird huh? What do squares mean on regular maps?”
“It’s a grid point portal,” Warner said, answering my question by not directly answering it. “The most southern in Haoxin’s territory, I believe.”
Still operating on pure instinct — because the accumulation of actual knowledge took way too long — and keeping the fingers of my right hand touching the key, I pressed my left forefinger to the black square. The magic of the map tingled, actually making my finger ache. Then the map blurred and reformed into a swath of green and blue, similar to how zooming in worked in Google Maps.
Kandy placed her palms down on either side of the map, then rose up to lean all the way over the coffee table. Warner did the same. My arms and the map were sandwiched between them like a weird game of Twister, where I was the only one touching the board.
“No landmarks?” Kandy asked.
“Perhaps we’re too far away,” Warner said. “Once we step through the portal, the magic may register the proximity of the instruments of assassination or the fortress that hides them.”
“Fortress?” I asked. Even with my head canted to the right to make room for him, my left cheek was hovering up against Warner’s right shoulder. His magic — all black forest cake, whipped cream, and cherries in deep, dark chocolate — emanated off him in a layer of heat. Or maybe the heat part was just the blush slowly spreading across my face.
Okay, admittedly it wasn’t just a blush … it was a flush of desire, which also happened to be slowly uncoiling in my lower belly like a sleeping … dragon.
Warner shrugged. His shoulder touched my cheek and his tasty magic flooded through my mouth, causing me to actually salivate. I flinched away, losing contact with the map. I really, really didn’t want to be sitting here lusting after a five-hundred-year-old dragon who was prejudiced … elitist … massively hunky —
“It’s an assumption,” Warner said. “Wars have been fought over less. An item such as this would be respected and feared. Hence, a fortress.”
“You said you didn’t know what we were looking for.”
“I don’t, not specifically.” Warner shifted back on his heels, then rose to pace the room. I could almost see the gears turning in his head. “But I understand its significance.”
“You’re worried about something. Something other than the instruments of assassination.”
“The shadow demons are not … what I expected.”
“That’s okay, neither am I.”
Kandy snorted.
Instead of answering, Warner leaned over me to press his hand in the middle of the map. The magic of the map shifted underneath his touch. Actually, it appeared to writhe as if attempting to reject him.
“Of all dragons, I was uniquely qualified to be the sentinel of the instruments of assassination,” he said. “Had I not accepted the duty I might have worn the mantle of a guardian one day.”
I kept my eyes on the tattoo, worried that if I questioned Warner, it would interrupt his hushed confessional.
Runes appeared on the top edge of the map. No, not runes. It was more like ornate but blocky-looking calligraphy.
“What’s that?” Kandy murmured. “English? I can’t read it.”
“Where dragons dare not tread,” Warner said.
“I’m not a dragon,” I said. I was being flippant, but then unknown magic and uncertain circumstances brought that shortcoming out in me.
Warner lifted his hand off the map but remained standing behind me. The letters disappeared. I didn’t look up at the sentinel.
“When did you see this?” I asked. “After you pulled the map from my safe?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve already been warned. Pulou told me when he gave me the assignment. That’s why he gave it to me.”
“My magic is adaptive, but I’m not sure I will be able to protect you all the way,” Warner murmured.
“Good thing that isn’t your job,” Kandy said snarkily. She held up her arms to display her cuffs and looked at Warner as if he was a massive moron.
I stifled a laugh and ended up snorting like a pig instead — so not sexy.
Kandy mimicked my snort three or so times and then laughed her ass off.
“Pulou wants us to check in,” I said, attempting to maintain a serious tone against Kandy’s peals of laughter. “We’ll see the treasure keeper, then figure out what’s going on.”
Warner didn’t answer.
I looked at Kandy and raised an eyebrow.
She smirked at me, then rather mournfully said, “Fortress probably nixes the bikini idea, hey?”
I laughed. “The bigger issue is getting back to the nexus.”
Then, as if I’d said the magic words, a portal opened behind me.
As I stepped through the golden magic of the portal with Kandy death-gripping my left hand, I realized I was leaving Seattle and Kett behind, without figuring out what the vampire was doing there or why he was following Wisteria. I ignored my immediate concern for the reconstructionist. She was a big girl and well versed in the Adept world, unlike me. Plus, Kett wasn’t evil. Just … morally challenged. Though I felt like a heel even admitting that to myself. Kett’s business was Kett’s business.
Kandy’s cuff kept zapping me with tiny electrical shocks whenever it came into contact with the skin of my wrist. It was like getting poked by some obnoxious kid in school. Poke. Hey, pay attention to me. Poke. Hey, why do you think the far seer thought Kandy needed extra strength? Poke. Hey, I thought you were tired of walking into unknown situations and having information withheld …
Except no one was withholding information. No one actually knew what was going on. And they still expected me to pull this hunt off.
Well, that was a first.
“How did you know to open the portal?” I asked Pulou two seconds after Kandy and I stepped into the nexus. I was seriously hoping we were psychically linked because that would be super cool and useful.
The treasure keeper was hustling toward the door that led to the territory of Australia — my father’s territory — but he paused to look back at me.
“The far seer’s gaze still rests on you,” he said. He sounded as heavy about it as I felt. He lifted his eyes to look at Warner as he walked through the portal behind me.
It was exceedingly daunting — crushing, actually — to go from no expectations to being under the gaze of the far seer. As in, I was never going to do anything more than run a cupcake bakery, but suddenly I was hunting treasure referred to as the ‘instruments of assassination’ where ‘dragons dare not tread.’
The portal behind us snapped shut before the treasure keeper spoke again. “I didn’t know that the task I set before you was so potentially perilous, alchemist. But I must ask you to continue forward.”
I nodded. “Does Chi Wen … does he …” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the question about my own mortality, or the mortality of my companions. It had been obvious since Warner showed up in the alley that this wasn’t some ordinary trinket collection. But it freaked me out to think I was walking some path that had already been foreseen by the far seer, and that what I was doing was important enough for him to notice from among all the things he must see in his day-to-day existence.
Pulou cast his unusually stern gaze across us all — first Kandy, then Warner, then back to me. “There is another who also sees.”
“Rochelle,” I whispered, thinking of the charcoal drawings stuffed in the sketchbook that Rochelle — the Oracle who’d sought haven from Blackwell with the pack last January — carried with her everywhere. A sketchbook I’d had no desire to even glance inside. That sketchbook, and whatever it contained, was at least one of the reasons Chi Wen had begun mentoring Rochelle.
“We don’t want to know,” Kandy blurted.
I nodded in agreement.
Pulou looked to Warner for confirmation.
“The fact that the far seer’s gaze is upon us speaks of the significance of this mission,” the sentinel said. “And is reason enough to continue.”
“It’s what Chi Wen doesn’t see that is always a concern,” Pulou said.
“That’s okay,” I said with more bravado than I felt. “I prefer it that way. At least then no one knows what’s going on, and it’s not just me … in the dark …wallowing in fear and distrust.”
Pulou raised his eyebrow at me.
Yeah, I could have kept that last part to myself.
“I think I was in your coat earlier,” I said. “Just in case an alarm got set off or something. That was me.”
“Pardon me?” Pulou asked. His English accent always made it difficult to tell if he was pissed off or not. “My coat?”
I fished the gold and gem banded artifact out of my satchel and held it aloft.
“It’s the key to the map,” Kandy said proudly. “I figured out that part, but Jade pulled it out of the tattoo.”
“You retrieved this from the tattoo?” Pulou asked. He stepped forward to look closer at the key, but didn’t attempt to touch it. “You’ve unlocked the map?”
“Partly.”
“I must return now,” Pulou said with a nod toward the door that led to the territory of Australia. “I can’t allow your father to have all the fun.”
He meant guardian ‘fun.’ AKA vanquishing demons and saving the world. Whatever had been going on in my dad’s territory a couple of days ago was obviously still happening.
Pulou looked at Warner. “You’ll go as far as you can?”
“I will.”
“Shall I open a portal?” Pulou said. It was obvious he wasn’t happy about leaving us, but that he felt like he didn’t have another choice.
“We’re heading to a grid point,” Warner answered.
Pulou turned away before I could mention I didn’t actually know anything about the grid point that led to the Bahamas. I had uncovered the location of the portal in Scotland while researching Blackwell. So I could try to find this one the same way … except the books in the library had a tendency to move around.
Pulou opened the door to Australia and disappeared into the golden portal magic. Kandy shuffled her feet, and I could feel Warner staring at me … waiting on me. I guessed it was time to go.
I turned around to face the door that led to every grid point portal in North America, which happened to be the territory of Haoxin, the youngest of the guardian nine.
I stood staring at the native-carved cedar door, weighing my options. Warner, who stood to my left directly in the line of my vision, felt very tall all of a sudden. Brick wall-like, actually. Kandy shifted on her feet behind my right shoulder.
“So, here we go off to the Bahamas,” I said.
“Sun, sand, and … some sort of girly drinks,” Kandy said gleefully. Though I could hear her gritting her teeth from the intense magic of the nexus. “Margaritas in Mexico … mai tai’s in Hawaii …”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, wolf,” Warner said. “Why are you hesitating, alchemist? This deliberation seems out of character.”
“I’ve never been to this grid point,” I said. “I also feel … unprepared.”
“You have your knives and necklace. The wolf has her strength and claws,” Warner said. “And I’m a dragon. What more do we need to prepare?”
“Proper shoes?” I said snarkily.
Kandy snorted.
Warner looked down at my 8 Eye boots, then raised his eyebrow. “Shall I lead?” he asked. The sentinel held his hand out to me, elbow bent and palm up. An offering.
Kandy wove her fingers through my right hand. “Go, go, go,” she muttered through clenched teeth. The excitement of the adventure obviously overrode the pain of the portal passage and the pressing magic of the nexus for the werewolf.
I turned to lock gazes with Warner. I had to tilt my chin much farther up than I thought naturally becoming. The blue starbursts around his pupils were a sharp contrast to the deep green of his irises.
He frowned and glanced down at the hand he still held out to me. “I will not harm you, alchemist. Or the wolf. We are compatriots, are we not?”
I nodded, though I had only a hazy idea of what he meant by ‘compatriot.’
Then Warner smiled. He might not have my father’s easygoing charm or Pulou’s booming laugh, but the grin transformed his face, making him more than tempting. He lifted his hand higher and wiggled his fingers.
Tempting was exactly what he intended to be.
I shook my head at my hesitation, and — after urging my necklace to amp up its shielding — I placed my hand in Warner’s.
Without another word, he reached over and opened the door before us. Kandy gasped as the golden magic flooded around us. Warner stepped through, tugging at my arm only lightly before I followed.
As always, I stepped into the blinding magic with no sense of space or grounding. This time, I also had no idea where we were going to end up. I blanked my mind, just in case the portal picked up on my ignorance over Warner’s direction, and willed myself to also not think of the first and last time I’d stepped into a portal without direction.
That time, I’d ended up in the dragon nexus with a demon crushing me.
I took a second step. Warner’s grip was firm on my hand. His skin was even warmer than the portal magic, and his black-forest-cake magic teased my taste buds. The sentinel bothered me … put me on edge. I didn’t like being afraid of anything. I didn’t like being afraid of myself, specifically my desires. My hormones had driven me into a pile of pain and trouble over the past year, and Warner looked like a bruised ego and wounded heart delivered in a mug of tasty hot cocoa with whipped cream and a cherry on top. So because of that, I would shove those thoughts and feelings far —
The bottom dropped out underneath my feet. I fell — without even having a moment to flail — into cool and very, very deep water.
Warner let go of my hand as the water closed over my head.
Kandy, who was still clinging to my right hand, started dragging me down like a lead weight … a hundred and twenty pounds of lead.
I opened my eyes, feeling the sting of salt water as I did. I was surrounded by blue that thrummed with magic. If I looked up, I could see sunlight glinting on the surface and a trail of air bubbles. Warner was above me, probably with his head above water.
I’d felt this sort of intense natural magic once before, at the grid point portal in Scotland. This magical reservoir was the reason guardians tied their portal system to the grid points. Well, at the points that intersected over land … at least, I’d assumed that to be the case.
Kandy panicked. She wrenched her hand out of mine, still sinking as she began to thrash and scream. More air bubbles streamed by me. She knocked my leg with her hand. Her three-inch claws, manifested in her terror, ripped through my jeans. I tried to grab for her but she was out of reach.
Ignoring my instinct to surface in order to breathe, I twisted, swimming downward after my drowning friend. I’d swum in the ocean my entire life, but I’d never tried to swim down — or while wearing boots — before. Thankfully, the water was warmer than I was accustomed to, and Kandy’s thrashing was slowing her descent.
I grabbed one of the green-haired werewolf’s outstretched arms. This time, instead of fighting me off, she grabbed my wrist in return.
I changed direction, attempting to pull Kandy up. For a moment, we simply hung there suspended, even though I was kicking for all I was worth.
Kandy wrapped her other arm around my waist, and then got both arms around my shoulders, freeing my second hand.
I swam. Black dots obscured my sight as my oxygen-deprived brain started to shut down, and I closed my eyes in order to ignore them. My lungs screamed and I released the air I held, even though I was pretty sure that was the wrong thing to do.
Warner grabbed the back of my T-shirt — and painfully, a handful of hair — and hauled me to the surface.
I gasped, filling my lungs with sweet, fragrant air over and over.
Kandy’s arms hung limp across my shoulders, her head lolling backward. Warner, swimming in place beside us, slammed the palm of his hand between her shoulder blades. The werewolf spewed a lungful of salt water all over me. Then she started coughing.
“Sorry,” Warner said. “I didn’t know about that last step.”
I squinted at him through the glare of sunshine on the vibrant blue water. He was soaking wet, his hair plastered to his broad face. I could see prisms of natural magic everywhere, glinting off the water, the waves, and the droplets on Warner’s face. The early morning sun was low in the sky behind me.
I started laughing. The seawater was salty on my lips — even saltier somehow than on the west coast.
Kandy groaned, then tried to laugh but ended up coughing again.
“Wolves don’t swim,” she croaked.
“I got that,” I said. “Where the hell are we?” I couldn’t see anything but blue water no matter what direction I turned.
“Off the coast of the Abaco Islands, I would guess,” Warner said. “If the Spanish didn’t destroy the land along with their extermination of the Lucayans.”
“Pretty strong words for someone who rips shadow demons apart with his bare hands,” I said, jumping to the conclusion that the Lucayans were the first inhabitants of the Bahamas.
“The Lucayans posed no threat to the invading force. As far as I remember, the Spanish didn’t even want the land.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Not for me.”
“Dragons aren’t usually so concerned with human history.”
Warner didn’t answer. Instead, he reached out to Kandy, offering his arm. I was surprised when she took it. She divided her weight between us, then started attempting to kick.
“You really can’t swim,” I said. “I’ll have to book you some —”
“Forget it,” Kandy snapped. The wolf was made of steel — literally, judging by the way she’d freaking sunk.
The magic of the portal bloomed above us, spilling light even more deeply golden than the sun. We paddled out of the way, waiting for someone to drop out of the sky.
Instead, a pretty, petite blond poked her head out of the doorway, hovering about three feet above us. Her dragon magic was a spicy combination of sweet, creamy tomatoes with a hint of basil. Only guardian magic was potent enough for me to taste it over the power of the portal. I’d never formally met Haoxin, the guardian of North America. But I’d caught a glimpse of her through the mind-scrambling magic of the nexus the day I pulled a demon through a portal to save my friends. At just over a hundred years old, she was the closest dragon in age to Drake and me that I knew of. Not that I was considered a dragon by everyone.
Haoxin scanned the horizon, then spotted us in the water below her sandaled feet. “Oh, it’s you, alchemist,” she said. Her accent was light-touch American. I would have guessed Californian if pressed, but her silky, straight blond hair and perfect tan might be cause for bias on my part.
“Guardian,” I answered, as dignified as I could be when paddling around in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with a green-haired werewolf clinging to my shoulder. “May I introduce —”
Haoxin’s gaze shifted to Warner and she smiled. This reminded me that she was also known by a secondary title — ‘reckless and adventurous.’ Guardian magic was divided among the nine by specific gifts — such as my father’s sword — and characteristics. Though why the attributes of ‘reckless and adventurous’ were an important component of how the nine guardians of the world functioned, I didn’t know.
“Hello, sentinel,” Haoxin said. I swore her eyes were suddenly bigger, bluer, and her lips fuller, pinker than they had been moments before. I was fairly certain her guardian magic didn’t have anything to do with shapeshifting, though, so maybe I was just seeing her through envy-tinted glasses.
“Greetings, guardian,” Warner said affably. His grin was effortless and welcoming. Charming, even.
Lovely.
“We seem to have made a misstep,” the sentinel continued.
Haoxin laughed softly, the sound raining down over we peons in the water like perfectly tuned chimes. “Shall I help you up, sentinel?”
“Thank you, but we must proceed.”
A light wind moved across the sea to dry the droplets on my cheeks. This breeze caused Haoxin’s blue silk dress to dance around her smooth, unblemished thighs, but she ignored it to point over our heads. “Land is that way, my friend.”
“Thank you, guardian.” Warner gave a nod that had to take the place of a bow, seeing as he was still treading water. He reached for Kandy and the werewolf wrapped her arms around his neck from the back.
Haoxin lost her sunny smile as she watched this exchange. Then she looked at me. “Alchemist,” she said. But then instead of continuing to speak, she bit her lip and glanced back into the portal.
“You will find the island friendly,” she finally said, though I got the sense she was editing herself. “Though I don’t usually use this portal when I walk here.”
“Yeah, I can see why.”
Haoxin grinned fleetingly in a rote response to my sarcasm. “I hadn’t thought … I would go with you on this adventure, alchemist, but I understand you tread where I may not. It bothers me that there is such a spot in my territory. Do you have your knife?”
“Yes, guardian.”
Haoxin grinned again, her seriousness dissipating beneath a gleeful, almost mischievous, anticipation. “It’s a brilliant blade. Wield it well. I look forward to the tale and … the cupcakes I’m told I’ve been missing.”
Before I could answer, she stepped back into the portal and it snapped shut behind her.
“Haoxin?” Warner asked.
“Pretty, pretty,” Kandy said. Despite the fact she was clinging to the sentinel, her predator nonsmile was firmly back in place.
“Yeah,” I answered both of them. “Can you read their identities by their magic? I mean, when a new guardian … ascends? Do they retain or embody the magic of their predecessor along with their names and titles?”
“Some. Enough,” Warner answered. “Though I’d never met Haoxin before.”
I opened my mouth to question him further, but he turned and began swimming in the direction Haoxin had indicated. I couldn’t see any land. I wondered if the guardian’s eyesight was just that much better than mine, or if she simply knew what way to head through experience.
Warner, who carried Kandy on his back as if she weighed no more than … well … a bag of cotton candy, was quickly outpacing me. His long arms and strong legs cut through the blue water with minimal backsplash. I sighed. I wasn’t such an accomplished swimmer, but I could stay in the water for hours without much effort.
Pushing thoughts of what else long arms and strong legs would be good at out of my mind, I followed Warner. Haoxin had taken an immediate shine to the sentinel, so at least lust-wise, I was in good company. Though, after spending ten months or so in and out of the nexus — as well as in and out of conversation with Drake — I’d ascertained that there weren’t exactly dozens of eligible dragons hanging around, so maybe Warner was just fresh meat to the guardian … as maybe I was to Qiuniu.
I wasn’t sure when all my relationships had gotten so complicated, though it might have been when the vampire had shown up outside of my bakery. More likely, it had been the moment Sienna had walked into my life. Problem was, I didn’t think I could survive without people to care for. So, all I could do was what everyone else did — cherish the good relationships and attempt to avoid the bad. I didn’t have a great track record doing either, but I was sure as hell trying.