They didn’t leave immediately.
He blamed Kianna.
Not that she ever outright forced them to wait until morning—no, she knew him better than that, knew the moment she tried to reason he’d dig in his heels and force his way. Instead, she took her time assembling all of her weapons. Then she insisted they actually eat something warm, while they had a dry place. Which meant beans on toast, a meal he’d come to expect and despise. Howls weren’t the only ones starving on this cursed island. Then she suggested he take a nap, which he refused with a yawn.
And then she pulled back the curtain to the torrential downpour that was Glasgow’s evening weather, casually mentioning that it would suck to have to trudge out there without magic or light to guide their way, as use of either would get them caught by the scouts Trevor had surely already sent out toward Edinburgh.
He hated admitting that she had a point.
If they left now, they’d be in sheer darkness. Sheer, wet, freezing darkness. He couldn’t use Fire to warm himself or light the way, not without risking his former comrades stumbling upon him. Nor could they use the few working torches they had, for fear of the same.
He stood by the window, fully clothed, his daggers restocked, and shivered, watching the rain pour down the glass. He couldn’t even see past the window into the street beyond, the night was so dark and the rain so thick. No way in hell he wanted to be caught out in that.
Maybe it was from being attuned to Fire, but he hated the rain and he hated the cold above all else. Oh, and large bodies of water.
God must truly exist, to fuck him over so badly by trapping him here and granting all three at once.
“We’re screwed,” he said, turning from the window.
Kianna was in pajamas.
Like, pink-and-black-plaid pajama bottoms and a pink tank top. She was literally the only Hunter he knew who wore anything other than black. Then again, she broke the mold on a lot of things—her attire was pretty benign in comparison.
She was snuggled up on the sofa, wrapped in a few thick quilts, reading a book. Probably a romance novel, knowing her. The kinkier, the better. Preferably with lesbians. “Hmm?” she muttered, not looking up.
He didn’t want to take off his gear. Not that it was comfortable, but it felt like giving in. Not just to the night, but to any hope of a different future. He needed to keep moving. Fire wasn’t an element of complacency—it had to be fed, to burn, to spread. If he lost momentum now, a small part of him screamed he would snuff out.
“This,” he said. He flopped down on the sofa next to her and kicked his feet up, resting them beside her hip.
She shoved them off the sofa without looking.
“No boots on the furniture.” She looked over the book at him. “I know you’re from the mountains, but were you raised in a bloody barn?”
“No, but my neighbors had one.” He reached down and began unlacing his boots. As much as it hurt his pride to stay in, he knew she was right—if they left now, they’d be captured or killed or both.
He wasn’t going to burn out. Not just yet.
Not until someone paid for all of this.
“So why are we screwed?” Kianna asked. She flipped a page. Judging from the cover, there were definitely lesbians in this one. Which definitely meant they weren’t leaving any time soon. “Despite the obvious.”
He didn’t know how to say it. No, he didn’t want to say it. The words burning in the back of his throat.
We can’t do this alone.
We need the Guild to survive.
If Calum falls and I’m not there, everything will have been for nothing.
Silence and the hiss and pop of the fire filled the room while he sat there, fingers twined through his laces, unable to move or speak. Any of those admissions felt like defeat. Fire cursed inside of him, telling him he was worthless if he failed after all of this, telling him he needed to fight harder, burn brighter, otherwise he was worth no more than the undead he hunted. If he didn’t make his mark on the world, no one would remember him.
If no one remembered him, he might as well have never existed in the first place.
After a moment, Kianna put the book down and stared at him. “Why did you do it?”
“What?” Her words broke the spell and pulled him from his reverie—it wasn’t depression. No, that was a heavy, sodden thing. When he turned inward, it was all knives and cauterization.
“Don’t act stupid, twat. Why did you kill him?”
He’d been waiting for her to ask that question.
He’d been waiting since he ran off to the Underground, and he still didn’t have an answer. None that made sense. None that would make her want to abandon him less.
“Because I wanted to,” he said, tossing his boots toward the fire with a thud.
“Bullshit. I know you. You’re an arsehole and you’re reckless, but you aren’t that stupid.”
Aidan stared at his boots and the flames flickering off the polished black leather. He bit his lip as the memory came back—not the image, no, but the scent. The scent of Vincent’s burning flesh, the char of his leather jacket, the singe of his hair. He could almost see Vincent’s eyes in the fire’s reflection, could almost see the fear.
Then Aidan shook his head and looked to Kianna, and the vision was gone.
“What do you want to hear?” he asked. “That I lost control? That magic is dangerous? That everything you ever warned me about finally happened?”
Rage was a slow build inside of him, but mostly, he was too tired to feel it. His words sounded as empty as the city he was exiled from.
“Those are my words, yes,” Kianna replied. “I want yours.”
He couldn’t look at her. Instead, he stared at the tattoos on his knuckles: BURN THEM. The first of many. He’d gotten them the day after he’d received his Hunter’s mark and attuned to Fire. As a reminder, a motive. A mandate. He’d spent his entire life after the Resurrection with only one goal: make the Howls pay. It had been the one thing guiding him forward, and the one thing keeping his rage in check. Burn them. Burn the ones who did this to him, to his world. Burn every last Howl and necromancer until he had the Dark Lady by the throat.
The charge wasn’t meant to apply to his comrades, as well.
“I don’t know,” he finally said.
And there it was. The three words he wanted to hold back, because releasing them was the flood over his flames. He’d always known. He’d always been assured. Fire was his weapon and he would wield it against the undead until he died. Fire was his. To control and command. To carve a path straight to the Dark Lady’s heart.
“That’s not an answer, Aidan,” Kianna said. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Aidan shrugged, still staring at his tattoos. He could practically feel his mark burning against his right forearm.
“He pissed me off,” he began, but that wasn’t right, either.
He closed his eyes.
“He woke me up.”
“He woke you up,” Kianna said. “Are you bloody well kidding me?”
Aidan shook his head.
The scent was still in his nostrils.
“He woke you up and you decided to kill him?”
“I didn’t decide anything,” Aidan said. His words were barely above a whisper.
“What?”
He couldn’t explain it to her. She wouldn’t understand. Couldn’t.
She wasn’t attuned. She didn’t know how the Spheres sang and intoxicated. She didn’t know. She never would.
“I didn’t do it,” he managed.
He hadn’t meant to kill Vincent.
He hadn’t done it.
Vincent woke him up. Woke him up from some dream he couldn’t grasp. A dream with a boy calling his name, and a grave calling his soul. A dream that seemed to resonate deeper than anything ever had. A dream he didn’t want to look at, because for some reason, it hurt like hell.
“It was Fire,” Aidan muttered. “My Sphere. It...it killed him.”
“I told you magic would bite you in the arse some day,” she replied, but her voice was unsteady.
Kianna distrusted magic. No, that was too gentle—she despised it. Said that’s what got them into this mess in the first place. Even though magic had allowed her to transition without surgery, even though it had saved her arse in battle more times than he would dare bring up, she would never be attuned. She would never wield the Spheres as a weapon or view magic as anything less than a curse humanity brought upon itself. He’d tried asking why, when they first met. When he was attuned and she stood by with disdain while watching him get tattooed.
He’d tried, but just like him, she didn’t talk about her past. Or her feelings. Which was precisely why they hadn’t killed each other yet.
Secretly, he’d always thought she was just scared of wielding so much power. Scared of what she would do with it. Or maybe she was just the ultimate hipster, denying herself magic when it had become mainstream. He’d never know. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that her aversion to magic was, in some small way, starting to feel justified.
Up until today, he’d believed that the Spheres were just weapons, no better or worse than the person who wielded them. He thought he’d been in control.
Yet, that very morning, Fire had proven that it was the master. It had taken control of him.
And Fire had only one desire: burn them all.
No matter who was offered at the stake.