Pain.
Pain. Pain.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
Then blissful nothingness.
Coffee.
And chocolate.
But bitter … too bitter.
Choking.
Suffocating.
Someone was trying to force me to … drink … coffee …
I tried to shove it away … tried to turn my head …
The pain returned, or maybe it had never gone.
Too much.
Too late.
The damn coffee pusher was back.
Seriously, I didn’t freaking like freaking coffee!
I mean, drink it if you want to, but …
Wait.
Music.
Wait.
Coffee … and chocolate?
Wait.
The healer.
I was … alive? Still alive?
Agony shot through my head, down my neck, and through my left arm. Then it was soothed away, carried off by a tune I could never remember.
But … I didn’t want to be soothed. I didn’t want to be shoved into oblivion.
I tried to grab hold of the healer’s magic. I tried to hoard it … but I didn’t have my knife or my necklace.
Where was my necklace?
I had to open my eyes.
I had to move.
I couldn’t do either.
I was trapped on the edge of oblivion.
I was trapped.
I was trapped.
No.
No one held me.
I didn’t need to be able to see or move.
I had magic.
I was magic.
“Oh, thank goodness,” a voice murmured. “I’ve got her. I’ve got her back.”
The healer. Qiuniu.
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t move my mouth.
So I reached for the healer’s magic instead.
I could suffer through a few sips of coffee, especially if accompanied by dark chocolate.
There wasn’t much I couldn’t do when motivated by chocolate, after all.
“We have to get the necklace off the necromancer.”
“She can’t even move yet, warrior.”
“The girl will die. The instruments are not meant to be held, not together, not by anyone other than the wielder. And Jade will be angry if she wakes to find we did nothing.”
“Jade’s permission will hold a little while longer. The necromancer will survive.”
Mory.
Mory was in trouble.
Dying?
Because of … me.
“Blossom.”
A sudden spike of magic — my father’s power — drilled into my head, deeply into my brain. I gasped, shying away from the intense energy.
“Jade! What did she say?”
I tried to speak again. I couldn’t.
My father’s magic brushed me … my cheek, my shoulder, my left hand.
No.
He was touching me. That was what physical contact felt like.
“Blossom tried, Jade,” my father said urgently. “The necklace refuses to budge from the necromancer’s neck. And for all his arrogant, ignorant declarations, the treasure keeper can’t collect it either.”
The pain rose, but I fought it back. I tried reaching out, seeking the tenor of the necklace. But I couldn’t feel it.
“Bring the girl here,” the healer said. “The proximity might help.”
Mory. Not ‘the girl.’
She was Mory.
The healer’s music rose and I slipped away into the soothing tune before I could voice my complaint.
The intense taste of chocolate and cherries and whipped cream came and went.
Warner.
His magic was full of fury.
Later.
Bittersweet chocolate with a red-berry finish.
Kandy.
Later.
Cool peppermint.
I breathed.
The bed shifted. Cool fingers brushed against my left wrist, checking my pulse.
Kett.
I tried to talk but couldn’t.
Then I realized I was touching something. The fingers of my left hand were threaded through … metal. Magic writhed, noting my attention on it. Needy, spiteful magic, full of declarations of vengeance.
“Shh, shh …” I whispered, soothing the power. It settled under my touch.
Kett pressed a kiss to my forehead. His cool magic smoothed away the dull ache that seemed to permanently reside in my head.
“We didn’t get to save each other this time,” he murmured, teasing.
He was gone before I could reply. Before I could thank him for reminding me who I was when I’d so desperately needed to know it.
Or … maybe it was me who’d slipped away.
Again.
I opened my eyes.
Blinking.
I was in my bedroom. Lying faceup on the bed. The light was muted. Shadows across the ceiling.
Someone was lying curled beside me.
I turned my head. Pain streaked up my neck, resolving into black dots across my vision. I blinked some more.
It was Mory next to me. And … and … there was something terribly wrong with her magic.
I couldn’t taste it.
The fingers of my left hand were twined through the wedding rings on the necklace she wore.
That was odd … there was something odd about Mory wearing —
“Jade? Jade!”
I met Mory’s gaze. Her dark eyes were sunken, her skin sallow. But a grin spread across her face.
“You look like hell,” she teased.
“Right back at you,” I croaked.
She shifted up, sitting propped up on one hand, but bent over me so I didn’t lose contact with the necklace. Both her legs were in hard casts.
Her movement jostled me, and the resulting agony nearly pushed me back under the darkness waiting to consume me. To subsume me.
“I held it for you, Jade,” Mory whispered. “The necklace.”
The necromancer’s face came back into focus. She looked … sick. Really sick. Like something was eating her from the inside out … consuming her magic. That’s why I couldn’t taste it.
“The necklace,” I murmured.
“Yes.”
“My necklace.”
“Yes.”
Magic shifted around us, around Mory’s neck. Then I was holding the necklace, my fingers still threaded through the wedding rings.
Intense magic flooded up my left arm, streaking through my shoulder, neck, and head. Pain rampaged through every one of my nerve endings.
If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought the instruments were punishing me for abandoning them.
Pain snuffed out my sight.
Darkness swallowed me again.
Voices.
Raised.
Arguing.
My grandmother, my father, and … the treasure keeper?
But muffled, as if coming through the door.
I opened my eyes.
Warner was pacing back and forth by my bedroom door. Dressed head to toe in leather armor and with his knife visible in its sheath, everything about him promised death and destruction to anyone who dared enter the room.
My heart squeezed, then expanded until I thought it might burst. “I … I thought …” Tears flooded my eyes, choking my already reedy whisper.
Warner spun to face me, instantly dropping to his knees by the bed. Pure joy was etched across his face.
“I thought I would never get to see you again,” I said.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I lifted my hand, intending to press it against his face. Desperately wanting to feel his warmth, the scrape of his stubble. But the necklace and the instruments of assassination came with me, twined around my fingers.
Warner laughed, quietly joyful. “Ah, my Jade. My Jade.” He gently cupped my hand, necklace and all, and pressed a kiss to my palm. “You’re moving. You’re healing.”
“What’s going on in the hall?”
“Pulou,” Warner spat. “Now that you’ve reclaimed the necklace, he thinks he can force Blossom to take it from you. You made some deal with the brownie before? The treasure keeper thinks it’s still in effect.” He paused, looking at me questioningly.
I nodded. “When the healer needed to heal me in the nexus. From the gemstone … and the brawl with Pulou. He couldn’t do it with me wearing the instruments.”
Warner nodded grimly. “He’s driven poor Blossom into hiding. Don’t worry, your mother is on the way. He won’t be able to justify his behavior when she gets here.”
“I wasn’t aware she had that kind of power over guardians.” I laughed quietly. It hurt, but it hurt worse not to laugh.
“Scarlett has them all wrapped around her little finger.” He pressed a gentle kiss to my hand again. “It runs in the family.”
I smiled at him, but I could feel the weariness threatening to take me under. “Open the door.”
“You’re going to let Pulou take the necklace?”
“No. Just open the door. I’ll speak to him.”
Intense emotion flitted across Warner’s face, and I watched as he visibly struggled to not argue with me. Then he shook his head, stood up, and stiffly crossed to the door. He pulled it open so hard that the knob embedded into my standing bureau. He glanced back at me.
I gave him a look.
He grinned, deadly around the edges. But not deadly for me.
I chuckled quietly.
Everyone who had crammed into the narrow hall of my apartment had gone silent. Warner stepped to the side.
I angled my head so I could see partly into the hall. “Pulou.”
The treasure keeper pushed past my grandmother and father, pausing just outside the door. He was massive in his floor-length fur coat, though his magic was dampened. Or maybe it was actually me who was drained. “Wielder,” he murmured.
I lifted my left hand — the only limb I could actually move — to display the necklace. “The instruments will put up with no other mistress.”
“Jade,” Pulou said kindly. “They are dangerous even when you are … whole.” He waved his hand. “And now, they nearly killed the necromancer.”
“Mory. Her name is Mory.”
“I am aware. I’m simply asking you to let me put them away, safely, until you are capable of retrieving them.”
“And I’m simply telling you that when I die, you can rip them from my cold corpse. Until then, you must remain in a perpetual state of displeasure.”
“Your death would not please me, Jade.”
“There you go, then,” I murmured, epically weary from holding my hand aloft. “The instruments stay with me. When I die, I shall give Blossom permission to hide them away in the treasure keeper’s chamber.”
“Fine?” Warner asked pissily. “Can Jade get back to healing now?”
“Of course, sentinel,” Pulou said stiffly. “I meant no disrespect.”
My eyes were shut before Warner got the door closed.
“There’s something wrong with my legs.”
“You’re still healing.” Kandy was curled up on the bed beside me. I could feel her magic, more than see her in the dark room. Not even a hint of moonlight filtered through the closed curtains.
“I’ve been healing forever.”
“It’s just … complicated. Qiuniu brought you back, right? But you … you weren’t breathing when Warner pulled you out from under the fucking stadium.”
“Not breathing …” I murmured. I was still so, so tired.
“They … the witches, Scarlett and Pearl … they pumped so much magic into you that they actually collapsed. All their reserves, just to hold you in stasis. Force your heart to beat. Mory says the damn leech helped saved you, so now we all have to be nice to the creep.” Kandy sighed. She shifted again, scrubbing a hand over her face. “And the healer and Burgundy have been working overtime between all the rest of us.”
“So … I’m … paralyzed? By the gateway?”
“Jesus, Jade. We thought you were dead.” Her voice cracked, haggard. She pressed her face against my neck. I felt tears streaming down her cheeks. “I thought … I thought you’d left me. And that’s not the deal. That’s not the deal. I get to go first. Promise. Promise me, Jade.”
I closed my eyes, terribly weary. “How about together?”
Kandy laughed huskily. “Okay. Together. In a blaze of glory. You, me, Kett. And Warner, if he wants. I thought old toothy was going to end his immortal existence when he set eyes on you, lying here … Pearl thought that she and the sorcerers were going to have to figure out how to contain him. With everyone so drained, they didn’t know if they could hold him. And Warner wasn’t being at all helpful.”
She curled into me more tightly, gently threading her fingers through mine. “We thought you were dead. We thought you were dead.”
I pressed my other hand to her head, finding I could move both upper limbs now. Slowly, I twisted around so I could actually see my BFF.
Her hair was pink. Like, neon pink.
“What the hell is wrong with your hair?”
Kandy laughed. “What? You said you thought I’d look adorable in the bakery.”
Haoxin was standing by the side of the bed, peering down at me.
I moved, slamming myself up against the headboard, pain ricocheting through my entire body in response. But I had only enough focus for the guardian, who had danced away in response to my movement. Standing just beyond my reach.
Mory gasped. She’d been asleep in a high-backed antique chair of burnished gold standing in the center of the bedroom. I didn’t recognize it. Dripping with magic, it looked like something Warner might have dragged out of the treasure keeper’s chamber.
I turned my attention back to Haoxin. Her blue-eyed gaze flicked down to my hand, then up to meet my eyes.
My necklace was wrapped around my left wrist and forearm, though I didn’t remember moving it. My jade knife had appeared in my right hand, called forth by a sharp spike of self-preservation. My fingers felt thick, almost numb, but I could close them around the hilt.
And I didn’t need fingers to unleash the centipedes.
Haoxin snorted, watching me thoughtfully. “There you are. Your father said you were paralyzed.”
“Apparently not.”
“What are you doing here?” Mory demanded. She jutted her chin out belligerently even as she quaked in fear.
“Really, necromancer. You should curb that tongue when addressing your guardian dragon.”
Mory clamped her mouth shut, shooting me a look that urged me to take the petite blond down a peg or two.
I was happy to oblige. “So. You look good for … you know … having been a beastly giant on a rampage only days ago. Fit, trim.”
Haoxin smoothed her hands down her waist and hips, sneering cockily. She was wearing a sky-blue cashmere sweater over a charcoal-gray plaid wool pencil skirt. “Weeks, dowser. Not days.”
My stomach bottomed out. Weeks. I’d been down for weeks? Keeping my gaze steadily locked to Haoxin, I gripped my knife tighter, ignoring the way my bent legs were starting to shake as I crouched against the headboard.
I flicked my wrist, loosening the twist of my necklace. Magic expanded, then contracted. The necklace settled around my neck.
Haoxin took another step back.
And yeah, I smiled. Not nicely.
Mory looked damn smug as well.
“No need to be feisty, Jade.” Haoxin draped her arm across the back of the chair Mory was sitting in.
I wasn’t certain if the guardian meant to be intimidating, but Mory shot out of the chair and hobbled around the other side of the bed, standing near the headboard. As close as she could get to me without climbing onto the bed itself, clutching Ed and her knitting to her chest.
A look of regret flickered across Haoxin’s face.
Yeah, it was difficult to stay friends with people you’d just tried to kill.
“I come bearing a wedding gift,” Haoxin said. She smoothed her fingers along the back of the chair, then dropped her arm. “The chair has healing properties.”
“Blossom brought it,” Mory said. Not contradicting the guardian, but just clarifying.
“It took me some time to find it,” Haoxin said. “It was a gift from the former healer to my mother, when she was badly hurt.” She cleared her throat, covering something painful in the pause. Then she added crossly, “I was unaware that the treasure keeper had collected it.”
“He likes to do that.”
“Yes, he does.”
“A shelving system would help.”
“Yes!” Haoxin cried. “We must force a trip to Ikea on him.” She chuckled, then swept her gaze across Mory and me again as her smile faded. “I’m sorry I hurt you, necromancer. I understand you freed me from the portal, but I was … momentarily altered by its magic.”
Mory nodded. “The oracle asked me and I accepted.”
“Of course you did. I owe you a boon.”
“A boon?”
“If something is in my power to give you, you have only to ask.”
Mory stared at Haoxin, thoughtfully caressing Ed’s shell. Then she nodded.
The blond guardian’s lips curled in a hint of a smile. Then she pinned me with her intense blue gaze. “You and I are even.”
“Neither of us were ourselves.”
“Exactly.” And with that pronouncement, Haoxin crossed to open the door, pausing to look back at the chair. “The chair is yours for life, Jade Godfrey. Have it returned to the estate of Haoxin on your death.”
“I will.”
Magic shifted through the room, flowing between Haoxin, me, and the chair. Reminding me that using mere words to make binding deals with demigods who controlled magic was far too easy.
“And Jade? That night, with the elves … thank you for using the centipede to take me down.” Haoxin touched her neck. “Rather than the silk ribbons.” Her gaze was remote, and I was pretty sure she was remembering the vision Chi Wen had shown her. Of her own death by strangulation.
She was gone before I could answer.
I lost hold of my knife. My legs collapsed under me, and I slumped sideways.
Mory grabbed for me, but one of her arms was in a cast. I hadn’t noticed it underneath her bulky sweater. I touched the hard wrapping even as she struggled to get me under the covers.
“What … your arm is broken too?”
“Yep. Along with both legs. Though the ankle has healed.”
“But … but … the healer?”
“The witches pretty much expended everything they had, first on Gabby. Her magic was so drained it wouldn’t accept the healing. Then they worked on you and had nothing left. Then the healer couldn’t heal me.”
“Because of the necklace.”
“Yep. So Mom took me to the hospital and claimed we’d been in a car accident. Later, the witches were able to help some. But … keeping you going was a little exhausting for them all. And the healer has gotten called away a bunch of times, leaving for days. A whole week one time.”
She shoved a pillow under my head, awkwardly. It hurt. I closed my eyes. “Sit in the chair, Mory.”
“I have been.”
“Now.”
She laughed, but I could hear her hobbling over to the chair and settling into it. A moment later, the steady click of her needles started up.
I smiled. “You were so brave, Mory.”
“I was scared out of my mind.”
“So was I. But never more than when I thought … when I thought you might not make it.”
“Yeah. You died, Jade. Died saving me. Don’t do it again.”
I laughed, sleep tugging me down, down, down in a spiral of peacefulness. “I would have gotten both of us free if I could have. But … I’d do it again.”
“I know,” Mory whispered.
I slept.
“How did I get free?” I asked. I didn’t realize that I’d spoken out loud — didn’t realize I was even awake — until my mother curled her hand into mine.
“Warner,” she whispered. “And your father. And Kandy with those magnificent cuffs, though she was badly hurt and magically drained. But Mory tells me it was the shadow leech she calls Freddie who really made the difference.”
“Freddie … wrapped around my head and shoulders …”
“Yes, protecting your head. Warner was a terror. Your magic was … he couldn’t find you without the instruments. And Mory was wearing those.”
I sighed. “But Mory could feel Freddie.”
“Yes. And Tony had that tracking device on you, steadily telling everyone they were looking in the right place.”
“Did it … did Freddie survive?”
“She shows up every evening, even through the wards, and perches on your bedpost.”
“She? Mory says Freddie is a she?”
My mother laughed quietly. “The necromancer insisted. Your father is most disgruntled that a demon saved you when he was otherwise occupied. The leech makes herself scarce when he visits.”
“Freddie isn’t just a demon,” I said, smiling.
“No, my darling, she isn’t.” My mother smoothed her hand across my forehead. “You have that effect on otherworldly creatures.”
I laughed quietly, then remembered the answer I’d been seeking, the concern haunting the back of my mind. “But what I meant was … how did I get free of the gateway?”
“You must have freed yourself, darling.”
That didn’t sound right. But there was obviously a lot I didn’t know, that I couldn’t recall. Maybe I had managed to pull myself free.
Except … I was fairly certain that wasn’t the case.
Magic tasting intensely of lilac prickled across my shoulders as Gran tucked the duvet up under my chin. I opened my eyes just in time to see her close the curtains over the darkened windows, then pause to check the sill for dust. It was spotless, of course, thanks to Blossom.
“Hey, Gran.” I cleared my throat, freeing my arms from the confines of the bedding to reach for the glass of water on the bedside table.
“Jade.” Gran smiled, stepping back to turn on the bedside lamp.
A golden glow softened all the hard edges in the room. I drained the glass of water. The apartment felt empty of magic, other than Gran’s and the wards. “Where is everybody?”
“What?” my Gran said, huffily playful. She plucked the empty glass out of my hand and hustled toward the door. “Am I not good enough?”
I shook my head at her retreating back, listening as she traversed the hall toward the kitchen.
Crispy cinnamon toast tickled my senses. Without looking, I reached up to the shadow leech, who had just appeared on my headboard, tickling her in return under the chin.
“Hey, Freddie,” I whispered. “You hungry?”
The leech leaned down, nuzzling my ear and purring.
Gran hustled back into the bedroom, holding a tray. She paused, eyeing the leech with displeasure.
Freddie folded in her wings, wrapping her magic tightly to herself.
“You know where your food is,” Gran said crossly. “You don’t need to bother Jade while she’s healing. I left you three charms. And one is from Burgundy. I know you prefer her magic.”
Freddie took flight, zooming through the door and buzzing Gran in the process. The head of the Convocation shook her head, feigning disgruntlement — and completely ignoring my stunned expression.
“You … you’re feeding Freddie? Wait — you can see Freddie?”
Gran hustled over to the bed, placing the tray over my lap. The smell of homemade turkey soup wafted up, momentarily distracting me from interrogating her. My stomach grumbled.
My grandmother huffed, pleased. Then she ruined our bonding moment by tucking a napkin into my tank-top neckline and trying to feed me.
I took the spoon from her. Ignoring the way my hand trembled, I took a sip of the hot soup. “I missed Christmas. And turkey.”
“But not the soup,” Gran said, straightening the already perfectly straight duvet and sheets.
“Tell me everything I don’t know,” I asked, taking another sip. Then another. The soup was doing a surprisingly good job of slowly soothing away my regrets over missing the holidays.
“Such as?”
I reached for the dinner roll on the tray. It was warm, braided into a rosette. My grandmother’s baking. I tore it apart and buttered it. “What happened after, with the stadium? Your wards held?”
“Of course they did. No one outside them heard, saw, or felt a thing.” Gran finally settled down beside me, folding her hands in her lap. Witch magic glinted from her rings. I’d never seen her wear so much jewelry or so much magic at once. “The guardians cleaned up their mess. As they should have. The treasure keeper. Haoxin, once she was up and about again. And the one to whom Warner owes fealty.”
Fealty? “Jiaotu.”
“Yes.” Gran’s lips twisted. Apparently, the guardian of Northern Europe had made a bad impression. “Couldn’t spare a word for any of those who covered for his brethren’s rampage. He sauntered around the stadium, what was left of it, three times. Counterclockwise.” Gran sneered.
I offered her one of the sugar cookies that accompanied my lunch, shaped and decorated like a Christmas tree. It was cool to the touch. Gran must have frozen some of her holiday baking so I wouldn’t miss out.
I tucked my chin to my chest, covering a well of emotion.
Gran touched my hand gently, then took the cookie from me. “You’re still healing, Jade.”
I nodded, pressing the napkin to the corners of my eyes. Then I took another comforting sip of soup.
Gran nibbled on the cookie, taking up her narrative with more gusto. “I must admit, though, the guardian’s magic was impressive. His illusions were spectacular enough that the sorcerers and I could allow our shielding to fade. Then the city remained blissfully ignorant of the destruction of the stadium while Blossom oversaw the repairs.”
“Blossom repaired the entire stadium?”
Gran chuckled. “No. She had a legion of brownies at her command. And it was done within a week.”
“And … the elves?”
“Gone. Without a trace. Through the gateway, according to Mory, or crumbled into nothing.”
I nodded, feeling saddened for all those I’d killed. Everyone who would have chosen to die in their own lands, if they’d had the choice.
“Tony is still monitoring the situation,” Gran said, watching me intently.
“Monitoring?”
She waved the hand she held the half-eaten cookie in. “Social media sites and such. For chatter. Just in case anyone reports having seen something they shouldn’t have. But I doubt anyone could have seen through the magic we held that day.”
“How long, Gran?” I asked, knowing it was the only question I really wanted answered.
“For the cleanup? Under a week, like I said.”
“No.” I set my spoon down, suddenly feeling full. “How long have I been in bed? Haoxin said it had been weeks.”
“It takes as long as it takes, Jade. For you to be … back to normal.”
I met her blue-eyed gaze, feeling the tears welling in my own eyes again. “What if I never am? Normal?”
Gran stood, taking the tray and setting it on top of the bureau. “You’re tired. I shouldn’t have pushed you with a full meal.”
“What’s the date, Gran?”
My grandmother stepped back, holding the covers up so I could settle back down into the bed. I did, but only because I was tired.
“The date?” I asked again.
Gran smoothed her fingers across my cheek. “I’m so, so glad you are here, my granddaughter. When Warner pulled you out of the …” Her words hitched with emotion. “You mean … everything to me. Everything.” She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. “January 30. Sleep some more, darling. When you’re ready, you’ll get up. That’s how life works. We keep moving.”
She stepped back to retrieve the tray while my mind boggled over how much time I’d lost … to Reggie and to healing.
Gran paused at the door, looking back at me. “I’m so proud of you, Jade. So proud of the life you have built, and the strength with which you defend it. But I pray every day that I never lay eyes on your lifeless body again. I’m not certain I could survive it. I’m not certain I would want to.”
“Gran.”
“Sleep. I’ll watch over you until you can take care of yourself again. And I have no doubt you will be able to do so. Soon.”
She left without another word. I closed my eyes, tracking the taste of her magic and allowing the sounds of her bustling around in the kitchen to lull me to sleep. As I’d done as a child.
The room was empty and brightly lit when I next woke. I swung my legs off the bed, compelled to leave it behind me. I stood, unsteadily. And after struggling to change into a clean tank top and my cupcake pajama bottoms, I made my way down to the bakery.
To my kitchen.
My haven.
I should have showered. Brushed my teeth. I should have stretched, done yoga, made certain that everyone was okay.
But I wanted, I needed, to bake.
The storefront was empty. It was well past opening hour, so it must have been a Monday. The entire bakery felt almost … lifeless. As if it were slumbering.
But there was butter and cream cheese in the fridge. And eggs from Rochelle. A precious half-dozen, though her deathlayer hens hadn’t been laying through the winter.
I found myself wondering if the oracle had sent the eggs because she’d seen me baking in a vision. Then I threw my head back and laughed at the idea.
The magic of the wards responded, caressing me. I ran my hand across the pristinely clean stainless steel counter as I crossed toward the pantry, collecting cocoa, vanilla, sugar, and flour.
I owed Gabby and Mory a cupcake. Something with raspberry and a marshmallow topping.
But not today.
Today, I was baking just for me.
I had the first dozen dark-chocolate-cake cupcakes in the oven when Kandy came barreling down the stairs from the upper apartment. She laughed breathlessly when she saw me.
“I step away for one minute …” She shook her head. Her towel-dried hair — still pink — flapped around her face. She got herself a stool from the office and perched on the other side of my workstation. The bright pink hair was crazy cute on her, but I didn’t say so. Because paired with faded-black skinny jeans, a black T-shirt, and the three-inch-thick gold cuffs, I was fairly certain the werewolf was trying to be edgy. I didn’t want to ruin that for her.
I mixed up another round of cake batter.
Warner arrived next. Dressed in jeans and a printed T-shirt, he swung me into his arms and danced me around the kitchen while Kandy screamed at him to be gentle. The T-shirt was emblazoned with the text ‘Looking good since 1507.’ Kandy’s handiwork.
“Let her finish icing the cupcakes, at least!”
Warner laughed huskily, then whispered in my ear, “I’m planning a surprise.”
“For me?”
He grinned, stole a plain cupcake, then wandered into the office to make phone calls. Though first, he dragged my desk across the floor to the right, so he could maintain a direct line of sight to me through the open door. I caught snippets of his hushed conversations as he spoke to my mother, then to Gran. I couldn’t get enough to figure out the surprise, though.
I flicked my gaze to Kandy. “I scared you. All of you.”
She shrugged, beckoning for me to give her the beater currently covered in dark-chocolate cream-cheese icing. “You know what it’s like. You’ve been on our side of that. Watching us dying.”
The wards shifted, announcing Kett with a tingle of peppermint across my palate just before he slipped into the bakery kitchen through the exterior alley door. He stood just inside, watching me.
I frosted a half-dozen cupcakes. Then I smiled at him.
An answering smile ghosted across his face. Then he wandered into the office, had a muted conversation with Warner, and retrieved another stool.
He cast a cool gaze across my no-longer-quite-so-pristine workstation. “How many cupcakes were you planning to make, dowser?”
“Shut your wicked trap, vampire,” Kandy snarled.
I laughed quietly, feeling tired but … contented. “Are Jasmine and Benjamin doing okay?”
“She’s watching him,” Kett said. “We’re being careful around risings.”
“Teresa still wants to put that bracelet back on him?” Kandy narrowed her eyes at Kett.
He ignored her, speaking to me. “It’s a transition period.”
My BFFs had obviously been bickering about the feeding and care of Benjamin Garrick.
I smiled at them.
“What?” Kandy asked snarkily.
I slid a frosted cupcake across the stainless steel workstation toward her. She fell on it like it was a lifeline to heaven and she was drowning in a sea of death and destruction. “It’s going to take more than one, dowser.”
An image seared across my brain …
Slowly decomposing elf corpses littered throughout the stadium …
Their lives thrown away, sacrificed to my sword by their leader …
Hundreds dead …
I blinked, forcing the image away. I was holding my jade knife, not the metal spatula I’d been using to frost cupcakes just a moment before.
Kandy and Kett were gazing at me steadily. My werewolf BFF smiled kindly. Kett stood, reaching across the cupcakes spread between us, then ghosting his cool fingers across the back of my hand.
I took a shuddering breath. Then another.
I loosened my grip on my knife. It disappeared. I wasn’t wearing my sheath.
Kett settled back onto the stool. Kandy grunted happily, eating the last couple of bites of her cupcake.
I took another breath. Then I started frosting cupcakes again.
Warner wandered back into the kitchen from the office, looking pleased with himself. I fed him a cupcake and he looked even more pleased, leaning back against the counter while he ate it, brushing his shoulder against mine.
Someone knocked on the door to the alley. Someone the wards hadn’t announced. I couldn’t get a read on who it was, except to know they weren’t human.
There weren’t many people who could hide their magic from me in such a fashion. But oddly, I wasn’t worried.
Warner, Kandy, and Kett stilled. Their every sense was now trained on the door, like predators homed in on prey.
“Come in,” I said. The magic of the wards shifted.
An elf stepped through into the kitchen, sweeping her glittering green-eyed gaze across Warner, Kett, and Kandy — then immediately dismissing them. She settled on me. A smile tugged at the edges of her lips.
Alivia.
It was probably my pajama pants that amused her.
“You didn’t make it through the gateway?”
“I didn’t.”
I gazed at her for a moment. The elf had ditched her gem-crusted clothing for perfectly pressed navy wool pants, a plaid wool coat, and an azure silk scarf. It was an outfit worthy of — and possibly purchased directly from — the Holt Renfrew display window.
No one spoke. The others were obviously waiting on me to set the tone of the conversation. But, to me, Alivia had already proven herself an ally. And now, stranded on this side of the gateway, she was standing in my bakery, presenting herself. The least I could do, after everything she’d done for us, was to treat her as I would any other Adept. Plus, despite the rampant bloodletting in the stadium, I always preferred to default to being kind. And to cupcakes, of course.
“Would you like a cupcake?”
Alivia looked startled, then pleased. “Yes. Thank you.”
I picked up a cupcake, offering it to her. “Dark-chocolate cake with dark-chocolate cream-cheese icing.”
She took the treat, hesitating. “I … might have to stay for a while. I might like to … or have the option to, choose to stay forever.”
I laughed. “Try the cupcake first. Then we’ll talk.”
She looked concerned. “My … asylum depends on a cupcake?”
“You peel the paper off first. Before eating it.”
She blinked. Then she peeled the cupcake wrapper away from the cake, carefully collecting crumbs in her palm. She bit into the cupcake. Her eyes widened.
“Oh, my,” she breathed. “What is this?”
“Lust in a Cup, sweet cheeks,” Kandy crowed. Then she snatched herself a second cupcake.
Warner reached past me, offering his hand to the ward builder, though his mood was restrained. “Thank you. Mory said you held a shield over her and Jade when the first section of roof collapsed.”
Alivia stiffened, not accepting Warner’s hand. “I was seeing to my people.”
I laughed. “A smaller casting might have been easier to hold, then. One that didn’t cover Mory and me as well.”
“Perhaps.” The elf smiled tightly. Then, after another tentative glance at all of us, she reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a large milky-white gemstone. The stone she’d brought to Reggie. The stone that had fixed the gateway, made it fully operational.
I met her gaze. “You closed the gateway.”
“No. It was already compromised.”
“You freed me from the gateway.”
Alivia cleared her throat. “I … simply contained the situation.”
“I didn’t see you there, elf,” Warner said darkly.
“You were rather occupied.” Alivia turned the stone in her hand, gazing down at it. “And then, I wasn’t sure what my status would be if Jade … didn’t survive.” She looked up to meet my gaze. Then she offered the gemstone to me as if she might have been offering up a piece of her heart. A piece of her home. Like Mira’s black-sand beach.
I shook my head. “That belongs to you. With you.”
“The gateway has been disassembled and destroyed by the treasure keeper,” Warner said bluntly.
Alivia nodded. “I would expect nothing less.”
“Thank you,” I said, reaching out to shake the ward builder’s hand. “You saved my life.”
Alivia took my hand, squeezing. “I believe that was your kin, Jade.”
I laughed quietly. Apparently, the elf wasn’t interested in gratitude. Even I could take a hint, if it was repeated enough times. So I stepped back, angling my body toward my fiance. “Warner Jiaotuson, sentinel of the instruments of assassination,” I said. “This is Alivia, ward builder … ambassador for the elves.”
Warner reached toward the elf again. This time, she took his offered hand.
Kett and Kandy crossed around the stainless steel workstation, already holding their hands out to the ward builder.
“And Pulou thought cupcakes and peace treaty talks were a waste of time,” I groused.
By the time I’d finished baking, Warner had to carry me to bed, leaving the cleanup to Blossom. But this time, he crawled in with me. Treating me to his own brand of gentle, healing magic.