I returned to find Max, Jiao and my son waiting for me with unhappy expressions. It didn’t take words for them to get the point.
Another loss, another failure. Another blow. And no, I wasn’t going to run away. But damn it, this was getting old fast.
Max and Jiao left for the stronghold while I whisked Gabriel into the veil and back to Wilding Springs. Gram and Sass paced the basement, coming to a halt as I exited the dark and bent to kiss my son. He looked up at me, anxious, upset.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said.
“What happened?” Gram’s stiff posture made her look older.
“Trill Zornov happened,” I snarled. “And Zoe Helios. And Liander Belaisle.” The more I talked, the more people I listed, the madder I got. Had I really let Zoe talk me out of chasing Belaisle? Just letting the foot of Creator go? What the hell was I thinking?
Sass’s whiskers drooped. “What are you going to do?”
I could just stand here and fume. Let Zoe’s assurances be enough. Or, I could stop being complacent and make her tell me what was going on.
The more I thought about it, the more it sounded like the best idea ever. I spun away from Gram and the silver Persian, leaving my son behind with his head bowed, guilt in every line of his body. Passed into the veil, knowing no amount of comfort would make him feel better. He had too much of me in him. The only way to help Gabriel recover was to beat some sense into the Fate of the Universe.
Temper, Syd, my vampire sent. Zoe wouldn’t act without good reason.
I’m getting hellish tired of being left out of this particular loop, I sent while my demon grunted her agreement.
Kick some ass, she snarled.
Shaylee sighed. But had the good sense to stay quiet. I wouldn’t have listened to her anyway.
Problem was, I had no idea how to track Zoe. Forget about Trill. And could think of only one place the Helios Fate could be shacking up. With one of the only people on my friends and family list I hadn’t seen yet.
Had no idea what to expect when I stepped out of the veil into the wide, central foyer of the Scottish castle Piers Southway and the Steam Union took over when the Brotherhood fled its halls. I already knew my friend Piers was losing his people hand over fist and might not be in the best of moods thanks to that. Hated I couldn’t help him without the piece of Creator I was sure Jean Marc Dumont used to convert Steam Union sorcerers to the Brotherhood.
He wasn’t exactly waiting for me, but the startled young man who spotted me first wasted no time contacting his leader and, within moments, Piers appeared from a tunnel of blackness. I almost smiled, happy to see him, the corners of my mouth twitching. Then, falling downward at the dark, furious scowl he leveled at me, arms crossing over his chest, spill of pale hair hanging to his knees where the ends quivered in time with his angry head-jerk.
“Well, well,” Piers said in his crisp British accent, with more coldness than I’d ever heard from him. “Look who decided we were worth her time.” No, I’d heard that tone before. But not aimed at me.
Reserved for the fury he felt at his traitor mother.
The room flooded with sorcerers, all young, it seemed to me, whispering among themselves. Come to gape at the freak, I could only imagine. Made my stomach flip over with anxious anger in response. I caught sight of Apollo and Owen Zornov watching from a doorway, the taller, older brother’s face pinched with displeasure. But the younger’s brilliant blue eyes were sad, one hand rising to wave at me.
“Piers,” I said, returning my attention to the bitterly angry Steam Union leader I’d once considered one of my closest friends. “Can we talk?”
He glanced at his wrist, at a bulky watch, leather band loose around his narrow bones, arching an eyebrow at me. So much disdain in that one gesture. “Sorry,” he said. “Can’t make the time right now. Important things to do.” He spun away from me. “I’m sure you know what that’s like.” And strode off, hair a whirling banner behind him.
The sorcerers parted, muttered to themselves as they, too, retreated. As quickly as the foyer had filled with the ranks of the Steam Union, it emptied, leaving four people behind.
The woman with the dark hair and eyes, her face pinched with regret, came forward, hesitant but hopeful. “Syd,” Clover said, Piers’s younger sister bobbing a bit of a curtsy.
That made me wince. “Hi, Clover,” I said, offering my hands to her. She grasped them in her own, squeezing tight a moment. I could feel the shiver in her, the way she barely contained her trembling. “Is he okay?”
She shook her head, dark braid bouncing behind her. “He’s not,” she whispered. Wiped her nose with the cuff of one sleeve. “None of us are.”
Funny, there seemed to be lots of sorcerers here. Were the thefts from his ranks less extensive than I’d been told? “You seem to be doing all right?” Came out as a weak question. “All those young, new faces?”
She nodded quickly, tried a little smile. “Recruitment has tripled,” she said. “Sorcerers are appearing all over the continent, as though triggered by something. And the Brotherhood seems to be doing nothing to claim them. Leaving us to bring them into the Steam Union.”
That was news. “How many new sorcerers are usually discovered in a year?”
She shrugged. “It’s hard to know, because of the Brotherhood’s influence,” she said. “They take on far more than we are able to rescue. But, I’d say no more than fifty.”
“And now?” Was this something I should add to my list of worry about?
“It’s insane,” Clover whispered. “Over two hundred in just the last three months.”
Okay, I was officially freaked. “No idea why?”
Clover wrung her hands before her then rubbed the palms against the front of her tweed skirt. “None,” she said. “And Piers is so concerned about the loss of our numbers to the Brotherhood, he hasn’t taken the time to investigate.” She glanced toward the vaulted exit corridor Piers had used to exit, where three young men watched us. Apollo and Owen held their ground, but it was the sight of my old friend, Simon Clement standing with them that made me start. Distracted me as Clover went on. “He’s obsessed,” she said, voice trembling. I turned back to her, to the wide, frightened gaze of her dark eyes. “And no one can make him listen.”
“Not even Zoe?” Was she even still here?
Clover turned half away, sorrow on her face. “He made her go,” she said, tears dripping to her hands even as she raised her arms to wipe the moisture away. “And she did.”
More bad news. “I’m looking for her, Clover,” I said. “Do you know where I can find her?” I hated how she vanished into thin air just when I thought I had the Fate pinned down. The gazillion questions I knew she’d never answer had to wait, I guess.
Clover hesitated. “I hoped you were here to help Piers.” I guess I deserved the faint accusation in her voice.
“If he won’t let me,” I said, as gently as I could, “what am I supposed to do?”
Her hands fluttered, fell still at her sides. “Zoe didn’t tell me where she was going. Good luck finding her.” With that, Clover left, head down, shoulders bowed. I wanted to reach out to her, stop her, comfort her. But what could I say or do that would make things right?
Nothing. Except find the piece of Creator making Piers crazy. And take that burden from my friend so he would forgive me. If that was even possible.
“He hates you, you know.” Simon’s voice cut deeper than it should have, so soft and emotionless. Owen hissed at him, shook his head, but the young hacker I’d once adored, who’d left me over a fight about Trill, to come here, it seemed, to Piers and the sorcerers, kept right on slashing at me with his words. “Blames you for abandoning him when he needed you the most.” Sounded like Simon agreed with Piers. Maybe felt the same way about his own relationship with me.
I didn’t have the heart to remind him he was the one who left Wilding Springs before I did.
Owen closed the distance between us, shooting Simon an angry look over his shoulder while Apollo chewed the inside of his cheek and glared at me. “Piers is as troubled as all the rest of the leaders of this plane,” Owen said, with more kindness than Simon or Apollo believed I deserved from their growing irritation at him. “He’s losing sorcerers all over the place, even as he recovers those who are waking to their power.”
Leaving Piers with a castle full of newbies and the Brotherhood with the most experienced ranks of sorcerers available. Jean Marc Dumont had been on my shit list for a long time now. After joining the Brotherhood with the death of his father, Andre, and the resulting dissolution of the Dumont family magic, Jean Marc’s new allegiance led him to the leadership of the sorcerer order. I didn’t think anyone could be as nasty or make me want their death more than Liander Belaisle. But this really was the most diabolically clever and evil thing Jean Marc had ever done. And I’d make him pay for it, one way or another.
Owen didn’t continue, didn’t get a chance. Piers came storming back into the foyer, alone this time, rage clear on his face, his sister trailing behind him with her head still down. Tattled to him, had she? Whatever she’d said, he was worked up into a froth so deep I saw his mother in him the moment before he spoke.
And that scared the hell out of me. Not for my own safety, but for his state of mind.
“You’re still here?” Piers’s sorcery thundered a clapping boom through the castle, black power thrumming against the rock and making the floor shake. Shaylee steadied us while my own sorcery sampled his power. So much hurt and anger. I never meant to leave those scars behind.
On the other hand, my demon grumped, why is it our fault he’s falling apart and can’t take care of his own crap?
There was that. But it was deeper, this hurt. Piers had lost his mother, the woman he looked up to, respected, wanted to be like his whole life. Had lost her to her own rage, to her despair. Seen her betray everything he’d ever believed in and thought she believed in. Took her place as head of the Steam Union with the best of intentions. Only to suffer failure after defeat after betrayal.
I could see where his thoughts had carried him, inhaled the pain of them as if they were my own. Because he and I were that much alike it didn’t take much for me to track exactly what he thought of himself at that moment.
He wasn’t mad at me, not really. He hated himself.
“I have people searching for Jean Marc,” I said, as carefully as I could. “They’ll find him. And the piece of Creator.”
Piers slashed the air with both hands. “Don’t pretend you’re doing it for anyone but you,” he said. Bitterness washed into his power and to me, crippling in its weight and pressure. How could he live with feeling this way? “If you didn’t need that piece for your big finale none of us worthless mortals have anything to do with, you’d still be long gone.”
Ouch. Just ouch.
“You were never my friend, were you?” He leaned toward me, angular face pinched, gray eyes sparking with fury. “Someone like you can’t have friends. I can’t believe I lied to myself about you even being human all this time.” Piers gestured at my face. “Drach now, then?”
I’d almost forgotten about my diamond eyes. But I wouldn’t apologize for it. Nodded firmly. Considered arguing with him, trying to convince him, but feeling the impenetrable wall he’d built around himself, one of emotion and pain.
He wouldn’t hear me until he was ready. If he was ever ready.
“You’re not welcome here,” he said, voice dropping to a low, controlled command. “Go do what you need to do to save the Universe, because that’s all that means anything to you. But the days of the Steam Union harboring you or helping you are over.”
I could have pushed the issue and stayed. But a glance over his shoulder at Owen’s pain-filled face, at Simon’s cynical smirk, the way Clover huddled, weeping silently while Apollo turned his back on me just felt like a lost cause.
The veil swallowed me whole. And I didn’t look back.
***