We hustled back to the underground parking lot where we’d left the green SUV. As we approached it with the vampire, the sorcerer, and a whole bunch of take-out waffle boxes in tow, Kett triggered the locks on a white SUV currently parked beside our vehicle.
“How do you always know where we are?” I asked. I really knew better than to comment about the vampire’s apparent omniscience, but I couldn’t help myself. “Do you have a network of valets and pilots and tech providers that just follows you around?”
Kett smiled charmingly. “I’ll always find you, Jade.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, exceedingly suspicious of his pretty grin.
“He texted,” Kandy said. “His one true power is the ability to find and instantly memorize people’s cellphone numbers. I think he also might have GPS tracking enabled … like, on everyone. The pack tech guy couldn’t do anything about it.”
Warner threw back his head and laughed. His magic rolled through the half-empty concrete parking lot.
Directly beside him, Blackwell flinched under the tasty magical onslaught. Well, I found it tasty.
Kett smirked at Kandy. “We’re ready to fly out anytime from Seattle International, but I’ll need a destination. The pilot prefers to be prepared.”
I glanced at Drake, who was climbing into the back seat of our SUV. “Your map might be the best place to start.”
The fledgling nodded, reaching over his shoulder to tug the grid point map out of his backpack.
“I’ll text you,” I said to Kett.
He chuckled as he climbed into the driver’s seat of the white SUV.
Warner climbed into the driver’s seat of our vehicle, while Kandy opted for the front passenger seat so I could slide in next to Drake.
I paused with one foot in the car, eyeing Blackwell over the open door between us. The sorcerer was standing at the side of the white SUV. He had one hand on the passenger door handle and one hand on his amulet.
“Thinking of leaving?” I asked quietly.
He flicked his eyes to me. I didn’t know him all that well, but he looked … worn … thin.
He smiled tightly. “How far do you think I’d get?”
“Isn’t that my line?”
He shrugged one shoulder, then turned to open his door.
“I get it,” I said.
The sorcerer paused but didn’t look back.
“Feeling like you’re being swept into something you barely understand, and at the same time, feeling seriously outclassed by the powerful Adepts by your side.”
Blackwell turned his dark, expressionless gaze back to me. “We are not the same, Jade. I’ve chosen to be here. And not one of you is ‘by my side.’ ”
“Yeah, but it’s not a real concern for you. You’ll get through it without a scrape. Assholes like you always walk away.”
Blackwell smirked as if readying some really nasty retort. Then he checked himself and climbed into Kett’s SUV.
I slid into the back seat of our vehicle, happily embracing its preheated warmth and the comfort of being surrounded by friendly magic.
Kandy was cranked around in her seat, the green of her magic dancing in her eyes. “Let Blackwell make a wrong step, Jade,” she said, teasing yet serious. “I’ll be happy to correct him.”
“So he didn’t save you? During the mystery trip you all took to Mississippi where Henry got bitten?”
Kandy curled her upper lip in derision. “The oracle summoned him. He cleaned up the mess Beau’s family made. But no. He helped get me out of a jam. For Rochelle. But he didn’t save me … or Henry.”
“Good. The thought of you owing Blackwell anything was making me ill.”
Kandy nodded, reaching for her seat belt.
Warner backed the SUV out of its spot, then followed Kett out of the underground parking lot.
“There’s only one grid point portal in China,” Drake said. His head was bowed over the map in his lap.
“Have you used it?”
“No one does. Except maybe Chi Wen,” Warner said, catching my gaze in the rearview mirror. “It’s relatively inaccessible. Not conducive for regular patrolling.”
“Like Peru?”
Warner shook his head, focusing his attention on pulling out of the lot and onto the city street. “No. Qiuniu does actually use the Peruvian portal. Which is why the buildings and the vehicles were there.”
“There’s nothing at this grid point. Even the gatekeeper isn’t on site,” Drake said. “I checked.” He pointed to the series of Chinese characters he’d jotted beside the small rectangle denoting the grid point portal in China. “There’s sort of a shelter. Nothing you could actually stay in for long, though. It’s in the Daxue Mountains, which extend out from the Tibetan Plateau east of the Himalayas. The next nearest grid point is in Japan.”
“Or Pakistan,” Warner said. “Or Thailand.”
“But you walk Chi Wen’s territory sometimes,” I said.
“Starting in Shanghai, where the nexus is anchored. Then through portals constructed by Pulou in the major city centers.”
I shimmied the strap of my satchel over my shoulder and dumped the bag between my feet. “Last time, when we got near enough, the map … Pulou’s map … led us the rest of the way. I thought I had it working, but I’m not sure now. And I really don’t want Blackwell getting a look at it.”
“I thought you weren’t hunting the …” Warner began. Then he tightened his grip on the steering wheel and didn’t finish his question.
I knew what he was asking, though. “I wasn’t. Not before. I was just … playing with it. Just practicing.”
I tugged the dragonskin tattoo out of my satchel, keeping my eyes on the rearview mirror and waiting for Warner to look back at me. When we pulled to a stop at a red light, the sentinel lifted his gaze to the mirror.
I smiled. “I wouldn’t have gone hunting for it alone.”
“Yeah,” Kandy said. “That’s why I’m around … usually.”
Warner snorted, offering me a twitch of his lips and a nod in the mirror before returning his attention to following Kett’s SUV through the relatively quiet streets. During the week, Seattle’s morning rush hour was epic compared to Vancouver’s. Not that I really knew much about it. I was exceedingly fortunate that my grandparents had a thing for collecting property years before the real estate market in Vancouver went nuts. I currently lived a dozen steps away from work as a result. Above work, specifically.
I opened the dragonskin map across my knees.
Drake leaned over to peer at it.
“Don’t touch it.”
“You always say that.”
I laughed. “With technology.”
“And cupcakes and chocolate.”
Kandy chortled. “Well, that’s just good sense.”
“It actually won’t work if you touch it,” I said. “Go ahead.”
Drake looked surprised, then brushed his fingers against the edge of the tattoo. “It didn’t just have these flowers on it before, did it? In the library? I saw it on your desk.”
“No,” I said. “It still had the sections of the centipede on it then.”
An ornately detailed block of lettering, which I’d mistaken for runes the first time Warner touched the tattoo, slowly appeared along the top edge of the map.
“Where dragons dare not tread,” Drake said, reading.
“Apparently Shailaja doesn’t agree,” Kandy murmured.
“She just tried to play the odds,” Warner said. “Bring in servants to navigate the difficult sections. The sorcerers, then the shadow demons, and now Jade.”
He lifted his gaze to the rearview mirror again, but I refused to acknowledge his concern. We’d had the conversation too many times already.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Drake said. “Whether or not the sorcerer lays eyes on anything, I mean. We’re taking him to the temple, if that’s where the door the oracle sees leads. Or he’s taking us, whichever way that works out.”
The letters faded from the dragonskin tattoo. I sighed. “What’s the nearest major city to the portal?”
“Just beyond the eastern edge of the Himalayas …” Warner said. “Sichuan Province?”
Drake nodded. “Nearest city is Chengdu.”
“Then I guess we head there until the sorcerer tells us differently.”
Kandy dug her cellphone out of the pocket of her jeans and opened her messaging app to text Kett. And the pack, I presumed.
“The portal is just west of a mountain summit, but I’m not sure which mountain it is …” Drake was peering at his map again.
“We also need to know what kind of magic we’re facing.” I leaned down to blow lightly across the blossoms on the dragonskin tattoo. “The braids were some kind of sorcerer-based magic, and the centipedes were metallurgy. So what are these flowers and leaves? Witch magic? Like herbalism?”
“That would be good for us, yes?” Drake asked. “Since you’re half-witch?”
“I’m not that kind of witch.” I muttered the words, defaulting to my rote response before continuing. “The puzzles magically tattooed into the map were also clues to collecting the instruments, right?”
“I’m not sure I’d call the centipede in Peru a puzzle,” Warner said wryly.
“Sure it was … we just managed to turn it into a really dangerous one.”
Kandy snorted.
“But what does a tree … possibly a fruit tree … have to do with the Himalayas … or China?” I said. “And with magic that can kill a guardian?”
No one answered me.
I watched the magic swirl across the tattoo for a moment, thinking. “Maybe it’s too soon to figure out that level of detail. But since the far seer is ahead of us on this —”
“What do you mean?” Drake asked. “He knew this was going to happen? But he couldn’t have seen his own kidnapping … or even the attack on Pulou or Yazi. Guardian magic doesn’t work like that. Even Rochelle can’t see her own future. She can only piece events together. Same with the far seer, though he sees on a different level.”
“But he sees Jade,” Warner said curtly.
I swallowed back the spike of fear that always rose when the subject of my future being tracked by the far seer was brought up. It was easier this time — which unfortunately meant I was becoming accustomed to the idea of being completely out of control of my own destiny. “He was leaving the nexus when I arrived,” I said. “But then he chose to stay. When Shailaja grabbed him, he said something about today being the day, like he was slightly surprised. But not completely.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Drake said, becoming agitated. “He can’t see like that.”
“I’m just talking about what sort of magic we’re seeking,” I said. “Trying to be prepared. I just wondered if Chi Wen being connected to it all had anything to do with it. Whether we’re about to confront something from Asian magical practices, or seer magic. That’s all.”
“He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Drake said sullenly. “You say it happens to you all the time.”
“Yeah,” Kandy said. “But he’s the far seer of the guardian nine.”
Drake pointedly ignored the werewolf. Not that she cared. She was carefully slicing open one of the take-out boxes of waffles with a wolf claw she’d manifested on the tip of her right forefinger. She’d been refining her control over her shapeshifter abilities ever since we met.
“Show me?” the fledgling asked, indicating the tattoo draped across my lap.
The dragonskin map had reverted to its resting state of muddled greens and blobs of blue. I obligingly stirred the pollen within the white blossoms to trigger it again.
Using the knowledge that we were looking at China, combined with Drake’s grid point portal map and Kandy’s Google-fu, we attempted to decipher the tattoo all the way to the airport.
We came up with zilch.
If the dragonskin tattoo was going to be at all helpful in collecting the third instrument of assassination, it was certainly biding its time.
Sleeping in shifts and huddled in small groups in hushed conversation, we flew from Seattle to Hokkiado, Japan, to refuel, then to Chengdu, China. Initially, no one had wanted to nap or talk around Blackwell, but thirteen hours was a long time to sit around doing nothing.
Kett had switched out the jet. The plane we boarded in Seattle was larger and had orange and gray stripes on its side, as if the vampire hadn’t had time to order a custom paint job. The interior of the jet was huge, including a cushy off-white leather couch in the aft stateroom and a glass walk-in shower in the bathroom. Muted grays and dark woods dominated the decor. I presumed the switch was primarily for the longer distance of a flight across the Pacific, but a larger plane would probably also have an easier time compensating for the magical toll that carrying us was about to take on the engines and the electronics.
Either that, or Kett just wanted to be able to sit as far away from the sorcerer as possible.
Blackwell was seated at the front of the plane, alone. He spent the entire flight translating his ancestor’s rune-written journal. It was slow going. He occasionally consulted other texts, pulling leather-bound chronicles and handwritten tomes reeking of sorcerer magic out of his always-empty-looking suit pockets.
I was relieved that he was holding up his end. I was also seriously pleased that I wasn’t the one attempting to translate the journal. Magically imbued books were not my friends for some reason, and not because I didn’t try. Friendly was my default mode. My penchant for stabbing things with my jade knife almost always came much, much later.
We touched down at the Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, then started slowly trundling toward the private hangars. Blackwell was still working. We had no new information.
I gazed out the windows at the gray-shrouded day and the could-be-any-other-airport-in-the-world, torn between wanting to fret and wanting to wring the sorcerer’s neck to see if that would speed up the translation process.
I pulled out my phone instead, checking to see if the time had reset. I swiped down on my screen and noted it was cloudy, six degrees Celsius, and twelve o’clock in the afternoon. Monday, January twenty-fifth.
Drake’s birthday.
I swiveled in my seat, grinning at the fledgling, who was sprawled out on the couch and staring miserably at the ceiling. My birthday greeting died on my lips. Now wasn’t the time. I’d have to make it up to him with triple the cupcakes when we got through it all.
Drake tugged an earphone out of his ear, sitting up to peer out the window. We’d shoved him at the very back of the plane and given him a box of waffles and a set of earphones so he could watch movies. He accepted the gesture, but he’d kept one ear unplugged the entire flight so as not to miss any conversation.
The steward, Mark, crossed through from the nose of the plane, stopping beside Kett, who was one seat ahead and across from me. “We’ll be just a few more minutes,” he said quietly. “There’s a bit of a queue ahead of us.”
Kett nodded. “The items I requested?”
“On location, but waiting on our hangar assignment.”
“I don’t want to wait any longer than necessary.”
Mark nodded, then took off up the aisle, collecting an empty can of Coke from Kandy as he passed.
The mood in the jet was heavy with unreleased tension. I wanted to rally and rage — except I couldn’t think of anything that might inspire either of those options. Waiting wasn’t a strong suit for any of us. Except maybe Kett.
The jet lurched forward, turning left toward a maze of crisscrossed cement tributaries.
“The shrine of the phoenix,” Blackwell said. It was the first time I’d heard his voice in half a day.
Warner, who I’d thought was napping across from me a moment before, snorted. “Myth. A bedtime story, I believe you call it in this century.”
I gave him a look. Warner rarely mentioned his age, but maybe Blackwell was putting him on edge. Or maybe the entire situation was. “I hate that ‘myth’ thing,” I said.
“Yes,” Drake said. “However, myths only arise when their stories age beyond the mortality of the participants and their ancestors. Storytelling is simply a way of conveying a truth … or what was believed to be true in the time that the actual event occurred.”
“We all thought dragons were myths,” Kandy said.
“Not all of us were quite that sheltered,” Blackwell muttered.
“Not all of us are power-hungry bloodsuckers!” The green-haired werewolf practically spat in the sorcerer’s direction. Then she glanced toward Kett, somewhat chagrined.
The vampire merely raised an eyebrow in response.
“The shrine of the phoenix?” I said, prompting the sorcerer for more.
“The phoenix is a mythical immortal who is the antithesis of the dragons,” Blackwell said.
Warner shook his head. “Get your stories straight, sorcerer. Or at least your Chinese mythology. The phoenix and the dragon are yin and yang.”
“Exactly. Opposites.”
“No,” Warner said. “I don’t know the word in English. Two halves of a perfect unity.”
The jet slowed, then stopped. I glanced out the window. Outside, a figure was directing us toward a large hangar. The jet lurched again, turning sharply into the open building.
“Why would this phoenix be associated with one of the instruments of assassination?” I asked.
Warner and Drake remained silent. I wasn’t sure if that meant they didn’t know — or if they just didn’t want to say.
Blackwell shook his head. “As far as I’ve been able to transcribe the journal, the phoenix is a figure of peace and tranquility … healing, even. While the dragons are warriors, the phoenix is considered to be a benign, benevolent force.”
“Some Adepts require deadly rule,” Warner growled.
I hid my grin by unbuckling my seat belt and grabbing my satchel. I loved it when Warner got feisty, but I was pretty sure this was the wrong place and time for any mooning or make-out sessions.
“So, same plan,” I said, after reminding myself that I was supposed to be the leader of this expedition. “We assume the shrine is near the grid point like the other two.”
Kett, Kandy, and Blackwell climbed out of their seats without responding, moving toward the exit. Everyone was in just-keep-going mode.
I lingered, waiting on Drake as he stuffed some granola bars in his backpack. Warner was still seated, gazing out the window thoughtfully.
Drake slipped past us.
I reached out to Warner, catching his hand in mine and taking a moment to simply look at him.
“Traveling by portal is much more dramatically satisfying,” I said.
He chuckled, standing and filling the aisle. “Wet feet and all.”
“It was more than my feet that were wet in the Bahamas,” I groused.
He leered at me suggestively.
I laughed. “You certainly pick up sexual innuendo quickly for a sixteenth-century boy.”
“Sex translates across the centuries rather well.”
I lifted up on my tiptoes to press my lips to his neck, just underneath his jaw and ear. He turned his head toward me, tangling his fingers through my loose curls.
“I bet you don’t know what the mile-high club is,” I murmured.
“I can guess. Then I can ask if a mountain counts.”
I laughed, but my chest was starting to tighten. I was delaying stepping out of the plane, knowing that as soon as I did, Shailaja would come into play again.
“Jade …” Warner whispered against the sensitive skin of my ear.
I shuddered, then sighed. “After …”
“Always,” he said. “There will always be an after for us, Jade. Whatever lies before us.”
“She can’t possibly get through all of us,” I said, attempting to bolster my confidence and justify dragging everyone with me into yet another dangerous hunt. “No matter what side the far seer comes down on.”
Warner pulled away from me, just slightly. “You think the far seer is aligned with Shailaja?”
I shook my head. “Not like that … but … what if he wants this?”
Warner looked thoughtful. “We are outmatched if we are facing a guardian. But I cannot believe that Chi Wen would do anything to hurt Drake. If he had wanted to choose Shailaja as a successor, he could have just done so.”
“And why go after the third instrument …” I said, thinking out loud. “He had access to the first two. And when he asked me to show him the centipede the night I brought it to the nexus … well, I thought he was inferring that it would be his death. Except he can’t see his own future.”
“Questions about the far seer’s abilities are best posed to Drake,” Warner said. “I’ve never been apprenticed to a guardian.”
I reached up and caressed his face, lightly scratching the short stubble along his jawline. “I’m glad. I’m not sure we would have gotten along if you were a guardian when we first met.”
“I certainly would have been displeased about you dragging a demon into the nexus.”
I laughed. “I’m sure you would have.”
He grinned, then turned serious. “Plus, your father wouldn’t have given his blessing.”
“Would you have cared?” I asked playfully.
“It’s not … even for a dragon, being married to a guardian is …” Warner trailed off with a shake of his head.
I wondered if he was thinking of his parents’ marriage. Dragons lived a long time, but guardians were practically immortal — right up to the moment they decided to pass on their responsibilities.
“What happens if Chi Wen tries to make Shailaja the next far seer?” I asked.
“They both die. Her, because she’s too … unstable. And him, because he must die to transfer his power.”
“And the far seer’s magic? Would it just be lost?”
Warner shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“When the guardians relinquish their mantles, is an alchemist involved?”
“I don’t think so. But I know nothing of the ceremony. It’s not written down or discussed. Only the nine know. I would go so far as to say that it takes the presence of all the guardians, but I’m not actually certain.”
Heavy footsteps clomped up the exterior stairs of the jet, then Drake appeared at the head of the aisle. He was wearing a black parka and carrying two other identical jackets. Apparently, the items Kett had requested included cold-weather clothing. The fledgling guardian didn’t speak, but I knew he was anxious to get moving.
Everyone was anxious. And I was dillydallying.
I brushed a kiss against Warner’s lips, then turned away up the aisle. He tugged me back into his arms for a searing lip lock, only letting me go after my knees had turned to jelly and every thought had been wiped from my mind.
“After,” he whispered.
Then we marched into battle.
Or rather, then we set out to scale a mountain. Same difference really, when you’ve never been big on hiking.
After climbing into two gray SUVs waiting outside the hangar, we made a beeline out of Chengdu. Assuming we’d even been in the city to begin with, that was. It was still so gray outside that everything I could see through the windows might as well have been the outskirts of any other big city I’d ever seen. Or perhaps I was just too distracted to notice any particular details.
Following Drake’s map, we skirted the western edge of the Longchi National Forest Park — according to Kandy and Google Maps. Then, avoiding a small town at the end of the main road, we abandoned the SUV and struck off on foot. Though the trip was relatively quick, the area felt remote and alien … mountainous but without the massive fir and cedar trees I was accustomed to being surrounded by. We continued on foot through the snow, clambering over rocks and skirting crevices, following a trail that only Kett and Warner seemed capable of seeing.
And if January wasn’t off-season for hiking in Sichuan Province, it should have been.
It was cold. Seriously cold. Even wearing the heavy-duty parkas Kett had bought, I was probably as cold as I’d ever been. Thankfully, the vampire had also thought to source boots and weather-appropriate knitwear. I didn’t bother asking how he knew everyone’s shoe sizes. I left my pretty silk jacket in the SUV, pleased that I hadn’t totally ruined it yet.
Bundled up and hooded, the six of us were pretty much indistinguishable. Though, perhaps that was only if you couldn’t constantly taste all the different strains of magic whirling around us.
After comparing Drake’s map with Google, we figured out that we needed to climb toward the summit of a mountain called Jiuding Shan. So … we were somewhere in the mountains of China.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. The last time I’d been hiking in the mountains Warner had practically carried me the entire way. And, as far as I remembered, there’d been less snow. Now he and Drake pushed ahead through deep-packed snow, along game trails identified by Kett. Blackwell and I kept our heads down in the middle of the pack while Kandy gleefully brought up the rear. The werewolf was in her element. The sorcerer and I were not. I wasn’t a fan of having anything to commiserate about with the sorcerer, so I kept my complaints to myself.
According to Google Maps, the area was crisscrossed with roads and littered with mountain villages, but our path avoided them all.
As we climbed, Drake, Warner, and Kett kept stopping to argue — in Chinese — and gesture pointedly to the map. I assumed they were in disagreement about which peak was what, and whether or not we were on the path. But I was more interested in staying bundled up. Plus, looking at the map apparently required a huffy removal of gloves, though I wasn’t sure the cold actually affected Kett.
I also seriously hoped that the climbing gear and snowshoes the vampire had strapped to all of us were going to be unnecessary.
After what felt like eons of stumbling blindly behind everyone else through the snow but might have only been an hour, the intensity of the area’s natural magic increased. That meant we didn’t have to consult the map for the last leg of the hike. Even in the snow, I could see strains of wild magic dancing all around us … mostly from the icy granite, as there wasn’t much vegetation.
The grid point portal was situated on a rocky plateau, halfway up one mountain and nestled between at least four others.
Warner immediately sent a message through to the nexus, apprising Haoxin of our progress. He didn’t get a reply. Not one that I heard, anyway.
My heart sank just a tiny bit at the thought of my father and Pulou still bedridden. It wasn’t that I was hoping they would swoop in and save the day. It was just freaking cold, and … yeah, okay — I was kind of hoping the guardians would show up en masse and make Shailaja their problem.
A small, rather derelict hut was tucked against a sheer cliff face a few dozen feet away from the portal. At one point, the building might have been rather pretty and ornate. But time and extreme weather hadn’t been kind to its hip-and-gable roof and red-columned entrance.
At least it was a place to get out of the cold. Warner wasted no time breaking apart a piece of furniture that might have been a table at one time and building a small fire on a flat clay surface at the center of the hut. The smoke miraculously vented out of a hole in the roof. When it was warm enough for me to take my gloves off, I sat down to see if I could trigger the dragonskin map to reveal whatever secrets it held.
After about fifteen minutes of studying the map, I’d been abandoned by everyone but Blackwell and Kandy. Warner, Drake, and Kett had left to walk the perimeter, but it was obvious that they hoped the rabid koala — the heretic, as Drake called her — would reveal herself now that we were stationary in a remote location. Shailaja might be crazy and consumed by her desire to achieve immortality, but she wasn’t stupid. If she knew where we were, she’d know we were at an impasse, and either gathering information or awaiting reinforcements. The grid point portal’s magic would speak to her just as much as it did to Warner, Drake, and me. Maybe even more. She was the daughter of Pulou-who-was, after all.
Kandy was pretending to be enthralled in some first-person shooter game on her phone, while standing sentry between Blackwell and me. The sorcerer was poring over his own notes.
I sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, near enough to the fire that I’d unzipped my jacket and stripped off my hat and scarf.
Blackwell had risked sitting on a low bench that was the only intact piece of furniture in the place, though he’d dragged it away from the open window first. Tattered cloth stirred at the edge of the window frame, and snow had built up at its corners. The door to the shelter was missing as well, if there had even been one in the first place. But its walls held the warmth from the fire eagerly, making it cozy enough. It was like sitting in the middle of ancient history, though. I wasn’t a fan.
The map still wouldn’t reveal anything of substance. Not that I could understand, anyway. Frustrated that I was missing some fundamental clue, I attempted to curb my self-loathing and give myself a second to think by watching Blackwell. He was carefully copying a sketch from his ancestor’s journal into his own Moleskine notebook. From my viewpoint, it looked like a variation of the flower-and-leaf motif on the map, but with fewer blossoms and more bare branches.
I closed my eyes, reaching my dowser senses out beyond the walls of the hut and casting my awareness into the mountains and snow outside. I was looking for dragon magic that tasted of cinnamon-spiced carrot cake and smooth cream cheese. Or even Chi Wen’s spicy magic. Though I’d witnessed two displays in the last three or so days of how well guardians could mask their magic, so I imagined I’d only sense the far seer if he wanted me to.
I tasted Drake’s and Warner’s magic nearby, then Kett’s peppermint farther beyond. But I didn’t pick up any hint of the rabid koala or the far seer.
I opened my eyes.
Blackwell was watching me.
I scowled at him.
He offered me a tight-lipped smile. “You broadcast your magic loudly, alchemist.”
I almost said something flippant back, but then thought to question him instead. “All the time?”
“No. But when you do whatever you were just doing, you are difficult to ignore.”
I looked over at Kandy. Her attention was on her phone, but she was listening to us. She shrugged noncommittally in response to my silent question. Which meant either that the smell of my magic didn’t intensify for her, or she wasn’t interested in talking about it in front of the sorcerer.
Adepts were annoyingly close-mouthed about such things. They treated secrets as power, when I’d only ever known secrets to be weaknesses.
I reached up, tugging my jacket half off my shoulders and unwinding my necklace.
Blackwell watched me intently.
I placed the wedding-ring-laden chain on the floor beside me, nearer to Kandy than the sorcerer.
“And now?” I asked.
Blackwell closed his notebook, then tucked it and the journal in his jacket pocket. He was still wearing his suit underneath his parka and knitwear. It was an odd combination, but the suit was clearly — and quite heavily — spelled, not only with protective wards but also with some sort of expansion magic on its pockets.
Apparently, a man purse wasn’t Blackwell’s thing.
With his expression carefully impassive, the sorcerer shifted off the bench, closed the space between us with a couple of steps, and carefully folded his long frame into a lotus position across from me.
Kandy dropped the gaming pretense. Though it seemed unlikely she would have been wasting her battery by playing the entire time anyway. I doubted the sorcerer had been fooled. She folded her arms and leaned back against the wall by the door, looking deceptively relaxed.
Blackwell glanced down at my necklace pooled on the floor about a foot from my right knee. He nodded. “Stunning. Years of work?”
Though it shouldn’t have, impressing the sorcerer gave me a slight thrill. He had centuries’ worth of artifacts in his collection — including some that were exceedingly dangerous in my estimation. He knew what he was talking about.
“Do you think the necklace impedes my own magic? As well as deflecting it?”
Blackwell tilted his head, looking at me thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t think so. Certainly, you would know by now if you can use it as an amplifier.”
“I mostly use it to absorb or shield me from magic.”
“Your sister was eager to get her hands on it.” Blackwell’s statement was carefully measured, but placed before me without judgement or emotion.
I forced myself to not bristle at the mention of Sienna. I was asking the sorcerer for help … circumspectly, but still. Listening, rather than ripping his head off was the better choice. For right now, at least.
Some sort of amusement flashed across Blackwell’s face, as if he could sense my inner struggle. But it was gone before I could react.
“She used my trinkets as anchors for her binding spells,” I said.
“You create them as empty vessels?”
“Not intentionally.”
Blackwell nodded, returning his attention to my necklace, then looking at the map spread on the floor between us. “You were wondering if the necklace was hindering your ability to manipulate the map?”
“Yeah.”
“Has it done so before?”
“No.”
“So logically …”
“Do you want to just hang out here in the freezing cold for days, or do you want me to figure out the issue?”
“Show me.”
I reached forward and triggered the map. It shifted to the aspect I’d practically memorized — the fields of green surrounded by black triangles.
“Clearly the Himalayas with the Daxue Mountain range descending to the east.”
“Sure, easy for you to say, now that we’re here.”
“But you are expecting something else?”
“In the … other collections …” I hesitated, not sure how much I wanted to divulge to the sorcerer.
He smirked, lifting his hand to indicate that I could continue if I wished, but that he didn’t much care either way.
“The map shifted aspects the closer we came to the instrument.”
Blackwell frowned. “Did you have to trigger it in a different way?”
“No.”
“So why would it change now?”
“I don’t know … unless …”
The image of Blackwell’s sketch surfaced in my mind. The drawing was reminiscent of the detail on the door of the shrine we were seeking. Blackwell had referenced it as the image he recalled having seen among his ancestors’ journals when he’d studied Rochelle’s sketches in Westport.
“May I see the sketch you were working on? Compare it to the map? And to Rochelle’s sketch?”
Blackwell pulled his notebook out of his pocket. I dug Rochelle’s sketch of the door out of my satchel. We laid all three items on the floor, grouping them as closely as we could without obscuring the images.
I pointed to the top left corner of the door in Rochelle’s sketch. “Do you think that looks similar to your ancestor’s sketch?”
Blackwell leaned forward and carefully compared the two. Rochelle’s sketch didn’t have as much detail, but the curve of the branches was similar.
“I should have taken pictures of the other sketches,” I said. “The door appeared in others, right?”
Blackwell fished his phone out of his pocket, opened his photo app, and flipped through the images. Of course he would have thought to take freaking pictures.
“I don’t want you hanging me on your bedroom wall, sorcerer,” I said gruffly. “I know you buy sketches from Rochelle.”
Blackwell chuckled. “I do. But they don’t adorn my bedroom walls,” he said. “I’d be pleased to show you. Perhaps ease your mind.”
Kandy made a harsh gagging noise.
The trace of playfulness that had crept into Blackwell’s demeanor disappeared. He found the picture he’d been looking for and zoomed in on it.
He handed the phone to me, confirming my suspicion about his ancestor’s drawings.
“It’s unfinished. If it’s a detail of the door. Your ancestor saw only half the image.”
Blackwell harrumphed thoughtfully, returning his attention to comparing all four images.
“What if …” I glanced up at Kandy. “What if Pulou-who-was died before he finished the map? What if the tattoo was just a work in progress?”
Blackwell glanced down at the dragonskin tattoo between us. He looked suddenly disconcerted, as if he was just putting together that it was an actual tattoo skinned from a dead guardian.
Kandy hunkered down beside us, joining the conversation while continuing to block Blackwell’s path to the door. “You think he was still searching for the final instrument? Why wouldn’t he have mentioned it? He … bequeathed Pulou the map but not the reasoning behind it?”
I glanced at Blackwell, who, of course, was eating up every word. I’d have to worry later about what damage having him around was going to do in the long run. “I’m not sure he was … all there when he passed on his mantle.”
Kandy nodded. “Old wolves can get like that too. Highly and irrationally territorial, usually resulting in an ill-founded challenge. It’s better to die at the teeth of a younger wolf than to slip away into the unknown, only half aware.”
“Okay … say the map isn’t finished,” I said. “We’re seriously lost in the middle of China, then. We can’t just wander around the mountains for the rest of our lives, hoping we bump into the shrine.”
Blackwell tugged his ancestor’s journal out of his pocket and began flipping through it. “I might be able to get us closer.” Eyeing me, he grinned slyly. “Then you can do whatever it is you do when your magic fills the room, dances across my skin, and beguiles my senses.”
“Creepy much, sorcerer?” Kandy spat, before I could express my own dismay.
Attracting Blackwell was seriously low on my to-do list. As in, nonexistent.
“I have to know what I’m dowsing for,” I said.
“In the middle of nowhere? You just have to find something new.”
“Right. While we freeze to death. Easy-peasy.”
Blackwell’s transcribed notes actually proved useful. The sorcerer quickly identified an existing, snow-covered trail that branched off from the grid point portal and carved its way through the mountain. Warner and Drake broke the path ahead of us, plowing effortlessly through what looked like months of accumulated snow. And after finding two magical landmarks — both of which had to be literally dug out of the snow and ice — and more consulting of Blackwell’s journal, we stood in a somewhat sheltered spot at the edge of an icy cliff. I was trying really, really hard to not think about the drop behind us.
Though, thankfully, it wasn’t currently snowing, Warner had insisted on roping Kandy and me to him when the wind had intensified and the path began to narrow. Blackwell was similarly tied to Drake, and neither of them was pleased about it.
No one suggested roping the vampire up. I think Kett might have gotten a good laugh out of the idea, though.
Blackwell carefully unfolded a parchment rubbing that had been hidden within the pages of his ancestor’s journal. He held the delicate document up to an eroded etching on the rock outcropping we were huddled beside. Warner, Kett, and Drake were attempting to create a wind block, but they were only partially successful.
“It’s a match,” the sorcerer said.
“About freaking time,” Kandy snarled.
The werewolf’s and Blackwell’s lips were tinted blue, so I had to assume my own were as well. I wasn’t beyond cold yet, though. Which was good, because I thought I remembered that being one of the first signs of hypothermia.
This was the third time Blackwell had pulled rubbings from the journal. He had offered up each translated clue one at a time, keeping the rest to himself in a bid toward making himself invaluable. Unfortunately, with a deal in place and no working map, there wasn’t much I could do but follow the sorcerer’s lead.
I was tired enough that I had long since stopped caring. Whether the extreme cold and the perilous conditions were forcing Blackwell and I to bond to maintain our sanity, or whether I was actually just freezing to death, I didn’t know.
“You’re up,” Blackwell said. As he turned his dark-eyed gaze on me, he carefully refolded the rubbing and replaced it in the journal.
“That’s all you have?”
“The rest is conjecture,” the sorcerer said. “My ancestor had to turn back before he found the next gatepost. Then he died. After he wrote the final section of the chronicle, but before he could pursue it further.” Blackwell flicked his thumb across the last pages of the journal. They were blank. “He was searching in far less inclement weather, of course.”
“We are not here of our own choosing, sorcerer,” Warner said. His tone made it exceedingly clear that he was more than ready to toss Blackwell off the cliff we were currently perched on.
“We have about two hours of daylight left,” Kett said.
“Really helpful, vampire,” I groused.
Kett laughed quietly.
“Could you all step back a little?” I asked.
“No,” Warner said.
I eyed the sentinel. He stood stoically, blocking me from the worst of the wind, and didn’t elaborate on his objection.
Kandy unclipped her belt from the rope that held us a few feet apart, pivoting and clipping onto the rope that Drake anchored.
Then everyone else shuffled back the way we’d come.
After they had disappeared around a curve in the cliff face, the sentinel grinned down at me wolfishly. “You know my magic well enough to seek beyond it.”
Well, that was a hard point to argue. Being intimate with an Adept — skin to skin, exchanging touches and bodily fluids — might have multiple benefits. One of which was warming me with the remembrance of the last time I’d been curled around the man who was now shielding me from the windstorm.
“Hmm,” he said. “That look isn’t particularly appropriate when you are wearing so much clothing, alchemist.”
I laughed, then turned back to study the carvings Blackwell had found. Like the other two sets the sorcerer had uncovered and matched to the rubbings his ancestor made, they were smoothed from centuries of weather. But if I studied the curves and edges carefully, I could superimpose an image in my mind’s eye — something similar to the leaf pattern on the dragonskin tattoo.
“I wonder if this is what the treasure keeper saw.” I shucked off my glove and reached for the cold stone before me. “But for some reason, he couldn’t find the shrine of the phoenix.”
“If seeking out evidence connected to the legend of the phoenix is even what we’re doing,” Warner said, still doubtful.
“Worship can exist without evidence,” I said. “We could simply be seeking out a sect of sorcerers or a coven of witches who based their worship on the idea of the phoenix figure. Peacefulness and healing doesn’t sound like a bad thing to base your faith on.”
Warner grunted in acknowledgement but said nothing else, letting me concentrate on running my fingers over the ice-cold carvings before me. I had to bend slightly forward. The carver had apparently been shorter than me. The stone was so cold that my skin was sticking to it. I tried to ignore the sensation as I focused my dowser senses away from Warner’s magic — even as dampened as it was — along with the hints of Kandy, Kett, Drake, and Blackwell that I could still pick up.
I thought about how the sorcerer had talked of using my necklace as an amplifying device. Certainly, I had coaxed magic from it on many occasions, and I used it as an anchor, or to ground or focus myself. But I hadn’t really figured out how to amplify my own magic with it. Maybe it just did so naturally.
“I can taste … subtle fruit … but I can’t place it. Sweet, with an acidic finish. Almost like melon, but nothing I’ve eaten before. Not that I can recall.”
“Pear,” Warner said.
“I’ve eaten pears before,” I said, pissy about being interrupted.
“Asian pear,” Warner said evenly.
I had a fleeting memory of seeing light-brown-skinned, round fruit at a vendor’s in the Granville Island Market.
“They’d be crisper than the pears you’d be accustomed to,” Warner said. “More like an apple. Juicy too.”
“I don’t really pick up texture like that. Just taste. I mean, unless it’s a memory … like how your magic tastes creamy and smooth like the gelato from Mario’s.”
Warner chuckled quietly, possibly recalling me feeding him said gelato in bed about a month previous.
I blew on my hands to warm them, then returned my attention to the carvings.
“We don’t even know if this is going to help,” I muttered. “I might just be picking up the magic of the carver …”
“And if that Adept carved more gateposts, it will lead us forward.” Warner was in patient mode, which usually drove me a little batty. But I was too cold to be feisty.
“I can also taste some kind of toasted grain, and … maybe tea.” I shoved my hand back inside my glove, then into the pocket of my parka. I buried my chin and nose behind my scarf, exhaling a few times to warm my face.
I looked up at Warner. At least an inch of icy snow had gathered on his shoulders while he stood there blocking me from the worst of the wind.
“You take me to the best places,” I groused.
He lifted one eyebrow at me. “You take me to the best places.”
I laughed, then sobered. “I’m going to have to lead.”
He nodded, not happy about it. I didn’t want to be the one pushing through the snow either.
Warner stepped around me, then tucked his hand up underneath my jacket to grab my leather belt.
I was instantly assaulted by the wind and blowing snow, and now my back was cold. “Don’t do that,” I cried. “That’s just mean. You already have me tied to you.”
“I’ll hold the rope as well,” Warner said. “Regardless of whether I can drag you back, I don’t want you falling in the first place.”
I huddled deeper into my jacket without further protest, likewise wanting to avoid taking a wrong turn. I stepped forward into the virgin snow, beyond where Warner, Drake, and Kett had been standing. It came up to my knees. I slid slightly into the step, then felt my hiking boot find purchase on the icy rock beneath it.
Delightful.
Kett had deemed the snowshoes too cumbersome early on, and having never used them before, I’d been glad. But now … well, no true West Coast girl wanted to be trudging through snow up to her knees. Not without a ski lodge and a spa nearby.
“We’re moving,” Warner yelled back over his shoulder.
The others moved forward to gather behind us. We were going to have to advance single file.
I cast my dowser senses forward in search of tart, juicy pear and roasted grains.
I picked up a hint of carrot cake and cream-cheese icing instead.
“Shailaja,” I said, tugging my hood closer around my face until I had absolutely no peripheral vision at all. But better that than my nose freezing off.
Warner huffed. “I expected her sooner.”
“Would you hang out in this?” I gestured around us as I took another knee-high step through the snow. “It’s faint. She’s just checking in.”
“And the leeches?”
I shook my head. “I can’t taste them.”
“As in their magic doesn’t have a taste?”
“No taste I understand, at least.”
Kett’s peppermint magic brushed against me.
“You heard?” Warner asked quietly.
“Yes,” Kett said, slipping by me.
I looked for the vampire but saw no evidence of his passing in the snow, either around or before me. I cranked my head sideways and got a face full of icy flakes for my trouble. I also got a glimpse of the crazy vampire scaling the cliff face running alongside us to the left.
I started to protest.
Warner interrupted me. “Let him do what he’s good at,” he whispered, practically pressing his mouth to my ear.
“He’s no match for her alone,” I hissed back.
“Not true,” Warner said. “He was no match for Shailaja the first time. Now he’s drunk from her. That changes the game. Plus, he has us to back him.”
I shivered, but not from the cold. Someone wasn’t making it through all of this alive. I just hoped it wasn’t one of us.
“Pears …” Warner prompted.
I nodded and focused forward.