17

Adam

“I’m sorry I missed the funeral,” Vic said. He reached like he might put his hand on Adam’s knee, then withdrew it.

“You’re here now,” Adam said, being careful to drive just under the speed limit. Tonight was not the night for another encounter with the law. “That’s what matters. Thank you.”

Vic decided what to do with his hand, and it wasn’t what Adam had wanted as he folded his arms atop the seatbelt.

“You know we’ve got to talk, right?” Vic asked.

“Yeah,” Adam said.

“But later,” Vic said, “when we’re alone.”

Adam gave a little nod and flicked his eyes to the rearview mirror. The back seat held three cramped passengers, none of them looking very happy.

He wasn’t certain why the elves had insisted on riding this way, rather than shifting planes or driving one of Argent’s many cars. It had to be one more of the many stories they all needed to tell one another.

Jodi had passed out. She slumped against Silver, and the prince did not look pleased with the contact.

Adam’s and Silver’s eyes met in the mirror. The elf smiled, and it looked forced, strained. Adam had never been able to read Silver’s mood well, but when his eyes went distant like that, beautiful but extra cold, it was usually a sign that there was something heavy on his mind.

They were parked and inside the gate a while later.

Bobby and his mother came out to meet them.

“What’s she on?” Bobby asked, looking at Jodi as Silver carried her from the car.

“I don’t know,” Adam said.

Bobby sighed.

“We should take her to a hospital, a detox maybe.”

“She won’t be safe,” Adam said. “The druid came for her. I fought him off, but it was close. He’s a lot stronger than me. I think I surprised him.”

“Did you see him?” Tilla asked.

Adam could hear the other question, the one she wasn’t asking. Maybe Robert Senior was alive, maybe they hadn’t killed him all those years ago.

“No,” Adam said. “Not exactly.”

Tilla pursed her lips.

She turned, finding a smile for Vic as he climbed out of the car, but ignored the elves completely. She’d seen Argent once but had never met Silver. Adam thought she maybe had an out-of-sight, out-of-mind policy when it came to the supernatural beings. He had to figure out later if his mom was being rude.

“It was Jodi who took the bones,” Adam explained. “She said something about her birthright. I don’t really know what that means, but the druid tricked her, showed her how to lure him to her.”

“Why would he need that?” Bobby asked.

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “Maybe some of Sue’s wards were still up, keeping him out.”

“What bones?” Vic asked, picking up on the one thing Adam least wanted to talk about.

He hadn’t told Vic the full story, what he’d learned in Denver, that his brother and mother had killed his father to save him. Vic was a cop, and he was a good man. Adam would like to say that he didn’t know how Vic would react, that he didn’t want to put him in a situation that would test him, but the truth was that Adam knew exactly how Vic would handle it. He’d obey the law. He’d arrest Bobby and Tilla for murder. Since they were here and not in Denver, Vic would just turn them over to the sheriff.

And now it all had to come out.

“Let’s go inside,” Adam said. “I’ve put some wards up, but I don’t think they’d keep him out if he came for us.”

“They’re not bad,” Silver said, in that way he did when he wanted to be nice. What he really meant was that they were crap. “But they could use reinforcement. Get me some salt.”

Tilla moved first, heading inside to get Silver what he needed. She was always so practical, so matter-of-fact, but Adam read the stiffness in her gait. She’d loved their dad, had a blind spot a mile wide about him. She probably would never have done anything on her own. Bobby had been the one to crunch Dad’s skull with a hammer, and he’d done it to protect Adam, who didn’t even remember it.

Bobby put Jodi on the couch.

“She smells awful,” he said after a quick examination. “But I think she’s just drunk, maybe high on weed. Her pulse is fine. She’s going to have a hell of a hangover.”

“Good,” Tilla said, handing a cardboard can to Silver through the door. “Serves her right.”

Adam couldn’t argue, but he still felt a pang of sympathy for his cousin.

“She’s terrified,” he said. “She knew he was coming for her, said he killed Noreen.”

“How did you fight him off?” Argent asked.

“His magic is strange, it’s death-based.” At Vic’s raised eyebrow, Adam added, “Not Death, Sara Death, more like rooted in death and dying.”

“That is a corruption,” Argent said. “Druids are sworn to life, to nature, usually to maintaining it at any cost.”

“Not this guy,” Adam said.

He could still taste the spell’s greasy flavor. He’d broken it, burned it, and it had left a char-like feeling in the back of his throat, but all of it tasted like blackberries. Adam would probably never be able to eat them again.

“He’s the druid who made the bone charms,” Adam said. “I’m certain of that much. But I don’t know if he’s our dad. Jodi used his bones for the summoning, so yes?”

“Not necessarily,” Argent said. “Silver knows more of this sort of magic.”

“His magic is a lot like mine,” Adam said.

“That is an indicator,” Argent said. “But not evidence.”

“Either way,” Adam said, “I have to stop him.”

“We have to stop him,” Bobby stressed. “He’s hurting people.”

Adam remembered the bar, the roadies and patrons who’d been attacked. He hoped no one had been killed.

He should have stopped to check, to do more. If they didn’t get help in time—

“Adam,” Vic said.

Just hearing his name stopped the spiral down into despair and worry.

Adam looked up, met Vic’s gaze.

“Tell us what’s going on,” Vic said, calm and commanding, using his cop voice.

Adam took a long breath and started at the trailer, at the explosion. He explained about Noreen and her outburst at the funeral and the charm nailed to the trailer door. He explained about the bones, and the second charm, the one they’d found on Mom’s door, gesturing toward it.

“I don’t understand,” Vic said. “What do you mean Jodi dug up your father’s bones? I thought your dad ran out.”

Adam bowed his head, not knowing what to say.

“It was me,” Bobby said. “He was hurting Adam, and—I thought he was going to kill him. There was a hammer on the window sill.”

Bobby stared that way now, like he was reliving that moment, that day, all over again.

“I hit him,” Bobby said. “Hard. He went down. I buried his body out back.”

“We,” Tilla said, pausing where she’d started to make coffee. “We buried his body out back.”

“You knew about this?” Vic asked.

Adam nodded. “Since Bobby woke up in the hospital.”

Adam felt Vic jerk away from him, the thread between them tugged to the point of atomic thinness.

Vic’s jaw clenched. Adam watched a number of feelings pass over his face—anger, hurt—but he felt none of them. Vic had shut him out, and Adam couldn’t blame him.

Vic turned and walked out the trailer door.

Adam hesitated, staring. He’d known. He’d known how it would go when Vic found out, and he’d kept the secret, not wanting to see Bobby go to jail, even though he’d known it could cost him Vic.

Silver and Argent stared at the carpet like it contained the secrets of the universe. They were royalty and they were here, in his mother’s trailer. Adam wondered if the poverty shocked them or amused them with its novelty.

“Go after him, numbnuts,” Bobby said, smacking Adam in the back of the head. “Go talk to him.”

“Oww,” Adam said as he zipped up his jacket and followed Vic out into the night.

Mom had tried over the years to put in paths and some sense of order. She’d laid old roofing shingles in the mud, making a way up the slight hill. As a kid Adam had thought it steep. As a man, it was barely a rise in the landscape.

It was after midnight. The air was damp and cold, like every Oklahoma autumn Adam could remember, but he could breathe easily here. Denver’s dryness made it harder.

Vic had walked to the top, to where the scrub oak thinned. Their dad had talked about building a proper house there. It had been another of his unfulfilled promises, something he’d dream about but never had the money to do, never worked hard enough to make happen. He’d talk and talk about how big it would be, how the boys would each have their own room. He’d dream out loud about a pool for the boys and flower gardens for Tilla. Even then, before his dad disappeared, Adam had learned not to trust Robert’s promises.

“I don’t get you at all,” Vic said before Adam had even reached him. “You don’t like your brother, but you protected him. He killed someone, Adam, even if it was to protect you, he killed your dad.”

“I know, Vic,” Adam said. His eyes were shining again, and this time he might even cry because he could no longer feel the thread between them. Vic was right there and Adam couldn’t feel him.

“And you know I’m a cop,” Vic said. “I’ve got to turn this in, got to turn him in.”

“I know that too,” Adam said. “And even if you didn’t have to, you would. Because you’re a good guy. A good man. You do the right thing.”

Vic faced him.

“So why don’t you?” Vic asked, stepping closer.

Adam could feel the rage bubbling off Vic but he didn’t flinch or step back. Vic would never hit him.

“The whole way here, all the crap we saw, I was worried about you. But you won’t tell me anything. You didn’t tell me this. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said.

“That’s a shitty answer,” Vic said, fists clenched at his sides. “Figure it out, Binder.”

“I’d just gotten Bobby back in my life. I didn’t want him to go away again, and I knew what you’d have to do, that I might lose you over it.”

“So you did it anyway,” Vic said.

Adam sucked on his bottom lip and nodded.

Then Adam could feel him again, could feel Vic’s anger turn to hurt.

“I don’t have anyone else in this,” Vic said. “I had you. Just you.”

Adam didn’t know what to do. He wanted to take Vic’s hand. He wanted to explain. He didn’t know how to explain, but that word, had, past tense, stilled everything inside him.

“I care about you,” Vic said, very quietly.

It was what Adam had wanted to hear, wanted to say. But hearing it made him tremble because he might never hear it again. This might be the end of the road.

Adam mustered all of the confidence he had, and it wasn’t enough. But he had to, because if this was it, the end, he wanted to say it.

“Me too,” Adam whispered. “I don’t want to lose this. Us.”

“So why can’t you trust me?” Vic whispered. “I know we’re not the same. Our families, how we grew up—”

“I’m scared,” Adam said, blurting it out while he could, before he ran away from it again. “I’m so scared that any moment you’re going to run away from this, from me.”

“So you’re running away first?” Vic asked.

“No. I mean, I don’t think so?”

Vic stepped closer, so close he could have kissed Adam.

“So when were you going to tell me that we’re married?” he asked, with another flash of frustration.

“What?”

“The connection between us. Argent says that means we’re married.”

“That’s . . .” Adam paused. He wished Argent hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t known how to explain what the thread, their connection, meant.

He’d been waiting. He shrank a little but didn’t step away from Vic. He’d been running from it, the intensity of it, since they’d met, and if he ran now, he’d never look back.

“It’s for them, the immortals,” Adam explained. “I didn’t do it for that. I did it to save your life. I didn’t know.”

“You still should have told me when you found out,” Vic said, jaw clenched tight. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

Adam chewed his lip, casting about for what else he might know but hadn’t said.

“Nothing, at least I don’t think so.”

“You have to think about it?” Vic demanded; the anger was back.

“No, Vic,” Adam said, pulling at his hair. “I’m a little freaked out. I don’t think so.”

“No more murders or marriages?” Vic asked.

He was pissed and he was hurt. The potent mix slammed into Adam, not through their connection, but through his weary, weakened defenses. Adam’s gut flipped. He thought he might puke.

“Let’s go,” Vic said, turning to walk away and not waiting for Adam. “We have to tell you what happened on the way here.”

Adam watched Vic walk away, feeling like the ground between them had opened and left a terrible chasm, a Grand Canyon–sized gulf between them. What point was any of it, their feelings, their connection, if Vic could just walk away?

Feeling like he could melt into the ground, Adam followed Vic back to his mom’s trailer.

Everyone was waiting. Jodi was still asleep. Adam’s gut still boiled. He didn’t know where they were, what would happen, and Vic wasn’t looking at him.

Bobby stood by the kitchen counter, a cup of coffee beside him.

Tilla had fired up the stove and was frying potatoes.

“Mom?” Adam asked.

“Vin—Vicente hasn’t eaten since he left Denver,” she said. “We could all use some food.”

Adam nodded. She was taking Argent and Silver’s presence in stride, like having elves in her living room was a regular occurrence. The last time Argent had come to their door she’d been more spiritous, less present in the mortal world. Now they seemed solid, almost human. Adam could sense their magic, but it wasn’t the loud crash of wind and ice he usually got from them.

He wondered if they were masking it or if something had changed in his own perception.

They sat together in the old metal folding chairs his mom had used back when the ladies from her church would come by.

“We are on the verge of war,” Silver announced. “We must return to Alfheimr, and Vicente must come with us.”

“Wait, what?” Adam asked, looking between the elves and Vic.

“The elves of the Sea upon the Land attacked Silver,” Argent said. “We must bring the news to the Council of Races, and we need him as a witness.”

“Cool,” Vic said calmly.

“He doesn’t have any magic,” Adam protested. “He won’t be safe there.”

Silver lifted a hand. “I will protect him, but he is the only impartial witness.”

“They’ll try to hurt him,” Adam said. “To kill him, won’t they?”

“Yes,” Argent and Silver said together.

“Their wisest move would be to eliminate him, stop his testimony,” Silver explained.

Vic didn’t look afraid. Adam wished he was. He didn’t know the powers he was dealing with, the danger—and dammit, he’d been right, so right.

Adam had left Vic ignorant.

The anger still wafted from Vic like the smoke from burning plastic, thick and acrid. And it was fair that he felt that way. Adam had screwed up. Knowledge was power, especially in magic, and Adam had put Vic in the line of fire without any defenses.

“So what are my chances here?” Vic asked.

He leaned against the wall, looking like nothing could hurt him when Adam knew that was far from the truth.

“We have to talk to Death,” Adam said. “She has to protect him.”

“We do not know how to summon her,” Argent said, looking to Vic.

“No idea,” he said with a shrug.

Adam closed his eyes, pushed his will out into the Other Side.

Are you there? he asked silently. Are you listening? Sara. Please.

He hoped calling her by the name he’d known her by would help, that she might take pity on him.

Nothing, just the muted presence of the elves and the lingering touch of the stain behind the trailer.

Adam opened his eyes.

“What about Vran?” he asked as his mom brought Vic a plate. Of course she’d dug up something to feed him.

Vic moved at last. He shifted to the dining room table, sat, and with a gentle thank-you to Tilla, began to eat.

Adam’s own stomach grumbled but he would wait. This conversation was too important.

“One of the Sea court,” Silver said. “The truant Page of Cups I suspect. He wasn’t there when they made their move.”

Something flashed between Silver and Argent, a flick of power. Adam felt it whenever the twins disagreed about something. He could sympathize with how Vic felt with so much happening beyond his understanding. Adam’s stomach sank a little further.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Adam asked. “Cards on the table, please.”

“They said he’d gone to see his opposite,” Vic said with a nod to the elves, potatoes speared on his fork. “They meant Adam, didn’t they?”

Silver shot Vic a cold look. The prince gave good side-eye.

“Witness, remember?” Vic said before putting the food in his mouth with a bit of a stern glance at Adam as if to say See? That’s how you disclose information.

“The Page of Cups is named Vran,” Silver said. “He’s quite young and known for mischief.”

“But how am I his opposite?” Adam asked, not letting Silver twist the topic away from the real question. “I’m not the Page of Swords.”

“Not yet,” Argent said.

“We’ve been waiting to ask,” Silver said.

Adam pressed his back against his own chair, so hard that the metal almost hurt.

“What?” he stammered, mind racing. “But I’m not an elf. I’m not an immortal.”

“The title does not require either of those things,” Silver said.

“Technically,” Argent added. “The law is vague, never written with the possibility in mind.”

“But your father makes the laws,” Adam said.

“We have input,” Silver said. “We want to bring you into the court, to prove that humans can be more than servants. They can be allies, friends even.”

“Whose idea was this?” Adam asked.

“Mine,” Silver said. “The truth is known now. Mercy was first defeated, and defeated again, by humans and elves working in cooperation. We can leverage that into true change.”

“I’ve met your father,” Adam said. “I don’t see him going for it.”

“Perhaps not,” Silver agreed. “But I have to try, and it won’t happen if we’re engaged in a war with the Deep.”

Adam really didn’t like the idea of Vic being exposed to the King of Swords without him there as backup. Not that Adam had the power to protect Vic. The most he could do was guarantee that Vic didn’t die alone if the king decided to incinerate him.

“I don’t want to be your vassal,” Adam said, more calmly than he thought he could have.

His worst fear, since he’d discovered the Other Side, was becoming enslaved by a power, even a power he sort of trusted.

Adam also worried that Silver had other intentions, that things weren’t so settled between them. Silver had posed as Perak, the elf Adam had fallen in love with. He’d done it at his father’s command, and broken it off just as quickly when the King of Swords had ordered it.

Before, in Alfheimr, Silver had been hesitant to disobey his father. Something had changed, and Adam didn’t like that he didn’t know what.

“That’s not what we’re proposing,” Silver said, lifting a hand. “We know you’d never accept that, Adam. As Page you’d have a title, rights.”

“And you’d have the court’s protection,” Argent added. “Powers know your name now. We don’t think you can stay hidden, stay safe if we don’t stand for you.”

Adam looked to his mother and brother. They were exchanging a glance, reacting to the proposal. Adam didn’t know how to explain it to them. He didn’t even know what it meant or the risks involved.

But they were part of it too. With power, with Silver and Argent’s protection, Adam could shield them from any fallout, anything that might come for them.

“When do I have to answer?” he asked.

“We’d like to know soon,” Argent said.

“And this Vran, how did he know about me?” Adam asked. “Know that you intended to offer me the title?”

“That remains to be seen,” Silver said. “We suspect they have spies among us. We certainly have our own agents in the other courts.”

“That might no longer be true,” Argent said, eyes narrowing. “We weren’t forewarned about their clumsy coup attempt.”

Adam turned to Vic.

“So you’re going with them?” he asked.

He thought he’d wanted Vic to look him in the eye since they’d gotten back to the trailer, but now he wasn’t so certain.

“Yeah,” Vic said. “Maybe I’ll learn something.”

Adam wanted to step forward, wrap Vic in his arms, but the distance felt insurmountable.

“Be careful, please,” Adam said.

“I promise,” Vic said. He didn’t smile, and it was like the sun hadn’t risen. Vic always smiled. “We’ll talk when I get back.”