Chapter Six

 

Noah

 

The guest rooms in the palace easily dwarfed any hotel room on land, with ceilings at least twenty-five feet high and arched windows that extended most of that length. Bowls of opaque glass hung from the dark stone of the ceiling, with impossible flames burning inside.

“So…” Chloe said nervously, watching me while I glanced around. “This is it. Seem okay to you?”

I tried not to look at the soldiers hovering by the door. “Yeah.”

Chloe’s smile was strained. Her gaze twitched toward them and away.

I turned back to the room. She’d been struggling to keep up a pretense like this was normal the whole way down here. Like she couldn’t see how the other dehaians stared or how some of them had fled in terror when their friends whispered who I was. Shouts and cries had echoed from deeper in the palace halls, and I thought I’d seen a few of the servants faint when I’d glanced their way. Rumor obviously traveled fast around the palace, helped along by the fact some of the soldiers clearly had spread the word that the Beast had returned.

It made it even harder to want to stay. Most everyone I knew among the Yvarians wasn’t here. Zeke’s sister Ina was in someplace called Teariad with her boyfriend, according to Chloe, and Zeke’s grandfather Jirral was off on a diplomatic mission beyond the Yvarian border. And besides Zeke and Chloe, that brought an end to the list of potentially friendly faces, leaving me only with the ones that were filled with fear.

“I was thinking we could do a dinner tonight,” Chloe offered. “Invite a few of the ambassadors and give them a chance to meet you. Kind of ease them into thinking you’re not out to kill us, that sort of thing.”

I hesitated. It sounded horrible, but only on a personal level. “Yeah, okay.” I paused. “You’ve become quite the diplomat.”

She blinked, discomfort flashing over her face.

“I didn’t mean that as an insult,” I amended quickly.

She hesitated and then gave a small nod.

“It’d probably help,” I continued. “As long as they don’t think I’m working for Yvaria or—”

A cold shudder ran through me.

My brow furrowed in alarm. I barely felt cold anymore. Or heat. I hadn’t for a year.

“Noah?” Chloe asked, swimming closer. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “I—”

It grew worse. So much worse. Pain and fear came too, cascading at me like water pouring down a chute, and I choked on it.

But this wasn’t from me. This was like Chloe. Like Baylie. An awareness of location, of wellbeing.

Of extreme pain.

My eyes widening, I looked to Chloe. “Baylie.”

“What—”

I didn’t wait. I let my human form vanish and raced for the window. I could hear the soldiers shouting, hear Chloe trying to calm them while calling to me, but then the mountain was at my back and the veil around it was too. In a heartbeat, I sped beyond the city and took to the open water.

Whatever was hurting Baylie was going to die.

I shuddered, fighting the cold-hot rage straining to break free inside. I didn’t know what was happening to my stepsister, didn’t know who was hurting her or why, but I wouldn’t lose control. No matter what was going on here, I would not lose control.

Innocents could be killed if I did.

I raced onward, but the seafloor wouldn’t end. The miles were taking too long. An eternity passed before the water began to grow shallower, and amid it all, a thousand scenarios raced through my mind, each worse than the one before.

But Baylie would be fine. She would. I’d stay calm, I’d find her, and—

The pain vanished.

I slammed to a stop, shock radiating through me. It was gone. All of it, like a faucet turned off. Panic surged inside me. I raced upward through the water and into the sky.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But California lay on the horizon ahead. Struggling to keep control, I sped toward it.

I couldn’t let myself become the Beast’s other form up here. Not yet. To say that roiling, black nightmare of a thunderstorm was too noticeable was a ridiculous understatement, and if Baylie was in trouble, stealth was my best asset right now.

California came closer. Baylie’s presence surfaced in my mind, like a cool blue glow that I could feel more than see. There wasn’t any pain, though. No fear. Nothing like what had been pounding through me only minutes ago.

Crossing over the coastline, I veered toward her. Downtown Santa Lucina passed beneath me, with its shops and restaurants and tourist traps. I slowed and then dropped lower till I reached a small alley behind the main strip.

Everything condensed. I glanced around, making sure no one had noticed me, and then jogged toward the street.

At the corner of the alley, I paused. She was there, across the road from me. She seemed strangely different in a way I couldn’t quite place, though that was probably just a side effect of the fact it’d been so long since I’d last seen her. She sat outside a café, her blonde hair shining in the sunlight, and she sipped a coffee while tapping something one-handedly into her purple-cased laptop.

I scanned the street. Besides a couple college guys checking her out while they walked by, I barely saw anyone glance her way.

This wasn’t right…

Her brow furrowed. Looking up from her computer, she turned her head toward me.

Cursing, I ducked backward into the shadows of the alley. The connection worked both ways. She’d picked up on the fact I was here.

I glanced around. Something like what I’d felt earlier wouldn’t just vanish, and yet from everything I could tell, Baylie was fine.

And starting to head over here.

I scowled. This wasn’t how I’d wanted to see her after a year of being gone. After what I’d just felt, I was shaken and barely in control. Holding onto human form was harder than it’d been for months. And meanwhile, whatever the hell I’d felt was still out there. I couldn’t just stop and—

It came back. I choked, my hand bracing me on the brick wall. The fear surged and the pain did too. But it wasn’t Baylie. I could feel her and she was fine, albeit coming closer with every second.

I vanished and raced upward. This was coming from farther east. A lot farther. But Chloe was behind me, Baylie was here, and—

No.

No way. I’d been careful. The freak accident that had connected the three of us to the Beast before I’d become this had been just that. An accident. A damn near nuclear explosion of magic that had leveled the forest around it.

I’d only picked Ari up.

“Noah?” Baylie called. “Is… is that you?”

She was in the alley, looking around with an expression like she was really concerned people would think she was insane for talking to the sky.

I retreated higher, hating myself as I went. I should go to her. This was pathetic. Yes, everything sucked, but now I’d left my stepsister standing in an alleyway looking like a lunatic.

The feeling of fear grew stronger, along with the oddest sense of questioning, like Baylie wasn’t the only one calling my name. It was timid, though, and so very, very frightened.

And the pain wasn’t gone either. It tugged at me, making me desperate to have it stop.

Dammit, I’d be back. I just needed to figure out what the hell was going on. And carefully, because this shouldn’t have happened and, since it involved wizards, it was probably a trap.

Snarling curses to myself, I headed east.