“Isn’t this enough?” He formed a shard of ice on his fingertip, as much as he could reliably control. He supposed he’d need to seek out the Fae or some sort of ice sprite to teach him how to command this new ability.
Hypaxia had taken the antidote minutes after him. She’d blacked out, as he had, but awoken thrumming with power. He could have sworn a light, playful breeze now played about her hair constantly—and that a steady sort of power seemed to emanate from her, even when she wasn’t using it.
He’d offered Jesiba a vial upon telling her the news, but the sorceress had said, It won’t help me, pup. And then ordered him to begin this miserable work while he explained the rest.
Jesiba now said, “Knowing the wolves, they’ll think Quinlan asked me to do something to you that made you … unnatural.”
“They know Bryce is a good person.”
“Do they? As far as I recall, they’ve been anything but kind to her since Danika and the Pack died. You included.”
Ithan’s cheeks warmed. “It was a rough time. For all of us.”
“Danika Fendyr would have skewered all of you to the front gates of the Den for how you treated Quinlan.”
“Danika would have …” Ithan trailed off as a thought struck him. “Danika questioned the wolf power structure, you know. Even she thought it was weird that the Fendyrs went unchecked for so long.”
“Did she?”
Ithan turned toward the sorceress’s desk. “Bryce and I found some research papers Danika had hidden. She wanted to know why the Fendyrs were so dominant—I don’t think she approved of it, either.” He nodded to himself. “She would have encouraged the others to take the antidote. To kick Sabine to the curb.”
Jesiba’s brows rose. “If you say so. You knew Danika far better than I ever did.”
“I know she hated her mother—and thought the hierarchies were grossly unfair.” Ithan paced a few steps. “I have to get those papers. I’ll bring them to the Den to show everyone that it’s not just me questioning this, but that even one of the Fendyrs disagreed with their unchecked dominance. It might help sway them toward accepting an alternative to Sabine. Sigrid’s a Fendyr, but she’s not in the direct line. That might help them accept her as an alternative.”
“They’ll say you forged them.” Jesiba typed away at her keyboard.
“That’s a risk I have to take,” Ithan said, striding to the door. “The days of Sabine keeping the wolves down, of making us stand by while innocents suffer … that has to end. We need a change. A big one. And maybe, if Urd’s got our backs, what’s most important within Sigrid still remains intact, unchanged by becoming a Reaper. If that’s the case, I’ll take Sigrid over Sabine any day.”
Maybe it wasn’t a matter of undoing what had been done, but rather of playing the bad hand that had been dealt to him. Of adapting.
“Open-minded as that is, Holstrom,” Jesiba said, shutting her laptop, “do you really think it’s a wise decision to not only go to the Den utterly defenseless, but to start preaching that they accept a Reaper as their Prime Apparent? Let’s not forget that some of the wolves might still like Sabine and her style of leadership. Many probably do, in fact.”
“Yeah, but it’s time to give them the chance to choose otherwise. To break free of her control.”
“You forget,” Jesiba said darkly, “that from the very start, they’ve been the Asteri’s chief enforcers. They’ve never shown any inclination to break free of anyone’s control.”
“It’s a risk I have to take,” he insisted. “And I can’t sit around.”
“Quinlan told you to protect Hypaxia.”
“This won’t take long. Keep an eye on her for me—please.”
He walked to the door, and Jesiba spoke as he wrapped his fingers around the knob. Her voice was heavy, resigned. “Be careful, pup.”
Ithan snuck over to Bryce’s apartment using the House of Flame and Shadow’s unnervingly accurate map of the sewers. He didn’t want to think about who else made regular use of those tunnels.
Even with the access that Danika had long ago granted him, he entered the building through the roof door. There was no doubt the building was being watched, and he kept to the shadows as much as he could. If the guard downstairs saw him on the cameras, no one came to investigate.
Danika’s papers remained where he and Bryce had left them: in the junk mail drawer. He leafed through them just to make sure they did indeed say all he’d remembered.
They did. It could be a convenient bit of backup for his claims. See? Even Danika wanted all this to change. And, yes, Sigrid is a Fendyr—but she’s also different—she could be a step in the right direction.
He’d find some way to say it more eloquently, but Danika’s name still carried weight.
Ithan gently folded the pile of papers and slid them into the back pocket of his jeans. Outside, the city remained quiet—hushed. Grieving.
And inside this building …
Gods, it was weird to see this apartment, so empty and stale without its occupants.
Ithan glanced to the white sectional, like he’d find Athalar and Bryce sitting there, Syrinx curled up with them.
How far away that existence seemed now. He doubted it’d ever return. Wondered if his friends would ever return. If Bryce was—
He didn’t let himself finish the thought.
He had no choice but to keep going. However it played out. And Jesiba was right. To walk into the Den was likely suicide, but … He glanced down the hall. To Bryce’s bedroom door.
Maybe he didn’t need to go in unarmed.
72
It took too long—way too fucking long—for the gates to yawn open, ice and snow cracking off and falling to the ground. Bryce wedged through them first, starfire blazing under her gloves.
“I don’t understand,” Ember was saying as she squeezed through behind Bryce, Randall hot on her tail. Hunt came last. “What is the Harpy doing out here?”
“She’s not the Harpy anymore,” Bryce said. “She’s like … some weird necromantically raised thing made by the Asteri thanks to whatever they managed to do with some of Hunt’s lightning. I don’t know, but we don’t want to meet whatever she is now.”
Bryce caught the worry and guilt on Hunt’s face. They didn’t have the time, though, for her to assure him that this wasn’t his fault. He’d had no choice but to give Rigelus his lightning. It had been used for some fucked-up shit, but that wasn’t on him.
Ember protested, “But the Harpy ate the guards—”
“Which is why we’re going to the Rift,” Bryce said, nodding to Hunt, whose eyes shone with steely determination. “Right fucking now.”
Hunt didn’t wait before lifting her mother in his arms and spreading his wings. Bryce grabbed Randall and said, “Surprise: I can teleport. Don’t barf.”
Thankfully, Randall didn’t vomit as she teleported them the twenty-four and a half miles to the center of the walled ring. But he did when they arrived.
They beat Hunt and her mother there, leaving Bryce with nothing to do but watch her dad puke his guts up in the snow as the dizziness of teleporting hit him again and again.
“That is …,” Randall said, and retched again. “Useful, but horrible.”
“I think that sums me up in a nutshell,” Bryce said.
Randall laughed, vomited again, then wiped his mouth and stood. “You’re not horrible, Bryce. Not by a long shot.”
“I guess. But this is,” she said, and gestured up at the structure before them. At the swirling mists.
A massive arch of clear quartz rose forty feet into the air, its uppermost part nearly hidden by the drifting mist. They could see straight through the archway, though, and nothing lay within it except what could only be described as a ripple in the world. Between worlds. And more mist on its other side.
“The Asteri must have built the archway around the Rift to try to contain it,” Bryce said. “Or try to control it, I guess.”
“I’ll say this once, and that’s it,” Randall said. Behind him, closing in, Hunt and Ember approached from above. “But is opening the Rift … the best idea?”
Bryce blew out a long, hot breath that faded into the mists wafting past. “No. But it’s the only idea I have.”