“You come back if you need more stuff or more secrets,” Izzy called up to me as I closed the lid over the ladder.
As soon as the lid was shut, I shook my head. “Not going to happen.”
Working my way past the pedicure chairs and massage stations, I let myself out the back of the spa and into an alley.
I had new weapons, I had some gear, and even a map. And was apparently crazy or going to be. But I couldn’t focus on that any more than I could on my heartbreak over Rory and my grief for Colt. My friends needed me. And I had to be on my toes for whatever games Ruby and Frost were playing.
A wave of fatigue rolled over me, and I leaned heavily against the building closest to me. I wanted to get my friends now, right now.
But if I went in tired, so exhausted I couldn’t see straight, I wouldn’t save them or me.
How many times had my dad told me that doing a job when you couldn’t see straight was a sure way to get yourself killed? Especially on the farm. If the note was real, though, that meant my friends were being hurt. I swallowed down the fear that surged through me—not fear for me, but for them. “This is so damn shitty,” I grumbled under my breath as I rubbed my face. A tic that I’d seen on my uncle more than once now. I forced my hand away from my face.
What I needed now was a place to hunker down so I could sleep for even a few hours, get some food into me, and then go after them.
Somewhere safe.
Where no one would look for me.
What better place to hide a dead body than where someone else had already dug up the ground to look for it? The houses had all been demolished as the Shadowkiller had searched for whatever he was looking for. No one would be there, everyone had been moved to the House of Wonder. Which one was closest, though? I went through the list in my head of where each of the houses were. Pier 36 was too far, and the Financial District was similarly situated. So it was between Central Park and the marble cemetery. Call me superstitious, but I didn’t feel like it was a good sign to just wander into a cemetery at this point in my life. The last time I’d been in one I’d been plagued by zombies and almost died.
I turned my face north and headed for Central Park and the House of Claw.
5
Wally
Tackling the necromancer Jasmina might not have been my very best idea, but I couldn’t let her hurt my friends, and that was exactly what she was about to do. She screamed as we went down together, her magic blasting up into the sky like a dark beacon through the clouds. But that was not the most important part of knocking her off course, not by a long shot. We rolled across the rubble, and I tried to get on top of her again, the way Gen had shown me. Finding her wrist under her robes was tough with all that material. But necromancers weren’t trained to fight, so the little bit of learning I’d done was enough to outmaneuver her.
I twisted her arm up behind her back and sat on her while I pushed her face into the rubble. “You guys okay?” I yelled back to them while their heartbeats picked back up, one at a time. With Jasmina more worried about me, she released her hold on them.
“Cats on fire, that is hot,” Pete whispered, sending a rush of pride through me.
“What are you going to do with me now, little necro?” Jasmina purred. “You can’t hold me here forever.”
I looked over my shoulder. “Ethan, do you have a spell that could wrap her up?”
He nodded. Though his skin was waxy and pale, he made his way over to my side. “I do.”
Jasmina tried to buck me off, screeching, “Don’t you dare, Helix! Your father will have your hide for this! He’ll skin you alive!”
The noise was bound to attract the wrong kind of attention, and Ethan wasn’t moving all that fast. I grabbed a loose chunk of rubble with my free hand and whacked it across the back of her head. “There. That should do it.”
“You are amazing,” Pete breathed out. “You wanna be my girlfriend?”
I blinked up at him. “What? I mean, are you asking? I already figured the chances of you asking were less than ten percent.”
Gregory gave a heavy sigh. “Maybe not right now, you two. We need to figure out—”
“She’s one of Frost’s crew,” I said. “Infiltrated the academy. Same as Jared.” Jared was the vampire that Wild had killed. The vampire who’d been Frost’s lover and part of her crew.
We looked at each other, but it was Orin who spoke. “What do you want to bet each of the houses has someone tied to Frost? Jasmina here and Jared for the House of Night.”
“Just like you and me for Wild,” I said. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Gregory patted her down, checking her pockets. “We know about Ruby. That means she must also have someone in the House of Wonder, the House of Unmentionables, and the House of Claw. I mean, assuming that’s how it works? Maybe she could have more.”
“Daniella,” Ethan said. “It fits with how she was obsessed with Wild. She wouldn’t let up about her, not once.” Even as he spoke, I could feel the discomfort rolling through him. Like he didn’t want to say it.
Gregory sighed. “If Professor Ash hadn’t run off with the Shadowkiller, I would have said he was in on it with Frost. He’s strong, stronger than anyone I’ve ever met in the House of Unmentionables before.”
Underneath me, Jasmina stirred. I put a hand on the back of her neck, holding her down.
“Orin, can you . . . read her?”
“She’s stronger than us both, she could kick us out,” he pointed out.
“Try,” I said. “It’s all we’ve got.”
He swept up beside me and crouched down. His hand settled over mine and his ability to bend minds rolled through me. The second his hand touched mine, a flood of thoughts burst through my mind, thoughts that were not my own.
Keys and boxes.
Frost’s face as she whispered directions to Jasmina. Only fragments filtered through to me.
Spells unwoven, we need them all.
Power unlimited. For once, this world will be as it should have been from the beginning.
Death.
Bring the young one’s crew to me. She will follow. That is the plan.
I gasped and yanked my hand back, sharing a quick look with Orin. He nodded. He’d seen the images too. “Frost wanted Jasmina to bring us to her. She said that where we went, Wild would follow. We were meant to be bait.”
Orin crouched beside me. “We can’t let that happen, Wally. There is an option.”
I knew what he was asking of me—the same thing that had crossed my mind only moments before. That did not mean I wanted to do it. We were both from the House of Night, and some things were only known amongst our kind. “Orin, I know, I thought of it too but . . . that is—”
He nodded. “Forbidden, I know. But this is about survival. This is about Wild surviving, about all of us making it out of this alive.” His dark eyes were hard to read. Not that he was ever easy to read. “What choice is there, Wally?”
I looked up at the sky, unable to see any stars through a whisper of cloud cover, as if I would find the answer to our predicament within the dark of the night. “There was something about key and boxes in her mind. Spells unwoven.” I put a hand to my pocket where Wild’s key rested. “Maybe it has to do with what got Tommy killed? With this key?”