Eye of the Storm (32 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Mira hasn't spoken in over an hour. It's just the two of us in the room, and with every passing minute I half-expect a crowd of Mediators to crash through the door and kill us both. But no one does.

I'm not quite fool enough to think the threat has subsided just because a couple young Mediators made perhaps the biggest mistakes of their lives today, but Mira's silence is scraping away at the bottom edge of the pit in my stomach, digging it deeper until I'm afraid it'll open up into a chasm I'll never escape from. She's withdrawn in more than just words; she pulled her hand back from mine, and I don't want to reach out and take it again if she doesn't want to be touched.

Time slips by, the early hours of the morning lightening the window into dull grey.
 

When she finally speaks, my ears almost don't register the words.

"I can't do this," she says.
 

"Do what?" I already know what she means.
 

"Hope."

The single syllable sinks into the air between us like a boulder into mud.
 

"Every time I touch you, I want to believe we'll have a future when this is all over. I want to think that maybe we're not just clinging to each other because we don't know any other better thing to do. I want to be the type of desperate, love-crazed person who says fuck it all and loses herself in your body every night until we don't have any left, but I can't do that. And the tiny tastes are killing me. I can't do the
maybe when it's all over
. I can't sleep next to you every night like this." She doesn't cry, and neither do I. "We're both chunks of people right now. When I thought of being with you, of learning that you loved me too, I always wanted it to be when we were both whole and we could explore it like human beings. With, you know, the run-of-the-mill
we could die
hanging over our heads, but not this."

The room fills with quiet again, and I don't know what to say. I wait, and Mira goes on again.

"I know no one ever gets a perfect shot. There's no such thing. But I can't do this limbo dance anymore. It's one thing knowing a jeeling could get us any second. It's another to know the whole world might be gone and we'd both go with it. This is taking uncertainty and turning it up to eleven. I trust you like I've never trusted anyone before. I trust what I see in your eyes when I look at you. But then I look out the window and it's like someone's dumped glacier water on my head, because when I look at you, I forget that hell is nipping at our heels. I can't keep going through my day remembering that over and over again."
 

"I understand," I tell her, even though I hate it, and my voice sounds disembodied, far away. The mere thought of sleeping alone with no one around me fills me with something very near panic.
 

My phone buzzes. It's Mason, just a text message that says to come to the roof. With a start, I realize talking to Mira I didn't even notice his proximity. I feel him now, that familiar presence.
 

"Mason wants me to meet him on the roof," I say. I don't intend it to have any connotations, but something touches Mira's face and is gone in an instant. I wish I could erase that moment, whatever it is that swept over her. Jealousy? I don't know. Pain, certainly.

"You should go meet him," she says. "See what he needs."

I wonder how much it cost her to say that. I want to hug her before I go. Or squeeze her hand. Touch her somehow to tell her I still love her.

But I don't.

My guard hasn't been replaced. I don't know what Alamea told everyone about the assassination attempt, and I feel far from safe, but what else is new?

Climbing up to the roof gives me a view of the city I don't know if I want. The trees I can see are dying, and not just because it's winter and they're all naked. Mason's presence feels familiar and warm, and when I see him, he embraces me. It's the first time we've hugged in what feels like an eon.

His skin is chilled. Even so, warmth suffuses me when I hug him. I can't quite help the heave of my chest that feels like a sob.
 

But he's the last person I can talk to about what just happened with Mira.
 

"You wanted to see me," I say, pulling back.

"The others said the demons have pulled back from the edges of the city. They're not coming closer to the perimeter anymore, and they've stopped trying to bump the wards." Mason points out to the southeast. "Miles and Saturn went outside the bounds. They're still out there so they don't ping the wards on the way back in."

"Mason," I begin, alarmed. I don't want them out there without protection. Not with…everything.
 

"They'll be okay," he says. "They will."

Bullshit. But there's nothing I can do. "Does it look like the demons are gathering to do anything?"

It bothers me that they haven't attacked yet. Mostly because it seems to confirm what Mira and I deduced, that they won't strike here and risk killing me yet. I have no doubt that the
yet
is an important word. I don't know what they want from me, but there is no illusion for me that if I cease being potentially useful, they'll splat me like a water balloon in July.

"We can't tell," says Mason. "Miles and Saturn are scouting farther out. Last time they checked in was a couple hours ago, and they were in Belle Meade. It looks like the hellkin have pulled back almost two miles from the ward line entirely."

"Yeah, like the damn tide pulls back before a tsunami," I mutter. It doesn't matter how much they pull back when they can rip holes in reality and dump themselves in anywhere.
 

Mason nods with what I've said. Something's niggling at me again. I hate feeling like I'm stumbling around finding puzzle pieces and not knowing how they fit together or even if they're part of the same picture.
 

I look out over the city. Somewhere in the distance, a squiggle of smoke rises outside the ward line.

"I think the demons are far smarter than we ever gave them credit for," I say. "We've always treated them like mindless beasts, but if this is the seventh time they've done this, they have to have some sort of system. We see them the way they want us to see them."

"It's smart," Mason agrees. "You don't want your enemy to know the extent of your intelligence or strength. An underestimated enemy is the most dangerous kind."

"You've been studying," I say.

"It's common sense."

I wonder then about Mason's travels around the world, about what he's seen and learned. Now's not the time to ask.
 

"I think they've been grooming us," I say. "Not just the planet, but even the structures we have in place to fight them. They've spent hundreds and hundreds of years conditioning us to think of them in a very particular light. They've behaved predictably over long periods of time, so what reason would we have to suspect they would change their patterns when they never have?"

"None," Mason agrees.
 

"It's probably too late now to learn how they work," I say. I get the early sprig of an insane idea, and I squash it with the mental equivalent of a heavy heeled boot.

"Maybe not." Mason gives my bicep a squeeze.
 

I give him a sardonic quirk of the lip in return. "Got any ideas?"

"Nope."
 

"Awesome."

"Look," he says. "They've had a long time to outthink you all. If you have any chance of beating them, it's not going to be by numbers, and it's not going to be by swords. You're going to have to think around them and what they've done. Because if there's one disadvantage to playing a long game like they've done, it's that they're probably very set on a particular course of action. If you can disrupt that…"

"I can save the world?"

"Something like that." Mason looks at me, and for a moment we're sitting in my kitchen again, our eyes meeting over my table, him with a bowl of flank steak and me with a bowl of marshmallow cereal.
 

Then the moment's gone.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

"I'm a few dimensions outside okay," I tell him. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

"You're doing just fine."

"Thanks, coach."

"I mean it."
 

I know he does, but that doesn't mean I believe him. Still, his words have given me something to think about. All it takes to alter the trajectory of a plane is one click at one point and it ends up hundreds or thousands of miles from its destination. I just need to find exactly where to nudge the throttle.

While it's not the most advisable thing I've ever done, Mira and I leave the Summit again to patrol the perimeter. The shades have told me they'll give notice if there's any sign of hellkin activity close enough that we might be seen, and that's good enough for me. We stop by Gryfflet's domain on the way out. When he hears we're going out into the city, he almost lights up. His hair is fluffy. He must have taken my showering instructions. I can't see any evidence that he's eaten or slept, but I hope he's at least done one of those things too.

He almost flails at me when I tell him where we're going.

"Perfect. You can take care of something so I don't have to leave." His rudeness is almost refreshing.
 

"What do you want?" Mira feeds it right back to him.

"I need this scattered at exact coordinates," he says, pressing a zip-lock baggie into my hands. It's full of white powder that looks like cocaine.
 

I raise an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"You know how I said the spell went wonky?" When I nod, he gestures at the baggie. "That's powdered bone. It should help me hone the focus of the spell so it'll show me what went wrong last time."

"Bone hone," Mira mutters.

Gryfflet ignores her.
 

"Bones of what?" I ask.
 

"Bunch of stuff."

I don't like the sound of that. "It just needs to go at a couple coordinates?"

"Four," he says. "North, south, east, and west at a specific distance from here."

Gryfflet pulls out his phone, his thumbs moving so quickly on the touch screen that they almost blur. I get a sudden strange image of him having frantic texting matches with a crush and the thought makes me feel weirdly protective of him.
 

My phone buzzes. "Got it," I say. "Any particular instructions? I know about as much about magic as I do about quarks."

"Three pinches scattered on the exact spot of those coordinates." Gryfflet looks at me. "You can count to three, right?"

"I think I can manage that."

"Thanks," he says, more seriously. "This should help. I think I'm close."

He seems so earnest I almost believe him.

Mira and I don't talk much as we leave. She hasn't asked me what Mason wanted, and I can't blame her for that. Or anything. Going out into the city together alone is probably enough awkwardness for the both of us.
 

We decide to start at the western point. It's in Centennial Dog Park west of the Parthenon, and it's only a short walk from the Summit. None of the points are particularly far, but it's the closest to the ward line and as near as I want to come to visibility. When I get to the point marked by the coordinates Gryfflet sent me, I reach in the baggie and drop three pinches of the bone dust between my feet. Nothing happens.

"I should have asked if it was going to go poof or glow or something," I mutter.

"Probably." Mira's looking around like expects something to jump out at her at any moment. Or maybe she's hoping Saturn will appear. I haven't told her he and Miles are outside the wards, and I probably should. Then again, no one needs more worries right now.

We start walking toward the north, to the next point on Gryfflet's little scavenger hunt.
 

"What do you think this will do?" I ask. It's not good conversation, but it's something. No matter what comes out of our mouths, it'll be heavy with everything we're not saying, weighed down by it like cannon balls in pockets.

"No idea."