Roses & Rye (Toil & Trouble Book 3) (13 page)

I
don’t want to believe it. No matter how true the bitch’s words ring. Jett’s long gone and I’m still sitting there, staring at the place where she disappeared, my head pounding.

My bride. It never occurred to me that the warning could have been about love as easily as death. I look down at the runes marked into my skin and curse, getting to my feet, pushing the ache in my chest aside. None of that matters. Seph is dead and so is any future we might have had.

Jett is still the one who put a sword in her sister’s back. Which means I’m still going to kill her. Her and Cerunnos. I don’t know why the bastard has put off punishing me for my betrayal, but he’s made one hell of a critical error.

I look in the mirror on the wall. Frost is creeping around its edges, turning my reflection to ice. I close my eyes, breathing deeply. When I open them again, the frost is gone and beads of water slide down the glass.

It’s time.

I stalk from her office, wondering if it’s for the last time. A minute later I’m on Superior Street and catching the wind for a ride north.

The Dark Council chambers under Palisade Head aren’t as familiar to me as one might think. Generally speaking, we only gather here once a year, though there have been more summonings in the last twelve months than ever before. That doesn’t mean I know all the ins and outs of Cerunnos’s private rooms below the main hall. That’s why I dropped a trail of magical breadcrumbs the last time I was here. That time when he was busy congratulating me for killing Seph at long last. We shared a bottle of wine while we were both apparently lying our asses off.

I hate wine. Like Seph, I prefer my alcohol straight up from a shot glass or a bottle. Satyrs are partial to grapes though, satyrs and
other
earth elementals.

After winding through the maze of hewn rock and earth, I come to the wooden door I remember. A stag is emblazoned on the oak, burned white with magic. The mythical white stag. But it was never a stag and it was never a myth. Some say he was the first of us, the first immortal to be born of earth. The god of the hunt.

As obvious as it seems now, staring at this symbol, it took me a while to piece things together. Cerunnos has powers that are beyond that of a mere elemental. Because even though he’s been pretending otherwise, he’s a god. One that disappeared ages ago, after the other gods took issue with his mad ways. It took a while for me to see through his current disguise, but I know him now.

I take a breath and reach for the handle.

“He’s not there, Jokul.”

With a sigh, I turn to see Loki loitering behind me. The smirk on the god of chaos’s face is meaningless. That’s Loki’s default expression, but I’m really not in the mood for his games.

“Then where is dear old Cerunnos?”

“Now, now, we both know that’s not his name, don’t we?” His look is sly. A sudden suspicion hits.

“Is that why you’re here—why you’ve been here all along? To keep an eye on him?”

Loki examines his fingernails, then buffs them against his silk shirt. “Something like that.”

“So, they know.”

“Of course
they
know.” He gives me an incredulous look.

“And you’re their idea of a babysitter?” I shake my head in disgust. “Are you going to help me, then?”

That perpetual smirk turns to a full-on grin. “Nah, you know me. I’d rather sit back and watch the fun.”

My cell chirps. I take the phone from my pocket. It’s Stephen. And there’s only one reason the damn bruin would be calling me. He wants his werewolves. But he’ll have to wait. I’ve got a god to kill and a witch to find.

“There should be plenty of that to go around very soon.” I push past the god in the doorway.

As soon as I step through, there is a cool swish of air. The door slams at my back, accompanied by the unmistakable prick of a sword at my throat.

Blue eyes blaze into mine.

“Jett. I told you what would happen when I found you on neutral ground.”

Before that sword can move an inch, my magic crackles down it, freezing her hand to the grip, freezing her in place. I step away from the gleaming crystal tip and shake my head. Her eyes track me, but with one side of her body encased in ice that’s all she can do.

“How did you know I’d come here?”

She blinks. “A little birdie told me,” her words are slurred due to the ice currently running through her veins. I’m freezing her magic along with her body, one racing just a little bit faster than the other.

Then her free hand brushes something at her side and lightning crackles through the room, white-hot and blazing. I step aside and put up a hand, deflecting the blast into the ceiling. Above us, rock groans and shifts, the smell of ozone and dust filling the room. Soul magic? Wonder where she got that? Surely not from Seph. My insides tauten with fury and pain as I stare her down.

Those eyes look so much like my Seph’s. But they’re not. 

“Say good-bye, Jett.”

“Jack, wait!” Minutely that stubborn chin lifts. “I can’t beat you, but you can’t beat him. You’re a tough son of a bitch, but you’re not a god.”

My lips twist. “About that…” All around us the cavern walls start to darken and glisten, until water drips down them in rivulets, then streams that hiss and chatter on their way to the floor.

“You’ve added to your repertoire, I see.” Loki appears out of nowhere, lounging on the divan next to the sideboard. He reaches for a bottle of wine, grinning. “Four elements. Summon all four and we have ourselves a new god. How perfectly marvelous.”

“It’s not fucking marvelous.” Jett drops her sword as ice turns to water. The tip slams into the wooden floor, the blade vibrating as she stares at me and crumples to the wall, cradling one hand to her stomach. “Jack, you can’t become a god. That will ruin everything.”

“I’m sure it will.” I lift a finger to point it at her. “Pity you won’t be there to see it.”

“No. You don’t understand. Seph is—”

The door at my back shakes and rattles. Both Jett and I fall back. Loki’s eyes widen from his perch on the bed. The wood splinters and bursts apart. The shadow left standing in the archway is enormous, half-man, half beast, with a rack of horns to rival the greatest stag that ever lived.

Herne. God of the Hunt.

The holy Horned One himself.

“Taking your real shape at last, I see.” I lift my eyebrows, refusing to step any farther back, though the urge is almost overwhelming.

The monstrous shadow dips its heavy spiked head in amusement, then shrinks and solidifies into the form of the Dark Council leader. He steps into the room, eyes a sparkling green as they flash from me to Loki to Jett and back again.

“This shape serves as well as any other to finish things, Frost.”

“Better late than never, is that your story?” I make a disparaging noise against my teeth. “I think not. You have taken your sweet time confronting me for my ‘betrayal.’ At first I couldn’t figure out why. Then it hit me. You’re afraid.”

Herne snorts, but his eyes flicker. Green and red and back again. “Sounds like you’re projecting, Frost.”

“Am I? How do you attack those you despise? With disease and pestilence. Through shadows and lies. Even when the Dark Council started, it was about taking threats out one by one, using coercion and secrecy. And throughout it all, you’ve hid your true identity by hook and crook. Bespelling your fake name, constantly disappearing so no one would realize you’re wearing a fake form. You’re a coward who likes to hide in the dark, Herne. You didn’t want to face me…because you weren’t sure you’d win.”

“Think that if it gives you courage.” Herne’s lip curls. “I’m still a god, Frost. And you’re not.”

I smile. “That’s about to change.” I reach for the elements I’ve mastered as Herne’s eyes flash red. Loki laughs and Jett yells something I don’t catch.

Because I’m suddenly falling, wind roaring in my ears. Wind that I didn’t call. Far away, I can feel the wards I placed around Seph’s body shatter, like someone is taking a hammer to them. Something is happening in that cave right now, something terrible and beautiful, all mixed up.

Far away, I hear Loki’s voice, telling me to call the elements, to call them now, even as Jett screams at me to wait, but I can’t focus on either of them.

Herne is staring down at me, laughing.

I have that feeling like I did when Seph reached into my chest and wrapped her fingers around my soul. Except this time, the fingers aren’t cool and gentle. They’re hot and greedy, squeezing the life out of me.

I’ve lived a long, long time. I’ve been burnt, drowned, stabbed so many times I should be perforated—someone even tried to skin me once. I think that might have been Freya. The only thing that has come close to hurting this bad was losing Seph. But that was a mental pain; this is all physical. I think it might be killing me.

My eyes roll up.

I hear Loki’s curse and something impossible…

Something that sounds like Seph screaming my name.

Mrs.
Rudd pulls up to the edge of the lakeshore. The wind is just as angry here as it was at Enger Tower. This time there is no glitter of city lights, no light of any kind to pierce the blackness until Rochie wakes up and emanates a weak violet glow.

“How do you plan to get to the cave?” I scream over the roar of the lake.

Ignoring my question, Mrs. Rudd pulls one of the scrolls from her pocket. It’s the sunshine-yellow one. The wind tries to snatch it out of her fingers. She saves it, but her curlers aren’t so lucky. They’re being torn from her head one by one, the Green Bay cap already long gone. I wasn’t sure before, but her hair is definitely lighter now. She also looks younger and much less stout. Am I tripping? Because she looks an awful lot like—

She pinches the edge of the spellwork. It disintegrates into the night like a vibrant cascade of passing fireflies. The next instant, there’s a boat in front of us, rocking against the shore.

It’s hard to make out much in the dark, but what I can see isn’t pretty. The paint is peeling and yellowed vinyl of what may have at one time been a slipcover slaps against the warped sides in ragged strips. Mrs. Rudd clambers aboard, Rochie using her back as shelter from the storm.

“I think we should’ve asked for the upgrade,” I mutter, but then again, I’m already dead, so what the hell? I float up the rickety ladder as Mrs. Rudd gets it started. Rochie hides under the driver’s seat, a little indigo glow with her wings tucked tightly around her shivering body. She looks a bit sick. Hangovers and boats, not a good mix for any species.

The lake is open and no ice rims the shore. Spring is finally making an impression, even here on the South Shore. Once we cut the motor and drift inside the cave where Jack laid my body to rest months ago, it’s like taking a short hop back in time. Stalactites of frost sparkle from the ceiling in long white streamers, unfurling to drip into the choppy, dark water below. She dims the running lights, pointing the boat at my coffin of ice. Long white cracks run through the previously crystal-clear surface.

It’s an uneasy sensation, looking at your own dead body. Especially when there’s a gnome on top of it.

Startled, Merry looks up at the boat with a grimace on his face, then brings his joined hands down with terrific force. Gnomes don’t cast per se; they wield magic—like a hammer. The ice that protects my body is already weakened. This last blow shatters my coffin of ice like the windshield of a car hit head-on. The sound is like a thousand crystal chandeliers in a hurricane.

My body is free of its cage, but death still holds me fast.

Mrs. Rudd, who doesn’t look very much like Mrs. Rudd at all anymore, takes a vial from the pocket of the robe that hangs off her now. She shatters it against the bow of the boat and sprinkles something red and thick over the hot pink piece of scrollwork before whispering one word and tossing the parchment over my lifeless form, where it catches fire.

The fire isn’t red and yellow and warm.

It’s blue and green and cold. The flames actually look brittle, like they’re made of ice. I frown. Didn’t she say I needed that body? Then something flickers in the heart of the fire, something that gleams like liquid gold. My soul?

Mrs. Rudd yells at Rochie, who shakes herself and throws a small bit of glittery silver powder into the air. Fairy dust.

In the next instant I’m being yanked forward, my eyes locked on my swiftly approaching body. It’s still intact, naked and whole and unblemished amid the odd fire. But something is happening to it. My tattoo, the one I got with Jack’s name on it, is changing. The tree of life I had Jett ink into my skin, it’s twisting like something alive. Or something
becoming
alive. Like it’s…
growing
.

The black branches curl over my ribs, then snap back. Like a person yanking back their hand when they touch something hot.

That’s when I notice something else.

The spell I’d seen once before but somehow forgotten—the pattern of my mother’s magic on my skin—is glowing. Brighter and brighter until it looks like a brand. The concealment spell. It’s unraveling.

I can hear my mother’s voice in my ear, telling me we’re going to play hide and seek with magic. The faintest memory of sitting on her lap as magic crawls over my skin, making me laugh because it tickles. The memory burns away as my spirit shudders, warmth pooling around me, growing hotter by the second. Until it feels like my skin is blistering from the inside out. But I don’t have real skin, not anymore. I’m just fire and air all mixed up. Aren’t I?

Below, all trace of the spell on my actual body is gone. The tree is stretching now, the roots too, which curl around Jack’s name and squeeze even as the branches reach higher, winding around my sides, buds forming on the slender shoots…

Power is rushing into me. So much power.

I can’t contain it all. I can’t.

It’s going to rip me apart.

“Focus, Seph! Goddammit, baby girl.
Focus
.”

My mother’s voice again. I know it is. Not in my head, but here. Now. But I can’t see her. I can’t see anything but this.

It’s life. It’s me.

This is my power. At last, I know who I am.

What
I am. And what I can do.

So I do it.

The burning ball of essence that is me is sucked down into my body like a boat in a massive whirlpool. I’m rushing toward my own face at what feels like a thousand miles an hour, but before I hit, I see Jack, somewhere dark and still. He’s looking right at me, his expression furious, then turning to bewilderment, awe and pain.

So. Much. Pain.

He opens his mouth, then the light hits, fracturing into a million suns. I’m on fire all over again, the image of Jack falling burned into my eyes as my scream rises.

“No!”