Everlost (The Night Watchmen Series Book 3) Read online

  I take off the necklace holding the bullet I had pulled from Jaxen’s wound the night we arrived at the manor and drop it in the jar.

  “Good.” She screws the lid back on. “Now, we just need two teaspoons of dried mugwort to steep with two teaspoons of mint for taste, two teaspoons of cloves, two teaspoons of cinnamon, three tablespoons of rose hips, and four tablespoons of Belladonna.”

  “Belladonna?” Jaxen repeats hesitantly.

  “It will relax her mental state so her aura can branch out and connect with the Witch she’s looking for. So long as the talisman works, she’ll have no problem finding and disrupting the connection safely.”

  “Have you done this before?” he asks. “I mean, of this magnitude.”

  “No,” she says, “but I know that Faye can.” She grabs a small, wicker basket off the table and begins pulling down the ingredients we need from the Witches cupboard. She has to reach on tiptoes to find the Belladonna, which is tucked behind Moonwort and Burdock Root. “Can you grab the candles?” she asks Jaxen. They’re on the very top of the cupboard.

  It takes him barely any effort.

  “Thanks,” she says as he sets them in the basket. “It looks like we have everything, so I’ll handle the talisman and get everything ready for the tea for when you return from Ethryeal City. Sound good?”

  I nod.

  “Good,” she says, mustering up a small smile. “I guess that’s it then.” She moves quickly, almost awkwardly, between us, and then heads out of the room.

  “She’s never really dealt with her mother’s death,” he says when she’s far enough away. “She doesn’t know that I know this, but from the few times I’ve been in her mind, I know she blames herself. She thinks if she had stayed and attended the Academy over in France, then maybe her mother would still be here.”

  “That’s so awful,” I say, wishing I could console her.

  “Yeah,” he says, pulling me into a hug. “Her mother had an affair with another Hunter. After her dad found out, he ended up securing a grant to legally abandon her after they failed a few missions due to the unresolved emotional problems between them. In Jezi’s head, he was broken. And he needed to get as far away as possible, so she went with him, because she didn’t want him to be completely alone. But by doing so, she had to abandon her mother, who didn’t take the idea very well. She viewed Jezi as dead to her. And then she died.”

  “Someone came between her parents’ affinity bond, and death and sadness was the result of it. No wonder she was so resentful to me in the beginning.”

  His head hangs a little. “Yeah,” he says, his eyebrows gathering in. “I haven’t always been the easiest to be around, even with knowing her past.”

  I run my hand up his arm. “At least there’s still plenty of time to make it right.”

  WE ALL AGREE THAT WELDON and I should leave for Ethryeal City after dinner.

  It will give Weldon enough time to feed so he can be at his fullest strength, and because that’s when most Elites and Watchmen are out hunting… though I’m sure with everything that’s happened, Clara will remain on the lookout. Probably heavily guarded.

  “Look,” Cassie says, standing in front of the refrigerator in the kitchen. “I may not agree this is the right move, but I don’t want to fight over it. We’re a team, and I don’t know what got into me earlier. I think all the stress has rattled my nerves. Let me make you dinner. Anything you want.”

  She’s looking at me. Apologizing. Being the Cassie I’ve come to know.

  “I’ll take a T-bone. Rare,” Gavin says, rubbing his stomach.

  She shoots him a look, and he grins like a child.

  “Well?” she asks me. “Is there anything you’re in the mood for?”

  I haven’t really thought much about food, but just the mention of it makes my stomach roar to life. “Pot roast?” I ask, thinking about my mother. About the meal she made the night before my Culling and how much I miss her smile. Her hugs. Her love.

  Homesickness wraps its arms around my heart.

  “Done!” she says, turning back to the fridge to gather all the ingredients. Jezi moves in beside her, pulling pots and pans out wherever she can find them.

  Jaxen turns to me at the table, grabbing my hand. “I want to show you something real quick.”

  “Okay,” I say, standing up with him.

  “We’ll be right back,” he says to everyone in the room.

  I follow him out the back door and across the backyard.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “You’ll see,” he says, pulling on my hand. He takes me to a small shed behind the manor that houses a trap door inside. “Watch your head,” he says as he disappears down the small, steep wooden steps that lead to an underground bunker. I follow him down, waiting by the stairs as he searches for the switch to turn the lights on.

  The air in here has an unused, forgotten kind of smell to it, like it’s never known natural light or air. I squint, using the little bits of light filtering in from above, barely making him out a few feet ahead of me.

  “I know it’s somewhere here,” he says, sliding his hands up and down the smooth walls.

  I join in on the effort and feel my fingers slide over the switch. “Got it,” I say as I flick the lights on. One by one, the fluorescent bulbs mounted on the ceiling flicker on, carrying on further than I thought they could reach.

  “What is this place?” I ask as small lights inside of pristine glass weapon cases flicker on, reflecting off the slick metal and steel inside.

  “Our family armory,” he says, moving past the tables in the middle of the room holding all sorts of items, half of which I’ve never even seen before. Curved blades. Knuckle weapons that look like tiger claws. Various vials and jars filled with herbs and ingredients for witchcraft.

  “I don’t think even the weaponry room back in Ethryeal City has anything on this,” I say, running my thumb over the razor-sharp edge of a Shadowblade—the only blade in existence that can kill a demon indefinitely. It looks exactly like the one I saw in Mack’s Wiccan shop right before we left for Whiskey Hallow. “I can’t believe you have one of these.”

  “It’s been in the family for as long as I can remember,” he says, looking back at the blade.

  “Didn’t Mack say there was only ten in existence?”

  “Yeah,” he says before turning back to wherever he’s headed. He reaches on top of one of the metal cabinets and pulls down a phantom cloth bag. Tosses it to me. “I want you to take a few things with you just in case.”

  “Like what? I don’t plan on getting myself into any trouble.”

  He stops, turns, and lowers his gaze on me. “Trouble follows you,” he says, though it’s not meant as an insult, but as the truth. And I’m okay with that.

  I swallow and look down at the table, wishing that my life were simpler. Easier. Less complicated.

  But wishing is for fools.

  “I’ll leave the magic stuff up to you as far as any potions you might need, but weapons are my forte.” He grabs a brass knuckle off the table and hands it to me.

  “Is that German carved into it?” I ask before sliding them on to make sure it fits. It’s a little loose, but good enough.

  “Yeah. One of my great-grandfathers carved an old German proverb into it. Translates to: When there is no enemy, it is safe to fight.”

  “When is there not an enemy?”

  He half smiles at me, putting a flux, some daggers, and other small hand weapons in the bag.

  “Do you really think I’m going to need all of this? We’re only going to talk to the general, and then leave.”

  “He could have been lying,” he says, continuing to fill the bag. He looks over at me. “In this business, it’s better to be prepared, than not.”

  I sigh and hand him another flux. When he’s satisfied that I have more metal on my person than a robot, we head back upstairs and into the house. Cassie’s at the stove, cooking something that makes my
mouth water and my stomach twist with hunger pains. I reach for a fresh roll resting next to her on the counter.

  “Hey, not until dinner,” she says a moment too late. The roll is already stuffed halfway into my mouth.

  Jaxen reaches into the fridge, pulls out two bottles of water, and then heads through the kitchen door. I follow on his heels, finishing off the roll, and take the bottle of water he hands me. “I must say, I don’t like the idea of you going back into that city without me.”

  He talks so low that I barely make out what he just said. I pause mid-sip and lower the bottle from my lips. Screw the lid back on and move into the safety of his arms. “Jaxen,” I say against his chest, “everything will be okay. Weldon is the best partner I could ask for. I trust him… and myself. I know this is the right thing to do. I feel it.”

  But even saying that out loud doesn’t sound as sure as I’d like it to.

  He rests his chin against the crown of my head and wraps his strong arms around me. I love the way he smells. The leathery, electric scent he gives off. The warmth of his skin and the soft cadence of his beating heart. It’s a paradise I never want to leave; a dream I know I’ll continually have to wake up from.

  “Well, I just feel like I’m stuck in a corner I can’t escape from. I know this is one of our only moves, yet I think it’s a stupid one.”

  “You only think that because I have to go.”

  “Maybe,” he says, his chest expanding as he breathes in.

  “Will you two get a room?” Weldon says as he strolls past us from the kitchen.

  “Gladly,” Jaxen says, taking me by the hand. He guides me up the stairs and down the hall to our shared room, and then shuts the door with his foot. I halfway expect him to throw me down and devour me the way I suddenly want him to, but he doesn’t. He just stands there in front of me, staring at me with his deep, sullen gaze.

  “What is it?” I ask, setting my water down next to his on the small table by the door.

  “Nothing,” he lies. He walks past me and sits on the end of the bed.

  I move next to him, curling up under his arms. “What if… what if I kept the connection open between us?”

  He looks down at the affinity mark on my arm, an awkward-shaped heart, and then over at me. “You mean through the bond?”

  I nod.

  The green in his eyes brightens a little, like a cloud parting just enough to allow small rays of light to pass through.

  “You’d know everything that was happening, that way you won’t have to worry the whole time we’re gone.”

  He squeezes me a little tighter. “I guess that would help,” he says through our connection. He leans back, pulling me with him, and I curl up against his side, laying my head against his chest. “Let me just hold you until you have to go.”

  “You act like I’m not going to come back.”

  He doesn’t say anything to that.

  NIGHT FALLS FASTER THAN WE all anticipate, and with it brings a tension no positive words can penetrate.

  A flighty feeling settles into my joints, making it impossible for me to sit still. My thoughts are crowded inside my head, knocking into one another like bumper cars. I just want to go already. Want to have Sterling tell me that I made the right move. So much can go wrong. So little can go right.

  This has to be the right decision.

  No room for mistakes.

  “You’re going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep pacing like that,” Weldon says from the corner of the kitchen. He’s halfway inside a shadow, slowly sipping on a glass filled with someone’s blood.

  I have half a mind to ask him who the blood came from. Was it a female? A male? Was it given willingly? How did he get it?

  His fingers snap in the air, grabbing my attention. “Hey,” he barks out, “did you hear me? Pacing isn’t going to do you any good. Save the energy.”

  “I can’t sit still,” I admit, looking away from his glass and over at Jaxen, who’s twirling the tip of his flux against the kitchen table. He hasn’t moved since dinner. He hasn’t said a word either.

  “How much longer on the brew?” Weldon calls across the room.

  Jezi doesn’t look away from the pot on the stove when she answers. “Five minutes.” She reaches her left arm across her right, which is continually stirring counter-clockwise, over to a small, wooden ball holding a dried-up chameleon. I don’t look away as she drops it into the brew… into the liquid Weldon and I will have to drink.

  My stomach clenches as acid rises up the back of my throat.

  “This is going to be a strong cloaking spell. Clara, or anyone for that matter, won’t be able to see you so long as you stay within the allotted time frame,” Jezi says, stirring it clockwise now. She adds a couple of pinches of black salt, and then moves the pot over to the counter.

  “Are you positive?” Weldon asks, brow raised.

  “Nothing is ever certain when it comes to magic,” Jezi says with a grimace.

  My stomach does a somersault.

  “I don’t know about this. What if something goes wrong?” Jaxen says, chewing away at his nails.

  “Then we’ll figure it out,” I say, trying to be reassuring. “This is the only way. We have to try.”

  “How long will we have?” Weldon asks as I walk over to the brew and take a whiff.

  It smells like vomit. Wonderful.

  “For a potion of this magnitude, it’s probably about forty minutes, but let’s go with thirty just to be on the safe side,” Jezi says as she ladles the concoction into two mugs.

  Don’t throw up.

  I’m grateful that she left the chunky parts in the pot, though I wish I could change the taste of this potion without altering the spell she put into it. Jaxen’s hands slide over my shoulders as he moves behind me.

  “Just drink it fast,” he whispers against my ear.

  Weldon makes his way over to us and takes the mug from Jezi. “Count of three,” he says to me, bringing the mug close to his mouth. “One. Two. Three.”

  My throat is on fire as the steamy liquid passes into my stomach. My tongue burns, though it’s not from the heat. I nearly gag, and I have to bend over and hold onto the counter for support. My whole body shudders as my brain fights to tell my stomach to hold it down. Weldon walks back over to the corner, acting as if it were nothing more than a glass of water.

  “I’m sorry,” Jezi says. “I couldn’t add anything for flavor because it would have altered the potency of the spell.

  I put my hand up, telling her it’s okay.

  “Come on,” Weldon says next to the shadow. “The clock’s ticking.”

  I’m not sure how, but I manage to stand straight. Jaxen helps me slide my arms through the stuffed phantom cloth bag, and then walks me over to Weldon. Our bodies are already beginning to disappear, beginning with our fingers.

  “Please,” he says, staring into Weldon’s eyes, “take care of her.”

  “You know I will,” Weldon says seriously. He takes my hand. “We’ll be back in a jiffy.”

  And then we enter the shadow.

  ETHRYEAL CITY IS EXACTLY HOW WE LEFT IT.

  The golden-orbed sun slides up the side of the stark white buildings, its beams of bright light streaking through the city like fingers trying to rouse the citizens from sleep. The rays reach to the canal, gently passing over, stirring it awake until it glitters like a sea of turquoise gems. The early morning sounds of the Night Watchmen News broadcasted on the Jumbotron in City Square murmur down every street and through every alleyway, ensuring everyone knows I’m still on the loose.

  I don’t know what I expected to see. Chaos? Destruction? Darkness? Because that’s what I’ve felt for so long now. So much so, that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel anything other than that again.

  It’s in my marrow now. In every cell, which bursts every time I think about all the wrongs that have happened with no justification in sight.

  Maybe I thought—or maybe I had hope
d—that the members of our Coven would finally see who Clara really is when we were wrongly accused in court that day. That they’d see the layers I peeled from her face when I stood up against her, exposing the monster underneath. The same kind of monster that lurks under your bed, hides in your closet, or stands behind the shower curtain, just waiting for you to snatch it back.

  I wanted them to finally see the corruption in the Priesthood. The innocent blood spilled on their behalf that fills every hollow promise in their words. And maybe I wished they would finally fight back. Maybe I wished the beauty of this place had been unmasked the moment Clara and the rest of the Priesthood showed who they really were, and I’d return to something darker. Emptier.

  But there isn’t a single thing out of place.

  They continue to walk in their fancy clothes with their eyes pointed in whatever direction their heading, oblivious to the slow, internal destruction of our government. They continue to ignore the news that’s so blatantly telling them that we’re in the midst of the biggest civil war our kind has ever seen. Those words are plumes of smoke they pass through. Those statues of the Divine they walk by, the leaders who carry the meaning of this Coven, could be garbage cans for all they care.

  And yet, I’m not surprised.

  The mind, most of the time, only sees what it wants us to see. Only recognizes inconveniences, when it’s convenient. How can they really pay attention when the crimson tears of our people have not yet touched the city limits? When the devastation of losing everything hasn’t clawed its way through the boundaries of what Clara now calls her city.

  She’s keeping the peace by isolating the destruction within the lower ranks. By ensuring the lives lost are only with those who don’t matter in her eyes. But those beneath, those who pour sweat and endure grievances day in and day out to keep this city running, those are the ones who matter most.