“This is nonsense,” Cal growls, untangling his hand from mine. He stands up from the table, slow and deliberate as rolling thunder. “People go crazy listening to predictions like yours, ruined by knowledge of an uncertain future.”
“We have no proof but your word,” Farley chimes in. For once, she finds herself in agreement with Cal, and it surprises them both. She kicks back her chair, actions fast and violent. “And a few party tricks.”
Party tricks. Predicting what we’re going to say, reading Farley’s attacks before she makes them, those are no such thing. But it’s easier to believe Jon is an impossibility. It’s why everyone believed Maven’s lies about me, about newbloods. They saw my power with their own eyes, and chose to trust what they could understand, rather than what was true. I’ll make them pay for their foolishness, but I won’t make their mistake. Something about Jon rattles me, and instinct tells me have faith, not in the man, but at least in his visions. What he says is true, though his reason for telling us might be less than honorable.
His maddening smile flags, twisting into a scowl that betrays a quick temper. “I see the crown dripping blood. A storm without thunder. Shadow twisting on a bed of flames.” Cal’s hand twitches at his side. “I see lakes flooding their shores, swallowing men whole. I see a man with one red eye, his coat blue, his gun smoking—”
Farley beats a fist against the table. “Enough!”
“I believe him.” The words taste strange.
I can’t trust my own friends, but here I am, allying myself with a cursed stranger. Cal looks at me like I’ve grown a second head, his eyes screaming out a question he doesn’t dare ask aloud. I can only shrug, and avoid the searing weight of Jon’s red eyes. They rove over me, examining every inch of the lightning girl. For the first time in ages, I wish for silk and silver armor, to look like the leader I pretend to be. Instead, I shiver in my threadbare sweater, trying to hide the scars and bones beneath. I’m glad he cannot see my brand, but something tells me he knows about it anyway.
Buck up, Mare Barrow. With a great swell of strength, I lift my chin and shift in my chair, effectively turning my back on the others. Jon smiles in the ashen light.
“Where is Corros Prison?”
“Mare—”
“You can drop me off on the way,” I shoot back at Cal, not bothering to watch the verbal blow land. “I’m not leaving them to become Elara’s puppets. And I won’t abandon Julian, not again.”
The lines on Jon’s face deepen, speaking of many painful decades. He’s younger than I thought, hiding youth beneath the wrinkles and the gray hair. How much has he seen, to make him this way? Everything, I realize. Every horrible or wonderful thing that could ever happen. Death, life, and everything in between.
“You’re exactly who I thought you would be,” he murmurs, covering my hands with his own. Veins web beneath his skin, blue and purple and full of red blood. The sight of them brings me such comfort. “I’m grateful to have met you.”
I offer up a thin but obliging smile, the best I can do. “Where is the prison?”
“They won’t let you go alone.” Jon glances over my shoulder. “But we both know that, don’t we?”
A warm blush rises to my cheeks and I have to nod.
Jon mirrors the action before his gaze shifts, landing on the table. The dreamy look returns and he pulls his hands away. He stands up on wavering feet, still watching something we cannot see. Then he sniffs and pulls up his collar, gesturing for us to do the same.
“Rain,” he warns, seconds before a downpour slams into the roof above us. “Pity we must walk.”
I feel like a drowned rat by the time we reach the jet, having hiked straight through mud and torrential rain. Jon keeps us at a steady pace, even slowing us once or twice, to “line things up,” as he said. A few seconds after the jet comes into view, I realize what he meant. Gareth tumbles out of the sky, a slowing meteor of wet clothes and blood. He touches down fine, and the bundle in his arms, a baby by the looks of it, springs into midair, transforming before our eyes. Nanny’s feet hit the ground hard and she stumbles, dropping to one aged knee. Shade jumps to her side, holding her steady, while Farley pulls Gareth’s arm over her shoulder. He gladly puts his weight on her, leaning to compensate for a useless leg dripping blood.
“Ambush in Pitarus,” he growls, both in anger and pain. “Nanny got away clean, but they surrounded me. Had to upend a city block before I could break off.”
Even though Jon assured us there would be no pursuit, I can’t help but watch the darkening sky. Every twist of cloud looks like another airjet, but I hear and feel nothing except the distant shivers of thunder.
“They’re not coming, Miss Barrow,” Jon says over the rain. His mad smile has returned.
Gareth glances at him, confused, but nods along. “I don’t think anyone followed,” he says, trailing into a growl of pain.
Farley adjusts her grip on Gareth, taking on almost his entire weight. Even though she helps him toward the jet, her focus is on Jon. “Was the little beast there?”
Gareth nods. “Sentinels were, so the king couldn’t have been far.”
She curses, but I don’t know who she’s angrier at. Maven for ambushing our friends, or Jon for being right.
“Leg looks worse than it is,” Jon calls over the rain. He points at Gareth as Farley helps him up the ramp and onto the jet. Then his finger waves to Nanny, still crouched against Shade. “She’s bone tired and cold. Blankets should do.”
“I’m not some old coot to be wrapped up and shut away,” Nanny snarls from the ground. She gets to her feet as quickly as she can, burning a glare at Jon. “Let me walk, Shade, or I’ll scold you into oblivion.”
“Your call, Nanny,” Shade mumbles, fighting a smirk as she struts by him. He gives her enough room to move, but is never more than an arm’s length away. Nanny proudly stalks into the jet, her head held high and back ramrod straight.
“You did that on purpose,” Cal growls as he shoulders past Jon. He doesn’t bother to look back, even when Jon barks a laugh at his retreating form.
“And it worked,” he says, low enough so that only I can hear.
Trust the vision, not the man. A good lesson to learn. “Cal’s got a thing against mind games,” I warn, raising one pointed hand. A spark of lightning runs down my finger. The threat is plain as day. “And so do I.”
“I don’t play games.” Jon shrugs, tapping the side of his head. “Even when I was boy. This made it a bit hard to find competition, you see.”
“That’s not—”
“I know what you meant, Miss Barrow.” His placid smile, once unsettling, has become frustrating. I spin on my heel, making for the jet, but after a few quick steps, I realize Jon isn’t following.
He stares into the rain, but his eyes are wide and bright. A vision has not taken hold. He’s just standing still, enjoying the feel of cold, clean water washing the ash from his skin.
“This is where I leave you.”
The pulse of the jet spooling to life echoes in my rib cage, but it feels distant, unimportant. I can only stare at Jon. In the dimming light of the rainstorm, he looks like he’s fading away. Gray as the ash, gray as the rain, fleeting as both.
“I thought you were going to help us with the prison?” Desperation floods my voice, and I let it. Jon doesn’t seem to mind, so I try another tactic. “Maven’s hunting for you too. He’s killing all of us, and he’ll kill you when he gets the chance.”
That makes him laugh so hard he doubles. “You think I don’t know the moment I die? I do, Miss Barrow, and it will not be at the king’s hands.”
My teeth gnash together in irritation. How can he leave? All the others chose to fight. Why won’t he? “You know I can make you come with us.”
In the gray downpour, my lightning seems to spark twice as brightly. Purple-white, hissing in the rain, it twists between my fingers and sends shivers of pleasure up my spine.