Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris (Harley Merlin, #6)

“Your Esprit. Nothing else. You’re with me so I can keep an eye on you.” I took him by the wrist and dragged him toward the right-hand side of the storage facility. “Wade, Jacob, you take the other wall. We’re looking for a copper-colored, custom lighter, if memory serves.” I was aware that there would likely be guards on the other side of the main door, and someone could easily step in at any moment. So we had to be quick and quiet—two things that didn’t seem to fit with Finch’s character.

Wade opened his mouth to protest, but he quickly shut it again. We needed to find this Esprit as quickly as possible, and splitting up was the best way to do that. As he walked toward the far shelves with Jacob beside him, I felt a wave of disappointment and concern flow away from him, finding its way to me. I didn’t know if he was doing it deliberately, but it still made me sad. I didn’t want to go on this dangerous mission without him, and it would hurt like heck to be separated, not knowing if I’d make it back from the cult in one piece.

“Aw, sweet of you to remember.” Finch chuckled to himself, breaking my train of thought.

“Better the devil you know, right?”

“Devil?” he tutted. “I thought we were over that.”

I frowned at him. “Old habits die hard.”

“Any more sayings you want to throw at me? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? Keep your enemies close? Don’t eat yellow snow?”

A small smile crept onto my lips. “I’m still getting used to the fact that we’re working together. It’s a little weird right now, but I’m sure it’ll get easier.”

“Not where we’re going,” he replied. “But I get what you mean. I’m still pretty surprised you came for me. It’s not like anyone else has bothered.”

“Well, I’m not like her.”

He turned his gaze away for a moment, his expression suddenly unreadable. “No, you aren’t. It’s probably one of the only likable things about you.”

I laughed. “You don’t get to choose your family, right?”

“Another excellent choice in the book of terrible sayings. Almost as bad as ‘blood is thicker than water.’ I’m glad you didn’t go for that one, ’cause then I’d have had to reconsider.”

I was surprised by how funny he could be, even if I was the butt of his jokes. “Come on, let’s find this lighter before the loop runs out.”

I began to scour the shelves for the familiar copper lighter I’d seen him with in the SDC, what felt like forever ago. There was so much stuff here that I was starting to worry we might never find it. Finch, on the other hand, seemed as cool as a cucumber.

“So, you ended up in the foster system, right?” he asked as he casually sifted through the endless belongings of every prisoner who’d ever been in here.

I shot him a warning look. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”

He shrugged. “Just curious about you. Making up for lost time… or something like that.”

I supposed, given the circumstances, it couldn’t hurt to get to know each other better. After all, we’d be spending a lot of time with each other in the near future.

“I was left at an orphanage when I was around three, and I stayed in foster care until I moved out on my own at eighteen. I moved from family to family, but I usually ended up back where I started. The last family was the exception, but I got to them too late.” I smiled wryly at him. “The damage had been done, so to speak.”

“Probably better than being raised by a stranger and getting snatched away by a psycho at sixteen, though,” he replied.

“You definitely beat me on that one.” I never thought I’d ever have a reason to count myself lucky for being in foster care, but at least I hadn’t been brainwashed and tormented by the one person who was supposed to love me unconditionally. Even though I couldn’t sense Finch’s emotions, I didn’t need my Empathy to know what he was feeling. It was written all over his face, in the pain that lingered behind his eyes and the last frosty-white tips of his old hair, reminding me of the person he’d been; it was the unresolved bitterness and anger that I also felt burning away inside me.

There might be hope for you yet, Finch. Not that I was ready to trust him completely. With or without Katherine’s influence, he would always be a remarkably selfish person. He wasn’t fooling anyone with his “I accept your terms” fa?ade. Even before I’d told him the terms of the deal, I knew he wouldn’t go back to Purgatory without a fight. However, if I was going to get him to do things the proper way, to make amends for the terrible things that he’d done, then I needed to win him over. I needed to make him realize that he still had penance to pay. I just didn’t know how I was going to do that yet.

“Found it!” Finch grasped at a plain black box on one of the lowest shelves and shoved it in my face. His name was scrawled across a label in bright red ink, only it wasn’t the name I’d gotten used to. “They used Anker instead of Shipton. Names are funny, aren’t they? They hold a ton of power, even without us knowing.”

I froze at his words. There was no way he could have known about the promise that I’d made to Echidna, about letting her name my firstborn child. To be honest, I hadn’t given it much thought myself since I’d accepted her deal, but now everything came rushing back in a nauseating wave. I mean, it wasn’t as if I was planning on having kids anytime soon. But what if I did want them, one day? What would Echidna’s name do? Would it hold some kind of power, too?

I shrugged it off, knowing I had years before I had to worry about it. “Is your Esprit in there?”

Finch flipped the lid and took out the lighter, igniting it. “Yep. Good to go.”

“Jacob, Wade, we have it!” I hissed across the warehouse, still conscious that there might be guards stationed outside the main door. The two of them reappeared shortly after, their faces streaked with dirt from the belongings that had been left to gather dust.

“You found it?” Wade asked.

I nodded. “We should probably skedaddle before someone comes in.”

“Agreed. Jacob, can you portal us back to the infirmary?”

“On it. Although, we should probably get away from all this stuff.” He hurried back toward the corner where we’d entered the room. With a rush of air, a portal burst into life, the edges of the gaping mouth thrumming with Chaos energy. I jumped through first, dragging Finch with me, while Wade and Jacob brought up the rear.

We staggered back out into the familiar surroundings of the SDC infirmary, and Jacob zapped the portal shut. Dr. Krieger was waiting for us in the middle of one of the empty wards and ushered us hurriedly into his office, before closing the door behind him. On the workbench in front of him, two strange objects caught my eye. They were orb-shaped and no bigger than a baseball, with bright colors swirling within an outer casing of gold and glass.

My mouth fell open. “You got them?”

“Yes, but I could only find two.” Krieger glanced at Finch, who was observing the two orbs intently. “However, I’m not sure we should discuss this in front of him.”

“He’ll need to know how to use these things, so you might as well. No point hiding anything from him now.” I sighed and set myself down on one of the stools around the workbench. Wade sat beside me, while Jacob and Finch took up the last two stools.

“Well then… There’s one for you and one for our reformed criminal.” Krieger’s German accent held an edge of sass that made me smile. “They were procured at very great expense, I might add. I have been assured that they’re the real deal—Ephemeras aren’t easy to come by these days, as so few of them were made.”

“Are they ready to use?” I reached out to touch one, but a warning look from Krieger made me withdraw my hand. “I thought they were supposed to be gemstones?”