“Claire!”
I heard Liam’s voice behind me, watched in horror as the earth began to disappear beneath my feet. I turned onto my belly, grabbed at grass and pavers as I scrambled away from the edge, as my feet kicked at air. I finally got purchase, scurried to my feet just in time to watch the fracture reach the box, which began to tumble into the maw in the earth that all that excess magic had wrought.
“No!” I screamed out. I was nearly empty of magic, but I used what tendrils I could find to grab the box, pull it one sweating inch at a time back into the air. It flew ten feet above my head, set down with a thud ten feet away.
The locks still perfectly in place.
“Jesus! Claire! Claire!” Liam fell to his knees beside me, rolled me gently onto my back. And then his hands—so gentle compared to the panic in his voice—were on my head, my shoulders, my abdomen, checking me for injuries.
His hands settled on my face, cool against hot and flushed skin. “Claire. Come back to me, Claire. Come back to me, baby.”
I opened my eyes, stared into seas of roiling blue water. “I’m all right.”
His lips were parted, his breath rushed, and his eyes tortured. The moment stretched, filled to encompass us both, staring at each other from a magical battleground.
“The Veil? Did it reopen?”
He smiled. “It’s closed. You locked the Veil. And you split the earth. You were amazing.”
I nodded. I lifted my gaze to the impossibly blue sky, watched a pelican drift across it, completely oblivious to what had happened here on earth.
Fixing that damn owl was going to be a cakewalk after this.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Malachi escorted Darby into Bogue Chitto to keep her away from the Containment troops who’d nearly reached us.
We ran back to the van, drove a few hundred yards away, close enough to watch Containment troops arrive on the scene. They’d dragged out the few remaining ComTac operatives—and Rutledge’s body. Malachi had taken Nix as well, and there’d been a look of grim determination on his face when he’d carried her away. I didn’t ask what he’d do with her; I didn’t think I wanted to know.
Gunnar, Gavin, Liam, and I reconvened at the store. We were still in muddy clothes, still tired from battle. And since we all either had magic or were magical sympathizers, we were fugitives at worst, in legal limbo at best. I still had the redheaded woman on my mind, and I hadn’t looked into my father’s magic yet. But I’d have to deal with both later.
Everyone else was lying low. We’d gotten a pigeon message that Burke was all right. Tadji, Phaedra, and Zana were back at Gavin’s CBD condo with Darby as guard.
We debriefed with Gunnar so he could talk to the Commandant and try to make the best of the situation. And then we let Gavin vent.
Yeah, he and Nix hadn’t technically been together anymore. But she’d hinted even to me that she hadn’t given up on him. And her betrayal was pretty harsh.
“I should have known,” Gavin said, knocking back another shot of good Irish whiskey from the bottle Liam had pulled from his personal stash. “Her name was ‘Nixon,’ for God’s sake.”
I opened my mouth to ask the obvious follow-up, but Liam shook his head. “It’s what she named herself when she first came through the Veil.”
“She said she saw a Nixon bumper sticker on a car ditched in Bogue Chitto,” Gavin said. “She thought it sounded pretty.”
Grief darkened his eyes. “I knew she wanted to return, that she never really felt comfortable here. But I didn’t think she was capable of betraying us in order to get back through. She knew how bad it had been to come through in the first place.”
I sighed. “Speaking of how bad it had been, I need to tell you something.”
The room went silent, all eyes on me.
“What is it, Claire?” Gunnar asked.
“When we were on the battlefield, the Veil moved over me.” I paused. “And when it did, I could see through it.”
I figured there’d be some oohs and aahs after that, but there was nothing. I looked at Gunnar, since the next part was especially for him.
“There were a lot of Paranormals. Several battalions in a field, in columns. It was an army waiting to fight, more than I’ve ever seen together at once. And there was a woman on a very big horse in front of them. She had long dark hair. Very pale. She carried a spear. She looked like she was in charge.”
“Wait,” Liam said, holding up a hand. “You saw through the Veil?”
I nodded.
“That’s . . . amazing,” Gavin said.
I didn’t want to be amazing. I wanted to be inconspicuous. “Maybe every Sensitive can do it,” I said. “I mean, how many times have Sensitives been standing right inside the Veil?”
Liam lifted a shoulder. “I honestly have no idea.”
“The army,” Gunnar said. “The woman on the horse. Does it mean the Court’s won? That they’ve conquered the Beyond?”