“Wait.” I stopped him. “You’re not going to say you love me, are you?”
His eyebrows pushed together. “Have you lost your senses? Why would I say that?”
Because Nana and Afton had? I shrugged a shoulder. “Um, I don’t know.”
Okay…awkward.
“I was going to tell you to stay alert,” he said. “And that I like you most days, so try to make it back alive, all right?”
“You watch yourself, too. You’re kind of nice to have around…most days.”
He smirked and took long strides up the hill, following The Red’s gang.
There was no certainty our plan would work, but watching the determination in the creatures storming up the hill, I felt ready to face it.
Chapter Twenty-One
The neoclassical manor of the Shelter seemed quiet compared to the last time I’d been there. The makeshift camp that housed many Mystiks, wizards, and guards during the uprising was gone. To the south of the manor, the lake was a dark gray, with clouds covering the moon.
With labored breaths, struggling with her tote bag, Nana tried to keep up with us.
“Here. Let me carry it for a while,” Afton said, adjusting the pack on her back before taking Nana’s bag from her.
Nana smiled and patted Afton’s arm. “Thank you, dear.”
We crossed a bridge arching over the river and walked on a cobbled pathway that cut through the tiny rows of cottages. Not a single villager was out as they were the first time I had walked the roads. Only a few of the windows had flickering lights behind their thick glass windows. No voices greeted us when we came into the foyer of the Shelter.
“Something isn’t right.” I held on tighter to my bag with Gian’s book inside as I quietly walked into the den. The furniture resembled hunched ghosts covered with sheets. “No one is here.”
Panic fluttered in my chest. Where are they? Pop?
Bastien crossed the room to the large brick hearth that dominated one of the walls. He grabbed a metal rod leaning in a stand beside it and poked at the charcoaled logs.
“It’s wet,” he said. “Someone put it out with water. They were here not too long ago.”
“This is bad, isn’t it?” Afton twisted the handles of Nana’s tote bag.
Nana clicked her tongue. “Now, now, dear, we always stay positive in moments like this. We wouldn’t want to invite bad karma, now, would we?”
My chest tightened as all the horrible things that could have happened raced through my mind.
Pop was supposed to be there with Afton’s parents. Bastien’s mother and her guards had been hiding at the Shelter for months. Briony and Galach should have already arrived there, too. But they hadn’t. They were gone—or worse, taken.
“Where are they?” I asked, frustration in my voice.
“By the looks of things, they were covering up their presence here.” Bastien stood and wiped the wet cinders from his fingers onto his pant leg. “Perhaps they went to the basement. There’s a hideout there.”
I followed him down the basement steps. Nana and Afton waited at the top of the stairs for us. As I landed on the bottom floor, my hands shook. Bastien went to the farthest wall to a heavy mahogany wardrobe.
At first, I thought he would open the doors and we would travel through the wardrobe to another magical realm just like in one of my favorite books, but instead he searched the side of it. His arm jerked and a click sounded.
“Stand back,” he warned me before calling, “Hello! Is there anyone inside? I am Bastien Renard of Couve.”
“Bastien?” a woman’s voice came from the other side of the wall.
The wardrobe swung out. A guard with huge muscles and a receding hairline, his sword extended in front of him, eased through the opening. “C’est lui,” the guard said. “Bastien.”
Sabine, wearing a tunic with pants and boots, squeezed by the guard. “Mon cher fils,” she said, throwing her arms around Bastien. They had the same dark hair, except gray streaked hers.
He hugged her back. “Mère.”
Another guard, taller, with fewer muscles and more hair, came out.
The moment a tuft of red hair peeked out from behind the door, I knew who it was. “Pop,” I cried and ran into his arms before he had a chance to enter the basement. “I was so worried.”
“Welcome to my world,” he muttered against my head. “I’ve been out of my mind worrying about you.”
I pulled back to get a better look at him. There were more wrinkles pressing into his forehead and around his eyes, and the bags under them had deepened.
“I can take care of myself.”
His thumb gently traced the scar across my cheek and there was a sadness in his eyes. “Doesn’t stop my fear of losing you.”
“Where are my parents?” Afton bit her bottom lip. I hadn’t even heard her come downstairs.
Pop glanced over at her. “They weren’t home when the guards came for me. They’re in New Mexico. Your grandmother had a fall.”
Concern struck her face. “Abuelita? What happened to her?”
“She broke her wrist,” Pop said. “But is doing much better. Thankfully, it wasn’t a hip.”
She stopped worrying her lip. “So they’re all safe?”
“They are,” he said.
To our side, Briony, Galach, and a few guards shuffled out from behind the wardrobe. Kayla Bagley, wearing a guard’s uniform, her apricot hair pulled tightly back, was right behind them.
I pushed away from Pop, pulling the dagger out of the holster around my thigh. “What is she doing here?”
Kayla was the guard sent to Branford to watch over the gateway book in the library there. She was supposed to help us with our search for the Chiavi. Instead, she was a spy for Conemar, and she’d turned on us. Not to mention she had been dating Pop and broke his heart into pieces.
Pop grasped my hand, the one strangling the dagger, and lowered my arm. “We are safe because of her.”
“Nick is gone because of her,” I snapped.
“No,” Kayla said. “You don’t understand. I was a double agent for Merl. Conemar thought I had turned to his side. If I hadn’t helped him escape that day on your front lawn, more of you would have died. It was either Nick or all of you. And I knew Conemar would never kill his son.”
“How do we know you’re not lying?” I asked.
She removed a cell phone from her pants pocket and searched for something on the screen, then handed it to me. “I have proof. It’s a video from Merl in case I was ever caught.”
Hearing Merl’s name twisted my heart. He had been Asile’s high wizard before he was murdered and Uncle Philip took his place.
I inspected the cell phone. It was the exact match to the one Ricardo, a Laniar who’d died helping me, had once. It also had a message from Merl to me. I pressed play.