Liam’s hips rocked forward, gasp muffled against Ryder’s neck.
A voice echoed from the fence. “Ry? Liam?”
Of course, it was Tyler.
A frustrated groan drifted over Liam’s lips. His dark lashes fluttered and he heaved a sigh. “We’ll be right there,” he called and pawed Ryder’s hand away so he could stand up.
“You’re like a well-trained puppy,” Ryder said. He tugged his pants back up, and shoved his hands in his pockets, fiddling endlessly with the cold edge of his reaver. “We don’t have to run whenever he calls, you know.”
“Would you rather him come find us?”
Ryder blinked at the ground. He was still wet and pulsing between his legs. His hands still shook, his knees were still weak. He touched his neck with two fingers where Liam had bit him.
“Glamour it,” Liam said. He bumped his shoulder against Ryder’s and nodded toward the house. Music still thrummed in the air. People still beat on drums. The full moon was still high in the sky. Everything was up in the air, answerless and daunting.
“Why didn’t you glamour yours?” Ryder grabbed his deck and beer and shrugged on his jacket.
Liam glanced over his shoulder as he paced toward the house. “I tried.”
“And?”
“It didn’t work. Water magic isn’t used to cover things, you know that. Glamour isn’t my specialty.”
Ryder stayed quiet. He stitched a sheet of magic over his neck where the marks from Liam’s teeth were, and slipped under the wire fence when Liam held it for him. Most of the partygoers had disappeared, but a few remained. A couple of girls pounded the smaller drums. The shouts and laughter had faded into soft chatter and lingering spell-work.
Tyler stood by the fire. He nodded to Ryder and Liam as they approached.
“We need to talk,” Tyler said. He didn’t seem angry, but worry flashed across his face. His gaze shifted around cautiously, from one person to the next. “My room.”
They followed him inside. Christy stood up from the couch where she was surrounded by psychics and mediums. One of them, a girl with short pink hair, stared at Ryder, wide-eyed and skittish. Christy trailed after them through the last door on the left at the end of the hall. Donovan sat cross-legged on Tyler’s bed, his auburn hair arranged messily, wearing a black hoodie and jeans. He picked at a bit of green nail polish on his thumb and heaved a sigh.
“Did you tell them?” Donovan asked. His gaze flicked from Christy to Tyler.
Tyler closed and locked the door. “There’s a darkling here, or there was.”
Ryder bristled. “You mean a necromancer?”
“A dark witch. One of Christy’s light-workers felt black magic earlier, a lot of it. We don’t know if it was a necromancer or not.”
“Could’ve been me,” Ryder said and shrugged. Liam’s eyes widened, but he stayed silent. “I saw Jordan last night for a while. Everyone knows darkling energy sticks around.”
“Yeah,” Christy interrupted. She leaned toward Ryder from a few feet away. Her nostrils flared. “You smell like her—like you’re covered in blood.”
“She smells like Cartier, actually. But yeah, I get it. Could’ve just been residual energy.” Ryder fiddled with the reaver in his pocket, passing it across his palm, feeling the tip with his finger. “Where’d you even hear that term, Tyler?”
Tyler’s brow furrowed. “It’s common in the Thistle clan. I heard them using it at Thalia’s ascension when…”
“When the Wolfes showed up?”
The air thickened. Tyler’s Air magic stirred uncomfortably. Donovan looked at his lap and Liam’s gaze fluttered toward the walls, covered in scribbled spells and shelves filled with crystals—celestite, amethyst, apophyllite, selenite. Tyler’s altar was clean and orderly on his nightstand beside the bed. The pale gray candles there flickered and sparked.
“Can we not fight, please?” Christy whined. She pulled the lace cuffs of her long-sleeves into her palms and twisted them.
“Who’s fighting?” Ryder snapped. His magic flared, urging him on. “I’m not fighting.”
“Ryder,” Liam warned lowly.
“What’s up with you, Ryder? They’re darklings, they syphon energy, they practice unnatural magic. I’m sorry your babysitter’s one of them, but it’s the truth.” Tyler’s magic whipped the tension around. “They’re thieves. They steal energy to redistribute it and they break every rule in the book when it comes to magic, you can’t honestly—”
Ryder’s pupils expanded across the whites of his eyes. He cut himself on the reaver in his pocket and winced. Anger turned his magic into a primal, vicious force. It ripped through him, fast and explosive. “I can’t what, Ty?” His voice deepened. Screams and howls echoed underneath it. Steam leaked from his lips.
Control never had been one of Ryder’s finer gifts.
Liam placed his palm on Ryder’s stomach and gave a little push, urging Ryder behind him.
Tyler stumbled backward. Donovan pressed himself in the corner on Tyler’s bed. Christy’s lips thinned, as if she’d had an inkling and it’d just been confirmed.
“You?” Tyler spat. His eyes widened and he heaved in a deep breath. “Since when?”
“Ty, let it be,” Liam hissed.
“Since birth!” Ryder’s eyes stung. His hands balled into fists. “Jordan’s my sister, by the way. She’s not some…” His voice calmed, but something haunting still echoed around each word. “Twisted, unapproachable thing.”
“You lied?” Tyler’s voice sounded like a crack of thunder. His magic gusted between their bodies and blew the candles out on his altar. “You’re not a Lewellyn?”
“You’ve met my mother; you know I’m a Lewellyn.”
Christy inched toward the locked door. “His father is Gerard Wolfe,” she whispered. “He practiced blood magic…”
Ryder whipped toward her. “Get out of my head, Christy.”
“You knew about this? You…” Christy looked Liam up and down. Tyler’s gaze followed.
Liam swallowed hard. “Everything happened really fucking fast, okay? I found out last night. But it doesn’t change anything, we’re still circle-mates. Everybody needs to cool it.” He pushed harder on Ryder’s abdomen. “You too.”
Opal’s white wings flapped outside Tyler’s window. She screeched and pecked at the glass. Liam glanced at Ryder, then at the window. He asked questions with his eyes that Ryder didn’t have the answers to.
Outside the door, partygoers went quiet. Do you feel that? Dark magic. It’s coming from Tyler’s room.
“Ty?” someone called.
Ryder warned Tyler with his narrowed, pitch-black eyes.
Christy’s hand hovered over the doorknob.
“Don’t,” Donovan said quietly from the bed. “I mean… It’s not… Thalia’s dating a necromancer, isn’t she? This is old world shit, guys.”
“Calling necromancers ‘darklings’ is old world shit,” Ryder snapped. “And she’s dating my sister, so yes.”
Power flooded the house. It happened within seconds. Ryder was snarling at his friends with Liam in front of him one instant, then he was listening to Thalia’s sharp voice scold someone as she made her way down the hall.
“Let me handle this,” Thalia growled. Her power surged. It made Ryder dizzy.