Of everything.
It was probably the lack of sleep. The hangover. The aftereffects of the potion I’d drunk the night before. But terror was taking root.
I had angered a dragon, and he had a vampire working for him. A criminal warlord was searching for me. He knew where I lived, where I worked, who my friends were, who my daughter was.
And speaking of friends, one of them had betrayed me. Had taken the crystal from the box. How could I trust anyone?
My phone rang again. Breadknife.
Auntie Rosa is scared.
Suddenly, the faces of the passersby in the street seemed hostile, suspicious. Breadknife had dozens, maybe hundreds of informants. Ddraig Goch could have realized the waitress the night before had disappeared just before the burglary. Maybe there were records, an image of my face somewhere. A police car went by, and reflexively, I hid my face, sudden tears of fear in my eyes.
My palms were hot, smoke rising from them. I tried to think of Tammi, of my parents, of anything, but my mind was a jumble, I couldn’t concentrate. A flame flickered on my skin, then sizzled and died, the rain putting it out. I tried to breathe, looked around me. Did anyone notice? It didn’t seem that way. But what if someone had? What if he was calling the police right now, telling them he’d seen a girl with smoke rising from her hands?
I let the rain drench my palms and crouched by a puddle, submerging my hands in it. The water grew warm with the heat. I got up, walked away, ignoring the stares of a couple standing under a shared umbrella.
I was walking to meet Sinead, but what if Sinead was the one who had stolen the crystal?
Sinead would never do that. I trusted her with my life.
But someone had, hadn’t they? Could I really, honestly trust anyone?
When everything scares you, when nowhere is safe, the fear doesn’t propel you forward. Instead, you try to draw into your shell, like a snail, waiting for the danger to pass. For the dragon and vampire and criminal warlord to lose interest and walk away.
My phone rang a third time. It was a number I didn’t know, but I could guess who it was. Breadknife, using a phone belonging to one of his goons, trying to trick me into answering him.
My heart beat wildly in my chest, my breathing was short and quick, my vision narrowed to a small circle. Where was I going? What was I doing here? A tall building stood in front of me. I hazily recalled I needed to be here. On the thirteenth floor.
I stumbled into the elevator, picking up Magnus in my hands, trembling as the elevator rose. My phone blipped—a new text message. It’s unhealthy to use the phone in an elevator because of cancer. But I took a look anyway.
A message from Breadknife. You don’t want to run from me, Lou.
I lost a bit of time, my thoughts becoming a fractured thing. There was a glass door, on which there were letters. I tried to read them, but they swam in front of me, not making sense. The longest was Hippopotamus, which couldn’t be right.
And then the glass door opened and Sinead was holding me in her arms and talking, asking me what was wrong while Magnus jumped around us, yipping. I tried to summarize the morning adventures, but I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, tears were streaming down my cheeks, and flames flickered around my fingers.
Scared of what?
Of everything.
“How are you feeling?”
I sipped from the mug of ginger tea. I let it swirl around my tongue, considering my response, wondering if I would break into tears again if I spoke.
“Better,” I finally said.
We were in Sinead’s office. I vaguely remembered refusing to enter the meeting room. I wanted a small place. A shell I could retreat to. She had hugged me while I cried, shaking, trying to speak, to explain.
“Who the hell is Auntie Rosa?” Sinead now asked.
Clearly I hadn’t done a very good job of explaining. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that someone took the crystal. And Breadknife wants it now.”
“Why didn’t you tell him what had happened?”
“What do you think he’d have done if I’d told him I lost the crystal?”
She didn’t answer. We both knew how ruthless and cold Breadknife could be. How dangerous when angry. And though he wasn’t particularly sadistic, the people who worked for him often were.
“So now what?”
“I need to get the crystal back, and get it to him,” I said. “That’s all he really cares about.”
“And who took the crystal?”
“Kane did.”
It was funny how I knew it without really thinking. The knowledge had been hiding in my brain the entire time. Waiting for someone to ask the question.
“He was really interested in the Yliaster crystal,” I said. “He asked about it several times. And there’s something he wasn’t telling me. About his sister. She’s in a coma, and he might think he could use the crystal to heal her.”
“Did he have an opportunity?”
I thought about last night. Two drunken visits to the bathroom came to mind, as well as five minutes when I had nodded off on one of the chairs. “Yeah, several.”
She shook her head. “I find it hard to believe. He seems like… a good guy.”
“Who, then?”
She didn’t answer.
“If he thought it would save his sister, he would take it, even if he was a good guy,” I said. “Besides, both of us know that supposedly good guys turn out bad.” I was exhausted from my earlier meltdown. I wished I could curl on the floor and go to sleep. But I couldn’t.
“What are you going to do?” Sinead asked.
I stood up, placing the empty mug on the desk. My body felt shaky, and the feeling of dread still clung to my gut, but hiding here would only make things worse. “I’m going to get the crystal back.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
It’s weird how sometimes holding a gun can inspire confidence. I’d been dreading this moment since I’d left the offices of HHT on my way to Kane’s office. But, in front of his door, I pulled my gun from my backpack, and felt resolve harden my nerves. I tried the doorknob.
The door was locked.
Compared to a dragon’s safe, this lock was child’s play, and I had it open in less than three minutes. Kane’s office, though empty, smelled like Kane. It brought back memories of the night before, of his lips on mine, his hand tracing my back, sliding downward.
I crushed those memories in anger, reminded myself how Kane had looked when I’d opened the box.
Is this the Yliaster crystal? Is there a soul inside?
I searched the office, checking the scattered papers on his desk, opening and closing drawers, looking for a clue to his whereabouts. Had he left already? Gone to New York? He could have gone last night, after the party, dragon scale and crystal in his pocket.
I could talk to Isabel. She could probably locate him. I’d seen her find a man using nothing more than his hat, a pendulum, and a map.