“When you find her, tell her ‘the Angel hears your plea’ and she will become invisible until you reach safety.”
My heartbeat slowed, sounding for all the world like the drums of old inside my mind. “Where did you pull that phrase from?”
Eli made a noncommittal noise before delivering a sham of an answer. “You know I can’t say.”
“Right,” I replied, doing my best to suppress the snarl of frustration caught in my throat. “Thanks.”
“My debt is cleared.” Eli’s tone was suddenly formal.
“Sure,” I replied absently. “If that makes you feel better.”
“What’s going on?” Eli asked. “Really?”
The fact that he had the gall to ask after telling me his debt was cleared was grating. If Eli Cabot wanted to be a curmudgeon that was his business, but I couldn’t handle the emotional whiplash right now.
“Ask Lux, since she knows so much.” My tone was clipped as I hung up. I’d lost my patience. “We have an hour to get the girl somewhere safe.”
Av looked back at the Automat, watching the three ancient warriors with their heads bent towards one another. “Do you think they can do it?” she whispered.
“What?” I asked, annoyed that she hadn’t started the car yet. I tried to tell myself that it was talking to Eli that got me worked up, but the thorn in my side was Ember Verona. The damn woman put me off my equilibrium.
“Get their swords back—become who they were meant to be again,” Av replied, her voice harboring a wistfully soft note.
Eryx watched her, his eyes narrowing slightly as his brow furrowed. He was worried about her. Whatever that emotion she displayed was, it concerned my brother. And thus should concern me. It did, but we were out of time.
“Av.” I leaned forward, touching her arm as gently as I could. “We don’t have much time. Get us to where you stashed the girl.”
What was this longing she had for the Maere? Av had been like this ever since she discovered what the auction’s theme would be. I tried to make eye contact with Eryx, but he wouldn’t look my way.
She nodded, but her gaze stayed on the Automat. “We should ask them to help us.”
I sighed. If only we could. In another version of this world, perhaps. But the Trinity and the Maere had been at delicate odds for centuries. The Consulate was a necessary evil, one we could not forego if we wanted to survive the Authority. But it was hard to ignore how much damage it had done, how sometimes it felt like the Consulate was working against us as much as the Authority was. I followed Av’s gaze. The three women in the Automat were different somehow. They always had been.
When they had their swords, they had been better. Things had been better for all of us. I hadn’t realized it til they broke apart. Til the five Orphium Maere had turned to one lonely, desperate woman. The feeling that I’d played a part in fucking all that up chased me down, eliciting a lump in my throat I could hardly swallow.
“We can’t,” I murmured, feeling distracted. If only we could band together, we would be an even match for the Authority and the sheer numbers the humans had against us.
That kernel of hope wormed its way into my heart, but I dug it out, tossing it aside before it had the chance to germinate. Hope was fickle—dangerous. “Drive, please.”
Av nodded, starting the car. Eryx glanced back at me in the rearview mirror. He knew as well as I did that underneath Av’sicy exterior beat the heart of an idealist—that our girl held out hope for a better world, even when the rest of us could not. She pulled away from the curb, and I could feel her disappointment, heavy and desperate.
For all the times she’d been right about things and I hadn’t been able to listen, surreptitiously, I slid my phone out of my pocket. I found Ember Verona’s phone number and sent a single text:Could use some help.
Then I pulled the pin on our geolocation for the girl and sent it to Ember as well. If Av was right and we needed them, then I didn’t want to make another mistake. When it came to Orphium’s Maere, I’d failed to listen to Av one too many times. It sent dread through me to ask them for anything, but I convinced myself I was doing this for Av.
Because if it was for me, then I was too far gone. If I let myself need Ember Verona, I was lost.
CHAPTER 14
EMBER
A streamof human teenagers flowed into the Automat. They were children, raucous and clearly having fun, but my heart sank at the way they shrank away from us. The way their joy stopped the moment they clocked who, and what, we were.
I got up from the table and deposited my tray in the return window before staring pointedly at Lara and Rhi. Lara shook her head and Rhi sighed, but they followed suit as I stepped out into the night. Rhi stared down the street for a long moment as a black town car rounded the corner a block away. Her eyes narrowed for a second, but when she turned back towards me, her face was schooled into its usual mask of calm.
“We should check out the Auction Gallery,” she said, keeping her voice low as we made our way down the wet street. It had stopped raining, and fog drifted through the streets, thick and soupy. “Tonight. There’s a special exhibit in another gallery and we should be able to walk right by the swords.”
I bit back all my arguments and my desire to ask about a hundred more questions when Lara nodded. Wasn’t this what I wanted? My sistren back, to work together again? I could bite my tongue. Keep my mouth shut and just listen for a while. Not everything had to be a fight.
