“What does that mean?” Eryx asked, using the voice he always used with children, low and calming. Rhiannon frowned at him, but it was a look of confusion, not anger.
I kept my mouth shut. Anything I would say would make everything worse. Every part of me still wanted to launch myself out of this car and fly in the opposite direction, even knowing that wasn’t what she wanted.
Hypatos watched me. “You have to get the swords, Ares.We’ll help her fight the godkiller ‘til you get there.” The little ghost boy’s chin quivered. “Will you help us, if we help her?”
I had no idea what I was agreeing to, but Eryx touched the boy’s arm. It was an odd part of his talent. Sometimes he could make physical contact with the dead. The little boy looked up into my brother’s eyes.
“You need help, little man?”
The boy nodded, then smiled. “Awww, I got it wrong. ‘S’you who’s to help us. Will you? If we help his girl, will you help us?”
Rhiannon’s eyes pleaded. Eryx held her gaze for a long moment. Whatever passed between them, I wanted to stop it, much as I wantedanyoneto help Ember. Making deals with spirits was a dangerous business. I shook my head.
“Yes,” Eryx agreed, his eyes not leaving Rhiannon’s. “But you’ll help her fight until we get her the sword, right?”
Hypatos nodded. “We will. For the Angel’s sake as well. Tell her that when she crosses them over, we’ll make sure they get what’s coming to them. We won’t spare them one bit of suffering.”
Something deeper than a chill went through me. Spirits could be vengeful, that was a simple fact, but whatever this child spoke of, it was not normal. Not how spirits usually spoke or behaved. I didn’t like it, but the child disappeared before I could argue.
Before I even had a chance to say another word, Avaline slammed on the brakes. “We’re here,” she said. “Lara’s half a minute away.”
We jumped out of the car and ran towards the river.
In what felt like moments, we were aboard the speedboat Briony had helped Lara commandeer. The child was an utter menace to society, but she was our menace. As we raced towards the Midtown bridge, I shut my worries about Ember out as much as I could, but I was losing my shit.
A warm hand on my back brought me out of the haze of panic I’d sunk into. Rhiannon’s beautiful face came level with mine. Behind her, Eryx stood looming, watching. Somehow, in the past few hours, the two of them had become a team. I didn’t understand how it happened, or what it meant, but they seemed determined to work together.
“Ares,” Rhiannon said, tipping my chin up to meet her eyes. She spoke slowly, like she might to a toddler. “Ares, to help her, you have to help us.”
I nodded, swallowing hard. My brother stepped forward. “Av’s tracking the spirits—the spirit traps are still attached to the swords—and since we don’t have explosives, or any way to get them out on our own, you’ve gotta get those girls free fast so that she can talk them into helping us.”
Rhiannon raised an eyebrow. “I need you not to fuck this up, Necroline. For my sake and Ember’s.”
The task was nearly impossible, but I nodded anyway, rising from the seat in the bow I’d sunk into when we boarded. The boat slowed as we reached the bridge.
Av stood beside Lara, making eye contact with me as she nodded. “The truck is on the bridge, at the first stoplight. I have the spirits’ attention, but I still can’t speak to them.”
Rhiannon stood in front of me, her aura pulsing with light and immortal energy, and I reached through it, trying to make contact with the spirits’ essential nature. The idea here was that the traps would sense Rhiannon’s aura first, and would ignore it because she was Maere, like the girls, thus making it easier to disentangle the unascended from the spirit traps.
If I did that successfully, Av might be able to communicatewith them. It was all a lot of mights and maybes, but it was the only shot we had. The traps stopped that right now, as they operated under the same principle that governed Echoes: repeating a past trauma over and over, so the spirit no longer saw the outside world or the call to the netherworld.
In short, it was torture. Even filtered through Rhiannon’s aura, I heard the pain the young women trapped inside the truck were in. “Please,” I whispered as I worked, using Rhiannon’s aura to coat all of my movements so that the traps would not push me out. “Let me help you.”
Even if the girls couldn’t hear me, I spoke to them, reassuring them I was here to help. It was impossible to know when they would be free enough to hear one of us, or who they might be predisposed to make contact with first. Av was their best bet, but we had no real way of knowing. Perhaps Eryx or I would remind them of a brother, a father, a friend…
The bottom line was that we didn’t know them. We had to approach with kindness. They had been harmed for long enough.
My fingers moved, trying to untangle their auras from the traps. Sweat beaded on my brow and the back of my neck with the effort. It was difficult to do remotely, but Rhiannon’s aura helped to steady and focus my power.
In this case, like did reach like. But every time I had a knot undone, instead of releasing, it tightened. It was like one of the finger traps that were party favors at the high holy days. The harder I pulled, the tighter the traps became.
My heart raced. There wasn’t enough time and I was failing.
“Ares Necroline,” many voices spoke at once through my brother. His eyes had gone milky white, glowing with faint light from the spirits that spoke through him. “You cannot free us this way. There is a trick to this trap. You must rip and tear.”
“No,” Lara breathed, staring at my brother, as though shecould see the spirits of the young women trapped inside the vehicle above us. “You’ll be destroyed.”
The truck was on the move. I had it in my sights now. Traffic moved slowly, but if I didn’t move quickly, the reverse-engineered charge would not release the swords. Sweat broke out on my back, causing my dress shirt to stick to my skin.
