‘Are you okay?’ Nicole asked, her heart twisting when Lawna’s fingers came away to reveal the blood at her temple.
Lawna nodded slightly.
‘Will he come back? Did the Influence work?’ Dylan asked.
‘It worked,’ Callum said.
Nicole twisted. ‘Then why didn’t he answer you?’
‘I don’t think he can speak,’ Callum said. ‘But I’ll get that bloodied pipe back to Verin to match the sample.’
Nicole glanced down to the spray of dark blood reflecting the moon.
‘You’re not coming with us?’ Dylan asked.
To Ireland.
Callum smirked. ‘Not now. I have some things to investigate. But first, let’s get you all back.’ He reached for Lawna to help, if not carry her.
But as she glanced up, looking ashen and haunted in the streetlamp’s glow, she said, ‘That was him. I recognised the look in his eyes. The size and strength. That’s the Empyreal that tried to kill my husband ten years ago.’
It was the last thing she said before she went unconscious.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Kyan
‘YOU LOST HER,’THE MESSENGER SAID ONCEKYAN HAD STRODEacross the great marble floors of St George’s Hall.
The subtlest of varnishes shifted over their face when they moved. From the way their head tilted slightly at his tone they immediately had more personality.
As if they were a real person who wasn’t using their true face.
Kyan knew how much the Wake kept from him. No doubt there were lies at every fork in this road. But this?
‘You’ve been watching?’ Kyan asked, like he didn’t already know. He allowed a hint of real rage into his words, already vibrating with the need to return to Nicole and the others and make sure they were all right. It wasn’t just that he’d had to watch her run from him; had to chase her in the first place. But every iota of his body wanted to be close and on alert in case that other Empyreal went back.
The Messenger’s expression didn’t change, staring over Kyan’s shoulder, unfazed. ‘If you’re losing your objectivity, perhaps we would have been better putting Logan on the mission.’
‘Don’t push me,’ he snarled, cold unease twisting in his stomach. ‘I know what I’m doing.’
‘And yet, you don’t have her.’
Kyan smiled without humour. ‘The target was more capable than expected.’
Nicole.
After she’d ‘escaped’ him, he had followed at a distance. He wassupposed to have lost her, but he couldn’t leave her to run into the night alone after that scream. So he’d tracked her to watch, hidden, as the fight unfolded. It had nearly killed him. Intervening would have exposed them all if Callum’s Influence didn’t hold. So he’d crumbled the edge of a brick wall to dust, keeping his grip on that instead of wrapping his hands around the assassin’s throat.
The Empyreal had drawnCallum’sblood.
He’d seen his best friend bloodied before. But only when he wanted to be. Only when he was being purposefully lazy or provocative. Which meant whoever the Wake had sent after Remi was more than dangerous.
What could they do to Nicole? Her siblings?
It was unacceptable.
He’d tracked it back to St George’s Hall in the hopes he could find out who it was.
