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“I will.” I hit the End button and glanced at Azriel. “Do you think it’s possible Jack is still alive?”
He hesitated, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I cannot hear his resonance, but that doesn’t mean he’s dead. It might just mean he’s being kept underground, where I cannot sense him.”
“I guess we can only hope that’s the case.” Though I personally feared it wasn’t. I thrust a hand through my still-curly hair and added silently, Do you think it’s worth contacting Markel, to see if he knows anything more?
I doubt Markel would, given he is tasked with following you around. Harry Stanford, however, might be an option.
Except that he’ll use Jack’s death as a means to entice me into his plot.
It is nevertheless worth talking to him. If someone would have any understanding of Hunter’s current moves, it would be her fiercest opponent.
I guess. But to talk to him, I had to go back to the office and get comfortable. It was the only way I could astral travel.
Azriel caught my hand, tugged me into his arms, and a second later we were back in the café’s office.
“Fucking hell,” a familiar voice said. “You could give a person warning when you’re going to drop in like that!”
I swung around. Tao stood in the doorway, his brown hair wet, a towel half slung over his right shoulder, and his expression a mix of surprise and amusement. At first glance, little appeared to have outwardly changed since I’d seen him just over nine hours ago; his face was still gaunt, his body rail thin, and heat radiated from him, the force of it so strong that I could feel its caress from where I stood in the middle of the room. But flames no longer burned uncontrolled in his eyes, and the air of desperation that had surrounded him seemed to have fled.
“You’re okay,” I said, and it was a statement rather than a question.
“I am,” he agreed. “How long it will last, I have no idea, but for now, we’re good.”
We, not I. That was a new and hopeful sign. “What happened?”
“I did what you suggested I do. I went back to the sacred site and talked to the elemental.” His brief smile was almost a grimace. “It wasn’t easy, but we got there in the end. You were right, Azriel. It doesn’t want to die. It just wants to protect the fire that gave it life.”
“So you have reached a compromise?” Azriel asked.
“We have. One I think we could both live with.”
“And that is?” I prompted, when he didn’t immediately go on.
“I have the days. It has the nights.”
“What?” I said, surprised. “I would have thought it would be the other way around, given it draws energy from heat and sunlight.”
“There may be neither at night, but there is the sacred fire. Not only is it the source of the elemental’s power, but it is also most vulnerable at night. Therefore, we’ll be there at night to protect it, and I’ll have the days.”
“So why are you here now? It’s nine thirty and nighttime.”
“I came back here to grab a shower and to leave you a note. I wanted to let you know I was okay—that we were okay. Then I was heading back out.”
“To do what?” I said. “I mean, there’s nothing up there but wilderness and the fire.”
“The elemental doesn’t need anything else,” he said, expression gentle.
“So when you’re up there, the elemental is in control?”
“Yes, but I am not unaware, just as it is not unaware during the day.” He lifted a hand. His skin briefly glowed with a deep orange fire. “I can still have a life, Ris, even if it is one that wasn’t what I’d quite imagined.”
Half a life was better than no life. Or worse, losing yourself forever in the fires of another creature. I walked over and gave him a hug. “Be careful up there, won’t you?”
He returned the hug fiercely, then brushed a kiss across the top of my head. “I will. And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Hopefully, yes.”
He frowned and stepped back. “And what, precisely, is that supposed to mean?”
