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The way she said it was odd, like she was trying to spare him.
“Let me call my cousin first,” he said, looking to Emily, who’d slumped into a chair beside the bed. “She shouldn’t be alone right now.”
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Adam checked on the rest of the concert attendees while Argent called for Guardians to ward and watch them. He didn’t like to leave Emily alone, but they couldn’t chance another death like Cole’s. He saw nothing though, no sign of a banshee the way he’d seen the one emerge from the man in the gray suit.
He managed to coax Emily into a waiting area and buy her a cup of hot chocolate, hoping the sugar would help with the shock. They sat together, in silence, until Jodi arrived.
Argent hovered on the edge of things, giving orders to subordinates, getting updates from her lieutenants at the market. She did not seem impatient to get Adam to Silver. Maybe she was also hoping they could put it off a while longer, and he still didn’t understand her hesitation.
Jodi arrived and took in the scene. Adam stood to greet her.
“Thank you for coming.”
She started to hug him before she remembered.
“I’ve got her,” Jodi said.
That was it then.
Unable to delay any longer, Adam stepped toward Argent, who gave a little nod.
Another flash of cold air. Another change in the light, and they were gone from the hospital to stand at the gates to the Watchtower of the North.
Each of the four cardinal towers was held by a race of immortal guardians, who together acted as the spirit realm’s police force. It was an imperfect system, but it kept the various powers in check and away from each other’s throats, at least usually.
While the other towers and races were counted among the Guardians, Adam was used to only seeing elves doing the actual job.
Silver was working to change the system. He didn’t like that only immortals acted as Guardians, and he didn’t like that the units weren’t integrated.
That was another reason he’d founded Rogue Community College, which sat on the site of the eastern watchtower. They were training a new class of Guardians that included mortal ones, hoping to diversify things and give them autonomy from the Council of Races. Adam wondered how it was going, but figured now wasn’t the time to ask Argent about it.
The northern tower was anchored on a historic amusement park in Denver. The spirit realm’s tendency to remember the past meant that here it stood shining and new rather than dilapidated and sad.
Unlike the mortal version, the park was surrounded by a high fence of gleaming steel. In the past Adam had wondered if it was truly needed, if the king wasn’t being just a little bit paranoid.
Today proved its purpose.
Outside the gates, campfires spread into the distance.
“The Lost Ones?” he asked.
“Yes,” Argent said. “A veritable army of them.”
“I thought they were in Seamus’s territory.”
“They are, but there are too many for the west to contain.”
“Silver gave them permission?”
“No. They did not ask. They simply came.”
She lifted her sword and the gates opened.
Adam remembered the protein bars and the little mob in army green at Wendy and Joey’s when he’d arrived in the market.
“There were Lost Ones in the market, right before the banshees came.”
