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“Royce,” Royce said gruffly.
“Yes. Boyce.” I snickered. “You will carry this message from me to your beloved Lorica. Tell them to scour their records for any and all information regarding the Eldest, especially the practice of shutting the doorways they use to enter our world.”
“That’s exactly why I’m here,” Royce said. “That’s what I need to discuss with Graves.”
Carver waved his hand lazily. “I will repeat what my protege said. Whatever you need to say to Dustin, you may say in front of the rest of us.”
Royce’s eyes flitted around us, from Carver’s face, to those of his subordinates, finally settling on mine. It happened so fast.
I blinked, and Royce was gone. The air crashed out of my lungs as something sped into me, rushing me up against a tree, away from the others. I groaned as my back struck bark. When I blinked again, I saw Royce, his hands gripped tightly around my collar, shoving me into the tree. He’d used his teleportation magic on me, and in an especially painful way, too.
The shouting started instantly, and blurry as my vision was I could see the warning, preparatory flares of magic in the distance. Jesus. Was there going to be another fight, this time between Team Boneyard, Team Lorica, and Team Actual Lorica? My body wasn’t ready.
“So,” Royce said, his voice deep and low. “Just you and me.”
“Uh-huh,” I croaked, still winded. “The fuck do you want from me, Royce? I don’t have a knife to stick in you this time. Play fair.”
He slammed me against the tree, the leaves overhead rustling as he did. I groaned in pain. In my palm, hot air swirled and pulsed as I prepared a handful of flame that I could shove right in Royce’s stupid, smug face.
“You’ll note that I haven’t touched your skin,” he said. “I’m not here to fight. Just to warn you. Graves, listen to me. You need to keep a low profile for now. Go in hiding, if you have to. Things are bad, but they’re about to get worse.”
I squinted blearily, just making out the huddle of figures dashing towards us. My friends were coming to help. Maybe I didn’t need to rearrange his face with a fistful of fire after all.
“Cute little trick back there, locking my thoughts out of your head,” he grumbled. “I meant what I said. I’m not here to hurt you. Keep the lines open and I’ll be able to update you. To warn you.”
“No can do, compadre,” I said, scoffing. I could hardly believe that Royce would ever be unselfish enough to help someone, let alone me, of all people. Just like Prudence said. I wasn’t about to let this asshole inside my head.
“Just remember this, then,” Royce said carefully. “The heart wants what it wants.”
I chuckled. “Aww. I didn’t know you felt that way, Royce. But maybe buy me dinner first, then we’ll see. I like Asian cuisine. How about you?”
“For fuck’s sake, Graves,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “We don’t have time for this.”
I watched as, from yards away, Carver slashed his hand through the air, a tendril of pale amber energy leaping from his fingers and lashing like a whip. I smiled, knowing what that meant. Carver’s spell made contact with my skin, and I grinned harder.
“See ya, Royce. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”
Carver’s sending spell pulled me out of reality, teleporting me molecule by molecule back home to the Boneyard. The last thing I saw was Royce’s furious face, his huge hands groping stupidly at thin air. I wish I could have taken a picture.
Chapter 6
“So what you’re saying is that Thea is back.”
Sterling gnawed the back of his thumb, the flatter edges of his human teeth nibbling at his cuticles. He sat cross-legged on his favorite couch in the Boneyard, one foot dangling and jerking nervously across his thigh.
“No one’s saying that,” I said. “We don’t have any proof of it happening.”
None of us wanted it to be true, either. We each of us had reasons for fearing Thea – chief among them the fact that wherever she went, the Eldest followed with their horrific, destructive gaze – and Sterling had very good cause to be worried himself.
The Boneyard was a refuge that Carver had built for his students and mentees, members of the undead, or those deemed unsavory by the magical community. We were in what passed for its living room, a massive stone slab outfitted with cheap yet admittedly comfy Swedish furniture. Sterling had quietly adopted the huge red couch as his perch the day it arrived, and that was where he sat, jittery, anxious, his forehead furrowed with concern.
“I don’t like it one bit,” he said, his eyes fixed in the distance, one foot tapping incessantly at the stone floor.
Sterling was a vampire – our vampire – who had what I suspected to be a genetic predisposition for wearing really tight clothes made mostly out of leather. He preferred to dress like a rock star, all hair, silver jewelry, and black outfits, and personality-wise, he had the traits to go with the looks. But he’d practically just rolled out of bed, the stark white of his linen pajamas matching the marble pallor of his torso. Sterling was cocky, sometimes creepy, and a little bit of a pervert.
Yet not afraid. Never afraid. See, Thea’s particular gift was her command over the powers of light, shaping it into brilliant, solid weapons, or even conjuring sunlight from out of nowhere. Sunlight could fuck Sterling up something quick, and what I thought had been our last encounter with Thea had ended with her blasting him with a tremendous beam of sunlight, burning half of his body into a grotesque mess of cinders, charred flesh, and exposed bone.
He clearly wasn’t over that.
