“Oh my God,” Lucky breathed. “I am seriously the luckiest sonuvabitch on the planet. You’ve been just hanging out able to do that?” he asked his old friend, the coin that had saved his life.
In answer, the coin spun faster, whirling, its field expanding until Lucky could see the beach in front of their clearing with Scout and Alistair standing upon it, apparently yelling at each other, if Lucky could read a single nuance of their body language. Above them, looming like a black umbrella, was an incredibly foreboding cloud of… of what? Of anger? Of evil? Of unresolved parental issues, because Lucky had plenty ofthem.
But whatever it was, Lucky realized, it was way above his paygrade.
“A little to the left?” he asked his spinning coin friend, and the image shifted a bit until it would deposit him rightthere. Right in front of Helen’s shop. Well, maybe a little lower. There. His apartment, where a newly made bed sat in the corner, with fresh sheets in preparation for the night to come.
Oh God. Lucky had to get him back.
“There,” he said gruffly. “I can come up and get everybody from the back. Nobody has to see me arrive.”
He took a deep breath, not sure how he was going to get his coin back after this.
“Thanks, little friend,” he said, some of his emotion, his desperation, swelling his throat. “I really can’t stand to lose him.”
And with that, he ignored the wondering gasps of the people on the ferry prow and stepped through the portal.
He landed on the tile of his front room, stumbling to his knees a little, and he turned around in time to see the portal turn back into a coin again, flipping more and more slowly until he caught it in his hand.
“Thanks, little friend,” he murmured again, and then he turned toward the stairs that led up to the store and hauled ass.
He hit the back room at Helen’s at full speed, arriving with a clatter right when Larissa got there with a big load of dishes for Piers, who was up to his elbows in suds.
“What’re you doing here?” he asked in surprise.
“Helping,” Larissa said. “Also, earning money. But helping. The hell?”
“Scout’s in trouble,” he panted. “Larissa, you go next door and get Kayleigh. Piers, you and me need to run to the beach. He’s gonna need all of us by the clearing—”
“I’m coming too!” Helen said, bustling in from the front.
“Fair,” Lucky told her, not sure he knew how to argue. In a second, he and Piers were hurtling out of the store at full speed while Helen told everybody in the coffee shop that she’d be back in fifteen minutes and they could wait for their coffees or come back for refunds as needed.
Lucky didn’t hang around to see how that worked for her.
He was barely cognizant of reaching the stairs down to the beach, but he did curse the sand that slowed him down. Behind him, he could hear Kayleigh calling his name, probably asking for details, but dammit, he didn’t havetime. Scout and Alistair were on the beach, alone, and Scout didn’t think he was as strong as Alistair, and Alistair didn’t think much of Scout at all!
As he drew near enough to see them, hear their words hurled at each other, he could also see Alistair, standing by the water’s edge, gathering nothing short of a storm behind him. A terrible, crackling, ominously dark ball of magic had built up, and Scout? Well, Scout looked like he was doing tai chi.
As Lucky got close enough to call his name, Alistair cut loose with the ball of magic, and Scout, graceful as the dancer he was, simply deflected that surge of power over his shoulder.
Lucky stumbled to a halt to see where it had gone, and in a heartbeat, he saw the presence Scout had talked about—the giant void of stars and the absence of light, the thing that had swallowed Scout and barely spit him up, choking on sea water and so, so cold.
With a cry, Alistair went flying over the sand as though pulled by a rope wrapped around his waist. Whatever he’d thrown into that dark void, it was dragging him with it, and for a moment Lucky had hope. Alistair would get caught in that terrible black oceanic void, and he and Scout would be left there, and they’d be fine, and—
And Scout was getting dragged into that void too.
“Scout!” Lucky cried, and behind him, the others screamed his name too. Without thinking, Lucky turned toward the clearing and ran like he had wings on his feet.
THE PLUNGEinto the protective darkness was as suffocating and icy as Scout expected, but it was also, somehow, fleetingly familiar.
The last time, he’d been stunned, shocked that something in the world would be so cold and yet so lulling at the same time.
This time, he thought he recognized this feeling. He knew what this was. He’d just…justfelt it. It had only a moment ago smothered him, but he’d been standing on the sand, and he’d heard….
He’d heard Lucky’s voice, calling his name. And Scout had known he still had to risk plunging into this darkness.
And he’d grieved.
