Déjà Vu & Gin Page 10

  It’s spilling over into everything else. And that is dangerous.

  Then again, he chose to leave tonight rather than take advantage. I bite my lip, considering that. An assassin takes every advantage offered, it’s how they’re built.

  What does that say about Tyr?

  Unfortunately, I have no idea. My instincts are wonky where he’s concerned. Like a compass held too close to a magnet, I can’t find true north.

  With everything else going to hell, if I lose my way with him, what else will I lose? With my head aching, I find my way home through the quiet, snow-covered streets.

  Nobody’s there. The house is eerily still, a stillness that is almost expectant, like it’s holding its breath, wondering when we’re all going to up and disappear. I’m wondering the same thing myself, only I’m too wrung out to keep my eyes open anymore. I go upstairs, find my bed and sleep.

  And sleep.

  When I come down hours later, it’s still dark. I’ve no idea what time it is and no interest in finding out. All I can handle at the moment is pouring a glass of water.

  When I turn around, Tyr is standing in the entryway to the kitchen.

  I drop the glass. He catches it before it hits the tile.

  Setting it down quietly on the counter, he grips the edge without looking at me.

  “Anastasia—”

  “Finally decided to stop hiding?”

  “I wasn’t hiding,” he says shortly. “Maybe I shouldn’t have left you like that, but I needed to think.”

  “I think you got scared. That’s what I think,” I hiss.

  He laughs darkly. “I was scared? What about you? You going to stand there and tell me you weren’t using me? Using what’s between us to exorcise your demons?”

  I flinch. “What is between us besides using each other, Tyr?”

  “Nothing.” He snaps straight, but his posture is oddly stiff, like he’s barely breathing. “Nothing at all.”

  I raise my eyebrows mockingly, knowing that neither of us believes that anymore. “If you say so.”

  He stabs his hands through his hair. “Goddamn it, this isn’t important right now. I came to tell you something.” He drops his hands to look at me, his voice thick. “A lot of shit went down tonight. The Dark Council got a visit an hour or so ago. It was Luna again.”

  I hold my breath, bracing myself.

  “The pack killed the bruin king tonight. Georg Kivistö is dead.”

  At first the words don’t sink in. I sway, then give a shaky laugh. “You’re mad.”

  “Anastasia.” He steps forward, but I hold up a hand.

  Georg. Oh gods, Carly.

  Seph. If this is hard for me . . .

  “Does Seph know?”

  “Yes. I tried to warn her, but it was too late. Luna told Cerunnos she saw your sister in the forest when they were heading back. She heard one of the bruins, too. When they found him.”

  Likely Stephen. I fumble for my phone and suddenly Tyr is there, placing it into my hands.

  Stephen answers on the first ring. “Ana?”

  In that one word, I can hear a man who just had his whole world turned upside down.

  “I . . . heard about Georg. I’m sorry.”

  He doesn’t ask me how I found out. He doesn’t speak to me at all, only snaps an order about someone needing to stay put. People are talking in the background. Angry, growling voices full of menace and pain.

  “Is Seph with you?” I finally try.

  “Not anymore.” More voices, I hear him cover the phone.

  What does that mean?

  Suddenly he’s back, his voice loud in my ear. “I have to go. Leave your sister alone tonight. She’s close and we’ll keep an eye out, but Seph . . . I think she wants her space right now.”

  “Okay,” I say quietly to the click in my ear. Tyr takes the phone away, sets it on the kitchen table and takes my icy hands in his.

  I stare blankly down at the tangle of our fingers. “I have to find Carly. I have to—”

  “I told Styx already,” he says shortly.

  “What?” I lift my head, roused from my stupor enough to glare at him. “That wasn’t your job.”

  “It’s not yours either. Protecting them all, trying to insert yourself between them and every threat. Christ, woman!” He takes a breath, lowers his voice. “You’re barely holding it together as it is. Styx will take care of Carly. I think you trust him to do that, right?”

  I do. But . . .

  “Come upstairs, Anastasia.” It’s an order, not a request. And I’m too soul-sick to argue, even when he leads me straight to the bathroom.

  He starts the water, undresses me. Slow and sure, my dress falling to the bathroom floor, just like it slid to his floor earlier tonight. Was that only a few hours ago? Time seems to have slowed, like we’re surrounded by a ring of vorpal sand, only the air is light and I don’t feel trapped.

  I feel sad and empty, but . . . safe.

  I look up when Tyr’s fingers brush mine. The bathroom is full of steam and heat, and he is naked in front of me. He walks me into the shower, guiding me under the spray. I’ve been washed by other people hundreds of times. It was the way of the world in which I grew up. It’s a comfortable, familiar feeling, but it’s also completely new.

  There’s nothing overtly sexual in Tyr’s touch, but it’s far more personal than any servant’s could be. Both more thorough and sweeter, like he’s not just attending to my body, but my soul.

  I sigh and lean back, letting him wash my hair. His fingers are strong and sure, like he’s taken care of me before. When he’s done, I turn in his arms, all the anger and intensity of earlier gone. I look up at him and I know he can see what’s in my eyes. We use each other for power, for protection from our inner selves, for sex. It’s what we do. What we agreed to.

  This is different. When his lips slide over mine this time, neither of us is using.

  We’re giving.

  Hesitantly, cautiously, neither of us quite sure how this is done. Figuring it out together.

  He takes me slowly and tenderly, the rhythm of the water setting our pace. The air is heavy and lush against our skin, the steam soft in our lungs. When I come, it’s not with a shout, but with a sigh. My head falls back, his breath warm against my skin as I feel his release inside of me.

  As the world drifts away, there is only the vague sense of being lifted and then surrounded in softness.

  I wake up in his arms.

  He’s sleeping. I can tell because his hold is lax, his breathing even and deep. For a moment I can’t place the warm, contented feeling of having him at my back. Then it hits me.

  Peace. Contentment. Trust.

  All these things and more. As soon as I name it, it’s gone.

  My toes curl into the covers, brushing hard legs, and Tyr’s arm tightens reflexively as if even deep in sleep, he’s unwillingly to let me go. But that’s not true. Once his business here is done, he’ll leave without looking back and I’ll let him. Won’t I?

  Fear tickles the back of my neck. With it everything else comes rushing in and I remember what day it is.

  “Gods. Tyr, get up. It’s Yule.”

  He grumbles and his arm tightens again, but I push him away to check my phone. There are no messages from anyone. No news should be good news, but in this case, not knowing what is going on is unbearable.

  I jump out of bed and grab my robe, leaving Tyr and the sound of my name on his lips as I run downstairs.

  I’m a bit of a control freak and I know this. That’s why I normally restrain myself from scrying my family except in cases of emergency. Keeping people safe can easily morph into keeping your nose in everybody’s business twenty-four seven.

  In this case, though, I don’t care about privacy. Seph just lost one of her best friends, she’s being hunted by dangerous people, there’s an inquiry aimed at stripping her of her powers tonight, and if that doesn’t excuse some bending of my normal rules, I don’t know what would
.

  But when I look for my sister in the calm water, nothing happens. My own reflection looks back at me, perplexed and pale.

  I’m still standing in front of the basin, wondering why I can’t scry Seph, when Tyr enters the room and hands me a cup of tea. Despite the worry choking my throat, I manage to smile at him.

  “Thanks.” He knows I mean more than just the tea, but his shoulders lift and he looks away.

  “Don’t make too much of it, love,” he says softly.

  He’s not talking about the tea either, but I let it go, looking down at the waters in front of me. Something is coming into view. Finally.

  Unfortunately, the image is not of Seph.

  Jack Frost is walking through the snow, half turned away from me. The big lake stretches before him, grey and bleak. I frown. Why am I seeing Jack? I want my goddamned sister. Oh. I see now. He’s carrying her. Gold glimmers in a shaft of fading sunlight—her hair falling over his arm, that pink streak unmistakable. The snow is very deep, but it always is on the South Shore.

  That must be why he’s walking so slowly, so awkwardly, like he’s carrying something far heavier than my baby sister.

  He trips and her hand falls limply to brush the snow . . . too limply. The crisp whiteness is marred by a different streak of pink.

  Seph’s fingers are dripping with blood.

  My breath catches and I slide sideways, my hands slamming into the basin, sending it crashing to the floor.

  “Anastasia! What the fuck?” Tyr is yelling, but then I can’t hear him anymore. All I hear is the screaming in my own head.

  Tyr failed.

  I failed.

  My baby sister is dead.

  Part II

  19

  Six months later

  I’m not sure where I’m going. Both literally and figuratively. The meeting I just left has me both irritated and jumpy.

  I want Anastasia, but at the same time, she’s the last person I need to see right now.

  I pull over on the outskirts of Duluth at a place called Thompson Hill to sit on the hood of my latest stolen vehicle (another Dodge, this one in bright orange) and eye the lake far below. I like it here. High summer is on us and the change in the town is remarkable. The hillside is a green so vivid it almost hurts the eyes. Lilacs scent the air. Birds and bees are everywhere, everything so bright and warm and alive, it’s hard to believe this was a frozen wasteland of silver and white less than three months ago.

  A metaphor for a certain woman I know? I shake my head. An awful lot has happened since Yule. Cerunnos dead. Seph alive. Jett kidnapped . . . The threat of the Firebird Prince. And Anastasia and I?

  My lips press together and my hands clench on my thighs.

  How did things get so tangled so fast?

  A couple years ago, the mess I’m in would have been unthinkable. But this time I have only myself to blame.

  I turn to get back in the car, but there’s a man leaning against my driver’s side door. No, not a man. A god. I haven’t seen Loki in months. Haven’t thought about him in weeks.

  The realization startles me. I should feel guilty, furious even. But unexpectedly, I am neither. Revenge was supposed to be a fire that would never cool, but apparently some fires burn hotter than others. I watch the god with one hand on my sword.

  “I’ve been waiting, but I grow impatient, assassin.”

  “Waiting for what?”

  “Oh, are you going to play coy?”

  I try to absorb Loki’s words, but my brain feels slow and stupid. I can’t deal with this on top of everything else I’ve had thrown at me today. He’s caught me as unprepared as I once hoped to find him.

  Loki flicks a bit of dandelion fluff off his suit. It’s the exact same one he was wearing the day my mother died. The sight of it leaves me cold. I swallow. Has he always known then?

  “Not always,” he says softly in response to the look on my face. “Not until you told me yourself.”

  “I told you?”

  “Haven’t you learned by now that some secrets should never be spoken aloud? You used to know better.”

  I shiver as the memory comes: a door swinging shut too soon. I glance at him, startled. “You were there when I stole the truth stone.”

  “Yes, I was. I’d always known you were hiding something from me.” He shakes his head. “You were careless that day. Distracted by a certain witch, perhaps?” He circles me and I pivot, knowing it’s hopeless. I’ve lost the element of surprise, the Fetters are still where I left them months ago, and I am off my game, in more ways than one. “Do you love her then, assassin?”

  My laugh is forced . . . and bitter. “I lost that ability a long time ago. Thanks to you.”

  “Ah, yes. My fault. You always wanted what happened to your mother to be my fault—so you don’t have to face that it was yours.”

  Loki tosses something at me. Without a thought, I draw my sword and slice through it three times before it can even hit the ground. Bits of fluff rise into the air and cling to my blade. A stuffed animal, ancient and worn. The head floats down, ragged edges drifting over the grass. A pony made of brown muslin with button eyes. My mother made that toy for me out of one of her old dresses. It was the only one I ever owned. My eyes close and I sway once before they snap open again.

  “I was a child,” I whisper.

  “A pretty excuse.”

  “You could have stopped it!”

  “Yes. I could have. Do you think that would have made you happy, would have somehow improved your shitty little life? Do you want to hear that she grew old and round and held your babies in her arms and sang them to sleep at night?” His lip curls. “Or that she grew bitter and mad and died in Bedlam when you got your throat slit trying to steal a rich man’s purse?”

  “Which is the truth?” I choke out.

  He laughs at me. “All these things and more, gypsy boy. That is chaos; everything is possible, the horrors and the joys.” His laugh turns hard and cold. “You think you want to kill me, but you really want to kill life. Because it’s evil and cruel and twisted and beautiful. Life is chaos. And chaos sees all—all the possibilities that are or could be.” With a smile, he throws out a hand. “Face it, assassin. See the past with my eyes.”

  Magic seeps from his fingers like a noxious gas. Unlike witch magic, it’s clearly visible, a purple mist creeping along the ground closer and closer, but I can’t move to evade or escape. Like I’m sinking in vorpal sand, Loki’s power holds me fast.

  When the mist touches my shoes, Duluth disappears.

  Newgate towers in front of me, huge and ugly, the noise of the crowd in my ringing ears, the taste of a sticky bun on my lips. My mother looks down at me from the hangman’s noose. Loki is at my side, dressed exactly as he was and is, except this time he snaps his fingers and the rope breaks. Joy surges through me, hot and sweet . . .

  I’m on the streets, somewhere deep in London. I’m freezing and cold and alone. Behind me I hear a footfall and then another. I start to run, but I already know it’s too late. They’re going to catch me . . .

  My mother again, but mad and old, spittle flying from her lips as she reaches for me with clawed hands that already drip with my blood, but she doesn’t know me anyway. She hasn’t known me in years . . .

  I recoil, spinning around to see Anastasia in an old-fashioned court, her hands folded demurely in her lap. What is this?

  I catch my breath, my heart still pounding painfully in my chest as I force myself to hold onto the image. She’s very young, not much more than a teenager, and not as beautiful as she is now, but still gorgeous, her little head cocked defiantly. She’s surrounded by shadowy figures in black robes. Unease fills my gut and I start running down the stairs. Somewhere a gavel falls. Before I can reach her, they swoop down like giant crows, tearing her into pieces while I watch and scream . . .

  And scream.

  “No,” I cry out, pushing through the storm of images. “Stop!”

  I come to,
on my knees in the dirt. Loki is reclining against the car, buffing his nails on his sleeve while I sweat and heave. When I roll over on my back, gasping, he smiles down at me.

  “Possibilities. Choices. Everyone has them. The repercussions are endless and fascinating.”

  “Is that what you call it?” My stomach is still roiling from what I’ve seen. No wonder he’s crazy. “Which was true?”

  “All are truth.” Loki’s smile is wicked. “You could have frozen to death in the streets, been buggered six ways from Sunday or had your throat slit by the time you were ten. Would that have been more to your liking?”

  “Are you saying you sent me to prison to save me?” I spit at him.

  His nose wrinkles. “Don’t be foolish.”

  But as I roll over and push myself up, grabbing my sword from the grass, I don’t know. I just don’t fucking know.

  “I used to interfere,” he mutters, more to himself than me. “Like you, I once thought chaos could be controlled. It can’t. It won’t. Best not to even try. I could’ve saved your mother. And yes, maybe you both would’ve been happy. For a time. But there is always something looming in your pathetic little human lives. Murder, rape, theft, disease. Madness. There is no end to it. At some point you just have to sit back and enjoy the show.”

  His taunting look tells me he knows the exact nature of the meeting I just left. Well, fuck him. Time to cut to the chase.

  I force myself to my feet. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Why would I do that?” Loki winks. “Especially when things are about to get so very interesting.”

  “Why did I see Anastasia?” I hate to ask, but I have to know. “I had nothing to do with her past.”

  “Past, future, present. When are you going to learn it doesn’t matter?”

  I shake my head, suddenly tired of trying to outthink everyone, especially one insane god. I sheathe the sword and take a determined step toward my stolen ride. “You’ve had your fun. Now go away.”