The Girl at Midnight (26 page)

Echo poked him in the side with a gentle elbow. “Earth to Caius. You still with me?”

He cleared his throat and offered her a quick nod. “Yes, sorry.” She canted her head to the side, waiting for him to answer her original question. The Oracle. They had to go see her. While he could have ventured to the Oracle’s alone, he felt, deep in his bones, that he needed Echo to find the answers he sought. The maps had come to her, and though he couldn’t decipher why, he knew that she was tied to this quest, as inextricably as he was. There was no way around it. He would tell her the truth. Soon, but not now. He looked down at her, slipping on a small smile he didn’t quite feel, and nodded again. “We’ll leave tomorrow. The Oracle isn’t going anywhere.”

They walked back through the sculpture hall at a much slower pace than they’d entered. Marble gods stared down at them, beautiful enough to break the hardest heart. The guards were still out, the cameras were still down, and Caius was one step closer to the firebird. Perhaps they would reach the end of this journey together, unscathed. He pivoted, turning in a slow circle. “I almost don’t want to leave.”

Echo practically skipped down the hall, still holding the key tightly. Face breaking into a lopsided grin, she asked, “Why not?”

He smiled again, and it was real this time. He spread his arms wide and said, “Art.”

“Do the Drakharin not make art?” Echo asked.

“They do,” he said. But Drakharin art had never moved him the way these works did. It had never screamed its presence at him, had never demanded that he recognize its immediacy, its fragility. He looked at Echo to find her looking back at him. There was something in her, some sense of cosmic impermanence that mirrored the museum’s paintings and sculptures. “But it’s all about battles and victors and commemorating something awful and bloody. There’s no beauty. No softness. No … art.”

Echo’s grin flashed across her face. There and gone. “There’s no art in Drakharin art?”

His smile was pulled from him, against his will, a hostage of Echo’s charm. He doubted she knew just how charming she was. He thought about telling her, but she seemed like the kind of person on whom compliments were wasted.

“When you say it like that, it sounds so eloquent.” He came to a halt in front of a decapitated Aphrodite. Even without a head, its presence was so strong, so mighty, that he was convinced that if he only stood still and watched long enough, he would see the delicate drapery on its chest rise and fall with breath.

“Some things demand to be noticed,” said Caius. “They grab you and shout, ‘I am here! See me!’ ”

He could feel Echo watching him. “And does Drakharin art not do that?”

When he turned to her, she was looking back at the statue, but a few strands of her hair swayed slightly, as if she’d snapped her head around fast.

“No,” Caius said. “I don’t think we know how to do that.”

“Why is that?” Echo reached a hand out to Aphrodite’s stone foot. She peered up at the statue, her fingers hovering
close but not touching. She was so perfectly still that she could have been carved from marble. There was something monumental about her. He was beginning to understand what drove a certain breed of man to make art.

When he spoke, his words were soft and quiet, so as not to disturb the absolute stillness of the moment. “We live too long. We remember too much. We don’t know what it’s like.”

Echo turned back to him, exhaling a light sigh. It was as though the room breathed with her. “What what’s like?”

“Forgetting,” he said. “The fear that we will die and no one will remember that we were ever there. That someday, everyone we know and everyone who knew them will be gone and forgotten, and no one will be left to remember our names.”

Echo frowned, but her face was lovely still. “That’s so sad.”

“And that’s why it matters. Humans make art to remember and be remembered,” said Caius. “Art is their weapon against forgetting.”

“That’s beautiful.” Echo was standing very close to him now. He noticed, for the first time, the faint dusting of freckles across her nose. There were a great many things he found beautiful just then. He was searching for the words to tell her just that when the shadows around them exploded.

Echo knew who it was before the darkness coalesced into shape, black feathers fluttering around a figure at the opposite end of the corridor, blocking the way to the lobby. There was only one person who could wrap themselves in shadows like that. Ruby emerged from the darkness, her cloak dragging over the marble.

“Hi, Ruby,” Echo said, slipping the key into the zippered pocket of her jacket. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Ruby’s smile was as false as ever. “Echo, always nice to see you. But I have a feeling you’d much prefer to see who I brought with me.”

A figure stepped out from the shadows behind Ruby, and Echo’s heart stuttered in her chest. “Rowan?”

He looked almost exactly as he had when she’d left him in the Avicen cells. The bronze armor had been swapped for jeans and a black hoodie, but the concern in his eyes and the tight set of his jaw were the same.

“Echo?” Rowan asked. “What are you doing here?” His gaze darted between Echo and Caius. “With a Drakharin?”

“Get back,” Caius said. He shoved Echo behind him, drawing both knives from the sheaths on his back. It felt like hiding, but Echo was glad to have him as a buffer between herself and Ruby. A Drakharin shielding her from Altair’s favorite lackey. If Ruby didn’t kill her, the irony would. Rowan’s gaze bounced between Caius and Echo as he tried to puzzle out why and how their strange alliance had come to be. Echo wanted to explain it to him, but she didn’t think Ruby would tolerate a lengthy chat.

“Caius,” Echo said, placing a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. Rowan’s a friend. He won’t hurt me.” She tripped over the word “friend,” hating the way it felt on her lips, regretting how it made Rowan flinch when she said it. He was staring at her so hard, she felt as though she would break. There were a million things she wanted to tell him, but she didn’t think any could quell the feeling of guilt that curdled in her stomach. She was standing side by side with a Drakharin, letting herself be protected by him. To Rowan, it must have looked like betrayal.

Caius shot her a quizzical glance, but he didn’t argue. He jerked his head at Ruby. “And what about her?”

Ruby drew a wickedly long sword, and the sound Echo made was embarrassingly close to a whimper. There was a reason Ruby was Altair’s favorite recruit, and it had nothing to do with her sterling personality.

Echo swallowed. “Um, not so sure about her.”

Ruby glided toward them as if she had been waiting for her close-up. “Hiding behind your new boyfriend now, are
you? I want to say I expected more from you, but it would be a lie.”

Rowan recoiled as if struck.

“He is
not
my boyfriend,” Echo said in a rush. The situation was deteriorating faster than she could handle. Half of her was happy to see Rowan, to know that he was looking for her, that he cared enough to come after her. The other half almost wished he hadn’t. Getting in and out of the museum should have been simple. This … this was not simple.

Caius kept his eyes on Ruby, long knives held at the ready, but he angled his head toward Echo when he said, “Really? That’s what you’re worried about?”

“The truth is very important to me, Caius.” So maybe her priorities needed work. She looked back to Rowan and Ruby. “What are you two doing here?”

Rowan stepped forward, placing a hand on Ruby’s arm. She didn’t look happy to be held back, but she didn’t fight him.

“The wards were tripped when you got back to the city,” Rowan said. “Altair had us tracking you. He knew I let you out, so he said I had to bring you back. It’s my … penance.” He inched forward warily, but when Caius gripped the hilts of his knives as if preparing to strike, he paused. “Echo,
what
is going on?” He gestured to Caius. “And why are you with him? What happened to Ivy?”

“Ivy’s okay,” Echo said. “Rowan, I know this looks bad, but I can explain.” She tried to step around Caius, but his arm shot out, blocking her path. Rowan looked at Caius’s arm as though he wanted to rip it off.

“We didn’t come here to listen to your excuses, traitor.” Ruby brushed past Rowan but left a comfortable distance
between her own sword and Caius’s blades. “I knew it was a mistake taking you in. The Ala should have drowned you like the runt you are.”

The muscles in Caius’s back tensed at Ruby’s taunt, and for some insane reason, that struck Echo as the most miraculous thing that had happened all day. Rowan said nothing in her defense, and Echo tried not to think about how much his silence hurt.

Ruby raised her sword, but stayed where she was. “To be honest, I should thank you. You led me right to the next step in finding the firebird. Altair will be pleased. He’ll be even happier when you’ve been arrested. Escaping from the cells was one thing, but this?” She waved her sword at Caius and Echo. “This is a whole new level of wrong.”

Echo’s throat tightened, and she hated Ruby more than she ever had. She looked at Rowan, but he’d averted his gaze, choosing instead to stare at the floor. “Rowan?” she asked. “Were you sent here to arrest me?”

Rowan dragged his eyes up to meet hers. “Yeah, technically, but—” He groaned low in his throat, raking his hands through his feathers. “Altair just wants us to bring you back. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

With a snort, Ruby shook her head. “Don’t lie to her, Rowan.” She turned back to Echo, pale blue eyes glinting in the darkness. “Our orders are clear. We’re to bring you before the council. The charges leveled against you are almost impressive. Withholding secrets pertinent to the security of the Avicen people. Breaking out of prison. And now, I’m sure cavorting with the enemy will be added to the list.” She tilted her head to the side, never breaking eye contact with Echo. “Do you know what the penalty for treason is?”

Without a word, Echo shook her head.

Ruby smiled, slow and predatory. “Death.”

No one in Echo’s lifetime had ever been charged with treason among the Avicen. She’d never thought to ask what happened to people who turned against their own. The Avicen were the closest thing she had to family, to home. They’d taken her in, and it would be hard to convince them that she hadn’t betrayed them, not with two Warhawk witnesses to testify that she’d been seen with a Drakharin. Rowan might have tried to cover for her, but Ruby would relish the opportunity to see her fall from grace, even though death did feel a bit extreme. Perhaps Ruby’s loathing ran deeper than Echo had realized. The Ala had only so much influence, revered as she was. If the council sentenced Echo to death, even the Ala’s powers would be limited. Echo might be able to escape, but she’d live the rest of her life on the run, constantly looking over her shoulder to see if there was an executioner on her tail. But if she returned to the Avicen with the firebird, if she proved that she’d been on their side the whole time, then maybe, just maybe, she’d find clemency. But the Avicen would never forgive her if she returned empty-handed.

Rowan was looking at her with desperation in his eyes. She could imagine how he felt. Powerless. She knew the feeling well. He was about to speak, perhaps to plead with her, when Caius backed away, shoving Echo along with his body. “Echo, run.”

She let herself be pushed, but she stood her ground in a different way. “What? No, I’m not leaving you here.”

Rowan’s hands twitched into fists. “Echo, this is crazy. Come back with us. I’ll talk to Altair. Everything will be okay.”

Ruby laughed, and the sound was like knives on the
wind. “Honestly, Rowan. She made her bed, and now she’s going to sleep in it.” And then she leaped, feathered cloak cutting through the air like real wings, ignoring Rowan’s shout for her to stop.

“Echo!” Caius yelled. “Run!”

Echo stumbled back, suddenly very, very aware not only that she was unarmed but also that she was less than useless in a fight between two trained warriors. Ruby’s sword sliced down toward Caius. He raised his knives, and the sword glanced off one of his blades with a metallic whisper.

“Echo. Run. Now.” Caius kept his eyes on Ruby, who was circling him like the vulture she was.

Rowan looked as lost as Echo felt. “Echo, stop. You don’t have to do this. You can come home.”

But he was wrong. She had to find the firebird, even if it meant joining forces with someone Rowan had been taught to hate from childhood. It was the only way to set things right, to get her friends out of danger, to make sure no one else got hurt because of a conflict no one alive could even remember starting. She couldn’t go home, not until she found what she was looking for. Not while she was labeled a traitor.

“I’m so sorry,” Echo said.

Before Rowan could respond, she bolted, throwing herself down the hall so fast her feet barely touched the ground. She dug into her pocket for the small pouch of dust Jasper had given her, but she wasn’t Caius. She couldn’t conjure gateways out of thin air with just any threshold. The closest useful gateway was the bridge in Central Park they’d used earlier that day. Her feet pounded against the floor, but she didn’t hear another set of steps behind her. Rowan hadn’t
followed her. He’d stayed behind, probably to help Ruby fight Caius.

With the sound of steel clashing against steel ringing in her ears, Echo skidded to a stop, breath coming in harsh pants. She stood before the information desk in the lobby. A sleeping guard was bent over a crumpled-up newspaper, pen still dangling from his loose grip. He’d been doing the crossword puzzle. The museum’s doors were feet away, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t leave them behind. She’d seen Caius fight back at the keep. He was good. Beyond good. Rowan didn’t stand a chance.

A vengeful little voice whispered that if their roles had been reversed, Caius would have left her. That he would have taken the key and run. But she knew that little voice was full of crap. Echo slid the dagger from her boot and turned back, breaking into a run. It was like Caius said. They did this together, or not at all.