The Girl at Midnight (7 page)

Caius stretched, spine popping. When he tilted his head back, he could see the mural painted on the library’s ceiling. It depicted the tale of some long-forgotten battle, colors faded as surely as the memory of the heroes who’d fought in it. Bright swathes of orange and gold cut across the ceiling
as a green-scaled dragon breathed fire on a cluster of birds. Caius wrenched his eyes away. The nightmare clung to him with stubborn wisps of smoke and the whisper of a scream on scorched air.

He hadn’t dreamed of Rose in ages. If there was one thing he’d learned to do in his years as prince, it was compartmentalize. A century ago, when he’d been elected, he was young and stupid, a foolish prince barely out of his adolescence. But now he knew better. The memory of Rose refused to be erased, but Caius had locked it away as well as he could. Or he thought he had. Evidently, Rose was as adept at picking locks in death as she had been in life.

“Caius?” Dorian asked, voice hushed in the silence of the library. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Caius avoided Dorian’s concerned gaze, choosing instead to rummage through the chaos on his desk for the map he’d torn out of one of his contemporary atlases before falling asleep. “Here,” he said, holding the page out to Dorian. “Look.”

“Ah, a map.” Dorian took it with a curious glance and hesitant hands. “Yes, I have heard of these.”

“Don’t be funny. You’re no good at it.” Caius snatched it back. “It’s what the map leads to that concerns me and, by extension, you. Because you’re the one who’s going to find it.”

“And what, pray tell, am I going to find?”

“The firebird.” He paused. “Or at least a clue that might tell us where it’s hiding.”

Dorian’s eyebrow inched closer to his hairline. “Sorry, I thought I just heard you say the firebird, but that can’t be right. That would be insane.”

Caius let his glare speak for him.

“Right,” Dorian said, slipping the map from Caius’s fingers. “And you want me to go find it … but why me? Doesn’t Tanith normally run this sort of errand for you?”

“Because I trust you.” It was the only answer Caius had and the only one Dorian needed.

Dorian was silent for a handful of moments, studying the map. “Are you sure about this?” he asked, looking back to Caius.

“As sure as I’ll ever be. I would like to see this war end in my lifetime, and if the firebird is the way to do that, I will find it. We’ve all lost enough.”

Dorian’s hand rose halfway to his eye patch before he let it fall to his side again. “The Avicen believe it’ll end the war in their favor. Couldn’t they be right?” The word “Avicen” clawed its way from Dorian’s throat as if he were expelling a demon.

“Whoever controls the firebird decides how it’s used,” said Caius. “The fact that those two Avicen scouts were sent to look for the firebird concerns me. It makes me think they might be on to something, but if we find it first, then we control it. We can end this war on our terms.”

“And if I may be so bold,” Dorian said. “What exactly are our terms?”

It was the exact question Caius had feared Dorian would ask. For Caius, finding the firebird was unfinished business. Not his own, but Rose’s. She’d searched for it, chasing peace, but death had brought her mission to a premature end. Caius had vowed, by the smoking remains of her cabin by the sea, that he would finish what she’d started. Dorian, on the other hand, wanted revenge. For his eye, for their friends who had fallen in combat, for every loss he could lay at the Avicen’s
feet. Caius knew he wouldn’t be able to sway Dorian, so he simply said, “Our desired outcome is a clean end.” He’d let Dorian interpret that as he would.

Dorian nodded absently, but remained silent, eye focused on the map in his hands.

Caius sighed and asked, “Do you think I’m sending you off on a fool’s errand? Honest opinion.”

“My opinion hardly matters,” said Dorian. He might even have meant it.

“You’re my closest friend, Dorian. Of course it does.” Caius was rewarded with a small smile, and he was glad of it. Dorian was notoriously sparing with those.

“I’ll admit,” Dorian said, trailing a finger along the lines of the map, “the idea of a firebird sounds a bit far-fetched.”

Caius pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to will away the headache he felt blooming behind his eyes. It didn’t work. “Which is simply a much nicer way of saying the same thing Tanith did. And if she did come around, I don’t know that any of us would like what she would do with something like the firebird. You know how she feels about escalation.”

“Well, Tanith certainly has her … opinions.” The disdain in Dorian’s tone was almost thick enough to walk on. Tanith was fire to Dorian’s water, and there was little love lost between them. Dorian raised his gaze from the parchment to meet Caius’s. “But you are my prince, and I would follow you anywhere. Even on a fool’s errand such as this.”

Caius grinned. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

“I thought it was for my roguish charm and devilishly good looks.”

“Well, yes, but I assumed that went without saying.”

“So,” Dorian said, holding up the map at an angle. “Where am I going? I can’t read this.”

“That’s because it’s in Japanese,” Caius responded. “I took it from one of my atlases. You’re going to Kyoto. I did you the favor of circling the location our Avicen prisoners had visited prior to their capture.”

“Oh, excellent, I might just catch the cherry blossoms.” Dorian folded the map and tucked it away in his pocket. “Any idea what I’m looking for specifically?”

And that was the rub. “No,” Caius said. “We have the where, but not the what. They said there’s some elderly human woman living at the teahouse they were sent to and that she didn’t know a thing, but there has to be more to it than that. Altair’s too smart to waste resources on dead ends. Interrogate her. Find out whatever you can. If Altair has a lead on the firebird, I want to chase it down.”

“You want me to terrorize a fragile old lady?” Dorian asked. “What kind of monster are you?”

Caius punched him on the shoulder. “That’s no way to speak to your prince.”

Dorian bowed deeply, but with a hint of a laugh dancing at the edge of his lips. “Forgive me, my liege.”

Caius knew the gentle teasing was for his benefit, and he appreciated the effort. With tensions rising in his own court, it was nice to be reminded that he still had friends, even if they were in short supply these days. “You flatter me with your sincerity, Captain. Now get going. Round up a few of your best guards and make haste. I want whatever this is in my possession by morning.”

“Then have it by morning you shall,” Dorian said, straightening. With a brisk nod, he turned to leave.

Caius knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he could trust Dorian with anything and everything, but some things still needed to be said. “And, Dorian?”

Dorian turned, eyebrow arched.

“Tell no one.”

It was an easy jaunt from Charing Cross Road to Grand Central, and Rowan was the consummate gentleman the entire way, opening gateways to the in-between and holding Echo’s hand as they crossed them. He was only a few months older than Echo, but there was something about him that made him seem more mature than his years. Confidence was a second skin he wore as comfortably as his own. It hadn’t always been that way, though. Echo had been there to witness his awkward adolescence, when his limbs were gangly and he flopped around like a puppy that didn’t know how to use its oversized paws. Over the past year, he’d blossomed like a beautiful flower—not that she would ever,
ever
say that to him. Unless, of course, she felt like making him cringe.

They made their way to the Nest, passing through the wards in one of Metro-North’s abandoned tunnels. The Nest’s main gateway was located almost directly beneath the busiest part of the station, where commuters gathered
around the clock at the center of the main concourse. Magic, the Ala had explained to an awestruck seven-year-old Echo, was powerful there. The comings and goings of millions of feet and thousands of trains thinned the veil between this world and the world between, constantly pouring magic into the Nest’s gateway.

“So,” Rowan said, slinging an arm around Echo’s shoulders, “any idea what the Ala wants with you?”

“Maybe.” Echo reached up and twined her fingers with his. Rowan’s half smile blossomed into a full one, and it summoned a matching grin from Echo. “But I can’t tell you.” She mimed zipping her lips shut.

“Oh, come on.” Rowan twirled her around to face him, maneuvering her so that she was walking backward. Gentle hands on her waist guided her so she didn’t miss a single step. The farther they got from the crowd around the main gateway, the more affectionate they could be. Even the Avicen who didn’t mind Echo’s presence among them had a tendency to frown on a relationship between one of their own and a human. The few drops of human blood that coursed through Rowan’s veins were easily overlooked. They didn’t blame him for the sins of his ancestors, but they did blame Echo for leading a nice Avicen boy astray. “What could be so important you can’t tell your”—he glanced around, dropping his voice to a loud stage whisper—“boyfriend?”

There it was. That word. Echo wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to it. She stopped walking and popped up on her toes, hands balanced on his shoulders, forehead resting against his. She remembered when they’d been the same height as children. The only fight they’d ever gotten into had been about who had reached five feet first. Six days of angry silence had
stretched between them until Rowan had relented, conceding that Echo had cracked that milestone.

“Nope,” she said. “It’s all very hush-hush.”

Rowan tilted his head to the side. He’d taken off the cap the second they’d passed into the safety of the Nest, loosening his feathers with a playful shake of his head. They were a thousand shades of gold and bronze, speckled with copper and cropped short. They shimmered faintly, lit by the glowing torches lining the stone corridors leading to the Ala’s chamber.

“Have it your way,” he said, letting his hands fall from Echo’s waist. She frowned. It wasn’t like him to drop something so quickly. They’d gone only a few steps before his fingers hooked around hers again, though his grip was tense. As they approached the residential section of the Nest, the doors became less uniform. Some had welcome mats in front of them, others had pots of herbs arranged on their windowsills. The Ala’s chamber was located at the very end of the path. Rowan peered down at the gravel of the stone and wooden walkway, slowing his pace. He was uncharacteristically quiet. The Rowan Echo knew was all smiles and sunshine. This Rowan was veering dangerously close to sullen.

Echo stopped, pulling on Rowan’s hand to prevent him from walking any farther. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Rowan jerked his head up. He glanced at her, nibbling on his lower lip. Any other day, Echo would have been transfixed by the way his lip was pillowed between his teeth, but there was a tightness to his shoulders that spoiled the moment. “We’re still friends, right?” he asked quietly.

“Of course we are.” Echo squeezed his hand. He kicked a loose stone, sending it clattering ahead of them. It bounced
on the broken bits of wood that lined the ground at uneven intervals.

“I just—I don’t want this”—he gestured at the space between them—“to change us, you know?” He took a step closer to Echo, and her heart fluttered against her rib cage. She was beginning to think that maybe this was what relationships did to people. They hurt and felt good, at the same time.

Echo brought his hand up to her lips to press a gentle kiss along the ridges of his knuckles. He’d tucked his gloves into his pocket, and the soft feathers on the back of his hand tickled her nose. “You’re one of my best friends,” she said. “You and Ivy are my family. You know that.” She poked him in the side, making him jump. He’d always been incurably ticklish. “Besides … our dynamic hasn’t changed that much. I still think I’m smarter, prettier, and funnier than you are, so there’s that.”

Rowan let out a small laugh. “Please. You wish you were this pretty.”

Echo shoved him lightly. “Beauty fades.” The moment the words escaped her lips, she regretted them. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Rowan wouldn’t age the way she would. He would reach full maturity, and then, like all Avicen, his aging process would slow until it almost stopped. The Avicen could live for hundreds of years; human life spans seemed paltry in comparison. It was something they never discussed. Talking about it would require thinking about the future
—their
future as a couple—and Echo wasn’t quite ready for that conversation.

Rowan settled his hands on her hips and pulled her closer to him. “Sorry,” he said, pressing his lips to her forehead. “I’m just stressed out, and it’s making me overthink just about everything.”

Letting her eyes droop closed, Echo rested her cheek against his shoulder and breathed in his soapy scent. Boy smell. It was magic. She tilted her head up to meet his eyes. “What’s got you so stressed?”

He huffed, as if he was breathing out his frustration. “Training’s been pretty rough. My partner is kind of … intense.”

Warhawk training operated on a buddy system of sorts. New recruits were assigned partners, and Echo had heard that Altair liked pairing up conflicting personalities to better teach the recruits the power of teamwork. Rowan was one of the most laid-back people Echo had ever met, which meant his partner must have been the opposite of mellow.

“Who is it?” she asked.

Rowan stopped walking. They’d reached the door to the Ala’s chamber, with its trio of iron ravens glaring down at them from the lintel. A tense few seconds passed before he said, “Ruby.”

Echo stepped back, dropping Rowan’s hands as if they were hot coals. “Ruby? As in, the Ruby who hates me with the fire of a thousand suns? The Ruby who’s tried her damnedest to make my life miserable since I got here? The Ruby who’s been crushing on you since she knew what a crush was? That Ruby?”

Rowan winced. “Yup. That Ruby.”