Chapter 31 Tyche
Tyche
Being carried out over the shoulder of a dragon like a sack of turnips might not have been dignified, but it gave Tyche a glorious last view of Ruben’s house as the whole thing went up in flames.
Ruben had at least a dozen security guards on the premises, but it looked like they were all dead now, thanks to Adrian and Shey.
He hoped, though, that the servants had gotten out before the place went up.
“Couldn’t we just pause and enjoy it?” Tyche called out, waving his free hand at the house while the other one clutched the bag filled with the tablet, shards, and other stolen goods.
“Nope. Time to go!” Adrian called, racing ahead of them.
“But we need to appreciate—”
“Next time, Ty!” Shey cut him off.
Well, if there was going to be a next time, he guessed he could wait.
As they reached the car, Haru put him on his feet, and they all dove inside.
Adrian whipped the vehicle around in the circular drive with a squeal of tires and smoke.
They barreled down the winding path, picking up speed.
Tyche wrestled with the seat belt, trying to secure himself in the event that Adrian had to plow through the metal gate.
But a bit of good luck shone on them. As they made the last turn, they found the gate open as another car raced through ahead of them. It was a beat-up clunker that rattled and belched black smoke. At least some servants had gotten out in time.
“Whoo-hoo!” Tyche shouted as they shot out of the driveway and made a hard, tire-shredding turn onto the main road.
“Holy shit!” Adrian moaned, slumping in his seat. Despite the obvious relief in his voice, he didn’t let up on the gas as he continued to race through the quiet streets, heading for the heart of Bellcairn.
“But do you think we acted too hastily?” Haru inquired. “Should we have tried to torture him more to get the name of his boss?”
Shey shook his head. “He would never have willingly given it up. He would have weaseled and blustered until help arrived. I could see it in his eyes. Ruben had no intention of telling us the truth.”
“I’m sure we’ll get something out of all this.” Tyche pulled the strap of the messenger bag from his shoulder and held the bag out to Shey.
“Fuck! That’s right! Did you get the shard? Please tell me you found the Firestone shard. Caelan will have my ass if we left that behind.”
“My cousin may not have anything to do with your ass,” Haru grumbled.
“Haru!”
“We got that shard along with another box of what feels like smaller shards,” Tyche reassured him.
As he spoke, Shey pulled the flat case out of the bag and opened the lid a crack to peer inside.
Tyche winced reflexively but was relieved to discover that the sharp magical stabbing he’d felt with the shard from the Isle of Stone Godstone wasn’t nearly as strong with these tiny slivers of green, purple, red, and gold.
All the same, he reached a hand toward Shey and waved at the box. “Shut that. You’re making me carsick.”
“I have a feeling that’s Adrian’s driving,” Shey teased, but he closed the lid anyway and stuffed the case into the bag. “It looks like you two grabbed a lot more than a tablet and the shards.”
“Really?” Adrian said, perking up.
“I found his phone. His laptop was already in the bag. Haru snatched up all the papers out of the safe where we found the shards.” Tyche peeked into the bag that Shey was digging through and lifted his gaze to Shey’s face. “We’ll find something helpful in all that, right?”
Shey paused in his sifting through the bag’s contents and glanced over at Tyche, a warm smile spreading across his lips. “I’m sure we will.”
His heart fluttered.
Tyche jerked back and whipped his head around to stare out the window without seeing a damn thing.
What the fuck was that?
When had his heart learned to do that? And for Shey?
The human had grinned at him plenty of times—usually while teasing him—and his heart had never done that.
That…that wasn’t anything. Indigestion. Stress. They’d killed people and burned down an enormous house. They were escaping.
Yes, they were escaping.
Those were excited, escaping heart flutters. They had nothing to do with Shey’s amazing smile.
“Where are we going? To the hotel?” Adrian asked as he slowed at last for a red light.
“It should be safe.” Shey twisted in his seat and glanced behind them. “I don’t think anyone is following us, and there have been no police sirens.”
“That’s a little frightening that we could slaughter all those security guards and set the house on fire, but no one called the police,” Adrian mumbled.
“Did Ruben strike you as someone you’d want to save?” Tyche countered.
“Good point.”
They all seemed to release heavy sighs of relief as Adrian continued through the city at a more sedate pace, matching the flow of traffic as he wound them to the hotel.
Tyche shifted in his seat, moving his head from left to right, trying to loosen muscles that were suddenly tense.
A weird feeling was creeping across his skin.
Not Shey’s electric charge or even the bundle of angry magic living in the godstone shards. This was something else.
He lifted a hand and rubbed his forehead. A dull throb had started in his head out of nowhere.
“Tyche? You okay?”
Tyche turned his head to gaze at Shey, who was watching him with a furrowed brow. His luminous blue eyes looked even sharper in the low light of the interior of the car.
“Yeah. Um…it’s nothing. I—”
“What the—” Adrian shouted. The car jerked wildly to the left, slamming Tyche’s shoulder and head into the door hard.
He looked up in time to see a woman in a business suit skip through the busy street, narrowly missing getting hit by another car, but she didn’t even blink at it.
A wide grin filled her face, and her arms stretched over her head as she skipped and twirled as if she were moving through an empty meadow of wildflowers.
“Fuck! She came out of nowhere,” Adrian swore.
“Watch out!” Haru shouted, and Adrian stomped on the brakes.
Tyche lunged forward, stopped only by his seat belt, and slammed back into his seat.
Wincing, he peered about to see that all the other cars on the road had stopped.
Some were at weird angles in their lanes, while others were smashed into their neighbors or lampposts.
People randomly wove between the cars, dancing and twirling while passengers climbed out of their vehicles to shout.
“What’s going on?” Adrian whispered. “It’s like they’re in a trance or sleepwalking.”
“Fuck,” Tyche swore and attacked his seat belt, fighting to get it unlocked. “We need to get moving. Hurry! Out of the car!”
“Ty, what’s going on?” Shey demanded, his calm voice taking on an edge.
“I’ll explain when we’re moving. We need to be moving. Now.”
Tyche jumped out of the vehicle and searched the area. Everything appeared normal…ish. Some people were acting strangely, but most were unaffected. His perception of the world felt right. No flying elephants nor octopi slithering up to offer him coffee.
“Ty?” Shey repeated, calling out to him.
Tyche’s head whipped around to see Shey staring at him across the roof of the car. Adrian and Haru were also standing by their doors, watching him.
“Cirina is here.”
Shey paled. “You’re sure?”
“Cirina? Didn’t you say she was Yesuntei’s sister?” Adrian demanded.
“The Goddess of Dreams,” Haru filled in.
“Yeah, that’s her. We need to find her.” Tyche drew in a shuddering breath.
That was wrong. He couldn’t bring them into this.
Not into a fight with a god. That was insane.
Even if one of them were a dragon, it was still wrong.
“No, I’ve got to find her. Y-You need to get away from here.
” His eyes darted to Shey. “Good. You’ve got the bag.
Go. All of you. Take the long way back to the hotel. I-I’ll catch up later.”
He reached down and grabbed that pearl of Yesuntei’s powers through his pants.
If he could talk to Cirina, get her calm, he could hand it over and let her take it to Brightspire.
But he wasn’t expecting Cirina to be calm or reasonable.
And if she wasn’t, there was no way in hell he was giving her Yesuntei’s powers.
“I’m not leaving you to deal with her alone,” Shey stated. He lifted the strap of the messenger bag from his shoulder. He held it out to Haru. “You and Adrian take this to the hotel. You can start sorting through the paper work and see if you can get into his electronics.”
“Hell, no!” Adrian snapped. “We came all this way to find you. There’s no way you’re leaving our sight. We stick together.” His eyes jerked to Tyche and stopped. “All of us.”
Tyche wanted to argue with them. Send his new friends away.
Friends.
He froze, his eyes locked on Shey. His gaze drifted to Adrian and Haru. They were all watching him, expectant. Ready to jump in and help him.
In the weeks that he’d spent talking to Shey through a stone wall, in the days he’d spent in the hotel goofing off with Haru and Adrian, they had become friends. He’d actually made friends for the first time in his life.
“Tyche, what’s wrong?” Adrian asked.
“Huh. I was just thinking that you’re my friends. I made friends, and now I’m going to march you off to fight a pissed-off goddess. For the God of Luck, I have really shitty luck.”
A slow grin spread across Adrian’s face, and he chuckled. “Yeah, your luck is pretty bad if your first friend is Shey. You should work on that.”
“Enough. Let’s go see if we can reason with Cirina before anyone gets killed,” Shey admonished.
Yeah, reason with her. Tyche knew that wouldn’t be possible, but they had to try.
He turned toward the direction they were headed and pointed down the street clogged with stopped cars and angry drivers. “She’s that way. I can feel a pressure in the air from her magic.”