Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
A bove me, trees swayed, and the murmur of a crowd made me shove Handsome European off my chest. We were in a park. Impossible. A park.
I gaped, my eyes going from the tall trees to the green grass to the distinct lack of tall Paris apartments surrounding us.
“Is this part of the performance?” a curious voice asked.
I turned my head, realizing the crowd hadn’t gathered to see me in one of my favorite positions: pinned underneath a handsome man. We were in between a busker and the crowd attracted by his guitar playing.
“Where are we?” I asked in French.
“Victoria Park,” the busker answered, eyes wide. At least one person knew that two strangers appearing out of thin air wasn’t normal.
I nodded, standing and reaching for Handsome European’s hand, dragging him through the crowd until we found a small bench under a shady tree. I sat, trying to catch my breath.
How did we get here? How did we get here?
It wasn’t even a question, just a plea from the depths of my mind for any explanation. We had clearly teleported, which meant magic. Up until now, I hadn’t seen any sign. The gunmen had used normal weapons, not any artifacts that lent themselves to blowing up Paris streets.
That meant one thing: Handsome European had done something.
Standing in one fluid movement, I grabbed him and slammed him against the tree. His eyes went wide, and I was struck by how attractive he was, his golden-brown eyes, his plush lips. Even the surprised O of his mouth.
“What did you do?” I demanded. “ What did you do ?”
“What did I do?” he asked, shoving at my hands.
I tightened my grip on his shirt, the fine fabric going tense in my hands. “You did something. What?”
He pinched at my hand, and pain shot from my thumb up to my elbow. I yelped, letting him go, and he tugged his shirt straight, though the wrinkles from where I’d been grabbing it remained. Shaking my hand, I winced.
“How did we get here?” I gestured to the park. I wasn’t even sure where Victoria Park was in Paris. “Was it a magic artifact?”
“Excuse me, sirs. Are you all right?” A woman wearing a cop’s uniform approached, hands open, expression inviting, but the small lines between her brows indicated that she was worried about us.
I started to pull on my most bullshit-ready smile when I really looked at her uniform. “You’re a Mountie.”
The lines between her brows got even deeper. “Sir, do you need medical or psychiatric attention?”
What was a Mountie doing in Paris? What was a Mountie in uniform doing in Paris acting like she had any right to send me to a hospital?
“Sir, can you tell me what happened?” She finally reached us and looked between me and Handsome European. When I didn’t respond, she switched to English. “Sir? What happened?”
Her French didn’t sound the same as the Parisian version I had been struggling through all week. That meant something, and since my brain could only come up with bad things, I asked the only thing that made sense.
“Where in Canada are we?”
“Québec,” she said slowly. “If it’s all right with you, I’m going to call an ambulance.”
Abruptly, I stood, shaking my head. “No, no, sorry. We had a long night. Too many drinks. You know how American tourists are.”
I grabbed Handsome European’s elbow, dragging him away, ignoring the Mountie’s frown until we lost ourselves in the crowd. When I was sure we had gotten away, I pulled him into a small grove of trees.
“Where are the pine trees?” he asked. “Everyone says that Canada has pine trees.”
“We traveled half a hemisphere, and all you care about is that Québec isn’t like the travel brochure?” I began pacing back and forth, quieting my voice when a pair of joggers passed nearby.
“Well, it’s arguably false advertising,” Handsome European Who Wanted to Speak with Canada’s Manager said snappily. My heart rate jumped, adrenaline surging through my body making everything come into sharp focus.
“How did you do this?” I hissed, demanding. He had to have a magical artifact. But if he did, why hadn’t he used it to flee from the gunmen when they first attacked? “What magical artifact did you use?”
“None. I didn’t do this. I have no desire to be half a hemisphere away from the object I need.” He lifted his shoulders, chin rising. “How dare you speak to me like that?”
“How dare I —” I snorted. “Who are you anyway?”
He reared back as though I had presented him with the severed head of his favorite racehorse. “You may call me Your Highness , Shadow Prince, heir to the throne of Moonlight and Whispers.”
For a second, I was one hundred percent positive that he was taking me for the rube I was. What an idiot I had been, saving his neck when it was very clear I should have saved my own.
“Let’s try this again. What is your name?” When he hesitated, I stepped closer, stopping just short of grabbing hold of his arm. “I saved your life a half dozen times today. What is your name ?”
He raised his chin. Even though he was a few inches shorter than me, I suddenly got the feeling that he towered above me, shoulders drawn back. He wasn’t wearing whatever crown the heir to the throne of Moonlight and Whispers entitled him to, but I felt like I saw it anyway.
“You have saved my life. The service you have done me was unexpected but much needed. I might have escaped, but not nearly as cleanly, and revealing my position to my brother is not an option.” His words were strangely formal.
I waved my hand. I kept up with what I needed to know in the criminal underground. I had no idea what was going on with politics, much less the royal family of some no-name European nation.
“No. Such a debt must be satisfied. Will you take a boon in exchange?” When I stared at him blankly, he clarified, “Will you have my name in exchange for the service you have done me today?”
This was way beyond my pay grade, but I managed to parse what he was saying. “You’re going to tell me your name because I saved your life. Yes. That’s the polite thing to do, and Mamá Reyes was a big believer in politeness.” Also in quid pro quo.
“I am Cassander, Shadow?—”
I rolled my wrist, repeating with him, “—Prince, heir to the throne of Moonlight and Whispers.”
I really needed to look up whatever country he was from, but since it had taken both of us nearly dying just to get his name, I figured I would wait until maybe I had saved the world or lifted a bus off him. Either way, based on his accent and his bearing, I pegged him as maybe Eastern European. A small enough country that they still gave him the respect he thought he deserved, but not big enough that I had ever heard of it.
I narrowed my eyes at him. He had to have something to do with us randomly appearing in Canada, but I couldn’t figure out how.
A magical artifact that could do anything close to this would already be on the agency’s radar. Nothing like this had been seen since World War II.
“Right. Well, Cassander, we need to figure out what’s going on. While I’m on the phone, try not to attract the attention of any more people who want to murder you.”
“I will endeavor to keep the assassination attempts to one today,” Cassander said drily. He raised an eyebrow. “And you should try not to trip and teleport into any more musical performances. I doubt you have the voice for the stage.”
“I’ll have you know, my range is tremendous,” I said. “Sublime. Put me on Broadway, give me a solo, and I’d be a star.”
Cassander stared at me, one of his lips going up, amusement clear in the twist of it. “Of course. How dare I assume otherwise?”
“Yes. How dare you.” I found myself smiling just enough to remind me exactly why I’d saved him in the first place. Something about him sparked, like flint lighting kindling.
“Either way, I need to return. So, this is where we part ways.” He tilted his head, as though saying goodbye. He still hadn’t asked my name. The oddness of that tripped me up, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “I have acknowledged your service already.”
“Right…” I frowned at him. “So you’re just going to hop on a plane back to Paris, where people are trying to kill you?”
“No. I was going to use a more efficient method.” He raised his hand, and I stared. Nothing happened. He frowned.
“Boat? Cruise? Are you taking a hot-air balloon?” I tried to guess what his hand meant as he opened and closed it, continuing to glare.
“No.” He shook his head sharply. “No. Why isn’t it working?”
“Why isn’t what working?” I asked sharply, my mouth faster than my brain, which made the connection a second later.
He did have an artifact. And here I was, acting like an idiot believing those innocent brown eyes. What artifact did he have that could possibly do this?
I needed to arrest him. I needed to take him into custody so the US Government could confiscate an artifact powerful enough that it brought the two of us across the world. I reached for him, grabbing hold of his wrist.
He turned his glare on me, baring his teeth as he hissed, “How dare you touch me? I am the Shadow?—”
“—Prince,” I said. “So, does the title come with the attitude, or did they sell that separately? Because let me tell you that I’d definitely return it for a refund.”
Before he could respond, my phone rang. We both froze, and I pulled it out with my left hand, awkwardly juggling it. When I saw the screen, I looked at him.
“Don’t move.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Who exactly do you think you are? What authority do you have that makes you think you have any right to detain me?”
“Don’t. Move.” I tightened my grip on his wrist, and his nostrils flared.
Then, I let him go and pressed the accept button, bringing the phone to my ear.
“Twenty-one?” I asked.
“Agent Reyes, are you hurt?” Her words were quick, but there was tension under them that I didn’t recognize.
“No. I tried calling you. Something very weird happened, and I figured the SPA would have some insight.” I glanced around, but we were alone; no one else was nearby.
Cassander opened and closed his hand, growing increasingly frustrated. He shook it sharply, his palm swinging back and forth before he lifted it again.
Stop , I mouthed, but he glared back at me, the words a clear challenge.
Make me.
“What happened?” Twenty-one sounded agitated, which raised hairs on the back of my neck. She never sounded anything other than cool and disinterested. If I hadn’t caught her one time with the worst head cold, I would have assumed she was a robot the SPA built to deal with rogue agents and idiots in the field.
“We were in Paris?—”
“Who is we ? Do you have anyone from the team there?”
Her question brought me up short, and I glanced at Cassander, but there was no way he was part of the SPA strike team. I had met them on several occasions. They tended toward all-black tactical gear, guns that would make a four-star general blush, and the conversational equivalent of pounding two rocks together.
“The strike team? No. I thought they were following the targets. You said they were on track to take them down today. I was just waiting for confirmation before making my next move with Green Scales.” I waited, seeing if Twenty-one was going to give me any more information. When she didn’t, I continued. “I was at the market you pointed me to—the one with the falafel—and unknown gunmen opened fire. They seemed to be shooting at random, but then I realized they were targeting a civilian. He and I have been traveling together since then.”
“A civilian?” Twenty-one sounded puzzled. “You’re protecting a civilian? Do you have ID on him?”
“No.”
I winced. Why had I hesitated in giving up Cassander’s name? I was planning to arrest him. I was .
But I knew why I hadn’t. They recorded these lines, putting everything we said in files. Anyone from the organization with high enough clearance could, at any point, pull up every conversation I had had with Twenty-one. Including the ones I wanted to forget, like when I was high on truth serum after one of the gangs I had been trying to infiltrate dosed me in a botched interrogation.
No one needed to know that I had a desperate thing for Mr. Bronson, my seventh-grade PE teacher, or that I was still upset about my sister dyeing my teddy bear’s fur pink.
“So you aren’t with anyone from the SPA?” Twenty-one asked.
“No. Just a civilian. Why? What happened?”
As I waited, I frowned at Cassander. He had slumped down on a nearby log, still staring at his open palm, his eyes turned down in the corners, the corners of his lips pinched. He looked up, as though he could feel my eyes on him, and he grimaced something close to a smile.
He was too young, maybe a couple of years younger than me, with pale, luminescent skin and hair that was soft enough I could spend hours combing my fingers through it. Even his eyes flipped between gold and brown depending on the light.
But with that morbid, unhappy expression on his face, he looked ages older than me.
“The strike team is dead.” Twenty-one’s words were clipped, chilly, back to her usual emotionless self.
“What?” I yanked my eyes away from Cassander, blinking and staring at nothing, as though if I looked hard enough I could see Twenty-one and whatever horrible expression was on her face.
“They moved into position; we had a few drones watching them and the surrounding areas. Gunmen came out of nowhere, taking them out.” There was something she wasn’t telling me, and I shivered like an ice cube was sliding down my spine.
I waited, but there was only silence on the other end.
“Was it Green Scales?” I asked.
“That’s the assumption that we’re running with, but if that’s true, then either our early intel was wrong, or someone sold them out.” She didn’t say anything else, but I could hear everything that wasn’t being said.
I was their early intel, and I was the only agent who had been working closely with Green Scales. If there was a board of suspicious people going up in the SPA as they tried to figure out who was betraying the organization, my face would be the one with all the red arrows pointed at it.
“Where are you?” she asked.
I gave an unhappy laugh. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. Something weird happened. We fell down some stairs, and we landed in Québec.”
“Agent Reyes, I need you to repeat your location.” Twenty-one kept her voice neutral, but she had never asked me to repeat anything, even when I had called her while hiding behind an oil drum and getting shot at with several semi-automatic weapons.
“Repeating,” I said. “I fell down some stairs and landed in the city of Québec. In Canada.”
“Agent Reyes, can you confirm that you are in Canada ?” Twenty-one asked.
“Yeah. Complete with Mounties who are probably right now getting a padded van for me. A very polite padded van.” I shook my head.
“Could it be your companion?” Twenty-one asked.
I glanced back at Cassander, hesitating.
I needed to tell her. He knew something. The gunmen had been after him and probably whatever artifact he’d used to transport us here.
But if I told Twenty-one any of that, then they would pin the strike team’s death on him. He’d be dead before he ever saw the inside of a cell, much less a courtroom.
“It’s possible,” I conceded.
“Find out if it is. For now, I’m going to work on extracting you. Your cards should still be good. Keep your phone on—I’m sure our supervisors will want to talk to you as soon as they get out of their meetings.” Twenty-one was back to business, any hint of the intense emotion she had been feeling wiped clean.
“Any suggestions on where we should hole up?” I asked.
“I’m making your reservations right now. You should be getting the notification.” After she finished speaking, I felt my phone buzz in my hand. “Stand by for further instructions. I’m glad that you avoided the gunmen.”
“Me too,” I admitted, but I was speaking to a dead line.
Sliding the phone back in my pocket, I strode over to Cassander.
Twenty-one was right: he was the most suspicious part of this entire encounter. He clearly thought he had some way to get back to Paris magically, and an artifact that powerful that wasn’t on anyone’s radar? That was what kept me up at night like a preschooler whose night-light had gone out.
I needed to question him about the death of the SPA strike team, although… a niggling thought reminded me, the rogue gunmen in Paris had been after him.
If Green Scales had figured out the SPA was getting ready to take down another part of the organization, then it wasn’t a big stretch to wonder if the rogue gunmen had actually been Green Scales and been after me . Maybe they’d gotten mixed up about their target. Either way, Cassander needed interrogating.
“Come on, Your Majesty. Uncle Sam has provided us with three hots and a cot. Don’t get too excited—we do have a per diem, so no caviar.” I jerked my head, and Cassander looked up sharply, eyes narrowed.
I read him quickly. Something had upset him, something unexpected that turned his snark into sharp unhappiness. If I wanted to flip him, wanted him to reveal all his secrets to me, I needed to be the sympathetic ear, the person who was just so sorry about whatever was wrong. He needed profound sympathy, unreasonable reassurances of his own goodness and lack of culpability in the situation.
But between the stress of my meeting with Tyler earlier, then people shooting at us, then transporting myself half a world away, I was too tired to be his nursemaid.
Instead, I waited, watching as he ground his teeth before standing, chin raised haughtily, following me as I left the park.