Chapter 21
Her father looked up at her when she entered his office, his face both tender and concerned. “You brought more friends.”
“Daddy—”
He waved his hand and smiled, leaning back. “Sit, my sunshine. You look shredded to the bone.”
She settled into the chair near the table, and he rose from his desk and poured them each a finger of his very old scotch.
He set one of the crystal glasses in her hand. “I have already told the cook and housekeeper to prepare for the invasion. This journey you’re on…it’s powerful and it’s necessary. I’m proud of you for accepting it and fighting to keep all that we have.”
She sipped, the liquid potent and burning down her throat.
Everything poured out of her, and by the time she was finished, he had her in his arms on the sofa, rocking her.
“I have always taught you to be self-sufficient, and what you say already lives in me.” He cupped her face.
“Our line has been tasked from the beginning, my child. Its knowledge passed down through the bloodline, and I know something’s amiss in this lifetime.
But you’re on the path to figuring it out.
Our red-headed friend will gain answers. ”
She nodded. “Hopefully, it will be in time.”
“Your great wound. Ah, love, it does something to all of us, but there is no greater gift to find it, and that gift has a way of deciding when it’s done.”
“I love him, and I hurt him by mistake.”
He nodded. “Everything comes in time. Patience will open everything, even the heart. I have faith in you and your very large team. Let Brawler know that the kind of dog food he usually feeds his K9 will be available. No one will lack in this house.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
She left him with a kiss to her forehead, his warmth and strength running through her.
When she entered the library, Flash rose and came to her.
His eyes were still bruised with the knowledge of what had happened in the glade, and the memory of the way that blood had gushed out of him from a wound she’d caused was still vivid and devastating.
She kissed him softly because he looked like he needed it, and she was rewarded with his muscles under her hand relaxing.
“Your dad?” Fly asked, sitting at the table with all his research still haphazardly strewn in front of him.
“He’s been briefed and is happy to accommodate us.” She looked at Brawler. “Even Beast. He’ll have the best food a dog could hope for.”
Brawler nodded, and Beast’s ears flicked forward.
The rest of the team of big, gorgeous men were sitting or standing in the room, with the addition of Komodo and Krait. Thank God they were on board. Clashing with them was the last thing she wanted to do. She felt North’s absence. He was two floors down with Twister checking him all the time.
Komodo pushed off the shelves. "I reached out to Silas."
Krait's head came up at the name.
“Division chief,” Tex said in his lazy drawl.
“Just to touch base. I gave him a report that we were close.”
Krait released a huffed laugh. “Close? Yeah, like in the same room. Is he pissed we haven’t made progress?”
"No." Komodo's voice stayed level, but something worked behind his eyes.
"He didn't ask where I was. He didn't ask about her.
" He looked at Lechuza when he said it. "He asked if I'd been sleeping.
Then he told me he hadn't. Said he’s been standing at his window most nights with the feeling that something is calling him from a long way off, something he can't name, and it won't let him go. "
No one filled the quiet for a moment.
"The Veil," Lechuza said.
"He doesn't have the word yet." Komodo's mouth went grim. "But our boss is sitting in an office in Virginia, getting pulled toward his future. So however deep you think this runs, it runs deeper. We're all on the same thread now, whether we signed for it or not."
“The Veil would never force you. If you don’t take the oath, it’ll release you,” Lechuza said firmly.
Krait huffed out another laugh. “You think our chief is going to back down.”
Lechuza smiled. “No. Of course not. He’s a hard ass.”
Komodo chuckled. “For whatever it’s worth,” Krait said.
“He didn’t want to issue the arrest warrant.
When he got the news about your signature, I’ve never seen him so shocked in my life.
” She looked at Komodo, and he nodded. “But we knew if he didn’t send us, it could have been bad for you.
” She flicked her attention to Flash. “I was the one who suggested EAST. I said you had a connection to Flash and that could be used to our advantage. But I knew if it was possible to clear you, he would move heaven and earth to make it right.”
The faint draw under her sternum that never fully quieted anymore tightened, the same pull reaching all the way to a tired man at a window in Langley who'd spent his whole career certain the world was only as wide as the part he could see. How would all of this change them all?
Komodo looked at Fly. “Can I see North’s body?”
* * *
Fly sat beside the bed and watched his best friend breathe. The body did the work of living and nothing else. Chest rising slow, color holding, Twister's resonance laid over him, a protective shield.
Tex stood at the foot of it with his arms crossed, saying nothing, which from Tex was a full conversation.
Komodo came in without sound, the way he did everything. He didn't look at Fly or Tex. He looked at North, and he went still in a way Fly recognized, because it was the same stillness he fell into over a problem that wouldn't quit.
"He left a line out," Komodo said.
Fly came halfway out of the chair. "Say that again."
"This kid…strong as hell with roots that go deep." Komodo crouched at the bedside, his head tilted like he was listening to something under the floor. "He's anchored. There's a thread running off him into the distance, thin as wire and still holding. He didn't let go on the way out.”
“Anchoring?” Fly asked.
“Himself, and us.” He glanced up, and for once there was no calculation in it, just a tracker stating facts. "I've followed signatures across thresholds my whole life. I've never seen one a man held open from the far side."
"That's Than," Fly said, and it came out rough. "He always knows where he is."
"Then he's findable.”
“We can’t. Not yet. He specifically asked us not to, and when he digs in, he’s immovable.”
Komodo nodded. “Okay, that’s fair.” He rose muttering, “Fucking SEALs.” Took a soft breath, almost as if he were testing the air.
“When that font opens the way you're all betting it will, that thread is something I can follow.
" He looked at North's still face a moment longer.
"Tell me when. I'll bring your anchor home. "
Fly didn't trust himself to answer, so Tex did it for him, quiet from the foot of the bed. "We'll tell you when."
Fly left North’s room, holding onto Tex’s words that there would be a when, and Komodo’s statement that North was not only hanging on but anchoring them.
He had to stop for a moment and set his hand against the wall as fear washed cold in his gut.
“Than…you’ve given so much. I won’t rest until you’re back here where you belong. ”
He headed straight to Lechuza’s room. Everyone had been sorted out by Lechuza’s housekeeper. The woman had them all in rooms and beds with the efficiency of a well-run hotel. Fly’s body ached, and he wanted to move toward his own room.
The visions were the clues, but he didn’t feel vindicated or relieved.
The waterfall, the courtship, the slow, unbearable beauty of two people loving each other across a devastating war.
He'd stood inside those threads with the rest of them.
But the last one, the glade, the night it all went to blood, he had only Flash and Lechuza's account of it, secondhand, and that was the one he needed.
Whatever shut the font down lived in that vision, and he didn't have it.
What he had was the scar. The one he carried on his flesh was an echo of the one she had inflicted, the one that sat under the chakana, splitting open and weeping when the font reached for them.
A five-hundred-year-old injury bleeding fresh was the way the Veil communicated.
It was telling them the scar was the place where the connection broke.
When he knocked on their door, Flash answered, stiffening. “She’s exhausted.”
“I know and I’m sorry. I have to ask some questions.”
Flash nodded, letting Fly inside. She was sitting on the couch in her robe, freshly showered, her hair still damp.
"The blade," he said, crouching to her level. "The one from the glade. The one your…you used. Do you know what happened to it?"
Fear flashed in her eyes, and she looked away from him. "No." She frowned. “I can’t remember what I did with it after…” She leaned back, her face going white. “I’m so tired.”
"Okay," he said. It was clear she didn’t want to think about the weapon she’d plunged into the man Quri had loved. "Get some sleep."
The house went quiet by degrees, and Fly lay in the dark, and his brain wouldn’t stop running everything over and over in his head.
He gave up and went back to North’s room. His friend hadn't moved. Fly sat in the chair, reaching past North, down the gold, for the one voice that might still have answers.
Visionary. Aurelion came faint, frayed at the edges, a signal stretched too thin across too much interference.
"Has there always been a keyholder?" Fly kept it low, mindful of North, though he doubted anything reached him.
Yes. The word arrived like it had traveled a long way. Since the Weavers lost their hold on Chaos. They poured all their collective power into one bloodline, the holder the lock was built for.
"It's always been her." He already knew. He needed to hear it. "Hasn't it?"
Yes. It has always been her.
"Then Flash." This was the piece that didn’t make sense. "How does he play out in this? Where does he fit?"