Chapter 8
Nyx woke to stabbing rays of morning sunlight streaming through the window she’d never closed the curtains on. She flung her arm over her eyes. Alcohol was clearly the devil’s drink. Her head throbbed, her eyes were grainy, and she considered it a legit Dead Earth miracle she wasn’t nauseous.
Why had she thought getting drunk was a good idea? How much had she drank? And why was she sleeping in her jeans? She hated sleeping in her jeans. And her bra. Sleeping in a bra was only one step up from actual torture.
Fumbling for the clasp, she undid it, slid the straps down her arms, and pulled the whole thing out from under her shirt.
She wanted her jeans off but didn’t quite have the energy yet to shimmy out of them.
She did not remember coming to bed. Frowning, she tried to play back the previous night’s events.
She remembered being the kind of near-manic jubilant that being tipsy sometimes made her, and subsequently deciding that more alcohol was definitely the answer, and…
had she really decided a Lord of the Rings drinking game was the way to go?
Yes, yes she had. And she’d drunk significantly more than Kaden had because Aragorn wouldn’t stop being hot, while Kaden apparently did not find any of the elven women attractive. She couldn’t remember actually finishing the movie.
Hadn’t she fallen asleep on the couch? And why did the graininess of her eyes feel less like the result of an ill-advised night of indulgence and more like she’d been crying?
It came back to her in a cascade of broken pieces. Kaden picking her up. Physical contact making her heartsick. Wanting to feel anything, even if it was pain, and then—
Fuck.
What the hell was wrong with her? Why did she have to keep interrogating every single thing she didn’t understand? Thank the stars Kaden hadn’t answered her question. Thank them more he hadn’t stayed when she’d asked him to.
Seriously, what the fuck was wrong with her? She turned over to bury her face in the pillows and rolled onto something hard and metallic.
I did warn you that you were making poor decisions.
She groaned. How had Alihana gotten into bed with her?
It was rude of you to leave me behind on the counter.
“You don’t even like being around me,” she grumbled.
Can you blame me? Now arise. Let us find this Shaman so you may fulfill your promises.
“Yeah, ‘arising’ is unlikely right now.” She felt like shit.
Your friend has left you rejuvenating items.
Evra had left her what? She cracked one eye open, spying a red sports drink and a small pill bottle on the nightstand.
Summoning all her strength of will, she retrieved both.
A cursory inspection of the bottle label proved it to be generic naproxen sodium.
After wrestling with the child-safe lid, and then the foil seal that proved it hadn’t been previously opened, she tapped out two blue oval pills and swallowed them.
How had Evra even known she preferred naproxen to ibuprofen? Maybe it was all they’d had in the hotel lobby shop? No mystery how the had known she was trashed, though. Alihana had probably taken great delight in relaying that.
An hour later, having successfully kept the sports drink down, showered, and found clean clothing, Nyx braced herself to emerge from the room.
She tried to put the events of last night into perspective.
How bad was it really? She’d been drunk, and nobody ever trusted what you said when you were drunk, right?
Also Kaden been drunk, so maybe he didn’t even remember?
Maybe she could pretend she didn’t remember?
Deciding on the last one, she sucked in a breath and opened the door. Evra lounged on the couch, flipping through a magazine. She looked up when the door opened. “You are awake. Wonderful. We may go.” She stood, tossing the magazine onto the couch.
“Go where?” Nyx asked. Hopefully not right to work. “And where is everyone?”
“Kaden woke early and left a note that he had gone to resume tracking. When Morgen and I woke and found it, Morgen was annoyed Kaden left without him and went to find him. I have been waiting for you to wake so that we may have breakfast. I am starving. We may go now, yes?”
“Sure.” Food sounded both wonderful and terrible. It was either going to fix everything that was wrong with her, or make her throw up. She held up the empty sports drink bottle. “Thanks for this, by the way. And for bringing Alihana in. Whatever they told you, I was not that drunk.”
Evra’s brows drew together in a frown, her gaze sweeping over Nyx, landing first on the empty bottle, like she’d never seen it before, then on Alihana. Then her expression cleared, and she said only, “Of course.”
After the best and greasiest breakfast in Nyx’s recent memory, she felt almost completely human again, or at least enough that the idea of walking miles through the city didn’t sound like a herculean task.
How Evra was vertical and—for Evra—chipper, Nyx had no idea, since she and Morgen had apparently come in around three in the morning and woken at seven.
Nyx chose to chalk it up to Scythian biology and let Evra lead the way from the diner.
As they walked, Nyx found her gaze sliding to every stranger they passed.
Evra’s suggestion that Nyx should have a hookup had seemed absurd when she’d made it, but after the disaster of last night, Nyx couldn’t deny that maybe she should take it.
Maybe she needed something, even if only for a moment.
But no matter how many people she passed, she couldn’t imagine sleeping with any of them.
Couldn’t imagine finding anything she wanted in any of them.
She needed a connection, however tenuous, to be that intimate with someone.
It was no doubt why she’d drunkenly wanted Kaden.
Because she had that connection with him, even if it was littered with a metric ton of baggage.
“You are thinking entirely too much,” Evra said. “What on?”
The word nothing had never come out of Nyx’s mouth so fast in her life.
Evra made a skeptical noise in response, but fortunately didn’t press for further answers.
She just kept walking. Nyx kept following without asking where they were going.
For one, because she was still deeply hung over, and for another because “canvassing the streets” was Evra’s area of expertise.
They wandered for over two hours, with no particular direction Nyx could identify.
If forced to explain it, she would say Evra was going off vibes.
Every now and then the would stop and talk to people—typically teenagers or unhoused individuals—and Nyx would listen and try to figure out how she did it.
She wouldn’t have thought Evra, who was direct to the point of rudeness, was the type of person who could go up to random people on the street and have them be receptive to her inquiries.
She wasn’t even subtle about it. Usually she’d walk up to them with the kind of determination that typically made a person think maybe she was considering violence against them—and, okay, yes, many did get a slightly terrified look in their eyes at her approach—and then she wouldn’t even say hello, she would just start asking how well they knew the area and the people.
She’d segue into how her sister had a heart defect the doctors said was unfixable, but she’d heard rumors of a guy who could work miracles, if you knew where to find him.
Sometimes they just shrugged and said they were sorry, they didn’t know.
A few people directed them to nearby houses of worship that held faith healing nights.
Nyx might have considered checking those out—it wouldn’t be a bad place for a Shaman to work—but none of the people mentioning them had the sort of enthusiasm that came from believing they’d actually experienced what, to Dead Earthers, looked like a miracle.
A few people gently suggested counseling could help Evra come to terms with her sister’s condition. What none of them did? Tell Evra to fuck off. Maybe it was that her story had the ring of authenticity to it.
“Does Tamrin actually have a heart condition?” Nyx asked as they walked away from the latest group.
“She did. She was born with it, though we did not know it at the time, of course. When she was fifteen, it simply stopped working during a training exercise. Chest compressions saved her from lasting damage until our local Warlock arrived to return the organ to normal function, but they informed us that only a Shaman could actually repair the defect. Until then, too much stress—physical or otherwise—might kill her.”
Nyx waited, but Evra didn’t elaborate. “So a Shaman did fix it?”
“Yes. Eventually. They are not so easy to access, though my mother’s history of service to the Enforcers allowed Tamrin to be placed ahead of many others already waiting. But Shamans are small in number. The universe is vast, and everyone wants a miracle for the person they love.
“We were informed it would be three years before she could be seen. Her heart stopped another three times in the next two years. The last time, the Warlock did not think they would be able to bring her back.”
“So did they move her up the waiting list?”
“No. I lost her to Arkadia, where Tobi saved her.”
Nyx was quiet. She couldn’t imagine living with the kind of fear and anxiety that must come from knowing someone you loved could die at any moment.
Not the theoretical possibility of a random accident befalling them, but the knowledge that their body had given out at one point, and no matter what you did, it would do so again. And it made her wonder…
“I know what you are thinking,” Evra said. “You are wondering why she was with me the day she was lost to Arkadia.”
“Yes.” If too much stress could literally kill her, why bring her on a job like that?