Chapter 5
Liam’s place was on the west side of the island, as he’d said, so all I could do was hope that locating it was as simple as using my ‘finders keepers’ rune again.
Please let it be close. I was running on fumes and wasn’t sure how much deeper I could dig. My hand shook as I cast the rune and whispered, ‘Liam’s cabin.’
The fluttering magic lit up and flew slowly away from us, taking another bite out of my reserves.
“This way.”
I led the others in a half crouch across the shadowy grounds and the pounding rain, glancing nervously from house to house as we followed my fluttering rune.
Each cabin looked a little different from the last, but they were all far, far bigger than the little rooms the doyens got at Neverthorn.
Most were two stories, with little fenced-in yards or gardens.
Four minutes into our walk, and the flickering light from my spell came to an abrupt halt as we turned a final corner. It spun and pulsed with energy as we approached a large hunter-green cabin, then the rune puffed out of existence.
The house was the biggest we’d seen yet at nearly thirty feet across, and it looked exactly like I would’ve expected Liam’s house to look: rugged and utilitarian.
“Stay low and close to the wall until I get the door open,” I said over my shoulder, and the message passed through the group. It wasn’t a question of if I could get the door open. I’d never met a lock I couldn’t pick, given enough time.
We were under the roof of a small porch out front, huddled together. The door was not green, but a small mark in the center of it caught my attention. If there had been any doubt that this was Liam’s house, that mark removed it.
Fable was closest to me, and I could feel her shaking. I hoped it was from the cold and not fear.
“Are you sure this is the right one?” Fable whispered as I crouched, lock picks in my own shaking hands.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I followed my rune.” I focused on the lock, feeling the tumblers, lifting and moving them until they offered a satisfying click.
I pushed the door open, still on my knees, then motioned for them all to go in as I reached up to tap the third eye painted on the side of the door – the other reason I knew that my rune had not led us astray.
It might not mean anything to Fable, or the others, but I knew Liam and that third eye .
. . that was his mark. That’s where he started when it came to finding Quirks.
His finger pressed to the center of a person’s forehead.
“Lights?” Marina asked as she slipped past me and into the cabin, shucking out of her coat. “You think someone will come check if they see light?”
“Close all the blinds, keep the lights low.” I was the last one in, and I shut and locked the door behind me, then cast a rune over it – two fingers drawn from north to south, then split apart at the bottom of the motion.
If the door was opened from the outside, pushing in, it would set off a loud bang, waking us all up.
I mean, as long as it actually worked. There were moments when I worried still that our magic wasn’t entirely ours, that maybe there was a residue of binding left on us. To control and contain our magic.
As soon as the rune sank into the wooden door, I got my first look at the place that Liam called home, and, for a moment, I wondered if Fable had been right in questioning me. Was this really his place?
Even in the dim light, the main floor of the cabin was sparsely decorated – wood walls, a tartan hanging over the back of an overstuffed chair, a long couch, a dining table, and a simple kitchen with new appliances.
Nothing about it stood out or screamed ‘Liam’ at all. No pictures, or art. No personal touches.
“Looks like one of those spec homes, with no real personality except this.” I ran my hand over the tartan. But even that wasn’t quite right. Liam was Irish, not Scottish.
The others slowly slumped where they were, finding places to sit down and rest, and I couldn’t blame them. Between the cold and the adrenaline pumping from facing unexpected monsters, they were probably exhausted. Never mind the fact that we’d recently been in the Solstice Games.
I was catching a second wind, my curiosity waking me like nothing else could have. My exhaustion faded as I looked around.
Feeling more curious about Liam now that I was in his home, I had the urge to figure him out. Because this space didn’t even smell like him, from what I remembered of that incredible vanilla scent that was always there when he was around.
And maybe, just maybe, he would be able to help me push away thoughts of Typhon and something that could never be – should never be. I shook my head. Nope, not going there.
“I’ll check the place out.” I pulled a small flashlight from my bag, then set the pack on the floor. “Make sure there are no booby traps.”
“Are you serious?” Marina groaned. “Please, no more surprises. I just want to sleep.”
“Just a precaution,” I said as I made my way to the stairs that led to the second floor. A precaution and a pre-snoop.
The stairs creaked as I climbed, every single step. I bent and touched the stair in front of me, feeling how twisted the tread was, noting the partially raised nails on the edges that allowed the wood to move with every step. I found myself smiling.
There would be no sneaking up on Liam here. Not a chance. Smart guy.
But the smile slid into a frown as I wondered just who he was worried about sniffing around his place.
Obviously, he hadn’t known we’d be crashing here before he’d left Heathermoor, so .
. . what exactly was he worried about? It made me think there was something up on the second floor that he was keeping hidden for a reason. The question was, from who?
I hurried up the last few steps, shoving the thought aside.
I was the one being paranoid – I mean, Typhon hadn’t exactly left me feeling like I could read men and their intentions with any accuracy.
He’d fooled me more than I wanted to admit, but that didn’t mean I should paint Liam with the same brush.
At the top of the stairs, a door was cracked open. I flicked my flashlight off, let my eyes adjust, and made the last few steps in semi-darkness.
Good thing I’d flicked the light off, too, because, when I pushed the door open, the circular room was all windows, giving me nearly a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of Heathermoor. I would have lit the space up like a lighthouse.
The first thing that hit me, even ahead of the view, was the smell. This was Liam’s space, where he spent the most of his time. His cologne permeated the space, even though he’d been gone for months. Vanilla and a muskier scent that bade me to breathe deep and relax.
I let out a sigh of relief. “‘Okay, Liam, we’re here. You better hurry your ass up and get here too, because I don’t know what to do now.”
Another step and I leaned over the desk to get a better look out the window.
The main building of Heathermoor still had a lot of glowing windows, as did many of the buildings around it, but what were they all?
Dorms like Fable thought? More parts of the school itself?
Where the hell did we even start? Now that we were here, the questions hadn’t exactly eased.
If anything, they’d multiplied like bunnies in the spring.
“A map would be handy,” I whispered as I dragged my gaze from the window.
I worked my way around the room, searching for anything that could give us a leg up while we waited. Desks and squat shelves covered the entire edge of the room, but one of them was covered in more papers than the others, and I pulled out the chair.
A gust of wind rattled the windows, rain hammering at them, as I sat in the place where Liam had obviously done most of his work.
Facing the main building of Heathermoor – more than a few of the upper-level windows in that castle-like building were bright, and I could see people walking by them, clearly outlined.
Goddess, did he smell good. I pushed down the thought, forcing myself to refocus as I scanned his desk. I ran my fingers over a few papers, noted the stack of books to my left, and the open book to the right.
My fingers paused over the open book, feeling something about it, like a low hum under my skin that reacted to the pages. Before I changed my mind, I scooped it up, taking it with me as I went back down to the main room, the stairs squeaking with every step.
Which should have let the others know I was within earshot.
“You think that her and Typhon . . .?” Caterina whispered.
A grunt, then Ross’s voice floated up. “I hope not. You gotta know that Tarquinius will send his best after us, and that’s Typhon. At least the bond between them is broken.”
“She deserves better than that,” Ellie’s voice was fierce.
“Like Liam,” Marina added.
That stopped me on the last step. I hadn’t known that my friends were so . . . aware of me and Typhon.
Had I been so obvious?
I put a hand to my forehead, scrunching my eyes shut as if I could block out the memory that was forcing its way to the surface.
“No.”
The second the word left my mouth, I was on him, closing the distance between us, my lips slanted over his. And, as if he’d never considered otherwise, he wrapped one hand in my hair.
Stars exploded behind my eyelids as his tongue danced with mine. He was everything dark and delicious, but there was an edge of desperation . . . of a shared suffering that made it painfully beautiful.
I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders, and he bent his body over mine, pressing me against the mattress with a groan so guttural that it could’ve been pleasure or pain. Maybe both.
He tore his mouth from mine, peppering my jaw with kisses before nipping me sharply.
“Gods, I dream about this every night.”
Heat flared in my stomach as I gripped him tighter and rolled my hips against his. He was a massive wall of a man, and that didn’t stop at the waist. In fact, he was so thick and hard against my belly, it felt like a length of steel.