Chapter Twenty-One Fires and Shadows
"Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye."
Adan dragged Czandra to the roof, she wasn't sure if this counted against one of Nox's rules about not leaving the house. Technically, they were still on the property. She honestly needed the fresh air and the space to speak to her friend--and privacy.
Spring was starting to show, and it was thankfully a rain free day with the sun already beating high above. The smell of the slums hit Adan hard, but it didn't matter once the wind picked up.
"Tell me everything." Czandra grinned with a bright smile. She always did love gossip, but Adan knew whatever she said would say would stay between the two of them.
"I don't even know where to start." Adan smiled softly, laughing lowly to herself. "You look good, all things considered." Adan looked pointedly at the vamps clothing choice, and raised a silent eyebrow in question.
"I would rather not bring attention to myself in this neighbourhood."
"You didn't want to, or Nox told you not to?"
Czandra flopped dramatically onto a concrete ledge, legs swinging over the edge like she didn't care they were three stories up. Czandra gave Adan a knowing smirk, "It's Nox already, is it? Past formalities are you?"
"It might cause a stir if I referred to him as Asshole."
Czandra laughed, tilting her head up to the sky. "Oh, Little Mouse... alright, spill. You've got that look.""
"What look? He is an asshole. He is an arrogant, bossy, self-absorbed asshole."
"That has done a lot to help keep you alive." She levelled Adan with a knowing stare. Czandra reached over and thumbed Adan's shirt, the slightly burnt fabric, pulling her fingers away, eyeing the particles of ash critically. She rolled her eyes, "Nox told me about the dream... and the fire."
"Oh so you can talk to him about me, but not the other way around?" Adan didn't try to hide the distaste from her voice.
"You know more than enough now, and you, of all people, have to understand why I couldn't say anything before. Please don't hold it against me now."
Adan's rage vanished instantly, replaced with the shame of ever being angry in the first place.
"Yes. Yes, you're right, Caz... I'm sorry."
"Adan." She levelled her a look that had Adan slamming her mouth closed.
"You're just as stubborn as he is." Czandra shook her head, but did not stop smiling.
In truth, she too had helped Adan stay alive, but she was just a youngling then.
Adan did not feel she needed the help now.
"Asking for help, or receiving it does not diminish yourself. It is not a bad thing to need it every once in a while."
Adan scoffed, throwing up her arms, while Czandra watched her critically.
"You never seem to have a problem coming to me for help. So I must assume it only bothers you when the help is coming from Lennox."
She grinned as she watched Adan's face drop into outrage.
"You cannot be serious..."
Czandra leaned back, her smirk growing, clearly enjoying every moment of Adan's discomfort. "Why else would it bother you so?" She grinned like she already knew the answer.
Adan did not give any type of response, but pulled her walls tight around her. She let the question settle inside her, like a stone dropped in a well. Adan's jaw tightened, and she glared at Czandra, who didn't seem to care one bit about the storm brewing in her mis-matched eyes.
"Who's the changeling that Osho has pretending to be me?" She changed the subject.
Czandra raised an eyebrow, her eyes gleaming with a mixture of amusement and understanding. The vamp knew exactly what she was doing, but let the subject drop.
"I've never met them before, but Osho says that they can be trusted."
"How much does he know?" She always made a point to keep Osho out of that part of her life. It would be a death sentence for him if she wasn't careful.
"He doesn't know anything. Just that you needed his help." Those critical eyes swept over Adan, but her walls stood tall.
"And Cias... what does he know?" Nox had told her nothing about the king. Just that his summons was quick.
"If he suspects something, he is keeping it close to his inner circle. There haven't been any rumblings of your... insurgence."
Adan exhaled sharply, pacing across the roof. "He will summon me soon, and he will demand the head of the Captain and the leader of the Grimms." Adan rubbed her hands down her face. "I cannot give him either."
"Because Lennox is both those people." Adan shouldn't be surprised that Czandra already knew the facts already. Adan wasn't mad that she kept her in the dark, either. She knew that Nox has explicitly foreboded Czandra from speaking about him.
As close as they were, House laws always came first. "I think if he were anyone else, you would have delivered his head already." Czandra finished for her with a teasing tilt of her head.
"He leads this movement. Why would you think the worst of me?" Adan's voice low and tight with irritation.
"I know that you prize your revenge over all else. If his death meant getting closer to the king, you would have done it already. All the steps you have taken in the past to get here, and now he's the one that stalls your hand?"
Her eyes narrowed. Czandra always had a talent for seeing past Adan's walls.
Adan's breath hitched in her throat, her eyes narrowing as she stared at Czandra. "He is innocent." She tried to rational.
"Liar," Czandra shot back, her laugh boomed like an obnoxiously taunt.
"You are not naive. You have to know that he is not an innocent."
Adan knew the words were false before they ever left her mouth.
She was grasping at straws. "He is many things, but not innocent."
She gave Adan a scolding look that screamed, I taught you better.
"Well, his cause is righteous, and I could not live with myself if I took away this cities chance at freedom." Because that was what he was trying to do. Rid the city of tyranny so that his people might have a fighting chance. It was a noble pursuit, one that she could not rob the world of.
Killing Nox was not an option--not even for her revenge.
Czandra smiled like she had unearthed a secret. "You've changed." Her small smile irritated Adan. It was one Czandra used whenever she caught Adan in a lie.
"I haven't changed," Adan muttered, her voice low and guarded.
She stared out at the city skyline, the grey buildings stretching out before her like a maze she'd been lost in for too long.
The city was a cage, and Nox was both the key and the lock.
"I still want the king dead. I still want my revenge."
Her words rang hollow, even to her ears.
"Oh Little Mouse, I cannot wait for you to see your truth. I hope I am there to witness the shock on your face." She grinned now, sending Adan into a tailspin of emotions. Her hands threw up into the air, she could never win against Czandra.
Not with words anyway.
Just to change the topic and shut her friends up, she asked, "What was that with you and Thammas?" The two clearly held a dislike for one another. By the way, Czandra's spine straightened, and her face dropped, Adan knew she hit true.
Adan could not stop her broad smile at her small triumph.
Czandra looked like she was about to tell quite the story when the wind shifted.
The two women on the roof looked up at the same time, as if sensing his arrival.
The building shook as he landed between them, Nox's wings disappeared almost instantly.
Adan could not hide her displeasure, she loved his wings--it made her long for her own--They were particularly beautiful in the sunlight.
At first, she thought they were black as night as most members of House of Shadow, but in the light they glistened from blue to purple and back to black again.
"Want to explain what you two are doing up here." He said by way of greeting.
Obviously being on the roof was breaking one of his rules, and he did not hide his displeasure.
"Talking to an old friend." Adan supplied, waving an open palm at Czandra.
"You know that is not what I meant." He stalked closer, thoroughly ignoring the vampire. "Why are you outside? Anyone could fly over and see you here."
"My lord—"
"I was not talking to you." Nox silenced Czandra without even sparing her a glance. His burning green eyes never once left Adan's face.
That look of dominance had her wrath blooming in a flurry. "You do not speak to her that way." She stepped forward into his space, raising her chin.
"She is in my house. I can speak to her any way I like." He snapped, barring his teeth. "Now answer my question."
"I am not in your house, so I do not have to do anything."
Damn this male, she exhaled hard. Only to realize that her chest brushed his with every breath.
But to step away now--to recede--unthinkable.
He would see it as a win, and she would be damned if she let him have an inch. "Speak to her that way again—"
"And what, love?" His eyes flashed. "You'll do what?"
She could feel her fire licking up her throat begging for release. "I'll rip your fucking tongue out." She snapped. She knew it would grow back, but it would hurt. She smiled at the thought, she could use some respite from his questions.
"Oh but it would be so much more useful to you still attached to me." He grinned with a wink.
Czandra coughed hard into her palm and turned away, her shoulders shaking. Adan didn't know whom to growl at first. The obnoxious male before her or her oldest friend, who was taking joy in her frustration. Adan's body burned, but the thought of his tongue —Nope!
She slammed down the thought before it had a chance to bloom.
Nox's heavy sigh filled the open air, his eyes slid close, and his open hand waved towards the latch.
"Please, go inside." The word, please, seemed to physically pain him, like he rarely said it.
By Czandra's shocked face, Adan was right in that assumption.
It was possibly the only reason that she obeyed his request.