Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

He saw her face in the flames, saw her reach through the madness to touch him. But instead of the soft love she had in her eyes when he imagined her time and again—Hera, Alexis, one and the same—

she looked terrified, resolute. And as she reached for him, someone else hurried past her and bent down to grab Rabbit. Then Nate felt the fantasy actually touch him, felt the jolt of contact, and he knew it wasn’t a dream at all. Alexis had come after him.

And there was a damn good chance she was going to die right along with him.

Fuck! He grabbed onto her wrist, used it as a lifeline, and pulled himself partway up. He was aware of Strike slinging Rabbit over his shoulder. Then the king turned back and went for Nate’s other side, so they were braced one against another, and it was all or nothing: Either all four of them made it out, or they died together, taking a quarter of the Nightkeepers’ strength with them. And destiny or not, Nate wasn’t letting that happen, wasn’t letting Alexis lose herself trying to save him, not ever.

Together the Nightkeepers struggled from the burning building.

They made it out—barely. Just when they got clear of the door the whole place came down with a crash and a skyscraper-high gout of flame. Then Patience was there, grabbing onto the king and invoking her talent, and all five of them went invisible.

There were a few startled cries from bystanders who thought they’d seen what they couldn’t possibly have seen, but the invisibility trick was quickly lost amidst the chaos of a four-plus-alarm blaze. Then golden magic flared, and the buzz of a teleport surrounded them. Nate barely had time to brace himself before he was jerked sideways and went flying into the gray-green nothingness of the king’s ’port magic.

Nate held on to Alexis on his left side, Strike on his right. It hurt to breathe, to blink, to think, so he just hung there for a second in the gray-green nothingness of the barrier and let himself be dragged along. Then, with a bang of displaced air, Skywatch’s great room materialized around them.

They zapped in maybe a foot off the floor and hovered for a second before gravity took over. In that second Nate realized his skin was burning and his lungs were seized with smoke. Instead of landing on his feet he hit the floor and curled up, hacking for all he was worth, trying to breathe. He fought back a scream and it came out as a groan.

“Nate!” Alexis dropped down beside him, her hands hovering in midair, as though she wanted to touch him but didn’t dare. He didn’t know whether it was meant as comfort, to reassure herself that he was alive, or, hell, to remind the king that she’d been an important part of the rescue, but Nate found it to be a nice moment nonetheless. And for a few seconds, as the coughing eased and the Nightkeepers’ accelerated healing started to do its thing, he let himself relax and pretend she’d come after him because he mattered, not in the grand scheme of the Nightkeepers, but to her personally.

“Thanks,” he said, though it came out as more of a croak.

She went still for a moment, and he was expecting a dig or a snappy comeback, so he was surprised when she said only, “You’re welcome.” And then she touched him, laying her palm against his scorched cheek so she could send him a wash of warmth and power, and an edge of softness he hadn’t known he needed until just then.

Once Nate was asleep—okay, so he’d passed out, but who could blame him?—Alexis stepped back so Carlos and Jox could carry him to his room and get him cleaned up. She badly needed a shower too, but instead she found herself crouching down beside Rabbit, opposite Strike and Leah.

The king’s face was streaked with soot and burn marks, the latter of which were already most of the way healed. But the strain and worry didn’t ease; they wouldn’t, Alexis knew, until the teen awoke.

“We left him behind so he’d be safe,” she said softly, feeling guilt dig deep. “We didn’t know the witch would come back to the tea shop.” Which didn’t explain why Rabbit had been three blocks away when he’d called the fire magic. But it also didn’t own the full responsibility she carried. “I should’ve listened to Nate,” she said, her shoulders sagging beneath the failure. “When the witch refused to sell us the knife outright, he wanted to steal it and get back home. I convinced him to wait. It’s my fault.”

But the king shook his head. “You didn’t do this. The redhead did.”

Rabbit stirred and whispered something from between cracked lips.

Strike leaned in. “Come again?”

“Iago,” Rabbit said, his voice a dry rasp. “His name is Iago. And you were right; he’s Order of Xibalba.”

Leah stiffened. “How do you know?”

“Myrinne told me. Iago offered the witch a deal.” The teen exhaled and faded again.

“Who the hell is Myrinne?” Strike demanded, voice rough with worry.

Alexis said, “If I’m guessing right, a dark-haired girl with a shiner; I think she may be the witch’s apprentice or servant, maybe her daughter.”

“Which means she probably knows what she’s talking about. Shit. Order of Xibalba.” He shared a complicated look with Leah, one that excluded Alexis and the rest of the world.

Leah nodded. “Yeah. Problem.”

“I’m sorry I lost the knife,” Rabbit said, his cracked voice painful to hear.

“Not your fault either,” Strike said with a look at Alexis. He reached out to touch the boy, then hesitated and let his hand fall. “Heal up. We’ll talk later.”

At the king’s word, Jox came in to tend the boy. Strike rose with a soft curse and headed out of the room, with Leah following. The cop-turned-queen paused at the archway leading to the louvered hall and raised an eyebrow at Alexis. “You coming?”

Alexis stalled, confused. “I don’t . . . I didn’t . . . what?” Treacherous hope unfurled. “You want me in on your meeting? Even though I screwed up?”

“At least you tried something,” Leah said, her blue eyes cool and assessing, not giving away a thing.

“You interested in maybe trying something else, or at least talking strategy?”

Alexis was filthy and sore, and a weak, feminine part of her really wanted to check in on Nate, but all of those things could wait. The toehold to an advisory position, the one thing she’d wanted ever since this all began, was being offered to her. She took a tentative step in Leah’s direction, aware that the king was standing behind his mate, waiting for Alexis’s decision.

She paused a moment longer, then lifted her chin and nodded, accepting her mother’s place—her rightful place—among the king’s council. “Count me in.”

“Today is not a good day to travel this road,” said Abe, the guide Lucius had hired to lead him into the Yucatán rain forest. The vague warning was the fifth he’d given in the past hour, as he and Lucius trekked along a nonpath through the heart of the jungle.

Lucius wasn’t sure if the guy was trying to spook him, or if he really thought the gods had slapped a big old cosmic Keep Out sign across their path. But if anyone was going to get the omens right, it was someone like Abe, who was in training to become a Daykeeper, a shamanistic tradition the modern Maya had retained from their long-ago ancestors. Centuries of push-pull between Christianization and tradition had given birth to a blended religion that nodded to Christian themes while retaining many of the old ceremonies and beliefs, including the Daykeepers, who were in charge of the multiple Mayan calendars and their associated prophecies and portents.

According to Abe, those portents indicated that the spirits of the rain forest were restless, and wanted Lucius out of their ’hood.