Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

“Maybe. Maybe not.” The winikin should’ve looked out of place, but somehow his snap-studded shirt and big old belt buckle fit into the subtle—albeit dated—elegance of the furnishings and decor.

Which, damn it, made Nate wonder about the others who’d sat on that same couch. His mother and father. Their friends. Hell, Alexis’s mother had probably been there a time or two, if only to bitch at his father for something. He didn’t know much about the goings-on at Skywatch prior to the Solstice Massacre, but it would’ve been impossible to miss knowing that Gray-Smoke and his father had spent a good chunk of their time as royal advisers trying to argue each other into the ground.

Kind of like him and Alexis. Not that he believed in history repeating itself. Shit.

Nate dropped down to the sofa and let his head bang against the backrest. He tried not to look at the paintings again, because he already knew from experience that he’d stare at them way too long if he gave himself the luxury.

“I’ve never even seen a picture of them,” he said after a moment, damning himself because he knew he was losing the battle.

Carlos had the good grace not to do a victory dance, saying only, “Have you looked around?”

“Hell, no.” Nate glanced back at the open front door and the fading light of freedom beyond. He’d been toying with the idea of trying the ball court and figuring out the game Lucius kept going on about. Maybe that’d help the restlessness. And, hell, it couldn’t be much harder than basketball, right?

The hoops were higher and set vertical rather than horizontal, but there was no dribbling to worry about on the pounded-dirt surface; it was mostly knees and elbows. He bet he could get the others into the idea, maybe use the game to burn off some frustrations.

He should get started now, he thought. But he stayed put.

Carlos rose. “Come on. I’ll help you find some snapshots.”

“No,” Nate said again, but it was more of a plea than a denial.

T h e winikin ignored him and headed for the second bedroom. Unable to do otherwise, Nate followed.

And stopped dead in the doorway of a frigging nursery.

He didn’t recognize the crib or toys, or the spinning mobile of stars and moons above the bed. He had no memory of the rain-forest scenes painted on the walls, or the birds of prey painted on the ceiling. But his gut confirmed what logic said had to be true: that this was where he’d slept for the first two years of his life.

It wasn’t just any nursery; it was his nursery.

Sucking a breath past a punch of pain, he cursed and turned to retreat. Except his feet didn’t move, planting him there in the doorway as Carlos crossed the room and opened a large closet, which was stacked with toys, clothes, and baby stuff on one side, neatly labeled boxes on the other.

“You snooped,” Nate said, the words coming out on a wheeze. “You cased the joint before I got here.”

The winikin didn’t turn back. “You’re a tough case, Blackhawk. I’ll take whatever leverage I can get.”

Which was pretty much what Carol Rose, his social worker, had said about him. She’d refused to take “fuck off and die” as an answer, and had ridden his ass until he straightened up and made something of himself. He was starting to get a feeling that Carol and Carlos had more in common than the similarities in their names. And that was simple fucking coincidence, he thought bitterly. Not fate.

“So what exactly do you want from me?” he finally asked.

“Nothing much.” Now Carlos did glance back, and his lips twitched. “I just want you to help save the world.”

It should’ve been a joke, probably had been meant as one, at least in part. But the winikin ’s words shot straight to the heart of Nate’s frustration, his pounding sense that he wasn’t doing what he was supposed to be doing, yet he couldn’t do what the others wanted him to. Letting his legs unlock, he slid down the wall just inside his nursery until he was sitting on the floor, his spine propped against the doorjamb. Looking up at the stand-in father figure he hadn’t met until seven months earlier, he said, “I don’t know how.”

Rancher-practical, Carlos said, “I can’t tell you how to feel or what to do. But I can tell you what’s been done before, and how those before you thought, felt, and acted.”

“Their history ended in 1984,” Nate said, though the words came out less like a protest and more like a plea. “It’s just not relevant today.”

“Then you will have wasted a few hours listening to an old man’s stories. Is that really any worse than going up to the Pueblo ruins and getting hammered on Rabbit’s stash of pulque ?”

“Busted,” Nate said, and found a grin. Forcing himself to breathe, he waggled his fingers in a bring it on gesture. “Okay, winikin , you win. Introduce me to my family.”

Which was how, as the quick desert dusk fell and day turned to night, Nate found himself staring at a snapshot of a tall, handsome man with eyes like his, wearing the hawk medallion around his neck, with his arm curved protectively around the waist of a dark-haired woman who had laughing, loving eyes, and an infant cradled in her arms.

Rabbit had lived in Massachusetts for a good chunk of his life, through the misery of junior high and high school, and then for a few months after graduation, up until the barrier reactivated and Strike and his old man had reopened Skywatch. So he pretty much felt like an ass that he’d showed up for the

’port to Boston wearing shorts and a light hoodie, and then gave Strike lip when he’d suggested a jacket. It’d been seventy and sunny in New Mex.

It was, however, thirty and pissing freezing rain in Boston. How had he forgotten the misery of early springtime in New England?

He couldn’t bring himself to ask Strike to zap him added clothes, though, so he wound up standing in an alley around the corner from the MFA, shivering his frigging ass off while Patience, Sven, and Brandt went over the plan yet again. He was pretty sure really only Patience and Sven, with their talents of invisibility and translocation, were necessary for the actual op, but Brandt had refused to let his wife go off on her own, and Strike had wanted Rabbit out of the way, so all four of them were on the mission.

Strike hadn’t actually said he wanted Rabbit out of the way, of course, but the subtext had been there. Which, Rabbit suspected, meant Carter finally had a lead on Myrinne, and Strike didn’t want him to know about it. Tit for tat, Rabbit had done an end run of his own, tapping the Nightkeeper Fund for fifteen hundred bucks with Jox’s blessing, claiming he needed a laptop upgrade. Instead, he’d pocketed five hundred and used a thousand to hire a PI of his own, one with a slightly different code of ethics than Carter. The PI, Juarez, had indicated that he’d have Myrinne’s location by the end of the day, which had Rabbit alternately feeling hot and cold even in the pissing drizzle. He went feverish at the thought of seeing Myrinne again, clammy when he imagined going against a direct order from his king.

“Rabbit!” Patience said, voice sharp, as though she’d been trying to get his attention for a while.

“Sorry,” he said, avoiding her eyes, because she knew him well enough to know what he was thinking half the time, and he did not want her knowing about Myrinne or the PI. “We ready?”

“If you are,” Brandt grumbled, leading the way.

They headed for the museum entrance and paid the entry fee in cash, then followed the signs to the traveling exhibit of Mayan artifacts. The signage directing them to the special exhibit had a cartoonish rendition of a generic Mayan pyramid, with a glyph string beside it. The glyphs were visually interesting, granted, but Rabbit was pretty sure he saw the at glyph, which stood for “penis,” and the