The Girl at Midnight (25 page)

Caius examined the contents of his cup, imagining that he could read the chocolate dregs at the bottom like tea leaves.

“Not even opportunistic mercenaries?” he asked.

“You don’t seem like any merc I’ve ever met before.”

“Hang out with many, do you?”

“Friends in low places and all that.” Echo cocked her head to the side. A crisp breeze picked up a strand of her hair, made it tickle the bridge of her nose. She pushed it behind her ear, but it stubbornly slipped loose. With a sigh, she added, “And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you dodged the question.”

He smiled. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re infuriatingly clever?”

“Often,” she replied. “Now spill.”

He dropped his eyes to the chocolate sludge, willing it to give up its secrets. But unlike tea leaves, it had none to give.

“The woman I told you about last night,” he said. “She was a soldier, but not by nature. She was conscripted for
service, and it cost her everything.” It was the truth, unencumbered by details. He continued, words stretching in the late-afternoon sun after being silenced for so long. “She was good, in a way so few people are. She liked to sing. Had the loveliest voice I’ve ever heard. She was fond of puzzles and couldn’t abide the taste of pears.” The corners of his eyes stung, and he was glad Jasper had lent him sunglasses. “I thought that was endlessly funny. She always smelled like pears, but she couldn’t stand the taste of them.”

Echo let the silence between them marinate for a few moments before asking, “What was her name?”

Outside of his dreams, Caius hadn’t spoken her name since the day she died, the day Tanith brought the cabin down around them in a fire she convinced him was for his own good. He breathed that single syllable into the air. “Rose.”

If Echo chewed her lower lip much more, she would make herself bleed. He was beginning to learn her little habits, those small things that were uniquely hers. Biting her lip was a tell. She was uncertain about the course of their conversation. Caius couldn’t really blame her. “When did you meet her?” she asked.

“A long time ago,” he said. Rose’s name had been carried aloft on the wind, and it had taken some of his reserve with it. It was easier to speak to Echo now, easier to breathe. “Longer than you’ve been alive. Longer than your parents have been alive. Speaking of which, where are your parents? Don’t seventeen-year-olds normally have those?”

“Normally, yeah.”

Caius waited for her to speak. If he pushed her, he had a feeling she would clam up, hiding the details of her past like an oyster jealously guarding a pearl.

She sighed. “I don’t have parents. Well, I did once. But I left home a long time ago and never looked back.”

“Why?”

Echo was silent, staring at the blueprints as if she could singe them with her eyes. She kept her gaze downcast when she said, “They weren’t very nice people.”

A woman pushing a stroller walked past the steps, a rosy-cheeked toddler trailing after her. Echo watched them pass, a look of such wistfulness on her face that Caius’s heart ached for her, just a little. He had only vague memories of his parents. They had been distant, as noble families tended to be, but never cruel.

“I’m sorry,” he said. It was inadequate, but it was all he had.

She waited a beat before answering, watching the mother and her child cross the street. “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

He hadn’t meant to upset her. Upsetting her was upsetting to him in a way that, in itself, was more than a little disconcerting. He wasn’t sure he wanted to begin puzzling out why. He wanted to fix it, so he went with the only thing he knew would put a smile on her face.

“So,” he said, ignoring the way her eyes were still cautious and a little bit steely. “Tell me about these blueprints.”

The Tomb of Perneb was more claustrophobic than Echo remembered. As the black wisps of the in-between faded into the tomb’s sandy stone walls, she brought a hand up to steady herself. When her palm connected with the soft wool of Caius’s jacket, she yanked her hand back. He quirked an eyebrow at her, as if he wasn’t at all bothered to be sharing personal space. She took a step back, pressing herself against the wall.

“Well, this is cozy,” she said, shouldering past Caius. “Let’s go.” When she exited the tomb into the Egyptian wing, she breathed in deeply. Her thoughts were less scattered with some distance between herself and Caius. He disarmed her, and she hated it. Behind her, he barely made a sound as he exited the tomb, and she felt his presence at her back like a hovering ghost. She dropped to her knees, sketching out the same Avicet rune she’d used at the Louvre to put the guards to sleep and deactivate the cameras.

Caius was silent as she cast the spell. Echo snuck a surreptitious glance at him. The dim blue glow of the museum’s security lights illuminated the planes of his face with the gentleness of a lover. It wasn’t the worst view in the world. Guilt tickled at her conscience. She had a boyfriend. His name was Rowan, and he was wonderful, and she shouldn’t be making eyes at some random mercenary she had picked up on her travels.

“Echo?” Caius asked, one brow arched. He was looking right at her. So maybe she wasn’t half as subtle as she thought she was.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I was just … thinking about our next move.” She cringed inwardly.
Real smooth
.

He nodded, but not as if he bought it.

Oh, well
, Echo thought.

“That was a nice charm you worked,” he said. “With the Avicet rune. Clever and clean.”

She willed herself not to blush. Her traitorous skin did not oblige. She pushed herself to her feet, brushing imaginary dust off her jeans. “Thanks.”

“Right,” he said, gazing around at the granite sculptures surrounding the tomb. “So, any idea what we’re looking for?” Caius looked back at Echo. “You know, I never asked you how you found the dagger at the Louvre. I assumed you knew what you were looking for, but that map doesn’t tell you much beyond general location.”

And that was the tricky part. She couldn’t begin to explain how or why the locket had pulsed in her hand that night, leading her straight to the dagger. Every step of this quest for the firebird seemed to bring on more questions than answers. But if it had worked once before, then maybe it would work again.

“I need the locket.” She’d watched him slip it on that morning, tucking it into the neck of the borrowed shirt. He’d kept it with him at all times after taking it from her, and Echo burned with a ferocious curiosity to figure out why he guarded it like a dragon hoarding treasure.

He narrowed his eyes, just a hair. “Why?”

She hadn’t even told Ivy about the way the locket had showed her the path to the dagger as clear as day, its pull growing stronger the closer she got. But if she was going to work with Caius to find the firebird, she would have to start trusting him at some point. Trust, she knew, was a funny thing. It had a habit of biting people in the ass more often than not. But she had to work with what she had, and what she had was Caius.

“It’s how I found the dagger,” she said. “It led me to it.” She waited, drumming her fingers on her thigh.

With a sigh, he pulled the chain over his head. He held the locket in his hand, but he didn’t offer it to her. “How?”

Oh, if only she knew. That would have been nice. That would have been just peachy.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It just kind of drew me toward it.”

Caius studied the locket. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Look, dude, I don’t know how to explain it. I just know that it worked.” Echo held out her hand and after a lengthy moment, he placed it in her palm. The second it touched her skin, a surge of energy went through her, stealing the breath from her lungs and weakening her knees. Caius caught her by her elbow, and the locket throbbed even harder.

“I’m fine,” she gasped. “I just …”

And she was off, striding down the hall, locket vibrating in her palm. Any other day, she would have slowed down to
appreciate the architecture of the Met’s lobby, with its high domed ceilings and plentiful skylights, but the locket’s pull grew stronger with each step, propelling her forward.

Caius jogged to catch up to her, his long legs easily keeping pace. He looked down at the locket in her hands. “What is it—”

She held up her free hand. “Shush.”

A small part of Echo, the tiny bit left of her that wasn’t in the thrall of the locket’s siren song, marveled at the fact that he did indeed shush.

A fallen guard, knocked out by her spell, blocked the entrance to the Greco-Roman sculpture hall opposite the Egyptian wing. She stepped over his prone form, half blind to the majesty of the room. Moonlight filtered in through the skylights, making the bleached white sculptures of forgotten gods and goddesses shine as if from within. It was stunningly beautiful and absolutely irrelevant.

“It’s here,” Echo said. She broke into a run, swerving around a massive Ionic column in the center of the long corridor. The next room held even more sculptures, but the glass display cases lining the walls were what captured her attention. “It’s here, Caius, I can feel—”

She skidded to a halt in front of one of the cases so suddenly that Caius crashed into her. He grabbed her arms to steady them both, and his hands felt like burning brands through the leather of her jacket. She pulled away from him, and the fire abated, but she could still feel heat rolling off him in waves.

“Echo.” She could hardly hear Caius past the ringing in her ears. “Echo, where—”

“Here.” She laid her palms flat on the glass case before
her, peering in. An ancient marble urn dominated the center of the display. Dancing figures were carved into its sides, bound together by swirling vines, and its lid appeared to be fused shut. One of the figures held a key in its upraised hand. This was it. Echo knew it as surely as she knew her own name.

“Break it,” Echo said, stepping aside. “Break the case. It’s in the urn, I know it.”

“Are you—”

“Just break it, Caius.”

He looked at her as if she were a woman possessed. She
was
a woman possessed. But whatever his reservations, they were nothing compared with the fire she felt when she laid eyes on the urn.

“Give me my knives,” he said.

Echo reached into her backpack and pulled them out. He had thrown an unholy fit when she had insisted on carrying them, but one couldn’t walk around Manhattan openly armed. She handed them to Caius. Trying not to bounce on her toes in her excitement, she watched as he fastened the leather straps across his chest and unsheathed only one. He smashed through the case’s glass with the hilt of the knife; then he sheathed it and grabbed the urn.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Caius asked. “I need you to be certain before I deface a culturally significant artifact.”

“Oh, for the love of—” Echo elbowed him with all of her strength. The urn slipped through his fingers and smashed to the ground, bits of marble scattering across the floor. A flash of silver drew her eye. There it was. A skeleton key, small and unassuming. The only adornment of which it could boast was a vine twisting around the bow and stem,
tiny thorns dotting its surface. Echo pushed past Caius and picked up the key.

It was a rush, heady and wonderful, and Echo laughed. She could feel Caius watching her, probably wondering if she had completely lost her grip on reality. And maybe she had, but she didn’t care. The locket ceased its painful pulsing, and the key felt like sunlight in her hands. She turned to him, and her laughter fizzled. She held the key so tightly its thorns dug into the soft flesh of her palm. She looked up at Caius, and it was as if she were seeing him for the first time. He was beautiful, had always been beautiful, but this time, the locket surged once more as if to agree.

“That was easier than I expected,” Echo said. Caius watched her studying the key. Her earlier intensity simmered beneath the surface, and he could see her body thrum with the energy of it. She turned the key over in her palm to run a finger along the delicate inscriptions it bore. “That’s weird. I think these are Drakhar.” Not a language one would have expected to find in a human museum. She offered the key to Caius. “Can you read it?”

Their fingers brushed when he took the key from her hand, and a shock ran up his arm, stronger than static. Echo yanked her hand back, flexing her fingers.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“It’s all right,” he said, rubbing his palm on his thighs. The back of his neck still tingled. “Let me see.”

He squinted at the runes written on the key’s stem. They were old, older than Caius even, but he knew them. “ ‘To
know the truth, you must first want the truth.’ I’ve seen that before.”

Echo peered over his arm at the key. Even with his jacket on, he was hyperaware of her hair brushing his shoulder. “Where?”

He shook his head, puzzled. “It’s an old Drakhar saying, but it comes from somewhere very specific. It’s written above the entrance to the Oracle’s cave.”

“An Oracle?” she asked, eyebrows inching up. “Really?”

“Really.”

Echo whistled, long and low. “My life just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” she said. “And have you met this Oracle before?”

Caius nodded. “Once.”

“Why?”

He wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her who he was. He wanted to tell her that visiting the Oracle was the first thing he had done as the Dragon Prince, just as every prince before him had. He wanted to tell her what the Oracle had told him. In that moment, he wanted her to know him, all of him. Yet all he could say was “That’s personal.”

Echo held his gaze for a beat before shrugging. “Whatever. Back to Jasper’s and then off to see this Oracle of yours?”

Caius’s teeth sank into the flesh of his cheek, considering his next words. The Oracle knew who he was. If they went to her, there was a chance—and a large one at that—that his deception would be exposed, that Echo would see him for who and what he truly was. Wanting her to know him, the real him, was a nice thought, but only in the abstract.
The reality of it would shatter their fragile partnership. He’d already figured out that she wasn’t the kind of person who put her trust in others easily, and the depth of his lie would stretch the bounds of forgiveness, he was sure of it.