Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters) (25 page)

“Was,” he said again, “in a time when the sun still existed.” He looked to Raina, something almost like affection softening his chiseled features. “How did you know?”

She hesitated, and then withdrew a bracelet from deep within her pocket. It was woven of twig and rope, with a dulled sun charm dangling from the bristles.

“This told me.”

One look at Khyber’s face told me he was enraptured with the bracelet. I squinted. It looked like nothing special.

“Where’d you get that?”

“I don’t know.” She said it too quickly.

“But you do know. Raina. Where did you find that?” Khyber strode toward her, but stopped when she flinched away. He jerked his head toward me.

I raised an eyebrow. “Need something, Prince?”

His jawline hardened. “No games now, wolf-girl.”

“Say ‘please.’ ”

“Fuck you.”

“Manners, manners. That’s not going to win over her heart, and it’s certainly not going to score you any points with her older sister.” Shaking my finger at him, I padded over to Raina’s side. Where
had
she received this bracelet? I hadn’t seen it in her dreams. She’d kept this carefully hidden, afraid that if anyone found it—

“You got this for him, didn’t you?” I guessed suddenly. “This is a present for Khyber.”

Her cheeks flamed. “I don’t understand why. I’m with Prince Donovan. But I found this in the bottom drawer of my dresser and took to wearing it. It’s pretty, isn’t it? The sun. And when I wore it, and strode through the moonflower garden, all of the flower veins deepened to a brilliant gold. I felt, I felt…happy…” The shadows on her face deepened into a frown. “Maya didn’t like me wearing it. So I kept it hidden.”

“Where did you find it, Raina?” I asked again, patiently. “You don’t have to hide it from us. I think the sun’s beautiful, too.”

Her eyes turned very far away, and I realized she was physically trembling. Fighting whatever had been done to her in the Mirror Room. I held my breath. Mari had briefly broken free of the spell, too. It was possible. When you were surrounded by those you loved.

“The ghost market…” The words slowly tumbled free. “The Madame of Memories…” She glanced suddenly at Khyber, and then hid behind her arrow-straight black hair. “I bought it for you. This was…a courting gift. I thought it could help you remember things. Like when I touch the charm, and it whispers your name.”

Khyber’s stormy eyes crackled with approval, and I think he was unaware that his wings had come half-unfurled, ready to sweep her off her feet. He reached her in that blur of vampyre speed, and tenderly touched the mark on the left side of her neck before she could jerk away.

“You do belong to me,” he said.

I clapped my hands, startling them both. “Okay, Mr. Possessive Peacock. Looks like another goal on the very short list of things both Khyber and Citlalli agree on: Get Raina back.”

“Absolutely.”

“How can we save her?”

“Her soul is gone,” Khyber said, and Raina pulled back, terrible pain in her eyes. “Maya has stolen it with her infamous mirrors. I can find it, but considering my current status at Court, I will need protection.” He looked me up and down. “Your Invisibility Cap will do.”

I didn’t move. “What makes you think I still have it?”

“They didn’t take it away from you. They don’t know you won it from a Dokkaebi chieftain. And I never told them.” Khyber folded his arms. “I trust you were smart enough to hide it from them?”

I reluctantly withdrew the worn old hat. “Jammed it over my left toe. Fits right like a Snuggie.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Your ingenuity astounds me.”

“Worked just fine on you last time.” I smiled sweetly. “Why’d you fall out of favor with Maya, anyway?”

Khyber plucked the cap away so fast, I was left staring at empty space. “Let’s just say I interfered with Maya’s plans to make Raina her own personal puppet.”

“Great. You failed spectacularly at that, by the way. Raina thinks Maya’s her dearest friend, mother”—I choked out the word—“
sister
.”

“She wouldn’t have been able to do that if some chinks didn’t already exist in your oh-so-perfect relationship.” Khyber turned his back on me, fingers playing over a thin black sword case. “I’m not strong enough to stand against Maya yet. I’m not strong enough to destroy the souls.” The withering look he shot Donovan’s confirmed who was first on the hit list. “But I will be.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Lunar New Year.” Khyber selected a slender dueling blade from the black case, and then whipped around and sliced cleanly through each soul before they could fly away. They arched back in their lantern cages, cringing.

I barked excitedly, and then self-consciously rubbed my throat. Where the hell had
that
come from?

In the next instant, cold steel pressed against my throat. “You and Raina pad back to Maya with your tails between your legs, now,” Khyber whispered. “I’ll be right behind you. Remember: It is
crucial
that we arouse no suspicions until the exact moment we strike.”

***

We left Mari to mourn her husband in those cold, dead caverns. With great misgivings, I agreed for Raina to be placed under compulsion once more.

Khyber watched the changing of the ghost guard with an eagle’s precision, before flying us to the north tower window in a narrow eight-second gap. We tumbled into a small armory.

After five minutes of fruitless cursing, in which we hurried to catch a Domino-style row of falling shields, we crept out into a candlelit hall.

“Any idea where a prayer wheel is?”

He nodded. “Look for one in the kitchen larders. They’ll be next to the ceremonial candles and dishes.”

“Cool. And…” I ducked my head around nervously. “You wouldn’t happen to know of a soul Maya’s after? One that she refers to as a ‘her’? And she’ll turn me into a Dark Dog if I don’t fetch it for her?”

Khyber was lost, staring after Raina. “Mother lost her fascination with souls in the seventeenth century. At the height of her power, she could eat them, but she couldn’t figure out how to reconcile the soul with the body. Eventually they just became another currency to her, like gold or jewels. The only soul she could still possibly have such an obsession over…would be her own.”

Her own
. I went rigid. Jackpot! And she thought I had it. Shit, I wish I did. What the hell could she
mean
?

Souls existed outside the body in Eve. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been here. And I could narrow it down further. The first time Maya had accused me of stealing “the soul” had been in Donggureung Park. She’d eliminated Duck Young’s soul off the list herself. Everyone else on that memorable first trip to Eve had used me for their own gain, except No-Name, whom I’d convinced to leave her guard post…

I froze, trying not to show a reaction of any kind, but Khyber probably heard my heartbeat speed up, anyway. Souls seemed to appear in many shapes and forms. Why not a little girl? I’d listed off how Maya and No-Name were different, but I’d failed to compare how they were the same: Both of them wore damning ribbons around their necks—one the color of death, and the other the shade of innocent blood spilled.

Khyber was weighing me much more thoughtfully now, and I let him think what he may. In a relationship as fanged as this, it was essential that we both needed each other.

We heard booted footsteps echo, and my breath caught. “Okay, Khyber. It’s time.”

The prince approached Raina and held both sides of her face. He didn’t speak aloud. Her eyes defocused and then snapped back to alertness. Her grip loosened on the sun bracelet until it fell, forgotten, back into her pocket.

I folded my arms, struggling to halt grains of sympathy from surfacing. “She won’t remember Taeyang?”

“No,” Khyber murmured, fingers lightly brushing her cheekbones. “It doesn’t matter. One day, she’ll give me that bracelet again.”

He’d vanished by the time Raina opened her eyes.

Chapter 31: The Boiler Room

It wasn’t easy to ditch Raina. One part of me just wanted to hold her until they pried her out of my cold, dead arms, but the other part knew that she would be the one shoving me away, into the arms of the enemy. And that hurt more.

So I tried to lose my persistent retainer. (After unsuccessfully trying to discover the location of the kitchens—“Are you wolves always that hungry? I’ll bring you more food.”)

“I’m pooped. Think I’ll nap for a while.” I slid down the wall and shut my eyes.

She flung out her hands, obviously irritated. “Then you must sleep in the Mirror Room.”

“ ‘Must’ sleep there? That sounds a little suspicious.”

“In the Mirror Room, you will be safe from unwanted attention. The Queen expects you to. Tonight.” Her eyes flashed black before she stumbled back, as if shocked by her involuntary storm of intensity.

I understood perfectly well. Maya wanted me to sleep in the Mirror Room before Lunar New Year so she could steal my soul. Eat it for breakfast, hand it bow-tied to the Dark Spirits— Either way, she’d have no trouble from me.

“Being threatened works up quite an appetite.” I shut my eyes. “Go bring me—two freshly cut watermelons. Three different kinds of kimchi. And, seriously, one teensy-weensy plate of bulgogi? I don’t exist on rabbit food, you know; I eat the rabbit.”

She glared at me, and then stalked away. I gave her a five second head start, and then trailed her to the kitchens.

“That greedy mutt!” I heard the predictable explosion from the chefs, as I crept past to the larders. “She should be licking up scraps with the rest of the dogs. We have little food as it is!”

“She is a guest. And you will make the meal,” Raina’s strange, harsh voice rang out. Well,
damn
. Fighting back a smile, I combed the cellars for prayer wheels, finally nicking one from a dusty old closet.

Tucking my knees against my chest, I scribbled out the message as fast as I could:

R U at Daytime Position 1? –C

The prayer wheel started to click and twirl. My trembling fingers helped pull the parchment along until I could read Raf’s reply:

Yes. Goshawks found way to daytime nest. Which girl is VAMP QUEEN? –R

Heart thumping in my throat, I wrote:

Black ribbon. Wait. Death without soul = Dark Spirit

A longer interval passed. Soft footsteps echoed in the corridor. I pulled farther back into the larder. Then—

When do we meet?

I wrote frantically now:

Lunar New Year. We end this for good. I

I stopped. “I” what? Missed you?
Loved
you?

The door swung open, and I buried the prayer wheel in my jacket to keep it from clicking. A ghost chef bent not four feet away from me, rummaging for a spare candle.

“Wants the prisoners to eat in total darkness,” he muttered to himself. “As if! Doesn’t the prince understand what a mess that will make? And who’ll have to clean it up? Yah!”

He caught a passing server boy with long eyes that stretched down to his mouth. I hugged the star lantern and squeezed my eyes tight, trying to breathe as quietly as I could.

“Take this to the boiler room. With eyes as big as those, you can see in the dark, can’t you?” The door slammed shut.

I sent the message.

Then, figuring Raina could use a break from babysitting, I stalked off after Long Eyes.

The boiler room rumbled like a dark and angry animal in the deep recesses of the palace. The giant mouths huffed and puffed down gulps of coal as they channeled heat to the upper floors. I slipped down the iron staircase.

Long Eyes’s voice echoed off the straining pipes: “Just eat it already!”

Stubborn silence.

“Come on, Old Man. It’s not my fault you pissed off the Queen.” Long Eyes’s voice squeaked higher than I could sing. “Fine. Starve for all I care. This place gives me the creeps.”

I watched him dart past, while my nostrils savored the smell of smoldering brimstone. The boiler room was strangely deserted. I felt like the fires roared higher as I hurried past.

“Zhi laoshi!”

He sat unmoving on the floor. His eye sockets stared past the bowl of rice the boy had generously left.

“Mmm…rice scrapped off the bottom of the cooker.” I lifted a couple grains with the chopsticks. “Please. Eat something.”

“I’m not hungry for anything that will sustain my existence here.”

“The heat’s making you cranky. Let’s get you out of here. Where’s Miguel?”

One hand suddenly flung out and grabbed my wrist. “You should not have come.”

I stared at him. “Laoshi, what’s wrong?”

A creak of chains on the top platform. My head swung up to see a familiar white-winged vampyre, his arms folded over the railing as he watched us squat among the boilers. He wore an immaculate white suit, and his golden hair framed empty teal eyes.

“Citlalli Alvarez. I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.” The vampyre swung his legs over the railing. “Prince Donovan. Please don’t be offended if I don’t shake your hand; I truly detest fleas.”

“I know who you are, you prissy-ass motherfucker.”

“Careful.” Donovan raised a slender finger to his lips. “Raising the temperature in a place like this could be…dangerous.”

I gave him my scariest glare. “I’ll raise the temperature as high as I like. I like my vampyres extra crispy.”

“You really are enamored with your own wit as they say. You’d like me extra crispy, you say? And with what? A little human BBQ on the side?”

He meant Old Man Zhi. I returned to glaring.

Donovan gave a cruel grin. He amused himself by tight-rope walking across the rafters. “I had to wait until you would predictably run away from Raina. Can’t have my dearest watch her husband-to-be brutally murder her sister and a helpless senior citizen. I like my women young and innocent.”

“Then you scored a home run with Amrit and Eva,” I muttered.