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Gabby’s words were always in my head, acting as my moral compass.
“Let me go first. Samkiel would—”
“Rule number one of this short-term partnership. We don’t mention his name or even talk about him.” I gave him my most intimidating stare.
He smirked knowingly, utterly unaffected by my death glare. “Why? Does his name bother you? You said you don’t care about him. Seems weird that it would be an issue if that is true.”
My eyes narrowed into slits, and I shoved Logan into the river. I watched with satisfaction as he hit the water and went under, but I sighed when I could still see the blue glow beneath the current. When he surfaced, he looked up at me and flipped me off. For the first time in months, I smiled.
* * *
We followed the walls beneath the castle, trying to stay out of the murky water. Our clothes clung to us, and my hair stuck to my face in slimy tendrils. We had emptied as much water as we could from our shoes so we wouldn’t alert anyone with the squeaking. I could use the heat I wielded to dry us off, but smelling like this place was a great cover to help us stay undetected until I was ready.
“You hear that?” Logan whispered.
“Yes.” It sounded like grinding metal and a thousand machines working above us.
“He is building something. That’s why he needs the iron.”
“Yes.” The only question was what.
Logan suddenly stopped and went still. Shock and something primal and impossible to define moved across his face. His eyes dropped to his hand.
“I feel her.”
“What?”
“Neverra. I can feel her. Here.” His skin glowed so brightly in the darkened hall I squinted from it. He spun in a tight circle, his breath coming in short pants. His eyes focused behind me, and he sprinted away, nothing but a blazing cerulean light in the gloom.
“Fuck,” I said and chased after him.
I caught him by the sleeve and spun him around. Samkiel’s best friend, his steady second-in-command, was gone. The territorial, possessive, celestial warrior stood in his place.
“Let me go,” he snapped, his blue eyes glowing as they bore into me. I tossed him against the nearest wall and pressed my forearm against his throat. He struggled, attempting but failing to break my hold. He was damn near feral as he tried to free himself, but I had been feeding enough that even The Hand wasn’t an issue.
“Think before you go charging into gods know what.”
“She’s here,” he hissed. “I have to get to her.”
I pressed him harder against the wall, the stone behind him cracking. “And you will, but if you run in there without thinking, you will alert everyone and get us all killed.”
“What if—”
“Logan.” I tried reason, pulling on that sliver of hope I used to carry. “If she has been alive this long, a few more minutes will not matter. Think. What did Samkiel teach you?”
I hated saying his name, hated hearing it. It made the aching void in my chest stir, and I couldn’t afford to be distracted by that grief right now. I needed to be lethal, and the memory of him made me soft and weak. But if I allowed Logan to run in there, he could ruin everything for me.
“You have to control your emotions, just like he taught us. Think first, not on instinct or drive.” The dull, empty ache began to pound. “Breathe. Center. Focus. Core. Okay.”
I took a deep breath, making sure Logan watched me as I inhaled through my nose and held it before releasing it through my mouth. I moved one hand in the now familiar pattern from the top of my head to my chest before pushing back again, just as Samkiel had taught me. All the while, I held Logan’s gaze, willing him to listen. “Now, you do it.”
He leaned his head back and relaxed. I let him go, and he took a deep breath, running through the small centering ritual before he pushed away from the wall. The frantic need left his eyes, the lights on his skin easing to a soft glow. I could still see the need to follow the pull, to run blindly in his search for her, but now he had a handle on it.
“Better?”
He nodded and took another deep breath. Satisfied he had himself under control, I turned and headed back the way we’d come. I lifted my hand, summoning a flame to help guide us as Logan fell into step beside me.
“He taught you that, too?”
