Ghosts.
He screamed that title enough that I’ll probably hear it every time I look in the mirror now. My heart races, or maybe it doesn’t because it’s still on the floor while my gut churns with astonishment and unease.
The Vulpi say something to Scorpius, and Skull barks a question at Hatus, but everything is muffled by my confusion and the explosion of questions that detonate in my mind. I’m trying to rein in my emotions and my stupefied reaction, knowing the Vulpi are watching everything we do and say right now. I need to be smart. I need to not fuck up my first hunt as a Scorpion simply because Hatus Orill might have answers that I desperately need.
I tell myself to breathe.
In.
Out.
Get control, collect the barrage of questions in my head, and sort through what needs to be asked first. Maybe Scorpius can kick the Vulpi out of the room. Then we can cut to the heart of what we need. I look over at Scorpius, but my attention catches on Skull, who looks as though he’s trying to calm Hatus. I don’t think the cobbler can hear Skull over the sound of his terrified sobbing. He’s rocking on the ground, begging us not to let him die. His hands are wrapped around his head as though he expects a killing blow at any moment.
Shit.
If my heart was in my chest, it would plummet again. Hatus has answers. Answers to things I was starting to give up on, but now we’ve broken him, and I’m suddenly terrified that everything I need is locked away in his panicked and traumatized mind forever.
I look to Bones. He was good with me when I first woke up in their home, so maybe he can help. Bones’s head is tilted up, and he’s staring intensely at the ceiling. Goose bumps skitter across my arms at the look of concentration on his face. Instinct tells me to stop, shove everything aside, and listen.
My soul yanks my heart back in place, and I’m forced to concentrate past the anxious staccato and target whatever it is that Bones is intently focusing on. He goes still, tension building in his shoulders, and it’s as though that alone shuts down all the emotion and turmoil swirling inside of me. The pounding of my pulse quiets. My senses sharpen, and that’s when I hear it, a subtle shift of weight above us.
I fist my hand and then release it. My fingers itch for the feel of blades in my palms, but I keep myself under control. I let it slip once today, and it won’t happen again. We’re on a hunt, and in all the bewildering confusion, I lost sight of the fact that we were preparing for trouble tonight. From the sound of things, trouble’s here.
Bones fluidly moves closer to the window, his focus now peering out of the thick pane of glass.
“Telson, on me,” he orders, and then he shoves the window open and jumps out.
I barely hear Scorpius order the Vulpi to get Hatus out of there, before I leap out of the window too. Part of me wants to climb back in and ring Hatus’s neck until he tells me everything I want to know about the ghosts, but this isn’t about me anymore. I’m Telson of the Order of Scorpions, and they’re counting on me not to be a selfish cunt and to watch their backs no matter what.
I pull a scorpion tail dagger from my back as I scan my surroundings in search of Bones or a threat. It’s late either because the Vulpi like to do things when the court and its citizens are fast asleep or because the Scorpions do. The houses around me are plain and humble. They’re built close together and look similar with only subtle differences here and there. Narrow alleys run between the abodes, which is where I spot a streak of black sprinting through the shadows and then a flash of white jumping from roof to roof ahead of him.
Ghost!
It’s as though I’ve conjured them straight from my hopeful mind. Shock and a longing to understand what the fuck is going on pummel me as I take off, racing to catch up to Bones’s long stride. I scan my surroundings, my gaze bouncing between everything around me to ensure I’m not missing anyone who might be lurking in wait for an ambush, and then pick up speed when there’s no one else around.
Oblivious fae slumber in their homes as an apparition, one that probably has more answers than broken Hatus ever did, jumps from roof to roof above while two Scorpions hunt from the narrow streets below.
The streak of white bounding above is getting smaller as the phantom expertly navigates the slight slope of the slate roofs. They angle their escape so there are more alleys and streets for us to run through in order to follow the same path. A chill runs up my back like a desert rat when I take in the white armor and white hair of the roof runner. We’re not only chasing a ghostthat possibly helped massacre a whole bloodline in one night, we’re chasing a potential key to my past.
I’ve waffled over my need to know where I come from, doubted why it would matter, and worried about what knowing could change. I’ve yearned for the moment I would learn who I am, only to be disappointed when it seemed to disappear like a puff of smoke in the sky. My chance to know anything is losing us as it leaps deftly from roof to roof, and I won’t let it slip away no matter what I have to do to catch a ghost.
“Boost me up,” I call to Bones as I gain on him in the alleyway.
“Follow from the roofs. I’m going to shadow walk and see if I can cut them off,” Bones calls over his shoulder.
Then he bends at the exact time that I leap for a wall at our side. Using my momentum, I spring off the wall and onto his shoulders. Without missing a beat, he straightens and I go flying up to the roof of the house next to us. Bones doesn’t so much as slow his pace as he charges a shadow and disappears.
I leap from one roof onto another, my stride even and sure. The stars and the moon guide my path, the night quiet and cool as I stealthily and speedily stalk my prey. They never look back once, so either they don’t know I’m here or don’t care. The ghost is fast and nimble, but they’re running out of small houses to vault across. Up ahead, there’s nothing but a massive walled-in courtyard.
The phantom stops abruptly when they finally run out of roofline. They stand there for a moment on the edge of what must be a market that’s closed for the night. I can just make out the tops of several stalls as I get closer. There’s a flash of fairy light against steel, and then the ghost disappears. I can’t tell if they jumped or fell or disappeared altogether.
My heart leaps with panic at the thought of them vanishing without a trace. I press harder to close the distance. Dread tries to override my training, as the ghost seems to evaporate into nothing. I can’t see them anywhere. Only a handful of houses are between me and where the specter disappeared, but something in my gut tells me to slow down and sneak to the edge of the market. The drive to charge forward, to seize the key to everything I want to know, is riding me hard, but I shut it out and listen to my instincts.
Like a prowling sint cat, I pour myself over the remaining rooftops, moving to the side and then forward to make sure I don’t appear in the same place that the ghost just disappeared from. I’m liquid shadow as I silently slink forward until I’m able to peek discreetly past a slate gutter and take in what’s happening in the empty market below.
Bones stands lethal and menacing in the middle of the open space, empty carts and stalls butting up against the walls on all sides. He has two swords in his hands, ready to take on the six cloaked figures surrounding him. They don’t move, as though they’re waiting for him to strike first, but judging by the crumpled body of the ghost I was just chasing and the pool of blood that’s slowly spreading beneath them, Bones already has.
Anger and apprehension mix to create a lethal combination that has me desperate to coat every blade on my body in enemy blood. The ghost is dead, and if the cloaked fuckers aren’t with him, then I’ve just lost something vital that I might not ever find again. I ache as that realization punches deep and painful in my gut. I was so fucking close. I force myself to tamp all the anguish and frustration down and focus on what’s happening in front of me and not on everything I might have just lost.
