I rolled and drove both heels into Brody’s gut. The kid let out a painful gasp as I knocked the wind out of him. I smashed his elbow. The crack echoed, sharp and ugly.
Brody cried out in pain. His sticky, magic-covered hand twitched before he pulled it into his chest.
“She’s precious,” Brody sobbed. “I feel her pain. Why don’t you?” The tears stopped, and he straightened, looking down at me as if I were the one with a dislocated elbow. “Our tether is so strong.”
Brody hadn’t tethered Quinn. Even the thought made bile rise in my throat. I lunged for him, but the kid scampered back. He bolted. I hesitated—last time I charged in blind, I took a pole to the head. The pause cost me. The kid dove through a square in the wall that I would never fit into and disappeared.
I waited, listening for his exit or reentry into the house. A distant thump and cry of pain sounded outside the walls, followed by retreating footsteps. Without my runes speeding me up, there was no way I would catch him.
Once I was sure he wasn’t coming back, I stepped into the room.
A few dirty windows filled the dust, and debris cluttered space with streaks of sunlight. A molting couch from BT clung to a final leg and had one of the Architect’s standard-issue bedrolls spread out on its uneven surface. My gaze immediately homed in on a familiar shape on a table in the middle of the room. I knew too much about alters. At the center sat a filthy BT doll, propped like a god. Around it: Quinn’s scraps. Her dress. Her pencil. Her life.
My stomach twisted. This was an obsession with Quinn at its center. I drew, creating a knife out of pure energy, and sliced up every item he’d collected.
I’d let him go, again. My bruises screamed, but not as loud as the thought of Quinn still haunted by him.
I couldn’t warn the Westwaters. They wouldn’t listen to me.
Brody was just a kid, but his magic was dangerous, and his mind was unstable. Facing him alone wasn’t a good idea. And it wasn’t something I needed to do anymore.
I let out an unhappy breath.‘Rowan, are you with the Architect?’
‘Change your mind already?’Rowan asked.
I didn’t justify that with a response.‘Brody’s still going to be a problem.’
‘Shit. Where are you?’
It took him twenty minutes to arrive with reinforcements made up of only Abernathy’s men.
“Where are Ezra’s enforcers?” I asked.
Rowan clapped me on the shoulder. “The Westwater border’s a mess. Jamie’s kissing Xan’s ass to prove loyalty, and the Abernathys don’t want war on their doorstep. Xan hasn’t ruled it out.”
I grunted.
‘You’d know all this if you weren’t hiding away. Forget the Alun, come train with me.’
I looked hard at my friend—my only other one besides Quinn—searching for any hint of disappointment, but like a fucking dog, hope filled his face. I could swear his little tail wagged.
I pursed my lips.
Brody was long gone. The Westwaters had three layers of gates I had to get through, and I hadn’t even heard the guys that took me down coming. My side throbbed, and my head pulsed. I did not doubt that if they caught me the next time, that would be it.
The knot on my skull throbbed where Brody’s pole landed.
Everything about today had been a disaster.
‘Quinn’s safe?’I asked.
Xan promised she was, but I needed to hear the words from someone I trusted.
Rowan pulled up Brit’s messages. Quinn was safe. Laughing. Fighting off the Westwaters with a stick. I could’ve known that already, but I’d ditched the chat like an idiot.
Under my Prophet, I never had choices. Now I did, and I kept making the wrong ones.
“I’m only training with you,” I said.
