“Should we call mom?” Laurel asked from the back.
“She’s off planet, I think,” Parker said. “Bastian is staying with us.”
Laurel made a face and Parker half turned in his seat so he could look at both of them. “Hey, what’s with all the sad faces? This is the A-Team, people, there is no one I would rather save the world with!”
“Sugar should be here if it’s the A-Team,” Nick said. “She’s the only one who can pull off Spandex and jean jackets.”
“I think you arevastlyunderselling your biceps, Nick,” Parker said. “Do you want to call Tate?”
Nick did. He wanted to have the SAPD at his back, have full tactical support. But it would take time to convince Rios and the rest that this was the right move.
“We need to find out what the situation is first,” he said finally. “Shadow is a complicated god to fight. We can’t give her more people to break off and take over.”
Parker nodded, but his eyes searched the side of Nick’s face and it took all of Nick’s power not to look over and ask Parker what he saw. Did he see the guilt that was eating Nick’s stomach?
“Nick—” Parker broke off. “You didn’t kill her father.”
“I did,” Nick insisted.
“Okay, but could you have done it if Darkness didn’t agree it was the right thing to do?” Parker’s logic wasn’t infallible, but it was an air mask in a crashing plane, it was a single piece of driftwood after a shipwreck. Nick could cling to it because they both shared the same guilt, the same grief.
“What’s our plan for getting in?” Parker asked. “You don’t have your badge and I’m definitely a persona non grata until you’re back in SAPD’s good graces.”
Nick slowed the car. “I forgot.”
“You were distracted,” Parker said quickly, as though to make up for it, as though he also wanted to paper over the whole mandatory leave. “Keep driving. I have an idea.”
Nick raised an eyebrow, catching Laurel’s eyes in the rearview and she raised both hands, as though to sayI have no idea, but whatever it is, it will not be good.
That single moment of distraction was enough. The next thing he knew he was about to crash into the World Tree.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Laurel yelped,Parker shouted, and Nick slammed on the breaks. The car stopped inches from impact, the front tires uneven because of the massive roots.
Nick turned to glare at Parker. “I thought you were just going to use your fae magic to get us through the checkpoint!”
“I didn’t want to get you in evenmoretrouble!” Parker said. “I thought this was better!”
“I almost crashed my car,” Nick said, putting the car in reverse and backing away carefully. He pulled the car parallel to the trunk, and shook his head. “Parker.”
Parker held up his hands, looking alarmed and helpless and Nick sighed. “Fine.”
“Is that a ‘fine’ like I’m about to find a leg lamp in a dozen pieces on the carpet?” Parker raised both eyebrows. “Or a ‘fine’ like we’re going vegetarian for a month?”
“It’s a ‘fine’ like let’s get out of the car and see if we can find any evidence of Shadow.” Then, because he was still alittleannoyed about the near-crash, Nick said, “And then we’ll see about the whole ‘going vegetarian for the month.’ Laurel did give us that wonderful cookbook for Christmas.”
Laurel snorted and opened her door. “I am not getting in the middle of this.”
Parker whined desperately. “Nick, that is both cruel and unusual and the Geneva Conventions have strict things to say about that sort of punishment.”
Nick opened his door and his smile fell away. The trees around them were weeping.
Parker winced, his face going pale and his mouth dropping open as he stared. Occasionally, with what Nick assumed were more powerful spirits, Nick could hear them, similarly to how Parker could. It mostly seemed to happen with trees.
The first time Nick had heard the Old One tree talk, he’d had a crisis of faith. The tree had loomed over them, andspoken. What did that mean about the world if the tree could speak? What did it mean about magic?
Still, it was only rarely that it happened. Parker’s magic was contained to him, part of him. Nick could only hear it when something truly horrible was happening. Like now.
