Soul Fire (Darkling Mage 8)

“Unless he is,” I said. “I mean, is it so unlikely? And look at this.”

I slid the knife towards the center of the table. Everyone sprang away as if I’d dropped a grenade. Only Prudence moved forward, pretending to stretch her arms over and past our drinks, then deftly slipping the knife up one of her sleeves.

“This isn’t a space for us to be doing this, Dust,” she hissed. “You trying to get us kicked out? You don’t just pull knives.”

I ruffled my hair, then threw up my hands as I collapsed into my chair. “Sorry! Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. But my point stands. That’s the same knife that Donovan stabbed into my chest.”

Prudence pretended to adjust her cuff, staring down the length of her sleeve. “Okay, I can’t see shit, anyway. Plus I wasn’t there when it happened. But we’ll sort this out, Dust. We always do.”

I gave her the best smile I could muster.

“It’s good to have you back, Prudence,” I said.

Herald stretched one reassuring arm across my shoulders, then squeezed hard as he took a swig of his beer. “It sure is. You’ve missed a lot.”

Agatha Black’s awakening, most important of all.

“But if Dust says it’s the same knife,” Herald continued, “then I believe him.”

Bastion rolled his shoulders, sitting straighter. His eyes flitted between me and Herald. “Yeah. I do too. I think we all believe him.” Bastion reached over, patting me gently, but awkwardly on the back of the hand.

Okay? That was weird. Things had been somewhat strange between me and Bastion since the string of incidents between retrieving Banjo and Agatha’s awakening, but he hadn’t done anything truly odd, nothing to make me really think there was anything out of the ordinary. But this patting thing kind of qualified.

“I – um. Thanks.” I pulled my hand away slowly. Bastion cleared his throat. The glimmering neon lights of Temple’s interiors reflected in the lenses of Herald’s glasses. If he saw anything, he was doing a good job of pretending he hadn’t noticed.

“We’ll put feelers out,” Bastion said, blinking rapidly, regaining his composure. He was speaking in his Scion voice, the one that made him seem a little older, more mature – and okay, fine, just a little more handsome. “I’ll put some Eyes on the job. Have them be on the lookout for Jonah and Donovan.”

“Good call,” Gil said. His arm was around Prudence’s shoulders, a mirror of how Herald was latched onto me. She’d only been in town a week, fresh off a trip to China with her grandmother, and it had been exactly seven days since Gil had slept at the Boneyard. I guess they missed each other a lot. A whole lot.

Prudence sighed. “I’m gone for a few weeks and everything changes. A rogue Hound I can understand, but a Scion gone AWOL? Serving the Eldest?”

“Hey,” Herald said. “Not unheard of. Remember Thea Morgana?”

I scoffed. “I’d really rather not.” I took a swig of my beer, the bubbling rush of it sweet and bitter across my tongue. “But all that aside, the more immediate problem is the thing that Jonah and Donovan actually worked together to unleash. Agatha Black. Do we have any news?”

Silence. Prudence and Bastion exchanged looks. Herald shook his head.

“Next time we do this, we should have Romira around,” Prudence said. “She’s one of the best Eyes we’ve got. Of course, the trouble is that inviting her out likely means having Royce around as well.”

“What?” I said. “That’s cool. Royce is cool. We’re cool now.” Especially after that thing where he saved my life, again, by teleporting me out and away from Chernobog’s clutches.

Prudence shook her head, giving me a mock frown. “Who are you and what have you done with Dustin Graves?”

“Listen,” I said, shrugging. “You missed a lot. Also, I can’t help that I’m really, really charming, even to monsters like Royce.”

Gil guffawed, and Prudence rolled her eyes. Bastion smiled to himself, tilting his head. He rubbed his chin, and just like that, the smile was gone.

“I think the best thing to do in this situation is to keep our eyes peeled,” Prudence said. “You boys look out with whatever tools you have at the Boneyard, and we’ll keep watch at the Lorica as well.”

“Fair is fair,” I said. “But I’m freaking out over all this silence around Agatha. And this thing with the knife in the doorframe isn’t comforting, either.”

Herald leaned in, squeezing my arm. “If it helps, I’ve been scanning the place. There’s nothing – no one amiss here.”

“Thanks,” I murmured back. “That helps, a little.”

“That’s it, then,” Prudence said. “Keep our eyes open, and not just on explicitly arcane phenomena. Pay attention to the news, and to social media. It could be

a signal if anything at all seems off in Valero. Hell, California, maybe even the rest of the country. Who knows where Agatha is?”