“Fine, but I paid an absolute fortune for this bike when I was younger, and I do not want her damaged.”
“You are rich, are you not? You could buy another.”
“Yes, I’m rich, and yes, I could buy another, but that is not the point. I bought her with my own money, not with anything Mom had invested for me.” I stowed the helmet and pocketed the keys. “How do I follow you in Aedh form?”
“You don’t.” He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me. Before I could even register surprise, power surged, running through every muscle, every fiber, until my whole body sang with it. Until it felt like there was no me and no him, just the sum of us—energy beings with no flesh to hold us in place.
Then the garage winked out of existence and we were on the gray fields. Only it wasn’t the gray fields that I saw—to me, they were usually little more than the real world covered by thick veils and shadows, where things not sighted on the living plane gained substance. But in Azriel’s arms, the fields were vast and beautiful, filled with airy, intricate structures and sun-bright pulses of life that teased the imagination.
Then the fields were gone, replaced by darkness that smelled of earth, mold, and disuse. The old sewer tunnels the Aedh were apparently using for their lair.
Azriel released me the minute we were solid. I stepped back, my body still humming from the energy he’d released—not to mention our closeness.
“We are down the far end of the tunnels from where the Razan are,” he said softly. “They are apparently not using this section.”
“So why are we here?” I asked, attempting to shake off the effects of his touch.
“Is it not best to start at one end rather than the middle?”
I guess it did make more sense. I swung around and studied the darkness behind us. “Have the Raziq all gone?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s get this over with.”
I walked forward, my footsteps soft yet echoing faintly in the darkness. I kept close to the damp brick wall, using its presence as a guide, because I sure as hell couldn’t see. It wasn’t long before we reached the first puddle of light and I paused, recognizing the small room to the left. It was where the Razan guards had been the night I’d escaped my prison. This time the TV was off, and the air was free of the scent of men.
“Should we check it?” I said, pausing near the doorway.
“Given that the book is hidden by veils, it would be wise.”
“My father said I’d feel its presence. I don’t.” But then, I hadn’t “felt” it when it first arrived, either. Of course, that could have been because I’d been too busy trying to avoid the lilac-colored dragon that had exploded from it—a dragon that now decorated my left arm.
I stepped inside and made a cursory circuit of the room, avoiding the take-out and drink containers that littered the floor. I didn’t feel anything more than the chill in the air.
We continued on down the tunnel. After a while, more doors came into view, and as my gaze went to the first one, I shivered. This was the cell where I’d been kept. The cell where I’d been tortured.
I reached for the door handle—my fingers shaking and my stomach flip-flopping—and opened it up. The room inside was small, dark, and yet familiar, even if the glass embedded into the concrete floor was barely visible and there was little sign of the energy field that had hampered my ability to shift into Aedh form. I stepped to the edge of the glass and wondered if the remnants of my jeans still lay in the middle of the circle.
“Risa.” Azriel touched my elbow lightly, making me jump. “We cannot linger.”
“Okay.” I couldn’t sense the book in the cell, anyway, so I closed the door and tried the other two, with the same result.
The tunnel swept slowly around to the right and sounds began to invade the darkness. The slight drip of water, the murmur of conversation, the stir of heat through the air.
I glanced at Azriel, and he held up three fingers. I guess I had to be grateful that he hadn’t indicated that all five were present, although that did raise the question of where the other two were.
I walked on more cautiously, but no matter how much I tried to be quiet, my footsteps couldn’t help but echo in these shoes. I should have taken them off and walked barefoot, but given the Raziq’s penchant for laying glass into their floors …
“What’s that?” a voice ahead said.
I stopped, my fists clenched. After a moment, another man said, “We’re in a fucking disused tunnel. It’s probably the goddamn rats again.”
“No, I heard something else. Something bigger.”
“Well, go investigate then,” the other man retorted. “I’m not leaving the fire.”
The other man swore, then said, “Frank, come with me.”