She pushed away from the table and stood so that her wings wouldn’t tangle in human furnishings, and there she was—a phoenix again.
Nikos’s thought came, I know you can sense the dimension shift that lets us mythic shifters go invisible to humans. Can do you it, do you think?
Jen sighed inwardly. Not yet. I tested again last night, when flying with Iliana. Still glow-in-the-dark. Not exactly subtle. Why?
An urgent message from Grandmother Demi, just now. She needs me to go down there, and I would have liked to bring you along for the long run downhill. I wish it had happened before my shift, so that I could have saved an hour by flying down, but I can’t say that to this poor kid who is ready to collapse from running up here. At least the downward trip will be easier on her.
Jen hid a smile. I take it Grandmother Demi doesn’t have a phone?
Actually, she has one, but she won’t use it except for general purposes. Nothing can convince her that phones left party lines behind decades ago. Your meeting will still have to wait.
Jen had seen on her flights the crazy-quilt warren of twisted paths, arches, tunnels, and dead ends that made the city above the harbor impossible to navigate for any but the locals. Nikos and his people knew how to go to ground when they needed to, but there was no chance she could do that as a golden phoenix radiant almost enough to read by.
Tell her we’ll meet soon, Jen said, with regret. I hope.
She felt his answering laughter, and took off for her nightly flight to the other, unpopulated side of the island, so she could fly high over that alluring red glow that she’d begun to think of as the island’s heart.
She’d made it halfway around the other side of the mountain when a sudden burst of anger from Nikos caused her to miss a wing-beat. She let out a squawk and dropped, wings in tight, to build up some speed before leveling out and flapping hard. What is it? Do you need me?
He did not respond in words, but a brief memory: a teenaged girl woman sitting on a stool next to an old, white-haired woman with a sardonic gaze that definitely reminded Jen of Godiva. This woman had to be Grandmother Demi.
Grandmother Demi said, “Kia here hired onto the yacht as a cleaning girl, the previous one being glad to vanish with our bribe in pocket. Kia couldn’t get away until dark. Kia, tell the kyrios exactly what you heard.”
“I was in the bathroom scrubbing out the shower when she came into the bedroom.” The bitter way Kia spat out the word ‘she’ made Jen suspect it could only be referring to Medusa.
“I didn’t see who she was talking to, but she said, ‘Nikos wants to play games? Fine. We can’t buy legally, we can’t buy legally. Most places, possession is ninth tenths of the law. Time to test that out, isn’t it?’ She slammed around in the closet, then she and a man went out laughing. I had to keep working all day. I hope I’m not too late.”
Jen was just taking this in when she heard a loud crack! Followed by a deep, echoing BOOM!
What was that? she sent the frantic thought.
Mateo has given the signal to close off access to the castle. I’ve got to get back up there. Damn—His thought shut off abruptly, but she knew he was frustrated because he couldn’t shift himself, though one of the bigger shifters was no doubt on the way to get him, to give him a ride.
What could Jen do? She didn’t have a defense station. Go to the infirmary in case she was needed?
Then she remembered those knife fight shifters, and sent a worried thought to Nikos—but immediately his reassuring thought came back, too swift for words: the suspicious patients had vanished somewhere, and she should stay in the aerie or above it until they were found.
Jen flew around the towers and settled onto her perch in Nikos’s room in the aerie, after letting him know where she was. She sensed his relief that she was there and safe, as well as her unspoken regret that she couldn’t be by his side. At least she could keep that mental inner door open.
Time seemed to stretch forever, but it was maybe one a.m. when Nikos himself appeared, looking tired. “Medusa tried to infiltrate. We’ve gone through the castle room by room. They’re locked up. Some fighting on the causeway to the infirmary, but Bryony’s team drove them back. They’re contained at the spring.”
Jen promptly responded, If this goes on past dawn, give me a station. I can fight if need be.
She was briefly surprised when he didn’t answer at once. She realized his gaze—his attention—was elsewhere. Sure enough, he turned to her, his mind searing with worry he didn’t try to hide. “Jen, Cleo did not report to her defense station.”
Wasn’t this her free day?
“Yes, but when the emergency call goes out, they all know to return. Neither Bryony nor I can reach her, which suggests to me that she’s either unconscious, or cut off by shiftsilver.”
“Shiftsilver?”
He gave her a rueful smile. “To borrow from Cleo’s beloved comics, think of it as shifter kryptonite. It keeps us from shifting. Or reaching out on the mythic plane. It doesn’t take much. Enough of it is toxic. I hope for her sake she’s merely asleep, after a long day underwater.” He thumbed his eye sockets tiredly. “Orelle knows most of Cleo’s harbor friends. She and Ezios are on their way to find her.”
“Kyrios!” someone called.
Nikos ran out, leaving Jen on her perch, longing to be able to help. Her phoenix wouldn’t or maybe couldn’t talk to her, to tell her if there was some new power that would help her to fight. She couldn’t turn invisible, so she was a target.
Frustrated, she forced herself into calming breathing. All right. Take stock of what she could do that she knew of. She was very good at talking to Nikos mind to mind. Yes, they were mates, but they weren’t mated yet. She didn’t understand what that meant in all ways yet, but one thing she was sure of: she had become good at hearing on the mental plane.