Endless Knight (Darkling Mage 9)

I chuckled. “Yeah. Good thing.”

Borica was the name Herald had started to fondly call the queer little alliance we’d formed between the Boneyard and the friendlier bits of the Lorica – Prudence, Bastion, and all the others. The jury was out on whether Team Borica or Team Loneyard was a better name for our group. It felt right, either way.

“We’ll figure this out,” I said. “If we don’t find something in the old stories, I’m sure that the others will.”

Herald nodded. “What’s encouraging is that we know a lot of them are true, or at least partially so.”

“More like all. Every encounter we’ve had with myths and legends, with the entities? Some of the details might be wrong, but there’s always a grain of truth in there somewhere. There’s a reason those stories exist.”

“Because they’re rooted in something. I like how you’re thinking.” He reached over, squeezed my hand, then went back to scanning his books. And I knew I should have done the same, but it was too distracting, too difficult to do that with Herald so nearby, being so fundamentally – well, Herald.

The way the sunlight streamed in through the windows, how it struck tiny motes of dust that rose from clothbound books as Herald spread them open, how they struck his hair and glasses, made him glint and gleam. That was the biggest part of why I agreed to come along for research. It was Herald in his element, at his happiest, and it was something I could capture in my mind, to hold and to keep.

I watched him work, and stayed completely and utterly useless, somehow believing that etching his image into my memory was a far better use of my time and my eyesight than poring over dead, ancient tomes, than finding the name of a dead man’s sword. Because I knew that finding the answer meant less time with Herald. Finding the solution only meant drawing closer to the problem of losing this, and the dust, and sunlight, and him, forever. I watched Herald, wanting the afternoon to last forever.

He looked up at me suddenly, catching me staring, and a puzzled expression passed over his face. His forehead and his nose crinkled, then he grinned.

“What the hell are you staring at?” he said softly. “You big dope.”

I shook my head, smiling, my heart a painful mix of longing, and joy, and grief. “It’s nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

Herald rolled his eyes. “Well, I’ve got something. I think we have a lead.”

I perked up, leaning closer to look at what he was reading. My eyes scanned the pages, but all I could hear was Herald’s voice.

“Pack a suitcase,” he said. “Looks like we’re going to France after all.”

Chapter 15

It took a day or so for us to prepare, not because anyone actually did need to pack, but because Carver had very wisely advised us to take along as many members of the Borica as possible. This trip was going to be a scavenger hunt, not a meeting with a demon prince who could potentially save us from the wrath of an intruding Greek god. We needed extra hands, just in case.

Now, I’m not delusional or anything. I knew that this trip was going to be as extensive as the one we took to the Philippines, which was nice and everything – apart from potentially incurring the wrath of a whole ’nother head of a pantheon, of course – but it was brief, scarcely a glimpse. It was like stepping into a remarkably decorated room, then stepping out of it again. The quirks of teleportation.

But those sparse minutes, maybe less than half an hour we spent on Calaguas Island had been stunning regardless. I’m happy to report that the same could be said for the tiny slice of France that the Boneyard boys visited that day. It was somewhere in the countryside, a short distance away from the nearest town, far enough that we didn’t run the risk of attracting unwanted attention. And this time, we made sure to come under cover of night. Calaguas had been different, isolated, and we stood little chance of detection or standing out like sore thumbs.

Granted, we could have picked an even more secluded location, but as Herald explained, where we went didn’t exactly matter. We just had to make sure that we were on French soil. Terra firma.

Plus, it was the best, remotest part of the country that Royce could recall. I should have mentioned that. Carver wanted to stay at the Boneyard, to batten down the hatches – you never leave a castle undefended, as Carver himself might say – plus he wanted to keep an eye looking out for Agatha Black. That left Royce in charge of teleportation duty. He was more experienced than me in that regard, at least enough that he could take more than two people with him without feeling the need to vomit up his internal organs immediately after. And like most teleporters, Royce was at his best when he could work from memory.

“This is the place,” Royce said, as we phased into an empty, grassy meadow, lit only by the moon and the stars. He had a weird, uncharacteristic smile on his lips. “Oh wow, I remember. This is where we – um. Never mind.”

He caught himself too late, and Romira’s eyes flitted left and right as she tried to fit the pieces together. She smacked him on the shoulder.

“Oh my God. Did you have sex with some chick out here?”

“Sweetie,” Royce said, holding his hands up and stumbling backwards. “It was before we met.”

Romira harrumphed, folded her arms, and stamped off. Gil laughed. Prudence tutted and shook her head. “Nice one, Royce. Real nice.”

“Hey,” he said. “It was either here, or the Eiffel Tower. And Igarashi says that we really don’t want anyone watching when whatever needs to happen happens.”

Sterling folded his arms, standing with his feet apart. “Explain,” he said.

“Gladly,” Herald said. “But everyone come around, because I’m not going to repeat myself.”

Mason, Asher, Bastion, and all the others – Team Borica in full, basically – gathered into a loose circle as Herald patiently began his briefing.

“It was Dust who gave me the idea,” Herald started, and the tiny, fleeting compliment made me feel all sorts of important. “We were checking out options, and he suggested Joyeuse.”