Page 49 of A Touch of Gold and Madness

“Your currents…” Griffin said, lifting his scrutinizing stare back to me. “Put them away. It’s not safe for them to be free. Not yet.” His tone was demanding, but I heard the underlying hint of fear.

I huffed out a breath at his demand. “I’m weaponless, and I heard voices. There’s no one around here. It’s fine. I’ve been suffocating with that damn thing on for too long,” I said, referring to my bracelet. My hand absentmindedly rubbed my wrist, dreading the moment I’d have to snap it back in place.

“I get it. Trust me. My magic is drowning, too. But it’s only going to attract your father to you. You know he has people with abilities who can trace your energetic signature from miles away, right?”

I nodded. “I know.” Sighing, I reached into my pocket for the cold metal bracelet. “You’re right,” I said as the latch snapped together around mywrist. The familiar, warm buzzing of my magic went cold in my veins, locking away a large part of me again. I was forever a prisoner in some capacity.

“Go get some sleep. We’re still leaving at dawn, which is in a few hours.”

I looked at him—reallylooked at him—and said nothing as he met my gaze. It was as if I was seeing him for the first time as the grown, hardened version of that little boy from all those years ago. He was beautiful. Darkness seemed to be his only companion. A toxic companion that poisoned any brightness crossing his path if he allowed it too close. Thankfully, he seemed to be able to hold it at arm’s length before it consumed him completely. Those eyes spoke a language of their own—and somehow, I knew it on an intuitive level.

“Okay.” I nodded, and began backing away to return to the main bedroom. “See you in the morning. Get some rest.” I cast a glance over my shoulder one last time before I walked down the hallway. Griffin watched my every step, his crystalline eyes gleamed with a mixture of emotions that I couldn’t decipher.

Making my way through the hall, I tried to make sense of everything that had happened. With the bone still clutched in my hand, I realized that I’d never learned who he’d been talking to.

“It should be this building,” Griffin said, observing the deserted business in the historic City of Downtown Macon. The property had once housed a tattoo shop. What remained stood looted and empty. Like everything else in this world, it was a ghost begging to be acknowledged and freed from the chains of the past.

The hike from the abandoned house had been relatively short. As promised, we’d left at dawn and walked in a comfortable silence to the scorse location. I’d basked in the fresh morning air while keeping my sensesopen for any potential threats. Neither one of us mentioned the events from the night before.

Griffin seemed to be shrouded in a dark mood if his permanent scowl had anything to say about it. Probably from the lack of sleep. Despite not having slept much myself, I felt more energized than I had in a few days. I wasn’t ready for Griffin’s darkness to cloud my first rays of light yet, so I let him brood while I relished nature’s grounding abilities.

It wasn’t until we were halfway along our hike that I sensed a presence again. It felt similar to the one I’d sensed outside the speakeasy. I contemplated mentioning it to Griffin, but something stopped me. Perhaps it was simply a wild animal, and it knew it was outmatched, as if it knew we weren’t prey.

“There’s nothing here, Griffin,” I said, referring to the tattoo shop. “Are you sure this is the right place?” I peered up at him from the side. Black brows furrowed, and his jaw clenched as he surveyed our surroundings.

Nothing remained of the broken and vulnerable man from the previous night. Aside from the dark circles under his eyes, he looked like his normal glamoured self—healthy, warm, tan skin, straightened posture, and calculated eyes that seemed to see everything. The fearsome warrior my father had taught me to hate.

Acid burned my stomach as questions formed. Had I been lied to about him? If he wasn’t the savage killer I thought he was, then what did that mean about Slate? Who really killed him? Was I betraying his memory? What about the attack on the King’s Palace that led to Devolution Day? I shoved those thoughts down as I focused on the decrepit tattoo shop in front of us. I noticed Griffin had paused, his body tense. “What is it?”

“Something’s wrong. This is where it should be.” Ever so slightly, he cocked his head to the side, tuning into the surrounding sounds. I did the same. “It could be one of three things: They gave me the wrong location by accident, the scorse has already moved on, or….” He trailed off for a moment, scanning the environment for any slight movement. “Or…we were set up.”

My heart rate spiked, and I instantly reached for the twin daggers that should’ve been strapped to my weapons belt. They weren’t. “I need my weapons. Now.” I tried not to allow the panic I felt to fall into my voice, but I felt naked without my weapons.

Without taking his eyes from the rooftop of the antebellum building, Griffin readjusted the weapons bag on his shoulders. “Come on, we’re too exposed here. If itisa trap, we need to be prepared.” His voice was so low it was barely audible, even with my heightened hearing. His long legs hurried to the alleyway separating the close-knit brick buildings. “I feel others nearby. I don’t know why they’re not attacking yet.”

Reaching the alleyway, he swung the bag off his back and we dropped into a crouch, strapping ourselves with weapons. While unease filled my chest with anxiety, I couldn’t help the thrill winding through my muscles, anticipating a fight.

Griffin removed his double-edged sword. The Elemental sigils on the blades glowed orange once activated by his magic. That was when I realized I didn’t know who we were expecting to fight. I looked at the twin daggers that glowed blue, which were meant to kill an Elemental.

“Are they human?” I asked, hoping that was the case. It would be the easiest option.

“No. Kinetic,” he said, and then his eyes landed on the daggers, having the same thought. “Here,” he whispered as he rummaged in his duffel and snagged another pair of daggers with the sharp angles of the Elemental sigils etched into the blades.

I shot him a confused expression. “How’s this supposed to work for me? I’m not an–” I started, but the whistle of a blue-tipped arrow cut me off. It flew between our heads and bounced off the brick wall behind us.

We leaped apart. “Trust me. Just use those daggers. No powers,” Griffin said before he ran off to the end of the alleyway. I ran in the opposite direction, clutching the useless blades. How did he expect me to wield these and inflict any damage upon Kinetics when I’m not an Elemental? I shrugged it off. Any blade was better than none, I supposed.

I sprinted for the alley’s opening, back to where we came from. A blue, glowing axe swung at my head the moment I rounded the corner. I skidded and ducked. Dropping to a squat, I spun on the ball of my foot. One hand balanced me as I aimed a well-placed kick at my attacker’s ankles and swept him off his feet.

I stalked toward the Kinetic Warrior before he got the chance to stand. I stomped on his chest, pinning him to the concrete. He struggled against me, but before he could throw me off, I plunged one of Griffin’s daggers into the side of his neck. I didn’t look at his face as I hovered over him, afraid I’d recognize him. Blood squirted from the vicious wound once I removed the dagger, splattering my face. But it wasn’t the blood that caught my attention. I’d never shied away from it. I stared, dumbfounded, at the orange sigils that glowed on the blade as they hummed to life with Elemental energy in my hands.

Chapter 20

Gray

My pulse quickened as I gaped in shock at the two orange daggers that shouldn’t be activated.

The Kinetic gurgled on his blood beneath me, snapping my attention back to him. I still refused to look at his face. But beginning at the stab wound, a web of black veins spread at an alarming speed across his skin. I stared in morbid fascination as the infused redfern poisoned him to his death, consuming his veins and arteries. Crimson coated his hand from grasping his wound in a useless attempt to stop the inevitable. No doubt his body tried and failed to heal itself.

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