Page 60 of Vanish Into Light

“The building that used to be the Halston gallery,” Beck said. “It was converted into lofts, triple-reinforced and fenced twice. It’s a veritable fortress.”

“Great,” Gavin muttered.

Beck held up a finger. “A fortress for anyone who can’t fly.” A smile threatened at the corners of his mouth. “He has a helicopter pad on the roof. The only people who fly these days are the military, and my bet is that he has a panic button that goes straight to the emergency switchboard.”

“So you can get in,” Gallo said, sounding eager.

Rose said, “You could lift us over, one by one.”

When his gaze met hers, he looked faintly apologetic – and Rose felt a tightening in her chest, an immediate defiance.No, she thought, because he was going to deny her, and that wasn’t like him, nor was it tolerable.

“Beck, you can’t just–”

He held up a hand. “Rose. No one needs to go in yet. I want to find the rest of the shards before we make a move on Raphael.” His gaze slid toward Morgan, for some reason. “I think the blade could come in handy during that confrontation.”

She bit back another retort, chafing beneath his restraint. He’d always looked out for her – but mostly that had consisted of teaching, guiding, preparing. He’d never coddled her,never, but that was what it felt like he was doing now.

She hated it.

“Raphael may pass messages along, but he won’t have done it alone: he’ll have lackies and human shields. All we need, to start, is to get hold of one of them and ask him some questions.”

“Ask,” Gavin said, flatly. “Like youaskedShubert some questions?”

Beck lifted a single, superior brow. “I suppose I should have offered him a snack and patted his head? Told him he was a good boy?”

Rose didn’t allow her gaze to linger on Lance, when he failed to suppress a shiver. He was absolutely gone, and the knowledge offered a brief respite from her disgruntlement.

Brief.

Gavin let out a long, slow sigh, but didn’t respond.

“Right, then,” Beck said. “I’ll be back soon.”

When he left the room, Rose followed him. Lance leaned forward off the shelf he’d been leaning against, as if he meant to come too, but she shot him a meaningful glance that had him subsiding – even if his brow crimped with worry.

Beck’s legs were so much longer than hers that he was in the great hall, crossing the black-and-white tiles toward the front doors before she caught up to him.

“Beck.” Her voice echoed in the vast space, the sound of her own desperation rippling back to her from the tile, the paneling, the balconies above.

He stopped, and turned, his folded wings dragging through the dust and dirt on the floor, wrapping around his legs dramatically. With anyone else, the move would have been choreographed, calculated for effect. But Beck had never been anything less than dramatic, even at his most withdrawn and silent.

Rose drew to a halt several paces away, and watched him frown, slightly. Watched him offer a hand, palm-up, inviting her closer.

She held her ground. Her voice caught in her throat, and she had to swallow, first, tongue dry, clumsy, hurt lodged behind her breastbone. She thought,I’m being stupid.But then she thought,Oh well. “When we first met,” she said, slower and shakier than she would have liked, “you would slip out at night, and come back with blood on your hands. I used to sit up and wait for you, sometimes, in the library.”

He didn’t frown again, didn’t make any sort of face, but his expression changed nonetheless, a subtle shift in the glow of his eyes; the faint rasp of a breath through his lips. “I remember.”

“But. Once you took me with you – once you showed me what you were doing – you never left me behind again.”

His tail flicked, but his expression stayed soft. “Don’t think of it as leaving you behind. That isn’t what it is at all.”

Logically, him going alone made sense. He was much stronger than he’d been five years ago; he could fly; he could hear, and smell, and sense things that none of the rest of them could. Save Morgan, he was the most powerful of them all. It would be nothing for him to drop down over a fence, snatch a guard, and subdue him; come winging back to them. She knew all of this – but it still stung. Stung persistently.

When she struggled to convey any of that, he closed the distance between them and reached to finger a lock of her hair. Smoothed it back behind her ear, claws careful. “Do you think,” he murmured, “that I have ever known anyone as capable as you, my Rosie?” He stroked her cheek, his skin pleasantly hot against hers. “But I didn’t always do the best job of protecting you, before.”

“You don’t have to protect–”

The pad of his thumb pressed against her lower lip. “It isn’t chivalry, sweetheart. I don’t have a shred of honor.” He grinned, fast and sharp, then sobered again. “But I spent five years living with the knowledge that I dragged you into my crusade.”

---