Page 25 of The Grip of Death
“When,” Niko said. Despite my disappointment at still seeing Xander’s eyes closed, I allowed myself a tiny smile.WhenXander woke up, and notif. We’d sort this all out then.
“Lore said he was getting started on some chicken noodle soup. I’ll check in on him and see how things are going.”
Selfish, maybe, for me to leave them in the bedroom with Xander, but I was grateful for the space to breathe. To think.I plodded down the stairs to the sound of boiling water and clanging pots. Lore had engaged all his appendages for the task, somehow acquiring a whole roasted chicken in the short time I’d spent upstairs.
It looked a lot like one of those rotisserie chickens that Zephyr liked so much. Lore’s tentacles reached for the chicken on the counter all at once, his pincers shredding the meat at top speed. I grimaced, finally understanding what the labels on food containers meant when they referred to mechanically separated chicken.
But it was the sweet scent of smoke that greeted me before I even hit the bottom of the stairs. Not the smell of Lore’s cooking, either, nor one of the scented candles Sedgewick was testing for the wedding favors. It was something like fragrant woodsmoke, almost close to incense.
A column of smoke erupted from the floor, dissipating instantly to reveal Reza Arshad, handsome high-ranking SEER officer and loving boyfriend of our good buddy Niko. He shrugged his shoulders as if to make sure his leather jacket hung properly on his muscular frame, then nodded at me in greeting.
“Pryde,” he said, voice guttural and low, the way someone speaks in the hallway of a hospital, outside a ward for critical patients.
“Reza Arshad, as I live and breathe. I don’t remember inviting you to smokestack your way into our living room. Vampire rules, man.”
His brow furrowed, eyes already darkening. It was one of those unexpected things that he had in common with Niko — they were just so much fun to tease.
“Very funny, Pryde. Though I’m glad to see you doing your best to keep in high spirits considering the — well, you know. The incident. At the Halls of Making.”
He’d muttered that last part almost under his breath, as if the two of us weren’t speaking in the privacy of my own home. And then it dawned on me. How come I didn’t guess to begin with? Reza was the reason we didn’t run into any trouble with SEER, or Guildhall, or even any nosy Black Market neighbors.
“You beautiful bastard. You killed the story before it even made its way to the papers. I didn’t know you were so influential, Arshad. But in all seriousness: I want you to know that I really, really appreciate it.”
Because this wasn’t only about the future of the Halls of Making. The sting of leaving a stain on the Pryde name would hurt me, but it would pass. What I couldn’t stomach if word spread of impending disaster was how the negative press would impact the others: Preston and Giuseppe’s ability to find work, the reputations of the masters who so publicly helped us, and worst of all, Xander.
What if he was labeled a danger to the Black Market, or to the arcane underground at large? What then?
Reza cleared his throat and tugged on his jacket, adjusting it again as if it somehow needed more adjusting. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about. And besides, you know Niko would kill me in my sleep if I didn’t do anything to help you guys.”
I crossed my arms and gave him my smuggest grin. “Admit it. You love us. That’s why you did it. Well, me, most of all.”
He slipped his hands into his jeans pockets, narrowing his eyes. “Killing you in your sleep isn’t off the table either, you know.”
“There it is. There’s the Reza I know and love.”
I furrowed my brow. And the Reza I knew and loved could help us with one or two things, indeed. Beyond the coverup, that is. He wouldn’t mind. Probably. Hopefully. It was all for Xander.
Before he could make his way up the stairs, I grabbed Reza’s wrist and made a beeline out of the living room. Lore didn’t seem to notice our presence and certainly wouldn’t notice our absence, his appendages all spinning in a whirlwind of chicken disassembly and food preparation.
I turned to the great hunk of crystal that Whitby lived in instead.
“Whitby, if anyone asks, would you let the others know that I stepped out for a minute? Reza and I just need to look into something real quick.”
The crystal mainframe pulsed a gentle white. “Of course, Jackson. My pleasure.”
“And have them text me or something if there’s any updates on Xander’s condition. I — I’m going to see if Reza and I can help in a different sort of way.”
Whitby’s mainframe pulsed twice in acknowledgement, but he said nothing more. As we passed through the foyer, just before I reached for the front door, Reza placed his hand on my shoulder to stop me.
“This doesn’t seem like you, Pryde. Your fiancé lies in bed unconscious. Wouldn’t you want to be around for when he wakes up?”
“Look,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose, perfectly aware of how strange this all looked. “Color me unstable, but there’s nothing I can do to help that hasn’t already been done by the healers. I love Xander more than anything else in the world — anything. But I have to have answers, too. I need to be sure this can never happen to hurt anyone or anything I love, ever again. Fool me once, shame on me.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “And fool you twice? Jackson, what are you saying, exactly? There’s something you aren’t telling me.”
And so I told him everything I’d learned from Hecate, all my suspicions, from initially thinking the goddess herself was involved to outright naming Giuseppe as the most important piece of this bizarre puzzle.
“Gods above and below,” Reza said, his hand against his forehead. “For real, this time. You owe me a big one, Jackson. It took a goddess to stop your machine from blowing.”
