Page 16 of Kingdom of Chaos
A muscle jumps in his jaw.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the shadows pulsing around us, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of reacting. I already know he can manipulate them. If he thinks he can intimidate me with his powers, he’s going to be disappointed.
His gaze sweeps across the room before settling on me again. His brow pinches, but he smooths it away a moment later.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do. Kerrim stole the dagger. It’s lost to us now. What more is there to do?”
Is he serious?
I take a step toward him. His eyes flick briefly to my mouth before snapping back to meet mine, his jaw tightening. He shifts back a step, reaching for the dagger he set down and then walking across the room to return it to its place on the wall.
“What I expect you to do is help me get to that other world and find Becks before it’s too late,” I say, following him.
Talon turns back to me and crosses his arms over his chest. “How exactly do you expect me to get you there? Kerrim took the dagger through the portal with him. There’s no way into that world from ours.”
I try not to look at the way his arms flex across his bare chest, but it’s impossible to ignore. And wildly distracting.
“Could you put a shirt on?” I snap, more sharply than I mean to.
His lips curl into a smirk. “Does it bother you?”
I scowl, refusing to answer even as the heat going to my cheeks gives me away. Instead, I roll my eyes. “There are gates to the human world,” I say, getting back on target. “You said so yourself that night.”
“Gates that have been sealed for hundreds of years,” he counters.
“Then we unseal them.”
Talon gives me a look like I’ve officially lost it. He shakes his head and sighs. “You have less than a month of school left. Go back and graduate, Locklyn. It’s what he would have wanted for you.”
“You don’t get to speak for him,” I snap, and Talon winces. “And don’t even begin to give me advice you’re not even willing to take yourself. If you don’t go back to Nightlark, you don’t graduate either.”
Talon gives me a look I can’t decipher.
“What?” I demand, too annoyed to try to puzzle it out.
Talon sighs again. “I’m not in high school. I graduated two years ago.”
I blink back at him. “Come again?”
He wipes a hand down his face. “You already know I was only in Everton to look for Shadow Striker. Enrolling in the local high school let me blend in and keep my ear to the ground about the dagger without drawing too much suspicion.”
I freeze. It never occurred to me that Talon wasn’t a senior. But it should have.
“So that makes you . . . ?”
“Twenty,” he says.
It shouldn’t matter how old Talon is, but it throws me. Just one more thing I didn’t know about him. How many secrets is he still keeping?
“Okay, fine. You don’t need to graduate. But I hardly think a high school diploma is more important than Becks’ life. I can always go to summer school to finish my degree.” I think I just threw up in my mouth a little saying that again, but for Becks I’ll endure.
“It’s not as simple as that,” Talon says. “Even if wecouldunseal one of the gates, which we can’t, they were closed for a reason.” He looks away, and I get the feeling he can’t bring himself to meet my eyes when he adds, “I’m sorry. I truly am.”
Talon’s words hit like arrows to the chest, each one finding its mark. I shake my head, refusing to believe this is the end.
He moves like he’s going to walk away, so I grab his arm to stop him. He could easily pull free, but he freezes, staring down at me with a shuttered gaze.
“Please,” I say, feeling my eyes start to sting. I’m not above begging at this point. “I can’t just leave him there. There has to be some way to get to the human world.”
