Chapter 3
Celeste wasn’t in so deep, though, that she forgot our purpose. “Do you swear to me that there are no children inside?” she demanded, half of her mind still intent upon checking that last unopened room.
“I swear,” Finnegan answered, his gaze so ardent that he and Celeste might have been the only two people left in the world. Neither noticed Orion stepping around Finnegan and angling himself so he could protect my sister if she ended up needing his help.
Meanwhile, smoke billowed out of the doorway we’d so recently exited through. Sirens shrieked in the not-too-far distance. And even though our faulty intel about who had been imprisoned in the basement and the question of Finnegan’s actual identity were pressing, it was clear we couldn’t stay here. We needed to disperse.
Dispersing, though, meant convincing Celeste to head somewhere safe. And while, an hour ago, I’d been frustrated by her stubborn refusal to move out of Julius’s mansion, now I was glad of it. Because her hard line meant she’d be heading back into the heart of Council life momentarily, somewhere Finnegan definitely couldn’t go.
“Nuh uh,” Celeste told me without taking her eyes off the stranger she’d become so instantly attracted to.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” With evident effort, she wrenched her attention away from Finnegan and toward Orion long enough to demand: “Give me the address of your backup meeting spot.”
I would have played dumb, but Orion promptly rattled off directions to the all-night pancake house we’d decided upon as a place to reconvene if we got separated. Still, when Finnegan turned to follow Celeste toward her car, Orion grabbed the other man by his collar and swung him back around.
“Ride with me.” Orion’s words weren’t a question.
“It’s a curse to be so popular,” Finnegan said by way of agreement. Then he blew Celeste a kiss rather than trying to fight off Orion’s grip.
At that moment, Finnegan appeared so easygoing and awkwardly human. But as his hand dropped back to his side, I thought I caught the flash of a tattoo on the inside of his wrist, one I hadn’t seen earlier. Not that I would necessarily have noticed something as small as a silver dollar in the dim basement light with smoke in the air and flames threatening imminent immolation.
Then Finnegan’s inner wrist was hidden again and the guys were leaving, heading toward Orion’s car, the same one I’d ridden in earlier. I had no intention of joining them, though. Not when that would mean leaving Celeste alone.
“Where’d you park?” I asked my sister.
“I don’t need to be babysat,” she countered, feet still firmly planted even though the sirens had drawn considerably closer and the guard could come flying out the back door at any moment. The cherry on top—Celeste was never supposed to have been physically involved in this mission, having agreed that stealing information from the Council would be her only part in the infiltration.
“I’m not babysitting you,” I answered even though I kinda was. “Maybe I just want to spend a little time with my sister. We never get…”
In distinctly un-Celeste-like behavior, she proceeded to talk over me. “You didn’t want to spend time with me last month.”
Celeste’s plea that I help save her kindergarten class from a shooter and my rejection of that plea sat between us like a lane-width pothole sandwiched by two sets of jersey barriers. There was no way forward past it. No way to turn around and go back.
As she spoke, Celeste raised her hand to swipe a bit of burnt debris off her forehead, and it was relief at the potential subject change as much as surprise at what I saw there that made my breath catch. Capturing her fingers between my two palms, I turned her arm over and pushed up her sleeve.
A tattoo sat at her pulse point, one I knew hadn’t been present yesterday. It was a half-moon the size of a silver dollar, similar to or perhaps the same as the one I’d glimpsed on Finnegan. I had the opportunity to look more closely at Celeste’s, though. Could trace Celtic-style knotwork inside the moon, forming a shape that spilled out of the not-quite-straight side like the business end of an old-fashioned key.
This wasn’t a matebrand, but its sudden appearance suggested it was equally magical. And as my eyes followed the intertwined curves, words that had been spoken in my presence weeks ago curled up out of my memory: “Where the glyphs lie halved, null shall overlay…”
Halved glyphs. What could that refer to other than the tattoo on my sister’s wrist that looked like it would match up to the tattoo on Finnegan’s?
“How cool!” Celeste said, apparently noticing the markings on her skin for the first time.
“I think I can find out what it is,” I offered, “if you don’t mind moving this conversation to a safer location.”
And that, unlike my earlier statement, got her feet traveling toward the car.
“Vega will meet us there,” I said ten minutes later as Celeste drove and I gave up on getting any details out of my aunt long distance. Vega should have known what I was talking about—after all, she’d been the one who’d recited the fragment of poetry to me. Or at least I thought she was the one. I’d been so out of it when I woke after losing my mate bond to Orion that the words had seemed to emerge from the desert itself.
Still, my aunt had been beside me when I finally managed to pry my eyes open afterwards. And she’d shared part of the same poem not long before that. I figured there was a good chance she knew the rest.
Vega didn’t seem particularly interested in doling out that information now, though. Instead, she’d responded to my request with a terse, “Not over text.”
Celeste, in contrast, was more than happy to talk about her new tattoo. “It means Finnegan and I are meant to be together, don’t you think?” she said, turning her hand over so she could consider the half-moon. Did it itch the way mine had an hour ago? Or pulse with magic like an active matebrand?
“Maybe you should keep both hands on the wheel,” I suggested.
“Because the traffic here is so terrible?”
It was still the wee hours of the morning. There were no other cars on the road.
Luckily, I was saved from answering by the glowing neon lights spelling out Partner’s Pick Pancake Palace. Orion’s car was already in the lot, and through the window I could see him and Finnegan sitting on the same side of a booth inside. I was out of the car, my footsteps picking up speed, before I noticed the eagerness spilling off Celeste.
My sister was biting her lip to plump it up the way she used to when we were tweens first embarking on the world of attraction. Her gaze never left Finnegan’s. And despite the window between them, his full attention seemed to be focused on her as well.
I didn’t like this one bit.
I liked even less being stopped by a waitress the instant we stepped in the door. “Partner’s pick?” the older woman asked as if it was a question, not the name of the establishment. At the same time, she shoved a laminated menu into each of our hands.
“I think we’ll sit down before placing our orders,” I answered, stepping around her.
Or at least I tried to. The waitress was plump, middle-aged, and entirely human, but she managed to corral me before I could slip past. “Order for your beaus first.”
“Beaus?” Had we regressed to the nineteenth century while I wasn’t looking? I had the sudden certainty that this was yet another example of outpack magic trying to drag me and Orion back together.
“It’s fun,” the waitress answered, oblivious to my guesswork. “Separates our restaurant from the chains. You order for your partner and he does the same for you. Eat delicious pancakes. Test your relationship.”
