Corinthia lived about half an hour outside the city, in a cottage community near the water. Tia drove and clearly knew the route better than I ever did—not that it surprised me that much. Despite Rin’s relationship with my brother, she’d always been closer to Tia and Seren instead of me. By contrast, I’d always been closer to Tia and Tristan, despite my relationship with Garrett—Rin’s beloved cousin.
Life and relationships are strange like that, I guess.
We drove along quiet streets, trees swaying in the summer wind off the water. It was cooler here than it was in the city and not just because we were closer to the water. There was so much more green out here, less concrete and glass to absorb and reflect heat, less to trap it during the dog days of the year.
Maybe if things had been different, Austin and I would have been living out here, too.
But things weren’t different and didn’t seem like they could be for a long time yet.
There was still a war we needed to fight—and somehow, win.
“Elliot and I are thinking about moving out here sometime after the wedding,” Tia said as her SUV ate up the miles. “He wants to. I’m not so sure yet. It’s hard to think about leaving the city.”
“You were raised there,” I said quietly. “We all were.”
She nodded. “He keeps telling me that sometimes we need to step out of our comfort zone to keep on growing. He’s such an optimist and I love him for it.” A quiet sigh escaped her lips. “I honestly don’t know how I’m going to explain this to him.”
“Very carefully,” I said without even the barest trace of humor in my tone. “If at all.”
Her fingers tightened briefly on the wheel. “God, I didn’t think about how complicated picking it back up could get.”
“I told you,” I said. “You don’t have to.”
“Yeah, I do,” she said. I knew the tone of her voice all too well—her decision was made because she thought it was the absolute right thing to do and there wasn’t going to be any hope of changing her mind on the matter. “There is no way in hell I let you face any of this alone, Autumn. Not when I can do something about it.”
In truth, I was silently grateful for her support. I stared out the window. A mist hung over the ocean in the distance, even though we were getting close to midday. “Think we’re going to end up hunting down Seren today, too?”
“Don’t know,” Tia said. “Guess it depends on how everything goes with Rin. Why, have a hot date?”
“I don’t,” I said. “Tristan does, though, and I promised I’d be his chaperone at a distance.”
She glanced at me as we stopped at a red light that marked the border between countryside and town. “You’re really close to him, aren’t you? How long have you and Austin known him?”
“A long time,” I said. “We’re friends. I help him out when he needs an escort for things. He doesn’t date much.”
“Guy like that? Hard to see why.” Tia smiled crookedly. “He’s really good looking. Not my type, but definitely good looking.”
I choked on a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, he is. But he’s got his reasons.”
More than a few.
It was his secret to tell, though, if he wanted to—if he decided he needed to.
Gods, please let them not start asking too many questions.
The fact that Tia hadn’t brought up Jenna’s whereabouts was nothing short of a miracle. Then again, maybe she’d assumed that I’d ghosted her, too, just like I’d ghosted Tia.
Just like I’d ghosted almost all of them.
Almost.
I blew out a quiet breath. Tristan was going to flip his shit when he found out.
I should have texted him when we stopped at Tia’s. I hadn’t thought about it then and I was kicking myself now.
Then again, there hadn’t been much time. I should have been able to guess what Tia wanted to pick up when we stopped at her place—her wand. In retrospect, her wanting to pick it up didn’t surprise me.
How quickly she was able to find it, however, did.
Just like me, she’d known exactly where she’d tucked it away for safekeeping.
Was it like that for the others? I’d never asked Tristan about his—mostly because it was a moot point. He’d never pick it up again. And the others?
Well. My mostly vanishing on them had also rendered that question moot.
At least until now.
“I guess I would, too, if I wore his shoes and ran a multimillion-dollar company,” Tia mused. She smiled crookedly at me. “Guess I’ll settle for my gig.”
Tia worked at one of the fashion houses in the city in their marketing department. She was gorgeous enough to be a model on her own, but instead she was in charge of auditioning and herding bevies of them for the company’s ad campaigns and runway shows. It was certainly a good use of her talents in at least a dozen ways that I could come up with.
Still, I wondered what she’d skipped out on today to figure out where I was and find me.
We drove along the town’s main strip, then turned down a roadway that led out toward the water. The cottages along this street were modest affairs compared to the ones a little bit further out, on the far side of town from the city itself. These days, Rin made her living as a real estate broker, concentrating mostly on the suburban and bedroom community markets, but I knew for a fact that she had several big clients in the city proper. She’d done well for herself over the years.
I didn’t know what role that had played in her break-up with my brother—if it played any at all. I hadn’t asked and Austin hadn’t volunteered the information.
Either way, it didn’t matter.
We pulled into the driveway of a cute little blue-and-white bungalow that perched on a hillside maybe a quarter mile from the shore. There was nothing but grass and sand between it and the water and as we got out of the car, my breath caught as I inhaled the salt air and heard nothing but birdsong and the crash of waves in the distance. It was so quiet here, so peaceful.
It seemed almost sinful to disturb whatever peace Rin had found out here with the news we were bearing.
Tia came around to the passenger side and touched my arm, as if she could sense my indecision, my hesitation—the very thoughts running through my head. She took me gently by the elbow, closing the car door.
“Come on,” she said softly. “Rin deserves to know what’s going on—if only because you and I both know that no matter what happened between them, she does really love Austin. Even if it’s not that way anymore, she still loves him.”
“I know,” I whispered, tearing my gaze away from the vista that stretched beyond the house. “I just hate to shatter this peace.”
“Trust me, it’s already in pieces,” Tia said, drawing me along with her toward the front door. “Rin just might not know it yet.”
I had to admit, when she put it that way, I could almost believe her.
Tia knocked on the screen door—the storm door behind it stood open, offering a teasing glimpse into a neatly kept home with whitewashed wainscoting and well-worn wooden floors. Somewhere inside, an old-style clock ticked just loud enough for us to hear from the door. I shifted my weight uncomfortably, listening for the sound of footsteps and trying to regulate my breathing.
Out of any of our friends, Rin was the one I feared telling the most and it wasn’t just because of her temper or her relationship with Austin. Somehow, deep down, I knew she was the only one that would agree with me on one crucial point.
Ultimately, all of this was my fault.
The sound of footsteps came a few seconds later and within the space of two heartbeats, Rin appeared in the hallway, heading toward the door. Dressed in capris and a tank top, a flour-spotted apron knotted around her waist, she looked a thousand times different than she had in our youth—somehow more settled, more grounded. My stomach twisted. Through the screen, I watched her expression contort from curious to confused to happy and then back to confused—and perhaps a little concerned. She opened the door with a wry smile.
“Hi guys. What the hell are you two doing here?”
She left the word together unspoken, but I could sense it just the same.
She waved us inside. Tia stepped out of her shoes and I followed suit, leaving my sandals next to hers on a rag rug woven in the colors of the sea. Tia was the one who answered.
“Something came up that we needed to talk to you about.”
“Oh.” Rin’s brow furrowed as she let the screen door fall shut behind us. “Okay. Well, c’mon to the kitchen. I’ve got a loaf of bread coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”
“What kind?” Tia asked as we followed her down the hall.
“Oh, I had some bananas that were starting to turn,” Rin said. “Had to do something with them and bread sounded like a better option than just pitching them.” She shrugged, moving to the sink to wash her hands as she waved us to seats at her kitchen island. It was larger than I expected it to be—but then, the whole kitchen was bigger and airy than I expected. Evidence of her baking adventure was scattered across the side of the island opposite us—flour dusted across the countertop lay next to some bowls and crocks of sugar and flour. “Then I figured while I was already baking, I’d start experimenting with a recipe I found online for focaccia. Less confident about that than the banana bread.” She turned back to us, drying her hands on a striped towel, a strawberry blonde brow arching over a blue eye. “So what’s going on?”
Tia and I exchanged a look. I cleared my throat.
“When was the last time you heard from Austin?” I asked softly.
Both of her brows shot skyward. “God,” she said quietly. “I don’t know. It’s been a long time—maybe six, seven months? God. I didn’t think it’d been that long but I guess it was back in February. He sent me a message to wish me a happy birthday.” There must have been something in the look on my face because she frowned suddenly. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
I glanced at Tia again. She gave me a sight nod and I swallowed hard, trying to bring my roiling, rebelling guts under control. I felt like I was going to be sick all over the marble countertop. I had to swallow a second time before I was able to muster both the courage and the words to break the news to her.
“A couple days after he left you that message, men came and took Austin away,” I said. There was a slight tremor in my voice that I couldn’t help. “They were Kalstrixa’s men, Rin. Somehow, they’re back.”
All of the color drained from her face, leaving freckles standing out like splatters of paint against a blank canvas. She stumbled back into the counter, barely catching herself as her knees buckled.
“No,” she breathed. “No, that’s not possible.”
“I didn’t think so, either,” Tia said. “But it’s true. Somehow, she’s back—or at least her people are and I can’t imagine anyone else calling the shots for them other than her.”
The next words out of her mouth echoed Tia’s denial from earlier that morning. “But we banished her. We won. How can she—how—”
She broke off as she squeezed her eyes shut, a shudder wracking her. I nested my hands together, nails digging into my palms.
“What the actual fuck?” she snarled, seizing the nearest object—a cup—and flinging it across the room. It smacked hard into the door that led out to her back deck and shattered into thousands of tiny shards.
I winced.
At least it wasn’t at my head. That would have left a very, very nasty mark.
She turned an arctic stare on me. “How the hell did this happen? What exactly happened? Details, now.”
I met her gaze without flinching, even though every survival instinct I had told me to bolt, now, and quickly.
But I owed her more and better than that. Tia was right. Rin loved Austin, and I knew that despite their break-up, Austin was still in love with her—and always would be.
Just like I was still in love with Garrett and always would be.
The words came slowly as I struggled to organize my thoughts, marshalling the memories of that awful night.
I could put myself right back there in those awful, tense moments when strangers had pounded on our door and then took my brother away—promising awful things should I try to stop them or interfere with their plans.
I could still see the look on his face, in his eyes—a look that seared me to my core, a look that begged me not to listen to them.
Keep fighting, it said. Don’t ever stop. Not for me. Not for anything.
For a second, I squeezed my eyes shut as they began to sting.
This hadn’t been an easy day, not at all, and it was only going to get worse from here.
I knew it in my gut.
Tia put her hand on my arm, a gesture of support I was silently grateful for. I had to take a breath to steady myself before I started in. Mercifully, my voice didn’t shake—at least at first.
“Details,” I said softly. “It was February seventeenth. We were at home. I was doing the dishes and he was getting ready to settle in and do some work after dinner. The radio was on but I don’t remember what the song was—not sure I’ve heard it since then.” We’d been listening to an indie station that Austin liked and most of the music was just background noise to me—it didn’t soothe me the way it did him. “I was asking him about what he’d been working on and he told me he was getting close to a breakthrough. That was when someone pounded on the door.” I glanced at Tia. “It sounded almost exactly like when you did this morning.”
She winced at that. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged slightly and continued. “I was closer to the door so I went and answered it. Eight men in black uniforms came storming through our door. All of them had guns, but that took a few seconds to register. The lead one shoved me aside when I opened the door and the last of them pulled me away from it and shut the door, then held a gun on me while the guy in front went straight to Austin with two of the others. Those two hauled him upright and cuffed him.
“I remember him being so damn calm. I was the one yelling. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Let him go!’ The guy from the front looked at me, then he looked at Austin. I saw hate in his face, but he seemed like he hated Aust more than he hated me. ‘He knows what he did.’ That’s what he said while he was looking straight at Austin. Then the guy turned to me and said, ‘If you ever want to see him alive again, you’re going to stand down and back off. Stay out of our way and maybe we’ll let him live.’”
Tears pricked my eyes again. My throat constricted and I felt numb. “I just stared at Austin and tried to figure out how the hell he could be so calm. He just looked at the guy and said ‘If you hurt my sister, I’ll kill you myself.’ The guy laughed at him and it made the hair on my neck stand up. It was awful. I wanted to be sick. I tried to move toward them so I could stop them but the guy that was holding a gun on me shoved me up against the wall and put the barrel of his gun right here.” I touched the soft spot at the corner of my jaw, beneath my chin. I’d had a bruise there for nearly a month after that awful night. “He told me not to move or he’d blow my brains out and no would give a damn if I was dead. I might have tried something if two of the others hadn’t moved to cover him. I can take one with a gun on me like that, but three, unarmored and without my wand? There was no way. Still—I almost tried.” I swallowed hard, hands curling into fists. “Austin knew it, too. He took one look and told me to stand down. ‘It’s not worth it,” he said. ‘Live. This isn’t over.’ Of course, the lead guy laughed at him. I have never seen so much hate on Austin’s face than when he looked at that guy.
“Then he surrendered. He said he’d come quietly as long as they didn’t hurt me. As they were dragging him out the door he looked at me and said, ‘Don’t stop. Never stop.’” Tears streamed down my cheeks—there had been no way in hell I was going to stop them and if I couldn’t cry in front of these two, who the hell could I cry in front of? “Then he was gone. One of the ones covering me got me in the head with the butt of his rifle and knocked me out. I didn’t wake up until morning and by then they were long gone.”
Tristan had found me unconscious a few feet from the door the next morning. I remembered waking up to his touch and coming up fighting. If his reflexes had been any slower, he’d have caught a nasty right hook to the jaw and I’d probably would have ended up with broken fingers for my trouble. Even that wouldn’t have compared to the pain that I’d felt that morning, though, knowing that I’d failed my brother in the worst way possible.
I’d always tried to protect Austin against everything. Younger than me by ten minutes, we’d been two peas in a pod our whole lives—even when I’d picked up my wand for the first time. That had been the first secret I’d ever managed to keep from him, and even that had been hard.
“Whatever he found,” I whispered, “whatever he was close to uncovering, I know that’s what made them come for him. I didn’t even realize what they were until it was too late, until I saw the rifle butt coming for my face. That’s when I saw the flicker and realized that they were her men and they knew. Somehow, they knew that Austin was close to us.” He was the only one of us without a magical defense. Kalstrixa had never uncovered the identities of the five of us, of the Magic Crystal Justice Squad members. He’d figured out Garrett and we’d all paid a price for that.
Now, somehow, she’d figured out Austin and taken him from us.
“I haven’t stopped looking for him since then.” I reached up to scrub at my tears with the heel of my hand. Tia reached over and took the other, squeezing hard. Rin stood across the island, her belly pressed against its edge, jaw slightly agape, expression slack, eyes wide, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard—as if she was in shock.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked in a weak whisper. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because the last thing I wanted to do was endanger anyone else,” I whispered. “You guys. Him. Everyone that knows about this is in danger.”
“We were in danger anyway,” Tia said quietly. “It’s like I told you back at your apartment. If she comes back, it doesn’t matter what we’ve built. We stop having a future if she wins.”
“She’s right,” Rin said, her jaw firming. I saw a flicker of anger in her eyes. “We could pretend all we want that stuff’s normal but it’s not. It never was and it never will be—not until that bitch is dead.”
“Whoa.” Tia blinked, looking between us. “That is an escalation.”
“No, it’s not,” Rin said, staring steadily at me. “Autumn knows it, too.”
Tia’s gaze snapped toward me. I swallowed hard, trying to regain my calm. It was hard with tears still streaming down my face.
“We tried banishing her, Tee,” I said quietly. “It didn’t work.”
“Then we banish her harder this time,” Tia said. “We can’t—”
“Maybe not then,” Rin said. “But now?”
“We weren’t powerful enough then,” I said. “We were a bunch of kids. Hell, we weren’t even ready to face what we were facing, but we pulled it off somehow. Now we’ve had a few good years off but it’s time to finish what we started before Kalstrixa finishes what she started.” I scrubbed at my eyes, clearing away the last of the tears. I knew they were swollen, that I looked like I’d been crying. I just didn’t care about that anymore. “Something I’ve noticed since I picked my wand back up is that the magic’s stronger now. Physical attacks are going to be what they’re going to be, but my magic is definitely more potent now than it was back then.”
“Time out.” Tia stared at the two of us, one of her hands still clutching mine. “Look, I know that Austin is really important to both of you—”
“I never even got to thank him for wishing me a happy birthday,” Rin snapped. “They took him. They think they get to keep him so we’ll toe the line and let that bitch do whatever the fucking hell she wants to do. I’m going to tell you what, Tee, I am not here for that. That bitch is going to pay for this—she’s going to pay for all of it. If she’s harmed a single hair on his head I will rip out her throat myself.”
Tia winced. I just looked away, stared out the window. Mist still hung over the water. A breeze blew through the open windows of the kitchen, setting the sheer linen curtains fluttering.
“If your neighbors hear any of this, they’re going to think you’re batshit crazy, Rin,” I said softly, staring out toward the sea.
She choked on a laugh. “Yeah, well. They wouldn’t be wrong.” She pushed herself away from the counter and started to pace. “I should have listened to him.”
That got my attention. “What?”
She shook her head, pacing toward the back door and staring out its window. “Before we broke up, he mentioned something about Kalstrixa. It was almost off-handedly, but I reacted badly. I told him to leave the past in the past. I didn’t want to think about that time in our lives. In some ways, I still don’t, but we don’t exactly have a choice, do we?” She crossed her arms, shaking her head. I could see her jaw tremble—an almost unforgivable sign of weakness, of vulnerability.
There were only two things that could make her show that part of herself, two people—her cousin and my brother.
Because she loved those boys more than anything else in the whole world.
“I think he was trying to figure out if he could ask me for help,” she whispered. Her head dropped and she squeezed her eyes shut. “He was reaching out and I slapped that hand away so hard and so fast. Gods, he’ll never forgive me.”
“I’m sure he already has,” I said, the words almost coming out choked. “You know him, Rin. He’d never hold that against you.”
She nodded almost convulsively, taking a deep breath and reaching up to dab at her eyes. “I want to believe you, Autumn.”
“Then decide to,” I said. “Decide to believe me. And hopefully not get mad at me.”
“Mad at you?” she looked at me, something sparking in her eyes. “Why would I be mad at you?”
Tia’s gaze slid to me before she oriented on Rin again. “You didn’t see the news.”
“No,” Rin said. “I quit doing that to myself. It just made me crazy. I read news, now. I don’t watch it.” Her brow furrowed. “Why?”
I opened my mouth to answer but her phone started to ring. She held up a hand in a wait-one-second gesture before she answered it.
“Hey Garrett.” Somehow, she managed to sound normal, like nothing was wrong. “What’s up?”
My stomach clenched. Garrett. Tia squeezed my hand, as if she could sense what I was feeling. Hell, maybe she could. She and Tristan had always been the ones the most attuned to our collective emotional state.
“No, I haven’t seen the news.” Rin glanced at Tia and I, her brow furrowing. “Why are you—what? Wait, what? Where?” She went silent for a minute, her brow still furrowed. “Is the footage online? Can you send it?” She stared at me, a welter of emotions flashing through her eyes, though her expression remained largely unchanged—confused, concerned. “Okay. Okay, thanks. I’ll call you back, okay? Okay. Love you, too. Bye.” She hung up the phone and stared at me hard for another few seconds. “This is the part where I ask you if you’re somehow stalking my cousin.”
I couldn’t help it. I choked for a second, then a laugh broke through, painful though it was. My stomach was in knots. “Pure coincidence,” I said. “I saw it starting to happen and I saw him heading inside and I couldn’t stand there and do nothing.”
“Still protecting him,” she said softly.
Throat tightening, I nodded. “Always.”
I didn’t have to say that I still loved him. She already knew. It wasn’t a secret. It never had been.
That was why Kalstrixa had made him a target, why she’d done what she’d done to him. It was a mixture of old jealousies and hatreds and knowing that my love for him would make me vulnerable, that I’d do anything to see him safe after she’d captured him.
Just like I’d do anything to see Austin safe again.
Rin shook her head. “He saw you.”
“On the news?”
She nodded, biting her lip. “He said it was a lucky thing that he didn’t see you when you were there. He’s not sure what he would have done.”
“Yeah,” I said, a tremor in my voice. “Yeah, I guess it’s a good thing.”
Especially if she’s back. Especially if she can still reach him somehow. She’d wanted him to kill me. She’d almost succeeded in making that happen.
It was why we couldn’t stay together, no matter how much I still loved him. What Kalstrixa had done to him…
That was still a raw wound in my soul, even all these years later.
“You don’t know why they were trying to break into the WestCorp facility, do you?” Tia frowned slightly. “That was what you were going to try to figure out today.”
I nodded. “Yeah. But maybe Tristan will be able to tell me something tonight. This—this was more important.”
“Only because I made it more important.”
Choking on another laugh, I shook my head. “No. No, you were right. I shouldn’t be trying to fight this war by myself. I’ll only get myself killed or worse.”
“Yeah,” Rin said as she bent over a tablet that lay on the table tucked into her breakfast nook. “And then where the hell would we be? Major trouble because we failed to protect our fucking princess.”
“That’s not—”
“It doesn’t matter, Autumn.” She glanced toward me and gave me a tiny smile. “No matter what you were about to say about those lives or what would maybe happen if you fell and the rest of us lived. You go down and the rest of us wouldn’t last much longer. We’re all tied to this and tied together because of who we used to be all those centuries ago. Reincarnation is a bitch and we all know it.” She looked down to the tablet. A second later I could hear the audio attached to the video footage from the previous night’s news broadcast. It was all I could do not to wince.
Rin let out a low whistle a few seconds later. “Shit. You haven’t forgotten how to fight.”
“Someone had to keep up,” I said. “I always figured it was just so I could train whoever came after us—whoever was supposed to pick up the wands from us to fight the good fight. I never expected to have to be the one fighting the good fight again myself.” It hadn’t been until Austin started showing me all the signs that echoed the dreams I’d been trying to ignore, the instincts that had been screaming at me that something was wrong, that I was missing something.
By the time he’d said anything, it was already too late.
Why didn’t he say something sooner? Why didn’t I listen?
When Rin looked at me, I saw my own guilt reflected in her eyes.
“We both failed him,” she whispered. “We’ll make it right together, Autumn. All of us.” She looked back down at the tablet and sighed. “God. Have either of you seen the comments on this story online? Shit’s blowing up. No one understands what the hell’s going on and the speculation is starting to get wild.”
I had no doubt that Tristan would tell me all about it after his date, since I was sure that he’d probably already been scrolling through that commentary and making notes of his own based on it. He’d always had a better feel for that kind of thing than me—sometimes even better than Austin.
“Have you heard from Seren?” I asked. “Do you think she’s seen that yet?”
Rin frowned. “Not sure. She might have, might not have. Depends on what shift she’s working right now. I haven’t talked to her in a few days and her rotations have been brutal.”
“Was she okay the last time you talked to her?” Tia leaned against the counter, chin propped up on her hand. “Last time I talked to her, she’d just broken up with that guy she was seeing.”
“Which—oh. Brad?”
Tia’s nose wrinkled. “Yeah, I think that was his name.”
“That was a while ago,” Rin said. “Couple months.”
“Yeah, well. She’s busier than both of us.”
“True that.” Rin leaned against the windows in her breakfast nook, brow furrowing. “I can call he and fill her in.” Her lips thinned and she looked at me. “Have you heard anything from Jenna?”
“Jenna’s gone,” I said.
A look of sadness crossed Rin’s face. Tia bit her lip.
“When?” she asked softly.
“It was a long time ago,” I said. “It’s just the four of us, now.”
“Hopefully it’s enough,” Rin said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Hopefully.”
