“Where to now?” Connor asked, since I was the only one who knew the directions to their hideout.
Technically.
“Is that a cedar or a pine tree?” I asked, annoyed. “And what the hell does starboard mean?”
“I think it’s pirate for ‘right,’ ” Connor replied. He was taking a risk coming with me but he wouldn’t change his mind. Aidan and Saga knew him so it would probably be all right. We kept running between the trees while I tried to remember if that boulder on the right was the one I was looking for.
And to think right now, my mother probably assumed I was home reading a book. She still had no idea what I’d become. And I wasn’t going to tell her until she was out of rehab. And stable.
The fallen log beside us looked vaguely familiar.
So did the dagger that whistled through the air and slammed into the ground in front of us. Jewels glinted in the hilt. Connor leaped in front of me while I stumbled back.
Saga laughed and we both looked up to see her standing on the edge of a rock outcropping, half hidden by the top of an enormous cedar hedge. Her hands were on her hips and her red hair streamed down her back. She wore a vest over a white shirt, ripped jeans, and tall boots. “If it isn’t my favorite scalawags. Fancy a cup of grog?”
“Um, no thanks.” Grog was the most disgusting thing I’d ever drunk, including blood. And Connor’s uncle Geoffrey still had to hook me up for blood transfusions every dusk because I just couldn’t stand the idea of swallowing blood.
“Christabel,” Aidan said quietly, emerging from the green boughs. I hadn’t even noticed him there, watching us. Judging by Connor’s violent start, he hadn’t either. “What brings you here?” He glanced at Connor. “Has your sister quit playing queen and finally called council?”
“I need to ask you something,” I said. “If you can help us, you might get your council faster.”
“Come along then,” he said, vanishing back into the cedar. We followed him to a hidden wall of rock, looking up to the caves where Saga was standing.
“Come on, lass,” she grinned. “Climb up to the eagle’s nest.”
Climbing up wasn’t easy, despite the fact that I could move faster than ever before. I still clung to thick roots and crumbling rock, muttering lines from “The Highwayman” under my breath for comfort. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until Connor came up beside me.
“Don’t worry,” he said. He scaled the rest of the outcropping and reached down to help me up. The treetops were far below us, like pointy green spears. I felt better with sturdy ground under my boots. Behind us, the cave opening led into a scattering of smaller caves. It smelled damp and cold, even with the candles burning in the dirt along the back. Saga sat on a pile of furs, drinking from a leather wineskin. Aidan crouched beside her, the bear claw around his neck swinging like a hypnotist’s pendulum.
“We need one of those copper collars,” I blurted out. So much for suave political negotiation.
“Liam sends children to parley?” Saga asked.
“Liam isn’t asking,” I said. “I am.” He didn’t even know we were here. None of the brothers had suggested telling him. Though apparently, Logan was sure Sebastian would mention it so no one had told him either.
Logan’s girlfriend Isabeau thought she might be able to undo some of the magic that Solange had unleashed by taking the crown from Helena. But we needed a collar to keep her powerless long enough to try. I didn’t really know Solange. What little I’d seen of her, I sincerely hoped she was ill, like the Drakes thought. But in the end it didn’t matter. I was doing this for Lucy and for Connor. But Aidan and Saga couldn’t know about any of it. No one could. Even I knew that if word of that kind of vulnerability got out, it would be disastrous.
“And why should we help you?”
I narrowed my eyes at them both. “I seem to recall saving you from a stake to the chest. Not to mention a horde of rabid Hel-Blar and angry Helios-Ra hunters.” And then we’d blown up the town, which Saga and Aidan had made their home base. No one was perfect.
“She has fire.” Saga approved, though her eyes were silvery and cold. “I’ll give you that.”
“If I could have just one collar, I could bring it to Solange,” I said. “We might convince her to hold the council.”
“You don’t care about the council,” Aidan pointed out. “So why do you really want the collar, Christabel?”
“Proof,” Connor interjected. We’d already decided on the proper misdirection when they started asking too many questions about Solange.
“Proof of what, boy?”
Connor’s jaw clenched. I knew he hated it when they called him ‘boy’ like that. “Proof that you still have information to share with my uncle. You said so yourself, your scientist was eaten. What if something happens to you too?”
“Are you threatening me?” Saga’s movements were silky with menace. She could have been on a ship’s deck, light on her feet and quicker than wind in a sail. Connor barely had a chance to react. By the time I’d blinked, he was flat on his back in the dirt with the tip of Saga’s dagger scraping his Adam’s apple.
I jumped forward but Aidan held me back with an arm around my waist. It stopped me so abruptly I heard something in my neck crack. I struggled briefly but I’d have had better luck snapping steel cables in half with my bare hands when I was still human. “Stop it,” I yelled.