The Eternity Key (27 page)

“Compass or no Compass?” I say. “I don’t have all night. Unlike you, I have more important things to do than be someone else’s glorified babysitter.”

“Depends on whether you have my money and the talisman.”

I pick up a black duffel bag next to my feet and toss it in front of him. He opens it and gives it a cursory inspection. There’s only twenty thousand there—all we could get in cash advance before it raised a red flag on Simon’s account—but I knew he wouldn’t stop to count it.

He slings the bag over the back of his motorcycle. “And the talisman?”

I rap my knuckles against the hood of the car. One of the back doors opens, and Garrick steps out. He stands, hands shoved in his pockets, on the opposite side of the car. The Tesla acts as a barrier between him and Rowan.

“You brought the runt?” Rowan says. “How’s he been working out for you?”

Garrick tries to hide his wince at being called a runt but fails.

“Just fine,” I say, even though that’s a lie. But I would still rather have Garrick in my entourage than my twin. “Talisman, Garrick?”

Garrick pulls a medallion on a long red leather cord out of his pocket. He holds it up, letting it dangle at his side.

Rowan starts to make a move toward him, but I step forward.

“Not until you show us the Compass.”

Rowan eyes Garrick. “That doesn’t look like my talisman.”

“Simon’s must have been the upgraded model. I found it in a turnip drawer in the refrigerator. Seems you were looking in the wrong place when you ransacked Simon’s bedroom. Your talisman was destroyed. That’s apparently what happens when you send a bolt of lightning through it when it’s submerged in water.” I hold up my hand to show him where the outline of the talisman is scarred into my palm.

“You destroyed my talisman?” There’s a hint of panic behind his rage. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“What’s the matter? You must be pretty desperate to reveal yourself to me after all this time. You can’t handle a couple of months without constant direction from Father? I thought I was the nursling, not you.”

“Not just direction, you idiot. I was supposed to report back to Ren that I’d secured the Compass. You might have gone off the rails, but they need to know that I’m taking care of everything else. Do you have any idea what’s going on down there? Do you have any idea of the consequences if the Court isn’t given assurances that everything is under control, that I can make you follow the plan—”

“You mean how the Court has designs on deposing Father? I’m afraid you’re already too late for giving any assurances that you can make me follow Father’s orders. That’s as fried as your talisman.”

“What did you do?” Rowan demands, his voice crackling with electric power.

“I paid Father a visit, using your talisman. He tried to convince me that he’d toss you aside as his favorite son and make me
his heir in exchange for Daphne. And as tempting as it was to think of you being passed over for me, I made an unbreakable oath that I would never bring her to him.”

“
Kopros
, Haden!” Rowan says, using my actual name for once. Which almost makes me take a step back. “Of all the addled things. Didn’t he tell you what would happen if the Court gains control? Didn’t he tell you about the Keres?”

I purse my lips, not wanting to show my concern. Part of me had wanted to believe that my father had made up the bit about the Court ripping through the Pits in order to get out of the Underrealm. That it was just a scare tactic—something he’d made up on the fly because it had been too terrible to believe that it might be real. But if Rowan is confirming it, it suddenly makes it feel all too real. And like Ethan’s plan might not be so horrible, after all.

“The world is still standing. You don’t see any Keres around here, do you?”

“For now,” he says. “I can’t promise the same for tomorrow. Or next week. Now give me the talisman. I need to make contact. I need to know what’s happening down there.” His voice is racked with desperation—a rare display of emotion on his part—and it almost makes me want to let him have the talisman.

When I don’t respond, Rowan turns his attention on Garrick. “Give me the talisman, runt!”

“Compass first,” Garrick says. His voice warbles, but I admire his resolve.

Rowan doesn’t. Before I can react, he launches himself over the hood of the car. I fling a bolt of lightning at him but narrowly miss as he grabs Garrick by the shoulder. Another bolt ripples through me, but I don’t dare throw it, for Garrick’s sake. Rowan rips the talisman from Garrick’s hand and then shoves him toward the
ground. Garrick hits the pavement face-first, and Rowan slams his foot down on his back. I start to charge at Rowan as he holds the talisman aloft in one hand and a crackling sphere of lightning above Garrick’s prostrate body.

“Move, and he fries,” Rowan growls at me.

“What are you going to tell hi
m
?” I ask, referring to his realm-to-realm call with Ren.

“That I’ll be the one bringing the Cypher back instead of you.”

“You know that will never work. She will never pass through the gate willingly with you.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I still have the Compass,” he says. “You know me, Haden. You know I can find a way to trick your girl into getting the Key for me. You didn’t think I would actually bring the Compass tonight, did you?”

“No,” I say. “In fact, I was counting on it.”

“What?” he says.

“At 216 Sea Cliff Court,” I say, reciting the address Lexie had texted me.

Rowan’s usual smug look drops completely from his face. He shoves the talisman in his pocket and runs for his bike. I could try to stop him, but I don’t. Dax and Tobin should have had plenty of time to get in and out of Rowan’s place by now. Based on Rowan’s reaction, I was sure they were going to find exactly what they were looking for.

As Rowan speeds away, I crouch down to help Garrick sit up. His lip is bloody, and bits of gravel from the pavement have been ground into his cheek. “I’m sorry,” he says, rocking forward to hug his knees to his chest. “I let him get the talisman.”

“Don’t worry about it. In fact, I wish I could see his face when he tries to use it to place a call.”

“What do you mean?”

“That wasn’t Simon’s talisman. I did find it in the fridge, but that thing Rowan took off with is something I dug out of the props Dax has been collecting for the play. Lexie’s friend Bridgette brought it in. I guess it’s a leftover keepsake from one of her mother’s movies.”

“A prop?” Garrick says. “You let me get my face split open over a prop?”

“I needed you to believe it was real so Rowan would buy it. You did great—”

“Stop it,” he says, pushing himself up from the ground. “You should have told me.”

“Garrick, I’m sorry, but I needed Rowan to believe it was real.”

“And you didn’t trust me to not give it away? Thanks a lot,
brother
. It’s nice to know how you think of me. But I’m not your
Lesser
servant anymore. I’m not going to let you or Rowan or anyone else push me around. Not anymore.”

Garrick walks away. My instinct is to order him to stop, but I know that would be the wrong move. He’s right to leave. And I’m right to let him go.

I pull out my phone and send a text to Dax, warning him that Rowan is on his way home, and then sit alone on the curb, the silence of the night closing in on me. I haven’t allowed myself to dwell on what happened with Daphne this afternoon because I needed to be ready for my meeting with my brother.

In the Underrealm, showing emotions turns you into prey to the likes of Rowan. Tonight, I’d needed to keep my feelings pushed down as far as possible so he couldn’t exploit them, but now that he is gone, I can no longer hold them at bay.

Heartache rips through me like a storm breaking through a levy.

I am raw. I am drowning. I am gasping for air.

If I could turn off my emotions permanently to rid myself of this pain, I would do it
.

I shake my head, rejecting that thought.

Don’t despair
, Dax had told me when I’d found him this afternoon. I’ve never been good at hiding things from him, and he’d known that something had happened by merely looking at me. I’d given him a cold, procedural retelling of the event, but he’d seen right through my mask.
She didn’t rebuff you completely. She didn’t say she doesn’t care for you. I have a feeling she’ll come around. Don’t cut yourself off from her. Be open and patient, and she’ll see you for who you really are. All is not lost
.

At the time, I had rejected his words for being meaningless platitudes. They’d bounced right off the shell that I had retreated into, but in the wake of my flooding emotions, I cling to them now like they’re a life preserver.

I can’t allow myself to be swept away in despair, and I can’t allow myself to shut down. Not merely Daphne’s future, not merely mine, or ours, but
everyone’s
is depending on me. Once the Compass is in our possession, the real decisions—and the real danger—will begin, and a battered heart is not something I can allow to get in my way.

chapter thirty-nine

Dax and I sit in a car we’ve borrowed from Joe’s collection two blocks away from Rowan’s town house, waiting for his motorcycle to pass. He should have left almost fifteen minutes ago but we can still see the motorcycle in the driveway. A text pops up on Dax’s phone asking if Rowan has left yet. It’s from Haden. Dax takes another look at the house through his binoculars before replying.

I’m seeing some movement. He should be leaving soon,
he messages. I can feel the anxiety starting to build as I try to psych myself up for another breaking-and-entering job. Seriously, when did my life become a James Bond movie?

Rowan finally comes out of the house, pulls out of the driveway on his motorcycle, and races off down the street, passing us without so much as a glance.

“Let’s go,” Dax says, hopping out of the driver’s seat. We jog up to the door and, a moment later, Dax has it unlocked and we’re inside.

“Where do we look first?” I ask.

“You start with the kitchen. I’ll take the living room. Then we’ll make our way upstairs. Make sure you check everywhere: behind boxes, air vents, the fridge. Everywhere.”

Dax makes his way to the couch and starts pulling cushions off, so I head to the kitchen in the back. We work silently for about ten minutes before Dax announces that he’s going to the dining room. I’ve almost completely destroyed the pantry and the cabinets under the sink when Dax comes back.

“Anything yet?” he asks.

“No, but I think I’m going much slower than you.”

“Nothing wrong with being thorough. We just need to make sure we’re out of here before he comes back. I’d say we maybe have another twenty minutes, tops.”

I hesitate, not sure I know how to ask Dax the question that has been plaguing my mind since my encounter with Terresa.

“Dax … Do you really think this is the best way to get Abbie back?”

Dax stops pulling beer cans out of the fridge but doesn’t look at me, as if he’s contemplating my question. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, we’ve been so concentrated on helping the group find the Key, but they’ve hardly spent any time helping us figure out where Abbie is or if she is even safe. I feel like everyone seems to think that, if we find the Key, we’ll miraculously find Abbie, too, or something. But maybe it’s time I split off from the group and start concentrating all of my energy on Abbie. Maybe you should join me.”

Dax doesn’t answer immediately. “Haden needs me, Tobin. He needs your help, too. Maybe looking for the Key won’t help us directly find Abbie, but who knows what leads might open up to us when we find it?”

“But are we doing enough
now
?” I ask.

“Believe me, Tobin, if I knew of a faster way to find Abbie, to make sure she’s safe, to bring her home—I would move heaven
and earth to do it.” He finishes searching the fridge and moves on to the cabinets under the stove. “But I trust Sarah the Oracle. She said if I helped Haden find his true path, that I would be reunited with Abbie. So that’s what I’m doing now.”

“But why do you trust the Oracle?”

“She hasn’t been wrong yet.” Dax’s phone buzzes with the arrival of a text. “
Kopros
. Rowan is on his way back. We’ve got maybe ten minutes with the way he drives. I’m going to head upstairs and check the bedrooms.”

Dax’s words about moving heaven and earth were meant to comfort me. To remind me that we are doing everything we can. To encourage me to be patient. Instead, they have me thinking about Terresa’s proposition.

If I knew of another way, wouldn’t I move heaven and earth, too? Wouldn’t I do whatever it takes?

A sudden urge to break something comes over me. I move on to the living room and knock over the TV, just because I can. And, you know, in case the Compass is hiding inside of it. I go for a lamp next.

A few minutes later, Dax barrels down the stairs.

“Got it!”

“Where was it?”

“Can you believe that arrogant piece of
kopros
just left it on his bed? Now I’m kicking myself for not starting with the master bedroom,” Dax says. “We’d better get going, though, before Rowan shows up.” He eyes the damage I’ve caused in his absence. “I’d hate to be you when he sees this.”