Labyrinth of Stars(27)

He closed his eyes. “Sweet girl. How long has it been?”

“Months since I saw you. But I don’t know how long you’ve been . . . like this.”

“Too long.” Jack opened his eyes and looked at me. “Thank you for finding me. I was . . . not in my right mind.”

And then his gaze fell down to my stomach.

“Ah,” he said. “Time has passed.”

I frowned. “Can you walk?”

He didn’t seem to hear me. He tore his gaze from my stomach, then looked slowly around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. I thought for sure he’d already noticed Grant—given that my husband was standing right in front of him—but when my grandfather finally looked at him, directly, a bolt of tension ran right through his jaw, down into his grimy hands. He stayed like that, unblinking. Until, finally, I realized he wasn’t really seeing my husband at all.

“Jack,” Grant said sharply. “Focus.”

No reaction. Zee made an impatient sound and grabbed the old man’s wrist. I had never seen the little demon touch him, and the contact seemed to startle my grandfather almost as much as me. He recoiled, trying to pull free, but Zee was relentless.

“Meddling Man,” he rasped, eyes glowing. “Be here. Be now.”

Jack stared at him, then exhaled sharply. “What has happened?”

I glanced at the skull. “You tell me.”

He still looked dazed. I almost touched him but was afraid of catching a disease.

“Can you walk?” I asked him. “We need to leave.”

Jack didn’t move. His gaze flickered back to the skull.

“Fuck it,” I said, reaching for him. “Let’s go.”

My grandfather held up a trembling hand, stopping me. “Don’t. I’m not an invalid. Just old and stupid.” He slid forward on the chair, and that small movement released an odor that made me stop breathing. Grant bent his head and covered his mouth.

When Jack stood, his knees wobbled. So did the rest of him. I gritted my teeth, held him up. My skin crawled, but I didn’t let go. He felt so frail. My hands softened, and so did my heart.

“Hey,” I said, in a gentler voice. “Grandfather.”

Jack closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “Have you ever called me that?”

“I can’t remember.” I looked at the skull. “Anything I need to know?”

“Of course not,” he said tersely, then hesitated. “We should leave . . . that . . . here.”

Zee gave him a doubtful look. Jack said, “Yes, yes, you’re right. We’ll bring it.”

I opened my mouth. My grandfather shook his head, confusion marring his grizzled face. “No, that’s wrong. It’s safer here.”

Even Raw and Aaz stared at him. Grant frowned, studying the skull with an uneasy glint in his eye.

“It’s alive,” he said, quietly. “Full of light.”

“What does that mean to us?”

“I don’t know.” He tore his gaze from it, blinking hard. “But it can’t just be left behind.”

I wouldn’t have left it, anyway. I took a deep breath—through my mouth—and looked at Zee. “Find a box to put it in.”

My grandfather’s shoulders slumped, but he didn’t argue. Or agree.

Zee reached into the shadows beneath the table. I heard a clank, scraping; he pulled free a metal box.

Jack said, in that same terse voice, “Why are you both here?”

I almost snapped at him but swallowed hard at the last moment, kept my voice steady.

“We couldn’t hide forever,” I told him, which wasn’t what I intended to say at all. But Jack stared at me, and in a heartbeat he was fully himself, fully present, and he straightened up and grabbed my hand.

“Maxine,” he said.

I squeezed his fingers, and all the pain, fear, and dread that had been hovering just outside my heart, hovering on the cusp, spilled into me and kept spilling.

“Jack,” I said. “They tried to poison Grant. And kill our baby.”

“They,” he echoed, but it wasn’t a question. He knew to whom I was referring. He was one of them, after all.

“It almost worked,” Grant said. “Too close, Jack. Too damn close.”

“Well,” replied my grandfather, sounding shaken. “Well, now.”

Zee gestured at him with one long claw. I didn’t know if it was a threat, but there was certainly menace in his glinting gaze; a bitterness that gave way to something old and calculated, and devastatingly fierce.

“Meddling Man,” he rasped. “Choose now, or never. Choose, who.”

I had never thought to ask that question. It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d need to. But Zee had known my grandfather at his worst. He had known him, battled him, been imprisoned and tortured by him. Yes, he would ask. Yes, he would doubt his loyalties. I should have, too.