Labyrinth of Stars(3)

It’s hard, knowing what you have to do. And worse, not quite having the strength to do it.

“Safe,” he whispered, giving me a long, knowing look. “For little light.”

I exhaled, slowly. Grant took my hand. “You think our baby is in danger.”

Zee continued holding my gaze. “Homes change. Or homes die.”

I looked back up the hill at my mother’s grave—at my grandmother, buried beside her. Grant squeezed my hand, but I barely felt his touch. I realized, suddenly, that I had expected to be buried beside them one day. Despite all the time that had passed since my mother’s murder, and no matter how much I had to live for—that was the one grim promise about my eventual death that I looked forward to.

How fucking sad.

Grant suppressed a cough, then another—his thinning shoulders jerked violently. In the six years we’d been together, I’d never even heard him sniffle. Now he was frail.

Another coughing fit hit, this one more violent. I dropped the food, wrapping my arm around his waist as he sank into the grass.

“Sorry,” he murmured, wiping his mouth.

“Don’t be,” I whispered. Our gazes locked. Remorse was in his eyes, and he wet his lips, which were suddenly dry, cracked.

“Grant,” I began, but stopped, overcome with nausea. It’s the pregnancy, I told myself, only this felt even more powerful than usual. In fact, I really thought I was going to—

I turned away, doubling over as I began puking into the grass. Nothing came up, but it left me shaken, dizzy. It didn’t feel right, either. In fact—

“Maxine,” hissed Zee. “Door opened.”

Door opened. I knew what that meant, and dread spread through me. The only door Zee ever talked about was the door to the Labyrinth—that quantum highway that connected countless worlds. The last two times it had opened, I’d felt it—just like this.

Someone had come through. Or something.

“Hurry.” I tried to stand, grabbing Grant’s arm, hauling him upright. He struggled with his cane, found his feet. But he didn’t run. He stood stock-still, head tilted as though listening. Raw and Aaz were doing the same, but looking in the opposite direction. Zee disappeared into the shadows.

My right hand tingled: pins and needles. No flesh around my fingers, palm, and wrist—parts of my forearm, lost—covered in a living, sentient metal, an armor that was quicksilver, dreaming. I could feel it dreaming now, dreaming itself to awareness, and it was not a good sensation. It was a warning.

Grant’s hand stretched out, slowly, as if to push me behind him. I took his hand, instead—squeezing it hard.

A sudden lightness fell around my throat. Two demons are heavier than one—and in the space of a heartbeat, Mal dropped into the shadows of my hair and disappeared. I glimpsed, almost in the same moment, his reappearance on my husband’s shoulders—

—just as a hail of darts whistled down upon us.





CHAPTER 2




I didn’t think. I turned to my husband, ready to throw him to the ground and cover his body. But for once, he was faster. I squeaked in surprise as he tossed me to the grass and dropped on top of me. It only took seconds. My heart thundered, and his breath rasped hot in my face.

I heard the thud of darts in the grass. Grant flinched, whuffing out his breath—and not in a good, startled way. I knew what hurt sounded like.

I tried rolling him off me. He protested through gritted teeth, but I just pushed harder. He weighed more than he should have, and I saw Raw peer around his shoulder to look at me.

“Up,” I snapped, and the little demon disappeared. So did the extra weight. I shoved hard, squirming sideways. Grant couldn’t hold on to me.

The ground around us looked like a porcupine had exploded. Slender slips of wood wavered upright in the grass, not as long as arrows or as thick, but just about the length of a small chopstick. I stared at them, stunned. An unfamiliar smell hung in the air, stinging and vinegary. Made me sneeze—

—just as a spear the length of my mother’s station wagon slammed into my chest.

Or tried to. Zee leapt into the air, taking the strike against his ribs. It was a thunderous weapon, and would have torn a hole in me the size of my fist—but the force of the impact didn’t even make the little demon fly sideways. The spear broke around him, showering us in splinters. I heard more whistles, more spears raining down—Raw grabbed one of them out of the air and threw it back into the darkness. Aaz blocked the other from hitting Grant and ate the tip of it—a jagged, barbed shaft of iron that looked better for hunting whales than people.

Zee disappeared into the shadows. A moment later, I heard a deep-throated scream.