Blinking, he finally focused on me. “I will do my best.”
Alex and Pamela stood off to one side, or rather, Pamela stood and Alex sat, scratching at his ears with his back feet. Neither seemed particularly worried about this upcoming adventure. Hell, I was struggling with this, but I wasn’t the only one.
“Rylee, what will Marco and I do? Where should we go?” Eve was worried, and she wasn’t trying to hide it.
“Head to London. Tell them what we are doing and make sure Liam knows I won’t be long.”
For a moment, I wished Blaz were with us, maybe him and Ophelia, even if she was a bit off her rocker. They were Immune to magic like I was, and with that many coven members turned to the dark side, there would be a serious amount of magic thrown around.
Then again … I could just see two marauding dragons wiping out half of Boston in an effort to kill the black coven. Yeah, how would the humans explain that one away? No, as much as I would’ve liked him to be with us, there was no way we could take Blaz or Ophelia.
“We need to be quick with this salvage.” A trio of covens against me, Alex, Pamela, Frank, and Erik. I couldn’t pin any hopes on Berget. She could end up being as much of a liability as a help.
I scrubbed a hand over my face to hide the sudden flash of doubt that crept through me.
Erik stepped up and then pulled me aside. “It’s not just the coven you are worried about, is it?”
No, it wasn’t. My parents were in Boston, and I had a bad feeling fate was going to allow them into my life one more time. Even with Berget with me as proof I didn’t kill her, I was still afraid to see them. Afraid it would stir up all the weakness in me, something I really didn’t need. Not now, not with the future riding on my shoulders. “No, my parents live there. The ones who adopted me.”
My uncle gave a slow nod. “The chances of you seeing them are slim at best. Boston is a big city. They won’t even know you are there.”
Erik did his best to soothe me, but I couldn’t get past feeling like I was sixteen again. Watching my parents tell the police to take me away, that they didn’t ever want to see me again. That somehow they would know how close I’d just come to actually killing Berget. Making their accusations the truth.
I centered my breathing as Pamela and Alex moved closer.
“Are we going?” Pamela asked softly, the sound of her voice breaking through my anxiety.
I cleared my throat. “Yup.”
Frank gave me one last look over his shoulder and then opened the veil with a slash of his hand. Through the cut in the air we looked into a darkened room with only a single light and a window illuminating the place. Where it was, I had no idea.
“You sure that’s Boston?”
Frank grimaced. “Yes. Hurry, I can’t hold this very long.”
Berget, Alex, Pamela, Erik, and Frank stepped through the veil, but I paused on the threshold to look back, feeling a tug on my heart. Ten feet behind me, a shadow stood, watching us go. Our eyes met and a stroke of pain sliced through me. If he’d been solid and not some figment of my imagination, I would have run to him and let him catch me. No words, nothing could truly define the emotions rushing through me. Love, fear, worry, the safety of his arms when he held me, the way he smiled from just the corner of his mouth.
I didn’t want to think about what it meant that I was seeing a specter of Liam when I knew he was across the ocean with Blaz. “Eve, please hurry. Make sure Liam is okay.”
She squawked and launched into the air, Marco right with her.
I nodded, more to myself than anyone else, and turned from where we’d all come through. Time to deal with what was at hand. “Berget, how are you feeling?”
Her eyes slid to half mast for a split second. “They are sleeping now. You do not have to check on me every few minutes. I will tell you if something changes.”
“Did you feel that change before you attacked Thomas?” I wasn’t trying to cause shit, but seriously needed to know. She flushed and the dim light of the building didn’t hide the color from me.
Bingo. That was what I was worried about. If she couldn’t feel them sliding up and taking control, we could be in serious trouble.
I ran my hands over my weapons: both swords, a whip, and a multitude of smaller blades here and there. “Pamela, you have your short sword?”
“Yes.”
I stared around the room. Where the hell were we? The night was full on in Boston, and the sound of cars zipping by and flashes of headlights were the only indications we were at least somewhere near a main road.
The short winter days were a boon to us, even if the weather was shit. The room we stood in was bitterly cold with a damp bite that made me think of England. I’d spent too many years in Boston; my body immediately recognized the cold. North Dakota was far preferable to this.