Siege of Shadows (Effigies #2)(112)

Rhys’s mother. I could only imagine what he’d be thinking watching the news. Or Uncle Nathan. Or my classmates and teachers back in New York. Chae Rin was right. Everything was going to hell. We were betting everything on some book whose contents were a mystery to everyone except a jittery old man who’d long fallen off the grid. And in the meantime, Saul’s clock ticked ever still.

Hours passed inside the van until I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out of the car. It’d been several hours since I’d even stood on my own two feet. I needed to stretch my legs and breathe in fresh air that didn’t carry with it the hint of stale curtain. And maybe go to the bathroom.

“No way,” Chae Rin said. “It’s dark now; we should be heading back to the museum.”

“Please, just for one second! I’ll be in the trees, out of sight!”

“Ew.” Lake scrunched up her nose, but I was already tying my hair and wrapping it up in one of Lake’s scarfs she’d kept in her knapsack.

“Nobody will see me out here, I promise.”

Lake peered through the windows on either side of her, making sure the coast was clear before passing me a pair of shades.

“Ten minutes,” Belle ordered.

I answered with a quick nod and hopped out of the car. My legs felt like noodles the second my feet touched the ground. I wobbled into the trees, finding my footing only as I soaked in the solace of nature under the cloak of the ever-encroaching dark. The night weaved through the sturdy trees, concealing secrets of ancient lives told only through fairy tales. Tales of love and suicide, the bloodied bodies of warriors left in their wake. It was more June’s thing than mine—how she would have loved to come here, to see the world the way I’d gotten to as I breezed here and there. June had always planned to take a year off after high school to travel. The moonlight dancing across the leaves was just another reminder that I was living her life.

I walked a little bit deeper into the trees, stepping over the roots and mushrooms sprouting out of the bark of fallen logs. I inhaled in the clean air, hoping the calming breath would give me a moment’s peace.

But the hand around my wrist trapped the breath in my lungs as it yanked me behind another tree.

My first instinct was to summon my magic to fight, but the magic was dead, at least temporarily—by my own hand. I prepared for a struggle nonetheless, whipping around, squeezing my hands into fists, but my strength left the moment I looked up and saw his face.

Rhys.

Maybe my eyes were tricking me, but he’d pulled me close enough that I could see the outline of his defined jaw, his soft, focused eyes. His black hair fluttered, ruffled, across his forehead, though the majority of it was hidden underneath a baseball cap.

My chest swelled, and for that moment I looked up at him, my mind was blank. That was until I remembered Naomi, the blood oozing out from the bullet holes in her battered body.

My name in connection to the attack.

He wasn’t here on duty. In his waist-long corduroy jacket and jeans, I couldn’t see a weapon, though I knew he was trained enough that he didn’t need to carry one to do harm. I was ready again, ready to fight, but when Rhys grabbed my shoulders it was only to shift me this way and that. He was checking for wounds.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“How did you find me?” was all I could say.

“Are you okay?”

“I didn’t hurt your mother.”

He straightened his back almost immediately and took off his cap, his lips flattening as he tensed at the mere mention of her.

“I didn’t hurt your mother, so . . .” I exhaled, steeling myself. “Are you here to turn me in?”

Rhys tossed his cap against the protruding roots, and then his hands were on my shoulders again. But it was a gentle grip. His hands were soft as he pushed me back against the tree and kissed me. Short, sweet. So quickly, I could barely register the moistness of his lips as they separated from mine. I was still in shock when he answered.

“No,” he said simply. “No, I’m not.”

He let me go, picking his cap up again before turning his back. If he was confident I wouldn’t take the opportunity to run away, he was right to be. My legs were practically petrified against the solid earth. I wasn’t going anywhere.

“When I heard about my mom, I convinced my brother to lend me a jet to go see her, but I flew to Prague instead,” he said. “Rosa told me you’d be coming here. And not long ago, James told me what car to find you in. That crappily painted Volkswagen, right? You girls sure travel in style.” He turned and smiled.

Rosa and James. Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was his mother. Of course they’d know him. Trust him. Why wouldn’t they? They didn’t know what I knew.

Rhys must have noticed my features crease with concern. “You’re scared.” He paused. “You’re scared that I’m here.”

“Yeah.”

“I told you I’m not going to turn you in.”

“The Sect is looking for me. Your dad. They think what happened to your mom is our fault.”

“Yes, they do. But they can’t track you. And I’m not going to turn you in.”

I looked up at him. “But you’re loyal to the Sect.”

“I’m not going to turn you in.” Rhys’s voice was hushed, but I could hear the desperation in his words—the desperation to be heard. “I’d never hurt you.”