Slayer(15)

“Spying.”

“Really?”

“I’m not invited to every meeting, but everything they decide impacts me. So I invite myself. Also, sometimes I don’t want to be found by Wanda Wyndam-Pryce and her endless list of things she can’t be bothered to do by herself. So I hide in here.”

I imagine Artemis sitting alone in this black space just so she can have a moment to herself, and my resentment snuffs out as Artemis turns off the penlight. That’s why she never shared it. It wasn’t a happy secret. It was a tired, cold, dark secret, and she’s always tried to shield me from things like that. Being on the inside isn’t always a privilege.

“Not far now,” she says. I place my hand on her back and follow as she confidently navigates a turn. Another void opens up beside us, and suddenly a figure lunges toward me.

I grab their arm, spinning the person and slamming them into the wall.

Rhys gasps. “It’s me!”

I have him pinned, my forearm against his throat. I release him, embarrassment burning my cheeks. What is wrong with me that my first reaction to everything today is attack-injure-kill?

Slayer, my mind hisses.

“Thanks a lot, Artemis,” Rhys whispers.

“Yeah, that was Nina.” Artemis sounds annoyed.

“Sorry?” I reach out blindly and pat Rhys’s shoulder. “I honestly didn’t mean to.” I’ve never hit a person before, never attacked anything, and—

A memory forms. A cemetery. A stake.

But I can never recall the details of that memory. It’s so far from who I became. Maybe I remember it wrong. Surely Artemis was the one with the stake, not me. I should ask her. It feels important all of a sudden. But we don’t talk much about our childhood, what with the giant fire right smack in the middle. Neither of us wants to reminisce about that.

Artemis pulls me next to her. Rhys takes a spot on my other side. Their faces are pressed against the wall. Several tiny holes have been drilled into the stone, pinpricks of light. They’re so small you wouldn’t notice them unless you put your eye right up against them. Which is what I do.

It’s the Council’s room. Our view is behind the Council members, their backs to us. But I don’t give them a second glance once I see what—or rather, who—the meeting is about.

I desperately wish all the hellmouths hadn’t closed, because I’d like nothing more than for one to swallow me up. Any hell dimension would be preferable to this new reality.

Because standing in front of the table is Eve Silvera.

And her son, Leo.

? ? ?

The first time I met Leo Silvera, I almost died.

We weren’t supposed to be outside. Artemis and I had just turned twelve. It was our last night together—Artemis, Rhys, Jade, and me. The next day Rhys would move to the dorms to begin his immersive training for the top levels. I was sad and jealous and . . . excited. Because I would have Artemis all to myself. I wouldn’t have to share her with her books and training. She’d still have work to do as they determined where to place her, but it wasn’t the same as being in full Watcher training. It was being on the sidelines. Like me. Like Jade, too, who had failed the test. No one was surprised when that happened, but when Artemis failed . . . none of us knew how to react. Me least of all. Artemis didn’t fail at anything. Somehow only Rhys had been chosen to progress as a Watcher destined for active duty and eventually the Council. It didn’t make sense. Rhys was smart, but Artemis was too. And she beat him in magic and in physical combat skills across the board.

How had she failed?

“Hurry up, slowpokes,” Jade said. She walked fast, and I didn’t bother trying to catch up. We were all heading for the same ice cream, anyway.

Rhys stayed back with us, silent and distracted. Ever since the test, he wouldn’t quite meet our eyes. I assumed he felt bad that he had made it and Artemis hadn’t.

Artemis had been even more affected by the test. When she had come back, she’d looked . . . haunted. “I don’t want to be a Watcher,” she had said. But being a Watcher was what she had always wanted. I couldn’t wrap my head around her not being on the Council someday in the distant future. In my mind, she already was.

When I tried to talk to her about the test, she refused. For the last four years she had been there for me, but I didn’t know how to offer her the same support, so I pretended like nothing was different. She let me. It was easiest for both of us.

I hated myself for it, but a part of me was glad. My mother never let me train, so I never had a shot at being a full Watcher. I had always been jealous that, once again, Artemis had been chosen. And now she wasn’t. I didn’t talk to her about it because I didn’t know how to make it better and because I didn’t want it to be better. We’d be sidelined together. Working Watcher support together. I wouldn’t lose her to the field like our father, or, worse, to the Council like our mother.

The air outside smelled like freedom. The dorms smelled like burning dust from the ancient heating system. It made my nose and lungs tickle and gave me bad dreams. Anything that smelled like smoke did. Next to the dorms was the building where the Council members were housed. It had been converted from a cathedral, and it was beautiful—the spires pointing to the sky like a warning to creatures of the night.

The other benefit of its conversion was that it was positively unwelcoming to vampires. Unlike the dark, wild grounds we slinked across to get to the nearest street.