“Very well. Then rest. I will come for you when I need you.” Vali took a step back and half bowed before turning and walking out of sight.

  I watched him, my eyes locked on his broad shoulders and his long, stiff legs. He was different. He’d seemed different ever since I’d seen him transform into a god.

  If there had ever been a doubt in my mind that Vali truly was mythological, all that doubt had now disbursed. From the golden, glistening breastplate, to the sword made of eternal fire – he was something far beyond the mundane.

  So where did I fit in?

  I frowned at that thought, bodily backing away from it as my shoulders struck the door behind me. It opened with a soft beep, and I stumbled back.

  I threw out a hand, catching the wall for support.

  Why was Vali so interested in me? Where, precisely, did my power come from?

  Those were two questions I couldn’t answer.

  There was one fact I knew. A thought that burned brightly in my heart as if the muscle had been replaced with a torch: I couldn’t let this stand. I couldn’t allow Caxus to get away with his crimes, to draw more people into his hatred – like Bradley. No, there was no love lost between Bradley and me. I quite rightly thought he was the scum of the earth. But even scum didn’t deserve to have their hateful wishes torn from their souls by a demon.

  Though I really should have rested, I began to pace. My movements were so quick, my footfall so jerky, I could have torn a hole in the carpet.

  The more I paced, the more I realized everything centered on finding out what I was. As I realized that, my mind went straight back to the letter Vali had taken from my grandmother’s mansion.

  It couldn’t… it couldn’t contain an explanation of what was happening to me, could it?

  Grandma White hadn’t known about my magic, had she?

  As that thought struck me, it weakened my knees until I found myself sitting in a large, wing-backed chair that faced the astonishing view. My body limp, I leaned back. I rested my head to the side, my hair knotting over my shoulder. I stared at the view. Day was tipping into dusk, golden purple and orange clouds scattering over the horizon, leading the eye to the bay beyond. The setting sun caught the tall towers and buildings of downtown, making them glisten like swords.

  I flattened a hand on my sternum, my stiff fingers crumpling the fabric of my blouse into a bunch.

  What did I truly know about my family heritage? The Whites had been in Saint Helios for centuries, right? Since its founding in the 1700s. Before that, I knew we’d originated from Europe somewhere. Maybe Russia, maybe Germany, maybe Scandinavia.

  That was it. I couldn’t say anything for certain. I could, however, find out, couldn’t I? Hello, this was the age of the Internet, and there were plenty of sites that tracked family history.

  Frowning to myself, realizing this probably wouldn’t work, I plunged a hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone.

  With a sinking feeling, I realized there was a very good reason this probably wouldn’t work – I no longer had an ordinary phone.

  I doubted Vali would allow us unfettered Internet access. But as I unlocked the phone and started messing around, I soon found a browser. Throwing caution to the wind, I started looking up the Whites from Saint Helios. I whiled away several hours, trying to find out everything I could. It didn’t take long to come across a curious article. It was saved in a publicly available university database.

  From the 1700s, it detailed a series of unexplainable phenomena from an old settler town down the east coast. Frosts in the middle of summer, rivers freezing over in a matter of seconds, snow falling from nowhere.

  The article went on to mention a recently settled family who were ultimately driven out of town: the Whites. Immigrants from Europe, they had arrived in town with no possessions, save for an old wooden box with ancient Norse runes carved on the lid.

  Though I frantically scanned to the bottom of the article, it was just a stub, and it ended abruptly.

  I snapped a hand up and slammed it over my mouth, breathing between my sweaty fingers. “No way.”

  The article could hardly speak, so it wasn’t as if it could concede to lying.

  I pushed up, keeping one hand flattened on the back of the chair as I pressed my phone close to my face. I continued to swipe through the university’s collection, my brow compressing until it looked like a concertina.

  So it looked as if there was a history of frozen magic in the White family. What’s more, a history of that box.

  No, I hadn’t forgotten about it.

  In quiet moments – on the rare occasion I was permitted them – my thoughts would always return to that box. It had started everything. If it hadn’t sunk its claws into me, if it hadn’t compelled me to go against my better nature and pluck it up, I wouldn’t be here right now. Franklin would never have found me.

  That box was at the heart of everything. I’d tried to ask Franklin about it once, but Vali hadn’t answered. He’d stared at me with a stiff, locked jaw and a steely, guarded gaze. It was crystal clear he had no intention whatsoever of telling me what that box was and what it had done to me.

  Thoughts now filled my mind, cramming into every nook and cranny as if I were a hoarder.

  I flattened a hand against my sweaty mouth and tried to breathe.

  Though there wasn’t any direct evidence linking my family to the Whites in that article, I just knew they were my ancestors.

  I curled my hand against the mystery, trying to bodily fight it as the questions kept pouring into me.

  The more I sat there, thoughts spinning, the more tired I became.

  Though the last thing I wanted to do was rest, I soon had little choice. My body was falling out from underneath me by the time I made it over to my bed.

  I flopped down, only just scrounging the energy to pull the covers over my body.

  The last thing I saw before sleep took me was that box.

  It was just out of my reach.

  Always out of my reach, yet always calling to me….

  10

  I didn’t have long to sleep. Barely a few minutes after I slipped off into slumber, I heard a frantic beeping from the door. It startled me so badly, I half jolted, my comforter slipping off and tumbling to the floor.

  Blinking, bleary-eyed, I sat up and pushed out of bed. Fortunately, I hadn’t bothered to change clothes. The door swung open.

  A stiff-lipped Megan rushed in. I was no stranger to the fact Megan didn’t like me. And, as such, her expressions around me were usually a mixture of disdain and irritation. Right now? Right now she looked sick.

  Warily, I stepped towards her. “What happened?” I couldn’t keep control of my voice.

  She sucked in a steeling breath. “One of our employees has been kidnapped.”

  I didn’t bother to correct her on the term employees, even though it usually drove me crazy. The only thing that could catch my attention was the horror in her expression.

  Carefully, shaking from head to foot, I took several steps towards her, my feet pushing through the lush carpet. “Who? Who was kidnapped?” I asked, my voice shaking, my heart already knowing it had to be someone close to me.

  “You know her. One of your partners. Cassidy.”

  Automatically, as if a string had been attached to my neck, I nodded.

  Inside, I crumpled.

  It took me so long to peel my lips back and ask, “Who kidnapped her?”

  I already knew the answer, knew it long before Megan let out a raspy, “The demon.”

  Again I nodded, the move strangely coordinated. A second later, the horror hit me.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and rammed a hand over my face.

  I didn’t have any hope that she would be okay. I knew Caxus now, knew the lengths he’d go to to make his point and, ultimately, to secure me.

  I looked up sharply. “There’s a ransom, isn’t there?”

  I watched her eyes grow wide in astonishment. “How do you know that?”

  “Because Caxus is after me,” I whispered under my breath.

  I didn’t wait for Megan to usher me out of the room. I strode right past her.

  My hair was a mess. I might not have had a chance to sleep for long, but the little rest I’d managed to accrue had been enough for my hair to turn into a knotted helmet. I ignored it. I ignored everything. I just held onto that little scrap of hope that told me if I was fast enough, Cassidy would have a chance.

  As soon as I left my room, the door into the hallway no longer led in an unbroken line straight to Vali’s door. It appeared to lead to somewhere I’d never been.

  I frowned. This was a level of the building I’d never seen. It seemed more high-tech. The view was different, too. Somehow, despite the fact there were only windows on one side of the wall, they appeared to offer an uninterrupted, 360° panorama of the city.

  If you’d told me that several months ago, I would have replied that such a thing was impossible. Now? I felt the magic all around me. It also struck me that this level was like some kind of observational platform. Kind of like a crow’s nest in a ship. Could this be where Vali did most of his scouting from? Gazing at Saint Helios City, just waiting for someone to commit a crime?

  I was in no mood to question Megan only to have her snarl at me, so I let the mystery rest.

  I also followed her at a clipping pace until she led me to a room. Even before we entered through the high-tech looking door, I could tell it was different from the lower-class detective office I worked in. For one, the door was massive. For another, I felt magical locks disengage as we approached. In many ways, I was still a complete newbie when it came to magic, but the longer I remained in this world, the more I grew to understand it.

  As we walked in through the opening door, I felt a swell of magic reach out and brush against me. It was like walking under a waterfall.

  Though it made me want to sneeze, I stifled it and let out a small, muted gasp.

  It was an operations room kind of like you’d see in an intelligence agency. There were numerous computers and machines, and I couldn’t begin to tell what they did. There were all sorts of enchantments, too. I saw them and felt them. They crackled along the walls, sparked along the light fittings, even flickered through the tiny cracks in the floor.

  The room was an absolute bustle of activity. Frenetic workers were throwing themselves from one beeping device to the next.

  I craned my neck, straining to see where Vali was. It quickly became apparent that he wasn’t here.

  Megan led me over to a strange device in the middle of the room. It looked like a bizarre amalgamation of a TV set and a scroll. It crackled, a peculiar antenna on top sending little charges of magic arcing over the odd screen.

  With a curt demand, Megan gestured me over and I sat in a seat in front of the peculiar television box. My heart was racing, beating so hard against my throat it felt like a prisoner demanding to be let out. Somehow I kept a hold of my nerves as Megan leaned over and typed something on a keyboard. The keyboard wasn’t in Standard English, that was for sure. The symbols on every key were in a language I didn’t understand, despite the fact I’d been inducted.

  I frowned at her until, with a snapped move, she shifted back. A great discharge of energy crackled down from the antenna and danced over the TV screen. It was so unexpected that I unashamedly let out a yelp and rocked back. The chair I was on didn’t have wheels and fortunately didn’t send me skidding across the floor. I watched in total surprise as the screen suddenly didn’t appear to be a screen at all. The glass simply gave way as it revealed a scene before me. It was just as immersive, if not more so, than that perfect 3-D hologram Cassidy had shown me at the beginning of Caxus’ case.

  Except this one I could tell was live footage. It wasn’t recorded; it was happening right now. A blast of nerves slammed hard up my back, jolting me forward just as an image resolved within the screen. It felt as if I was watching something within an aquarium, an aquarium without glass. Or, more accurately, as if I were peering through a half-open door to a scene in a room I couldn’t quite reach.

  There he was: Caxus. He was standing near his chair. Within his chair sat Cassidy. She was out cold, her head lolled against her chest, her cheeks as pale as alabaster.

  She didn’t appear injured, yet she was as still as a corpse. If it weren’t for the slow, rhythmic pulse of her chest, I would have thought she was dead.

  I locked my hand against my mouth, feeling the fingers freeze against my stiff, cold lips.

  “What, what is this?” I hissed between my fingers.

  “Live footage.”

  “How are you getting it?”

  “The bastard is sending it to us,” Megan spat.

  As if on cue, Caxus leaned into view, folded a hand before his chest, and bowed low.

  I shivered back. I took a breath. “What… what does he want?”

  “A trade,” Megan said, her tone low.

  “… Me?” I could barely breathe.

  “Yes. You agree to meet him, and he’ll give us Cassidy back.”

  … Agree to meet Caxus. It sounded innocent. It wouldn’t be.

  I didn’t have long to shiver at that thought.

  I felt Vali long before I heard him, long before I saw everyone stop as the room froze as one.

  I turned over my shoulder, craning my neck as Vali stalked into the room. He looked livid, yet I didn’t cower as he marched right up to me.

  “Sir,” Megan began.

  Vali brought up a stiff hand, spreading his fingers wide. “What is she doing here?” Vali snapped. It was obvious he was talking about me, yet it was just as obvious that I wasn’t the one in trouble.

  I watched Megan pale. “This concerns her. Caxus—”

  “I don’t want to hear it. She should not have been disturbed.” Vali gestured me forward.

  It was a rude flick of his hand, and if I’d been in a different mood, I would have snapped at him for being so dismissive. I looked past his flippancy to the clear fear pulling his lips thin.

  Without a word, I pushed up from the chair and followed him out of the room. I could feel his eyes on the back of my neck, feel them like drills trying to push between my vertebrae. He didn’t say a word until we were outside. Somehow, the corridor changed. It no longer took me past that viewing platform with a 360-degree uninterrupted panorama of the city. It led several short paces straight to Vali’s office door.

  He didn’t say a word until we were inside, and even then it took him several heavy, punctuated, angry breaths until he turned on his foot to face me. “There is nothing you can do,” he stated in a small voice. A voice that belonged to a man and not a god.

  “I can’t just stand here and do nothing; she’s my friend.”

  Vali’s expression softened, yet he still shook his head. “You have no idea what Caxus would be capable of if he managed to get his hands on you.”

  Though my stomach knotted in total fear, I didn’t stop facing Vali. “What? Tell me what he’d be able to do? You’re always keeping me in the dark. I have absolutely no idea what my true powers are—” I began, the questions bleeding out of me and igniting with my fear to create a toxic mix of desperation.

  Vali took a heavy breath, his broad chest pushing out against his shirt. He opened his mouth to say something, but just as quickly changed his mind. He clasped his hands behind his back as he walked up to the windows. He looked like a hawk as his head tilted, darting from side-to-side while he watched the city below. Though it could have been easy to be distracted by him, nothing could pull my thoughts off Cassidy.

  “We have to do something. We can’t just stay here. He won’t stop at Cassidy.” My voice shook. “It’s only the start.”

  “I know that,” Vali said in a quiet tone that barely made it out of his broad chest. “I know precisely what is at stake here, even if you do not.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  “It means—” he said as he turned hard on his foot and faced me. He opened his mouth, and again it seemed he came to some decision, pressing his lips closed. He turned back to the view.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed towards him, stopping close by his side. I stared up at him, even as he continued to face the city. “Just tell me what’s going on? Why does Caxus want me so much?”

  “Because with you he can open a gate,” Vali supplied. There could be no question it was Vali speaking. It wasn’t just the exact note of power his voice achieved; it was the look in his eyes. His pupils blazed such a bright blue they looked as if they were flares on a dark night.

  His words stilled me as he turned to me. I swore I saw the god beneath – the fantastic creature I’d seen in Captain Smith’s house.

  My breath a frozen lump in my chest, I waited for him to make the next move.

  His eyes still blazing, still lit up until they glowed as brightly as twin stars, he took a breath.

  “What do you mean I can open a gate?” I couldn’t control my voice. “A gate to where?”

  “Back to my world.” Vali spoke with such a low timbre, it felt like he would pull the floor out from underneath me.

  His world… as soon as he said those words, they had an effect on me. Such a powerful effect it felt like they would tear through my chest and rip through my mind.

  He watched as sweat beaded across my brow, as my cheeks paled. I saw his pupils dilate, saw his cheeks slacken.

  “What do you mean your world? The world of the gods?” I supplied, answering my own question.

  I waited for him to shake his head, but he didn’t. He gave a stiff, low nod. “Yes, the world of the gods.”

  It struck me that I knew nothing about the reality behind Vali, the god of revenge. For the last month, I’d been distracting myself with the day-to-day work of being a magical detective. Though my thoughts often twisted back to the box, back to my so-called sins, back to my power – they rarely turned to the real questions sitting underneath: who exactly Vali was and what it meant to be a god.