Chapter 26

"We're over-reacting. She's going to laugh in our faces."

Did my voice have to sound that unconvincing? I would have to stop bragging about my acting ability because apparently I really sucked at it. I couldn't even convince myself.

"She wouldn't have gone home with someone?" Bryce asked. It didn't sound like much of a question.

"No. She's picky. Unless Adam showed up and offered to elope with her, she would have gone back to my place." It was the base and her house looked like an earthquake had hit. It was four o'clock in the morning. She had to be home. "She's probably just not answering the phone."

"Probably," he agreed as he went faster. "Adam's the guy from the time tear, right? The one she ends up sleeping with?"

"Yeah. About time, too. She's been in love with him since she was twelve."

"Who is he?"

"Adam? Adam Vasic. Exustio. He works for Lucas and as a delegate for the interracial council."

"Is he gay?" Bryce asked with his customary tact. "Or just stupid?"

"He's not the brightest, but I'm pretty sure he likes women. I caught him checking out Paige once—that's part of the problem. He grew up with Paige, which means he thinks he's old enough to be Savannah's father, even if, well, he's not. Not everyone is a comfortable with cradle-robbing as you are."

"Hey, you said you were twenty-one."

Ignoring Bryce, I added: "And I just don't think he likes her."

It sucked for Savannah since she actually believed they were soul mates, but it seemed like it was the real reason they weren't involved yet. I wondered how much of what we saw in the time tear was because he felt sorry for her. What an awful thing to think.

"Did I say something helpful when I was screaming in my sleep?"

"Mostly variations of 'get off me' and 'stop it'," he said, fiddling with the radio.

"Could you not do that while we turn?" I practically screeched. He pulled his hand away like it was going to catch fire. I didn't need his reproachful look to realize that I was over-reacting. "I'm sorry. That was—I'm sorry."

"Did you hear anything else, Grant?" Bryce asked. The bodyguard was in the back seat, since no one from the Cabal would see us and object.

"I think I heard something about powers," Grant contributed.

"Something about in a fair fight, my power would obliterate you, you..." Bryce trailed off. "It was pretty creative. The stuff that comes out of your mouth is usually fascinating, Gillian, but—"

"I don't have a knack for swearing." I had to drop the cigarette out the window—I hadn't realized it was about to burn me. "We're over-reacting."

"You said that already."

The convertible pulled into my driveway and I was out the door before Bryce had fully stopped. One unlock spell took care of the door—I really should get better security—and then I was inside. "Savannah!"

No one answered. A quick sensing spell told me there was no one in the house. I swore as Bryce came through the door and then headed upstairs. My sensing spell wasn't always reliable. I threw open my bedroom door and there she was, sprawled out on top of the covers. And then the image faded and there was just a big empty unmade bed. I really was going crazy.

"Savannah!"

I tore through the room and then the rest of the house, Bryce and Grant were following along behind me but not being of any use at all.

"You could help."

"She's not here, Gillian," Bryce said. "Do you know any tracking spells?"

I wish. Movie witches could always do that sort of thing. Give them a map, a pushpin and a piece of hair and they could narrow it down to ten feet. The sensing spell was the closest I knew to that and it was limited to about twenty feet around the caster. And I knew sorcerers didn't have that kind of power either.

"There's Paige," I suggested. "If the Cortezes saw Savannah, they would have dragged her out of there. Maybe she stayed with them. I could try calling."

"At four in the morning? You want them panicking?"

There was no sense in me being the only one freaking out. "What do you propose?"

His blonde hair was sticking up everywhere and I spared one whole second to notice that underneath his calm exterior, he looked worried. "Go to sleep. If it happens again...I'll get people to start looking for her. Maybe it was just a nightmare."

"Maybe. Or maybe she's being tortured right now and we're doing nothing. Either or. It's not like we know the two of us are magically connected or something. Oh wait!"

"I get it, Gillian. But we don't know for sure that it's anything more than a dream."

"I don't fucking care. We have to do something. Something's happening to her, something bad. I can't just—"

"Fine. I will call my Grandfather's security and see if they know what happened. These men are the best in the business. They'll know if there is anything to know. And if they don't, there's always Pierre. He's the clairvoyant. You are going to calm down and neither of us is tearing around this city looking for someone who may not be missing. Especially since someone tried to kill you a few days ago. Understand?"

I took a shaky breath. And then another. When I finally had my voice under control, I tried to explain. I wasn't a basket case, not really. It was just... "Savannah is always around. Even when she gets herself thrown into another dimension she's still there. I can't have anything happen to her. She's my own personal superhero."

"Nothing's going to happen to her. You're over-reacting. Grandpa probably caught her trespassing, freaked out and is currently screaming at her. Once I talk him out of killing her, she'll be fine."

"You suck at being reassuring, you know." But at least he had tried. "You're going to call security?"

"I'm going to call security," he promised. "And Sean. There's nothing else to do until morning."

"So call," I said, sitting down on the lumpy couch that served as our entire living room furniture. Grant was already sitting, waiting for us to decide what to do and he shifted over so I would have space to wait.

"Fine." Bryce was using my cell, but I could afford a few extra minutes if it meant Savannah was safe. Bryce leaned up against the wall. "Fitz? Bryce here. I—"

Grant raised an eyebrow as we both wondered who would dare cut of a Nast. The conversation that ensued didn't help us much.

"My phone's right—" Bryce closed his eyes in frustration. His phone was currently on the floor of Leech's house. "I turned it off for the night. There's nothing that could be that important—Repeat that—That's impossible—I understand but it's not—All right. Has my grandfather been—Good. I'll be right over. Has someone called in Hollis?—And a spare. Try Kendrick. Tell my grandfather I'll be there in five minutes."

He didn't even let me protest once he hung up. "The clairvoyant's been murdered. I have to go."

"You can't murder a clairvoyant."

I guess you could if you had enough supernatural know-how to circumvent their powers, but I had never really given it much thought. But it should have been utterly impossible for a clairvoyant in Thomas Nast's house to die from unnatural causes.

"That's why I have to go. I'll call Sean on the way over. He'll start the search for Savannah. You can stay here with Grant and—"

"Excuse me, sir, but I have to stay with you," Grant insisted quietly. Bryce swore, but quickly moved on.

"Then you'll come with me. You can go with Sean at the scene. He'll want to go when he hears about Savannah and I'll be more useful—we can do that. And you have to change."

My hair was a royal mess but I couldn't have cared less if I tried. We were out of the house in under a minute.

I waited in the car, nervously watching the swarms of supernaturals. There were teams and teams of people combing over the acres of Thomas's house. Shamans and half-demons with any sort of tracking powers were hard at work. I knew the necromancers would probably be trying to summon the spirit of the murdered clairvoyant. The sorcerers would be standing around arguing about the politics.

The idea that someone had been able to surprise a clairvoyant enough to kill them was so preposterous that I almost laughed every time I thought about. They were prized above most other employees—hell, the Nasts had even kept a brain dead clairvoyant on life support for nine months just so they wouldn't lose her child, or so the rumor went. Clairvoyants were so valuable Nasts would condescend to spend money on people other than sorcerers. The security around a clairvoyant would be enormous.

But the air of panic convinced me that this was real. Which was nice and all, but Savannah was out there somewhere, in pain, and she was my number one priority.

Fortunately, Bryce had spotted his brother easily. That was one good thing about the Nasts being so very tall. After making me swear to stay put—what did he think I was going to do? Go say hi to his grandfather?—Bryce left and I was stuck watching the scene from the other side of very thick glass.

The two brothers had some sort of argument at the edge of the crowd. While I was watching, I heard a voice.

"I'm sorry?"

"Would you like some coffee, miss? It's fairly fresh," Grant repeated.

I took the coffee, because it looked like I was going to need to be up for a long while. It was disgusting—I actually didn't like the stuff very much. But at least it was hot. I needed to be alert. Not that I didn't trust the Nasts but...I didn't trust the Nasts. Especially when it came to Savannah.

"I started guarding Mr Nast when he was seven," Grant said from the front. "Even then he was old enough to know he didn't want a body guard. He tried to crawl through an air vent to hide from me. He ended up stuck and I was almost decapitated for my negligence."

"Charming," I laughed, eyes fighting to stay awake.

"It didn't get any easier over the years. When he was fifteen he hired a body double and was in another state before I caught up to him."

I yawned, watching as Sean and Bryce continued to fight. "Enough to make you want to quit."

"Always. But I managed to pick up a few tricks in the meantime."

I glanced down at the coffee in my hand and then back at Grant who was watching me in the rearview mirror. The corner of his mouth twitched in confirmation.

"Grant, you didn't," I begged.

"You won't be very helpful if you're too tired. The Nasts will handle this, you have my word. Go to sleep."

"I loathe you," I said handing the thermos back to him. "If anything happens to her...Did Bryce put you up to this?"

"I haven't listened to that boy since I started working for him. I'm not going to start now."

"Like you would tell me even if he had."

"That's true. He probably would, though. You can ask him when you wake up."

My eyelids felt ridiculously heavy and I knew there wasn't any point in fighting to keep them open. Grant was the best, after all. I leaned my head back and tried to focus on the Nast brothers. I thought I saw Sean walking towards the car, but I couldn't be sure. I hoped we weren't too late to help Savannah...

Somewhere very far away, I heard Grant talking.

"Goodnight, Miss MacArthur."

I woke up screaming. Again. This time, I got Sean in the nose. That was some nice symmetry. Sean actually let me look at it, though, as he asked me what I had been dreaming about.

I shivered but told him: "It was Savannah's thoughts or whatever, again. They had stopped and were asking her all sorts of questions. Weird things, like what she had eaten for breakfast last Thursday and all the people I had talked with to find her. They just kept asking and asking and she couldn't remember very well so they...have you started looking for her yet?"

"I already have people looking," Sean promised. "One of Martin's cars was still in the garage. Most of our men are scouring the city, anyway, because of Pierre, so now I have them looking for another set of clues. Unfortunately, I can't exactly tell most of them what they're looking for. If Grandpa finds out we're looking for Savannah he'll call off the forces. So while it's something, it's not the best we could do."

"What else are you doing?

"I'm also trying to get the security footage of the house, see why she never made it to her car. But that's taking time. It disappeared so we're looking for the back ups."

Not good, not good. I fidgeted. It wasn't fair to demand results when I had done nothing but sleep. But he hadn't had Savannah screaming in his head. They had to do more.

"Do they know what happened to the clairvoyant?"

"Bryce would know more than me at this point. We're meeting up with him now. We've called up the Cortezes, but we—I—thought we should tell them in person. The meeting starts in fifteen minutes. We should have plenty of time to get to headquarters by then."

Headquarters? Nast Headquarters. I was going to be sick. Instead, I silently promised Savannah: I'm so going to kill you dead when I find you—Nast Headquarters was just not cool.

The Nast office building was not subtle. At least they were consistent. Always overcompensating for something. It was this monstrosity in middle of the downtown core, a fist through the concrete street, daring damnation to be visited upon it. I guess that was the whole point. When Grant pulled up, it was easy to spot Bryce standing in front of it, Paulson and two other bodyguards (Sean's, probably) by his side. He was talking on the phone—his phone, Paulson must have brought it—glaring up at the building.

When Paulson pointed us out, he hurried over, anxious to talk to his brother. Together, the seven of us headed around to the back. Sean informed Bryce about his plans for finding Savannah, and about my dream, and then asked for an update to the clairvoyant situation.

Bryce could only sigh. "Grandpa's called an emergency board meeting. And the Cabals have opened up a joint investigation. Grandpa's also threatening to kill any of the idiots who suggested he celebrate his birthday, so I would stay out of his way if I were you."

"I didn't think—who would have thought this was possible?"

"Fucking nightmare. The other Cabals were of course insulted that we brought in a clairvoyant in the first place. Billy Boyd took it as a personal insult—probably afraid we were going to spill about his foot fetish. I almost did, just to fucking shut him up. Don't worry, Sean, I didn't. I spent two fucking hours talking him down. This is going to be a diplomatic disaster."

"It was probably an inside though, wasn't it?"

Bryce nodded as his brother sighed.

"No other way to get past security. That we've thought of so far, anyway." Bryce shut up as we came up to a back door where enormous guards stood on either side. They let us pass when they saw the brothers. A swiped of some sort of card, a scan of Sean's hand and then we were inside.

"I hate this place," Bryce muttered as we walked down the hall.

"You don't say?" When he turned to glare, I asked: "How come you get to have childhood traumas and I have to pull myself together all the time?"

"Childhood trauma my ass," Bryce said under his breath. "Some people have nice, stable childhoods, Gillian. Filled with expensive toys and people who love them."

"And yet some people still grow up to be jerks," I muttered.

"I heard that."

"And knew it was true," I pointed out. We climbed into the elevator. "Do you think Paige will already be here?"

The elevator required some sort of pass code before it would move, but Sean put it in without prompting. I glanced at my reflection and tried not to look for too long. Even the ponytail didn't hide the mess that was my hair.

"We didn't tell them what it was about. I can't see any reason why they would be eager to talk to us." Bryce's eyes shifted to me and then away as he shook his head. Smart. There was no way the Cortezes cared enough about my social life. They might be curious, but they wouldn't push. But they would be on time. Politeness demanded that much.

Sean led us down the hall and then motioned for the bodyguards to stay in front of large black door. It was massive, with only a shiny silver handle. Overcompensating. Someone had watched too many movies about evil overlords.

The room inside was small, and completely grey. There were no windows, no decorations, only a small table with four chairs, all plain black plastic. There was nothing else, no plants, no pictures, no shelves. Nothing.

The brothers sat down but I began to pace, just to have something to do. I couldn't smoke if I was going to come face to face with Paige. She could tell. She could also find Savannah. No matter what, Savannah came when Paige called. Paige could find anybody. She was the one responsible for finding my sister's killer—too late, yes, but she had been the one. Not the Cabals, even with all their resources. Now that she had access to the Cortez fortune, there wouldn't be anything stopping her.

At least, I hoped not.

Bryce jerked right out of the chair as the door opened and I finally stopped pacing. Paige and Lucas entered. They were surprised to see me there, but Lucas hid it well.

Paige and Lucas didn't looked completely worried, which is when I figured that Sean hadn't told them anything. Sean gestured for them to sit down. I stayed standing because I was clearly the least important person in the room. Leaning against the wall, I waited for the Nast brothers to start their damn meeting already. We were wasting time.

"We think Savannah's been kidnapped."

Way to be subtle, Bryce. Paige half-rose out of her chair and Lucas gave a long blink. "Excuse me?"

He let Sean explain. How I had nightmares, how we went looking for her, how she had last been seen on Nast property—

"We're missing something here," Paige interrupted. "Why would Gillian's dreams be related to Savannah? Why is Savannah going to Thomas's birthday? Since when do you even talk to your sister?"

This was directed at Bryce, who gave a lazy shrug. "Since Wednesday. Technically speaking of course. I've tolerated her existence since Sunday."

"Monday," I corrected. "You didn't know you were helping her until Monday."

Bryce waved his hand, not caring to be that precise. "The point is that I feel as if we've bonded during that time and now I feel a strange urge to help since she's gone missing." His voice took on a much harder note. "Maybe that's the part you should be concentrating on."

"This is—" Paige broke off, staring at Sean. "You're serious?"

He looked at his brother and then nodded at the Cortezes. "We've already started looking for her. Our investigation's going to be hindered—"

"We can't tell Grandpa what we're looking for or he'll call off the search," Bryce interrupted.

Sean continued, "So we could use your help."

"Perhaps if we were informed as to how the present circumstances arose?" Lucas said finally.

"I'm afraid that's classified information. We can't tell you."

I glanced at them, surprised they would be saying something like this since I thought the whole point of the meeting was to tell the Cortezes everything. It was then that Sean's emphasis on the word 'we' made its way through my thick skull. They shouldn't say anything—not about matter which included compromised security and an anomaly on their property. But they had no jurisdiction over me. In fact, because of my father, the Cortezes could probably order me to tell them.

And when the world went crazy, you stuck to the protocols.

Everyone was looking at me expectantly; it would have been nice of someone to explain I would have to do this. Paige and Lucas were shocked and I hated knowing what I was going to say was only going to wreck them further. But if it could help Savannah...I started talking.

I started with the murder at the club, how I waited until there were a whole handful of bodies on the floor before I did anything, how I almost didn't bother to find Savannah the first time. Then there was Kristof helping and breaking necromantic law and promising to attend Thomas's birthday on a sorcerer's whim. There was knights looking for a witch and a house that the Cortezs really shouldn't have known about. Bryce tried to interrupt but I told them all how he had been shot. I left out Nadira, making the injury sound a little less serious, simply because of how far Bryce had previously gone to keep their relationship a secret, but I told them everything else. No matter how small. Hell, I told them how I jumped Bryce.

Anything and everything that had happened, I told them. Especially what happened in the portal. Even though it killed me a little bit, I went over every second. Every single second. And when I went over Kristof's death, Paige knew what I had done. I didn't let that slow me down. I just kept going—through the future, a future that was ugly and should have been private. I told them about the baby and about Adam and about dying on a bathroom floor. When I got to the part where we were driving back from the portal Bryce interrupted.

"That's enough, Gillian."

"I'm not done."

"You can skip the boring details. Just get right to where you broke into Yi's house and everything wasn't peaceful." There was a reprimand in there, somewhere, but I ignored it.

There was no point in not talking about it. "So then I called—"

"Gillian." His blue eyes were blazing. "Shut up."

That was when I realized maybe he didn't want his older brother to know he had beaten the shit out of his younger sister. Right. I could cover for him, even if I couldn't for myself.

"Well, you already know I called you. So the next day..." I started up again. Bryce rolled his eyes when I told what had happened at Yi's house and I made a mental note to beg him not to fire Paulson. I finished with a quick account of the party and then waking up and punching Bryce in the nose.

Paige and Lucas sat there in stunned silence. Sean turned to his brother. "You better tell me next time you get shot."

"I still don't understand why you would be having these dreams," Paige said.

I had been wondering that myself and I thought I had my answer. Briefly, I went over the ceremony we had performed when we were sixteen. "I think the recent problems strengthened the bond. If she's with a spellcaster, they have to be blocking all forms of communication. She might be subconsciously using the bond we created to communicate. Magic in its most innate form."

"Where did you find a spell like that?" Paige asked, half-curious and half...scared? Furious, most likely.

"Savannah knew this witch...Molly something. She..." stole it "...borrowed it and I changed it and it worked. Somehow."

Before Paige could ask exactly how it had worked, Sean interrupted into a list of everything the Nasts were doing to find Savannah. It was lucky for me, because I had no clue what that spell had done to us. It hadn't been dark magic, just unsafe magic...but I didn't expect the Cortezes to see it that way, which is why the longer Sean went on about the help he needed, the better it was for me.

They talked for a long time, about a lot of things I didn't understand. They were organizing and planning and that wasn't my strong suit. I was the girl that got rescued, the girl who was in over her head—I was useless right now.

It was only as the meeting was winding down, as the Cortezes were getting anxious to leave, to start looking themselves that Lucas pointed out: "The connection between Gillian and Savannah, while unprecedented, is worth investigating further. It may allow us to contact Savannah properly."

"It's witch magic," Bryce said. "We can't help with that."

He could at least pretend he didn't want to get rid of me as fast as he could.

Lucas turned to Paige and that's when I knew that I had finally done it. I wasn't the broken doll they could glue back together; I was the Cabal girl they couldn't change. With hardly a glance in my direction Paige said, "I can research the magical aspect. As long as we know what Gillian's dreaming she should be free to go home."

Except I couldn't because I had ruined that to. Spring Break was going to be over soon—everyone would be coming back. Back from their holidays, back from Tia's funeral, and they would want to know where the hell I had been. Besides, even if I could leave, I didn't want to wait around while Savannah was missing. "I should help with the research. I'm the one that came up with the spell—"

"That you didn't know how to control," Paige pointed out tightly. "You didn't know how any of it would turn out."

"I can—"

"Research from home. You have school this week anyway." However badly I had betrayed her trust, Paige Cortez was a good person. She managed not to sound furious that I had screwed around with forces I couldn't control, just worried. She probably was more worried than angry—white hats. "I'm sure you have work to catch up on and we can handle it from here."

And that was it.

Except it wasn't. They hadn't been inside that time tear. While they still trusted me enough to take what I said at face value, they hadn't felt what I had. The guilt Savannah felt over getting Lucas killed wasn't some abstract feeling, some second hand account, for me. Maybe they could handle it, but I couldn't let risk letting them handle it alone.

But I kept my mouth shut for now. It's a lot easier to have people do you favors if you haven't just pissed them off.

The meeting wrapped up quickly after that, since Paige and Lucas were eager to be off. Off to save the day as usual. I only spoke when the door shut behind them.

"So, what are we doing now?"

The two Nast brothers looked at each other and then at me and back at each other. Staring contests were annoying when you weren't part of them. When you were the prize waiting to be won (lost—I shouldn't flatter myself, they were both trying to get rid of me) they were hopelessly juvenile. To my surprise, Bryce broke first, glancing back at me.

Then Sean spoke: "I have time to take you home now, Gillian, if you'd like."

I glanced between them, but Bryce was looking down at the table. Now he decided to be quiet? Screw him. "I want to help. And you're going to let me."

"Nice try, kid," Bryce said with a shrug as he stood up. He turned to leave.

I grabbed him by the arm, not caring how hard my fingers were digging in. All too clearly I could remember Savannah from the future—leaving Adam because I needed someone to take care of me. I had to help out; it was only fair. So for the first time in his life, I was going to make Bryce Nast listen to someone else. "You're letting me help."

"Or what?"

If that's how he wanted to play this, I could oblige. "Or I'll go to your grandfather."

"And tell him what?"

"Whatever the hell I feel like. I'm a great liar, Bryce, you know that. And maybe I'll throw in a little truth in there too. I don't know—I guess you'll just have to wait and see what comes out of my mouth."

"You wouldn't fucking dare."

"You're talking about the only person on the planet who gives a damn about me. You really think I wouldn't?"

Five seconds. For five seconds he held me gaze, calling my bluff. Saying I was too weak, too pathetic, too scared to do anything to him. Five seconds said I couldn't hurt him, no matter how hard I tried. Five seconds and he caved.

"Fuck, Gillian, what do you expect to do? Seriously? You heard the witch—whatever you can do, do from home."

"If there was something I could have done from home, I'd have done it already. You can stick me in a room filled with texts no one's read in a century. I don't care. Just don't make me leave her. Please, Bryce."

I felt a hand on my shoulder, but Sean wasn't my concern. The man seemed nice enough, but he would want to keep me safe. He didn't get that big rewards required big risks. Bryce would let me. Even if it was only dumb busy work that didn't actually help. Because he got that you needed to pretend to have control over everything when you couldn't control anything at all.

Sean stepped between us, voice was full of concern, even as he was clearly trying to get rid of me: "Gillian, you must be exhausted. You should let me..." He ran on like that for a long moment. I ignored him, watching his brother.

Finally, Bryce snapped. "Do you know why Leech did what he did?"

I pulled out a package of cigarettes, because I wanted to celebrate my victory. "Not really. When future-Savannah saw him...she talked about you. I think that's why I thought you were alive, afterwards. But I can see you coming back to talk to him, after you died. Who cares about necromantic law, right? Anyway, Savannah said you were right about something, though I don't know what she was talking about. And she said she took it back, calling him a useless human. But who knows? Maybe he just missed you that much."

I lit up one for Bryce and then offered one to Sean. He refused. Better for me. Bryce was still angry. "And my grandfather?"

"No idea. It wasn't the most pleasant experience. I didn't get facts, just feelings. And Savannah wasn't very sorry he was dead."

"You should have told me this before."

"I told you some of it. I—I am trying to tell you things. It's just...I'm not very good at that."

"I noticed." He took a long drag and changed the subject. "You're dad was a half-demon."

"Yeah," I answered without thinking. "Why?"

He walked to the door, calling to Sean, "I'm going to take her to see Kane."

"Bryce—"

"He's the best."

"He's insane."

"And the best," Bryce repeated, rolling his eyes.

Sean still didn't like it. "I don't see how he could help."

"I don't know shit about clairvoyants, Sean. Or about time tears, or about witch spells that the witches themselves screwed up. But there's a demon out there mixed up in all of this, and that I can deal with. I can go to Kane. I can talk to him. I can get answers. So that's what I'm going to do."

Sean did not look convinced, but he seemed to realize he wasn't going to win the fight and so his time would be better spent if he just ignored his brother. "Just be careful, all right? The fact you survived last time was a fluke."

"Your support is appreciated," Bryce muttered. "Besides, if Leech is feeling like a lousy human, it's Kane's fault. I just want to have a talk with him about it."

And seeing as how Sean's face went white—Kane was evidentially not someone you had a 'talk' with—Bryce hurried me out of the room.