Page 12 of Gray Dawn
“Your father made me a teleportation charm.” She lifted her wrist to display a thin row of small pearls. “I can only travel to him then return to my point of origin, but where else would I want to be?”
She winked at him when she said it, and that somehow warmed me. I let myself enjoy the grossness of having parents who still flirted with each other then made retching noises to do Clay proud.
“Yuck.” I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “I thought you were with Meg, working on the contract for Calixta.”
“We’re in the thick of it.” Her expression reflected my own frustration at how much time we didn’t have. “I came to check on my two great loves while she consults a daemon colleague on some obscure law.”
While Meg kept up to date on the ever-evolving legal system from beyond the veil, she required help for the physical job of purchasing new books, turning pages, writing notes. That sort of thing. She employed an army of paralegals across realms, factions, and species.
“I’m fine.” I heard in my voice how not-fine I was, and she must have too. “I just want Clay back.”
And Colby.
Goddess, I missed my little girl.
I would do anything,anythingto get her home safely.
Even if it was the last thing I ever did.
CHAPTER FOUR
Colby
I can’t breathe,I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.
“Calm down,” I ordered myself in my best Rue-like voice. “There are holes in the lid. Icanbreathe. I have air, a sugar cube, and a soda bottle lid full of water.”
I locked down my twitching wings before instinct launched me into another spin around the jar I was trapped in. Beating myself against the glass didn’t help. It just gave me a headache.
“Moth?”
The golem, who was and wasn’t Clay, must have heard me and peeked into his suit jacket where he kept the jar close to where his heart would be.
A lump welled in my throat, but I wouldn’t cry. I wasn’t a baby. I was Captain Colby of theScurvy Dog. What would my team think if they saw me break on my first day as a captive? I wasn’t even being interrogated. This was pathetic. I couldn’t let them down.
“Moth cry?”
Barnacles, I cursed to myself. I couldn’t stop hot tears from pouring down my cheeks. Not when he looked at me with Clay’s eyes in Clay’s face and spoke in Clay’s voice. Except his speech was all wrong.
The golem wasn’t clever or quick like Clay. He wasn’t dumb or slow. He was justwrong, wrong, wrong.
Every time he spoke to me, I could tell the words took effort. They got caught in his mouth sometimes, like he wasn’t supposed to say them. Or think them.
“I want to go home.” I sniffled, sort of. I didn’t have a nose anymore. “I want Rue.”
“Rue,” he said thoughtfully, a film covering his eyes, and he didn’t move for the longest time.
He did that too. Froze. Just stopped. Like he was a wind-up toy that had run out of key turns.
The real Clay was never still. He was always moving, always laughing, always smiling. He wasalive.
“Hush,” he breathed, animating once more, and closed his jacket with a snap of his wrist.
As darkness fell, the door groaned on its hinges, and that weirdstep, step, thumpnoise approached us.
“Are the preparations in order?”
Holding my breath, I hoped he would explain what preparations, but he held out longer than me.