Playing with Fire

‘‘About that…’’ I took his hand in mine. ‘‘I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me that you’d be willing to forgo the phylactery in order to help my twin, but there’s a little problem-’’

He brushed his thumb across my lips. I bit it.

‘‘There is no problem. I am not giving up the phylactery.’’

‘‘You’re letting Drake go off to Paris without you. He’ll get to it first-hopefully-which means he’ll probably keep it. I know he won’t use it against you like his brother would, but I assumed it would rankle somewhat that Drake would get it rather than you.’’

‘‘It is not yet noon,’’ he answered with a smile.

‘‘What does the time of day have to do with it?’’

"The vault of the L’au-delà lies within Suffrage House, the same building in which you were imprisoned. It is closely guarded, as you might expect, but there is added protection during the day in the form of all the employees who conduct routine committee business.’’

‘‘Ah. So you weren’t going to try breaking in during the day?’’

He shook his head. ‘‘It would be folly to even try. We will attempt it this evening-which means I have a few hours that can be spent taking care of the problem with Cyrene.’’

A smidgen of the guilt roiling around inside me eased, but what I had to say next canceled any feelings of relief. ‘‘I’m afraid that wasn’t the only problem I had in mind. Gabriel, I’m-oh, here we are.’’

The taxi pulled up outside of Drake’s house. I used the few seconds while we got out and Gabriel paid off the driver to work out what I was going to say.

‘‘Gabriel, you know that I’m a doppelganger,’’ I said once the taxi pulled off. He had tried to gently push me toward the front door, but I resisted.

‘‘That point hadn’t escaped me,’’ he said with a flash of his dimples.

‘‘I don’t know how much you know about doppelgangers-not much, I suspect, since there are only a handful of us around-but there’s more to doppelgangers than shadow walking.’’

‘‘Is there?’’

‘‘Yes. We can also enter the shadow world.’’

Gabriel’s eyebrows arched. ‘‘Shadow world?’’

‘‘That’s the doppelganger name for it. It’s a sort of separate plane that coexists with our reality, rather like an overlay. It’s hard to describe what it looks like, but things in it are slightly… off.’’

‘‘Ah, you’re talking about the beyond.’’ Gabriel nodded. ‘‘I thought that was the realm of elves and the fey.’’

‘‘They make up the larger population of inhabitants. As a doppelganger, I’m one of the others who can also enter it, despite the fact that I’m bound to Magoth.’’

‘‘I understand, but what does that have to do with this situation?’’

‘‘I don’t know where Cyrene is. I couldn’t hear nine-tenths of what she said, which means I’m going to have to track her down.’’

Bright man that he is, Gabriel instantly guessed where it was all going. ‘‘And you can only do so while you are in the beyond?’’

‘‘Yes. And I can’t take you with me.’’

His brows arched. ‘‘You just said others can enter the beyond.’’

‘‘Some people can, yes. Elves act as kind of a conduit- they can bring people into it, but doppelgangers…’’ I sighed. ‘‘We’re just shadows ourselves, really, so we can slip into and out of it easily, but we can’t take anyone with us. The best I can do is to track down Cy and call you when I’ve found her. I don’t mind saying I’d like to have you with me to deal with the blackmailer, but I’m afraid I don’t know of any other way.’’

‘‘How will you trail her?’’ he asked.

‘‘How? Oh… she’s an elemental being. She leaves a faint trail wherever she goes. It’s not visible in our world, but in the beyond, faint traces linger for a few hours. So I should be able to track her from here to wherever she is, so long as too much time hasn’t passed.’’

‘‘Interesting.’’ He looked curious. ‘‘Do dragons leave signs, as well?’’

I smiled. ‘‘Yes. Dragon scales glitter like… well, glitter in the beyond. And much as I hate to offend you…’’ I ran my hand down his bared neck, showing him my palm. The faintest iridescent sparkle showed on it. ‘‘You shed. Quite a lot, actually.’’

‘‘I don’t know whether to be offended or to make a suggestive comment about rubbing my scales all over your naked body,’’ he said with a flash of his silver eyes. ‘‘Proceed, little bird.’’

I glanced around. No one was near us on the street. ‘‘I’ll call you as soon as I find her, I promise.’’

He said nothing, just watched as I slipped into the shadow world and set off down the road.

Chapter Twenty-one

The trail was there on the ground, faint but still visible slightly darkened footprints, as if Cyrene had been walking with wet feet across a dry floor. There were other elemental beings in the area leaving tracks as well-London was headquarters to several Otherworld groups, including a lot of elementalists-but it was easy enough to pick Cyrene’s trail apart from the others.

It wasn’t until I was three blocks away that an uncomfortable feeling started pricking between my shoulder blades. I spun around to see who was following me, and gawked openmouthed at the man standing immediately behind me. ‘‘How?’’ I asked, poking him in the chest to be sure he was real.

My hand went right through his chest as if nothing was there. ‘‘OK, change that how to what? What’s going on, Gabriel? How is it you’re in the beyond?’’

‘‘Beyond, shadow world, the Dreaming… all different names for the same thing,’’ he answered, his dimples showing as I waved a hand through his chest. ‘‘I told you that my mother was a shaman.’’

‘‘You said that’s why you could occasionally read my mind. That doesn’t explain why you’re a… what, shade? Image? You’re not really here, are you?’’

‘‘No. I’m in Drake’s house. Or rather, my body is. I can walk in the Dreaming, but I can’t interact with anything. My mother said it was because I was part dragon.’’ He shrugged. ‘‘I won’t be able to touch things as you can, but I can accompany you.’’

‘‘Do you see Cyrene’s tracks?’’ I asked, pointing to the ground.

He squinted. ‘‘Faintly. You look different in here.’’

‘‘Different? I do?’’ I was a bit taken aback. I knew most things looked different when viewed from the shadow world, but I was part of this world-I shouldn’t look different. ‘‘How so?’’

‘‘There is a glow about you. A sort of silver glow.’’ He smiled. ‘‘It is the sign you are part of my sept. It pleases me that you manifest that as an aura.’’

I looked down at my arms. ‘‘Good gods, you’re right. I’m May the Amazing Glowing Woman. How very odd… but we don’t have time to explore my glowiness, I’m afraid. Cy’s trail is starting to fade.’’

He nodded and gestured for me to go on. I did, my heart lightened somewhat by his presence, even if it was an insubstantial presence. We couldn’t take a taxi, since it would be impossible to follow Cyrene’s trail, which meant we had to cover a lot of ground on foot. About an hour after we started, we finally ran the trail to earth at a grimy hotel hidden in a back street in King’s Cross. We’d lost the trail a couple of times because Cyrene had evidently gotten into a car at some point, which made the little splotches of water that dropped off her scarce, but it helped having two of us to follow possible leads.

‘‘Do not go in, little bird,’’ Gabriel told me as I examined the outside of the hotel. It was more of a hostel than a hotel, obviously one used by people whose minds were more absorbed with where their next trick, fix, or bottle was coming from rather than where they laid their head at night. ‘‘It could be dangerous, and I ca

‘‘One of the perks of being able to shadow walk is the ability to take a look around without anyone knowing,’’ I told him as I finessed the lock on the door. It gave way with even less resistance than was normal, as if the lock itself had absorbed the miasma of hopelessness that hung so heavy in the air it left an oily taste upon the tongue.