Page 99 of Wolf of Ashes
I help Elijah into his seat and, a moment later, I catch sight through the window of the bodies and dust flying out into the dark landscape. We’re passing close to the coast and everything drops into the dark water, even the clouds of dust descending as though every particle is weighted down.
A second later, the train has moved on.
Orlan returns to his chair, the air shifts, and the humans resume their conversations around us.
At the next stop, many of the humans disembark, including the teens, who vacate the seating area directly to our left. Only a few humans get on and none of them approach the now-empty space to our left.
When the train leaves the station, Jonah says, “These next two legs of the journey are the longest. Eventually, we’ll pass through a State Park and then the final stations are close together within Boston.”
As he speaks, he glances at the empty space on our left and I sense the growing tension in his shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Those seats are supposed to be booked by humans for the entire journey. In fact, we made sure of it.”
At my raised eyebrows, he explains, “We have supernaturals placed inside many human organizations.”
Of course they do.
Jonah continues. “The fact that those seats are empty—”
He stiffens, his eyes widening as he focuses on a spot behind me.
The keeper has also tensed. He’s dust-free since Orlan gathered it all up, but the shadows that have suddenly grown around his features send a chill down my spine.
At my feet, Anarchy lifts her head, alert once more.
Beside me, Elijah barely moves, but his little hand clamps so tightly around mine that his grip is painful.
His knuckles are turning white.
The sound of soft footfalls reaches me over the gentle hum of human conversation.
The back of my neck prickles a heartbeat before a shadow falls across me.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
It’s an impossible shadow. The lights in the car should send it in the other direction.
An unfamiliar male voice sounds at my shoulder, but the speaker directs his greeting at the fire jotunn. “Jonah.”
The owner of the voice is standing right beside my chair, but I’ll have to actively turn to see him.
Around us, all of the humans—of which there are now only a handful scattered throughout the car—are suddenly staring out of their windows once more.
Poor things must be getting cricks in their necks by now. I wonder what sort of daydreams Orlan might be giving them that they won’t be aware of the interaction happening so close by.
At the front of the car, within my line of sight, Gad and Valki are watching us with suddenly bright eyes. Unlike Jonah, they look delighted to see the newcomer.
Slowly and carefully, I look up and around.
The man standing near me is as big as the keeper’s current form, but he appears younger, possibly the same age as me.
His hair is inky black like the darkest pit, his skin is fair, to the point of a brightness akin to the stars in the beautiful night sky, and his eyes, well, I can’t see them because, like both Elijah and me, he’s wearing sunglasses. Multiple golden rings glint on his fingers, where he rests them on the top of my chair at the corner of my vision. The edge of a tattoo on his bicep is visible beneath the sleeve of his black shirt. He’s dressed casually, but nothing about his demeanor is relaxed.
This man wasn’t among the guys in the room behind the green door when I first met Jonah and Vanguard, and he isn’t one of the supernaturals we spotted at the station, but he clearly knows Jonah.
Jonah definitely knows him.
