Lapidary

“Ace!” I screamed into my cell phone, pressed against my ear with my shoulder, as I shimmied into pants. “Get the fuck to Heaven’s Window. Devton has the White Crystal, and he is going to open a portal!”

I wasn’t sure if I could make it there in time to stop him, and even if I arrived before he opened a rift, would I be able to talk him out of it? I certainly couldn’t win a physical fight with him, but maybe Ace, a member of the Sky Watch, could do something to stop him.

“What?” Ace sounded as if I had just woken him.

“Get there now!” I screamed and hung up. I put on my shoes before I ran toward the shore where I frantically swung my arms in the air to signal a taxi. I hopped on. “To Ocelos. Now!”

Oh, fucking fuck fuck.

I jumped off the taxi without paying, and the mermaid cursed after me. Once I was on Ocelos, I noticed how crowded it was with merfolk. As I pushed through the press of bodies, some of them complained that the sea serpent had returned and that they didn’t want to be on land. Urgh. One more problem to add to my ever-growing list.

I managed to make my way over the bridge, shoving and bumping, and ran to Heaven’s Window. I pelted up the steps and reached the top panting.

“Stop!” I cried.

Dev was standing in the center of his graffiti, his wings sagging and my ring between his fingers. Next to him was a reaper, whom I don’t know. I paid the dead thing no attention and focused on Dev.

“Nat…” he said.

“Stop,” I said. “I know you want to bring your father back, but opening a rift won’t do that! Your dad’s soul is on Testatha, like the souls of everyone that died after The Shaking.”

“I figured that out,” Devton said. “That’s why I have a reaper – to take his soul to the Netherworld, where he will regain solid form before he returns here.”

I drew a deep breath and balled my fists at my side. I wanted to talk him out of opening a rift, and I needed to control my emotions. A pool of pain, caused by him, flooded my heart. I examined my engagement ring, the crystal.

“We were looking for the crystal together, and you figured out I had it, and then you didn’t tell me.” I hated that my voice broke.

Devton swallowed. “Nat… I…”

“You figured out I had a small piece, that broke off the big White Crystal when it fell onto the ground below us. The small piece fell into the water and turned black because of the daimon blood in the water. But where is the big piece, Devton? You saw it fall. Tell me.”

He went still and didn’t answer. First, I wondered if maybe both pieces had fallen in Deftones Deep, but Dev needed the whole crystal to open a big portal from Heaven’s Window. The small crystal could only open small rifts from Bareband, Butterfish Chain, Shark Bay, and the edge of Ocelos.

“You’ve known where the big piece of the white crystal was for twenty-two years.” I choked on a sob. “You knew where it was from the beginning, because you saw it fall.”

Devton nodded. “When Duras jumped, the crystal fell and broke. The small piece was lost, until Lakelyn found it. My father picked up the big piece and gave it to me. He told me to keep it safe and that it could be used to bring him back. I flew away with the White Crystal and watched him die. I was six, and certainly didn’t know it could be used to open really small rifts in other places in Vesea where the veil is thin.”

“What did you do with it?” I asked.

He took a deep breath. “I ground it into powder and mixed it with paint.”

I look at his feet at the graffiti of his father. “No fucking way.”

I paced around, biting back tears. All this time I had trusted and confided in Devton. All this time I had been a fool. He hadn’t told me. He’d lied to me.

“You filthy daimon!” I snapped.

Hurt marred Devton’s face. I had a feeling that if anyone else had said that to him, they wouldn’t live to see another day. But all Devton said to me was, “We are done here.”

He bent down to let my ring touch the painting, but then two gunshots sounded, stopping him. I ducked as Ace landed, gun at the ready. Devton stumbled backward, into one of the stone gargoyles. He had a bullet wound in each of his wings, and Ace was aiming the gun at his head now.

“No, Ace!” I cried.

Despite Devton’s betrayal, I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him dead. I cast myself in front of the gun, and Ace instantly redirected it.

“Nat—” Ace began but couldn’t finish, because Devton clicked his fingers and summoned hell fire. Ace’s sleeve and the side of his coat caught fire, and he dropped the gun.

“No!” I screamed.

Devton extinguished the flames, and I would like to have thought he’d done it for me, but the flames had eaten through Ace’s pockets, so that their contents spilled out. Out fell a crystal necklace. I froze. It was the same necklace my parents had gifted me, the same necklace I had re-gifted to Ryker, the same necklace he had always worn. It was a white crystal, dangling from a chain.

“How do you have that?” I stepped away from Ace, who had gone pale, and he was clearly at a loss for words. “The night Ryker died, there was no sign that anyone had been there because the cameras didn’t see anyone. But you can fly. You flew, high above the cameras, and landed on the balcony.”

“Ryker was high that night,” Ace confessed, his guilt obviously getting the best of him. “He called me, and I came. I found him on the balcony, with that crystal around his neck. He told me that Lakelyn had found the White Crystal…”

“And you mistook his necklace for it,” I realized. The crystal around his neck was white – like the White Crystal was supposed to be.

Ace believed in the law and the rules, and he had tried to do the right thing. But now his face was contorted with regret, pain, and guilt. These overbearing emotions surfaced, making him open his mouth to speak, to explain. “He wanted to throw it off The Edge, but I couldn’t let him, because if he threw it, the angels would never be able to return home. We got into a struggle—”

“You pushed him, you fucking bastard!” I cried. Ryker had been high and in no condition to fight. Besides, Ace was highly trained when it came to combat, while Ryker hadn’t been.

“He fell…” Ace sounded as innocent as a child who had stolen a chocolate then lied about it.

“You could have caught him! You could have gone after him! You have wings! You let him die, and you kept the crystal.”

Ace’s face contorted.

“You killed your best friend.”

Ace’s fist balled at his side, but I wasn’t done.

“How did you find out that”—I pointed to the necklace—“wasn’t the White Crystal. How’d you find out you killed my fiancé for nothing?”

“Until tonight, I wasn’t sure,” he said. “I thought maybe I just didn’t know how to use it.”

He must have been carrying the necklace with him for the past year, trying to figure out how it worked. Well, he was wasting his time. That was just a normal necklace, without any special properties.

“Let’s find out how to use it.” Devton raised the ring for us to see. He and the reaper had gone as quiet as the gargoyles, while listening to Ace’s confession. If he hadn’t spoken, I might have forgotten that he was there. “You want the angels home, and I want my father back.”

Blood was dripping from his wings, and I knew he was in a lot of pain, but he was too focused on opening a rift to think about it.

“You can’t!” I objected. “It will be a disaster.”

I glanced at the reaper but knew he wouldn’t be of any help. Reapers didn’t have a lot of personality, and their only purpose was to move souls from one world to the next. It didn’t care if many people died, so long as it could do its job.

Ace stepped forward, closer to Devton. “A rift will be opened, and the one who opens it will be a hero among the angels. That one certainly won’t be daimon scum.”

Ace plucked a dagger from his pocket and stabbed toward Devton, who leaned to the side. But Devton was already sore and slow, and he couldn’t avoid the blade. The dagger went through his wing and sank into a crack in the stone floor, pinning him. I rushed to his aid, but Ace easily shoved me to the ground before he picked up the ring.

“Now, we’ll see what we can do.” He placed the ring in the center of the graffiti, and I felt a burst of energy as I got to my feet. The energy had come from Ace. Shock registered on his face as the life left his body. He went limp and fell forward, onto me, and pushed me backwards.

“No!” Devton cried as he leapt forward, letting the knife cut through his wing, and reached for me. His hand missed mine.

I was falling.

I was falling off the tallest tower in Vesea, and Devton couldn’t fly, which meant he couldn’t save me. I was falling, like Ryker had fallen to his death. I was falling so far, and there was no one below to catch me. My biggest fear had come true.

I was falling.