Crown of Glass Page 4

  He was wearing a casual button-down over a dark, faded shirt that she deeply suspected might be his old Yankees t-shirt. The buttons, Jenna noticed dimly, were on the wrong side. This minor detail did nothing to spoil the overall effect, which was that of a handsome man with a wry, magnetic appeal.

  “Gabe,” Jenna whispered. “Oh my god.”

  The sound of his name made him smile. There was nothing behind that smile — just as there was nothing behind his glass-like eyes. “Jen,” he said. “Not that you don’t make a gorgeous zombie, but… you ought to be in bed.”

  He sounded like Gabe. He… kind of looked like Gabe. But if there was anything left of the real him underneath that power, it was so small that it didn’t even matter anymore.

  Jenna’s heart lurched in her chest. A hundred little grief-stricken memories battered at her conscious mind. Fantastic playground adventures, pretending to be superheroes. Late-night study sessions, grumbling over math homework. A younger Gabe, holding her hand and reading her stories when she was too sick to get out of bed, exaggerating the dialogue in funny voices. Some traitorous part of her wanted to throw herself into his arms and pretend that he was more than just a ghost of the man she’d once known.

  But a far, far greater part of her was frozen to the spot, appropriately terrified.

  “Jen?” he asked softly.

  The man in front of her was no longer Gabriel Fisher. He was a warlock. And when his master asked — a cold-blooded murderer.

  “Hey,” Marie said. “Friend of yours?” The younger woman had come to stand behind Jenna. Once upon a time, the speculative way she looked at Gabe would have sent Jenna into fits of knee-jerk jealousy. If Jenna were going to be honest with herself, she still felt a pang of possessiveness deep down, as her coworker smiled his way. It was quickly subsumed, however, by a confused, uncomfortable fear.

  Gabe’s pale green eyes flickered over toward Marie, and Jenna forced herself to suck in a breath. She wanted to scream, run, call the police, push people out the door… but all of that was more likely to get someone killed than it was to help matters. Instead, she carefully shook her head, beating back a sickness in her stomach. “Everything’s fine,” she said. “I’m just… surprised. How did you know I was in Toronto, Gabe?”

  He found me. How the hell did he find me?

  Gabe shrugged. The gesture was so him, and yet so alien. “I knew you were here,” he said. “Sorry it took me so long to visit.”

  At least he’s trying not to make a scene, she thought. Maybe his boss sent him here for something less violent this time.

  “I’m afraid I’m at work, so I don’t have time to catch up,” Jenna said. She tried to force her voice level, but a tremor came out in spite of her best efforts.

  She’d spent years sitting awake in the middle of the night, imagining what she might say to Gabe if she ever saw him again — planning how she would deal with him, how she would survive the encounter. Now, just three weeks after she’d finally let herself forget it all, she found those ideas were suddenly hard to grasp, impossible to imagine actually doing, with him standing right in front of her.

  “Psh,” Marie said, her eyes sparkling. “We’re not that busy.” Jenna barely bit back a snappish reply. The poor kid had no idea what she was dealing with.

  Gabe ignored her. “I need to talk to you, Jen,” he said. “It’s important.”

  Jenna glanced at Marie. She could feel the tension ratcheting up in her bones… but she knew that if she showed her panic, the freshman might do something to get herself badly hurt.

  “I’m taking five minutes,” Jenna said to her coworker. “You mind?”

  Marie grinned. “No,” she said. “Go right ahead.”

  Jenna pushed out from behind the counter and headed for an empty table near the window. As she settled herself into one of the cushy, overstuffed chairs, Gabe took a seat across from her. Having him there sent a strange, dizzying echo of old memories through her head, and she had to take a deep breath to steady herself.

  Gabe reached out toward her shoulder. Jenna jerked back from his touch.

  She lowered her voice. “You need to get the hell out of here,” she said. She tried to look imposing, but her jaw trembled. “I have friends, Gabe. They’re the kind of friends even your boss won’t want to mess with.”

  Gabe frowned. There was a hint of real distress in his expression at her cold attitude. Maybe the words really did hurt him. His pact with the Lord of the Looking Glass had twisted his mind, but it hadn’t completely eradicated his capacity for emotion.

  “Are you talking about Lord Blackfrost?” Gabe asked softly. “Is that the friend you have now, Jen?”

  Jenna froze. How does he know, how does he know, how does he know. She’d panicked, and said the first thing that came to mind. She hadn’t really intended to go running to Arcadia begging for help from Lord Blackfrost — hell, the less contact she had with that wicked faerie lord, the better. But Elaine knew about Gabe. She’d said that Jenna could come to her for anything, that she would protect her if he ever came calling again. Jenna had hoped that the shock of her connection with Blackfrost, however distant, might give Gabe at least a moment of pause.

  “I don’t see Lord Blackfrost here right now,” Gabe said. He sounded vaguely concerned. “You don’t even have a mentor anymore. You need someone watching your back, Jen.”

  A shiver went down Jenna’s spine. He doesn’t know about Adrian. He can’t find out about him. “I can protect myself just fine,” she said fiercely. “And if you so much as look at one of the innocent people here in the wrong way, then so help me god—”

  “What is it you think I’m going to do?” Gabe asked. He sounded genuinely shocked. He leaned in, and she caught a hint of his familiar scent: the clean, fresh smell of his usual soap, mixed with heady coffee. Gabe had been addicted to coffee ever since they were teenagers. Once he’d started working at the hospital, he’d joked he ought to get an espresso IV hooked up to his arm—

  Jenna felt the sudden, overwhelming urge to cry. Somehow, just barely, she managed to hold it in.

  “…I don’t know what you’re going to do,” she said with a swallow. “I just know what you’re capable of doing. And I know you don’t have any idea what right and wrong look like anymore.”

  Her voice broke on the last word. The line was from one of her theoretical midnight conversations-with-Gabe. It summed things up pretty well, she thought.

  Gabe watched her for a long moment, his pale green eyes unreadable. She wanted to know what he was thinking. She wanted to know how he was thinking. Years of studying the human brain, human behavior, human misbehavior, all granted exactly zero insight in the moment. The realization was utterly crushing.

  “I’m not here to hurt anyone,” Gabe said finally. “I know I’m not your favorite person anymore, Jen. But you have to know… I would never intentionally hurt you.”

  Her heart clenched.

  “You’d never intentionally,” she spat. “God, you’ve really learned to pick your words, working for a faerie.”

  Gabe shook his head. “I wouldn’t have survived otherwise,” he said. “Besides, I don’t want to lie to you. It’s obvious I hurt you already, even if I didn’t mean to.”

  “Didn’t mean—” Jenna cut herself off. Her voice had begun to rise hysterically, catching attention from the study group in the corner. Her head throbbed. Her breath was short. “What do you want?” she hissed. “How do I get you out of my life again, Gabe?”

  The words hit him like a physical blow. She saw him rock back in his chair before he managed to reassert himself. “I need you to come with me,” he said. “Back to the Looking Glass.”

  Black edged in around the corners of her vision. Her body began to shiver violently. Come with him to Arcadia. To his faerie lord. “The hell I will,” Jenna rasped.

  Jenna wrapped her fingers around the silver talisman that hung around her neck, drawing on the spell she’d anchored in its moonstone.
She opened her Witchsight, letting in the jumble of raw truth that came with it. Gabe’s eyes were even more distant and transparent; the light around him bent at odd angles, twisting and shimmering like a mirage. Those mirrored eyes widened as he realized what she was doing. Jenna took hold of the terror, the anger, the despair that had all balled up together in her body, and amplified the emotions through the moonstone at her throat.

  The maddened onslaught rippled through the air between them, manifesting as a river of shining moonlight. It wound itself sinuously around Gabe, tightening on his form. A few of the other customers shivered subconsciously, dimly aware that something powerful had passed them by — but without Witchsight or its faerie equivalent, they couldn’t see her magic. A few of the more sensitive mortals might get a tingle down their spine, but they wouldn’t really understand the nature of the madness that had brushed past them.

  The living moonlight writhed around Gabe, searching its way into his eyes, his mouth… but Jenna realized her mistake a moment too late. The light of her spell flickered and refracted, turned back by the power of the Looking Glass that lived within his soul.

  Her own spell reflected upon her, lashing back toward her like a serpent. Her fear became a choking collar around her neck; her misery and despair weighed upon her like iron. Thoughts scattered on the air, torn to shreds by the mania of her magic.

  “Jen!” Gabe lunged forward to catch her as she slid from her chair. The darkness at the edges of her eyes slammed in, and her vision went black. The dull headache that had been threatening all evening became a screaming agony.

  The smell of soap and coffee closed around her. Whatever else had changed, Gabe still felt the same — warm and steady and comforting. Everything about him was wrong. Everything about him was right. She’d lost the ability to tell the difference, caught up in the virulent glare of her own magic.

  “Jenna!” She heard Marie’s voice, distant but growing closer. Hurried footsteps sounded. The last thing Jenna knew was the feel of Gabe’s fingers tangled in her hair, and the touch of the mirrored shard of power in his soul, pressing against her skin.

  Jenna stared down at the boy in the hospital bed, her heart in her throat.

  He looked so small, covered in all those awful bruises and bandages. She wasn’t used to Gabe looking smaller than her.

  “I’m supposed to be in there,” she whispered. She clutched at his hand, swallowing hard. “I’m always sick, you’re always annoying. That’s… that’s how this works, Gabe.”

  Gabe’s warm brown eyes opened to slits. He cracked a feeble smile as he saw her. His hand squeezed hers pathetically. “Hey,” he managed hoarsely. “You’re here.”

  Jenna stared at him, suddenly unable to speak. How could she tell him? She wasn’t supposed to be the one to tell him. She was supposed to get a doctor, or maybe her parents.

  “I bet I look pretty,” he mumbled. “Where’s mom and dad? Can you get ‘em?”

  Jenna’s lip trembled. “Gabe,” she tried. Her voice broke on his name, and his brow knitted.

  “Jen,” he said slowly. “Where’s mom and dad?”

  She knew she wasn’t supposed to cry. It was selfish of her to be the one crying. But she couldn’t help the tears that spilled down her face. “They were in the front of the car,” she told him. “You were in the back.”

  Gabe didn’t respond. She saw the shock settle in. Those warm brown eyes dulled, uncomprehending.

  “Jen.” Warm fingers threaded through hers. There was a cool washcloth on her forehead. “Hey. You’ve got a fever again. I’m working on bringing it down. Can you focus?”

  Jenna’s eyelids fluttered. She was in a dark room, curled up underneath a throw blanket. It smelled overwhelmingly of coffee. Break room, she thought. I’m still at the café.

  “What’s my name, Jen?”

  Jenna slitted open her bleary eyes. Gabe sat next to her in the darkness, holding her hand. Her brain stuttered.

  “They can’t take Gabe!” Jenna told her father angrily. “I won’t let them take him!”

  Her father winced. “They’re his family, Jen,” he said. “He belongs with them.”

  “He barely knows them!” she insisted. “It’s not okay. He’s upset, he’s got to stay here, where… where people care!”

  Jenna’s mother sighed. “Sweetheart,” she said. “I know it’s hard. It’s a really rough situation all around, but sometimes there’s just no good options—”

  “We’ll go to Arcadia, then!” Jenna hissed. She narrowed her eyes at her parents. “We’ll run away to faerie. They’re always trying to steal kids, you said. We’ll go get stolen together—”

  Her father’s eyes widened. “Jen,” he said. “Woah, stop. You need to calm down.”

  “I will not calm down, there’s no reason to be calm!” she shrieked. “They can’t take Gabe, they can’t!”

  Her mother flinched. Her father held up his hands, suddenly panicked. “Jen,” he said. “Jen, okay, okay!” He knelt down in front of her. “I’ll see what I can do, all right? But… you have to promise me you won’t go near Arcadia. Neither of you. Okay?”

  Jenna blinked back tears. “Do something,” she begged. “You have to do something.”

  “Jen? Hey? My name?”

  Jenna clutched her fingers around his hand. “Gabe,” she whispered. “You’re here.”

  “Always,” he told her softly. His pale green eyes were iridescent in the dark though, and that was wrong. “I found you some Tylenol. Can you take them for me?”

  Jenna struggled to sit up. Gabe pressed the tablets into her hand. She shoved them into her mouth, running on autopilot. He put a glass of water to her lips, and she drank it down slowly.

  When he pulled the glass away again, she sank back into the couch, closing her eyes.

  Gabe looked so lost, standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

  He’d only been able to bring so much with him. Jenna had to throw away all kinds of things, just to make room for him at all. It had really hurt, but she’d let them replace her fluffy princess bed with a bunk bed instead.

  Jenna threw her arms around him for the hundredth time that day, holding on tight. “It’s really awful,” she told him. “I know it’s awful. But you’re not going anywhere, okay? I’m gonna take care of you, too.”

  Gabe hugged her back, hesitant. She wasn’t used to him being so quiet and careful all the time. It was wrong.

  She felt his tears against her hair, silent. She hugged him harder, even though she probably wasn’t supposed to, because she wasn’t sure what else to do.

  “I still want to call the hospital,” Marie said. Her voice drifted in and out of Jenna’s half-waking dreams.

  “I’m a nurse,” Gabe told her. “And I’ve been through this with her a hundred times now. They’ll do a few tests, decide it’s not an emergency, and put her in the waiting room. If they care enough to admit her, they’ll eventually do the exact same stuff I’m doing, only they’ll stick her in an uncomfortable bed while they do it.” He paused. “She might get a saline drip out of it, but I don’t think that’ll make up for the stress.”

  “Don’t send me to the hospital,” Jenna mumbled. “I’ll hurt you if you try, Marie.”

  “You’re not hurting anyone any time soon,” Gabe told her soothingly. He brushed the hair away from her forehead, and switched out the washcloth for a fresher, colder one. “This is all my fault. It’s been so long, I forgot how you always swoon around me. I’m basically a medical menace.”

  Jenna groaned. Gabe had a habit of getting more and more ridiculous, the sicker she felt. “Oh my god,” she said. “Please stop.”

  It was his way of making her feel better, she knew. But the older they got, the more the implied joke needled at her. Everyone knows we’d never date. We’re just good friends. He can say whatever he wants, because he thinks I’m not attracted to him.

  “For the sake of propriety, you mean,” Gabe said. For just a second, she saw one of those ol
d, wry smiles on his face. “I’ll forebear. But I want you to know I’m composing a romantic sonnet in my head as we speak.” He paused. “What rhymes with hyperpyrexia?”

  “Uh… acathexia?” Marie offered.

  Gabe blinked at her, and Marie smiled. “I’m a Biology major,” she explained.

  “Please don’t encourage him,” Jenna moaned.

  Reality slowly seeped its way in from the edges of her fever. This isn’t Gabe. We’re not like this anymore. Gabe wasn’t safe. None of this was funny.

  At least he hadn’t hurt anyone, Jenna reflected dimly. She was sure that Marie would have been more upset otherwise.

  Of course not. Gabe isn’t here to hurt someone. He’s here for me. He said as much.

  “I’ve got to see to the front,” Marie said. There was a note of worry still underlying her voice. “Are you… both okay back here?”

  Jenna closed her eyes. “Yeah,” she lied quietly, with a drop in her stomach. “I’m fine.”

  “I can handle things,” Gabe assured her.

  The freshman gave a relieved sigh — but she still spared one last careful glance at Jenna, before she stepped back out and closed the door behind her.

  Jenna summoned up her courage. Slowly, she opened her eyes again. “I’m not going with you,” she told Gabe coldly.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Gabe said quietly. “I’ll take you home. You’ve got wards there. They’ll do for now.”

  “Do I have to go Green Eggs & Ham on you, Gabe?” she asked hazily. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Not to Arcadia. Not to my apartment. I’m sure as hell not going to show you where I live.”

  Gabe was silent for a long moment. She couldn’t read his expression, but it gave her the vain hope that maybe he was reconsidering his intentions.

  “If you ever cared about me,” she whispered. “Just… go. Please.”

  Gabe slowly untangled his fingers from hers. He rose to his feet, rubbing at his face.