Aela Darkwood's Arc

Chapter 13 of 13

The man in the navy trench coat crossed the diner floor and stopped at their booth. He did not sit. He set both hands on the back of the empty chair and looked at Aela like he already knew her answer. "Six months," he said. "You're hard to find." Aela's ears twitched under her hair. The kettle in the back room shrieked in her skull. She smelled wet wool on his coat, gun oil under it, and something older — blood dried into the seams. Her stomach turned. The stone at her throat warmed and went cold and warmed again, trying to catch up. Kalen's hand stayed under the table. "Who are your friends?" the man asked. His eyes moved to Lyra, then Kalen, then back. "The tall one watches you close. I've seen her do it from a ridge." Lyra did not answer. Her palm flattened on the wood. "I'm working a job," the man said to Aela. "You took something that isn't yours. I don't care what it was. My client wants it back. Give it to me here and I walk out." "I didn't take anything." Her voice came out thin. A chair scraped two tables over and her ears snapped toward it. Pain forked behind her eyes. She gripped the crescent stone. It cooled the sound. It could not cool the smell of him. His nostrils flared. He had caught something. Her scent, maybe. Or the shift starting in her hands under the table, fingers going long, nails darkening. "Bathroom," she said. She stood before he could answer. "Sit down," he said. "She's going to be sick," Lyra said. Flat. Final. "You want her on your shoes?" He stepped aside one pace. It was enough. Aela walked straight past the counter and shoved through the back door into the alley. Rain hit her face. She pressed her back to the stone wall of the diner and squeezed the stone until her senses dropped to a bearable roar. Her hands shook. She had no idea what she had taken from him. She only knew he believed it, and belief was enough to keep him coming. The back door banged open. Kalen. Lyra behind him, pulling her jacket on. "He's paying the woman at the counter," Kalen said. "Two minutes." "I don't know what he wants," Aela said. "Doesn't matter now." Kalen took her wrist. "Woods. We run." Lyra was already moving to the tree line. Aela pushed off the wall and followed. Her tail brushed the wet grass. She let the stone go and let one sense open — hearing — and caught the bell above the diner door ringing behind them. She had held the room. She had not exposed them. But he had her scent now, and he knew there were three.