I didn’t have a choice. I needed to get off the streets before morning, and there was only one person left in the Quarter who might offer me shelter without waiting to bury a knife in my back.
Hunters didn’t have friends. We had contacts. Any alliances we formed were temporary, forged only for mutual benefit. Imogen was the closest thing I had to an actual friend, but I hadn’t seen her in the five years I’d worked for Silas.
I told myself I’d stayed away to protect her. Silas occasionally trafficked witches, though he hadn’t in the time I’d lived with him. But, if I was being honest, it was because I couldn’t look her in the eye — not with the things I’d done.
Retrieving my bag from the SUV, I walked the twelve blocks to Imogen’s place. I couldn’t risk taking Silas’s vehicle. It was too easy to track.
I stuck to side streets as much as I could, glancing over my shoulder every half a block to ensure I wasn’t being followed. Every time a car blazed by, I instinctively reached for my dagger, but no hunters jumped out to drag me back to Silas’s, and I didn’t encounter another soul.
My stomach twisted as I approached the peeling teal door that led up to Imogen’s apartment. Did she even still live here? The names written beside the unit numbers onthe buzzer were so sun-faded they might as well never have been there at all.
My hand shook as I lifted it to press the button that buzzed her apartment. A long minute passed as I waited, but then I remembered it was four o’clock in the morning. Normal people were asleep. Finally, though, there was a crackle of static, and an achingly familiar voice answered. “Hello?”
“Imogen?”
“Yeah?” There was an edge of irritation to her voice that made me grin. She sounded exactly the same. But when I opened my mouth to speak, the words got stuck in my throat.
It had been so long since I’d last seen her. She probably wanted nothing to do with me. But I couldn’t just stand out here on the sidewalk. It was only a matter of time before Silas’s hunters started looking for me, and once the sun came up —
“Lyra?” Imogen sounded unsure of herself and also kind of pissed.
It felt so good to talk to my friend that I nearly choked as I said, “It’s me.”
The crackling of the intercom stopped, as if Imogen had pulled back, releasing the button. I could almost see her hovering behind her apartment door, staring at the intercom as though she’d seen a ghost.
Then I heard a faint buzz as the door to the building unlocked. Gripping the handle, I flung the door open and let myself into the small, dingy foyer. Dirty shoe prints crisscrossed the peeling yellow tile, and the scent of stale cigarette smoke hit me like a wall. A narrow set of stairs led up to the second floor, and a crushing familiarity settledover me as I climbed.
Imogen’s apartment had been shitty five years ago, and it was even shittier now. The brass number “nine” had been missing from her door from the time she’d moved in, but the outline was still visible from where someone had painted around it.
The door flew open before I could knock, and Imogen’s face appeared in the gap, framed by a mane of tight butterscotch curls. Her eyes flashed with a mixture of shock and irritation as she took in my haggard appearance.
“What the fuck happened to you?” she blurted, those quick brown eyes darting from the burned end of my braid to the holes in my leathers.
“Long story,” I rasped, my knees wobbling with relief that she’d actually answered the door.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she growled, glancing down the hall as if she expected her neighbors to poke their heads out at any moment.
“I know.”
Imogen’s lips puckered in disapproval, but her eyes gave away the fact that she was actually a little glad to see me. She drew in a breath and then stepped aside, ushering me in with a wave of her hand.
It was sweltering hot inside her apartment. A window AC unit was working overtime in the bedroom, but the main living space was oppressively stuffy. It smelled like cats, Thai chili, and Imogen’s floral perfume — an unappealing mix that was surprisingly homey.
Her apartment was exactly as I remembered it, apart from the brown leather couch that now took up half the living room. She’d only had a futon the last time I’d beenhere, which seemed more appropriate for the colorful hippie crash-pad vibe she had going on.
A mishmash of oriental rugs covered the sagging hardwood floors, and an assortment of sun catchers hung in the windows, which were draped in macrame curtains. Her living room was a jungle of half-dead plants where her unhinged cat, Goose, liked to lie in wait to attack the feet of innocent passersby.
“What are you doing here?” Imogen asked, pulling her colorful silk robe more tightly around her.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I know I shouldn’t be here. It’s just . . .” I trailed off.
It seemed pathetic to admit that I had nowhere else to go. Hell, itwaspathetic. But Imogen and I had lived in the same group home as teenagers. She of all people knew what it was like to be truly alone in the world. “I need a safe space to lie low for a while.”
Imogen crossed her arms over her chest, her lips forming a thin, angry line. “Silas?” she asked, her voice simmering with rage.
A lump of panic rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. “I can’t go back,” I whispered. “He . . . He would kill me.”
Imogen sucked in a breath and nodded, those big dark eyes flickering around the room in a way I knew meant she was thinking. She swallowed a few times and then nodded to herself, rubbing her arms as if warding off a chill.
