Page 181 of You Only Love Twice
Daylight.
His ears were ringing as they surged toward it. His lungs began heaving, desperately demanding air.
They were nearly there. A few seconds more....
Both of them surfaced in the Thames with a cough and a gasp. Obsidian sucked in vast lungfuls of sweet oxygen as someone grabbed him by the propulsion pack and turned him around.
"Are you all right?" Gemma called.
Obsidian barely had the strength left to answer her.
The overcast sky seemed so shockingly bright after the darkness. Even as it burned his skin, he'd never seen anything better.
* * *
The hollow tasteof victory soured Gemma’s mouth as COR regathered at the safe house. Everyone else was accounted for, the mission an alleged success, except for one small fact. There’d been no sign of Dido—or Malloryn—as they escaped the burning docking bay. From the flooded underground tunnel, it was a short journey to the Thames, and from there…
Anywhere.
"What do we do about Malloryn?" Gemma whispered, trembling with the cold as Obsidian draped a blanket over her shoulders.
"We don't know where Dido has taken him." Byrnes pinched the bridge of his nose. "We don't even know if he's still alive."
"He's still alive." Obsidian stirred, tugging at the buckles on his damp body armor and trying to pry the hard carapace off his chest. "Dido won't kill him. She wouldn't dare. This was always meant to end with Malloryn watching his world burn. And I know where they're going. It's the only place Didocanretreat, with everything having gone horribly wrong."
"Where?" Byrnes demanded.
Gemma squeezed her eyes shut. Obsidian had said it. There was only one place they could go.
"Russia," Obsidian replied. "Saint Petersburg. Dido is taking Malloryn to Balfour."
Ingrid clapped a hand to her lips. "No."
Kincaid thumped a hand on her shoulder. "We'll get him back, Ingrid."
"How?" Ingrid snapped, her eyes flashing with verwulfen bronze as her emotions heated.
The three of them started arguing about the court as Gemma pinched the bridge of her nose. She just needed a moment to think. Time.
Or better yet, Malloryn.
He always had a solution to every problem, and his confidence cut through even the most nervous of dispositions. Vampires rioting through London?Well, go out there and cut them down, by golly.A secret organization of blue bloods trying to poison the Echelon's entire blood supply?Pack your ammunition and haul ass. We're going to stop them.
But now he was gone, and she had no idea what to do.
Herbert pushed into the study carrying a tray with the tea setting Gemma was so familiar with. Behind him, an 1880 service automaton followed like a duckling scuttling behind its mother, steam hissing through its vents.
"Thought we could all use some refreshment," Herbert said, once more wearing the polite façade of COR’s butler, though soot still stained his collar, and his black apron no doubt hide a variety of likeminded sins.
"Unless it's a bottle of brandy, I don't think any of us is going to find it quite refreshing enough," Byrnes grumbled.
"You haven't tried my tea then, Master Byrnes."
Gemma stared at the map on Malloryn's desk, the familiar scent of his office wrapping around her as Herbert fussed over them.
Isabella was gone.
Now Malloryn.
