Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) by Skye Malone, Megan Joel Peterson Read Free Book Online Page A

nightstand, and then disappeared back out of the room.
    Katherine waited till the door shut before speaking.
    “You do realize you are safe here?” she hazarded. When no answer came, she continued. “There are people who can protect you now. Anyone who dares threaten you will have hundreds of wizards to contend with. Wizards who would willingly give their lives for you.”
    Ashe couldn’t find the words to reply, but at her silence, the quiet insistence in Katherine’s voice became stronger.
    “You are home, your majesty.”
    Pausing, Katherine watched her, but whatever response she’d been seeking didn’t seem to be in Ashe’s face. Consternation flickered through her eyes as she bowed her head again.
    “Call if you need anything,” Katherine said.
    Still appearing slightly perturbed, the woman gathered Ashe’s old clothes and then left.
    Silence settled on the room.
    Ashe sank onto the bed, her hand finding the gun.
    Safe. Home.
    Images played back through her mind, and her fingers tightened around the weapon as she pushed the memories away.
    Home died a month ago. And no matter what Katherine said, she’d long since learned there wasn’t any such thing as safe.
     
    *****
     
    The little yellow house on Pine wasn’t more than a few days dead, but the neighborhood teenagers had already taken to it as a canvas by the time Harris reached the ruins. Graffiti covered the charred beams, and beer cans littered the yard beyond the cordons of crime scene tape. As he left his rental car, Harris could feel the eyes of the kids across the street on him, though when he glanced back, they were predictably looking elsewhere.
    Climbing the steps from the curb, he surveyed the house. Forensics had already been over the place, as had any detectives in the area. According to the newspapers, they hadn’t found much in the way of leads, but Harris wasn’t concerned.
    It wasn’t the first time the cops thought Ashley’d left no evidence behind.
    He’d headed here after learning that Jamison’s men had already screened the apartment wreckage for clues to her whereabouts. They’d gathered little information from the debris, though. Whoever had been staying inside had apparently set up an extensive network of explosives that’d destroyed their computers and records in the building’s final moments. The location was a complete wash, and it was currently too early in the morning to follow his other leads. But no one had looked back at the house since Ashley had left.
    From what he’d read in the paper, the property had been one of those relics sometimes found in less-than-pleasant areas: a quaint cottage owned by the same old lady and her late husband since the neighborhood’s happier times. In the moments before the blast, however, a neighbor had called the police to say that the woman had been taken hostage by a handful of people, including the black-haired girl wanted for murder in Montana. The police had hurried to the scene.
    Then the house blew up. The old woman hadn’t been found in the ruins, but she also hadn’t been seen since. Given how Ashley generally treated those who got in her way, it all tracked.
    And left slim odds that the old lady was still alive.
    Shaking his head, he nudged a piece of drywall aside with his foot, revealing the half-burnt photograph of a smiling couple in a charred frame. Sighing, he left the picture alone and moved on.
    He wondered what Ashley had wanted with the old woman. Was it just a place to stay, or had she known the lady somehow? And if she hadn’t, why come here of all places? The elderly were vulnerable, he knew, but the girl had a whole country of potential spots in which to hide.
    Picking his way through the wreckage, he moved farther into the yard. Glass crunched beneath his shoes and blackened bits of plaster covered the ground like grimy snow. Chunks of wall and ceiling had been tossed haphazardly into the shrubbery, and from the boards covering the windows of