Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke & Bone #3) - Laini Taylor Page 0,135

them it was bad luck to do so, like tempting fate. Whatever words they used, there was a shadow over the lot of them, because it was to be no brief parting. Virko, in what would be his last language lesson for a while, taught Zuzana how to say, “I kiss your eyes and leave my heart in your hands,” which was an old chimaera farewell and of course led to Zuzana pantomiming a reaction to having a beating heart thrust into her hands.

Esther fussed over them, grandmotherly again and something close to contrite. She made sure they had the map, and knew the way. She asked, concerned, what they intended to do against so many enemies, but Karou didn’t tell her. “Not much,” was her reply. “Just persuade them to go home.”

Esther looked troubled, but didn’t press. “I’ll order champagne,” she said, “to celebrate your victory. I only wish you could be here to drink it with us.”

Eliza, all the while, sat staring.

“You’ll see to it she gets some help?” Karou asked Zuzana and Mik. “After we’re gone?”

Zuzana’s face immediately took on a hard set and she wouldn’t meet Karou’s eyes, but Mik nodded. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You have enough to worry about.”

He understood, if Zuzana didn’t, why things had to be this way. He had reminded her himself, several times, on the way here. “Remember how we’re not samurai in even the smallest way?” he’d asked. “We can’t help with this. We’d only weigh Virko down and get in the way. And if there’s more fighting…”

He hadn’t elaborated.

“Thank you,” Karou said, with one last, helpless look at Eliza. “I know it’s a lot to leave you with, but I showed you how to access money. Please, use it. For her, for you. Anything you need.”

“Money,” Zuzana muttered, as though it were worse than useless, an insult.

Karou turned to her. “If there’s anything for you to come back to,” she promised, hating the if as though the word itself were her enemy, “I’ll find a way to come get you.”

“How? You’re going to close the portal.”

“We have to, but there are more portals. I’ll find them.”

“What, you’ll have time to be hunting for portals?”

“I don’t know.” It was a refrain. I don’t know what we’ll find when we get back. I don’t know if there will be any hope left to work with in all the world. I don’t know how I’ll find another portal. I don’t know if I’ll be alive. I don’t know.

Zuzana, her hard expression unchanged, tipped her head forward in a kind of slow-motion collision that Karou didn’t recognize for a hug until, at the last minute, her friend’s arms went around her. “Be safe,” Zuzana whispered. “No heroics. If you have to save yourself, do it, and come back here. Both of you. All three of you. We can make Virko a human body or something. Just promise me, if you get there and everyone’s…” She didn’t say it. Dead. “You’ll just keep out of sight and come back here and live.”

Karou couldn’t promise that, as Zuzana must have known, because she didn’t give her a chance to answer, but plowed ahead with, “Good. Thank you. That’s all I wanted to hear,” as though a promise had been given. Karou returned her hug, hating good-byes like she’d hated the if, and then there was nothing left to do but go.

56

MY SWEET BARBARIAN

Cleanliness, at last. Mik and Zuzana took turns in the bathroom, so that one of them could sit with Eliza, while also keeping a vigil for breaking angel news. The TV was on low, and Esther’s laptop was open with several feeds constantly refreshing, but nothing had happened yet, and wouldn’t be likely to for a while

Karou, Zuzana knew, had a stop to make before the Vatican: the Museo Civico di Zoologia. It was a natural history museum, and there had been a calm defiance in her when she declared her intention to go there. It had half broken Zuzana’s heart, knowing what it was for—to replenish her store of teeth, in case souls had been saved, at least, in the battle—and that she wouldn’t be there to help, whatever it was they found when they got back to Eretz.

Damned helplessness. Zuzana sensed a T-shirt design coming on.

BE A SAMURAI.

BECAUSE YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHAT’S BEHIND

THE FREAKING SKY.

No one would understand it, but who cares? She’d just glare at them until they went away. That worked in almost any situation.

No, she chided