The Rise of Fortune and Fury (Chronicles of the Stone Veil #5) - Sawyer Bennett Page 0,61

to Priya. “Thank you.”

“It’s part of our job,” Titus says in that low rumbling voice. “To keep evil at bay. But I’m doing this for you first and foremost.”

“And there will be plenty who will want to help,” Caiden affirms.

“Then it’s settled,” Priya says and then moves to Zora. “Come on. You and I will fly back to our house. I’ll grab some bathing suits for you and Finley. We’ll see you all there.”

I watch with just a tinge of jealousy and a whole lot of pride in Zora as her wings fan out and she takes to the air with Priya.

They’re barely fifty feet in the air before Carrick is taking my hand and bending distance back to Titus and Priya’s house.

* * *

“Okay,” Zora says from the lounge chair beside me. “I’m going to amend my list of greatest things about being out of the Underworld and put burgers at the top.”

“Priya wasn’t lying,” I agree, rubbing my hand over my stomach, which is clad in a tasteful one-piece black bathing suit. “That was, without a doubt, the best burger I’ve ever had.”

“Mmmm,” Zora agrees, and I let my head roll on the chaise lounge to see her eyes closed and a serene smile on her face. Priya lent her an ocean blue one-piece. I have to admit, with her white hair, that is most definitely her color. It heightens the blue in her tri-colored eyes.

“What else is on your list?” I ask my sister.

She opens her eyes, rolling her head to give me a lazy sort of smile. The sun is warm on our skin, our bellies are full, and the sound of the waves lapping at the bay shore is relaxing. “Greatest things about being out of the Underworld?”

I nod, rolling on my side to see her.

Zora lets out a tiny sigh, eyes roving over the cloudless sky for a moment before she brings her gaze back to me. “The openness. Just endless sky and earth. The caverns in the Underworld are huge and I never felt constrained until I got here. I can fly up thousands of feet, and the only thing I’d hit my head on is a cloud.”

“I can’t even imagine living in a place without sunlight,” I murmur.

“Amell sometimes simulated it for me with magic,” Zora says with a fond smile. “But he didn’t do it justice now that I’ve seen it.”

“What else?” I ask.

For the next half hour, Zora tells me all the things she’s come to love since we helped her escape. It includes, among other things, cotton sheets, orange juice, croissants—of course—hot running water, the sounds of city traffic, the television show Schitt’s Creek, although she readily admits she doesn’t get some of it, Chris Hemsworth, bubble gum, body lotion, good hair products, and Chapstick.

When she throws her legs over the side of the chaise and pulls out a tube of Chapstick from the little bag she’d brought to the beach, I laugh. She rubs it on her lips before tossing it back in the bag.

Zora crosses her arms across her thighs, leaning slightly toward me. “Want to know the biggest conclusion I’ve come to?”

I push up to one elbow, nodding.

“I’ve seen enough to know I don’t ever want to go back to the Underworld.”

It’s not her words but her tone that has me sitting up, planting my feet into the sand. Our knees almost touch. “Why would you even think about going back?”

Zora looks out over the bay. “I don’t want to assume that you want me to stay. I’m grateful for all you’ve done, but… I’m really not sure what you want with me.”

My hands snag hers roughly, causing her head to whip back to me. “You’re my sister. My twin. When I brought you out of the Underworld, it was forever, Zora. Your home is with me now. Well, me and Carrick.”

“Until you die,” Zora points out.

“And then Carrick will take care of you,” I assure her. Carrick had promised me long ago that he’d get her out of the Underworld if I died before we were able to. I know he’d make her life good after I was gone.

Zora’s expression turns troubled, and she shakes her head. “I don’t know how to be a sister. I don’t know if I say the right things. I don’t know if I’m likable.” Zora pulls her hands from me. “In fact, I’m fairly sure I’m very unlikable. I don’t even really like to be touched, Finley, and I