Holidays are Hell

Always holding back, Zoe! Always with the secrets and the lies!

Still Zoe didn't consider for one second telling him about Joanna or the attack her daughter had endured because the Shadows had scented Zoe on her… in her. The Seer had been very clear: no one could know about these girls… these future Archers. The knowledge could one day be used against them all. Thus, beating against Warren's unspoken accusation was a prophecy that ruled Zoe's days:

You must do it alone.

So she silently willed him to understand that she was still the woman he'd once loved, still Light, but his returned silence was critical, like he sensed her desperation, and he probably did. The unease sitting on both Phaedre's and Gregor's faces told her they did as well. Zoe's lukewarm coffee soured in her belly and straightening, she pushed her cup away.

"Are you going to help me or not?" she said shortly.

"Of course—" Phaedre started.

"Why should I?" Warren interrupted. Not we. Phaedre's mouth snapped shut.

"Isn't it obvious?" Zoe said, his imperious tone making her own voice tight. "You're the one with the power."

And don't forget who the hell helped put you in that position, she thought, blood beginning to boil.

"What's obvious," he said flatly, "is that you're doing another one of your disappearing acts, and you want us to clean up after you."

"That's not it at all."

"Oh, really?"

"Warren—"

"Shut up, Gregor," Warren shook off the other man's hand without looking at him and threw Zoe's purse at her. "All your ID is different. You've altered your appearance, hid your scent beneath a masking compound—"

"I'm not hiding it!" Zoe finally exploded, gripping the edge of the Formica table so hard her fingers ached. "I'm human!"

They all fell still, and Zoe felt herself redden.

"I have no power," she said, more normally. "Think about it, smell and watch, and you'll know it's true. I couldn't cross into another reality right now if it unfurled in front of me like the yellow brick road."

Gregor's mouth fell open. "No… my God…"

The disbelief in his voice had her dropping her head. Only another agent could understand exactly what she'd lost.

Phaedre was just as shocked. "Zoe, what happened? Did the Shadows find you? Steal your chi? Make you relinquish it in return for your life?"

Because all those things had happened before to other agents, though not in this troop. Not to anyone under Warren's watch. Zoe nodded. "How else could you sneak up on me without me even batting an eyelash?"

"I was wondering that myself," Gregor murmured, falling back in the booth.

Zoe was so busy reading the pity in his eyes that when her head whipped back, the open-palmed slap coming at her from nowhere, the sting of it had her gasping. The blood that sprayed from her nose had Gregor and Phaedre doing the same.

Pressing her napkin to her face, head tilted back, she regarded Warren over the top of it. "I'd make you pay for that," she said, voice muffled, "but you'd see it coming a mile away."

Warren blanched, which cheered her a bit. "What have you done?" he asked, his whisper ragged at the edges.

"I gave my power away," she said, with more composure than she felt.

"Why? To whom?"

"To someone who needed it more than I did." To someone, she didn't say, we'd all need before long.

"Brave," said Gregor, fingering the inverted gold horseshoe shining from a thick chain around his neck.

"Heroic," Phaedre agreed, on a awed whisper.

"Stupid," Warren said. He shook his head, his expression again shuttered. "Why do you always have to be so stupid?"

Zoe jaw ached from the effort to hold her tongue and temper. She wouldn't get into a pissing contest with Warren just because he was still nursing hurt feelings. He could deal with those himself. She'd had to. "Look," she said, pushing her cup aside to lean forward on her elbows. "The baby's mortal. We're still in the business of protecting mortals, right? Or are we only interested in slaughtering rogue agents who are doing nothing more than looking for sanctuary?"

Warren colored at that. Good. She was useless physically, but at least her words still had some sting. "We protect mortals. You are a mortal."

"Warren," Phaedre chided.

Zoe shrugged like it didn't matter. "That may be… but I'm still Light."

Warren just quirked a brow, and when it was apparent he'd do no more than that, Phaedre reached out and patted Zoe's arm. "Of course you are."

Gregor put his giant palm on her other arm, glaring at Warren. They all stared at him, linked and acting as one—even though he was their leader—daring him to tell the Archer of the Zodiac no.