I twisted my hands together. “If we can save Zak, we can ask him for help. Ezra’s time is running out. I know you and Aaron did years of research, but Zak knows things we don’t. He has resources we don’t.”

It was something that’d been in the back of my thoughts since Christmas. Zak knew all sorts of scary dark magic things. He could steer me in the right direction for researching the demon amulet, but before now, I’d had no clue where he was or how to contact him.

“That’s a long shot, Tori.”

“Saving either of them is a long shot, but we need to try.” I breathed deeply. “Will you help me?”

His dark eyes moved from me to Lallakai. He studied the fae, who gazed back at him without expression, waiting for his decision.

A slow minute passed, then he asked resignedly, “Where is the guild taking him?”

My heart swelled and I blinked away silly tears before he noticed. “Los Angeles.”

He jerked like I’d smacked him. “LA?”

“Yeah. Is that a problem?”

He hesitated, then pulled his phone out of his pocket. “It’s fine.”

I watched nervously as he brought up his contacts list. “Are you calling Aaron?”

“No. I won’t ask Aaron and Ezra to help with this, and you shouldn’t either. Let them keep their hands clean.” He gave me a long look, his expression unreadable. “We won’t be heroes this time, Tori. We’ll be the bad guys. We’re breaking a fugitive out of rightful custody for selfish reasons.”

“I’ve always thought you were a bad boy at heart, Kai.”

A dark, dangerous smile flickered across his lips. “You have no idea.” He scrolled through his contacts list. “We don’t have much time, so we need to move fast. Get your combat gear together, plus a change of clothes. Nothing that can identify you.”

I nodded earnestly.

“I need to make a few calls, and I have to pack my gear too. I’ll meet you back here in an hour.” He stuffed his cell in his pocket. “Give me your phone.”

I obediently passed it to him. “What do you need it for?”

“I’m going to leave it at our house. I’ll get Aaron and Ezra to stay home tomorrow as well.” He swung toward Lallakai. “You wait here too. I have more questions about these bounty hunters.”

Her emerald eyes flashed at his command, but she dipped her chin.

Confused, I followed him to the stairs. “Kai? Why are you leaving my phone at Aaron’s? I might need it for, you know, calling people. Navigating in LA. That sort of thing.”

“Two reasons.” He zipped his coat and started up the stairs. “One, your phone can’t go to LA, because then anyone who tracked your phone would know you went to LA. And two, Aaron and Ezra will be our alibis. Your phone needs to be where we’re pretending to be.”

Anxiety unfurled in my chest as we reached the back landing. “We won’t march in there and announce our names and citizenship. Two random, unidentified mythics are going to spring a random, unidentified druid from a guild’s custody. How could anyone possibly tie that to us?”

“Better safe than sorry. We aren’t taking any chances.” He pulled on his shoes and tugged his keys out of his pocket. “No phones. No names. No credit cards, passports, or paper trails that can prove we ever left the city.”

My eyes widened. “No passports? How will we get to LA?”

“I’m calling in a favor.” He pulled open the door, letting an icy breeze inside. “How familiar are you with international smuggling?”

“S-smuggling?” I stammered.

That dangerous smile returned. “Like I said, we’re the bad guys this time, Tori.”

With no more explanation than that, he strode into the night.

Chapter Four

I stepped out of the cab and straightened. An icy winter wind whipped down the narrow highway, and it was so dark I could only see what the vehicle’s headlights illuminated—namely, a small but cute sign on a wooden fence that read “Ladner Bed & Breakfast.” Peeking through the treed front yard was the roof of a house.

Kai passed the driver some cash, pulled his backpack out of the car, and shut the door. The cab accelerated away, taillights glowing.

“So … we’re going to get some sleep now?” I asked, attempting to stifle a yawn and a shiver at the same time. I failed at both, shuddering my way through a long yawn.

“The B&B is the drop-off point. Walking off into an open field would draw too much attention.” He slung his nondescript black backpack, which contained our gear, a laptop, and a change of clothes each, over his shoulder. “It’s a twenty-minute walk to our real destination.”

“Which is what? What’s even out here?” I had no idea where we were. All I knew was that the cab had driven us straight out of the suburbs, across—or rather, under the Fraser River, and through several miles of empty farmland.

“To our plane.” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket—a cheap burner that couldn’t be linked to us—and turned on its camera flash to light our way. “Let’s go.”

I had a million questions, but he set a grueling pace and I had no spare breath for talking. Our footsteps crunched in a chilly silence, his light the only illumination. It was four in the morning and the world slept—except us.

Zak was gonna owe me big time for all this missed sleep.

We followed the unlit two-lane road, bordered by more farms, for ten minutes before turning onto another equally rural road. We seemed to be well outside city limits—so imagine my surprise when we passed a bus stop. Brow scrunched as I puffed after Kai, I squinted ahead. Lights glowed from an unseen point on the horizon.

Five minutes later, his flashlight illuminated a sign featuring a small airplane. “Turn left,” it read, “and come fly with us!”

“Huh,” I muttered. “There’s an airport here?”

Unfortunately for my frozen ears, Kai didn’t take the next left as the sign instructed. Striding past a large gray building, he switched off his flashlight and turned, leading me into a maze of blocky buildings, hangars, and parking lots.

When it seemed like we’d passed every single building, he cut around one. A chain-link fence blocked our path, “No Trespassing” and “Emergency Lane” signs all over it. On the other side was a wide stretch of pavement, then the glowing lights of a runway.

Kai boosted me over the fence, then jumped it after me. Moving more cautiously, he skulked to the edge of the building and peered around it.

Basking in the airway’s lights, a handful of dinky little planes with nose propellers were parked in neat rows, and positioned off to one side like their aloof big brother was a significantly larger plane. Though it was no commercial passenger jet, it had two big propellers on the wings, five windows along the side, and a far more impressive presence.

Lights gleamed through its windows, and a door near the tail, which swung down to form a short staircase, was open and waiting.

Kai broke into a swift walk and I rushed after him, eyes wide. Nothing moved on the tarmac, the whole place abandoned as far as I could see. Unhesitatingly, he strode to the lit-up plane.

A silhouette appeared in the doorway. A short Asian man wearing a headset hurried down the steps. He waved at us to keep moving, and Kai nodded as he climbed the steps. I followed him on board.

It wasn’t exactly glamorous. Heavy-duty mesh straps strained over a stack of unmarked cardboard boxes in the tail of the plane, and six basic seats filled the rest of the interior. Kai dropped into the rearmost seat and put his backpack on the floor, so I took the spot beside him. The center aisle running between us was so narrow it was like sitting together on a sofa.

“Cool,” I whispered to Kai, rubbing my frozen hands and considering whether I wanted to unzip my leather jacket. It was warmer in here than outside, but not by much. “So this is a smuggling plane? What’s that stuff back there?”

Kai cast me a flinty look. “Tori, I know you’re insatiably curious, but this isn’t the time or place. Around people like this, questions can get you killed.”

“Oh.”

I gazed around as a few clunks and clatters sounded from outside, then leaned toward him.

“Okay, no questions,” I whispered. “But how did you arrange this so fast? And how do you know smugglers? And—”

“Tori,” he growled.

“—does this have anything to do with—”

“I’ll answer your questions,” he hissed through gritted teeth, “after we’re off the plane and in private.”

I glanced around the empty plane. “This isn’t private?”

“No.”

Grumbling, I sat back in my seat. Kai was good at everything—so it seemed, anyway—and I wasn’t surprised he’d had an immediate solution for flying to California on super short notice and without leaving a paper trail. But I suspected this “favor” predated his membership at the Crow and Hammer.

As in, dated back to when he’d been involved with his family, who happened to run a notorious international crime syndicate.

The pilot climbed on board, pulled the door up, and latched it. Without a word to his passengers, he strode up the narrow aisle and into the cockpit. Once inside, he pulled a curtain across the doorway.

“Friendly guy,” I whispered.

Kai shook his head warningly.

The plane engines rumbled to life, vibrating my seat in a way I really didn’t like. I stretched my legs out, trying to relax. “How long is the flight?”

“It’s three hours on a commercial airliner,” he murmured, pulling out his burner phone. “But it’ll take a little over five hours on this one.”

Could be worse. “What about the trip home? Are we flying with smugglers again?”

“That’ll depend on whether there’s a guild chasing us.”

As I watched him tap on the phone, a niggling feeling like I’d forgotten something burrowed into the back of my brain. “Five hours puts our arrival at around ten a.m. That’ll give us less than a day to—” I cut myself off, squinting toward the cockpit, but the dull roar of the engines was too loud for the pilot to hear us. “Less than a day to find the bounty team that has Zak, plan our strategy, and perform a daring rescue operation.”