Page 116

“I’m certainly smarter than you,” she ground out tightly.

Her hand flashed out and she stabbed him through the chest with a knife. He fell dead to the ground. She must have poured a lot of light magic down her blade.

Chambers didn’t give her a chance to catch her breath. He was already running at her. “Harrows and I have worked together since the day we joined the Dark Force!” he shouted. “And you killed him! I’m going to kill you!”

Chambers had gone berserk. He grabbed large pieces of furniture and began throwing them at her. Aradia was flicking them away with her magic, but she was having a hard time keeping up with his fury.

When Chambers ran out of furniture to throw, he started ripping kitchen appliances out of the wall. And when those were gone, he tore the kitchen counter off its legs and hurled it at her. He had her so busy casting defensive spells that she didn’t have time to attack him.

Soon Chambers ran out of obvious things to throw, so he grabbed the knob on my bedroom door, but he retracted his hands when he was dealt a shock.

Aradia took advantage of his shock. She launched a fireball into the bubbling cauldron. It exploded all over Chambers, splattering him with blue potion that began to hiss and burn the moment it touched his skin. There must have been too much light magic in that potion.

Covered in burning boils, Chambers ran blindly at Aradia like an enraged bull. He knocked her right through the wall, out into the back yard. Bricks showered down on both of their bodies. The spell on the bedroom door flickered out.

Only a few moments later, young Leda emerged from her room. Her eyes took in the destroyed furniture. They grew wider when they saw the large monster on the floor, where Harrows was supposed to be. Aradia must have transformed his dead body into that of a dagger-clawed wolf. My younger self should have remembered that no monsters could exist on this side of the wall, but emotion must have won out over reason.

Young Leda moved toward the gaping hole in the wall. She climbed through it. That’s where she found Aradia and Chambers, whom she’d also transformed into another dagger-clawed wolf. Both she and the transformed soldier were half-buried in debris. Young Leda began pulling bricks off of her foster mother, trying to unbury her.

Aradia caught her hand. “Stop.” Her bleeding lips barely moved.

“Julianna, I have to get you out of there,” young Leda said, her eyes trembling. “I have to get you to a healer.”

“It’s too late for that,” Aradia croaked.

“I’m not giving up on you!”

“Don’t give up on yourself, Leda. You can take care of yourself. Just don’t pick any more fights.”

Tears streamed down the young girl’s face.

Aradia smiled. “I am so proud to have known you.” Her hand dropped. She was dead.

Young Leda stood there for a moment, shaking. Then she wiped away her tears. She kissed her foster mother’s cheek and walked away, disappearing into the shadows of Purgatory.

“After that, I lived alone, on the streets,” I said. “Until Calli found me two years later.”

* * *

We’d moved forwardin time two years. Young Leda was now twelve years old—and so filthy that she was hardly recognizable. I watched my younger self steal a bun off a baker’s cart in the Bazaar, Purgatory’s outdoor open shopping area.

Young Leda snuck away, her dirty body blending into the shadows. She moved toward a side alley but changed directions when a man in a purple suit walked out of that alley to enter the Bazaar.

“Leda, look at his face,” Nero said.

So I did. “It’s Gaius Knight. He walked there on purpose to make me go somewhere else.”

I watched young Leda slip away, moving down another narrow street that led away from the Bazaar. Nero and I followed her. We came around the corner to find young Leda standing face-to-face with Calli.

“Now I remember this day,” I said.

“Ah, so you so often stole buns from the baker’s stand that the days all blended together?” Nero pretended to be lecturing me, but I recognized that teasing spark in his eyes.

“Not always buns,” I told him. “Sometimes it was a muffin or a croissant. A few times, I was lucky enough to nab a whole loaf of bread. That kept me well-fed the whole day.”

“You led a hard life,” he observed.

“That changed this day. The day I met Calli.”