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They were quiet – a loaded silence. Yet no one spoke a word, shoulders straightening on all sides as they determinedly pulled themselves together despite their confusion. Drusa pressed her lips into a hollow smile. Evrun nodded and nodded again, looking like he’d been caught in a conversation of which he didn’t understand a single word, but was trying to seem like a fellow expert all the same.

‘Excellent.’ My voice didn’t sound like my own. The incense-heavy air seemed to be crawling into my lungs, smothering me from the inside out with the scent of viciousness. ‘Wishing you a pleasant day, in that case.’

I didn’t wait for their response as I turned on my heel, hurried off the stairs with unsteady feet, and fled their golden hall.

Chapter 12

‘Creon?’

I couldn’t keep my voice from cracking as I floundered through the Skeire corridor, panic urging my feet forward. My heart still hadn't stopped thumping against my ribs. Telling Tared that I was fine, that no one had attacked me, and that the phoenixes would be at the gathering tonight was all I’d been able to manage in this state of self-afflicted horror; I’d left Alyra in the living room with him and wormed myself out of his requests for details with some blatantly flimsy excuses on tiredness and wanting to make sure Creon would not be worried.

Which wouldn’t work forever.

So what was I supposed to do when they asked again – tell them what I’d done? Tell them what Icoulddo, the full sickening, horrifying extent of it?

I flung open the door to Creon’s room, staggering in like a drunkard. He was sitting in one of the chairs with his notes and calculations, attempts to find some sort of system behind the Mother’s organisation of the bindings based on the two locations we had – but he dropped his pen and parchment the moment I barged in, my distress undoubtedly washing over his demon senses like the emotional equivalent of the pungent stench of fire.

‘Em?’ His eyes narrowed abruptly. ‘What’s wrong?’

I slammed the door behind me and erupted.

The elders. Their arguments, their refusals. Khailan’s wings, their change of heart, and my last, unthinking act of despair –smoothness for mind, their hollow eyes, their trembling hands, the bargain that should not have happened except for my dangerous manipulation. The words gushed over my lips like vomit, a winding, rambling confession, until I finally ran out of thoughts and just stood there panting and shaking, waiting for his judgement. Waiting for him to agree that I had gone too far, that Zera would never approve of this, that Iwasbecoming the evil I was fighting after all …

‘Right,’ he said.

And that was all.

Just that one word, slow and pensive, with that melodious lilt that even now made my heart skip a beat. His gaze didn’t release me, observing me closely as I blinked, frowned, and stammered, ‘Right?’

‘That sounds like a success.’ Ithadto be deliberate, that calculated eyebrow he quirked up – an evident challenge for me to disagree. ‘Or at least it’s pretty much what you set out to achieve, isn’t it?’

‘No!’ I burst out, voice soaring.Nothingwas successful about this – about the filthy, gluey sense of wrongness sticking to every inch of my skin, like guilt but more physical, the awareness of my crime slithering through every fibre of my body. I’d killed before, had ended dozens of lives with the tips of my fingers, yet somehow this seemed more heinous. More heartless. The fae who’d died had at least attacked me knowingly. This, on the other hand, taking away all free will, reducing proud, powerful individuals to marionettes on the strings of my magic …

I wanted to scrub that bargain mark off my skin. Wanted to burn the mother-of-pearl bracelet and the gold in my hair to ashes.

And even that might not be enough.

‘Ah,’ Creon said, still so pleasantly conversational – as if I had admitted to dropping a plate, not to worming my way into the minds of others to bind them to life-threatening promises. ‘I see you’re starting to understand why I tried to hide that demon magic from you.’

For a split second, I forgot to be disgusted with myself. ‘What?’

‘Blood-curdling, isn’t it?’ From the tone of his voice, he could have been talking about the weather. ‘Really not the sort of powers that were ever supposed to be wielded by creatures with any empathy or sense of morality. It gets a little better over time, if it helps. Never exactlyfun, though.’

I stared at him, jaw sagging.

He smiled back – a cheerless, tired smile – and began gathering his notes, sorting them into a neat little pile before dropping them onto the ground. Seasoned, familiar gestures, accompanied by the equally soothing rustle of parchment – as if nothing had happened.

As if nothing had changed.

I was no longer sure what to think.

‘So,’ he said when finally all notes and pens had been satisfactorily relocated, looking up and sinking back in his chair to cross his legs. ‘Are you going to insist on thinking of yourself as a monster? Because I’m afraid you’ll have to extend that qualification to me, too.’

Oh.

Oh, gods.

The fire had been sapped out of me, the violent need for punishment and consequences. I floundered two steps back, dropped down on the edge of his bed, and buried my face in my hands, staring blankly at the floor between my fingers. My thoughts seemed to be settling like dregs fluttering down in a glass of wine.