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“You would have me,” he added.

“Would I?” My voice cracked, but I didn’t care. He needed to hear this. I needed to say it more than anything. “Would I have you, Malachi? After everything we’ve been through. After everything you’vedone.”

“Yes, Jade!” he barked. Any tenderness from his voice was gone, replaced by the brutal King of Shadows. “Yes, you would have me! Don’t you see that? Everything I’ve done? Dammit, Jade!”

I flinched at his words, but I did not back away.

Not this time.

Not from him.

“Every single thingI have done has been foryou. All of it!”

He stepped forward, close enough now that if I reached out, I would touch him. “And this?” I asked, waving a hand to Isaiah. “Is this also for me?”

“Yes,” he responded without a second of hesitation. “It is for you. Because I know you want revenge just as badly as I do, Jade. I can see it in your eyes. Only you can’t see it. You can’t take Isaiah against his will and chain him up in a dungeon beneath your castle, but I can.I can!And I will, Jade. For you, I will.”

Sadie whimpered on the ground.

I closed my eyes. Somewhere deep in my soul, into the darkest corners that I had spent years trying to bury, I wanted it. Idelightedin seeing Isaiah, the man who sold me out, the man who betrayed me, bloody and beaten.

Hediddeserve this.

And I wanted my enemy to suffer.

But Sadie was my friend. Sadie had stood by my side, even if she also stood by Isaiah’s.

I opened my eyes and found Sadie in the darkness, attempting to crawl to Isaiah. I walked over and knelt before her, grabbing her chin in my hand.

Something came over me, power I had never felt before. But not from magic.

“Did you know Isaiah was working with Esther to betray us?” I asked her, voice strong.

A single tear fell down her dirty face. “No, I swear it, Jade. I didn’t know.”

“She’s lying,” Malachi added from behind us.

Sadie snapped her eyes in his direction, then back at me. “No, Jade! I’m not lying! I’m telling you the truth. I had no idea! He never talked about that stuff with me. He never–”

“You lie!” Malachi yelled this time, his voice echoing off the walls and down the corridor of the underground.

Sadie was fully crying now, tears streaming down her face as she flinched away from Malachi.

And from me.

I stood and turned to Malachi. “She didn’t know, Mal,” I pushed, not even sure if I could believe the words I was saying.

Malachi shrugged, then closed the distance between himself and Isaiah. “If she didn’t know, and if she’s truly on our side, then she won’t care if I kill her little friend here,” he said.

Sadie immediately shot to her feet. “Don’t!” she screamed, desperation dripping from her voice. I grabbed her shoulders to push her back, away from Mal and Isaiah. “Don’t hurt him!”

“I think we’re a little past that by now, don’t you, Sadie?” he whispered. Something in his voice sent a chill down my spine.

I wasn’t sure if I hated it or loved it.

“If you really cared about Jade,” he continued, “you wouldn’t care about a traitor. Would you?”

Malachi pulled a dagger from his belt and cut a thin line across Isaiah’s bare chest. It was difficult to even see the cut with the blood already caked over him.