Page 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

R ushing along the corridor, the rubies held firmly in one fist, I snatch up a leaf from my dress, its golden handwriting glowing at my touch. I release it into the air as I run toward the rainbow stairs, pushing through the revelers to take the stairs two at a time.

This spell is more dangerous than I would normally use, but I speak it anyway, recklessness overtaking caution. “Illuminate ill will.”

My instinctive magic pours through me, triggered by my heightened emotions, so strong that I’m not sure if I’m using the spell or my magic this time.

Show me Mother Kadris …

The leaf flies ahead of me, blazing a path toward the other side of the roof. A glow that only I will be able to see spirals over the rooftop, a swirl of light that settles on a far sunken couch, illuminating her head and shoulders.

I hurry across the distance, gratified when Mother Kadris jolts as I slip into the seat opposite her. My chest heaves as I slap the rubies on the table and slide them across its smooth surface.

Her jaw drops. She stares at the stones and then at me.

I glare at her. “You didn’t think I’d find you without your permission, did you?”

Her startled eyes flash to mine. “I didn’t expect you to betray him.”

I pause at her choice of words, considering her carefully. “Betray him…?”

She continues to stare at the rubies. She seems oddly thrown. Her voice is a murmur. “I thought you would stay with him once you saw him again. I thought you would see that he…” She shakes herself. “You actually stole them.”

I struggle to make sense of what she’s saying. “We had a deal and I’ve kept my part of it.”

Mother Kadris’s eyes widen. She leans across the table toward me. “You don’t know what these rubies are, do you? He never told you?”

If she were cackling or triumphant right now, I wouldn’t think twice about her question, but her concern makes me worried. So far, she hasn’t taken the rubies, leaving them on the table instead.

I have to believe that Alexei will forgive me for snatching them. I can even conjure replacement gems for him. I can make it up to him. Once I have the revival spell, he’ll understand why I’ve done this.

My blank expression must speak volumes because Mother Kadris’s already-wide eyes grow to saucers.

“When Alexei received his assassin’s ring,” she says, “he had these stones set into it so he could keep them safe and with him always.”

My mouth is suddenly dry. “Why?”

Her gaze lowers to the rubies. “Because they’re his last connection to his mother.”

I force myself to speak. “In what way?”

“I’m sure you already know that his mother was cast out of her coven when she gave birth to a baby boy with no apparent magical ability.

She then abandoned the child too. What is not well known is that she had no choice but to leave him, or the coven would have killed him.

Before she left, she poured all of her love into these stones and left them with him so he would know that she loved him. ”

I’m chilled to the core. I stare at the three red stones glinting like a sharp accusation between us.

“Why three?” I ask.

“Because one was not enough to contain all of her love.”

My stomach sinks. An awful yawning trench opens up within my mind and swallows me.

I clench my jaw, trying to fight my fear. Fear of losing him now. “If that’s true, then why do you want them?”

She hesitates, shakes her head, studies me instead of the rubies. I’m finding all of her reactions completely confusing and contrary to how I expected this to play out. She’s hiding something, but I don’t know what. Or why.

“Because love is the most powerful magic of all,” she says.

And I took them away from Alexei. The only connection he has to his mother… all her love… stolen… after he offered me everything he has to give…

I betrayed him.

I’ve made so many mistakes in my life. Helped where I shouldn’t have helped. Refused to help where I should have helped…

Now I’ve made the worst mistake.

He will never forgive me.

My heart is cold. The warmth leaves me, and the air around me chills. My instinctive magic billows upward, taking control without my volition, freezing the air around us, making our breath frost.

I wrap my arms around my stomach, trying to quell the sick feeling invading my body, but it’s no use.

Mother Kadris considers me for another moment before she sighs deeply, breathing out the frosty air, tapping her fingertips on the table next to the rubies. “You have a choice to make now, Tansy Gray. How badly do you want the revival spell?”

Earlier tonight she told me that only someone worthy should have the spell. I’m not worthy. I convinced myself I wanted the spell for Alexei, to give him the chance to feel love, but the truth is my motives are entirely selfish.

I want him to have the chance to love me .

He will never love me now.

I have to return the rubies to him, face the consequences of my actions, and then… I have to let him go.

I reach across the table to take them back, but Mother Kadris darts forward and scoops the stones into her fist.

She swiftly deposits them into the pockets of her sleek black pants. “I’m sorry, Tansy. Your choices just disappeared.”

We are both half out of our seats, face to face across the table.

Her demeanor changed so rapidly that I’m left spinning. The quiet woman she was moments ago is gone, replaced by a witch of stony determination. Light glints across her face, her colorless eyes reflecting the neon rainbow around us.

For a second, her focus shifts to the people around us before it flashes back to me.

Only something important would have distracted her… Something that made her change course…

I glance left and freeze.

Alexei storms toward me across the rooftop, his assassin’s magic gleaming around his silhouette. Blazing silver light glows with every powerful step he takes.

I’m surprised he hasn’t put his shirt on. I’m not the only one who seems to notice. A number of women in the seats nearby crane their heads to watch him pass.

He stops at the edge of the sunken couch, a mountain of muscle towering over me.

His voice is a stern command. “Tanzanina Gray, we need to talk.”

Without conscious thought, I float up out of the couch to hover at eye level with him. My hair wafts out around me, and my dress swishes in the growing storm of my emotions.

Shame and guilt make my power spark. If I don’t calm down, the other partygoers will need protection from me .

Regret fills my heart. “Alexei, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what the rubies meant to you.”

His gaze softens, a perplexed crease forming across his forehead.

He sighs, shaking his head. “Tansy, you don’t need to?—”

Movement to my right draws his attention. He freezes but only for a second. His arm darts out, and he pulls me into his side, holding me close, while his other hand rises toward Mother Kadris, his palm out in a defensive gesture. “Mother Kadris!”

Mother Kadris returns Alexei’s glare with a haughty expression and a growing smile.

She floats up out of the couch to hover above the table, staying out of his reach. “Hello, Alexei. This meeting has been a long time coming.”

“You’re damn right it has. Your assassination has been sanctioned for hundreds of years, and my Faction is the last with a chance to try. Whatever you’re doing here, you will walk away. Right now.”

The look on his face tells me that if he could kill her, he would, but The Proprietor’s magic stops anyone dying here.

She arches an eyebrow at him. “Oh, but Tansy and I were about to make a deal.”

Alexei’s arm tightens around me.

Mother Kadris’s cold gaze falls on me, and my heart sinks.

In my mind, I replay every comment she made, every move… her initial desperation to get her hands on the rubies, then the surprise and concern when I brought them to her.

Her reactions have been a series of contradictions that I struggle to make sense of. The only answer is that she wanted to make sure I would be desperate to get the rubies back from her.

I made a deal with a witch who consumes souls, and she played me. Well and truly.

Alexei growls. “You can’t have Tansy’s soul.”

Mother Kadris gives a cold smile. “Well, that’s up to Tansy, isn’t it?”