Page 32 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

He’d always been smart. Calculated with a healthy dose of irrationality.

Balanced in that way. It was why he gambled so successfully.

Why he’d been such a big part of my run as the Lord of the Salt.

But something had changed in him. Maybe the grief was too heavy.

Maybe losing his sister was like having his own soul sliced open, much like it was for me to lose my Ever.

I’d give him the benefit of the doubt on that alone.

I slid my hands into my pockets. “What do you want, Alastor?”

His eyes flicked through everyone else. “Perhaps this conversation is better had in private.”

“No. Speak now before I change my mind about scrambling yours.”

“I have every fail-safe in place, Keeper. You make one move against me and her final life cycle will end with Ezra’s sword in her back. One move and this is over.”

He fucking had me, and he knew it. He was always one step ahead.

“Go to the Parlor,” I said, gaze shifting between Archer and Tuck. “I’ll meet you there.”

“You sure, Boss?” Archer asked, likely not realizing he’d used my old title as he squared off with Alastor.

“I’m sure. I’ll be right behind you.”

Once they were gone, and we could no longer hear the clacking of Minerva’s cane, Alastor pulled a familiar dark crystal ball from the folds of his cloak. The obsidian surface caught what little light filtered into the alley, throwing shadows across his face. “I believe this belongs to you.”

My fingers itched to snatch it from his grasp. “It did. Before you stole it.”

“Before you lost it,” he corrected, a cruel smile playing at his lips. “But now I’m returning it. Consider it…” He paused, turning the orb in his hands. “An act of mercy.”

“You wouldn’t know mercy if it bit the tip of your dick.”

He ignored my comment, holding the crystal ball up between us.

Its surface began to swirl with dark smoke before clearing to reveal an image that shattered something deep inside me.

Paesha sat in the corner of a bare room, rocking back and forth, her hands pressed against her ears.

The binding marks on her wrists stark against her olive skin.

I’d need to be careful here. Calculated.

I knew what he wanted. The same thing he always wanted.

“The stars aren’t falling. Don’t talk to me,” she whispered to the empty room. “What do you mean they’re burning holes in the sky?” She laughed, the sound sharp and broken. “Someone should catch them before they hit the ground. Put them in the Maw. Stretch them.”

“What is she seeing?”

Alastor adjusted the collar of his coat as his smile widened.

“That’s the curious thing. I thought she’d somehow borrowed my power.

Taken a few of my Remnants. But it seems she has her own.

And if I’ve gotten it all right, they’ve manifested into something far different than mine.

Not subservient, but rather, dominating.

I can’t work out what she’s seeing, but, it’s dark. Maybe even dangerous. Time will tell.”

“If you think hurting her is going to force my hand, Alastor, you’re wrong. I will?—”

He tossed the ball into the air, never breaking eye contact with me as I flinched, desperate to catch it, but holding myself back.

His hands were lightning fast as he snatched it from the air and held it out to me.

“You’ll do nothing, Keeper. As the bargain states.

Or have you forgotten about that little mark on your neck? ”

I took the Chrysalis from him, watching the woman that shared a destiny with me crumble. “She’s not Sylvie, you know? You’re not saving her, no matter what you think.”

Alastor stepped forward, not an ounce of anger on his face, though it was laced within his words. “Don’t you fucking speak my daughter’s name to me.”

“I loved her too. I loved her and I lost her, just like you did.”

“No. Because you’ve managed to love a thousand more, and I’ve only ever loved one.

Only her and her mother.” He stepped closer, that controlled rage, shifting.

Pouring onto the ground in shadow form, rippling across the golden alley, and somehow, the only thing I saw was the pain pulsing behind the rage. “And you took both of them from me.”

I had to fight to keep control of the moment, no matter how bad I wanted to shove him away from me. His pain was not my own. I’d lost my Ever a thousand times, and he’d lost his once. Once.

“Is this what you came here for? You want to compare battle scars?”

Alastor’s expression softened, leaving only a tired kind of grief behind.

He tilted his head slightly, studying me.

“Scars? You think scars are for comparing? Scars are stories, Keeper. Stories of what we lost, what we fought for, and what we were willing to destroy in order to survive. So, no, Keeper. I didn’t come here to compare battle scars.

I came to remind you that yours aren’t the only ones that bled. ”

The silence that followed was heavier than the words themselves, and I hated him for it, hated him for the way he could twist the truth into something that felt like absolution and condemnation all at once.

He’d never been my enemy. Even now. He’d only been desperate. And in that, he and I were the same.

“The Chrysalis. Pay attention.”

Paesha rocked faster, her nails digging into the stone floor of her cell. “They’re right. They’re all right. He doesn’t love you. He loves the chase. The game. Over and over and over. Like pancakes. And teacups. Broken teacups.”

Suddenly she went still, staring at something across the room.

“The moon is crying blood tonight,” she murmured.

“It tastes like memories. Like endings that never end.” Her fingers traced patterns in the air.

“Did you know that when gods dream, mortals die? I’ve died so many times in his dreams. Not his.

Mine. Right.” She shook her head, standing. Pacing. “Stop talking to me. Go away.”

For a moment, it was her. Not the madness, only her. But she was slipping away. I’d been hunting my brother, and she’d been losing herself.

“You have to let her out of there. Give her a task. Distract her.”

“I’ve not decided what I’ll do with her yet, Keeper. But I thought you’d like to keep an eye on her.”

It was a trap. But why? I would take any connection to her though. I needed to think it through, but standing before him, there was no time. He hadn’t tried to bargain. He’d handed me the Chrysalis of his own free will. What was the catch here?

“Why?”

“I believe the voices are quite creative. I can’t hear them, but based on her colorful responses, they’ve been telling her such interesting things about you.

About all those times you watched her die.

” He adjusted the cuffs of his jacket. “They’re particularly fond of showing her their deaths.

She’s trapped herself in that room for days, only to watch murder after murder. ”

“Is she always like this?”

“No. She’s always angry though. Today is a particularly hard day.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.

But then it came to me. In another reality, in a lifetime so far from this one it seems impossible to remember.

This was the day Sylvie died. I think her soul can feel her deaths as much as it can see them. ”

“Through the heart. Through the throat. Through the spine. Different blades, different blood, same ending.” Paesha’s laugh was hollow. “He watches. Every time, he just watches. Yes, yes. I know,” she said, her voice yanking me away from Alastor as my heart continued to slow.

“I’ll ask again,” I said, trying desperately to control myself. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Because I want you to watch,” he said simply. “And I want you to remember that every time she relives a death, every time the voices remind her of you, it’s because you couldn’t let her go.”

“You’re a bastard.”

“Perhaps. But I’m not the one who’s held her in an endless cycle of death.” He vanished before I could respond.

It didn’t matter though. Nothing did, beyond the four walls of that fucking room.