Nightfall

by Shannon Messenger

  “Then we can’t risk it,” Sophie decided.

  “I suppose . . . I could put a bubble around your parents and drown the gorgodon,” Linh suggested with a shudder.

  “Lady Gisela said it can breathe underwater,” Sophie reminded her.

  “Of course it can,” Keefe grumbled.

  “So we’ll kill it the old fashioned way,” Sandor said, slashing his sword.

  “Can’t be done,” Ro warned. “Not without long-range weapons strong enough to pierce that super-thick skin. If we try to get in close with blades, that tail will take us out, and I’m pretty sure the barb on the end is dripping venom.”

  “Then we’ll have to be fast,” Grizel said, stalking closer to the gorgodon.

  She’d barely closed half the distance when its tail slammed into the force field, flashing sparks and lightning everywhere.

  “That would’ve been a direct hit,” Ro told her. “But if you don’t believe me, you can go for it and I can say ‘I told you so’ while your insides liquefy from the venom.”

  “No one’s going for anything,” Sophie jumped in. “Not until we come up with a plan that won’t get anyone killed.”

  She stopped herself from taking another look at her parents.

  She needed to stay calm. Needed to find a different angle. Needed to—

  “The answer you seek does not exist,” a female with an especially sharp accent said from . . . somewhere—everywhere. Her voice echoed all around them.

  Sandor grabbed Sophie, hauling her against his side as Ro and Grizel shifted to shield the others.

  “Such noble grace,” the voice said, still bouncing off the walls and leading to nothing. “And yet . . . it is a pity. All this time—thousands upon thousands of years—and still we remain reliant on simpler species for our defense.”

  “Pretty sure that’s the cue for you elves to use your fancy abilities to drop this creepy mystery lady,” Ro told them.

  “They will try,” the voice said, and indeed, Grady’s eyebrows were squeezed together, as if he was fighting to grab control of her mind. “But they will find that I am well prepared. It is all I have been able to do these long years.”

  The last words left a trail, and Sophie followed the sound to a balcony hidden high in one of the corners, where a shockingly pale female in a stiff burgundy gown gazed down at them like a queen studying her court. She’d even crowned herself with an arched piece of jeweled fabric, similar to the Tudor headdresses Sophie had seen in her human history books. And her features were gorgeously dramatic—thick, arched eyebrows, wide-set azure eyes, angled cheekbones, and long pointed ears. But there was an unnatural stillness to her face. As if she wasn’t used to moving or speaking. Or feeling . . .

  “Vespera,” Sophie whispered.

  “Lady Vespera,” she corrected, smoothing the bodice of her dress. The gown was probably supposed to be fitted, but her shoulders were so frail that it gaped in places, and one of the silken sleeves kept sliding down her shoulder.

  “This is far prettier than a thinking cap, is it not?” she asked, tracing her finger over the chains of rubies that draped off her headdress and were woven into an intricate net over the tight coil of her ebony hair. “And it provides far superior protection—even from the moonlark’s mind tricks. There is nothing any of you can do that will harm me.”

  “Nothing?” Ro asked, whipping a dagger out of her cloak and launching it toward the balcony.

  The blade spun in a smooth arc and slammed into Vespera’s stomach with a strange crash that splintered her gown—because it wasn’t a gown. And she wasn’t actually there.

  A mirror.

  “I told you,” Vespera said, and they whipped toward the sound to find her perched on another balcony on their opposite side. “I have had plenty of time to prepare.”

  “And I have plenty of weapons,” Ro said, hurling another dagger—harder that time, aiming for Vespera’s head.

  The blade punched through the pane of glass, sending shards raining down, only to reveal another image of Vespera standing behind it.

  “It is always so tiring, being underestimated,” Vespera said as a dozen versions of herself flashed along the walls. “Everyone has grown so accustomed to mediocrity that when they find themselves faced with true greatness, they fail to appreciate it.”

  “Appreciate this,” Ro said, whipping three knives in rapid succession—and shattering three more mirrors.

  But there were more mirrors behind them, already displaying Vespera’s reflection.

  “Might want to save your knives,” Tam warned. “She’s probably not actually here. That would explain why no one could sense her.”

  “But she’d have to be close—and above us, somehow,” Biana said, mostly to herself. “There must be stairs . . .”

  “You will not find them,” Vespera promised. “And I see you testing me,” she told Dex, who’d pressed his hands against one of the mirrors. “Your talent will not help. When I built this facility, we did not rely on technology. Light creates the strongest illusions. Even for the mind.”

  Dex ignored her, closing his eyes and tapping different portions of the mirror.

  Vespera shook her head. “If you had done your research, you would know that I designed many of the tricks that keep our cities hidden. Even all this time later, my methods hold.”

  “Uh, there’s nothing to research,” Fitz told her. “You’ve been erased.”

  Vespera’s chin dipped—the closest they’d gotten to a show of actual emotion—and all but one reflection faded away. It seemed to darken as she said, “The world I knew was a small-minded, ungrateful place that was not worthy of the help I gave it.”

  “The help,” Sophie repeated, unable to stop herself from stealing a glance at her parents. “That’s what you call this?”

  “Yes.” Vespera slipped her fallen sleeve back onto her shoulder. “And I suppose we should focus on why we find ourselves here today. Fintan told me the moonlark would be unable to resist coming after us. I did not believe you would be so careless, but here you are, risking so much for so little—and still not risking enough.”

  She pointed to where the gorgodon promised a swift death to anyone who dared enter its cage—then to the two helpless figures sleeping among the flames.

  “An elegant dilemma, is it not?” Vespera asked. “Seemed a decent means to get your measure.”

  “So this is a test,” Sophie said.

  “You have set yourself up as my opponent. Do you blame me for longing to discover what I might be up against?”

  “I blame you for torturing innocent people!” Sophie’s mind flashed to the wounds she’d seen on her parents, wondering how many more Elwin would find once she got them out of there.

  “Torture is about pain and control,” Vespera told her, moving her reflection again, to the closest wall, down at Sophie’s eye level. “This was research. First about them. Now about you. We shall see how you think. How you fight. Where you draw your lines.”

  Sophie’s knees wanted to buckle—but she stepped closer, moving away from her friends. “Let. My. Parents. Go.”

  “Or?”

  “Or . . . we’ll destroy this facility.”

  Vespera inclined her head. “I do not believe you.”

  “You think we can’t?” Tam asked, pointing to where Linh had gathered a giant orb of water.

  “No, I suspect many of you are capable,” Vespera said. “Just as I suspect the moonlark could tear these halls down stone by stone if she truly unleashed herself. But she won’t. None of you will.”

  “I don’t know,” Ro said. “They wiped out half my city. You just haven’t gotten them angry enough.”

  “Is that the trick?” Vespera’s eyes glinted as they bored into Sophie’s. “If I describe your parents’ screams, would it change anything? Or if I tell you that their minds will never escape their nightmares? Or maybe I should share how they pleaded for me to spare them because of their daughter? Or how I told them t
heir daughter is to blame for their current predicament?”

  Sophie clenched her jaw to hold in her rage—but red still curled around her vision, and acid boiled in her core, and everything was shaking shaking shaking. The wrath clawed at her—ate at her—but she shoved it deep, saving it for when Vespera would feel every horrifying drop.

  “Close,” Vespera said. “But still you hold back. I wonder if it would change anything if you knew that I can lower the flames protecting them? If I let you watch as the gorgodon feasts on their weary flesh?”

  “Don’t!”

  Sophie couldn’t tell who shouted it. It might have been her.

  Her ears were roaring too loud, head pounding too hard—and sour revulsion coated her tongue as she forced herself to say, “Please let them go. They’re not a part of this.”

  “A simple plea? That’s all you’ll give?” Vespera folded her hands. “What if I told you I would release them right now if you swore to leave this facility and never return? Would you take what you want and go, knowing I would continue my research on others?”

  “Yes,” Sophie admitted, hating the selfish answer.

  “And what if the two prisoners were strangers?” Vespera asked. “Would you strike the same bargain?”

  “Yes,” Sophie said again, that time with a tinge of relief.

  “Why does that make you feel better?” Vespera wondered. “Stranger or friend, you still endanger many to spare the few.”

  “I spare the people who need it,” Sophie argued. “Because I can come after you again once they’re safe.”

  “And what of the people who suffer in the meantime?” Vespera asked. “Do you think I will not ensure that many pay the price for every life you spare?”

  Sophie didn’t have an answer.

  Disappointment puckered Vespera’s features. “Fintan was so certain that your parents had been chosen because they were ideal specimens. But I knew even before I tested them that they lacked the necessary gifts. Which is a tragedy, really. The Black Swan was wise to have you learn from humans. But they chose the wrong humans, and now they have a powerful little girl who will always make the wrong decisions.”

  “Says the person who spent thousands of years in prison,” Keefe said, wrapping an arm around Sophie’s waist to calm her shaking. “Not exactly a model of awesome choices.”

  Vespera’s brow lowered as she studied Keefe. “You must be the one Fintan called ‘the disappointment.’ ”

  Keefe flushed at the too-familiar insult. But all he said was, “Some people aren’t worth impressing.”

  “I suppose. But looking at you now, I do not understand how you could fit into your mother’s plan.”

  Keefe snorted. “That makes two of us.”

  “Do you even know her plan?” Vespera asked. “Did she tell you why she was so obsessed with my research? Why she burned the world to make her precious soporidine?”

  “Yeah . . . Mom wasn’t a big fan of sharing secrets. But hey, if you feel like showing her up, why don’t you tell us what you know?”

  “Because it does not matter. We have new plans now—ones that do not waste time on sorting and gathering. I am, however, curious.”

  Vespera disappeared—then reappeared across the room, clutching a black book wrapped in bands of gold and silver.

  “Have you read this?” she asked, holding up the Archetype.

  “Have you?” Sophie countered.

  “It is locked.”

  “Yup,” Keefe agreed. “And I have the key. Care to make a trade?”

  Bad idea, Sophie transmitted.

  Not if we give it to her in pieces—and only include three of them.

  But we don’t even have it with us, Sophie reminded him. And—

  “I have no need,” Vespera said, interrupting their silent conversation. “I saw enough of her vain attempt at my facility to know she has missed the point entirely. A few ideas could be salvaged—but most had to be let go.”

  “Is that why you left my brother there?” Fitz asked.

  “Your brother has found himself in his current state because I do not hold back from making the hard choices. And that is why I will win.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Keefe told her.

  “I do not need to. I can show you. It is time for your first lesson.”

  “In what?” Grady demanded.

  Fintan’s deep voice bounced all around them as he said, “Ruthlessness.”

  Seventy-eight

  THE DOOR SLAMMED shut before Fintan finished the final syllable, and Sophie knew it would be locked long before Fitz tried—and failed—to wrench it back open.

  Dex rushed over to help, pressing his hands against the metal, pushing his ability as hard as he could. But he wouldn’t be fast enough—not if Fintan was there.

  Sophie peeled off her gloves, bracing for searing heat and choking smoke as she shouted for Linh to get close, hoping that enhancing Linh’s ability might be enough to douse any blazes Fintan would ignite. She also transmitted to Marella, warning her not to reveal her own flames until the last possible second.

  But when Fintan appeared next to Vespera on the far wall—with a floppy white thinking cap for mental protection—he simply flicked a speck of lint off his black cloak and told them, “There’s no reason to burn you in your present predicament. In fact, by the end of this you’ll be begging me to.”

  Ro’s blade smashed the mirror, right between his sky-blue eyes.

  “Good to see you too, Princess,” he said as he reappeared with Vespera on a different wall. “And I must say, our uniform looks good on you.”

  Ro held his gaze as she shredded the robe with her claws, leaving curls of black fabric at her feet.

  Sophie yanked off hers as well, as did everyone else—except Biana, who must’ve turned herself invisible.

  Sophie was trying to figure out where Biana was hiding when Fintan told Ro, “It seems rather ill advised to side with those who took so much pleasure in flooding your homeland. Or is there some betrayal in the works?”

  Ro gritted her teeth. “The flood only happened because you dragged my father into your stupid plan.”

  “Then you should blame Gisela as well,” he told her. “And yet I hear she’s behind your current assignment. I’m surprised you didn’t find that more . . . concerning.”

  “I’m assuming you know this because another fool betrayed my father since I left?” Ro asked. “Any of the traitors around? I’d love to say hi.”

  “Sadly, they’re off handling other matters. You know how it goes.” Fintan’s eyes drifted from Sophie to Fitz to Dex. “By the way, your mothers say hello.”

  “Do they?” Grady asked, sounding far calmer than Sophie felt. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have time for much conversation given how quickly you finished your meeting.”

  “The meeting’s still going. I left Gethen and Ruy to handle our plans there. I couldn’t miss my special guests—especially when they’ve gone to so much trouble to avoid me.” His eyes shifted to Marella. “And I get to meet the new recruit—a Redek, no less. I’m assuming your mother doesn’t know about this new hobby, given how much she sacrificed to keep you away.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Marella snapped.

  Fintan smiled. “Nothing you should concern yourself with anymore. By the time we’re done here, I doubt you’ll even remember her.”

  Careful. Sophie transmitted the reminder when Marella’s hands flashed with a single spark—hopefully too quick for anyone else to notice. If he sees your flames, he’ll ignite his own.

  Sounds like we’re in for worse than that, Marella noted.

  I know. We need to get out of here.

  And how are we going to do that?

  Still working on it For now—stall. Every minute we keep him talking is another minute he isn’t trying to kill us.

  I’m pretty sure he’s smart enough to multitask, Marella warned.

  “Communicating telepathically, are we?�
� Fintan’s eyes locked on to Sophie’s. “Think you’re going to find some brilliant plan for escape?”

  “There is a way,” Vespera told them, adjusting her sleeve again. “But you will never see it, because you are still trying to save everyone. It is why you will always lose—time and time again. You will always delay. Always try for the impossible while ignoring the most logical options—”

  “And what exactly are these ‘logical options’?” Keefe interrupted. “Why don’t you tell us what we’re missing? Show us how much smarter you are.”

  “Do you think I will not answer?” Vespera asked. “As if the options are such a closely guarded secret that you have to trick and flatter them out of me?” Her focus shifted back to Sophie. “Your parents would already be free if you’d been willing to sacrifice part of your group to the gorgodon. Or you could have fled the moment you understood the gravity of my challenge and dropped any foolish notions of sparing the humans. Even now, there is a way to free yourself, if you abandon the others. But you do not see it. And if you did, you would not take it. You would rather remain trapped—facing my tests along with your friends—because you refuse to accept that it takes ruthlessness to win in this world. There is no room to be noble. No reward for heroes. No space for sentiment or camaraderie. If you want to succeed, you should be severing ties, limiting your connections, viewing anyone around you as expendable. Because every time you allow yourself to care, every friend you surround yourself with, will only make you weak and vulnerable.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Biana asked, flashing into sight between Fintan and Vespera.

  Somehow, she was part of the projection, and when she lunged for Fintan’s thinking cap, she was able to yank it off his head. She leaped for Vespera’s headpiece next, but Vespera managed to shove Biana back, both of them toppling out of the mirror’s range as Fintan raised his hands, shouting for flames and . . .

  . . . his body stilled, eyes widening.

  Grady smiled. “If you wanted a lesson in ruthlessness, all you had to do was ask.”

  Bone crunched as Fintan punched himself in the face.

  Then again.

  Then in the stomach.