“You should let me heal that cut.” I can do that now, since I sliced through his tattoo last night.
He marches into the dining room, ignoring me. “Come on. We have a lot of work to do.”
I follow him, sitting on the edge of the dining table and swallowing down a lump in my throat. “Hadrin . . . about what happened last night . . .”
“Oh, did something happen?” he snaps. “Are we talking about when you came to the High Guild and slaughtered six wizards—”
“Seven,” I correct him.
“—seven wizards, and then tried to kill me?! Or when you were stupid enough to stop at a church and get yourself recognized?”
I wince. “Never mind.”
“No, by all means, let’s talk about it.”
“I liked you better with the sock in your mouth.”
He laughs. It’s short and kind of bitter, but then he sighs and some of the venom seems to drain out of him. “I had it coming.”
“I get why you’re pissed at me.”
“Do you?” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “If you think it’s because you nearly killed me . . . Well, I won’t pretend to be happy about that. But do you have any idea what would have happened if you’d been caught? And at the guild. If even one person had managed to sound the alarm, do you know what would have happened? When you had the whole guild descending on you?”
“Yeah, I do. I would have killed them.”
“Some of them. Until you couldn’t anymore. Until they overpowered you. And then . . . There would have been nothing I could do then, do you understand? Maybe I could have called it off in the past, but now? There’d be no escape for you, after all your crimes against us. Especially after your killing spree last night. And I would be left with the decision to oversee your torture, to try and limit the damage as best I could, or to leave it in the hands of someone else. There’s no good option there. I couldn’t stand by and watch while they hurt you again. I couldn’t order it to happen. But walking away, leaving you to them completely . . . I would never have forgiven myself, either way.”
“You think I wanted to go to the guild? You saw me yesterday. I couldn’t even look at the stupid building. I don’t know what happened. One minute I was me, and the next, I was who I used to be.” I wince a little and put a hand to my head. “Ever since Leora unlocked my memories . . . I don’t always know where I am. Sometimes I think I’m still back there. That none of this is real.”
“It would help if you didn’t try and make yourself crazy. I shouldn’t have let you get anywhere near the guild yesterday. But this will all be over soon enough, and then you can go back to—Well, probably not back to Ashbury, after everything that’s happened. But somewhere else. Anywhere but here.”
“And in the meantime? What if I’d killed you? Or what if it happens again?” What if Leora had woken up last night? Would she have brought me back to reality, or would I have looked at her without even recognizing her?
Hadrin’s quiet for a while, just staring at his hands. Then he says, “Once this is over, you’ll never have to see me again. Or this city. You won’t have to think about the wizards’ guild. You will think about it,” he adds, when I start to correct him. “Of course you will. But you won’t have so many reminders. And perhaps, if you like, you could find someone to block your memories again. If Leora had the power to unlock them, surely someone else out there has the ability to put that lock back in place.”
“Maybe.” But I still don’t know how my memories got locked up in the first place. Was it my mind’s way of protecting me from all the horrible things that happened? Or was it something else? Hadrin let me go, but he didn’t have anything to do with me forgetting everything. He didn’t even know I’d lost my memories until I told him. “I did all this work to get them back. They’re part of me, even if I don’t like it.”
And it’s not like this is the first time that reality has gotten away from me, that my past has taken over. I think of that time in the church basement with Leora. The first time I saw the chair. I wasn’t exactly myself then, either. I can’t imagine losing my memories again, having no idea about my past or why I feel the way I do. Especially since Leora would still know. And I’d be left to wonder why she sometimes looked at me so strangely. Or, worse, why she sometimes looked at me with pity in her eyes.
That’s if I even remembered who she was. If my memories could be locked up again, wouldn’t it be all of them? There are too many good ones. Even if I have to endure the bad ones, I’ve got too much to lose now to give them all up.
“I have to keep them,” I tell Hadrin. “I’ll leave this city, if Leora will come with me. If she still wants to. You said there are wanted posters now?” Leora’s going to see them. And even if she doesn’t, she’s going to hear someone talking about me. About the wizard killer. And when she hears about what happened at the guild . . . she won’t believe the Church did it. But will she believe I did?
“Never mind what’s going on outside,” Hadrin says. “We’ve got work to do. And the less time I have to spend in this house, the better.”
“I don’t know what you think you’re going to teach me. I already know how to cast. I did almost beat Endeil.”
Hadrin raises an eyebrow at me. “Oh? Did you really?”
I glance away. “At first. I almost had him.” Or at least I thought I did, until he used his magic on me. Until I was writhing on the floor, completely in his control.
“You mean when you took him by surprise. You can’t count on that next time. And what happened after that?”
I bite my lip, not wanting to answer. “He made me remember. I thought I was there, in that room again. By the Fire, it even smelled like that room. He knew exactly how to break my concentration.”
“Perhaps if you hadn’t let him look inside your head before. But then we wouldn’t even be in this mess now, would we?”
I glare at him. “I had to do it. You didn’t exactly give me any other option.”
“It doesn’t matter now. What matters is he knows too much about you. And if it worked for him once, he won’t hesitate to do it again.”
“He’s powerful. He has a direct line to the Chasm. But if I’d come across him last night . . .” I would have been a match for him then. I would have drained every person there in order to kill him. The monster would never have been distracted by a vision of the chair. The monster doesn’t believe he ever left it. “I’ll have to overpower him. But I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”
“You don’t think that you’re strong enough? The same person who marched into the guild last night, leaving a path of death and destruction in his wake?”
I shake my head. “That wasn’t me. Not exactly. But what if that’s who I have to become to stop him? And . . . what if I can’t come back from it?” That’s what he was afraid of, when Leora unlocked my memories. That it would change me, that I would only be the weapon and not the boy at all. It’s what Leora was afraid of, too. Not that she knew who I was before, but that this new version of me wouldn’t love her.
Hadrin folds his hands together on the table. “You’re stronger now than you were then. I know you don’t believe that, especially after last night, but you are. And I won’t lie. Defeating him is going to be difficult. But I believe you can do this.”
“And when I have to become the monster in order to stop him, what then?”
“You won’t. You’re strong enough now. You—”
“Wishful thinking. You let me go that first night in Ashbury, when I almost killed you. I asked you why you would let a killer go free, and you said it was arrogance. Or sentimentality. Well, which one is it now? We both know if I fight him, I could win. But only if I give in and become the weapon, the one you made me to be. A cold-hearted killer with more destructive magic than should ever exist at all, let alone in one person. And it felt good, letting so much energy flow through me last night and watching those wizards fall, unable to even touch me. Not one laid a finger o
n me. Not one. It was the only time I’ve been safe. In my entire life, it’s the only—” My throat tightens, and I pause, unwilling to lose it in front of him. “If I have to become the weapon to defeat him, I will. Because the alternative is that he kills me, and then Leora dies, too. I won’t let that happen. But if I win, I know who’ll walk away from that fight—you and I both do—and it won’t be the boy. It will be the monster.”
Maybe that’s how it was always going to end. Maybe it was inevitable. The last three years have been a brief rest before the final hour, when my past catches up to me and I become what I was supposed to be all along.
“You don’t know that,” Hadrin says, but he stares down at his hands on the table, shaking his head.
“No, but I have a pretty good idea. And if that happens, promise me you’ll—”
“Don’t you dare ask me to kill you. You know I can’t do that. Not with your life intertwined with hers. And, even if it wasn’t, what makes you think I could?”
“So lock me up. Sew my mouth shut. Take away the knife. Just keep me away from her.” I squeeze my eyes shut, remembering the Fire’s warning, the image of her sobbing and drenched in blood.
Hadrin’s staring at me now.
“Do you understand?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he says quietly.
“Don’t wait. When I fight Endeil, if I come back, don’t wait to find out who I am. Because as soon as you see me, it will be too late. She won’t want to leave me. She’ll want to believe I could really come back, and she’ll hold on to that hope until it’s too late. But you can’t let her. So promise me you’ll—”
The front door opens, followed by the sound of rustling baskets and Leora’s footsteps. “Az?” she calls.
“In here.”
There’s more rustling as she sets the baskets down. I smell fresh bread. She rushes in, but she stops short when she sees that I’m not alone. “Dad.” She gapes at him, then at me, then back at him again. “You’re in the house.”
“So I am.” He doesn’t look at her when he says it.
“You haven’t stepped foot in the house in . . .” She pauses, doing the math. “It’s been almost six years.”
“I had business to attend to here.”
“He was helping me,” I tell her. “To prepare.” I give Hadrin a look that says, Promise me.
He nods, just once.
“So,” Leora says, “he hasn’t been in the house since he abandoned my mother and me six years ago, not even when she died, not even when I needed— I’m his own daughter, and now he’s here, helping you? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s always chosen you over me.”
She makes it sound like we’ve both just betrayed her. I feel guilty, though I don’t know that I’ve done anything wrong. Was I not supposed to let him in? It’s not like I could leave the house. Not with everyone looking for me.
Hadrin gets to his feet. “I was just leaving.” Then, to me, “Don’t do anything stupid. It’s going to be all right. You’ll come through this.”
His meaning isn’t lost on me, even if I don’t believe it.
He mutters some lame good-bye to Leora on his way out. She watches him go, shock and anger mixing on her face. Then she turns to me. “What in the Chasm was that all about? I can’t believe he was here. He wouldn’t come here for me, but he’ll come here for you?”
I don’t know what to tell her. He should have been there for her. I hop down from the table and slip my arms around her.
I breathe her in, feeling her heart beating next to mine. After I fight Endeil, I’ll never hold her like this again. Either I become the weapon or he kills me. Either way, I don’t come back. And I hope, for her sake, that I’m the winner in that fight, as long as Hadrin keeps his promise.
She rests her head against my chest, and for a moment, the only sound in the world is our breathing. And then she says, “Az, I saw the posters.”
My muscles go tense. “Right. Hadrin said there were . . . Did it . . . did it look like me?”
“Close enough.” She pulls away, taking a step back so she can see my face. “The High Priest is calling you the wizard killer. He says you attacked the guild last night.”
It takes all my effort not to flinch, not to look away. “So?” I’m hoping she’ll say that she doesn’t believe a word of it, but, more than that, I’m hoping she’ll ask me if it’s true and get this over with. Because if she asks me right now, if she actually says the words, then I’ll tell her. The truth will come pouring out of me. And she’ll hate me, and I’ll hate me, but at least this secret won’t twist inside me anymore, as hot and sharp as my obsidian.
I won’t have to die keeping this secret. And maybe when I tell her who I really am, she’ll run, and I won’t have to worry about Hadrin keeping his promise to me. I won’t have to worry about her holding out hope for someone who won’t exist anymore.
She opens her mouth to ask a question we both know she’ll never be able to take back.
“Say it, Leora. Whatever you have to ask me, just say it.”
“I already know everything I need to,” she says, turning away from me. “What would I possibly need to ask?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The wizard’s daughter is asleep in her bed. In the room with the blood on the floor. The boy’s blood. No, it’s her blood, too. But it might as well be his. He stands over her, watching her sleep, not sure how he got here. All he knows is that the wizard’s daughter lies before him, vulnerable and alone.
His life and her life are linked together. Or so the wizard said. He would want the boy to believe that if she died, he would die, too. But she doesn’t have to die to cause the wizard pain.
She breathes in and out, slow and steady, never knowing that a killer watches her. That the boy her father tortures is here, noticing the way her eyelids flutter as she dreams, or the way moonlight plays across her unprotected throat and down the front of her nightgown. There’s something so familiar about her.
The wizard’s daughter shifts in her sleep, pushing the blanket away, the nightgown clinging to her, the moonlight revealing bare skin and soft curves. The boy’s face gets hot, and he looks away, knowing instinctively that he shouldn’t be seeing anything that’s normally underneath her clothes. If she were to wake up right now, he would feel ashamed of what she might think of him, standing here, watching her like this. But the boy also feels like he knows every inch of her, like he’s known her all his life. And, more than that, like he’s known her intimately.
It’s impossible. The boy can’t know this girl. He doesn’t know anyone except wizards, not even a wizard’s daughter. And she belongs to the wizard, the one who deserves to die the most. He deserves to suffer. And if that means the girl has to suffer, too, then so be it.
The boy should do it now. He should hurt her while he has the chance. But he hesitates, watching her a little longer, even though he knows there can be no room for sympathy. Even if she didn’t ask to be a wizard’s daughter—his flesh and blood—no more than the boy ever asked to be his experiment. Her fate is already sealed, because of what the wizard has done to the boy. Because of all the pain the wizard has caused him. The wizards thought he could be a weapon, and now he will be. They even thought they could control which of them he hurt, by marking themselves with that spiral tattoo, the same as the one on his wrist. But no one thought to mark the wizard’s daughter.
Maybe the wizard never thought the boy would be here, hovering over her while she slept. The boy never would have thought so, either. He doesn’t know how long he’ll have before the wizards come for him. They could have set this up on purpose to see what he’ll do. Will the boy be tamed by the innocent girl they’ve thrown in his path? Or will he become more of a monster than they ever imagined?
But the wizards never taught the boy to have mercy. Even if she was marked, that wouldn’t stop him from hurting her. The boy doesn’t need spells to slice into her, bit by bit. Or to ignore her screams, begging him to st
op. Because this is to punish the wizard. To make him raw and dead inside. And the boy knows he could endure anything to make that happen.
And he doesn’t know the girl. She’s nothing to him. She could be just like her wizard father, for all he knows. She might deserve this.
The boy won’t kill her. He and this girl bleed from the same wounds.
At least according to the wizard. The boy isn’t sure he believes it, because if it was true, she wouldn’t have that peaceful look on her face. She wouldn’t be so trusting, sleeping with her door unlocked, waiting for just anyone to come in and take what little she has left of herself.
But she’s not like the boy. She still has all of herself to lose, which means she has enough to spare. More than the boy could ever hope to have.
And if it turns out that the boy and the girl really do bleed together, then at least it will be her who feels the pain this time.
The boy reaches for the knife at his waist. He doesn’t know why the wizards would let him have it now. It must be a test, and they must be watching somehow. He wonders if the wizard knows they’ve thrown his daughter to the wolves. Or wolf, just the one, since it’s only the boy here.
Only the weapon the wizard made.
Even if the wizards are watching, no one’s come to stop him. A thrill runs through his stomach and up his spine as he imagines the knife cutting into her. The ecstasy of the blade touching her body, lighting every part of him on fire. Slicing slowly across her skin as he prolongs the whole process, drawing out the pleasure of knife against flesh.
But even the boy feels sickened by that. His ears burn with shame. The wizard’s daughter might be innocent. She’s not a wizard. Only the means to get to one, and hurting her isn’t supposed to be fun. And not so . . .
So intimate.
No, this has to be calculated. Not ruled by the knife’s desires. Or by the boy’s. So he reaches over to the other side of the bed, where it looks like another person has slept recently. Like she wasn’t alone. The boy wonders if the wizard knows what his daughter’s been doing.
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