“I’m going to kill her.”
Javier tilts his head and raises an eyebrow. “Ah, yes, well, you’d better think that over. Stupidity won’t win over cunning.” Lilah shifts on the cot as Javier goes to the jars that line the counter. She listens to the sifting of the different herbs as he puts them back into their respective jars. She doesn’t bother asking him what he’s just given her; he would never tell. It isn’t proper to ask about abilities. Year after year, instructors drilled it into Lilah’s head: If you know the card someone holds, then you hold power over him or her.
“I will kill her. That’s a fact.”
Javier smiles demurely. “Sure.”
Marcus pops his head in, munching on a loaf of bread. “How’s it going in here?”
“All done,” Javier says with marked enthusiasm.
“Come, then,” Marcus says to Lilah, opening the door farther. “There are others who’d like to meet you.”
Chapter Ten
Ren whistles as he strides into the great hall, his light steps barely making an echo.
“Why are we gathered here?” Farah says, twirling her hand in the air with distinct irritation.
Channery nods. “We’re waiting for Jarred and Florence before we discuss the particulars.”
Taking a seat, Ren crosses his booted feet on the table, then leans back in the chair. He watches Nira waltz to his side and shove his feet from the table—the movement jarring him forward—and then sit in the chair beside him. She taunts him with a grin and snicker.
“We’re here to discuss what we will do next as the Six,” Channery says, glaring at Ren.
“Moving forward?” Ren says, as if the words were foreign. “As far as I see it, Alessandra is the way forward.”
“It’ll be a problem if she starts another war,” Farah growls.
Ren licks his lips. He brushes a hand through his white hair, silver eyes smiling. If only they knew. There is a fissure and then a clap; Jarred and Florence arrive in the great hall, noticeably tense. Ren’s smile grows from his eyes to his lips. His cheeks begin to hurt.
Farah charges Florence, yanking her by the collar. “You lied! There is no doubt Lilah Crowne is Alessandra’s daughter! Why have you sided against us?”
Florence slices her hand down, breaking Farah’s hold of her. “If you knew Alessandra had a child, you’d seek to destroy her, just as you are now!” she says, her eyes wavering from blue to black.
“Get a hold of yourself,” Farah huffs, crossing her arms. “We aren’t the enemy.”
“Aren’t you?” Florence sneers. Jarred takes her shoulder, spinning her toward him, and gives her a pained look.
“I am not so concerned about her, but more so for Alessandra,” Channery says, shaking her head with a great sigh. “If she is desperate to kill her daughter, why did she fail so utterly to do just that at the Ludi?”
“Huh?” Farah pivots and stares at Channery with her mouth ajar.
“If Alessandra eliminates the child, then that is one less problem for us,” Ren says, raising his feet to the corner of the table again, smirking at Nira’s scowl. None of them suspect anything. Idiots.
“How can you say such a thing?” Nira says quietly, her gaze downcast. “She’s—”
“Innocent!” Florence bellows. “She’s done nothing to suggest she seeks power! We need to protect her! If I can just speak to her—”
“Protect her? Why? So she can grow up and become an even bigger nuisance than her mother?” Farah joins the others at the table, leaving Jarred and Florence as the only ones left standing. “And what happens if she doesn’t listen to you, her aunt? Will it be easier, then, for you to accept her fate?” Farah growls.
Ren glances over his shoulder to watch Florence’s face blanch. Then, the muscles of her face harden. She’s nothing like her sister.
“Treachery against us, again. What’s the punishment for that?” She glances around. “Oh, right, death!” Farah grins with satisfaction.
“If you kill me, you will all die by her hands,” Florence mumbles.
“Don’t underestimate—”
“I will give you the same warning.” Florence steps up to the table. Ren notices a small bloodstain near the hood of her cloak. He examines her with more interest. She’s failing. “I will take full responsibility for lying about the child. I won’t even try and convince you to stand against Alessandra. All I ask is that you not stand against me. Let me protect Delilah.”
Ren smiles. This could be . . .
Channery shakes her head slowly. “Florence, I understand your ties to her, but we all know the prophecy. Our purpose as the Six is to keep the peace. You’ve broken that—”
“We’ve never had peace,” Florence says, barely restraining her rage. “And we never will if we don’t—”
Ren slides his feet from the table, his boots clapping the floor, then pushes his chair out behind him. “As far as I’m concerned, this is a family matter.” He raises his arms.
“You’ve always been an advocate for inaction, but we won’t agree on this matter,” Farah snipes.
“Oh, dear Farah. You’ve misunderstood me,” Ren says, wagging his finger. “What I meant was that neither Florence nor Jarred can see straight on this, since they are not able to separate themselves from their positions as both members of the Six and the child’s relatives.”
“I must agree,” Nira says timidly. Ren grins. “If Jarred and Florence cannot abide by our only law, then . . .” Nira glances up to the ceiling, then sighs as her gaze returns to the ones she has sentenced.
“Nira . . .” Florence begs. “Please.”
Ren can hardly believe his good fortune.
“Florence Hilt, Jarred Roth, I hereby—”
In a blink, Jarred grabs Florence and they disappear.
Ren claps. “My, my. Just when we had them, too.”
Farah shouts in frustration and stomps a foot, the violent sound ricocheting around the grand room, and grabs Channery’s hand. “We better find the girl before they do!” Then, the pair disappears.
“Well, I should be off, too.” Ren makes for the door, but a light tug on his sleeve holds him back. Already prepared for the bright eyes that will find him, he turns, but is surprised when Nira glares up at him, her gaze haunting. She wears her red hair like a dress. He takes some of it in his hand and caresses it as if it were her cheek.
“Where are you going?” she implores.
If ever I loved someone . . . “Worried for me?” he says, looping her hair around his finger. He leans over her, reminding himself of how her petite frame belies her strength.
“You’re not as enigmatic as you think,” she says, taking his hand from her hair and pushing it to his chest. She frowns. “Now is the time to come together and do what only the Six can do.”
“Technically, we’re down to four.” He grins. “I doubt Farah will let them escape her wrath.”
She sighs. “This should be the one thing you take seriously.”
“I take everything very seriously.”
“Ren,” Nira says, taking a step back and dropping her gaze from his, “do you remember the first time we met?”
“Go on, Nira, introduce yourself,” the woman with the spider-like limbs said, leaning over the teenage girl. Her eyes are too large for her face, and red hair obscures her petite body. “You’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other.”
Ren glances over his shoulder and scowls down at Channery’s round face. Her smile wide and patient. “It’s okay, Ren.”
He crosses his arms. “Why does this feel like a betrothal?” he mutters.
Channery laughs and slaps his shoulder. “We already have Florence and Jarred who’ve crossed that line! She’s the newest of the Six, since . . .” Channery’s smile vanishes. “Well, anyway, come dear, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” She motions for the teen and mother to join them inside the grand hall.
“I’m not afraid,” Ren says. Liar.
“Both
so young,” the woman says to Channery, ushering the teen in front of her. “I hope they can get along.”
“Oh, Ren may be a Nox, but he’s been with me, a Lux, since he was twelve. Both his parents—”
“That’s enough.” Ren glowers at Channery, then grinds his teeth. “We’re part of the Six, but we’re not—”
“I’m sorry to be such a burden,” the teen says, bowing her head. Ren’s lip turns up. What’s she apologizing for? “I’ll do the best I can to—”
“Better leave now, you won’t last—Ouch!” Ren glares at Channery who pinches his arm.
Growing up in Channery’s care, he’s seen the reality for the members of the Six, and accepted it when he became one years later. Power dooms the powerful to be usurped, and when that happens, the powerful have the longest of falls. All past members of the Six eventually die violent deaths. And with one death, another is granted the signa and the curse.
“Now that’s enough. You’ll scare her away, you wouldn’t want that now, would you?”
The nice ones never survive, so if I scare her away, she’ll be okay. She’s too weak to be here. Ren turns away from them. “Are we done here? I have to go to class.”
“You haven’t introduced—”
“Ren Auer,” he says, pivoting on his heel and extending his hand. He hadn’t noticed before how stark the black signa are that rise on his arms, until he sees hers, birdlike, pale and free of any marks. He meets her gaze—green eyes, freckled cheeks.
“Nira Henrik,” she murmurs. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Her hand is too warm, her eyes too green, her smile too genuine. Ren rips his hand from her grip and turns away, hiding his blushed cheeks with his hand. “I look forward to working with you.”
Crossing his arms, his eyes narrow. He could never forget the first time they met. “What are you getting at?”
“You’ve kept me waiting. I wanted you to prove my deepest fear wrong,” she says, smiling softly.
His eyebrows gather. Deepest fear? “I never asked you to wait for me.” Does she know something?
She shakes her head. “That look you gave me earlier said, ‘Stop me, if you can.’ So, I’m asking you now, as someone who has genuine—”
“There’s nothing genuine about you,” Ren scoffs. “Not about you or me—none of us.” He waves a hand as her frown deepens into a grimace. Gathering his hands, he inhales for the incantation. “Now, if you’ll excuse—”
“End your involvement with Alessandra,” Nira says, her voice resonating deeply in his chest.
The only one who can see through me. “Or what?” He raises his eyebrows.
“I won’t hesitate the next time I see you,” she says with surprising force. Her nose scrunches up, wrinkling the freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks; she’s trying hard to be stern, fearless. Ren hates himself for making her act this way.
Ren drops his hands and smiles. “I would never insult you by holding back.” He scratches his cheek. “I expect you’ll tell the others?”
Her small mouth drops open, but she only nods.
“Goodbye, then, my—”
“Wait!” Nira jumps toward him, her cheeks scarlet. She places her trembling hands on his chest and leans into him, tilting her chin up and closing her eyes.
He doesn’t know whether to feel disgusted or ashamed—perhaps both. He fixes a strand of unruly curls behind her ear. I’m sorry to have always been a disappointment to you. You deserve better. Ren rubs his thumb over her lips, then moves before lingering makes him want to do more.
The moonlight dances in Lilah’s eyes. She repeats the names back to the faces, trying to remember every single detail, each distinctive set of characteristics. Like a near ready butterfly still wrapped in its lacings, Lilah has been ripped from the comfort of the known, ripped from the only person who cared for her, and thrown into a place where every single face must be watched warily. It makes her nauseous.
Aza Hara, Javier Cota, and Jia Quan. Aza stands perfectly erect. Cloaked in black, Aza’s defined eyebrows arch dramatically and round, thickly lashed brown eyes bore into Lilah’s. She radiates with anima—clearly a Nox. Javier sits in an armchair with his legs and arms crossed opposite Lilah, who sits beside the fireplace. His dark curls alight in the haze of fire. Topaz eyes gloss over as he gazes off into space. Lilah watches him from the corner of her eye, unsure, for the first time in her life, whether he is Lux or Nox. The energy around him seems dark and closed-off—Nox—but the brightness of his eyes alludes to being a Lux. Lilah silently pouts, angered with herself for being confused about something so simple.
Lilah’s gaze finds Jia next. The woman could be a warrior because of the strength her exposed arms convey, but Lilah thinks otherwise. Jia’s hair is wrapped half in a bun and half snakes down her shoulders, past her torso. A light blue silk ribbon ties the bun and falls down in her black hair. The ribbon matches the fabric of the dress she wears, which clings to her petite body.
Jia stands next to Marcus in the corner of the room, the two in deep conversation; both of their shoulders tip inward toward the other in a friendly, familiar way. Jia gestures wildly, Marcus laughs and smiles in accordance. Lilah takes a moment to remark on how Marcus’s face lifts when he laughs, how changed he appears. It’s as if he’s a completely different person. I never knew him. How could I when I hardly know myself?
She swallows. Perhaps he is a completely different person. He has apologized for the things he did while he played castigator, and he brought her here on orders from Florence Hilt herself. Who is he playing right now with Jia? Who is he playing with me? She looks away.
Lilah pulls at the elegantly woven rug beneath her, and the heat of the fire against her back soothes her. Closing her eyes, she embraces the heat with delight, and after a while she doesn’t even notice it. She almost begins to feel calm. Almost.
Her eyes wander across the faces again and her torso burns. She clutches her side. The questions that consume Lilah are beyond the mysteries of this room, beyond this sanctuary. Even beyond the curiosity she feels for these new faces. Who are they? What are their stories? The questions go beyond Marcus’s strange change, beyond the slight smile ambushing her lips at the thought of Caleb. They rest in a single question, Who am I?
Growing up with a Lux guardian, Lilah always knew that this home, this woman, was not her family. She pondered the question every time she looked into Verna’s eyes, every time Verna smiled reassuringly back. She always looked and found the same thing, a mystery, a reminder that her own gaze held no resemblance.
As she went from academy to academy, she discovered this hidden need to know where she came from. Yes, Verna loved her—Lilah bows her head at the thought of having to think “loved” instead of “loves”—but Lilah was not hers to love. Who are mine to love?
The urgency to find answers to these questions matters now because her anima calls to her in a way that it has never called to her before. It reaches and grips tight the bones beneath the rigid muscles straight to her marrow, pulling her irrevocably to a place of shadows, which hides an unspeakable truth—a horror. Because of this, confusion becomes her, a weakness of a kind she has never known.
So, as she sits next to the warm fire in this room full of strangers, the most peculiar sensation overwhelms her: a sense of danger in the pit of her very being. It is a feeling of dread, of imminent death. And the longer she sits, the longer it percolates in her body, before after only a moment—a breath—she stands with wild eyes and looks to Marcus.
“I need to talk to you.” She stares into his hazel eyes.
Marcus grimly nods and turns away from Jia. “Yes, we have some things to discuss, don’t we?”
The pair moves from the living room and onto the front porch, where a light breeze ripples the remaining stocks of grass in the vast field before the house. Silver light shadows them. Lilah pulls her arms around herself, chilled in the winter night. “Once I’m physically cleared, I’m going
after Alessandra.”
Marcus blinks. “Lilah—”
She shakes her head. “No.” The air in her lungs goes flat, and her body goes rigid. She stands on the edge of the precipice of truth, perhaps a truth she’s known all along, and it chills her to the core. “Marcus,” she whispers, forcing herself to look into his eyes. “I’m Alessandra’s daughter, aren’t I?”
They speak for him. She walks—no, runs—into the field, dropping to her knees and releasing a guttural cry from the depths of her being. Her hands pull free the grass from their roots and return battered and bloodied beneath the nails from the hard ground. “Why?” Lilah says, her voice rugged. “Why does my mother want me dead?” Lilah glances over her shoulder at Marcus, who stands stiffly behind her, a grimace on his face.
“I don’t think we can answer that without lying. Who knows her true motivations?” Jia says, holding knitted hands against the bodice of her blue silk dress. “We only know she seeks you because of the prophecy.”
“Prophecy?” Lilah repeats, wide-eyed.
Jia clears her throat, her voice soft. “When you were but a child, right after the death of your father, she came to Florence.” Lilah’s eyes widen further, and Jia smiles. “They had their moments, even in the middle of war.”
But that is not why Lilah’s eyes widened. Perhaps this was a truth she knew long ago, too: her father is dead. This is somehow easier for Lilah to accept. To know that he couldn’t find her and raise her than to know that he wouldn’t—didn’t want to—is a mercy. She exhales. How do you mourn someone you never knew, and yet, are inexplicably tied to?
“She brought you to Florence. I was Florence’s chambermaid. In camp, I cleaned her tent and helped her dress, got her meals. One night, Alessandra came. Cloaked, she held you in her arms as you slept. She was clearly distraught when she asked Florence to grant her safe passage to an orphanage, to a Guardian. You were so young, so innocent. Few knew Alessandra was pregnant to begin with, and Rowley hid you under a protective incantation at that house for three—almost four—years.” Jia grows thoughtful, looking off beyond Lilah. “She admitted she’d gone to the seer, Cassandra of the Lockwood, and was adamant that she wanted you taken into the care of a Guardian, far away from her. Florence refused to let Alessandra go herself but made a promise that she would instead take you.” Jia sighs and makes a small noise of sorrow.
Premonition Page 13
